Introduction
The Arcanist is Lost Ark's magical card class that plays more closely to a brawler than your traditional mage. She has an array of cards for any situation and can be quite elusive when played correctly.
This class is very unforgiving due to the nature of her kit and defense values. Although you have a lot of zone control, mobility and damage, they are very long and predictable in high rank PvP. The class is very reliant on the ability of the user to bring the most out of her kit. If you want a fun, yet challenging battle mage esque class, look no forward to dueling your opponents with the Arcanist.
This article assumesyou have a Character with a minimum level of 26 before transitioning to it. Check out the Arcana Levelingand 1-50 Leveling guides to reach Level 26.
Check out the General PvP Guide for a better understanding of the arena systems in place.
Difficulty
intermediate
Mobility
High
Survivability
Average
Damage
High
Core Skills
- Unlimited Shuffle is a great catch skill that leads into your combos. You can only cancel out of the skill with your space bar so be careful when locking yourself in the skill.
- Dark Resurrection is a catch/combo skill. Don't be afraid to toss it out to catch opponents in the circle.
- Dealer's Flip is a great mobility skill with Paralysis Immunity that allows the class to become even more mobile. Use it to get a good position/escape.
- Scratch Dealer is great mobility/catch skill that has a Knockdown on the 2nd combo.
- Spiral Edge is mainly used as your Push Immunity protection skill. You can also catch people with this skill when trading skills.
- Dancing of Spineflower one of your main nuke/combo extender skills. This skill is quite flexible as it can also be used as a protection skill for Paralysis Immunity. Using the skill again will teleport you back to where you started the skill and for additional damage.
- Stream of Edge a great zoning/peel tool. It will stun opponents touching the triangle after a few ticks.
- Celestial Rain your "spender" skill that does high damage to opponents. This skill is quite flexible and can also be used as a catch tool. Don't be afraid to use it at lower than 4 card stacks if you must.
- Secret Garden is an optional ruin skill you can add to your build for more damage. At max cards stacks, the skill will also Knockdown opponents.
- Evoke is an alternative skill over Dark Resurrection if you want. Functions the same (Damage + Combo).
Cards
- Mayhem, Corrosion, Three-Headed Snake, Ghost, Moon, Royal, Star are cards just used generally, don't need to hold onto these cards for too long.
- Wheel of Fortune is usually used on Unlimited Shuffle or Stream of Edge.
- Balance and Judgment is nice for quick combos.
- Cull is probably your best card to hold onto for combos. Twisted Fate can also work but is unreliable.
- Try to use the new Joker card with any of the high priority cards.
PvP Builds
- Team Deathmatch (3v3)
- Team Elimination (1v1)
- GvG
Team Deathmatch (3v3)
Combat Stats
750 Swiftness, 1 Critical and 249 Domination
Standard
Double Yellow
Alternatives
- Unlimited Shuffle can be used with Core of Darkness if you prefer a Knockdown effect. Storm of Dest. is also another option for a faster skill at the cost of lower AoE.
- Deathbound can be used but be sure to use it with max stacks (skill is less flexible than Prismatic Mirror).
Basic Combo #1
- Catch with Unlimited Shuffle or any CC.
- Follow with Dark Resurrection or Evoke.
- Call of Destiny
- Finish with Celestial Rain.
Note: If you happen to have any combo cards like Cull, you can pop them when you're guaranteed the combo off any of your skills.
Basic Combo #2
- Catch with Scratch Dealer (don't 2nd combo).
- Call of Destiny
- Finish with Celestial Rain.
Gameplay
- Unlimited Shuffle and Stream of Edge are big skills so use them wisely! Shuffle as both a peel and catch tool, while Stream mainly for zoneing purposes.
- Try to get at least 4 stacks on the target before popping your Ruin Skill on them for maximum damage (the red skills themselves have short cooldowns so don't worry too much if you are forced to pop the stacks below 4).
- Many of your skills have Paralysis Immunity so be sure to take advantage of that when trading or trying not to get caught.
- Remember your cards and use them for the appropriate situation when needed (refer to the Card Section for a quick rundown.
Team Elimination (1v1)
Combat Stats
750 Swiftness, 1 Critical and 249 Domination
Standard
Double Yellow
Alternatives
- Unlimited Shuffle can be used with Core of Darkness if you prefer a Knockdown effect. Storm of Dest. is also another option for a faster skill at the cost of lower AoE.
- Deathbound can be used but be sure to use it with max stacks (skill is less flexible than Prismatic Mirror).
Basic Combo #1
- Catch with Unlimited Shuffle or any CC.
- Follow with Dark Resurrection or Evoke.
- Call of Destiny
- Finish with Celestial Rain.
Note: If you happen to have any combo cards like Cull, you can pop them when you're guaranteed the combo off any of your skills.
Basic Combo #2
- Catch with Scratch Dealer (don't 2nd combo).
- Call of Destiny
- Finish with Celestial Rain.
GvG
Heavy Armor
Keen Blunt Weapon
Hit Master
Precise Dagger
Order of the Emperor
Crisis Evasion
Gameplay
GvG is more chaotic than Arena battles, so you rarely have the opportunity to do long combos. This mode is more about zoning/interrupting objectives and assisting allies. Do your best to coordinate with your team and stick together. Refer to 3v3 section for more gameplay tips.
Please refer to the GvG Islands and GvG Builds Guide for more information!
Heavy Armor Equipment
Spirit Absorption
Judgment
There are no actual combos listed here compare to the other PvP builds because the build is built around zoning/interrupting objectives and mostly assisting allies. Since there will be more than 8 enemies on the field, it'll be really hard to pull off a long combo with many spells and attacks being unleash on the field.
Basically, use the skills base on the situations. Holy Land, can be use for annoying enemies on the objectives as it can prevent enemies from trying to capture the objectives by interrupting the capturing animation from the damage ticks that the ground effect does, and it helps in mass fights were the enemies can't stand on top of your allies for more than 3 ticks before they get stun by the skill.
GvG can be a lot more chaotic than Arenas as theres more than 3 opponents rushing into the fight, Paladin's role usually be sticking close to the backlines or allies immobile range classes to assist them if they get group on, while also play around from their range since the build is kitted with more range skills than Arena builds.
GvG Engraving
Priority
- Heavy Armor Equipment-engraving] level 3 increases all defense for higher survivability. Moreover, armor shredding debuffs doesn't affect the bonus defense increase effect from the engraving.
- Spirit Absorption increases attack speed and movement speed by a significant amount at level3 engraving effect which will help with positioning and getting skills cast out quicker.
- Judgment level 1 increases duration of Sacred Executioner by 100% to 40 seconds. Additionally increases sword skills damage and identity gauge gain rate.
Additional Choices
- Cursed Doll since Cursed Doll doesn't affect a player character, this is the next best engraving for damage increase in general. Furthermore, Island PvP disables consumables so the penalty isn't too penalizing and GvGs consumables are very limited as well which eventually player will run out consumables quick as well.
- Divine Protection, Fortitude and Strong Will these are the engravings to stack for maximum defenses.
- Raid Captain is also another good damage engraving option for Island PvP and GvGs since players will be stacking high Swiftness stats for having fast animation casting speed and general movespeed as well as more cooldown reductions then stacking with Spirit Absorption will max out 140% movesment speed cap which will grant the max 18% damage increase from Raid Captain.
- Champion's Tenacity Island PvP with disabled consumables and the very limited amount of consumables in GvGs means a lot of the time the player spent being damaged and unable to heal up, so this engraving will help give some boost to damage while the player is below 50% health pool.
- Shield Piercing self-explanatory; usually well coordinated guilds will stack lots of classes that has team shield or personal shields, this engraving will help a little from shield stack pushes.
- Basic Game Plan;
- there's no actual combos listed here compare to the other PvP builds because the build is built around zoning/interrupting objectives and mostly assisting allies. Since there will be more than 8 enemies on the field , it'll be really hard to pull off a long combo with many spells and attacks being unleash on the field. Basically , use the skills base on the situations.
- Holy Land, can be use for annoying enemies on the objectives as it can prevent enemies from trying to capture the objectives by interrupting the capturing animation from the damage ticks that the ground effect does, and it helps in mass fights were the enemies can't stand on top of your allies for more than 3 ticks before they get stun by the skill.
- GvG can be a lot more chaotic than Arenas as theres more than 3 opponents rushing into the fight , Paladin's role usually be sticking close to the backlines or allies immobile range classes to assist them if they get group on, while also play around from their range since the build is kitted with more range skills than Arena builds.
- Basic Combo;
- Basic Combo;
- Basic Combo;
- Basic Combo;
Summary
- Remember your immunity skills and try to stay elusive when fighting.
- Unlimited Shuffle and Scratch Dealer are great catch tools used to start off combos.
- Remember to hold your important cards when needed.
Credits
Written by Starlast
Changelog
May 16th 2022
Article published.
Nov 16th 2022
Balance Patch Update