SoulKing32 wrote: »

While I don't think the first four stages are very hard once you know the mechanics, Im stuck at the last boss fight (stage 9). Tried it with two different classes but the result is always the same. After so many hours, potions and repair costs I spent there, Im starting to doubt that I am able to complete this. The fight is just so unforgiving and so frustrating - I never experienced something like that in a video game before.

I really don't think the arena is too hard, there is just so much random stuff that can kill you and that makes it so frustrating.

Best advice I can give for the last boss:

Up your damage however you can. Other than that, my first clear was after probably 8 hours and 200-300 deaths (on only the last boss I mean). The strategy I worked out was:

-Burn boss until 1st teleport immediately grab Defensive sigil and ignore the bosses channel (don't interrupt because the sigil reflects the damage) and burn the healer. Not interrupting him gives you a few extra seconds before the Crem Guard spawns.

-Burn the Crem Guard ASAP, keep camera on boss and watch for skull attack. If your DPS is high enough, you should have the Guard dead before the next healer spawns.

-Use ults and everything you've got to get boss down to 80% health to start stage 2.

-Burn healer to make life easier later.

-Kill clanfear and teleport up top.

-Burn at least 2 crystals before you drop down, dodge skulls and keep your heals up. If you can burn all 3 in one go you'll make this stage a cakewalk.

-If you have to drop, grab the healing sigil and AoE/burn the Crem Guard and clanfear ASAP (Easily the hardest part of the fight in most cases) Teleport back up top and burn the last crystal.

-After he goes to stage 3, immediately grab the speed sigil and stay 100% focused on grabbing gold ghosts, not missing any makes this stage infinitely easier. 2nd priority is killing necromancers before they make it to the center. Don't forget to interrupt his channel and dodge the skulls.

-You'll get 3 ghosts before the Crem guard spawns every time (which is why you can't miss any) save the explosion until one is spawning then burn ASAP ( power sigil will help here)

-Rinse and repeat while DPSing boss between ghosts, necros, and Crem Gaurds, and he'll go down eventually

Note: if you're having a rough time getting through stage 1, grab the power sigil after you grab defense just so that you can get practice on stage 2/3 with each attempt.

Its a rough and frustrating fight, but you'll get it with enough practice, deaths, and DPS. Good Luck!

Good god what's wrong with people they can't even get past the 1st stage on nornal ? I don't get it how could you fail at normal?

Glaiceana wrote: »

Haven't actually tried it yet, but will do at some point. See what the fuss is about

Just completed the normal version of the Arena tonight on my first try, pretty happy about that. Died maybe 7 times? And that wasn't until the 7th stage.
Will try out the veteran version next and see if I can even make it past the very first enemy that spawns

newtinmpls wrote: »

The_Outsider wrote: »

Don't people get tired of face rolling all the PVE content in this game?.

No since I can't do that yet.

I'm barely to the point where my lvl 16 DK can handle a single scamp by herself in IC.

I'm barely to the point where I can .... competently (I won't say easily) do normal Fungal Grotto and Spindleclutch as a duo with my spouse on higher level characters.

Haven't even tried non-vet Maelstrom.

Yet.

And that's not a problem.
We've all been there (or at least I have).
My issue is with the people who refuse to learn/improve/change so that they CAN defeat harder content, and then demand that said content be nerfed to the point where they can complete it now. My first run through vICP I was pulling under 10k DPS and it took us 4 hours (we were pugs, ok?). And this was after many failed runs. Did I go make a lengthy forum post about how vICP should be nerfed so I can clear it easier? No. I adapted and improved to the point where I can speed run it.
People who enjoy hard content pay for this game too, and it sucks to hear people ask for nerfs when many of us enjoy the current difficulty of PVE content as it is now.

How many ppl have paid for a maelstrom completion? On console primarily ps4 it's an epidemic

Probably never will. I know PvE is good in this game and VMA might even be a gem. But i play this game solely for PvP. Despite it's flaws, that's how i enjoy myself in ESO. I didn't even bother to get my undaunted passives (which should be easier to get btw - Alliance war skills are now sooo easy to get, but this remains unchanged). So i will have to rely on crafted/dropped gear to remain somehow competitive.

I have finished it with 4/8 toons. I'm sure I can get all 8 to complete if I can be bothered to spend the time on it.

One thing I've noted is that certain characters are harder to complete it on than others.

It's vital that your build has:
-Good enough sustain.
-Good DPS. I used to think you need Great DPS, but if you're good enough you can manage with less.
-Strong Frequent Heals.

If you're lacking in any of those you're going to find it unnecessarily difficult to complete.
Having these three things doesn't mean you will complete it though, a large part of it is learning the fights.
Knowing what spawns where and their threat level, the best way to put them down quickly or when the time calls for it.

I don't think it's too hard at all, I think this should be seen as a benchmark, it's not an elitist thing at all, I know plenty of players that are capable of completing it, but haven't yet due to not feeling that they will be able to. But I know that they can with enough practice, and I do my best to help where I can by answering questions they have.

I do have one rather mean thing to say though, if you consider yourself a DPS and you're unable to get past the first boss, you're not a DPS, and you need to ask guildies or friends to help you get better. And i'm serious about that, anyone that says they're DPS should be able to pass the first boss.

Bislobo wrote: »

AOECAPS wrote: »

Bislobo wrote: »

Probably never will. I know PvE is good in this game and VMA might even be a gem. But i play this game solely for PvP. Despite it's flaws, that's how i enjoy myself in ESO. I didn't even bother to get my undaunted passives (which should be easier to get btw - Alliance war skills are now sooo easy to get, but this remains unchanged). So i will have to rely on crafted/dropped gear to remain somehow competitive.

Lol undaunted takes 2hrs to get

I am not an expert on this matter, but i find it hard to believe that it takes only 2 hours to get undaunted 9. But even if this is true, i have 3 characters, 2x3 = 6 hours of my life wasted playing content i don't enjoy.

LOL no it's impossible to get undaunted 9 in two hours. @AOECAPS doesn't know what he's talking about.

Finally beat it for the first time on my Stam DK with Dual Wield + Bow, 2 days ago

(Edit: I don't think I've ever cursed that much and used that many swearwords while playing a video game before People who heard me were shocked: "Who is this *ZOS* you're constantly swearing at?")

Can't get past the third stage wave 2. Punched TV, walls, self, windows. None of that seems to help. Stage 3 for life!

Morbash wrote: »

For some reason, it did seem easier on my magblade versus my mag sorc. Not sure why exactly.

If you had asked me a couple of weeks ago, I would've said that the magblade is definitely easier. But I think that's mostly because my magblade is my main, and my mag sorc was freshly ground up during Cake Week and I had a lot of sorc L2P issues.

Now that I've cleared vMA seven times on my sorc, I think they're about equal in difficulty.

Healing: Surge heals are RNG procs, so they're not as reliable as Funnel--I run a precise staff in vMA for this reason, and I get enough crits that I don't really notice the RNGness. And Surge heals are very strong. The main disadvantage is the need to keep re-casting Surge. Probably not a problem for a seasoned sorc, but I was very bad about that in my first few vMA runs. The main advantage of the magblade here is that Funnel also has a HoT component that will tick even if you've stopped attacking. Usually, the HoT doesn't make much of a difference because I'm constantly attacking so I'm only getting the initial HoT ticks as the HoT is refreshed with each new attack. But there are a few places where that HoT is really nice (e.g., dealing with the Soul Churn in the crystal phase while trying to catch a wall). Advantage: nb

Ward: The healing isn't really an issue because of the sorc's ward. Yes, it's getting reduced to 6 seconds in DB, but how often does your ward last for more than 6 seconds in vMA? Nightblades can use Healing Ward, but its strength is very low unless you are at low health. So it's more of an reactive ward than a preemptive ward. After DB, Nightblades will basically use Harness Magicka--potentially cheaper, and good for preemptive use. Advantage: sorc, though after DB, it'll be the same

Mobility: This is the one thing that I miss on my sorc. Yes, I have Lightning Form, but that requires a bar swap and is not a part of my standard DPS rotation. Crippling Grasp is on my main bar and I use it anyway. Advantage: nb

DoT: Speaking of Crippling Grasp... the other main advantage is that it sticks to the target. Sorcs' main DoT is Liquid Lightning, which is very powerful, but it requires 2 clicks to cast and it's useless if the target moves out, as many of them do. I place it only on portal spawn points while I'm waiting for the spawns. Mid-combat, I usually don't bother: two clicks for a DoT that the enemy will move out of after just one tick? Sorry, no. But it does have a nice AoE component... for the few times where enemies bunch up and stay bunched up long enough for it to matter. I might use it more after DB with the new option to make ground-target abilities single-click-to-cast. Advantage: nb

Ultimate: Keeping Soul Harvest on my main bar means that I generate lots of ultimate on my nb, and I can drop meteors fairly frequently. Still, it's not as effective as Overload, which makes many tough spots trivially easy. Advantage: sorc

Sustain: If I run low on my magblade, I cast SA, and each staff weave will return some magicka and stamina (that stam's so useful in Stage 9). If I run low on my sorc, I can use Dark Exchange to convert some stam into mag (not a good idea in Stage 9, though), or I can pop Energy Overload. Advantage: nb

Other: The sorc's need for Bound Aegis (8% magicka is just too damn good) really limits my options. It means, for example, that I can't have my ward and my DoT on the same bar. Since I need to keep Surge up 100% of the time anyway means that there's no point in running Spell Power pots--I use cheap trash pots. My nightblade's runs are much more expensive, though, since I do use Spell Power pots. Self-buffing without a potion requires either Entropy or Sap, both of which require targets (no pre-buffing), and since neither are skills that I need to keep up anyway, I just prefer the simplicity of not having to worry about one extra thing.

Hell, I haven't even finished it on normal yet

And yes I know I need to get good...just been having too much fun doing other things to worry about this at the moment

I did finally clear it on my guy after a week of runs. Night one was getting to round 3 boss. Night two was starting round 3 again and actually beating it, then round 4 boss. And repeat. Next night was round 4 again and then round 5 up to the boss. Round 9 took a couple of nights. I spent 100k on repairs, soul gems, materials for potions (I am a kajiit Templar so needed the spell damage boost)

It was one of the most gratifying moments of gaming for me. I joked to my friend that when I finally beat round 9 (at least 250 attempts before I did) I said when i finally beat the boss that I was moving like neo at the end of the first matrix movie. I knew each spot to dodge roll, when to hit a skil, when to launch across the map to drop the healer, etc. It was almost easy after so many failed attempts. Not that it's easy but it really is learning the mechanics. Once you learn the "song" and play it properly, you would win. That's how I looked at it.

I did score a maelstrom shield and one handed axe. I have a Templar, a night blade and a sorc lol. Have never even tried a tank, a one handed sword and shield lol.

How useful are those for a tank? Are they as coveted as a sharpened destruction staff?

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

AOECAPS wrote: »

Bislobo wrote: »

Probably never will. I know PvE is good in this game and VMA might even be a gem. But i play this game solely for PvP. Despite it's flaws, that's how i enjoy myself in ESO. I didn't even bother to get my undaunted passives (which should be easier to get btw - Alliance war skills are now sooo easy to get, but this remains unchanged). So i will have to rely on crafted/dropped gear to remain somehow competitive.

Lol undaunted takes 2hrs to get

Unless you are using some exploit I don't know about, there is no possible way to level undaunted in 2 hours. Even if you clear every dungeon in regular and vet, and reasonably get most of the extra achievnents, you still need a few days of running silver and golds to hit the cap.

Why do people feel the need to write snarky posts that aren't even true? I really don't get it. Troll much?

I've done it so in the infamous words of snarky posters on this forum "L2P and git Gud"

"The Maelstrom Arena! There's no place so frustrating in all of Oblivion!"