In this part of the Vateshran Hollows Arena Guide for the Elder Scrolls Online we are going to take a look at some basic advice and nice tips & tricks that will make your time easier in the arena.
Quick Tips & Tricks
- Sigils: All boss fights have four sigils, if you have issues killing a boss make sure to use them, they make the fight a lot easier. For example the shield sigil decreases incoming damage and reflects all ranged attacks.
- Builds: All the solo builds on AlcastHQ.com do have a special loadout for the Vateshran Hollows solo arena closer to the bottom of the build page.
- Difficulty Scaling: No matter what arena you do first, the monsters in the first arena will have the lowest health, the second arena will increase health and damage, and the third arena will have even more health and damage. So it always increases the difficulty of each arena the further you get no matter which arena you do first and which one you do last.
- Trifecta: The Trifecta achievement (NoDeath, Speedrun, NoSigil run) allows you to skip monsters as they aren't a requirement for the achievement, therefore you can save plenty of time in case you are worried you might not make it in time.
- Stat Boost: Each arena has a special modifier increasing your stats in either stamina, magicka or health. The Hunter’s Grotto (Green) has the Essence of Endurance, The Wounding (Blue) has the Essence of Mysticism and the Brimston’s Den (Red) has the Essence of Fortitude. More about these essences below.
Basic Advice
In this section of the Vateshran Hollows arena guide we are going to take a look at some of the basic advice that can be helpful.
Quest & Saving Your Progress
Before entering the Arena, make sure you accept the repeatable quest “Veteran Vateshran’s Rites” from the NPC named “The Rites Matron”. The quest serves as a savegame, which allows you to leave Vateshran Hollows to play other content, or to log out. If you have the quest active, you can continue the arena from the last boss you killed rather than having to start from the beginning again. If you abandon the quest, you will have to start over from scratch.
How much DPS do I need?
You can play the first three areas of Vateshran Hollows with very low damage just fine, as long as you don’t ignore the bosses’ mechanics here. However: The fight against the final boss of this arena contains a damage check. If you don’t pass it, you will get oneshot. There is no way to avoid this damage check and if your damage output is not high enough to make it past this mechanic, you will not be able to finish this arena, period. The absolute minimum dps needed here is 9118 (You need to kill a mob who has 227952 Health within 25 seconds).
This may sound low, but you have to do this while moving around and avoiding damage. So if your character can barely pass the 10k dps mark on a target dummy while standing still, it might be a good idea to change your build and skills.
Sigils
On each of the bossfights you can find four sigils. The sigils are a great help because they are really powerful if used in the right moments and can make a difference for new players. You won’t see them being used in score runs by top players, as the use of sigils means a lower score, but they can really help you to get through arena. Use them if you feel like you are in trouble! All the sigil buffs have a duration of 30 seconds. They always spawn at the same location, so you can try to memorize where they are.
- Sigil of Haste (Wings)This sigil looks like a wing. It grants you the Major Expedition buff, which increases your movement speed by 30%. It also increases your health, magicka and stamina recovery.
- Sigil of Healing (Goblet)This sigil looks like a goblet and grants you a powerful heal over time.
- Sigil of Power (Axe)This one looks like an axe and greatly increases your damage done.
- Sigil of Defense (Shield)This sigil, which looks like a shield, gives you a lot of damage mitigation and additionally reflects all ranged attacks back to the attacker, often causing ranged mobs to even kill themselves.
Note: If you are working on the Trifecta achievement for the "Spirit Slayer" title, you can’t use sigils, as this is part of the challenge.
Sustain
In most of the boss fights, the bosses spawn some adds which don't have a lot of health and are rather easy to kill. This really helps a lot with sustain of your main resource if you wear False God's Devotion or the Vicious Serpent set. If you don't have access to these sets (or if you keep running out of stamina on a magicka character because you dodge and block a lot), don't despair! The skill Consuming Trap can be of great help to you. Just place it on the low health adds before killing them, this will return both magicka and stamina to you. Your main resource usually gets around 8000 resources back, which is huge.
Buff-food & Potions
Please check out the builds that have a Vateshran Hollows setup to get more information on what buff-food and potions you should be using.
Skipping Monsters
The whole arena is very linear and more like a dungeon rather than a classic “arena” with different stages consisting of mob waves. If you have done Maelstrom Arena, Dragonstar Arena or Blackrose Prison, you will immediately notice the difference to those once you start your Vateshran Hollows run. Due to the dungeon-like layout of Vateshran Hollows, it is possible to skip many mobs on your way. Only a few “Gatekeeper”-Mobs, usually standing directly in front of closed doors or other barriers, and the bosses have to die. You will get a lower score if you don't kill everything in your way, but the achievements (speed run, no-death…) count nonetheless! Skipping mobs to save time is a valid tactic here, in some areas you can just sprint from gatekeeper to gatekeeper. As soon as you kill a gatekeeper mob, all weaker mobs you skipped will despawn.Example of skipping monsters can be found in one of Alcasts youtube arena runs here.
The Choosing - Entrance Area
This part of the arena serves as your hub area where you decide which part of the arena to do next. You can see three differently colored portals through which you can access the first three parts of the arena. In the middle, there is a big circle on the ground. After you have cleared the first three areas of the Vateshran Hollows, this circle becomes a glowing portal which you have to use to port to the Champion’s Circle. In there, you will face Maebroogha the Void Lich, the final boss of the arena.
The order in which you do the areas is entirely up to you. However, you should consider a few things:
A. Once you enter an area, you can’t choose a different one even when you port back to the Choosing. Only the portal to the area you just started will be active and usable. You need to beat the last boss of the chosen area to reactivate the other portals.
B. The enemies get stronger for each area you have cleared, they hit harder and have more health. So your first area is at “base difficulty”, the second area is on “medium difficulty” and the area you do last is on “maximum difficulty”. If you have trouble with an area on its highest difficulty, you could restart the arena and practice that area on a lower difficulty first. In this guide you can see the three different health values for each boss, depending on the difficulty stage you fight them on.
C. You can find two secrets in each of the areas, namely a special buff to your resources, and a “hidden” boss. The resource buffs are really powerful and you should consider collecting them even when you are going for the speedrun or no-death-achievements, as they help a lot. Additionally, beating the secret boss of an area grants a different boon to you which can be helpful for later boss fights. However, in a single run, you can only explore the secrets of two areas because you need a special “travel mechanic” that you need to have unlocked in a prior area. So in the area you do first, you can’t do the secret boss fight and you can’t collect the resource buff either.
In the Hunter’s Grotto (“Green Area”), you can grab a buff that increases your stamina. You need to have completed the Brimstone Den before, as you need the Brimstone Orb mechanic for this.
In the Wounding (“Blue Area”), you can find a buff that boosts your magicka. You need the Grappling Hook from the Hunter’s Grotto.In the Brimstone Den (“Red Area”) you can find a buff that boosts your health.. To unlock this, you need the Portal mechanic which you unlock in the Wounding.
The order in which you should to the areas differs depending on your character build. As a magicka player, you want the Health and Magicka buff. On a stamina character, you want the Health and Stamina buff. The orders therefor are:
- Stamina: Blue → Red → Green
- Magicka: Green → Blue → Red
You can learn more about this in the Essence Boosters & Map section of the guide.
