Nice Reminder that Dragons Suck!

FlopsyPrince

- Instant kill abilities that give no notification ahead of time. (May be lag, but that still interrupts the game.
- Long times between spawns.
- Poor wayshrine placement so it is far too easy for the dragon to get killed before you can get there.

Didn't the devs think of these?

tsaescishoeshiner

The instant kill abilities are all pretty well telegraphed. The DoT that deals hella damage unless you purge it is kinda rough, but otherwise I feel like dragons scale well with more players involved thanks to the 1-shots.

And yeah, the Northern Elsweyr ones are pretty slow during the event, but outside of it they're not as bad due to lower traffic.

FlopsyPrince

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

The instant kill abilities are all pretty well telegraphed. The DoT that deals hella damage unless you purge it is kinda rough, but otherwise I feel like dragons scale well with more players involved thanks to the 1-shots.

And yeah, the Northern Elsweyr ones are pretty slow during the event, but outside of it they're not as bad due to lower traffic.

Perhaps they are to you, but I died earlier tonight 2 seconds after I arrived at a dragon. No ground effects or frost in the air, just instant death.

robpr

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Perhaps they are to you, but I died earlier tonight 2 seconds after I arrived at a dragon. No ground effects or frost in the air, just instant death.

They are laggy as hell, you simply took some damage that registered and rendered ground effect later. Happened to me as well to the first dragon I arrived after logging in. Rest of them should be fine.
Just do any damage to them to be credited as kill, so cast anything as long you are in range.

FlopsyPrince

robpr wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Perhaps they are to you, but I died earlier tonight 2 seconds after I arrived at a dragon. No ground effects or frost in the air, just instant death.

They are laggy as hell, you simply took some damage that registered and rendered ground effect later. Happened to me as well to the first dragon I arrived after logging in. Rest of them should be fine.
Just do any damage to them to be credited as kill, so cast anything as long you are in range.

I hate doing that, but I pretty much zoom in, do some damage and then run outside range to maybe get a bit more damage, though much less than I think I should!

FlopsyPrince

cyclonus11 wrote: »

[snip]

That is a horrid attitude.

Dragons were poorly designed for the reasons I noted.

I don't raid or do MA/vMA now because I am not at that level, but those are specialized content, not general open world bosses.

The one boss in Southern Elseweyr whose disciples nuke you come in a close bad second.

[edited to remove quote]

Iccotak

Skyrim Dragons are better - more lively and animated

but alas this is not Skyrim

ShawnLaRock

Lol. Mechanics. Do you know if you move 2 steps in - you avoid crazy damage? Or - run a Level 4 skill to Purge - then, you’re good?

[snip]

S.

[edited for baiting]

katanagirl1

Lol, dragons are another example where it’s clear that ZOS hates stam melee builds.

There is a razor thin circle around the dragon where you are close enough in range to hit it but just far enough to avoid the giant circle of fire under them.

You have to be fast to block the wing thrash too.

Septimus_Magna

If you think dragons are bad try the fire mage WB in Southern Elsweyr, impossible to solo while I can hold my own against a dragon for a while.

Syrusthevirus187

They are so extremely laggy. Everyone is a black shadow the entire fight and the dragons animations are non-existent

colossalvoids

Either lag or not understanding of simple mechanics, dragons themselves are fine for making overland at least bit more engaging. Also judging it on event is pretty hilarious, it's a 10 sec fights or a disconnect from the server.

AcadianPaladin

To me it is really simple. Are dragons fun? For me the answer is no so I pretty much ignore them. Simple.

TwinStripeUK

robpr wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Perhaps they are to you, but I died earlier tonight 2 seconds after I arrived at a dragon. No ground effects or frost in the air, just instant death.

They are laggy as hell, you simply took some damage that registered and rendered ground effect later. Happened to me as well to the first dragon I arrived after logging in. Rest of them should be fine.
Just do any damage to them to be credited as kill, so cast anything as long you are in range.

^^This^^

I've often been killed and then seen the ground AoE effect trigger during the recap

Plus, you can indeed hit them with a single light attack, retreat and still get the credit/XP (and during the event this is as close as a lot of players are getting due to the slow spawns and quick kill rates)

Lady_Galadhiel

If you have done enough dragons you know the mechanics of each,they aren't sunspire dragons lol

SammyKhajit

At least on two occasions this one can’t move or use skills attacks. Just got stuck there whilst Merri/Bastian yelled useless advice.

cyclonus11

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

cyclonus11 wrote: »

[snip]

That is a horrid attitude.

Dragons were poorly designed for the reasons I noted.

I don't raid or do MA/vMA now because I am not at that level, but those are specialized content, not general open world bosses.

The one boss in Southern Elseweyr whose disciples nuke you come in a close bad second.

[edited to remove quote]

Nah it was just a joke. Wasn't trying to troll.

ApoAlaia

I don't know, I find them all right, and I have killed them in droves because I'm a s****r for the furniture leads they drop.

Soul Tear can be rough at times but more often than not there is a friendly, neighbourly Templar around to help with that so I don't usually slot Purge. If it happens that there isn't one around then I fit the skill in, no big deal.

Regardless, as it has been mentioned already every 'major' move is telegraphed (heck, a whole bunch of them are shouted, how is that for 'telegraphing'); if you are not 'getting the memo' is most likely due to the current exceptional circumstances making the encounters unusually busy and laggy.

I do think that N.Elsweyr could do with a couple of additional wayshrines for convenience and QoL though.

whitecrow

I don't have the best reflexes but I can still manage to avoid most of the attacks. I've even learnt to see when a wingslap is coming.

Things that still get me sometimes are the molten spikes and wind storm.

Blood_again

Well, almost every dragon attack is easy predictable and avoidable.
Dragon looks aside or back before hitting with wing or tail. His "fusk" and fire/ice cones are telegraphed. Heavy bite is marked. All their casts are easy recognizable.

So the main cause of players' death is "don't pay attention to dragon's action" as I could see.
The second one is a blizzard which wasn't drawn for arriving players in time.

BUT there are two things I hate in battle with dragon:

1. Breath of storm dragon. Especially when he sits on a rock or a roof. Well, I can see he's staring at me on the ground, so I can roll-dodge behind his wing quite after hearing the breath-in sound. The breath from a rock is just insta-death. I dunno how to counter it.

2. Instant turning around of ice dragon. While I kite the dragon stepping aside (please don't ask me to tank him standing still in my dd build) it works for fire and storm ones. Icy guy just rotating-teleports himself and stare at me in a half a second. Well it could be a part of lore, that his ice pot-belly slides the ground without any friction. But really I guess it's an irritating bug. I've reported it a year ago but nothing was changed.

Ashryn

You do them enough you can understand their shouts.

waterfairy

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

The instant kill abilities are all pretty well telegraphed. The DoT that deals hella damage unless you purge it is kinda rough, but otherwise I feel like dragons scale well with more players involved thanks to the 1-shots.

And yeah, the Northern Elsweyr ones are pretty slow during the event, but outside of it they're not as bad due to lower traffic.

Perhaps they are to you, but I died earlier tonight 2 seconds after I arrived at a dragon. No ground effects or frost in the air, just instant death.

lag with all the people around....you probably ran right into stupid without realizing lol

I'm trying to think of the 'insta kill' move mentioned here..the only thing that comes to mind is the direct shock dragon breath, the rest are AoE's, that annoying life drain shout or things that can be avoided

waterfairy

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Lol, dragons are another example where it’s clear that ZOS hates stam melee builds.

There is a razor thin circle around the dragon where you are close enough in range to hit it but just far enough to avoid the giant circle of fire under them.

You have to be fast to block the wing thrash too.

attack the tail...it's usually outside their AoE and you only have to avoid the tail whip which is easy to spot and roll dodge/block

AlnilamE

Whenever the dragon says "Wassuuuup?", purge, or run into a Templar circle and hit X so you don't die from the soul tear.

phileunderx2

The lag at dragons right now is really bad. So I just try to tag it and stay alive. Often I will be at the dragon when he is near death but won't be able to tag. Very frustrating.

Alucardo

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

The instant kill abilities are all pretty well telegraphed.

Nah, I admit sometimes I never saw a telegraph at all and I'd just turn to ash wondering what happened. I'm not sure if it was invisible (like siege sometimes is in cyrodiil) or what, but something funky is up there.

PrimeSeptim

Was it a frost dragon, by any chance? Those are the worst.

L_Nici

The Spawnrate in Southern Elsweyr is great, so if you want to hunt dragons during this event, do it in south. They take instant turns and the shrines are way closer due to the region being way smaller.

SammyKhajit

They also still keep saying “wax on!”

FlopsyPrince

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

If you think dragons are bad try the fire mage WB in Southern Elsweyr, impossible to solo while I can hold my own against a dragon for a while.

He and his disciples all attack like WB+.

FlopsyPrince

Vigarr wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

The instant kill abilities are all pretty well telegraphed. The DoT that deals hella damage unless you purge it is kinda rough, but otherwise I feel like dragons scale well with more players involved thanks to the 1-shots.

And yeah, the Northern Elsweyr ones are pretty slow during the event, but outside of it they're not as bad due to lower traffic.

Perhaps they are to you, but I died earlier tonight 2 seconds after I arrived at a dragon. No ground effects or frost in the air, just instant death.

lag with all the people around....you probably ran right into stupid without realizing lol

I'm trying to think of the 'insta kill' move mentioned here..the only thing that comes to mind is the direct shock dragon breath, the rest are AoE's, that annoying life drain shout or things that can be avoided

It was almost certainly a breath or aura effect that did not seem clear until I was dead.