TL:DR summary: a guy with only middling skill at the game, using gear that is hardly ever included in online end game builds, is pulled through parts of Craglorn he has never previously survived on his own.

Full, rambling post follows:

I'm not posting this in the official Arcanist feedback thread because I'm not sure this is the kind of information they're looking for there -- it doesn't specifically track with their official questions. But the purpose of this was to see how Arcanist would function in a "most of the game" setting by me, a player who has been playing for a very long time but is not particularly skilled at the finer points, by which I mean "weaving and complex rotations."

I think I can weave maybe 70% of the time. Complex rotations are lost on me though, since my attempts to follow them in a real world situations wind up with me panicking and trying to press every button on my keyboard simultaneously. Er... I solo a lot.

Anyway, so I thought how does the Arcanist work for me, someone who will _not_ be invited to all the high-end raids and will _not_ be desperately sought after in the pvp events, who will limit his dungeon-delving to group finder almost exclusively?

So I created a level 50 arcanist and used the template to equip myself only with the gear I've already found in game, and then took myself to Craglorn to see how he did solo.

I realize that to a lot of the elite players Craglorn is kind of a nothing these days, but it's probably the most challenging part of the game for me that isn't a trial or trying a dungeon solo. I generally die when I go into the force fielded areas, or when I try to open one of those shimmering rift blobs that cause stone soldiers to pour out of it.

(I should note the only dungeons I've ever been able to solo so far have been Spindleclutch 1 and Wayrest Sewers 1 -- I do not say this with pride, I'm just trying to let you know exactly where on the spectrum of ESO competence I sit, which I suspect is 'the higher end of the low side').

So I'm testing Craglorn with two arcanists - a magicka breton and a stamina imperial. The reason I chose these races specifically is that arcanists have something of a... er... resource management problem, and both races mitigate these a bit: Bretons give boosts to recovery and reduce magicka costs, and imperials boost stamina pools and give a 6% reduction to costs of all skills.

First observation: if you're at my level of skill, you're probably going to need the Ring of the Pale Order to survive. This isn't true for every character I've ever played. My Templar finds it extraneous, my 2H Necro is tanky enough to solo without it, and my sorcerers have Surge and whichever healing pet they're specced out for, either cranky dinosaur or flappy bird-lady. But Magicka Necro sort of leans heavily on it, and my arcanists lean even harder (note that this is only for solo play, I suspect in a group it might be different).

I tried going through Craglorn without the Ring of the Pale Order and... it wasn't terrible. The arcanist self-heal isn't bad, and the skill with the emergency heal when you drop below 50% is really useful if you can manage to refresh it every 20 seconds. But I would still wind up dying in craglorn in fights that I've been able to manage with other classes. Ring of the Pale Order is a game changer, though. With it, I was able to do the glowy little portal things and the force field dome bosses.

Overall, stamina arcanist seemed to have an easier time than magicka arcanist. I *think* it's just because the higher tier duration spells are all magicka and the lower tier spells are "highest trait" which means a stamina arcanist can offload all the duration spells to magicka and not worry about it, saving stamina just for the attack spells. Also damage was usually higher due to the DW weapon damage being higher and the DW passive buffs taking it even higher than that. I find I prefer the runeblade morph that increases crit a lot more useful than the one with the AOE, even though it's only single target, just because of the increased crit.

I also find the tentacles morph that stays stamina was the most useful for both builds, because it builds crux. I found it a lot more useful to do two runeblades then go to tentacles to complete my crux build and add the debuff AND snare some targets, then go straight to the Very Bright Green Line Of Death. Which is a very fun power to use though I found myself trying to dodge roll while using it (note: this does not work).

So the "middling gear" part of the title was me trying to figure out how effective the build would be while wearing the stuff I've been able to collect in game. I've never done group trials (see disclaimer about skill level above) and I don't go through dungeons a lot so it's basically whatever I find in the few dungeons I can solo and whatever I can find in the store, and whatever I can craft.

Gear Test One: Magicka Arcanist, Seducer's and Gift of Magnus

These are both craftable sets and pretty easy to get if you have a character with necessary crafting skills. These sets combined with a breton initially felt like overkill, but to my surprise I ultimately wound up running out of magicka more often than on the second magicka gear test. Basically this is because fights lasted longer because (I think) I was doing less overall damage. Seducers and Magnus don't really boost damage (Seducer's doesn't at all, other than a 1k boost to magicka, Magnus at least boosts weapon and spell damage as well). I died a lot when running without pale order because I'd reach a point where I was out of magicka and enemies were still attacking because they weren't dead yet. It was better with pale order but the times I ran out of magicka were still a problem, because you can't cause damage if you don't have the resources onhand to cause damage.

Gear Test Two: Magicka Arcanist, Mother's Sorrow, Order's Wrath, Slimecraw Shoulders

OK, so after that I decided to try and max out crit and see what happened. I know there's a generally accepted balance of how much crit to have vs when you're better off raising other things instead, but I'm not theorycrafting here, I'm just throwing stuff against a wall -- I trudged off to Alik'r, visited the thief mundus stone, then donned mother's sorrow and order's wrath gear. Mother's sorrow you can buy in the store - that's how I got my set - and order's wrath is craftable if you have high isle, which I do. I've never had a FULL GOLD set of both before, which was interesting. See disclaimer above.

Anyway, breton arcanist did much better after that. His base crit was something like 73%, and everything fell a lot faster. Resource management was easier than the seducer/magnus combo because I didn't have to use as many spells to kill things. It was still something I had to watch on the long fights (forcefield bosses and glowy apertures of death) but it was manageable.

He still died in both fights when he didn't have the ring of the pale order. I kept firing off my heals too late.

Gear Test Three: Stamina Arcanist

This was my most effective build. I went for crit again, but based on things I already own... so I went with the classic Briarheart and, of all things, Toothrow. I've been through the Wayrest sewers so many times I have a pretty full set of Toothrow gear, and I've bought every piece of Briarheart I can find.

A lot of people consider Toothrow's 5-piece bonus kind of useless because you can get it by adding a Fighter's Guild or Mage's Guild skill to your bar, but I found myself appreciating not having to figure out what skill to give up to put it in. (That was a difficulty I had with the Breton Magicka Arcanist, because I put inner light on both bars so had to give up two skills, and I really didn't want to). Anyway, all that gave the character about a 63% crit chance. Arcanist has a few skills i generally don't feel like I need to use but I'd like to have onhand for one or two situations that would definitely make my life easier during those situations - like the shield morph that also provides a quick heal, so you can survive long enough to move on to the full heal. I found myself appreciating the convenience a lot. Less useful in a group, maybe.

DW front bar, inferno staff back bar, (because I wanted to use burning from elemental blockade to trigger the 15% status effect damage boost, and to offload the cost of it from stamina to magicka).

This gear set is probably the most survivable of all my builds without the Pale Order ring, just because briarheart crits are giving you lots of small heals making it easier to use the self heal when you need it, plus briarheart boosts your damage some AND DW passives boost your damaga AND medium armor boosts your damage. WITH pale order it's even better. Runeblade is a lot easier to use in melee than, for example, flame/venomous skull, so your spammable crits more often and then you switch to tentacles and then Glorious Viridescent Line Of Profound Discomfort. Resource management was a lot easier, again because I think a level 50 stamina arcanist is able to offload all the duration spells to magicka and magicka refreshes by the time you need them again (especially if you have Tome-Bearer's Inspiration running).

Summary

So what I'm saying is, based on this testing, the Arcanist Class + Ring of the Pale Order + sets you can find in the market or craft yourself or find in one of the few dungeons _I_ of all people can manage to solo (this is a "if I can do it you probably can too" kind of situation) is enough to carry me through parts of Craglorn I have never been able to do on my own before. I'd sort of like to try a few of the Craglorn dungeons now. The only one I've ever been able to do on my own is Skyreach, which I don't think actually counts as a dungeon but is rather a "Point of Interest."

So as I was going through all this and having the class drag me through things I was never competent enough to do on my own, I kept thinking "I probably better enjoy this while I can" because while I find it _amazing_ to be able to suddenly go through this content, the problem is that if I can do all this with the somewhat basic skills I have, chances are it means that when someone with far more established skills uses the class they're going to stumble on a way to break the game. Which is... oh well, I'll enjoy it on PTS while I can.

Though I do wonder if I've stumbled on to something here -- that maybe the arcanist in its current form has a unique enough playstyle that it will benefit more from gear that people don't generally consider in game than other classes will. I think it'd be nice for sets like Toothrow to get their time in the sun. I'm not saying that because I've gone through Wayrest so many times that I've collected a complete set of Toothrow with the divine trait, no, nope, that's certainly not the reason. I'm sure it's just a coincidence...