An SRS Damage Dealer Build
The Golden Librarian
by Vinny (@EnigmaticTea)

Gear:

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Tide-Born is the bread and butter set here it kicks out so much damage by buffing your direct damage its insane. For the most part the sets here are fairly optimised although Slimecraw can be swapped for any other 1 piece crit monster set. Below are some other swaps and where you might use them:

• Merciless Charge ---> Spectral Cloak (Listen it's nowhere near as good and harder to use in my opinion, but if you can't stand Stampede, you can swap this in instead)

• Null Arca ---> Mora Sribe's Thesis (I've seen some people wielding this to great effect as a crit-based stat armour. If you want to try this run it on your weapon and jewellery and move Tide-Born to your armour in Medium. If you do this experiment with potions to get the most buffs possible!)

• Null Arca ---> Ansuul's Torment (Another armour that functions as a excellent stat boost. This seems to be what the highest level players in the game run so probably outperforms Lucent Echos. I have not tested this myself.)

For those of you who dont want to grind trial gear I'll provide some alternatives at the bottom.

 

 

Skills:

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Not too much in the way of alternatives here however, you could

swap our Bloody Smash scribed skill out for Vampire Bane from

Dawn's Wrath if you want something easier to apply at range.

I prefer Bloody Smash, however, for its Minor Berserk buff

(when you are unable to apply this buff with Camouflaged

Hunter) and its potential to hit multiple targets. Some people

may also consider swapping Camouflaged Hunter for a morph

of Grim Focus. I don't personally recommend this as we don't

light attack much with this build so you'll build up stacks for

Grim Focus very slowly and the Minor Berserk and Slayer buff

from Camouflaged Hunter gives more DPS than the

assassination passives.

 

 

Playstyle:

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Sit back, relax, and melt the enemies of humanity with a giant laser. I'll get into rotation in a second, but first, I'd like to note that what will affect your actual performance on real enemies most is your ability to understand the dynamics of combat. The less time you spend dead or desperately trying to avoid damage, the more DPS you'll do. Remain calm, trust in your team and don't stand in stupid. To this end, practice in hard content makes perfect. The more time you spend desperately trying to beat difficult fights, the better you'll be at combat across the board, and it will make a difference, allowing you to outperform people with higher parses in actual gameplay.

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Anyway rotations! First, it's worth remembering that Fatecarver is considered DIRECT DAMAGE, so that's what you want to focus on buffing. This is why we use Tideborn as it buffs the Fatecarver and most of our other damage meaning it will actually out perform Deadly Strike.

 

Simply, you have three buffs on your back bar:

Solar Barrage (Which we use for the 5% Class

ability damage amp), Recuperative Treatise

(A tool we use for generating Crux and some

extra resources), and Stampede (which we use

to trigger the Maelstrom Two-hand 7% Direct

Damage buff). You MUST make sure these are

active as much as possible! Once you've done

that, it's simple; use Cepheliarc's Flail twice to

build Three Crux, cast Power of the Light on

your primary target and then hose down as

many enemies as possible with Pragmatic

Fatecarver.

 

Use your Tide Kings Gaze against big groups

or bosses if you can afford it, and then spam

Soul Harvest between Power of the Light and

Fatecarver after that point. Once the enemy

hits about 30% health, maintain your buffs

but change your main rotation to Radient

Glory spam, weaving in your old rotation

occasionally if you're struggling for Magicka.

Once you get to about 10-15% HP, buffing

becomes a damage loss with Radient Glory,

so focus on spamming that in addition to

Soul Harvest and only buff up if returning

to your default rotation whilst you regenerate

Magicka.

 

I want to use Magicka!

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Due to the Arcanist's ability to use stamina or magicka with their skills, you can swap this to a magicka build. Doing so will probably result in damage loss; however, the build should still perform well enough for most, if not all, content. To make this change, simply swap all stamina boosting enchantments to their magicka variants, including swapping jewellery enchants from Increase Physical Harm to Increase Magical Harm. Additionally, if you make this change, I recommend swapping your front bar weapon to a Tide-Born Lightening Staff so you can recharge your magicka with a heavy attack.

 

Food and Potions:

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I use and prefer sugar skulls for food; however, Arteaum Takeaway broth and Lava Foot soup are both good, more stamina-focused alternatives. If you decide to build this as a magicka build, Witchmother's Potent Brew is a good alternative food. No matter how you make the build, Tri-Pots are always the best in slot.

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I'm Scared of Trials, so What Now?:

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If getting into trials is nerve-racking for you here are some swaps you can make:

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• Null Arca ---> Pillar of Nirn (Found in Falkreath Hold this is the recommended replacement set. You may want to consider swapping Tide-Born to Deadly Strike if you make this change as PoN deals Damage over time which is buffed by Deadly Stike and not Tide-Born)

• Null Arca---> Orders Wrath (An extremely solid Stat-based crafted set if you can't get Pillar of Nirn use this. You might want to consider swapping your standing stone to the Shadow if your Crit Chance is too high with this set)