Welcome to our Written Guide on the Best Sets For The Arcanist Class In The Elder Scrolls Online! In this article we will be discussing Sets that Synergize the BEST with the Arcanist class, whether it be for DPS Builds, Solo Builds, PVE or PVP Builds, there’s something on this list for every build!
Links will be provided for each set if you want to know more about it as well as see example builds that use that same set. Let’s get started!
13. Spinner’s Garments
The Spinner’s Garments set is ideal for Arcanist leveling builds and beginner builds in ESO. This set gives you some decent damage bonuses including Weapon Damage and Spell Damage and Offensive Penetration for the 5-piece bonus. Offensive Penetration helps all of your skills deal more damage, and it is a difficult stat to get early in the game.
Spinner’s Garments can be collected in the base game zone Malabal Tor which is an Overland zone. This makes the set extremely easy to pick up as you can farm pieces from completing basic Delves, Dolmens, World bosses and treasure chests.
Spinner’s Garments
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(2 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items) Adds 3460 Offensive Penetration
12. Spriggan’s Thorns
Spriggan’s Thorns is the medium armor/stamina version of Spinner’s Garments. This set is slightly better than Spinner’s because Medium Armor builds have less Offensive Penetration through their medium armor passives, making the 5-piece bonus even more valuable here. Again, this is a great beginner set in ESO as it can be obtained easily from the Overland zone of Bangkorai. Simply complete Delves, Dolmens, World Bosses, Public Dungeons or farm treasure chests to pick this set up and get a nice upgrade for your build!
Spriggan’s Thorns
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(2 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Stamina
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Stamina
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items) Adds 3460 Offensive Penetration
11. Briarheart
The Briarheart set is a great option for new Arcanist players in The Elder Scrolls Online. This powerful set increases your Weapon and Spell Damage by 450 at legendary quality while also making your Critical Strikes heal you for a small amount of health. For these reasons, this set is favored for Solo Builds and is often used with a backbar weapon such as a Two-hander, Staff or Bow. This means you can activate the 5-piece proc effect (the extra damage and healing) while using that backup weapon, then switch to your front bar weapon and still get the effect!
The downsides for this set include the Stamina bonus for using 3-pieces which is not ideal if your build is focused on Magicka abilities and the fact that the 5-piece bonus only lasts for 10 seconds, but can only be activated every 15 seconds. This means that you will have at least 5 seconds of downtime in between procs.
Briarheart
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Stamina
(4 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(5 items) When you deal Critical Damage, you increase your Weapon and Spell Damage by 450 for 10 seconds. While this effect is active your Critical Strikes heal you for 100 Health. This effect can occur once every 15 seconds and the heal scales off the higher of your Maximum Magicka or Stamina.
10. Hexos Ward
The Hexos Ward set is ideal for Solo Arcanist Builds in ESO, as it provides a HUGE damage shield that you can get automatically, just by dealing Critical damage. Consider that Arcanists already have very powerful damage shields from skills like Pragmatic Fatecarver and you have a great combination for tackling any solo content you want in the game!
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(4 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(5 items) Dealing direct Critical Damage grants you a damage shield that absorbs up to 12305 damage for 6 seconds. This effect can occur once every 7 seconds.
9. Spell Power Cure
The Spell Power Cure set is one of the best options for Arcanist healers in ESO. This set gives you and your group access to the powerful Major Courage buff, which increases their Weapon Damage and Spell Damage by 430. Better yet, this set can be easily proced by any healing effect, making it relatiely easy to maintain on your team.
Spell Power Cure
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(2 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items) When you overheal yourself or an ally, you give the target Major Courage for 5 seconds which increases their Weapon and Spell Damage by 430.
8. Powerful Assault
The Powerful Assault set is one of the best sets in ESO for Arcanist Tanks and Arcanist Healer builds as this gives you and your group a completely unique bonus that increases everyone’s Weapon Damage and Spell Damage. This effect has a 15 second duration, making it easy to obtain, and it can be proced by multiple useful skills including Razor Caltrops and Echoing Vigor which both provide value to your group.
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.
7. Crimson Oath’s Rive
The Crimson Oath’s Rive set provides a unique and powerful armor debuff to nearby enemies, which is extremely helpful for Arcanist Tank Builds. This is an essential set for tanks as it helps your group members deal more damage and clear content more quickly.
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.
6. Mother’s Sorrow
The Mother’s Sorrow set is a fantastic light armor set that is easy to obtain and offers excellent stats by boosting our Maximum Magicka as well as Critical Chance. Obviously, this set will be preferred for Magicka Arcanist builds due to the bonus to your Maximum Magicka stat, but this set also provides an impressive amount of Critical Chance which will greatly improve your healing and damage.
Mother’s Sorrow
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(2 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
(3 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(4 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(5 items) Adds 1528 Critical Chance
5. War Maiden
The War Maiden set is ideal for Magicka focused Arcanists due to it’s 2-4 piece bonuses, specifically the 3-piece bonus which increases your Maximum Magicka. This set is powerful for Arcanists because the 5-piece bonus adds a whopping 600 Weapon and Spell Damage to your Magic Damage abilities which buffs your main damage source: Fatecarver.
This set can be obtained in the overland zone of Vvardenfell, part of the Morrowind chapter. Because this is an Overland set it can be traded or purchased for gold so it’s relatively easy to obtain.
War Maiden
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items) Adds 600 Weapon and Spell Damage to your Magic Damage abilities.
4. Order’s Wrath
The Order’s Wrath set is a staple option for DPS Builds, Solo Builds and even PvP Builds in The Elder Scrolls Online. This Crafted Set offers great 2-4 piece bonuses including improved Critical Chance and Weapon and Spell Damage, but the 5-piece set is truly poweful. This bonus increases both your Critical Chance AND Critical Damage stats, both highly valued stats for improving a player’s overall DPS. The fact that this set is Crafted also makes it a great option, letting you fit it into your build in multiple ways.
Order’s Wrath
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(4 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(5 items) Adds 943 Critical Chance, Increases your Critical Damage and Critical Healing by 8%.
3. Slivers Of The Null Arca
The Slivers Of The Null Arca set is one of the best options for DPS builds now in The Elder Scrolls Online. This set provides a powerful damaging proc effect, launching Crystals at your enemy that deal a big burst of physical damage.
Null Arca is a trials set that comes from the Lucent Citadel trial, part of the Gold Road chapter. Players that complete the Veteran version of Lucent Citadel can also get the Perfected Null Arca set with an additional 5-piece bonus.
The proc effect for this set makes it a top-tier option for DPS builds, plus it has optimal 2-4 piece bonuses which include improved Critical Chance and the Minor Slayer buff, boosting your damage versus monsters by an additional 5%.
Slivers of the Null Arca
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Gain Minor Slayer at all times, increasing your damage done to Dungeon, Trial, and Arena Monsters by 5%.
(4 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(5 items) Dealing Critical Damage gives you a stack of Sliver for 10 seconds. You can only gain one stack of Sliver every 0.5 seconds. When you gain your third stack, the stacks are consumed and the crystals launch at the last enemy you damaged, dealing 1244 Physical Damage. This damage scales off your Weapon or Spell Damage. Once you launch the crystals, you cannot gain Sliver for 5 seconds.
2. Deadly Strike
The Deadly Strike set is one of the best options for the Arcanist class in ESO as it buffs Channeled Abilities including your primary attack called Pragmatic Fatecarver. This set also buffs Damage Over Time skills so it can give you a nice all-around offensive bonus. This set also comes in Medium Armor which is generally considered best for DPS Builds due to the extra Critical Damage bonus that Medium Armor provides.
Deadly Strike can be purchased using Alliance Points from Cyrodiil vendors, and is also tradable so you can often find pieces at guild traders as well.
Deadly Strike
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(2 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(3 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items) Increase the damage your Damage Over Time and Channeled Abilities do by 15%.
1. Tide-Born Wildstalker
The Tide-Born Wildstalker set in ESO gives Arcanists a massive 12% bonus to their primary attack, the Pragmatic Fatecarver beam. That’s because Fatecarver was recently changed to a Direct Damage ability, which the Tide-Born set buffs. This set also has excellent 2-4 piece offensive bonuses including Weapon Damage and Spell Damage, Critical Chance and Offensive Penetration. But the best this is that this set is Craftable! Make this in whatever weights and traits work best for YOU and your build!
Tide-Born Wildstalker
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(2 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(3 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(4 items) Adds 1497 Offensive Penetration
(5 items) Increases your direct damage done to monsters by 12%.
Powerful Arcanist Builds for ESO
Looking for the Best ESO Arcanist Builds? Check out our dedicated Arcanist Builds page for great options for all roles!
