I'm currently playing Arcanist (main), Nightblade (Assassination), Sorcerer (Daedrix Summons). Been playing Arcanist since Necrom, love the class visuals and Hermaeus so it's still my main (after years of on and off with a Dragonknight).

I use the classic Flail & Beam, but I wanted to add some extras to make it more dynamic. I don't care much for pushing the last drop of DPS. I do want something functional and fun. I think you can make it work too with whatever class you want, you just need to find good synergies. Warden's bear is too demanding for not much in return (takes both ULTs), Sorcerer is better and more modulable.

I still have to iron out the gear sets and champion skills but I'm using the following skills :

FRONTBAR

1 - Cephaliarch's Flail

2 - Pragmatic Fatecarver (the shield, anti interrupt and cost reduction are much more useful than a simple snare...)

3 - Bound Armaments (this skill is not only good looking and a semi-passive, but does really nice damage on a single target)

4 - Summon Volatile Familiar (special ability : AoE + stun every second hit)

5 - Summon Twilight Tormentor (special ability : +60% damage on targets above mid-HP)

ULT - Soul Harvest (Assassination ult, requires even lower ultimate points with the Daedric Summoning passive that reduces ultimate requirements by 15%, so you can cast it more often for more damage)

BACKBAR

1 - Inspired Scholarship

2 - Relentless Focus (pretty much a passive)

3 - Daedric Prey (I am still unsure about this one, but it does a nice AoE and small burst window for the pets)

4 - Summon Volatile Familiar (to keep it from being disappearing)

5 - Summon Twilight Tormentor (same here)

ULT - Tide's King Gaze

___________

This may not be the ultimate min-max slave DPS build but I am having a lot of fun with it and feel like I'm playing a spellblade. Using summons and an extra ability for single target that builds up while doing my usual flail/beam rotation.

The key in any game is to play something YOU enjoy.

The problem in any game with meta-slaves, especially those enforcing it everywhere by gatekeeping, they are idiots who can't test, try and explore builds. Because they are lazy sheeps : they need to have opinions, thoughts and builds fed to them like good little NPCs.

Their excuse is, if you don't follow the meta the group will not succeed. I think the issue lies in the players and not builds themselves. Many want to shorten encounters as much as possible to compensate for their lack of combat awareness, reactivity and simply put... skill.

Play something that gets you fun and works out (something that at least won't be an actual handicap for your team). If you are pushing ultra high end content then you may be forced to go pure meta, but then again if the DPS does its job well there won't be any trouble. Many meta-slaves follow the meta but still can't even play properly.

I don't think a real "pet build": sorcerer: daedric pets, warden: animal companions for bear, necromancer for its pets and associated pet sets like ritualist and maw of infernal are that competitive.

A lot of builds may take sorcerer daedric pets for passive damage while using arcanist beam and NB assassinate skills.

Sphynix wrote: »

The fact that people are forcing others to play a specific way, regardless if you parse well, is ridiculous. I play arcanist, and have played it for a while now but forcing others to beam their life away when they don't even want to isn't even cool.

Nobody's forced to. Its just the Meta. If you want to play competitively, then you need to play the meta, its just that simple.

Play as you want to by all means, nobody is forcing you to play a certain way, just understand that the reality is there are builds that are going to be more efficient than others, and at the high end of PVE, players are going to want to gravitate towards the more efficient builds.

Right now, I am a Necromancer with these things helping me in each combat:

1. Shadow Image
2. Seketal Arcanist
3. Clanfear
4. Infernal Maw set for Daedroth
5. Morkuldin set for the floating sword
6. companion

it's cool to see all of those guys run after an enemy while I attack from a distance. I think if my base class was Warden, replacing the arcanist with the bear would be more consistent.

I'm looking for a another good proc set to add, but none are at the same caliber as Morkuldin. Defiler, for example only appears for a moment, and it's quite ugly. I think Icy Conjurer might meet my need, but I don't have that one yet

BasP wrote: »

Perhaps the Aegis Caller set would be nice?

I play with a staff - so Aegis caller wouldn't work

I wish it could, though!

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO wrote: »

i feel like pve meta builds are irrelevant outside of vet trials. ive done all dungeons on my own builds tanking haling and dps. you dont need 120k dummy parses to manage most content. probalby 90% of players are completing with nowhere close to that.

You want those Meta DPS builds or something close to it for vet dungeon trifecta's too - hard mode, no death, and speed runs (and sometimes all 3 at once). If you chase after those, you definitely want as high DPS as you can manage, and META is often the easiest path to get there. It's META for a reason.

That said, my subclasses are 5 levels away from being done, and then I'm going to be parsing several different setups with my pure pet build to see what does best. I'll probably have more information by the end of the week next week (sorry, this isn't my main pursuit in the game. For now, its a bit of a....pet....project).