VMA Poison arena (7)

PrinceShroob

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

If not going for score, the shield sigil trivializes stage 5. Also, if running a melee spec, chains/silver leash is a must IMO.

I can definitely vouch for the defense sigil--most skills that reflected projectiles were changed to just reduce or shield damage, but the sigil still repels the attacks from the mages, archers, and leimenids right back at them.

I found it slightly easier to run a ranged spammable rather than using a chain skill, since it's a bit faster (meaning you take less damage), you can kill Troll Breakers without moving, and it doesn't really matter if your other skills are melee since most of the dangerous enemies walk right up to you. Not every class or weapon necessarily has access to a good 28-meter spammable skill, though, so having chains is definitely still a good idea.

For anyone struggling with the Matriarch Runa, I'd advise taking it slowly--carefully push her to 90%, kill the adds, push to 75% and quickly escape to a new platform, kill the leimenid, push to 60% for the next adds and kill them, then push to 45% and book it. Then go crazy burning her down since you're now timed. Once I memorized when everything happened it was so much easier, since I wasn't contending with the boss, the leimenid, the adds, and getting instantly killed by the ice breaking.

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

Strategy:

Stand where there are no flowers.

Kill the venom caller from ranged when he spawns (bow, class skill, staff, whatever). But not too quickly! You want him to explode existing flowers, then die, then you can watch where new flowers spawn and find a new safe zone to center yourself in. Flowers will occasionally "expire" causing a new flower to replace it. This happens much less if you have fresh flowers after each venom caller. It seems like the flowers have to be around quite a while without exploding before they spontaneously explode. So you sort of want flowers to explode, but just make sure it is during a part of fight where you have freedom of movement.

This advice helped a lot--as long as you block the Behemoth's stomp and bite attacks, you can let this fight drag on a bit so that the Minders and Venomcaller mechanics aren't happening at once. I'd like to add that you should be very careful with skills that deal damage near you, like Hurricane or Arctic Blast, since those can kill the Minder you're standing by and you can't redirect the skill. I had a very unfortunate death once because Flame Skull bounced off the Behemoth and killed the Minder.

I generally like to fight from close to a pool; you need to make sure nothing walks into the pool (particularly if you have a melee summoned pet like the Wild Guardian or Volatile Familiar, since they can trap the enemy in the pool where it won't take any damage). You can also back up behind the pools into the corners, since there's rarely any flowers there. It'd be too far away to hit most enemies, but you can usually duck into the corners to avoid the archers' shots without worrying about exploding a flower.

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

4 people in VMA would be laughable. I would not be opposed to two or a companion, as long as it was a separate leaderboard.

I think you should be able to use a companion in normal Maelstrom (since there's no leaderboard anyway). I imagine that if they allowed you to use companions in veteran difficulty, you simply wouldn't receive a score, similar to quitting and returning.

Ishtarknows

Rogue_WolfESO wrote: »

Damn, there are so many players unable to complete vMSA maybe ZoS should allow grouping 4 like vDSA, you know, in the interests of accessibility.

There's no need. Maelstrom weapons drop from normal now if vet is too hard.