Introduction
The Order of the Emperor Arcanist is a high mobility and Attack Speed focused class with low survivability. This class mainly focuses on the Combat Stat Swiftness to decrease the high Cooldown time of her main damage skills.
Arcanist has 3 different categories of skills in her arsenal. Normal Skills deal high damage, with the help of Order of the Emperor. Filling up the Deck Meter or triggering the Quick Draw Tripod of a Normal Skill pulls a random Specialty Card from Arcanist's Card Deck.
Stacking Skills provide useful buffs, mobility and add at least one Stack to the targets hit by the skill.
Ruin Skills should be only used once you applied 4 Stacks to your target by using Stacking Skills. Ruin Skills usually consume all Stacks applied on the target and deal high damage based on the Stack count.
Arcanist, is a versatile class that requires a lot of micromanagement since the cards you pull from your Card Deck have various effects. These cards will need to be used at the correct moment to increase your damage or survivability.
The focus of this build is to deal high damage with your Normal Skills and the use of the Emperor card. On top of that, Order of the Emperor replaces Judgment and Balance Specialty Cards with Sovereign and Chancellor. Both of these cards further increase the damage of your Normal Skills.
Be aware that the following recommendation mainly focuses on the Nightmare Relic set based build, since this is the most beginner-friendly and least support buffs, Runes and buff food reliant build. Arcanist has multiple different viable builds around different set combination (6 Domination, 2Nightmare+4 Domination), once you are more confident with the current playstyle, you can experiment with other set and skill options.
This build guide assumes you have a Character at Level 50 before transitioning to it. Check out the Arcanist Leveling and 1-50 Leveling guides to reach Level 50.
Check out the Empress's Grace Arcanist build for an alternative Arcanist play style.
Check out the Guardian Raids, Abyssal Dungeons and Legion Raids guides for an introduction to their content.
Raid Skill Build
- Dark Resurrection, Evoke and Unlimited Shuffle are your main Damage skills.
- Stream of Edge increases your Movement Speed and Crit Rate.
- Return is your Counter Skills and gives applies a Crit synergy buff.
Gameplay & Skill Rotation
The Gameplay of an Order of the Emperor Arcanist revolves around the Skill Rotation and Identity Cards usage, which need to be managed simultaneously to maximize the damage output and survivability. In combination with the Nightmare Flower Set, you will focus on using your highest Damage skills on cooldown. There is no particular rotation. Instead, you need to make sure that your Crit and Movement Speed buffs are always active when your main Damage Skills hit the enemy.
Skill Rotation:
- Call of Destiny to apply bleed and pull with luch a specialty card you can use to buff yourself.
- (Use Prismatic Mirror to trigger the Nightmare Flower Set effect.) Only at the start of the fight.
- 2x Evoke
- Stream of Edge
- Dark Resurrection
- Return
- Unlimited Shuffle
- Celestial Rain
- Mysterious Stampede
Don't hold Return, instead just tap it, if there is not much time left before a buff disappears or the boss moves away. This will guarantee that the buff and debuff are applied before the first hit of Dark Resurrection.
Identity Cards & Combos:
Every time you fill up your Deck Meter or trigger Quick Draw, you draw a random card from your Identity Card Deck. You can draw and hold up to 2 Identity Cards in your hand. Below is a list of all available Identity Cards.
- Corrosion
- Mayhem
- Three-Headed Snake
- Twisted Fate
- Cull
- Ghost
- Chancellor
- Sovereign
- Moon
- Royal
- Star
- Emperor
- Wheel of Fortune
- Joy
- Clown
Try to memorize the usage and combos of the most important Identity Cards listed below, to maximize your damage out put.
- Corrosion, Mayhem, Three-Headed Snake, Ghost and Royal can be activated as soon as you pull those, since these cards provide you with a long duration buff which are beneficial throughout the entire fight.
- Use Chancellor and/or Sovereign after using Return to fully buff your follow-up Normal Skill's Damage.
- Cull is one of the best cards to multiply your damage out put. You should combine it with the cards listed below to maximize the efficiency of it.
- After activating Wheel of Fortune, the next skill you use will have it Cooldown reset. This includes your Awakening skills. But with this build, it is more beneficial to reset the Cooldown of Dark Resurrection.
- Sovereign or Twisted Fate (if you are lucky with the proc), in combination with Cull are your strongest 2-cards combos. Use this after Return.
- Use Joy while your main Damage skills are on Cooldown.
- Moon should be used before you use your main Damage skills.
- Clown is great to copy the following cards: Cull, Sovereign or Wheel of Fortune.
- Use Star only if you expect a huge downtime on skills before a major boss mechanic or if you are about to use a high Damage combo. Since you want to stay in “Boundless MP” state with your Nightmare Flower Set effect, avoid using this card incorrectly.
- You can use Emperor skill immediately to deal high damage in a huge area around you. On top of that, this card deals decent Stagger Damage. But make sure that your self buffs are all active, before you use this card.
Stats Priority
The Order of the Emperor Arcanist build mainly focuses on Swiftness, which decrease the high Cooldown time of her main damage skills. The increased Attack Speed further helps to execute your main damage rotation faster before the target moves away. On top of that, it helps you to stay on “Boundless MP” state with your Nightmare Flower Set effect. You need Crit only on your necklace, since Arcanist has various buffs, which increase her Crit Chance and Damage.
Bracelet
Bracelets provide beneficial effects to yourself or to your party members depending on the rolls.
Note: Bracelets should not be your top priority to optimize since it'll be much more efficient to optimize your other gear first. Bracelets are costly! So slowly build towards a Main Stat and a Sub Stat. Anything else is extra!
Check out the Bracelet Guide for more details.
Possible Special Effects to Roll:
Optimal
Crit
Swiftness
Circulate
Fervor
Hammer
Wedge
Alternatives
Precise
Raid
Superiority
Sawtooth Blade
Weapon Power
Harvest
Expose Weakness
Dagger
Engravings
Class Engravings provide powerful benefits that can significantly change playstyle. Battle Engravings are generally used to increase damage. Below are the recommended Engravings for this build.
Check out the Engraving Guide for more details.
Starter Engravings
- Order of the Emperor increases damage of Normal Skills. Adds the Emperor card to the Card Deck. It also replaces Judgment and Balance Specialty Cards with Sovereign and Chancellor.
- Raid Captain synergizes well with the Movement Speed buffs provided by your skills and the Combat Stat Swiftness.
Add-On Endgame Engravings
- Grudge* increases damage done while also increasing damage received. The engraving is a highly effective damage increase that does not require specific positioning, making it worthwhile even with the penalty.
- Adrenaline increases your Attack Power and Crit rate and can be easily kept at max stack with the low Cooldown skills of Arcanist. Once we have Bracelets, you can replace this engraving for one of the other Engravings listed below.
- Mass Increase increases the Attack Power. The Attack Speed reduction is countered by reaching high Swiftness and Set Effect.
- Hit Master is great for Arcanist, since most of her skills don't rely on Back or Front Attack.
- Cursed Doll* provides a significant Attack Power increase at the cost of 25% healing penalty. The healing penalty can be punishing for inexperienced players not familiar with boss mechanics.
(*)These Engravings should only be used at Engraving Level 3.
Optimal Setups
Engravings are listed in order of priority from left to right.
Standard
Alternative
Gear Sets
These are the specific gear sets for each tier.
Check out the Gear Set Guide for more details.
Early Game
250-1100 gearscore
Providence Set
1250-1340 gearscore
Dimensional Set
Early Tier 3
1340 -1414 gearscore
Erupting Waves Set
Piercing Gaze Set
Craft any combination of the legendary gear sets listed above and try to push to 1415 as soon as possible.
Tier 3 Legion Raid Set
1415-1490-1580+ gearscore
Nightmare Set
The name of your set will change with every higher tier gearset you acquire, but the set effect will remain the same. Look for the keyword of your set when recrafting it so you don't easily get lost.(e.g Entropy, Hallucination etc)
Sidereal Weapon
Recommended Sidereal Unity Effects for your Sefirot Leia are Thirain and Balthorr.
Check out the Sidereal Weapon Guide for more details.
Runes
Runes enhance Skills with extra bonuses. All Rune drops are account bound and have limited availability, so placement of Runes on the correct Skills is important. Below are the recommended pairings.
Check the Rune Guide for more details.
| Skills | Runes |
| Call of Destiny | Bleed |
| Return | Rage |
| Dark Resurrection | Galewind |
| Evoke | Wealth |
| Unlimited Shuffle | Galewind |
| Mysterious Stampede | Quick Recharge |
| Stream of Edge | Quick Recharge |
| Celestial Rain | Quick Recharge |
- Low Cooldown skills equipped with Quick Recharge help to shorten the Cooldown on your main Damage skills.
- Galewind helps to execute your main Damage skills faster.
Gear Skill Tree
While Gems add benefits to skills, you can also increase the effects of Skill Tree themselves. Skill Tree levels go up to 5 and each level can increase the damage, cooldown reduction or buff that they provide.
For more information on how to add equipment Skill Tree and how to get them, please visit our Skill Tree System Guide.
| Celestial Rain | Vital Point Hit Enhanced Strike Weak Point Detection |
| Dark Resurrection | Piercing Strike Intense Card Furious Blow |
| Evoke | Quick Prep Conc. Magick Circle |
| Call of Destiny | Nimble Movement Quick Draw Fake Flip |
| Return | Exposed Darkness |
| Unlimited Shuffle | Quick Prep Ultimate Shuffle Storm of Dest. |
| Mysterious Stampede | Quick Draw Stampede Conc. |
| Stream of Edge | Dark Edge |
Gems
Gems grant bonus damage and cooldown reduction to specific skills. You can only equip 11 of these Gems at a time so it is recommended that you prioritize the Gems for your most important skills.
Please visit our Gem System Guide for more information like how to create higher tier Gems.
Attack Gems
Dark Resurrection
Evoke
Unlimited Shuffle
Celestial Rain
Emperor
Cooldown Gems
Dark Resurrection
Evoke
Unlimited Shuffle
Celestial Rain
Return
Stream of Edge
Card Sets
Cards are an endgame system for maximizing your character. Below are the recommend sets for this class.
Check out the Card Guide for more details on how to obtain them.
Budget Damage Card Set
Budget Damage Card Set 2
This card set does not replace Light of Salvation set or Kazero's Legion Commanders set, but it can be use if you're new to the game and has set to get your Light of Salvation/Kazero's Legion Commanders set +18 or +30 yet.
Optimal Damage Card Set
Summary
- The Order of the Emperor Arcanist is a high mobility and Attack Speed class with low survivability.
- Swiftness is the main Combat Stat of the Order of the Emperor Arcanist.
- Normal Skills are your main Damage sources.
- Stacking Skills provide useful buffs, mobility and add at least one Stack to the targets hit the skill.
- Ruin Skills consume all Stacks applied on the target and deal damage based on the Stack count.
- Skill Rotation and Identity Cards usage, need to be managed simultaneously to maximize the damage output and survivability of Arcanist.
Credits
Written by Perciculum
Reviewed by
