Bloodroot Forge HM bugged?

Feanor

I finally had the time to finish the HotR HM achievements yesterday evening. While Falkreath took a few attempts and we definitely worked for the HM clear, everyone in the group agreed that the Bloodroot Forge HM seemed totally off. We just walked in there, killed everything without breaking any sweat altogether. The 3 Amalgams were just standing still more or less, and the lava pools moved extremely slow. Is this difficulty intended? I can't imagine it is, and therefore it must be bugged. Thoughts?

P.S. This is not about bragging. I'm genuinely asking if the HM is bugged. It felt easier than any of the old vet HM dungeons.

IwakuraLain42

Noticed something similar on Normal Bloodroot Forge yesterday (was on random rotation): it looks like a lot of the mobs and the end boss are seriously off-sync, either doing nothing or staying after the dungeon had finished.

ZunaRoath

Feanor wrote: »

I finally had the time to finish the HotR HM achievements yesterday evening. While Falkreath took a few attempts and we definitely worked for the HM clear, everyone in the group agreed that the Bloodroot Forge HM seemed totally off. We just walked in there, killed everything without breaking any sweat altogether. The 3 Amalgams were just standing still more or less, and the lava pools moved extremely slow. Is this difficulty intended? I can't imagine it is, and therefore it must be bugged. Thoughts?

P.S. This is not about bragging. I'm genuinely asking if the HM is bugged. It felt easier than any of the old vet HM dungeons.

Finished vBF HM yesterday, I've done quite a few tries with different groups. What you say... I'm not sure if it would define the dungeon. For me, and the experience I've had, it really depends on the tank. Usually when the small one spawned it all was full of lava, but you've to move right. The Amalgams will indeed stand still if the tank also does.

Although in one of our groups, our tank noticed that the Amalgams weren't really answering to taunt at some points. Still, what I say about the fight depending on a tank: The Amalgams do a heavy attack that can easily one shoot the DD. Tank has to block those, or if they had low health they'll also get killed. Even in not HM, one of the groups I was in, our tank would still get one shooted if two Amalgams did this heavy attack at the same time or one after the other without time to heal the tank. It also depends on how the tank moves them.

I do not think it is bugged, although I think the fight, when you know how to do it, and you've a good group, is pretty easy. Yesterday we just needed two tries to do it with the group I was in. Honestly I do think it is easier than even veteran Veli without HM, -much- easier.

Meld777

I agree with you. With my group, I got all achievements in both dungeons within ~3 hours of them coming out, except Shalk Shaker, stepping in lava and the grind ones (1000 zombies, x minotaurs, etc.). The others I got the next day. And we went in with zero knowledge of mechanics, have never seen videos, and have never tried them on PTS.

Getting no deaths in vCoS and vRoM was a nice challenge when they came out. Even just the HMs required lots of practice. But the new dungeons are a joke.

The boss fight mechanics in vFH and vBF are way too slow. There's no challenge whatsoever. You get way too much time to react to things. If ZOS, for example, tripled the Earthgore Amalgam's health and made him split in 5 copies AND made one of them ALWAYS stomp during the fight, maybe it would've been a bit more challenging. Both dungeon lack anti-stack mechanics and combat is slow-pace.

Feanor

ZunaRoath wrote: »

Finished vBF HM yesterday, I've done quite a few tries with different groups. What you say... I'm not sure if it would define the dungeon. For me, and the experience I've had, it really depends on the tank. Usually when the small one spawned it all was full of lava, but you've to move right. The Amalgams will indeed stand still if the tank also does.

Although in one of our groups, our tank noticed that the Amalgams weren't really answering to taunt at some points. Still, what I say about the fight depending on a tank: The Amalgams do a heavy attack that can easily one shoot the DD. Tank has to block those, or if they had low health they'll also get killed. Even in not HM, one of the groups I was in, our tank would still get one shooted if two Amalgams did this heavy attack at the same time or one after the other without time to heal the tank. It also depends on how the tank moves them.

I do not think it is bugged, although I think the fight, when you know how to do it, and you've a good group, is pretty easy. Yesterday we just needed two tries to do it with the group I was in. Honestly I do think it is easier than even veteran Veli without HM, -much- easier.

Interesting. It was a guild group run, and we were all on TS of course, and our tank is pretty good. Maybe that's why. The fight just felt so easy. There were no mechanics to observe whatsoever. Even the two synergy pools were not active, but maybe that is normal on HM (it makes no sense if it is normal though as you'll automatically get the "Hand Wrought Victory" achievement then). It just felt miles easier than Falkreath HM, and like you say vCoS is much harder even without HM.

That said I love the dungeon aesthetics. The place is well done.

Maybe @ZOS_GinaBruno can shoot this over to the dev team to get some insight.

ZunaRoath

I agree. Both dungeons are so amazing, but they indeed do feel easy with the correct group setup. In the PTS everyone said the same though, and they still didn't touch the dungeon's difficulty.

I loved each of the tries we made, even if we didn't get to even beat the last boss.



Btw, if anyone wants to try speedrun and no death vBF add me (PC EU -> @To_Sovngarde), I'm looking for a good group to do these still.

Feanor

@ZunaRoath

The speed runs are definitely more challenging than the HM, which says a lot. 20 minutes is a small time window, you practically only have 1 shot at the boss.

FloppyTouch

<.< speak for yourselves I'm no noob but with a pug group these vet dungeons are not easy. Just came out yesterday but after 6 failed pug groups I called it a day.

Maybe I will feel different this weekend when I'm able to play with guild memebers but right now they don't feel easy at all.

ZunaRoath

Feanor wrote: »

@ZunaRoath

The speed runs are definitely more challenging than the HM, which says a lot. 20 minutes is a small time window, you practically only have 1 shot at the boss.

I would imagine, but I suppose with a good group that knows what they're doing it shouldn't be horrible, maybe a few tries, yeah. I heard some people did speedrun using invisible pots to get through normal mobs, tho?

FloppyTouch wrote: »

<.< speak for yourselves I'm no noob but with a pug group these vet dungeons are not easy. Just came out yesterday but after 6 failed pug groups I called it a day.

Maybe I will feel different this weekend when I'm able to play with guild memebers but right now they don't feel easy at all.

YES. One has to be so lucky to get a decent group. I tried a few with group finder, not easy lol.

Qbiken

Feanor wrote: »

@ZunaRoath

The speed runs are definitely more challenging than the HM, which says a lot. 20 minutes is a small time window, you practically only have 1 shot at the boss.

You have to skip like all the adds in vBF to get the speedrun achievement (aka only fight the bosses), 20 minutes is ridiculous.

ZunaRoath

Qbiken wrote: »

Feanor wrote: »

@ZunaRoath

The speed runs are definitely more challenging than the HM, which says a lot. 20 minutes is a small time window, you practically only have 1 shot at the boss.

You have to skip like all the adds in vBF to get the speedrun achievement (aka only fight the bosses), 20 minutes is ridiculous.

Lol, at least that works xD

Feanor

ZunaRoath wrote: »

I would imagine, but I suppose with a good group that knows what they're doing it shouldn't be horrible, maybe a few tries, yeah. I heard some people did speedrun using invisible pots to get through normal mobs, tho?

I heard that this is not working in the new dungeons, but I never tried.

FloppyTouch wrote: »

<.< speak for yourselves I'm no noob but with a pug group these vet dungeons are not easy. Just came out yesterday but after 6 failed pug groups I called it a day.

Maybe I will feel different this weekend when I'm able to play with guild memebers but right now they don't feel easy at all.

PUGs are always a different story. Mostly because people are not on TS and therefore calling out stuff is harder. It makes a big difference.

Cage_Lizardman

I've only tried BF with random groups and would not call the last boss easy. Mostly it's the tank who can't survive when he splits into two or three. It also seems very hard to keep aggro on all of them, since I usually get one after me, forcing me to run and dodge and not doing much dps.

POps75p

Feanor wrote: »

I finally had the time to finish the HotR HM achievements yesterday evening. While Falkreath took a few attempts and we definitely worked for the HM clear, everyone in the group agreed that the Bloodroot Forge HM seemed totally off. We just walked in there, killed everything without breaking any sweat altogether. The 3 Amalgams were just standing still more or less, and the lava pools moved extremely slow. Is this difficulty intended? I can't imagine it is, and therefore it must be bugged. Thoughts?

P.S. This is not about bragging. I'm genuinely asking if the HM is bugged. It felt easier than any of the old vet HM dungeons.

yesterday, I was boosting one of my new players and had just got to level 10 I que up a random normal ad we get Bloodroot, was myself at 10,, two others at 20's and one at around 300, we got to last boss and finally figured out the red yellow buck and finished them off, was not all that hard.

that about an hour later I was on one of my new level 20 wardon's boosting and did the same, but this time, I was the only 20 and the rest were all 660, figured a piece of cake. got to last boss and we just kept dying, dying and mo dying, after about an hour we did kill the main boss (which give us a skill point) but the other two killed the rest of us and we had to start again, about an hour later (and setting the record for most times dying as a team on normal) I just finally gave up, I believe everyone did as well. so no clue what the real Bloodroot is like but I plan to do it on VET with my Stormproff Sorc later today.

profundidob16_ESO

I made a sport out of running this dungeon with pugs nonstop every day since it came out and experienced something weird first hand:

I've seen both sides: When running with proper people in a preselected party it was almost a joke and purely fun but not really challenging.

All the pug runs were absolute horror, wipe after wipe until the point where we quit or barely made it eventually.

The gap between the 2 scenario's is just mindblowingly huge. To me this proves again that we really really need a third difficulty level that is tuned towards preselected min-maxed groups that have completed all and need a new challenge.

I suggest lowering the current vet difficulty a bit so more pugs can do actually complete it with the crazy amount of bad/mediocre player community (and I'm sure this WILL happen anyway sometime in the future just like for all the other DLC dungeons) and introduce a third difficulty level with serious tough pre-checks for all that try to queue (must have completed conqueror, must have > X stats, etc...)

Mureel

Feanor wrote: »

ZunaRoath wrote: »

Finished vBF HM yesterday, I've done quite a few tries with different groups. What you say... I'm not sure if it would define the dungeon. For me, and the experience I've had, it really depends on the tank. Usually when the small one spawned it all was full of lava, but you've to move right. The Amalgams will indeed stand still if the tank also does.

Although in one of our groups, our tank noticed that the Amalgams weren't really answering to taunt at some points. Still, what I say about the fight depending on a tank: The Amalgams do a heavy attack that can easily one shoot the DD. Tank has to block those, or if they had low health they'll also get killed. Even in not HM, one of the groups I was in, our tank would still get one shooted if two Amalgams did this heavy attack at the same time or one after the other without time to heal the tank. It also depends on how the tank moves them.

I do not think it is bugged, although I think the fight, when you know how to do it, and you've a good group, is pretty easy. Yesterday we just needed two tries to do it with the group I was in. Honestly I do think it is easier than even veteran Veli without HM, -much- easier.

Interesting. It was a guild group run, and we were all on TS of course, and our tank is pretty good. Maybe that's why. The fight just felt so easy. There were no mechanics to observe whatsoever. Even the two synergy pools were not active, but maybe that is normal on HM (it makes no sense if it is normal though as you'll automatically get the "Hand Wrought Victory" achievement then). It just felt miles easier than Falkreath HM, and like you say vCoS is much harder even without HM.

That said I love the dungeon aesthetics. The place is well done.

Maybe @ZOS_GinaBruno can shoot this over to the dev team to get some insight.

In HM BF - no synergies.

s7732425ub17_ESO

Meld777 wrote: »

I agree with you. With my group, I got all achievements in both dungeons within ~3 hours of them coming out, except Shalk Shaker, stepping in lava and the grind ones (1000 zombies, x minotaurs, etc.). The others I got the next day. And we went in with zero knowledge of mechanics, have never seen videos, and have never tried them on PTS.

Getting no deaths in vCoS and vRoM was a nice challenge when they came out. Even just the HMs required lots of practice. But the new dungeons are a joke.

The boss fight mechanics in vFH and vBF are way too slow. There's no challenge whatsoever. You get way too much time to react to things. If ZOS, for example, tripled the Earthgore Amalgam's health and made him split in 5 copies AND made one of them ALWAYS stomp during the fight, maybe it would've been a bit more challenging. Both dungeon lack anti-stack mechanics and combat is slow-pace.

Do you realize your group is in the top .1%? A lot of players at this skill level don't realize this because they never do anything with the general population (pug groups, non-hardcore guilds, etc.). These dungeons are actually great because they aren't stupid like VROM and VCOS in terms of difficulty.

Defilted

I never got to the end due to getting kicked about half way through, then my group kicked me before I got back. I noticed the dungeon was laggy. Could be it was everyone doing on day release for XBOX one. We shall see.

Meld777

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

Meld777 wrote: »

I agree with you. With my group, I got all achievements in both dungeons within ~3 hours of them coming out, except Shalk Shaker, stepping in lava and the grind ones (1000 zombies, x minotaurs, etc.). The others I got the next day. And we went in with zero knowledge of mechanics, have never seen videos, and have never tried them on PTS.

Getting no deaths in vCoS and vRoM was a nice challenge when they came out. Even just the HMs required lots of practice. But the new dungeons are a joke.

The boss fight mechanics in vFH and vBF are way too slow. There's no challenge whatsoever. You get way too much time to react to things. If ZOS, for example, tripled the Earthgore Amalgam's health and made him split in 5 copies AND made one of them ALWAYS stomp during the fight, maybe it would've been a bit more challenging. Both dungeon lack anti-stack mechanics and combat is slow-pace.

Do you realize your group is in the top .1%? A lot of players at this skill level don't realize this because they never do anything with the general population (pug groups, non-hardcore guilds, etc.). These dungeons are actually great because they aren't stupid like VROM and VCOS in terms of difficulty.

I disagree. I pug a lot with group finder, and I've done both new dungeons on HM with randoms below 300 CP. Were they speedruns + no deaths? No. But you're not supposed to get them with group finder pugs. Heck, if the vet versions were more challenging and it would be too hard for you, you could still run normal. This is what normal is for.

Cage_Lizardman

Meld777 wrote: »

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

Meld777 wrote: »

I agree with you. With my group, I got all achievements in both dungeons within ~3 hours of them coming out, except Shalk Shaker, stepping in lava and the grind ones (1000 zombies, x minotaurs, etc.). The others I got the next day. And we went in with zero knowledge of mechanics, have never seen videos, and have never tried them on PTS.

Getting no deaths in vCoS and vRoM was a nice challenge when they came out. Even just the HMs required lots of practice. But the new dungeons are a joke.

The boss fight mechanics in vFH and vBF are way too slow. There's no challenge whatsoever. You get way too much time to react to things. If ZOS, for example, tripled the Earthgore Amalgam's health and made him split in 5 copies AND made one of them ALWAYS stomp during the fight, maybe it would've been a bit more challenging. Both dungeon lack anti-stack mechanics and combat is slow-pace.

Do you realize your group is in the top .1%? A lot of players at this skill level don't realize this because they never do anything with the general population (pug groups, non-hardcore guilds, etc.). These dungeons are actually great because they aren't stupid like VROM and VCOS in terms of difficulty.

I disagree. I pug a lot with group finder, and I've done both new dungeons on HM with randoms below 300 CP. Were they speedruns + no deaths? No. But you're not supposed to get them with group finder pugs. Heck, if the vet versions were more challenging and it would be too hard for you, you could still run normal. This is what normal is for.

There is little point in making dungeons that only the 0.1% has a chance on. You must be very good if you can do that with 300cp randoms, I've seen many groups all max cp fail.

I've also pugged these dungeons a lot on veteran. I've yet to see a group that could pass the final boss in BF, mostly because the tank can't take it. Falkreath's final boss I've beaten a few times, though always with many wipes even when the rest of the dungeon was fairly smooth. I'll agree that hm makes no difference on him though.

Feanor

Cage_Lizardman wrote: »

There is little point in making dungeons that only the 0.1% has a chance on. You must be very good if you can do that with 300cp randoms, I've seen many groups all max cp fail.

I've also pugged these dungeons a lot on veteran. I've yet to see a group that could pass the final boss in BF, mostly because the tank can't take it. Falkreath's final boss I've beaten a few times, though always with many wipes even when the rest of the dungeon was fairly smooth. I'll agree that hm makes no difference on him though.

CP doesn't equate player skill. And actually you've touched another design issue with these dungeons - the bosses leading to the end boss pose no threat at all, with the exception of Ghalchubar, where you need good group coordination and observe the mechanics.

Cage_Lizardman

Feanor wrote: »

Cage_Lizardman wrote: »

There is little point in making dungeons that only the 0.1% has a chance on. You must be very good if you can do that with 300cp randoms, I've seen many groups all max cp fail.

I've also pugged these dungeons a lot on veteran. I've yet to see a group that could pass the final boss in BF, mostly because the tank can't take it. Falkreath's final boss I've beaten a few times, though always with many wipes even when the rest of the dungeon was fairly smooth. I'll agree that hm makes no difference on him though.

CP doesn't equate player skill. And actually you've touched another design issue with these dungeons - the bosses leading to the end boss pose no threat at all, with the exception of Ghalchubar, where you need good group coordination and observe the mechanics.

Well duh, I suppose it's possible that he randomly gets highly skilled 300cp players, and I only get 600cp "skyreach babies", but I doubt it. "No threat at all" is nowhere near reality to a random group without voice comms. The hagraven and Cernunnon take quite a bit of practice for most who haven't done them before.

Meld777

Cage_Lizardman wrote: »

Well duh, I suppose it's possible that he randomly gets highly skilled 300cp players, and I only get 600cp "skyreach babies"

My experience is that, on average, you will have the best time with people between 300 and 500 CP. They are usually decently skilled and able to listen. Also, this CP range indicates that they don't care much about CP and actually played their way to to this CP. "Skyreach heroes" usually won't stop at 300 - 500 CP. They will either get 160 to have a good start with max gear or go all the way to 660 before they try vet content.
It is usually CP660 2nd DDs where I have 90%+ group DPS in combat metrics. The best on average are around 450CP. Doesn't change the fact that there are CP660 2nd DDs that deal 50% group DPS, they're just rare in group finder. And doesn't change the fact that I once did vCoS HM + Speedrun + No Death (pre-nerfs) with a CP90 Tank and a CP300 Healer, all randoms.

OutLaw_Nynx

If this means anything at all


I'm totally fine pugging the new dungeons but I won't PUG SOTH dungeons

SquareSausage

Meld777 wrote: »

I agree with you. With my group, I got all achievements in both dungeons within ~3 hours of them coming out, except Shalk Shaker, stepping in lava and the grind ones (1000 zombies, x minotaurs, etc.). The others I got the next day. And we went in with zero knowledge of mechanics, have never seen videos, and have never tried them on PTS.

Getting no deaths in vCoS and vRoM was a nice challenge when they came out. Even just the HMs required lots of practice. But the new dungeons are a joke.

The boss fight mechanics in vFH and vBF are way too slow. There's no challenge whatsoever. You get way too much time to react to things. If ZOS, for example, tripled the Earthgore Amalgam's health and made him split in 5 copies AND made one of them ALWAYS stomp during the fight, maybe it would've been a bit more challenging. Both dungeon lack anti-stack mechanics and combat is slow-pace.

Tell that to the 99% of eso players who arent as l33t as you who will never complete HM vFH/vBF as it stands.

Cage_Lizardman

Meld777 wrote: »

And doesn't change the fact that I once did vCoS HM + Speedrun + No Death (pre-nerfs) with a CP90 Tank and a CP300 Healer, all randoms.

Ok I get it, you are a troll.