Frostvault Walkthrough and Guide (Spoilers)

FrancisCrawford

Much as I wrote in the Malatar thread: Thanks for the useful and early guide!!

I didn't see anything in that description that suggests there's much benefit to the healer having a purge skill. Rather, it's the usual situation in which the important DoTs are unpurgeable. Am I overlooking something? For example, are any of the snares realistically worth purging?

code65536

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Much as I wrote in the Malatar thread: Thanks for the useful and early guide!!

I didn't see anything in that description that suggests there's much benefit to the healer having a purge skill. Rather, it's the usual situation in which the important DoTs are unpurgeable. Am I overlooking something? For example, are any of the snares realistically worth purging?

Purge is not needed in any of the Wrathstone dungeons.

There are only two DLC dungeons where Purge makes sense: purging the poison ball debuffs during the Velidreth fight in Cradle and purging the wolf snares during the hard mode hunt phases of the Balorgh fight in March.

profundidob16_ESO

@code65536

yesterday gave HM a try with a pug. Even with my templar pure healer specced to max +healing like with healing springs over 5K (for reference) and a proper dk tank with max resistances and 41K health I honestly had a hard time keeping him up during flame + centurion parts.

After tank dying the first try we got it stable without further dying after changing sets but it's terrifying to see that healthbar drop often to almost zero despite me spamming BOL on top of a double healing springs + rapid regen on the tank.

With this healing debuff I really cannot see the average group even survive 1st phase. It seems completely excessive. Maybe they will nerf it today in the patch to make it more reasonable.

What is your feeling in this current patch ? Also how do you prefer to run the skeevatons ? 2 groups of 2 or all 4 together and race through while on voice ?

code65536

@profundidob16_ESO Oooh boy. I haven't actually tried tanking HM yet--all of my HM clears have been as a DD. But I have heard a lot of colorful language from whoever has the misfortune of tanking this on HM.

• The thing that will hurt the tank the most is the Ablative Fallout, which, according to the tank's observations, is a DoT that is applied after being hit by the Flensing Ray a certain number of times. Dodging the ray helps.
• If the tank takes the Centurion, they must dodge those heavy attacks. The damage is just too much if the defile is up. In our runs, we let the Centurion aggro onto us (or have the healer taunt it if it aggros onto the tank), and we just dodge rolled its heavy attacks. Most groups will have the tank take it, but we are pretty comfortable with dodging the heavies, so we figured this would make the tank's life a bit easier.
• We also had our tank run selfish sets. Honestly, I'd go higher than 41K health.
• If someone can lay down a Blood Altar with the morph for a higher healing synergy (could be a DD that puts it down if the healer can't find the bar space), it can help.
• Pay attention to the timer for the defile and make sure the tank is healed up before the defile sets in--kinda sucks to have to try to recover missing health once the defile is in place.
• During our earlier attempts in PTS 1 when the defile was stronger than it is now, we had the healer guarding the tank, which made a noticeable difference. We didn't use guard in our later PTS 1 attempts or in our PTS 5 and Live runs because the healer didn't like how much it restricted their movement, but it definitely can help if your tank is struggling.
• The current defile is 60%. When we first cleared it during PTS 1, it was 75%. So the tank is getting 40% healing instead of 25% healing--a 60% increase in healing received. I think the defile is fine now. (Insert something about uphill both ways through the snow.)

As for the maze mechanic, we run as a group of four to clear the first two pylons. Esp. with them having rebuffed the spider spawn rate back to PTS 1 levels, it really helps to be together. After clearing the first pylon, we'll make a judgement call--if the first pylon was pretty close to the center, we'll return to the center and then go to the second pylon from there. If the first pylon was far from the center, then we'll start traveling directly to another quadrant of the map, hoping to pick up the lighted path that would guide us to the second pylon. After clearing two pylons, we'll return to the center and then split up get the final two pylons separately.

profundidob16_ESO

@code65536

very nice info. It makes sense now that in my maxxed setup I barely outhealed/shielded dmge that is not supposed to be outhealable in the first place. Works as intended I guess

Also thanks for the insightful info on the hm skeevaton phase. I really wish I could practise just that part separately instead of having to successfully complete first phase so many times in order just to get 2 minutes worth of practise on skeevaton phase. This currently takes the fun away.

They could just simply make the skeevaton training round either HM version (after enabling HM before it) for all I care or not (in case you enable it only after the training round). That would leave people the choice to enable HM either before or after the training round, depending on what phase they want to practise intensively. Just an idea.

@ZOS_Finn

Malborn66

So, unless I get this wrong, it appears that the opening to the Year of Dragons is locked behind a modern Group Dungeon challenge. IE one that is impossible to solo.

So it appears that this is a Damp Squib that a large proportion of the players will never get to see or even access.

No ESO Plus? No Year of the Dragon!
Not a group/team player? Nothing for you here!

What do ZOS think that they are achieving with this stupid idea?
Only making it mostly impossible to participate in 'the big deal of 2019'!

Malborn
PC-EU
1004 CP
PVE Player

profundidob16_ESO

Malborn66 wrote: »

So, unless I get this wrong, it appears that the opening to the Year of Dragons is locked behind a modern Group Dungeon challenge. IE one that is impossible to solo.

So it appears that this is a Damp Squib that a large proportion of the players will never get to see or even access.

No ESO Plus? No Year of the Dragon!
Not a group/team player? Nothing for you here!

What do ZOS think that they are achieving with this stupid idea?
Only making it mostly impossible to participate in 'the big deal of 2019'!

Malborn
PC-EU
1004 CP
PVE Player

it's dead easy on normal mode. No need to be a teamplayer. Hell I even 3-manned veteran frostvault on pts before the latest nerfs...

You want to solo complete a group dungeon ? Well I have good news for you because a friend of mine did just that on pts before the latest nerfs so yes, even that is possible. Sorry to say but you have not a single valid argument to complaint. The new dungeons content really is accessible to anyone, including random normal group finder pugs.

WhitePawPrints

Malborn66 wrote: »

So, unless I get this wrong, it appears that the opening to the Year of Dragons is locked behind a modern Group Dungeon challenge. IE one that is impossible to solo.

So it appears that this is a Damp Squib that a large proportion of the players will never get to see or even access.

No ESO Plus? No Year of the Dragon!
Not a group/team player? Nothing for you here!

What do ZOS think that they are achieving with this stupid idea?
Only making it mostly impossible to participate in 'the big deal of 2019'!

Malborn
PC-EU
1004 CP
PVE Player

Both dungeons do have a lockdown mechanic, both being on the first boss of their dungeon. I've never done them on normal, but I presume their primary mechanic is still in place. I don't know if it's possible to burn them down in normal fast enough to avoid the lockdown mechanic, especially for Depths where it is based on health percentage instead of a timer.

So, no the dungeons are not meant to be solo'd by any means. But it is definitely possible to very easily two man the dungeons, so just find a friend and at your CP level you should be competent enough to easily get through both dungeons on normal to learn the story. You can use Group Finder, and find a pug to do them with. If PuG's struggle with the lockdown mechanics, then refer them to a guide like this one.

P.S. The vast majority of the ESO community will easily be able to access these dungeons. If a player refuses to get a friend or two to run some of the tougher content, then that is on them for locking themselves out of that content.

profundidob16_ESO

WhitePawPrints wrote: »

Malborn66 wrote: »

So, unless I get this wrong, it appears that the opening to the Year of Dragons is locked behind a modern Group Dungeon challenge. IE one that is impossible to solo.

So it appears that this is a Damp Squib that a large proportion of the players will never get to see or even access.

No ESO Plus? No Year of the Dragon!
Not a group/team player? Nothing for you here!

What do ZOS think that they are achieving with this stupid idea?
Only making it mostly impossible to participate in 'the big deal of 2019'!

Malborn
PC-EU
1004 CP
PVE Player

Both dungeons do have a lockdown mechanic, both being on the first boss of their dungeon. I've never done them on normal, but I presume their primary mechanic is still in place. I don't know if it's possible to burn them down in normal fast enough to avoid the lockdown mechanic, especially for Depths where it is based on health percentage instead of a timer.

So, no the dungeons are not meant to be solo'd by any means. But it is definitely possible to very easily two man the dungeons, so just find a friend and at your CP level you should be competent enough to easily get through both dungeons on normal to learn the story. You can use Group Finder, and find a pug to do them with. If PuG's struggle with the lockdown mechanics, then refer them to a guide like this one.

P.S. The vast majority of the ESO community will easily be able to access these dungeons. If a player refuses to get a friend or two to run some of the tougher content, then that is on them for locking themselves out of that content.

informational update that you might have missed: the lockdown by thrash and bosses used to be impossible to get out from as player in 4.3.0 but in one of the subsequent pts patches (before live) it got nerfed actually so that it became possible to survive them solo.

For instance the Frost troll (first boss) now releases you after a while so on normal you can easily survive it. Same for the first thrash packs. No more obligation to have at least 1 group member around to free you.

Ofc you still have to spec very tanky and the group dungeon is still not meant to be soloed but I assume ZOS (rightfully) catered to the people who see soloing this as a new sort of MA

Zatox

Stonekeeper remind me the last boss from Chip & Dale game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBQA5sSwwhE

John_Falstaff

Just to bump a thread with a snippet of information if it's not present elsewhere: the Vault Protector fight is made much easier if someone (tank has the safest time doing it) detonates those rolling stun balls when they're next to dwemer spheres, it one-shots them on the spot and group doesn't have to kite the (potentially empowered if nobody bashes when they roll to shielded spiders) spheres while ducking laser beams. (Not my discovery, just relaying it. ^^)

profundidob16_ESO

John_Falstaff wrote: »

Just to bump a thread with a snippet of information if it's not present elsewhere: the Vault Protector fight is made much easier if someone (tank has the safest time doing it) detonates those rolling stun balls when they're next to dwemer spheres, it one-shots them on the spot and group doesn't have to kite the (potentially empowered if nobody bashes when they roll to shielded spiders) spheres while ducking laser beams. (Not my discovery, just relaying it. ^^)

oooorrrrr you could just do the mechanics and properly avoid them instead of sacrificing the tank for your convenience !

John_Falstaff

profundidob16_ESO wrote: »

John_Falstaff wrote: »

Just to bump a thread with a snippet of information if it's not present elsewhere: the Vault Protector fight is made much easier if someone (tank has the safest time doing it) detonates those rolling stun balls when they're next to dwemer spheres, it one-shots them on the spot and group doesn't have to kite the (potentially empowered if nobody bashes when they roll to shielded spiders) spheres while ducking laser beams. (Not my discovery, just relaying it. ^^)

oooorrrrr you could just do the mechanics and properly avoid them instead of sacrificing the tank for your convenience !

When that electrified stun ball is capable of one-shotting dwemer spheres, then it's clearly intended to be a part of mechanics, no? ^^ I don't see such peculiar interaction as something typical in ESO dungeons, it's something intentionally designed. Maybe a DD can also block-walk into a stun ball with little consequence, I didn't try yet.

Kuramas9tails

Anyone know where a guide video is?

profundidob16_ESO

John_Falstaff wrote: »

profundidob16_ESO wrote: »

John_Falstaff wrote: »

Just to bump a thread with a snippet of information if it's not present elsewhere: the Vault Protector fight is made much easier if someone (tank has the safest time doing it) detonates those rolling stun balls when they're next to dwemer spheres, it one-shots them on the spot and group doesn't have to kite the (potentially empowered if nobody bashes when they roll to shielded spiders) spheres while ducking laser beams. (Not my discovery, just relaying it. ^^)

oooorrrrr you could just do the mechanics and properly avoid them instead of sacrificing the tank for your convenience !

When that electrified stun ball is capable of one-shotting dwemer spheres, then it's clearly intended to be a part of mechanics, no? ^^ I don't see such peculiar interaction as something typical in ESO dungeons, it's something intentionally designed. Maybe a DD can also block-walk into a stun ball with little consequence, I didn't try yet.

No, that's not how it works. The Tank is supposed to take agro of all adds, forcing the dwarven lifted up spheres to shoot their aoe at him instead of blowing up dd's or healer since healer and dd have little time to interrupt them. In addition to doing that the tank has to keep the boss in the center the whole time for the laser mechanic to go well. Therefore he cannot be supposed to leave his center spot to go detonating stuff on the sides, if he's even capable of doing that without getting himself killed with all the other dmge going on.

On top of please realize that all spheres that spawn start off as 'rolling' spheres. 1 of those rolling spheres per Laser round will lift itself up and then become stationary and shooting whoever agroes it (should be tank). Therefore the actual occasions of a lifted sphere not being killed fast enough so that the next new rolling spheres start appearing and happen to roll by that exact lucky spot while the lifted sphere is still alive is one of being (un)lucky and slow on killing adds at the same time. Often lifted spheres stay in a corner or far side wall and never come anywhere near the new rolling spheres.

In conclusion: Yes. A rolling sphere add can happen to pass close to the middle and the tank could be beefy enough and capable of taking the aoe stun and extra aoe dmge from it's explosion on top of all the other going on dmge while the healer and dd are at a safe distance. Possible but certainly not intended as mechanic. Not when that tank could simply avoid that dmge and the stun all together with a simple step back, even during laser phase ! The whole challenge in this fight is to do mechanics while avoiding rolling spheres and lasers.

To ask the tank to cover for slow dps by going and detonating them proactively and risking getting himself killed ? No, just no

John_Falstaff

@profundidob16_ESO , so you're trying to sell me that an interaction between game elements that is clearly not present in other dungeons is something that was implemented unintentionally. Oh, code accidentally works in a way that makes stun balls explode spheres... certainly not intended as mechanic, of course you know for certain. And you're trying to color the fight as dps race and blame 'slow dps' for failures instead of failure to find proper mechanics. Mmmkay.

code65536

John_Falstaff wrote: »

Just to bump a thread with a snippet of information if it's not present elsewhere: the Vault Protector fight is made much easier if someone (tank has the safest time doing it) detonates those rolling stun balls when they're next to dwemer spheres, it one-shots them on the spot and group doesn't have to kite the (potentially empowered if nobody bashes when they roll to shielded spiders) spheres while ducking laser beams. (Not my discovery, just relaying it. ^^)

Yes, that is one way to kill the spheres, and there's even an achievement for killing adds that way.

But it's also highly situational. A lot of times, you just won't have the opportunity to do this. Adds often will not cross paths with a rolling sphere. Or you'll be restricted in your movement by the laser sweep.

That said, it is useful, and something that people can take advantage of if the opportunity presents itself. I would not have the tank run off to do it, though, since keeping the boss centered in the room is more important. If there are adds clumped near the center (which often does happen, since the spiders will run in to attack, and the spheres will roll in to interface with the spiders), and a charged sphere happens to roll by, then sure, the tank can take a step over and pop it, but they shouldn't go running off to the side of the room to do it. And it's perfectly fine to have a DD or healer block-walk to pop it.

profundidob16_ESO wrote: »

The Tank is supposed to take agro of all adds, forcing the dwarven lifted up spheres to shoot their aoe at him instead of blowing up dd's or healer since healer and dd have little time to interrupt them.

Or, the healer and DDs could just pay attention and sidestep them. And the times when they can't be sidestepped--i.e., during laser sweeps--it doesn't matter who they are targeted on since everyone will be stacked together.

profundidob16_ESO wrote: »

On top of please realize that all spheres that spawn start off as 'rolling' spheres.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. The spheres are differentiated the instant they spawn, before they even touch the ground. The ones that you can kill will have a red nameplate (if you play with enemy nameplates on), and the ones you can't don't. They don't differentiate at some later point--they are differentiated immediately, even as they are in their spawn-in animation. Here are two screencaps from a video of one of our runs. In the first screencap, if you look on the far right, you can see a sphere that just emerged from its hole. And it has a (blurry) hostile nameplate. In the second screencap, on the left, you can see an explosive rolling sphere that just reached the ground and hasn't reached its starting position--its hostile AoE telegraph is already forming ahead of it, and it's going to roll into that telegraph.

profundidob16_ESO wrote: »

To ask the tank to cover for slow dps by going and detonating them proactively and risking getting himself killed ?

Again, I don't recommend people going out of their way to do it. But if the opportunity arises, it's a pretty good idea. The damage isn't too bad. I survive it as a DD and it poses no real threat to the tank. The real risk is in the stun, if it happens during a laser sweep. I definitely don't recommend detonating them on purpose during a laser sweep.

profundidob16_ESO

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@profundidob16_ESO , so you're trying to sell me that an interaction between game elements that is clearly not present in other dungeons is something that was implemented unintentionally. Oh, code accidentally works in a way that makes stun balls explode spheres... certainly not intended as mechanic, of course you know for certain. And you're trying to color the fight as dps race and blame 'slow dps' for failures instead of failure to find proper mechanics. Mmmkay.

No, I'm not saying that this mechanic is unintentional. Quite the opposite in fact since there is an achievement. I'm saying that unless you want to go out of your way to obtain the achievement, the most effective and recommended way is to avoid that dmge+stun rather than take it. Again, it's not impossible but detonating is extra risk and effort (hence the achievement) that is clearly not intended to be done in this way by for instance a pug entering this dungeon first time.

A dps race you say ? Well, now that I think about it...yes that's in fact exactly what this is. Right at the start of every laser round which is linked to a timer instead of boss health according to my last check and thus comes anyway -regardless of the players' actions- will add a sphere and spider. The dps race is thus first managing to kill the add within the laser round while doing all avoiding mechanics and still have extra time left to dps the boss in order to advance it's health. I've seen quite a few pugs now on vet who don't manage to keep the adds down every round causing 2 spheres to exist, and then 3...So the spheres overrun and kill the group before the group dps kills them. In other words: DPS race lost.

If the Laser rounds had not been linked to a timer but boss health a low dps pug could still keep dancing around and take their time -no matter how long it takes- in order to finally kill the adds while not touching the boss health. That would delay the next laser round and next adds spawning as long as needed. Then it would not be a dps race but a simply priority of dps (=don't touch boss until the adds are dead)

Royaji

profundidob16_ESO wrote: »

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@profundidob16_ESO , so you're trying to sell me that an interaction between game elements that is clearly not present in other dungeons is something that was implemented unintentionally. Oh, code accidentally works in a way that makes stun balls explode spheres... certainly not intended as mechanic, of course you know for certain. And you're trying to color the fight as dps race and blame 'slow dps' for failures instead of failure to find proper mechanics. Mmmkay.

Right at the start of every laser round which is linked to a timer instead of boss health according to my last check and thus comes anyway -regardless of the players' actions- will add a sphere and spider.

As far as I can tell this is not entirely correct. Lasers are linked to both time and health. Sometimes the boss gets stuck in animations and my group is able to burn him to below 75% before first laser comes. In this case first two laser rounds will happen nearly immediately after each other. My guess is that laser rounds have to happen at 90, 75, 50 and 25% and then additional lasers are tied to a timer.

profundidob16_ESO

code65536 wrote: »

Or, the healer and DDs could just pay attention and sidestep them. And the times when they can't be sidestepped--i.e., during laser sweeps--it doesn't matter who they are targeted on since everyone will be stacked together.

I wouldn't recommend this at all. Yes, experienced dd and healer might be able to pull this off but as the safest tactic imho and first of all the tank should make sure that he takes this dmge and risk away from the squishy dd and healers. In addition If dd can run crushing shock/venom arrow to interrupt this as part of their dps rotation for this fight they would interrupt them and prevent this dmge but even then still the basic safety net of taunt should be there. After all, a simple computer hickup or RNG could be enough for the dd/healer to fail at dodging this while a tank can take it.

profundidob16_ESO wrote: »

On top of please realize that all spheres that spawn start off as 'rolling' spheres.

I meant the shooting spheres also appear first as round balls (like the rolling spheres) and roll into position first before lifting themselves up after coming out. Or at least that's what I remember in my head. I'm doubting myself now on that visual animation. Let me take a screenshot next run to show what I mean. Maybe I'm completely mistaken about the animation.

Either way you are right. In the light of the fight and it's mechanics their animation doesn't matter at all since the spheres are indeed differentiated by their red hostile nametag the instant they spawn. Upon reading my own previous post again I now realize how confusing I sounded, suggesting they roll through the room for a while before lifting up while they do it within the first 2 seconds after appearing (for as far as I remember at least). My bad.

profundidob16_ESO

Royaji wrote: »

profundidob16_ESO wrote: »

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@profundidob16_ESO , so you're trying to sell me that an interaction between game elements that is clearly not present in other dungeons is something that was implemented unintentionally. Oh, code accidentally works in a way that makes stun balls explode spheres... certainly not intended as mechanic, of course you know for certain. And you're trying to color the fight as dps race and blame 'slow dps' for failures instead of failure to find proper mechanics. Mmmkay.

Right at the start of every laser round which is linked to a timer instead of boss health according to my last check and thus comes anyway -regardless of the players' actions- will add a sphere and spider.

As far as I can tell this is not entirely correct. Lasers are linked to both time and health. Sometimes the boss gets stuck in animations and my group is able to burn him to below 75% before first laser comes. In this case first two laser rounds will happen nearly immediately after each other. My guess is that laser rounds have to happen at 90, 75, 50 and 25% and then additional lasers are tied to a timer.

That would be news to me. We tested this explicitly on PTS to confirm that is was purely timer based and I don't remember any speeding up at all or any relation to boss health %. In fact in some pug tries we had a ridiculous high number of laser rounds due to barely enough dps (throughout the rezzing) to keep up with killing adds while focusing boss health instead of adds. If boss health was any factor at all we would have surely seen it. Also I remember that while simply chainrezzing and not advancing boss health at all laser phases just kept coming at the same steady pace.

Now I have to admit this was several patches ago during early PTS stage and I didn't explicitly re-test this in the latest patches so devs might have tied it to health partially by now in order to avoid groups staying stuck there forever. If that is the case that would be news for me. I'll pay attention to it during next runs. If you should find any proof of this I'd be interested to see it as it's sometimes has to test.

John_Falstaff

@profundidob16_ESO , won't even add much to what Code said. Outside of laser phase, it's a completely valid mechanic, it's not too dangerous, and it allows to lower dps requirements during laser phases (since spiders are squishy). And yes, I can testify that I observed same as @Royaji , if you burn the boss fast enough during his stationary mechanic, you get double laser phase back to back (boss curls up again as soon as he left the shield), so it is tied to health percentage among other possible things - not sure how it was on PTS. By and large, I don't see how it's particularly inadvisable. One thing I will say yes to is that opportunity isn't always there, but when it presents itself, it's a benefit for whole group and no stress for tank.

code65536

Yea, the mechanics are tied to both health and timer. After the first 4-sweep laser, we drop ults, ignore everything else, and try to burn before the next 4-sweep. Sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.

As for reliably clearing the Vault Protector deathless, the strategy that I would recommend for groups going for achievements is to essentially run two tanks on this fight. Those empowered ricochet waves can hit for 25K. Taunting is of very limited use since people are stacked for the sweeps. Ranged interrupts are of limited use because you can't reliably target them if they are behind the boss, and even the regular ricochet waves are pretty spicy. So what we do is have the healer run high health (any healer who has healed vAS +1 Felms or vAS +2 should have a high-health setup at their disposal) and guard one of the DDs and the tank will guard the other DD.

It's not the fastest strategy, but it is by far the most reliable and safest strategy. We no-death this fight virtually every time with this approach (whereas playing more aggressively without guard, it's more of a coin flip whether or not we will clear it deathless).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDFnwvMscDk

LeeNordTank

Thanks

mocap

WhitePawPrints wrote: »

So, no the dungeons are not meant to be solo'd by any means

what about that Phoenix set (mag) ?
(5 items) When you die, you instead become immune to all negative effects and healing for 3 seconds.

Heavy damage mag dd + this set = one chance to survive ANY group mechanics. 10 minutes cooldown though. Take your time to read/listen digalogs. Story mode