The Volenfell Group

fred4

I participated in a group today, formed via the chat box on PC EU, to farm Tremorscale. Now there is no particular reason for this post, other than to talk about how it goes. I've had some great PUGs and some terrible ones. This one was somewhere inbetween. When it came to the final fight, the Guardian Trinity, we died. The guy who was most experienced, and didn't die so easily, he unceremoniously left after a few tries. I used to think this behaviour really rude, but was about to do the same.

I died, of course, but I had soloed this dungeon before One Tamriel, I just couldn't remember how. Well, for the benefit of anyone wondering about this, here is one approach that works. There are three Dwemer constructs, the Guardian's Strength, the Guardian's Spark, and the Guardian's Soul. The Strength guy moves slowly and does somewhat strong AOE damage around him. The Spark is stationary and fires lightning AOE. The Soul guy, now he is a b@st@rd. He follows you at a fair pace and has a Decapitation Function that will one-shot you. With my medium armor it hit me for 35k. I could block it, just about, but I wasn't a 1H+S tank. Your reduced movement speed, while holding block and waiting for the Soul's attack animation to finish, means you are very exposed to compound damage from the other two. The approach I settled on, with the gear that I had - medium armor and speed potions, was to lead the Soul and the Strength out into the open, then gap-close back onto the Spark, do some damage, and repeat.

With my build I had to stay away from the Soul. Of course, when I was in the group, I didn't realise that. I recalled another group, where the advice was to take out the Soul first, because it periodically redistributes health between the three of them. That didn't work for me here, and in focusing on the Soul I was always the first to die.

After the experienced guy left, we were waiting for a replacement, and I wanted to try and fight the bosses with the replacement on the way. This was out of annoyance with myself and to work out how to fight these bosses again. I did not think we would succeed straight away and certainly not that we would finish before arrival of the 4th player. The other guys wanted to wait, I started the fight anyway. Afterwards I was admonished to <swear words deleted> just stop doing that and wait. I left the group. I can't abide swearing anymore.

It can be really frustrating to play with people you don't know, and where the respect is generally lacking. One guy left, the founder of the group clearly didn't think much of me, and for my part, I had seen one of them J-beaming bosses from near 100%, so I wasn't impressed with that. To top it off the founder private messaged me afterwards, pouring scorn on my lack of skill as a CP645 player.

What's the moral of the story? If only communication was easier. I think this group probably wouldn't have fallen apart, if we'd been on voice chat. I play this game with a keyboard on my lap, in the dark, with a projector. It is awkward for me to type in the chat window, as I often have to correct what I'm writing. In this instance I just decided to act instead. But that's how it goes, isn't it. It's just so cumbersome to talk about the things that needed to be talked about in that little chat box.

I went back to Volenfell solo and got my Tremorscale helm.

Mic1007

PUGs. They're wonderful, aren't they?

AzraelKrieg

Another thing to take note of in the fight is that as you damage them, the three of them will linked together and two will split their health with the damaged one. The best idea is to have the tank kite the tauntable boss which I believe is the red one around while the DPS deal damage to the blue one. When they tether up, the blue will be healed but the yellow and red will have their health decreased. Repeat until the blue is within execute range as the others should be around there too. It is a long fight but if you can get rid of the blue quickly, the fight is a lot easier.

fred4

Yes, I agree that the blue is the easiest target. I know that now. It's actually a benefit that the yellow guy redistributes the health, so you can focus down the weak blue one instead. What I was doing in the group was exactly the wrong thing, at least for my build.

It's useful to know the red can be taunted. Thanks, I didn't know.

AzraelKrieg

Yellow just does whatever it wants I found out when I did the dungeon on vet Hard mode when it popped up for the pledge cycle. Future runs will be easier now

fred4

We did it on vet, BTW, and I subsequently soloed it on vet easy mode. The impression I have is that hard mode just gives them 25% more health, or do they hit harder as well?

AzraelKrieg

More health from what I can tell. Though I haven't done vet without hardmode yet.