Veteran Maelstrom Arena Feedback

Mister_DMC · March 2018

Learn to play or L2P is considered an insult by many people and for a long time myself as well but it really means that. Master the arena, your class and ultimately the game. Once you have, you'll know and you'll feel like Neo b in the matrix. All I see is numbers now lol and how to overcome in game obstacles.

DarcyMardin · March 2018

I *am* a granny so I’m currently doing normal MA on several characters (yeah, I know...cakewalk). If and when I ever L2P I’ll move on to VMA.

kadar · March 2018

Lynx7386 wrote: »

I hope to never see a solo arena in this game again. Solo content does not belong in multiplayer games.

Wait, wat.

Bobby_V_Rockit · March 2018

SupremeRissole wrote: »

Just you wait, someone will start a thread saying that vma/perfected vas weapons should be crown purchasable.

Or purchasable for AP...

ForsakenSin · March 2018

VMSA was one of the hardest things ive done in eso ... i actually managed to brake my controller lol but once when i finished it best felling ever and i don't care about scoreboard ect so i take it easy and its relaxing unless you get lag and bugs and still no lighting staff...

i do wish VMSA weapons were better like they were before nerf and i hope they introduce 2 man vmsa or another solo run.

ForsakenSin · March 2018

If you want easy tips ect ask this guy @Lukums1 VMSA god lol ive never knew for example using suppression field on the dwemer bosses the 3 bosses will make then not go invincible instead you can keep on dps them easy

Septimus_Magna · March 2018

I got The Flawless Conqueror title after farming vMA for a week or so on my pet sorc.
My runs usually take 1h or a little less, I try not to use sigils so I have a chance to get on the weekly leader board.

Still havent got a single lightning or fire staff, and I need both.
I keep a list of the drops and the RNG seems a bit strange to me.
At this point I have 4 resto staffs and 4 bows but only one destro (ice) staff.
The chance of getting a resto or bow should be a lot smaller than destro staff because there are 3 options.

The loot system is already a lot better than it was before but I dont really see the point for a MMO to force you to grind weeks/months by yourself just to get one weapon.

I strongly feel that the final chest should give a different weapon each time until you're gone through all weapon options.
This would still leave in some form of RNG but at least you'll know the chance of getting what you want is increasing.
Its really dis-encouraging to get 10 weapons in a row that are useless for both magicka and stamina builds.

The time I have to play ESO is pretty limited so I would rather spend it with a group, doing something I actually enjoy.

A token system would also work if you dont need 50 vMA runs to get the item you want.

Luminide · March 2018

I play at 300 ping on average so I know how frustrating it can be. Not to mention ping spiking higher than 300 can create some really bs moments.

Took me around two and half hours to figure out the mechanics and clear my first run on my magblade , and had really *** luck with my drops while trying to get an inferno staff.

Finally after about ten to thirteen runs across a week I decided to ditch my 'safe' destro/resto build that I was using while getting used to the mechanics, in favor of damage focused setup and got flawless two runs later and my inferno staff in the same run.

It'll take some time to get used to but imo it's extremely satisfying once your runs start getting more smooth and you finally get the drop you've been waiting for.

frausty · March 2018

Lynx7386 wrote: »

I hope to never see a solo arena in this game again. Solo content does not belong in multiplayer games.

I'm sorry, what??

So you believe the entire ESO storyline should be eradicated and leave what? PvP and Trials? Get rid of all the zones and great storytelling that defines this game? A large number of MMO's have a single player storyline because that's how you develop your character. This is a RPG after all.

I would say this viewpoint would result in 80% of the game content being removed and probably the same amount of the player base.

As for the Arena itself, this absolutely should be in the game as it is a training zone to make better players. It also happens in real life - a member of a running club for instance will still go and run a marathon solo just to see if they can and if it will make them a better runner - as well as for the achievement of course.

Lukums1 · March 2018

Excuse me...

Congrats on the win but jeez... what's with the tears?

We ran it THOUSANDS of times for the elusive "sharpen flame staff"

These days you have trait changes... and it's 1/7 not 1/144 so ... stop complaining and get on with it aye...

Beardimus · March 2018

nalimoleb14_ESO wrote: »

So, I finally beat Vet Maelstrom Arena for the first time. I did this on a melee magicka DK and had absolute rough time, and probably would have saved myself some headache by rolling a force-pulsing magicka Sorc specifically for the arena. I was hoping to acquire an Inferno staff, but something told me I wouldn't have that much beginner's luck. Sure enough, hours and hours and hundreds of deaths later, I walked away with a crummy Maelstrom axe - a nice, giant "F**** YOU for your participation".

The idea of being entirely reliant on crappy RNG to acquire the Maelstrom weapon that you need for your build is such a massive flaw. Now, certain people can grind Vet Maelstrom Arena in record timing and that is fine, very impressive even, but Vet Maelstrom Arena is not grind-able content. It's not meant to be grind-able content. Players should not have to grind through this arena tens or hundreds of times in order to have a chance at acquiring the one Maelstrom weapon they can actually make use of. It's not rewarding content to grind, it's not fun, and there are enough players who have either a) started Vet Maelstrom and have given up completely on beating it, b) beat Vet Maelstrom once and never went back, c) Won't even go near it at all, to realize that RNG just does not for this arena.

If you're able to make it through this arena then there is no reason why you should not have your pick at which Maelstrom weapon you want from the chest, after all the hours and potions you've burned getting through it. Content that you need to grind is not "new", and it's not "refreshing", it's more of the same tedious crap, and in Vet Maelstrom's case it's just plain torture to expect people to grind through the hardest single-player content in the game for a chance at the weapon they want.

Having completed Vet Maelstrom for a crappy axe I can honestly say that I will not be setting foot in this arena again until Zenimax rethinks the Maelstrom weapon drop system, and it blows my mind that it has been this way for years despite constant feedback from the ESO community year after year that it's not acceptable as is. I can guarantee that if players who clear Maelstrom can choose their weapon at the end, it would incentivize players to actually give Vet Maelstrom a go, or complete it, knowing that at the end of the torturous content, they're at least getting a reward that they can sink their teeth into.

In anticipation of the "LTP"s, I'm not here to listen to how easy it is to /faceroll Vet Maelstrom if you're breezing through the arena with your already-acquired Maelstrom weapons, or OP Sorc builds. None of that changes the fact that Vet Maelstrom arena is not content that's meant for grinding. In its current state Vet Maelstrom is good for one thing: title bragging rights.

Sorry OP your mindset is all wrong. Do vMA for the challenge. Go back i to it and get better. My first pass was like yours probably 30hrs, my second pass took 3, i was very surprised. Within ten runs I was down to close to an hour.

You can't compare your first pass to how long it nor.ally takes as you are learning mechanics etc.

Doing content once and asking for a nerf or change is pretty sad, it's the best solo content in the game.

Ask yourself if you are not prepared to get better at the pinnacle of solo content why do you NEED that staff? With it the majority of all other content you will be OP for. You o ky need that staff for getting faster at vMA or Trials.

ALSO. You are out of date, the Weopons are not as crucial as they once were and you can transmute trait now. So honestly OP you are way off the mark.

Run it again. I did Voriak no death second run i couldn't believe it.

LASTLY LOL at the subtle Sorc bashing. Honestly its not 2016....

Qbiken · March 2018

Do it a second time and you´ll ask yourself why you found it so difficult the first round.

Do it for the score, stay for the weapons. vMA is much more enjoyable then

Beardimus · March 2018

Tannus15 wrote: »

Mister_DMC wrote: »

This is exactly the point, the secret of this content is that it made you a better player whether you knew it or not. Try the arena again, I bet it takes you a manner of hours. You don't really need the staff, the arena already worked it's magic on you.

This here.

The vma staff will give you between 1k and 2k dps.

you will have gained more than that just by running vMA for the first time. To finish the arena you have to step up, you have to nail your rotations, keep up your buffs and use all the tools available.
I highly recommend it to every dps who wants to really understand their build.

Spot on.

Do it to enjoy it, and get better. Go back to improve your time / ability. Most mates I know find 10k DPS in there from rotation / setup etc.

Weapons are a wise point. Do content because its good or a challenge forget this bloody grinding / what do i get mentality. It makes content suck.

FloppyTouch · March 2018

I got to round 5 and just gave up been back twice now and still just give up at round 5. I have done every vet content in this game with out that staff and im not big into running things over and over.

When I realized that even though it's bis but not needed I didn't waste anymore time on that head ache of an arena. I'm the kind of guy that likes to clear something then never return. So once I did all the stuff that I was told I needed the staff for there was no drive to finish it.

Gratz to ur clear I'll be having fun in pvp

TarrNokk · March 2018

After 100's of deaths I am stuck on level 6 in VMA. I decided, no loot can be as good that I must continue this tedious torture. I just don't need it and I doubt, I would do better with it.

greylox · March 2018

Dymence wrote: »

Far easier now than ever to get your weapon fast with the transmute system.

And you're wrong about it being good for title bragging rights. Everyone and his granny can clear it by now.

You'd be surprised, at a guess, I'd say 5-10% of the players have done it. I got to the poison level but haven't been back in over a year because it's too long and intense and not my cup of tea. They need to give people more of an incentive to go there. I hate it.

Bevik · March 2018

greylox wrote: »

Dymence wrote: »

Far easier now than ever to get your weapon fast with the transmute system.

And you're wrong about it being good for title bragging rights. Everyone and his granny can clear it by now.

You'd be surprised, at a guess, I'd say 5-10% of the players have done it. I got to the poison level but haven't been back in over a year because it's too long and intense and not my cup of tea. They need to give people more of an incentive to go there. I hate it.

Are you saying that I'm in that max 10% of players who have completed vMA? And I've done it with multiple chars. I'm proud of myself. I wish I could do Flawless but no way.

greylox · March 2018

Bevik wrote: »

greylox wrote: »

Dymence wrote: »

Far easier now than ever to get your weapon fast with the transmute system.

And you're wrong about it being good for title bragging rights. Everyone and his granny can clear it by now.

You'd be surprised, at a guess, I'd say 5-10% of the players have done it. I got to the poison level but haven't been back in over a year because it's too long and intense and not my cup of tea. They need to give people more of an incentive to go there. I hate it.

Are you saying that I'm in that max 10% of players who have completed vMA? And I've done it with multiple chars. I'm proud of myself. I wish I could do Flawless but no way.

Only a guess, I know PS4 and Xbox figures are lower but that includes anyone that's ever logged on, not regular players, so I upped it a bit considering that and that more people play pc. 10% would be my upper guess, which is ok I suppose considering it's elite content . If top players had nothing to challenge them then they'll leave.

mzprx · March 2018

i am currently on the last stage with my stamSorc and the Argonian stage with my magSorc. one of my guild mates (a Flawless Conqueror on all of his many characters) suggested the stamSorc as the easiest class to do vMA with, so i took my VO/NMG/Velidreth gear, levelled up a new character (stamSorc) and got through to the final stage. that is where i'm stuck for now.

then i saw one of Alcast's videos (don't really like the guy, everything is "ripperoni" and he swears too much for my taste, but he does know his game and provides some great advice) where he stated that one can get through vMA just by spamming shields and holding the left mouse button (heavy attacking/shield spamming magSorc, obviously). tried it, worked like a charm, don't get me wrong, i died a lot, but all i basically did was just that. Surge, shield, Volatile Familiar and HA. i'm stuck on the Argonian stage because those bloody flowers are kind of unpredictable (and they spawn right beside me every time, of course).

because of my work/family i do not have the time right now to spend the whole day trying to beat vMA, so this is where i am right now with both of my vMA experiments. and, to be honest, i feel like i will not get any further any time soon. couple of things prevent me from really trying again.

- RNG. it is a pain to get through vMA for me. i am not a young guy with lightning reflexes any more, i play on PC using a controller due to health reasons and although people tell me that if i got through to the last stage (on my stamSorc) i can definitely finish it i am not in a hurry because i may not get the weapon i need and that disappointment alone will be enough for me to never do vMA again

- repair cost. on my first try i spent over 30k gold to repair my gear. on my second try it was over 100 repair kits. i know of better use for my gold, i still don't have all my gear gold on all my characters, for example and i don't have that many repair kits any more.

- i have done almost all veteran content in this game without any vMA weapon. notable exceptions are vMoL and those new DLC dungeons.

don't get me wrong, i would love to wield me some vMA staff or shoot that shiny vMA bow, but knowing my luck i'd get one of those on my 678th run and it really isn't that much fun running the same content over and over again (for me, at least), especially when it will drain my bank and take way too much time.

tl;dr - i know, i should "git gud"..

Feanor · March 2018

At this point I'd be happy if there weren't random lagspikes. Sometimes the pools in stage 7 take seconds to actually activate and purge the poison. Stability is the biggest issue the arena has for me.

Bevik · March 2018

Feanor wrote: »

At this point I'd be happy if there weren't random lagspikes. Sometimes the pools in stage 7 take seconds to actually activate and purge the poison. Stability is the biggest issue the arena has for me.

Good point. Newer players in vMA spends hours and the game lags so much after 2 hours I had to restart the game because of that. Just unplayable. I could get to the last stage but there so much lag I die because of that.

But lowering graphics and using minimum add-ons helped a lot.

Asardes · March 2018

I did about ~85 runs with ~100 weapon drops including leaderboard rewards and got pretty much every weapon that could be useful, in good traits, before you could even change them. In fact I have so many Maelstrom weapons I even gave them to my leveled, yet inactive characters, just to save storage space on the lowbie "bank" ones; same can be said about IA/VO gold jewelry. Statistically I wasn't particularly lucky, but I think most people on the forum tend to greatly exaggerate their misfortune in finding the "ideal" weapon among the drops. I do agree that the arena itself is boring after a number of runs, and some of the bugs are extremely frustrating, especially NPC position desync (particularly arenas 5 and 8). But overall it's a great place to test and learn your build; also one of the better spots to level 3-50 without assistance. The frustration of running content repeatedly has been much decreased by the advent of the trait change option. Since every vMA completion gives you 4 crystals, you can re-trait a weapon after 12-13 runs, and by that time there's a probability of around 50% of getting the right type (ex. inferno staff). One advice I can give is to do the arena on classes that are less popular, such as Templar, DK and Warden, and claim an additional weapon as leaderboard reward at the end of the week in addition to the dropped weapon from the initial run. http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Maelstrom+Weapons

Asardes · March 2018

Also, one thing I noticed when farming gear in this game is that the RNG seems to be seeded in relation to your character, so you may get a succession of items of the same type if you play that character, especially in a tighter time frame, but not the others. So rotating through 2+ characters doing it may yield a more uniform spread of weapon types at least. While I was farming vMA intensively (up to 5 runs a day) I was doing it on 4 (Stamina DK, Magicka Sorcerer, Magicka Templar and Stamina NB), and only completed it on the 5th (Stamina Warden) much later, and only once.

Septimus_Magna · March 2018

Lukums1 wrote: »

Excuse me...

Congrats on the win but jeez... what's with the tears?

We ran it THOUSANDS of times for the elusive "sharpen flame staff"

These days you have trait changes... and it's 1/7 not 1/144 so ... stop complaining and get on with it aye...

I agree its much better compared to when Orsinium launched but how is the chance 1/7?

2H: 3 weapon types
S&B: 4 weapon types
DW: 4 weapon types
Bow: 1 weapon type
Destro: 3 weapon types
Resto 1 weapon type

Total: 16 weapon types

1/16 doesnt sound bad but if you look at the actual chance of getting what you want it still pretty small after 10 runs for example.

5 runs: 28%
10 runs: 48%
15 runs: 62%
20 runs: 73%
25 runs: 80%
30 runs: 85%
35 runs: 90%

Generally speaking about 10% of the players need to run vMA more than 35 times to get the weapon they want.
Its probably those players that you hear complaining about the current vMA drop rates.

Asardes · March 2018

There are actually just 6 types of weapons according to enchant - Cruel Flurry, Rampaging Slash, Crushing Wall, Merciless Charge, Thunderous Volley, Precise Regeneration - which are further subdivided for the first 4 due to having multiple weapon types. The loot table was equally weighed according to enchant type, then subdivided further by weapon type in those cases. For example you have an 1/6 chance of getting a Crushing Wall weapon (destruction staff), and of that an 1/3 chance of getting an Inferno one. So the overall chance of getting an Inferno staff was 1/18. The chance of getting a Thunderous Volley (bow) or Precise Regeneration (restoration staff) is 1/6 respectively since that enchant type was only found on that type of weapon, so it's quite normal to get much more of those. The average chance of getting an inferno staff after 20 runs was 1-(1-1/18)^20 = 68.1% while the chance of getting a bow after 20 runs is 1-(1-1/6)^20 = 97.4% considering the chance of each drop independent from the previous ones. That's explains why Inferno Staff was much harder to get than Bow, and even more so without re-trait.

GrigorijMalahevich · March 2018

Anotherone773 wrote: »

Valera Progib wrote: »

You are couple of years late with your whine, mate.

Now vMA is easier than ever with transmute system. You know, there are people that did more than 500 runs for their inferno sharp staff and still had no luck. Tell them that vMA is not grindable

If today was 2016 - I could’ve agreed with you, but it is not, so git gud.

How is it up there on your divine pedestal? Not everyone started 4 years ago. In fact, i bet there are even fewer people that were playing 3-4 years ago in game now than there are people that think "git gud" is cool. It's not mate, it just makes the person saying it sound like a male donkey.

People during "that time" did vMA without 10000+ video guides on utube. You can argue all you want, but the real difficulty of vMA is no where close to what it used to be. (bug fixes are also included). My first clear was done on my magsorc using dual wield swords seducer+magnus, no monster helm, willpower jews... Using trapping webs as a spammable DPS skill, as I had no idea how to DPS... It was a real challange without any guides, but it was fun.

Now we see all the kids crying about how hard or difficult vMA is - totally irrelevant complains, people should git gud.

kylewwefan · March 2018

Congrats on the clear! Hopefully you got something useful to you!

BKTHNDR · March 2018

Reading through this thread, I've noticed that everyone who says vMA is a cake walk is also running some sort of DPS build. I'm a Magicka Templar healer. Am I supposed to respec my entire build just to get this done? I'm somewhere around 380cp and have completed normal MA but vMA is a different beast.

reiverx · March 2018

The biggest problem with VMA is that the difficulty changes astronomically depending on the class you're using.

So with that said, congrats on taking a magDK through the content.

Acharnor · March 2018

Working on first clear - I already know that regardless of whatever weapon the RNG Gods bestow I will never go back. There is a very small % of amazingly talented, dedicated players who can dominate this thing and for them I am sure they feel others should earn it as they have.

I don't know what the right answer is. I tend to be stubborn and keep coming back to this arena for more humbling embarrassment and humiliation.

For me it will be to just finally do it! The weapon is secondary.