the VMA problem

[legoman775]

I know that there is going to be some that say "oh well get gud" and all of that stuff but seriously think about this for a second before you post something dumb like that please. Nothing in SOLO play even comes close to this hard nothing! And then studenly here comes VMA, I get it is supposed to be a challenge but there's a fine line between challenge and outright unfair. It is not outright unfair but it is very close. When you have a completed build and are champ 498 with all gold gear and weapons with the best stuff possible pretty much and you still can't beat this in a timely manner there is a problem. I'm not saying that it needs to be nerfed but it does need to be looked at again. Because the hardness level of this is a bit to high and extremely frustrating, i have looked at guides and they do not help, Its nearly imposssible for me to get any stronger than by doing this. I ask that Zenimax take a good look at VMA and say "yeah that is a bit to hard". At no point in ESO have I ever been so ♥♥♥♥♥♥ off at the game until right now. I have been trying to beat this for days already and still can't. I have played so many hard games in my time including DARK SOULS, Sekiro, Alien Isolation on NIGHTMARE, (i know these aren't the same type of game but still) and I have never said like "oh well that was unfair and nearly smashed my keyboard" But this is just to much.

EDIT: so I finally beat it and let me tell you, it... sucked... and i never want to do it again! And I got the lightning staff which is cool i guess idk, or care. Anyways thanks for the help everyone this mode is horrible.

[legoman775]

Im a stamblade, my sets are Relequens, Selenes, and Hircines. I do have vigor skill and all the standard stamblade skills pretty much except for caltrops.

[legoman775]

Messaggio originale di ༺Legend༻:

literally nothing if you have gold gear and everything like that it is user error not game error

Wow, such inciting words, that didnt help in the slightest...

[Shifty Mario]

Messaggio originale di legoman775:

Im a stamblade, my sets are Relequens, Selenes, and Hircines. I do have vigor skill and all the standard stamblade skills pretty much except for caltrops.

I run vicious serpent and briarheart mainly for the stamina from killing and health from crits. With vigor and brawler up at all times, I can keep with the damage they dish out. Sacrifice DPS for survivability if you need to. I went with lord mundus and 2-hand just to survive.

[Ser Maks]

Messaggio originale di legoman775:

Im a stamblade, my sets are Relequens, Selenes, and Hircines. I do have vigor skill and all the standard stamblade skills pretty much except for caltrops.

Try some Vicious Serpent(if you have it) and Hunding/Briarheart, as others recommend - Relequen isn't really suited for vMA, its for trials or dummy training(just like Siroria for mages, btw). Hircine is good, if you don't have VO or have trouble with stamina regen, through.

[Crowkeeper]

Messaggio originale di Ser Maks:

Messaggio originale di legoman775:

Im a stamblade, my sets are Relequens, Selenes, and Hircines. I do have vigor skill and all the standard stamblade skills pretty much except for caltrops.

Relequen isn't really suited for vMA, its for trials or dummy training(just like Siroria for mages, btw).

Well, to be fair.....MA is a trial.....

[737]

Go for Vicious Ophidian. Literally best set for stam vMA. You'll feel the difference once you use it.

[Crixus]

If you just want weapons and don't care about score then it can be much easier for you.

I am only a pvp player, I have 0 pve chars and never play pve so it's fair to say I suck at it, yet I breezed through vma so easily, just because I made a build designed for it. I made sure the character was tanky with huge self healing and very high sustain, so my mistakes would not be punished and I could just fly through stress free, and it worked. I basically facetanked 90% of it.

Do the same. Stack defence and get good enough sustain and just make sure you have 15-20k dps, you don't need much. It will take longer sure, but it will be far less annoying and you can always go back later with a proper build once you have the weapons.

[🕊]

It is, indeed, extremely hard, and I am convinced that it is the hardest content in any game that I have played.

Here, check these videos out. These are videos of my character versus the last boss of Rink of Frozen Blood (stage 5) and Theater of Despair (stage 9).

I hope you learn from them as these are not professional videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEt91C3hZZk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdQmkIjiP3E

[Ydrisselle]

Messaggio originale di legoman775:

Im a stamblade, my sets are Relequens, Selenes, and Hircines. I do have vigor skill and all the standard stamblade skills pretty much except for caltrops.

vMA requires some build-up. It's possible, that you have to change your sets, skills, morphs and passives - try to find a good guide (official forum, YouTube etc.) and see what's different for you. Maybe you are simply not not using the equipment you should use, or the skills you need for it.

[Sever]

1) There IS same hard content in game - just try to do vet /normal SOLO dungeons for 4 peoples .
2) if you stamina - character - there is VERy easy build for arena ( almost 100% pass if you not a very very noob ) but you have to be a warewolve ( ask for details if interested ) I coudnt get vma for 1 year ( !) but with that build - i pass it for 2,5 hours and done it already 4 times ( 3 times - i got a resto -staff in reward )
If you cant stand to be a Wolf - try " Chudan + fortifed brass + legion " - VERY helpfull . But fortifed brass- must be medium ! So it will gives you 8k resistance AND same time - 12% to weapond damag from medium armor . Legion - have to be with WEAPON + Juwerly ( as it heavy armor) .
3) good luck !

[legoman775]

thanks for all the advice so far everyone!

[LeonHard]

Late to the party, but I would like to add my opinion.

As a CP 350 Stamina DPS Dk, the more I play and I complete vMA, the more I despise it and its design. Sure, the more you learn the mechanics the better you become at facing its challenges, but the entire arena has been made difficult for difficulty's sake. That is: it's the way the decided to make it hard that is disappointing.

The basic idea is to overwhelm the player at any given moment so that he has no time to counter. The mechanics are so dense that dealing with each of them at the same time is basically impossible. So you deal with the most lethal ones and you try to endure the others.

Some of the mechanics also rely on randomness so much that you can end up being defeated even if you didn't make any mistakes. Vault of Umbrage, with its lethal flowers spawning randomly even under your feet or close to the shield casting NPC during the boss fight being primary examples. Or the meteors that falls in front of the rock wall in stage two of the Theater of Despair boss fight, that alone can make the difference between success and failure.

More than a skill based challenge sometimes it becomes a patience based challenge, where you need to repeat the same fight again and again until the stars align and nothing goes terribly wrong by chance. At least until you have gained enough CPs to be more resilient and gain that little margin of error that allows you to endure those few moments longer that many times make the difference between succeding and failing in the Arena.

[Crowkeeper]

Messaggio originale di LeonHard:

Late to the party, but I would like to add my opinion.

As a CP 350 Stamina DPS Dk, the more I play and I complete vMA, the more I despise it and its design. Sure, the more you learn the mechanics the better you become at facing its challenges, but the entire arena has been made difficult for difficulty's sake. That is: it's the way the decided to make it hard that is disappointing.

The basic idea is to overwhelm the player at any given moment so that he has no time to counter. The mechanics are so dense that dealing with each of them at the same time is basically impossible. So you deal with the most lethal ones and you try to endure the others.

Some of the mechanics also rely on randomness so much that you can end up being defeated even if you didn't make any mistakes. Vault of Umbrage, with its lethal flowers spawning randomly even under your feet or close to the shield casting NPC during the boss fight being primary examples. Or the meteors that falls in front of the rock wall in stage two of the Theater of Despair boss fight, that alone can make the difference between success and failure.

More than a skill based challenge sometimes it becomes a patience based challenge, where you need to repeat the same fight again and again until the stars align and nothing goes terribly wrong by chance. At least until you have gained enough CPs to be more resilient and gain that little margin that allows you to endure those few moments longer that many times make the difference between succeding and failing in the Arena.

Much of what you say here is true. Sure, vMA has many elements of randomness which can get you killed at any moment; however, it's all fair. vMA gives you access to some of the best weapons in the game. It should be difficult.

Also, the part about "the entire arena has been made difficult for difficulty's sake" is just nonsense. It has been made difficult specifically because of the rewards you get at the end. That's it.

The difficulty of vMA is fine. If someone can't beat it then they really don't deserve the weapons. I mean, if you can't beat it then you're probably not good enough to take advantage of the weapons anyway.

[LeonHard]

To me, in the present context, a fair challenge is a challenge were your chances are determined almost entirely by your skill. Dark Souls is an example of a game were the challenge is almost always fair. vMA is not fair. When the shield-casting NPC in Vaults of Umbrage sits right next to a poisonous flower you are dead no matter how skilled you are. With certainty. And if you were going for a Flawless Conqueror achievemtn you would be right to be p****d. That's not an example of a fair challenge.

Or in stage five, the platform the troll decides to run to in the long run may make the difference between having to run after him and exhausting your resources or not. And that's not fair. So much so that sometimes you breeze through a round and other times you have to repeat it 4-5 times. At least at my CP level.

It's everything but fair. It's a test of the determination and patience of players. At leastin the beginning.

[Crowkeeper]

Messaggio originale di LeonHard:

To me, in the present context, a fair challenge is a challenge were your chances are determined almost entirely by your skill. Dark Souls is an example of a game were the challenge is almost always fair. vMA is not fair. When the shield-casting NPC in Vaults of Umbrage sits right next to a poisonous flower you are dead no matter how skilled you. With certainty. And if you were going for a Flawless Conqueror achievemtn you would be right to be p****d. That's not an example of a fair challenge.

Or in stage five, the platform the troll decides to run to in the long run may make the difference between having to run after him and exhausting your resources or not. And that's not fair. So much so that sometimes you breeze through a round and other times you have to repeat it 4-5 times. At least at my CP level.

It's everything but fair. It's a test of the determination and patience of players. At leastin the beginning.

Except the shield caster ending up on a flower would be entirely your fault.

Also, the troll spawns on stage 5 are predictable. You should know when they are coming and you should be ready.