JMadFour wrote: »

I'm watching the youtubers go over these skills, watching the animations, graphical effects, and such.

And the entire class just SCREAMS "Mage". Spellcaster. Like the entire vibe of the class is "I'm a magician watch me cast these spells at you by reading my spellbook."

Even the skill names themselves, sound like Spells to me.

But every presentation of the class that I have seen from ZOS has been melee-based with melee weapons. No staves in sight. No regular mages. Unless I am missing something.

Why no love for the regular Staff Mage here?

Actually, if you want my opinion on this, it really SCREAMS "Support". In other words, my initial view on this is that Arcanist is kind of like the Necromancer or Templar class, as these two classes can hold their own without having to be 'married' to a magic staff.

To be honest, I could be wrong, however I think this is a good thing. As a melee, bow user I think this class will be just what the Dr ordered and looks fun. In the past I have used like a Destro staff build but I hate the way force pulse and other abilities work, just seems kind of clunky. Not to mention the fact I'm far more dangerous with a two hander than a staff.

So maybe its the Staff line itself that needs to be made a little friendlier and not the fault of the class. Like in PvP there are maybe 2 or 3 destro skills that are worth using but with heavy lag they take forever to fire, or forever to charge ult. There's a reason you see so many Stam Sorcs and Stamplars, stuff like that and its not meta, it just works better and more reliable.

TaSheen wrote: »

There does seem to be an almost "camouflaged" ice leaning. I'm not going to mess with thtat, as I simply have no interest in frost/ice magic, never have - fire's my thing, always has been.

But there are references in some of the stuff I've read that seem to indicate an ice push. IHere:

https://eso-hub.com/en/skills/arcanist/herald-of-the-tome/the-imperfect-ring

and the morphs.

See, Fire is not my thing at all. I prefer Lightning. I like Frost too, but Lightning has always been my jam. I only use Fire on my NB's main bar because there is no Destro staff that does Magic damage, and it's hard to pass up the extra single-target damage.

random note, I don't like the Fire/Frost HA though...that wind-up looks dumb. I wish they would change that to something like slamming your staff on the ground and casting a spell with the other hand.

But either way, I'm talking less about the actual function of the class, and more about the way that ZOS has presented it in previews and trailers.

My impression is that most of ESO's marketing leans more on non-magical content than the game does because it sells better.

Compare the trailer Ascendant Lord to the one we actually meet in game.