Maelstrom Stage 6 Spiral Shadows - I'm a Fraud

bhagwad

Despite completing vMA twice, I'm not very sure how to kill the final boss of stage 6. When I try to work the mechanics, I'm never able to uncover more than 3 of the pillars before I die. Also, my magplar needs to be in melee range to heal with sweeps, so I can't stand far away and get healed, without slotting another skill.

The first time I killed the boss, I didn't really understand what was happening. Just DPS.
The second time, I tried the mechanics, uncovering pillars etc. I died over and over (and over). Until I said "Screw this". Imma gonna DPS.
The third time around, same thing. All I know is how to just burst down the final boss.

Here was the third time around when I decided to just ignore mechanics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z98aZrd9K_I

Honestly, I feel like a fraud. I'm a conservative player by nature, and I want to do it the slow way, using the mechanics. But whenever I do that, I just die again and again. Videos on youtube show the boss fight starting with 4 pillars uncovered, then using the last one to stun the boss for the win. I don't like that because if you die, you don't have that luxury. Like I said, I'm a safe player by nature.

Do you have suggestions for how to get through this fight in a more "standard" way? A way that doesn't require me to constantly be at range because I can only heal when I'm attacking an enemy with sweeps.

Waffennacht

I didn't know there was a mechanic to this stage until someone said so.

You're not a fraud, the whole point of vMA is just: DPS!

pteam

Every time the horver bug spawns hit him with 1 light attack and he will follow you. Lead him to a covered pillar and kill him by it which will uncover the pillar. Then do dps and clear ads and the spiders that cover pillars until the next horver bug spawns and lead him again to a pillar.

Inarre

The challenge in the fight is using the hoarver to unlock the pillars so they light up and protect you from spiders. A spider will spawn and web up the free ones so you need to kill that guy too. Boss also spawns little summons that channel a storm and also snare you. Best to get those guys down. Other than that the point is to burn the boss. I think she might one shot if left too long.

Toc de Malsvi

You just need to grab every horvar, and kill every spider that covers the stones, if you want to be conservative.

Thogard

The boss’s spit attack does more and more damage the longer time passes. Using the five pillars on her resets the dmg.

You can always dodge roll it, or you can just kill the boss before the spit attack goes into the one-shot dmg range.

Dymence

Waffennacht wrote: »

I didn't know there was a mechanic to this stage until someone said so.

You're not a fraud, the whole point of vMA is just: DPS!

Pretty much this.

If you are able to ignore mechanics because of high DPS then do it. A lot of ESO works the same way. You can skip a lot of mechanics in a lot of different places by simply having high DPS

Mettaricana

I litterally steam rolled her before any mechanic was relevant

bhagwad

Mettaricana wrote: »

I litterally steam rolled her before any mechanic was relevant

Presumably not "literally" . Imagine if we actually had access to steamrollers!!

Cage_Lizardman

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

horvar

Inarre wrote: »

hoarver

pteam wrote: »

horver

The stage is at least easier than spelling Hoarvor.

Kanar

Cage_Lizardman wrote: »

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

horvar

Inarre wrote: »

hoarver

pteam wrote: »

horver

The stage is at least easier than spelling Hoarvor.

I always thought it was hoaravor.

Drummerx04

bhagwad wrote: »

Despite completing vMA twice, I'm not very sure how to kill the final boss of stage 6. When I try to work the mechanics, I'm never able to uncover more than 3 of the pillars before I die. Also, my magplar needs to be in melee range to heal with sweeps, so I can't stand far away and get healed, without slotting another skill.

The first time I killed the boss, I didn't really understand what was happening. Just DPS.
The second time, I tried the mechanics, uncovering pillars etc. I died over and over (and over). Until I said "Screw this". Imma gonna DPS.
The third time around, same thing. All I know is how to just burst down the final boss.

Here was the third time around when I decided to just ignore mechanics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z98aZrd9K_I

Honestly, I feel like a fraud. I'm a conservative player by nature, and I want to do it the slow way, using the mechanics. But whenever I do that, I just die again and again. Videos on youtube show the boss fight starting with 4 pillars uncovered, then using the last one to stun the boss for the win. I don't like that because if you die, you don't have that luxury. Like I said, I'm a safe player by nature.

Do you have suggestions for how to get through this fight in a more "standard" way? A way that doesn't require me to constantly be at range because I can only heal when I'm attacking an enemy with sweeps.

Seems like a decent strategy to be honest. Are you really running vMA and designing strategies around dying? No, you make the strategy assuming you won't die, then adjust if you do.

Etrella

I had the exact same problem as you. I killed this boss multiple times, I knew most of the mechanics, but I was ignoring the most crucial one, and that is to uncover all the pillars. The times I killed her without the pillars, it was difficult. I deal alot of dps, but on her in particular it seemed as if her health didnt drop as fast as all the other bosses, as if she had a shield. After I did the strategy of uncovering all the pillars, not only does it stop her and everything else for a few seconds in order to dps, but even after she gets back up, her health bar dropped considerably faster when I dps. It is now one of the easier rounds for me.

My strategy (Assuming you died and all the pillars have a web)
2 seconds before she comes out there will be a bug that comes out first, light attack it once and take it to one of the pillars and kill it.
After the boss comes out, dps her until her mini version comes out. Immediately go and kill her.
After this I suggest you completely ignore the boss for some time (Do dodge her attacks of course)
There is 3 things you will have to do over and over until all the pillars are lit.

1) Look out for the bug to come out, in order to take it to one of the pillars and kill it
2)Look out for the mini spiders that come out that like to web the pillars again, immediately kill them (They die easily)
3)Kill the mini version of the boss everytime she comes out. (When you have one pillar left to uncover, just ignore this one and focus on finding the bug)
Of course you also have to look out for the swarm of mini spiders that come, but they are easy to avoid, as long as you're doing 1 and 2
I suggest zooming out your camera view completely, and keep turning the camera around a fair amount in order to not miss anything
After all the pillars are lit, drop hell on the boss, unleash ultimates etc.
After she gets back up and if you dealt enough damage, she will summon a Guardian. I usually just Ignore him and keep coming after the boss.

Beardimus

On my burst build (overload) I never did the mechanics at all and found this the easiest level.

After Sorc has that build nerfed into the ground, and I switched to a regular DPS build I found it way harder. It is still a DPS race but you do need to in over the pillars at least once.

The secret is dont in over then in previous rounds. Sit on 4 uncovered and leave the 5th for the last boss. Pop the first hoaver you see on it, dump everything on boss and hopefully the little spider git when they stunned then just DPS away.

elijafire

pteam wrote: »

Every time the horver bug spawns hit him with 1 light attack and he will follow you. Lead him to a covered pillar and kill him by it which will uncover the pillar. Then do dps and clear ads and the spiders that cover pillars until the next horver bug spawns and lead him again to a pillar.

^ This. And if you happen to accidentally kill one of those BUGers to far away from a pillar you can stand in the spot where he died and hit the Synergy key to throw the spit at a webbed pillar. Run the little spiders through the lighted pillars to ward them off.

SirCritical

Uncover pillars, kill spider daedra which slows you, kill nasty spider add which tries to cover the pillars, use the pillars for stunning the boss every 2 mins (if needed so much time), burn the boss. Profit.

Vapirko

Here’s the key to vMA... Stamsorc+VO gear.

Vapirko

elijafire wrote: »

pteam wrote: »

Every time the horver bug spawns hit him with 1 light attack and he will follow you. Lead him to a covered pillar and kill him by it which will uncover the pillar. Then do dps and clear ads and the spiders that cover pillars until the next horver bug spawns and lead him again to a pillar.

^ This. And if you happen to accidentally kill one of those BUGers to far away from a pillar you can stand in the spot where he died and hit the Synergy key to throw the spit at a webbed pillar. Run the little spiders through the lighted pillars to ward them off.

Ahh no way, did not know this.

GrigorijMalahevich

Did you come to vMA as a healer? Obviously you have to DPS...

Qbiken

Valera Progib wrote: »

Did you come to vMA as a healer? Obviously you have to DPS...

His DPS is decent enough though.... (even without sigils)

MakoFore

pteam wrote: »

Every time the horver bug spawns hit him with 1 light attack and he will follow you. Lead him to a covered pillar and kill him by it which will uncover the pillar. Then do dps and clear ads and the spiders that cover pillars until the next horver bug spawns and lead him again to a pillar.

thats pretty much it- fight on the pillars, draw horvoars to you, address the venom spitting spider first- thats the priority target, then atro THEN boss last of all. and of course if the spiders come out- go to the yellow pole. just that really

Alcast

Back in the old days, where it took 1,5h to complete vMSA, there you had to play the mechanics. Now with all the powercreep, its just DPS burn & no mechanics

Dymence

Alcast wrote: »

Back in the old days, where it took 1,5h to complete vMSA, there you had to play the mechanics. Now with all the powercreep, its just DPS burn & no mechanics

Mechanics in vMA only ever existed in the very first iteration that launched on PTS, where you did 75% less damage to everything. As soon as that was fixed, mechanics were already rip.

kojou

The best strategy is the one that kills the boss the fastest without dying...

I have done this one both ways. The mechanics work best if you can save your ultimate and uncover all but 1 before the final round then uncover the last one at the beginning. That way she takes a knee while you proceed to ulti-bomb her.

I usually still DPS her while uncovering the totems on my Magicka NB, but I have the advantage of Swallow Soul allow me to DPS/heal while making the circle at range. On a melee Templar I think yours is as good as any strategy.

Danksta

What exactly is it that is giving you the impression you can't do this fight in melee range?

bhagwad

Danksta wrote: »

What exactly is it that is giving you the impression you can't do this fight in melee range?

Running around to kill hoarvos next to pillars and other adds in the circle takes me away from melee range. The videos that I see also show the player spending most of the time away from the boss. That means it's a bit of a problem for melee characters like the magplar which need to be in melee range in order to heal.

GrigorijMalahevich

Alcast wrote: »

Back in the old days, where it took 1,5h to complete vMSA, there you had to play the mechanics. Now with all the powercreep, its just DPS burn & no mechanics

Damn right! I remember my first gear - seducer, magnus and willpower with magnus swords back bar for some overload action I even remember that right after vMA release the price for elegance sharp swords jumped to 500k... One could say that it was "insaaaaane"

GrigorijMalahevich

Qbiken wrote: »

Valera Progib wrote: »

Did you come to vMA as a healer? Obviously you have to DPS...

His DPS is decent enough though.... (even without sigils)

I didn't want to get too deep in to the discussion, I just wanted to point out that to do vMA comfortably you need DPS or sustain and for beginners I would advise not using a lot of templar skills, as killing mobs with templar skills doesn't give you back resources and prefer destro skills. You have more than enough damage from destro abilities with templar skills as utilities... and/or using vengeance of the leech as jewellery set...

I did my 2nd magplar vMA run with flawless with using BSW+Lich (lich s&b )...

BricksnLA

I have your same problem, they said just tap the hoarvors to pull them to you. Well, a single tap kills them. They just die so quickly it’s impossible to bring them to any pillar. The only way I can down the boss is by dumping ultimates and dpsing as fast as I can. It’s stupid.

John_Falstaff

@BricksnLA , if you killed hoarvor too early, you can stand over it and use synergy to toss a projectile to the webbed pillar (they say it also resets enrage timer if tossed at the boss, but I didn't try), so it's not strictly necessary to bring hoarvors to pillars themselves. Granted though, using that synergy is somewhat of a risk since there's unpleasant AoE growing over the hoarvor's body.

BuddyAces

Haven't watched vid since I'm at work on my phone but a good start is to keep all but one pillar open till the end. Poke the fat bug and kill it next to the last crystal. She'll basically get stunned right away. Use the power sigil and nuke her straight to Oblivion. Keep us updated!