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Okay, I am gonna keep this quick and dirty for now and add to it later.
This is pretty much the build I used to level from around 35 to 50. I mostly solo quested the whole way and of course, had to do a little bit of open world PvP to survive in some zones. This build is primarily PvE focused and does not give a lot of skills for escaping a fight or surviving a gank. However, if you are aware of an incoming gank or you gank someone else before they get a chance to attack you, you can likely dispose of them without too much trouble. So consider this an all-around CC/Magic DPS build for you to level. (I switched to Arcanist after dabbling as a Shaman and a Gypsy).
Let's start with the Sorcery tree. This is obviously your bread and butter as it does the most damage of any of the Magic trees (while also boasting the longest cast times) and gives you a lot of combos within it's tree. I won't go into them all right now but you can view them on the pane in the upper right. This tree is where your damage is going to come from for the most part. I did not go for the AoE skills in this build because I am focusing on going through quests where you will pull mob by mob and likely never want to group pull. Also in the case of a gank or 1v1 you will never get the AoE off with the exception of the instant freeze which CAN be useful in situations. Anyway, along with all the inside combos in this tree, it has A LOT of synergy with the witchcraft tree. Also, we will take most of the passives for increased damage but not decreased cast time simply because it is not very necessary in questing.
In the Witchcraft tree, as you may know, you get most of your CC. It also has some really useful anti-CC skills but we will not need these for the most part while questing and won't encounter enough enemy players to waste a skill point on this. These skills are what you will use to keep the enemy away from you. Also some of them combo very well with the sorcery tree to add some damage into you basic rotation which I will list shortly. We also are taking some of the passives here for some better combo capability as well as increased magic defense. ---[As an Arcanist in general you have a LOT of magic defense assuming you are wearing full cloth armor. BUT with all of that magic defense which makes you very beefy to a mage, you have little to no physical defense with the exception of your insulating lens which will be broken in one to two hits form an enemy including mobs. For this reason, I suggest either wearing 4 cloth armor and 3 plate armor, to give you a slightly more balanced defense system, OR if you wanna be even more balanced like myself, 4 plate and 3 cloth. NOTE: which items you choose to be plate and/or cloth will affect the defense numbers. i.e. if you want to really add more physical defense, you would wear plate chest and legs and probably hands and feet... while wearing cloth head, belt and cuffs. But the balance of the two is completely up to your preference and style. I only went with more physical defenses because I found that I took almost no damage from magic damage dealing mobs and most players but any physical damage dealer would wreck me in seconds.]---Now to pick back up on the witchcraft tree, if you find that you need more CC or stun removal you can swap a few things around and grab those from this tree also. But most of the ones I took are strictly used to control the position of your enemy and allow you a safe gap and time to cast your long sorcery spells to destroy them. With the exception of which is simply there as an OH SHIT button to drop all aggro on mobs and allow you time to escape ... but I actually used it more as a way to restore HP and MP after a few pulls without wasting potions or food. And remember, is there to make up for the magic defense you lost by swapping out some plate armor. so you will still have A LOT of magic defense but now you will also have some improved physical defense as well.
OK! Now... onto Auramancy. I only took 2 skills from this tree and one is to give you an obvious health boost which again improves your defenses ( DOES stack with the other health boost you get from ). And then I took for the same reason as .. just to help recoup some of your mana after a fight. You won't be losing health very often in a fight because when you do your rotation right, things die before they touch you. The downside to this is that they die so quickly that your rotation won't be fully ready again on your next pull so you improvise a bit if you don't want to just wait. So, you pull, kill, pull, kill, recharge some mana which also gives you time to get your skills ready, pull kill repeat.
NOW... this is a pretty basic rotation and there's a lot more combos that are available to this build BUT this rotation pretty much killed any mob that I came across during questing or got it down to very near death allowing me to easily burn it down. Most of the time before it ever reached me. It is generally for MOBS but the combo DOES apply pretty well to enemy players as well because of the CC and damage combination. So, here it is which a brief explanation:
You will already have on before any fight. Always have this on even when not fighting because it also increases stealth detection.
to initiate and pull while slowing them down to give you time to get off which is instant but will give you the initiation of the combo burst with . This is your biggest damage combo and will burn them down to usually about half health already even before you are level 50. After this, you will pop them with because on top of giving you time to get your skills ready and/or gain some distance again, it does an added chunk of damage to the target who is already shocked. I usually don't even allow the bubble to reach the top and I just hit them with ... seems like a waste and it sorrrrt of can be, BUT it is the start to the next combo damage burst because does more damage to feared targets. And then you will hit them with because THAT does more damage to enervated targets AND gives you a portion of health back as well. Likely you didn't even take any damage yet but in case they hit you, this should heal it back to full. NOW if the target is still alive it probably has no more than 10% health left (unless it is a beefy 1* mob or a player). If it's a mob, you can just kill it with at this point to conserve more mana or combo to make SURE they die.
So this rotation is the basis of the whole build and of course it can be tweaked... I actually also ran most of the time because it gave me the extra burst I needed to make sure they died before the end of the rotation. But it can be wasted mana because if you have to move out of it, it does you no good. And if you are confident in yourself and/or just farming some easy mobs, you can throw in and to kill a few mobs that are on top of you fairly easily... but I was never a fan of this as I took a lot of damage leaving me a very good target for ganks. I also ran as a way to get myself to nui or a guard faster or into my glider to escape a gank.. or just for the fun of teleporting.
You can also easily turn this into a fairly viable PvP build by switching out some sorcery skills and passives for more CC and anti CC in the Witchcraft tree as well as the mobility and CC breaks in Auramancy. I may post a PvP version of this build later on.
Thanks for reading and feel free to comment on my build or make any suggestions for me. I will also try to come back and update this to make it more in depth later.
Astranos - [Bloodlust Cartel]
Lvl. 50 Arcanist - Enla/West
This is pretty much the build I used to level from around 35 to 50. I mostly solo quested the whole way and of course, had to do a little bit of open world PvP to survive in some zones. This build is primarily PvE focused and does not give a lot of skills for escaping a fight or surviving a gank. However, if you are aware of an incoming gank or you gank someone else before they get a chance to attack you, you can likely dispose of them without too much trouble. So consider this an all-around CC/Magic DPS build for you to level. (I switched to Arcanist after dabbling as a Shaman and a Gypsy).
Let's start with the Sorcery tree. This is obviously your bread and butter as it does the most damage of any of the Magic trees (while also boasting the longest cast times) and gives you a lot of combos within it's tree. I won't go into them all right now but you can view them on the pane in the upper right. This tree is where your damage is going to come from for the most part. I did not go for the AoE skills in this build because I am focusing on going through quests where you will pull mob by mob and likely never want to group pull. Also in the case of a gank or 1v1 you will never get the AoE off with the exception of the instant freeze which CAN be useful in situations. Anyway, along with all the inside combos in this tree, it has A LOT of synergy with the witchcraft tree. Also, we will take most of the passives for increased damage but not decreased cast time simply because it is not very necessary in questing.
In the Witchcraft tree, as you may know, you get most of your CC. It also has some really useful anti-CC skills but we will not need these for the most part while questing and won't encounter enough enemy players to waste a skill point on this. These skills are what you will use to keep the enemy away from you. Also some of them combo very well with the sorcery tree to add some damage into you basic rotation which I will list shortly. We also are taking some of the passives here for some better combo capability as well as increased magic defense. ---[As an Arcanist in general you have a LOT of magic defense assuming you are wearing full cloth armor. BUT with all of that magic defense which makes you very beefy to a mage, you have little to no physical defense with the exception of your insulating lens which will be broken in one to two hits form an enemy including mobs. For this reason, I suggest either wearing 4 cloth armor and 3 plate armor, to give you a slightly more balanced defense system, OR if you wanna be even more balanced like myself, 4 plate and 3 cloth. NOTE: which items you choose to be plate and/or cloth will affect the defense numbers. i.e. if you want to really add more physical defense, you would wear plate chest and legs and probably hands and feet... while wearing cloth head, belt and cuffs. But the balance of the two is completely up to your preference and style. I only went with more physical defenses because I found that I took almost no damage from magic damage dealing mobs and most players but any physical damage dealer would wreck me in seconds.]---Now to pick back up on the witchcraft tree, if you find that you need more CC or stun removal you can swap a few things around and grab those from this tree also. But most of the ones I took are strictly used to control the position of your enemy and allow you a safe gap and time to cast your long sorcery spells to destroy them. With the exception of which is simply there as an OH SHIT button to drop all aggro on mobs and allow you time to escape ... but I actually used it more as a way to restore HP and MP after a few pulls without wasting potions or food. And remember, is there to make up for the magic defense you lost by swapping out some plate armor. so you will still have A LOT of magic defense but now you will also have some improved physical defense as well.
OK! Now... onto Auramancy. I only took 2 skills from this tree and one is to give you an obvious health boost which again improves your defenses ( DOES stack with the other health boost you get from ). And then I took for the same reason as .. just to help recoup some of your mana after a fight. You won't be losing health very often in a fight because when you do your rotation right, things die before they touch you. The downside to this is that they die so quickly that your rotation won't be fully ready again on your next pull so you improvise a bit if you don't want to just wait. So, you pull, kill, pull, kill, recharge some mana which also gives you time to get your skills ready, pull kill repeat.
NOW... this is a pretty basic rotation and there's a lot more combos that are available to this build BUT this rotation pretty much killed any mob that I came across during questing or got it down to very near death allowing me to easily burn it down. Most of the time before it ever reached me. It is generally for MOBS but the combo DOES apply pretty well to enemy players as well because of the CC and damage combination. So, here it is which a brief explanation:
You will already have on before any fight. Always have this on even when not fighting because it also increases stealth detection.
to initiate and pull while slowing them down to give you time to get off which is instant but will give you the initiation of the combo burst with . This is your biggest damage combo and will burn them down to usually about half health already even before you are level 50. After this, you will pop them with because on top of giving you time to get your skills ready and/or gain some distance again, it does an added chunk of damage to the target who is already shocked. I usually don't even allow the bubble to reach the top and I just hit them with ... seems like a waste and it sorrrrt of can be, BUT it is the start to the next combo damage burst because does more damage to feared targets. And then you will hit them with because THAT does more damage to enervated targets AND gives you a portion of health back as well. Likely you didn't even take any damage yet but in case they hit you, this should heal it back to full. NOW if the target is still alive it probably has no more than 10% health left (unless it is a beefy 1* mob or a player). If it's a mob, you can just kill it with at this point to conserve more mana or combo to make SURE they die.
So this rotation is the basis of the whole build and of course it can be tweaked... I actually also ran most of the time because it gave me the extra burst I needed to make sure they died before the end of the rotation. But it can be wasted mana because if you have to move out of it, it does you no good. And if you are confident in yourself and/or just farming some easy mobs, you can throw in and to kill a few mobs that are on top of you fairly easily... but I was never a fan of this as I took a lot of damage leaving me a very good target for ganks. I also ran as a way to get myself to nui or a guard faster or into my glider to escape a gank.. or just for the fun of teleporting.
You can also easily turn this into a fairly viable PvP build by switching out some sorcery skills and passives for more CC and anti CC in the Witchcraft tree as well as the mobility and CC breaks in Auramancy. I may post a PvP version of this build later on.
Thanks for reading and feel free to comment on my build or make any suggestions for me. I will also try to come back and update this to make it more in depth later.
Astranos - [Bloodlust Cartel]
Lvl. 50 Arcanist - Enla/West
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