VMA round 7.... and VMA in general. My thoughts

Frozenmosquito · September 2016

code65536 wrote: »

...
Similarly, the final boss fight is highly choreographed. There's a lot that goes on and a lot to pay attention to. And it's very unforgiving. One misstep is often all it takes to wipe. But once you've done it enough times, it becomes very, very easy. More than any other part of the arena, the final boss fight benefits the most from practice. What will almost certainly be the hardest battle of your first clear will turn into one of the easiest battles once you're on your 10th clear.

But since 5's difficulty is one of brute force, it doesn't really get easier like 7 and 9 does. Well, it does get easier, but not nearly by as much. Which is why 7 and 9 are much harder than 5 for beginners, but much easier than 5 for people who farm vMA.

Yeah I hear you man. To be fair, I could already see that to be the case, and 7 was not so tough anymore already. I was forced to restart my router a couple of times during the round 7 grind and after this post, and every time I had to restart from final round to round 1. Did that 4 times total, and at the last time I had already gotten used to the flowers. They still did spawn in ridiculous places and out of nowhere it seemed at times, but it got easier already.

As for round 9.. well, I was hoping to clear VMA from round 6 to end tonight, but final round of arena 9 is just a different berry altogether lol. Had to give up and come back tomorrow when there is more time to be wasted. The biggest problem I have right now with this fight is the beginning, just as he is teleporting up top there spawns a daedroth, clanfear, and a fire mage npc (spawns after I kill the first one). So 3 mobs, one of which is a pos. daedroth - who truly arent tough alone when you can circle them - but with ghosts and all the AOE's it becomes a pain and even with critsurge and vigor up I cant seem to melt him fast enough. Exhausting really. Im curious if there is a way to make this little section easier (apart from sigils).

Ive made it to the balcony good amount of times now and that part isnt too tough, but seems like always lacked the dps to burn obelisks quick enough before the dot becoming too big. Made it past it twice but first time didnt interrupt boss quick enough right after due to unawareness, second time a ghost got me lol

Fun times. I appreciate the input tho, good stuff.

Frozenmosquito · September 2016

mb10 wrote: »

Forget General Discussion, this forum needs a section called Maelstrom Arena.

Lmao

This.

Frozenmosquito · September 2016

Actually now after watching alcast's guide on round 9 I think my issue with that part is that im melting the boss too quick. He teleports first time at like 750k hp, so after I interrupt his channel he instantly goes to teleport again, while spawning all the adds AND the clannfear too. Tomorrow I will try to pop a defensive sigil once he teleports first time and ignore interrupting his channel until I kill the healer. See if that works better.

Joy_Division · September 2016

The thing is vMA 7 is not hard at all, it's full of RNG.

You should *not* be struggling with the adds. The only ones that are remotely threatening are the archer adds. The poison plants are dumb and nobody likes them, but the spawning poison mender is #1 priority no exceptions you must always be mindful of it and kill it. Occasionally a plant spawns under your feet and while this is annoying, let's not pretend it happens every run or even very often.

I do think the wamasu mini-boss is tough to get used too, but you just have to dodge his lightning spit and it's pretty much harmless because his one-shot AoE has such an long obvious tell.

The 4th round adds are piece of cake. 3 archers spawn = you grab defensive sigal, then go get a beer from the fridge, by time you come back they are dead.

The only thing in this round that actually kills me are the dumb poison plants.

Frozenmosquito · September 2016

Joy_Division wrote: »

The thing is vMA 7 is not hard at all, it's full of RNG.

You should *not* be struggling with the adds. The only ones that are remotely threatening are the archer adds. The poison plants are dumb and nobody likes them, but the spawning poison mender is #1 priority no exceptions you must always be mindful of it and kill it. Occasionally a plant spawns under your feet and while this is annoying, let's not pretend it happens every run or even very often.

I do think the wamasu mini-boss is tough to get used too, but you just have to dodge his lightning spit and it's pretty much harmless because his one-shot AoE has such an long obvious tell.

The 4th round adds are piece of cake. 3 archers spawn = you grab defensive sigal, then go get a beer from the fridge, by time you come back they are dead.

The only thing in this round that actually kills me are the dumb poison plants.

I actually didnt realise that defensive sigil interrupts missiles too or w/e you call them. Basically I thought magic only prior to this post

oh well

kadar · September 2016

Frozenmosquito wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

The thing is vMA 7 is not hard at all, it's full of RNG.

You should *not* be struggling with the adds. The only ones that are remotely threatening are the archer adds. The poison plants are dumb and nobody likes them, but the spawning poison mender is #1 priority no exceptions you must always be mindful of it and kill it. Occasionally a plant spawns under your feet and while this is annoying, let's not pretend it happens every run or even very often.

I do think the wamasu mini-boss is tough to get used too, but you just have to dodge his lightning spit and it's pretty much harmless because his one-shot AoE has such an long obvious tell.

The 4th round adds are piece of cake. 3 archers spawn = you grab defensive sigal, then go get a beer from the fridge, by time you come back they are dead.

The only thing in this round that actually kills me are the dumb poison plants.

I actually didnt realise that defensive sigil interrupts missiles too or w/e you call them. Basically I thought magic only prior to this post oh well

Yup, shield sigil reflects all projectiles and some channels. My favorite thing to do in the boss round of the last arena is grab the shield sigil when the boss starts his interuptable channel attack and not interrupt him. I take no damage and he passively damages himself. It's great.

NovaShadow · September 2016

After 4 hours on the last boss I gave up for my sanity. Best I got was getting him back down once, I found the stages before him a walk in the park pretty much but him...

I'm so close to finishing though and finally getting my title.

zuto40 · September 2016

Stuck in the very last round of 9 for weeks now, im not very big on pve so i havent given it a lot of effort but all the other arenas were easy to pass, only 1-2 deaths tops on them except for 5

Junipus · September 2016

My second piece of advice is never do vMA during prime time for whatever platform and server you're on. So many people are doing it that there's noticeable lag compared to later on or earlier and that gets you killed an awful lot more than mechanics.

Last time I tried it it was like playing in slow motion and my combat log kept showing being hit by nothing for 60% health, so I gave up and came back after 10pm and had no problems.

strikeback1247 · September 2016

Yeah round 7 is hard if you're not a dk. I farm vmsa on my stam dk and because of corrosive armor, I have a "get out of jail free" card whenever I get hit by a poison plant.

Juhasow · September 2016

Milvan wrote: »

Juhasow wrote: »

Guys if I was able to finish it with 163 cp, bad performance,weak gear cp 50 stamina potions from vendor then everyone can finish it.

We are talking about veteran here pup.

@Milvan I know mate , I finished vet

It tooked me 2 hours 12 minutes with breaks.

EDIT

Here You have prove if You dont belive. Look at my cp value , polymorph and title

strikeback1247 · September 2016

NovaShadow wrote: »

After 4 hours on the last boss I gave up for my sanity. Best I got was getting him back down once, I found the stages before him a walk in the park pretty much but him...

I'm so close to finishing though and finally getting my title.

You need to finish him immediately after he comes down. If you can't finish him, you don't have enough dps.

Juhasow · September 2016

strikeback1247 wrote: »

Yeah round 7 is hard if you're not a dk. I farm vmsa on my stam dk and because of corrosive armor, I have a "get out of jail free" card whenever I get hit by a poison plant.

I strongly reccomend Reviving Barrier ultimate on back bar for everyone who's stamina and not dk. It have same cost as corrosive armor gives ~35k shield for 30 sec without cp's and also HoT healing. Most of the time it buys enough time required to cleanse from poison.

Juhasow · September 2016

NovaShadow wrote: »

After 4 hours on the last boss I gave up for my sanity. Best I got was getting him back down once, I found the stages before him a walk in the park pretty much but him...

I'm so close to finishing though and finally getting my title.

I strongly reccomend to plant ground AoE on the place where boss spawns few seconds before it and then when Sigil of Power Spawns use it. That will allow You to create burst high enough to beat boss down to under 70% when he's going up and You'll also kill mage and crematorial guard easily because You'll still have sigil of power active.

NovaShadow · September 2016

strikeback1247 wrote: »

NovaShadow wrote: »

After 4 hours on the last boss I gave up for my sanity. Best I got was getting him back down once, I found the stages before him a walk in the park pretty much but him...

I'm so close to finishing though and finally getting my title.

You need to finish him immediately after he comes down. If you can't finish him, you don't have enough dps.

I got booted off on one side, he jumped down on the other and insta killed me with his spiny fire attack thingy. My dps is fine, I just didn't have a chance to actually get to him.

Juhasow wrote: »

NovaShadow wrote: »

After 4 hours on the last boss I gave up for my sanity. Best I got was getting him back down once, I found the stages before him a walk in the park pretty much but him...

I'm so close to finishing though and finally getting my title.

I strongly reccomend to plant ground AoE on the place where boss spawns few seconds before it and then when Sigil of Power Spawns use it. That will allow You to create burst high enough to beat boss down to under 70% when he's going up and You'll also kill mage and crematorial guard easily because You'll still have sigil of power active.

I've got getting him up top down pact, I don't use the sigils, saving em for later. The crystals up top I'm still working on improving my technique on.

Qbiken · September 2016

Was expecting a rant, was not dissapointed. Thumbs up to you OP

code65536 · September 2016

strikeback1247 wrote: »

NovaShadow wrote: »

After 4 hours on the last boss I gave up for my sanity. Best I got was getting him back down once, I found the stages before him a walk in the park pretty much but him...

I'm so close to finishing though and finally getting my title.

You need to finish him immediately after he comes down. If you can't finish him, you don't have enough dps.

No.

Once you're familiar with that fight, you can try straight burning him.

But there's no DPS race, and for people doing that fight for the first time, slow and steady is the best route. Doesn't matter if it takes 3 stuns to kill him, because if that's what it takes to familiarize themselves with the final stage mechanics, then that's what should happen.

First priority is to always keep an eye on the boss. Dodge his big skull attacks. Stay near him so that you can bash his channel. Second priority is to get the ghosts. It's usually not necessary to chase them (unless there's an add between the ghost and the boss)--just place yourself between the add and the boss. Third priority is to kill the summoners, but don't bother with them unless you have a break from taking care of the first two priorities.

Once you've collected the third ghost, activate the stun as soon as you see the portal for the Daedroth. Drop an ultimate on the Daedroth (it's usually near the boss, so your ultimate should hit both, but they are apart, bomb the Daedroth).

If you can do all this properly, it won't matter what your DPS is--you will win. When you start ignoring things to try to straight-burn the boss, that's when wipes happen. You can do that later on, once you've cleared it a number of times and are comfortable with everything that goes on. But until that happens, don't try that.

Oh, and the first thing I do after I am knocked down is to head to the center of the arena. The boss drops down to a random location, and if it's on the far side from you, you're pretty much screwed. That's why you should start moving to the center as quickly as possible, so that it won't matter where he spawns--you'll always be close enough to get to him in time.

Frozenmosquito · September 2016

code65536 wrote: »

strikeback1247 wrote: »

NovaShadow wrote: »

After 4 hours on the last boss I gave up for my sanity. Best I got was getting him back down once, I found the stages before him a walk in the park pretty much but him...

I'm so close to finishing though and finally getting my title.

You need to finish him immediately after he comes down. If you can't finish him, you don't have enough dps.

No.

Once you're familiar with that fight, you can try straight burning him.
....

Just beat him bro

Doing exactly that I might add. After finally getting the crystals down finally (crystals were imo the toughest stage here since I feel I lacked damage on them somehow. Probably its just all the dodging and avoiding the comets). But as I dropped down and was tempted to straight nuke him with all the powerups I instead took out all the adds and gathered all the ghosts (which werent hard to get). Right after the 3rd ghost I saw the daedroth and was like please lord not like this and instasyngergised. Dawnbreaker on boss and daedroth, after which boss had 150k hp with no adds or white ghosts. From then on just dodged one heavy skull attack and it was over. Best feeling in this game for sure to this point

This is what I did first stage :

I did as I thought out after quitting the attempt on the last stage yesterday. After nuking the boss from the start, right after first teleport, I ran straight for the shield powerup and right after for the healer add. After that the daedroth spawns, and the shield is still active, so can go after daedroth without problems. At this point tho you need to watch out for the bosses heavy skull attack, which did hit me on my successful final attempt, but I survived it. After that it was a little more damage on boss after which he teleports to the balcony. Down low a clannfear will spawn and another healer - take out the healer since it will not (or for me didnt) die after the huge final blast uptop. Then kill clanfear, what makes it easier is dropping an aoe like liquid lightning or hail of arrows on the glowing platform where you need to kill clanfear while your running towards it. Watch out for a lich crystal and kill clannfear, then head up.

For the balcony phase for me what began to work was nuking down 1 crystal as much as possible until I had to run in cover of the stone wall. Generally I would get the first crystal low, then after blast concentrate on another one and nuke it down completely. Here I dont really know what advise to give apart from just being alert with this phase and getting used to it, since when you aren't, you mess up the rotation and dont deal enough damage.

Finally when I got back down again I ran to center, then to boss and interrupted him. Right after I ran around and picked up all the powerups - haste, healing, and damage. If you cant pick up all then Id say prioritise haste. With it gathering the ghosts becomes very easy, and the whole thing becomes cake. Just watch out for skull attacks, I got hit twice during my final round but RNG was on my side and no white ghosts hit me when i was incapped.

Maelstrom greatsword charged

still BiS doe

strikeback1247 · September 2016

Frozenmosquito wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

strikeback1247 wrote: »

NovaShadow wrote: »

After 4 hours on the last boss I gave up for my sanity. Best I got was getting him back down once, I found the stages before him a walk in the park pretty much but him...

I'm so close to finishing though and finally getting my title.

You need to finish him immediately after he comes down. If you can't finish him, you don't have enough dps.

No.

Once you're familiar with that fight, you can try straight burning him.
....

Just beat him bro Doing exactly that I might add. After finally getting the crystals down finally (crystals were imo the toughest stage here since I feel I lacked damage on them somehow. Probably its just all the dodging and avoiding the comets). But as I dropped down and was tempted to straight nuke him with all the powerups I instead took out all the adds and gathered all the ghosts (which werent hard to get). Right after the 3rd ghost I saw the daedroth and was like please lord not like this and instasyngergised. Dawnbreaker on boss and daedroth, after which boss had 150k hp with no adds or white ghosts. From then on just dodged one heavy skull attack and it was over. Best feeling in this game for sure to this point

This is what I did first stage :

I did as I thought out after quitting the attempt on the last stage yesterday. After nuking the boss from the start, right after first teleport, I ran straight for the shield powerup and right after for the healer add. After that the daedroth spawns, and the shield is still active, so can go after daedroth without problems. At this point tho you need to watch out for the bosses heavy skull attack, which did hit me on my successful final attempt, but I survived it. After that it was a little more damage on boss after which he teleports to the balcony. Down low a clannfear will spawn and another healer - take out the healer since it will not (or for me didnt) die after the huge final blast uptop. Then kill clanfear, what makes it easier is dropping an aoe like liquid lightning or hail of arrows on the glowing platform where you need to kill clanfear while your running towards it. Watch out for a lich crystal and kill clannfear, then head up.

For the balcony phase for me what began to work was nuking down 1 crystal as much as possible until I had to run in cover of the stone wall. Generally I would get the first crystal low, then after blast concentrate on another one and nuke it down completely. Here I dont really know what advise to give apart from just being alert with this phase and getting used to it, since when you aren't, you mess up the rotation and dont deal enough damage.

Finally when I got back down again I ran to center, then to boss and interrupted him. Right after I ran around and picked up all the powerups - haste, healing, and damage. If you cant pick up all then Id say prioritise haste. With it gathering the ghosts becomes very easy, and the whole thing becomes cake. Just watch out for skull attacks, I got hit twice during my final round but RNG was on my side and no white ghosts hit me when i was incapped.

Maelstrom greatsword charged

still BiS doe

Congratz! Welcome to the cool kids vmsa club

leepalmer95 · September 2016

There is so much rng involved with MSA

On round 7 there is a chance you'll just die with nothing you can do about it...

If your melee a mob and a flower spawns under you, it's instant death.

I'd prefer if the flower has like a 2s delay when expanding to apply poisons of if the poisons dmg starts of low and scales quickly.

Because you get hit instantly sometimes when your not even in it and instant 6k tick...

Shader_Shibes · September 2016

Another flawless run *** up from flower spawning under mender bubble -_-

Soleya · September 2016

leepalmer95 wrote: »

There is so much rng involved with MSA

On round 7 there is a chance you'll just die with nothing you can do about it...

If your melee a mob and a flower spawns under you, it's instant death.

I'd prefer if the flower has like a 2s delay when expanding to apply poisons of if the poisons dmg starts of low and scales quickly.

Because you get hit instantly sometimes when your not even in it and instant 6k tick...

I honestly don't know why the 2 green puddles are there. If your a stam build you die from the poison before you can take 2 steps toward the puddle to cleanse it.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · September 2016

A shield sigil will make the 3 archers that spawn a breeze on stage 7 round 4. 7 is certainly the most RNG intensive, but most of it can be mitigated by positioning, spawn killing the summoner, and not taking the bait when an add is standing on top of a mushroom.

Slayer9292_ESO wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

There is so much rng involved with MSA

On round 7 there is a chance you'll just die with nothing you can do about it...

If your melee a mob and a flower spawns under you, it's instant death.

I'd prefer if the flower has like a 2s delay when expanding to apply poisons of if the poisons dmg starts of low and scales quickly.

Because you get hit instantly sometimes when your not even in it and instant 6k tick...

I honestly don't know why the 2 green puddles are there. If your a stam build you die from the poison before you can take 2 steps toward the puddle to cleanse it.

I have never called for a nerf to the arena, but if they toned down the poison just a bit, I wouldnt cry about it. Basically, you get a vigor and a dodge roll, maybe 2, and you are dead if you get poisoned on stam. On magic, you can shield spam to buy yourself some more time. Generally though, getting poisoned is pretty much a wipe unless you are really on your game.

Shader_Shibes wrote: »

Another flawless run *** up from flower spawning under mender bubble -_-

It's happened to me too. This can be avoided most of the time though. You have 2 adds that spawn, and usually one of them is much safer than the other in terms of where they are standing. I have made it a habit to always take a second or two to decide which one is in a safer spot, and this particular thing hasnt killed me in a while.

Brrrofski · September 2016

Slayer9292_ESO wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

There is so much rng involved with MSA

On round 7 there is a chance you'll just die with nothing you can do about it...

If your melee a mob and a flower spawns under you, it's instant death.

I'd prefer if the flower has like a 2s delay when expanding to apply poisons of if the poisons dmg starts of low and scales quickly.

Because you get hit instantly sometimes when your not even in it and instant 6k tick...

I honestly don't know why the 2 green puddles are there. If your a stam build you die from the poison before you can take 2 steps toward the puddle to cleanse it.

Even when you dodge roll into it with like 20% health you die

Juhasow · September 2016

WHat's most annoying about round 7 is day/night cycle. Maybe it's my graphic card issues but with day light every red circle or triangle is much harder to see almost invisible when at night everything have good visibility.