ESO Solo Arcanist Stamina Build for PvE

This guide explains how to use the best Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) Solo Arcanist Stamina Build for PVE skills, gear, champion points, and more!

This build has been updated for the Updated 42, the Gold Road Chapter of the Elder Scrolls Online (ESO).

Why Should You Play ESO Solo Arcanist Stamina Build for PVE?

In ESO, the Stamina Arcanist is perfect for everyone wanting to do an insane amount of damage with incredible survivability. This build has ranged abilities and, as a result, great flexibility in weapon choices. Arcanist’s Crux system makes a unique playstyle with three well-equipped skill trees and complete tools for good damage, healing, and survivability. The Arcanist sources almost all of its major buffs on its own and has passive penetration and critical damage bonus, making it the best all around solo class.

Arcanist Class Pros

• Class Buffs: Sources all crucial buffs for solo content naturally through the kit.
• Beam to Win: Fatecarver melts enemies.
• Passive Penetration: The Arcanist’s abilities provide huge passive penetration, which makes the penetration cap much easier to reach in solo content.

Arcanist Class Cons

• Damage Nerfs: Fatecarver was nerfed previously.
• Long Channels: Your Fatecarver is a long channel, meaning you can be interrupted, ending your channel.
• Limited Bar Space: “Too many good skills” is real on the Arcanist.

ESO Solo Arcanist Stamina Build for PvE Playstyle

Use the following rotation as the starter point. After, apply your buffs and cast the DoT skills on cooldown for the best, highest DPS. The Damage over Time skills (DoTs) do more damage than your main spammable. Thus, they need to be cast less often and are easier to maintain, for example, the Barb Trap from Fighters Guild. Maintain DoTs and use your spammable skill as filler until you reapply the DoTS.

As an Arcanist, you’ll need to generate and consume Cruxes to enhance your stats constantly, so keep close attention to it. The Cephaliarch’s Flail skill is your main spammable range and crux builder. Next, you’ll be beaming with Fatecarver and its 4-second channel. Your goal is to build up 3x Crux’s with Flail and beam. While you’re channeling your beam, Inspired Scholarship will proc an additional crux, meaning you only need to Flail twice after a beam channel instead of three times. The trick is to reapply all your DoTs and heal just before the beam does all the work for you.

Survivability

If you run out of resources, do a heavy attack and return to your rotation. Remember that a heavy attack on off-balance enemies will return double the resources. In this build, heavy attacking with daggers restores stamina, while heavy attacking with your inferno staff restores magicka.

When your health drops below 60%, you can use Flail to heal yourself, or you can start an early beam channel, giving you a massive shield. Also, always use the suggested food and potions as they significantly increase your damage, survivability, and resource sustain.

Solo Arcanist Stamina Build for PVE Features and Mechanics

Below are some of the features found using the Solo Arcanist Stamina Build for PVE in the Elder Scrolls Online:

• Class – Arcanist
• Weapon One – Daggers
• Weapon Two – Fire staff
• Armor Types – 6 Medium, 1 Light
• Race – Dark Elf
• Mythic – Velothi Ur-Mage’s Amulet
• Attributes – 64 Stamina
• Mundus Stone – Thief
• Best Grimoires: Ulfsild’s Contingency

Skills

Front Bar: Daggers

Front Bar Weapon Options: They are all good choices depending on your playstyle and needs. Daggers are generally the best, but you can be flexible if you want to.

• Flame Staff = great for sustaining both resource pools and increase single target damage.
• Dual Wield = most raw damage due to Twin Blade and Blunt passive BUT lacks resource return off heavy attacks
• Bow = great with the range of the class though lacks the passive damage that Dual Wield has.
• Two-Handed = is great for other builds that use heavy attacks and play in melee, but not for the Arcanist.
• Sword and Shield = are mainly used for tanking and block mitigation, not useful for DPS PvE builds.

Pragmatic Fatecarver (Morph of Fatecarver | Skill Line : Herald of the Tome) – The build center’s around this ability and its 4-second channel. Your goal is to build up 3x Crux’s and beam. The trick is to reapply all your DoTs and heals just before the beam does all the work for you. We take this morph because the shield negates a ton of damage in solo content. Swap morph for more damage if you can sustain/heal without issue.

Barbed Trap (Morph of Trap Beast | Skill Line : Fighters Guild) – This skill is merely on our bar to buff our damage via the Fighter’s Guild passives. The skill barbed Trap also does insane single target damage when playing in melee range. I flex in Structured Entropy for a range dot that heals. When doing VMA, flex in Silver Leash to pull mobs.

Cephaliarch’s Flail (Morph of Abyssal Impact | Skill Line : Herald of the Tome) – This skill is our crux builder and hits harder the lower the enemies health gets. The main reason you use this is to get a 5% damage buff and build three Crux for your main nuke with Fatecarver. You can use this for a decent bit of healing and somewhat your main spammable. Key here is to not get caught with a heavy attack because it is a 0.3 second channel.

Quick Cloak (Morph of Blade Cloak | Skill Line : Dual Wield) – Major Evasion reduces area damage as well as giving you a speed boost through Major Expedition.

Camouflaged Hunter (Morph of Expert Hunter | Skill Line : Fighters Guild) – This skill is merely to buff our weapon damage via fighters guild passives and give us a critical buff on our front bar. The Arcanist plays best with lower dots and focusing on just building Crux and doing damage with fatecarver. The simpler the better!

The Languid Eye (Morph of The Unblinking Eye | Skill Line : Herald of the Tome) – Incredible ultimate for huge damage with a small AoE circle. You want to make sure the enemy is stationary before using this to get the most damage. Also consider the mother Morph, Tide King if you keep missing the targets.

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Back Bar: Flame Staff

Back Bar Weapon Options: They are all good choices depending on your play style and needs. Experiment with what works best.

• Inferno Staff = great all-around damage with Blockade and fully charge heavily to sustain magicka.
• Lighting Staff = good for sustain because its easier to set off balance and fully charge heavy for resources.
• Bow = its great for playing at range, just swap out Elemental Susceptibility for Razor Caltrops and Endless Hail for Unstable Wall of Fire.
• Two-Handed = incredible damage with stampede ability, though hard to sustain stamina.

Cruxweaver Armor (Morph of Fatewoven Armor | Skill Line : Soldier of Apocrypha) – Grants major resolve and minor breach when attacked as well as generating crux.

Fulminating Rune (Morph of The Imperfect Ring | Skill Line : Herald of the Tome) – Solid DoT and AOE damage. Also grants synergies to other players if you’re doing overland content or jumping in a quick dungeon.

Camouflaged Hunter (Morph of Expert Hunter | Skill Line : Fighters Guild) – Mirrors the front bar for the same reason, but this is the first skill to go if you want to run another heal or utility skill.

Blockade of Fire (Morph of Wall of Elements | Skill Line : Destruction Staff) – this provides strong AoE damage and acts as a good single target DoT that can be cast on the back bar.

Inspired Scholarship (Morph of Tome Bearer’s Inspiration | Skill Line : Herald of the Tome) – This ability boosts your overall damage significantly and should always be maintained. Swap morphs if you’re low on resources.

Sanctum of the Abyssal Sea (Morph of Gibbering Shield | Skill Line : Soldier of Apocrypha) – A powerful defensive ultimate when you are in trouble.

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Scribing Skills & Grimoires – ESO Stamina Arcanist Solo PvE Build

Ulfsild’s Contingency is really the only Grimoire (skills) for a Stamina Arcanist Solo PvE build. Contingency grants powerful area-based damage and buffs, but there’s really not a great usecase for it outside of large aoe packs of enemies. If you really want to run a scribing ability, you can, but the Arcanist just doesn’t need any to perform well. Below are the suggested combination of Grimoires, focus, signature, and affix scripts:

• Ulfsild’s Contingency (Mage Guild) – Flame Damage (focus script), Lingering Torment (signature script), Vulnerability (Affix Script)

The Scribing System utilizes one of 11 new skills from the Gold Road Chapter called Grimoires. With Grimoires, you can customize spells via Scripts.  The scribing feature requires the purchase of the Gold Road Chapter (sponsored link). To learn more about scribing, check out our full guide here.

Passives Skills

Consider taking all of the passives in the below skill trees to increase your builds performance without slotting any skills:

• The Herald of the Tome (class skill line)
• Apocryphal Soldier (class skill line)
• Curative Runeforms (class skill line)
• Light Armor
• Medium Armor
• Undaunted
• Fighters Guild
• Mages Guild
• Duel Wield
• Destructive Staff
• Racial
• Alliance War Support
• Alliance War Assault
• Crafting, Alchemy Medicinal Use

Gear – Best in Slot

Slot	Type	Set	Trait	Glyph
Head	Light	Valkyn Skoria	Divines	Stamina
Shoulders	Medium	Perfected Ansuul’s Torment	Divines	Stamina
Chest	Medium	Perfected Ansuul’s Torment	Divines	Stamina
Legs	Medium	Perfected Ansuul’s Torment	Divines	Stamina
Gloves	Medium	Perfected Ansuul’s Torment	Divines	Stamina
Boots	Medium	Perfected Ansuul’s Torment	Divines	Stamina
Belt	Medium	Deadly Strikes	Divines	Stamina
Weapon One	Dagger	Deadly Strikes	Nirnhoned	Flame
Secondary	Dagger	Deadly Strikes	Charged	Poison
Weapon Two	Flame Staff	Perfected Crushing Wall	Infused	Weapon Damage
Necklace	Mythic	Velothi Ur-Mage’s Amulet	Bloodthirsty	Weapon Damage
Ring 1		Deadly Strikes	Bloodthirsty	Weapon Damage
Ring 2		Deadly Strikes	Bloodthirsty	Weapon Damage

Monster Helm and Mythic

Valkyn Skoria: obtained in City of Ash II veteran. Gives a powerful one piece bonus for penetration.

Velothi Ur-Mage’s Amulet: Mythic obtained by collecting five pieces. This gives a solid damage boost to Fatecarver as well as penetration and Minor Force.

FLEX OPTIONS

1. Ring of the Pale Order: Insane healing if you either have trouble staying alive in content like Infinite Archive or want to switch Fatecarver morphs for more damage.
2. Slimecraw: Alternative one piece monster set if you don’t need any more penetration.

Gear Sets

Deadly Strikes: These were obtained in Cyrodiil, Bruma Elite Gear Vendor. Incredible damage with damage over time and spammable execute skills.

Perfected Ansuul’s Torment: Obtained in Sanity’s Edge, Necrom Chapter Trial. It’s the best medium armor set and forget set in the game, and it deals almost as much damage as other options.

Perfected Crushing Wall: from Veteran Maelstrom Arena in Orsinium. Increase your overall DPS due to the ability of the wall of elements and more damage.

FLEX OPTIONS

1. Perfected Coral Riptide: Better than Ansuul if you want to keep your stamina low, and you can cast Camo Hunter to burn stamina before pulling.
2. Perfected Sul-Xan: Insane damage if you can reliably pick up the essence/soul (blue orb) left behind.
3. Whorl of the Depths: Great proc set if you need extra light armor pieces to get to penetration cap.
4. Order’s Wrath: Best overall crafting damage option.
5. Pillar of Nirn: Great overall proc set damage.

Race

The best racial choice for the Stamina Arcanist is below:

1. Dark Elf: Gain max magicka, stamina, and weapon and spell damage. The flame resistance is also helpful and considered the strongest overall PVE DPS race.
2. Orc: Gain weapon damage and max stamina, though there is no magicka bonus.
3. Khajiit: This race gets recovery, max stats, and critical damage and healing. Consider the Khajiit a great option if you aren’t over the critical cap of 125%.

Attributes

The best choice is 64 stamina, which increases damage, healing, and DoTs.

Mundus Stone

The Thief is the best Mundus Stone for PvE Builds because it gives an Increased Critical Strike chance.

Champion Points – Solo Arcanist Stamina Build for PVE

Craft	Warfare	Fitness
Steed’s Blessing	Fighting Finesse	Celerity
Rationer	Thaumaturge	Boundless Vitality
Treasure Hunter	Biting Aura	Rejuvenation
Liquid Efficiency	Wrathful Strikes	Bastion

Warfare Constellation Champion Points

Below is a step-by-step method for slotting your champion points in the Warfare tree (blue).  We have used the minimum possible to reach 4 slottable selections all maxed out.  If you have more CP, consider taking more in the passives for optimal performance.

Below are recommended Warfare Champion Point selections for The Solo Arcanist Stamina Build for PVE:

1. Precision 10
2. Fighting Finesse (slottable) 50
3. Wrathful Strikes (slottable) 50
4. Extended might – Sub Constellation – piercing 10
5. Thaumaturge (slottable) 50
6. Biting Aura (slottable) 50B

This would be the bare minimum setup, spending 220 CP (660 total required). The next step is to max out passives, that do not require a slottable but increase performance.

1. Precision 10
2. Piercing 10
3. Tireless Discipline 20
4. Eldritch Insight 20
5. Blessed 20
6. Quick recovery 20
7. Flawless ritual 40
8. War mage 30
9. Battle mastery 40
10. Mighty 30
11. Elemental aegis 20
12. Hardy 20
13. Preparation 20

This would max out the Warfare tree with all active and passive champion points at 520 spent 1,560 total spent.

Fitness Constellation Champion Points

Below are recommended Fitness Champion Point selections for The Solo Arcanist Stamina Build for PVE:

1. Fortified (slottable) 50
2. Boundless Vitality (slottable) 50
3. Rejuvenation (slottable) 50
4. Sprinter 10
5. Winder Chaser – Sub Constellation – Hasty 8
6. Hero’s Vigar 10
7. Bloody Renewal (slottable) 50

This would be the bare minimum setup, spending 228 CP  (684 total required). The next step is to max out passives, that do not require a slottable but increase performance. 

1. Hero’s vigor 10
2. Tumbling 30
3. Sprinter 10
4. Defiance 20
5. Hasty 8
6. Tireless guardian 20
7. Fortification 30
8. Nimble 6
9. Mystic tenacity 50
10. Tempered soul 50
11. Piercing gaze 30
12. Savage defense  30
13. Bashing brutality 20

This would max out the fitness tree with all active passive champion points at 542 cp spent, 1,626 total spent.

Craft Constellation Champion Points

Below are recommended Craft Champion Point selections for The Solo Arcanist Stamina Build for PVE:

1. Steed’s blessing (slottable) – 50
2. Breakfall 10
3. Wanderer 15
4. Steadfast 10
5. Treasure hunter 50 (slottable)
6. Rationer (slottable) 30
7. Liquid Efficiency (slottable) 75

This would be the bare minimum setup, spending 240CP (720 total required). The next step is to max out passives that do not require a slottable but increase performance.

1. Steadfast enchantment 40cp
2. Breakfall 40 cp
3. Wanderer 60
4. Fortunes favor 50
5. Friends in low places 25
6. Out of sight 30
7. Fleet of Phantom 40
8. Soul’s Reservoir 33
9. Gilded fingers 50
10. Fortunes favor 40
11. Inspiration boost 45
12. Infamous 30

This would max out the crafting tree with all active and passive champion points at 723 cp spent, 2,169 total spent.

Consumables

The best consumables for the Stamina Arcanist Solo PvE build are Braised Rabbit with Spring Vegetables food and Heroism potions. Braised Rabbit with Spring Vegetables gives the most damage possible, though Artaeum Takeaway Broth is good for resource sustain if you struggle. A third balanced option for more hybrid resource pools is Bewitched Sugar Skulls. The best potions if you have weapon critical and weapon power buff is Heriosm (the essence of magicka). Another option is Weapon Power potions if you lack the buffs or tri-stat Essence of Health. Below are our recommended food and potion choices:

• Braised Rabbit with Spring Vegetables (best damage no sustain) – Increase health and stamina. Crafted with Provisioning ingredients Small Game, Greens, and Seasoning.
  • Artaeum Takeaway Broth – increase max health, health recovery, max stamina, and stamina recovery. Crafted with provisioning from ingredients Fish, Melon, Torchbug Thorax, and Powdered Mother of Pearl.
  • Dubious Camoran Throne (cheap sustain) – increases stamina recovery, max stamina, and max health. Crafted with provisioning from ingredients of White Meat, Beetle Scuttle, Insect Parts, and Guts.
  • Bewitched Sugar Skulls (tri-max stats) – increases max health, stamina, magicka, and health recovery. Crafted with provisioning from ingredients of Scrib Jelly, Flour, Columbine, Bervez Juice, and Honey.
• Heroism Potion – Restores stamina and magicka and grants minor heroism for a time. Crafted with Alchemy from ingredients of
  • Essence of Weapon Power – grants major brutality, major savagery, and stamina recovery. Crafted with alchemy from ingredients such as Blessed Thistle, Stinkhorn, and Water Hyacinth (other combinations).
  • Tri-Pots – grants immediate health, stamina and magicka, along with tri-recovery. Crafted with Alchemy from ingredients of Bugloss, Columbine, Mountain Flower.

Build Summary – Solo Arcanist Stamina Build for PVE

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