Order of the Emperor Arcanist Build Guide

Builds

Raids

Chaos Dungeons

Need some tips for general content? Check out our Guardian Raids and Abyssal Dungeons guides.

• Return is your Counter as well as your Crit Rate Synergy. It's also a Crit Damage self-buff.
• Stream of Edge is used as a Crit Rate self-buff as well as a Stacking skill. It can provide up to 3 Ruin stacks.
• Call of Destiny is another Crit Damage self-buff, it provides 2 Ruin stacks thanks to Fake Flip.
• Evoke, Dark Resurrection and Unlimited Shuffle are your main Card Meter generators. They're also your main damage skills.
• Celestial Rain is used to consume 4 Ruin stacks to deal good damage.
• Mysterious Stampede is used to draw cards with Quick Draw.
• Prismatic Mirror is your Awakening skill, used to activate your Nightmare Set effect. It also generates 2 Cards.

Check the Rune Guide for more details on Runes and how to obtain them.

This build is optimized and meant to be used only in Chaos Dungeons. For Ebony Cube please use a Raid build.

• Evoke, Unlimited Shuffle and Dark Resurrection are your main lesser monster killers. They have decent AoE and generate a lot of Card meter.
• Dancing of Spineflower is a good skill for lesser mob cleaning.
• Stream of Edge and Spiral Edge are mostly used to generate Ruin stacks on Bosses.
• Celestial Rain is used to detonate Ruin Stacks on bosses.

Recommended Engraving Setup

Acquiring additional engravings leads to a faster clear potential, but the build can perform quite well with the bare minimum.

Minimum requirements

• Preemptive Strike causes your attacks to deal immense amounts of damage to monsters that you haven't attacked yet, making it ideal for Chaos Dungeons.
• Order of the Emperor is highly recommended as Emperor card has massive damage and AoE, as well as leaning more towards the Card generation aspect of Arcanist since stacking Ruin against lesser mobs is not as effective.

Additional engravings

• Contender is a stacking Attack Power effect that increases in strength once you kill a monster, making it ideal for Chaos Dungeons.
• Raid Captain provides damage based on your Bonus Movement Speed, synergizing well with the Buff Nodes scattered throughout Chaos Dungeons.
• Hit Master provides an unconditional damage boost to your skills, as none of the important ones have a positional affix.

Gameplay & Skill Rotation

Basic Rotations

Opening Rotation

• This rotation allows you to quickly enter Boundless while buffing your main damage skills.
• After entering boundless, you no longer have a strict rotation due to cooldowns coming back at different times. Instead, you follow a general "priority" system:
  • Always maintain your self-buffs up: Stream of Edge, Call of Destiny (whenever they're available) and Return (at least once every 10 seconds).
  • For damage, your priority is Evoke > Dark Resurrection > Celestial Rain (always use at 4 Ruin stacks) > Unlimited Shuffle.
  • You fill the gaps with Mysterious Stampede.

Card Usage

• These cards are either long-duration buffs or instant effects that should be used as soon as obtained to keep generating more cards.
  • Royal is ideally used with an empty deck to generate 2 cards instead of 1.
  • Star is used during Boundless MP state to freeze your mana and maintain it longer.

• These are short-duration buffs or utility used to greatly buff your damage.
  • Twisted Fate, Cull and Sovereign are 4-seconds buffs, so they're used right before your damaging skills.
  • Wheel of Fortune resets the cooldown of the next skill you use. Use it with Dark Resurrection.
  • Joy reduces the remaining cooldown of your skills, use it right after Dark Resurrection.

Stagger Check Rotation

• Since your skills deal delayed damage, they also have delayed stagger. Keep this in mind when facing short stagger checks.
• Remember you can also use a Whirlwind Grenade if you have one equipped!

Tripods and Gems

Tripod Levelling

Gems

Stat Priority

• Swiftness is the primary stat. It provides Cooldown Reduction and Attack speed, which helps you stay in Boundless and reduce long animations.
• Crit is your secondary stat.

Gear Set

Nightmare Set

Engravings

Engraving Explanations

• Order of the Emperor is the core of this build, adding 3 new cards to your kit and buffing Normal Skills damage.
• Grudge increases damage done while also increasing damage received. The engraving is a highly effective damage increase without needing specific positioning, making it worthwhile even with the penalty.
• Raid Captain provides damage based on bonus Move Speed, which you obtain from high Swiftness, Support buffs and Boundless MP.

• Mass Increase provides a big Attack Power boost with a reduced attack speed penalty. Due to the myriad of attack speed buffs we have, this penalty is negated.
• Hit Master provides damage to non-positional damage. None of your Normal skills have positional modifiers, making this a great choice.

• Adrenaline ideal at level 1 or 2.

Bracelet

Elixir

Card Sets

• Deep Dive is used early on as it is fairly easy to obtain.
• Light of Salvation is the standard endgame option, but it can take a long time to acquire 30-piece Awakening.
• Kazeros's Legion Commanders is used as an alternative to Light of Salvation, in content where enemies have a weakness to Dark Damage.

End Game Damage Card Set