The playstyle of the PRM and devastation arcanist forces you to face tank often to keep the monster inside the aoe of the devastation, you will do this mainly by luring them in and then casting OFF and then drop devastation on top of them, you will then need to tank for the 2 seconds where the monsters aren’t frozen before kiting again. Granted this is for the tougher enemies and bosses out there such as the flesh hulks, most other monsters die in one devastation cast. Personally I went wth soldier as the sub class focusing on military conditioning, fighting spirit, field command and warcry. The buffs help you to stand your ground and let’s you dish out more damage from taking hits. Warcry is really good for quickly taking out tougher face rush monsters like the leeches and tyrants and commanders in later portions of the game.
Demo is a good pick if you are focusing on callidors tempest. For PRM the buffs you get are at most 2/3 efficient in boosting your output. It’s tempting to demo with aldanar’s offhand but I think you’ll find more mileage out of the buffs from the soldier class. At least I did on my battlemage, it was my first character and cleared ultimate self found easily (I also used aldanar’s, I got lucky on my veteran final quest turn in).
I have a mid-50’s PRM Arcanist and am going through the same dilemma to the point I have still not selected my 2nd class. TBH, there really is not much to gain from other classes. You could almost argue that you shouldn’t even use another class, just go full Arcanist! But eventually you’ll have a few leftover points so you need to pick one.
But assuming you plan on picking a 2nd class, here is my take on your options:
Soldier: 1/5
Wouldn’t recommend unless you’re desperate for HP and Physique for requirements. One of the least appealing combos with Arcanist because it’s almost all shield/weapon-based. Everything you’d use would be on the bottom 2 rows…
Military Conditioning: Raw health.
Veterancy: Raw health regen & access to heavy armor at lower Physique, allowing you to put more pts into Spirit for damage.
Decorated Soldier: Resistances are always nice… but this might be too deep in the tree to be worth it.
Could also consider Field Command and Squad Tactics, but only if playing multiplayer.
Demolitionist: 2/5
Decent option, mostly for defensive abilities. In general a lot of the damage from this tree is Fire and Lightning, which should scale well with Arcanist since you should have a lot of +Elemental damage… but the tree is very situational and the CC could be mostly superfluous if you have Flash Freeze.
Flashbang/Searing Light: Great ability in general to use defensively against trash, offensively against bosses.
Sunt Jacks: Nice defensive stun that should scale well with Elemental Damage bonuses you get from Arcanist skills and gear.
Vindictive Flame: Worthless for its retaliation since you shouldn’t be getting hit much at all playing Arcanist, but great for HP regen and Total Speed. Cast Speed is friggin’ awesome for PRM!
Cannister Bomb: While deep into the tree, for just 4 points its a nice AOE stun.
Blast Shield: Seriously deep into the tree, would not recommend diverting this many points from Arcanist to reach it… but if you do this is an amazing defensive ability. Especially for an Arcanist who isn’t going to be hit often so the cooldown wouldn’t be an issue.
Occultist: 4/5
Probably the best class to combine with Arcanist, but still not great. Going Occultist would be all about Curse of Frailty. CoF + early skill bonuses are excellent for Arcanists.
Curse of Frailty + Vulnerability: Perhaps the best early-tier skill in the game. The massive slow and -Resist debuff would significantly increase your damage.
Summon Familiar: Shouldn’t be specced for damage, rather for the heal (keep on defensive) and the elemental damage buff.
Bloody Pox: Worthless for an Arcanist. Won’t scale well with Arcanist damage & easier to just use PRM to mow down everything.
Blood of Dreeg: While appealing, this is not as good as it appears. Especially because of how many points it eats. Nice regen, nice OA, but the heal is kind of unnecessary since potions do the trick.
Shaman: 3/5
Similar to Soldier bonuses, but with a bit more perks. Shaman can be amazing when combined with Arcanist skills, particularly with how much Lightning damage you could do … but a PRM build will require too many points to allow you to reach deep enough into the Shaman tree.
Mogdrogen’s Pact + Heart of the Wild + Oak Skin: One of the best survivability skill-lines in the game. Will require a hefty point investment but usually worth it.
Grasping Vines: Incredible AoE Crowd Control similar to the slow on Curse of Frailty. You won’t use it for the damage, but the significant slow absolutely destroys packs of mobs at choke points like doorways. Absolutely love this skill in dungeons.
Wind Devil: A juggernaut with Arcanist damage bonuses if you can invest fully into it. It reminds me of Nightblade’s Blade Spirit. The problem is in how many points you’d need to maximize it’s value. Again, you will probably need too many points into Arcanist to be able to do so.
Primal Bond & Stormcaller’s Pact: Would be awesome for Arcanists if it weren’t so prohibitively deep into the tree.
Nightblade: 5/5
Surprisingly great synergy with Arcanist for modest point investment. Probably the best class to combine with Arcanist IMO. While not as great for a PRM build, it has insane possibilities for a Cold Damage Arcanist so even if it’s not helping your PRM build much, choosing NB still leaves you the option to respec to something different (and more fun).
Veil of Shadow: Awesome debuff to protect yourself from charging mobs/bosses. Night’s Chill is not worth the Energy reserved, the cold damage debuff is too minor.
Amarasta’s Blade Burst + Lethal Assault: Looks better on paper than it is. It could be a nice additional AoE defensive+damage ability but really superfluous if you have Flash Freeze. The Lethal Assault buff seems nice but the duration is too short.
Phantasmal Armor: One of the best passives for an Arcanist. The only real damage an Arcanist should take is from ranged (piercing) and spells. This passive effects both with solid pierce resistance & energy absorbtion.
Pneumatic Burst + Shadow Dance: Excellent regen + defense. The heal isn’t necessary, but it would save you a few potions, this is really all about Shadow Dance and not having to gear any HP regen.
Elemental Awakening: I separated this from PB+SD because it’s just so deep into the tree. There is nothing bad about it, in fact it’s excellent for the Elemental Damage and Resists… but it’s just so heavy of a point investment you’d have to give up too much to get it.
Blade Barrier: The main reason Nightblade is so great with Arcanists. Having this skill AND Mirror of Ereoctes gives you TWO “oh shit!” immunity skills. You shouldn’t need to put more than 1-4 pts into either skill to have at least one of them available at any time.
In the end I would recommend:
OCCULTIST or NIGHTBLADE: If you are planning on never changing out of your PRM build.
NIGHTBLADE or SHAMAN: If you would like the option to respec one day & try something completely different.
So much wrong here. Soldier and Demo are the best by a huge margin. Nightblade is good, but not for the reasons you state.
Occultist is horrible because it doesn’t give you anything that Arcanist doesn’t have and fails to give you anything you need from a secondary class. He’s just as squishy as the arcanist, gives no cast speed, no healing/regen, Possession doesn’t stack with Reckless power… Warlocks should be DEE based and use Arcanist as secondary (mostly for Mental alacrity).
Shaman is meh. Wendigo totem is nice, the bonus health as well. Briarthorn aura is good, but too high maintenance for my taste.
Demo is amazing because, for one, it’s a completely broken class and you can pair it with anything. Flat OA, Blast shield, Flashbang and total speed… All of that without investing more than 32 points in the mastery. Insane.
Soldier is the best in the recent patch imo, though it’s highly debatable. Field command and Scars of battle solve your biggest weakness and you get some OA in the process. With the nerf to Tree of life and other defensive devotions, Soldier comes out on top of Demo for me because it fixes your health pool and allows you to spend more devotion points in offence. Most notably stuff like Manticore and Widow because resistance reduction has become much more rare than before.
Nightblade is good, but because of Phantasmal blades, which are basically a life stealing version of PRM. If you want PRM, no point in going Spellbreaker.
Behemoth, Tree of Life, Turtle, Lion, Targo the Builder, Scales of Ulcama are all good for raw hp% and hp regen. For resistances it is recommended to try and get them through gear, components and augments.
Great feedback, although at times a bit contradicting
I have been thinking that Panetti’s Replicating Wand doesn’t actually seem like that great of an item for aether based arcanist/soldier (or arcanist/nightblade).
Thought about trying out callidor’s tempest build now instead of PRM.
