Soooo.... Dragons.

Morgha_Kul

So, I've fought a couple of them now, and I would like to express my thoughts. I do have a couple of issues with them, but I'll mention the good stuff first.

First, they look AWESOME. Not just their appearance, but their PRESENCE. I was walking along a road and suddenly a gigantic shadow passed over me. I looked up and.... DRAGON. Holy old crap, that was intimidating. He passed over the crest of the hill and roared, and MAN was it a powerful moment.

Second, they are wonderfully varied in their tactics. They fight on the ground, throwing attacks in all directions. Biting to the front, sweeping the wings to the sides, tail to the rear. Fire breath and all that. They take to the air and strafe the ground, then perch and launch fireballs all over the place. It's dynamic, interesting and involving. However...

There are two main problems. First, they have that damage aura. This pretty much excludes all melee characters from the battle. I've seen this in other games, it's never a good idea.

The second problem is one that exists elsewhere in the game, and it's simply that the damage the Dragons are doing is far too extreme. Pretty well every attack is a oneshot attack, whether or not you're shielded, blocking or both. I'd LOVE to get stuck in, slashing and bashing, dodging the fire breath and occasionally getting knocked around by the wings or tail, but I CAN'T, because even the smallest of the Dragon's attacks will immediately oneshot me (or take me out in 3 seconds or less due to excessive DOT). It leaves me feeling disappointed and frustrated that I can't get in there and fight the Dragon and contribute something, however small.

I've seen this in other games, and even here in Group Dungeons. I've said it many times over 35 years of gaming, it's never a good idea to have your bad guys doing enough damage to wipe out the player characters, leaving them no way to defend themselves.

Now, I'm nowhere near the top of the line as far as damage output, but I'm fairly sturdy. My character has almost 30k health, which is fairly decent, and he uses heavy armour with all the relevant passives. I always build for durability. That said, I expect I'm closer to the top end of the average player, so if I'm finding Dragons pretty much unplayable, I have to think that a majority of players will ALSO be finding them so.

These are my main complaints with the Dragons (and some other bosses). I hope this criticism will be taken constructively.

nryerson1025

Their hitbox is large. As a melee character, you can stand outside the aoe and still use melee skills

Fingolfinn01

Dragons don't do enough damage, they purposely built for group play. The downside of this is the off hours.

Again they do not do enough damage. That being said it will be a sad day if they get nerfed


I do like your positive comments however.

Fingolfinn01

And another thing as well, you can melee dragons. Just stand outside the yellow circle.

Pennylong

I love it when they fly over and flame a bunch of players as they pass.

kargen27

Without blocking or shielding my magicka templar with 19k health can take a hard shot and have about 3k health left. If I get knocked into some AoE it is about 50/50 I die before I can roll out of the AoE. She never stands in front of a dragon though so that might be why she survives.

My low level character dies easily to the dragon but I expect that and would be disappointed if it were not true. He is melee and can stand outside that AoE around the dragon and still get hits in. Between the wing and head seems the safest place for melee so long as you keep an eye on the head and move around the side some when you see him look your way.

It makes me laugh when people get out of the way of the strafe then try to cross the AoE to kill adds. That AoE from the strafe is viscous.

FierceSam

I agree the the fundamental strategy for fighting dragons has become ‘stay at distance’, primarily to avoid the massive radius of the 1 shot damage.

It’s a pain for melee characters and saying ‘they have a huge hitbox’ is no excuse if my melee range is less than 10m and their one shot radius is gargantuan and the attacks have no aoe telegraphing or range indication and cannot be blocked.

One shot mechanics are essentially lazy game design and the last 10c of the bankrupt combat creator. It would be more productive/imaginative if the huge aoe wing and tail attacks knocked players back a considerable distance and stunned them unless they were really close. That would make closer range melee attacks at least vaguely practical.

The alternative is simply that players will form a wide ring around the beast and it just becomes a long range aoe bonanza. No rotations, no weaving, just aoe and ultimates. In other words, boring.

And that’s not a word that should be anywhere near the phrase ‘Dragon fight’.

bearbelly

The vast majority of my characters are melee. It's what I prefer.

That said, I swap to my bow line for the dragon fights.

Practical, to me, in instances such as this, where the opponent has a ginormous size and strength advantage, means to stay out of range of their physical attacks.

And one-shots make sense to me where a dragon is concerned. It's a frakkin' dragon. And we are tiny little meat blobs.

Red_Feather

I love when dragon does a flyby fire breath and you see all the players die in a huge row.
It's very epic.

Hippie4927

I love the dragon fights but why am I only getting green jewelry in the loot? Dolmens and geysers very often give blue and purple jewelry. A freakin' dragon should give purple every time. Tonight I helped kill 3 dragons and every one of them gave me a green Crafty Alfiq ring. I think, in total since Elsweyr came out, I have helped kill around 20 dragons and have never received a purple piece of jewelry.

Jhalin

FierceSam wrote: »

I agree the the fundamental strategy for fighting dragons has become ‘stay at distance’, primarily to avoid the massive radius of the 1 shot damage.

It’s a pain for melee characters and saying ‘they have a huge hitbox’ is no excuse if my melee range is less than 10m and their one shot radius is gargantuan and the attacks have no aoe telegraphing or range indication and cannot be blocked.

One shot mechanics are essentially lazy game design and the last 10c of the bankrupt combat creator. It would be more productive/imaginative if the huge aoe wing and tail attacks knocked players back a considerable distance and stunned them unless they were really close. That would make closer range melee attacks at least vaguely practical.

The alternative is simply that players will form a wide ring around the beast and it just becomes a long range aoe bonanza. No rotations, no weaving, just aoe and ultimates. In other words, boring.

And that’s not a word that should be anywhere near the phrase ‘Dragon fight’.

There are no one shot mechanics in the dragon fights. I think the heaviest hitter I’ve seen is a 19k bite, and the wing thrash is only about 16k or so if you block the highly telegraphed attack. Nothing is a guaranteed kill unless you have no armor, no food, or never block anything I guess but by now I’ll be optimistic and say most people know to block the wing thrash.

There’s also a sweet spot between neck and wing where nothing will hit you except the sweeping flame breath, which again is very obvious because the dragon screams and there’s the red ground indicator and there’s FIRE everywhere

I’m always in melee range and never feel at risk of dying, except when I’m dumb and forget to dodge the heavy Bite

bearbelly

Hippie4927 wrote: »

I love the dragon fights but why am I only getting green jewelry in the loot? Dolmens and geysers very often give blue and purple jewelry. A freakin' dragon should give purple every time. Tonight I helped kill 3 dragons and every one of them gave me a green Crafty Alfiq ring. I think, in total since Elsweyr came out, I have helped kill around 20 dragons and have never received a purple piece of jewelry.

I've gotten purple jewelry a few times, and none of my characters who have fought dragons so far were above level 5.

essi2

Even my Necro Healer can survive most of the lighter attacks the dragons do and the more powerful attacks that one shot you are all fairly easy to avoid. Dragons so far aren't punishing enough, they should also have respawn suppression imho.

deadsheepb14_ESO

I die a lot when fighting them but it is fun (I'm just low level necro). The best part is when you are just questing in the area and the dragon flies over you with it's shadow and roars. Awesome. \o/

idk

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

Pretty well every attack is a oneshot attack, whether or not you're shielded, blocking or both.

Something is wrong if you are getting one shot from most attacks when you are blocking and/or shielding. I do not get one shot by most attacks and if I die it is usually because I had already taken damage and am not at or even near full health.

Basically, I do not think your description is arcuate unless you are leaving something important out like your max health is 12k or all your armor is broken.

Edit: there was a good post the described the attacks and what people can expect but I have no idea where it is to link it now. OP would probably benefit from it and it clearly explained what I just did, that there are no one shot mechanics with dragons outside of their strafe which is pretty obvious and extremely easy to avoid as long as you watch the dragons while they are flying.

TheShadowScout

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

There are two main problems. First, they have that damage aura. This pretty much excludes all melee characters from the battle.

...unless you fight -mobile- and not expect to just stand there and tank it, you mean? Get to the right position, land your blows, dodge away from the counter, attack the flanks to avoid the death-bringing head, etc.

But yeah, ranged have it easier.

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

The second problem is one that exists elsewhere in the game, and it's simply that the damage the Dragons are doing is far too extreme.

Well, they are balanced for groups... if they didn't do a whopping load of damage, large groups would just murderboat all over them. I have not been killed by a dragon so far, but that is because I keep moving, avoid the nasty attacks (especialyl the strafing, which I have seen kill half a group in one go, so... stay out ot the flight path!), and stay out of the bad ground...

Personally I think dragons are just fine. They are -supposed- to be a world boss level fight after all! Although I do wonder if we could just plop down a cyrodil ballista to take care of them sometimes...

Tigerseye

Assuming you have a heal, if you do enough of them you will get used to them and die far less often.

Then you will get bored with them, as I have and wander off.

Tigerseye

idk wrote: »

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

Pretty well every attack is a oneshot attack, whether or not you're shielded, blocking or both.

Something is wrong if you are getting one shot from most attacks when you are blocking and/or shielding. I do not get one shot by most attacks and if I die it is usually because I had already taken damage and am not at or even near full health.

Basically, I do not think your description is arcuate unless you are leaving something important out like your max health is 12k or all your armor is broken.

Edit: there was a good post the described the attacks and what people can expect but I have no idea where it is to link it now. OP would probably benefit from it and it clearly explained what I just did, that there are no one shot mechanics with dragons outside of their strafe which is pretty obvious and extremely easy to avoid as long as you watch the dragons while they are flying.

No, you can get one-shotted quite easily (with the worst targeted attack), in medium armour and with a three quarter full 19K (with food buff) health pool.

Unless you're pretty tanky, you have to try to keep your health permanently up to maximum.

Speaking as a max CP Warden, here, in pretty mediocre (but mostly gold) gear.

Sarousse

They don't do enough damage.

And once engaged they will die 100% of the time because everyone can rezz again and again.

It's ESO overland content. Too easy once again.

bmnoble

You just need to have the support roles in the group, not just everyone playing on their DPS character.

I take my main, a stage 4 vampire DK tank and attempt to keep the Dragon's head focused on me away from the group in most fights. I can take most hits just fine, learnt the hard way about the aura, during my first fight though, never seen my health bar fall that quick before.

I can understand the need for the aura though, if melee players can just stand under the dragon they could avoid all the dragons attacks and just do damage with little to no risk.


The dragons attacks are slow enough that I can heavy attack for stamina, all the while spamming igneous shields and the spike armor with a damage shield, sometimes have to use echoing vigor/cinder storm/or green blood but can stay alive just fine.

While the dragon is in the air or on a perch, I just run around like a lunatic spamming igneous shield and echoing vigor keeping people alive. I do next to no damage but keep plenty of DPS alive for longer.


Only thing I hate about the dragon fights, is the riding to get from one to the next, its a pain when wanting to go from one fight to the next, even with the high health by the time you reach the next fight the dragon can already be near defeat or dead.

I am not asking for the dragons to be next to wayshrines, don't want to see alikir desert style groups Dragon farming, just find the terrain of the map really gets in the way of getting to the fights, in time to do something.


Ultimately does not matter a group of DPS can deal with them fine so long as they don't all get killed at once the fight keeps going. Would hate to see the repair bills on the players who don't have stock of grand repair kits from writs or buy them from guild traders though. But if the groups bring along some healers/tanks fewer people will die as often.


I primarily use this build on my main:
https://fextralife.com/eso-dragonknight-tank-build-immortal-dragon/

Modified a few bits since I play a vampire, went for higher magica regen over the reduced block cost enchants and chose to use the engine guardian monster set instead of the ones suggested, not quite high enough CP to assign all the champion points for the build but getting there almost at CP700.

Tigerseye

bmnoble wrote: »

Only thing I hate about the dragon fights, is the riding to get from one to the next, its a pain when wanting to go from one fight to the next, even with the high health by the time you reach the next fight the dragon can already be near defeat or dead.

I am not asking for the dragons to be next to wayshrines, don't want to see alikir desert style groups Dragon farming, just find the terrain of the map really gets in the way of getting to the fights, in time to do something.

Yeah, this is what really puts me off, too.

There are only so many times you want to run miles and miles to kill a dragon.

Especially when it's to see it drop dead, just as you desperately try (and fail) to tag it.

Maybe if I'd got even one purple Elsweyr furnishing plan from the over 100 I've killed.

...but, no.

RaddlemanNumber7

Open-world Dragon fights - just huge disorganised cluster ***. Required tactics - run around staying out of the red, blast off long shots at the dragon, randomly die from full health in one or two tics, res, repeat. The dragons don't scale, so once all the other zerglings are not there they are near impossible to kill. Rewards are poop (what ever happened to half the kingdom and the Princess's hand in marriage?) Reaching the dragons when they spawn, chasing for miles across a landscape the designers have criss-crossed with impassable cliffs and ravines, it's all so mindless.

And what's in it for the dragon? What is the dragon's motivation? They are not being challenged by another Dova. They just seem to have a death wish. And all those NPC Khajiit they have put on the dragon scours, who just don't react to the presence of the dragon, totally counterintuitive.

IMHO apart from the dragons' animation, it's just all-round weak game design. Not as much fun as dolmens or geysers, not by a long way.

This is not a part of the game I'll be playing anymore.

phaneub17_ESO

I like to see NPCs rush to attack the dragons alongside the players, and get destroyed!

Tigerseye

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

Not as much fun as dolmens or geysers, not by a long way.

This is not a part of the game I'll be playing anymore.

I don't know about that.

I imagine pulling out your toenails with pliars is more fun than dolmens...

Geysers are marginally better - prettier, for a start, with less annoying sound effects, but some of the bosses are harder to solo than most of the Summerset world bosses.

Metal10957

Sooo... who thinks they can solo a dragon, off hours of course?

Tasear

I got 17.6 health and tiny Sorc shield. Most of dragon fight isn't one shot...unless you stand in middle while dragon is flying.

Only dragon Slayer noobs stand in middle waiting to be BBQ. 😛

BoraxFlux

Attacks can be avoided by roll-dodging out of it on the right moment (e.g wings/ tail going up) and get out of de red circles.
There are quite a lot of them, more so when adds are about. Which makes it a nice challenge

Also: like in a dungeon party tanks are awesome too, experienced dragon fights with a few players tanking like a boss:
Dragon stays fairly stationary, making it better to hit... and some tanks also collect all the adds spamming making it easier to AoE them.

Healers are a bliss too, when your health bar suddenly boosts.

Dragon hunting sounds almost like teamwork it definitely isn't solo-work, (having that said: looking forward to the video of players solo-ing them, which no doubt will come)

EDIT: Not want to sound like dodging is easy, I do stand in stupid often enough or estimate the sweet spots for dodge roll wrongly. Doesn't make it less fun though.

Raisin

I play a lot of meelee, even on ranged chars, and one of my biggest struggles in the game is moving my ass -- it's my personal weak spot.

Dragons are FAR too easy. I died maybe 3 or 4 times MAX to one the first day (low level char but with cp) and now I don't. This includes having aggro. As others said, I have no idea what you are doing wrong to make 'everything a one shot' but I also personally think you are exaggerating. Others have mentioned their strategies, but personally I like staying on the side. Out of range from head attacks, all you do is dodge roll before the wing swipe (plenty of time after animation tell), then avoid the fire aoes. I usually just block through. The wing swipe for me is exactly the right damage if I get hit (no one shot but below 10% health or so), so I can see how low CP and thus less resistances may make that instakill for you. But it really is just a game of actually playing the game, moving, paying attention and learning patterns.
The big one shot is the giant fire trail, which obviously servers the purpose of keeping you on your toes and facing the sky as the dragon flies.

Under different circumstances I might agree that oneshots are lazy game design, but in ESO they are largely needed as it is the only way to force matters to actually play some mechanics. The 'almost-kill' type attacks unfortunately only create the tension you want them to if you are playing without or somehow very weak self-heal.
Also, I absolutely cannot attest to how a dragon fight runs with less people, as right now I do believe safety in numbers is lessening their impact quite a bit. But it's unclear wether or not we will get to experience that often or at all. So yeah, dragon fights unfortunately lost their flavor very fast. It may not be everybody's experience, but I was very disappointed at how quickly they faded into 'tank and spank with a dodge once every minute' type grindfest.

phileunderx2

For purple plans don't waste your time killing dragons. Go farm urns instead. I've pulled 3 or 4 from urns.

FluffyKitten

I like their damage, suddenly you actually have to dodge from incoming attacks.
Had a hard time timing this the first couple days but now it is easy, in short just roll a third of a second earlier than you think you have to.

The presence they make before landing, circling the area is amazing, you hear the wing flaps, roars, see their shadow.
They really feel huge.

kargen27

phileunderx2 wrote: »

For purple plans don't waste your time killing dragons. Go farm urns instead. I've pulled 3 or 4 from urns.

I got three purple plans killing between 10-15 dragons. I open every container I see and have managed only a couple of green so far from containers. I'm guessing one way is as viable as the other. RNG is doing it's thing and I got really lucky killing dragons.