Probably around 150 deaths. Maybe more.

Not sure how that translates into time. Finished levels 1-3 no problems. After that it got pretty serious pretty fast.

Also back in the day it didn't save your progress so if you left you had to start from scratch every time. I only cleared it after it saved your progress and that was around 5 hours in total for that fully saved session.

All the practice sessions up until then would add up to much more, but wouldn't make sense in todays context seeing as how all that repetition is no longer required.

If it started with the saving right away, I'm gonna guess it would have taken me 25 hours or so. Brutal.

I'd say it took 6-7 hours total.

The last boss probably took me 2 hours.

When vMA came out, there was no way to save your progress. You'd always start at stage 1 when you came back. You can imagine how annoying it was to practice the last boss, which is/was by far the hardest, when you'd have to go through the whole 9 stages just to get some practice in... and how annoying it was to give up, knowing you'd have to do the whole arena just to keep practicing later.

The feeling was awesome when I finally did it. That feeling was quickly changed when I opened the chest and found a well-fitted Para Bellum Helmet. That was a truly appropriate reward.

First clear I started on Friday night, and finished Monday night. Between 10-15 hrs, I'd say. Score was just over 100k, if I remember right. Countless deaths (~20k gold in repairs).

Only hit two walls - Stage 6 with the Spider Daedra, and Stage 9 final boss.

Stage 6 was just a major culture shock. There's soooooo much to watch out for! The spider webbers, the hoarvor spawns, hitting the obelisks (usually with something blocking the view) with the goop if the hoarvor dies to AoE too far away, escaping the stupid little spiders when those lit up obelisks like to switch off just as you sprint to them, and the next lights up on completely different side of the arena, finding and DPSing the baby daedra spider, and so on. Took hours of wiping to get a hang of that one.

Stage 9 final boss was just a DPS issue. I needed another 2-3k DPS to do it painlessly, but without it the Crematorial Guards took too long and I ran into problems. A spike would come up from below as I circle-strafe, or all ghosts decide to converge, and the clannfear loves to rush in and tail swipe. But I was kinda stupid and was doing it with epic gear, no golden pieces, not even the weapon. But as soon as I golded out the weapon, second run was significantly easier. And when I got the Maelstrom staff (Lightning) on the 4th-5th clear, which I also golded out, that upgrade was more than enough to make the whole stage pretty trivial.

And from there, it took 2 weeks and 26 clears to get first Flawless Conqueror.

Best part, after doing vMA so much, even DLC vet dungeons feel ridiculously easy.

never even tried....

I've not actually cleared it yet.

I keep finding more interesting things to do.

I'm guessing, I don't actually know. I ragequit several times before there was the ability to save progress. I didn't go back for 6 months or so. When I committed to getting my first clear, I only did one round a night, for the sake of my sanity and my marriage

Rough guess. I don't know how many hours I actually spent in the arena on my first clear. I did it first with a mag DK.

.

Around 3 hours or so. Not sure exactly, because it was in Orsinium update.

I am estimating as I'm not sure. I never cleared VMA until well into being able to save the arena you were on.

I spent ~17 hours on the final area (multiple sittings) alone, so this really doesn't seem all that far fetched.

The way you worded this whole thread is just odd...

But, it took me about 3 days. I got stuck on stages 3 and 4 on the first day, but kept at it until I got really really stuck on stage 7. Took a break for a day and got to final stage where I went a bit insane. Took another day break and finished final stage in a few hours.

Was then able to complete the whole run 2 more times that day.

Kova wrote: »

I completed on my third attempt on live. I don't count when it was in pts because everyone was using "THE BEST" setups possible and breezed through the mechanics. @asneakybanana was one of the first, and he was shaving time off a week after it hit live. Neat stuff.

Yup probably spent at least 2 if not 3 days of play time on the PTS when it was available. Was trying to do it on a mag dk and it was rough to say the least. Think on my clear run it took me ~4 hours to get the last boss down on my DK and I think I spent maybe 6-8 hours on that clear run. Eventually I swapped to sorc and after doing vMA literally countless times Im able to pretty easily get 30 minute runs when I am in practice.