Hey eso! I just wanted to talk about a few things today that are not only currently relevant but will tie into future re-released content!

1. Current scoring system needs to be changed
For example, all time that you spend within Veteran Maelstrom/Dragonstar between beginning and end deducts from your score. The problem with this is that it requires competitive players to completely ignore all loot rewards and continue to the next phase of th instance. Not only this, but your loading screens also are also continuing this timer. That might sound insignificant, but when some users have 0.5-1s loading screens between phases versus lower grade pcs and *all console platforms* that experience 9-15s loading screens it can add up to 1-2 minutes of additional time just because of loading screens. This equates to several hundred points in vdsa or 3-5k in vma.

2. Pre-damaging portals
Zos is moving in the right direction with this exemplified by the changes in vma, but even in vma I can still apply immobilizes, snares, major fractures, and other various debuffs before enemies have even spawned. This problem is significantly worse in vdsa, where we just bring 3-4 templars and just spam non target based attacks and aoes on portals killing nearly everything before it spawns for top 37k+ scores (I love temps just as much as the next guy but I didnt have fun spamming sweeps on a portal for 35 minutes). This eliminates ALL mechanics from vdsa and makes bringing in any team composition that isnt 3/4-4/4 templar irrelevant and has made maintaining number #1 spots here feel like a chore rather than an activity.

Basically, whenever a boss has been killed per round the timer should be stopped until the next arenas countdown has been initiated, and you should not be able to apply any effects or damage to portals before enemy npcs spawn.