Am I bad at this game, or am I not ready for vet MSA

Swainburg · September 2016

So I have 3 stamina characters, all ready for their maelstrom weapons, but I can't even get past round 5 after days of trying in VMSA. On a stam sorc, I have 25k hp with food, 30k stam, 1.3k stam regen, ~2400 weapon dmg, 3 piece agility, 2 velidriths, 5 piece Twice born star and shadow and thief mundus. I have conquered all the other content in this game, but this is something i cannot do. I think my problem lies in my champion points, I only have 300 of them. The other problem is probably skill or lack of mechanics knoweldge. I watched videos of fengrush and alcast on their stamina sorcerers, but their dps is simply better than mine, and im having trouble staying alive.

If anyone has some constructive criticism, or valuable tips, it would be much appreciated.

(If you think my problem is also CP, whats the best way/place to grind)

Thanks.

UPDATE: I DID IT WHOOOOO

Nephimana · September 2016

I did it on my vet 10 200cp magplar before the change, all crafted gear, but since then when I haven't tried it, trying to catch up my gear for him. I'd say it lies more in skill. But note I tried it again and he failed with his crap gear.
For me I just knew my weak points and strength's, trial and error, reflect and adapting. I had to get rid of vampirism, reskill a couple times, and finally got it and it was a mission for me.
I'd say skill and knowledge of mechanics because I had basic jewelry, no monster sets, I'm not even that skilled but I know how it works, where to focus and where magplar sucks and excels.

susmitds · September 2016

I gonna give you one advice here. Try attempting it on a Magicka character.

vMSA is insanely hard on newbies on Stamina characters, except Stamina Sorcerer. On the other hand, it is easy mode on Magicka Sorcerer, Templar and Nightblades.

Stoopid_Nwah · September 2016

I do think it's a fair bit easier on magicka characters, but if you're not used to playing that way it may end up causing more difficulties for you. More cp wouldn't hurt, but others have managed with fewer, so it probably comes down to just figuring out the best method for you personally to get through it.

What round/mobs/boss specifically are you struggling with in stage five?

davey1107 · September 2016

You aren't just whistling Dixie...vmsa is haaaaaaard. It's a combo of character setup, learning the trick to each level, player skills and a lot of luck, Imo.

I can't complete it with my stam characters. It's just too resource intensive, with blocks, rolls and attacks all coming from the same bucket. Ugh. Even w engine guardian I find it impossible,to balance dps w regen.

More CPs always help. And how you use them is important, obviously. Like it took me a while to learn which are most valuable. When someone advised me to pile my red points into reducing physical damage and the other for magic (hardy and...I forget. In the middle red tree) it changed my characters a LOT. Before I'd spent a lot in medium armor, or light armor, or whatever.

Bottom line, though - the difference between 300 CPs and 531 is about 10% regen, 10% damage mitigation, 10% more damage and maybe 5% reduced cost. That's significant. Consider the level you're dying on. Are you getting creamed, or if mobs died off a little faster and you hit a little harder would you be keeping up? If you're on level 5, it's probably the latter.

Grinding CPs is awful, though. The best strategy is level your provisioning, add the passive to increase drinks by 20 minutes, then make psijic runs through public dungeons. It's boring, but the fastest.

To speed things up, maybe use alts. It's nice to have addl vet characters. But in terms of leveling, a second vet character also gets all of those delve, dungeon, dolmen, world boss clears that your main already got. Forget questing...just the area clears and discovery XP adds up to approx 300,000 XP per zone (150% on Psijic). Like you could go run sanguine dememse for a fifth time with your main character to grind, but a fresh vet who hasn't completed it can get the same XP doing a psijic run plus something like 60,000-100,000 more from the two quests and dungeon clear.

Also, it's fastest to grind w 2-3 in a group. Have everyone use AOEs and you should all get credit for all kills. You can push through so much faster that you'll earn CPs like twice as fast.

Brrrofski · September 2016

What's going wrong exactly?

What weapons are you using?

What skills are you using?

Why do you have 25k health? Put at least 5k of that (if not 6 or 7) into stamina.

If 5 is the ice one, it's the hardest of the 8 rounds by far.

Also, sometimes those videos should be taken lightly. They have weapons and knowledge of the place. What they do might not work for you. Watch the mechanics, but how they tackle them might not be the same for you.

Aspi90 · September 2016

2400 weapon damage seems a bit low. Are your weapons gold? And do you use dual wield bow?
Gearwise your set up is good, but vMA is really a dps race and knowing the mechanics.

Swainburg · September 2016

Stoopid_Nwah wrote: »

What round/mobs/boss specifically are you struggling with in stage five?

Yeah i have 3 Stam characters, i suppose i could race change my Stam sorc to make him a magika sorc?

Stage 5, final round is difficult for me.

Swainburg · September 2016

Aspi90 wrote: »

2400 weapon damage seems a bit low. Are your weapons gold? And do you use dual wield bow?
Gearwise your set up is good, but vMA is really a dps race and knowing the mechanics.

I use 2h and bow, but i could easily switch to dw. My weapons are purple, but i just realized i forgot to enchant them haha.

Swainburg · September 2016

Brrrofski wrote: »

What's going wrong exactly?

What weapons are you using?

What skills are you using?

Why do you have 25k health? Put at least 5k of that (if not 6 or 7) into stamina.

If 5 is the ice one, it's the hardest of the 8 rounds by far.

Also, sometimes those videos should be taken lightly. They have weapons and knowledge of the place. What they do might not work for you. Watch the mechanics, but how they tackle them might not be the same for you.

I use 2h no set piece and bow, no set.

Skills on 2h are wrecking blow, streak, vigor, dark deal, bound armaments and flawless dawnbreaker.
Bow bar: poison inject volley, crit surge, hurricane, bound armaments, overload.

Whats going wrong?
I krep dying when the enemies should be dying. Mostly to difficult to avoid one or two hit kills.

Swainburg · September 2016

davey1107 wrote: »

You aren't just whistling Dixie...vmsa is haaaaaaard. It's a combo of character setup, learning the trick to each level, player skills and a lot of luck, Imo.

I can't complete it with my stam characters. It's just too resource intensive, with blocks, rolls and attacks all coming from the same bucket. Ugh. Even w engine guardian I find it impossible,to balance dps w regen.

More CPs always help. And how you use them is important, obviously. Like it took me a while to learn which are most valuable. When someone advised me to pile my red points into reducing physical damage and the other for magic (hardy and...I forget. In the middle red tree) it changed my characters a LOT. Before I'd spent a lot in medium armor, or light armor, or whatever.

Bottom line, though - the difference between 300 CPs and 531 is about 10% regen, 10% damage mitigation, 10% more damage and maybe 5% reduced cost. That's significant. Consider the level you're dying on. Are you getting creamed, or if mobs died off a little faster and you hit a little harder would you be keeping up? If you're on level 5, it's probably the latter.

Grinding CPs is awful, though. The best strategy is level your provisioning, add the passive to increase drinks by 20 minutes, then make psijic runs through public dungeons. It's boring, but the fastest.

To speed things up, maybe use alts. It's nice to have addl vet characters. But in terms of leveling, a second vet character also gets all of those delve, dungeon, dolmen, world boss clears that your main already got. Forget questing...just the area clears and discovery XP adds up to approx 300,000 XP per zone (150% on Psijic). Like you could go run sanguine dememse for a fifth time with your main character to grind, but a fresh vet who hasn't completed it can get the same XP doing a psijic run plus something like 60,000-100,000 more from the two quests and dungeon clear.

Also, it's fastest to grind w 2-3 in a group. Have everyone use AOEs and you should all get credit for all kills. You can push through so much faster that you'll earn CPs like twice as fast.

Thanks this helps.

Brrrofski · September 2016

Swainburg wrote: »

Brrrofski wrote: »

What's going wrong exactly?

What weapons are you using?

What skills are you using?

Why do you have 25k health? Put at least 5k of that (if not 6 or 7) into stamina.

If 5 is the ice one, it's the hardest of the 8 rounds by far.

Also, sometimes those videos should be taken lightly. They have weapons and knowledge of the place. What they do might not work for you. Watch the mechanics, but how they tackle them might not be the same for you.

I use 2h no set piece and bow, no set.

Skills on 2h are wrecking blow, streak, vigor, dark deal, bound armaments and flawless dawnbreaker.
Bow bar: poison inject volley, crit surge, hurricane, bound armaments, overload.

Whats going wrong?
I krep dying when the enemies should be dying. Mostly to difficult to avoid one or two hit kills.

Dual wield is a lot better in pve. Even if you don't want to use that, you only have wrecking blow to do damage. No crit rush or reverse slice.

I run the same back bar, my from bar is

Bound armaments, rearing trap, vigor, bloodlust, bloodcraze, dawnbreaker of smiting (that cc helps).

Obviously kill everything, but make sure the range guys are taken out quickly. They hit pretty hard.

I wouldn't want to use 2 hander though.

Swainburg · September 2016

Brrrofski wrote: »

Swainburg wrote: »

Brrrofski wrote: »

What's going wrong exactly?

Dual wield is a lot better in pve. Even if you don't want to use that, you only have wrecking blow to do damage. No crit rush or reverse slice.

I run the same back bar, my from bar is

Bound armaments, rearing trap, vigor, bloodlust, bloodcraze, dawnbreaker of smiting (that cc helps).

Obviously kill everything, but make sure the range guys are taken out quickly. They hit pretty hard.

I wouldn't want to use 2 hander though.

Okay thanks this is insightful. However the only reason i switched to 2h from Dw is because i couldnt kill the control guardian with Dw, then i beat it first try 2h. I figured I'd run Dw after i got maelstrom dagger, but I'll give it another go with your set up. I have trouble knowing when to use rearming trap though. And i kind of rely on dark deal for when i run out of stam or hp. Thoughts?

Swainburg · September 2016

Brrrofski wrote: »

Brrrofski wrote: »

What's going wrong exactly?

Dual wield is a lot better in pve. Even if you don't want to use that, you only have wrecking blow to do damage. No crit rush or reverse slice.

I run the same back bar, my from bar is

Bound armaments, rearing trap, vigor, bloodlust, bloodcraze, dawnbreaker of smiting (that cc helps).

Obviously kill everything, but make sure the range guys are taken out quickly. They hit pretty hard.

I wouldn't want to use 2 hander though.

Okay thanks this is insightful. However the only reason i switched to 2h from Dw is because i couldnt kill the control guardian with Dw, then i beat it first try 2h. I figured I'd run Dw after i got maelstrom dagger, but I'll give it another go with your set up. I have trouble knowing when to use rearming trap though. And i kind of rely on dark deal for when i run out of stam or hp. Thoughts?

OrphanHelgen · September 2016

I have a friend who completed maelstrom with 200 cp, played the game for a month only, purple gear.

You will have some harder times compared to a cp capped player, but this doesnt sound like the problem.
Stage 5 is one of the most hated stages. One tip i have, is to take defense and healing sigils at the right time. Take your time and deal with adds, unless its the last platform. Then you need to ignore adds and all in boss. Here is where defense sigil is nice. Each sigil last 30 sec.

visionality · September 2016

While watching Feng or Alcast shows you what a real experienced player with real cool equipement and maxed out cps can do, it doesn't show you how YOU can beat the arena. The best help for that I found here:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/233356/joys-updated-guide-to-beating-maelstrom-arena-now-with-videos/p1

Personally I recommend to keep in mind that vMA is all about fight, die, analyze, repeat and nothing about creative gameplay. There are mechanics you need to learn by heart, spawning points you need to know, movements you need to imitate in the right way. Ofc a good player will master the challenges faster, but in my experience it's mostly about your mindset. If you detest adapting to a killing environment that forces you to strictly follow mechanics, you will be highly frustrated no matter how good or bad you really play.

Oh, and as some others already said: I would chose a magica char in vMA over a stam build. Shields and heals are extremely helpful.

Nidro · September 2016

Hello Swainburg,

im relatively new in vMSA aswell, but i already did quite a few runs (20-30) on my Stamina sorc.
Do not give up on this! I died uncountable times on my first few runs on other chars there.
Its all about Knowledge and Speed most of the time!
i think i can give you good tips, which skills, weapons, etc.

All things what People said above is right.
It all depends on YOUR playstyle where you put your Points in and which skills you use.

Lets start with equipment, then lets talk about skills.

in my Opinion you should run 6 Middle, 1 Heavy , 0 Light
I recommend you to use full Twice-Born-Star and 5 Piece Vicious Serpent. (If you dont have Vicious Serpent, try 5 Piece Viper e.g)
As you dont have Maelstrom weapons yet i would use the parts like this:

Helmet - Velidreth - Middle (If you got 1 part of the Monster helm in heavy , take chest in Middle)
Shoulders Velidreth - Middle
Chest TBC - Heavy
gloves TBC - Middle
Legs TBC - Middle
belt TBC - Middle
Shoes Vicious Ophidian OR Viper - Middle

---> All parts in DIVINE of course! (Mundus Shadow + Thief)

Weapons: Bow: TBC (I use a poison dmg glyph on in, to increase Speed of killing enemies with the bow, glyph crits with 4-6k damage extra on light/heavy attacks)

DUAL WIELD WEAPONS:

Depending on your crit i suggest you use 2 daggers!
1 Dagger TBC shardpened/precise Glyph: increase weapon damage for 348 for 5 seconds
1 Dagger Vicious Ophidian OR VIPER sharpened/Precise glyph: decrease physical and spell resists by 1622

in the end you should get about 65-70% crit and your just fine.

IF you have more than 70-75% crit, Exchange an dagger for an axe!

You can also take another part of Vicious ophidian or Viper on your armory, just make 4 parts Tbc on armor, 1 bow and 1 dagger Tbc.

AS JEWELLRY: You want to use 2 rings and 1 amulet of Vicious ophidian OR Viper with full weaon damamge enchants

Ok thats all about which Equipment I would use.

The thing is if you do NOT have Vicious Ophidian yet you may have trouble in some rounds to keep your Stamina up if you use VIPER instead.
Viper gives u good extra damage but u lack of sustain a bit.

In general u have to practice alot with 1 Setup! DO NOT CHANGE IT ALL 5 mins!!

the next VERY IMPORTANT Thing is -> bring your Equipment up to legendary, and you will have much more smooth rounds ;-)

Now lets talk about your skill you should use in there.

On your Main bar: DUAL WIELD

Vigor - best Stamina based self-heal ingame. - Ist a MUST for Stamina vMSA beginners!

Rearming Trap - a very powerful DoT which increases your crit dmg even more!

Rapid Strikes - your main attack combined with light attacks

Blood Craze - a very powerful DoT which also heals you for a good amount

Bound Armaments - increases your MAX STAMINA by 8% !!! and increases your resistances about 1k~

Ultimate: Dawnbreaker of SMITING ! - i personally prefer this Morph as its a very powerful stun for 3 seconds!!! ( This skill always saves my life when i get crowded in 5th Arena in round 4 or 5 when alot of Mobs are coming. I run in circles around them so all stand in like 2 squaremeters, and then here comes the BOOM! Everone kisses floor and will die, just not me ;-)

Secondary Bar: BOW

Poison Injection - very very powerful DoT ( i always put 1 inj. on each mob when they spawn , combined with a light-medium-heavy attack of my bow - in most cases with that Combo the adds are already 50-75% killed, and will die by the DoT, so i can make alot rounds almost only with my bow lol.

Endless hail - Next very powerful AoE DoT, always place it on Portals whenever adds spawning, helpts to kill them alot faster

Hurricane - one of your ONLY 2 BUFFS - icreaes ovement Speed for 15 seconds (always Keep this up!!) does insane AoE and gives you 5000+ Resistances which is great for damage reduction ;-)

Critical Surge - Probably the MOST IMPORTANT BUFF TO KEEP UP - increases your weapon damage by 20%
for 33 SECONDS!! - also heals you for criticals hits for x helth (ist alot heal) - can proc each second.

and Bound Armaments again - Important to have this on all your bars, as you dont have to activate it everytime when u Change bars

on This bar, i am running energy overload as Ultimate due to the following reasons:

Extra ability Slots for long time buffs or sustain issues

Skills i got there:

Vigor

Dark Deal ( incredibly good - u éxchange 3k magicka for 8k health + 5k Stamina ) using this between rounds, or before its getting started to fill up stamina

Razor Caltrops (i always put them on ground whenever a new round Begins, as it lasts 27 seconds and is really really a strong DoT - ticks about 2k-2,5k per second with a ridicolous huge range

Streak - just incase i really Need to get away from something fast lol (u can replace this, as use are not very long in your overload bar usually)

and of course Bound Armaments again!

Champion Points: Red Tree - Try to put as many in hard and Elemental Defender, but try to make 2/3 Elemental Defender and 1/3 in Hardy as u mostly take elemental damage in the Arena.

Green Tree: get 80-90 in Warlord for reduced cost , about 30-40 in Tumbling, rest in Tenacity (10-20) as you should work ALOT with heavy attacks especially with your bow (when you see a portal spawning, put your dots on ground b4 and aim for that heavy shot)
put some points into Stamina recovery (ur recovery will be about 700-850 probably, its not worth putting 50+ Points in there, as it will only raise by 100 or so lol.

I hope i didnt forget something important, but that should be all.

I hope this helps you mate.

Everybody has to struggle trough the Storm. Not everybody Is worth the Stormproof achievement ;-)

Just Keep on trying, you get better and better.

My first run took 11 hours on my Magicka Nightblade, and i could NOT defeat the last Boss of Arena 9 :-(

next try was on my Stamina sorc. was 2 hours on first run.
after about 10 runs on that char i was at 1 hour 5 minutes to complete, now i can do it in 50 Minutes, getting to the leaderboard with 530k+ opints :-)

Its all about practice, trust me

I hope this helps you out mate.

If you Need any help, just let us a message right here in this thread and ask anything, we will try to get you trough your fight :-)

Yours, Nidro~~

Swainburg · September 2016

Nidro wrote: »

Hello Swainburg,

im relatively new in vMSA aswell, but i already did quite a few runs (20-30) on my Stamina sorc.
Do not give up on this! I died uncountable times on my first few runs on other chars there.
Its all about Knowledge and Speed most of the time!
i think i can give you good tips, which skills, weapons, etc.

All things what People said above is right.
It all depends on YOUR playstyle where you put your Points in and which skills you use.

Lets start with equipment, then lets talk about skills.

in my Opinion you should run 6 Middle, 1 Heavy , 0 Light
I recommend you to use full Twice-Born-Star and 5 Piece Vicious Serpent. (If you dont have Vicious Serpent, try 5 Piece Viper e.g)
As you dont have Maelstrom weapons yet i would use the parts like this:

Helmet - Velidreth - Middle (If you got 1 part of the Monster helm in heavy , take chest in Middle)
Shoulders Velidreth - Middle
Chest TBC - Heavy
gloves TBC - Middle
Legs TBC - Middle
belt TBC - Middle
Shoes Vicious Ophidian OR Viper - Middle

---> All parts in DIVINE of course! (Mundus Shadow + Thief)

Weapons: Bow: TBC (I use a poison dmg glyph on in, to increase Speed of killing enemies with the bow, glyph crits with 4-6k damage extra on light/heavy attacks)

DUAL WIELD WEAPONS:

Depending on your crit i suggest you use 2 daggers!
1 Dagger TBC shardpened/precise Glyph: increase weapon damage for 348 for 5 seconds
1 Dagger Vicious Ophidian OR VIPER sharpened/Precise glyph: decrease physical and spell resists by 1622

in the end you should get about 65-70% crit and your just fine.

IF you have more than 70-75% crit, Exchange an dagger for an axe!

You can also take another part of Vicious ophidian or Viper on your armory, just make 4 parts Tbc on armor, 1 bow and 1 dagger Tbc.

AS JEWELLRY: You want to use 2 rings and 1 amulet of Vicious ophidian OR Viper with full weaon damamge enchants

Ok thats all about which Equipment I would use.

The thing is if you do NOT have Vicious Ophidian yet you may have trouble in some rounds to keep your Stamina up if you use VIPER instead.
Viper gives u good extra damage but u lack of sustain a bit.

In general u have to practice alot with 1 Setup! DO NOT CHANGE IT ALL 5 mins!!

the next VERY IMPORTANT Thing is -> bring your Equipment up to legendary, and you will have much more smooth rounds ;-)

Now lets talk about your skill you should use in there.

On your Main bar: DUAL WIELD

Vigor - best Stamina based self-heal ingame. - Ist a MUST for Stamina vMSA beginners!

Rearming Trap - a very powerful DoT which increases your crit dmg even more!

Rapid Strikes - your main attack combined with light attacks

Blood Craze - a very powerful DoT which also heals you for a good amount

Bound Armaments - increases your MAX STAMINA by 8% !!! and increases your resistances about 1k~

Ultimate: Dawnbreaker of SMITING ! - i personally prefer this Morph as its a very powerful stun for 3 seconds!!! ( This skill always saves my life when i get crowded in 5th Arena in round 4 or 5 when alot of Mobs are coming. I run in circles around them so all stand in like 2 squaremeters, and then here comes the BOOM! Everone kisses floor and will die, just not me ;-)

Secondary Bar: BOW

Poison Injection - very very powerful DoT ( i always put 1 inj. on each mob when they spawn , combined with a light-medium-heavy attack of my bow - in most cases with that Combo the adds are already 50-75% killed, and will die by the DoT, so i can make alot rounds almost only with my bow lol.

Endless hail - Next very powerful AoE DoT, always place it on Portals whenever adds spawning, helpts to kill them alot faster

Hurricane - one of your ONLY 2 BUFFS - icreaes ovement Speed for 15 seconds (always Keep this up!!) does insane AoE and gives you 5000+ Resistances which is great for damage reduction ;-)

Critical Surge - Probably the MOST IMPORTANT BUFF TO KEEP UP - increases your weapon damage by 20%
for 33 SECONDS!! - also heals you for criticals hits for x helth (ist alot heal) - can proc each second.

and Bound Armaments again - Important to have this on all your bars, as you dont have to activate it everytime when u Change bars

on This bar, i am running energy overload as Ultimate due to the following reasons:

Extra ability Slots for long time buffs or sustain issues

Skills i got there:

Vigor

Dark Deal ( incredibly good - u éxchange 3k magicka for 8k health + 5k Stamina ) using this between rounds, or before its getting started to fill up stamina

Razor Caltrops (i always put them on ground whenever a new round Begins, as it lasts 27 seconds and is really really a strong DoT - ticks about 2k-2,5k per second with a ridicolous huge range

Streak - just incase i really Need to get away from something fast lol (u can replace this, as use are not very long in your overload bar usually)

and of course Bound Armaments again!

Champion Points: Red Tree - Try to put as many in hard and Elemental Defender, but try to make 2/3 Elemental Defender and 1/3 in Hardy as u mostly take elemental damage in the Arena.

Green Tree: get 80-90 in Warlord for reduced cost , about 30-40 in Tumbling, rest in Tenacity (10-20) as you should work ALOT with heavy attacks especially with your bow (when you see a portal spawning, put your dots on ground b4 and aim for that heavy shot)
put some points into Stamina recovery (ur recovery will be about 700-850 probably, its not worth putting 50+ Points in there, as it will only raise by 100 or so lol.

I hope i didnt forget something important, but that should be all.

I hope this helps you mate.

Everybody has to struggle trough the Storm. Not everybody Is worth the Stormproof achievement ;-)

Just Keep on trying, you get better and better.

My first run took 11 hours on my Magicka Nightblade, and i could NOT defeat the last Boss of Arena 9 :-(

next try was on my Stamina sorc. was 2 hours on first run.
after about 10 runs on that char i was at 1 hour 5 minutes to complete, now i can do it in 50 Minutes, getting to the leaderboard with 530k+ opints :-)

Its all about practice, trust me

I hope this helps you out mate.

If you Need any help, just let us a message right here in this thread and ask anything, we will try to get you trough your fight :-)

Yours, Nidro~~

Wow i couldnt have asked for anything more! Thanks, This is fantastic!

Lieblingsjunge · September 2016

I also suggest learning the mechanics 100%. A friend of mine did it on his stamplar on 277 CP, but he spent hours and hours in there knowing the mechanics.

If you can't afford full legendary, I would suggest making your weapons a priority.

Stoopid_Nwah · September 2016

Swainburg wrote: »

Stoopid_Nwah wrote: »

What round/mobs/boss specifically are you struggling with in stage five?

Yeah i have 3 Stam characters, i suppose i could race change my Stam sorc to make him a magika sorc?

Stage 5, final round is difficult for me.

I would stick with your stam sorc and follow the advice @Nidro gave.

But to give some specifics for that final boss in stage five-Start on the platform with the haste sigil and go ahead and grab that before the boss enrages. Take your time killing her-put any dots up, kill the troll, then go back to dpsing her until the adds come. Ignore her, kill the adds while avoiding her big hits. Once they're dead just dps her until she turns red to break the ice.

Run to the healing sigil iceberg next. If you've struggled with your health on the first iceberg, go ahead and grab that one too. Take out the troll quickly and work on the lameid/neried thing lol. Once she's gone work on the boss until she yells something-that's when the next adds come out. I'd suggest doing your best to disorient or kill the ranged add first while having your dots on the iceberg damaging the melee add, the boss, and the wolf. If another troll summons and goes to the other iceberg, run and kill him. You can't have that iceberg break or it's over.

Once the adds are dead make sure you're back on that healing iceberg when the boss enrages. When she turns red, run to the last platform, grab both sigils, put your dots up and just focus on the boss. At this point, burn her down as you can ignore the ranged adds that come (make sure to kill/interrupt the troll that comes though).

That's how I go through it on my characters. I play magicka so I'm sorry if this isn't useful, but hopefully you can get something out of it

!

Danksta · September 2016

Some things you may have noticed on the final round of stage 5, but I'll mention them in case you haven't. When you take the boss down to about 75% health he breaks the first platform, then at about 50% health he will break the second one. This means you can control which ones he breaks. Leave the damage sigil on the last platform so you can burn the boss before he breaks the final platform. And definitely get gold weapons, and think about the daggers for the extra crit.

I use 5 TBS, 4 NM with daggers and agility (2 damage, 1 stam regen).

DW bar: rending slashes, rapid strikes, vigor, steel tornado, rearming trap (this is a big one), flawless DB
Bow: poison injection, crit surge, streak, hurricane, endless hail, energy overload (mostly for the extra bar)

I put dark deal on my overload bar so between rounds I can replenish my stamina.
Rearming trap passively increases your weapon damage through the FG passive and more importantly increases crit damage by 12%. It's also a pretty big DoT and immobilizes.

I don't remember my CP set up, but in the blue tree I'm pretty much evenly split between mighty, precise strikes and thaumaturge with maybe a few in piercing.

Now with all that being said I'm still getting used to this character and haven't beaten vMA yet. I just finished leveling skills on this character and finally got him in vMA this weekend. I gave it one run and and took a break because my girlfriend doesn't enjoy watching me play video games all day, and not because I was raging and losing my focus (new for me).

Danksta · September 2016

Also a good place to grind CP is nMA if you don't want to fight over XP with others at well known grind spots.

Dagoth_Rac · September 2016

Be very careful with DoTs on final boss of Round 5. She spawns adds and breaks platforms at certain health percentages. If you have Rending Slashes and Poison Injection and Rearming Trap and Endless Hail ticking away on her, she can start spawning adds and breaking platforms too quickly and you will be overwhelmed.

Start on a platform that does not have Power or Defense sigils. Take sigil. She is going to break platform eventually, cutting you off from sigil. So no need to save it. Use direct damage attacks to take her to 90%. A couple adds will spawn. Go kill adds and ignore boss. A troll will probably spawn. Go kill it immediately. If a troll breaks a platform, you cannot recover from that. Trolls are always a top priority. If you have to run to platform with Power and Defense Sigils on it to kill troll, run to a different platform after troll is dead. It is critical that you save Power and Defense sigils until end.

Back on original platform, keep using direct damage attacks to take boss lower. She may spawn moreNear 75%, boss will glow red. Get out of there! She is about to break platform and one-shot you if you are still on platform.

Run to platform without Power and Defense sigils. Take whatever sigil is there. Kill the Nereid that spawned out of broken platform. Back to boss.

You want to rinse/repeat from the first platform. Trolls are #1 priority, adds are #2 priority, boss is last priority.

AverageJo3Gam3r · September 2016

Don't watch the vMA speed run guys. They have spent hundreds of runs to get there they are. Go back 10 months and watch videos from when people were first clearing vMA. The three hour clear videos using your class. These will more accurately give you a picture of how to handle mechanics on your character.

Alcast, Andy, and other speed runners DPS is just soooo off the charts that they can ignore some mechanics that us mortals can't ignore.

Dagoth_Rac · September 2016

Be very careful with DoTs on final boss of Arena 5. She spawns adds and breaks platforms at certain health percentages. If you have Rending Slashes and Poison Injection and Rearming Trap and Endless Hail ticking away on her, she can start spawning adds and breaking platforms too quickly and you will be overwhelmed.

Start on a platform that does not have Power or Defense sigils. Take sigil. She is going to break platform eventually, cutting you off from sigil. So no need to save it. Use direct damage attacks to take her to 90%. A couple adds will spawn. Go kill adds and ignore boss. A troll will probably spawn. Go kill it immediately. If a troll breaks a platform, you cannot recover from that. Trolls are always a top priority. If you have to run to platform with Power and Defense Sigils on it to kill troll, run to a different platform after troll is dead. It is critical that you save Power and Defense sigils until end.

Back on original platform, keep using direct damage attacks to take boss lower. She may spawn more adds, I don't quite remember. As always, adds are more important than boss. Near 75% health, boss will glow red. Get out of there! She is about to break platform and one-shot you if you are still on platform.

Run to platform without Power and Defense sigils. Take whatever sigil is there. Kill the Nereid that spawned out of broken platform. Back to boss.

You want to rinse/repeat from the first platform. Trolls are #1 priority, adds are #2 priority, boss is last priority. If you have to run to other platform to kill troll, run back to original platform afterwards. No DoTs on boss so you can control when she spawns adds/does platform smash. When she glows red, run to last platform.

You have defense and power sigil here, right? Because now you are on a timer, not a health trigger. She is going to break that last platform soon so she better be dead soon. The defense sigil lets you ignore the ranged adds that pew pew on you nonstop. The power sigil gives you the DPS boost to burn her faster.

You win!

I actually asked my guildies in TeamSpeak if I should mute my mic while I was on that ice stage. Much yelling. It takes time and practice to master. You really need to micromanage enemy placement, enemy attack priority, enemy health levels, etc. All while avoiding power attacks, not standing in the red, constantly healing through all the unavoidable damage, not running out of stamina, etc. If you do this methodically, you can have breathers between adds and platform smash where only boss is up. I circle around her doing heavy attacks to lower her to platform-breaking health level. That restores my resources so I am topped off for run to next platform.

You'll get better at Ice Stage with practice, but this stage is never really enjoyable.

Swainburg · September 2016

UPDATE: Thanks to the various tips i recieved from you all, I was able to beat round 5 on my fourth try

I may ask for help during rank 9 too (;

Danksta · September 2016

Swainburg wrote: »

UPDATE: Thanks to the various tips i recieved from you all, I was able to beat round 5 on my fourth try

Good job man! I'm hoping to do the same when I get home.

Nidro · September 2016

Hell yeah man!!

Awesome Job :-)

I think you have more Problems in round 7 than in round 9 xD

But as i already said, once u get the hang of the mechanincs and what to focus first, ist getting easier and easier :-)

Yesterday i had my first run without dying on stage 7, died 2x stupidly at Boss in round 5 >.< which screwed up my flawless :-(

but best run ever so far hehe 53:17 with 534k Points \../

in Round 6 you have these "obelisks". kill wave after wave BUT there will always spawn one of These "bugs" walking straight over the map, just hit them once, and they will follow you until they die. Try to kill them next to an Obelisk with webs over it.

the bug will clean the webs if it dies next to it.

there will spawn a little webspinner "Spider" which will put webs on them again if u dont kill them fast enough ( they only have 20k-30k hp)
ONCE you "unlock" all 5 obelisks all adds/bosses will be stunned for 10 seconds? maybe 15 seconds im not sure.

so before you enter the Boss fight make sure to have 4/5 unlocked, to make it an easier fight :-)

You can also kill the Boss without using the obelisks, it just takes a bit longer.

You always have to make sure to have atleast 2 obelisks unlocked, because as soon as the 10 Spiders spawn u have to run to the "gold-glowing" Obelisk to make them disappear. when they appear, usually 1 is like "blinking" what means it turns off in few seconds, when this happens you must have another one unlocked because this one will glow gold then.

For the Boss fight: the Boss will spawn a spider that Looks like a "Spider daedra" , she's your first priority as soon as she spawns. she will slow your movement Speed. the longer u need the slower u get.
after a while she will spawn some adds, u can either ignore them and just circle the Boss and hitting her, or get away from Boss and Focus adds.
How you do it is ur decision, both works.

as soon as you unlock all 5 obelisks everything gets stunned and u have a time Frame of 10-15 seconds to put max dmg on Boss :-) makes it alot easier hehe

Yours Nidro~~

Nidro · September 2016

For Arena 7 there are a few mechanics especially at the Boss..

some general info for this Arena:

There will be these ugly flowers on the ground. when you step close to them, they will explode with a big AoE putting an very strong poison DoT on you ticking with 4-5k damage... you have to run to the green cleaning fields in the west or east.
Usually you die by it after 3-4 ticks. sometimes its pure RNG, i almost threw my Controller at the screen in this Arena sometimes lol.

Beware of These flowers dude.. they will also explode after few minutes not being touched.
What i learnt and how to avoid them in the most effective way is: always fight in the middle at the Arena.

I only move on the the side of the Arena if i know archers come at this portal to take them down fast, After i walk straight in the middle again.

Round 1-4:

Each wave of Monsters has usually 3-5 adds ALWAYS FOCUS ARCHERS!! they have to die very fast!!

The archers have a special attack which will execute you in 1 hit!

as soon as their bow glows orange/red u HAVE TO Interrupt them OR kill them withing the next 5 seconds!

when you dont realize they are charging their Special attack u will see ur character glowing orange aswell
-> this means OH *** I GOTTA INTERRUPT THAT B****

you can also dodge roll the attack, but remember the high cost of dodge rolling xD so u prefer interruppting or killing fast.

Once you reach round 3 there will spawn 2 archers at the same time. AS SOON AS U KILL THE FIRST OF THEM a Wamasu will spawn. ( try to kill them both at same time with your DoTs!!)

HE hits so damn hard, so think of using a sigil of defense here!

if he is getting in air with his front legs you should go back some meters (atleast 10 but take care of flowers exploding lol)
as the 4 electric balls will 1 shot u, he shoots 1 in each direction.

IN BETWEEN the rounds RNG will be your best mate.
There will spawn a argonian toxic mage in ONE OF THE CORNERS. He lets all the flowers in the Arena explode with a huge AoE damage. ONCE you get hit by one of the exploding flowers u will die 95% sure unless you are fast enough to reach the green cleaning field and the West or the East end of the Arena.

the poison DoT ticks for 4457 dmg for me each second + incoming damage from adds so you have MAXIMUM 2-3 seconds to reach that until you die.

These archers come in 30seconds time frames from stage 1 to 5. not sure about the time when they spawn but it feels like it would be something around 30 seconds.

Ok Lets talk about the last Boss now

Argonian Behemoth... Hes a real badass honestly

you have 15-20 seconds until he will summon 2 sorcerers. You should ONLY KILL ONE OF THEM
Why? -> after 5-10 seconds he summoned them, the behemoth will use his Special attack by just standing at one spot and yelling in the air. you will die in 1 hit no matter how much life you have when you are not Standing in the safe shield of the remaining sorcerer he summoned!

Thats why you should NOT kill the sorcerer.

IF you kill both sorcerers by mistake, you can Interrupt the Boss as soon as he will start to yell! but i never do it like that.

Also very important as soon as the sorcerers are summoned: each attack of the Boss will 1 shot you. somehow the sorcs increase the boss' power.
The Boss will always spawn in the North-east Corner when round 5 Begins. after 15 seconds~ he will summon the sorcs. i usually run to the one behind me and kill him. that way i can stay in the shield of the sorcerer next to the Boss and can kill him with melee attacks and dont have to use my bow. its just more dps :-)
you also avoid getting hit, by his ground waves which will 1 hit you when the sorcers are there, when u dont stand close up to him.

When he stops screaming, you can kill the sorcerer, and a few seconds later that argonian toxic mage will appear. kill him very fast and avoid poison explosions!!!

If your dps is good enough you can just dps the Boss down after the first round of sorcerers.

If its not enough you have to make another sorcerer round.

I Hope this helps

Yous Nidro~~

Swainburg · September 2016

Cool thanks!