First and foremost, do not attempt Vet Maelstrom Arena until you are very familiar with your build and your rotation. This guide will assume the role of the Mag Sorc as this was my character build when I completed the arena. This guide will also assume that you are familiar with the Arena so you can understand some of the points I am making. You will get a checkpoint at the end of each round!
**2/1/19, added Stam Nightblade Video Guide at bottom**
There are 9 total sub-arena’s or stages in Veteran Maelstrom Arena:
1) The Vale of Surreal. 2) Seht’s Balcony. 3) The Drome of Toxic Shock. 4) Seht’s Flywheel. 5) The Rink of Frozen Blood. 6) The Spiral Shadows. 7) The Vault of Umbrage. 8) The Igneous Cavern. 9) The Theater of Despair
General Tips:• Turn your AoE indicator to bright pink so you can see it.
• Zoom back so you have the largest FOV possible.
• I really prefer a pet build (I ran gold Necro, Ilambris, and Julianos) mainly because your pet will take some heat off you and aggro some of the enemies.
• Another useful skill to run is elemental drain to help take down the bigger enemies faster.
• There is nothing “easy” about this dungeon. Experience is the key. You will die several times the first time you are going through this arena. Do not get discouraged. You need to continue to learn each stage and get familiar with the lay-out and how the fight will play out.
• If you are frustrated, put your controller down. Leave the dungeon and come fight another day. If you continue frustrated you will simply waste your soul gems, and you’re going to need them.
• The key to this arena is the ability to sustain and do damage simultaneously. You need to be able to dish out DPS, but just as important is being able to sustain your resources, and your health. As a mag sorc, using a barrier skill is essential as you can negate unavoidable damage without taking damage to your health. Crit Surge is absolutely critical to your survival as critical hits will heal you, and AoE’s drop a lot of dots that can keep your health up. You will not be able to rely on pots as a reliable way to maintain health.
• You must learn how to animation cancel and weave heavy attacks into your rotation. The rotation you use will be up to you, but managing resources and keeping the rotation sound is your key.
• Having strong AoE’s are really important, but also having the ability to burst down single targets is critical. I prefer to use destructive clench on my inferno staff to knock back an enemy and wipe them out with crystal shards. It is better to go ahead and waste these deadly enemies before trying to group them up for AoEs, then you can bring the rest of the enemies together on single target, cast your AoEs to finish him and let the others come in and start taking damage (don’t forget to keep your crit surge active).
• Don’t waste tri-pots. Stick to your trash mag-pots to avoid wasting money. The tri-pots are truly only useful in the final boss fight.
• You must learn the environmental hazards in the stages. Often, these elements will be what are killing you.
• Utilize the power sigils!!! That’s what they are there for
• Don’t forget when you are down to a final enemy, feel free to heavy attack them down to restore resources.
• Ultimately, the build you choose is up to you, but you need to master your ability to DPS and sustain whichever method you choose. My tips will be overall things you need to know to conquer this beast!
What you need to know about the Sigils:
1) First, All the sigils will respawn every round, so use them!
2) Power: This looks like a hammer and will simply give you more DPS. Very effective when you grab this before laying AoEs. It can really help you burst down enemies that are dangerous as well.
3) Haste: This will help sustain resources as well as give you a movement speed boost. Great to move away from slow attacking enemies as well as gain resources.
4) Health: The chalice symbol and will really help you with maintain health. It seems to work very effectively and is very powerful. This can really heal you through several situations.
5) Defense: My favorite (very OP). I usually grab it later in the round when resources are running low and when I’m fighting elite enemies and bosses. It really negates most damage and reflects ranged attacks. Get this every round.
Alright, LET’S DO THIS!!!
Arena 1 - The Vale of Surreal (3 rounds and then boss round):This arena is very easy and you can blast through the waves easily by grabbing the sigils and DPS’ing the single enemies. Not too much to cover here so let’s just talk about the boss briefly. Honestly this arena should pose you little threat.
Just Maxus the Many: This boss is simply a DPS race, and honestly is pretty easy. When the fight starts, simply burst down the adds that spawn and then focus on the boss for the remainder of the fight. If you don’t burst down the initial adds they can actually heal the boss, so cast some spells to rid those bastards and then DPS the boss down quickly. Pay attention to avoid his ground AoE. Grabbing the power, defense, and health sigil right in the beginning will help you wipe this boss with very little effort.
Arena 2 - Seht’s Balcony (3 rounds and then boss round):My god! The spinning blades are SO ANNOYING they will drive you crazy at first. The actual Dwemer enemies are pretty easy to kill, and you will find yourself dying from the blades more than enemies so let’s talk about the blades. There are switches around the arena that will stop the blades, but you need to know that this is VERY temporary and does not last long, so continuing to try and stop them can make the fight longer than necessary. Stop them when you happen to be near the switch, but don’t focus too much on trying to hit the switches and certainly don't traverse the arena just to stop the blades. Focus more on avoiding the blades, and never walk the same direction as the blade is moving. The key to not dying from these blades is to kind of stick to one area of the arena and let the enemies come to you. Try not to move around all over the map or you will die. Also, take note of the middle of the room as that portion of the floor will be electrified. It does not cause high damage, but if you stand there it will start to dimish your health noticeably. Essentially, just stay out of the middle.
Centurion Champion x3: The boss fight for the 2nd arena is also not too bad. You’re going to be up against three Centurions that want to end your reign. The ground slam they do is really all you need to worry about; just roll-dodge out when they do that attack and continue to avoid the blades. Don’t think you can just DPS race this fight, as you will likely die. You need to maintain resources and stay away from the enemies and the blades. Do your damage over time and you will kill them eventually. I like to save the sigils until I am about half way through the fight and then I will grab the power and defense sigil to try and finish the fight. The defense and health sigil almost make the spinning blades a no concern. Grouping the bosses together is also helpful as you can cast all your AoE’s on the ground so when they stand up they will be taking damage before they even get into casting any attacks. Don’t grab the haste until you are running low on resources.
Arena 3 - The Drome of Toxic Shock (3 rounds and then boss round):The area hazard once again is your biggest threat. Do NOT stand in the water for very long and make sure you are moving from mound to mound during the fight. In regards to the mobs, you’re going to want to focus all your attention on burst damaging the range mobs first. Remember, the defense sigil will deflect the range attacks! Once you burst down the ranged guys, take down the stranglers and then finish the rest. Putting AoE’s on the mounds as you arrive will help with the snakes and such, which really aren’t a big threat as you move around bursting the ranged enemies. The mini-boss (Queen’s Advisor) can easily be killed just make sure you are dodge-rolling the two-handed attack as it deals heavy damage.
Lamia Queen: The boss in this fight is pretty easy. Don’t try and be fancy and run around the map. It is better to just hammer your DPS on her with your simultaneous heals. She does a scream attack that will stun you, so be sure to avoid that. The adds that spawn in are not your priority. Maintain your focus on the boss and the adds will die when she dies. When the ranged mage spawns, go grab that trusty defense sigil to deflect his damage. Burst that bitch down and let’s move on.
Arena 4 – Seht’s Flywheel (3 rounds and then boss round):An important thing to note here is in regards to the Sentries that spawn in. If you fall behind in this fight and are not killing them prior to them activating their shields in the center area, then they are basically impenetrable. Do not waste your energy on them while in this state, but instead either kill them on their way to the middle (they are very easy to kill) or wait for the shield to stop. However, keep in mind that they simply will keep spawning in so you should really keep your focus on the other mobs, mainly the Dwemer spheres and mages. Here’s where burst damage is key. You will likely be moving around a lot so landing good AoE’s on groups will be difficult here. Just focus on one enemy at a time with burst damage and take out the sentries when opportunities arise. Also, don’t forget your sigils. The mini-boss at the end of the 3rd round (Kothheid) can chain you in and keeps a fire AoE on him, so if you get chained be sure to roll out.
The Control Guardian: This guy is VERY easy if you know the strat. He walks counterclockwise in the room and while he is walking he will shoot lighting attacks at you and have a green circle at his feet. Grab the health and defense sigil and stay at the bosses feet while he is moving. Cast DPS on him as you are walking around. Your main time to do damage will be when he stops. When he stops he will cast fire at his feet, so stay back a little now and try to grab the power sigil prior to him stopping. Once stopped case your ultimate, AoEs, and then hit him with all your DPS. Do not focus on the adds that spawn in as you should be able to DPS the boss down without worrying about them. It should only take him stopping once or twice before you kill him.
Arena 5 – Rink of Frozen Blood (4 rounds and then boss round):This is the first arena that will probably start giving you trouble. Expect to wipe several times here before you get the hang of the arena. You’ll have three ice pads that you can stand on separated by cold water that will do a lot of damage if you stay in it very long.
The ranged attacks shoot ice attacks at you that are absolutely devastating, and burst damaging them down will always be your #1 priority. You have to take them out quickly so you can then focus on the trolls before they break your platforms. However, it is more important to burst down the range attacks than killing the troll. What you really want to do is go to the platform that the troll goes to and cast your AoE’s (grabbing a power sigil can help here) and the Ogre will come to the platform to enjoy your AoE with the troll. While they are taking damage quickly burst down the ranged attackers and flip back to your troll to finish him off and then take down the Ogre. For the 4th round, try to have an ultimate ready to cast on the two trolls that spawn first and again shift your focus to the ranged attackers.
Matriarch Runa: This is a very tough fight. You need to be sure you can “break free” from her fear attack so you’re not stuck out in the water. In this fight, do not get caught thinking you can just DPS down as doing too much DPS will put you in a situation that can hurt you. The boss will destroy ice pads and spawn in adds based on her health. Keep that in mind. Burning her too fast will overwhelm you with adds. First priority in this fight is the trolls, you cannot let the troll break the ice pads, as the boss will take out 2 during the fight and if a troll takes one out there will be no place to stand. As soon as the fight starts go to the pad where the troll is heading and drop you AoEs. Again burst down any ranged adds the spawn in. Once the boss looks like she is about to break the ice then move to the next platform (taking care to make sure it is the one where the troll is heading). After the second ice platform breaks, grab the power and defense sigils to stand on the final platform and focus on the boss to burn her down. The defense should reflect the range guys while you finish the fight.
Arena 6 – Spiral Shadows (4 rounds and then boss round):This a pretty tough round (Honestly arena 5/6 are harder than 7/8 in my opinion). You really need to understand the mechanics of the arena to successfully beat it, and I will try to explain as best I can, but ultimately you will need to play and die a few times to fully understand what I am saying.
Take note of the pillar in the middle and the four pillars around it. The pillars are an essential part of this arena, and most will be covered by webs at the beginning. One pillar at a time (if de-webbed) will have a golden glow which offers protection from the spiderlings that will spawn in during the arena. These spinderlings will kill you if you are not in a protective pillar’s aura. It is important to “de-web” the pillars that have webbing on them, as if they have webbing on them they will not be able to have a protective aura. In fact, if they all have webbing and the spiderlings spawn you are essentially dead. The way you de-web the pillars is by killing a venomous Horvar next to the pillar. When the horvar dies he will explode and cause the webbing to disappear. You want to maintain at least 2-3 de-webbed pillars at all times. The Horvars will spawn in every 20 seconds or so, make sure you are killing them next to a pillar every time. Now, the de-webbed pillars need to be protected from the webspinners, which will spawn in every 10-20 seconds and they will begin trying to place webbing on the clear pillars. You must kill them in a timely fashion so that the pillar remains de-webbed. Your main priority is always to deweb pillars and to kill webspinners. Everything else is a second priority. An additional thing to note is that if you deweb all 5 pillars simultaneously, every enemy on the map will be stunned for a short period of time, after which 4 pillars will have web on them again, and the cycle starts over. Understanding the pillars and webbing is the most essential part of this arena. As long as you maintain keeping webs off of the pillars, you will be able to kill the mobs that spawn in in rounds 1-4. Don’t forget your sigils. Also in round 3, be sure to cast your ultimate on the two-hand attacking mini-boss and take him down. Once he is around 50% grab the defense sigil to avoid the damage from the range attackers that spawn in (do this in round 4 as well).
Champion of Atrocity: This boss is very tough. You must stun this biatch in about 2 minutes by clearing all the pillars of webbing or she WILL instakill you and there is nothing you can do about it. So again, clearing webs with Horvars and killing webspinners is essential. You really don’t have room to miss a single one. Make sure to take down the little spiders that spawn in very quickly to avoid the snares they drop. Essentially your goal is to clear the pillars of webbing and stun the boss. Try to grab the health sigil after you knock down the first webspinner and Horvar and focus your attention on the Lurcher. No, once he is down just make sure you are getting all the Pillars de-webbed and make sure the webspinners don’t replace the webbing. Once all 5 are dewebbed you should stun the boss and be able to lay down the heat. Hit that hoe with mad DPS and finish this fight. Even if she gets up you shouldn’t need to do a full stun round again just keep hitting her while maintaining a few open Pillars. This is a very tough fight so just keep at it and make that Spider Daedra look like guts on the bottom of your shoe.
Arena 7 – Vault of Umbrage (4 rounds and then boss round):If you made it past arena 5 and 6 then you should find yourself with an easier arena here. The enemies are not that tough, and you will do well as long as you avoid the environmental poison plants that will explode with an AoE. If they hit you then you have to run to one of the green pools on either side of the arena quickly. The poison damage is extremely high and you will most likely need to cast your harness magicka to even make it to the pool on Vet before dying. The first few rounds are fairly simple and just burst down the adds and avoid the little exploding plants. The third round houses two trolls at the end so be sure to save your ultimate to finish them off. Round 4 rocks a Wamasu, but he is honestly easy as well if you grab the haste sigil. Overall the mob rounds are pretty easy and straight forward compared to the previous arenas and you should have little problem getting to the boss. Don’t forget to grab your sigils and burst down those archers though as if they get a charged arrow shot on you then you will probably die (defense sigil will reflect). The venomcallers will be the ones spawning on the corners of the room and call in the plants so taking them down will minimize the amount of poisonous plants in your way.
Argonian Behemoth: This guy is pretty easy if you know the strategy. When he spawns in just go ahead and damage him as much as possible. He is pretty slow so you can kite him rather easily. When the adds spawn go ahead and burst one down and then run to the other. He will create a shield around him that will protect you from the Behemoth when he screams (you’ll know what I’m talking about). When he starts getting all mad and hitting his chest you got to be in that shield. Be careful not to kill the mob or interrupt him because the scream will one shot you if you are not in the shield. Once his scream is over wipe the add and continue to DPS the boss. Kill the venomcallers when they come and another round of lightning adds will eventually spawn and you will rinse and repeat. Peace out Argonian. Who’s next?
Arena 8 – Igneous Cistern (4 rounds and then boss round):This arena is also not too bad. A big key to this arena is having high DPS, which will make this arena a cakewalk. The only mechanic you really need to know about are the three floating rocks around the arena, which are only important for the mini bosses and the final boss. Whenever you see these rocks become “activated” they will essentially place a ward on the boss and you have to destroy the pylon before you can damage the boss. Lava also shoots at you from the peripheral part of the arena, but honestly you don’t even need to worry about that. The first four rounds will probably give you little trouble just keep bursting down the enemies and take down pylons if they spawn. Nothing special here. The power and defense sigils will turn the 3rd and 4th round mini-bosses to jokefests.
Valkyn Tephra: I honestly think this boss is one of the easiest in the entire dungeon. Once he spawns you will notice that all three pylons will be activated so you must destroy all of them before you can damage the boss. Once you do destroy them all the boss will be stunned and you need to last waste with your DPS and do as much damage as possible. Once she recovers the pylons will reactivate and you must rinse and repeat. It really is that simple if you have good DPS. Your only problem will come if you cannot kill her in two rounds of taking down the pylons, but honestly if you made it this far you should be able to burn her in two rounds of it. There will be some Dremora that spawn in during the fight as well, but you can just avoid them entirely and continue to focus on the pillars and the boss. Sometimes what I do is cast an AoE on the final pillar to let it finish the pillar off while I go to the boss to start my rotation to maximize the time I am hitting her. You can also use the time that your AoE is killing the last totem to go and burst down the mage add if you find he is giving you trouble. Also, the defense sigil will protect you from the flame atronachs so you can ignore them entirely.
Arena 9: Theater of Despair (5 rounds and then a boss round):
Well, here we are. You made it to the finale. This arena is going to test you, and it is going to beat you several times. You will probably feel like you can’t do it, but trust me if you made it this far then you can do it!! You honestly will need to keep playing the arena over and over to see what is killing you and how to avoid it. The entire arena including the build-up rounds are difficult so get ready. Here we go:
This is the first (and last) arena that I recommend using tri-stat pots as well as tri-stat foods as you are going to need stamina for several situations. Let’s first talk about some of the things around the arena to take note of. First is the blue ghosts traveling around the arena, you want to avoid them as running into them will cause massive damage and slow you a bit. Now you will also see one gold spirit occasionally walking around; you want to absorb these. Once you absorb three gold ghosts you will have a synergy that can stun all the enemies on the map (including the final boss). .Keep in mind that mobs can also absorb the gold ghosts and become stronger as well so you definitely do not want that to happen.
Always prioritize getting the gold ghost if you see it. Lastly (environmental wise), standing next to the edge of the arena will cause fire balls to shoot at you from the lava so let’s not get to close to the edge okay?
Now let’s cover the adds a bit because honestly in this arena they can all kill you. The biggest threat to your survival are the Crematorium guards. You must kill them first and fast to beat this dungeon. Master whatever rotation you are running in order to get these guys off the board ASAP. Just make sure you keep your shield active and your crit surge on. The dremora adds aren’t overly powerful, but be sure to burst them down after you take care of the Crematorium. The ranged archer can basically kill you if you let him get full charge shot off so be sure to stun him if you see him charging a shot up. Anyway, just mob priority will get you through the first two rounds.
Round 3 has a difficult part near the end when an Ogrim and 2 Daedra spawn in. Try to have a ghost synergy ready for this, grab the health and defense sigil and kill the Ogrim ASAP before the Crematorium guard and nightblade spawn in. If all that is on the board at the same time you can get into trouble quickly so try to get the Ogrim down and then take care of the Crematorium. Use the power sigil to handle him.
Round 4 is sort of unique with summoners that spawn and walk slowly to the center of the arena to try and summon a Bone Colossus. They are not very tanky and you can kill them easily, but you must kind of keep an eye out for them as they spawn in the midst of the other adds trying to kill you. You must stop them before they summon the bone colossus. If they are able to get him summoned it is often a wipe for you. As long as you prioritize the summoners you should be okay. Try and use your ghost explosion for when the Crematorium spawns.
Round 5 will introduce an ash titan about halfway through. Kill the Crematorium first (hopefully before the ash titan spawns) and then when the ash titan falls in grab the power sigil and hit him with as much DPS as possible. After you lay down a lot of damage a few archers will spawn in so go grab the defense sigil to deflect their attacks so you can focus and finish the titan. After you kill the titan you are almost home free, but go grab the health and haste sigils and finish the night blades that spawn in.
Voriak Solkyn: Just accept the fact that he is going to go beast-mode on you several times before you get to have the last laugh. It wasn’t meant to be easy, and trust me it isn’t. This fight is VERY unforgiving and a single mistake will often end the attempt for you so stay focused and keep learning what is killing you and how you can avoid it the next time.
Voriak will start out on the bottom level in the middle, and you want to try and get him down to around 70% as fast as you can to get to the second stage of the fight. This will make your life easier if you can get this early quick burn on him. Don’t use your ultimate however, you’re going to want to keep that for the first Crematorium when he spawns. Now, Voriak has a few attacks he will send your way every 8-10 seconds. First is a skull that he throws, simply block or dodge this. The second is his necrotic wave. You will start taking damage in incremental tics and he has a purple pulse around him. You must go interrupt this immediately or you will die. Once he teleports a Crematorium and healer will spawn in. You must kill them quickly. I like to cast my ultimate here and just burn the Crematorium down asap. I try not to grab sigils in this part of the fight, but if you are having trouble then choose the health sigil. Do not grab the others as we are going to need them for the end of the fight. You just need to be aware of the boss teleporting and when he is throwing skulls at you or doing his necrotic wave. He will do one or the other every time he teleports. Once you get rid of the Crematorium, now just focus on finishing the healer and getting the boss to 70%. Once he gets to 70% you will enter stage 2 where he will teleport to the top of the arena and a clannfear will spawn.
For this stage what you need to do is kill the clannfear next to a glowing portal, which can move. Once you kill the clannfear you can take the new portal up to the top level. The goal on the top level is do destroy all three of the crystals, which will make the boss go back to the bottom. Keep in mind that the boss will continue to throw skull attacks at you which will knock you off the platform so you need to keep an eye on him. You will also be taking unavoidable soul churn damage which progressively get worse/take more and more health per tic the longer you are on the top level. Take note of the moving wall that is rotating around the inner portion of the upper level. After the boss throws a skull at you he well elevate a little and cause an explosion that will damage you and knock you off the platform if you are not behind the wall. Be sure you are behind the wall when this happens. The wall will get faster each time he does this.
Your main priority on the top left is to keep your harness magicka and crit surge active and take down the crystals. I like to go to the first crystal and cast my AoE’s and hit it a few times and move to the next crystal and let my AoE’s finish it off. Get to the next crystal and get into my usual rotation to bring it down. The particular order of crystals you attack doesn’t really matter and will most likely be dictated by where the wall is. Just avoid his attacks and stay with the wall and hit whatever crystal that is near you. Once the second crystal is down I like to just cast my AoE’s my ultimate on the last crystal burst it a little bit and go ahead and roll of the top level before the crystal is destroyed. The reason I like to roll off preemptively is that I go ahead and start grabbing all the sigils (defense, power, health, and haste) so that when the crystal pops the boss will come to the bottom and I can start focusing all my attention on killing him.
Make sure you are grabbing the gold ghosts and use that synergy as soon as you get it. Ideally drop AoE’s on the main boss and the Crematorium that spawns in. Once you use the synergy then you can focus on just burning the boss. If your DPS is low it can be hard to burn him before the summoners call a bone colossus so you may need to drop them down if your DPS is not high. The main key on the last stage is to get the sigils, burn the boss, and
get the gold ghosts. Using the gold ghost near the end will give you free reign for the final burn. No matter how you put it, it is a difficult stage. You need to do all these steps simultaneously while avoiding his attacks and interrupting his necrotic wave.
I hope this guide is helpful!! Good luck!
Stam Nightblade Video Guide:-Damron Out