On The Road to Flawless

kylewwefan · May 2018

After some discussions and information gathering we’ve decided to begin working on Flawless Conqueror. Taking some things into consideration going full glass cannon mass murder machine mode StamBlade.

Level 1 started off kind of rough. IKR. I’m wandering wtf is going on. I had just swapped gears over and didn’t do it right. Had the wrong pants on. Switched from VO/TFS/Veledreth to VO/Briarhearts/Veledreth. After I got that figured out things went much much better. Well, Damage wise anyways.

All of a sudden, I get jibbed in the fourth round.

When I had on pirate skeleton shoulder and Chudan or Lord Warden Head this wasn’t so much a problem. Those resistances make a fairly significant difference to me.

Though I can’t deny, Veledreth and full damage sets do make nuking things down much better.

Moving on along. Fifth round went pretty smooth, but I left myself in a bad way (low resources) when the boss came out. Moving to the second island got nabbed by an archer and cold water.

The arena is acting real glitchy now. Vigor animations don’t show. Get slowed down big time when heavy attack. It’s a real crap show.

Spider round went off without a hitch.

The Argonian behemoth round. Well, I nuked the boss through til the minders came out and the poison caller. I went to kill the poison caller, and grabbed the defense sigil since it was right there. Then went back to nuking the boss. It worked this time! Not sure if this is a sound flawless technique or not though.
It did feel pretty good.

The eight level was pretty standard straight forward. The 4th round with 5 ad spawn has my attention though. Hard to tell which ones are the flame spinners and which ones are healers.

Nine. I’ve spent a lot of time on this, so it’s fairly easy now. The arena is acting super glitchy now. Mobs seem to be moving around in fast forward and I get like permanently slowed. It’s so freaking annoying.

My biggest mistake was dodge rolling off the top during crystal phase. Oops. I gonna have to work on just blocking the nerienth attack.

Almost had the cream guard down...it was one of those things when you die. But the game doesn’t seem to show it for another 5 seconds. Shoot. I burned up my ulti trying to save the run.

Ended up with 6 lives left and a 420k ish score. Nirnhoned Lightning Staff. I’m pretty sure that will stick for leaderboards.

Lessons learned.

So, I think I’m maybe good enough to go full damage sets now. When wearing the right gear. Better with resource management but still got stressed in a few places. There have been plenty of times where the arena acts much better/ less glitchy or laggy whatever.

There were times I wished I had more resistance and recovery. They seem to be a bad habit in here, where the faster you nuke things down the better.

This is gonna take some getting used to.

mr_wazzabi · May 2018

kylewwefan wrote: »

After some discussions and information gathering we’ve decided to begin working on Flawless Conqueror. Taking some things into consideration going full glass cannon mass murder machine mode StamBlade.

Level 1 started off kind of rough. IKR. I’m wandering wtf is going on. I had just swapped gears over and didn’t do it right. Had the wrong pants on. Switched from VO/TFS/Veledreth to VO/Briarhearts/Veledreth. After I got that figured out things went much much better. Well, Damage wise anyways.

All of a sudden, I get jibbed in the fourth round.

When I had on pirate skeleton shoulder and Chudan or Lord Warden Head this wasn’t so much a problem. Those resistances make a fairly significant difference to me.

Though I can’t deny, Veledreth and full damage sets do make nuking things down much better.

Moving on along. Fifth round went pretty smooth, but I left myself in a bad way (low resources) when the boss came out. Moving to the second island got nabbed by an archer and cold water.

The arena is acting real glitchy now. Vigor animations don’t show. Get slowed down big time when heavy attack. It’s a real crap show.

Spider round went off without a hitch.

The Argonian behemoth round. Well, I nuked the boss through til the minders came out and the poison caller. I went to kill the poison caller, and grabbed the defense sigil since it was right there. Then went back to nuking the boss. It worked this time! Not sure if this is a sound flawless technique or not though.
It did feel pretty good.

The eight level was pretty standard straight forward. The 4th round with 5 ad spawn has my attention though. Hard to tell which ones are the flame spinners and which ones are healers.

Nine. I’ve spent a lot of time on this, so it’s fairly easy now. The arena is acting super glitchy now. Mobs seem to be moving around in fast forward and I get like permanently slowed. It’s so freaking annoying.

My biggest mistake was dodge rolling off the top during crystal phase. Oops. I gonna have to work on just blocking the nerienth attack.

Almost had the cream guard down...it was one of those things when you die. But the game doesn’t seem to show it for another 5 seconds. Shoot. I burned up my ulti trying to save the run.

Ended up with 6 lives left and a 420k ish score. Nirnhoned Lightning Staff. I’m pretty sure that will stick for leaderboards.

Lessons learned.

So, I think I’m maybe good enough to go full damage sets now. When wearing the right gear. Better with resource management but still got stressed in a few places. There have been plenty of times where the arena acts much better/ less glitchy or laggy whatever.

There were times I wished I had more resistance and recovery. They seem to be a bad habit in here, where the faster you nuke things down the better.

This is gonna take some getting used to.

Keep trying. You'll get it. I'm also trying for it on my stamblade. I've flawlessed on 3 magicka characters: templar, nb, sorc. Stam is a different animal.

kylewwefan · May 2018

OK. I tried to use the vengeance leech set again last night with briarhearts and 2 Masters daggers and Veledreth w/Heavy Head. The damage is there, but I had some sustain issues. It’s rough kiting a boss around trying to build up enough Stam to pop vigor.

I misplaced a VO chest so, added in my all impen Bone Pirate. But then I forgot to put the drink on. Doh. Rounds 3 through 6.

At the seventh round, I put briarhearts back on. I’m getting much better at nuking down the boss and avoiding them deadly poison spawns.

The caller spawned right as I killed one of the minders. The boss scream killed it. Never noticed that before. Could be useful?

I think during the 8 level 4 round, the 2 outer most left n right guys are just healers so need to concentrate more on the middle 3. *** got me anyways. But remember that for the future.

This one took 1 hour 15 minutes.

DoctorESO · June 2018

kylewwefan wrote: »

After some discussions and information gathering we’ve decided to begin working on Flawless Conqueror. Taking some things into consideration going full glass cannon mass murder machine mode StamBlade.

Level 1 started off kind of rough. IKR. I’m wandering wtf is going on. I had just swapped gears over and didn’t do it right. Had the wrong pants on. Switched from VO/TFS/Veledreth to VO/Briarhearts/Veledreth. After I got that figured out things went much much better. Well, Damage wise anyways.

All of a sudden, I get jibbed in the fourth round.

When I had on pirate skeleton shoulder and Chudan or Lord Warden Head this wasn’t so much a problem. Those resistances make a fairly significant difference to me.

Though I can’t deny, Veledreth and full damage sets do make nuking things down much better.

Moving on along. Fifth round went pretty smooth, but I left myself in a bad way (low resources) when the boss came out. Moving to the second island got nabbed by an archer and cold water.

The arena is acting real glitchy now. Vigor animations don’t show. Get slowed down big time when heavy attack. It’s a real crap show.

Spider round went off without a hitch.

The Argonian behemoth round. Well, I nuked the boss through til the minders came out and the poison caller. I went to kill the poison caller, and grabbed the defense sigil since it was right there. Then went back to nuking the boss. It worked this time! Not sure if this is a sound flawless technique or not though.
It did feel pretty good.

The eight level was pretty standard straight forward. The 4th round with 5 ad spawn has my attention though. Hard to tell which ones are the flame spinners and which ones are healers.

Nine. I’ve spent a lot of time on this, so it’s fairly easy now. The arena is acting super glitchy now. Mobs seem to be moving around in fast forward and I get like permanently slowed. It’s so freaking annoying.

My biggest mistake was dodge rolling off the top during crystal phase. Oops. I gonna have to work on just blocking the nerienth attack.

Almost had the cream guard down...it was one of those things when you die. But the game doesn’t seem to show it for another 5 seconds. Shoot. I burned up my ulti trying to save the run.

Ended up with 6 lives left and a 420k ish score. Nirnhoned Lightning Staff. I’m pretty sure that will stick for leaderboards.

Lessons learned.

So, I think I’m maybe good enough to go full damage sets now. When wearing the right gear. Better with resource management but still got stressed in a few places. There have been plenty of times where the arena acts much better/ less glitchy or laggy whatever.

There were times I wished I had more resistance and recovery. They seem to be a bad habit in here, where the faster you nuke things down the better.

This is gonna take some getting used to.

If you're going for a perfect run, you don't have to go full damage. Survivability is important.

kylewwefan · June 2018

There’s quite a difference between having a few lives left and not eating dirt at all For this.

I’m still running this place just because; but new glitches or features being added is not helping anything. Now we have freezing and hits not registering right too.

https://youtu.be/tqGk58R0XO4

I am getting better though and I think I’ve found my “Perfect” build. VO and Vengeance Leech have been so good with resource management. I can actually run full damage jewelry and not be out of resources the whole time.

Merlin13KAGL · June 2018

kylewwefan wrote: »

Nine. I’ve spent a lot of time on this, so it’s fairly easy now. The arena is acting super glitchy now. Mobs seem to be moving around in fast forward and I get like permanently slowed. It’s so freaking annoying.

Sounds like you're getting hit with the frost ghosts or NB's...the invisible kind.

Almost had the cream guard down...it was one of those things when you die. But the game doesn’t seem to show it for another 5 seconds.

Now we have freezing and hits not registering right too.

When this kind of crap happens, there is little you can do about it. Some days the arena just decides it's going to vomit all over itself, and no matter how perfect your reaction is, if you get this kind of client/server desync happening, it's probably best to just try again another time.

Oh, and this

I’m still running this place just because; but new glitches or features being added is not helping anything.

There are no glitches in ESO. Glitches are simply features that have yet to be officially added.

VO helps a lot. Remember, it's a different approach if you're going for flawless, so unless it's one of the few DPS checks, survivability and resource management will usually trump damage. Remember, you're not going for score (right now) - score is just a bonus.

Once you get where you can flawless regularly, you can get the time down fairly low, and you've paid off all your therapy bills, then you can go for the aggressive flawless/speed run leaderboard quality runs.

Good luck!

kylewwefan · June 2018

Flawless regularly? You’re joking right? I don’t knkw I’ll ever be there. Just need to get one really really good run in.

Merlin13KAGL · June 2018

That means you're more likely to keep your sanity, and that's a good thing.

My point being, don't worry about score right now. If you end up leaderboarding, great. If you get 9 rounds in and get distracted by potentially leaderboarding and much up an otherwise flawless run, it's sting a whole lot more than not getting that Invigorating [insert vMA weapon useless to your class here].

Take your time, be methodical, and focus on your goal. If the game cooperates, you'll get it!

(I give similar advice regarding HM's / Speed Run's / No Death's, as each requires a different approach and initially tend to be mutually exclusive.)

mr_wazzabi · June 2018

Just flawlessed last night on my stamnlade.

What worked for me was knowing when to use sigils. I found a couple times in stage 5, the archers were overwhelming, so I took the defense sigil and they melted.

I also took water breaks in between stages so I could calm down.

Keep at it. You can do it!

Oreyn_Bearclaw · June 2018

I dont advise a pure glass cannon approach if going for flawless, especially on stam. I recommend two heavy pieces of armor, 1stam regen on one of your rings, and one healthy big piece of armor. Stamblades have more than enough damage, but they can be squishy. Lastly, dont be afraid to grab sigils. The title doesnt come with an asterisk. Haha

kylewwefan · June 2018

My first hurdle was getting through the fifth round alive. I’m doing that somewhat more consistently now.

The seventh round gives me big problems. Whether it’s the poison caller or getting jibbed by an archer not paying attention, letting a berserker become invincible etc, accidentally killing both minders....

Too many ways for me to screw it up here.

Once you die, it kind of takes all the wind out of my sail. I’ll still finish it up. Just because. But there’s really no point.

Going from being stuck at the last boss forever to running for score runs from classes no one plays so I can get some crappy gold leaderboard gear has been my best progression.

Now if I could learn how to play better....

I have a friend that has big problems on the sixth round spiders. I kind of chuckle because I don’t play a darn bit of mechanics here. Just run around kill stuff, don’t die. Grab sigils.

kylewwefan · May 2019

Wow. It’s been a year since I started this, and what a year it’s been!

I have learned a lot. Got 6 Flawless characters now. I know what I’m doing.

The road to Flawless is paved with disappointment and learning from stupid mistakes.

I still find much enjoyment in The Maelstrom Arena, but the game has moved on.

Blinkin8r · May 2019

mr_wazzabi wrote: »

kylewwefan wrote: »

After some discussions and information gathering we’ve decided to begin working on Flawless Conqueror. Taking some things into consideration going full glass cannon mass murder machine mode StamBlade.

Level 1 started off kind of rough. IKR. I’m wandering wtf is going on. I had just swapped gears over and didn’t do it right. Had the wrong pants on. Switched from VO/TFS/Veledreth to VO/Briarhearts/Veledreth. After I got that figured out things went much much better. Well, Damage wise anyways.

All of a sudden, I get jibbed in the fourth round.

When I had on pirate skeleton shoulder and Chudan or Lord Warden Head this wasn’t so much a problem. Those resistances make a fairly significant difference to me.

Though I can’t deny, Veledreth and full damage sets do make nuking things down much better.

Moving on along. Fifth round went pretty smooth, but I left myself in a bad way (low resources) when the boss came out. Moving to the second island got nabbed by an archer and cold water.

The arena is acting real glitchy now. Vigor animations don’t show. Get slowed down big time when heavy attack. It’s a real crap show.

Spider round went off without a hitch.

The Argonian behemoth round. Well, I nuked the boss through til the minders came out and the poison caller. I went to kill the poison caller, and grabbed the defense sigil since it was right there. Then went back to nuking the boss. It worked this time! Not sure if this is a sound flawless technique or not though.
It did feel pretty good.

The eight level was pretty standard straight forward. The 4th round with 5 ad spawn has my attention though. Hard to tell which ones are the flame spinners and which ones are healers.

Nine. I’ve spent a lot of time on this, so it’s fairly easy now. The arena is acting super glitchy now. Mobs seem to be moving around in fast forward and I get like permanently slowed. It’s so freaking annoying.

My biggest mistake was dodge rolling off the top during crystal phase. Oops. I gonna have to work on just blocking the nerienth attack.

Almost had the cream guard down...it was one of those things when you die. But the game doesn’t seem to show it for another 5 seconds. Shoot. I burned up my ulti trying to save the run.

Ended up with 6 lives left and a 420k ish score. Nirnhoned Lightning Staff. I’m pretty sure that will stick for leaderboards.

Lessons learned.

So, I think I’m maybe good enough to go full damage sets now. When wearing the right gear. Better with resource management but still got stressed in a few places. There have been plenty of times where the arena acts much better/ less glitchy or laggy whatever.

There were times I wished I had more resistance and recovery. They seem to be a bad habit in here, where the faster you nuke things down the better.

This is gonna take some getting used to.

Keep trying. You'll get it. I'm also trying for it on my stamblade. I've flawlessed on 3 magicka characters: templar, nb, sorc. Stam is a different animal.

Stam NB was my first flawless and mag NB the second. For stam he has a great build, VO, Briarheart and Veli. But if you're going for flawless especially on a stam, use the sigils when you have to. Run it once using no sigils, note where you die and then run it back picking up defense sigils on the pulls you died on.

Drako_Ei · June 2019

Slot silver leash, pull ice mages at ice stage (their light attack hits very hard).

Use stormfist if you have problems with sustain, almost same damage.

All arenas are easy except 7th.

ZombieCrow0 · June 2019

Use Iceheart , yes even on stams ,insanely good. Get silver leash , pull ranged ads , kill stuff before they kill you,AOE them to death.

Evito · June 2019

All I'll say is that I wish I knew the Phoenix Set existed when I was working on Flawless.

msalvia · October 2019

Keep at it! But also keep in mind, the "Flawless Conqueror" title really just means "I have a good computer and good internet." If I had a dollar for every flawless run spoiled by lag/desyncs...

GlorphNoldorin · October 2019

kylewwefan wrote: »

Flawless regularly? You’re joking right? I don’t knkw I’ll ever be there. Just need to get one really really good run in.

It really is just memory. I started and didnt even think I could clear it on vet. Took me ages to even try. Then I cleared it then I cleared it on all stam classes then I started for flawless. Then I got my first flawless.

I now have every class flawless and with a base ping of 480. (I have done runs with 2 or 3 deaths on 480) I use a vpn and can get to about 330. If you have decent latency there is no reason you cant get flawless.

I used a pretty similar strategy for stam. I used 2x chudan and flying dagger for all classes. Drop dots and try to range alot of the adds. Stamplar was the hardest as jabs was so buggy I had to give it away, as sustain and heals were a problem even with VO (and Hundings or automaton).

Once you can prioritize the adds you can also start to know when to take a sigil for extra laggy parts. It comes down to a little rng in round 7, the rest being almost straight forward with enough practice.

All you need is time and perseverance.

AndyMac · October 2019

GlorphNoldorin wrote: »

kylewwefan wrote: »

Flawless regularly? You’re joking right? I don’t knkw I’ll ever be there. Just need to get one really really good run in.

It really is just memory.

All you need is time and perseverance.

Agree - my Australian ping is 300 plus (on a good day) and I never thought I'd get Flawless - or even clear vMA.

But if you run vMA enough, you will get it down - especially knowing all about the "parts where you always die"

Just focus on getting each arena's strat down from 5 through 9 until you can clear them all deathless. Eventually, you will string them into a single run.

Ok - vMA is not what it was, but clearing it will still make you a better player.

And working towards Flawless will help you improve on top of that imo.

Still worth doing.