Low to Mid tier Veterean Dungeon Crawling - worth it?

tactica

Hey all, I'm PS4 player from EP. I'm on the NA side and this is my first post on the forums, so hello all.

I'm wondering how beneficial the Veteren level dungeon crawling is for me at this stage of the game? If I find the drops to be scarce first off. Second, is the gear off the last boss, even going to be worth it in a level or three? I'm wondering if my time better spent just grinding to vr 14... err... 16 then focusing on the vet dungeons at that point?

Right now, I have a Vet 6 magicka DK, Vet 7 magicka sorc. Also a (soon to be) Vet1 stamina NB that's soon to turn vr1.

Also, I tend to play with the same 3-4 other players. I haven't had luck with randoms and the group finder much at the vet levels. I ran a couple dungeons early on with the finder in pickup games for normal, but very few folks seem to use it for vet mode.

This also brings up another point. The group I play with has a hodge podge of different VR ranked toons. We tend to have the lowest player host the dungeon. Usually a VR 2 or VR3 player. The thought process being that the dungeon should scale to them and should be easier for us to get through. However, we have always wondered - **IF** We get a helmet drop from the final boss... will that drop scale to the level of whoever receives it... or, will it scale to the currently set level of the dungeon at the time? So if a VR 7 player is in a dungeon with a VR2 hosting, will the VR7's helmet drop at VR7 from the final boss, or will it be VR2 (if we ever see one?)

NOTE - We've ran and completed only Vet Sewers, Hollow and Cells... We spent over 4 hours and failed to take down Valken Skoria two weeks ago in cities of Ash. (it was miserable, getting there wasn't bad, that last fight was not good, we just couldn't get him)...To date, and for our efforts, one guy has received a single piece of shoulder gear from a gold undaunted run, and we have no helmets collectively.

We are a bunch of older guys and the effort to get the group together isn't always that easy, just wondering how we might best spend our time.

Anyway... thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

Xeven

TBH, no. Crafted sets will be your best bet until vr16. At that point it will still likely be your best bet currently.

tactica

Xeven,

Thank you for the quick response. That's a shame. The idea of the Engine Guardian set while tanking... or the Valken Skoria set on the dragon knight heavy fire build or sorc build with lots of fire is very appealing to me... however, I struggle to get a group together right now, and it seems that even if I did, the value in doing so is minimal. A real shame.

What end game content, if any, is worth doing mid-VR levels??

Is there any... or do you just grind up to max cap level??

starlizard70ub17_ESO

Depending on your level, now might be a good time to pick a campaign in Cyrodiil, one that has alot of your faction in it, and go clean out the dungeons there. They are all V14, so you'll get good xp and loot. Also there are a few decent sets, Martial Knowledge, Air and Fire sets can be useful depending on your build. Right now most people in Cryodiil are busy farming IC for loot. So while it's possable to run into enemy faction players, if you watch out and stay away from keeps and other battle spots, it's unlikely you'll be bothered.

Thecapeo

tactica wrote: »

Xeven,

Thank you for the quick response. That's a shame. The idea of the Engine Guardian set while tanking... or the Valken Skoria set on the dragon knight heavy fire build or sorc build with lots of fire is very appealing to me... however, I struggle to get a group together right now, and it seems that even if I did, the value in doing so is minimal. A real shame.

What end game content, if any, is worth doing mid-VR levels??

Is there any... or do you just grind up to max cap level??

The monster two sets are still very, very good for many builds but... not getting it at max level kinds stinks. Plus we have the cap going up in a week on top of that. That said, I have two friends I play with regularly and we have been trying to find some folks to run the vet pledges with. Even just for the practice and to break up the monotony of doing nothing but PvP. If you need more people to run PvE stuff with drop me a friend request on PSN, my ID is the same as my user name here. We're all NA EP.

tactica

@starlizard70ub17_ESO thank you for the info. I did pick up a set of lv 12 martial knowledge for the sorc. Just sitting on it to level up. I gather that really only drops from the dolmens in Cyrodil though. I did join a campaign Thornblade? or w/e with all three of my toons, just for the buffs and to pick up the skill lines and lorebooks. Did a few delves, not all. I hadn't really thought about grinding there through vr14... may not be a bad idea... boring, but perhaps worthwhile.

I really don't have a plan for vr7+ through VR14 yet...

@Thecapeo cool. I'm up for running dungeons and meeting other level headed folks to game with in evenings. I'll shoot you a PSN FR from phone app. Most of us game during weekend, but I here and there I game during evening for a few hours. I'm part of 4 merchant guilds, just so I can move items and stay in cash positive territiory. However, amongst those of us that are gaming, we started a "grown up problems" guild. It's our older guys/girls club. Its a folks with real lives, day jobs, families kind of thing, but serves as a way for us all to see who is on, etc. Anyway, look forward to running a dungeon or two.

Cuyler

@tactica the undaunted mettle passive is about a 1-1.2k boost to every resource when wearing at least 1 pc of each armor type (light, med, heavy)! You need to level the undaunted skill line to do so and easiest way to that is to run both daily pledges every day. Start earlier and you won't have to go back when you max level.

If anything, do the dailies for the undaunted xp. Happy Hunting

Thecapeo

Sounds perfect. The folks I play with regularly have the same schedule, late thirties to late forties, full time jobs, kids, etc. No drama, laid back adults in other words. Look forward to running some dungeons.

tactica

@Cuyler I see. Had not considered that at all. So, that's the big motivator then.

Cuyler

tactica wrote: »

@Cuyler I see. Had not considered that at all. So, that's the big motivator then.

@tactica I forgot to mention that the key rewards for the dailies scale to your level. So do the dailies, save the key reward for when you get to v16 (will probably have 50+ keys by that time) and BOOM you be able to unlock a healthy amount of undaunted chests to get a real good shot at the v16 monster shoulders when the time comes.

tactica wrote: »

However, we have always wondered - **IF** We get a helmet drop from the final boss... will that drop scale to the level of whoever receives it... or, will it scale to the currently set level of the dungeon at the time? So if a VR 7 player is in a dungeon with a VR2 hosting, will the VR7's helmet drop at VR7 from the final boss, or will it be VR2 (if we ever see one?)

The helmet drops at the dungeon scale. So if the dungeon scaled to v2 the helmet will be v2 even if you're v7.

Hang in there Skoria is a huge pain the first couple times but that just makes the completion that much more rewarding. Plus once all your buds know the fight, you'll look back and laugh at what used to wipe you.

tactica

@Cuyler: Wow, had not even considered holding onto the keys... <face palm kind of info there> That's a fantastic tip!

Okay, so the helmet does drop at dungeon scale, not individual's level... boo. I figured that was the case, hoped it didn't, but makes sense else - all VR16s would run with VR1s as hosts... on the downside, it really means you are running dungeons for the undaunted exp and key storage (heh, now that I know not to use them.)

Masuimi

tactica wrote: »

@Cuyler: Wow, had not even considered holding onto the keys... <face palm kind of info there> That's a fantastic tip!

Okay, so the helmet does drop at dungeon scale, not individual's level... boo. I figured that was the case, hoped it didn't, but makes sense else - all VR16s would run with VR1s as hosts... on the downside, it really means you are running dungeons for the undaunted exp and key storage (heh, now that I know not to use them.)

This is not completely true.

Loot can scale down to player level, it just can't scale up.

tactica

@Cuyler

The group I ran with to get to Skoria was less than optimized, but we had a blast experiencing it. It was our first vet dungeon experience and we thought, lets see what its like.

I had a DeltiaGaming Dumner lasceration VAMP vr6 DK light armor magicka build, all DPS with shooting star / standard of might. Our tank was really a hodge-podge build of a NB. He himself is not happy with the toon as it was his ESO learning toon and went in a bunch of different directions leveling it. It was a vr5 NB stamina, with heavy armor - that started as a magicka and was switched. Mid city of ash, we asked him to tank if he thought he could, he had the points and gear, liked it, but he wasn't set up for it... (he liked it so much, he has since built up a DK dedicated to tanking now at vr3 in 2-weeks later), our Healer was VR5 templar bretonian, solid optimized build. Our host was a VR1 templar imperial DPS - and was struggling.

We actually did fairly well up till Skoria. We had a couple wipes, but for the most part, we figured out the fights and pushed through. Deltia's website helped as a guide on the dungeon - so props to him for that. This was our first Vet dungeon attempt and we learned a ton, so nothing was a waste. However, we got to Skoria with the motley band of misfits and proceeded to get taught numerous lessons for our lack of readiness.

In our many attempts, we found ever way imaginable to wipe. We got his health to near half once, but usually he worked us pretty hard and with a death, it was a domino effect.

In retrospect, we may not have been taking the best tack. We were using the tank to near right island, and everyone else use ranged damage from center, dodging skoria's death balls. Then, when he pops - rush his new island spawn and camp till he pops that one too... I've since learned we only needed to stay on island 2 until he lowers his sword, We could have then all retreated to center and let tank only stay with him... was that going to help... don't know.

Regardless, we were affectively trying to 3-man it... the healer was 90% healing 10% damage, tank was doing all he could to hold the bosses attention, 40% damage 60% tanking, it was just my DK doing DPS 100%. We got him to almost half health once. LOL. Our VR1 templar DPS died within 2 minutes of the fight beginning every time.... which was odd since we scaled to him, but nonetheless, it happened.

With that sad tale is behind us. We have had several Vet Dungeon wins and positive progress since. I tabled my Vamp DK for dungeon crawling as all the fire seems like a death sentence in there. So many dungeons are fire heavy... i need to rethink my DK build I guess... I've been using my HE sorc with great success. The fella who was running a tank NB moved to a dedicated DK Tank built from ground up, helped a lot. Bret healer is the same. We found a new guy who runs a wood elf NB and replaced the bret templar DPS. That helped for more damage. That is the crew that we beat sewers, cells and hollow with most recently.

tactica

Masuimi wrote: »

This is not completely true.

Loot can scale down to player level, it just can't scale up.

To a different thread, @paulsimonps said this:
"All gear in a dungeon first scales to the leader of the group and then to the players. So if your group is lead by a Vr7 then everyone that is over vr7 will still get vr7 stuff, BUT, if you are a vr4 in the same group then your loot will still only be vr4. There are exceptions to this where if you are all vr15 or 16 then the unique items with names but no set will still only be vr14 and the Ebon, Wormcult and Savior will also only scale to vr14"

Is that what you were talking about @Masuimi , or did you have something else in mind when you said the above?

Sorry, just trying to make sure I understand.

Thecapeo

AFAIK City of Ash doesn't scale does it? I thought the Vets each had a lowest level they would scale to.

tactica

@Thecapeo in an older patch, that was true. However, at some point... that changed. Now, it City of Ash does indeed scale. All of our mobs were of lower level - at least, they were all labeled as lower levels.

tactica

@Thecapeo We even tested it by going in with different hosts, to see if it changed, and mob levels did.

Thecapeo

@tactica Ah, I probably read an old guide then. Thanks.

tactica

@Thecapeo we probably read the same guide. That said, Skoria is no slouch... the autronarchs, fire damage and dps he puts out from various attacks are real. He can fire ball you, flame wave you, sword strike you, use the environment to bubble lava up on you and flood you to his position, after teleport - he creates this lava shower that you must heal through and rush to while breaking his damage shield and fighting through his summoned flame autronarchs in mass to swarm you and then... he will eventually explode the island he and you are on for massive spike damage... and I'm probably missing something, that's just from memory.

Even though that boss scales, he has a rediculous amount of HP and there's some serious DPS to contend with.

Masuimi

tactica wrote: »

Masuimi wrote: »

This is not completely true.

Loot can scale down to player level, it just can't scale up.

To a different thread, @paulsimonps said this:
"All gear in a dungeon first scales to the leader of the group and then to the players. So if your group is lead by a Vr7 then everyone that is over vr7 will still get vr7 stuff, BUT, if you are a vr4 in the same group then your loot will still only be vr4. There are exceptions to this where if you are all vr15 or 16 then the unique items with names but no set will still only be vr14 and the Ebon, Wormcult and Savior will also only scale to vr14"

Is that what you were talking about @Masuimi , or did you have something else in mind when you said the above?

Sorry, just trying to make sure I understand.

No, that's exactly what I meant.

@tactica

Thecapeo

tactica wrote: »

@Thecapeo we probably read the same guide. That said, Skoria is no slouch... the autronarchs, fire damage and dps he puts out from various attacks are real. He can fire ball you, flame wave you, sword strike you, use the environment to bubble lava up on you and flood you to his position, after teleport - he creates this lava shower that you must heal through and rush to while breaking his damage shield and fighting through his summoned flame autronarchs in mass to swarm you and then... he will eventually explode the island he and you are on for massive spike damage... and I'm probably missing something, that's just from memory.

Even though that boss scales, he has a rediculous amount of HP and there's some serious DPS to contend with.

Sounds like a blast

tactica

well played.

Cuyler

tactica wrote: »

"All gear in a dungeon first scales to the leader of the group and then to the players. So if your group is lead by a Vr7 then everyone that is over vr7 will still get vr7 stuff, BUT, if you are a vr4 in the same group then your loot will still only be vr4. There are exceptions to this where if you are all vr15 or 16 then the unique items with names but no set will still only be vr14 and the Ebon, Wormcult and Savior will also only scale to vr14"

Yes that is a much more thorough explanation, but I think you get the idea. A little info about the scoria fight is in the spoiler below.

Skoria is definitely a dps race. If you can't keep up, he'll destroy all the platforms and you'll be forced onto a rock with lava flying at you. So the trick is to follow mechanics to a tee (so no one dies).

If you can keep everyone from dying, usually....even with mediocre dps, you can down him in 5 islands. The loss of dps to rez one or two players is often too much time away from dps. Remember you can block the fireball attack to mitigate damage and not get knocked back. Don't dodgeroll and save your stamina to break free of the petrification. Everyone should ulti bomb right after scoria ports to down the damage shield as quickly as possible. If you have a Templar, use novas here to mitigate the additional atronach attacks and take stress off the healer.

@tactica you are correct that you can lessen the stress on your healer by leaving the platform skoria ports to after you've dpsed his damage shield away leaving the tank. Everyone else goes back to (hopefully) center platform. The issue with this is your dps will be ranged and Sorc is really going to shine here wheras DK dps is horrible at range.

If you want to stay melee (as DK for instance) then have your tank begin with Skoria at the edge of a platform, moving him to the other side of the platform after he spawns the lava geyser. This will allow the melee dps to get closer without direct threat of the geysers.

Finally don't forget the entire dungeon is daedra. this means the "evil/expert/camo hunter" skill from the fighter guild is your best friend in there.

tactica

@Cuyler some great info there. Thank you for taking the time.

1. we were dodging the fireball. After we got nuked for some 34K right out of the gate, we assumed dodge was only safe move. I'll try blocking it next time and see if it makes a difference.

2. I *think* we were making a good attempt at saving supers for when the boss ported, but good stuff seeing that strategy was sound.

3. Agreed. Moving away after shield is downed is a trade off. However, for those that needed it (or VR1) and our healer - it may have made sense to back off... had we known they could... for the DK and NB tank, we could easily have hung with the pressure off of the other two perhaps. (So wish we had a checkpoint to try again)

4. We truly didn't know what happened when all platforms blew up. After so much time, and never seeing the 5th explode - we didn't know if it was auto fail... or if there was another 'space' somewhere... we never made it past 4 exploding. Good to know there's a rock somewhere... bad to know that we should have had him much further down in health than we did... takes me to next point.

5. A clear fail and learning opportunity we talked about a bit after... we had no "evil/expert/camo hunter/dawnbreaker" we used none of the fighters guild opportunities other than passives folks may have had already. It was an oversight all the way through. It's a huge oversight, but one I'll admit and learn from. I'd like to think we were smarter than that and seen the option, but the ideal classes to make use of it, didn't and the rest of us didn't think about it - so at the time, in the heat, it wasn't discussed as even an option. We should have seen that and adapted. It could have made a difference... maybe still failed, but now, a goal to work toward for sure. With it, we would have gotten further no doubt.

Cheers,

tactica

I hit VR7 this weekend (last night) and we had good success Friday Night with Vet runs. I believe that was Sewers and it was no sweat.

We even took our first stab at NORMAL dragon star arena. At first we wondered how this was going to go as all was listed as VR14, but decided to try anyway. To our surprise with 2x VR4s, 1x VR5 and 1x VR6 we got through the first 6 rounds. Some noticably tougher than others. We feel like we could have managed and got further in fact - maybe even finish. However, a buddy had to work in am so we called it. Shame too, as we only had 4 stages to go... but, it was getting late. That was our groups first attempt and it felt good at that content... hardest part was that poison stage... well, the DE Shadowcaster stage baffled us for a bit with the runes on the ground, but eventually figured that out too. Look forward to getting all the way through at some point. Couple of guys managed some set piece drops, but I only received less than stellar blue items each time. It was nice opening a chest after each stage through. Rewards did not really feel commensurate with effort - still it was nice to have 'something' after each stage to look at, as well as a repair goon to go talk to.

I tried a mixed group (some friends, one rando) for Grotto Vet mode Saturday night and started okay... plowed through the trash and the first spider with healers we breazed through despite the warnings we received from one of the guys saying how tough he was... next boss was no joke though. That chick with the torcher chain crew ruined our day over and over... for over an hour before we called that one... We were leveled to a VR1 healer and had two VR4s with us, one tank and another NB DPS. Our best run, with 3 of us down, we had her to a sliver of health... but ulgh, I hate that fight. Its buggy I'm fairly certain... managing her run away beam... her purple ball of death... the 4 shadow chains and sword torcher spike... and 4 home run hitting shadow wraith things is a mess. So many things have to go well. That fight seemed necessarily 'technically' difficult, and a bit glitchy at times! We gave in and called it even after switching out one player. Oh well... another day. I'm sure there's more to learn there.

tactica

Hey @Thecapeo ,

Great to game with you and your crew last night. Rolling Spindleclutch with all DPS was a blast! Lot of laughs and felt good learning how to beat that mob generating boss mid-way through despite not having a healer. Ultimates FTW in round 3!

Looking forward to more good times.

I'll be looking into crackwood cave tonight or later this week I'm thinking. I'm halfway to vr8 now. I have a few Psijic potions left, and I'd like to move that along. I gather post IC drop, leveling gets a bit easier in VR levels?

Also, only need 2 more fragments (4 and 5) and I can make my own potions... doing 3 writs a day, that's been a long slow process to get this far... but getting close.

Cheers again for the invite bro, had a good time,

Thecapeo

@tactica ,

Had a great time too. I'll be on tonight around 7EST and I'd be down for another vet pledge. Ideally maybe with a healer this time lol. Or, a proper tank even...

tactica

@Thecapeo

I could *work* on building some healing skills up on my sorc for alt options, but not a fan of running healer. It would be more for *if* I had to and to help limp along with some healing vs. having none (kinda like you did for tanking, which worked quite well actually).

I have healing staff at 50 but haven't invested any points in it or built any build into it. It would take some time.

I hopped on last night, but with 3 VR characters, I spent all night figuring out point spends again. 2 characters had over 200 points to burn. The VR 1 had over 100... so, fun... also had to go change mundus, then do provisioning writs and merch stuff...

Doing so, negotiated for my 6th of 7 pieces needed for Psijic Ambrosia Recipe. I'm down to only needing Fragment V... Took a bit over 80K in trade value to pick up the piece last night, but sitting at 1 piece away feels good. Soon... I'll be able to accelerate the exp grind... well, and fishing will be real. LOL

Dragon Knight is almost VR8... got in a little time. Also unlocked the second passive champion perk for added spell criticality I believe.

Thecapeo

Between all our guilds we should be able to find a healer and I don't mind being a pseudo-tank. They also bumped the XP gain for Crag so group grinding Crag might actually be viable again. We can also run a group through IC. I'd expect the XP gain would be decent though I'm not sure. Crazy mob density though.

tactica

I haven't even tried IC yet. I don't know if the EXP is worth it, and don't want to waste my time there. I'm not sure what value IC has for me right now. I'm not a fan of the zerg or any PVP style of fighting. It just doesn't interest me. The whole mono-e-mono or horde / zerg rush whatever... its all the same... mindless killing to best another ... just makes me yawn. Glad its there for those that dig it, but honestly, I'd rather go do something / anything else.

I like dungeon crawling, loot fests, I like progressing my toon, I like working on gear sets and monster set undaunted drops, figuring out ways to solve the boss puzzles... all that stuff interests me.

Ganking in PvP, herding to best other players over and over, collecting Ta'var stones ad' nauseum... meh... not so much.

There is gear in Cyrodil I would like... for example, the Cyrodil Light rings at VR16 - which I know you need a ton of Alliance Points for... and I'm sure there are sets and items I would eventually want from IC. However, unless there was some huge advantage in leveling for me to go into IC right now... I'll probably avoid it and leave it to the ADHD and twitch crowd that love PVP.

tactica

I haven't ventured into IC, but this sums up my "fear" of how IC might have played out. I've been keeping a close eye on it and reading about it. I'll let others sort out through the pains and woes of it first... The OP seems to hit the nail on the head of what I like to avoid:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/217556/a-chocolate-covered-turd#latest