What is the most common Builds for Arcanists?

ArchMikem

It's been some time since Necrom, and even though I made and leveled my own Arcanist, it's been pretty much benched cause I just couldn't figure out a way I wanted to play one. I tried doing a Magcanist (is that the term we're using?) that Dual Wields Swords on the front bar for that extra Damage done, but I can't figure out what my Skill bar lineup should be, or if I should even keep sticking with the pseudo Hybrid build at all. All I'm doing is basically Runeblades to build Crux then Fatecarver, and repeat while keeping buffs up. That feels limited and boring. This Class to me feels like it has way more Support abilities than actual damage. Note however I absolutely REFUSE to use Abyssal Impact, I detest the tentacles.

How should I build my Mag Arcanist different? Or is there a good Stam build?

CP5

Well, the reason why stamina is generally the way that arcanist go in higher difficulty content is because of Cephaliarch's Flail, the stamina costing flail is just a much stronger crux builder than runeblades, but beyond that yes, the class is mostly based around building crux to use beam, throwing in whatever dots or buffs you include. The class is just so dependent on the beam, you can't easily get rid of it, so you aren't missing much when it comes to the class. It has its one trick, and it does it really well.

Nerouyn

CP5 wrote: »

the class is mostly based around building crux to use beam, throwing in whatever dots or buffs you include

I'm not one of those dummy bashing number crunchers. I just play the game. I've tried both crux + laser and laser + other damage abilities and they both get the job done about as efficiently.

The dev promise that you can use or ignore crux holds up.

And all by itself the laser is powerful. Without crux or the arcanist weapon buff.

I'm soloing base game content including public dungeon group events literally just using the laser + companion. Because I'm levelling random stam abilities I don't care about because I play mag.

CP5

It is true if you aren't doing content that expects higher damage from you, you can do what you like, but the beam doubles in power when you fully use the crux, and their abilities are generally weak without crux being used. For overland content and the like, do what you like, but once you delve into more challenging content, not using crux is leaving a lot of damage on the table.

Nerouyn

CP5 wrote: »

It is true if you aren't doing content that expects higher damage from you, you can do what you like, but the beam doubles in power when you fully use the crux, and their abilities are generally weak without crux being used.

No. The dev promise that you can use or ignore crux holds up.

No. The beam doesn't double in damage with full crux.

It increases by a third when consuming any crux - even just 1 - and depending on morph you either get a cost decrease or snare increase whose strength depends on number of crux consumed.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Herald_of_the_Tome

I've played both just arcanist abilities making use of the boosted beam and using the unboosted beam in combination with other damage abilities. The damage output is comparable.

It's properly balanced and players have a real choice.

Personally I love arcanist and prefer to go full green power but don't bother boosting on most mobs who will die quickly to an unboosted beam anyway.

On the hand because crux don't expire and are carried with you (unlike eg. necro corpses) ending every fight with a crux builder like runeblades lets you walk into the beginning of every fight boosted.

I couldn't even begin to imagine how many times I've lamented this game having classes. An Elder Scrolls game shouldn't. But this one is brilliantly designed.

LunaFlora

my arcanist build uses
gear:
- Deadly Strike lightning staff, jewelry, and shoulder.
but it would probably work fine with Dual Wield as well i just don't use melee weapons so i don't know which skills to recommend.
- Order's Wrath body armour.
- Slimecraw light hat.
- Oakensoul.

here are screenshots of my armory build





i put 64 attribute points in Stamina because it helps with Cephaliarch's Flail but Runeblades is also fine.

my main Warden's damage over time build also uses Wall of Elements and Destructive Reach as the first two abilities on the bar.
Though Structured Entropy as her "spammable" which could also be used on an Arcanist and it'll be buffed by Deadly Strike too.

The imperfect Ring is also a nice Arcanist DoT ability that i used instead of Wall of Elements in the past, but you'd need good recovery for your lowest Max resource.


if you're using two skill bars i recommend these too.
- Tome Bearer's Inspiration, brutality and sorcery.
- Runespite Ward, damages enemies that attack you.
- Rune of Eldritch Horror, applies Minor Vulnerability to target.
and specifically this morph >> Rune of Colorless Pool, also applies Minor Brittle.

Barbed Trap from Fighter's Guild is useful for the extra Bleed damage, Minor Force, and the FG passives that increase your damage.

getting more Crit Chance with Major Savagery and Prophecy without Oakensoul would require either using Expert Hunter or Magelight every 5 seconds.
Or you would have to use the Treasure Hunter Set.

Oh and the upcoming Tharriker's Strike will also be very useful:
(5 items) Dealing damage with a fully-charged Heavy Attack grants you Major Berserk for 4 seconds, increasing your damage done by 10%. This effect can occur once every 1 second.

BasP

If you don't want to use Abyssal Impact, I'd just use something similar to the skills mentioned in this guide and replace Cephaliarch's Flail with Runeblades.

I have a Stamina Arcanist and I mostly use a DW front bar and Destruction Staff back bar myself. Lacking trial gear as I only play solo, I use a Maelstrom Inferno Staff, Pillar of Nirn on the front bar, Deadly Strike, 1pc Slimecraw and a mythic (Ring of the Pale Order or Velothi Ur-Mage's Amulet). While I occasionally switch some skills around, my bars generally look like this:

FB: Flail (could be replaced with Runeblades), Deadly Cloak, Pragmatic Fatecarver, Barbed Trap, Camo Hunter and either Flawless Dawnbreaker or Tide King's Gaze.
BB: Wall of Elements, Elemental Susceptibility, Inspired Scholarship, Cruxweaver Armor, Resolving Vigor and either Tide King's Gaze (if I haven't slotted it on the front bar) or Sanctum of the Abyssal Sea

If you don't really like Fatecarver either, I suppose you could replace it with another DOT like Rending Slashes, Destructive Reach or Structured Entropy. But I'm not sure if that would make the rotation less boring as you'd just be spamming Runeblades more often. The damage loss would be pretty significant though and I also find it harder to sustain a rotation without Fatecarver (I just did some quick tests on a 3M dummy). To be honest, I'd probably prefer playing with a different class than using an Arcanist without the beam.

CP5

Nerouyn wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

It is true if you aren't doing content that expects higher damage from you, you can do what you like, but the beam doubles in power when you fully use the crux, and their abilities are generally weak without crux being used.

No. The dev promise that you can use or ignore crux holds up.

No. The beam doesn't double in damage with full crux.

It increases by a third when consuming any crux - even just 1 - and depending on morph you either get a cost decrease or snare increase whose strength depends on number of crux consumed.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Herald_of_the_Tome

I've played both just arcanist abilities making use of the boosted beam and using the unboosted beam in combination with other damage abilities. The damage output is comparable.

It's properly balanced and players have a real choice.

Personally I love arcanist and prefer to go full green power but don't bother boosting on most mobs who will die quickly to an unboosted beam anyway.

On the hand because crux don't expire and are carried with you (unlike eg. necro corpses) ending every fight with a crux builder like runeblades lets you walk into the beginning of every fight boosted.

I couldn't even begin to imagine how many times I've lamented this game having classes. An Elder Scrolls game shouldn't. But this one is brilliantly designed.

"Cost Determined by Highest Max Resource Harness pure knowledge into a beam of energy that scars the world in front of you. Channel the beam for up to 4 seconds, dealing [2173 / 2196 / 2221 / 2245] Magic Damage every 0.3 seconds. Casting Fatecarver consumes all Crux and increases damage done by 33% per Crux spent."

Per crux spent. 3 crux is the maximum, 3 crux spent, 33*3=99, 99 is essentially 100, double damage at full crux spent. You can do whatever you like in overland, it isn't the kind of content to demand much of you, but once you go into content where you need to do more, not doubling the damage of your strongest skill is a serious self challenge.

Edit: Also, crux do expire after 30s, something ZOS changed shortly after the class went live.

fred4

ArchMikem wrote: »

Note however I absolutely REFUSE to use Abyssal Impact, I detest the tentacles.

Asking for the meta, but stipulating the above is mutually exclusive. You need a crux-builder skill. As such you can probably substitute Runeblades for Flail, but Flail is AOE and heals you. Since you spend so much time in a channel, the heal can be important. And, yes, you play Arcanist for Fatecarver as a PvE DD.

Other meta stuff:

Dual-wield front bar + Blade Cloak, because Fatecarver time exceeds enchant cooldown. Enchants proc from weapon skills and light / heavy attacks. Blade Cloak keeps your enchants procced.

Flawless Dawnbreaker, Barbed Trap and Camou Hunter on the front bar to passively increase beam damage (Fighter's Guild skills). Barbed Trap should also still be good as an active skill. This would be for a group setup. For solo, slotting tanking skills, such as Cruxweaver Armor, would increase your sustain, whilst using more DD skills would increase your penetration from Arcanist passives. This can be more valuable than Fighter's Guild skills, depending on the situation.

Backbar needs the obligatory weapon AOE skill, e.g. Elemental Blockade, Endless Hail, or Stampede, with the equally obligatory Infused Maelstrom weapon and Increase Weapon / Spell Damage enchant.

Inspired Scholarship, or the other morph, is also mandatory, e.g. to generate 1 crux "for free", besides the other buffs it gives.

Finally Fulminating Rune is pretty standard for a DD.

Stamina beats magicka. Stamina skills are cheaper for one thing.

Gear: Velothi-Ur, Maelstrom weapon back bar, and some combination of meta DD sets, such as:

Deadly
Ansuul
Pillar of Nirn
Coral Riptide
Order's Wrath
Azurblight Reaper
Sul-Xan
etc.

ArchMikem

fred4 wrote: »

ArchMikem wrote: »

Note however I absolutely REFUSE to use Abyssal Impact, I detest the tentacles.

Asking for the meta, but stipulating the above is mutually exclusive.

I asked for what's most commonly used, not what's Best in Slot. I know I've seen basically every Build out there uses Flail, it's a stupidly useful ability, but the entire Class can't be just Tentacle Arm.

Nerouyn

CP5 wrote: »

"Cost Determined by Highest Max Resource Harness pure knowledge into a beam of energy that scars the world in front of you. Channel the beam for up to 4 seconds, dealing [2173 / 2196 / 2221 / 2245] Magic Damage every 0.3 seconds. Casting Fatecarver consumes all Crux and increases damage done by 33% per Crux spent."

Per crux spent. 3 crux is the maximum, 3 crux spent, 33*3=99, 99 is essentially 100, double damage at full crux spent. You can do whatever you like in overland, it isn't the kind of content to demand much of you, but once you go into content where you need to do more, not doubling the damage of your strongest skill is a serious self challenge.

Edit: Also, crux do expire after 30s, something ZOS changed shortly after the class went live.

Ok my bad with the double. Comma misread. Sorry.

But I have played my Arcanists in non overworld content and had been fully cruxing them when testing.

It's not a simple matter of choose to double damage. Or not.

You only have 10 ability slots and all time take to execute. The time it takes to build up crux can instead be spent executing other damaging abilities to equally good effect.

Including the beam itself.

If you Runeblade 3 times to build up crux, that's 3 seconds during which you're both chewing through a lot more mana and also doing a lot less damage.

Ignoring crux truly is a valid choice for people who want that play for any reason.

CP5

ArchMikem wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

ArchMikem wrote: »

Note however I absolutely REFUSE to use Abyssal Impact, I detest the tentacles.

Asking for the meta, but stipulating the above is mutually exclusive.

I asked for what's most commonly used, not what's Best in Slot. I know I've seen basically every Build out there uses Flail, it's a stupidly useful ability, but the entire Class can't be just Tentacle Arm.

To be fair, when looking at structured content, what's best in slot is what is most commonly used, unless the best in slot stuff is so demanding that people would use the next best thing that is close enough.

Nerouyn wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

"Cost Determined by Highest Max Resource Harness pure knowledge into a beam of energy that scars the world in front of you. Channel the beam for up to 4 seconds, dealing [2173 / 2196 / 2221 / 2245] Magic Damage every 0.3 seconds. Casting Fatecarver consumes all Crux and increases damage done by 33% per Crux spent."

Per crux spent. 3 crux is the maximum, 3 crux spent, 33*3=99, 99 is essentially 100, double damage at full crux spent. You can do whatever you like in overland, it isn't the kind of content to demand much of you, but once you go into content where you need to do more, not doubling the damage of your strongest skill is a serious self challenge.

Edit: Also, crux do expire after 30s, something ZOS changed shortly after the class went live.

Ok my bad with the double. Comma misread. Sorry.

But I have played my Arcanists in non overworld content and had been fully cruxing them when testing.

It's not a simple matter of choose to double damage. Or not.

You only have 10 ability slots and all time take to execute. The time it takes to build up crux can instead be spent executing other damaging abilities to equally good effect.

Including the beam itself.

If you Runeblade 3 times to build up crux, that's 3 seconds during which you're both chewing through a lot more mana and also doing a lot less damage.

Ignoring crux truly is a valid choice for people who want that play for any reason.

So you use Inspired Scholarship, with the skill's whole point being to generate 1 crux while you beam, so you only need to use 2 crux generating skills between beams. And since a fully charged beam deal double damage than an uncharged beam, combined with doing full damage at range to anything in the beam, it more than makes up for it. That's why, looking at trial logs right now, the beam, regardless of morph, often accounts for 1/3 of a players damage, the class is that heavily loaded into the one skill.

That is why this rotation of flail into beam is so common, it works, and the results more than make up for the time invested. Looking further into this, many of the parses that show this rate of damage for the beam include dps using 2 skill slots for Camouflaged Hunter, a skill which is never cast, vigor, which makes sense in some trial fights, and utility/defense skills. The beam, and the skills that go into empowering the beam, justify the output, and since the class is built around generating and spending crux, with so much of their skills 'power budget' going into the output of skills empowered by crux consumption, just look at the skills that consume crux, specifically for dps, and you'll realize why everyone uses the beam in this kind of a setup.

The only other way to spend crux to deal damage is with Tentacular Dread, which gives the skill upwards of 60% bonus damage, and makes the universal unique damage debuff 11% rather than 5%, but since a single cast of beam gets more value out of crux and does more damage than one cast of dread, people would rather just cast beam twice rather than use on skill then the other, or forgo the beam entirely.

You are right, people can ignore the crux system for arcanist, but doing so is like ignoring the 'boat' part of a 'house boat.' You aren't getting nearly as much as you can out of it than you otherwise could.

Uvi_AUT

Flail and Beam are pretty much mandatory. Everything else you can mix and match as you like.
It really doesnt make much of a difference.

MudcrabAttack

ArchMikem wrote: »

I absolutely REFUSE to use Abyssal Impact, I detest the tentacles.

How should I build my Mag Arcanist different? Or is there a good Stam build?

if you hate tentacles in PVE, it’s no problem. Slot azureblight + some trial set that buffs weapon/spell damage. When dealing with 2+ enemies standing close together for AOE DPS, do more beam for more azureblight blasts. the spammable (tentacles or rune blades or whatever). can be skipped over entirely while doing aoe damage since it actually reduces your AOE DPS, the 2 seconds wasted building up crux could be better spent by azureblight blasting / beaming

For single target DPS, that’s when you will want to build up crux, so go with rune blade or whichever. You could just leave on the same azureblight gear for a few % less damage, or swap azureblight to deadly strikes

Yamenstein

CP5 wrote: »

Well, the reason why stamina is generally the way that arcanist go in higher difficulty content is because of Cephaliarch's Flail, the stamina costing flail is just a much stronger crux builder than runeblades, but beyond that yes, the class is mostly based around building crux to use beam, throwing in whatever dots or buffs you include. The class is just so dependent on the beam, you can't easily get rid of it, so you aren't missing much when it comes to the class. It has its one trick, and it does it really well.

Being forced into using beam is what makes me dislike this class. Tentacle 0.2 second cast is also so annoying.

CP5

It is a very unfortunate part for the class, I agree there. While I like the beam myself, it would be nice to have other skills spend crux, and be worth it. I'm thinking how amusing it could be to build crux and consume them with rune blades to cast even more of those runes at enemies, that could be a fun aesthetic.