Also....are there ways to minimize mob spawns? And I keep running out of magicka to heal myself. I'm just at my wit's end!

While completing stage 5 on various characters with different DPS, I've noticed that DPS matters. Reverb's advice above is dead on, slow down your DPS on the main boss. That said, if your DPS on the adds is too low, this round will eat your lunch. When I did it on my tank with a max of 13K DPS single target, it was double plus unfun. A solid DPS toon that pulls 3 times that, and this is a cake walk. Looking at the sets you are using, I wonder what sort of DPS you are getting on a 3M or 6M dummy.

WW is a good bit harder than it was a year ago. The heals cost way too much, the pack leader morph is useless, and builds don't pull nearly the damage they did. But, the fear now roots NPCs in place and that's a bit more useful on stage 5 in particular. Archers and casters need to die quickly, fearing mobs can buy you time to get them down. With the WW resists, you might be able to go with a more damage oriented monster set, you have to balance tank and spank, and going too tanky at the cost of DPS makes vMA a pain.

One bar Pet-sorc is also harder than it was a year ago. Sustain is an issue and walking around slowly as you heavy attack tends to leave you open to a lot of damage. Then, you go to heal and your bird is dead and it takes forever to raise it again. If you have one of those builds with liquid lightning on the bar, replace that skill with something cheaper until the next patch drops.

For the spider level, if you are on PC, consider an add-on like Bandit's UI or the like that warns you when those pesky spiders spawn so you can put them down quickly.

General thoughts:
I find that changing enemy damage color is a huge help for avoiding AoE. The first time I went through, it was the difference between failing and getting past the upper part of the final part of arena nine.

Essence of spell crit or essence of weapon crit potions that heal and also bump damage are nice for solo work.

Make it a mini-game to use almost all the sigils every round of every arena. Seriously. Even with the easier ones. You'll find you get through them faster, with less stress, and your character will have more resources going into the next round.

To re-iterate because it's really important. DPS matters. If you are pulling less than 15K on the 3M dummy, vMA stinks. Figure how to get your DPS up while maintaining some survivability, then try again. Somewhere around 25K DPS, vMA becomes relaxing.

Frozen stage is the first where you get those annoying one-shots from distance.

The DK reverb helped a lot, but as a sorc you can't do that. Shields up ?
Also, the 4 buffs on the ground are not really "optional" on your first run.

Any WW build requires heavy attacks once in a while, and vMA is mostly about timing.
Use potions (as long as you're on learning phase, I'd suggest base red/green/blue potions instead of top-quality ones).

Don't resurrect in stage. Rez at wayshrine, so you can breathe before stepping in again.
You don't loose progress if you stay in vMA.

As said above, there is a priority for targets, if you don't kill them in order, you get fast in trouble.

Talyndor wrote: »

... I am stuck right now on the frozen section.
I am fairly certain it is because I am missing tips and tricks that I may not understand.

That is highly likely. Are you getting killed by island smashes? Do you have more than 3 adds up at one time? I banged my head against the wall doing that for hours over many hours/weeks. When I learned the mechs to avoid that I got past it in one go!

Talyndor wrote: »

I have literally spent hours and hours and hours over weeks and weeks and cannot get past frozen

Then you likely know the individual MoB AOE's and spawn point by now. Shred the ranged mobs ASAP sidestepping (dodging if needed to get out of big AOE). Once ranged is down, kill melee.

Don't know what class your werewolf is but if it's a DK or Warden (or you have one) you can flip this process by ignoring ranged and killing the melee first which is loads easier imo.

By now you know the individual mobs I gather. The builds you have were constructed patches ago and a good chunk of the damage has since been reduced significantly. Remember in solo play any cooldown spent not damaging means more things alive killing you. Less damage in general means you need more sustain to heal/shield/dodge and to use attack skills. I think at this point, you should consider increasing damage over mitigation. Right now you are tank/healing vMA, which can be quite brutal. In later rounds that style becomes more punishing and adds complexity.

Are the Troll breakers in Round 5 really on a boss-health timer, or are they an exception that is timed by the clock? (E.g., I've seen a claim of 30 seconds.)

Forget this ''specialized builds'' and go with a normal DPS, a found much easier to finish it with a normal build, also took my cute Flawless Conqueror

Also, on Arena 5, forget the bosses and focus on the mobs, they're the ones who will kill you