Frostvault Walkthrough and Guide (Spoilers)

WhitePawPrints

I have completed both dungeons on the PTS and am currently working on a guide and walkthrough for all players struggling with any of the mechanics.

Brought to you by the guild Twin-Moons Covenant

See Depths of Malatar Guide

Frostvault Guide

Add Priority: Skysplitter
Skysplitters are goblin ice mages, and they're main threat comes from an ice comet ability that they will cast on a random player. Kill them as quickly as possible to reduce the amount of ice comets going out, and if killed quick enough the ice comet will be canceled if it spawning on one player.

First Boss Icestalker

Icestalker is an armored frost troll boss who has many common troll abilities, including throwing a projectile and ground slam that sends out ripples through the ground in a frontal cone. Icestalker will occasionally pounce on a player, that stuns and damages everyone nearby.

Upper Punch is when he punts a player up into the air, stunning them when they land, and begins repeatedly smashing that player. Another player needs to bash the boss before he smashes the player to death. The stun is unbreakable (currently) even after Icestalker is bashed, so the healer will need to keep that player alive through the other aoe's and adds.

The boss on occasion uses a large aoe around itself that knocks back all players, stunning them briefly.

Adds spawn in a health percentage triggers, so if they become too overwhelming, begin focusing them down. Ice wraith's heavy attacks will knockback and stun a player that they hit if not blocked. Ice Spiders are not much of a threat other than additional damage. Note: Icestalker's abilities will kill the adds, so it is recommend to NOT kite any adds when they attack DPS or healers.

Second Boss Warlord Tsogvin

Tsogvin will occasionally turn toward a player and then shield charge them. This must be blocked or dodged otherwise it will outright kill DPS and healers.

Another basic mechanic is a tether that will be placed on two random players, and the players must separate from each other to break the tether and stop the damage from hitting both players. Very similar to a Fungal Grotto II mechanic.

The boss will periodically jump into the air (he leaves a fire visual effect on the ground from where he jumped from). He'll land at a random location in the arena with a small shield on top of his health. During this mechanic, every player will have an AOE ring around them and the boss will be channeling a fire ability that will hit every player in pulses. Do NOT stack on top of another player when this mechanic is occurring. DPS must break the shield in order to stop the mechanic from occurring (very similar mechanics to vMoL first boss).

Ice tornadoes will spawn at approximately 35% (health percentage still needs confirmation) on the edge of the arena and slowly circle the arena. These are very deadly so avoid them at all cost. During this phase, the boss will still do his jump, but this time he'll always land in the center of the arena and begin channeling a blizzard storm around him. This blizzard will grow larger rather quickly, pushing the players into the path of the ice tornadoes. Simply follow the ice tornadoes to keep ahead of them until the blizzard storm is over. In addition, the boss will cast one more ice tornado on a random player, so this extra tornado has it's own path (that of the player) to add to the chaos.

Adds: The arena will have goblin archers spawn in, that can be chained in by the tank. The archers do have some powerful abilities, including Rapid Fire (the bow ultimate), which cannot be neglected. They can be cleaved down when chained in fortunately.

Vault Protector

This Centurion Boss has very simple Centurion abilities that we've already seen, such as the heavy attack, spin attack and artillery attack that we see in Darkshade Caverns I and Volenfell. The boss only has one additional mechanic which is he will protect himself from an arena mechanic with a Dome Barrier.

Tank is highly recommended to hold the boss in the center of the room for the Sear Ray Trap mechanic.

The Searing Ray Trap mechanic is by far the deadliest mechanic in this fight as they were will outright kill any player. When the fight begins, the Protector will put up a Barrier around himself when the Ray Trap is activated and all the players need to put themselves on the other side of that Barrier that the laser is being produced from. The laser can be seen in use below. It is very important to not stand within the Protector's Barrier, as that will also kill you.

Searing Ray Trap:

The Searing Ray Laser can be dodge rolled through, but this has not always worked and it is recommended to follow the mechanic. At certain health percentages, more Searing Ray Traps will activate. They activate at staggered times, allowing players time to get around the barrier as needed to survive. You will want to burn the boss down as quickly as possible, especially once all four Traps are activating in a single phase.

Adds:

Several Dwemer Spiders and Dwemer Spheres will spawn in. The Spiders will snare you, making it difficult to get behind the barrier and the Dwemer Spheres cause significant damage. They cannot be chained in but it is recommended to taunt them.

Rolling Dwemer Spheres that will not unravel will spawn in and have an aoe around them, and have the appearance of being electrified. These spheres will travel in a straight line across the room, and if a player enters the aoe around them, the sphere will explode, stunning all players nearby.

Rizzuk Bonechill and Avalanche

Rizzuk is the only boss that needs to be killed; once killed, his Frost Atronarch will be destroyed.

Avalanche has a lot of AOE abilities and needs to be the tank's primary focus. An AOE will be planted at the Atronarch's feet that will cause several ice pillars to sprout up on the edge of that AOE. This acts as an ice prison, that the tank must stay in and survive until the AOE fades. (Unknown if it's supposed to be the donut ice AOE, seen on other enemies such as Galenwe in Cloudrest.)

Rizzuk will occasionally channel an ability that will need to be bashed. If not bashed, this mechanic will start shooting every player in the arena in a rapid fire method, (same as Fang Lair HM mechanic).

Ice Meteor Shower is a mechanic where the boss will teleport to the middle of the arena now place a DoT on each player that will also slow you all down. Eventually each player will be frozen and an ice meteor will crash into each player. You must all have been sufficiently separated, otherwise the stacking impacts will kill any player that were stacked. Healer needs to make sure everyone is topped off before frozen.

Now and then an ice ball will be created by Rizzuk and follow a random player. This player will have a target underneath them. The ice ball doesn't do much damage, and it is unknown on any affects if it is dragged into another mechanic or a boss. Other players have gotten in the path, and still took similar damage.

At the entrance of the arena spawns a spinning ice storm. It's effects are unknown as my group always avoided them but it is believed to be part of one of the mechanics. Believed to cause heavy damage. More ice storms will appear as fight progresses, but they're easy to avoid.

The StoneKeeper

Rat Maze mechanics:

Skeevatron Rat Maze is introduced before the boss fight begins, giving the group a chance to experience the mechanic. You will spawn on the map above as a Skeevatron, each player at one of the arrows seen on the center of the map, with unique Skeevatron abilities. Several of these abilities affect your allies, however this is rarely needed as you all should be going your separate ways.
Charge your ultimate once you spawn into the Rat Maze by going to the electric pillar (blue dot on the map) and spamming your first ability. Follow the pulsing lights going down the path you spawned at to a Shock Conveyor, and use your ultimate on that to deactivate it. This must be completed on four separate Shock Conveyors, one for each player. It is quickest for each player to follow their own path.

The rat maze will occur twice throughout the fight.

Phase One: Unique to phase one is the Rolling Spheres from the Vault Protector fight will be spawning at the edge of the arena and slowly rolling toward the boss. These will stun anyone near them if their AOE is touched similar to the Vault Protector fight. These can be deadly during the Fire Spin attack from the Stonekeeper.

The Stonekeeper itself is invulnerable until both his Gauntlets (aka, arms) are destroyed. The tank only needs to taunt the Stonekeeper, and that will keep the aggro of both its arm. The Stonekeeper will fire a laser at the tank, and each hit will apply a stack of a DoT on the tank. The longer it takes the DPS to destroy the Gauntlets, the greater the threat is from this DoT.
Note: Another player can place themselves between the Stonekeeper and the Tank to take a shared part of the damage. And possibly take the stacking DoT's while standing between (more confirmation needed).

The Stonekeeper's right arm is the Rotary Blade Gauntlet, and its left arm is Flame Bellows Gauntlet The tank is highly recommended to AVOID the Rotary Blade Gauntlet attack; one dodge roll will avoid all its damage and the attack will be over quickly. If not avoided, it does significant damage over a short time and believed to place a bleed DoT on the tank. Tank the Flames Bellows Gauntlet as it's damage is not nearly as much of a threat.

The DPS will need to focus down the Rotary Blade Gauntlet first! Once a Gauntlet is destroyed, a Centurion will spawn in. The Tank MUST taunt this Centurion and block all its heavy attacks, and the DPS need to kill the Centurion quickly before moving onto the second Gauntlet. Once the second gauntlet is destroyed, another Centurion will spawn that needs to be focused down.
Note: Centurion heavy attack can be dodged with a dodge roll.

Fire Spin: When both Gauntlets are destroyed, the Stonekeeper will then begin to spout flames out from his arm sockets and slowly spin in a circle. The group must keep ahead of these flames! If a Centurion is alive during this attack, the Tank needs to keep taunt of it and Block or Dodge Roll all its heavy attacks. It WILL one shot you if you do not block or dodge its heavy attack. Be careful of the phase unique mechanic during this attack!

Once the boss reaches a health percentage, both arms will regenerate and 4 Skeevatrons will appear on the arena. Each player goes to one and uses a synergy to complete the Rat Maze mechanic. Blade and Flame Traps are now active so use caution when traveling through the maze. Do not attempt to go through any trap until that trap deactivates.
Hint: A player can "resurrect" another Skeevatron if a player is killed by the traps, but must be near that player in order to get them back up.
Hint: Any damage on a Skeevatron will transfer to your character, including if your dead as a Skeevatron. Revive a Skeevatron before finishing the mechanic otherwise risk reviving the player while fighting the boss.

Phase two is the most dangerous as rotary blade traps will begin activating on the arena. The rotary blade traps replace the Rolling Spheres, but are far deadlier. These traps will likely kill any DPS or Healer caught in them. If a player survives then they will have had a stacking bleed DoT place on them for each time they were hit by the rotary blade traps. There are two tracks on the arena, so it is advised to call out if you see a rotary trap spawning on the inner or outer track so the tank can adjust properly. Destroy one arm, then kill the Centurion as you did before. Then kill the second, and kill the Centurion as before.

Destroy the arms again, survive the centurions and flaming spin until once again you enter the Rat Maze. No new mechanics when entering the Rat Maze for the second time. (NOTE: Second rat maze phase was removed in one of the pre-live patches. After the first rat maze, then kill the arms and the centurions then just burn down the boss.)

Phase three has a deadly but easy to handle mechanic which is a steam gust, a conal AOE, that comes out from the Stonekeeper. While it does not do very much damage, it will knock players back that will likely result in them falling off the arena or onto one of the fire platforms that will instantly kill a player. The tank may survive a knockback, but if an ill-timed heavy attack from a Centurion follows up, then the Tank will die.

Again focus the Rotary Gauntlet first, kill the Centurion, then focus the Flame Bellows Gauntlet, then kill the Centurion. After the final Centurion is killed, burn the boss down as quickly as possible.

WhitePawPrints

I intend to run HM on this dungeon, but have been focusing Depths of Malatar more since that one is significantly easier and allows me to get a better understanding of mechanics through repeated runs.

Depths of Malatar HM guide is almost complete.

Girl_Number8

Nice post^^

Girl_Number8

Nice post OP!! I am sure a lot of players will find this insightful.

IzzyStardust

As much as I think it’s shady posting walkthroughs before the content is actually released - THANK YOU for putting ‘Spoilers’ in the title.

However, your wolfhunter dungeons guides were really good and I am sure this one willl be too!

Girl_Number8

It is on the PTS. You can see it yourself. There will be plenty of videos showing it, as well.

GraphicArtistYT

Lol spoilers already? Is this what gaming has become? Back in the day it took time to figure out how to find Easter eggs and learn how to complete levels. Now everyone knows what's in games before they even come out.

IzzyStardust

GraphicArtistYT wrote: »

Lol spoilers already? Is this what gaming has become? Back in the day it took time to figure out how to find Easter eggs and learn how to complete levels. Now everyone knows what's in games before they even come out.

Come on - he used a spoiler tag. You can avoid easy. ❤️

IzzyStardust

I like to figure things out myself and only turn to guides when there’s one thing or even part of a thing where I am wondering if I’m missing something or it’s really just that difficult. Thanks again to the OP for those - I’ll check them out way later

richo262

IzzyStardust wrote: »

I like to figure things out myself and only turn to guides when there’s one thing or even part of a thing where I am wondering if I’m missing something or it’s really just that difficult. Thanks again to the OP for those - I’ll check them out way later

Says the person that turned to a thread post clearly containing Guide, Walkthrough and Spoiler in the title.

WhitePawPrints

IzzyStardust wrote: »

As much as I think it’s shady posting walkthroughs before the content is actually released - THANK YOU for putting ‘Spoilers’ in the title.

However, your wolfhunter dungeons guides were really good and I am sure this one willl be too!

I personally hate when things are spoiled so I made sure to put the proper warnings and hide all images for those that wish to avoid seeing something too soon.

This guide has a lot more refining to be done but soon I hope it’ll become a quality guide for anyone that has trouble with any of the bosses.

Later today, I'll be working on the HM's. And that's going to take a while.

profundidob16_ESO

Wow you're fast with this guide and beat me to it so I'll contribute here instead of writing my own:

"The ice ball doesn't do much damage, and it is unknown on any affects if it is dragged into another mechanic or a boss."

=>If I remember correctly from our run last night the ball freezes the person it touches in place leaving him vulnerable to 1-shot dmge. I managed to simply outrun/dodgeroll it when it chased me. The animation on the floor is same as first boss (twin ogres) in Scalecaller Peak when you have ice tremor targetting you: a small circle.

We also theorized that if we could lead this ball to the nearby fire brazier we could maybe melt it in order to lose it. The boss died before I had a chance to try it. I'll try more in next runs

WhitePawPrints

profundidob16_ESO wrote: »

Wow you're fast with this guide and beat me to it so I'll contribute here instead of writing my own:

"The ice ball doesn't do much damage, and it is unknown on any affects if it is dragged into another mechanic or a boss."

=>If I remember correctly from our run last night the ball freezes the person it touches in place leaving him vulnerable to 1-shot dmge. I managed to simply outrun/dodgeroll it when it chased me. The animation on the floor is same as first boss (twin ogres) in Scalecaller Peak when you have ice tremor targetting you: a small circle.

We also theorized that if we could lead this ball to the nearby fire brazier we could maybe melt it in order to lose it. The boss died before I had a chance to try it. I'll try more in next runs

I tried to test it again but had no success with the ice ball. I did once intercept the ice ball, and I seemed to take less damage but more testing is still needed on it. The AOE that spawns at the entrance of the boss fight, I believe may have something to do with one of the mechanics because it has a different color AOE than the typical damage AOE color.

profundidob16_ESO

WhitePawPrints wrote: »

profundidob16_ESO wrote: »

Wow you're fast with this guide and beat me to it so I'll contribute here instead of writing my own:

"The ice ball doesn't do much damage, and it is unknown on any affects if it is dragged into another mechanic or a boss."

=>If I remember correctly from our run last night the ball freezes the person it touches in place leaving him vulnerable to 1-shot dmge. I managed to simply outrun/dodgeroll it when it chased me. The animation on the floor is same as first boss (twin ogres) in Scalecaller Peak when you have ice tremor targetting you: a small circle.

We also theorized that if we could lead this ball to the nearby fire brazier we could maybe melt it in order to lose it. The boss died before I had a chance to try it. I'll try more in next runs

I tried to test it again but had no success with the ice ball. I did once intercept the ice ball, and I seemed to take less damage but more testing is still needed on it. The AOE that spawns at the entrance of the boss fight, I believe may have something to do with one of the mechanics because it has a different color AOE than the typical damage AOE color.

oh right. Ran it again as well yesterday. The brazier indeed didn't work. Even when the person affected stood next to it the ball still touched him and exploded. 2 new things to test on my next run:

1. break line of sight from the ball using the tank or the boss or even a full blizzard. In other words force the ice ball to explode on them rather than yourself.

2. Check if the dmge on impact decreases over time or over distance (=the further/longer the ball rolls before touching anyone) resulting in ignoreable dmge as long as you first actively try to outrun and avoid it for a while

About the huge blizzard-like aoe at start. I noticed that as soon as the fight starts (2 people ran to boss while 2 others were not ready) the blizzard aoe dropped on the 2 behind and insta-kill those people. This happens...twice ! Third time we agreed on running in all at once just to avoid that 1-shot (which worked) and later another blizzard seemed to drop on another random group member. It looks to me that the tank just has to tank boss in center with dps and healer on outer edge

profundidob16_ESO

For Rizzuk: slot crushing shock on your healer and/or dps so you can safely keep distance and keep mobility up while still being able to interrupt his special abilities because he doesn't always spawn in a spot where he can be bashed in time.

weedgenius

I really love these comments, hahaha! When I read a dungeon walkthrough, it's usually long after the mechanics have been nailed down and it always seems like the authors just know what's happening (because by then, they do ). So it's really fun to see how experienced players who get into the dungeons early actually work out what's going on and figure it all out. Thanks for what you're doing!

Rake

nice

profundidob16_ESO

weedgenius wrote: »

I really love these comments, hahaha! When I read a dungeon walkthrough, it's usually long after the mechanics have been nailed down and it always seems like the authors just know what's happening (because by then, they do ). So it's really fun to see how experienced players who get into the dungeons early actually work out what's going on and figure it all out. Thanks for what you're doing!

that exactly is actually the part I love most. Think of it like a puzzle where you have to try different things to see what output they give as well as keep your eyes and ears open and then come up with new ideas and tactics to counter the mechanics and find out why 1 tactic is better suited than another.

profundidob16_ESO

Now that I have more runs done on vet I have additional info to contribute on all parts. So In addition to all the already mentioned information so far in the guide I want to add the following extra information:


Various Thrash through the dungeon:

-Skysplitters: These mage-types cast the mage ultimate. In addition to the already mentioned above: When the Meteor does hit it's important you share it with others and block (like Siroria in Cloudrest) so players targeted by this skill (large circle animation growing under your feet) should immediately stack up with the other players. These mobs are top priority targets that are strategically placed by the devs behind corners or in tents in order to be "easily overlooked". Smart tanks look for them asap and pull them into the group with silver leash or dk chains so they die asap with the others.

-Harriers. These bowmen cast the bow ultimate as their main skill and can be annoying

-Frostbiters? (forgot exact name): These 2-hander mobs do an uppercut that can easily 1-shot dps/healer if not blocked. dps/healer block if they are on you until the tanks can successfully taunt the mob off you.



Icestalker:


-The summoned "icewraith" adds do heavy attacks on the players that are already down. In order to prevent these people from dying the tank has to try and keep agro of as many of them as possible. Other group members stay close to keep the adds in melee range from the tank as much as possible so he can talon and puncture them easily

-The boss jumps to targets that try to keep distance and then does painful aoe dmge to everyone around him in what seems like a full circle area. Even at start he can do this if you're not close so be ready to block and keep multiple healing springs up at all times throughout this fight so you everyone including you is being healed even when stunned and down on the floor.

-When the visual dialogue appears that the boss is "PUMMELING player x" everyone that is capable has to be on their toes and ready to interrupt ASAP. You currently only have less than a second to react to the heavy attack telegraph !


Warlord Tsogvin:


-the aoe's ice whirlwinds during the aoe phases tend to always counterclockwise. After seeing multiple people try to run clockwise I guess it's worth mentioning up front



Vault Protector:


-The following are the exact number of consecutive lasers that spawn during each laser phase:

Round 1: 1 laser
Round 2: 1 laser
Round 3: 2 lasers
Round 4 and up: 4 lasers

-Every laser that appears during the fight has 2 ends. One end is the source of the laser and looks like a metal gun. The other end is where the laser is being blocked (by a wall or the boss during the fight) and its animation looks like a flame. Right before entering the Boss room there is a laser that moves and another that is still. New players should inspect these closely before starting the fight in order te learn how to recognize the animations. Use this opportunity in order to learn how to determine the "direction" of a laser very fast because during the fight players need to identify the direction of a laser in order to hide on the 'correct' side of the boss.


Rizzuk Bonechill and Avalanche



The frost atronach "Avalanche"

this atronach needs to be tanked away from center (preferably to the far wall) the entire fight in a static position. His abilities are so intensive and continuous and occupy the tank 100% of the fight that the tank is basically unable to do anything else but play his own mini-game with the atro (pretty much like last boss Fang Lair).

Besides some obvious heavy attacks and aoe's that can be side stepped the atronach has 1 particulary hard mechanic called "Glacial Prison". This basically summons a medium-sized ice circle with frost spikes on it's outer sides. This 'glacial prison' acts as a prison for the tank as anyone penetrating this outer perimeter from either side is hit with a huge dot that kills even the beefiest tanks in seconds.

WhitePawPrints wrote: »

Avalanche has a lot of AOE abilities and needs to be the tank's primary focus. Roll out of an aoe that has ice pillars go up around the edge of it as this will kill the tank very quickly. (Exact mechanics unknown of that AOE).

=> this part of the guide is currently wrong as trying to roll out will suicide-kill any tank. Please correct.

At the same time and to add to this prison mechanic, Avalanche will cast 3 fast and consecutive ground aoe slams within the glacial prison's circle that 1 or 2-shot's even the beefiest tanks. So the tank must hug Avalanche closely and 3 consecutive times move instantly to the only free spot (which changes) within the glacial prison circle. There is very little room for mistakes and as such the tank has no time to even look around and pay attention to any other mechanics. He can not be expected to interrupt Rizzuk the mage for instance. Also 'ice cage' is the reason the atronach needs to be kep far away from the rest of the group which fights Rizzuk the mage.



The fight is best started by the tank standing on the opposite (=far) wall and pulling only the frost atro to himself. This leaves the entire fighting area to the other players allowing them to find a free spot easy without getting 1 shot by sudden 'glacial prison' mechanic.


Rizzuk the mage


Since the tank is 100% occupied by the frost atronach, Rizzuk the mage is handled exclusively by the healer and 2 dps that stay far away from the tank and atronach.

Rizzuk constantly teleports and does his devastating special ability right after the teleport (like Orryn the black on Fang Lair HM) so ranged interrupt abilities "crushing shock"/"venom arrow" are 10 times more important for dps players than any dps. Healer can use it on backbar. You can not expect to reliably be within melee distance after his teleport in order to use bash within risking death.

At certain intervals Rizzuk instantly stuns all 4 players in their current location and grows and exploding aoe around each of them, doing heavy damage. Any players that are close enough to eachother for that circle to overlap, instantly kill eachother upon the explosion. For this reason during this fight players can NEVER be close to eachother and constantly need to keep repositioning themselves because before you know it the stun is there and it's too late.

At certain intervals 1 random player receives a small circle under their feet. It means a huge incoming iceball is chasing them. Upon impact it explodes on the targeted player causing dmge relative to the distance the iceball has to travel from it's originally position. In other words if it hits them at their original location it 1-shots them but if the targeted player moves 8 meters away from the iceball while continuously doing dps/healing it explodes for neglectable/zero dmge. If it happens on the tank he can just ignore it since he's always far away from the group and in addition he can simply soak up the damage easily.

Attention ! As soon as the fight starts the entrance of the boss fight area will be blocked by a huge 'avalanche' aoe that kills any player pretty much instantly. Therefore all players should always run in to the right side of the boss fight area as the group's starting position before they pull the boss. Any players still standing at the entrance will be instantly killed upon the tank pulling the boss !! These huge avalanche aoe's are not part of any mechanics and only serve to basically mark a specific part of the area as NO-GO zone and make the total room to maneuver in smaller. Throughout the fight more avalanches will drop further shrinking the play area and its room to maneuver.


In addition to all this I believe I also noticed the frost atro's health to be linked to the mage (I'll doublecheck and confirm this during next run) which means you can attack both Rizzuk and Avalance in whatever order as seems easy to you. If I can confirm this is the case it might be easier to handle the mage's abilities but focus fire the frost atro since it's standing still


The StoneKeeper


Everything's pretty much in the guide already except 1 important correction:

WhitePawPrints wrote: »

...The tank is highly recommended to AVOID the Rotary Blade Gauntlet attack; one dodge roll will avoid all its damage and the attack will be over quickly. Tank the Flames Bellows Gauntlet as it's damage is not nearly as much of a threat...The Tank MUST taunt this Centurion and block all its heavy attacks...

=> the right arm's "rotary blade" is actually only medium damage over time and does not need to be dodgerolled in favor of keeping the boss and it's arms still as much as possible. A simple tank selfshield such as e.g igneous shield or a healing shower even whithout shielding is more than enough to handle the dmge. On the other hand the Centurion's heavy attack is huge and INSTANT damage and MUST be dodgerolled as their devastating instant dmge can easily be a 1-shot for even the beefiest of tanks if it happens on top of the rotary blades or flame shower. Any tank trying to simply block the Centurion heavy attack instead of dodgeroll risks a 1-shot death.

Either way this fight requires a serious healer who is babysitting the tank, keeping his health topped off at all times.

Note that you can easily opt to have the tank NOT tank the centurions. On HM this is actually the preferred way since it's simply too much additional dmge for the tank to take on top of the other damage and the huge healing debuff that occurs there.


I haven't completed HM yet so no additional info on that particular part as of yet. HM has so many totally different mechanics it will need a whole section for itself.

Bam_Bam

Shouldn't this have been left in the PTS forum? Isn't PTS stuff all under NDA?

profundidob16_ESO

Bam_Bam wrote: »

Shouldn't this have been left in the PTS forum? Isn't PTS stuff all under NDA?

No, the Public Test Server is publicly available to anyone unlike for instance certain specific closed beta tests in the past (morrowind) which had it's own section in the forums that was only visible for selected people.

Yes, at this point I guess this guide belongs the PTS forum part together with the other dungeon's guide which is there. I would agree with you there

WhitePawPrints

Good additions on the ice prison thing. I did notice our tank constantly went to very low health when she got out of the AOE, but she was healed back up pretty quick where it wasn't much of an issue.

The Rotary Blade was only a real threat to the tank during the second phase with the combined damage from the Rotary Traps and all the stacking DoTs from both of them. Our tank wore Alkosh/Ebon the whole time so never really had selfish sets on, so dodge rolling out of it was the safest bet (and unconfirmed, made the attack stop once she was out of the AOE). The Centurion heavy attacks usually took down about 50% of her health, but due to the infrequency of them, they weren't difficult for her to handle alone. She just needed resource (shards or orbs) from the healer to keep up her resource pools.

I'll update the main guide about the ice prison thing, and try to get a group together to run this dungeon sometime to test mechanics further.

Mageri

Only thing I’d add is during the Vault Protector you can roll through his shield to quickly move around during laser phase rather than walking around

Other than that a great list of mech for these excellent new dungeons.

therift

Console players deeply appreciate these early guides so we can succeed on launch day, if we want a walk-through, and so we understand how the PTS patches affect these new dungeons. Many thanks!

kind_hero

I did this yesterday on live, on veteran without knowing mechanics or doing it on normal, all trial and error, and even though satisfying, it was very hard.

From my experience (magicka nightblade) I can add these points:

The first bosses are fairly easy, we had 2-3 attempts on the goblin warlord, but did not felt very hard. The "fun" starts with the Vault Protector or the laser boss how everyone will remember this centurion.

Vault Protector

This is by far the most annoying fight I have done in this game. However, I must say it is a love/hate thing. Once you have done it, you don't hate it that much.

From my experience, I managed to dodge the beam, but only by mistake, and what I discovered is that you need to dodge roll from a distance to make it. However it will take some health of you. I don't know if this was intended or a bug, but I also do not recommend to try to dodge the beams. The lasers are easy to avoid once you understand how to position around the boss shield.
Do not stay close to the shield, but also, very important during the laser phase is to avoid the charged spiders and bots, which have a circle around them. They can kill you very easy.
I think this is a dps race, because I found no correlation between boss HP% and lasers. In time you will get more and more lasers and adds.

My group spent 1:45 hours just on this boss, but 3 of us were completely new to the fight

Rizzuk Bonechill and Avalanche

Here we had 2 problems: interrupting the boss (dps must ignore the atro) and the freezings.

Rizzuk will teleport from time to time and start casting a deadly spell which has to be interrupted. Because the goblin teleports away, it is best to have a ranged interrupt (I had to visit a shrine to re-morph to crushing shock for this fight), otherwise Rizzuk will cause a lot of damage most likely wiping the group if not interrupted soon enough.

The freezing part was trial and error (we did not read on any tactics) so we tried to bash or break free... but indeed it looks like you need to be fully healed to survive, even though roll dodging out of the chill in the last moment helped.

The Stonekeeper

This boss is similar to the Assembly General
I won't discuss the mouse (skeevatron) phase which is fairly easy and fun.
1st dps the bladed arm, dps the centurion, then dps the flame arm, dps centurion and adds. Now the boss (body) becomes vulnerable and can be damaged.
The problems here start in this phase when the boss loses his arms and starts to spin spewing flames. The adds (centurion, but also spiders) need to be destroyed asap before this phase. Charged bots will roll towards the boss, these need to be avoided while rotating with the boss. At one point you must teleport below and use skeevatrons (mice phase).
After that, repeat above, but in the next spin phase, you will have also to deal with spinning blades, bots, flames, etc. Spinning blades must be dodged because they do a lot of damage and bleed you. This phase is the hardest because of so many things happening at once. BTW, the flame also stuns you, which in this fight is very bad. Careful place your dodge rolls because you can fall over the platform, and also do not touch the Wrathstone platform because it is hot and will insta-kill you.

We had several replacements throughout this dungeon, and from that I can say this dungeon is not very stamina friendly. I would not like to do this in close range.

mocap

Searing Ray Laser mechanic simple illustration:

Cinbri

Searing Rays are easy to deal with since they not chaotic. It force you to move either clockwise or unclockwise. So if 2nd beam forced to move clockwise - just keep moving this direction to avoid next ones.

profundidob16_ESO

In addition to the guide I posted earlier I recently noticed an important nerf has been implemented for Rizzuk the mage and his Frost atro on live that changes this fight completely for me:

Update:

in the recent nerf on live the glacial prison mechanics have been reworked and retuned so that it's now perfectly possible for a skilled tank (experienced in this fight !!) to tank and interrupt both the frost atro as well as the mage while doing the whole aoe dance at the same time, leaving the dps and healer in the luxury position of...simply dpssing while staying spread at all times.

It's like an optional hardmode for this boss in veteran mode but for the tank only. When done correctly it completely takes away all load from the group and thus allows the tank to carry new pug players. It also keeps the fight challenging for the tank after he's done it too many times.

Note that tanks new to the fight will still want to not touch the mage and only focus on dancing with the atro to master that part first or it's wipe fest.

WhitePawPrints

So I was able to play this one live for the first time today, and this dungeon is SIGNIFICANTLY easier than what it once was. Biggest thing I notice was that the second rat maze phase on Vet Non-HM was removed. Meaning only having to go down into the rat maze once.

code65536

WhitePawPrints wrote: »

So I was able to play this one live for the first time today, and this dungeon is SIGNIFICANTLY easier than what it once was. Biggest thing I notice was that the second rat maze phase on Vet Non-HM was removed. Meaning only having to go down into the rat maze once.

Yea, check out the week 5 patch notes. ZOS dropped a lot of adjustments in the final week of PTS (though a few of them were rolled back for Live because they went a bit too far with the nerfs).

Nemesis7884

maybe im too stupid but im having trouble undersanding what to do in the rat maze