Earlier this morning, ZeniMax Online Studios released a brand new trailer revealing the combat abilities of the Arcanist, the newest class launching with The Elder Scrolls Online Gold: Necrom the following month. The Arcanist becomes some much-deserved love through the developers heading in the homestretch as the brand new Chapter expansion is time for Morrowind on PC on June 5th, while consoles will probably be waiting before the 20th.
From new lore drops that highlight some of the characters that players will come across in the world for example Arcanist companion Azandar Al-Cybiades to showcasing the reimagined plane of Hermaeus Mora's Apocrypha, there is a ton to dive into.
However, the Arcanist is a fresh class that's liable to bring a unique combat style to ESO. We discussed how they feel in reality, especially the newest combat combo mechanic, Crux, within our preview from GDC. Today's video dives deeper into each skill line, highlighting clearly how Crux works and giving examples of the three distinct skill lines the Arcanist can decide on - or combination from each.
The video is narrated by Brian Wheeler, the Combat Lead for The elder scrolls online gold, therefore we had the chance to ask Brian a few pre-determined questions of our own about designing this new and unique class in ESO.
Brian Wheeler, ZeniMax Online Studios: Players have enjoyed the Arcanist! So much so that there are plenty of builds and videos around even before its official launch! This PTS cycle became a bit different in the location where the majority of balance changes went inside the 4th update because we considered a great deal of feedback. While there weren’t any changes to Crux or redesigns of abilities whole cloth, we did add several inclusions in abilities depending on feedback. One good illustration showing this was focused around Fatecarver and ways in which PVP left you vulnerable. Instead of boosting damages to it or so that it is more deadly in other methods, we added a damage shield to one with the morphs that made you impervious to interruptions as the shield was active. The team did a fantastic job combing through the feedback and finding solutions that kept the core of abilities intact while hitting many with the points brought up from the PTS cycle.
Wheeler: When we initially were thinking of a brand new class, we knew we didn’t desire to make another “scary” class or band of skill lines. That being said we also understand that Hermaeus Mora is usually a pretty scary entity, so there would have to be some quantity of Cosmic Horror there. We took inspiration from all over the place regarding visuals though and not Elder Scrolls lore. Movies, books, comics, tv programs...each of them had a return to what is now the Arcanist. We did hand gesture studies, and new poses for casting, and searched into various geometric forms for your Runes. We also dug into the color palettes of our current classes and determined our lovely shades of green and purple with the Arcanist. The Art and Audio crew did a very good job setting the Arcanist other than our other classes which was very important to make the category look and sound brand new. When you see an Arcanist for the field, you recognize it immediately!
