VMA Stamina NB build needed.

memphis12 · July 2016

I've done normal numerous times and know mechanics. The boss that is making me scream into a pillow is Drome Of Toxic Shock boss. I've been on 4 days trying to kill this guy. I'm even using all the buffs around the arena too.

I can get him to almost half health using all the arena buffs at start. But, I just run out of stamina getting away from this guy, blocking his heavy/light attacks.

Unfortunately all my gear is Yellow so I can't change it really.
5 x Night Mother Gaze (all medium) with Divine trait and kuta stamina glyph
2 x Valkyn Skoria (Purple) one medium one light.
3 x agility set. All robust and all have kuta damage glyph.
My daggers are yellow also (forgot name. They're a two piece set) they have kuta damage on one and poison damage on other.
I'm using potions that give:
Major Endurance (Stamina Regen)
Major Brutality (Weapon Damage)
Major Savagery (Weapon Crit)

I'm only 345 CP as well.

DRXHarbinger · July 2016

Basically your build is fine. What you should do is chuck out caltrops at the start, arrow barrage up and simply weave with sup attack and repeat the aoes and keep vigor up. Jump the ads asap. If you start the fight on the 1st island you spawn on it'll give you more time, move to the others for the 2nd spawn it's just one snake, and then go back to the 1st for for the final spawn. Just keep moving, it's harder on DW as you haven't got rally, are you using blood craze at all? Perhaps drop Skoria and go 1pc Kena and 1pc blood spawn.

Skinzz · July 2016

Yeah rally and vigor is recommended. For sure id drop skoria for kena+bloodspawn or use a 4 pc set on top of nightmothers.

memphis12 · July 2016

How important is CALTROPS? This is only skill I don't have. Can it slow the boss too? If so, then that's what I'm missing.

What 4 piece set would u recommend? What are best daggers outside of Maestrom as well? Am I regret to have one poison glyph on one of my daggers. Both are sharpened too.

I could lose head and shoulders and my daggers and make a 4 piece with those. I also have all attributes into stamina, nothing else.

I have Vigor, but don't think I can use Rally without a two handed weapon (I doubt bows work)

DRXHarbinger · July 2016

Use 4pc hundings and then drop thief and use shadow. Your crit should still be around 65% if using gold daggers anyway. You'll be a lot more powerful.

Caltrops are just very handy, esp as you'll find out on round 4 wave 3 it's quite add heavy and slows the right down and helps park them up so spin then down.

No you need a 2h to use rally as well.

memphis12 · July 2016

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Use 4pc hundings and then drop thief and use shadow. Your crit should still be around 65% if using gold daggers anyway. You'll be a lot more powerful.

Caltrops are just very handy, esp as you'll find out on round 4 wave 3 it's quite add heavy and slows the right down and helps park them up so spin then down.

No you need a 2h to use rally as well.

Would you make the 4 piece like I said using the daggers in the set. Or sacrifice 2 of the NM set on my armour?

DRXHarbinger · July 2016

memphis12 wrote: »

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Use 4pc hundings and then drop thief and use shadow. Your crit should still be around 65% if using gold daggers anyway. You'll be a lot more powerful.

Caltrops are just very handy, esp as you'll find out on round 4 wave 3 it's quite add heavy and slows the right down and helps park them up so spin then down.

No you need a 2h to use rally as well.

Would you make the 4 piece like I said using the daggers in the set. Or sacrifice 2 of the NM set on my armour?

Make the weapons. The only thing is they need to be gold to make a difference. So make your peace spending 16 temps on them just for this.

So keep your NM and create a 4pc hundings, so helm and shoulder and 2 daggers.

Do you have any briarheart? If you have the daggers and 2pc of that it'd save you a ton of mats as the 4 perks are the same.

memphis12 · July 2016

My daggers are: LEKI's and they are both yellow. Should I get head and shoulders for those?

So, my skills are:

Bar one. Dual Wield
Rapid Strikes
Rearming Trap
Killers Blade
Deadly Cloak
Resolving Vigor
SOUL HARVEST

Bar 2. Bow
Endless Hail
(Empty)
Poison Injection
Siphoning Attacks
Relentless Focus
Dawnbreaker of Smithing

mb10 · July 2016

@memphis12

Dont listen to people telling you what skills to use. They may work for them but everyone has a different play style.

I do vMSA on my stam NB every day and my back bar for eg only has 1 offensive skill it really depends on how you play.

I would definitely take of valkyn skoria and put 1 molag kena piece and 1 blood spawn. Ofc the weapon damage and stam regen is A LOT better than a 6% change for some damage especially when most stam NB attacks arent DOTs.

*I also dont use caltrops due to the high stamina cost with low return of damage. Tbh mobs should be dead within a second or two theres no time for that 1k damage a second rubbish

DRXHarbinger · July 2016

memphis12 wrote: »

My daggers are: LEKI's and they are both yellow. Should I get head and shoulders for those?

So, my skills are:

Bar one. Dual Wield
Rapid Strikes
Rearming Trap
Killers Blade
Deadly Cloak
Resolving Vigor
SOUL HARVEST

Bar 2. Bow
Endless Hail
(Empty)
Poison Injection
Siphoning Attacks
Relentless Focus
Dawnbreaker of Smithing

Change / remorph soul harvest. It's for magika builds. Incap strike will do more damage for you.

Personally I'd remove cloak for an aoe like tornado.

Skinzz · July 2016

Surprise attack is better than rapid strikes...

memphis12 · July 2016

xskinzcity wrote: »

Surprise attack is better than rapid strikes...

How so? Apparently brotherhood changed this.

I need some help to do this arena lol. Do I use light and heavy attacks ever or just mash surprise attack adding buffs etc around it

Skinzz · July 2016

U can weave light and heavy attacks with surprise attcks, not with rapid strikes. SA is also a debuff and instant cast

Praeficere · July 2016

memphis12 wrote: »

How so? Apparently brotherhood changed this.

I need some help to do this arena lol. Do I use light and heavy attacks ever or just mash surprise attack adding buffs etc around it

Surprise Attack is better for solo-play as it applies Major Fracture (armour debuff).

Rapid Strikes is better in group play, where the target is debuffed from another player (usually the Tank with the Sword and Shield Taunt Skill.)

It is generally not worth to apply DoTs on mobs other than bosses in vMA, so bursting with SA is your better choice.

Edit: Using Surprise Attack also procs the Shadow Barrier passive, giving you Major Ward and Major Resolve.

DRXHarbinger · July 2016

memphis12 wrote: »

xskinzcity wrote: »

Surprise attack is better than rapid strikes...

How so? Apparently brotherhood changed this.

I need some help to do this arena lol. Do I use light and heavy attacks ever or just mash surprise attack adding buffs etc around it

Weave with sup attack is what you do. But not with DW really. Generally as a lot of people are using maelstrom DW they use rapid strikes and then rending slashes as you'll get 8k ticks of it. Just sup attack doesn't fit that rotation. With 2h definitely use sup attack, just weave them down and reverse slice all the mobs down instantly.

memphis12 · July 2016

So.. Basically I should be using 2 handed instead of daggers until I get the Maestrom ones? Man does anyone have a link to a NB VMA build as I feel I'm no further forward ^^

Iyas · July 2016

Summon @Alcast . he got all kinds ifof information on youtube (guides, builds etc)

DRXHarbinger · July 2016

If you go two handed. Just slot sup attack, crit rush, reverse slice, vigor and rally and incap strike. In mobs pick one and take his health out and bang away with slice, the splash damage from it will crit harder than the actual attack itself taking the mobs out without even locking on to them.

Keep everything else the same. Sharpened maul is your friend here. Perfectly fine to run it just using hundings or night mother, agility 1pc Kena and 1pc blood spawn. It's what I did in the first place. Put a crushing enchant on the maul and use weapon crit pots. Just keep rally up and fight under your barrage and you'll be fine.

Crit rush is very handy on round 3 and 4 for taking out the stupid stranglers and dwemer things.

xblackroxe · July 2016

If you have the money change NMG to twice born star as the extra health+mag help. If not also not a big problem. As many already said valkyn isn't really good especially if you don't have caltrops. If you switch to tbs you could switch it to bloodspawn+kena but you loose too much health if you don't have tbs.
Else equipment is fine. I got 5x tbs 5x vicious serpent but i know that its a long grind to get this set with jewelery.

Else use Suprise attack instead of rapid strikes. I have my bars: suprise attack, killers blade, rending slashes, vigor, steel tornado, flawless dawnbreaker
Injection, endless hail, trap, siphon attacks, relentless, veil
Dawnbreaker main ulti , veil for situations where you get much damage inc.

Alcast · July 2016

Most important is, that you keep vigor up while you are fighting the boss because his Light attacks deal a ton of damage.

To reduce the damage you could use Shadow Image so it mitigates 15% of the incoming damage.

Your gear setup is fine.

memphis12 · July 2016

Thanks guys. I've just grinded my way to assault 6 and am now the proud owner of: Caltrops

So, with Caltrops going my build and DW might be viable. Vigor is one of my problems, although just playing PVP there I've realised me mashing Vigor is depleting my stamina and not healing me any more than if I'd hit it once.

So, with Caltraps.. DW over 2H? I have all skills for both, so ....

PurifedBladez · July 2016

memphis12 wrote: »

I've done normal numerous times and know mechanics. The boss that is making me scream into a pillow is Drome Of Toxic Shock boss. I've been on 4 days trying to kill this guy. I'm even using all the buffs around the arena too.

I can get him to almost half health using all the arena buffs at start. But, I just run out of stamina getting away from this guy, blocking his heavy/light attacks.

Unfortunately all my gear is Yellow so I can't change it really.
5 x Night Mother Gaze (all medium) with Divine trait and kuta stamina glyph
2 x Valkyn Skoria (Purple) one medium one light.
3 x agility set. All robust and all have kuta damage glyph.
My daggers are yellow also (forgot name. They're a two piece set) they have kuta damage on one and poison damage on other.
I'm using potions that give:
Major Endurance (Stamina Regen)
Major Brutality (Weapon Damage)
Major Savagery (Weapon Crit)

I'm only 345 CP as well.

5 Hunding's - body
1kena
2 lekis helm or shoulder and your weps.
3x agility

2h sharp maul - lekis
Bow Sharp - lekis

Vampire.

Surprise attack, relentless focus, ambush, rally, whatever execute you like

Poison injection, acid spray, siphoning attacks, vigor, whatever that AoE Bow ability is called.. I'm blanking it lol.

Serpent mundus stone

willymchilybily · July 2016

there are so many ways different skills you can try @memphis12 that I wouldnt get hung up too much on a gear change. other than your monster set you can play with, and spare rings, try 2xdamage 1xrecovery. like people have said kena + blood spawn may be helpful. any 4 piece set you are going to get is such a MARGIANL benefit it isn't worth it.
You might also consider engine guardian, or full bloodspawn (with soul harvest still used)

i would suggest:

You can run bloodthirst morph instead of rapid strikes and not need to run away so often due to heals, good heals. imo
You could drop cloak for relentless focus on the front bar, not only get a damage and stam regen buff (minors so do not conflicting with your pots), but weaving light attacks between the bloodthirst can proc the specrtral bow a lot. which hits hard now it does disease damage. if i had to bar switch every time i wouldnt use the spectral bow.
weaving the light attack with siphoning strikes up and you should not be having much issue with regen. unless it is non existent regen you have.. which it sounds like it might be. when first trying to do maelstrom go the otherway go higher on the regen. slight drop on the damage. dont try and do what the youtubers do, you need to practice the mechanics before you go pure DPS
where you have relentless on the bow bar you can use mark target on the bow bar for the armor debuff on top of your nightmothers will be another debuff to the boss.
caltrops really isnt all that great single target imo, time it lasts vs damage done vs cost, there are better options
what mundus stone do you run? some one said thief drop for shadow, i disagree on dropping the thief personally i find crit % for crit heals > for maelstrom. crits on your vigor ticks are a big bonus. but its personal preference.
some one also said drop soul harvest for other morph, i also disagree. You are not struggling for damage, with your set up. you are struggling for stamina because of having to get away. using soul harvest for lots of ultimate generation (can couple with bloodspawn as alternative 2 piece monster set) and dropping a viel of blades often is a great tactic imo. have you considered veil of blades back bar ultimate?
surprise attack is good for the debuff and the armour to you buff. BUT i do not think it is going to be better dps/survival ability than bloodthirsty. heals from damage is the optimal maelstrom option imo. its what i use on all my magicka characters.

good luck

memphis12 · July 2016

willymchilybily wrote: »

there are so many ways different skills you can try @memphis12 that I wouldnt get hung up too much on a gear change. other than your monster set you can play with, and spare rings, try 2xdamage 1xrecovery. like people have said kena + blood spawn may be helpful. any 4 piece set you are going to get is such a MARGIANL benefit it isn't worth it.
You might also consider engine guardian, or full bloodspawn (with soul harvest still used)

i would suggest:
You can run bloodthirst morph instead of rapid strikes and not need to run away so often due to heals, good heals. imo

You could drop cloak for relentless focus on the front bar, not only get a damage and stam regen buff (minors so do not conflicting with your pots), but weaving light attacks between the bloodthirst can proc the specrtral bow a lot. which hits hard now it does disease damage. if i had to bar switch every time i wouldnt use the spectral bow.

weaving the light attack with siphoning strikes up and you should not be having much issue with regen. unless it is non existent regen you have.. which it sounds like it might be. when first trying to do maelstrom go the otherway go higher on the regen. slight drop on the damage. dont try and do what the youtubers do, you need to practice the mechanics before you go pure DPS

where you have relentless on the bow bar you can use mark target on the bow bar for the armor debuff on top of your nightmothers will be another debuff to the boss.

caltrops really isnt all that great single target imo, time it lasts vs damage done vs cost, there are better options

what mundus stone do you run? some one said thief drop for shadow, i disagree on dropping the thief personally i find crit % for crit heals > for maelstrom. crits on your vigor ticks are a big bonus. but its personal preference.

some one also said drop soul harvest for other morph, i also disagree. You are not struggling for damage, with your set up. you are struggling for stamina because of having to get away. using soul harvest for lots of ultimate generation (can couple with bloodspawn as alternative 2 piece monster set) and dropping a viel of blades often is a great tactic imo. have you considered veil of blades back bar ultimate?

surprise attack is good for the debuff and the armour to you buff. BUT i do not think it is going to be better dps/survival ability than bloodthirsty. heals from damage is the optimal maelstrom option imo. its what i use on all my magicka characters.

good luck

Wow, thank you so much! This is literally what I was wanting. You couldn't have been more clear and helpful. I'll try in a few hours and see how it all goes.

One thing. The bow you mentioned. That's not maelstrom is it? As I don't have that.

juhasman · July 2016

Since i started running 7 medium with jewelery and 2 gear piece Vicious ophidian i dont run under 50% stamina on vMA.