It’s 99% mechanics and practice. It isn’t the hardest solo content in the game for nothing. Obviously the broken desync issue doesn’t help in the least, but change your build for more survivability. A glass cannon doesn’t cut it for anybody but those that have cleared it many times. If you understand everything that is going it becomes much more simple. Consider it is much easier now than when it released.

Darkheart wrote: »

I completed it 3 times in the last 2 days. Its getting better but round 7 with the Argonian Behemoth is a pain. Can't do it with atleast 30 deaths

Can't figure out the right tactic.

What part are you having issues with?

Had to stick with it for a couple of months. Finally got it a few weeks ago on my StamNB. Got the bow never doing it again.

100% of those who have beaten it... have beaten it.

You can literally heavy attack your way to victory with a lightning staff.

I had to resort to doing that today because I couldn't light attack weave my spammable at all today due to the lag.

shield+wall of elements+heavy attack + drop ulti on boss = win

It was slow as hell, but it got the job done

Heatnix90 wrote: »

Darkheart wrote: »

Oakmontowls_ESO wrote: »

JumpmanLane wrote: »

Don’t you bash the behemoth? Been a while since I did it on vet. Did it on normal last night and burned through the behemoth.

Bashing only works on normal

It works on Vet too.

Lol hope you like enraged stomps and chomps then.

vMA is nothing but a memory exercise, once you memorize the spawns and patterns it's an easy famt.

Ok, I will stop bashing the scream then. That might solve some problems.Thanks.:)

It is a very difficult challenge, no doubt about it.

I failed time and time again, becoming more and more frustrated with each failure. I failed only to fail again.
Some time over a year ago I believe I attempted it for the first time. On a class that I wasn't most comfortable with, a Magicka Sorcerer, the class was mostly new to me and I wasn't comfortable with it at all really.
I struggled so much that I found myself searching online as how to best it as easily as possible...I ended up with the Sorc.
I hunted down specific gear (Mother's Sorrow), and crafted my own set of Julianos divines, picked up Valkyn Skoria monster set. I thought to myself purple gear will be just fine...I still kept failing. I decided it might be better to gold out all my gear (minus the jewelry). I did this and still failed.
I said to myself that if I can't do it with top notch gear, I just can't do it.

I went through at least two stacks of soul gems recharging and resurrecting (not realizing the wayshrine shortcut), spent a large portion of gold on repairs, only to proceed in failure. This was truly difficult content.
After struggling hour after hour and day after day I still couldn't best Voriak Solkyn in the final stage. The Daedroth's flame breath was entirely too much of a test, that when I finally made it to Solkyn, dying became beyond dreadful as I knew I had to face more Daedroth flame. It ruined me regularly when I tried, I questioned my skills as a gamer, I questioned if I was being trolled, I questioned life itself trying to complete this content.
I ended up leaving my Sorc untouched in the final stage of vMA and moving on to do various other things in ESO.

A couple months ago I decided to give it another shot, and for some stupid reason right before going back in, I was clearing my quest inventory as I was cleaning up the character in general. Upon returning to the Arena I realized I accidentally deleted the Maelstrom quest and would need to start over...this was a sad, disappointing, and painful realization that I would need to start all over.
But I did...
I went through each stage just like the first time, with just as much difficulty as the previous attempts some year ago. It hurt, it actually hurt, but I kept trying. I kept trying because I am a gamer who cannot accept defeat.
Through various attempts I learned something new here and something new there, this was progress. But it made it no less painful...it still hurt. I could put the final boss down to 25k hp and eat death as if it were nothing. But seeing him so close to death made me hopeful so I kept trying, and failing. Now that we all get how much I failed, we get to the good part...

One day....one friggin' day, I watched his health bar hit zero. And let me tell you, just thinking about it gives me goosebumps right now. It was an amazing feeling...finally knowing that it's not broken and that Solkyn can indeed be dropped.

It was true torture, no question.
But I didn't give up. I couldn't accept that I couldn't defeat it.
Believing in yourself and pushing yourself beyond normal gaming boundaries will help you succeed.
If I can do it, so can nearly everyone who refuses to give up.
It will be difficult, you will want to quit, you will want to swear, you will want to blame the Arena's design, it mechanics. But at the end of the day it's all going to come down to dedication, adaptability, and memory.

I've now completed Maelstrom for an 11th time this past evening (10x's on my Sorc & once on my Magcro).
Before Orsinium I had about 5 runs under my belt, I've added 6 since the event has started. It only takes one victory for your mind to understand that it's just another gimmick.
It's designed to push you, to challenge you, that's it's sole purpose.
I told myself that if I ever beat it, I would never return....I have proven this to be a lie to myself.
Each time I keep learning more and improving upon my time.
Do I still slip up and eat death in the blink of an eye? You bet, because if you don't stay on your toes in this content, it will remind you very quickly that you cannot do that.

* I started my Maelstrom journey with a class I knew very little about and had practically no skill with.
After completing Maelstrom with this class, I am now capable of soloing numerous world bosses, group dungeons, you name it, I can take my Sorc to it and make it hurt. I love it.

The mechanics play a very crucial role here, once you start piecing those out, bit by bit...it does become easier.
I still need a Maelstrom Bow, and with the Orsinium event underway I actually cannot wait to put some more runs up.
I'm doing at least two per day.

Stay vigilant, stay strong, keep pushing yourself. Your day(s) will come.
Just don't ever give up.

Swifigames wrote: »

It is a very difficult challenge, no doubt about it.

I failed time and time again, becoming more and more frustrated with each failure. I failed only to fail again.
Some time over a year ago I believe I attempted it for the first time. On a class that I wasn't most comfortable with, a Magicka Sorcerer, the class was mostly new to me and I wasn't comfortable with it at all really.
I struggled so much that I found myself searching online as how to best it as easily as possible...I ended up with the Sorc.
I hunted down specific gear (Mother's Sorrow), and crafted my own set of Julianos divines, picked up Valkyn Skoria monster set. I thought to myself purple gear will be just fine...I still kept failing. I decided it might be better to gold out all my gear (minus the jewelry). I did this and still failed.
I said to myself that if I can't do it with top notch gear, I just can't do it.

I went through at least two stacks of soul gems recharging and resurrecting (not realizing the wayshrine shortcut), spent a large portion of gold on repairs, only to proceed in failure. This was truly difficult content.
After struggling hour after hour and day after day I still couldn't best Voriak Solkyn in the final stage. The Daedroth's flame breath was entirely too much too much of a test, that when I finally made it to Solkyn, dying became beyond dreadful as I knew I had to face more Daedroth flame. It ruined me regularly when I tried, I questioned my skills as a gamer, I questioned if I was being trolled, I questioned life itself trying to complete this content.
I ended up leaving my Sorc untouched in the final stage of vMA and moving on to do various other things in ESO.

A couple months ago I decided to give it another shot, and for some stupid reason right before going back in, I was clearing my quest inventory as I was cleaning up the character in general. Upon returning to the Arena I realized I accidentally deleted the Maelstrom quest and would need to start over...this was a sad, disappointing, and painful realization that I would need to start all over.
But I did...
I went through each stage just like the first time, with just as much difficulty as the previous attempts some year ago. It hurt, it actually hurt, but I kept trying. I kept trying because I am a gamer who cannot accept defeat.
Through various attempts I learned something new here and something new there, this was progress. But it made it no less painful...it still hurt. I could put the final boss down to 25k hp and eat death as if it were nothing. But seeing him so close to death made me hopeful so I kept trying, and failing. Know that we all get how much I failed, we get to the good part...

One day....one friggin' day, I watched his health bar hit zero. And let me tell you, just thinking about it gives me goosebumps right now. It was an amazing feeling...finally knowing that it's not broken and that Solkyn can indeed be dropped.

It was true torture, no question.
But I didn't give up. I couldn't accept that I couldn't defeat it.
Believing in yourself and pushing yourself beyond normal gaming boundaries will help you succeed.
If I can do it, so can nearly everyone who refuses to give up.
It will be difficult, you will want to quit, you will want to swear, you will want to blame the Arena's design, it mechanics. But at the end of the day it's all going to come down to dedication, adaptability, and memory.

I've now completed Maelstrom for an 11th time this past evening (10x's on my Sorc & once on my Magcro).
Before Orsinium I had about 5 runs under my belt, I've added 6 since the event has started. It only takes one victory for your mind to understand that it's just another gimmick.
It's designed to push you, to challenge you, that's it's sole purpose.
I told myself that if I ever beat it, I would never return....I have proven this to be a lie to myself.
Each time I keep learning more and improving upon my time.
Do I still slip up and eat death in the blink of an eye? You bet, because if you don't stay on your toes in this content, it will remind you very quickly that you cannot do that.

The mechanics play a very crucial role here, once you start piecing those out, bit by bit...it does become easier.
I still need a Maelstrom Bow, and with the Orsinium event underway I actually cannot wait to put some more runs up.
I'm doing at least two per day.

Stay vigilant, stay strong, keep pushing yourself. Your day(s) will come.
Just don't ever give up.

same story here,was stuck at S6 then at S9
1 day i said "now or never"
2 hours later i had Voriak lay down dead and me screaming ,best time ever

you can do it ppl,dont give up

Equal to the number of people that understand mechanics of the game at least remotely and patient enough to learn from their mistakes. No one is Boethia's gift at it, just time, practice and patience.

Vma used to be hard ; now, if you're full cp, with adapted gear, it's just a joke ; I am healer, I never play dd, except, rarely, for vma ; my stuff is not even bis, some are wrong traits, etc, and it's still easy af.
Be sure to have the good cp setting ; if you have some difficulties, use sigils ; take a "safe" class, some are easier than others.
Only stage 5 and 7 could be tricky. For stage 5, beware to kill fast the range mobs and always kill the troll. For last boss, if you have difficulties, you can low dps to control the spawn of ads / the break of plateform, so you don't have them on the same time.
For Behemot, it's only mechanic if you cannot burst ; as already said in the thread, push boss, kill 1 add, use shield during scream (beware to not interrupt the boss / not kill the add with shield during scream, with aoe for example), finish the boss ; or do one more phase if needed.
I don't understand the complain about "average casual player" ; first, I am very average casual dd, and it's still absolutely doable ; second, if you play average casual as you cannot still pass vma, you don't need vma weapons ; or for what? Kill wb? do pledges?
What is the point to always want to low the content? What is the point of a game with no challenge?

Bloodraven187 wrote: »

with how difficult this content is I am curious how many people (pn na) have actually done this to completion, even just to have their polymorph. Even in vet trial capable setup and skill I can't get past the argonian behemoth in stage 7.

I hate this boss in stage 7.

Did my first vMSA run with my new stamplar when the orsinium event started and died there several times.
Did my second try last night .... got flawless conqueror achievement.

I have flawless on my stamdk and my stamsorc, always needed several tries because of this boss in stage 7.

They should just remove round 7 all together.
It never worked properly and never will.

Everytime i play vma after round 7 even if it goes smoothly i think by myself... wow eso is so badly implemented its amazing

thermatico wrote: »

I suck and I've beaten it a couple of times. Read the guides and learn the mechanics and it's not as bad as described. First time I beat it I probably died about 60-80 times... It was frustrating but I was really determined.

"95% of the player base is incapable" lmao

On console it’s high but not not that high. In one of my casual guilds of 500 people I can probably count on one hand the people who’ve done it

End game guilds id say 70-80% have done it. I was talking to a guy yesterday who’d got his silver skin months ago but hasn’t done vma yet

My first clear took me months , now it takes me 45mins. It’s just learning . This is the same for most ppl

vMA just requires a good internet connection at the last arena (stage 9). I have simply too much lag there. Often it happens that I die from AOE where I was clearly out of it or I dodged, while still getting full damage. I once played at my GF home with fast WLAN and that stage was much easier.

I am looking forward for code improvements of this game (!). Otherwise its just too frustrating for me dying in constant LAG all the time.

Bloodraven187 wrote: »

with how difficult this content is I am curious how many people (pn na) have actually done this to completion, even just to have their polymorph. Even in vet trial capable setup and skill I can't get past the argonian behemoth in stage 7. And considering it really doesn't help you be better in anything else outside of this arena there is no legitimate reason to make this content to the point where what feels like 95% or more of the playerbase is incapable of doing it. It is the single most frustrating and unfun part of this game , to most of us from what I can tell (fishing and watching the damn hammer in Cyro go to the highest pop faction and see them destroy everything from the other 2 with 0 skill required being high up there too). So I am curious how many people are actually doing it. And how many give up or just never bother trying to get past nMA.

Good vet trial guilds are gonna judge you for not completing vma. They're gonna think you have poor mechanical awareness/dps and not capable of performing in a vet trial setting, not to mention you need the destro staves and bow to be competitive with dps

And what does vma have to do with how good you are in cyrodiil? Dont compare the volendrug to vma, I dont see any resemblance

Its 2019, you have way more cp available to you, not to mention much better gear. There really isnt any excuse to why you shouldnt be able to beat it. Esp with how many guides are out.

Also, there are sigils for a reason, use them

worrallj wrote: »

It's the hardest thing in the game, so it's supposed to be pretty miserable if you aren't on lockdown. No idea the percent who beat it, but I don't think it's that high. Pretty sure it notifies you in chat when a friend or guild mate beats it (or is it only if they do it without dying?), and I don't get notified that often. Of course it could just be everyone already have the weapons they need.

It's the hardest solo content in the game, it's the only solo content

Not the hardest thing in the game by a mile