vMA on CONSOLE is Insane!

KingDuncanVII · July 2016

Can we tone down how hard the mobs hit? I mean, the mobs are a good size and there can be multiple mobs as once. Why is it that they hit SO hard (slightly less than the boss)? Especially if the mobs have ranged enemies in the mix. It's like I have to play with a damage shield up at all times.

Are there any console players here (that aren't Sorcerers) that completed the Vet Maelstrom Arena? Stamina or Magicka. If so, please tell me what you have done to get through. For me, it's not the mechanics that's difficult, it's the amount of damage the mobs put out. I understand the boss should hit hard, but the mobs? They shouldn't be weak, but they shouldn't be heavy hitters either. And how things currently are (ON CONSOLE), it seems like I need to have a damage shield up at all times. I'd like to know what other CONSOLE Vet Maelstrom Arena victors have done.

I need advice from those who have beaten it AFTER DARK BROTHERHOOD PATCH.

KingDuncanVII · July 2016

I could hear a feather drop in this thread. No Post Dark Brotherhood Vet Maelstrom Arena Victors on CONSOLE who can assist?

Tonnopesce · July 2016

I'm almost at the last stage, PC but i use the controller so is quite the same.
What gear are you using?
Class?
Stamina or magika?

exeeter702 · July 2016

All you will get here is scorn and l2p replies.

bebynnag · July 2016

my m8 is completing it no problem since DB launch, he couldnt complete it before
he has done a run of all of his characters, stam & magic versions of most classes

i cant complete it so i cant offer advice, but it can be done (ive seen his videos)

Panth141 · July 2016

It can be done on console with stamina classes for sure, OP. It's a rough ride getting it down though.

What class are you? You'll get better advice if we know

KingDuncanVII · July 2016

Tonnopesceb16_ESO wrote: »

I'm almost at the last stage, PC but i use the controller so is quite the same.
What gear are you using?
Class?
Stamina or magika?

I have a Stamina NB.

Gear:
- 5pc Night Mother's Gaze
- 4pc Marksmen's Crest
- 3pc Agility

Food: Max Health + Stamina Recovery
Potion: Restore Stamina + Stamina Recovery Buff

400 CP: 80 into Mighty, 53 into Thaumaturge, 100 into Mooncalf, 33 into Warlord, 65 into both Hardy and Elemental Defender

Dual Wield Bar: Quick Cloak (for mobility), Blood Craze (for DoT and HoT), Bloodthirst (for DoT and One-Shot Heal), Shrouded Daggers (for Weapon Damage buff), and Killer's Blade (for execute and One-Shot heal).

Bow Bar: Vigor (for HoT), Shuffle (for dodge chance), Poison Enjection (for DoT - especially for boss), Endless Hail (for DoT), Caltrops (for DoT).

Stamina Enchantments of all Armor.
Weapon Enchants on Rings, Stamina Recovery on Necklace

starkerealm · July 2016

My vague recollection was that NMGaze was a poor 5pc pick in place of Hundings. Or, I guess TBS now.

Though if you're running V16 gold gear, that observation may have come a little late.

boldscot · July 2016

I'm on PS4 and run it a few times each week, stam dk.

KingDuncanVII · July 2016

starkerealm wrote: »

My vague recollection was that NMGaze was a poor 5pc pick in place of Hundings. Or, I guess TBS now.

Though if you're running V16 gold gear, that observation may have come a little late.

That's debatable. I've seen PC people use this throughout their vMA runs and they said it helped them more than Hunding's.

KingDuncanVII · July 2016

boldscot wrote: »

I'm on PS4 and run it a few times each week, stam dk.

That's great that you beat it and all, but knowing that doesn't help me. You want to share some advice? Maybe a build?

Panth141 · July 2016

KingDuncanVII wrote: »

Tonnopesceb16_ESO wrote: »

I'm almost at the last stage, PC but i use the controller so is quite the same.
What gear are you using?
Class?
Stamina or magika?

I have a Stamina NB.

Gear:
- 5pc Night Mother's Gaze
- 4pc Marksmen's Crest
- 3pc Agility

Food: Max Health + Stamina Recovery
Potion: Restore Stamina + Stamina Recovery Buff

400 CP: 80 into Mighty, 53 into Thaumaturge, 100 into Mooncalf, 33 into Warlord, 65 into both Hardy and Elemental Defender

Dual Wield Bar: Quick Cloak (for mobility), Blood Craze (for DoT and HoT), Bloodthirst (for DoT and One-Shot Heal), Shrouded Daggers (for Weapon Damage buff), and Killer's Blade (for execute and One-Shot heal).

Bow Bar: Vigor (for HoT), Shuffle (for dodge chance), Poison Enjection (for DoT - especially for boss), Endless Hail (for DoT), Caltrops (for DoT).

Stamina Enchantments of all Armor.
Weapon Enchants on Rings, Stamina Recovery on Necklace

Okay, my first complete (and many subsequent runs) were on my stamblade main, so here are a few thoughts:

Your gear setup may be hurting your weapon damage a little bit - the lack of big set WD bonuses may mean you need to switch out your jewellery recovery glyph to WD - things can't hurt you if they're dead. I'd also be tempted to drop shrouded dagger and use potions for brutality, to give you the option of using control skills (Mass hysteria, for example) to give you a bit more control of enemies. I'm not quite sold on quick cloak, I prefer to slot E. Hunter for the bonus crit, or steel tornado for AoE. I also like Relentless Focus on my back bar - extra recovery + 8% damage. What ultimates are you using? It's a pain, but I actually respec morphs to Soul Harvest and Bolstering Darkness for vMA. Siphoning strikes is a must for sustain - you can then get away with crap regen and use max health + stam food without issue.

I have some general stamblade advice a while ago, so I'll post it again here. This is just my personal thoughts, YMMV:

The main issue with vMA as a stamblade is that we are effectively a glass cannon class - high damage, low defense. This is something that we have to try to change - particularly for the arenas where the incoming damage is constant and unrelenting.

Stamblade Defence
I'm sure you are, but make sure you're using Surprise Attack every 2/3 seconds to keep up the Shadow Barrier passive
Consider using healthy jewelry or endurance jewelry for the damage-intensive fights - it'll drop your DPS, but you do no damage when you're dead
I have a very simple method for dealing with high pressure in vMA - I actually use Bolstering Darkness (BD) (Consuming Darkness morph) over Veil of Blades for vMA - BD gives a ridiculous 60% damage reduction - if you're in your BD and pop a vigor, you just aren't going to die. If for whatever reason you don't have the ultimate up, then grab the defensive and/or healing sigils
Shadow image: I don't actually use this, but some stamblades do - it inflicts minor main on enemies, reducing their damage by 15% - it can be useful to reduce the damage output of a boss, for example

Maintaining Ultimate
As mentioned above, I rely heavily on BD (particularly for final arena crem guards), often so much that if I don't have it up then I'm dead. So maintaining a good amount of Ulti is crucial, here's how I manage it:
Keep potions on cooldown. This means that as soon as you have a pot available you drink it - it doesn't matter what the potion actually is. Along with the buffs given by the potion (stamina recovery) you'll be gaining 20 ultimate from the catalyst passive
Soul harvest. My god this is good. Put it on your front bar and you get 10 ulti for every kill
Siphoning attacks every 10-15 seconds. You need to keep this up for sustain, but as it's a siphoning ability you gain 2 extra ultimate for using it, with a cooldown of 4 seconds
Last resort: 2 piece Bloodspawn (BS) - I only do this on the final arena, but it could help on any high damage arenas - a BS proc gives you a hefty boost in defences AND a big flood of ultimate. If you get a BS proc whilst you stand in BD and have vigor up... your health bar just doesn't move

*EDIT: when I mentioned constant use of Surprise Attack to proc shadow barrier, you can replace this with any shadow ability, particularly if you're using Rapid Strikes/morphs

EDIT: oh, also - for the summoners in the last arena - just slot agony, nail them with it and ignore them for 30 seconds. Works a treat even on a stamblade.

Sorry for the messy post, I'm on my phone

boldscot · July 2016

I'm currently running 1 kena, 1 bloodspawn, 5 viper sting and 3 endurance with maelstrom weapons, bow, axe and dagger.

DW: reflective scales, blood craze, beast trap, venomous claw, bloodthirsty and flawless dawn breaker.

BOW: Caltrops, igneous shield, vigour, endless hail, poison injection and corrosive armor.

I haven't played vet on a nb yet but I am leveling one so I can't really help you with skills.

GreenhaloX · July 2016

I'm on console. Sorry, I can't help much. I'm still trying to complete the normal one. Yeah, what noob, right.. sheesh. I'm only chiming in to avoid the feather in the wind stigma for console players. Lol! I do like to say, however, that I get a lot of pop-up notification every time a guildmate finish a VMA.. and I bow to them. I keep seeing those completed it with 400k and 500k points. Wow!

KingDuncanVII · July 2016

@Panth141 Thanks a lot for the advice, man! I'm definitely going to weave it into my current build and playstyle and see how it works out for me. Do you think my gear setup is okay? Or is there another option or combination I could go for?

Panth141 · July 2016

KingDuncanVII wrote: »

@Panth141 Thanks a lot for the advice, man! I'm definitely going to weave it into my current build and playstyle and see how it works out for me. Do you think my gear setup is okay? Or is there another option or combination I could go for?

The most common setup at the moment is:

5x HR/NMG/TBS
1x Bloodspawn
1x Molag Kena
3x Agility
2x Any two-piece WD/ Crit for daggers (e.g. Leki)

I do it with relatively low regen (~980) but keep Siphoning up 100% of the time. I put a few less into mooncalf as my regen is low so a percentage boost isn't too big, more into warlord. I also pop a dozen or two into blessed/quick recovery to boost self healing. What's your mundus?

DRXHarbinger · July 2016

KingDuncanVII wrote: »

@Panth141 Thanks a lot for the advice, man! I'm definitely going to weave it into my current build and playstyle and see how it works out for me. Do you think my gear setup is okay? Or is there another option or combination I could go for?

Dodge and block.

Have you got rally and vigor on?

I usually just chuck caltrops out, hail up and stand under it.

Btw reverse slice is epic in maelstrom. Wound one add and smash it with that and the say if your hit is 10 the spas damage @87% can crit itself and do even more damage to full health targets. It's stupid OP and going to be the next nerf.

Usually I just run 5 viper, 5 hundings and maelstrom maul and shadow mundus. 70% crit and beast crit damage.

But invest in the power of the slice, you won't regret it. I've killed a crem guard by attacking the last boss before, requires no effort and proper cheese....and it's low cost and super spammable.

Ep1kMalware · July 2016

KingDuncanVII wrote: »

Can we tone down how hard the mobs hit? I mean, the mobs are a good size and there can be multiple mobs as once. Why is it that they hit SO hard (slightly less than the boss)? Especially if the mobs have ranged enemies in the mix. It's like I have to play with a damage shield up at all times.

Are there any console players here (that aren't Sorcerers) that completed the Vet Maelstrom Arena? Stamina or Magicka. If so, please tell me what you have done to get through. For me, it's not the mechanics that's difficult, it's the amount of damage the mobs put out. I understand the boss should hit hard, but the mobs? They shouldn't be weak, but they shouldn't be heavy hitters either. And how things currently are (ON CONSOLE), it seems like I need to have a damage shield up at all times. I'd like to know what other CONSOLE Vet Maelstrom Arena victors have done.

I need advice from those who have beaten it AFTER DARK BROTHERHOOD PATCH.

beat it on bosmer stamina templar. mobs don't hit very hard unless you've no way to mitigate damage. Rally/vigor are a must for stambuilds, I do have major mending, for those without malubeth may shine.

vmsa is about healing, managing your resources, dpsing, and following mechanics all at the same time. There are certain mobs that hit harder than others, it is important ro identidy these mobs, avoid their attacks, and kill them first.

edit: bow medium atks+poison injection 1 shot almost everything.

Ep1kMalware · July 2016

^ to add, it's only hard until you beat it. once you figure out each stg/rnd you can do it again and again with much les difficulty. if you aren't at least healing and dpsing at the same time you're prolly dying.

Shadesofkin · July 2016

Once you get it, it will click and other than some episodes of the yips, you'll know it inside and out.

PurifedBladez · July 2016

You kind of just have to keep suffering.

mb10 · July 2016

They hit a bit hard but are very weak too.

A gap closer and a hit or two should kill many of them.

I did it on ps4 with stam nb various times now its quite simple now tbh.

I did it with a magicka dk too but didnt really enjoy it as much

darthsithis · July 2016

Vmsa (last stage esp) is about running around the crematorial guard but knowing when to dodge roll the litch. crystal (I.e. Knowing mechanics like you programmed the ads yourself)

On the second floor with the animus crystals, I just know when he's gonna shoot and don't even look. Feel that out.

Also, when you drop down after the crystals, grab power sigil and weave swallow soul whatever, get the goasts, kill summoner all while watching him cuz he'll fire!! After first summoner evade daedroth until last ghost, meteor, sap essence swallow soul merciless resolve bow execute, grab all the other sigils ignore summoners melt boss

Molag_Crow · July 2016

Sorry but I find it challenging yet much more do-able/"easier" now in this patch... you just need HIGH damage (and healing/absorb whatever)

DannnyBOii · July 2016

If you still need help, I have completed it on console with my stamblade post DB patch.

mistermutiny89 · July 2016

Seems like most people have helped with build advice.

Truth is for Stam builds, especially a Stam nb, ophidian five piece and twice born IS best in slot. Hands down. Then you just grab two Lekis sharpened daggers and be on your way.

As for add tactics you MUST know where everything spawns to complete add rounds effectively. If a mob is alive for longer than 3 secs, it's as good as a wipe unless you can stun them.

Jaronking · July 2016

I have done it on my stamblade on Xbox its hard but do able.How far have you gotten and what abilities are you using .

Vaoh · July 2016

@KingDuncanVII Really man?? Ask for advice, not nerfs because you can't beat it yet!

All you need is practice. LOTS of practice if you think only a Magicka Sorcerer can beat Veteran Maelstrom Arena.

Put in the effort (instead of forum QQ -_-) and you'll do fine. Trust me.

If you just want to make some changes to your build, I'd recommend this:

Gear:
- 5pc Night Mother's Gaze Hunding's Rage
- 4pc Marksmen's Crest or
• 2x Leki's Daggers, 2x Spawn of Mephala
• 2x Leki's Daggers, 1x Blood Spawn, 1x
Molag Kena
• 2x Leki's, 2x Engine Guardian
• (soon) 2x Leki's, 2x Velidreth
- 3pc Agility

Food: Max Health + Stamina Recovery Max Stamina
Potion: Restore Stamina + Stamina Recovery Buff

400 CP: 80 into Mighty, 53 into Thaumaturge, 100 into Mooncalf, 33 into Warlord, 65 60 into both Hardy and Elemental Defender, 10 into Quick Recovery

Dual Wield Bar: Quick Cloak (for mobility) Expert Hunter, Blood Craze (for DoT and HoT), Bloodthirst (for DoT and One-Shot Heal), Shrouded Daggers (for Weapon Damage buff) Power Extraction, and Killer's Blade (for execute and One-Shot heal).

Bow Bar: Resolving Vigor (for HoT), Shuffle (for dodge chance) Siphoning Attacks, Poison EInjection (for DoT - especially for boss), Endless Hail (for DoT), Caltrops (for DoT).

Stamina Enchantments of all Armor.
Weapon Enchants on Rings, Stamina Recovery Weapon Damage on Necklace

Siphoning Attacks provides your sustain. Reduce Stamina Cost is more important than Stamina Recovery for a Nightblade running Siphoning Attacks!

2H gives you Rally, which is really helpful, but not needed. Switching from Dual Wield to Two Handed and using Surprise Attack might help as well!

I only changed stuff that should be very easy and quick for you to adjust. Night Mother's Gaze is not bad, but may be let you down if using Sharpened weapons over Precise. Good luck!

Spliffo · July 2016

I have stormproof on stam dk, stamplar, stam NB, stam Sorc, magician NB and magicka Sorc am on Xbox and farm it on my stam Sorc. It doable on console but they need to fix the disconnect when going through the portal from round 6 to 7 that happens every run and is proventing any on Xbox currently getting their flawless title

Vercingetorix · July 2016

It is pretty unplayable for me on XB1. By the time I hit round 6 or 7, the lag is so bad it takes 3-4 seconds for a bar swap to even register. I get killed by lag more than anything else at that point (between having a 6 sec shield and laggy commands, any CC by the mobs can usually ends up killing me before the CC break registers). I've yet to reach Round 8 and I'm rocking gold tier Julianos and Kena with 501 CP on my sorc...

MrAppleman · July 2016

Your gear is fine. The skills are fine. Use your heals and just learn. Snb are the squishiest I've done it on but also the most burst. Some mobs get two or three shorted.

Rather than change all that gear and spend all that gold just learn the place. You could switch to any of the recommended sets above and still wipe non stop. The difference will be small.

It's just learning the arena. Gear and skills are 2nd to experience, as long as it's not random gear that is.