Hardest level in vMA

RoyalFruitBat

I’m relatively new to vMA still (I’ve cleared it about 8 times now), and for me, the final boss fight in the last stage is the hardest part. Anyone want to weigh in?

code65536

If you're new to vMA, the final boss fight.

Once you're experienced, then it's stage 5. Maybe 7.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/4038231/#Comment_4038231

Noldornir

IMHO:

Stage 1-4 are all easy especially with high DPS you can melt them down pretty fast and there's no real "mech" just some sort only environmental damage.

Stage 5 CAN be tricky if you don't focus and if your DPS is high. You need control more than raw power there (until last island). Dunno why but many DPS are horrible at control and just nuke wathever they see even if they know they shouldn't.

Stage 6 CAN be tricky with low DPS, it will force you to repeat the whole mechanich 1-2 times while it gets easy with good DPS

Stage 7 is IMHO the harder once you know the place. Even if you do memorize everything there are many many random things there. Probably the "Flawless Conqueror Wannabes Slayer".

Stage 8 shoud have been placed before 5 IMHO since it's easier than 5-6-7

Last boss is a different story;

VERY hard but where's this difficulty coming from?
High damage on you? nope
Boss to strong to kill? nope
Mechanichs? Yes, yes and, then again, yes.

The only "Hard hitting" things in there are Crematorial Guards, Necrotic Wave and Soul Churn.

1- The CG, you just need to know HOW to approach these guys. Once you do they are hardly a threat.
2- Necrotic Wave can/must be interrupted
3-Soul churn is just a mechanich env. damage and it IS resettable just by jumping down again.

This to say that last boss gets more and more easier once you beat him once.

(My first clear stuck me in last boss for 3 days, my second clear was a weekly score of 200k+).

TL;DR

Stage 7 imho cause others gets better with training. Stage 7 will gets better as well but not just THAT much. Volatile Poison sucks.

Dont_do_drugs

in the beginning it was the spider-stage bcs i had problems getting used to the glowing obelisks and beeing fast enough there when the spiders appeared. but same time i also had problems with the stage 5 - ice stage. in times of overload-sorc its been about timing the overload good, to get rid of the ice caster and the bigger group before the stage-boss (i guess its round 5-4 where two giants and multiple adds appear). that specific stage round annoyed me a lot. when i retried on mag dk melee it finally became fixed as definite most annoying stage. tho i know, chains... its the ice casters, always those ice casters annoying the heck out of me. its not the final boss, its ezpz, its those damn ice casters.

de_la_Dude

For me its stage seven. The poison rng usually gets me at least once, and when its not the rng its those damn archers! Last time through I learned the hard way that archers can dish out the poison dot too, ugghh. I also sometimes struggle on stage six because there's a lot to keep track of and I often mess up the mechanics. Having the obelisks primed before the boss phase helps a ton.

The final stage and boss have come to be among the easier stages for me. My first attempt I spent a lot of time failing there and learned it very well. Its all about respecting the mechanics. I highly recommend @Joy_Division's guide on these forums if you are struggling.

msalvia

Stage 5 (ice round) is the only stage I die in. RNG hijinx in round 7 rarely get me anymore, and I usually get the end boss down in 1 try (now that I know the choreography).

MattT1988

Stages 5 and 7 are the hardest. Stage 7 can be downright unfair due to the level of RNG involved. You should only die in a video game due to lack of skill, lack of knowledge of the mechanics or a mistake by the player. You should NEVER die in a video game simply due to bad luck.
Regardless, it gets easier every time you do it, but don’t get too disheartened if your top notch flawless run gets ruined by RNG on stage 7. We’ve all been there.

Gariele

Stage 5 is by far the bane of my existence. That stage caused me to rage quit and not go back for about 6 months. But once I got past it it was pretty smooth sailing. So many great informative vids out there really helped me.

Streega

Stage 5 is tough until you learn the mechanics, then it gets easy. Stage 7 is the worst IMO (especially for werewolves), because of RNG - in my case it was one of those damned poison funguses spawning under the dome during last boss fight. Stage 8 can be tough for vampires, the last stage is hard, but not that bad - again, after you learn the mechanics.

StormChaser3000

#9 for me, even after total ~12-14 farm runs during the Orsinium event. I was too bored by that time and was losing focus.

Pontypants

For first timers the last boss fight is definitely without a doubt the hardest fight in the Arena. It is however very predictable which makes it a piece of cake when you have more powerful gear and know exactly what to expect. (I definitely don't mean to sound mean, I struggled for days and days on the last boss and I couldn't figure out how to beat it for the longest time).

After that it really is the poison spore level, at least for me, when I was gong for Flawless conqueror, definitely the poison spores got me most times. But even that level can become quite straight forward when you know how to deal with the spores.

Funnily enough, I find the second level to be most annoying now with the spinning helicopter blades xD

Blinkin8r

Stage 7: I have 3 Flawless Conquerors and this stage is the RNG shutdown. Broken enraged stomps. Poison spawn under bubble. Venomcaller lives during scream and spawns multiple poison spores until one lands under you and takes you out etc.

xWarbrain

Stage 5 made me give up for months

Stage 7 still keeps me from getting Flawless Conqueror

Stage 9 took a week of frustration to figure out, now its the only round I enjoy

AndyMac

Imo, Stage 5 is the hardest given the sheer number of mobs that spawn in each round plus the need to deal with the trolls, water etc - there's a lot to deal with even in rounds 3 and 4 and it can be very, very hectic until enough stuff is dead. This arena is much harder than the previous rounds. I'm sure a lot of people quit vMA here.

Stage 7 is just plain unfair rather than hard. The fights are simple enough to understand but the poison RNG will get you regardless of how well you are playing.

Stage 9 is very hard for the first clear because it requires a solid strategy and sound mechanical knowledge plus A game execution of same. It's tough to learn but once you've got it down, it's fine.

LedJack

Stage 5. Made me quit the game in frustration for some long months.

beadabow

Stage 7 is truly my nemesis. Almost got divorced for inadvertently teaching my kids swear word combinations that I picked up during my time in the Navy. She agreed not to leave me on the condition that I apologize to the school principle, teachers, parents, preachers, and psychiatrists for what I have done. And all because of vMA level 7.

Stage 5 is not supposed to be a dps race, by design, but if you kill the final boss as quickly as possible, it seems to go better-- for me at least. The difficult part is forgetting to kill an ice-smashing troll, and then running out of safe places to fight.

mague

Is stage 5 the melting ice ? Then yes, made me leave the arena

BNOC

Stage 5 seems to be the consensus, game wide - People are very easily overrun by either getting ahead of themselves, or by falling behind.

Stage 7 is a common killer of inexperienced players (game wide, not just the arena), people are too quick to point at plant RNG when they die but there's simple ways to deal with that round.

Stage 9, if you can get the first and second(after crystals) guard down and then grab your third ghost - Easy. If you're slow/not paying attention, I can see that being tough.

vesselwiththepestle

Stage 5 took me the longest time to do it easily. I'd say it's the hardest. You've got lots of damage incoming, you need to focus your dps and if you make a mistake when playing the mechanic you are dead, while on other stages you ususally can ignore the mechanic or just lose time.

Stage 7 is hard because of rng, but with time you can learn to play around it. I was having a hard time in stage 7 because I wanted to kill those venomcallers as fast as possible. When I dediced to keep my cool and let the poison flowers bloom while I was just doing my thing and killing the venomcaller when I had time, it got easy.

Both Stage 5 and Stage 7 are a lot easier on magicka dps, while in the other stages it doesn't really matter if you are magicka or stamina.

GlorphNoldorin

Stage 7 is the most rng dependent, that is the only reason it is 'difficult' With enough practice all of vma becomes memory for priorities.

Calm_Fury

As others have said, after you are more experienced, Stages 5 and 7 are the most troublesome.

If I pass 7 without deaths, I know that is probably a Flawless run.

But Stage 5 still gets me around 50% of my runs... Hate that place.

Hanokihs

Hardest: Stage 6 is the worst for me - maybe it's an Xbox thing, but half the time, I can't see the webs when the level starts and it always jacks me up.

Next-Hardest: Stage 7's RNG on the flowers is awful; every third time I'm there, one wants to spawn too close to my safety bubble and I die to either poison or the demon shriek before I can get to one of the pools.

Honorable Mention: Stage 8 is rough on pet-specific builds because the fire mages with the spinny-sticks will sometimes obliterate your pets before you can bash/murder them. Very annoying if you don't focus those guys.

Vinterskald

Stage seven, without any doubt for me. The others have their difficulties, sure, but for that stage it's just completely RNG based. You can be completely aware of what's happening, never miss a dodge roll, always take the venomcallers down when they spawn, and you can still die without being able to do anything about it if RNG decides to hate you. It's soooo frustrating. Made me so close to giving up

Last boss on stage nine was hard for me too, but that's because I didn't go in there with particularly high dps. Sure, if you can burn everything down, you can get rid of the crematorial guards very easily and get Voriak's health down in the meantime, I know some people can burn down the crystals in just one go too, but if you don't have high dps it's just... wipe and wipe again before you get lucky that one time and manage to kill him.

DocFrost72

1st run, I hit roadblocks at 5, 7, and final boss.

Final boss is now my favorite fight, and I'm always very surprised if I die on 5 or 6.

7 requires a lot of preplanning to not get caught under dome by a mushroom. Once you learn to kite and position the menders just right, you're golden.

Honestly? The hardest thing about vMA is the anxiety from the pressure of wanting a flawless run when I go in now, so any stages with complex mechanics (6, 7, 8) pump adrenaline, and shaking hands make mistakes. Playing a character that is already flawless fixes this for me.

TheNightflame

stage 5

if you can clear 5 you can clear the whole thing

TheNightflame

the only times I paused my first time in vma were stage 5 (got stuck on last boss) and last boss of the last stage

susmitds

Stage 5 generally. Stage 7 is next mainly due to RNGesus.

BNOC

Unless they've made changes to it over the last 3 years, everyone in this thread knows you can just stand at the side of a pool on R7, and never being touched by a plant, yeah?

Xologamer

1-4 ez
5 one of the dificulty ones
6 medium
7 one of the dificulty ones
8 ez
9 more ez than 1.

DocFrost72

BNOC wrote: »

Unless they've made changes to it over the last 3 years, everyone in this thread knows you can just stand at the side of a pool on R7, and never being touched by a plant, yeah?

If any adds make it to you, they become invulnerable. Useful for not accidentally killing menders during the scream, but kiting them in is more effort.

BNOC

DocFrost72 wrote: »

BNOC wrote: »

Unless they've made changes to it over the last 3 years, everyone in this thread knows you can just stand at the side of a pool on R7, and never being touched by a plant, yeah?

If any adds make it to you, they become invulnerable. Useful for not accidentally killing menders during the scream, but kiting them in is more effort.

If you stand on the edge of the pool, they don't ever get into the radius of the invulnerability.

To be fair, I'm talking specifically about the boss round as I assumed that's what gave people the most trouble given the waves take like 30s each and you're constantly moving/setting up making it easy to avoid plants.

But yeah, kiting all the wave adds there would be effort, I don't actually think you'd be able to lure them all anyway as a lot are ranged.