So, I finally beat Vet Maelstrom Arena for the first time. I did this on a melee magicka DK and had absolute rough time, and probably would have saved myself some headache by rolling a force-pulsing magicka Sorc specifically for the arena. I was hoping to acquire an Inferno staff, but something told me I wouldn't have that much beginner's luck. Sure enough, hours and hours and hundreds of deaths later, I walked away with a crummy Maelstrom axe - a nice, giant "F**** YOU for your participation".
The idea of being entirely reliant on crappy RNG to acquire the Maelstrom weapon that you need for your build is such a massive flaw. Now, certain people can grind Vet Maelstrom Arena in record timing and that is fine, very impressive even, but Vet Maelstrom Arena is not grind-able content. It's not meant to be grind-able content. Players should not have to grind through this arena tens or hundreds of times in order to have a chance at acquiring the one Maelstrom weapon they can actually make use of. It's not rewarding content to grind, it's not fun, and there are enough players who have either a) started Vet Maelstrom and have given up completely on beating it, b) beat Vet Maelstrom once and never went back, c) Won't even go near it at all, to realize that RNG just does not for this arena.
If you're able to make it through this arena then there is no reason why you should not have your pick at which Maelstrom weapon you want from the chest, after all the hours and potions you've burned getting through it. Content that you need to grind is not "new", and it's not "refreshing", it's more of the same tedious crap, and in Vet Maelstrom's case it's just plain torture to expect people to grind through the hardest single-player content in the game for a chance at the weapon they want.
Having completed Vet Maelstrom for a crappy axe I can honestly say that I will not be setting foot in this arena again until Zenimax rethinks the Maelstrom weapon drop system, and it blows my mind that it has been this way for years despite constant feedback from the ESO community year after year that it's not acceptable as is. I can guarantee that if players who clear Maelstrom can choose their weapon at the end, it would incentivize players to actually give Vet Maelstrom a go, or complete it, knowing that at the end of the torturous content, they're at least getting a reward that they can sink their teeth into.
In anticipation of the "LTP"s, I'm not here to listen to how easy it is to /faceroll Vet Maelstrom if you're breezing through the arena with your already-acquired Maelstrom weapons, or OP Sorc builds. None of that changes the fact that Vet Maelstrom arena is not content that's meant for grinding. In its current state Vet Maelstrom is good for one thing: title bragging rights.
