vMA

boombazookajd

When is one ready to start working on vMA?

Can someone point me to a good/thorough walkthrough? Alcast does a good job, but I want to avoid bad advice from youtube.

I just hit CP 160 and have about a week until my final research finishes so I can craft Hundings. Figured I'd spend the week researching and learning about vMA.

boombazookajd

Edit: The first sentence should have been nMA*** not vMA.

Sigtric

What class and build are you using?

You can definitely get in normal at 160 and start learning (you could do vet too at this level once you know the mechanics)

The biggest thing that defeats people in Maelstrom is not knowing the mechanics, so don't get discouraged when it's tough. Get in there, and learn from each death. Figure out why it happened, figure out how to overcome it.

@Joy_Division and @Lukums1 here on the forums both have a lot of great resources and information available to help get you going through Maelstrom, though their content is geared for the vet version.

The most important thing to say is the difficulty gap between normal and vet is gigantic. Successfully clearing normal does NOT prepare you for vet, so keep that in mind.

DocFrost72

A good place to start is actually youtube vids. If you want a super in depth guide, @Joy_Division (hope I got the right tag) has a super guide for maelstrom in general.

What I would recommend for you is to run through normal ten to fifteen times and memorize mechanics there. You'll need to pick up a few more in vet, but for the most part the mechanics and spawns (most important detail imho) are almost identical, they just hit harder on vet.

What class are you? What gear are you looking to start with besides hundings? On that front, I can personally help.

Joy_Division

Sigtric wrote: »

What class and build are you using?

You can definitely get in normal at 160 and start learning (you could do vet too at this level once you know the mechanics)

The biggest thing that defeats people in Maelstrom is not knowing the mechanics, so don't get discouraged when it's tough. Get in there, and learn from each death. Figure out why it happened, figure out how to overcome it.

@Joy_Division and @Lukums1 here on the forums both have a lot of great resources and information available to help get you going through Maelstrom, though their content is geared for the vet version.

The most important thing to say is the difficulty gap between normal and vet is gigantic. Successfully clearing normal does NOT prepare you for vet, so keep that in mind.

This is sound advice. For normal maelstrom, and level is suitable to run the content (indeed it's pretty good for "grinding" XP). Get in there, once you know the mechanics, you should be able to complete normal.

boombazookajd

DocFrost72 wrote: »

A good place to start is actually youtube vids. If you want a super in depth guide, @Joy_Division (hope I got the right tag) has a super guide for maelstrom in general.

What I would recommend for you is to run through normal ten to fifteen times and memorize mechanics there. You'll need to pick up a few more in vet, but for the most part the mechanics and spawns (most important detail imho) are almost identical, they just hit harder on vet.

What class are you? What gear are you looking to start with besides hundings? On that front, I can personally help.

stamDK. Basically following Alcast's beginner "Venom" build:

5 piece Hundings w. 5 piece night mothers gaze, Spriggans jewelry for the stamina boost.

nnargun

nMA is easy and really doesn't require you to read/watch guides before.
vMA, however, will be nearly impossible with 160 CP on a stamina character for someone who has never done it before. And I don't agree with people saying you can learn mechanics in nMA. It's just way too easy compared to vMA. Don't waste your time with it.

Just jump in there. Nothing to lose. Following a proper build guide you really shouldn't have too many problems.

DocFrost72

It may be difficult to run NMG/Hundings, as they are both crafted sets. For stam dk, alcast's guides will do well. Make sure you have a self heal (vigor most likely if you go dual wield), and remember to grab the sigils. They'll give you powerful buffs at the expense of score which, to be blunt, won't affect a first time run of VMA since your score will already be low.

Try 5 hundings, 5 spriggan, shoulder and head of night mothers gaze until you get a monster set.

Shinshadow

boombazookajd wrote: »

When is one ready to start working on vMA?

Can someone point me to a good/thorough walkthrough? Alcast does a good job, but I want to avoid bad advice from youtube.

I just hit CP 160 and have about a week until my final research finishes so I can craft Hundings. Figured I'd spend the week researching and learning about vMA.

Just to save you some time and heartache, don't bother with vet maelstrom until you have at least 360CP. That way you can at least get the max of a champion point tree and have a good chance. That and getting that many more CP will only give you more time to master your rotation, because that will be key in that place.

luen79rwb17_ESO

nMSA can be good practice if you follow mechanics and not simply dps race it.

Mechanics are roughly the same the big difference comes in damage done/taken and resource management since in nMSA your bars are automatically filled after each round, not the case in vMSA.

Make sure to watch YouTube tutorials or written guides. Also work on sustain builds while you're learning.

Xvorg

DocFrost72 wrote: »

It may be difficult to run NMG/Hundings, as they are both crafted sets. For stam dk, alcast's guides will do well. Make sure you have a self heal (vigor most likely if you go dual wield), and remember to grab the sigils. They'll give you powerful buffs at the expense of score which, to be blunt, won't affect a first time run of VMA since your score will already be low.

Try 5 hundings, 5 spriggan, shoulder and head of night mothers gaze until you get a monster set.

Hunding's in one bar NMG in the other bar, DW-S/B

GoonyGoat

Blazed through normal at like 200cp
Tried vet
Realised I play like a potato

boombazookajd

Still digging up various vids, it's not easy to watch as many of them are up to an hour long but I think at this point, I'm going to at least give normal mode a go at the very least to continue to pick up the xp as the alikr desert grind has me worn out and there is still a few days left on the 100% xp event.

So far I've seen Deltia's and a bit of Alcast's video guides.

I still have to hop into cyrodil and nab some more alliance points for vigor and caltrops. I've not PvP'd much at all, from what I gather just head in, "lfg", then zerg surf? Anyway, that's for the PvP page.

itsfatbass

I would not recommend learning it on normal. My advice, go straight into vet and chug away at learning mechanics.

DocFrost72

Xvorg wrote: »

DocFrost72 wrote: »

It may be difficult to run NMG/Hundings, as they are both crafted sets. For stam dk, alcast's guides will do well. Make sure you have a self heal (vigor most likely if you go dual wield), and remember to grab the sigils. They'll give you powerful buffs at the expense of score which, to be blunt, won't affect a first time run of VMA since your score will already be low.

Try 5 hundings, 5 spriggan, shoulder and head of night mothers gaze until you get a monster set.

Hunding's in one bar NMG in the other bar, DW-S/B

Firstly, sword and board < bow.
Second, NMG need to be 5 body pieces or the effect doesn't carry when you barswap (as of my last testing).

You cannot reliably run them both. I wish one could; would be interesting for stam pvp.

Ragnarock41

If you're playing a stamina toon, I would suggest getting at least 300 CP.
normal maelstrom wont prepare you to anything, as it is much easier.
Its better if you start with vet version when you have some more CP.
Personally did my first run at cp 270 ish. was hella tough , I had PvP gear on me too! So If I was able to do it back then, you should too.

Once you learn how to pass each boss it gets 10 times easier by the way. dont forget that. almost any build can do vMA. Its just that knowledge that matters.

Taleof2Cities

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Xvorg wrote: »

DocFrost72 wrote: »

It may be difficult to run NMG/Hundings, as they are both crafted sets. For stam dk, alcast's guides will do well. Make sure you have a self heal (vigor most likely if you go dual wield), and remember to grab the sigils. They'll give you powerful buffs at the expense of score which, to be blunt, won't affect a first time run of VMA since your score will already be low.

Try 5 hundings, 5 spriggan, shoulder and head of night mothers gaze until you get a monster set.

Hunding's in one bar NMG in the other bar, DW-S/B

Firstly, sword and board < bow.
Second, NMG need to be 5 body pieces or the effect doesn't carry when you barswap (as of my last testing).

You cannot reliably run them both. I wish one could; would be interesting for stam pvp.

Agreed.

Even in Alcast's video he back bars bow.

boombazookajd

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

If you're playing a stamina toon, I would suggest getting at least 300 CP.
normal maelstrom wont prepare you to anything, as it is much easier...

Once you learn how to pass each boss it gets 10 times easier by the way. dont forget that. almost any build can do vMA. Its just that knowledge that matters.

While I understand where you guys are coming from, I have to disagree. For one, broadly speaking, you learn to do things with a crawl-walk-run approach. Throwing myself to the wolves doesn't make much sense if I get rekt. Granted, the difficultly between normal and veteran is monumental but normal will at least give me experience and I can always run it like a veteran mindset (i.e. resource management, self heals, things that I don't often have to worry about in group play).

Looking at just life experience in general and the things I have personally done, I would have never just jumped in and done the hard stuff without completing easily achieved momentum and confidence boosting lower goals.

To save you all a few seconds of typing, please stop suggesting that I should not do normal. I will do normal, strictly just because it's a good solo grind and the dolmen grinds have me worn out (and i'm tired of being dc'd from what I presume is a high load. I only get performance problems and dc's at crazy busy dolmens).

Please keep your suggestions to gameplay tips, mechanics, CP point allocation. The difficulty between normal and vet has been established.

I feel like completing normal will do nothing to hurt me and will at least help me gauge where my gameplay is at right now. When I reach CP 300, I'll address vet. It's clear there are still a few things I need to accomplish before hand, namely, at least getting ahold of a VO set for the stamina management. It's far superior to anything else.

NolaArch

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Try 5 hundings, 5 spriggan, shoulder and head of night mothers gaze until you get a monster set.

This. I run it all the time (working my way to Flawless) on my stamblade with Hunding’s + Spriggan’s + Veli (or Selene’s). vMA back bar, but used an Infused Master bow before I got the vMA bow. Use that NMG until you get Veli or Selene’s —I’ve honestly not noticed any difference between them on my end.

VO/TFS are better, but 100% not needed. If I can do it with my setup, anybody can, imho. Don’t be hesitant on using sigils! Best of luck to you!!

ETA: Just saw your last post. A good part of vMA is learning spawn points and mechanics. Go for it on normal to get those spawn points and mechanics figured out —I don’t *think* there is any difference between vet and normal in that regard. Slow your dps if needed so as to not miss/skip mechanics. That way, when you get to vMA, you’ll at least be aware of where to prioritize your next attacks/defenses. Prioritization is a big factor.

boombazookajd

NolaArch wrote: »

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Try 5 hundings, 5 spriggan, shoulder and head of night mothers gaze until you get a monster set.

This. I run it all the time (working my way to Flawless) on my stamblade with Hunding’s + Spriggan’s + Veli (or Selene’s). vMA back bar, but used an Infused Master bow before I got the vMA bow. Use that NMG until you get Veli or Selene’s —I’ve honestly not noticed any difference between them on my end.

VO/TFS are better, but 100% not needed. If I can do it with my setup, anybody can, imho. Don’t be hesitant on using sigils! Best of luck to you!!

ETA: Just saw your last post. A good part of vMA is learning spawn points and mechanics. Go for it on normal to get those spawn points and mechanics figured out —I don’t *think* there is any difference between vet and normal in that regard. Slow your dps if needed so as to not miss/skip mechanics. That way, when you get to vMA, you’ll at least be aware of where to prioritize your next attacks/defenses. Prioritization is a big factor.

That's what I've been reading and watching, the mechanics are the biggest issue. For instance, Joy's guide mentions staying near a switch on a certain level with spinny things, not to go in the same direction as them. Also there's a level with some island breaking going on, and to not get caught on a certain island or else certain death ensues.

I know getting used to something easy usually makes a difficult thing even more difficult, such is the rule with my driving simulators for instance, once you learn how to drive with things like ABS/TC/SC, you make driving without them actually much, much harder. However in this instance, you're learning spawn points and mechanics that you wouldn't otherwise get to do when you die a zillion times.

dposdb14_ESO

The things I would focus on and try to mesmerize are the spawn points for each wave. That will help tons. Try to prioritize the ranged adds, once you know where try spawn you can start by pre-damaging them. After the spawn points I would focus on boss mechanics. And when you're ready for vet don't say no to the sigils, they will help tons to get a clear.

boombazookajd

dposdb14_ESO wrote: »

The things I would focus on and try to mesmerize are the spawn points for each wave. That will help tons. Try to prioritize the ranged adds, once you know where try spawn you can start by pre-damaging them. After the spawn points I would focus on boss mechanics. And when you're ready for vet don't say no to the sigils, they will help tons to get a clear.

Definitely will be using sigil's. Leaderboards are not my concern, that beautiful vMA bow is.

NolaArch

One more thing! To add to prioritizing ranged adds: Magicka based adds like ice mages can/will eat through a stam build’s defenses pretty quickly. I can’t speak for DK as far as how bad that will be, but as a stamblade they have got to go ASAP. Archers gear up a quick shot that is a one-shot for me on vet. So you have to learn when they come up so you can interrupt that quick shot. They’ll hold their bow up and the red indicators for an attack will be active. The Argonian round (7) will be good for practicing/recognizing this. Won’t be so bad in nMA, but you get the idea!

boombazookajd

NolaArch wrote: »

One more thing! To add to prioritizing ranged adds: Magicka based adds like ice mages can/will eat through a stam build’s defenses pretty quickly. I can’t speak for DK as far as how bad that will be, but as a stamblade they have got to go ASAP. Archers gear up a quick shot that is a one-shot for me on vet. So you have to learn when they come up so you can interrupt that quick shot. They’ll hold their bow up and the red indicators for an attack will be active. The Argonian round (7) will be good for practicing/recognizing this. Won’t be so bad in nMA, but you get the idea!

Yea definitely! thanks! Joy's guide is from a magicka side and doesn't go into much depth on the stamina side. I do however understand that as tough as vMA is, it's harder with a stam build. Guess I have my work cut out for me.

nnargun

Guides help to understand the basic mechanics but you only really progress by doing it yourself. And that means dying over and over until it clicks and you finally figure out in which order you have to kill what and which sigil to take when. Bring lots of soul gems (for convenience, you can also ride), potions, time, and gold for repairs. Don't be short on resources. Sit down for a few hours per day for a few days and enjoy the progress. Know you will be successful eventually. If you do this you will clear it.

Edit: Oh and forget that nMA even exists.

boombazookajd

nnargun wrote: »

Edit: Oh and forget that nMA even exists.

No.

SodanTok

Sure do normal, do it once, do it million times. But if you want to actually practice for VMA do VMA. nMA is not easy version of VMA. It is nothing. nMA is cleaning your room. VMA is actually going to work.

Ragnarock41

you won't learn a single thing in normal maelstrom, but sure, go ahead and do it if thats what you want. Its not a real representation of what maelstrom arena is, and how mechanics work.

On normal vMA you will do critical , fatal mistakes yet still survive. That is bad. that will make you think you got it, while in reality you will be walking for a disaster.

boombazookajd

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

you won't learn a single thing in normal maelstrom, but sure, go ahead and do it if thats what you want. Its not a real representation of what maelstrom arena is, and how mechanics work.

On normal vMA you will do critical , fatal mistakes yet still survive. That is bad. that will make you think you got it, while in reality you will be walking for a disaster.

cool story bro. Pretty sure I displayed my intentions on nVA. I'm not really going to go there to "learn" vMA. I'm going to go there for 1. an xp gain and 2. just to simply see where I am at in the game.

I'm not going to go to nVA, and run it over and over and over and over and over until I've learned it so much that going into vMA is going to be an absolute shock.

I will do critical mistakes pretty much no matter where I go. Look, if I go straight to vMA I will utterly and totally, miserably, and absolutely fail immediately and likely never go back. Normal MA isn't a dress rehearsal but it is experience that I can use.

I won't have vMA gear for sometime yet so it's worth starting my research and practice now. If anything I will get to practice my rotation and find out where I need work.

Honestly at this point, and quite frankly, stop suggesting that nMA is a waste of time. This thread wasn't started to hear your opinions on what nMA is good for or isn't good for.

I've watched Alcast's video, read Joy's guide, and even Deltia's (though I don't care much for his content). I thoroughly understand that vMA is an entirely different beast than nMA. The line of thinking that I shouldn't do nMA because it doesn't prep me for vMA is like saying I shouldn't do normal dungeons because they are way easier than vet dungeons. Even if the difficulty spread between normal dungeons and vet dungeons isn't as great as normal and vet maelstrom, they still have their purpose.

So if you have stamina build suggestions, stamina strategies, stamina skills, and other relevant content to input and make this a constructive thread, then by all means, please share. Otherwise, save it. I mean, you can go ahead and type whatever you want but it'll fall on deaf ears and only serve to be off-topic to the OP. What I would like to discuss, hear, and listen to are stamina and DK oriented experiences, strategies, and builds. That's it. Meanwhile, I will be practicing and preparing.

Thank you to those who have topic relevant responses. Oh, and Happy New Year to you all!!

Datthaw

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

you won't learn a single thing in normal maelstrom, but sure, go ahead and do it if thats what you want. Its not a real representation of what maelstrom arena is, and how mechanics work.

On normal vMA you will do critical , fatal mistakes yet still survive. That is bad. that will make you think you got it, while in reality you will be walking for a disaster.

I'll have to agree if the aim is to improve your skill, vma, all the way. Normal you're exactly rights the core wipe and you're screwed mechanics are lost.

However if they goal is to farm armor (because *** rng to find jewelry) then why not normal. What's a few tannin for the time saved

Mister_DMC

You didn't say which class you'll be attempting. Short answer, wait until you have alot more CP. Normal is joke, an absolute cakewalk that can be completed by a new character at level 7 in training gear but it's great for leveling said new character. Also great for the plunder skull event. Simplest setup to start is Hundings, Nmg (including 2 daggers) and agility jewellery. If you manage to complete it at cp160 as your first clear you will undoubtedly be one of the top 1% of players in this game. Good luck.