Need Help! VMA is kicking my (newbie-ish) butt!

splitsand · August 2016

Hello, Everyone!

I am Champion Level 189
EDIT (Image of stats): http://imgur.com/MerONND ***This is with bow...I'm an idiot! My Weapon Damage is 2245 w/ DW and Crit Percent is 66.5%`
EDIT: I've just made it past the Lamia boss on the third room....took me 5 hours total now!!!

I have a quick question for you all. (I also tried messaging some of the more known players with this message, and I hope they will respond!)

I just hit max CP last week and have been getting geared up for VMA.
I'm a Woodelf Stamblade and here is my set up:

18k health, 31k stam, 9k mag (with blue food)

CP 180
Mundus: Thief and Shadow
Crit% 57.5

*All weapons and gear is CP 160*
5 piece Twice Born Star, purple w/ divine enchants and max stam glyphs.
3/4 piece of hundings rage purple (two purple daggers, and on gold bow)
3 piece agility jewelry (2 healthy one robust)

Edit: Have, and use both vigor and caltrops.

My question is this: VMA is kicking my butt! I can't get past the first room. Is it possible/worth it at such a low CP rating? What would you run in my situation as far as CP and skill rotation goes? I'm pretty decent at weapon cancelling, but it seems on Veteran I don't have nearly enough DPS to take down the bosses, and sometimes the lower leveled mobs efficiently. What can I do to increase DPS and suitability? And are there any videos of someone clearing VMA with no CP or very low CP?

Thanks,

Chad!

Shadesofkin · August 2016

It *can* be done at anything post 160.

It is much easier the more you have.

You're going to want to use the sigils that are there to make it through each round, they're there for you to use, no shame in it.

CasNation · August 2016

Have you completed normal Maelstrom? If you are having trouble with vet, go through normal to get a better idea of the mechanics.

Also Alcast has a really great detailed walk through of vMA on a stamblade. It is on YouTube. Shouldn't be hard to find.

Your CP IS low, but if you are skilled it won't make a huge difference. Obviously more CP helps, but getting more won't suddenly make you able to complete it.

Aspi90 · August 2016

Switch to 2h for Rally, make the weapon gold. Switch to 5 Hundings instead of TBS or craft yourself instead of the 3 Hunding Pieces Morkuldin.

Schemering · August 2016

The skill youll need for your way of playing is vigor for stamina scaled selfheal; if you dont have that youll be damaged too fast. With vigor and this gear you will be well equipped and youll make it

splitsand · August 2016

CasNation wrote: »

Have you completed normal Maelstrom? If you are having trouble with vet, go through normal to get a better idea of the mechanics.

Also Alcast has a really great detailed walk through of vMA on a stamblade. It is on YouTube. Shouldn't be hard to find.

Your CP IS low, but if you are skilled it won't make a huge difference. Obviously more CP helps, but getting more won't suddenly make you able to complete it.

Yeah, I cleared it 3 times yesterday on normal to figure out the mechanics. The first run took me around an hour and a half and then the last few I did in under 40 mins.

I watched part of the video this morning, but I was doing very similar stuff and getting waayyyy less damage.

Thanks!

Wreuntzylla · August 2016

Use the HoT potions.

Totalitarian · August 2016

vMA kicks everyone's butts at first.

Talked to one of my friends who has several flawless conqueror titles a few days ago, telling him I was doing vMA. He told me when it came out on the PTS, he took 12 hours to beat it.

I've been doing very well my 1st clear through. I've averaged 15-20 minutes per round, and have probably spent 5 hours in there, and am in round 8, and out of those, 2 of those hours were me partially completing a round, leaving, and coming back later to do the whole thing in 15 minutes.

vMA is tough your first time through. But as mentioned, Alcast has a video, and although it's 4 hours long, it is worth it to watch it.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · August 2016

As others have said, Alcast's videos are the best resource for a stam toon. Your CP is low, but not prohibitively low. Under no circumstances would I go into VMA with anything but gold weapons. Everything else can be purple, but your main weapons should not be. It's to much of a weapon damage loss.

Stam nightblades have some options when it comes to weapon choice. They have a class spam skill in surprise attack, which works just fine with 2H and or DW. 2H might be easier out of the gate. You can keep rally up for both your weapon damage buff and a nice HoT. I would also front bar Vigor. The other option which is certainly viable is to go to DW for a blood thirst build. Healing morph of Flurry. I just did this for the first time over the weekend and it was very effective on my stam DK (probably easier than magic DK). I would probably go surpise attack, but the option is there. Another nice thing with DW is that since you wont be running rally, you can slot Steel Tornado for some AOE.

Simple is better in here. I havent been in there on a stamblade in months, but I would probably go something like this:

2H: Surprise Attack, Ambush, Killers balde, Vigor, Rally, Soul Harvest
DW: Poison Injection, Endless hail, Caltrops, Rearming Trap, Shuffle. Veil

Keep rally and shuffle up at all times. This gives you a HoT and a dodge chance. Try to put down your ground AOE as portals are spawning (Hail, Caltrops, Trap). Tag things with Poision injection for a strong DoT. Use Ambush for mobility. Weave Surprise attack when DoTs are ticking and execute with Killers blade. Soul harvest is nice on the first bar so you build ulti really fast. This will allow you to drop veils all over the place. As you get better, you might opt for meteor over veil.

You could probably simplify your back bar a bit, 3 Ground DoTs might be a bit much in the beginning. Caltrops and Trap are both longer, and if you dont have VMA bow, hail is not as good. You could definitely flex in siphoning strikes or some utility like Mass Hysteria or Prolonged suffering. Fears and stuns can be really handy in this place if used well.

General tips when learning:

-Since we can save, dont beat a dead horse. You arent getting on the boards the first time anyways. Play for an hour or 2 and then stop. It helps with frustration.
-USE SIGILS!!! Again, unless going for score, use sigils. The most important one IMO is the shield sigil. This reflects ranged attacks. It is really useful. Also, the weapon damage sigil is nice if your DPS is low. Also, nothing wrong with grabbing the healing sigil at the start of every round when learning. It will help if you forget to apply a buff or HoT.
-Practice in group content. VMA requires a bit of a hybrid healer type build, but get to the point you can pull 20-25k+ single target. The stage one boss is a great test. If he ports more than twice, you dont have the DPS for this place.
-When you die, and you will die a lot, always look at the death recap screen. You need to objectively figure out what is killing you so you can adjust.
-Go in prepared. If running 2H, you dont need weapon power pots. I would go with tri-pots or immovable pots if you can afford, but at the very least, you need lots of regular stam pots. Soul gems are nice, but nothing wrong with wayshrining to save you some gold. The time difference is very small.

GreenhaloX · August 2016

Aspi90 wrote: »

Switch to 2h for Rally, make the weapon gold. Switch to 5 Hundings instead of TBS or craft yourself instead of the 3 Hunding Pieces Morkuldin.

Yes, hunding's rage seems to be among the higher mentioned set to have as part the armors combo for vMA. I'm working to craft up those pieces and combo with other high stam sets like savior/Hircine or Marksman and maybe the Eternal Hunt pieces. Also, rally and vigor together.. no joke there. Got me through a few solo world boss pits without dying. Very nice to have, especially, if you also combine with igneous shield, a DK almost seem indestructible then.. until you come across a stam sorc who can dish out a one-hit 50k dps.. .sheesh.. No wonder so many stam sorc are flawless conquerors.

DRXHarbinger · August 2016

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

As others have said, Alcast's videos are the best resource for a stam toon. Your CP is low, but not prohibitively low. Under no circumstances would I go into VMA with anything but gold weapons. Everything else can be purple, but your main weapons should not be. It's to much of a weapon damage loss.

Stam nightblades have some options when it comes to weapon choice. They have a class spam skill in surprise attack, which works just fine with 2H and or DW. 2H might be easier out of the gate. You can keep rally up for both your weapon damage buff and a nice HoT. I would also front bar Vigor. The other option which is certainly viable is to go to DW for a blood thirst build. Healing morph of Flurry. I just did this for the first time over the weekend and it was very effective on my stam DK (probably easier than magic DK). I would probably go surpise attack, but the option is there. Another nice thing with DW is that since you wont be running rally, you can slot Steel Tornado for some AOE.

Simple is better in here. I havent been in there on a stamblade in months, but I would probably go something like this:

2H: Surprise Attack, Ambush, Killers balde, Vigor, Rally, Soul Harvest
DW: Poison Injection, Endless hail, Caltrops, Rearming Trap, Shuffle. Veil

Keep rally and shuffle up at all times. This gives you a HoT and a dodge chance. Try to put down your ground AOE as portals are spawning (Hail, Caltrops, Trap). Tag things with Poision injection for a strong DoT. Use Ambush for mobility. Weave Surprise attack when DoTs are ticking and execute with Killers blade. Soul harvest is nice on the first bar so you build ulti really fast. This will allow you to drop veils all over the place. As you get better, you might opt for meteor over veil.

You could probably simplify your back bar a bit, 3 Ground DoTs might be a bit much in the beginning. Caltrops and Trap are both longer, and if you dont have VMA bow, hail is not as good. You could definitely flex in siphoning strikes or some utility like Mass Hysteria or Prolonged suffering. Fears and stuns can be really handy in this place if used well.

General tips when learning:

-Since we can save, dont beat a dead horse. You arent getting on the boards the first time anyways. Play for an hour or 2 and then stop. It helps with frustration.
-USE SIGILS!!! Again, unless going for score, use sigils. The most important one IMO is the shield sigil. This reflects ranged attacks. It is really useful. Also, the weapon damage sigil is nice if your DPS is low. Also, nothing wrong with grabbing the healing sigil at the start of every round when learning. It will help if you forget to apply a buff or HoT.
-Practice in group content. VMA requires a bit of a hybrid healer type build, but get to the point you can pull 20-25k+ single target. The stage one boss is a great test. If he ports more than twice, you dont have the DPS for this place.
-When you die, and you will die a lot, always look at the death recap screen. You need to objectively figure out what is killing you so you can adjust.
-Go in prepared. If running 2H, you dont need weapon power pots. I would go with tri-pots or immovable pots if you can afford, but at the very least, you need lots of regular stam pots. Soul gems are nice, but nothing wrong with wayshrining to save you some gold. The time difference is very small.

Go with this but drop out killers blade for reverse slice. At 25% health it's the same damage but aoe. Focus one add with it and it'll take out thr others for free.

Also make sure it's a sharpened maul and nothing else.

splitsand · August 2016

Totalitarian wrote: »

vMA kicks everyone's butts at first.

Talked to one of my friends who has several flawless conqueror titles a few days ago, telling him I was doing vMA. He told me when it came out on the PTS, he took 12 hours to beat it.

I've been doing very well my 1st clear through. I've averaged 15-20 minutes per round, and have probably spent 5 hours in there, and am in round 8, and out of those, 2 of those hours were me partially completing a round, leaving, and coming back later to do the whole thing in 15 minutes.

vMA is tough your first time through. But as mentioned, Alcast has a video, and although it's 4 hours long, it is worth it to watch it.

*sigh* I guess I'll have to finish it lol. But, hey...what better time to watch it then when the servers are down

splitsand · August 2016

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

As others have said, Alcast's videos are the best resource for a stam toon. Your CP is low, but not prohibitively low. Under no circumstances would I go into VMA with anything but gold weapons. Everything else can be purple, but your main weapons should not be. It's to much of a weapon damage loss.

Stam nightblades have some options when it comes to weapon choice. They have a class spam skill in surprise attack, which works just fine with 2H and or DW. 2H might be easier out of the gate. You can keep rally up for both your weapon damage buff and a nice HoT. I would also front bar Vigor. The other option which is certainly viable is to go to DW for a blood thirst build. Healing morph of Flurry. I just did this for the first time over the weekend and it was very effective on my stam DK (probably easier than magic DK). I would probably go surpise attack, but the option is there. Another nice thing with DW is that since you wont be running rally, you can slot Steel Tornado for some AOE.

Simple is better in here. I havent been in there on a stamblade in months, but I would probably go something like this:

2H: Surprise Attack, Ambush, Killers balde, Vigor, Rally, Soul Harvest
DW: Poison Injection, Endless hail, Caltrops, Rearming Trap, Shuffle. Veil

Keep rally and shuffle up at all times. This gives you a HoT and a dodge chance. Try to put down your ground AOE as portals are spawning (Hail, Caltrops, Trap). Tag things with Poision injection for a strong DoT. Use Ambush for mobility. Weave Surprise attack when DoTs are ticking and execute with Killers blade. Soul harvest is nice on the first bar so you build ulti really fast. This will allow you to drop veils all over the place. As you get better, you might opt for meteor over veil.

You could probably simplify your back bar a bit, 3 Ground DoTs might be a bit much in the beginning. Caltrops and Trap are both longer, and if you dont have VMA bow, hail is not as good. You could definitely flex in siphoning strikes or some utility like Mass Hysteria or Prolonged suffering. Fears and stuns can be really handy in this place if used well.

General tips when learning:

-Since we can save, dont beat a dead horse. You arent getting on the boards the first time anyways. Play for an hour or 2 and then stop. It helps with frustration.
-USE SIGILS!!! Again, unless going for score, use sigils. The most important one IMO is the shield sigil. This reflects ranged attacks. It is really useful. Also, the weapon damage sigil is nice if your DPS is low. Also, nothing wrong with grabbing the healing sigil at the start of every round when learning. It will help if you forget to apply a buff or HoT.
-Practice in group content. VMA requires a bit of a hybrid healer type build, but get to the point you can pull 20-25k+ single target. The stage one boss is a great test. If he ports more than twice, you dont have the DPS for this place.
-When you die, and you will die a lot, always look at the death recap screen. You need to objectively figure out what is killing you so you can adjust.
-Go in prepared. If running 2H, you dont need weapon power pots. I would go with tri-pots or immovable pots if you can afford, but at the very least, you need lots of regular stam pots. Soul gems are nice, but nothing wrong with wayshrining to save you some gold. The time difference is very small.

Go with this but drop out killers blade for reverse slice. At 25% health it's the same damage but aoe. Focus one add with it and it'll take out thr others for free.

Also make sure it's a sharpened maul and nothing else.

I don't have any more gold or mats to get a maul

spent it all on my current set lol.

splitsand · August 2016

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

As others have said, Alcast's videos are the best resource for a stam toon. Your CP is low, but not prohibitively low. Under no circumstances would I go into VMA with anything but gold weapons. Everything else can be purple, but your main weapons should not be. It's to much of a weapon damage loss.

Stam nightblades have some options when it comes to weapon choice. They have a class spam skill in surprise attack, which works just fine with 2H and or DW. 2H might be easier out of the gate. You can keep rally up for both your weapon damage buff and a nice HoT. I would also front bar Vigor. The other option which is certainly viable is to go to DW for a blood thirst build. Healing morph of Flurry. I just did this for the first time over the weekend and it was very effective on my stam DK (probably easier than magic DK). I would probably go surpise attack, but the option is there. Another nice thing with DW is that since you wont be running rally, you can slot Steel Tornado for some AOE.

Simple is better in here. I havent been in there on a stamblade in months, but I would probably go something like this:

2H: Surprise Attack, Ambush, Killers balde, Vigor, Rally, Soul Harvest
DW: Poison Injection, Endless hail, Caltrops, Rearming Trap, Shuffle. Veil

Keep rally and shuffle up at all times. This gives you a HoT and a dodge chance. Try to put down your ground AOE as portals are spawning (Hail, Caltrops, Trap). Tag things with Poision injection for a strong DoT. Use Ambush for mobility. Weave Surprise attack when DoTs are ticking and execute with Killers blade. Soul harvest is nice on the first bar so you build ulti really fast. This will allow you to drop veils all over the place. As you get better, you might opt for meteor over veil.

You could probably simplify your back bar a bit, 3 Ground DoTs might be a bit much in the beginning. Caltrops and Trap are both longer, and if you dont have VMA bow, hail is not as good. You could definitely flex in siphoning strikes or some utility like Mass Hysteria or Prolonged suffering. Fears and stuns can be really handy in this place if used well.

General tips when learning:

-Since we can save, dont beat a dead horse. You arent getting on the boards the first time anyways. Play for an hour or 2 and then stop. It helps with frustration.
-USE SIGILS!!! Again, unless going for score, use sigils. The most important one IMO is the shield sigil. This reflects ranged attacks. It is really useful. Also, the weapon damage sigil is nice if your DPS is low. Also, nothing wrong with grabbing the healing sigil at the start of every round when learning. It will help if you forget to apply a buff or HoT.
-Practice in group content. VMA requires a bit of a hybrid healer type build, but get to the point you can pull 20-25k+ single target. The stage one boss is a great test. If he ports more than twice, you dont have the DPS for this place.
-When you die, and you will die a lot, always look at the death recap screen. You need to objectively figure out what is killing you so you can adjust.
-Go in prepared. If running 2H, you dont need weapon power pots. I would go with tri-pots or immovable pots if you can afford, but at the very least, you need lots of regular stam pots. Soul gems are nice, but nothing wrong with wayshrining to save you some gold. The time difference is very small.

I'll have to try the healing morph of flurry out, that sounds like a GREAT idea. But, wont that hurt my dps? Also, now I'm committed (because I spent all of my gold + mats and part of my soul for my current gear) to using only the set I listed. Will this be a problem to play with bow and dw?

DRXHarbinger · August 2016

What platform are you op?

Kas · August 2016

I've done vMSA the first weekend after it was released. i have done flawless runs before the TG update. Still, i wouldn't be sure I could do it in purple gear on 180CP and a stamina char. A purple weapon (main bar daggers) being the biggest problem, there. CP being a HUGE factor as well.

Also take care when watching the vids. Many tactics REQUIRE that some mobs get cleared quickly. Top msa builds aren't really tanky as such, people know the spawns, know the biggest threat and eliminate it before they get killed.

i really think your effort is great and by all means continue. however, if you want to hear something helpful (albeit boring and frustrating): Go farm and grind. I'd recommend IC (districts and TSV for best money/time,; sewers for best xp/time). At least upgrade your weapon to legendary and accumulate around 300CP before you give vet another shot.

I know several players who think highly of themselves but are still unable to complete it at 501CP in full legendary gear.

PS: Otherwise, you equipment is perfectly fine. Don't commit more money into alternatives. All you needs is
a) upgrades through CP
b) and upgrade through legendary weapons
c) lots of practice with the vet mode

SanTii.92 · August 2016

Nah, keep your dw - it's the best option. But get those daggers gold as fast as you can, a lot of dps there.

About bars you want smthing like these.

Dw, killers, surprise attack (don't bloodthirstier, shadow barrier, major fracture and extra hp is just too good), ambush, vigor, trap, soul harvest

Bow, injection, hail, double take, siphoning attacks, relentless, comet.

If you can't complete first round is either a mechanics problem or a gear problem. Come back with pics of your stats and cp distribution.

Jar_Ek · August 2016

Tbh it's practice. You can complete the first boss in heavy armour with purple weapons without sigils if you know what you're doing (hmm haven't tried it on a nb like that tbh but...).

Tips:
Ignore the adds during this boss round. He kills them himself and summons more and your aoe around the boss should kill them.
Be aware of his aoe and all the snares (shuffle helps). Circling helps as melee.
This is a dps on boss race - the damage sigil helps.
The most painful attacks are the ranged boss and ranged mob ones - the shield sigil helps.
Anything you have to increase damage helps.

splitsand · August 2016

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

What platform are you op?

PC NA

splitsand · August 2016

sAnn92 wrote: »

Nah, keep your dw - it's the best option. But get those daggers gold as fast as you can, a lot of dps there.

About bars you want smthing like these.

Dw, killers, surprise attack (don't bloodthirstier, shadow barrier, major fracture and extra hp is just too good), ambush, vigor, trap, soul harvest

Bow, injection, hail, double take, siphoning attacks, relentless, comet.

If you can't complete first round is either a mechanics problem or a gear problem. Come back with pics of your stats and cp distribution.

When the servers are live I'll try to do that!

Oreyn_Bearclaw · August 2016

splitsand wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

As others have said, Alcast's videos are the best resource for a stam toon. Your CP is low, but not prohibitively low. Under no circumstances would I go into VMA with anything but gold weapons. Everything else can be purple, but your main weapons should not be. It's to much of a weapon damage loss.

Stam nightblades have some options when it comes to weapon choice. They have a class spam skill in surprise attack, which works just fine with 2H and or DW. 2H might be easier out of the gate. You can keep rally up for both your weapon damage buff and a nice HoT. I would also front bar Vigor. The other option which is certainly viable is to go to DW for a blood thirst build. Healing morph of Flurry. I just did this for the first time over the weekend and it was very effective on my stam DK (probably easier than magic DK). I would probably go surpise attack, but the option is there. Another nice thing with DW is that since you wont be running rally, you can slot Steel Tornado for some AOE.

Simple is better in here. I havent been in there on a stamblade in months, but I would probably go something like this:

2H: Surprise Attack, Ambush, Killers balde, Vigor, Rally, Soul Harvest
DW: Poison Injection, Endless hail, Caltrops, Rearming Trap, Shuffle. Veil

Keep rally and shuffle up at all times. This gives you a HoT and a dodge chance. Try to put down your ground AOE as portals are spawning (Hail, Caltrops, Trap). Tag things with Poision injection for a strong DoT. Use Ambush for mobility. Weave Surprise attack when DoTs are ticking and execute with Killers blade. Soul harvest is nice on the first bar so you build ulti really fast. This will allow you to drop veils all over the place. As you get better, you might opt for meteor over veil.

You could probably simplify your back bar a bit, 3 Ground DoTs might be a bit much in the beginning. Caltrops and Trap are both longer, and if you dont have VMA bow, hail is not as good. You could definitely flex in siphoning strikes or some utility like Mass Hysteria or Prolonged suffering. Fears and stuns can be really handy in this place if used well.

General tips when learning:

-Since we can save, dont beat a dead horse. You arent getting on the boards the first time anyways. Play for an hour or 2 and then stop. It helps with frustration.
-USE SIGILS!!! Again, unless going for score, use sigils. The most important one IMO is the shield sigil. This reflects ranged attacks. It is really useful. Also, the weapon damage sigil is nice if your DPS is low. Also, nothing wrong with grabbing the healing sigil at the start of every round when learning. It will help if you forget to apply a buff or HoT.
-Practice in group content. VMA requires a bit of a hybrid healer type build, but get to the point you can pull 20-25k+ single target. The stage one boss is a great test. If he ports more than twice, you dont have the DPS for this place.
-When you die, and you will die a lot, always look at the death recap screen. You need to objectively figure out what is killing you so you can adjust.
-Go in prepared. If running 2H, you dont need weapon power pots. I would go with tri-pots or immovable pots if you can afford, but at the very least, you need lots of regular stam pots. Soul gems are nice, but nothing wrong with wayshrining to save you some gold. The time difference is very small.

I'll have to try the healing morph of flurry out, that sounds like a GREAT idea. But, wont that hurt my dps? Also, now I'm committed (because I spent all of my gold + mats and part of my soul for my current gear) to using only the set I listed. Will this be a problem to play with bow and dw?

DW/Bow is certainly very viable. I think very few people pushing scores are still using 2 hander. Flurry builds are topping the DPS charts right now, but that is with VMA weapons. Without them, you can still pull pretty good DPS. Another thing to consider is perhaps the healing morph of twin slashes as well. The big thing about stam is you need your heals from somewhere. Vigor is great in an emergency, but passive heals are the best. Steel tornado can be really useful in here, but you dont need an AoE spam to clear this place. In fact, I typically advice against it when learning. You also might find you dont need a gap closer so you could put it there as well. I did not use one on my stam clears.

What I am not sold on is whether Bloodthirst makes sense for a NB because they have surprise attack. SA hits really hard and debuffs your enemy's armor. It also boosts your own armor because of the passives. It's a pretty amazing skill. Full disclosure, I havent tried blood thirst on a NB. On a Stam DK or Stam Sorc, it is a no brainer. In fact, a sorc can prob get away with rapid strikes because of Crit Surge. Stam sorcs are definitely the best stam toon at the moment for VMA.

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

As others have said, Alcast's videos are the best resource for a stam toon. Your CP is low, but not prohibitively low. Under no circumstances would I go into VMA with anything but gold weapons. Everything else can be purple, but your main weapons should not be. It's to much of a weapon damage loss.

Stam nightblades have some options when it comes to weapon choice. They have a class spam skill in surprise attack, which works just fine with 2H and or DW. 2H might be easier out of the gate. You can keep rally up for both your weapon damage buff and a nice HoT. I would also front bar Vigor. The other option which is certainly viable is to go to DW for a blood thirst build. Healing morph of Flurry. I just did this for the first time over the weekend and it was very effective on my stam DK (probably easier than magic DK). I would probably go surpise attack, but the option is there. Another nice thing with DW is that since you wont be running rally, you can slot Steel Tornado for some AOE.

Simple is better in here. I havent been in there on a stamblade in months, but I would probably go something like this:

2H: Surprise Attack, Ambush, Killers balde, Vigor, Rally, Soul Harvest
DW: Poison Injection, Endless hail, Caltrops, Rearming Trap, Shuffle. Veil

Keep rally and shuffle up at all times. This gives you a HoT and a dodge chance. Try to put down your ground AOE as portals are spawning (Hail, Caltrops, Trap). Tag things with Poision injection for a strong DoT. Use Ambush for mobility. Weave Surprise attack when DoTs are ticking and execute with Killers blade. Soul harvest is nice on the first bar so you build ulti really fast. This will allow you to drop veils all over the place. As you get better, you might opt for meteor over veil.

You could probably simplify your back bar a bit, 3 Ground DoTs might be a bit much in the beginning. Caltrops and Trap are both longer, and if you dont have VMA bow, hail is not as good. You could definitely flex in siphoning strikes or some utility like Mass Hysteria or Prolonged suffering. Fears and stuns can be really handy in this place if used well.

General tips when learning:

-Since we can save, dont beat a dead horse. You arent getting on the boards the first time anyways. Play for an hour or 2 and then stop. It helps with frustration.
-USE SIGILS!!! Again, unless going for score, use sigils. The most important one IMO is the shield sigil. This reflects ranged attacks. It is really useful. Also, the weapon damage sigil is nice if your DPS is low. Also, nothing wrong with grabbing the healing sigil at the start of every round when learning. It will help if you forget to apply a buff or HoT.
-Practice in group content. VMA requires a bit of a hybrid healer type build, but get to the point you can pull 20-25k+ single target. The stage one boss is a great test. If he ports more than twice, you dont have the DPS for this place.
-When you die, and you will die a lot, always look at the death recap screen. You need to objectively figure out what is killing you so you can adjust.
-Go in prepared. If running 2H, you dont need weapon power pots. I would go with tri-pots or immovable pots if you can afford, but at the very least, you need lots of regular stam pots. Soul gems are nice, but nothing wrong with wayshrining to save you some gold. The time difference is very small.

Go with this but drop out killers blade for reverse slice. At 25% health it's the same damage but aoe. Focus one add with it and it'll take out thr others for free.

Also make sure it's a sharpened maul and nothing else.

You are like the 4th person in the last week that has raved about reverse slice. I might need to check that out.

Dagoth_Rac · August 2016

In VMA, the bosses have high armor and even the "trash" is high quality trash and has pretty good damage mitigation. You will not have a tank around or a full Trial group to shred enemy armor. So sharpened weapons that reduce enemy armor by 5120 and other armor debuffs are a big deal here. I also think Nightblades have access to Major Fracture (big armor debuff) via class skills, but it may not be ideal for a stamina build.

Also consider dropping Twice Born Star. It is best DPS set in Trials, but largely because a good Trials group already has boss armor nearly to zero and a good Trials group has a steady Warhorn rotation. You may get more actual damage from Night Mothers Gaze in a solo situation, which has a 5 piece bonus that debuffs enemy armor by 2580. And the 2/3/4 bonus from Night Mothers Gaze is much better for a stamina build than the 2/3/4 bonus from Twice Born Star. If you were running all Robust jewelry, the health bonus from Twice Born Star might be handy. But you are running two Healthy jewelry pieces and should have enough health.

How important is lowering enemy armor? Let's say a boss has 17500 armor which is about 35% mitigation. So you hit him with 25000 DPS, but he mitigates 35% of that (0.35 x 25000 = 8750) so you actually do 25000 - 8750 = 16250 DPS. Now you hit him with a sharpened maul and Night Mothers Gaze. That turns his armor to ((17500 - 2580) * 0.8) - 5120 = 6816, which is about 13.6 mitigation. 25000 * 0.136 = 3400. 25000 - 3400 = 21600 DPS after armor debuffs. 21600 / 16250 = ~1.33. A 33% DPS increase from armor debuffs. That is huge!

KingYogi415 · August 2016

If you have 160cp, no you can not do it.

I think you have confused people into thing you have 501cp.

Cheers!

splitsand · August 2016

KingYogi415 wrote: »

If you have 160cp, no you can not do it.

I think you have confused people into thing you have 501cp.

Cheers!

I have 188 CP actually lol