Lets talk about Maelstrom mechanics.... as if anybody is doing them..... FIX IT

f047ys3v3n · November 2015

So, been rolling around in Maelstrom with my Magica Templar as well as discussing it with the badasses of the world or at least in AD. What can I say except that it is embarrassing, broken, and for the most part the guys completing it are simply burning the bosses and nobody having success is paying any attention to the mechanics.... I'll be specific.

Round 1: Yawn, yea, I realize this is a starter round but kill kill, its over. I'm not sure if there were supposed to be mechanics or not. I'm not ever sure if you were supposed to kill some enemies first or not.

Round 2: Here comes the "difficulty" of Maelstrom which amounts to gobs and gobs of unavoidable damage. Slap on all your + resources stuff, heal or sheild stack like a crazy man, and ignore all mechanics as you will be better off without them. Yea, I get it, you can push the green lever to stop the blades for like half a second and you can push it again in like thirty seconds. You will take more damage during the animation to use the lever than if you ignored it altogether.

Round 3: Don't stand in the shocky water or red man. Kill the adds if your dps is lower or not if it's higher. No big deal. Does not standing in red count as a mechanic if it's not marked as red its just water?

Round 4: Ok, on round 2 I was suspecting that this might all just be broke. Round 4, Oh boy this is the most embarrassing mess of bad mechanics execution I have ever seen because, like round 2 mechanics were intended, but they don't work. So this boss fight is supposed to look like the following:
Green phase - stand in green protection rune under boss and dps him switching to the clockwork adds as they spawn so they don't shield up and shock stun you.
Red / Add phase - depart from boss and kill the adds who spawn while dodging the red giant splashes of death.
This all sounds good right? Looks like it would be fun. Here is the problem.... During the green phase 2/3 of the clockwork adds spawn across the pillar from you. They cannot be targeted while standing under the boss where you are clearly supposed to stand. That's a big problem since that's the primary mechanic as, if they get shielded and stun you during the red phase, you will be hit during that stun very probably die right there. So you end up just having to go take all the "your not standing where your supposed to" damage and killing them. Why bother with the green circle at all. But wait..... as the say.... there is more. About those adds. Sure you could dps them down during the red phase but I wouldn't. The first reason is that if you actually have enough dps to do it you should just turn on the boss at the very start and straight dps him. It takes less dps for a full burn than to keep ahead of the add spawns during the red phase. No kidding. Great scaling there. Now for the last issue. The red circles, which the boss throws in the red phase are just a little to fast to get out of without major expedition while dpsing even if your moving the whole time so you can either do dps and heal the whole time or run around with your your you know what in your hand and get nothing done. The conclusion... It takes about 14kdps to straight burn the boss and ignore all mechanics. Most classes can do this with magica templars and NB's being kinda iffy. I think all stam users can do it and magica Sorcs.... Lol. Everybody I know that has completed this fight has straight up burned it because... the mechanics are broke dude.

So, that's how far I got in Vet mode. BTW, non vet is a bit easy no? First clear, two deaths both to one shot mechanics. They were really the only time I was even close. Non-vet dungeons are significantly tougher.

We are seeing some interesting things class balance wise in Maelstrom which is about the only thing I can say good for it. We would be seeing even more interesting stuff if leaderboard showed up as stam or magic as well. To be honest, I have been surprised as, with all the heals and balance, I thought magica Templars would do better but the theme seems to be burn boss, the mechanics are broke, and the one thing magica templars lack is really scorching dps. Good yes, scorching, less so. I'm not sure how much should be read into this though as 15% more dps might make templars dominate the leaderboards as the emergency heal gives them a useful save in screw ups. I don't really feel the class is on balance week but the poor design and non-functional mechanics are calling for a very narrow set of attributes and the very high single target ranged sorc dps as well as their powerfull and inexpensive sheilds fit that rather narrow mold.

What I would like to know is was any of this tested? These mechanics are plainly non-functional and it also appears fairly easy for many builds to ignore them altogether. Wasn't the whole idea with all the boss health supper buffs in vet dungeons to prevent that? I feel like most of those dungeons are now reasonably well balanced so you must have a good idea what the dps is to be expected to be and how to scale the boss. Why was this knowledge no implemented on this new solo trial?

My requests:
- Bosses need to be non-burnable or dps between classes needs to be much closer to equal (not sure if that's the best idea as you want classes to differ from each other.) Lol, I guess I'm asking for a trial I fail at to be in this respect harder.
- Constant unavoidable 15k hits and 10k dots are just crazy particularly because with a little bad fortune several can coincide making an ambient one shot. Your supposed to die when you mess up not with random ambient damages accidentally line up. Either the ambient hits must be lower or care must be taken in programming to make sure they don't unfortunately coincide. I suppose when you get basic mechanics down we can talk about that.
- This should be day one stuff but the mechanics have to work man. They should not 1) basically do nothing and take time and effort to utilize like round 2 or 2) plainly not work as in round 4.

For the readers wondering my toon was geared in all V16 light armor Julianos, Willpower (enough peices that I could go all the way from 2 spell power 1 cost reduction to all cost reduction), Molag Kenna, and Torougs. I also have capped CP.

usmcjdking · November 2015

I'm a tank and I went in with my tank gear. Made it to the frozen rink before the DPS check was more than I could handle. And by more I mean more by such a considerably high amount that it's likely I will never complete it unless I respec and rebuild to a magicka Templar. The pink elephant in ZOS' room is that tanks are simply not that tanky.

1st stage:
Pretty simple but the boss needs to not just heal a fixed amount per mob alive, it should be a percentage of their HP. This allows players who prefer high regen (re: health regeneration) and sustainment compared to DPS specced players to attrite the boss over time. Longer but more forgiving for tankier characters.

2nd stage:
This is fine and works well for tanky characters who can just absorb the damage put out by the shockwaves and blades.

3rd stage:
I had no real issue here either. Took me 22 minutes to defeat wave 5 (no deaths) but that was expected.

4th stage:
Switched to DPS gear (5PC Powerful Assault, 3PC agility, 2PC Hundings). The rate at which adds spawn should be lowered and FFS shields need to be fixed. As a natural tank, and melee DPS, those shields are absolutely crushing. Can't crit, can't DOT, can't bleed. Went through about 42 tripots and 5k gold in repair costs alone in this stage.

5th stage:
Started in tank gear - not enough to kill the icebreakers so switched back to DPS. This is the first REAL DPS check. If you aren't specced to pump out numbers, then you aren't making it. Too many adds forces you to spend a vast majority of your resources to stay alive. Now, if played flawlessly, I could make my way through it if the damage you take in water wasn't MULTIPLICATIVE. Like the inhibitor, the damage stacks on itself. I simply cannot, under any circumstance, complete this phase utilizing my current champion point/attribute loadout. I got the boss down to 88% before I lost all platforms on my best (re: ninth attempt). It's not happening unless I go magicka/stamplar, craft me some quick purple gear and just ignore all this *** by killing the boss wave fasterr.

That is my gripe with Vet Maelstrom Arena. Not that the mobs hit hard or the one shot mechanics that are in place, but the fact that I have to be able to put out a set amount of damage or I fail regardless of my sustainability.

rolandlu7prb18_ESO · November 2015

My stam nb dps completed 6 round without real diffculties. But I didn't see my rank updated in the leaderboard. So I am getting bored and back to Cyro.

Springt-Über-Zwerge · November 2015

rolandlu7prb18_ESO wrote: »

My stam nb dps completed 6 round without real diffculties. But I didn't see my rank updated in the leaderboard. So I am getting bored and back to Cyro.

you have to finish all 9 stages to end up on the leaderboard

Glantir · November 2015

Stage 7 Boss fight is very annoying

It happens several times that I want to walk under the shield and in that moment a mushroom next to the shield explodes and I cannot avoid because leaving the shield area is also not good for your health.

Maybe just bad luck...

rolandlu7prb18_ESO · November 2015

Springt-Über-Zwerge wrote: »

rolandlu7prb18_ESO wrote: »

My stam nb dps completed 6 round without real diffculties. But I didn't see my rank updated in the leaderboard. So I am getting bored and back to Cyro.

you have to finish all 9 stages to end up on the leaderboard

Aha, no wonder

Thanks for the info. I guess I am heading back to the arena soon.

s7732425ub17_ESO · November 2015

Stages 1-4 are easy mode compared to the rest of the arena. So if you are having trouble there, you are in for a huge awakening once you get to stage 5.

Stage 1: Usually only get two adds at a time, and each wave is pretty easy. The hardest part about the boss is that it teleports around the room and has a very strong ranged attack. So if you can't take the damage from the ranged attack, you aren't going to survive.

Stage 2: Bleh. Unavoidable environment damage, and the arena is really small and makes for very bad third person camera views. You should be using the lever on each level except for the last boss. On the last boss, you cannot use the level as it will heal the bosses. This is mainly a sustain challenge. There aren't that many adds thrown at you at and they have low HP. But the boss takes a while.

Stage 3: A bunch of adds get thrown at you, but most have low HP and can be killed quickly. The strangler mechanic is interesting, but if you dodge roll immediately after getting pulled, you usually survive. What makes this arena difficult is the amount of adds at one time. If you cannot deal with multiple ranged enemies attacking you while you are kiting some melee add, you are going to die.

Stage 4: Do a continual circle around the arena, and you should be able to catch all the clockword mobs (they have 15k HP each). Also, the adds here start to get a bit tougher, but there are usually only 2-3 at a time and are easy to kite. For the boss, there are two ways of doing it. DPS during the lightning phase by standing in the green circle, or kill adds during this phase by standing opposite of the boss. Reverse tactics for the other way. Choose which one is easier for you. This isn't that tough because it's very easy to avoid all of the boss's attacks and can focus on adds the whole time.

== If you've gotten this far, congratulations. But your journey has only just begun. ==

Stage 5: Ragequit for most people. Adds, adds, adds. Tons of hard-hitting ranged adds. Tons of melee adds. All at once. And a mechanic where you have to interrupt a certain mob which spawns every 15 seconds. Ouch. Good luck. Just go ahead and use the defense and attack buffs each round.

Stage 6: The worst part about this stage is the mechanic. It really sucks. But once you learn it, you can deal with it. There's a lot of luck involved- sometimes you avoid damage while doing the mechanic, sometimes you don't and just die.

Stage 7: You will bash your head against the wall. It seems all random at first. And then you learn the mechanic and spawn order and how to avoid damage. And then it becomes easy. But this one takes a lot of practice. And then you learn the secret- you can skip the NPC mechanic and just interrupt the boss. And then things click and it's suddenly very easy.

Stage 8: This is your breather stage. This stage is significantly easier than previous stages. Very simple mechanic. Very simple boss. If you have managed to get this far, you will breeze through this stage.

Stage 9: There are five waves before the final boss. They are pretty manageable. The boss is very interesting. The hardest part is the very beginning- dealing with the Daedroth add and the boss at the same time. If you manage to survive this, the rest is really simple once you learn the mechanic. The second stage of the boss is just dodge rolling and standing behind a moving object to avoid damage. It becomes very, very easy with practice. Third stage is easy. Just kite the adds and boss until you can do a super explosion, stun everything, and kill them all.

So I finished this last night. I blew through stages 1-4 no deaths, easymode. The second half? That's where it gets tough.

Takuto · November 2015

I agree 100% with the OPs comments on vet stage 4, I probably attempted this stage a dozen times on the test server without success, until I decided to completely ignore the mechanics and just burn the boss as quickly as possible. It was a very close thing, but it worked on the second try. My main issue in this stage was visibility issues, the huge boss prevented me from seeing possible threats -- such as a wave of lightning or one of the stam-sorc NPCs winding up a wrecking blow. Even when I saw something, there was no guarantee I'd be able to hit it due to the way targeting works in this game.

Stage 5 was also painful due to both targeting issues. In addition, the ice breaking mechanic seemed a bit broken on the final round. Despite completing the entire dungeon on every class on normal, and trying this particular stage on many different occasions on vet, I can't quite decide if I'm missing something about the mechanic -- and therefore doing something wrong, or it is just badly balanced in some way. Off the top of my head, I think I've ended up completing it just as the last bit of ice is destroyed or a few seconds afterward each time.

s7732425ub17_ESO · November 2015

Takuto wrote: »

I agree 100% with the OPs comments on vet stage 4, I probably attempted this stage a dozen times on the test server without success, until I decided to completely ignore the mechanics and just burn the boss as quickly as possible. It was a very close thing, but it worked on the second try. My main issue in this stage was visibility issues, the huge boss prevented me from seeing possible threats -- such as a wave of lightning or one of the stam-sorc NPCs winding up a wrecking blow. Even when I saw something, there was no guarantee I'd be able to hit it due to the way targeting works in this game.

Stage 5 was also painful due to both targeting issues. In addition, the ice breaking mechanic seemed a bit broken on the final round. Despite completing the entire dungeon on every class on normal, and trying this particular stage on many different occasions on vet, I can't quite decide if I'm missing something about the mechanic -- and therefore doing something wrong, or it is just badly balanced in some way. Off the top of my head, I think I've ended up completing it just as the last bit of ice is destroyed or a few seconds afterward each time.

There are only so many rounds of adds on this boss (excluding the continually spawning ice breaker troll). They have the timing tweaked just so you should be killing the adds and then have enough time to DPS the boss down right before he destroys the last platform. Simply DPSing the boss will overload you with add spawns, so take your time and clear each wave before resuming DPS on the boss. But yes, this is a pretty difficult DPS check. Good thing it comes halfway through the arena.