VirtualElizabeth wrote: »

Great thread...I have yet to beat vMA but it's still on my to do list. Do you foresee any changes to your suggestions after the Summerset update? Thanks!

@VirtualElizabeth -

Yep. I will try and update this when I can. Busy atm though!

@Joy_Division
I've completed VMA 11-12 times now, but I don't seem to be getting any better at it (quite the contrary).

I can get through the first 4 arenas with no deaths (unless I'm careless); I can (usually) get through the first rounds of stage 5 with no deaths. Then I hit the boss round. The main issue for me is when I get to the second island (with the heal sigil). When the adds spawn, I can't seem to stay alive no matter what I do.... except for the one odd round where RNG seems to be on my side.
Now, I have gotten up to stage 9 with 2 Vitality Bonus left - and got through stage 5 with only one or two deaths on the boss fight. The average seems to be about 10 for me.
Any specific advice? Even if I use the heal sigil and pop an Immov pot when the adds spawn, I seem to be getting hit with everything at once - feared, upper cut, shots from the Chillbane and Nereid and trying to deal with the troll.

Then there's round 7... seem to have the same issue with regards to getting hit by adds and things like the boss' Bite at the same time. Plus the damn poison plants. But that's RNG of course.
Those two are the rounds I still have the most trouble on, but I'd say stage 5 is the one I need to improve on, most, atm.

Thanks in advance

Great thread, congrats
You wrote

It works great … until you die, have to start over without any ultimate, which means you don’t get him down to 70% and thus have to deal with a Crematorium Guard.

Well, you don't have to make your life harder. Resurrect at the shrine, jump to your house or guildhall or friends house, hit some skeleton, fill your ulti, then return to MA. Normally you lose one minute and the alternative is to be killed 2-3 times until you fill your ultimate fighting that nasty Crematorium Guard.

For me this works and is a must, especially in the final round.

Many thanks for the 'jump down' strategy for the final round - that's how I made it. BTW it's not necessary to kill the guard - just fight him near the portal and if you kill the clanfear you will be able to climb up even if the daedroth is still chasing you.

I made it with petsorc, inspired by the video clip showing how vMA can be made with only one weapon (link). Some things about Summerset update:

• You can start with three full sets now (5 + 5 + 2) as the staff is counted as two items. I used Necro + Spinner + Grothdarr.
• You can use Mage Mundus instead of e.g. Lover as you have penetration bonus from the second 5-pieces set.
• If you die too much put some (10-15-20) attributes on health. 22k life buffed is *much* better than 18k and you can survive with 300-500 hit points in the situations where normally you just die.
• If you feel you are too slow transmute some jewelry to Swift. With my 2 Necropotence rings transmuted the final round was much easier. And still I had about 50K magicka.

---

Feel free to like this post

kerp wrote: »

Great thread, congrats
You wrote

It works great … until you die, have to start over without any ultimate, which means you don’t get him down to 70% and thus have to deal with a Crematorium Guard.

Well, you don't have to make your life harder. Resurrect at the shrine, jump to your house or guildhall or friends house, hit some skeleton, fill your ulti, then return to MA. Normally you lose one minute and the alternative is to be killed 2-3 times until you fill your ultimate fighting that nasty Crematorium Guard.

For me this works and is a must, especially in the final round.

Many thanks for the 'jump down' strategy for the final round - that's how I made it. BTW it's not necessary to kill the guard - just fight him near the portal and if you kill the clanfear you will be able to climb up even if the daedroth is still chasing you.

I made it with petsorc, inspired by the video clip showing how vMA can be made with only one weapon (link). Some things about Summerset update:

• You can start with three full sets now (5 + 5 + 2) as the staff is counted as two items. I used Necro + Spinner + Grothdarr.
• You can use Mage Mundus instead of e.g. Lover as you have penetration bonus from the second 5-pieces set.
• If you die too much put some (10-15-20) attributes on health. 22k life buffed is *much* better than 18k and you can survive with 300-500 hit points in the situations where normally you just die.
• If you feel you are too slow transmute some jewelry to Swift. With my 2 Necropotence rings transmuted the final round was much easier. And still I had about 50K magicka.

---

Feel free to like this post

you leave the Maelstrom area you have to begin the stage over again. There is no leaving and filling up your ulti on a test dummy and coming back to the final round of any stage.

@Joy_Division Just gotta say thanks

For Magblades who struggle with sustain step away from crippling grasp and try Debilitate. When an enemy is affected by debilitate and dies, you restore the cost of it. Huge sustain for when you really need to push for high dps on bosses or need to shield up from damage the immobilization and extra damage from crippling grasp does not compare to the sustain that Debilitate gives

rumple9 wrote: »

Cannot beat last boss on countless tries with pet mag sorc. Tried the one bar build but DPS is low and I guess it's less effective with the new nerfs to heavy attack

Well, I did it after Summerset, but with two bars, on the second bar I had Liquid Lightning, Daedric Prey and Power Surge. I used Liquid Lightning only for the pillars, before final round I used Elemental Susceptibility instead of Daedric Prey.

For me the hardest part was to destroy the pillars, there two transmuted Swift rings helped a lot. And when all the pillars are destroyed just grab all the sigils you can, you don't care for the points, wait him to teleport and throw your ulti. If you have the Power and Defense sigils you'll finish him, with Defense you can throw everything you have.

@Joy_Division

Wanted to thank you for this guide! I’ve referred back to it often and shared it with many guildies.

Proud to say that I got my Flawless title today! It was my 33rd run. Thanks for all your insight!

~Samich

Having trouble on Vault of Umbrage final boss. Magsorc with pet, volatile familiar. Have tried so many combinations of skills because of the different nature of this stage. Can't use a lot of the shock skills I'm accustomed to because they affect multiple enemies. So, often the argonian muckminders get too close together and go into their shock mode and you can't get them apart to kill one of them. I can't get them apart anyway because I'm too busy trying to avoid the boss, who moves faster than I do and hits me with a bleed effect. Boundless storm is also a problem doing damage to the argonian you want to keep alive for the shield, and timing doesn't help so much because I can easily end up too close to the guy I want healthy, even if I'm not using it when the protection dome goes up. Though it helps a lot on the earlier rounds to move fast and give some protection.
This is 'supposed' to be one of those stages where you set the pace by kiting and isolating and being selective, etc. But it isn't working for me. I've become pretty good at avoiding the poison plants< but controlling the adds while avoiding the boss is my problem.
I appreciate Deltia's guide, and his videos are helpful, but he uses a non-pet sorc and somehow the adds behave well for him.Its also pretty old and some of the skills are pre-nerf. And he's much better at aiming streak than I am!
Liquid lightning and blockade of storms -- sorc staples -- become a problem as well, because the adds are moving around and the guy you want to keep healthy gets harmed by these lightning aoes. Very difficult to keep them both alive. My pet also can damage the one I don't want to damage. Seems almost everything can and does.
Please understand that I'm an experienced petsorc handler...lol...Vet trials and all that. I know how to direct my pet (Sparky) with heavy attacks. I try to keep him focused on the boss by heavy-attacking the boss, but he seems to go and do his own thing anyway after awhile, or go to the wrong add if I heavy attack the one I want to kill etc....I'm not used to this and frankly wonder if it's bugged or something.
My whole build has long been based around necro for health and magicka, and I'm running gold necro staves. I usually run two lightning, but I have an inferno as well ive been trying here to keep the lightning under control, say with destro clench...
Can't really use destro uti 0n this either because boss always ends up too close to the add with the dome of protection. Shooting star is a problem also when the boss is too close. Which almost always happens somehow..

My second set is infal with gold jewelry but I'm willing to swap that out if it will help.

Any advice from seasoned petsorcs on this boss round would be appreciated. What skills do you use? What do you do about all the lightning splash damage and aoes affecting the add you want to protect?

Locriana wrote: »

Never mind...today I went back to one of my standard skill setups, and it wasn't too hard. Focus on dps-ing the boss the whole time was key for me. Only two domes to get through was a lot better! Moral of story: Trust your dps when you have it!

Yep apart from on Stage 5

Joy_Division wrote: »

DoTs DoTS DoTs. Every single person who has come onto these forums saying they can't DPS the crystals down has not used enough DoTs and relied too much on Force Pulse, Surprise Attack, and such.

Joy. Final boss. I put dots on the crystals, I ele drain the crystals. I heavy attack the crystals, I pet pulse. I don't use force pulse. I get up there a THIRD time afte fighting three daedroths, and there is VERY little damage on those crystals. WTF does it take???

Obviously, you can only put one dot on each of 2 crystals (sorc), as putting the same dot on two takes it off the first.
I have 81 points in Thaumaturge.
So im not sure what you mean by "enough dots". I re-apply. Theyre on two.

I'm max cp. My dps is crap due to all your suggestions (I understand why you make those suggestions, I'm just saying, this is the result). Purple food, no inner light, but necessary skills. Still I manage to stay alive and kill daedrothds and bone creatures summoned by Narkynaz I can't kill enough of because if even ONE gets to summon for more than a couple seconds while daedroths are chasing me, the Bone monster spawns. I know where they spawn now (on round 4). It doesn't help because it requires killing them ALL before they get to the spawn point or you have to deal with the bone monster.
Is is SO HARD, even after MUCH practice to get up top even once, though I can usually do it if I have an ulti and sometimes even when I cant. there is just no way to practice up there and see what works on these crystals.
It is so discouraging to get up there a third time and see so little damage I've done to them.
Even more so when you say "Every single person who has come onto these forums saying they can't DPS the crystals down has not used enough DoTs and relied too much on Force Pulse, Surprise Attack, and such."
How do you know this?
Because that is NOT the case with me. My main attack is dots.

But the advice you give here for the crystals does not work. How long has it been since you've done this? Have they upped the difficulty level? Because that sure seems to be the case based on your guide here.

I use necro, gold staves. I have infused ones with fire, shock, spell damage. I have nirnhoned. Tried them all. I have every monster mask. Different ones work better on different stages and rounds. Usually I use illambris or infernal guardian. Grothhdarr at times. Valkyn Skoria. I have tried with mother's sorrow, torugs pact, twice born star...I have nearly every armor set available to me. nothing works to improve my dps. I'm experienced in vet trials. I don't bother with trials armor because it has bonuses for bosses, and the hardest things to kill in Maelstrom seem to be the hard-hitting adds.

My spell damage is terrible, considering I have to enchant one ring with cost reduction, and take off all my usual dps enhancing skills. And use lover Mundas.

Please don't tell me it's all mechanics. It's also how you deal with the mechanics, not just knowing them. You say kill things quick, when the other dps-reducing advice given makes that impossible.

I know you are good, you did this at 300cp on a dragonknight. I did hear you. And somehow magically you get great dps out of nothing, as do some others here. I'd just like to known HOW you all manage that.

Please, if anyone can, be more specific how you are burning these crystals, because it isn't just dots gonna do it.

What Mundas? Lover or apprentice?
What skills for a pet sorc work here?

I'm using liquid lightning, blockade of storms, harness magicka, vol familiar, ele drain (which I've tested on skeleton and it really adds a lot of free dps, even using Lover stone) hardened Ward, power surge, and crushing shock only for interrupt. Boundelsss storm.

Everyone says if I can get through the other stages I can do this, but not if I have to go up and down this thing 20 times to kill those crystals, coming back down to firebreathing daedroth every time. Nobody has that kind of stamina IRL.

So, please, how does a pet sorc kill the crystals quickly. One, two or even three passes? While avoiding comets, snares, skulls and jumping down due to the dot up top. I even got to two walls on my trips upstairs. It's just ridiculous how little damage I did on them doing it this way...

So discouraging.

Locriana wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

DoTs DoTS DoTs. Every single person who has come onto these forums saying they can't DPS the crystals down has not used enough DoTs and relied too much on Force Pulse, Surprise Attack, and such.

Joy. Final boss. I put dots on the crystals, I ele drain the crystals. I heavy attack the crystals, I pet pulse. I don't use force pulse. I get up there a THIRD time afte fighting three daedroths, and there is VERY little damage on those crystals. WTF does it take???

Obviously, you can only put one dot on each of 2 crystals (sorc), as putting the same dot on two takes it off the first.
I have 81 points in Thaumaturge.
So im not sure what you mean by "enough dots". I re-apply. Theyre on two.

I'm max cp. My dps is crap due to all your suggestions (I understand why you make those suggestions, I'm just saying, this is the result). Purple food, no inner light, but necessary skills. Still I manage to stay alive and kill daedrothds and bone creatures summoned by Narkynaz I can't kill enough of because if even ONE gets to summon for more than a couple seconds while daedroths are chasing me, the Bone monster spawns. I know where they spawn now (on round 4). It doesn't help because it requires killing them ALL before they get to the spawn point or you have to deal with the bone monster.
Is is SO HARD, even after MUCH practice to get up top even once, though I can usually do it if I have an ulti and sometimes even when I cant. there is just no way to practice up there and see what works on these crystals.
It is so discouraging to get up there a third time and see so little damage I've done to them.
Even more so when you say "Every single person who has come onto these forums saying they can't DPS the crystals down has not used enough DoTs and relied too much on Force Pulse, Surprise Attack, and such."
How do you know this?
Because that is NOT the case with me. My main attack is dots.

But the advice you give here for the crystals does not work. How long has it been since you've done this? Have they upped the difficulty level? Because that sure seems to be the case based on your guide here.

I use necro, gold staves. I have infused ones with fire, shock, spell damage. I have nirnhoned. Tried them all. I have every monster mask. Different ones work better on different stages and rounds. Usually I use illambris or infernal guardian. Grothhdarr at times. Valkyn Skoria. I have tried with mother's sorrow, torugs pact, twice born star...I have nearly every armor set available to me. nothing works to improve my dps. I'm experienced in vet trials. I don't bother with trials armor because it has bonuses for bosses, and the hardest things to kill in Maelstrom seem to be the hard-hitting adds.

My spell damage is terrible, considering I have to enchant one ring with cost reduction, and take off all my usual dps enhancing skills. And use lover Mundas.

Please don't tell me it's all mechanics. It's also how you deal with the mechanics, not just knowing them. You say kill things quick, when the other dps-reducing advice given makes that impossible.

I know you are good, you did this at 300cp on a dragonknight. I did hear you. And somehow magically you get great dps out of nothing, as do some others here. I'd just like to known HOW you all manage that.

Please, if anyone can, be more specific how you are burning these crystals, because it isn't just dots gonna do it.

What Mundas? Lover or apprentice?
What skills for a pet sorc work here?

I'm using liquid lightning, blockade of storms, harness magicka, vol familiar, ele drain (which I've tested on skeleton and it really adds a lot of free dps, even using Lover stone) hardened Ward, power surge, and crushing shock only for interrupt. Boundelsss storm.

Everyone says if I can get through the other stages I can do this, but not if I have to go up and down this thing 20 times to kill those crystals, coming back down to firebreathing daedroth every time. Nobody has that kind of stamina IRL.

So, please, how does a pet sorc kill the crystals quickly. One, two or even three passes? While avoiding comets, snares, skulls and jumping down due to the dot up top. I even got to two walls on my trips upstairs. It's just ridiculous how little damage I did on them doing it this way...

So discouraging.

Have you tried grabbing the power sigil before you go up, heavy attacks work just have to keep strafing and dodge/block the skills

Joy_Division wrote: »

@Locriana

It sounds like to me that for whatever reason, you are not being efficient with your time at the Crystals. If you up there for a third time, then something can be done better with the approach if you have max CP.

OK that 300 CP Dragonknight isn't speced out for max damage and it kills the three crystals in one go. I look at the footage again and I am using 5 DoTS (Ash Cloud, Wall of Elements, Burning Embers, Burning Breath, Flames of Oblivion), I do not chase walls (so I am always DPSing rather than sprinting/moving), and not a single second is wasted doing things like looking at boss, unnecessary movement, etc. It's instinctual so it's not going to be easy for an inexperienced player to replicate, but it can be done.

First, thank you for your thoughtful reply.

Having more dots is obviously a good thing. (Can't wait to get my Magblade up there. But she's having trouble on the ice flows. For some reason that's the tough one, so far, for her.)

Everyone tells me to keep camera focused on the boss up top in the final round. Not that I do that, there is too much going on. It's tough enough avoiding the circles and not getting snared. How do you not move when a comet circle is under your feet and you must? Do you stay around one crystal? I guess not if you are putting dots on them all, unless they are ranged dots. I know the wall pretty much comes close to that first crystal on the left. I generally throw a dot and ele drain on the first crystal to the left, then proceed counter-clockwise to the next one and do the same with my other dot. Sparky (the familar) goes after whichever one I heavy attack of course. His choice if I don't do that.

I emphasize DoTs because the most common mistake I see with inexperienced players when I run with them is they rely on spammables rather than DoTs for damage. Magplars in generally have terrible DPS, but the crystal phase is a cinch for them because Blazing Spear, Wall of Elements, Reflective Light, Ritual of Retribution almost passively kills stuff and Puncturing Sweeps heals them through soul Churn damage

As a sorcerer, well, this is the class everyone parrots is "easy" for vMA, but now you figuring out that people just say things to sound smart rather than give an analysis. You tell me which spec might be more useful dealing with this round: One with 5 Dots, a simultaneous strong heal+DPS, an innate 10% damage amp, passive resource regeneration, etc, or one that has only 2 DoTs, an extra shield, and a pet that is hard to control that occupies two bar spaces? As for all the other rounds in the arena. how convenient do you think completely ignoring all the ranged attacks is ... think stage 5 on the Ice Flows for example? DK might not get the highest score by people who can do the arena blindfolded (and thus class weaknesses no longer matter) but it has more useful tools for learning how to do the arena.

If you feel my advice is taking your DPS to the point that it's preventing you from killing the stuff, that part of my advice is something you should not follow. In general, I feel it is always best to play what and how people feel most comfortable.

It's not easy to see exactly where you are struggling because the long paragraph seems to suggest getting up to the Crystals on the top and Bone creature summons (what happens after the Crystals) so I'm not really sure what's going on.

That long paragraph was a confusing mix of two things, sorry.

Pretty much all the preliminary rounds of the final stage are not bad for me to get through anymore, except round 4 is a beast. It was round 4 with the summoners of the bone colossus, which I felt was representative of the dps problem.
I simply do not understand how anyone gets all the Dremora Narkynaz (summoners) down fast enough. I was at the point last night where I knew exactly where they would spawn (and Sparky and/or infernal guardian can be a help there too, to catch them early) and I still could barely kill them before they start summoning. Inevitably a point comes when I must pay attention to the CG who is breathing down my neck, so to speak, and one summoner slips by and has been summoning a sec or two before I can get to them. It literally only takes one to summon that bone colossus. I have to kill the Bone Collosus every time. And not every time is a success.

Tonight I returned and guess what? The summoner spawn points were not the same. Only the first one was. So I have to re-learn them every time? Talking about round 4 here, still. Is this normal?

Considering that even if I do somehow manage to ever burn the crystals, the fact that I will have to come back down to another round of summoners I can't kill all of before the bone colossus, while dealing with all the boss mechanics, can you see how this looks impossible to me?

And thank you for pointing out the limitations for pet sorcs in Maelstrom. It's real.

You aren't going to like the advice I am going to give you, but I've always been of the opinion that telling me something I do not want to hear that probably is true is better than telling me something I want to hear that probably isn't true.

I know you are good, you did this at 300cp on a dragonknight. I did hear you. And somehow magically you get great dps out of nothing, as do some others here. I'd just like to known HOW you all manage that.

That DK doesn't have great DPS by any means whatsoever. It didn't. Not a single character I have ever played in this game at any time in any aspect was min-maxed by what is generally considered top DPS standards. Part of the reason is I'm lazy and do not respect my champion points, change mundas, switch morphs, race change, do 300 runs to farm that single piece of gear, etc., I do not do any of that. Another reason is that the difference between doing stuff like that, say switching from Apprentice to Lover, is not going to make that big of a difference because Apprentice is still quite good. To a perfectionist: a DPS parse of 45,000 might sound like a lot over 44,100, but to me it's too much trouble.

But mostly, it is because playing a build that does not have max DPS allows me to put out strong practical DPS in actual combat scenarios. What I mean, is because I run a backbar restoration staff and use Burning embers as a quasi spammable, I don't have to kite things like the crematorium guards (and thus do zero DPS). Instead I can be reasonable confident I can stand toe-to-toe with them in their dumb fire breath attack and still kill them. Anothr thing I dislike about max specced DPS builds is that I feel constantly strained for resources, which means I have to play more cautiously (and thus less DPS) to avoid getting in trouble. In short, the DK may *look* like it does great DPS, but in fact it is pretty much always doing *efficient* DPS, which is the key to any solo content. That is why it kills the crystals on one pass. Not because it's great on a target dummy - it isn't - but because it's a very efficient build.

Actually, I do like that advice, though it's more a philosophy of play style than advice, and I share it.

I do skeleton parses, because it helps me understand which skills combine well with others, timing, and sequencing, and is good for my fingers getting used to where things are. And helps me test what happens if I change one aspect of my build, all other things being equal.
But I completely agree that actual in-game experience is being able to respond to circumstances as they arise. I reeeaaaly don't like the min-maxing style of play. I've played with plenty guys who go for the dummy parse to get 40k+ dps, then they are so squishy even with great healers that they are dead half the time. That's really 20k+ dps. Plus whatever his fellow deepser had to not do, in order to res him. I like to play a good, survivable build with enough dps for the content.

Efficient dps is what I'm after here as well, and really what I'm asking about. Along with whether there have been changes in the game, like more hit points for some of these 'adds'. Like the summoners.

Is the bone colossus really supposed to be able to spawn when only one summoner gets a few seconds to summon? One video I saw, and it was from a good source that has been helpful, said you only have to kill one of the summoners who are currently summoning in the center of the arena, but that is SO not true. At least not now.

I do have a mag DK, my first character, that I dusted off for Summerset, I may try her out with this. I'd love to replicate what you do, or at least learn from it, but I can't play that video. Apparently it's too long a chunk. If I scroll to the end it just churns forever and never plays. I'd have to watch all , what, 3 hours to get to the end, and that's not gonna work. I have a good connection so I don't know what's up with that. I've never seen it happen before. I'd really love to see what you do with the final stage.

As for how to kill the crystals on a pet sorc, I'm not sure what to say. In my opinion every other spec in the game would have an easier time of it because they have more access to passive DoT DPS. Obviously there are a lot of 575K+ pet sorcs that do it quite easy, so it *can* be done. I would not use Boundless Storm though. It's been a long time since I've done this on a sorcerer, but I do just fine on other magicka classes without Hardened ward - do you really need this skill? Slotting Curse instead gives you and your pet more damage. I feel I'd want that over Boundless at the least. I also find Endless Fury on a sorcerer incredibly convenient.

Yes, I do need hardened Ward. Or empowered Ward, which is what I usually run because it lasts just long enough to res someone and it provides and extra 10% magicka regen. And with necro and a pet, hardened Ward is a huge shield, as it scales with magicka. Also it protects the pet. Sparky hardly ever dies if I'm using it. It also procs infernal guardian like crazy. I should probably remorph it back to empowered again...for the extra regen.
I've never talked to a sorc who didn't run Ward in Maelstrom, in vet raids, or any difficult content. Not one who survived. Lol.
I use harness magicka on back bar so I have a shield on each bar.
Tried your backbar resto idea, nirnhoned and golded it, it just doesn't work as well as Ward, harness, and power surge (which I also need to have any dps at all). Though I do think that's a pretty brilliant idea, to nirnhone a resto star, in order to give back some power to the dps skills on the bar.
Even leveled it just for this!
I'm quite dedicated to finishing this. It's become a thing for me.

But yes I think I do need daedric prey back on the bar. Boundless storm goes. Costs too much anyway. Someone suggested it for getting around up top.

Honestly, I've changed up skills and monster sets on all the harder boss rounds and have found that makes a big difference, because the mechanics of each stage benefit from different setups. At least for those who are struggling with it.

If you're having to go up there a third time...something just isn't right. That should not be happening, no matter what the build is. If you could post a video, you'd get more specific advice.

Thank you and I will try to do that. I have a lot of videos of old epic failures, but managed to get through those stages by reviewing them myself. This one may call for more expert critique.

I'm glad to hear that three times should not have to happen because it's grueling and disheartening.
But I really think they must've upped the hit points on those crystals. I hope instead it's just something I'm doing wrong.