VMA Question

dposdb14_ESO · November 2016

So, I've beaten vma 3 times now using this setup.
Stam Sorc
459cp (green = 86 warlord, 53 mooncalf, 14 tumbling. blue = 1 melee weapon, 1 bow, 54 thaum, 35 precise strike, 62 mighty. red = 47 quick recovery, 53 hardy & ele defender)
Attribute points = 15 health, 49 stam
Mundus = shadow
Gear = 3pc agility, 4/5 nmg, 5pc hundings
I use weapon damage enchants on weapons and jewellery with health enchants on gear. I like having 18hp unbuffed while running regen food it seems to fit me better.
DW bar - bloodthirst, bloodcraze, vigor, bound armaments, evil hunter, rend
Bow bar - poison injection, crit surge, endless hail, bound armaments, hurricane, flawless dawnbreaker.
I'm looking for suggestions on how to optimize my vma runs, skills/gear. I don't have vo/tbs gear so please keep that in mind, I know I want vo gear and am working on it but trying to optimize runs prior to getting.
It's really round 5,6,7 that gives me the most trouble.
Any suggestions is appreciated, thank you.

dposdb14_ESO · November 2016

Forgot to mention my stats selfbuffed with armaments, regen food and crit surge.
18416hp
24277sta
1742sta regen
3205wpn dmg
64.6wpn crit

Buffler · November 2016

This is my setup.

5 VO, 5 VIPER, 2 Kraghs.

34.7k Stam
710 stam regen (VO and dark deal is enough)
18k hp
71% crit
3600 weapon power (viper proc every 4 secs is lovely)

DW bar - bloodcraze, bloodthirst, steel tornado, bound arm, rearming trap, flawless dawn

Bow bar - endless hail/poison inj, crit surge, hurricane, bound arm, vigor, overload

Overload bar - dark deal, razor caltrops

I usually finish a flawless run in 50min.

IMO your stam seems far to low. You are better off putting 10 points in health instead of using glyphs. 5 nmg is better than hundings due to the armour shred.

dposdb14_ESO · November 2016

I'll be working on obtaining vo gear hopefully soon. Until then I'm wondering if nmg/hundings/agility will work the best or if I should use a 5/5/2 lime nmg/(hundings, red mountain, viper, etc.)/monster set.

I'm doing 15 health and 49 stamina with health enchants while running regen food because it gets me to 18k hp unbuffed, which allows me to survive with no resource issues (I've tried going more stamina with stat food but felt like I struggled more).

Reorx_Holybeard · November 2016

A few suggestions:

A high regen is nice for your first few trips through vMA but try to work on getting it as low as possible. VO is really nice but without it you should be able to do fine with a regen around 1100. Use heavy attacks and dropped potions (or crafted ones if you can afford it) to keep your stamina topped up. Don't wait until you're at 10% but learn how and when to sustain.
Use all the sigils! I'm guessing you aren't going for high scores so make use of as many of them as you can. The speed one in particular is handy as it increases recovery so you can run with a lower regen.
You're missing around 10k stamina which you should be able to get if you switch your build to use blue health+stamina food and all attributes in stamina. This is roughly equivalent to another 1000 weapon damage in terms of damage output so don't dismiss it. Use healthy jewelry and stamina recovery enchants as needed (I use one recovery and one healthy jewelry).
For Round 5 learn when to use the defense sigil for best effect and the others as well to keep alive. Remember that for this stage you completely control the when adds spawn in the boss round by the bosses health. When a Troll or add spawns quit DPSing the boss and focus on them. If you get low on stamina heavy attack and kite her around until you have enough.
I'm not sure what part of Round 6 you have problems with but it is the more mechanic heavy of the stages. Make sure you get every beetle and keep at least 2 pillars lit at all times. Keep moving to avoid the ground AoEs thrown at you by everything. Use the sigils!
Stage 7 can be annoying due to the exploding plants which will generally mean a quick death unless you are right next to the cleansing pool as a stamina build. The archers can be easily handled by using the defense sigil and the snares with the speed sigil. Keep your eye open for the summoners and kill them ASAP. Always try to stay far enough away from the plants so you can avoid them if you miss the summoner. If you get too many plants in the center area you can run near one and then run away from it to explode it and make room.

Izaki · November 2016

Cool off on vMA until you get VO. Its going to make it so much easier for you, its not even funny.

Try to finish it on your other characters now while you're working on VO. That's my advice, it will save you a controller/keyboard

dposdb14_ESO · November 2016

Thanks for the advice! Just some info on the rounds.

Rounds 1-4 usually can do these with just a few deaths (usually round 3)
Round 5 - it's the waves that give me a headache, the boss is pretty simple.
Round 6 - the waves are pretty simple, the boss gives me issues (I think my issue is that I'm trying to power thru it instead of approaching it methodically).
Round 7 - shrooms....
Round 8 - seems to be one of the easier rounds imo.
Round 9 - the last time I ran it I managed to clear everything including boss on 1 try.

I can swap around my jewelery for healthy/regen ones and change my attributes. I'm just really bad with pots and weaving in heavy attacks.

I'm also running this on ps4 which means I might be over buffing/dotting.

I'll work on obtaining VO gear once I find a guild/group (has to be a mature/adult guild) that runs trials during times I can commit.

Lukums1 · November 2016

dposdb14_ESO wrote: »

Thanks for the advice! Just some info on the rounds.

Rounds 1-4 usually can do these with just a few deaths (usually round 3)
Round 5 - it's the waves that give me a headache, the boss is pretty simple.
Round 6 - the waves are pretty simple, the boss gives me issues (I think my issue is that I'm trying to power thru it instead of approaching it methodically).
Round 7 - shrooms....
Round 8 - seems to be one of the easier rounds imo.
Round 9 - the last time I ran it I managed to clear everything including boss on 1 try.

I can swap around my jewelery for healthy/regen ones and change my attributes. I'm just really bad with pots and weaving in heavy attacks.

I'm also running this on ps4 which means I might be over buffing/dotting.

I'll work on obtaining VO gear once I find a guild/group (has to be a mature/adult guild) that runs trials during times I can commit.

1. You should always ensure you have 5 piece NMG gaze on dual wield and armor non-negotiable.
2. NMG 5 piece and 5 piece Viper is a better return hands down + Veli or Krags - Probably Veli if you have it
3. Round 1-4 as you mentioned should be fine it's more about getting the right sigils when.
4. Round 5. Round 3-4 you get the defensive sigil off the bat, clear the first lot of adds then go across for the healing sigil this is true for round 3-4 you'll be kicking yourself when you do this realizing how dumb easy it was.
5. Round 6. The boss IF you have 1 last webbed pillar you can thrive in chaos, trap, endless, poison injection and stab stab stab rotation to 30% with that setup or close to EASILY. You then grab defensive sigil drop endless hail poison trap if it moved and it will die OR very close to.
6. Round 7. Placement and RNG that's a l2p (learn issue) if you hug the walls the chances of spores are MUCH lower trust me.
7. Round 8. True mini boss at the ends fks me sometimes
8. Round 9. Yeah gg, good job.
Final comments - rapid strikes over what you're using way more damage, Viper + NMG (win) Veli preferred.
REGEN food on the waves you have issues with.

I cleared it for LOLS with 23k STAM and 22k HP flawless (for lols) you don't need the stam the burst is so bloody high it's generally a lol fest.

But as others have mentioned VO is very key for most all rounds for move ability and resource management.

Good Luck,

Luke

Lukums1 -PS4

Bobby_V_Rockit · November 2016

Its actually pretty encouraging you did it already with your current setu. I havent finished yet, kudos. *runs to get more regen*

Oreyn_Bearclaw · November 2016

You have a pretty high health and Stam regen build and you're stamina is really low. Your goal should be to slide down the scale towards more of a glass cannnon. You know VO will help, so I won't go into it. I would change your food to Max Health and Max stamina. You really shouldn't need all that regen. Then you can slowly scale back your health, both with stamina glyphs and attributes.

As for your skills, the only real change I would make would be to make room for trap. You will prob need to drop evil hunter. I don't bother with evil hunter. I run trash Stam pots on normal
Stages and weapon crit pots (health,Stam, weapon crit) on bossses.

dposdb14_ESO · November 2016

Bobby_V_Rockit wrote: »

Its actually pretty encouraging you did it already with your current setu. I havent finished yet, kudos. *runs to get more regen*

Thanks!
It was a struggle, the first time I cleared it I ended up on the last round for 3 days. I knew my dps was going to be low which I was ok with since I was more focused on survivability. For example, on the 2nd phase of the last boss fight, since I knew I wouldn't destroy all 3 crystals in 1 shot I would focus on 2 and then rebuff and drop down. Now I'm ready to go more offensive and get more efficient at it.
I have made a few changes based on the replies here. I put all my attributes into stamina and replaced my enchants to stamina. I replaced my jewelry to healthy jewelry with 2 stam regen and 1 weapon damage enchant. And I'm using stay food. Not logged on, but self buffed my stats are something like, 18kish hp, 33kish stam, 1400ish stam regen, 3300ish wpn dmg, 64.6 wpn crit. I plan on trying 5 nmg/5 viper/2 monster (need veli head or kraghs shoulder still). And then just to find a guild to run trials with that matches my playtimes to get VO gear.

Bobby_V_Rockit · November 2016

What was your health recovery may I ask?

Oreyn_Bearclaw · November 2016

Bobby_V_Rockit wrote: »

What was your health recovery may I ask?

Health recovery is probably the most meaningless stat to worry about in VMA. I do not suggest doing anything to try and buff it as you will lose out on something else. If you are on a Stam Sorc, you will get your heals from Crit Surge, Vigor, Bloodcraze, and Bloodthirst. The last 3 are optional once you have a few clears under your belt.

DRXHarbinger · November 2016

Cp is a little off imo.

Personally and get ready for hate. I stack 100 in mighty and 87 in thermaturage. Every attack you use is a dot. For instance with armaments up 42k stam and 4k weapon damage my tool tip on rend is 68k. Take those points out of there and into crit and it's a lot lot less. Works perfectly fine for mine. Plus bigger dot power = bigger self heals of thirst, craze and rend.

MakoFore · November 2016

i d swap out one of your ulimtates- probably rend - for overload- then on the overload bar put caltrops, rearming trap, dark deal, vigor and bound armaments. the utility will help alot. if u crit surge before laying caltrops u essentially put down a bed of spikes that hurts them and heals you to start every round. very helpful.

also u could probably get rid of blood thirst and blood craze and swap them for rending and rapid to do more damage. crit surge and vigor are plenty healing for a stam sorc.

just my 2 cents. im in a similar boat to u in terms of class and cp, and experience with vMA and i found those adjustments made it a much more fluid run for me.

MakoFore · November 2016

and also with dark deal u won't need so much regen- u can put more into damage and a larger stam pool with food. and of course with vo, u won't need stam regen at all

Buffler · November 2016

As i run VO i got 75 points in tumbling 100 in stam reduction cost and rest in tenacity