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VMA Learnings - No Time for Buffs!
bhagwad
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I posted about my first VMA clear on my magplar yesterday, but I forgot to mention one important thing that helped me get through it in the end.
Sacrificing buffs for upfront damage.
My toon can get a high DPS, but has a "ramp up" time. Specifically, before attacking I need to ideally:
1. Cast channeled focus for survival + magicka recov
2. Entropy for 20% spell damage
3. Dawn's wrath skill for major prophecy
4. Ele drain for penetration
5. Harness magicka for protection
In VMA however, this is a death sentence. Specifically on stage 9 when the crematorial guard shows up, he needs to die now. Like RIGHT NOW. In a few seconds, he will start his breath and eat through your health. With my traditional set up, I didn't get any time to put up my buffs! As a result, many of my skills were being unutilized like ele drain and entropy.
So I made a sacrifice. I dropped both ele drain and entropy. I replaced them with inner light on both bars. - a passive skill that I never used, but which gave me major prophecy and max magicka.
I learned that in VMA, "time wasting skills" are death. The only buffs I uses, are the ones I can animation cancel into a weapon swap. This means no skills that benefit a "ramp up" style of play. No purifying light. No purifying ritual. Nothing that promises me damage in the future, and the expense of damage RIGHT NOW.
In dungeons on boss fights while the tank diverts attention from you, you can take your time and buff yourself up first. Set up ele drai, set up channeled focus, set up entropy, get major prophecy. And THEN your damage will go through the roof.
In VMA, you will die before you even start your damage. That *** needs to be taken down ASAP. The summoner has to go away now. Tout de suite!
Also on console we can't keep graphical track of the buffs. There's a numerical timer icon, but you can't choose which ones, and it's not as easy. No doubt far better players than me will manage to squeeze these buffs into their rotations, but I can't. So I make the sacrifice of loading up with passive skills like inner light and immediate damage skills.
Your mileage may vary...
Edited by bhagwad on November 27, 2017 3:49PM Sacrificing buffs for upfront damage.
My toon can get a high DPS, but has a "ramp up" time. Specifically, before attacking I need to ideally:
1. Cast channeled focus for survival + magicka recov
2. Entropy for 20% spell damage
3. Dawn's wrath skill for major prophecy
4. Ele drain for penetration
5. Harness magicka for protection
In VMA however, this is a death sentence. Specifically on stage 9 when the crematorial guard shows up, he needs to die now. Like RIGHT NOW. In a few seconds, he will start his breath and eat through your health. With my traditional set up, I didn't get any time to put up my buffs! As a result, many of my skills were being unutilized like ele drain and entropy.
So I made a sacrifice. I dropped both ele drain and entropy. I replaced them with inner light on both bars. - a passive skill that I never used, but which gave me major prophecy and max magicka.
I learned that in VMA, "time wasting skills" are death. The only buffs I uses, are the ones I can animation cancel into a weapon swap. This means no skills that benefit a "ramp up" style of play. No purifying light. No purifying ritual. Nothing that promises me damage in the future, and the expense of damage RIGHT NOW.
In dungeons on boss fights while the tank diverts attention from you, you can take your time and buff yourself up first. Set up ele drai, set up channeled focus, set up entropy, get major prophecy. And THEN your damage will go through the roof.
In VMA, you will die before you even start your damage. That *** needs to be taken down ASAP. The summoner has to go away now. Tout de suite!
Also on console we can't keep graphical track of the buffs. There's a numerical timer icon, but you can't choose which ones, and it's not as easy. No doubt far better players than me will manage to squeeze these buffs into their rotations, but I can't. So I make the sacrifice of loading up with passive skills like inner light and immediate damage skills.
Your mileage may vary...
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Aerithone✭✭✭Dont use ele drain, it is useless at vma. swap ur mundus to lover and change drain to aura for magickasteal.
almost all mobs there is 9k resistances, only 4th and 7th stage, if i remevber correctly, goes with 18k resistances.I will show you fear in a handfull of dust.0 -
rhapsodious✭✭✭✭✭
✭Uhhh a spell power pot will give you the major sorcery and major prophecy, and extra mag regen/a burst of magicka to boot.
Sweeps spamming while keeping the guard in DOTs and kiting as best you can made quick work of the guards for me.0 -
bhagwad✭✭✭✭rhapsodious wrote: »Uhhh a spell power pot will give you the major sorcery and major prophecy, and extra mag regen/a burst of magicka to boot.
Sweeps spamming while keeping the guard in DOTs and kiting as best you can made quick work of the guards for me.
Pots are really too expensive. Dying hundreds of times is costly enough with armor repair costs without crafted pots to add to it! After yesterday's VMA, my total gold in bank is 1782 with repairs.Edited by bhagwad on November 27, 2017 4:02PM1 -
casparian✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭I also double-bar Inner Light on magplar for vMA. That extra magicka is quite nice. In general, I recommend against having too many useable skills in vMA -- you want to be able to kill things and survive while using as few skills as possible, precisely because of situations like you're describing -- there are many times in vMA when you're just not going to have time to use more than 2-3 skills. While there are exceptions, most of the time I think if you don't have room to double-bar Inner Light for vMA, there's something wrong with your build.
I highly recommend Alliance War magicka pots -- they're quite cheap and grant Major Sorcery and Major Intellect.7-day PVP campaign regular 2016-2019, Flawless Conqueror. MagDK/stamplar/stamwarden/mageblade. Requiem, Legend, Knights of Daggerfall. Currently retired from the wars; waiting on performance improvements.0 -
bhagwad✭✭✭✭I also double-bar Inner Light on magplar for vMA. That extra magicka is quite nice. In general, I recommend against having too many useable skills in vMA -- you want to be able to kill things and survive while using as few skills as possible, precisely because of situations like you're describing -- there are many times in vMA when you're just not going to have time to use more than 2-3 skills. While there are exceptions, most of the time I think if you don't have room to double-bar Inner Light for vMA, there's something wrong with your build.
I highly recommend Alliance War magicka pots -- they're quite cheap and grant Major Sorcery and Major Intellect.
What are alliance war pots? Are they related to PvP?1 -
Izaki✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭rhapsodious wrote: »Uhhh a spell power pot will give you the major sorcery and major prophecy, and extra mag regen/a burst of magicka to boot.
Sweeps spamming while keeping the guard in DOTs and kiting as best you can made quick work of the guards for me.
Yeah the spell power pots are mandatory but solely once you know the arena aka, when you can get it done in about 40 minutes. While practicing, its an unnecessary waste of money/flowers.Edited by Izaki on November 27, 2017 4:13PM@ Izaki #PCEU
#FrenchKiss #GoneFor2YearsAndMyGuildDoesn'tRaidAnymore
#MoreDPSthanYou
#Stamblade0 -
casparian✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭I also double-bar Inner Light on magplar for vMA. That extra magicka is quite nice. In general, I recommend against having too many useable skills in vMA -- you want to be able to kill things and survive while using as few skills as possible, precisely because of situations like you're describing -- there are many times in vMA when you're just not going to have time to use more than 2-3 skills. While there are exceptions, most of the time I think if you don't have room to double-bar Inner Light for vMA, there's something wrong with your build.
I highly recommend Alliance War magicka pots -- they're quite cheap and grant Major Sorcery and Major Intellect.
What are alliance war pots? Are they related to PvP?
@bhagwad they're just like the trash magicka pots that drop in PVE, except they also grant Major Sorcery. They're called Alliance War Spell Draughts because you buy them with AP from the siege vendors in PVP. But you can also buy them in guild stores for much cheaper than crafted spell power pots, so I recommend them even for people who don't play PVP.7-day PVP campaign regular 2016-2019, Flawless Conqueror. MagDK/stamplar/stamwarden/mageblade. Requiem, Legend, Knights of Daggerfall. Currently retired from the wars; waiting on performance improvements.0 -
rhapsodious✭✭✭✭✭
✭rhapsodious wrote: »Uhhh a spell power pot will give you the major sorcery and major prophecy, and extra mag regen/a burst of magicka to boot.
Sweeps spamming while keeping the guard in DOTs and kiting as best you can made quick work of the guards for me.
Yeah the spell power pots are mandatory but solely once you know the arena aka, when you can get it done in about 40 minutes. While practicing, its an unnecessary waste of money/flowers.
True, but if you're dying hundreds of times because you're using skills to try to get the buffs, you're racking up the repair costs. You're dumping money either way. Alliance war pots are good suggestion though.
With that in mind, don't be afraid to use the sigils.Edited by rhapsodious on November 27, 2017 4:18PM0 -
Ertthewolf✭✭✭If you ever want an easy vMA clear try any stam toon and use werewolf all the way through. I only died 33 times on my first ever run through all the stages. It took me just five more runs to get a no death run....
With the right set up it can be a soloing monster. Hit me up if anyone wants tips
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bhagwad✭✭✭✭I also double-bar Inner Light on magplar for vMA. That extra magicka is quite nice. In general, I recommend against having too many useable skills in vMA -- you want to be able to kill things and survive while using as few skills as possible, precisely because of situations like you're describing -- there are many times in vMA when you're just not going to have time to use more than 2-3 skills. While there are exceptions, most of the time I think if you don't have room to double-bar Inner Light for vMA, there's something wrong with your build.
I highly recommend Alliance War magicka pots -- they're quite cheap and grant Major Sorcery and Major Intellect.
What are alliance war pots? Are they related to PvP?
@bhagwad they're just like the trash magicka pots that drop in PVE, except they also grant Major Sorcery. They're called Alliance War Spell Draughts because you buy them with AP from the siege vendors in PVP. But you can also buy them in guild stores for much cheaper than crafted spell power pots, so I recommend them even for people who don't play PVP.
Awesome. I'll check them out!0 -
Kaliki✭✭✭✭I can finish the arena consistently in just over an hour but feel exactly the same.
Every buff like Restoring focus has the potential to kill me/confuse me or simply run out when I could need it most.
So I only put things on my bar that increase my damage and that ideally don't have to be cast, e.g. Inner light, Structured entropy on both bars for the max mag and health.
I would not get very far using Alcasts vMA bar setup because the rotation is way too complicated and risky for me with Force pulse instead of Jabs and all the "utility" I actually don't need. Not that his setup is bad, its just much more difficult than jabsing enemies down and healing yourself at the same time.
Edit: But what would help with the long run up time to reach your potential: You can anticipate at least some of the nastier spawns and put down your aoe right before. But that knowledge comes from lots of practise... so again, I agree raw damage might be more useful than a utility spell for beginners.Edited by Kaliki on November 27, 2017 4:30PM- Templars: Slower by Design® -0
