Category: Best ESO Builds, Best Arcanist Builds, Tank Builds
The RUNE KNIGHT Arcanist Tank build for The Elder Scrolls Online is a beast! With access to many powerful buffs and debuffs this build will be an outstanding addition to any dungeon or trials group in ESO!
What you will learn in this Tank build guide:
- The best item sets to use with the Arcanist Tank Build, and why they are important.
- How the skills work, synergies with the gear, and your rotation.
- The best consumables, race, and mundus, and most importantly, why you should select them.
This guide has been updated for The Elder Scrolls Online Update 50.
Arcanist Class Overview
The Arcanist Class is an extremely powerful way to play in The Elder Scrolls Online. Arcanists have many similarities with other classes in ESO such as dedicated Class Skill lines for DPS, for Healing, and for Tanking. Arcanists are also extremely unique in that they make use of a powerful new game mechanic called Crux. For a more detailed guide be sure to review our ESO Arcanist Class Guide located here.
The Arcanist class is available to players who have purchased the Necrom Chapter. You can also buy the class directly for 1,500 Crowns (roughly $15). Therefore, this is not a base game class and will require you to spend extra money to unlock. However, it is worth it for serious ESO players as it remains one of the best classes overall!
Arcanist Tank Primary Sets
Our main 5 piece set on this build is Turning Tide, which provides an extremely EASY proc while blocking that damages nearby enemies and applies Major Vulnerability, forcing them to take 10% increased damage!
The second set on this build, Powerful Assault is a simple option for buffing your group’s damage that is easily maintained on the backbar.
One of the best options for a Monster Set on the Arcanist is the Tremorscale set, providing even more armor penetration which synergizes extremely well with the Arcanist’s taunt ability.
Finally, you may choose any front bar weapon you want but a favorite option for the extra Major Maim debuff is the Vateshran Hollows One Hand And Shield also known as Void Bash.
Turning Tide
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(2 items) Adds 1206 Maximum Health
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Stamina
(4 items) Adds 1206 Maximum Health
(5 items) When you Block, you gain Flowing Water for 10 seconds, causing your next Bash attack to deal 3016 Magic Damage to up to 6 enemies in a 10 meter line, and apply Major Vulnerability for 10 seconds, increasing their damage taken by 10%. This effect can occur once every 15 seconds and scales off your Max Health.
Powerful Assault
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(2 items) Adds 1206 Maximum Health
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Stamina
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items) When you cast an Assault ability while in combat, you and up to 5 group members within 12 meters gain 307 Weapon and Spell Damage for 15 seconds.
Tremorscale
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(1 item) Adds 1096 Maximum Stamina
(2 items) When you activate a taunt ability on an enemy, you cause a duneripper to burst from the ground beneath them after 1 second, dealing Physical damage to all enemies within 4 meters and reducing their Armor for 15 seconds. This effect can occur once every 10 seconds and scales off the higher of your Physical or Spell Resistance.
Void Bash
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(2 items) When you deal damage with Power Bash, you apply Call of the Void to yourself for 2 seconds. Enemies within 12 meters are immediately pulled to you. After Call of the Void ends, you apply Major Maim to enemies in the area for 10 seconds, reducing their damage done by 10%. This effect can occur once every 13 seconds.
Arcanist Tank Alternative Sets
For alternatives, there are many beginner sets that can also work that are easier to obtain, including the Ebon Armory set which buffs your entire group’s maximum Health. Also a great, easy-to-obtain Monster Set for beginners is the Bloodspawn set.
Ebon Armory
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(2 items) Adds 1206 Maximum Health
(3 items) Adds 1206 Maximum Health
(4 items) Adds 4% Healing Taken
(5 items) Increases your Maximum Health by 1000 for you and up to 11 other group members within 28 meters of you.
Bloodspawn
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(1 item) Adds 129 Stamina Recovery
(2 items) When you take damage, you have a 6% chance to generate 13 Ultimate and increase your Physical Resistance and Spell Resistance by 3731 for 5 seconds. This effect can occur once every 5 seconds.
Arcanist Tank Gear Set Up
| Weapons & Armor | Set | Trait | Weight | Glyph |
| Main Hand | Void Bash One Hand And Shield | Decisive / Sturdy | NA | Absorb Stamina / Prismatic |
| Backup | Powerful Assault Ice Staff | Infused | NA | Crusher Enchant |
| Head | Tremorscale | Infused | Medium | Prismatic |
| Shoulder | Tremorscale | Sturdy | Light | Prismatic |
| Chest | Turning Tide | Infused | Heavy | Prismatic |
| Waist | Turning Tide | Sturdy | Heavy | Prismatic |
| Gloves | Turning Tide | Sturdy | Heavy | Prismatic |
| Legs | Turning Tide | Infused | Heavy | Prismatic |
| Feet | Turning Tide | Sturdy | Heavy | Prismatic |
| Necklace | Powerful Assault | Infused | NA | Magic Recovery |
| Ring 1 | Powerful Assault | Infused | NA | Reduce Block Cost |
| Ring 2 | Powerful Assault | Infused | NA | Prismatic Reduce Cost |
Best Arcanist Tank Attributes
In ESO, having Max health is the most important for a tank. Therefore use all 64 attribute points into health. Anything in the range of 35,000 to 40,000 Health should be more than enough for most content. Depending on your Race passives you may need to put all Attribute points into Health to achieve this value. If you have extra Attribute Points to spare you may distribute them to Magicka and Stamina.
Secondly, you will need stamina as the next highest resource. ESO uses a hybrid system where synergies will restore resources based on your HIGHEST stat. Therefore, you block with stamina, and you want to restore stamina when using synergies. Make sure it’s slightly higher than magicka, you can use one or more glyphs or redistribute attributes slightly depending on your race choice.
0 Magicka
64 Health
0 Stamina
Best Arcanist Tank Race
Nord reigns as the top Tank race in ESO, principally thanks to the Rugged passive, which facilitates reaching the 33,100 Resistance cap. The passive alone translates to 7% damage mitigation, crucial for challenging encounters. Additionally, Nord’s boast big Health and Stamina pools along with increased Ultimate-generation. Pick Nord if you care about performance and optimization.
Pick a race that compliments your build and your end goal with the character. If you intend to swap back and forth between healing, damage, and tanking then your racial selection could change.
Other race considerations for tanking:
- Imperial: best raw stats due to 2,000 max health and stamina plus reduces all your ability cost by 6%!
- Orc: adds max health, max stamina, and movement speed plus weapon and spell damage, good if you intend to PvP with character.
- Redguard: incredible stamina sustain but lacks max health.
- Dark Elf: Adds magicka and stamina, fire resist and weapon and spell damage, good if you like to DPS and tank with one character.
- Argonian: adds max health, stamia, magicka, healing done, and resources resourcse when you drink a potion, ideal if you want to tank or heal with one character.
For more details on all ESO Races and passive bonuses be sure to check out our Full ESO Race Guide.
Best Arcanist Tank Mundus Stones
The best Mundus Stone for a Tank is the Atronach due to the increase in magicka regeneration. This might seem odd, but at a high level in tanking, you use Magicka for skills and Stamina for blocking. Therefore, if you run out, there goes your ability to cast skills, buff allies, and taunt. Below are some other helpful choices in Mundus Stone:
- The Lady: increases resistance, good if below 30,000 buffed with Major Resolve active.
- The Lord: increases max health, good depending on your race if you cannot reach 30,000 health.
Best Arcanist Tank Food and Drink Buff
The best food for a tank is Bewitched Sugar Skulls because it increases all three stat pools. Make sure your stamina is higher than Magicka so synergies restore stamina. An alternative to Bewitched Sugar Skulls is Longfin Pasty with Melon Sauce. This is purple quality, cheaper, same buff to three stat pools just cheaper overall.
Below are the ingredients for the Food choices:
- Bewitched Sugar Skulls: Scrib Jelly, Flour, Columbine, Bervez Juice, and Honey.
- Longfin Pasty with Melon Sauce: fish fruit, melon vegetable, greens, and Frost Mirriam.
Bewitched Sugar Skulls
Increase Max Health by 4620, Max Stamina and Magicka by 4250, and Health Recovery by 462 for 2 hours.
These effects are scaled based on your level.
Best Arcanist Tank Potions
The best potions are the “Tri-Potions” which restores health, magicka, and stamina. Moreover, this potion buffs your resource sustain to each stat pool helping your sustain. Make sure to unlock and max out the Alchemy skill Medicinal Use. This passive increases the duration of your potions effects. Essentially, the duration last 47.5 seconds with a cooldown of 45 seconds. Therefore, this passive becomes critical to obtain to keep higher uptime on buffs.
Alternatively, in high end trials, players run Heroism Potions. These potions grant Minor Heroism, restoring 1 Ultimate every 1.5 seconds for 47.5 seconds. Crafting Heroism potions are extremely expensive, but should be considered if running Veteran and or Hard Mode trials.
Tri-Stat Potions
Arcanist Tank Skill Loadout
Main Weapon: ONE HAND AND SHIELD – Click on a Skill Name to learn more
- Heroic Slash
- Power Slam or Silver Leash
- Impervious Runeward
- Runic Sunder
- Rune Of Colorless Pool
- ULT: Gibbering Shelter
Backup Weapon: ICE STAFF – Click on a Skill Name to learn more
- Elemental Blockade
- Razor Caltrops
- Runeguard Of Still Waters
- Cruxweaver Armor
- Echoing Vigor
- ULT: Aggressive Horn
Arcanist Tank Skill Explanation
Front Bar – One Hand And Shield Explanation
- Heroic Slash: debuffs enemy with minor maim and grants you minor heroism.
- Power Slam or Silver Leash: these skills can pull, Power Slam via gear set, Silver Leash Fighters guild.
- Impervious Runeward: grants you a massive shield that scales off max health and consuming a crux heals you.
- Runic Sunder: this is your taunt ability that also debuffs armor and applies minor maim while generating a crux.
- Rune of the Colorless Pool: 15 meter single target debuff that applies minor Vulnerability and Minor Brittle for 20 seconds.
- ULT: Gibbering Shelter: grants allies shield, useful for trials when a purely defensive ultimate is needed.
Back Bar – Ice Staff Explanation
- Elemental Blockade: used as strong AOE damage over time that triggers status effects
- Razor Caltrops: large AOE ground based skill that debuffs all enemies inside with Major Breach.
- Runeguard Of Still Waters: grants you minor resolve armor, minor protection, and immobilizes nearby enemies.
- Cruxweaver Armor: grants you major resolve, increasing armor, while also granting minor breach reducing enemies that hit you armor.
- Echoing Vigor: stamina heal over time that heals allies and can trigger sets and skills
- ULT: Aggressive War Horn: burst team ultimate, boost max stats and grants 20% more critical damage for 10 seconds.
Arcanist Tank Rotation
Buffs: Make sure to keep up Cruxweaver Armor as this also generates Crux. Any Crux you build up can be spent on Impervious Runeward for some much-needed self-healing. Runeguard of Still Waters should also be maintained to provide Minor Resolve and Minor Protection.
Debuffs: Be sure to debuff enemies using Runic Sunder to reduce resistances as well as Heroic Slash to reduce damage and increase Ultimate. Follow this up with a Power Bash to proc the Void Bash set, which pulls in enemies and further debuffs with Major Maim.
Next, cast Elemental Blockade to maintain the Crusher enchant, then cast Razor Caltrops to proc the Powerful Assault set while also debuffing nearby enemies.
Rune Of Uncanny Adoration is a nice option to bring enemies in close to you, serving almost as a taunt. I recommend saving Rune Of Colorless Pool for bosses or elite adds that need the extra debuffs.
Arcanist Tank Passive Skills
Class Passives
- Fated Fortune
- Harnessed Quintessence
- Psychic Lesion
- Splintered Secrets
- Aegis Of The Unseen
- Wellspring Of The Abyss
- Circumvented Fate
- Implacable Outcome
- Healing Tides
- Hideous Clarity
- Erudition
- Intricate Runeforms
Weapon Passives
- Fortress
- Sword And Board
- Deadly Bash
- Deflect Bolts
- Battlefield Mobility
- Penetrating Magic
- Elemental Force
- Ancient Knowledge
- Destruction Expert
Armor Passives
Guild Passives
Racial
Other
ESO Arcanist Tank Class Mastery
Players that reach level 50 in ESO while also fully reaching Rank 50 for their class skill lines and not subclassing can use 2 Class Mastery passives to improve their build. For the Arcanist Tank build I recommend Erudite’s Rigor which grants you 1 Ultimate for every Crux you have and gives you and your group Major Vitality as well as Ink-Scribe’s Verve which grants Major Force to you and your group after overhealing.
Erudite’s Rigor
Master the archaic and forge new runes of conflict.
Effect
Upgrades Fatewoven Armor to inflict Minor Cowardice on your attacker while granting Major Vitality to you and your group for 4 seconds. You gain 1 Ultimate for every Crux you have.
These effects can occur once every 2 seconds.
Ink-Scribe’s Verve
Illuminate body and mind with glimmering ink.
Effect
While in combat, when you heal or overheal a total of 100000 Health, you generate a Crux and grant you and your group members Major Force for 10 seconds, increasing Critical Damage by 20%.
Champion Points
Below you will find the recommended Active and Passive Champion Point Stars for this build, broken down into 300, 600, 900, and 1200 CP ranges.
For more information on Champion Points click on a Star name below or browse our detailed Champion Points Guides.
Constellation Descriptions:
Craft TREE
The Green Craft Constellation is focused on crafting and utility-centered upgrades.
Warfare TREE
The Blue Warfare Constellation focuses primarily on increasing player damage, healing and defenses
Fitness TREE
The Red Fitness Constellation is focused on character survival and sustain.
Below you will find the recommended Active and Passive Champion Point Stars for this build, broken down into 300, 600, 900, and 1200 CP ranges.
For more information on Champion Points click on a Star name below or browse our detailed Champion Points Guides.
– 300 Champion Points –
GREEN
BLUE
RED
– 600 Champion Points –
GREEN
- 50 Steed’s Blessing (Slot)
- 50 Gilded Fingers
- 10 Fortune’s Favor
- 10 Wanderer
- 50 Steadfast Enchantment
- 30 Rationer
BLUE
- 20 Tireless Discipline
- 20 Quick Recovery
- 20 Preparation
- 20 Hardy
- 20 Elemental Aegis
- 50 Duelist’s Rebuff (Slot)
- 50 Unassailable (Slot)
RED
- 50 Boundless Vitality (Slot)
- 20 Tireless Guardian
- 30 Fortification
- 16 Hasty
- 20 Sprinter
- 20 Hero’s Vigor
- 50 Fortified (Slot)
– 900 Champion Points –
GREEN
- 50 Steed’s Blessing (Slot)
- 50 Gilded Fingers
- 10 Fortune’s Favor
- 10 Wanderer
- 50 Steadfast Enchantment
- 30 Rationer
- 50 Treasure Hunter
- 30 Master Gatherer (Slot)
- 20 Gifted Rider (Slot)
BLUE
- 20 Tireless Discipline
- 20 Quick Recovery
- 20 Preparation
- 20 Hardy
- 20 Elemental Aegis
- 50 Duelist’s Rebuff (Slot)
- 50 Unassailable (Slot)
- 50 Enduring Resolve (Slot)
- 50 Bulwark (Slot)
RED
- 50 Boundless Vitality (Slot)
- 20 Tireless Guardian
- 30 Fortification
- 16 Hasty
- 20 Sprinter
- 20 Hero’s Vigor
- 50 Fortified (Slot)
- 30 Tumbling
- 20 Defiance
- 50 Juggernaut (Slot)
– 1200 Champion Points –
GREEN
- 50 Steed’s Blessing (Slot)
- 50 Gilded Fingers
- 10 Fortune’s Favor
- 10 Wanderer
- 50 Steadfast Enchantment
- 30 Rationer
- 50 Treasure Hunter
- 30 Master Gatherer (Slot)
- 50 Gifted Rider (Slot)
- 75 War Mount (Slot)
BLUE
- 20 Tireless Discipline
- 20 Quick Recovery
- 20 Preparation
- 20 Hardy
- 20 Elemental Aegis
- 50 Duelist’s Rebuff (Slot)
- 50 Unassailable (Slot)
- 50 Enduring Resolve (Slot)
- 50 Bulwark (Slot)
- 20 Eldritch Insight
- 20 Blessed
- 20 Flawless Ritual
- 20 Battle Mastery
- 20 Precision
RED
- 50 Boundless Vitality (Slot)
- 20 Tireless Guardian
- 30 Fortification
- 16 Hasty
- 20 Sprinter
- 20 Hero’s Vigor
- 50 Fortified (Slot)
- 30 Tumbling
- 20 Defiance
- 50 Juggernaut (Slot)
- 6 Nimble Protector
- 50 Bracing Anchor (Slot)
Update Log
- June 8, 2026 – created Class Mastery passives section
- May 6, 2026 – Updated Green Champion Points
How To Create Powerful ESO Builds
Crafting the Perfect Build for you in The Elder Scrolls Online can be frustrating. Which skills are best for each class? What about passives? The best race? The best armor type and weapons? The best trait and glyphs? There are literally THOUSANDS of different options!
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More Arcanist Builds For ESO
Want more Arcanist Builds? Check out our dedicated Arcanist Builds overview page for even more great options!
