Arcanist PvP questions from a newbie

Wightwind

So I have recently come back to ESO, and first time playing an Arcanist, and also Ive never really pvped in ESO. Can anyone point me to some resources/build guides for Arcanist? Preferably stamina builds? Or if not stamina help me understand what is better for arcanist in pvp

xylena_lazarow

Check out Malcolm's site to get started with builds.

General PvP Arc advice after maining Arc for a few months: don't bother with the beam because any decent player just steps to the side, but the tentacle is pretty good. The MDW/Vatesh pressure proc build is the best damage you'll get out of an open world DD Arc. You should probably run 64 hp but don't need to go nuts stacking hp beyond mid 30k range.

Wightwind

Instead of fatecarver then whats a good dmg spammable? runeblades?

xylena_lazarow

Wightwind wrote: »

Instead of fatecarver then whats a good dmg spammable? runeblades?

Combination of Cephilarch's Flail and MDW Blood Craze is what I use. Here's my u40 build, slightly outdated, go 64 into hp and maybe replace Draugrkin with crafted Dragon's Appetite to make the build more forgiving (at the cost of damage). The food being used is Orzorga's Tripe Trifle Pocket, the blue max hp + stam regen one.

General playstyle is to buff up, get in close on back Inferno bar and go 1 > 2 > 3 (bar swap during stun) > 1 > 2 spam (restart if enemy doesn't die). Always weave light attacks, especially on Inferno bar, don't sweat it if Flail doesn't weave cleanly (stupid cast time). Stay close so your Vatesh laser doesn't break, drop Dawnbreaker when going for the kill. On the defensive, never let your lifesteal HoT effects drop, use one Vigor then spam Impervious while HoT effects refill you.

CameraBeardThePirate

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Check out Malcolm's site to get started with builds.

General PvP Arc advice after maining Arc for a few months: don't bother with the beam because any decent player just steps to the side, but the tentacle is pretty good. The MDW/Vatesh pressure proc build is the best damage you'll get out of an open world DD Arc. You should probably run 64 hp but don't need to go nuts stacking hp beyond mid 30k range.

People dismiss Fatecarver too easily. If you practice aiming it, you'll have tons of success with it. If you're in a group, even more so. Lead your enemies, disable Aim Assist (it's trash), and practice. Even just 1 second of beam on a strong build is 9k+ damage - that's a lot. People shouldn't be able to "just sidestep" your beam because you should be immobilizing and stunning them first.

xylena_lazarow

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

People dismiss Fatecarver too easily.

There's this NB/Arc hardcore duo running around on PC/NA Cyro, definitely good players on good builds, the Arc was nuking weaker opponents with Fatecarver left and right. They've repeatedly come after me 2v1, and every single time I've evaded them to safety because I don't let the Arc land the beam when he really needs to (no good player will).

If a high level player like that struggles to land Fatecarver on a fast target (in a 2v1 no less, not even a 1v1), definitely not gonna recommend it to a new Arc. If that opponent was running MDW/Vatesh in that fight, I would've been 100% dead every time, because unlike Fatecarver, MDW/Vatesh is reliable and hard to shut down.

I'll concede one thing about Fatecarver: it's great against troll tanks.

CameraBeardThePirate

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

People dismiss Fatecarver too easily.

There's this NB/Arc hardcore duo running around on PC/NA Cyro, definitely good players on good builds, the Arc was nuking weaker opponents with Fatecarver left and right. They've repeatedly come after me 2v1, and every single time I've evaded them to safety because I don't let the Arc land the beam when he really needs to (no good player will).

If a high level player like that struggles to land Fatecarver on a fast target (in a 2v1 no less, not even a 1v1), definitely not gonna recommend it to a new Arc. If that opponent was running MDW/Vatesh in that fight, I would've been 100% dead every time, because unlike Fatecarver, MDW/Vatesh is reliable and hard to shut down.

I'll concede one thing about Fatecarver: it's great against troll tanks.

And again, if you were evading the player's beam, that's on them.

If they were properly coordinated with their nightblade buddy, they'd be able to fear you while beaming, and you'd eat at minimum 3 ticks of beam. On a proper acuity build, I've had as high as 10k TICKS of beam. Let's call the 10k ticks an outlier, and say a well built beamer can hit 7k ticks with acuity up.

That's still 21k damage that you'll be able to land if you set it up properly with a stun.

If you're consistently missing beam, it's user error, not "good players outmaneuvering you". There are ways to lock a player down, or ults like Standard and Colossus would be awful - surprise surprise, they aren't. Neither is beam.

xylena_lazarow

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

If you're consistently missing beam, it's user error, not "good players outmaneuvering you". There are ways to lock a player down, or ults like Standard and Colossus would be awful - surprise surprise, they aren't. Neither is beam.

Oh they tried. The NB would stun me in the back on my roll dodges, right as the Arc would beam me. I'd get chunked for 25k+, but that's it, there's no followup, because now I'm cc immune and roll canceling heals while the NB swings at air, and the Arc is animation locked doing nothing. And this is me evading a 2v1.

Now in a 1v1 situation, if the opposing Arc tries to laser me, I step to the side and land a free Dawnbreaker combo, which is immediately followed up by the same reliable high damage rotation of dot stacking into the stun and tentacle execute, never giving the opponent a chance to breathe the way Fatecarver does when it misses.

CameraBeardThePirate

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

If you're consistently missing beam, it's user error, not "good players outmaneuvering you". There are ways to lock a player down, or ults like Standard and Colossus would be awful - surprise surprise, they aren't. Neither is beam.

Oh they tried. The NB would stun me in the back on my roll dodges, right as the Arc would beam me. I'd get chunked for 25k+, but that's it, there's no followup, because now I'm cc immune and roll canceling heals while the NB swings at air, and the Arc is animation locked doing nothing. And this is me evading a 2v1.

Now in a 1v1 situation, if the opposing Arc tries to laser me, I step to the side and land a free Dawnbreaker combo, which is immediately followed up by the same reliable high damage rotation of dot stacking into the stun and tentacle execute, never giving the opponent a chance to breathe the way Fatecarver does when it misses.

Then it WAS user error - The Arc kept beaming once you broke instead of spamming their undodgeable Execute, and the nightblade didn't use any aoe during the roll dodge.

xylena_lazarow

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Then it WAS user error - The Arc kept beaming once you broke instead of spamming their undodgeable Execute, and the nightblade didn't use any aoe during the roll dodge.

You can minimize the probability of user error by using more reliable skills, without sacrificing power. That said, no reason OP shouldn't check out both playstyles, Malcolm has beam builds and MDW builds both listed, but they should certainly be forewarned the significant downside and risk to Fatecarver as a new Arc player.

kurbbie_s

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

People dismiss Fatecarver too easily.

There's this NB/Arc hardcore duo running around on PC/NA Cyro, definitely good players on good builds, the Arc was nuking weaker opponents with Fatecarver left and right. They've repeatedly come after me 2v1, and every single time I've evaded them to safety because I don't let the Arc land the beam when he really needs to (no good player will).

If a high level player like that struggles to land Fatecarver on a fast target (in a 2v1 no less, not even a 1v1), definitely not gonna recommend it to a new Arc. If that opponent was running MDW/Vatesh in that fight, I would've been 100% dead every time, because unlike Fatecarver, MDW/Vatesh is reliable and hard to shut down.

I'll concede one thing about Fatecarver: it's great against troll tanks.

ive heard this a lot, but youre not getting out of the way while youre in the air stunned. you will land and get hit and if its charged with crux, that 0.3-0.6 seconds will hurt and continue to push
The first tic is instant as well. People must be using the aim assist feature

xylena_lazarow

kurbbie_s wrote: »

ive heard this a lot, but youre not getting out of the way while youre in the air stunned

I don't know why you guys think it's so easy to pin players down, weaker players sure (but they die to everything), stronger players do not let you do this (not without a long resource attrition fight and/or zerging them).