Stonefire Machinations - Too Hard

Severan · April 2014

The quest Stonefire Machinations in Reaper's March is too hard. I am VR5 in the VR5 zone and this quest is too difficult. I wouldn't have a problem except for the fact that it is a solo only quest. Having to kill 2 mini bosses, then then main boss who also respawns the 2 mini bosses you just killed half way through? The difficulty scaling in the VR area is crazy.

Anyone have any easy way of doing this quest? Or should ZOS just lower the difficulty to a VR5 quest and not a VR6/7 quest?

greylox · April 2014

I had to completely respec for this fight and it was an unbelievable chore. In fact I think this is what put me off pve . Gonna level vr 5-10 in cyrodiil.

Danneroth · April 2014

This quest is just silly. I play this game to enjoy myself and relax, not bottle up enough anger to go completely bonkers.

Severan · April 2014

I already have done 3 respecs, don't really want to have to do another one because the game makes me have to play a certain way to progress. Also, I would level in Cyrodiil, but Cyrodiil gives the smallest amount of XP that it isn't even worth it.

Nasuradin_ESO · April 2014

I guess I got lucky, one of the 2 mini bosses vanished mid fight, and the main boss never showed, so I tried to abandon/relog to fix which did not work, I left and came back after doing other sidequests and the main boss spawned with the mini-bosses which decided they would no longer aggro and just stand there watching me get my arse handed to me by the main boss, after dying the quest decided to count it as a defeat for the boss too.

Stabbina · April 2014

"The story of Stonefire Machinations"

(It's rather long, for the short version, read only the bold text.)

This fight caught me completely off guard. I was happily questing in the zone chasing the Mane. As I was level 43, I outleveled most of the quests in the area and could pretty much smash trough any encounter without too much trouble.

Then I entered the Mane Sanctuary. No Mane to be seen, but there are 2 elite mobs. Looks like a caster and a melee. Hmm, I hate casters. If I can't nuke'm fast, they run away and hurt me, a lot. Since I'm playing as a staves Templar in cloth (main restoration, level with destruction staff), i can't let the melee pummel me too much either. I decide to nuke the fragile caster and try to heal up to face the melee afterwards.

My plan works! Hooray! I'm rather bruised, but I just beat 2 elite mobs. Where is that Mane?

Ohoh, there he is, and he doesn't want to talk. Damn, I'm low on mana and the Mane is an elite too. He's even nastier than the other 2. I better try to kite him while I regen mana and get my potion from cooldown. After some frantic running, dodging, quick selfheals and a potion, I found myself in fairly decent situation again. I may yet live through this

.

And then ... that *** summons his 2 elite buddies again !?! Ooooh ***. Not good. Noooot good! Crap that *** caster is firing at me from far away. Stupid Mane starts heavy attack again as the melee jerk smashes me... Ohoh, wait, aw, aaw, aaaaaw... Yeah... Dead.

Did I just go from hardly any threat mobs to 3 elite in one fight? And why are there no other players around? This can't be a solo quest? Oh boy, surely, this can't...?

Eh, why is the Mane crying that he can't take any more? He's back at full HP. Huh? Quest advances to speak to the Mane, but he's as hostile as ever along with his 2 buddies.

Oh boy, now I have to take on 3 elite from the start. All with full HP? This can't be right? I'm doing it wrong? Surely? Let's try that again and try to avoid getting hit, save some mana, be more carefull...yeah right ... dead ... try again ... dead ... getting costly ... dead ...boiling by now ... TRY AGAIN ... dead

After this I took a small break to have a chat with tech support about the quest. They responded really fast this time AND no automated crap reply. I got a friendly fellow who suggested I tried gaining a few levels. Unfortunately, the quest was level 38, and I was level 43. My gear was pretty decent so the only thing left as possible cause of my disasterous encounter: Me. I seem to suck at this.

So end of this rather painfull (and long) story? Actually: no. After my chat with the fellow from support I wanted to try if I could nuke the caster elite to see if he would respawn or not. So in I tried yet again. Before the pull, I activated 2 HoT on me. then i hit the caster with everything I had and (hooray hooray): he went down. At that point I got rather lucky as the Mane decided to do his heavy attack in a totally harmless position so I quicky started smashing the melee jerk. With my potion and a instant big selfheal, I got him down too. Awesome. Thankfully, that potion was HP+mana, so I now have some mana regeneration going and the Mane for some reason decided he would do another heavy attack or 2 rather far away from me. Big mistake from the bosscat! This gave me time to quickly swap to my restoration staff, and cast some more HoT on me. I still got enough mana to slam him hard now while my selfheals were active again. The only thing I had to hope for is that he would not summon those 2 again...and he didn't. He took the beating off his life and I advanced the quest properly this time.

Did I fight better the last time? Don't really know. I suspect I got rather lucky for once. Is the fight too hard? WAY TOO HARD for that level and especialy way too hard for a story advancing quest. If you are interested in the story (like me), encounters like these are the best way to get your frustrated as ... .

Well, there you have it.
"The story of Stonefire Machinations"
by Dark Crafty

Danneroth · April 2014

That story is all well and good. Fun read if anything. But the problem still persist. This is a veteran quest as well. There is simply no way to do this fight. Sure I could try and try to my hands bleed but that is not something I am interested in doing.

Stabbina · April 2014

I agree that this quest is too hard at the moment. That's why I replied in this post. Maybe ZOS reads it and decides to check it out. At the very least I got a chance to vent my frustration in a somewhat constructive way

(The helpfull support fellow did say he'd pass my info on te quest on to his collegues.

)

Severan · April 2014

I actually was able to finally beat it on my DPS NB, after dying 10 times. This will only be helpful if you are a vamp NB.

When all 3 are summoned, DPS the mage as fast as possible. When your health gets low pop stealth and run behind one and feed on one of them, healing you fully. Once the mage gets below 25% health spam killers blade/impale (300% more damage on low health targets). Also it would be good to have Devouring Swarms ulti equipped in case you get low on health, then you can cast that and it usually heals you full as well. Once you beat the mage, start using Aspect of Terror (Fear 2 nearby enemies). Kill the other elite and keep using AoT when it wears off so no one hits you. Then you are left with just the main boss guy and you can still use AoT/Stealth to finish him off.

It would also be helpful if you have siphoning attacks on.

Mickyh93b16_ESO · April 2014

I'm struggling to do this one as well. I can't even get past the mage at the start the damage is WAY too high for a solo instance. Dunno if gaining a few vet levels will help after all the extra stats aren't that high between levels. Had this problem with another guy earlier on and had to use a cheese tactic. Mage npcs seem to have an incredibly high dps just for auto attacks

ayejay76b14_ESO · April 2014

I pretty much had to "cheese" this quest. As a healing templar with a resto staff I stood back at the furthest range i could and used Eclipse which as was a non-damaging ability that reflects spells back at caster. I targeted the caster with in and then ran all the way back towards entrance. Only the Caster came at me. I killed him and then got the melee guy. I used the same tactic on next part and pulled the boss back with Eclipse to the back door and killed him solo. The other two respawned during fight but were out of aggro range and didnt attack at all.

Azazelz · April 2014

Cheesed this quest aswell by dodgerolling through the door behind me and only the main guy followed through. Derp.

Xyn · April 2014

I was having the same problems with this quest, the two original mobs spawned during the fight with the 3rd. I died a few times, then just roasted the caster. I died, he didn't respawn. Then I was able to kill the smaller melee and then the final boss. They didn't respawn a second time.

nightow78 · April 2014

I still have nightmares about this fight the only way I could beat this was to kill the 2 adds then fight the boss near the entrance when he spawns adds they didn't aggro and was able to kill the boss. Absolute chore.

Ageless · April 2014

Well... what to do when in the following situation?

The first to find Mane Akkhuz-ri in that image gets all my gold.

latrion · April 2014

I had to do this quest on Veteran 10 today. Needless to say it's WAY overtuned. This needs to be toned down quite a bit. As if the 2 elites wern't bad enough, you have ot b able to burn down the boss at 15k before becoming overwhelmed by all 3 of them.

Robo_Hobo · April 2014

I managed to find a way to complete it, I'm V3 and couldn't stand a chance against them even with ultimates. In the end I had to use cheap methods, but it was clear he was OP so I don't really feel bad about it.

It only works for Dragonknight players, but if you are one, enter the fight with the two minibosses, lure the melee one toward the door on the other side of the room and petrify him, then focus on taking out the mage in any way you can, once that's done, the melee'r should be easier to deal with.

When they're down the Mane will spawn, lure him to the door and petrify him, it'll last 12 seconds and gives you a breather and to restore health/magic/stamina, what I did was use uppercut and attack while he's down, petrify when he gets back up, recharge health/magicka/stamina, then uppercut again - making sure I'm not bringing him too close so as to draw the attention of the 2 minibosses that spawn at half health.

Also note...Don't uppercut him through the door, I did that on accident and he just disappeared, even when I re-entered the room the boss fight wouldn't restart, so I had to end up abandoning/restarting the quest.

But anyway, hope that helps, it's super cheap methods but hey, gotta do what you gotta do sometimes.

rogue144 · April 2014

I have the same problem as elst93neb18_ESO, I killed them @lvl vr4(i didn't find it hard just spec right) and i didn't get the kill for it?

it's bugged and i can't finish the main story now?

Work around: group with a new player that hasn't done the quest resets the boss. phew.

Hypersillyman · April 2014

The upcoming patch notes say that they are fixing this quest to make it doable. Not sure when it goes live though. Might be worth it to move on to other quests and come back after they fix it. It's largely unbeatable in its current state without either extreme luck or a very large group of people. Not sure how they managed to overtune it like that. I know these things happen, especially early on, but this seems like a major oversight. It's nice to know they have a fix in place on the PTS, and it's nice to know they are correcting the problem, but they really shouldn't have to.

Mickyh93b16_ESO · April 2014

I managed to do this mostly thanks to the nightblades veil of blades ult and reapers mark skill to regen health when killing an enemy. Killed all 5 in a row without dying.

Crimson · April 2014

bugged out on me too after I died way too much dmg @_@ dropped quest re got reset instance still wont spawn...

Ikata_Stormcloud · April 2014

I just got a guild mate to teleport to me in the outer room then walked into the main fight room, my grouped guild mate was able to come in with me and together we ate the three of them alive.

baka77b14_ESO · April 2014

Tough quest in VR difficulty. I died 4 times while coming up with a working strategy. Here it is, for those that need help.

1. Have some sort of heal ability on your bar.
2. Start with the melee guy. Engage him & fall back a bit so the mage is nuking you from long range.
3. Fight the melee however you normally fight using CC to keep the melee off balance while killing him (as a Templar, I used 2H crit charge + biting jabs mostly).
4. Absorb the mage's normal fire attack, they hurt a little but use the heal on your bar to offset as needed.
5. Pay very close attention to the mage's power attack charge up, where he shoots a line of fire on the ground. This MUST be dodged or it's game over.
6. Also, pay very close attention to the melee's charged up spin attack. Interrupt or dodge away. It's also a show-stopper.
7. Eventually, you'll kill the melee & then kill the mage to mop up.
8. When the Mane spawns, pull him back down the hall way a bit & engage him. When the minions spawn, they won't be in aggro range.
9. ???
10. PROFIT.

Good luck adventurers!

Necrodiety · May 2014

Died once, but got it on the second try. Here's what I did (like those above)

39 Sorc
Burned down the two elites, then Mane popped up. He had his adds and they toasted me quickly. Problem, now there are three elites.

I resurrected, then pulled each add (using Velocious Curse) from as far away as I could. That aggros just one at a time. Burned each one down easily. Then I pulled Mane the same way and no more adds (he doesn't call them a second time). Easy peasy. I just wish there was a better way to do it without dying. But what's one more repair bill...

Pyatra · May 2014

For Sorcerers: This one works too if you have the skill already.
Rune Prison melee mob every 20, kill the caster, (or vice versa but melee has to run to you so it buys more time), wail on the boss. @Necrodiety had a good plan too, I suspect an invisibility potion would have done well too but I would rather have a repair bill than burn one of those potions for that fight.

tomeb17_ESO16 · May 2014

VR5 - I found a way. Noticed that only the right hand mob got the threat symbol when I inched forward on the right hand side of the hallway. It then followed me alone. Fought it at the door. Then did the same on the left mob and finally the boss. Died 5 times before I figured this one out. Talked to the quest giver at the door.

ssewallb14_ESO · May 2014

Beat him. As others have mentioned the trick is to lead the Mane to the entry door. He summons the other two to the back end of the room regardless of where he is standing. If you're far enough away you can kill him without aggroing them, and you won't have to fight them at all.

Kathleen.Flynn02b14_ESO · May 2014

I'm not having fun with this quest. I'm VR9 in the VR10 zone, but I don't think that is the problem. I think this might be the most frustrating quest so far for me. I'm kind of a crappy player too. Kind of silly that they nerfed doshia but leave this as is.
EDIT: So, I did it. Just had to get a little more creative with my abilities.

jmrathbun · May 2014

I found this boss fight overwhelming at level 36. After reading helpful comments here, and going up a level, I equipped myself with a spell to snare the rogue, but that didn't work out in practice because it took me too long to kill the priest. I couldn't find a way to pull the rogue without the priest, either. On my next try I lucked out and killed the priest just as I died, perhaps due to Soul Shatter. After that it was simple to resurrect and kill the rogue. When the boss appeared, I attacked and pulled him to the other end of the room. He was relatively easy to defeat and his adds disappeared without bothering me. He fights like a rogue, btw. So burn your ultimate on the priest is my advice.

Tavore1138 · May 2014

Trying this at VR4 (DW NB) & although I can take the first two down it leaves me dry and the boss plus spawns hand me my ****.

Is this a 'key' quest or can I skip to the next story quest 'cos if not I am not going to be progressing further...

crislevin · May 2014

This is not too hard, its a simple trick.

This faction (AD) has many quests work the same way, such as when you beat the hound, or save the gambler, all about attract boss to certain distance away from its original spot.