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Intro: So I’ve finally gotten to the point where I’m comfortable enough clearing vMA on my magplar that I can now focus on my main toon. This is certainly a work in progress, but following this guide will at least allow you to get clears, even if not necessarily the highest possible scores.
Shout-outs: Big shoutout to @Spacepanda for rekindling my fire for vMA on my Stam DK, his build advice was immensely helpful. Of course, as always, I’m thankful to the fine folk at Requiem and From the Dust who have allowed me to raid with them, without those guilds I wouldn’t have much of the gear I have today.
Race: I’m an Orc, and if you don’t like it, then gtfo! But seriously, Orc isn’t ideal for Stam DK in PvE situations, the extra health does help out a bit in vMA, but you’d be better served by rolling a Khajiit, Redguard, or Imperial.
Attribute Points: All into Stamina.
Mundus Stone: Serpent – get stam regen, no doubt. If you’re at the point where you have vMA on easy-mode farm, then you might be able to get by with Thief for quicker times, but until then, you’re going to want Serpent.
Champion Points
Warrior: Split your points up between Elemental Defender, Thick Skinned, and Hardy.
Thief: Max out cost reduction, then put the rest into recovery.
Mage: I currently run 100 Mighty, 41 Thaumaturge, 26 Precise Strikes, and 10 Piercing. This may change for you depending on your gear and stats, so I encourage you to check out Asayre’s website and do your own dps test to find your optimal distribution. The general idea is that the vast majority of our damage is coming from DoTs (everything except our medium attack weaves) and all our damage is either physical or poison. Thus, most of your points will be in Mighty and Thaumaturge.
Gear
7 Medium > 5/1/1 unless you’re really looking to squeeze out a little extra health, in which case I can’t really blame you, but I still recommend 7 Medium. Either way, run Divines on everything with Stamina enchants. Make sure that your armor is at least purple quality, and if you can afford it, gold your sets out.
Jewelry – 3/3 Vicious Ophidian with Weapon Power enchants.
Other 7 Pieces – 2 Vicious Ophidian and 5 Night Mother’s. The 5 piece VO set is HUGE in here, as it will help out your regen immensely, as well as give you a speed buff and extra damage. I run 5 NM because that’s what I have and I just really like the set, but 5 TBS works well too, as it will net you about 1k more health (in which case, grab Serpent and Thief Mundus Stones).
“But hold on, Duck” you say, “I don’t have VO gear yet because I haven’t farmed trials” in which case I reply, “get to farming!” I’m sure there are other builds out there that people are clearing with, which I would love to hear all about, but honestly I feel like getting that 5 pc VO makes a world of difference, so I highly encourage you to do whatever it takes to get it.
Weapons: Sharpened vMA Dagger, Sharpened vMA Axe, and Sharpened vMA Bow. The vMA weapons make things in here melt FAST. If you don’t have them, then crafting up NM or Hundings will do fine in the meantime. Just make sure that they’re Sharpened and golded out. I’ve said it before, but incase you don’t know by now – you get the greatest return on investment by upgrading your weapons to gold, as opposed to any other piece of armor. So even if you’re cheap GOLD OUT THOSE WEAPONS!!! If you then have the funds left over, upgrade your armor as well.
If you are going to craft your weapons, you will want the Weapon Damage enchant on your bow and one of your main bar weapons, on the other you will want poison damage. The poison enchant will be increased by your CP, and having Weapon Damage on both your bow and other weapon helps ensure greater uptime (note: due to the cooldown, both WD enchants cannot proc at once.)
Food: Blue Health and Stamina. An argument could also be made for tri-stat food as well, since you will make liberal use of wing-flapping in some rounds.
Potions: Essence of Weapon Power. Ideally you want to have these on cooldown and be 3/3 in Medicinal Use so that you have constant uptime on your weapon damage bonus.
Skills
Bar 1 (DW): Rapid Strikes | Venomous Claws | Rending Slashes | Noxious Breath | Steel Tornado Ultimate: Flawless Dawnbreaker
Bar 2 (Bow): Endless Hail | Caltrops | Poison Injection | Wings | Vigor Ultimate: Corrosive Armor
You will always start by dropping Caltrops and then Hail onto the portal of your highest priority target. Vigor is your main heal, and Wings will save you in stages with lots of projectile adds (in particular 3, 4, 5, and 7). Your front bar has all your DoTs, as well as Steel Tornado for when you need to spin to win.
Corrosive Armor is really a lifesaver – it caps your incoming damage AND negates your target’s resistance. I find it to be more helpful on large trash rounds than bosses really, but use as needed. Dawnbreaker is on your front bar to provide extra dmg output via Fighter’s Guild passives, but also comes in handy when you can’t wait for Corrosive Armor and need to regen resources via DK passives.
“Wait a second” you think to yourself “surely Duck accidentally left Camo Hunter off his bars, right?” Wrong. There really isn’t room to run it on both bars. You might be tempted to run it on just your front bar, but you would be mistaken, because ZOS. Popping a crit potion while having a crit buff on just one bar will cause your crit bonus to be over-written during bar swapping, so you’re left with the option of either having Camo on both bars or not at all. Since we’re keeping our crit potions on cool down anyways (because you’re not a cheapskate, right???) we really don’t need to run Camo.
Closing Thoughts
If you’re struggling with keeping your health up, re-morphing Rending into Blood Craze will help a bit. I’ve also heard it recommended that you make room for Obsidian Shield to buff your Vigor.
If this build worked out well for you and you were able to get a clear, then congrats, Senpai Notices You!!! For your efforts you will undoubtedly be rewarded with a Prosperous Mace.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to let me know below, I’m always open to feedback.
Happy Gaming,
Duck
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Duckbutta.
