Melting trash packs in dungeons

Draxund

Every now and then, I'll run a dungeon where I'm just blown away how quickly a player will melt packs of mobs in norm or vet dungeons. Like I'm a decent player at CP 1060 and have rotations for single-target DPS bosses and some AoE skills for trash, but sometimes I notice a player absolutely decimate a room of mobs before I can even get off 2 skills. And I've noticed they aren't necessarily super high CP either. Can anyone shed some light on how to achieve this? I have a Magsorc, Magden, StamDK, and Magplar. I can burn things down with various grind-focused builds, but not like some of these players I've seen, and definitely not in vet dungeons. What kinds of builds and setups allow this? I assume it's some type of burst damage setup?

redspecter23

For me, it depends on how long I expect the trash to live. If it's expected to be dead in less than 5 seconds, most dots are out of the equation. They won't tick enough times to be worth more than a spammable. My typical stam rotation for normal dungeons and many easier vets is to toss a Caltrops as I'm running up to the mobs, then just use Whriling Blades until they are dead. Just 2 skills and the Caltrops is there mainly for the debuff and the fact that I can't hit them with Whirling Blades when I'm not yet beside them.

For longer encounters, add more dots into the rotation. Harder vet dungeons like DLC's or trials. All of this also gets much easier and faster with a good tank in the group that can stack mobs up. That goes a long way to killing things faster. If you have a healer throwing buffs as well as heals, that adds even more to the damage.

carlos424

Unstable wall of elements spam.

Fennwitty

Really high crit and a bunch of instant cast AOEs.

Many people on PC will have addons to quick swap their gear and skills between 'boss' and 'trash'.

If you make one setup with high aoe damage skills you can drop a few and they'll clear a room quick.

Though it also depends a lot on the dungeon, the mobs there, and their positioning how fast you can do this.

Many parts of base game dungeons have tightly stacked weak melee enemies ripe for burst damage.

For stam, you can start with Maelstrom Bow on pre-grouped enemies, maybe Caltrops, then Stampede in placing another big AOE having them hit all about the same time. With Nightblade for instance you can also immediately use the Drain Power skill line to blast out in your arrived location causing 4 big attacks + one or two light attacks in the space of about 4 seconds.

Similar with dual wield spamming Tornado. The initial hits will likely get trash into the 50% range almost immediately.

And that's not including any procs you might get.

EDIT: I don't even bother using hail of arrows on normal dungeons. They'll be dead before it ticks out and has a slow animation.

goldenarcher1

Stampede>Master's 2 hander.

mocap

Draxund wrote: »

sometimes I notice a player absolutely decimate a room of mobs before I can even get off 2 skills. And I've noticed they aren't necessarily super high CP either

don't forget that healer can be hybrid or even full DD as well. Needless to say on normal dungeons tank can be DD too. So it only seems to you, that one player melt entire room alone, especially vet.

Anyway, Unstable wall spam, as already mentioned, is way to go. I would add Mystic Orb on top of that.

lolo_01b16_ESO

There is no universal build that works best for all trash fights as it depends on the fight duration and the cooldown time between the fights. But genearlly you want gear that offers it's full effect early in the fight (e.g. burning spellweave).

Some important things for these fights are:
- Make sure to buff yourself before the combat starts. (major sorcery, channeled acceleration, proximity detonation, flames of oblivion / boundless storm / solar barrage and, if you time it right, you can also already cast your first blastbone / shalks 1-2s before the tank pulls)
- Spam that synergy button. Synergies like ignite (burning talons), combustion (mystic orb) or graverobber (boneyard) deal a lot of damage.
- try finding a good balance between dots and instant damage. Usually you only want to cast your strongest dots (especially those that allow your friends to synergize them) in the first few seconds and then just spam elemental ring (or a comperable class skill)
- don't waste your skillslots on skills that you don't cast in that fight and instead put skills on your frontbar that passively increase your damage (camouflaged hunter, magelight, any other fighters guild skills).

Also as a group, make sure that you have enough penetration.

etchedpixels

goldenarcher1 wrote: »

Stampede>Master's 2 hander.

Stamwarden I use netch, lotus for the buffs

Caltrops/flowers etc to taste to proc DC and debuff, Dark Convergence to stack em, Shalks, Polar Wind, Titanic Cleave. When it all lines up you can touch 200K dps on a trash pack. With maelstrom bow and better buff co-ordination or mythic use than I can manage I imagine you could do a lot more. Running round Crimson Cove is a hoot in that setup.

The simple one for a mag toon and the one I use to solo CP grind in Craglorn is

- lover for penetration
- all the CP and passives to get magicka back killing stuff
- exploding wall
- class or guild skills to get major sorcery/major prophecy
- ideally caltrops but it's not essential

If you are soloing then having mad tinkerer as one set is a huge win, but in groups it messes with the tank something chronic

There are much higher dps options but the exploding wall one bar setups are really easy to use. They just *suck* at single target so you either need to be switching or to have other stuff across the two bars for boss fights.

Spellscar is a great place to try and tune trash blasting.

lockesty

For stam melee its carve/brawler with the according weapon set that buffs it, titanic cleave, you can hit potentially higher aoe dps than any mag

for mag i use lightning staff with elemental ring, i get +30% more dmg if there are atleast 6 enemies i think, crit build, also slam down an elemental wall before i start spamming ele ring, easy 140k+ dps

buttaface

If the player is below 50 but high CP and well-geared by a sugar daddy crafter on the account, it can be a matter of Tamriel 1 buffs for lowbies. Above 50, Aoe breach from Necro, warden, DK or caltrops is also a factor in addition to already mentioned unstable spam and heavy hitting aoes like stampede with a maelstrom maul. Aoe min vuln from skills like NB lotus fan can cause this and as others mention, players who are quick to pick up synergies.

ke.sardenb14_ESO

I have 2 builds I run on my DK. The core of both builds is that the front bar is a 2h sword or maul that is charged and the back bar weapons are 2 infused black rose prison dual wield(one with a posion enchant, and the other with a flame enchant).
The other factor for both builds is that they both bring at least 5k pen outside of major or minor breech. The skills and how I use them are the same; cast blade cloak and flames of oblivion, stampede into the pack, cast noxious breath, apply venomous claw to one target, then carve until every thing is either dead or you need to reapply dots. I have flame whip on both bars for fury stacks and a single target spammable, and reverse slice for execute.

Build 1: vDSA Maul+BrP DW+Kinra+Sulxan
Build 2: PoN frontbar Great sword+ Strom fist MH+ BrP DW+Alkosh.

Build 1 is better for solo content or groups with no or low synergies. Build 2 has better single target, and if you have a lot of synergies it will have about the same cleave as well.

fred4

goldenarcher1 wrote: »

Stampede>Master's 2 hander.

This. Master's 2H. Look into it! In the past: Mechanical Acuity. Although I have not used it, can't argue with Whirlwind either. Even Reverse Slice does good AOE damage (and is cheap) despite merely being an execute.

El_Borracho

The easiest setup for me has been the magplar with Blazing Spear and Puncturing Strikes. Throw in a Solar Barrage if the pack is a little tougher, like ones in Moongrave or Unhallowed. Can go with the tried and true MS + Medusa, but I have recently run with Tzvogin's and MS for similar results. Going to see what I can do with MS and Relequen with that build too.

Not a knock on Kinras', because it works great in trials, but I find I get more damage in a 4 man group with the other two

katorga

For my necro, the following work:

Masters 2H brawler/carve spam -> reverse slice if needed.
Unstable Wall of Elements spam
Avid Boneyard Synergy -> necro scyth or impulse spam

I don't bother with Blastbones, things die so fast it ends up standing there with nothing to do.

malistorr

I've been doing this for years as a mag sorc. The gear involved has changed a bit (along with most everything in the game) but here are as many details as I remember off the top of my head:

High elf mag sorc
Mellon-based parmesan pork food or better
all stats in max mag
CPs in anything that affects damage with a lightning staff heavy attack (arcane supremacy, biting aura, eldritch insight, fighting finess, flawless ritual, master-at-arms (for last tick of lightning staff heavy attacks), occult overload, piercing, precision, thaumaturge, untamed aggression, war mage, weapons expert, and wrathful strikes. I'd say most important are thaumaturge and weapons expert. After that pick whatever boosts damage the most.
Gear: full 5-piece sets of Undaunted Infiltrator and Noble Duelist Silks. Choose a monster set that boosts damage like Slimecraw 2-piece for head and shoulder. Back bar Perfected Maelstrom lightning staff Infused with a weapon damage glyph (if that doesn't allow the Elemental Blockade to cause concussion/off-balanced then choose shock glyph back bar too). Front bar lightning staff from 1 of the 2 mentioned sets in sharpened and with a shock glyph.
When entering a fight on the back bar cast Critical Surge for the 20% spell damage boost and so you'll self-heal when causing crit damage. Cast Boundless storm for AOE damage and resists to survive. (speed also a nice bonus) Then cast Elemental Blockade for the AOE damage and that 3rd really big heavy attack damage bonus.
So you have the AOE damage from Boundless Storm and Elemental Blockade and have a big heavy attack buff from 3 sets. The Elemental Blockade and shock glyph give lots of concussion and off-balance. I believe heavy attacking an off-balance enemy still triggers 70% more heavy attack damage. You can even use the Mage's guild passive Might of the Guild for a 40% heavy attack buff for 3-seconds after casting a Mage's Guild skill. So maybe replace Critical Surge and cast Degeneration instead somewhat often.
You don't have to worry about sustain so go all infused spell damage jewelry. All max mag enchants on the armor and maybe all divines with Lover mundus probably. If not try Shadow or Thief and see what works best for you. I've used this build for years with slight changes to the gear when Zen forced me to and I can solo most things and have passed VMA with this.
With the right passives your heavy attack damage hits nearby enemies for 100% of the damage. I remember fighting the 1st huge wave of baddies in the HRC trial and hit like 125k DPS from all the AOE damage and having 20-40 bad guys all bunched up nearby. Hope this helps.