What a great show we had with the global reveal for The Elder Scrolls Online Necrom Chapter which is due on June 5th for PC and 20th for console.

The big talking point has to be the brand new Arcanist Class! On first look this appears to be a really fun and exciting new class and will add a whole new level of interest when it comes to both ESO and Tanking. The skills displayed looked really cool with some great looking animations but today we are looking at all the information we know so far and predicting what cool things we might see from an Arcanist Tank in this Arcanist Tank Preview!

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Elder Scrolls Online Arcanist Class

With this class you’ll be able to harness powerful runes, tomes of ancient knowledge and the energy of Apocrypha to unleash a range of magic.
It comes with a brand new combat system called Crux and this is an intriguing system which I have seen similar things in other MMO games where some abilities generate Crux and other use Crux. This is going to be beneficial as abilities will become empowered when you stack up your Crux which will make this another interesting layer to combat.

There are three skill lines for the Arcanist which include

  • Herald of the Tome – a damage focussed skill line
  • Curative Runeforms – a support focused skill line
  • Apocryphals Soldier – a defensive focussed skill line
Elder Scrolls Online Arcanist Class
The Tank Club, ESO Arcanist Tank, Arcanist Tank Preview, Elder Scrolls Online Arcanist Class

If we focus onto what we can expect from an Arcanist Tank we already know that there will be a skill that opens up a portal which allows you to move to another location quickly – this could be useful for fast mobility when you need to adjust position or get to locations quickly when dealing with enemies and mechanics, I can’t wait to use this to jump ahead of my groups in dungeons to get the next add pulls ready!

Another interesting looking skill is the tentacle skill, while in the video footage it looks like a damage skill it could quite possibly have a morph which acts as a pull skill which would be really cool. The animation of this skill has multiple tentacles so it could even be possible that we will see an AoE chain skill that is capable of pulling multiple enemies which would be really unique and allow for other gear options on the Arcanist compared to other Tank Classes for 4-person content.

On the ESO website Arcanist Preview we see it mentioned that the Apocryphal Soldier skill line “allows you to dominate your foes’ attention” could this mean an AoE taunt? It’s often requested and thus far AoE taunting has not made it into the game, but what else could dominate your foes attention mean other than gaining aggro?

We’ll also have the possiblilty to buff ourselves or our groups defensive capabilities which we can estimate this would not be a group major resolve skill as it would be identicle to the Warden’s Expansive Frost Cloak which would be largly ineffective if it’s something we already have but possibly it will be something else that would work alongside it meaning we can utilise the Arcanist for even more group survival.

Elder Scrolls Online Arcanist Class

So we can more or less predict that we’ll have some of the usual Tank kit which would be a crowd control skill, a major resolve buff and a max health scaling Tank heal to go along with the explosive shield, the group defensive buff and whatever the “dominate your foes attention is” but I am really excited to find out what other things the Arcanist can do, we can hope for a nice unique group buff as well as some interesting Ultimate’s and passives.

We’ll have all of the theorycrafting, testing and builds for the ESO Arcanist Tank as we learn more when Necrom hits the PTS sometime at the end of April, I can’t wait to get started!

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