Category: Best ESO Builds, Best Arcanist Builds, Tank Builds, One Bar Builds
This One Bar 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, with no bar swapping or back bar required!
What you will learn in this One Bar Build Tank guide:
- The best item sets to use with the One Bar Arcanist 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
- Arcanist Tank Primary Sets
- Alternative Sets
- Tank Gear Setup
- Alternate Gear
- Attributes
- Race
- Mundus Stones
- Food & Drink Buff
- Potions
- Tank Skills
- Skill Explanation
- Rotation
- Scribing Skills
- Passive Skills
- Class Mastery
- Champion Points
- Update Log
- How To Create Powerful ESO Builds
- More Arcanist Builds For ESO
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!
One Bar Arcanist Tank Primary Sets
Our main 5 piece set on this build is Crimson Oath’s Rive, which provides a unique and powerful armor debuff to nearby enemies. This heavy armor set comes from the Dread Cellar dungeon and is essential set for tanks as it helps your group members deal more damage and clear content more quickly.
Our next recommended set 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! This is another important debuff that tanks can maintain to improve the overall DPS of their group.
Our recommended mythic is The Oakensoul Ring which provides many powerful buffs that are extremely helpful for this one bar tank build.
For our final armor piece, any Monster Set can be used, but Swarm Mother is helpful for tanks because it provides both Max Magicka and Max Stamina. Can be worn as light armor or medium armor to gain extra resources via the Undaunted Mettle passive.
Crimson Oath’s Rive
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(2 items) Adds 1487 Armor
(3 items) Adds 1206 Maximum Health
(4 items) Adds 1487 Armor
(5 items) Casting an ability, drinking a potion, or using a poison that applies a Major or Minor buff to yourself or an ally, sends out a wave of energy that reduces the Armor of nearby enemies within 12 meters by 3541 for 15 seconds. This effect can occur once every 12 seconds, and will only occur if an enemy is within range.
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.
The Oakensoul Ring
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(1 item) While equipped, you are unable to swap between your Primary and Backup Weapon Sets and gain Minor Berserk, Minor Courage, Major Brutality, Major Sorcery, Major Prophecy, Major Savagery, Minor Force, Minor Protection, Major Resolve, Minor Fortitude, Minor Intellect, Minor Endurance, Minor Heroism, Minor Aegis, Minor Slayer and Empower.
Volcanic stone for Firesong. Gems for Eldertide. With Stonelore craftsmanship to bind them together. This ring is the Draoife Incarnate. The might of the druids, in the palm of your hand.
Swarm Mother
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(1 item) Adds 1096 Maximum Stamina, Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
(2 items) When you Block an enemy that is between 8 and 22 meters from you, you spin strands of spider silk to pull the enemy to you and taunt them for 15 seconds if they are not already taunted. This effect can occur once every 1 second.
Oakensoul Ring Lead Locations
Getting the Oakensoul Ring in ESO is easier than you might think! Check out our full Oakensoul Ring Guide.
One Bar Arcanist Tank Alternative Sets
For alternatives, Powerful Assault is a simple option for buffing your group’s damage that is easily maintained with one of our essential skills – razor caltrops.
A great alternative option for the extra Major Maim debuff is the Vateshran Hollows One Hand And Shield also known as Void Bash. You can combine this with a three-piece set such as Armor Of The Trainee for even more stats.
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.
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.
Armor Of The Trainee
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(1 item) Adds 1454 Maximum Health
(2 items) Adds 1454 Maximum Magicka
(3 items) Adds 1454 Maximum Stamina
One Bar Arcanist Tank Gear Setup
| Weapons & Armor | Set | Trait | Weight | Glyph |
| Main Hand | Crimson Oath’s Rive One Hand & Shield | Decisive / Sturdy | NA | Absorb Stamina / Prismatic |
| Backup | None | NA | NA | NA |
| Head | Swarm Mother | Infused | Medium | Prismatic |
| Shoulder | Turning Tide | Sturdy | Heavy | 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 | Crimson Oath’s Rive | Sturdy | Heavy | Prismatic |
| Necklace | Crimson Oath’s Rive | Infused | NA | Magic Recovery |
| Ring 1 | Crimson Oath’s Rive | Infused | NA | Reduce Block Cost |
| Ring 2 | The Oakensoul Ring | Infused | NA | Prismatic Reduce Cost |
One Bar Arcanist Tank Alternate Gear
| Weapons & Armor | Set | Trait | Weight | Glyph |
| Main Hand | Void Bash One Hand And Shield | Decisive / Sturdy | NA | Absorb Stamina / Prismatic |
| Backup | None | NA | NA | NA |
| Head | Swarm Mother | Infused | Medium | Prismatic |
| Shoulder | Crimson Oath’s Rive | Sturdy | Heavy | Prismatic |
| Chest | Crimson Oath’s Rive | Infused | Heavy | Prismatic |
| Waist | Armor Of The Trainee | Sturdy | Light | Prismatic |
| Gloves | Crimson Oath’s Rive | Sturdy | Heavy | Prismatic |
| Legs | Crimson Oath’s Rive | Infused | Heavy | Prismatic |
| Feet | Crimson Oath’s Rive | Sturdy | Heavy | Prismatic |
| Necklace | Armor Of The Trainee | Infused | NA | Magic Recovery |
| Ring 1 | Armor Of The Trainee | Infused | NA | Reduce Block Cost |
| Ring 2 | The Oakensoul Ring | Infused | NA | Prismatic Reduce Cost |
Note: Ice Staff / Frost Staff can be used in place of the one hand and shield for a more advanced version of the build.
One Bar 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
One Bar 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.
One Bar Arcanist Tank Mundus Stones
The best Mundus Stone for a Tank is usually the Atronach due to the increase in magicka recovery. This might seem odd, but at a high level in tanking, you use Magicka for skills and Stamina for blocking. In the case of the One Bar Arcanist tank, we have very few Magicka consuming skills, so you may want to also consider the following options:
- 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.
One Bar Arcanist Tank Food & 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.
One Bar 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.
Tri-Stat Potions
One Bar Arcanist Tank Skills
Main Weapon: ONE HAND AND SHIELD skill setup – Click on a Skill Name to learn more
- Runic Sunder
- Razor Caltrops
- Spiteward Of The Lucid Mind
- Silver Leash or Rune Of Colorless Pool
- Cruxweaver Armor or Cephaliarch’s Flail
- ULT: Gibbering Shelter or Aggressive Horn
One Bar Arcanist Tank Skill Explanation
One Hand And Shield Explanation
- Runic Sunder: this is your taunt ability that also debuffs armor and applies minor maim while generating a crux.
- Razor Caltrops: large AOE ground based skill that debuffs all enemies inside with Major Breach.
- Spiteward Of The Lucid Mind: grants you a damage shield that scales off max health, consuming a crux heals you and reduces the Magicka cost down to 0 with 3 Crux for maximum effectiveness!
- Silver Leash: crowd control skill that can pull enemies in
- Rune of the Colorless Pool: 15 meter single target debuff that applies minor Vulnerability and Minor Brittle for 20 seconds. Use this for boss fights without adds if you don’t need Silver Leash.
- Cruxweaver Armor: grants you major resolve, increasing armor, while also granting minor breach reducing enemies that hit you armor. You already have Major Resolve from the Oakensoul Ring reducing damage taken, but this also creates one Crux every five seconds while taking damage which is important on the Arcanist class.
- Cephaliarch’s Flail: use this instead of Cruxweaver armor if you want to generate Crux more actively by damaging enemies and rooting them in place. Also heals you back when damaging enemies.
- ULT: Gibbering Shelter: grants allies shield, useful for trials when a purely defensive ultimate is needed.
- ULT: Aggressive War Horn: burst team ultimate, boost max stats and grants 20% more critical damage for 10 seconds.
One Bar Arcanist Tank Rotation
Buffs: Make sure to keep up Cruxweaver Armor as this generates Crux and will be used to proc Crimson Oath’s Rive. Any Crux you build up can be spent on Spiteward Of The Lucid Mind for some much-needed self-healing.
Pull in enemies to your group as needed using Silver Leash. This should be done before using any debuffs listed below.
Debuffs: Be sure to debuff enemies using Runic Sunder from your class skills to reduce resistances as well as Razor Caltrops to reduce resists even further. Also be sure to block and bash in order to Proc the Turning Tide set consistently.
Use Gibbering Shelter if you need to protect your group or Aggressive Horn to boost group DPS.
One Bar Arcanist Tank Scribing Skills
Scribing skills can be a powerful addition to this build! Consider using the following options:
One Bar 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
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 9, 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!
This is why we created the ESO Zero To Hero Build Academy – A Simple, yet Powerful build system that teaches the fundamentals of ESO Theorycrafting, step-by-step.
Build your character exactly how YOU want by following this simple process from start to finish and FINALLY start enjoying ESO the way you want to play it!
Our Guides are designed with New and Intermediate players in mind! Stop wasting hours searching the internet for the best ESO build information – get what you need NOW to succeed!
More Arcanist Builds For ESO
Want more Arcanist Builds? Check out our dedicated Arcanist Builds overview page for even more great options! You can also check out similar One Bar Tank Builds below:
