Arcanist Overview

Arcanist is one of the most challenging classes to play in Lost Ark with fast-paced gameplay and a wide variety of skill rotations. In order to get the most out of the class, quick thinking and fast decision making are required.

The class may seem to be very weak at the beginning but as you dive deeper into the class mechanics and gear up more and more, the class begins to shine and feels more and more rewarding for effort that’s been put in.

To learn more about the other Mage classes, check out our guides for Sorceress and Bard.

Arcanist uses a magic card deck as a weapon. There are several different types of cards with specific functions attached to each:

• Yellow cards are used for crowd control and self buffs.
• Blue cards are used to deal some damage and mark an opponent with a Ruin up to four times.
• Red cards have almost no effect on their own, however, when used on a target that is marked with Ruin stacks, it detonates all of the stacks and deals a lot of damage. More stacks explode means more damage is dealt, so applying all four Ruin stacks is very important.

Arcanist’s Identity is a special deck of Tarot Cards. It consists of twelve cards and each one of them provides different effects for the arcanist, from damage buffs to an instant skill cooldown refresh. While dealing damage, she builds up an Arcane Energy meter.

Once it’s full, one random card from the deck of twelve is drawn. Arcanist can hold up to two cards at the same time and use them at any moment when you are not CC’ed.

In PvE, Arcanist uses big AoE abilities to keep large groups of monsters in CC and deal good damage at the same time. When it comes to guardians or raid bosses, Arcanist uses her mobility to quickly jump into melee range and apply four stacks of Ruin, then detonate it with red skill.

While doing that, she cycles through her Tarot Cards deck to search for cards like Death or Twisted Fate to increase the Ruin damage while utilizing other cards’ effects for more smooth combat.

For PvP, Arcanist provides good AoE crowd control abilities to keep small areas of the battlefield locked for an opponent for some time. In 1v1 fights, Arcanist can catch her opponent with quick instant stagger skills and by performing fast damage combos. The combo deals medium damage but that can be changed with good Tarot Card draws.

Since she can only catch opponents with stagger skills, she struggles against classes with a good amount of super armor options and has to maneuver around waiting for a good window to strike.