People only do it for the rewards, those weapons are some of the best in the game.

No sane right minded person enjoys this kind of torture.

I don't remember anything special you had to do for the Spider boss, just that you have to keep making sure the swarms don't get you. Honestly the last time I went through that I managed to defeat that boss first try, then after having the most horrible time on the final stage and not beating it I gave up and never went back, so I can't remember much of the details.

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

Dear players,

So i did this maelstorm arena thing for the first time in my life on my nightblade...i have to wonder - is anyone having fun doing this or do people only do it for the rewards? I wanted to do it to collect the hunt leader and winterborn sets - of course so far i have gotten set pieces from EVERY other set except that...and since it would probably require 50 runs of content i don't enjoy i changed my decision on that pretty instantly.... either way i thought i could do it once at least but im a bit stuck on lvl 6 - it wasn't really that hard so far and up to the boss and even the boss isn't that hard (im on my nightblade);

The issue i have is that i can drop the boss's health to around 10% where it just stops going down further where i get killed by those spider swarms (i understand i have to stay in the light but often i get surrounded by them and then the light switches to another pillar and i have no way of running there since im surrounded).

Do you have to do anything special to the boss at the end that im not seing? I tried looking up some guides but didn't really get smarter from reading them...

Thanks in advance

Oh and i wish these sets could be acquired otherwise or be bind on equip...it's not like they are op or anything...

You need to free up those stones with webs on them by killing the beetles near them.

And a few people who do it claim to do it for the fun but the overwhelming majority don't enjoy it. I've been farming it lately I hate it but, in the past 4 days ive gotten Sharpened inferno, sharpened dagger, sharpened axe and, sharpened mace. Compared to the last time I was farming it the drops seem a lot better.. or maybe I'm just getting really lucky.. lol.

I'm gonna keep farming it for now but the burn out is coming.

After running it 400+ times and getting every weapon with BIS traits I now do VMA for fun and score I am and have been trying to hit a 600k score for some time now with no luck but since the run only takes 30 mins it's not a big life drain. But there are times when I know I'm under the 30 min mark and get to the last round and die because I was being stupid I quit and go back later on so I just do VMA for fun now

Feanor wrote: »

Round 6 is not that hard once you prioritize correctly. For the final boss it's webspinners -> Hoarvors to free the obelisks -> the spider daedra summon -> everything else -> the boss.

The spider daedra summon snares you, and the longer it lives the bigger the snare gets, up to the point where you practically can't move any more. That's the exact point where a spider swarm will spawn with the only free obelisk at the other end of the arena.

As per @Joy_Division and my own observations the boss seems to have an enrage on a timer, if you don't free all obelisks within 150 seconds (?) it's 50k+ spit will just kill you.

Very much like stage 9, stage 6 is a choreographed dance which gets a lot easier once you get the hang of the cadence.

As for the fun - personally I find vMA to be fun in a very oblivionesque way. It's maddening at times, but it's very addictive once you get it down.

Oh and please, it's Maelstrom Arena. Or vMA. Not anything else.

This is correct.

You must get the webspinners + Hoarvors. If memory serves if you miss two of them, you're probably screwed.

This fight is very resoruce intensive. Use the defensive sigil when the tree spawns. Use the power sigil when you super stun the boss.

CarbonX wrote: »

Feanor wrote: »

Oh and please, it's Maelstrom Arena. Or vMA. Not anything else.

vMSA works too.

No it doesnt. Its Veteran Maelstrom Arena, not Veteran MaelStrom Arena.

I enjoy the final round, I like the mechanics. Not so keen on the rest of it. I guess Seht's Flywheel is OK.

I think you can interrupt the enraged dart 50k attack...either that or roll dodge it or something. I don't think it's a guaranteed wipe. I usually only have to unweb the totems once to kill the boss with my magpetsorc. But this boss is tough when you start out, I got stuck on her for a long time on my mag DK first time I tried VMSTA

I remember the first time I tried MA I breezed through it, changed the difficulty to vet thinking it was not as bad as I thought, ended up getting stuck at 3 stages

1) Ice Ring, super easy to get overwhelmed
2) Spider daedra, some of the mechanics are very unforgiving
3) Theater of Despair, where there's just way too much going on

After a number of runs through it, I can get to the last stage fairly easily.

I still can't beat the last boss, but that's just because my ISP is screwing me out of my monies.

As many people stated, it's all about practice. Yes, you need to remember when stuff is going to happen so that you can react to them.

As for finding it fun...

To be honest I still prefer group content. vDSA is by far my favorite content in the game, and I hope more small group arenas will be released in the future. I don't mind vMA, but it's just not my bread and butter. That said, it's kinda fun once you get the hang of it. The only problem I have with vMA is that I like this kind of content for the challenge alone. Once the challenge is gone, it's kind of meh. It's not like trying to solo a dungeon, since it's already a solo challenge...

Funny thing about brains, once you finally succeed, you will like it too. Right now it's just dreadful, then you start killing bosses and get that adrenaline rush, and dopamine release after, and it's gonna be awesome for a while. Then will get the usual. Then you will return to it once you need something or are bored.

Farming it for the right weapons... well... nobody likes to farm for gear. It's like working in the game to be able to play it. Nobody likes it. Repeating content over and over makes it monotonous and boring, since all the fun comes from the challenge, and scripted fights lose their appeal pretty fast once you know the mechanics by heart.