#Which Arcana should I pick for my second one?

30 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

gleaming birch
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I’ve recently reached level 50 Alchemic Sharpshooter and Link level 10, so now I’m figuring out my second Arcana.

Harmonic Saint seems designed to only work in group content as a support role, which might not be ideal for newer players. It also seems to demand good gear to be effective, which makes me hesitant.

Dark Diviner is often mentioned as the cheapest to gear, but I’m unsure how viable it remains after the recent nerfs (especially with bad gear). The Arcana level bonuses don’t seem to synergize well with AS either.

Sacred Guardian looks fun, but I’m concerned about its solo viability on an Elf. I also wonder if certain Arcanas perform better in specific content, and whether that should influence my decision.

Any suggestions or advice on which Arcana to pick next would be much appreciated.

placid halo
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I see, well personally I think there is no even relatively cheap arcana anymore after the current patch, everything is just massively expensive now. At least that's what I think but I don't know the specifics.

What I keep hearing is that SG doesn't perform much worse on an elf and if it is worse it's probably not particularly noticeable, or something like that. SG is also so convenient that literally I went into Glenn normal and all 3 of the other people on day side with me were SGs. And I knew because they all had Penance up. Personally I think SG is the new most convenient and appealing class, to the point it is probably going to be a fad. Unless you're concerned with metamancing your dps so hard that even SG's dps somehow isn't enough, even though it does good damage. As I see it one drawback of SG is that when you go into any content that is harder than glenn normal, you might perhaps not want multiple SGs, so you might be taking one SG. Logically however, a full party of 8 SGs would actually work well. But I'm not sure how many people will realize that and try to run full SG parties, especially in pubs. Also as with all arcanas, SG is very gear dependant.

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In fact if it were me I'd try something like a 7 SG 1 HS party.

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But well not everyone is gonna do something so based I guess, idk.

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I could be wrong but I think DD can just be considered a normal arcana now, just somewhat cheaper than other arcanas still and I'm not sure how its dps stacks up, but at least I've been thinking of it as just a normal arcana now.

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Also it's worth noting that supposedly the gear cost of all arcanas is gonna go down a ton with new rise, but I press X to doubt that because I won't be surprised if it still takes like 2000 crom runs to get 1 nightbringer to drop or something.

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(And then it's probably one you didn't want, such as a lance when you wanted a sword or something)

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But yeah tldr I guess I do suggest SG.

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In my opinion the main draw of DD now is literally just the mana shield spam... (there is the free pierce that probably won't do anything for you until you reach endgame, but due to this issue that doesn't count for probably most players at least) DD skills don't even look like magic enough to satisfy me. The big reason everyone was DD was skipping bard gear, now that you can't do that it's like... Well it's mostly only for people who just want a magic arcana or a mana shield arcana. And in fairness I guess the mana shield thing is nice.

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The DD skill rotation being unfun or even annoying has been the big reason people disliked DD too

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And that probably hasn't gone away.

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Even I think the DD skill rotation doesn't seem very fun and seems like a bother.

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And if you want an arcana that looks and feels like you are actually using magic, AS (and EK) do a much better job of that than DD imo.

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And if you want durability from mana shield, well SG is somewhat durable and gets advanced heavy stander plus immunity to a number of debuffs too on top of that.

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Meanwhile with mana shield you ragdoll around and get stunned.

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So that's my opinion, ignore it if you want. You can still be good as any of the arcanas you mentioned, most likely, assuming you grind enough.

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Besides I don't know much anyway.

neat folio
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dd is probably the worst class for mana shield

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since it dips into their resource pool

placid halo
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No DD gets render mana and inspiration which not all classes get.

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DD also has spirit staff exclusive ultimate.

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Basically the more sources of mana you have the more useful mana shield is.

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And DD's mana is somewhat close to inexhaustible.

vague cliff
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Thunder just becomes a mana pot with the spirit

strange sage
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for a "getting started" arcana, I think SG is the easiest. I actually think SG is the most viable melee arcana for elf (cuz they can't use lances for EV and two handed/piercing options are limited for EK)

You could use any shield tbh (just make sure it's not giant only) and there is a rental event which gives a rank A erg 45 celtic royal battle axe which gives 35 for defenses/protection + windmill damage. You could probably buy any non-special light armor like hyperion or imperial knight just for the defenses and slap a Fortification enchant on it. Ofc make sure you're using Dampen shock and Blunting field for more defenses and protection. The event also gave us arcana skip materials that basically upgrades an arcana to link 10 so if you already link 10'd your AS, you could use it on SG.

All of this should be enough for you to solo Seven nightmares hard, albeit slowly. But you can at least carry your weight in tech parties. (also as SG, you eat ice spears for breakfast 😆 )

I figured you aren't particularly interested in end game builds or how arcana's scale with investment so I didn't bring it up. I'm also not educated enough to talk about that lol so maybe someone else could chime in if you're curious.

edit: grammar

ancient elbow
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Does the Guard Cylinder count as a "shield" for SG?

strange sage
gleaming birch
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Thanks everyone. I’m going with SG!

placid halo
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So I know I said all that but tldr it currently looks like the best arcanas are:
-For humans and giants, Elemental Knight.
-For elves, Alchemic Sharpshooter.
Why? Cause they just got buffed a lot last month and SG probably does quite significantly less damage and people probably don't want more than 1 SG in their party anyway, etc.
DD and EV are not useless though. I just expect EK and AS will be not only higher dps than DD currently but also have more convenient gameplay than both. And EV is for bosses, it does shine at bosses though supposedly.