maxed cp is nice to have yes, but I still think its possible to farm maelstrom without max cp.
I had full vr16 legendary gear and maxed cp first time I did arena, and I struggled alot, so yes it is hard. Tips is to use sigils every round.

you need vr16 jewlery, go with agility, thats a safe choise. Put kuta enchant weapon dmg and you will get crazy stats. Then focus on recovery in gear/mundus/champion points. With those jewlery, hundings and legendary weapons, you should be above 3500 weapon dmg buffed and have good enough recovery for sustain. Dont block before you have to, same with roll dodge. And try to heavy attack in between for stamina back.

Btw what race are you? I have done vet maelstrom with 800 stamina recovery but that was pain. Usually I have 1300 ish.

First, familiarity with the arena will help, as you won't be wasting as many resources correcting your errors, and you will be doing things more efficiently. And I don't mean watching a video, but actually practicing a round over and over. Just as you can't learn to ballroom dance just by watching two people dance, you do need to practice and experience it yourself, and it will get better. I had a lot of CP (not capped, but over 400) when I first beat vMA, and I died over a hundred times on just the final boss fight. But now can easily beat him without ever dying. It wasn't better gear or stats--just practice and familiarity.

All that having been said, though, your low CP is a pretty substantial handicap.

First, you get a direct bonus to damage from CP spent in the various damage-related perks.

Second, every red/green/blue CP point that you spent increases your max health/stamina/magicka. It's not a lot per point, but when you're talking about 100 points, it's quite a bit. That's better survival (health), more resources, and more damage (since damage scales off of max resources).

Third, CP gives you sustain, so you can spec more into damage and less into resource sustain.

Low CP and stats won't hurt as much if you're familiar with the arena. And practicing the arena won't be so bad if you have high CP and stats. But the two put together doesn't make for a good combination.

And, finally, your other handicap is that you're a stamina build. vMA is harder on stamina builds. vMA is harder for melee than for ranged. That's just the way it is.

My personal recommendation is to respec your character for magicka, at least for vMA. VR15 purple gear should suffice (well, make your staff VR16 gold). I wouldn't recommend this if you had more CP, and I wouldn't recommend this if you had already completed vMA on another build and know the cadence of the fights. But you're trying to get a first clear, with a stat handicap, and on one of the hardest build types for vMA. Beat vMA with a magblade, get that hands-on experience, and maybe you'll find it easier on a stamblade afterwards.

As a magblade, (1) your main attack spam will reliably heal you, (2) you are ranged, and (3) you get Major Expedition mobility from a skill (Cripple) that you'll use in your regular DPS rotation.

I've taken some of the advice into account and managed to get to stage 3. I got a full set of Agility and applied kuta glyps (2 weapon damage and 1 stam recovery) which gives me, with Rally, ~3500 weapon damage. Also switched out daggers for bow and noticed a nice 16.7k crit with Lethal Arrow.

I made some tri-pots as well with my alchemist, they're been helping out nicely.

So, yeah, thanks for the advice.

Congrats on finishing it, I need a tonne of help. Specifically, what mundus and champion points are stam users doing?