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BEGINNER ARCANIST TANK GUIDE

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Beginner Arcanist Tank

This is a simplified guide which skips a lot of nuance and is intended for beginners or players who don't intend to tackle extremely hard content. Every fight in ESO is situational and ideal skill/gear setup is different for almost every boss. This guide is a compromise where I'll be showing you a single skill setup and very few gear setups that might not be perfect for every single situation, but they'll be at the very least good enough for every situation, and won't overwhelm new players with lots of information.

Last updated: Update 44 - 18th December 2024

The Arcanist plays quite differently from other tank classes in ESO, with its main strength lying in its damage shields. The Impervious Runeward's damage shield value is incredibly high, and can be further buffed with the Intricate Runeforms passive. Arcanist also gets tons of raw stats from their passives and abilities. Runic Sunder and Aegis of the Unseen together provide 4180 additional armor. Wellspring of the Abyss will boost your recoveries for each Soldier of Apocrypha ability slotted, which will then also get boosted by Erudition on top of that.


In terms of group support, the Arcanist brings 2200 armor penetration from Runic Sunder, providing roughly a 4% damage increase. The Arcanist also has much easier access to the Minor Brittle debuff thanks to Rune of the Colorless Pool which increases critical damage by 10%, lasting 20 seconds compared to the usual 4 seconds that come from proccing the Chilled effect with an Ice Staff. The Arcanist also brings the almost unique Minor Evasion buff, reducing damage taken from area of effect attacks by 10%.

SKILL SETUPS


Front Bar Back Bar
Slot 1: Shield Throw Slot 1: Cruxweaver Armor
Slot 2: Soul Burst Slot 2: Wield Soul
Slot 3: Impervious Runeward Slot 3: Elemental Susceptibility
Slot 4: Ulfsild's Contingency Slot 4: Elemental Blockade
Slot 5: Runeguard of Still Waters Slot 5: Runic Sunder
Ultimate: Glyphic of the Tides Ultimate: Aggressive Horn

ADDITIONAL INFO:

GEAR

This is my suggested setup for dungeons. Since you can't fit in that many support sets in 4-man content, any combination of support sets will perform well.

Gear Slot Set Weight/Type Trait Enchantment

Head

 Archdruid Devyric Medium Reinforced Tri-Stat

Shoulders

 Archdruid Devyric Light Divines /Sturdy Tri-Stat

Chest

 Lucent Echoes Heavy Reinforced Tri-Stat

Hands

 Lucent Echoes Heavy Divines /Sturdy Tri-Stat

Belt

 Lucent Echoes Heavy Divines /Sturdy Tri-Stat

Legs

 Lucent Echoes Heavy Reinforced Tri-Stat

Boots

 Lucent Echoes Heavy Reinforced Tri-Stat

Necklace

 War Machine Jewelry Harmony /Infused Reduce Magicka Cost

Ring

 War Machine Jewelry Harmony /Infused Reduce Magicka Cost

Ring

 War Machine Jewelry Harmony /Infused Reduce Magicka Cost

Frontbar Main Hand

 Armor of the Trainee Any 1-handed weapon Decisive Hardening

Frontbar Off Hand

 Druid's Braid Shield Divines /Sturdy Tri-Stat

Backbar Main Hand

 War Machine Ice Staff Infused Crusher

ADDITIONAL INFO:

CHAMPION POINTS

Warfare

Fitness

ADDITIONAL INFO:

  • If you're a Nord with fully golded out gear and proper traits you will be over the armor cap with these Champion Points, so you can replace Bulwark with for example Focused Mending or Unassailable.

RACE

Nord is the best race for tanking, due to the increased armor from Rugged and ulti generation from Stalwart. The imbalance between different races can be massive for other classes, but Arcanists get tons of armor from Aegis of the Unseen and Runic Sunder, so the difference is very small.

MUNDUS

The best Mundus is The Atronach which increases your Magicka Recovery by 310 and causes your armor pieces with the Divines trait to increase it by another 28.

ATTRIBUTES

HEALTH

64

STAMINA

0

MAGICKA

0

Majority of the times you should put all your points into Health. However you need your Max Stamina to be higher than your Max Magicka, because the Combustion synergy restores your dominant resource and you want it to be Stamina. Because of that, you might have to put some attribute points into Stamina if you have passives (such as for example the Gift of Magnus racial) or item set bonuses (such as for example 1-piece bonus of Encratis's Behemoth) that increase your Max Magicka. Put just enough points to make your Max Stamina higher than your Max Magicka, and then put the rest into Health.

FOOD

The best food is Orzorga's Smoked Bear Haunch, however it's extremely expensive so you should use Jewels of Misrule instead, it provides only slightly lower stats than Orzorga's Smoked Bear Haunch while being significantly cheaper.

Other decent foods:

  • Orzorga's Red Frothgar - provides more Max Health and Magicka Recovery at the cost of providing no Stamina Recovery at all. Stamina Recovery doesn't work while blocking so it can be a decent option if you're permablocking
  • Bewitched Sugar Skulls - provides maximum resources instead of recoveries, can be decent for fights where you need to block for a very long time during a very specific period but the pressure is non-existent outside of that specific period so you can recuperate stamina by heavy attacking freely, for example Roksa the Warped boss in Bal Sunnar dungeon. The increased maximum resources will also increase the scaling of some of your healing abilities, such as Resolving Vigor
  • Candied Jester's Coin - provides only Max Stamina and Magicka Recovery, can be decent when you want to reduce your Max Health during a specific phase of a fight. For example, in Cloudrest you can eat it right as the execute phase starts, because Maximum Health becomes a detriment due to the Baneful Mark mechanic

POTIONS

Most of the time you should use Tri-Stat potions (Restore Health, Restore Stamina, Restore Magicka). They'll greatly improve you sustain. You can craft them by combining Columbine, Bugloss and Mountain's Flower.

There are better potions but they're extremely expensive so they're only worth using when you're tryharding for the most difficult achievments, such as trial trifectas. Heroism potions (Heroism, Restore Stamina, Restore Magicka) can provide a 100% uptime on Minor Heroism buff which generates ultimate, but they're extremely expensive because they're crafted by combining Dragon Rheum, Dragon's Blood and Columbine.