Valley of Blades

Gazu

Okay, I'm going to start by saying this game has been extremely easy for me from 1-35. I've even been farming a dungeon with level 37 monsters for fun. The only times I've died is when a group of enemies sneaks up behind me when I'm out of Magicka or I stupidly jumped from a cliff thinking I'd survive... and evidently didn't.

Might be slight spoilers, but if you've done it then... yeah...

However, then I reached level 35 and got the Valley of Blades quest. I got to Titan and everything went to sh-. I'm not entirely sure if there was something I was supposed to do that I missed, or a bug of some kind but I'll explain what happened and hopefully someone might be able to explain why I had so much trouble.

My gear/stats and build (you can skip the Italics):

All armor Light Armor, all Blue items at level 34 (crafted and improved myself, so higher base stats) and all enchanted with Magicka.

Both Flame Destruction Staffs were Blue at level 34 (crafted and improved myself, so higher base stats) with one enchanted with Frost and the other enchanted with Shock. (1 bar has AoE and the other has ST)

My Magicka, Magicka Recovery and Spell Resistance are all soft-capped, as is Armor due to my Spiked Armor skill.

I run a Pyromancer-style Dragonknight, meaning I use Fire almost exlusively.

Plenty of HP, MP and SP potions to repeatedly do this fight for the past hour...

His basic long-ranged attack that I couldn't avoid took about 25% of my HP off and about 10% when I blocked. He would use it constantly so blocking was pointless as I'd run out of Stamina before he was below 90% due to the fact the 3 legendary NPC's I'm with don't seem to do any damage whatsoever. What I had to do was get in close (which is what I usually do since I'm a PB AoE Dragonknight Pyromancer build), which wasn't very effective, either...

Instead of throwing spells at me, he clawed at me more often, which I again had to block. He had 2 attacks that were easily avoidable by walking around him in a circle, even while blocking and 1 attack that I just had to dodge roll out of, but he had a Wall of Elements-style attack that 1-shotted me, even when blocking. My issue with this was that the red-lines to indicate the skill was interrupt-able were there, but I couldn't interrupt it. I could dodge roll but that took more Stamina than I could afford.

He was also immune to pretty much any kind of CC I could use, or was even the slightest bit useful. Rooting/Snaring are pointless since he doesn't move and throws blue fire at me all day and I couldn't stun or interrupt him, nor could I Knockback/Knockdown.

NOT TO MENTION the fact that I had softcapped Armor and Spell Resistance did NOTHING to slow down my death AT ALL.

I ended up defeating him (I just fought him repeatedly until my Ultimate was charged enough) with an unsatisfied relief, only caring that the fight was over. The 3 characters you get sent in with do pretty much nothing. They rarely took agro and never did any damage.

I thought I was done... but nope! I had to protect something from undead that spawned. At first it was 1, which I was too frustrated with the quest so I went cheap and knocked it down repeatedly. After it died 2 more spawned straight away, one being a caster. The caster would always attack me, refusing to attack the 3 NPC's I'm with while a Melee enemy attacked me and dropped a Standard of Might on me every time... With the inability to block any random basic spell attack, I constantly died until, again, I waited for my Ultimate.

Afterwards 3-4 MORE spawned, at which point I decided straight away to wait for Ultimate due to the fact there were 2 casters, yet I still died and had to fight them all 1 at a time, using Ultimate each time...

At one point I thought it might be due to the fact they're resistant to Fire due to being Daedra (they're using fire spells constantly and I know some Daedra are resistant) but switching to my Lightning Staffs didn't do anything different.

So, 2 hours later I was finally done with this quest... Went back to soloing 6 monsters at a time, soloing Group dungeon bosses with ease...

If this is how the game was designed to be, that's fine. I'm not complaining about it. I'm just trying to figure out what I was doing wrong so I can attempt to... not do it again.

TL;DR:

I'm completely baffled at why I struggled so much with this quest. Is there a simply mechanic I'm missing? My gear was well up to date and stats were all softcapped. Same level as the quest and I know how to play my character well enough, not to mention how ridiculously easy this game is until much later. Are the 3 NPC's I'm with supposed to Tank/Heal/do damage? They did none of that. Did they change fights so that knockbacks/knockdowns are necessary? I don't have enough Magicka to repeatedly knockback 3 different enemies. I imagine a Resto Staff would help, but seems bad for the game if having self-heals is needed considering they want you to play how you want to play. I hate using pots yet I had to here...

kirrasha

I didnt have much problem on the Titan as shield+sword DK. Bashed his big move, and kept blocking his attacks. went smooth.

But the undead... Holy shiz. I went down on the first one. I took so much damage for unknown reason. Popping all my defenses, I still went down.

2nd attempt, finally killed him, by exploiting his path system, letting my HP potion cooldown finish.
But I died to the mage and his melee friend.

And while I was waiting to go at the mage and melee, the first freakin undead spawned AGAIN, right infront of me, while the 2 otheres were still up. Luckely they didnt link.
Killed the first, and now I could attack 1 at the time. Took the melee first, then the mage.

And then the group of 3 spawned. Well, once again I exploited their pathing at the statues.. Jump on and down the stairs, making them run aorund the statues all the time, unil the NPC's had agro on atleast 2 of them.

Killed whatever mob had the lowest health, let the NPC's beat on the next again, until it was low health, then continued.

This strategy worked for me, but cost me 2 deaths total inhere, just on the last part... And I was level 37 at the time.

Oh yeah, I also died once when that Lamia mob spawned from the orbs... Somehow she managed to take away my entire HP in 1 absorbtion.

Beryl

The quest seems to be terribly bugged. For me (lvl37 templar) the bosses in the last fight were spawning again and again and again. Sometimes alone (I had no issues with single fights), sometimes in groups of 2 elite bosses at once. Sometimes it would be the same boss which I just killed... I lost count to how many times I died and had to restart. Sometimes after reviving I would see some boss dead, sometimes not...

I completed the quest eventually and I am still not able to tell how exactly this fight is supposed to follow. In which order should the mobs appear? Should they come in pairs and respawn or not? I have no idea.

Sakiri

To solve the mage problem and the bolt attack on the titan, use reflective scale.

That wasn't the problem.

First skeleton ate your face because his charge will one shot you. I'm armor capped. DW DK. Second bar has all my defensives and sword/board. I'm partially tank specced.

The skeletons did horrible violations to my poor face. I'm going to have to outlevel this one, too. And now I'm *really* fearing for my "I quit when the game is too hard" friend.

It's going to get to the part where he *can't* just outlevel it. And it's going to be too hard. I'm all for strategy and difficulty to a degree, but staff damage that eats a quarter of my HP with it's heavy attack despite spell resist, and regular melee hits that still hit like a truck through blocking(trying to let green dragon's blood heal me) coupled with really stupid companion AI I'm seriously unsure how the hell you're supposed to complete this at level. Especially with the two casters. That staff HURTS even when they're not using an ability I can interrupt. I simply cannot take the hits.

I could leave the stupids with one and take the other myself... if I could take the hits. I *can't*. And I'm constantly out of magicka.

I haven't a clue how I'm supposed to do this.

*sigh*

Making the main quest of the game, that needs to be completed to do the 50+ content, so difficult that many, if not most players have to OUTLEVEL IT to complete it, has to be one of the more mind boggling ideas I've seen.

Now I'm not going to outright ask for or demand a nerf, but I do have to question the intent here and say "holy crap" because I honestly can't think it's intended to completely screw over players with less skill from the main quest line. Especially stuff that can't be grouped.

At least once he gets into veteran content, since he heals, I can tank for him. Until then, this quest line crap is going to violate his face, and he's going to rage quit.

*sigh*

After he quit EQ2 when he got sick I'd been *dying* to get him to play a game and stick around with me. He's quit every other one because they got boring at the end. Now this one is likely to be too difficult.

*sighs again*

notoriouspiebanditrwb17_ESO

I'm a level 37 Nightblade, the only way I can get even close to killing the FIRST undead is to run around in circles, using invis when he traps me, siphoning heals and using health pots on cooldown and any other spare magicka goes into speed boosts or refreshing path. I had 9 or so skill points from grabbing all the skyshards in Malabal Tor so I put them ALL into survival abilities, but I couldn't fear him and nothing else seemed to work.
WHY won't he attack the NPC's? Even if I don't hit him at all he still only chases me.
There hasn't been much content that I've struggled with so far in the game, I'm in full medium armour with all the perks I can get at the moment and I have my health is at 18. I don't get it. Reading this and finding out there are even MORE to fight after him? I'll have to wait until I'm an even higher level because I don't know what else I can do.

Demonsmaw

I'm level 40 and having difficulty in this, I got to the group of 3 and died and then the first undead spawned again.

....

Finally finished this at level 42 with Silver Bolts. Still annoying when they re-spawn while you're fighting another group. Also annoying that as I didn't get any XP for killing them I couldn't charge my Ultimate. But overall Silver Bolts definitely helps.

Sakiri

Silver bolts.

Im not kidding. This ability is stupid OP.

Kendaric

Silver bolts really helps here. Not sure I could have done it without that ability at all.
I managed it at level 35, but it was really a tough battle with repeated dying (3 times to the titan, 3 or 4 times to the skellies because the 1st skeleton suddenly respawned in mid-fight with another group).
The NPCs weren't overly useful, aside from a part of the skeleton fight.

mlstevens42_ESO

Silver bolts has the advantage of being something anyone that joins fighters guild can get. It is certainly not the only ability which can knock down critters. If you can knock them down they are much easier then when they are standing casting or smacking you around. Silver bolts is only really good with the weaker daedra and undead and if you have the ability later on for the werewolves. It is not an end all be all skill regardless of the perks.

Nightgard

Nightblade 35 here. (medium armor 34, white quality, dual blade, 3 assassination skills , 1 dual blade, 1 siphoning).
Fight was tough at first, died 3 times.
But after I took my time, healed with strife (kitting around the stairs during the HoT) they all died pretty smoothly .

Sonora

The tuning on the final encounter is borked. I died several times doing it at level 41. The good news is, for the waves of undead at the end once you die and respawn it's possible to just pull on at a time.

Draxys

I wouldn't have an issue with this quest if the mobs didn't aggro you immediately upon first spawn. That makes it literally impossible to complete without dying unless you're overlevelled to the point that you don't get exp. That makes absolutely no sense. And the first guy spawning again pretty dumb too, but I could overlook that if they didn't automatically aggro. That's the main problem.

RookBorn

I'll tell you all how I did it first time at level 35, Nightblade Khajiit. It is a simple way to play the titan. If you didn't know already, I believe from where the Titan spawns, near to it is a wall in the open. It cannot chase you or spawn minions when it cannot see you. My minions did a decent amount of damage but while they had aggro I would do as much damage as I could, and when the Titan began to aggro me at 50% I would run around the wall.

What this would do would make the Titan chase me, but while the minions were attacking him. This would mean that if any of the minions 'died', I could simply wait for them to respawn.

I do agree that it is a very difficult boss without finding a way to overcome it. I got lucky that I found a way. My friend also did it at 35 when he made the minions aggro all the way to 10% - a long way, but a way nonetheless.

Good luck guys, if you can find a wall that you can kite the Titan, you can win the fight.

PS: The special ability that he does doesn't go through the wall!

Demonsmaw

I don't think the Titan is really the issue here, its the undead bosses later on.

DustyFox

what you really need to do is agro and let the 3 allies attack tehm first they cannot die. just let them do all teh dmg and you just do the last hits.!

crislevin

For Titan, going around the pillars in the center, doing ranged damage is quite good.

For undead, die first, so you can respawn from a place with more space to move around. lol

MonkeyAssassin24

Just did this quest 38 NB, the Titan was a cakewalk, but f those skeletons. They rocked me 2 or 3 times and I had to wuss out and only pull 1 at a time after death. Silver Bolts was a huge plus but it seems death is inevitable with this encounter. Also...trying to let those "legendary companions" of yours do most of the work is garbage. Sure they are invincible but they didn't do crap for damage.

Quite the frustrating wake-up call after annihilating Eastmarch.

Vikes546b16_ESO

Just finished it as a 40 Sorcerer. Furstrating quest. The companions are absolute garbage.

The Titan was the hardest part for me, oddly contrasting with what others have said, because I would take agro off the "legendary heroes" with 1 single quick attack, after letting them attack it for 5 minutes straight. I kid you not, I timed it. I burned 10 potions and died twice to kill the damn thing. At 40.

I had to kite it around the big shrine thing in the center of the area to LoS its blue fireball attacks (not the "big one", avoiding that is cake, the smaller attacks).

The undead in the crypt weren't terribly difficult, they're susceptible to knockbacks / knockdowns so I just focused one with a knockback and let the companions "off-tank" (if you can use the word where they're concerned) the others. Gotta be careful though, I managed to bug the encounter out by knocking the first one into a statue, it stopped combat, despawned, but kept me in combat and I had to restart the entire quest to reset it, which, because of my Titan issues, was frustrating to say the least.

Belrim

Thought it wouldve been a breeze, went in for the first time as lvl41 nightblade, managed the Titan without any probs, but the undead-mayhem at the end was nuts.

I thought i'd mop the floor with them, but more than 1-2 times i was down to 10% health or less, but still, somehow managed to survive it, thanks to health pots and swallow soul -skill. The elite undeads do very high damage, to melee-dps them down would have been suicide. had to kite and use ranged skills.

Can only imagine how long that would've taken at lvl35, with my particular char/skillsetup.

aresdestructorub17_ESO1

I really wish they wouldn't restrict these to solo only. I was forced to die and lure the skeles one by one as well. and while fighting one of the three that spawn together the first or second one respawned behind me and killed me. still i think the level 40 harborage quest is even worse.

Imo these quests are really badly designed if we're supposed to be able to play however we want. It seems like, as a nightblade at least, I'm always going to need to be ready to use certain skills or there's things I'm just not going to be able to get past.

samcharles77_ESO

I just died six times trying to defeat one of the skeletons in the three group. My nightblade archer needs more room to be able to kite. It would also be nice if the skeleton didn't stick to me like glue the moment I damage it. Very, very frustrating.

Doable at level 35? Maybe but I don't think it will be for most people.

Cernow

What overtuned, poorly designed nonsense.

I just did this as a level 43 sword+shield Templar and died twice to the insane undead fights at the end. The NPC companions are practically useless and mostly just stand there and the undead are ridiculously overtuned. Given that your companions don't distract them, having to fight three at once is a joke - you can't possibly interupt, block and dodge everything being thrown at you.

It's not a gear issue - my Templar has the 43 purple Prismatic Longsword and all other gear a mix of blue and green at around my level.

It's not a L2P issue, I know how to handle my character and build. I completed the Fighters and Mages guild quest lines without any issues and downed Sinmur without problems.

Quite simply, Valley Of Blades is overtuned and buggy, just like the Halls Of Torment that preceded it. Nothing wrong with a challenge, but there's a difference between challenging and overtuned / broken.

I only completed it by cheesing the encounter with lame line of sight and kiting tactics made possible by dying and re-starting the fights. Hate having to do that, but it was the only way through given how nuts the mobs are.

The main story seems to be a series of poorly balanced and buggy encounters. It feels like content that should be group content, but instead is solo (for story reasons) and not tuned properly for solo. The fact that this is a MMO and you can't even team up to help each other out should be a point of acute embarrassment. And yes, I know there's story reasons why this isn't possible, but then they should never have tried to shoehorn a sole hero story into a MMO setting.

skeletorz_ESO

Yeah, this quest needs some serious balancing. Those undead hero guys hit like a mac truck.

KerinKor

ZOS seem not to care, they've done nothing about Torment or this one and never mentioned either.

An MMO where some of the worst tuned fights need a group to do on level and you can't group.

Pitiful ZOS, pitiful.

steven.flemingub17_ESO

Just finished this quest on my 38 DK. It's still terribly imbalanced and not paced right. Died to the Harbinger, died to the Titan twice, and that's with dodging, blocking, healing, etc. Still, that part I can almost forgive. But the undead part is plain broken.

When each wave of the undead came out you're pretty much dead. There is no time in between the undead waves to heal up, and at the start of each wave they go directly for you, bypassing the companions. They only go to the companions after you die and restart. After each death you are allowed you to pull them one at a time. This is a fairly lame tactic to need to utilize and shows the pacing is not right. This also indicates to me the players aggro table must be held onto somehow, because each subsequent wave avoids the companions as soon as they appear and go straight for you. Since they are extremely strong and tough to kill you're almost guaranteed to need to die at some point and use the single pull tactic. Die, pull, die pull. Not a fun strategy.

Compared to other content it seems the elites are far and away very imbalanced. For main story quests it can be extremely frustrating and break immersion in the story when these imbalances are encountered.

By the time I finished off the undead I didn't even bother to listen to the voice of the npcs. I was so annoyed with the whole thing I just skipped it, and that makes me sad.

Please fix this encounter.

AngryNord

Cernow wrote: »

What overtuned, poorly designed nonsense.

I just did this as a level 43 sword+shield Templar and died twice to the insane undead fights at the end. The NPC companions are practically useless and mostly just stand there and the undead are ridiculously overtuned. Given that your companions don't distract them, having to fight three at once is a joke - you can't possibly interupt, block and dodge everything being thrown at you.

It's not a gear issue - my Templar has the 43 purple Prismatic Longsword and all other gear a mix of blue and green at around my level.

It's not a L2P issue, I know how to handle my character and build. I completed the Fighters and Mages guild quest lines without any issues and downed Sinmur without problems.

Quite simply, Valley Of Blades is overtuned and buggy, just like the Halls Of Torment that preceded it. Nothing wrong with a challenge, but there's a difference between challenging and overtuned / broken.

I only completed it by cheesing the encounter with lame line of sight and kiting tactics made possible by dying and re-starting the fights. Hate having to do that, but it was the only way through given how nuts the mobs are.

The main story seems to be a series of poorly balanced and buggy encounters. It feels like content that should be group content, but instead is solo (for story reasons) and not tuned properly for solo. The fact that this is a MMO and you can't even team up to help each other out should be a point of acute embarrassment. And yes, I know there's story reasons why this isn't possible, but then they should never have tried to shoehorn a sole hero story into a MMO setting.

I hope you reported this to Zenimax in-game??

AngryNord

Again, I hope people who have responded in this thread reported this to Zenimax in-game?? We know they don't read these forums...

steven.flemingub17_ESO

AngryNord wrote: »

Again, I hope people who have responded in this thread reported this to Zenimax in-game?? We know they don't read these forums...

Yes I reported it

I also reported the Lyris Doopleganger fight prior to the last patch as well, as that was also totally imbalanced.

AngryNord

OK, this quest is bugged. I don't care what the trolls and fanboys claim, it simply can't be intended to be this hard, it is a bloody LEVEL 35 quest!!! OK, the Titan can be killed in 10-12 attempts with some luck, but those skeleton bosses simply aren't possible to kill, ONE of them friggin' one hits you - and THERE ARE THREE!!!!
I simply refuse to believe that a sane, rational human being designed this quest!!!!!!!!!!!!

AngryNord

AND THEN THE FUKCING SKELETON BOSSES YOU ALREADY KILLED SUDDENLY RESPAWN AGAIN????? SERIOUSLY?????? Sorry Zenimax, this isn't fair, this isn't fun, it isn't challenging, it isn't even a pain in the ass, it is plain STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

brandon

This quest pissed me off. I did perfectly fine until I got to the final section with all the bosses, I killed the first couple bosses and started fighting the next ones and then the original ones respawn. I died about 6 times because I had to fight like 5 bosses at once. I hope they fix this soon because I'm almost there on my alt and I don't want to do that again.