Arcanist needs some offensive buffs

Zallion · October 30

TLDR - the title.

U44 brought some hefty nerfs to the Arcanist’s survivability and defence. Arcanists shield play and high survivability is what has made it even remotely viable, but post nerf it pales in comparison to other classes, and it’s lack of in class offensive abilities/burst are much more of a glaring issue as a result.

Arcanists mostly fight with battles of attrition, stacking status effects, dots, and procs to chip away and overwhelm their opponents healing while relying on their big shields for survival and outlasting their opponents. Now that impervious runeward and runeguard of freedom have been nerfed by a whopping 56% and 50% respectively, the survivability in that attrition playstyle very much pushes us to use the other morphs, particularly runeguard of Stillwaters, in order to have a semi-reliable burst heal ability (yes I know scribing exists). This now gives us two immobilize abilities when used with flail/dread, which messes up the timing of cc or lining up any semblance of burst. All this would be fine and dandy and easy enough to work around if the damage was still there, but that is just not the case.

Arcanists rely a LOT on procs to even come close to the amount of damage other classes have. MDW, Vateshran, Maarselok, Dragons Appetite, Way of Fire, Draugrkin.. you’d be hard pressed to not have 2+ of these sets on your build to even compete, and even then the burst potential just isn’t there like it is on literally every other class.

There should be some buffs to offensive abilities to try and compensate if the heavy defensive abilities are going to be nerfed into the ground, that would be balance. (+50% nerf is insane, maybe start with like 20%?)

A couple suggestions on what could bring it in line with other classes, not that I’d ever expect it to happen, but any or all of these things could be buffed (don’t read too much into values suggested, just offering rough direction).

Psychic Lesion - Make this 25-30% + instead of 15% damage. If status effects are the implied offensive identity, really lean into it to compensate the rest of the kit.

Runeblades - Currently too weak to be a spammable, could use a 15-20% buff to be truly viable as a spammable.

Cephaliarch’s Flail - Ever since the nerf to the execute damage, this ability’s damage is just lackluster. Maybe a 10-15% damage buff OR remove the channel time so that this ability isn’t so clunky to weave.

Tentacular Dread - I like the direction they’re leaning with this ability after the change but it just isn’t enough damage as a crux consuming ability - it’s competing with other crux consuming abilities on your bars, specifically ward, and it’s use needs to be up to par with other “build x stack” abilities like merciless resolve or 3 stack molten whip to even be remotely worth it. It takes a lot of set up, can easily miss, resources and GCDs to build it up.. maybe a 40-50% damage increase buff per crux spent? OR keep the 33% but it only spends 1 crux per cast, allowing a more consistent burst/pressure ability, giving you the ability to have 3 little bursts in a row if you so choose, or more wisely manage your crux for another ability.

Fatecarver - Widely known as not super viable in PvP outside of acuity bombing. Some sort of execute scaling on one of the morphs would probably make it viable and situationally worth a slot even despite its obvious setbacks. Wouldn’t need to be J-beam 2.0, but worth the crux consumption and the slot.

Tide King’s Gaze - Either increase the radius of the ground AoE from 5 meters to 8 meters, increase its duration to ~12+ seconds OR increase its movement speed of the watcher by ~50%. This ability is too easily countered by simply.. walking. It’s a really cool ult and has strong damage already, just needs to be more reliable. Movement speed is already nutty in this game, entirely nullifying this ultimate. Class ultimates shouldn’t be so easily countered.

Hopefully this class gets some pvp buff love, current state has it in bottom tier imo.

xylena_lazarow · October 30

Zallion wrote: »

Hopefully this class gets some pvp buff love, current state has it in bottom tier imo.

Thanks for writing this, I enjoyed maining Arc for a few months but had to go back to DK due to all the nerfs. It was sad to see Arc get so much incidental hate from their PvE dominance when they were pretty mid in PvP.

They're also starting to have the Plar problem of too many mandatory class skills and not enough buff compression, no major crit, no major breach, no minor force, no execute (sad). Offensive bar space is a headache.

There's a few really good Arc players in PvP, but that's a testament to their skill, not the strength of the class. It's slow, clumsy, awkward, and its own kit competes with itself for space in your build.

Zallion · October 30

Absolutely. I mained it too for a bit and actually really enjoy the class overall. Its shields (used to) offer a lot when out numbered, and I’ve had some of my best 1vXs on the class actually, so im fond of the class for that reason. But it really just isn’t what it used to be, or even could be.

Now that its defensive capabilities are basically gutted, there isn’t much left, at least had something going for it before. And you’re right, it’s competing with itself.

One can dream that zos would buff it in some capacity. It shouldn’t be relegated to only good in PvE.

Bashev · October 30

I said it before, but Arcanist will be the new Necro class. They will be the new PvP meme class.

The_Meathead · October 30

I don't play Arcanist and even I'm absolutely floored their shields took the usual heavy-handed ZOS nerf we're all familiar with, while Sorcerer's got a gentle tweak.

It just doesn't make sense to me.

Zallion · October 30

Heavy handed to put it lightly. I can’t recall any other time a class ability was nerfed by 50%, let alone 56%.

I get their tankiness could be annoying at times, but damn, let’s start small first…

YandereGirlfriend · October 31

Zallion wrote: »

TLDR - the title.

U44 brought some hefty nerfs to the Arcanist’s survivability and defence. Arcanists shield play and high survivability is what has made it even remotely viable, but post nerf it pales in comparison to other classes, and it’s lack of in class offensive abilities/burst are much more of a glaring issue as a result.

Arcanists mostly fight with battles of attrition, stacking status effects, dots, and procs to chip away and overwhelm their opponents healing while relying on their big shields for survival and outlasting their opponents. Now that impervious runeward and runeguard of freedom have been nerfed by a whopping 56% and 50% respectively, the survivability in that attrition playstyle very much pushes us to use the other morphs, particularly runeguard of Stillwaters, in order to have a semi-reliable burst heal ability (yes I know scribing exists). This now gives us two immobilize abilities when used with flail/dread, which messes up the timing of cc or lining up any semblance of burst. All this would be fine and dandy and easy enough to work around if the damage was still there, but that is just not the case.

Arcanists rely a LOT on procs to even come close to the amount of damage other classes have. MDW, Vateshran, Maarselok, Dragons Appetite, Way of Fire, Draugrkin.. you’d be hard pressed to not have 2+ of these sets on your build to even compete, and even then the burst potential just isn’t there like it is on literally every other class.

There should be some buffs to offensive abilities to try and compensate if the heavy defensive abilities are going to be nerfed into the ground, that would be balance. (+50% nerf is insane, maybe start with like 20%?)

A couple suggestions on what could bring it in line with other classes, not that I’d ever expect it to happen, but any or all of these things could be buffed (don’t read too much into values suggested, just offering rough direction).

Psychic Lesion - Make this 25-30% + instead of 15% damage. If status effects are the implied offensive identity, really lean into it to compensate the rest of the kit.

Runeblades - Currently too weak to be a spammable, could use a 15-20% buff to be truly viable as a spammable.

Cephaliarch’s Flail - Ever since the nerf to the execute damage, this ability’s damage is just lackluster. Maybe a 10-15% damage buff OR remove the channel time so that this ability isn’t so clunky to weave.

Tentacular Dread - I like the direction they’re leaning with this ability after the change but it just isn’t enough damage as a crux consuming ability - it’s competing with other crux consuming abilities on your bars, specifically ward, and it’s use needs to be up to par with other “build x stack” abilities like merciless resolve or 3 stack molten whip to even be remotely worth it. It takes a lot of set up, can easily miss, resources and GCDs to build it up.. maybe a 40-50% damage increase buff per crux spent? OR keep the 33% but it only spends 1 crux per cast, allowing a more consistent burst/pressure ability, giving you the ability to have 3 little bursts in a row if you so choose, or more wisely manage your crux for another ability.

Fatecarver - Widely known as not super viable in PvP outside of acuity bombing. Some sort of execute scaling on one of the morphs would probably make it viable and situationally worth a slot even despite its obvious setbacks. Wouldn’t need to be J-beam 2.0, but worth the crux consumption and the slot.

Tide King’s Gaze - Either increase the radius of the ground AoE from 5 meters to 8 meters, increase its duration to ~12+ seconds OR increase its movement speed of the watcher by ~50%. This ability is too easily countered by simply.. walking. It’s a really cool ult and has strong damage already, just needs to be more reliable. Movement speed is already nutty in this game, entirely nullifying this ultimate. Class ultimates shouldn’t be so easily countered.

Hopefully this class gets some pvp buff love, current state has it in bottom tier imo.

There are some good ideas in here.

I think that I like these the best:

1. Psychic Lesions buff - I don't actually think that on its own this would move the needle much in PvP but it's cool thematically for the class and should be done on its own merits. Alternative buff idea is to increase the duration of status effects, like a mini-Serpent's Disdain. Something like double status effect duration absolutely would move the needle in PvP and could help form the new identity of the class.

2. Runeblades buff - this has always felt like a meme ability with very weak morph effects. Just throwing damage at it feels lame, though, but I definitely agree that something should be done. An easy buff idea would be to have it apply a random status effect on its final tick, including in AOE on Escalating. Writhing effect could be a random status effect on every tick.

3. TDread - This should be the THE ability that the class is built around in PvP and I'm right there with you in terms of upping its damage multiplier per stack. This should be the beating heart of any Arcanist's burst combo. Keep the channel so that you do actually need to properly set it up with a Stun.

Ideas that I don't like:

1. Beam buff. We don't want to promote mindless beaming in PvP as well as PvE.

2. Tide King buff. We want to be rewarding player skill and Tide King is basically having the game played for you. You can already force targets to eat a few ticks of this if you set it up properly but we 100% do not need a mobile auto-turret to follow enemies around and deal damage on behalf of the caster. Not all class ultimates translate from PvE to PvP and vice versa and that's okay. And like... how many times have you seen a competent player eat all 3 smashes of a Colossus ult? Basically never. And that's okay.

Zallion · October 31

I really like the status duration buff idea, that would be more fitting - serpents disdain is fairly strong and having a mini version as a passive leans into that implied identity.

Dread should be the big burst, but it honestly is just so underwhelming as is. Offensively, Beam atleast FEELS worth it when consuming all 3 crux - despite its shortcomings and easy avoidability in PvP, it does rip people if you land it.

I think it would be interesting to see some sort of crux consumer ability that only consumes a single crux instead of all crux, it would make for more dynamic feel to combos and defensive play. The problem of only really being able to practically use one crux consumer ability in PvP holds the class back, as those abilities compete too much with each other on your bar.

ironbob2008 · November 3

Two classes that DO NOT need buffing are archanist and sorcerer. If you don't believe me then why do those classes outnumber every other one in Cyrodiil?

Zallion · November 3

This post has nothing to do with Sorcs - yes sorcs are over powered and over populated as a result.

Arcanist, I just disagree. Their main use in Cyro is as a gibbering bot these days. They’re not overly used, and they just received substantial nerfs. Outside of beam, their damage in pvp is poor and needs a little umph to be closer to other classes in both pressure and burst potential. Their group play potential is fine, but try killing someone of remotely competent skill on an arcanist. The ease of doing so and offensive capabilities on any other class is glaringly apparent, the class lacks some damage in pvp outside of beam and brain dead proc crutching.

Joy_Division · November 4

ironbob2008 wrote: »

Two classes that DO NOT need buffing are archanist and sorcerer. If you don't believe me then why do those classes outnumber every other one in Cyrodiil?

Arcanist is second least played class in Cyrodiil.

xylena_lazarow · November 4

Joy_Division wrote: »

Arcanist is second least played class in Cyrodiil.

I've noticed some of the disconnect coming from BGs players where Arc DD was a popular pug stomp spec prior to all the nerfs. Third-party some casuals with the laser, or wait for someone wearing RoA to do the hard part for you. The inflated damage numbers in the recaps were always a win-more fallacy from nuking players that were already dying.

The_Meathead · November 4

Joy_Division wrote: »

ironbob2008 wrote: »

Two classes that DO NOT need buffing are archanist and sorcerer. If you don't believe me then why do those classes outnumber every other one in Cyrodiil?

Arcanist is second least played class in Cyrodiil.

I'd agree with this, too. Necromancer is so rare it's silly, but Arcanist is probably a distant second from that. They're so easy to spot with Shields and that vivid green blowing up the screen that they probably seem more represented than they truly are, too.

Zallion · November 4

Exactly that. I can’t recall the last time I’ve died a clean death from an arc. It’s usually getting beamed by someone in the back when I was already locked down by another player(s). Their equivalent to spamming mages wrath and praying for a kill steal.

notyuu · November 7

Zallion wrote: »

Heavy handed to put it lightly. I can’t recall any other time a class ability was nerfed by 50%, let alone 56%.

I can, between the loss of a hit, direct reduction in damage per hit and the loss of cadence with burning light jabs was nerfed by roughly 96% in U35, and then U44 malestrom changes reduced it by a further 20%

Zallion · November 7

Fair enough lol. Templar is a shadow of its former self, much agreed. I mained temp back in the day and it’s unrecognizably weak post those nerfs that I hardly touch my Templar. Can still work, but the melee playstyle it used to have with jabs is what appealed to me most about the class in the past.

But hey, at least javelin + beam combos are strong. I’d say it’s even iconic for the class now, like an incap merciless resolve on a nb, leap + whip combo on a dk, deep fissure + dawn breaker on a warden, curse + cfrags on sorc.. even necro has blastbones + ult combos.

Fairly straight forward combos on each class to set up pretty respectable burst, some maybe predictable at times, but yet very strong especially when timed well.

Arcanist lacks this sort of burst potential to reliably get kills in pvp. Tentacular Dread is the implied burst skill but is MUCH too weak. For it to be on par to combo with a dawn breaker etc, the damage per crux would need to be buffed from 33% to ~50% in order to hold a candle to some of those other combos listed above. OR give it something similar to molten whip: increase weapon and spell damage by x amount per active crux while slotted.

VinnyGambini · November 7

Agree, both jabplars and arcanists seems weak, and need serious buffs. Necro ofc as well.

Dagraenion · November 14

I don't PvP that much only as doing the daily, but Arcanist really do need an improvement. It sucks so much now, and I play it as my main. I used to be able to solo with companions some world bosses, but now I can rarely even do that since I die so easily. Please make Arcanist great again. Instead of nerfing classes, why don't you buff classes to let them catch up to the "meta" classes?

Zallion · November 14

Every class should be balanced to the level of DK imo. DK has ebbed and flowed over the years, went from the top, to the bottom for a long time, to steady S tier, to now a solid and balanced A tier and in my opinion is the most balanced class in the game for pvp. You don’t really see complaints since the corrosive nerf. The general state of things are:

S - Sorc, NB
A - Warden, DK
B - Templar
C - Necro
D - Arcanist

Agreed. They need to bring other classes up. Sorc, nb, and warden need fine tunings to balance them down slightly. DK nearly perfect where it is. Arcanist, Templar, and Necros need their kits buffed fairly substantially in terms of damage and kill potential in comparison to the top 4 classes.

There is a chasm between the top performing classes and the bottom, and even further separation of Arcanist from Templar - Templar only makes B tier by default and is only worthy due to the jav beam combo and some skilled players proping the class up. Overall though, there isn’t really a B tier.

ironbob2008 · November 14

Zallion wrote: »

Every class should be balanced to the level of DK imo. DK has ebbed and flowed over the years, went from the top, to the bottom for a long time, to steady S tier, to now a solid and balanced A tier and in my opinion is the most balanced class in the game for pvp. You don’t really see complaints since the corrosive nerf. The general state of things are:

S - Sorc, NB
A - Warden, DK
B - Templar
C - Necro
D - Arcanist

Agreed. They need to bring other classes up. Sorc, nb, and warden need fine tunings to balance them down slightly. DK nearly perfect where it is. Arcanist, Templar, and Necros need their kits buffed fairly substantially in terms of damage and kill potential in comparison to the top 4 classes.

There is a chasm between the top performing classes and the bottom, and even further separation of Arcanist from Templar - Templar only makes B tier by default and is only worthy due to the jav beam combo and some skilled players proping the class up. Overall though, there isn’t really a B tier.

Well now, that's refreshing. A well-thought out post. My observance is that sorcerers should not be tanks but they are. That's the one thing that is annoying discounting the insta-casts they can throw which is downright idiotic.

ironbob2008 · November 14

Dagraenion wrote: »

I don't PvP that much only as doing the daily, but Arcanist really do need an improvement. It sucks so much now, and I play it as my main. I used to be able to solo with companions some world bosses, but now I can rarely even do that since I die so easily. Please make Arcanist great again. Instead of nerfing classes, why don't you buff classes to let them catch up to the "meta" classes?

Buffing seldom works out well. At some point you have to stop buffing so my take is when one class is overpowered, it should be brought down rather than every other class being brought up. DK is a perfect example. It's about as balanced as a class can get. Templar not as much but close. Sorcerer is ridiculously, stupidly overpowered even in PVE terms. Not sure what the devs were thinking with their refinement of that class but it's creating armies of sorcerers while the other classes languish.

Dagraenion · November 15

ironbob2008 wrote: »

Dagraenion wrote: »

I don't PvP that much only as doing the daily, but Arcanist really do need an improvement. It sucks so much now, and I play it as my main. I used to be able to solo with companions some world bosses, but now I can rarely even do that since I die so easily. Please make Arcanist great again. Instead of nerfing classes, why don't you buff classes to let them catch up to the "meta" classes?

Buffing seldom works out well. At some point you have to stop buffing so my take is when one class is overpowered, it should be brought down rather than every other class being brought up. DK is a perfect example. It's about as balanced as a class can get. Templar not as much but close. Sorcerer is ridiculously, stupidly overpowered even in PVE terms. Not sure what the devs were thinking with their refinement of that class but it's creating armies of sorcerers while the other classes languish.

That makes more sense than the DEVs, to be honest. I do notice how ridiculously strong Sorcs are. I don't know why they are focusing on them making them stronger while other classes are lagging behind.

Zallion · November 19

Dagraenion wrote: »

ironbob2008 wrote: »

Dagraenion wrote: »

I don't PvP that much only as doing the daily, but Arcanist really do need an improvement. It sucks so much now, and I play it as my main. I used to be able to solo with companions some world bosses, but now I can rarely even do that since I die so easily. Please make Arcanist great again. Instead of nerfing classes, why don't you buff classes to let them catch up to the "meta" classes?

Buffing seldom works out well. At some point you have to stop buffing so my take is when one class is overpowered, it should be brought down rather than every other class being brought up. DK is a perfect example. It's about as balanced as a class can get. Templar not as much but close. Sorcerer is ridiculously, stupidly overpowered even in PVE terms. Not sure what the devs were thinking with their refinement of that class but it's creating armies of sorcerers while the other classes languish.

That makes more sense than the DEVs, to be honest. I do notice how ridiculously strong Sorcs are. I don't know why they are focusing on them making them stronger while other classes are lagging behind.

It’s wild too that they make Sorc’s ward the dominant one, after designing a new class that has such a damage shield focus. Understandably they need to build for its effectiveness but they don’t sacrifice ANYTHING to do so.

They should revert that impervious runeward nerf - takes crux to use to its full capacity, it should be strong, strongest damage shield ability in the game. Or they can make the shield strength scale with the crux consumption. Even the sanctum ult is pretty lackluster unless you’re pushing over 40k health maybe, could push that 60% damage cap a little higher - against 1-2 players it helps as a panic button, but it’s easy to over pressure it and you become a target once it’s activated. Corrosive and magma shell are better defensive ults.

xylena_lazarow · November 19

Fatecarver, Runeblades, and the tentacle all compete for the same role of a spammable in a PvP rotation, bar space is precious and they all function wildly differently, so you can only really build around one of them.

Fatecarver (and the Eye ult) don't reliably hit targets. Beam Arc can clown unaware players and abuse someone else's pull set stun combo in a group, but on their own they can't land enough hits against strong opponents.

Runeblades isn't that strong to begin with, sits in a weird no man's land between ranged and melee, slow projectiles, and suffers from the same problem that other multi hit skills like Templar Jabs do: getting all the hits to land.

Tentacle should never have lost its execute, it's as weak as the Necro Scythe now, but with a cast time! Not worth it outside the niche of group DD debuff spammer. Pressure Arc DD has better options in Weapon lines or Scribing.

You can still run the MDW/Vatesh pressure build on Arc, but that ends up a 4th spec that runs Rending Slashes as its spammable and only cares about the Rune dot and Tome/Armor pseudo-dots from Arc's class DD kit. The passives make it a decent proc vessel but it's badly outclassed in this archetype by DK and StamSorc, probably Blade too.

So while the kit offers a lot of potential on paper, all 3 of the class DD skill specs are jank. Slow to cast, hard to land, easy to counter, and only Fatecarver has any real payoff for the trouble.

Thrive in Chaos is a strong complement, but it's a generic weapon skill other classes can use better. The best thing unique to Arc in PvP is the Gibbering Shield ult, so the best PvP Arc by far is the group shield support spec.

There's no simple fix, and with Arc's continued PvE wackiness, I'd say its offensive kit needs a major rework.

gamma71 · November 25

Zallion wrote: »

Every class should be balanced to the level of DK imo. DK has ebbed and flowed over the years, went from the top, to the bottom for a long time, to steady S tier, to now a solid and balanced A tier and in my opinion is the most balanced class in the game for pvp. You don’t really see complaints since the corrosive nerf. The general state of things are:

S - Sorc, NB
A - Warden, DK
B - Templar
C - Necro
D - Arcanist

Agreed. They need to bring other classes up. Sorc, nb, and warden need fine tunings to balance them down slightly. DK nearly perfect where it is. Arcanist, Templar, and Necros need their kits buffed fairly substantially in terms of damage and kill potential in comparison to the top 4 classes.

There is a chasm between the top performing classes and the bottom, and even further separation of Arcanist from Templar - Templar only makes B tier by default and is only worthy due to the jav beam combo and some skilled players proping the class up. Overall though, there isn’t really a B tier.

Why does Warden need to be balanced down?

Zallion · 02:56

gamma71 wrote: »

Zallion wrote: »

Every class should be balanced to the level of DK imo. DK has ebbed and flowed over the years, went from the top, to the bottom for a long time, to steady S tier, to now a solid and balanced A tier and in my opinion is the most balanced class in the game for pvp. You don’t really see complaints since the corrosive nerf. The general state of things are:

S - Sorc, NB
A - Warden, DK
B - Templar
C - Necro
D - Arcanist

Agreed. They need to bring other classes up. Sorc, nb, and warden need fine tunings to balance them down slightly. DK nearly perfect where it is. Arcanist, Templar, and Necros need their kits buffed fairly substantially in terms of damage and kill potential in comparison to the top 4 classes.

There is a chasm between the top performing classes and the bottom, and even further separation of Arcanist from Templar - Templar only makes B tier by default and is only worthy due to the jav beam combo and some skilled players proping the class up. Overall though, there isn’t really a B tier.

Why does Warden need to be balanced down?

Talking fine tuned adjustments, polar wind and northern storm both a little too strong imo. Polar is the best heal skill in the game hands down, and northern storm is probably the strongest ult in the game too. Warden is essentially my main class, just feels a little too easy mode with those two skills, plus the class script. Class script could use a longer cooldown or a better telegraph too.

Never want any one skill or class to be gutted, just want obvious over performing or over powered skills tuned down a little, and underperforming skills on underperforming classes brought up.

Spending a lot of time on some of the bottom tier classes lately, and it’s almost like playing an entirely different game if I jump on my warden or nb. Shouldn’t be such a gap.