The Maelstrom Arena
The Maelstrom Arena is a solo instanced arena where you can face off against waves of enemies and earn great rewards. The Arena is located in the zone of Wrothgar (Orsinium DLC) near the north east corner of the map. To access the Maelstrom Arena you will need to either have an active ESO Plus subscription or have purchased the Orsinium DLC on the Crown Store (3000 Crowns). You can tackle the Arena at any level with the Battle Level feature which raises your stats to an average VR14 character. In fact Battle Level can be on throughout the Wrothgar zone.
The Maelstrom Arena can be completed in two different modes – Normal and Veteran. You will gain access to Veteran mode when you reach Veteran Rank 1.
Your progress in The Maelstrom Arena is saved and you can stop and resume after each stage. So there are nine stages in total and you can complete these one by one with a break in between with no progress lost. This is possible because the Arena is tied to a repeatable solo quest.
Rewards
There are multiple rewards in the Maelstrom Arena. You will be able to loot enemies and these have chance to drop some of the new weapon and jewellery item sets, amongst other things. In both the Normal and Veteran modes you can be rewarded with these new sets. The Veteran Mode can possibly reward a Maelstrom Weapon. You will be also be rewarded after each stage of the Arena.
Malestrom Weapons are like Master Weapons and are enchanted with an ability-altering effect.
Maelstrom Master Weapons
| Maelstrom Weapon | Item Type | Enchant | Style |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Maelstrom's Restoration Staff | Restoration Staff | Regeneration restores 481 Magicka to you when it critically heals a target. Can occur once every 4 seconds. While equipped, grants 688 additional Spell Critical. | Dwemer |
| The Maelstrom's Inferno Staff | Destruction Staff (Flame) | Targets affected by Wall of Elements take 387 additional damage from your Light and Heavy Attacks. While equipped grants 190 additional Spell Damage. | Dwemer |
| The Maelstrom's Bow | Bow | Increases the damage of Volley by 8 per 0.5 seconds, stacking over the duration of Volley. While equipped, grants 190 additional Weapon Damage. | Dwemer |
| The Maelstrom's Great Sword | Two Handed | Your Critical Charge deals an additional 4300 Physical Damage over 5 seconds. While equipped increases Weapon Damage by 190. | Dwemer |
| The Maelstrom's Battle Axe | Two Handed | Your Critical Charge deals an additional 4300 Physical Damage over 5 seconds. While equipped increases Weapon Damage by 190. | Dwemer |
| The Maelstrom's Maul | Two Handed | Your Critical Charge deals an additional 4300 Physical Damage over 5 seconds. While equipped increases Weapon Damage by 190. | Dwemer |
| The Maelstrom's Sword | One Handed | Your Low Slash grants 430 additional damage and restores 232 additional Stamina on your next filly charged Heavy Attack within 5 seconds. While equipped, grants 1651 additional Physical and Spell Resistance. | Dwemer |
| The Maelstrom's Mace | One Handed | Your Low Slash grants 430 additional damage and restores 232 additional Stamina on your next filly charged Heavy Attack within 5 seconds. While equipped, grants 1651 additional Physical and Spell Resistance. | Dwemer |
| The Maelstrom's Axe | One Handed | Your Flurry grants 387 additional Weapon and Spell Damage on the next single target damage over time effect cast within 4 seconds. While equipped, grants 94 Weapon Damage. Has a 50% chance to trigger per equipped weapon with this enchant. | Dwemer |
| The Maelstrom's Dagger | One Handed | Your Flurry grants 387 additional Weapon and Spell Damage on the next single target damage over time effect cast within 4 seconds. While equipped, grants 94 Weapon Damage. Has a 50% chance to trigger per equipped weapon with this enchant. | Dwemer |
Sigils
While you are inside the Arena there are four Sigils which spawn before each round. You can simply walk over to one and activate it to gain a unique bonus which will apply while you are in the Arena.
Sigil of Haste
Grants the Major Expedition buff which increases your movement speed by 40%.
Also increases your Health, Magicka and Stamina Regen.
Sigil of Healing
Grants a powerful heal over time.
Sigil of Defense
Grants a damage reduction to all effects and reflects ranged attacks.
Sigil of Power
Grants increased Weapon Damage.
Leader Boards
When you reach Veteran Rank 16, the current level cap, you will be ranked in leader boards at The Maelstrom Arena based on your Class. There are 4 leader boards, one for each Class. You can earn points in the Arena in a variety of different ways.
- You will be granted points every time you complete an Arena. You can earn bonus points for each round that you survive.
- If you complete a round without activating a Sigil then you can also earn bonus points.
- If you complete the Arena within 1 hour and 30 minutes you will get some bonus points. More points are rewarded for quicker runs.
What? No Lightning Destro Master Staff?
Are the Maelstrom Weapons available in both Normal and Vet modes?
Just at the end of Veteran mode. Normal mode drops blue items I believe (at end of every round), and Vet mode drops purple items. Only Vet mode drops Maelstrom Weapons.
I was wondering if you complete the vet maelstrom arena do you have a chance to get maelstrom weapons gold? Or do you have to place in the top 100? Cause I’m having a lot of trouble beating it and def not in the top 100….but I want a maelstrom weapon badly…..
I was wondering if you complete the vet maelstrom arena do you have a chance to get maelstrom weapons gold? Or do you have to place in the top 100? Cause I’m having a lot of trouble beating it and def not in the top 100….but I want a maelstrom weapon badly…..
Zenimax you really need to consider nerfing maelstrom arena or decreasing the amount of mobs or adds that spawn. Its ridiculous, I pass first round no problem, second round no problem, and when third round reaches I barely make it because the further I get the more mobs spawn. I literally spend 80% of my time trying to defend and survive. The other 20% I might get to do a couple of light attacks and couple of spells. This arena is far to hard then what it should be. Please make it a little bit easier for the ones that struggle ever day putting in effort trying to complete this ridiculous arena. Thank you, have a great day.
I’m sorry but I have to disagree, I understand your frustration, but I personally think they need to buff up some of the dungeons. This is a great test of ones ability. I have yet to complete this trial and am currently at only the 6th round, but have farmed scathing Mage on v16 and multiple kena helms. I do think however that the weapons should have a chance to drop at the end of every round. Completing the trial gives the storm proof title that prooves you are good. Having to fa this dungeon really does require gold gear and a lot of time, which some people do not have. I love having the challenge, especially since I don’t really care much for pvp, I have alway been more of a pve person, so the fact that they are merging icp and wgt is disappointing. I think if you want something you should have to earn it. Although I do think earning the maelstrom weapon that you want is a bit too difficult. It may just be my opinion and I know my opinion doesn’t match up with everyone’s, but I do believe my opinion would match up with popular vote and would represent the majority, so zenimax, if you happen to read this and care about your gamers, please consider some sort of change to maelstrom and other dungeons.
-sincerely pve’ers
Just to be clear, I run vMA in less than 2 hours and have no gold clothing (only weapons are gold), and my kena pieces are impen (which is obviously no help against mobs). Everything else I use is crafted gear or willpower. It is not hard to gear out for this dungeon, it is a matter of learning the dungeon.
agreed, no need to soften up opponents, just train harder dude.
Just made it all the way through on normal, nothing much special in the way of gear, julianos, willpower, couple of elegant pieces. Could have fiddled around and added a couple from torugs, but didn’t want to bother with making new staff, etc.
Everything purple. Took about four hours. First time run.
Regular magicka sorc.
And, I’ll say flatly, my hands hurt. It is very hard to do, but most of it was very much like my first AA run, just learning what to do and what to avoid.
As for the merging and 100% helm drops, I do kind of understand that. The problem with probability drops is that you wind up with some players with a half a dozen that they can’t trade, and others with none after running dungeon X fifteen times.
Nobody wants to write the code to check what a player actually HAS, in bank and on person, and raise or lower the probabilities of a drop by something like “number of times dungeon run / number in possession”, so you get this building inequity over time. In the case of a GOOD item, that eventually becomes an unacceptable burden, so they either have to make them tradeable or they make them easier to get.
Forgive the typos in that rant..
Honestly all maelstrom is, is AOE damage if you can focus on burning one npc at a time with an aoe that does decent damage to the rest you’ll be fine
Yup Def disagree gotta practice man. Great rewards shouldn’t come easy. Put your mind to it gotta definitely have patiences. Learn each around Practice each round and you will finish it.
**DON’T NERF ARENA**
Tips if you are having difficulties
1.Be patient don’t rage, it’s something you did wrong
2.No distractions take your dog out, tell wife you need this time.
3.Use the Sigils when in doubt
4.Practice, practice, practice you’ll get it.
5.IF YOU WATCH YOUTUBE LOOK AT MECHANICS DONT COPY SOMEONES BUILD ITS ALL PLAY STYLE!! (Like those weirdos in PVP running around tress getting killed lol)
Definitely does not need to be nerfed. I’ve been working on my first completion for months now. Practicing, learning mechanics well. Really want to beat this thing now and i’d be super-pissed if they nerfed it before I got through it. It would diminish a hard won victory ya know? I think there needs to be something like that in this game. There should be some content reserved for the people who want to test themselves and their builds against something so hard that a lot of the general player base can’t or won’t put it the time and patience to complete. They can’t just nerf something because its too hard. At least not something that is the only really difficult challenge for the solo pve player.
My two cents.
please dont nerf anymore things in the game , in my opinion that doesnt matter much is ,, the game was way better in 2014 for the delves because you couldnt just run in and kill every thing so fast , no its too easy , dont listen to the crybabies and nerf everything please !! thank you for reading !!
I just did normal maelstrom for the first time and it was a ton of fun. Challenging but not unsurmountable. Nothing needs to be nerfed, it was great.
Only certains builds can make it through Maelstron.
You won’t see any MagikaDK’s for example, regardless of how good you are.
Any class/build can run VMA. Some might be more suited to your play style and some might be the latest meta so give them all a try. Zeni, DO NOT NERF VMA! It’s all some players have left after a while because you’ve nerfed everything else. That being said, the game itself may not be fully capable of supporting the difficulty level of VMA (relevant to variable network speeds). With all the glitchy crap that goes on in there some will walk away from the game out of shear frustration.
Ok, regardless of what some people think, VMA CANNOT be run with just any rotation/play style. Actually, even if you have a battle corner build, you still may not even qualify. The VMA does need to be nerfed, but the weapon rewards should not drop in normal mode. When you can’t take the rotation you want and run the play style you want, legendary your gear, and beat VMA, it’s a problem. I’ve witnessed 3 different people that suck at the game, switch to a rotation they didn’t want, gear they didn’t like, and a play style they didn’t care for; just to get maelstrom weapons and they still sucked after obtaining them. Reality has it that people are getting upset about the notion that veteran Maelstrom Arena should be nerfed because the fact of the matter is that they had to put all their unnecessary time and all their unnecessary effort into something that should have never been that hard to begin with. So, if even the thought that veteran Maelstrom Arena should be nerfed or could possibly get nerfed by Zenimax pops up, it is an automatic threat to players who have already completed it. There are good players that don’t have Maelstrom weapons simply because, either they don’t have the time or they refuse to create something that is not them just to beat something for end game weapons and bad players that have these weapons. Oh, and for the record, no dungeon and no run in this game should take anyone a month, a week, nor a year to complete. That right there says it all and that veteran Maelstrom Arena should be nerfed. It doesn’t have to be greatly nerfed and the weapon should not drop in normal mode, but it does need to be toned down just a bit.
I just ran through Stam dk tank/dps took me about 2 n half hours Im vet 226 also werewolf and I’m wearing 44 lvl gear might be 38 I don’t remember toonnnnnsssssss of potions and buffs single whirlwind aoes and definitely WW form fuck those dang Dwarven spiders btw never been so tired of lightning in my life it’s hard as fuck but it’s fun now to prep for vet run! I don’t think I’d be able to run normal again not yet anyway tool to long as was and gear I got didn’t make my heart skip a beat
Totally agree with Night and IMHO VMA is just not equal in difficultly across all classes. I love my DKStam because that is my first and main toon and MA is pretty difficult to play him with. He just gets overwhelmed at higher rounds by mobs. I play my Magic Templar and just spam AOE for the most part and it’s so much easier and really not all that much fun.
Yep. I also agree with Night completely. Many players with certain builds calmly say, just do this, just do that, and you’ll succeed. But the only way to succeed is to have one of those “certain builds”. The damage dished out by some of the bosses and the drain on your own resources simply rules out certain builds, and this is the game that said you can choose your play style. For VMA, this is simply not true. The only choice you have is to change your build and play style, or die.
Something needs to change…I’m a skilled player….I live in pvp…my highest fight was a 1v8 pulled off successfully and there is no way in hell a NB can make it through that arena which is unfair…allow me to test my skills as a player…dont force me to play a cheese sorc/templar just to have better abilities..come on seriously…and if you tell me a NB can do that arena I want to see proof cus I call bs right now