How is Arcanist in PvP?

SandandStars · July 18

I am curious to hear if anybody is having any luck with their Arcanist builds in solo and or group PVP? I do not yet have the class, but as I mainly PVP, I am curious to know if it seems viable. Thanks for your input!

TybaltKaine · July 18

Very skill dependent, can use weaving, but you'll want to focus on Crux building and management. They have excellent shields and group buffs, and can pack a punch, but their most famous asset is easily LOS'd and their damage ultimate can literally be outrun.

You could have a lot of success as a healer if you wanted.

Ceph flail in melee is great and they have a class taunt that helps build damage combos.

Fun in BG's, IC is very easy to avoid them cause of all the obstacles, Cyro is very group dependent, imo.

I'm sure more hardcore PVP players have better opinions and maybe even build ideas.

Syiccal · July 18

IN Bg in shines due to player stacking and the beam can just rip through stacked players, in 1v1 unless your running the cheese I don't think you can kill competent players using just Flail and beam as its easy to avoid. It's very tanky and can take a good bit of punishment with its heals and shields which makes it hard to die in any situation really.

jerj6925 · July 19

Arcanist is no power house, I would put them above Templar only slightly so if you are looking for easy mode then its still Dragon knight, warden, NB... perhaps NB above warden now.

Kartalin · July 19

Arcanists definitely have a role or two in organized groups now.

Casul · July 19

I made a PvP Tank and it’s incredible how much I am enjoying the game now. So much shielding, so much healing, so much annoying charming. Brilliant.

katorga · July 19

The class seems designed for ball groups.

SandandStars · July 19

Thank you all so much for your input. I really appreciate it!

I went ahead and bought Necrom and started leveling up an Arcanist (currently lvl 27) and tried it out in a battleground. It’s hard to make good judgment calls at this point, until I hit 160 and can properly gear it out, but my initial thoughts after a little PVP combat are that it’s offensive skills are pretty lackluster. Specifically, Escalating Rune Blades and Pragmatic Fate Carver. Rune blades just don’t do any damage, and Fate Carver is too hard to aim in high speed PVP combat.

As a few of you mentioned, it feels very tanky with the good shields and healing, and I can see it being a strong healer. Unfortunately that doesn’t appeal so much to me - I like to play a balanced class that can get kills and have utility doing other things besides healing. Ceph’s Flail seems like the only decent offensive skill for PVP in Arcanist’s kit…

So I am wondering if anyone with more experience can weigh in on some offensive skill potential I may not be aware of.

In a weird way, the class kind of feels like playing a magicka warden, which has high survivability, but no offensive skills to speak of (weak/useless class spammable and no execute.)