Help requested for my pet sorc in Maelstrom

Locriana

Hey. I'm really frustrated in Maelstrom. The thing is, I got past Sehts flywheel on vet once with relative ease, I must've got lucky or something. My quest got deleted I had to start over several times until I could even get the quest back, and now I can't get past it. I've tried so many times.

I'd really love some advice -- not the ultimate meta build because I don't have Maelstrom staffs obviously, I haven't got through it on vet yet. But something doable at my level of play and build.

My pet sorc build, with usual skill bar setup, works well other places, I know I'll have to change some things:
5 necro, 4infallible aether, 2illambris. All divines except reinf. shoulders. Spell damage Mundas stone (which I changed to spell crit for Maelstrom)
All large pieces yellow. Jewelry with kuta spell dam. enchants, two purple one yellow.

Front bar: lightning infused staff, flame enchant. I also have a sharpened return health staff I can substitute. All yellow and kuta enchants
Bound aegis/volatile familiar/power surge/liquid lightning/blockade storms/shooting star

Back bar: lightning nirnhoned staff, spell damage enchantment. Yellow, kuta enchants
Bound aegis/ inner light/shock clench (or crushing shock)/volatile familiar/daedric prey/thunderous rage

What can I change to get through vet Maelstrom? I found normal pretty easy. And vet not bad until the boss on Sehts flywheel. I understand the mechanics here pretty well, but doing it is another matter. I stay under the boss when green, use my destro ult, between work on adds. But I get killed at some point. Usually I get the boss pretty far down. If I have enough shields and heals on my bars I don't have room for enough dps, and vice versa.

I've tried changing up a lot of things, using engine guardian and or twilight matriarch to stay alive, of course I have to add hardened ward somewhere.
I don't want to completely change my whole skill setup because I've trained in this set up for dps for trials and it's very confusing to have a completely different setup. I'm not trying for flawless or anything too grand. I'd just like to get through it and have a chance at a staff, etc. I'm actually really interested in it. I've watched videos but not with pet builds.

Also, it seems there is some lag which can make it slow to change bars, so I seem to need hardened ward on both bars, plus power surge on one.

Even with changing to the thief Mundas stone I'm only getting 45% crit, which I don't really understand why it's so low with all but one divines. Of course necro is based on magicka not crit so there's that.

I do have a set of Julianos lying around, should I sub that for infal? Then back bar star would be nirnhoned fire instead of lightning. It would really change the build from the off balance, and dps would be lower.

Advice that's not a complete remake would be gratefully accepted. Surely there is something I can do with what I have going already that is not too much of a stretch, so I can use what I've been training in to some extent?

Thanks
Oh I should add I'm cp 649 of that helps, and I do have various armor sets stashed like moondancer and mothers sorrow, martial whatever, and can make most crafted sets. Kind of a pack rat. No elegance though. I have molag kena and most monster sets, but I don't understand the talk about an overload bar, as it seems they are speaking about three bars when we only have two. I get the Kena overload feature, but it seems overly complicated and requires more magicka... master alchemist experimenting with potions. Tri-pots seem best tho spel crit, magicka and health could help... can make tri-food or witchmothers..

s7732425ub17_ESO

Let me be blunt. Vet Maelstrom is 90% player skill and experience, 10% gear. Once you have a solid gear setup, doing something like changing out Julianos for Necro or switching your mundus stone is going to have 0 impact on whether or not you can do VMA. Many players come to the forums asking for help, and they think something must be wrong with gear or skills. But there's nothing wrong there. It's just that you need to get better at the arena.

s7732425ub17_ESO

You should be killing the boss during the second green phase. If your DPS is really low, it'll take three phases, but then the fight gets really difficult because the adds pile up. The hard part during the non-green phase is not dying to the boss's ground aoes. They pop up very quickly and are hard to avoid. You can use a single speed potion during this time and strafe back and forth to easily avoid them without having to shield up every second.

During non-green phase, you should also be attacking the boss. The add attacks are avoidable if you just see them and walk out of the way. Seems you are losing too much DPS by not attacking the boss and prolonging the fight.

Jaimeh

Your gear is fine, maybe you can consider swapping to your sharpened staff for vMA. When the last round starts in stage 4, make sure to kill the little sentry that comes out before the boss, and then stay underneath the boss and move along with him while you damage him. During that part I usually grab the defensive sigil if it's on my way, in order to prepare for the boss's fire phase. When the boss stops and starts throwing the fire, drop your ultimate and your AoE's, kite the fire AoE's, and keep your shields up. Kill the dwarven sphere adds if you can because they are dangerous. When boss starts moving again, stay beneath it, repeat the same process, but be aware of the mini-boss that spawns, though hopefully you'll have killed the boss before that.

bitels

Im not expert on pet sorcs (prefer non-pet), but you gear setup look fine imo.
My friend who play pet sorc found it easier to get thru VMA with 5x Necropotence + 5x Julianos + 1x Iceheart, if you have those sets lying around you can always try that.
Other then that only piece of advice i can give you on that boss:
Second token you will be passing by when under the boss will be DMG buff. Ward yourself, grab it and as soon as boss will stop, cast your destro staff ultimate, and then keep burning boss as fast as possible. If done corectly then you should kill boss there.
Also what i like to do is cast destro ulti a little bit to the right, so it will also cover area where Dwemer Sphere will spawn, so it will just die in ultimate.

Good luck

Locriana

Yeah I do get that it is skill qnd experience...my dps test is about 26k these days. What skills I apply and when seems to make a difference in realTime play. And resource management of course. I've been using mostly blockade a lot under boss and heavy attack. Can you suggest what would be better?
I just wish I wasn't getting worse instead of better at this. It's very frustrating. I'm pretty good usually at avoiding and blocking attacks, but here they seem to come out of nowhere, and I'm not getting it I guess.

I do think that the skills I put on my bar, those choices, do make a difference. It may be different for various levels here maybe? At least some people seem to give that advice, but I've seen it mostly for templars.

Locriana

Also, the sustain from crit with power surge doesn't work as well with necro, there is less crit. I used to run a non-pet build with Julianos and infal, and that helped sustain. But lower dps.

Jaimeh

Locriana wrote: »

What skills I apply and when seems to make a difference in realTime play. And resource management of course.I've been using mostly blockade a lot under boss and heavy attack. Can you suggest what would be better?

I use the familiar's pulse attack, curse, heavy attacks, and I blockade a little ahead of the boss. You will mostly burn him during his stationary phase when you drop your ulti (if you can spare magicka, cast inner light to empower it beforehand). Resource management is one of the biggest huddles; try vampirism for the regen passive, or even regen poisons on your weapons.

gabriebe

Your gear is fine.

I would remove the Bound Aegis, you don't really need it. If you feel low on magica, you could change your IA gear to Ancient Grace + Asylum Staff.

Slot both Harness Magicka and Hardened Ward.

Remove daedric prey, use crushing shock so you can interrupt fast. It will help you a lot on the stage you are stuck at, as I believe the steam wall attack can be interrupt from those Dwarven adds. Go full pet sorc and have double pets, both with the damage morph.

Just make sure your uptime on Crit Surge is good, and that you always have liquid lightning and wall of elements running. Time your destro ult when you feel like you are about to get overwhelmed by ads. You can totally cheese stage 9 by only using a destro ult when the CG spawns and using harness magicka to not only survive, but restore magica while it is roasting you.

Don't forget to heavy and light attack often, and use magica potions when you arent desperate to use them yet. Trash potions are fine, you might want to save the good stuff (and tripots) for stage 9.

Good luck!

ForsakenSin

i think that is unnecessary to Slot both Harness Magicka and Hardened Ward.

As somebody who took a long time to finish VMSA i know the pain and swearing it takes so i will give you my advice as your running the same as me .. ( i not a expert in this )

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/357668/ive-done-it-after-over-8-months-of-pain-swearing-nearly-braking-my-controller-its-over#latest


"5 necro, 4infallible aether, 2illambris. All divines except reinf. shoulders. Spell damage Mundas stone"
is just fine your using pretty much the same set up as me

My skill bar is set as such

Main bar

fire glyph

Inner Light/ volatile familiar/ Destructive Reach/ liquid lightning /Harden Ward /Suppression Field

Back Bar
increase weapon glyph

Inner Light/ volatile familiar/Boundless Storm/ blockade storms/Power Surge/Elemental Rage



So i start off from the back bar , Power Surge +Boundless Storm plus attack to turn on weapon glyph then blockade storms change bar liquid lightning /Destructive Reach /volatile familiar heavy attack and so on


Reason for this is to get max spell damage and then drop the BS and LL the Destructive Reach will stun the enemy in the AOE the Power Surge +Boundless Storm will make you move around faster do damage and keep your health up and use harden ward on the front bar when you need to

this is my take on things ive done many many combinations and theory crafting to finish VMSA fast and easy .. 54k magica or 4.3k SD or 70% crit ect and ect and ect lol and numbers ranging from 35k plus DPS to 18k dps

it makes a little to no difference to me sometimes i tired huge dps and i struggle and i change for 18k dps to test and its easy like cutting butter with hot bread

as you start playing more and once when you finish it second time it will be sooooo easy you will not believe it

Locriana

Thank you very much for these very different advices. I like the idea of using two pets, why not, instead of bound aegis. Matriarch can heal, familiar can dps more... I also like the idea of bringing back boundless storm, I always loved it, gives you speed too.

Don't have suppression field or might of the guild to get Empower, have to do some skyshard hunting...lol..running out of skill points. Will need to level annulment too!

I may have some questions later but THANK YOU for encouragement and advice, very kind. I will probably try everything suggested...

Really want to do this!

Jaimeh

Good luck! vMA it's hard and frustrating, especially on the first clear, but you'll get there!

SoulAffliction

It’s all about the mechanics; plain and simple!

Gear, CP, Skill.........if you know the mechanics, you can complete it with anything!

Gulnagel

I always thought eledrain was better than innerlight for vMA?

pteam

I did my first vet maelstrom at 350cp mag sorc with 5 necro 5 julianos 1 domiahus using 5/1/1 undaunted. I really think empowered ward for me personally is the better morph. It lasts almost twice as long in fact it’s the longest lasting shield in the game and in addition gives u increased Magicka recovery AND costs less.

For my next run I’m using a 5 necro , 4 julianos, maelstrom inferno staff and 2pc ice heart set. Ice heart seems like it always gives you an extra free shield that procs all the time it’s pretty awesome. Sure you get a little less dps but if your dead your dps is 0

Make sure your using power surge and keeping it uptime 100%. Sehts flywheel is easy once u get it. Stay under the boss all the time and dps from there until he stops then drop ult real quick and roll away, then shield and stay alive until he starts moving again then get underneath him and start again

dpencil1

Yeah, Matriach is better than Bound Aegis. Maybe watch some Youtube vids of magSorcs clearing vMA also to learn their strategies. As others said, you just need to know what's about to happen.

Locriana

So @pteam empowered ward better than harness magicka? If it lasts longer it just may be... Also, sorry for noob question but what does 5/1/1 undaunted mean? I have all the undaunted passives. I can use my heavy Juliano pants to get the 3 kinds of armor. Gets a bit cold with metal pants but whatever... :-D

Sorry my edit lost the rest, dammit...I'll try to write it again...

I'm hearing that maybe I should switch out infal for Julianos. Which is ok I have some. May get a bit mor crit for power surge that way.
I like the idea of using iceheart again because it was the way I first was able to clear solo skyreach without dying....long time ago. Or maybe boundless storm is just as good and makes you move faster?

I get that mechanics is most important but it will help me to get the best skill set up for this that will help out my play...I don't have the superstar lightning reflexes like some do...lol...some people really can play with anything and make it work.

So far I haven't found any pet sorc vma videos, but will look again. I have to say they lose me when they don't talk about what is going on on the video.

Thanks for the ideas!

pteam

I just cleared it again just now. Really liking the iceheart set. Gives you extra shields all the time.

5/1/1 means wearing 5 piece of an armor or in your case 5 light, 1 medium, 1 heavy. This gives you the full 6% bonus health, Magicka, and stamina from the undaunted passive. It’s like the best passive in the game. I recommend u wear a heavy chest as I believe it gives u a bit more armor than any other piece. A shoulder or head are next easiest to do in medium because that’s where your monster pieces go and they can drop in light, med, or heavy.

Honestly as the other people said the difficult rounds are 90% mechanics. Once you get them down those rounds get much much easier. Knowing what to do before it happens is huge in this arena. Your second clear is like 50% easier than the first one.

Locriana

Hi. I managed to finally clear Sehts flywheel. Illambris was key for me. Made it not too difficult the minute I put it back on...

Now it's the final boss on the Rink of Frozen Blood. This is, like, impossible. I've seen a video using a pet sorc, but what happens there is different, and it's pre-morrowind, so some sadistic minds at ESO may have changed things....

In the video, he goes from one island to the next as the boss breaks them up at 75% and 50% health. The troll goes with her so he fights them both in his aoes. She doesn't break up the last island.

Well, in mine she breaks the islands up quickly while trolls break up the other ones. If you kill the trolls on the other islands she's busy breaj]king up the one you are on. No islands left, even if you stop the trolls.

Anyone do this recently? Any clues how to do the mechanics here? I have explained what I'm seeing happen, which is not in the videos I've seen. I can only deal with videos where the guy talks about what is happening. Just a guy running around fighting isn't helpful at all, for me. Anyone know of any videos of pet sorcs from recent Maelstrom? Anyone here have one of this section?

My pet sorc with her usual build test out at about 26k dps, which I think ought to be enough. But following this guys build, it probably isn't as much. But I can see the need to do things differently in Maelstrom.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HN0rZ_wqUs4

Please, any advice or video where someone TALKS about what is happening, might help. I'm at a loss. Because the events don't happen in my game as it does in this video on the Rink of Frozen Blood last boss.

Thanks.

Jaimeh

Start fighting the boss on the platform with the haste sigil, if troll spawns and goes to a different platform, range interrupt it, and kill it. At ~90% two mobs appears east of that platform, use your ulti to kill them. If you need to kite around, do so, but make sure you come back to that platform. At 75% she will break it, move on to the platform with the healing sigil. Kill the nereid, and keep interrupting and killing the trolls that spawn. At ~60% more mobs appear to the northwest of that platform, kill them, keep an eye on boss's health because at 50% she will break the platform. Then move onto the final one, throw down your dots, and grab the defensive sigil, so you can completely ignore the next wave of mobs that spawn. Your ulti should be up, use it, and make sure to kill fast the troll that spawns on the platform. The boss should be dead before she breaks that one too, but if it happens, you can survive the water for a couple of seconds by shielding, ideally though you should have killed her before that. Make sure to recast pet, if it dies by being on a platform when she breaks it.

Locriana

@Jaimeh thanks for the walk through....sounds familiar but I may have wandered back and forth on the platforms too much and for some reason that broke them. Concussive shock is really good for this, and I I do kill trolls easily.

I'm starting to think infernal guardian might help on this boss fight, as it lobs meteors ar farther away enemies when you shield! I might try that...

Thanks I will pay apecial attention to your walk through I'm sure it will help!

And everyone here was right, once I did clear Sehts Flywheel it was not difficult, and went much more quickly.
Strange.but encouraging!

Jaimeh

Glad to be of help! Keep at it; the 5th arena final stage is really tricky, but once you get the timing of it down, it gets a lot easier.

Haquor

Locriana wrote: »

Yeah I do get that it is skill qnd experience...my dps test is about 26k these days. What skills I apply and when seems to make a difference in realTime play. And resource management of course. I've been using mostly blockade a lot under boss and heavy attack. Can you suggest what would be better?
I just wish I wasn't getting worse instead of better at this. It's very frustrating. I'm pretty good usually at avoiding and blocking attacks, but here they seem to come out of nowhere, and I'm not getting it I guess.

I do think that the skills I put on my bar, those choices, do make a difference. It may be different for various levels here maybe? At least some people seem to give that advice, but I've seen it mostly for templars.

You absolutely need a shield. The only shield i use is hardened ward. Then with surge running you will be fine just dropping your two dots (blockade of storms and liquid lightning) and then using heavy attacks as main dps. You gear is fine. Personally i run 5x juli, 5x necro, 1 iceheart. But yours is fine.

My bars looks like:
1- hardened ward, elemental blockade, volatile familiar, twilight, bound aegis, metoer
2- surge, liquid lightning, volatile familiar, twilight, bound aegis, thunderous rage

You can see for ease you shield and surge are both on the first position, both dots are on the second position, and volatile is on the third. So basically regardless of the bar you are on yoy a performing a similar functio with the same position.

Once dots are down you heavy attack on your front bar. That way shield is very handy in first position. Liquid lightning is not necessary all thr time on trash. Blockade and heavy attacks usually does the trick.

kylewwefan

I’ve only beat Maelstrom 3 Times. The frozen blood ice round boss is all about timing the platform sigils use till you get really good and don’t need them. It still sucks.

Masel

I have a full pet sorc run here:

https://youtu.be/AN0804z4-Do

Key is to know what to kill first, sorcs have enough aoe. So If adds spawn on stage 5 boss, walk back until the edge of the platform that you're on so the come forward to the edge of it so you can kill them through your dots and lightning staff heavy attacks..

Locriana

I just can't do this. I follow all advice, i move to the next platform when she turns red and starts smashing. I get her to the last platform. She is more than 50% health when she smashes the second island -- not supposed to be that way, and she takes like three seconds to smash the last platform. My destro ultimate and everything I manage to have slotted on this round won't kill her in 3 seconds.

I've tried all kinds of bar arrangements, including the ones here. It's hard to change bars because I get killed so easily if I'm not attacking and warding 100% of the time., still I've managed to control trolls and adds enough to get her to the last island most of the time. There's just not enough time to kill her before she smashes it. No doubt someone will say, "this is a dps test", but I run 29k dps. Lots of people manage this with less. though I doubt it's going to be that because I have to ward so much. My crit is not high enough and there aren't enough hits to sustain with the heavy damage.

@Masel92 thanks for the video but it is really hard for me to follow what someone is doing when they don't talk about it. And I'm on Xbox, so the visuals are different.

I don't know what else I can do, this is so effing discouraging.

Locriana

Ok I f*&%ing did it. Pulling out the view was key. Plus infernal guardian helps a lot in there.

Locriana

Maybe this thread can be a kind of guide for us noobs to vet Maelstrom....

On the spiral shadows boss now. Watching videos on it, you bring the hoarvors to the webbed pillars to get them all unwebbed, the pillars turn light and stun the boss for a time. All well and good but on my version of this, there is maybe one web at the start, and then no more pillars are webbed. They don't turn light, and there's nowhere to go when the spiders swarm except the middle pillar. I go there, the light goes away, I'm dead.

What to do if no pillars appear webbed...so I can't unweb them and get the stun? Is this a bug or am I missing some part of the mechanic?

Hopefully someone recognizes this problem and has a solution?
Thanks for all the help so far!

EDIT: reloadui made the webs appear, so it was bugged. But now there are not enough hoarvors to unweb the pillars quickly enough so there is a lit one when it is needed because of the spiders. Any clue how this works???

EDIT: back to only one web again. One hoarvor at beginning, then no more. Makes me think I'm missing a mechanic here. Videos do not explain, because they seem to have plenty pillars and hoarvors and all their pillars light up. What's wrong here?

Hixtory

Locriana wrote: »

Maybe this thread can be a kind of guide for us noobs to vet Maelstrom....

On the spiral shadows boss now. Watching videos on it, you bring the hoarvors to the webbed pillars to get them all unwebbed, the pillars turn light and stun the boss for a time. All well and good but on my version of this, there is maybe one web at the start, and then no more pillars are webbed. They don't turn light, and there's nowhere to go when the spiders swarm except the middle pillar. I go there, the light goes away, I'm dead.

What to do if no pillars appear webbed...so I can't unweb them and get the stun? Is this a bug or am I missing some part of the mechanic?

Hopefully someone recognizes this problem and has a solution?
Thanks for all the help so far!

EDIT: reloadui made the webs appear, so it was bugged. But now there are not enough hoarvors to unweb the pillars quickly enough so there is a lit one when it is needed because of the spiders. Any clue how this works???

EDIT: back to only one web again. One hoarvor at beginning, then no more. Makes me think I'm missing a mechanic here. Videos do not explain, because they seem to have plenty pillars and hoarvors and all their pillars light up. What's wrong here?

Hoarvors appear every 10 secs, you just need to be aware of them. Look for them, and a tip I can give you, when you hear the swarm incoming, look around there is a freaking webspinner trying to web one of your free pillars.

Another thing, kill the hoarvors, yeah is easier and more effective to kill them in the pillar but if you dont manage to do it that way, or you kill it far from a pillar, go to the poison sack it leaves and throw it to any webbed pillar.

ajcorbell

I run 5x Necro, 4x Moondancer and 2x Illambris so similar to you. My suggestions would be run lover mundus and learn the spawns, get your dots down prior to enemies spawning etc
I run a heavy attack build, get LL and Blockade down, pet pulse and heavy attack for days. With your shield up you shouldn't be dying easily

My bars look like:

Endless Fury, Innerlight, Volatile Pet, Curse, Sheild, Destro ULT

LL, Blockage, Rune (Can sub this out for anything), Pet, crit surge, Meteor

As others have said though, just about learning spawns, being proactive with them and getting positioning right and killing high threat targets quickly

Jaimeh

Also, if you can spare the magicka leave DOTs preemptively on the empty pillars, in case you don't see the webspinner in time.