Welcome to my Stamina Arcanist guide! This is a basic guide to beaming your foes to death with the power of your mind

This guide is mostly designed for PvE group play but can work well for solo play as well. (Though for extensive solo play, you may consider making some adjustments for survivability)

• Arcanist Basics
• Gear
  • Basics
  • Gear Setups
• Skills and Passives
  • All About Crux
  • Skills
  • Example Bar Setup
  • Quick Guide to Skill Casting
  • Rotation
  • Priority Passives
• Character
  • Race
  • Attributes
  • Mundus Stone
  • Consumables
  • Champion Points (level 50+)
• Sustain Tips

Arcanist Basics

Arcanist skills are themed based on Daedric Prince Hermaeus Mora, dealing with fate and knowledge, and summoning runes and tentacled creatures to assault enemies. Arcanists build much of their damage into one particular skill, their Fatecarver beam, a very powerful 4.5-second channel. Because arcanists spend so much time channeling this skill, they’re able to do strong damage with much simpler rotations than other classes. Arcanists are also able to build fairly tanky, as their main spammable skill also heals them, and one morph of their Fatecarver beam also provides a big damage shield. Damage-wise, arcanists tend to be especially good at:

• AoE damage: Arcanists do incredible area-of-effect (AoE) damage, with most of their highest damage skills (including the Fatecarver channel) able to hit multiple enemies at once
• DoT damage: Arcanists’ Fatecarver channel also allows them to do excellent damage-over-time (DoT) damage
• Midrange combat: While Fatecarver doesn’t have quite the range of proper ranged skills, it can still travel much farther than melee skills, allowing arcanists to hit enemies from moderately far away

Gear

Basics

• We’ll use mostly medium armor. The Medium Armor skill line provides damage bonuses and stamina recovery that will be very helpful to doing as much damage as possible and keeping up our resources
  • One or two light armor pieces can be helpful as well, as the Light Armor skill line provides penetration, one of the most potent of all stats. Most endgame builds will use one light armor piece and six medium
• We’ll use dual wield daggers on our frontbar. Dual daggers will provide the best damage stats of any weapon, mostly because of the Twin Blade and Blunt passive providing a large critical chance bonus
  • If you’d like, you can also use a different weapon such as a two-handed greatsword or a bow. These will generally do a little less damage, but they’ll still do just fine
• For our backbar weapon, inferno staves will the most effective option for an arcanist, but two-handed greatswords or bows will also do nicely. This guide will favor the optimal inferno staff; however, a few different setup options will also be shown for greatswords and bows
  • Note that despite the magical inclination of a staff, we can still use a staff on a stamina-based build. There’s no penalty or disadvantage for doing so

Gear Setups

There are many great options for gear. These are some of my favorites that will be especially effective, but experiment with other sets and find what works best for you!

Skills and Passives

All About Crux

Crux is a special resource the arcanist can use, and is a special gimmick that will let us generate lots of extra damage. Certain abilities will create a crux when used, and other abilities will spend that crux to become more powerful. The crux you have will be shown by green triangle runes floating around your character; you can also download addons like Crux Counter to show your crux count in other ways

You can hold up to three crux at once; you won’t be able to generate any more past this limit

For a DPS build, we will be generating crux with our spammable (usually Cephaliarch’s Flail), and using that crux to enhance our Fatecarver beam. Every crux we have available to spend when we cast Fatecarver will increase its damage by 33%, offering essentially double damage if we cast it with full three crux

As further incentive to utilize the crux mechanic, several passives in the arcanist skill lines give you bonuses for generating or spending crux, in the form of extra resources (Hideous Clarity), extra damage stats (Fated Fortune), and extra ultimate (Implacable Outcome)

Skills

I’m listing way more skills than will actually fit on your bars, just to emphasize how many good options there are. See Example Bar Setup below for a specific example of a bar setup, but ultimately you can just pick whatever skills you like best!

Choose a spammable

This is our main crux generator. The arcanist playstyle somewhat pigeonholes us into using a class skill, since others won’t generate the crux we need to enhance our Fatecarver beam

• Cephaliarch’s Flail: This skill does it all: deals respectable damage, generates a crux, heals you, and debuffs enemies to make you deal 5% extra damage to them with all your abilities. On top of that, it cleaves to hit all enemies in front of you, rather than hitting just one target like most spammables. The one drawback of this skill is its cast time, but its absolutely overpowered menagerie of effects more than makes up for this
• Escalating Runeblades: This is an alternative to Cephaliarch’s Flail, but is definitively inferior in most ways. While capable of a little more raw damage, it lacks the 5% damage debuff, the heal, and most of the cleave damage that Flail has. It does, however, have longer range and no cast time. In general, you should just use Flail unless you really find its cast time bothersome

Choose a Fatecarver morph

This skill is the core of our build, capable of dealing upwards of 40-50% of our total damage

• Pragmatic Fatecarver: A 4.5-second-long channeled beam that obliterates everything in front of you. Cast Fatecarver with crux available to make it deal 33% more damage for each crux. The Pragmatic morph also spends less stamina if you cast it with crux, and gives you a huge damage shield while the beam is channeling. With Pragmatic you’ll be fairly tanky
  • Unlike most skills, Fatecarver will slowly drain your stamina over its duration, rather than having one big upfront cost
• Exhausting Fatecarver: No shield or cost reduction, but the channel will last up to one second longer (if you have full crux) to do more damage
  • The damage increase from using this morph is usually hardly noticeable except at very advanced levels of play. Most people will get much more benefit from Pragmatic’s shield

Choose some DoTs

Fill up the rest of your skill slots with DoTs, and optionally utility skills (see below)

• Inspired Scholarship: This important skill has several features. It deals out damage every few seconds as long as we’re using other class abilities (which we most certainly will be), and gives us the Major Brutality/Sorcery damage buffs. Most importantly though, it generates a crux whenever our class skills do damage while our crux is at zero. This will effectively allow us to only cast our crux spammable twice instead of three times to fill up our three crux
  • Normally what will happen is our crux will drop to zero as soon as we cast Fatecarver, and while Fatecarver is channeling it will cause Scholarship to generate one crux back
  • Or, if we cast our spammable while our crux happens to be empty, we’ll generate two crux instead of one
  • Scholarship will only generate a crux if our crux is empty, so if Scholarship isn’t active when you generate your first crux, you’ll miss your chance for that extra crux. Make sure to keep this skill running!
• Fulminating Rune: Deals good AoE DoT damage, and offers your group a synergy to put out even more damage
• Elemental Blockade: Great AoE DoT
  • Unlike other classes, arcanists usually prefer the longer-duration morph so that we can spend more time casting our higher-damage Fatecarver beam
• Barbed Trap: Provides Minor Force to increase your crit damage, as well as applying a DoT
• Quick Cloak / Deadly Cloak: Good AoE DoT that also protects you with Major Evasion. Deadly will do more damage, but Quick will last longer and also give you a movement speed boost
  • Unlike other classes, arcanists usually prefer the longer-duration morph so that we can spend more time casting our higher-damage Fatecarver beam
• Scalding Rune: Decent AoE DoT. Has a small radius but is good for a little extra damage
• Anti-Cavalry Caltrops: Decent AoE DoT

Choose some utility skills (optional)

Miscellaneous skills you can use for buffs and extra damage

• Banner Bearer [scribed version]: For this scribing skill, use the scripts as listed below to provide several passive buffs to both yourself and allies near you. Banner Bearer comes at the cost of some resource sustain, so you may need to make an adjustment or two elsewhere to keep up your resources
  • Scripts
    • Focus: Magic Damage will increase Magical damage (i.e. magic/flame/shock/frost damage) for all allies standing near you
    • Signature: Class Mastery will give us the huge benefit of a free crux every 5 seconds, allowing us to cast Fatecarver more often without needing to manually build as much crux
    • Affix: Savagery and Prophecy will provide us (but not allies) with Major Savagery/Prophecy damage buffs
  • Other script setups may also be useful in some scenarios, but this will be a high-performing option in general. Heroism Affix is a particularly strong alternative to give you (and allies in range) Minor Heroism, if you can set up an alternative source of Major Savagery/Prophecy
    • Note: An affix for a Major buff like Major Savagery/Prophecy will apply to only you. An affix for a Minor buff like Minor Heroism will be given to allies as well
  • Banner must be slotted on both your bars, or else it will un-summon when you swap
• Camouflaged Hunter: You can slot this skill passively for its Major Savagery/Prophecy damage buffs. (No need to cast this skill; it’s just for the passive buffs)
• Resolving Vigor: Powerful heal skill. Also protects us with Minor Resolve
• Zenas’ Empowering Disc / Reconstructive Domain: Provides your group with sustain buffs and the rare Minor Courage buff for extra damage. This powerful skill is a staple in most trial groups. Zenas’ is often the stronger choice, letting your allies keep the debuffs for a while even if they leave its AoE circle, but Reconstructive provides healing for your group and can be useful too
• Rune of the Colorless Pool: Debuffs an enemy with Minor Vulnerability and the rare Minor Brittle. This powerful skill is another staple in some trial groups
• Cruxweaver Armor: Protects you with Major Resolve, and generates extra crux if you take direct damage (i.e. non-DoT damage). This skill can be extremely useful if you’re taking hits frequently, as it will let you cast Fatecarver more often
• Runeguard of Freedom: Protects you with Minor Protection, and your whole group with Minor Resolve
• Shrouded Daggers: Mostly useful as a ranged interrupt. Also cleaves to multiple enemies

Choose ultimates

Very high damage skills you can cast when your Ultimate meter is full. Normally you’ll want Tide King or Languid on your backbar, and either Dawnbreaker or Tide/Languid again on your front

• The Tide King’s Gaze / The Languid Eye: Deals lots of damage in a small area over 6 seconds. Tide King lasts longer and follows the target if it moves, while Languid stays in place but does increasing damage each tick
  • Despite Tide King’s longer timer, Languid will do a little more damage overall; however, Tide King’s target tracking can often make it worth using anyway
• Flawless Dawnbreaker: You can optionally slot this passively on your frontbar for the Slayer passive in Fighters Guild, with Tide King or Languid on your backbar. (You won’t normally actually cast Dawnbreaker; it’s just there for the passive stat boost)

Example Bar Setup

Consider these setups as a template for your own setup; there’s not necessarily a need to follow them exactly. Skills marked “Flex” in particular are good candidates to be replaced with other skills that you prefer, or ones of the opposite stat cost if you’re having sustain trouble

Quick Guide to Skill Casting

Remember, there is a one second global cooldown (GCD) for casting skills. After you cast a skill, you are unable to cast another skill for one second. Therefore, anytime you’re not channeling your Fatecarver beam, it is ideal to cast skills on a consistent rhythm of one skill per second, the maximum speed allowed by the GCD. Consider using a metronome addon to get accustomed to this rhythm

• Naturally, casting this frequently will burn through a lot of resources, but any second where you’re not casting a skill is a second wasted where you could have been doing more damage! But see Sustain Tips below if you’re running out of resources
• Also remember to weave a light attack between each skill. Along with dealing extra damage, this will cause you to generate ult and also assist in applying your weapon enchantments, which are activated by light attacks and weapon skills. A successful weaver will cast one skill and one light attack in each one-second interval (except while channeling Fatecarver)

Rotation

Your main goal in your rotation is to be channeling a three-crux Fatecarver beam as much of the time as possible

If you are using Banner Bearer, a basic rotation that will accomplish this is simply starting your rotation with Inspired Scholarship and then casting in a repeating pattern:

Scholarship will generate your first crux when you do damage with Flail or Fatecarver, and Banner Bearer will generate another crux every 5 seconds, so one cast of Flail will be enough to fill your crux. Make sure to re-cast Inspired Scholarship whenever it runs out, roughly every fourth Fatecarver or so

If you are not using Banner Bearer, you will need an extra cast of Flail to build to three crux, since you won’t have Banner giving you crux:

• Regardless of your setup, try to avoid casting Fatecarver before you have three crux, and absolutely do not cancel Fatecarver while it’s channeling unless you have a really good reason to (e.g. if you’re going to die, or if there just aren’t any enemies nearby to hit). Fatecarver is by far your biggest damage source, and gets much more powerful with crux, so you very much want it to be beaming at full crux as much of the time as possible
• Along the same line of reasoning, try to avoid casting your spammable when you already have three crux. The more time you spend spamming, the less time you’re spending beaming
• If you’re using Cruxweaver Armor and getting damaged often enough to proc its extra crux consistently, you might find that you don’t need to cast Flail at all to get to three crux. However, make sure to use Flail at least once in a while to apply its 5% damage debuff

If you’re using DoTs or buffs, make sure to keep those running too! Anytime you’re not channeling Fatecarver, cast your DoTs and buffs whenever their timers run out

Your priorities in casting your skills are:

• Whenever one of your DoT or buff timers has run out or is about to, cast that skill again to keep it running!
• Whenever your cooldowns are all still running, spam Cephaliarch’s Flail until you have three crux, and then cast Pragmatic Fatecarver when you do have three crux
  • Try to avoid recasting DoTs long before their timers expire, unless the enemy has moved out of the skill’s area. This will usually not provide much or any additional damage

You should spend most of your time on your frontbar. Just go to your backbar briefly to refresh skill timers

Priority Passives

All passives are useful for something, but these are the passives that will be most relevant to combat

Herald of the Tome: Everything: Fated Fortune, Harnessed Quintessence, Psychic Lesion, Splintered Secrets

Soldier of Apocrypha: Circumvented Fate, Implacable Outcome

Curative Runeforms: Hideous Clarity, Erudition, Intricate Runeforms

Dual Wield: Everything: Slaughter, Dual Wield Expert, Controlled Fury, Ruffian, Twin Blade and Blunt

Destruction Staff: Penetrating Magic, Elemental Force, Ancient Knowledge, Destruction Expert

Light Armor (only if wearing some light pieces): Evocation, Spell Warding, Prodigy, Concentration

Medium Armor: Dexterity, Wind Walker, Agility, Athletics

Fighters Guild: Slayer, Banish the Wicked, Skilled Tracker

Undaunted: Everything: Undaunted Command, Undaunted Mettle

Assault: Continuous Attack

Racial: Everything

Alchemy (if using potions): Medicinal Use

Character

Race

Racial differences are relatively minimal, so I advise simply picking a race you like. But if you’re wanting to optimize, the best options are:

• Dark Elf (best damage)
• Orc /  Khajiit (next-best damage)
• Redguard /  Wood Elf (best sustain)

Attributes

All 64 points belong in Stamina. Your skills do more healing based on your Max Stamina value (or Magicka, whichever is higher), so it is ideal to build one value as high as possible

Mundus Stone

• The Lover
  • Gives you extra penetration to shred through enemies’ defenses. This is a great option for (1) when you’re leveling, or (2) when you’re not with a particularly organized group. When in doubt, Lover is likely the way to go
• The Thief
  • Increases your critical chance, which is another excellent stat for maximizing damage. This is the best option when you have skill points, Champion Points, and group support invested into maxing out your penetration already

Consumables

Foods/Drinks

• Dubious Camoran Throne: Max Heath/Stamina, Stamina Recovery
  • Good for general use, with a good mix of stats and sustain
• Braised Rabbit with Spring Vegetables /  Garlic Cod with Potato Crust /  Sticky Pork and Radish Noodles (all equivalent): Max Health/Stamina (CP 150+)
  • Use this if you don’t need extra sustain; higher stats but no sustain buff
• Lava Foot Soup-and-Saltrice: Max Stamina, Stamina Recovery
  • Use this for low-pressure situations where you don’t need extra survivability; higher stamina and recovery but no health buff

Potions

• Crown Tri-Restoration Potion: Max Health/Magicka/Stamina, Health/Magicka/Stamina Recovery
  • Easy free option if accumulated from daily rewards
• Stamina Potion: Max Stamina, Stamina Recovery
  • Also a probably-free option that is easily looted from the wild; also craftable

Champion Points (level 50+)

A rough progression of what CP nodes to start with once you hit level 50. You’ll be able to use more and more of these nodes as you gain experience and accumulate more Champion Points. Fill each node completely before moving on to the next one

Warfare

• Start with Precision and (in the Extended Might sub-tree) Piercing
• Then add these four slottables: Thaumaturge, Biting Aura, Wrathful Strikes, Exploiter (in the Extended Might sub-tree). (Make sure you add them to your Champion Bar or they’ll have no effect!)
• Next grab Tireless Discipline, and also the non-slottable CP from the Extended Might sub-tree (i.e. skip any CP with the “Add to Champion Bar to activate” note)
• Finally add the rest of the non-slottable CP throughout the Warfare tree

Fitness

• Take these three slottables: Rejuvenation, Boundless Vitality, Fortified. (Make sure you add them to your Champion Bar or they’ll have no effect!)
• Grab Sprinter, Hasty (in the Wind Chaser sub-tree), and Hero’s Vigor
• Take the rest of the non-slottable CP throughout the Fitness tree, including those in the three subtrees
• At some point during the above step, take one more slottable CP of your choice (Celerity (in the Wind Chaser sub-tree), Bloody Renewal, Spirit Mastery are some of the most useful ones)

Craft

• Use whatever you’d like here; these points mostly don’t affect your combat skill. There are lots of options for crafting, stealth, movement speed, and more in this tree
• Some early nodes I find good for very general usage include Steed’s Blessing, Breakfall, and Wanderer

Sustain Tips

Need some more stamina sustain? Try these tips, in roughly this priority order:

• Have you bought all your passives? Your Medium Armor and class skill lines in particular have several passives that will give you extra stamina
• Are you using mostly medium armor? If not, consider doing so to get lots of extra stamina from the Wind Walker passive
• Do you have CP points in the Rejuvenation passive (red tree)?
• Are you using several magicka-costing skills like  Fulminating Rune and Elemental Blockade? The more you use magicka skills, the less you’ll be using up your stamina
• Are you using food with a stamina recovery buff, like  Dubious Camoran Throne?
• Are you using a potion with a stamina recovery buff? If so, do you have the Medicinal Use passive unlocked from the Alchemy crafting skill line? Without this passive, your potions will run out a while before you’re able to drink another one, but it does unfortunately require leveling Alchemy
• Are you using stamina recovery glyphs on some or all of your jewelry? (This is only recommended if needed, since weapon damage glyphs will provide more damage)