jakeedmundson wrote: »

asneakybanana wrote: »

BugCollector wrote: »

Didn't play Maelstrom Arena myself, but judging from others' posts, it seems like the vet mode is far too difficult. I think it should probably be the same difficulty like playing vet DSA with four.

OH God no dsa is stupid ea St and has been since like 1.5 when they nerfed it into the ground. Vet MA needs to be a 9 or a 10 in difficulty right now just due to the way that difficulty decreases over time. The hardcore players get their shot of farming it now and the casuals get their chance to farm it when they get new gear and maybe a level increase. It's how all mmos cycle. Hard content becomes farmed content becomes levelling content.

because the casual crowd is going to just... pay like everyone else... then wait around until the next dlc so they can get old, outdated gear?... yeah, good luck with that idea. Where do people get this, "i'm more hardcore of a gamer and deserve more than everyone else" baditude? They can't base the game on the select few who have 12 hours a day to put into a game. It doesn't work like that. If you're good enough to go through everything quickly... great. Try playing a different character and level everything again. But don't try to say that the casual crowd will just have to wait and/or not even get a chance to get the gear.
If the arena requires a player to spend an hour per level (8-10 hours total continuous play just for a chance at a mal weapon) and a complete respec for everyone to play solo then eso will lose tons of people; myself included. IC wasn't good enough to keep people playing... and so far this one isn't looking amazing either. Many people will be sucked into this arena and it will leave very few to play group dungeons. This will probably move whats left of the tanking crowd away from group play.

So you want everyone to be able to roll in there day 1 and complete it? That's a real funny joke. . Was told once that you get out of an mmo what you put in and if you're dedicated and skilful enough to make an entirely new build for this and can clear out early on then you deserve access to that gear before others.
Also there is a very good reason there is a normal and a veteran version of this. If you want to clear it out of the gate and farm gear but can't do vet then do normal. Still have a chance for maelstrom weps to drop, not sure if it's like dsa where you can only get v15 but even if you do only get v15 most of the casual players aren't interested in getting everything perfect and will be content with good enough.
And the arena won't require 8-10 hours once people figure out everything. I can do the first 5 stages in an hour or so now and until the change they just did to 6 that was taking me an hour tops. It's been the same way with every trial/arena release since launch. Look at dsa. It wasn't cleared for about a week by anyone when it first came out. Then slowly people started to clear it and the runs got faster and faster as people figured out all the mechanics. Sanctum ophidia was the same story. When it first came out it took 2 weeks for anyone to clear it and that guild was pretty much the only ones to clear it for the first month+ that is was out. Then more and more people cleared and about 2 months after it came out still only 10 or so guilds had cleared and then they nerfed it and gave everyone more rezzes and that's when a ton of people started to get clears. It's just how gear cycles work. Hardcore players clear first and then the more casual players begin to clear over time as strategies come out and people keep progressing.
Now with this content I can almost guarantee it will be cleared day @ if they don't change things around like they did for Sanctum and dsa so the people testing on the pts don't already have all the mechanics figured and can go I'm there and 1 shot the bosses.

jakeedmundson wrote: »

asneakybanana wrote: »

jakeedmundson wrote: »

asneakybanana wrote: »

BugCollector wrote: »

Didn't play Maelstrom Arena myself, but judging from others' posts, it seems like the vet mode is far too difficult. I think it should probably be the same difficulty like playing vet DSA with four.

OH God no dsa is stupid ea St and has been since like 1.5 when they nerfed it into the ground. Vet MA needs to be a 9 or a 10 in difficulty right now just due to the way that difficulty decreases over time. The hardcore players get their shot of farming it now and the casuals get their chance to farm it when they get new gear and maybe a level increase. It's how all mmos cycle. Hard content becomes farmed content becomes levelling content.

because the casual crowd is going to just... pay like everyone else... then wait around until the next dlc so they can get old, outdated gear?... yeah, good luck with that idea. Where do people get this, "i'm more hardcore of a gamer and deserve more than everyone else" baditude? They can't base the game on the select few who have 12 hours a day to put into a game. It doesn't work like that. If you're good enough to go through everything quickly... great. Try playing a different character and level everything again. But don't try to say that the casual crowd will just have to wait and/or not even get a chance to get the gear.
If the arena requires a player to spend an hour per level (8-10 hours total continuous play just for a chance at a mal weapon) and a complete respec for everyone to play solo then eso will lose tons of people; myself included. IC wasn't good enough to keep people playing... and so far this one isn't looking amazing either. Many people will be sucked into this arena and it will leave very few to play group dungeons. This will probably move whats left of the tanking crowd away from group play.

So you want everyone to be able to roll in there day 1 and complete it? That's a real funny joke. . Was told once that you get out of an mmo what you put in and if you're dedicated and skilful enough to make an entirely new build for this and can clear out early on then you deserve access to that gear before others.
Also there is a very good reason there is a normal and a veteran version of this. If you want to clear it out of the gate and farm gear but can't do vet then do normal. Still have a chance for maelstrom weps to drop, not sure if it's like dsa where you can only get v15 but even if you do only get v15 most of the casual players aren't interested in getting everything perfect and will be content with good enough.
And the arena won't require 8-10 hours once people figure out everything. I can do the first 5 stages in an hour or so now and until the change they just did to 6 that was taking me an hour tops. It's been the same way with every trial/arena release since launch. Look at dsa. It wasn't cleared for about a week by anyone when it first came out. Then slowly people started to clear it and the runs got faster and faster as people figured out all the mechanics. Sanctum ophidia was the same story. When it first came out it took 2 weeks for anyone to clear it and that guild was pretty much the only ones to clear it for the first month+ that is was out. Then more and more people cleared and about 2 months after it came out still only 10 or so guilds had cleared and then they nerfed it and gave everyone more rezzes and that's when a ton of people started to get clears. It's just how gear cycles work. Hardcore players clear first and then the more casual players begin to clear over time as strategies come out and people keep progressing.
Now with this content I can almost guarantee it will be cleared day @ if they don't change things around like they did for Sanctum and dsa so the people testing on the pts don't already have all the mechanics figured and can go I'm there and 1 shot the bosses.

I didn't even read past your first sentence because it was so ridiculous... where/when did i ever say you should be able to "roll in there day 1 and complete it"? and even if you DID ... there is no guarantee on the drop... if you need 1 sword and get the bow 15 times in a row... that is still enough of a pain.
There IS a middle ground you know... where it will be normal difficulty for the "elite" players and passable/harder for the casual players while still being too difficult for new/inexperienced players.
if it is so difficult for the casual player base that they can never complete it... why would they even buy the dlc?

This really is the deciding factor for whether or not many people will continue to play this game.
Just remember... without a casual player base, there is no bright future for any game.

Well other than the last boss the arena is at that point right now of not stupid easy for the hardcore player and tough for the casual also vdsa is was what someone originally said it should be scaled tot which isn't even hard for casuals anymore and if this was scaled to that level it would be bad for everyone. Maybe waiting for a new update to come out was a bit of an overstatement lol but it should take the casual player a good while to clear it especially since they can't be carried through it but I would still expect most to clear within a month and a half when there's uilds and video guides out there.

Contraptions wrote: »

Just tried vet mode for the first time. Made it to round 3 then stopped.

Everything seems to hit too hard. The vet mode seems really overtuned compared to normal. Attacks that hit for 2k ish on normal suddenly hit for 12-13k on vet. The increased health was manageable to me but the damage just seemed over the top.

This is just a lazy way of increasing the difficulty to me, by simply increasing the stats of the enemies. No significant new mechanics, no new types of mobs, no new attack patterns. Just a flat multiplier on numbers. Just like what you did for WGT and ICP.

Is this going to be a pattern ZOS? Our so called "premium DLC" content being just copy and pasted from one mode to the other with an arbitrary multiplier slapped on it? What happened to normal and veteran modes actually being significantly different like for dungeons and for DSA?

Either way ZOS I suggest you tone down the damage and health of all enemies in there, because at this point it's not challenging in the fun way. It just feels really cheap.

Just my two cents.

Weird, this guy seems to think it's a bit too easy.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/225390/world-first-veteran-maelstrom-arena#latest

omfgitsbatman wrote: »

I would like to see some method of saving your progress for a limited amount of time like an hour or so even while out of instance.
Examples of when this would be useful:
Oh no... I ran out of potions and don't have the materials for more... I would really love to go get some more potions off of the guild store.
I got to the 4th round of vet before I realized I was running without a mundus stone buff on the template. I would really love to have that mundus stone buff right now.
I am on the 7th round and realize I won't be able to beat it with my current gear setup... I'd really like to go craft or grab some other gear really quick.

code65536 wrote: »

I wonder... What would happen if you disconnected or crashed in the middle of vet MA?

If you log back in quickly, only the current round will be reset, just like when you die.

• What was your class, build (active skills, Champion Point distribution) and level?

Class: Nightblade
Level: v16
Build: All points into Stamina, all passives, Breton
Sets: Molag Kena 1 pc, Shield Breaker 4pc, Morkuldin 4pc, agility 3pc: 5 medium 1 light, 1 heavy, 1 mace, 1 sword, 1 maul
Active Skills:
Bar 1: Dual-wielder: Ambush, Siphoning attacks, Surprise attack, Steel Tornado, Vigor, Soul harvest/Soul Tether/Flawless DB
Bar 2: Two-hander: Double Take, executioner, brawler, relentless focus, rally, soul tether/bolstering darkness
Champion Allocation: 300:
Mage: Mighty 68, blessed 32
Thief: Tumbling 10, Mooncalf 45, warlord 45
Warrior: Quick Recovery 55, hardy 10, elemental defender 10, medium focus 25
Warrior mundus
All prismatic glyphs on armor
1 stamina regen, 1 reduce stam cost, 1 weapon damage on jewelry
Absorb stamina on maul, increase weapon damage for 5s on sword, disease damage on mace

• Which version of Maelstrom Arena did you play: Normal, Veteran or both?

I played Vet Maelstrom

• On a scale from 1 (very easy) – 10 (very hard) how difficult did you find Maelstrom Arena? Please indicate whether you were playing Normal or Veteran.

Veteran, 10.
I got through the first three rounds in under 15 lives lost, however the fourth round was where I was unable to continue progressing, as the mobs came out in large enough quantities that I could not tank and DPS all of them at the same time, considering the movement aspect required of the round, it was difficult. Likely it was possible, however I was down to 450 lives, 35 spent on that round alone.

• Which Arena was your favorite, and why?

My favorite arena was the second arena (of the four I experienced). I enjoyed it because it provided a hefty challenge to situational awareness (I needed to avoid all of the aoes) and the DPS required was just enough that it was punishing to me if I faltered, but not so much that I always failed. It was not easy, but it was not impossible.

• Which Arena was your least favorite, and why?

My least favorite arena was the third arena. Even though I failed to finish the fourth arena, this arena frustrated me the most because it felt unresponsive. I often was pulled halfway across the map by one of the stranglers and just as soon teleported right back to where I was pulled from, and more often now in the way of another aoe that I could not interrupt, dodge or heal through. Additionally, many of the AoEs within the arena seemed to hit me even if I moved out of their projected radius if I were close enough to the edge, making it seem a bit larger than in reality. Also the mechanic of the shocking waters coupled with the crowd control and pull of the stranglers into water caused for many deaths that seemed impossible to interrupt or do anything to prevent death. The only counter was to try and make sure all stranglers were dead when the water was electrocuted so as to keep them from pulling me to an inevitable death. Overall, many of the mechanics felt clunky and

• Which Arena gave you the most trouble?

The most trouble came from the very last arena that I could reach, arena 4. It had sound mechanics but the mob density and damage tended to be overwhelming for the little defense I could utilize and in the end I could not succeed in surviving as well as damaging. If I spent too long surviving, no damage is done and the mobs multiply, if I spent too long damaging, I died quickly whenever the empowered mobs came at me.

• If you could change one thing in any of the Arenas, what would it be?

The stranglers. I would want to put in some way to counter them a bit more abruptly, such as they grab on, root, then pull. During the root perhaps you would have time to roll dodge and prevent their grabbing of you, or block their grab.

• How often did you receive a reward? Were you satisfied overall with the rewards you received?

I received a reward often from the boxes at the end of each arena. On Vet they seemed a bit underwhelming from the effort that goes into the fighting. Perhaps additional rewards, twice as many for vet than normal.

• What was your favorite reward?

I had no favorites of the ones I was rewarded. I did not plan on using any of the new dropped sets.

ebethke_ESO wrote: »

Died first boss because I had to walk away from my comp. Wayshrined, reentered the arena and the boss didn't spawn.

Stuck in the arena, even if I drop the quest, and the mist follows me so I can't even get out of combat...

had that one too

Anyone have luck with a melee build in vet?
curious to see if anyone has beaten it ... and if they did. their stats/gear/cp.

only ones i've heard of beating the arena on vet are sorcs

This post is almost entirely going to be about the Veteran version of Maelstrom Arena (vMA). That said, this baby is gonna be loooooooooong.

It is worth noting that from the perspective of this writer, Normal Maelstrom Arena is a 2/10 in terms of difficulty, even when we were hitting like wet noodles with no resources.

*Disclaimer* Nothing in this post is meant to be offensive or mean, but since I fail at writing things may seem that way, so apologies in advance. And sorry if the format sucks, first post and all.

The 2 characters I used were:

My copied Stamina Nightblade Duel Wielder - 320 CP, Endgame gear load-out (Hundings 5pc, 2pc Endurance, 3pc Agility, Molag Kena+Blood Spawn), Blue Vet 15 stam/hp food, Vet 15 potions, Shadow Mundus Stone *Vigor+Caltrops/Barrier unlocked and leveled (Combat defense 18k/18k AR/SR)

Template Magicka Sorcerer - 300 CP, Endgame Gear Loadout (5pc Julianos, 3pc Willpower, Molag Kena+Lord Warden's Dusk, Maelstrom Resto and Maelstrom Inferno/Ice staff, dependent on round), Crown Tri-pots and Crown Tri-food, Thief Mundus Stone (Combat defense 15k/10k, sometimes 20k/15k AR/SR) *No Overload usage, that's just cheap, and no Magicka Detonation, as lots of soloers do not have this skill (only my stamblade has it for me), no BoL, only streak, cause it should NOT be a required skill.

My Stamina user was done before the EU character copy when resources and damage were bugged, My Sorc was after the character copy. In my humble opinion, there is a MASSIVE rift between stamina and magicka performance, and this all boils down to the incoming damage. (Stamina users have no shields, and no, dodge chance is not the same, that's RNG defense vs 20k shields, no comparison when damage is at burst you down in 1 second levels)

Furthermore, even for a Sorc with 20k spammable shields and good dps/defense/resources, the damage is too high. I shall elaborate for each arena I have completed.

Arena 1:

OK so arena 1, this one isn't too bad. Nothing very particular about anything except the boss fight. The damage numbers are a little out of hand, especially for the first arena. I was able to complete this with my Nightblade and my Sorcerer. Being pelted by ranged magic for 7k per hit from adds and the boss is a little too much damage, even for someone with almost 20k Spell Resist. For boss damage that is fine, but any non-boss mob that has a 90% chance to hit you at range (spell casters/archers) should do less damage.

Furthermore, the boss adds are on a timer, and not a %hp (from what I can tell). This causes the boss fight to be more of a dps race than it should be.

Some of the damage for this arena needs to be tuned down. It is more brutal (not by much) for stam builds with no access to ultra powerful shields (dodge chance is a RNG defense, which is unbalance-able in burst scenarios).

Arena 2:

This round stomped my Nightblade HARD. It is possible to avoid much of the damage from the blades (albeit stupid hard at times), but if you DO get hit multiple times, the damage is very high. This wouldn't be SO bad, but the bleed damage stacks and can even get high enough to counter a vigor heal.

You cannot purge the bleed, so the best defense is to use shields, since DoTs don't affect you unless the shield is gone, right, right? Well the only 2 shields most stamina users have is a paltry bone shield (with good CP arrangement and hp, ~7k shield for a high cost) and the Barrier ult. (Brawler from the 2H tree doesn't count, you need mobs to get a good shield number, and not everyone wants to run 2H.) Conversely, magicka users have an insane healing ward (and conjured ward for Sorcs). Also, last I checked I thought the blades were doing magic damage (harness magicka), which should NOT be the case, as it makes no sense.

In this case, the environmental damage is tuned too high, mostly for the bleed damage since it can stack. The mobs (and boss) themselves were fine, although are designed to be anti-melee in most cases.

Stacking bleed damage I would think is the biggest issue here, it is what kept my Nightblade from passing Arena 2, but a shield spamming Sorc did not have much trouble (Template Sorc looked at this arena and laughed).

Arena 3: (Only used a Sorc from here on out, so there is some bias.)

Oh man, this arena is purely an RNG mess, those stranglers, ungh. The mob damage here isn't so bad, but the stranglers (and mini-boss) are a real problem. Their range for pulling NEEDS to be looked at, they can pull from ANYWHERE on the map. This usually happens at the worst times, so it is almost an instant death, especially if the water is electrified. (Maybe electric water should kill stranglers too, or stun them, that would be cool.) What is probably worst of all, is that 40% of the time, I was rubber-banded back to where I was initially pulled (surrounded by mobs) and stunned, so I just died, with no way to prevent it. (100ms latency @ 60 FPS, so not my fault)

Damage could be lowered, but those stranglers need reworking. A reduce in pull range, fix rubber-banding, and/or maybe no pulling while water is electric. It is a frustrating and purely RNG mechanic that punishes the unlucky. Also healing ward OP.

Arena 4:

Huehhuehhuehhueh, this one was fun (Totally serious too). The individual rounds could use some lowered damage, but all in all, not too bad. HOWEVER, and this is more so during the boss round, those Dwarven spheres need less hp. A mob that spawns normally probably should not have more than 10% the bosses HP. (Low spawn rates sure, up to maybe 15% arena boss hp, but not common spawns.)

The boss though, that was a PURE dps race, so I suggest to change that ASAP. Spawns are on a timer and not on a % hp threshold. You have to ignore most adds and dps burn the boss (since some adds have 10-15% boss hp, and do NOT stop spawning.) The boss's damage could be lowered a bit, but it isn't so bad (safe green zone yay).

Arena 5:

This here is where the difficulty really starts to ramp up. First off, there is a major increase in ranged damage in this round, so you get hit for 5-7k per shot more often. These damage numbers are OK on bosses, but not on trash. Shields again block massive damage and act as a huge buffer, making magicka classes better suited to vMA. I think the biggest issue is the second to last wave, with the 2 giants and their massive 17k damage wave. With everything going on it is hard to see
the wave, and it has major range. Your shields get depleted fast (if you are lucky to have them)
from all the other trash, so you are nuked down fast.

Bashing those trolls so they stop breaking the ice seems a no-brainer, but when there is another enemy on the same tile, priority goes to the other enemy, and not the troll, which makes things worse. (CC doesn't work on the trolls, so no streak to stop them.)

Also of note, the platforms are not all uniform in height, you can get stuck in water trying to run onto them, which will cause you to die extra fast if you don't notice/react in time. This I do not think is by design, but I could be wrong.

Damage needs to be toned down, and keep in mind that melee users are ultra gimped this round. (Easy to get swarmed upon)

Streak/Healing Ward OP

Arena 6:

This arena is the worst so far, bar none. There is quite literally too much going on in addition to too much incoming damage. 3k per swarm spider, and 8k spits from even minor Daedra, and 7k arrows/magic bolts all equate to far too much incoming damage.

If this wasn't enough, the spider swarms make you run to glowing obelisks. Good luck, if there is a Lurcher up, you are likely dead. The slow stacks from the Lurchers, and they hit so hard you cannot stay still. (This hurts melee builds especially.) Therefore if you are at an obelisk waiting for the spiders to go away, you are still taking massive damage, even more so cause you are stationary. Sometimes even shield-spam isn't enough.

This all makes the rounds far too difficult, just too much incoming damage and too much going on. Sure you can stun everything since the Hoarvers free up obelisks, but a lot of the times you don't know a Webspinner is up until it is too late.

Then there is the boss phase, this one ends up being a pure DPS race. Getting the boss to 50% is very hard (but doable) with the incoming damage and spider swarms. And again, due to the rage mechanics of the boss, melee gets the shaft. Once 50% happens, you get a Lurcher, which moves rather fast. Killing it to focus on the boss is too much with Webspinners, spider swarms, spider Daedra, and the boss all pelting you with massive damage. I had to cave, stun the boss at about 60% HP, grab the dps sigil, and burn the boss ignoring everything. (Only sigil used up till this point, since they do not last long enough to be worth it in most cases, from my perspective anyway.)

A telegraph for the Webspinners would be nice, but mostly the incoming damage really is too much here. Especially because the spider swarms keep you mostly stationary at times, which in this round is a recipe for death.

Arena 7: (On normal mode, this was actually my least favorite round)

This round gets mobby fast, but that's OK. However the poison DoT you get hit with does about 9k per tick. You can only tell you are poisoned with an add-on showing the damage numbers, by then it is too late. Sometimes the red AoE zones for the explosion do not show up, so oops, your dead. I had to stop at round 1 here, as it was getting late and I already spend 4 hours in vMA getting this far.



That's all I got, since I did not have the time to try and beat arena 7, which is sad cause Arena 8 was kinda my favorite on the normal version. (Melee didn't have too much trouble with broken Obelisks).

TL;DR

Damage is waaaaay to high, favors magicka and ranged builds much more than stamina or melee builds. The mechanics ARE fun, but the damage makes a fun arena frustrating on vet, and boring on normal. (Though normal should stay as is.)

Also buff elemental succession, simple numbers show the dps you get from it is paltry compared to basically any other magicka dps set. Winterborn seems pretty cool though, might need a buff but definitely fun to use for mobs/soloing. No Maelstrom drops yet, I assume it is only from Vet last boss, but the drop rates seem to be OK for the other sets. (I didn't see any jewelry drops for the sets though.)

I tried the nonvet version. I played a few stages - maybe five or so, and then stopped because it was so easy and thus, boring. It felt like the drop rate was about 50% per level, which was fine, BUT...

I was not happy that the set items were Bind on Pickup, because for any PvPer to be able to get those sets, it means that they have to *solo grind in PvE* to be able to get them for hours and hours, instead of doing what they actually want to do - and that is, to PvP. There is way too much PvE grind needed for PvPers in the game, and that is not just my opinion - it is what I gather from the other PvPers I've talked to. You know, the ones who are already unhappy about the game mechanics changing over the past seven months to favor numbers instead of skill.

Getting the Maelstrom weapons involves too much PvE grind, especially considering just how many weapon types there are, and that the traits are also assigned randomly.

jakeedmundson wrote: »

RoamingRiverElk wrote: »

I tried the nonvet version. I played a few stages - maybe five or so, and then stopped because it was so easy and thus, boring. It felt like the drop rate was about 50% per level, which was fine, BUT...

I was not happy that the set items were Bind on Pickup, because for any PvPer to be able to get those sets, it means that they have to *solo grind in PvE* to be able to get them for hours and hours, instead of doing what they actually want to do - and that is, to PvP. There is way too much PvE grind needed for PvPers in the game, and that is not just my opinion - it is what I gather from the other PvPers I've talked to. You know, the ones who are already unhappy about the game mechanics changing over the past seven months to favor numbers instead of skill.

Getting the Maelstrom weapons involves too much PvE grind, especially considering just how many weapon types there are, and that the traits are also assigned randomly.

That's probably why its somewhat easy on normal.... you're gonna have to do it 50 times to get the items you want.
veteran on the other hand... is so difficult only a select few have beaten so far. that ridiculous difficulty + the RNG of drops = hammer to my face.

Even worse, drops on normal are V15 and no maelstrom weapons from normal.

@ZOS_GinaBruno it would be nice to hear ZOS feedback on the provided feedback so far. There is a Z comment or two on all the other official threads except this one.

The consistent feedback I'm seeing that people want to know if future tuning will include is:
- reducing mob damage
- reducing mob health
- reducing quantity/timed nature of spawned adds
- removing certain DPS race elements (hard to DPS when we are spending so much time surviving)
- if things like creatures bypassing CC immunity and not allowing creatures to be interrupted are going to stay (it seems odd to me to be able to interrupt the behemoth boss in his scream, but not the poison archers - for example)

I'm also hearing that folks aren't talking about massive nerfs, just reduced from nearly impossible to difficultly achievable (from infuriating rage quit to challenging fun).

I think if ZOS would speak to those particular things it would be helpful to know what you guys think about the feedback and what you want vMA to be.

-Aletheion

What was your class, build (active skills, Champion Point distribution) and level?
Magicka Nightblade v16 (see video below)

Which version of Maelstrom Arena did you play: Normal, Veteran or both?
Veteran

On a scale from 1 (very easy) – 10 (very hard) how difficult did you find Maelstrom Arena? Please indicate whether you were playing Normal or Veteran.
Can't say yet. First time it was really hard, but after many tries many things become easy.

Which Arena was your favorite, and why?
I liked all arenas, almost

Which Arena was your least favorite, and why?
Stage 3 (Drome of Toxic Shock). Because of Stranglers. They are bugged since Dragonstar Arena. When they pull a player, there is a chance you will return back, I don't know why it happens, but it happens a lot, it's more annoying than difficult.

Which Arena gave you the most trouble?
Stage 6 (Spiral Shadows). For me the last boss there is more technically difficult than any other boss.

If you could change one thing in any of the Arenas, what would it be?
There are a lot of mechanics that sometimes randomly synergise and lead to death. I would make some of mechanics mutually exclusive, because only sorcs with shields can survive many things at once

How often did you receive a reward? Were you satisfied overall with the rewards you received?
I recieved a bow with defending trait, which made me want to delete the game, j/k

Here is a video of last boss:

https://youtu.be/meHzzuieBHo

What was your class, build (active skills, Champion Point distribution) and level?
V16 Sorc PTS Template w 300/CPs
90 Bastion, 5 Hardy 5 Elemental Defender, 70 Arcanist, 30 Magician, 88 Elemental Mastery, 1 Spell Erosion, 1 Elfborn, 10 Thaumaturge

Crystal Fragments
Force Pulse
Ball of Lightning
Inner Light
Hardened Ward
Energy Overload

Crit Surge
Daedric Minefield
Ball of Lightning
Inner Light
Hardened Ward
Energy Overload



Which version of Maelstrom Arena did you play: Normal, Veteran or both?
Both

On a scale from 1 (very easy) – 10 (very hard) how difficult did you find Maelstrom Arena? Veteran 9.5, Normal 6

Which Arena was your favorite, and why?
The arena with the spiders, I enjoyed the mechanic.

Which Arena was your least favorite, and why?
The Lamia Arena. I died several times to bugged strangler pulls where I'm hit with two at the same time and just start doing a long slow "slide" across the screen unable to move or break free until I'm killed by mobs.

Which Arena gave you the most trouble?
The 4th Arena was as far as I made it in Veteran mode but my build and gear was non-optimal compared to my live char.

If you could change one thing in any of the Arenas, what would it be?
There really should be a way to start the arena again either through aggroing mobs or a slightly longer timer that allows you to swap out an ability or a piece of gear between tries.

Also, see below about my comments on targetting

How often did you receive a reward? Were you satisfied overall with the rewards you received?
I got several set pieces and was satisfied with the gear that dropped in my attempts.

What was your favorite reward?
Divines Elemental Succession belt.

---

To all of those who think that Magicka Sorcs somehow have the Arena in easy mode I would have to challenge that from my experience so far. I'm far from the best player and certainly not the best at PvE but I have the core mechanics in the game on muscle memory and I know magicka sorc very well.

@Dymence I don't see how you were able to complete this without both bolt escape and hardened ward on your main DPS bar. Oftentimes you're taking so much damage if I had to swap between hardened ward on my off bar and then back to my DPS bar my DPS would be reduced far more than the value of a buff ability like Inner light or Bound Aegis.

I created a template character (300 CPs), gave him the Shadow Mundus(What a pain on PTS!), equipped 3X willpower (1 Spell damage, 2X cost reduction), 5 Piece Julianos(all magicka enchant), Maelstrom Fire staff/ Maelstrom Lightning stack and 2 Piece Molag Kena for lack of better options that I could see on PTS.

I spent about 3 hours on my first trip into Veteran Maelstrom and got stuck on the 4th boss after getting him down to 20% or so a few times. I know you've spent a lot more time playing it and I've not watched any videos or anything other than my own experience that I learned from doing it myself. I also never used a sigil or whatever in my entire time in the dungeon. I'm not sure if using these would make things much easier for me or not or if they are needed.

All in all I feel the difficulty is right where it needs to be and I'll be disappointing if they nerf it any more in the near future beyond fixing bugs or mechanics that have stupid RNG difficulty (dead if X happens no matter what you do).

My biggest issue with this whole instance is the damned targeting. The new targeting is so much worse than the old targeting from a mechanics standpoint, my overload misses or hits the wrong target far more than it used to. Often times you're inside the hitbox of one mob yet want to target another mob and can't select him, or you do select him and just can't hit him. You shouldn't have to be so frustrated by the targeting UI in this game and I have no idea how players on Consoles are going to be able to do this successfully with limited targeting options. If you guys want to use the new targeting system fine, but use the same logic that the old white square used to use because the new logic isn't nearly as good.

• What was your class, build (active skills, Champion Point distribution) and level?
  
  vr16 template Altmer Sorceress
  64 attribute points in Magicka
  Mundus Stone: Thief
  Food: blue VR10 Magicka + Health
  
  300 CP:
  68 Elemental Expert; 10 Blessed, Staff Expert, Thaumaturge; 1 Elfborn, Spell Erosion
  80 Bastion; 1 Quick Recovery; 6 Light Armor Focus, Hardy, Elemental Defender
  79 Arcanist; 10 Magician, Mooncalf; 1 Tumbling
  
  Armor: 5L/1M/1H
  5pc Scathing Mage
  2pc Julianos
  3pc Willpower jewelry (with Magicka recovery enchants it came with)
  
  Bar 1 -- Maelstrom Lightning Staff (Precise):
  *1*, Crystal Fragments, Hardened Ward, Elemental Drain, Inner Light; *U*
  
  Bar 2 -- Maelstrom Fire Staff (Precise):
  Power Surge, Boundless Storm, Hardened Ward, Daedric Minefield, Inner Light; Energy Overload
  
  Overload bar:
  Mage's Wrath, Crystal Fragments, Hardened Ward, Streak, Inner Light
  
  
• On a scale from 1 (very easy) – 10 (very hard) how difficult did you find Maelstrom Arena? Please indicate whether you were playing Normal or Veteran.
  
  9 (Veteran)
  edit October 31: changed my mind in the Vault of Umbrage. The number of instant death mechanics pushes the difficulty off the chart. I'm going to elaborate in a separate post.
  

1 Vale of the Surreal
*1* Shock Clench
*U* Dawnbreaker of Smiting

In 2.2.1 (with damage reduction bug) I tried a hundred times with DK and close to a hundred times with Sorc (v16 templates in v14 gear), and never got the boss below 25% health. Since 2.2.2 I haven't died in this arena. Maybe it's due to the amount of training I got in hard mode, this one is now easy for me.

2 Seht's Balcony
*1* Shock Clench
*U* Ice Comet

No issues here.

3 Drome of Toxic Shock
*1* Shock Clench
*U* Greater Storm Atronach

Stranglers pulling you across the whole arena and landing back where you originally were, this should be fixed. For me it's a mere nuisance mitigated by Hardened Ward, but I totally understand how frustrating dying because of this can be.

4 Seht's Flywheel
*1* Shock Clench
*U* Ice Comet

This is where I was stuck for another hundred tries in 2.2.2. I'm still not able to beat this reliably, but eventually I figured a strategy I'm able to succeed with. During the 1st fire exhaust phase, I drop an Ice Comet on the dwemer sphere that spawns, then proceed with the boss. 2nd exhaust is only a 2H sorc, easy kill. 3rd exhaust spawns a sphere, a spider and a 2H sorc a bit later, so Ice Comet again. 4th exhaust is the breaking point for me, because another sphere+spider+sorc spawn and I don't have enough ultimate. I often fail to kill them fast enough before the boss starts moving again, and after that I usually start running around in panic, desperately spamming shields, dropping mines and hoping to finish the boss before the adds finish me.

5 Rink of Frozen Blood
*1* Crushing Shock
*U* Dawnbreaker of Smiting

Here I started having some performance issues. During the Frost Atronach stage, each spawn wave caused my FPS to waver. It might have been caused by the spawn of Frost Atronach together with many other mobs. I've always had the impression that Frost and Storm Atronach spawns are more demanding performance-wise. I restarted the game and it got better, but still not completely smooth. Haven't tried without water reflection, though.

6 Spiral Shadows
*1* Shock Clench
*4* Streak (instead of Mines)
*U* Greater Storm Atronach

It took me many tries to even get to the boss. The stage that starts with mage, warrior, and lurcher is such a DPS race. Before I kill the lurcher the Xivilai guy spawns, before I kill him there's a swarm spawn with 2 archers. I have no idea how I managed to beat that... twice.

And then the boss phase. I'm curious how the Spit damage was changed in 2.2.3. Because in 2.2.2 the Spit made me take screenshots of death recaps - the two highest hits I got were 63669 (+22663 to shield) and 84797 (+7754 to shield).

edit October 31: last night I finally managed to subdue the spider... and die simultaneously:


My main grudge against this arena is the ridiculous one-shot Spit.

The basic mechanics are fine -- champion is growing stronger, you must free obelisks to subdue her. The problem for me is the "growing stronger" mechanic being totally overkill, leaving zero room for mistakes (or improvisation). When there's too much going on, one can easily miss a webspinner or hoarvor. You'd think if you lose an obelisk, you'll wait for a hoarvor to free it again. You'd think if you miss a hoarvor, you'll just wait for another. You'd think you could wait with freeing the fifth obelisk until a nasty lurcher spawn. But no, not in the final boss fight. I've tried that so many times it's not even funny, and every time it ended with a 70k+ damage Spit.


Footnote: my Greater Storm Atronach often appeared to zap something under an obelisk, and I think it also targets the little swarm spawn spiders. Would be nice if it always picked some relevant target.