Vet Maelstrom Arena : Looking for advice to try and get to the leaderboard.

Izaki · June 2016

Hello everyone, so I've beaten the Arena quite a few times now and I'm starting to look at trying to get onto the leaderboard. So far I've never done a no-death/no-sigil run, although I have completed the damn thing to the point where I'm starting to get bored of doing it and I am aware of a lot of mob mechanics. So when I do die its due to lack of concertration not a L2P issue or the fact that I don't know the arena. So I've decided to dedicate my main character, my Magicka Sorc, to getting onto the leaderboards to have a better chance of getting the needed weapons (only got daggers and one handed weapons aka nothing I need on my current builds). Therefore, I need your help on the gear/skills I should be using to get vMSA done quicker and better. Now I don't know if having better gear will get my name onto the leaderboard, but it will certainly give me better chances.

I mostly PvP with my toons although it isn't uncommon that I take them out on a Trial run with my guild. I couldn't help but notice that the arena does get kind of close to 1vX in PvP so I'm pretty much using the same abilities as in Cyrodiil.
On my Destro Bar :
- Crystal Frags
- Crushing Shock
- Endless Fury
- Inner Light
- Dampen Magic
> Overload

On my Resto Bar
- Daedric Mines
- Streak/Liquid Lightning/Boundless Storm (depends on the stage)
- Power Surge
- Inner Light/Empowered Ward (on the harder stages I prefer to sacrifice some crit and max magic for survivability)
- Healing Ward
> Ice Comet (Absorption Field in this patch might be useful ?)

So before I show you my gear, I'd like to know if using Molag Kena and Torug's Pact is really the best option as I was mostly using Engine Guardian to help me out on ressources. I have both Molag Kena pieces and can craft a 2 piece Torug's Pact any second, so help me out guys ! Is the extra 258 spell damage really a decisive factor ?
Anyway here comes the gear :
- 2 Engine Guardian
- 5 Law Of Julianos/Kagrenac's Hope (tried out with both and had more succes with the latter so far)
- 3 Willpower
- Random weapons (using nirnhoned staves with spell power glyphs because the extra damage is kinda making up for the absence of Molag Kena and Torug's Pact)

Well there we go, tell me what you think I need to change or if I should keep it the same and maybe some advice on how you guys did it? Thanks a lot !

Chilla_Deluxe · June 2016

If your using Engine Guardian your sustain will be good so all you need to do from there is max spell damage.

asneakybanana · June 2016

For my sorc I am currently running 5x julianos, 2x kena, 5x elegant, and 1x sharpened maelstrom Inferno staff.

My bar setups are: Destro: inner light, bound armor, elemental blockade, crystal fragments, and force pulse(can be swapped to crushing shock for easier interrupts and still get a 570k+ but for perfect 580k+ you need force) and shooting star ult just for the extra magicka
DW: Inner light, Bound armor, power surge, hardened ward, liquid lightning, and power overload and my overload bar is the same as my DW bar.

For DK i run 5x julianos, 2x kena, 3x Willpower, and 1x sharp maelstrom inferno staff and 1x sharp maelstrom restoration staff.

My bar setups are: Destro: inner light, elemental blockade, force pulse, elemental drain, Dragon fire scale, and shooting star
Resto: inner light, eruption, healing ward, mutagen, engulfing flames, and standard of might.

For NB I run 5x twice born, 2x kena, 3x willpower, 1x sharp maelstrom inferno staff, and 1x sharp non set inferno staff with rage glyph.

My bar setups are: bar 1: Inner light, Funnel health, Merciless Resolve, Elemental Blockade, Impale, and Soul Harvest
Bar 2: Inner light, Sap essence, Cripple, Dampen Magic, Twisting path, and Shooting star

And then I dont really play mag templar or any stamina specs much so cant really help you there. Best of luck

Izaki · June 2016

asneakybanana wrote: »

For my sorc I am currently running 5x julianos, 2x kena, 5x elegant, and 1x sharpened maelstrom Inferno staff.

So you think that the 2 piece molag kena is a must to get my name up there ? I really like playing with engine guardian but I'm conscient that I'm losing DPS especially against certain bosses and those damn crematorium guards. And you think that running dual wield/destro is better than destro/resto ? I mean how do you heal when in trouble ?

And also I don't have the Maelstrom staff so what do I do there ?

Thanks for the help though !

asneakybanana · June 2016

IzakiBrotheSs wrote: »

asneakybanana wrote: »

For my sorc I am currently running 5x julianos, 2x kena, 5x elegant, and 1x sharpened maelstrom Inferno staff.

So you think that the 2 piece molag kena is a must to get my name up there ? I really like playing with engine guardian but I'm conscient that I'm losing DPS especially against certain bosses and those damn crematorium guards. And you think that running dual wield/destro is better than destro/resto ? I mean how do you heal when in trouble ? And also I don't have the Maelstrom staff so what do I do there ?

Thanks for the help though !

kena isnt a must but i would more than strongly recommend it. Surge is a great heal so youre really not going to need big burst heals as long as you keep your dots and surge up. also if you do get in trouble just cast hardened ward and you will heal up from surge while the shield takes all the dmg. dw is a huge dps and therefore speed increase on the bosses. I am killing pretty much every boss in under a minute and get some fast burns that save a lot of time like stage 2 boss and stage 8 boss. as for your staff just run a dead slot sharpened staff with a rage glyph on it.

Izaki · June 2016

asneakybanana wrote: »

IzakiBrotheSs wrote: »

asneakybanana wrote: »

For my sorc I am currently running 5x julianos, 2x kena, 5x elegant, and 1x sharpened maelstrom Inferno staff.

So you think that the 2 piece molag kena is a must to get my name up there ? I really like playing with engine guardian but I'm conscient that I'm losing DPS especially against certain bosses and those damn crematorium guards. And you think that running dual wield/destro is better than destro/resto ? I mean how do you heal when in trouble ? And also I don't have the Maelstrom staff so what do I do there ?

Thanks for the help though !

kena isnt a must but i would more than strongly recommend it. Surge is a great heal so youre really not going to need big burst heals as long as you keep your dots and surge up. also if you do get in trouble just cast hardened ward and you will heal up from surge while the shield takes all the dmg. dw is a huge dps and therefore speed increase on the bosses. I am killing pretty much every boss in under a minute and get some fast burns that save a lot of time like stage 2 boss and stage 8 boss. as for your staff just run a dead slot sharpened staff with a rage glyph on it.

Thanks man ! So my ward is already at 100% uptime and surge heals me, but in critical situations don't you need some kind of a BIG AF heal ? I mean I run pretty much with my PvP skill set up so I'm kinda used to healing ward and the thought of abandonning it kinda scares me..!

asneakybanana · June 2016

IzakiBrotheSs wrote: »

asneakybanana wrote: »

IzakiBrotheSs wrote: »

asneakybanana wrote: »

For my sorc I am currently running 5x julianos, 2x kena, 5x elegant, and 1x sharpened maelstrom Inferno staff.

So you think that the 2 piece molag kena is a must to get my name up there ? I really like playing with engine guardian but I'm conscient that I'm losing DPS especially against certain bosses and those damn crematorium guards. And you think that running dual wield/destro is better than destro/resto ? I mean how do you heal when in trouble ? And also I don't have the Maelstrom staff so what do I do there ?

Thanks for the help though !

kena isnt a must but i would more than strongly recommend it. Surge is a great heal so youre really not going to need big burst heals as long as you keep your dots and surge up. also if you do get in trouble just cast hardened ward and you will heal up from surge while the shield takes all the dmg. dw is a huge dps and therefore speed increase on the bosses. I am killing pretty much every boss in under a minute and get some fast burns that save a lot of time like stage 2 boss and stage 8 boss. as for your staff just run a dead slot sharpened staff with a rage glyph on it.

Thanks man ! So my ward is already at 100% uptime and surge heals me, but in critical situations don't you need some kind of a BIG AF heal ? I mean I run pretty much with my PvP skill set up so I'm kinda used to healing ward and the thought of abandonning it kinda scares me..!

i hardly even cast ward lol. mainly i just let surge heal me through everything. you dont need to be 100% health all the time

Izaki · June 2016

asneakybanana wrote: »

IzakiBrotheSs wrote: »

asneakybanana wrote: »

IzakiBrotheSs wrote: »

asneakybanana wrote: »

For my sorc I am currently running 5x julianos, 2x kena, 5x elegant, and 1x sharpened maelstrom Inferno staff.

So you think that the 2 piece molag kena is a must to get my name up there ? I really like playing with engine guardian but I'm conscient that I'm losing DPS especially against certain bosses and those damn crematorium guards. And you think that running dual wield/destro is better than destro/resto ? I mean how do you heal when in trouble ? And also I don't have the Maelstrom staff so what do I do there ?

Thanks for the help though !

kena isnt a must but i would more than strongly recommend it. Surge is a great heal so youre really not going to need big burst heals as long as you keep your dots and surge up. also if you do get in trouble just cast hardened ward and you will heal up from surge while the shield takes all the dmg. dw is a huge dps and therefore speed increase on the bosses. I am killing pretty much every boss in under a minute and get some fast burns that save a lot of time like stage 2 boss and stage 8 boss. as for your staff just run a dead slot sharpened staff with a rage glyph on it.

Thanks man ! So my ward is already at 100% uptime and surge heals me, but in critical situations don't you need some kind of a BIG AF heal ? I mean I run pretty much with my PvP skill set up so I'm kinda used to healing ward and the thought of abandonning it kinda scares me..!

i hardly even cast ward lol. mainly i just let surge heal me through everything. you dont need to be 100% health all the time

True true, very true. Thanks man, I'll try this out then !

MrTarkanian48 · June 2016

I am not an expert on Sorc gear as I run on a Mag NB.

However, when it comes to improving your score, everything I can tell is that the order of importance goes Time>Sigils>Deaths.

Time is by far the most important. So you can cut it down by not repairing after every stage and not looting every chest (unless you are trying to complete one of the sets).

Also, if you are getting pressured heavily, IMO it is better to grab a sigil to overcome the round, as opposed to dying and restarting. You lose points for using sigils, but you lose more in time lost/vitality bonus decrease from dying.

Izaki · June 2016

Thanks man really nice of you

@MrTarkanian48