Help VMA magwarden

Rolexdt

I'm on stage 6 of vma and I'm stuck right now. I have been watching videos of other wardens clearing it and one thing I noticed is that they using leeching vines vs living trellis. I normally only pvp so I am so used to using trellis that when switching to leeching I seem to just drop and die in 2 seconds. What am I missing? Mind you I am new to MA so I don't have the spawn points all figured out but the guys on the vids I watched manage to heal right up when their health is low. Is it because im not killing the spawns fast enough?

Ramber

Yes you need a balance of health/resistance and damage. IDK what you setup is but id suggest 5 light and 2 heavy armor. 18k health ballpark to start with. Iceheart is a great monster set for vMA its a great shield that procs all the time and does some aoe damage. Make sure you use elemental blockade on back bar with shock enchant and use crushing shock as a spammable, it will interrupt the ads from doing damage to you as you kill them. I also suggest using the shield buff after the first wave of ads to help with the mini bosses. try and time the killing of the horver bugs near the stone sigils so that you can kill the last one near the 5th stone sigil as the boss spawns, then grab the damage buff and ulti/damage boss.

Rolexdt

Thanks. I've been working through this without any sigils. I thought they will reduce my score and my understanding is I need to get into the top 100 on leaderboards to get the MA weapon drop?

Protossyder

Rolexdt wrote: »

Thanks. I've been working through this without any sigils. I thought they will reduce my score and my understanding is I need to get into the top 100 on leaderboards to get the MA weapon drop?

Yes and no. You need to be within the top 100 on the leaderboard to get a weekly maelstrom reward box in addition to the usual weapon drop after each veteran clear

Rolexdt

Ohhhh well that's great. I was starting to think this is a bit painful for a once a week chance. Thanks for the help everyone.

I ended up going back to trellis. I realize leeching and shield is the more efficient way but I probably just need to time it better.

Rolexdt

For any other noobs doing MA I found the thread below from 2015. I think this is super helpful and I am excited to memorize the spawn points to make MA simpler for me. I thought I'd copy that here if anyone else could use it.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/233764/veteran-maelstrom-arena-spawn-points

Rolexdt

Ok so I finally beat VMA yesterday and.....ofcourse I just beat it again this morning. It is true what they say it just gets easier and easier. I have a couple of tips for any wardens attempting this. This is what worked for me.

Stage 5 is where things get a little nasty on the last boss. I generally do what others have suggested and I burn boss slowly then kill adds...once I get to the last island I take power sigil and finish him. My first run I did use warden shield to reflect some bolts and that seamed to work well. Also this and the 8th round I find the destro ultimate to work better than bear but otherwise bear is way better.

Stage 6 I hated this and struggled on my first go and now i think it is my fav stage now. My tip here is just do the mechanics and clear the webs from the stones. Keep doing that and everything else is relatively easy.

Stage 7 the rng here sucks. Again the shield helps big time with the archers and makes it easy to get to final boss. The final boss is easy if u follow the general mechanic and get lucky.

Stage 8 focus down the mages and everything else is easy. On the last boss just drop dots down on the 2 stones closes to spawn point and move to the last stone where u can kill the mage and the stone then burn the boss. After that just repeat and burn boss. Easy.

Stage 9 I find getting to the final boss is easy if you keep getting the gold ghosts and using your stun at the right time. Final boss - I find the bear works better for dpsing him down. I generally drop blockade, shards, and flies on him then just bear ulti and burn with pulse. This gets him down to about 75% before he ports and then in finish him off. Depending on timing I might go up top or kill the CG. Dont use shield if you dont have to...save it I'd you happen to screw up somewhere. After u get on top....relax and that is the best tip. Just work your way around and kill the pillars and try not to get knocked off. Once you get down run immediately to the boss interrupt him and drop your dots. After that I get the power sigil and burn him down ignoring everything else. If you dont have the dps to finish him then get the haste sigil and make sure u collect the ghosts. Also kill the summoner. Once the CG spawns u se your stun and finish it.

The bear ultimate changed the VMA experience for me for sure as it takes some damage away and does some passive damage. Also, I can burn last boss to 70% much quicker with bear which I found a bit odd. I tried the destro ultimate and the bear just worked better. I suspect it's because of the damage stacking using animal.companiona and the passive. Try the bear it works!

Also, iceheart was a game changer for me. The shield is fantastic and procs all the time and makes everything much more manageable.

I got the ice and lightning staves on my first 2 clears and I gonna put the staff to the test on my next run. I anticipate it will just get easier and easier.

Good luck and thank you everyone who contributed to this thread.

msalvia

A few notes:

1. For stage 6, you MUST prioritize the ranged adds. To get them in a good spot, don't be afraid to switch pads, and be sure to keep those shields up.

2. Roll tanky til you get the hang of it. I recommend using 1 tanky set, 1 dps set. This leaves you with some room for error (Which will be incredibly helpful for round 9)

3. Use the sigils. For real. If you're playing a warden, finishing with literally 1 point puts you in the top 100. Usually there are under 50 wardens even finishing vMA in a week. So even if you use every sigil and have a garbage score, you'll still make the leaderboard (assuming you beat it in one sitting, no log-outs, no leaving the arena). And FYI, the defense/shield sigil is a lifesaver for those ranged adds I mentioned in note #1).

4. One piece of advice I rarely see--you can ignore the shatter troll for every round but the last. I mean, if you can kill it, great, but if you don't, all it means is 1) you have to fight a weak water sprite enemy if the ice breaks, and 2) you'll have one less pad to move to until the next round. The ice reforms when you start a new round.

But really, IMO round 5 is the most annoying stage--it's teh one that I get most of my deaths on (at least until you get the choreography of the round nine boss--a big pain the first time, one of the easier rounds once you master it). So good luck, and I hope some of this advice helps!

msalvia

Lol, I was really late to the part on this thread! Hopefully that advice helps someone

pelle412

Also, if you finish vMA on a warden, with any score, you'll get weekly leaderboard rewards because so few do it on a warden.