Maelstrom Arena last stage mechanics

Katinas

I like the difficulty of veteran Maelstrom Arena and the new unseen mechanics are really cool. I am however extremely unimpressed with last stage, Theater of Despair, mechanics.
The Boss' attack where he shoots a skull spell deals moderate/high damage and it knocks you down without granting CC immunity. Blocking that attack as a magicka user is as unwise as is dodging it. You can do it once or twice but not all the time. While this attack is focused on you you also have to deal with Crematorial Guard melee attacks which also don't grant CC immunity. Since when is this the norm?
Another thing is the upstairs part where you have to kill the portals. Do the yreally need to have over 200k health? This falls back to the same stamina issue where boss shoots his attacks and you also need to avoid ground damage. Why is it so dumbed down where one after another you get high damage and the only way to go around it effectively is to play as a stamina build.

Kaliki

I had the same issue. Got to the endboss twice now and found that I just could not do it, because I did not have enough stamina to block/interrupt, even with all the tools I have available as a Templar and with potions. If you run out just once, its all over bc you die to one of the mechanics or due to the high damage (clannfear + crematorial guard + no mobility as templar = rekt).

I will have to craft a Willpower set or change my setup completely only to be able to do the final boss ...

cschwingeb14_ESO

The skull knock back attack is fairly infrequent. On the lower level it's less than every 20 seconds. On the upper level you will get 2 in a row (but only 1 the first time you head up), and it is very predictable. I'm now able to finish with just magicka pots, saving a ton of money on tri pots.

As far as crystal health goes, I found that if it didn't look like I was going to take the crystals down by the third explosion, it was smarter to just drop down a bit early, kill mobs and head back up to kill crystals the rest of the way.

Now, the crematorium guards are another story. Between their fast speed, high damage, high health and massive DoT, it's a bit much. I had to cure vamp to finish.

Katinas

What bothers me so much is things like this. ^
This was a death during a moment of "Finally gotcha" when I press the synergy to explode after collecting three souls and to stun the Boss and daedroth. But intead due to the sloppy lag that synergies have I ended up getting oneshotted.
Add to this the fact that bosses repeatedly stun and CC you and you never once get immunity and this becomes an uphill climb.
@ZOS_RichLambert What would the response be to critical parts of fights like this, when a player is supposed to be getting an empowering attack such as synergy but instead risks getting killed and the chances are not in his favor?

thelordoffelines

You never get cc immunity when an NPC CCs you which is what makes round nine so hard - all the nightblade NPCs spamming ambush on you stunning you. But the boss doesnt spam the skull move so you can time your dodges correctly and avoid them if youre using purple food it really isnt an issue to avoid then all and have stam left over. And while on top it really helps to have a speed buff to avoid things and staybm behind the wall.

Katinas

Again and again I cannot contain my frustration having reached last boss of stage 9 finding myself banging my head against the wall.
The skull attacks that boss does knock me down each time, each single time. That costs me stamina to either block and take reduced damage or to break CC and stand up while taking the full damage. And they happen in such frequency that it becomes impossible as a magicka player to do anything about it. I am not talking about his channeled attack which needs to be interrupted, I am talking about simple auto attacks.
Please @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert tell me this is not intended and is on your list to fix this. This is literally absurd, you must look into this.

quickblade418

tri stat potions for your stamina , also his skull attack is not as frequent as you think , it happens maybe once every 40 second, except when upstairs on second phase he throws two in a row. but again after the second dodge roll or block just drink a tri stats potions and you'll be fine, nothign complicated

The_Saint

Katinas wrote: »

Again and again I cannot contain my frustration having reached last boss of stage 9 finding myself banging my head against the wall.
The skull attacks that boss does knock me down each time, each single time. That costs me stamina to either block and take reduced damage or to break CC and stand up while taking the full damage. And they happen in such frequency that it becomes impossible as a magicka player to do anything about it. I am not talking about his channeled attack which needs to be interrupted, I am talking about simple auto attacks.
Please @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert tell me this is not intended and is on your list to fix this. This is literally absurd, you must look into this.

Im also magika user with 9-10k stamina. No point in stamina, no glyph nothing... and im able to block all of it. You just have to know when they came. When you dont have enough stamina->tripot and dont run around in block... one skull in the beginning and one after healer/deadroth spawn (when this one knock you out you are dead 99%) and one again before his rocket attacks which can be interrupt. Im a funnel blade so i interrupt boss with block and have still enough stamina for the skull block...

in second phase dont stand in the meteor and look at boss cast animation and then block....

Zedh

I seriously have never had the problems you guys are describing...
I run all attributes in magicka, all enchantments on magicka, blue magicka food, use magicka potions and have no racial passives that give me any stamina sustain. I guess the only thing i do is to ration my stamina.
I avoid any sprinting, any dodging or getting knocked/stunned and need stamina for absolutely nothing except blocking the heavy attack from the boss every like 30 seconds and bashing him on the lower level.
It is true that as soon as a magicka player makes a mistake that unnesessarily consumed stamina, it will be hard to get back on track with your stamina managment. But that will always be completely due to personal failure and can be fixed with practice.
I disagree though, that the stage is impossible without tripots/trifood. If you notice poor stamina management on this stage, there is clearly something wrong with your playstyle/tactics.

oibam

Block costes less stamina than dodgeroll.

You can use tri buff food.

To avoid a second spawn of a crematorial guard, dps boss down to 70% asap (you have to survive the first...somehow).

The boss fires the skull in most cases after he teleports. Downstairs I dodge because you dodge also crematorial nearly wipe melee attack. Upstairs I block because he fires always 1 after explode and 1 few seconds later.

Katinas

Perhaps you never faced this issue. His each attack knocks me down without granting CC immunity. The only way so far for me to go up is to use defensive sigil when he teleports for the first time. Problem persists when I come back downstairs for final phase. Each and every attack knocks me down. Shame I cannot capture it on video.

Zedh

Katinas wrote: »

Perhaps you never faced this issue. His each attack knocks me down without granting CC immunity. The only way so far for me to go up is to use defensive sigil when he teleports for the first time. Problem persists when I come back downstairs for final phase. Each and every attack knocks me down. Shame I cannot capture it on video.

Well this is clearly a different issue in your case. If you get knocked down from every single auto attack the boss casts, I'm sorry that this bug is causing you to have such a hard time. Have you submitted a bug report about this already?
I was only responding to the people who claimed that magicka users are not given enough stamina sustain to master this stage, assuming that everything works as intended.

Gelassenheit

Katinas wrote: »

Again and again I cannot contain my frustration having reached last boss of stage 9 finding myself banging my head against the wall.
The skull attacks that boss does knock me down each time, each single time. That costs me stamina to either block and take reduced damage or to break CC and stand up while taking the full damage. And they happen in such frequency that it becomes impossible as a magicka player to do anything about it. I am not talking about his channeled attack which needs to be interrupted, I am talking about simple auto attacks.
Please @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert tell me this is not intended and is on your list to fix this. This is literally absurd, you must look into this.

I'm a magicka templar with no attributes in stamina, none from gear, and without the use of potions that provide stamina or CC immunity, and no CP in reducing block cost, sprinting cost, stam regen, etc.... You need only block the attacks that knock you down, as the fire balls raining form the sky can easily be avoided. As soon as you go up, he does 1 attack, then summons the wall that moves around, then it's a simple repeat of 2 attacks then wall. You should even have enough stamina to sprint to keep up with the wall.

I'd recommend to never dodge roll to avoid those spells, and to never take one to the face, causing you to break CC. I find it much more efficient in terms of stamina cost to block it.

Zedh

Gelassenheit wrote: »

Katinas wrote: »

Again and again I cannot contain my frustration having reached last boss of stage 9 finding myself banging my head against the wall.
The skull attacks that boss does knock me down each time, each single time. That costs me stamina to either block and take reduced damage or to break CC and stand up while taking the full damage. And they happen in such frequency that it becomes impossible as a magicka player to do anything about it. I am not talking about his channeled attack which needs to be interrupted, I am talking about simple auto attacks.
Please @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert tell me this is not intended and is on your list to fix this. This is literally absurd, you must look into this.

I'm a magicka templar with no attributes in stamina, none from gear, and without the use of potions that provide stamina or CC immunity, and no CP in reducing block cost, sprinting cost, stam regen, etc.... You need only block the attacks that knock you down, as the fire balls raining form the sky can easily be avoided. As soon as you go up, he does 1 attack, then summons the wall that moves around, then it's a simple repeat of 2 attacks then wall. You should even have enough stamina to sprint to keep up with the wall.

I'd recommend to never dodge roll to avoid those spells, and to never take one to the face, causing you to break CC. I find it much more efficient in terms of stamina cost to block it.

I'm pretty sure now that OP isn't talking about the channeled heavy hits from the boss, but about the little skull attacks he in fact does every few seconds. If that was happening to me I'm sure I'd be ranting on the forum as well. Unfortunatelly that bug doesn't seem to be too common and hasn't gotten much attention yet.

cschwingeb14_ESO

Every few seconds is a bit of hyperbole. He has a post-teleport rotation: knockdown skull (dodge/block), channeled swarm (interrupt), auto-attack for a bit, repeat.

If you get to close, sometimes he does a PBAE. This can be annoying early on, because it can cause you to get the crematorium guard at the same time as a channeled swarm. And the knockdown skull is easy to avoid.

Zedh

cschwingeb14_ESO wrote: »

Every few seconds is a bit of hyperbole.

A bit of a hyperbole? He casts them every 2-3 seconds quite consistently as long as he's not busy channelling another animation. You probly didn't take note of them cause they hardly even tickle you as long as they don't bug out.

Katinas

I wrote three tickets explaining the bugs; no reply yet.
@Wrobel

Bogdan_Kobzar

Laughing Out Loud!

When us "unskilled" players have challenges, we're told "l2p", "l2p", "l2p"
When we ask for details, we're told "Learn how to attack weave, learn how to animation cancel."

Butt, when the NPC's are using the same mechanics against the players it's a bug....

Way too funny...

Joy_Division

I have my issues with this fight, including:

• stunned while going to upper level because the portal is on a lava spawn
• the gps tracking system of the deadroth and clannfear on the lower level that insta jump you when u get knocked or jumped down from the top
• the daedroths spawning on a timer, which biases dps builds
• the wildfire dot that you cannot cleanse
• the permanent snare the healer add sometimes puts on you

amongst others.

But the skull attack is something you just have to avoid.