@FrancisCrawford Correct, it's a bonus to remaining lives. Obviously you'll also get a higher score from reduced time of not dying.

It's not like the sigils or anything. Die none, die 100 times, it will not affect anything other than score.

@rumple9 He gets empowered a bit each time. If he gets three, well, the same thing happens as when you get three, except his is a one-shot.

Locriana wrote: »

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

Regarding Pet aggro, go into your Controls and (re)bind Command Pet. You can always hold this key and Left click a target and your pets will go after the one of your choosing. Use this in circumstances where you have time to redirect them without using a heavy attack. I rebind this to Caps Lock, as it's in easy reach from the movement keys and my hand never has to shift. Pick a key that works best for you. (You can also Right Click and Command Pet to recall them for certain fights, but you won't need to worry about that here.) Use Command Pet in addition to the Heavy attack aggro, not just as a replacement for.

@Merlin13KAGL first, thanks for all the tips on the crystals. I’ll go over it several times I’m sure. Maybe post a video where I’m going wrong, I have plenty of them!

Second, oh wow. You’re obviously not on Xbox if you have Command Pet and can bind it to a keyboard!!!. I’m flipping out right about now. You computer eso guys have it SO much better than We Who Use Controllers.... if you could only see the struggle... ha ha ha...oh wait, it isn’t funnny...it’s awwwwwffffuuullll. But then I don’t like to sit in front of a computer so there’s that. But um, if there are any Xbox folks who know something no one I hav ever play with knows, as in is there something called Command Pet we can use and if so how (besides heavy attack of course), -lease let me know!

Thanks for all the friendly advice though, from everyone. The timings and such are really useful to hear, though a bit hard to get a handle on unless I see them.. I have a good bar setup now I think , and a respectable burn, which is what makes for survivability for me. I just need the timing down on the crystals, and I am definitely not there yet because I get knocked down too much and that is just too exhausting after awhile to make for a good clear head upstairs. I get the feeling that if I could be transported in fresh to the final boss with a ready ulti to get upstairs fast as soon as I get in there, I could do this thing.

But also, the lag is so real lately that my liquid lightning circle won’t go down and runs around with me. And I have it set to instant ground cast.

Well... Yeah, I give kudos to all console types. I suppose part of it comes down to what you're used to, but I don't want to think how fumbley I'd be if I ever tried to switch platforms. (Let's just say you'd feel a whole lot better real quick, I'm sure.)

The timing just takes practice, and I've still been known to mess it up here and there. The wall can be picky ~ if you're big toe is out, it will still knock you off. The main thing is don't be afraid to leave your DoTs working on one crystal and head to the next (towards the wall) early. Most of your ranged attacks can hit any crystal from any other cyrstal.

You are correct about the content right now. The good side is the double drops. The bad side is the bugs get buggier and sometimes even new ones crop up. (I've thought about making a post just as a bittersweet amusing collection of what people have experienced in there. (Venom calls with no venom caller is my most recent favorite, I think.)

@Raraaku - You shouldn't have to turtle the big argonian boss. Sure, he'll chomp and stomp, which takes away a bunch of your health, but between Swallow Soul and Refreshing path, within a few seconds you should be up to 100%. If you realy low, a single cast of healing ward and go right back to DPSing. It sounds like you are playing to conservatively. A Mageblade big advantage is the multiple HoTs going that should allow for aggressive play.

I'd only opt for crushing shock on rounds which you need a ranged interrupt (not stage 7). Use Cripple for the extra Dot and speed.

Yay! I just completed Veteran Maelstrom Arena for the first time, and I couldn't have done it without your guide @Joy_Division Thank you!!!

What is Necrotic Pulse? Final Boss attack. After he teleports, at the beginning, I interrupt boss. Then I drop ulti on him and spawning Crem Guard, kite around and between them to keep CG in ulti. it usually burns CG, he dies and Boss burns down to 70 quickly and I have no trouble getting to platform, killing clanfear quickly, and portalling to top.

Other times I die instantly and ‘Necrotic Pulse’ is the culprit at 25k+ damage. I have been sure to interrupt boss, so this makes no sense. I know his ground aoe but i have to stay in it to keep CG in ulti. And that usually works. My shield is up and so is power surge so I don’t get why sometimes this works so perfectly and sometimes I’m instakilled. Which sucks when I’ve just dropped the ulti and I’ll have to spend a crazy exhausting round or two getting ulti back.

Anyone know?

@Locriana

Is high magicka from Mage Mundas for shields? Is it equivalent to apprentice for damage? Pets still scale off it right? So, basically your damage is coming all from magicka? This is interesting..

With 49.8k magicka I have 24k ward, my familiar reports 4.1k damage in the popup of the skill and I can do 22-23k damage on dummy when filling my ulti (hitting more than 23k is really hard, but for filling the ultimate this is not needed). 1985 Spell damage, 41.9% spell crit.

Do you have attributes in stamina to be able to use blue food? What is your stam pool?

Nope, nothing on stamina. 10.1k stamina, 616 stam recovery. If you really struggle for stamina maybe you can use tri-stat potions.

Wait, how do you get magicka enchants on rings? You mean magicka recovery?

Yep. Sorry for not expressing myself clear enough. Just checked - two mag recovery and one spell damage. 1233 mag recovery and the poor 376 Health recovery.

Okay wait a minute...you list storm atro as what you use and then say never use it in vMA, which is what this is, so I don’t understand...

It stays there from the previous setup, I don't use this slot, only destro ultimate.

How are you getting magicka recovery or do you not need it because of high magicka pool? (interesting concept really)

From heavy attacks, however in the final round this is clearly not enough, but magicka restore potions do help (the simplest ones, which are looted from dead bodies).

One hint: when you kill the clannfear and the portal opens you can use a potion and wait a bit to fill your magicka before going up, the portal is active at least 15-20secs. You can kill the dremora (if there is one) and clear the field for later, the nastiest situation is when you fall down, Crema Guard and the clannfear are waiting for you, and there is some Gandrakyn near the center to add some unpredictable damage. In this situation if you go through a ghost you are just dead - the ghost damages and slows you, Crema guard reaches you with his fire breath, your ward goes down in no time and here comes the extra damage from that dremora just enough to kill you... Much better to clear the field before climbing.

And another one: if you are a vampire feed yourself to level one.

Is this where the 18% extra speed from Swift helps you?

It helps in the whole round:
1. When I fall down I can run (not sprint, run, I am faster than Crema Guard) to the portal to accept the fight there, when I am there I have a couple of seconds to cast LL or Ele Blockade, Power surge and pulse before starting the fight (ward is cast during the run, it is the first) and I have good chances to kill the clannfear and jump back up even if the Crema Guard is still alive. When I fight the Crema Guard I can circle around him while holding Attack button (i.e. doing Heavy attack) and his fire breath almost misses me.
2. When I go up there is no problem to catch first two walls (my sprint is fast enough to catch the second one) and the faster movement saves me from sprinting or dodging away from the comets.

Can you please list what your champion points look like?

Blue: 81 Thaumaturge, 49 Staff expert, 65 Elem expert, 35 Spell erosion, 20 Elfborn.
Green: 66 Tumbling, 16 Shadow ward, 81 Tenacity, 32 Arcanist, 44 Warlord, 11 Siphoner.
Red: 81 Bastion, 37 Hardy, 37 Elem defender, 37 Thick skinned,11 Light armor focus, 47 Ironclad.
Maybe not perfect but good enough for me

This is obviously a character crafted for vet Maelstrom.

No, I made it for soloing normal dungeons because it take at least hour to form a group if you want to farm specific ones. For vMA I only transmuted the jewelry. Currently farming Automation set (swords and divines armor) for my Stamblade. Much easier now because vMA learned me to keep my ward always up.

[EDIT]
Did some minor changes, still not familiar with these drafts and edit the comment after posting.

@Locriana

Just a note, don’t know if you noticed but on your back bar you don’t have a destro skill so you won’t get any of the destro staff passives.

I switch to front bar as soon as possible, just cast the skill and go back to front.

I do prefer a flex spot for this stage, as I need rune cage on round 4 for the summoners (makes all the difference for me), and switch to Crushing Shock for final round.
If you have any ideas for that please let me know.

Just an idea: the summoners move really slow so what will happen if you slow them down a bit more using Blockade of Frost? Theoretically the one in the ice blockade will practically stop and you will have enough time to deal with the other one if any, or just to finish him. I mean ice destro staff for the back bar. You run two destro staves, don't you?

You sure have a different take on CP than I do

Maybe you are right, I selected them myself so as I said maybe they are not distributed perfectly. Got enough sustain for vMA and to solo normal dungeons which I made this build for.

BTW I made my first score in vMA 3-4 days ago - 147k Took me 3 1/2 hours and ton of deaths, that 15 bonuses for not duying ended on round 7. Normally I play vMa in 2-3-4 days, 1 - 1 1/2 hour per day, in the morning before going to work (thanks again @Joy_Division for the advice to play some rounds without little kids around ) and that was the first time I finished vMA in one try. If you leave vMA for tomorrow you don't receive any score. Now I have plenty of destro staves - fire, lightning and ice, nirn, sharpened... but still no bow. So I suppose the farming will continue.

Are you relying a lot on light and heavy attacks? That could explain why this works.

Heavy attacks, I run Lightning staff on my front bar and I don't attack with my back bar.

Also, usually people put more into arcanist, less into tenacity , then you only need one recovery glyph.

All my skills are AoE/DoTs so I place them and put some heavy attacks between renewing. The nastiest target for this build is a world or dungeon boss (1.8 - 2M HP) which moves really fast and makes my ele blockade and liq lightning almost unusable. And if he is an uppercutter too I have real troubles jumping here and there and blocking and rolling. Doable, but boring. Someone like High Kinlord Rilis (Banished Cells I) or Uulgarg from Wayrest sewers. Snapjaw is an uncomfortable target too with all that stuns while the Nestmother in Auridon (and Bone Grappler in Malabar Tor, and that spider in Rivenspire, Aesar) is a piece of cake.

One more important question...Are you on Computer or Xbox (console)? As there seems to be a ‘command pet’ that one can bind to a key on computer and we console users have nothing like that....

Computer. But isn't Light attack enough to send the pet to the right target? On that video I posted (1bar petsorc) there are some moments in the icy round - the guy there attacks with LA the troll, then stops attacking to get to the island where the troll is to bash him and then finish him, and the pet headed directly to the troll because he was the last one attacked. Think that in Round 8 (fire round) there were some LA moments too, pets got dizzy from all that broken pillars there.

You've got this! Don't be hesitant to just bash him if you're that close.

congrats, healing staff is actually quiet good. helps with sustain, also useful in pvp for that reason (on my DK Iam always resource starved, other classes probably not so much). 2H is okay, could use some buff, but at least works reliable in difference to dual wield weapons. 2nd run will go much smoother/faster.

btw, if you got a projectile reflect skill (defensive sigil, dk wings, s/b ulti) you can also reflect the channeled attack from the final boss (it doesnt work in round 8 versus fire-casters, but works in round 9, at least it did when I ran it the last time). so if you can maintain the reflect you do not need to interrupt/bash him, just kill the healer+CG, keep evading the skulls and pressure the boss from afar). ofc Ulti+burn to 70% is the fastest way, easiest maybe too IF you manage to get him to 70%, e.g. your dps is good enough. I for my part usually avoid this and just take it slow (even waiting for the 2nd CG and killing it before going up). As a DK the Ult it also part of my sustain, so I tend to keep it for when I need it for sustain, not to boost my damage mainly.

@Locriana

Congrats!

I got so used to being thrown off and fighting CGs that it became routine

Yes, and when you are able to constantly go up and destroy at least one pillar your ulti will be full, so even if you die it will be easier on the next try.

he does teleport pretty quickly

One question: When a portal appear I can place LL, and ele blockade. When do they take damage? When the boss appears or even before it, when they are placed on the portal? In some cases the boss started not on 100% but 99% or 98%, but I am not sure when exactly he took the damage. Can anyone clarify this?

Never tried to place the ulti so early, i.e. tried it once, when the boss has appeared, and the result was not good - he was about 75% and I had to fight the Crema Guard avoiding his necro attacks.

[EDIT]
Just noticed this:

Whatever Sparky was doing worked eventually, if I could keep alive.

Well, my familiar never dies, obviously my ward is enough to protect him. My Martiarch dies from time to time and this is one more reason to try with only one pet.

I recall the familiar only on Round 6 (I think this is some bug, pets are gone when you start the round) and on Round 7, when the boss screams. They just jump/fly here and there producing sounds that are sometimes funny and sometimes awful

Nice!

Just beat vet Mealstrom for the first time a couple hours ago, don't think I would have been able to make it without this great guide to help my along, it's been absolutely invaluable!

I went in with my stamblade, and despite me internally freaking-out about how I'm going to actually do this, I managed to get through most of the early stages with only a few deaths and without much headache. Stages 5 and 6 had me worried for a few runs, but managed to eventually get through them.

Stage 7 was def a tough one for me, and not just for the poison plants. Had trouble dealing with the boss' piling on bleed damage and the adds spawning and attack at once, often had me going from near full health to critical, died quite a few times there, especially with that damn stomp cc and bite it does.

And stage 9 was hell for me, I felt like I had to focus on so much at the same time, I had the keep healed, check my resources, burn any deadroths that spawned, keep an eye on the boss, block/interrupt his attacks. And up top with having to dodge aoe, block the skulls, get behind the walls, all while keeping health up and dpsing the closest crystal... What really got me thru in the end was slotting Blood Craze instead of Blade Cloak. Survive and dps got much easier with it, and managed to clear it on the next attempt Felt SOOO good!

Thanks again for your hard work on maintaining this guide, you can count me as another happy customer! Now i'll have to try for a second run soon...

Koovster wrote: »

Just beat vet Mealstrom for the first time a couple hours ago, don't think I would have been able to make it without this great guide to help my along, it's been absolutely invaluable!

I went in with my stamblade, and despite me internally freaking-out about how I'm going to actually do this, I managed to get through most of the early stages with only a few deaths and without much headache. Stages 5 and 6 had me worried for a few runs, but managed to eventually get through them.

Stage 7 was def a tough one for me, and not just for the poison plants. Had trouble dealing with the boss' piling on bleed damage and the adds spawning and attack at once, often had me going from near full health to critical, died quite a few times there, especially with that damn stomp cc and bite it does.

And stage 9 was hell for me, I felt like I had to focus on so much at the same time, I had the keep healed, check my resources, burn any deadroths that spawned, keep an eye on the boss, block/interrupt his attacks. And up top with having to dodge aoe, block the skulls, get behind the walls, all while keeping health up and dpsing the closest crystal... What really got me thru in the end was slotting Blood Craze instead of Blade Cloak. Survive and dps got much easier with it, and managed to clear it on the next attempt Felt SOOO good!

Thanks again for your hard work on maintaining this guide, you can count me as another happy customer! Now i'll have to try for a second run soon...

What was your setup? How did you stay alive? I'm trying to run it with my stamblade and I'm stuck. Most of the help that I find out there is geared toward magicka users, so it would be good to find out what it took on the class that I'm actually using.

Gratz @Locriana @Raraaku @Koovster and everyone else that got their clears!

It will get better the more you do it and you can testify to all those that still think it impossible. With the event over, it will go back to the normal bugs vs the special event bugs

kerp wrote: »

@Locriana

Congrats!

I got so used to being thrown off and fighting CGs that it became routine

Yes, and when you are able to constantly go up and destroy at least one pillar your ulti will be full, so even if you die it will be easier on the next try.

he does teleport pretty quickly

One question: When a portal appear I can place LL, and ele blockade. When do they take damage? When the boss appears or even before it, when they are placed on the portal? In some cases the boss started not on 100% but 99% or 98%, but I am not sure when exactly he took the damage. Can anyone clarify this?

Never tried to place the ulti so early, i.e. tried it once, when the boss has appeared, and the result was not good - he was about 75% and I had to fight the Crema Guard avoiding his necro attacks.

[EDIT]
Just noticed this:

Whatever Sparky was doing worked eventually, if I could keep alive.

Well, my familiar never dies, obviously my ward is enough to protect him. My Martiarch dies from time to time and this is one more reason to try with only one pet.

I recall the familiar only on Round 6 (I think this is some bug, pets are gone when you start the round) and on Round 7, when the boss screams. They just jump/fly here and there producing sounds that are sometimes funny and sometimes awful

@kerp , they'll start taking damage a couple seconds before they actually visually spawn in, but they'll be immune prior to that. For your regular AoE's, it doesn't hurt anything to place them early and get a head start. If you're using ult, you want to be a little more precise, but remember, Destro Ult has a 2 second wind up anyway, so that will help with not losing any damage from it.

You used to be able to full on burn the portals in various content. Fortunately they fixed this (it was cheese) and now they can neither deal, nor receive damage nearly as long as they once could. The collision is placed before the actual enemy is, though, so you can still get physically hung up on the location where they will be. Something to keep in mind.

Also, you can keep pets up with Hardened if you time it right, just don't run yourself out of magicka in the process, when you can just resummon instead (this mostly only applies to the Behemoth)

jlb1705 wrote: »

Koovster wrote: »

Just beat vet Mealstrom for the first time a couple hours ago, don't think I would have been able to make it without this great guide to help my along, it's been absolutely invaluable!

I went in with my stamblade, and despite me internally freaking-out about how I'm going to actually do this, I managed to get through most of the early stages with only a few deaths and without much headache. Stages 5 and 6 had me worried for a few runs, but managed to eventually get through them.

Stage 7 was def a tough one for me, and not just for the poison plants. Had trouble dealing with the boss' piling on bleed damage and the adds spawning and attack at once, often had me going from near full health to critical, died quite a few times there, especially with that damn stomp cc and bite it does.

And stage 9 was hell for me, I felt like I had to focus on so much at the same time, I had the keep healed, check my resources, burn any deadroths that spawned, keep an eye on the boss, block/interrupt his attacks. And up top with having to dodge aoe, block the skulls, get behind the walls, all while keeping health up and dpsing the closest crystal... What really got me thru in the end was slotting Blood Craze instead of Blade Cloak. Survive and dps got much easier with it, and managed to clear it on the next attempt Felt SOOO good!

Thanks again for your hard work on maintaining this guide, you can count me as another happy customer! Now i'll have to try for a second run soon...

What was your setup? How did you stay alive? I'm trying to run it with my stamblade and I'm stuck. Most of the help that I find out there is geared toward magicka users, so it would be good to find out what it took on the class that I'm actually using.

Koovster, brave soul starting out on a stam character, but it comes down to what you're most comfortable with. I haven't gone in on Stamden or StamNB yet myself.

@jlb1705 , on other stam characters , Vicious Ophodian helps a lot with sustain. Much of the rest of it involves preemptive Vigors (have it running before you need it) and lots of roll dodging to give yourself some brief immunity while you burn stuff down or let DoTs do their thing. Also, if you take the healing morphs of the first two DW skills, and even the healing morph of the DW ult, if you wish, those will help a lot at first too.

Last thing I'll pass on for everyone: Don't be afraid to adjust your setup. Whether that's a skill tweak, an enchant, even the order you have things slotted in. All the guides are just that. Adjust what you need to to your own playstyle and you can make it work.

Kudos, again, to @Joy_Division for such a thorough guide and keeping people inspired!