vMSA makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong

Lyrebon

Literally have no clue how people manage this. I've watched tons of videos of other stamblades and I still seem to not be understanding something. My build is different to what I PvE with in dungeons and raids, I have good gear and still getting my ass kicked.

I have 31k stam with 1200 recovery and I'm running out of stamina to avoid her swipes and the adds, and using Vigor. I don't have time to reapply Siphoning Strikes or Relentless Focus a lot of the time because I'm healing myself or trying to do as much damage as I can before they kill me. I drop Caltrops, Endless Hail, Poison Injection, Rending Slashes on the boss whenever I can, I try to stay away from the boss when she's swiping but her swipes seem to hit you across the entire length of one of those small islands.

I can't kill things fast enough without running out of stamina, which kills me anyway because I have no way to dodge or heal then. I use Essence of Weapon Damage to do more DPS. I've gotten her down to the execute phase twice out of a dozen attempts and by that time there's more adds and I'm at 20% stamina.

There's too much to focus on and think about. I don't mind the difficulty but there are some *** mechanics like her swipe range and the average mob that can one shot me if I'm not careful.

I have 12k resistances, do I need more? 355 health recovery, more?

I only have 350 CP and I feel like this handicaps me massively too, which seems a little unfair to force players to grind to CP500 just to access the only solo PvE content in the game. My gear is mostly gold, I have Twice Born 5/5, Molag Kena head with Chudan shoulders, and Agility jewellery. All enchants are either gold stamina or stamina regen. Should I use some health recovery enchants and/or switch the monster set to something more damaging?

Wrecking_Blow_Spam

@Lyrebon

"I only have 350 CP and I feel like this handicaps me massively too, which seems a little unfair to force players to grind to CP500 just to access the only solo PvE content in the game. "

This kind of quote annoys me a little, it is misleading. More cp helps but don't carry you through it, you still need to kill stuff and be half decent. YOU CAN DO IT.

Your stats sound ok, my friend completed yesterday with these sets/stats to put it into perspective if you think your CP is to low or gear not good enough.
260 CP yes 260 CP
Stam dk
V150 purple hundings rage w purple enchants
V160 purple Molag head and velidreth shoulders
Gold 160 Maul/Bow sharpened Endurance jewellery w WD enchants
The serpent mundus
Standard trash stamina pots
Used power/defence sigils on certain stages
Time 1 hour 43 min
Score 370k ish.

Note: he got a gold sharpened ice staff from leaderboards.

Do not worry about health recovery or resistances.
Try wear 7 medium if you can.
Use sigils, especially the defence one until you can complete on a regular basis.

Wrecking_Blow_Spam

@Lyrebon
Maybe drop chudan shoulders for blood spawn or velidreth.

I can't comment if twice born star is best or not. I think that combined with Vicious Ophidian set it is BiS.
But I'm not 100% sure if it's still the best without the VO set. Maybe you'll do better with hundings set? Although it's a big commitment.

I've not acquired my full Vicious set but from what I've seen of it, it's very very good. BiS for stamina VMA runs.
Maybe try farming that? Use 3 jewellery and head, shoulders.

It's worth noting it's a rare drop on normal, so expect to pay big money for it. Unless you can find a group who regularly runs Veteran trails (I cannot) then the drop rate skyrockets for the jewellery plus it's gold.
I'm sure it'll be worth it.

I currently need 1 ring and my set is complete.

Lyrebon

Wrecking_Blow_Spam wrote: »

@Lyrebon
Maybe drop chudan shoulders for blood spawn or velidreth.

I can't comment if twice born star is best or not. I think that combined with Vicious Ophidian set it is BiS.
But I'm not 100% sure if it's still the best without the VO set. Maybe you'll do better with hundings set? Although it's a big commitment.

I've not acquired my full Vicious set but from what I've seen of it, it's very very good. BiS for stamina VMA runs.
Maybe try farming that? Use 3 jewellery and head, shoulders.

It's worth noting it's a rare drop on normal, so expect to pay big money for it. Unless you can find a group who regularly runs Veteran trails (I cannot) then the drop rate skyrockets for the jewellery plus it's gold.
I'm sure it'll be worth it.

I currently need 1 ring and my set is complete.

That's a problem because literally no-one I've encountered is willing to run veteran trials. I constantly run nSO and as soon as someone suggests having a crack at vSO you see like 6-7 people just drop from the group. The drops are so bad in normal too. I've only ever obtained a divines boots that was worth keeping, everything else has been trash traits and I've never seen jewellery. Quite frankly, I don't feel like grinding for days/weeks just to complete content I'm only doing for the loot. I don't enjoy Maelstrom one bit, it's poorly designed but it's the only place that drops the gear I want/need. Even then, knowing my RNG luck I'll have to grind Maelstrom about 100 times before seeing something I need.

I'll switch to Blood Spawn (Velidreth when I acquire the shoulders - I have the helm, because that set is fantastic too).

tinythinker

AnnieBeGood wrote: »

You are not alone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAyKJAtDNCw

Nidro

Hello,

i was reading almost all the comments here and i mainly see alot of frustration here.

I am a "newcomer" to the Maelstrom Arena aswell.

I remember my first run too good guys.....

The first time i was in there ever was on my Magicka Nightblade and it took me 11 hours of stress, sweat and i lost thousands of nerves, aswell as Soul gems and Gold lol.

it took me 11 hours to get to the last boss.

i had SO MANY game crashes until i was there, at least 15 times, because each 4th magicka detonation crashed my game...
but i still had the Motivation to go on. and then i stood at the last boss after hours of hours of learning the mechanincs, wiping over and over just for a (that time not guaranteed) maelstrom weapon that was unusable anyway lol :-)

after almost 12 hours i decided to stop. as i did NOT have the conentration anymore to go on.

Since then i never went back in there on that char.

after 2-3 months and the release of SotH i gave it another try on another Char. (was using my stam sorc with 5x hunding 5x vicious serpent and 2x Night Mothers Gaze daggers in sharpened - now i use 1 dagger in nirnhoned and 1 in sharpenedmaelstrom daggers been kinda lucky tough if i read the comments here lol)

my first run with that took me about 2 HOURS ONLY!

my 2nd run was 1:40

and now after about 20 runs i am at 54:27 getting score of 530k easily.

What i wanna say is:

To get it started is very very hard guys, but its ALL ABOUT PRACTICE!!!

Once u get the hang of it, u walk trough like u do normal or vet dungeons lol.

The thing is with maelstrom you are absolutely ALONE and have to learn to cover urself with healing, protection, agility, and do tons of damage in the meanwhile.

In group content you have the roles, that everone must do them. otherwise u wont succeed.
In Maelstrom the difference is u have o do all of these alone.

THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE IN THIS GAME is the following (especially for vMA):

The more damage you do - the easier things will be.
- less healing to do
- less trash to "tank/block"
--> u can Focus on even more dmg and rotation.

This rule is a basic rule for ALMOST ALL content in this game!!

Once u know the mechanics it gets easier and easier. u will remember the spots where the Mobs spawn, which rounds, which Mobs, and where.

place your dots when u see the Portals coming and turn around load ur have attack and shoot the 2nd or 3rd Mob.

U should try to focus "spraying"the damage all over the arena to get the adds killed instantly when they spawn.

i Hope this helps you out guys.

Just dont give up . Once ur trough it it gets easy guys!

Stay focused ;-)

Yours Nidro~~