Tier 4 Grace of the Empress Arcanist Build Guide

Welcome to the Tier 4 Grace of the Empress Arcanist Build Guide! Arcanist is a relatively complex class which makes use of two different parts of her identity: Ruin Detonation and Card Meter. The first provides a stacking mechanic on the enemy, which is then "detonated" by using Ruin Skills; the second provides different buffs and utility through random Cards that are generated with your skills.

Grace of the Empress has poor Stagger but decent Destruction, a long-range Counter and some party-wide buffs including her Crit Rate Synergy.

Raids

Kurzan Front

Skills Setup

• Celestial Rain, Secret Garden, Four of a Kind, Serendipity and The Devil are your Ruin Skills. They detonate the Ruin stacks to deal massive damage.
• Spiral Edge, Scratch Dealer and Call of Destiny are your Stacking skills. They generate Ruin Stacks.
• Evoke is a Cards generator skill.
• Scratch Dealer is your Weakness Exposure Synergy skill, as well as a powerful Atk. Speed and Move Speed self-buff thanks to Safety Device.
• Call of Destiny is a powerful Crit Damage self-buff.
• Serendipity also is your Counter skill.

Alternative Skill, Tripod, and Rune Options

Evoke can be replaced with Dealer's Flip

• This lowers your Cards generation but adds another Stacking skill into the mix, as well as another Move Speed self-buff.

Skills Setup

• 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 Engravings

• Preemptive Strike
• Contender
• Raid Captain
• Cursed Doll
• Magick Stream

!

Warning

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

This build focuses on generating 4 Ruin Stacks, self-buffing your Move Speed, Crit Rate and Crit Damage, and using your Ruin Skills to detonate burst Ruin Damage.

Any Cards you draw can be saved or used instantly, depending on your needs and rotation. Generally speaking, you will save up any damage buff for your Ruin Skills, and instantly use any long-duration buffs to open room for more card draws. Remember, having one card in your deck prevents it from being drawn again, so don't hold for too long.

Arcanist generates Cards through certain skills and tripods. You can have up to 2 cards at the same time.

• Judgment: All Ruin Skills act as if they hit with 4 stacks, even with none.
• Royal: Draws 2 random Cards. Ideally used with an empty hand.
• Joy: Reduces cooldown of skills. Ideally used after you finish your rotation.
• Clown: Draws the most recently used card. Ideally paired with damage-increasing Cards like Cull, Twisted Fate or Judgment.
• Cull: Crit Rate +100% and Crit Damage +50% for 4 seconds. Used right before your next Ruin Skill to try and fit at least 2 of them.
• Twisted Fate: RNG Damage increase for 4 seconds. Used right before your next Ruin Skill to try and fit at least 2 of them.
• Star: Freezes your MP for 12 seconds, and reduces MP consumption of skills by 100%.
• Wheel of Fortune: Resets the cooldown of the next used skill. Ideally used for your Awakening or Celestial Rain.
• Corrosion, Mayhem, Balance, Ghost, Moon, 3-Headed Snake: These Cards can be used whenever they're obtained, since they're mostly long-duration buffs that will enhance your rotation in some way.

Arcanist Identity

There is no strict rotation as combat will require you to adapt to different situations, as well as different Cards altering your skill usage. Below, you can find a general starting rotation:

Basic Rotation

• You want to make sure your Ruin Skills are buffed by your Safety Device and Dark Destiny tripods, as well as your Weakness Exposure Synergy.
• You will utilize The Devil whenever possible, under the same conditions as the other Ruin Skills.

Card Usage

• These Cards are long-duration buffs that you can use quickly after obtaining. They either provide stats or utility.

• These are good utility Cards that can provide great value.
  • Clown should be used on high-value cards like Twisted Fate, Cull and Judgment to gain a second copy after using them.
  • Royal should be used to generate 2 new cards (with an empty deck).
  • Wheel of Fortune should be used before your Celestial Rain to reset its cooldown.
  • Joy is ideally used right after Celestial Rain, or at the end of your rotation to reduce as many cooldowns as possible.
  • Star should be used to extend your Boundless MP state.

• These are short-duration buffs that greatly increase damage. They're ideally paired with your Ruin Skills.
  • Judgment makes all your Ruin Skills work as if you had 4 Ruin stacks, so you ideally buff your Crit Rate and Crit Damage then use all your Ruin Skills one after the other.

Gems are another significant aspect of your build, as they directly impact the damage and cooldowns of your skills. You can equip up to 11 gems at a time. Here are the ones you should focus on to maximize this build's potential, listed according to their priority.

Engravings are a core part of your build. You can equip up to five at a time, freely swapping between them.

Bracelets provide beneficial effects to yourself or to your party members depending on the rolls they have.

The primary goal is to get the main stats used by this build Specialization and Crit. After that, you should be aiming for Special Rolls to get more damage. Please note that this system is heavily reliant on RNG, and you should not expect to get much more beyond your main stats early on.

The recommended Elixir Set for this build is Master.