March of Sacrifices - Skipping Hunts

Halke

In March of Sacrifices on the last boss for HM (and probably for non-HM as well) you can burn the boss and skip all but the last hunt, the one that comes at 20% hp. Is this intended? And if it is can someone at ZoS address why?

It is the same issue that came with Fang Lair when it first dropped. By making the main mechanic skippable you have again made it so that running three DPS over two DPS and a healer is the way to go. Not to mention it makes the HM significantly easier to do by skipping what makes it HM. While groups are 'willing' to take a healer, doing so makes the content harder by far.

Please quit making content where healers are a burden,
@Halke, second cutest healer in SoB

SilverWF

Halke wrote: »

In March of Sacrifices on the last boss for HM (and probably for non-HM as well) you can burn the boss and skip all but the last hunt, the one that comes at 20% hp. Is this intended?

How, please?
All you need to do is deal as many damage as you can at every 20% of missing health?

code65536

We've noticed this as well, and it even happened during last night's ESO Live stream, at the 67:30 mark.
https://youtu.be/b5l32DFF6iA?t=67m30s

I'm not completely sure yet why what causes the skip, but I have a theory that I'd like to test...

Halke

The skip is caused by pushing DPS past a threshold while the boss is in an animation. Most reliable way is to get him to 81% (or 61% or 41%) and hold. When he does the charge > fire stomp combo you nuke him. If you get him to 5% below the point he was supposed to enter a hunt he doesn't do it. So instead of delaying the mechanic it just doesn't do it.

I put this as a bug because it happened to them on accident on the stream and they seemed surprised. One would think if it were intentional that they would have done it, because they had the DPS to do so.

(( edit to fix a typo ))

TheNightflame

+1

code65536

@Dymence

erlewine

You just have to push it 1% past the trigger percentage, while he is casting Fiery Remnant. Easiest to time it so that you burn it immediately after a charge, since he always casts Fiery Remnant after a charge. Burn it from 81 -> 79% and he will skip. Same deal with 60, 40, 20. You'll still have to do one darkness phase under 20, though.

code65536

erlewine wrote: »

You just have to push it 1% past the trigger percentage, while he is casting Fiery Remnant. Easiest to time it so that you burn it immediately after a charge, since he always casts Fiery Remnant after a charge. Burn it from 81 -> 79% and he will skip. Same deal with 60, 40, 20. You'll still have to do one darkness phase under 20, though.

That's what I've been suspecting, though I haven't had a chance to verify it. The video from the ESO Live stream (linked above, go to the 67:30 timestamp) is interesting, because it looks like Balorgh was hit by a few light attacks while doing the fireball ability. The health percent in the video remained at 80, but it's hard to know what exactly that is with rounding--"80%" could mean that it was 79.6% or 80.4%. Balorgh was pushed more while doing the venom slam.

The thing that I'm curious about is, when did the skip actually occur on that dev run stream? If the skip happened during the fireball slam, then you don't even need to push 1% past the trigger--all you need to do is reach the trigger while he's doing the fireball--in which case, you literally don't need to burn, just hit him with something to push it from 80.1% to 79.9%. If the skip happened during the subsequent venom slam, then there are other animations that can trigger the skip.

If the trigger for this bug is pushing him during the fireball launch and only the fireball launch, that would explain why we've only seen this in HM and not non-HM, since his slam in non-HM doesn't launch fireballs. (Though that could also be because we've done so few non-HM pulls.)

Also, I suspect that you are skipping the 20% hunt. Remember that the hunts after 20% are time-based and not health-based. So my guess is that after you skipped the 20% hunt, the game says, "Ok, time to check to see if you're due for a time-based hunt. Hmm, according to our records, the last time you did any hunt was a long, long time ago. So I guess you're due for a time-based hunt!" I.e., I think you skipped the 20% hunt but was instantly hit by a time-based hunt.

code65536

@ZOS_Finn @ZOS_Jay

code65536

Looking back at an old video by @LZH from the first week of PTS, it looks like this bug had been around since the very beginning:

https://youtu.be/qmQA3VeiGPU?t=3m20s
(see the 3:20 mark)

Halke

erlewine wrote: »

You just have to push it 1% past the trigger percentage, while he is casting Fiery Remnant. Easiest to time it so that you burn it immediately after a charge, since he always casts Fiery Remnant after a charge. Burn it from 81 -> 79% and he will skip. Same deal with 60, 40, 20. You'll still have to do one darkness phase under 20, though.

Can confirm this is the way to do it. Can also confirm his timing messes up and he doesn't always Remnant after a charge. I streamed it last night if you want to see even more confirmation. Not linking it because I think we have plenty of data already.

Also, no mention of it in the patch notes. So are we to assume this is an intentional design element?

code65536

We did some additional testing today, trying to see if it's possible to replicate this bug in non-HM, and we can confirm that this is a HM-specific bug. This kinda makes sense, because it appears that the bug triggers if the push happens during the fireballs, and there are no fireballs on non-HM.

serrintine

We were able to skip a hunt on non-HM yesterday while doing a speedrun. I didn't record it so I can't look back at if it was the same trigger or not. We even had a healer so it's not like we pushed an extra 20% while he was stuck in an animation.

LioraValkyrie

I've completed this twice now, both times with a full healer. I agree with the statement that pushing the boss from 81-79%, etc. during a fireball stomp is the cause of the skip. This is clearly a scripting error to do with a specific mechanic and has nothing to do with rewarding overkill dps.

In the end, my group decided not to bother with trying to skip hunts because the only way to reliably complete the fight was to actually practice learning how to survive them! The key here is knowing what your job is while targeted, and what your job is while not targeted. A non-targeted tank should be rounding up wolves, a non-targeted DD should be killing things, and a non-targeted healer should be buffing and purging the people who are targeted. It's not strictly necessary to stick together all of the time, but nobody should run through the strangler spawn points alone. Once a group resigns themselves to actually doing the hunt phases, they will likely find them to be MUCH easier with a healer in their group.

code65536

From the 4.1.7 patch notes:

Balorgh will no longer skip his cast of Hunting Party at the respective health thresholds.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Finn Did the QA team test this change? Because right now in patch 4.1.8, this bug is still present. Still reproducible using the same steps as before.

ZOS_Finn

Thanks, we are taking a look.

Tsar_Gekkou

Is this already patched on Xbox? Doesn't seem to be working.