Soooo.... Dragons.

DLM

idk wrote: »

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.

There's this one shot: Stomp, which if I am not mistaken is dealt to whoever is tanking (the only times it happened to me was when I had agro). Even if you are blocking, being in light armor still means death.



Although that is fine with me, I have done so many dragon fights that I can definitely tell that having a tank makes a huge difference, not so much about having someone taking that bite but mostly to keep the dragon still so that you can find the sweet spot between the neck and a wing.

Caligamy_ESO

Metal10957 wrote: »

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

I already have, both on PTS and on live. The attack pattern never changes, the only major concern the fight has once you get used to it is the adds can sometimes be overwhelming with damage in conjunction with the fireball spam. I've even done it on a lvl 26'ish tanky char I am still leveling.

Ravena

I think everyone here purposely got hit by their shouts at least once.

Fus Roh Dah!

Tensar

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

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...

They always do the same thing, how it is dynamic? You just did 3 fights against them?

Dragons are boring.

notimetocare

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’.

I hate overuse of 1shot mechs, but it's not lazy design... its punishing. Oh, knockback. So punishing. Just run back into the fight after the stun. Why avoid stuff that doesnt kill you?

idk

Tigerseye wrote: »

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.

You can argue this all you want but the consensus is clear and you are wrong about the one shots. Maybe you are not reacting fast enough, moving out of avoidable damage or have a very bad CP setup. idk, but it is not due to the design of the dragons.

starkerealm

DLM wrote: »

idk wrote: »

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.

There's this one shot: Stomp, which if I am not mistaken is dealt to whoever is tanking (the only times it happened to me was when I had agro). Even if you are blocking, being in light armor still means death.



Although that is fine with me, I have done so many dragon fights that I can definitely tell that having a tank makes a huge difference, not so much about having someone taking that bite but mostly to keep the dragon still so that you can find the sweet spot between the neck and a wing.

On a tank, that's survivable. It's a little hard to gauge what the base damage for that attack is from seeing someone else take the hit, but, I'd guess somewhere around 50-60k, which after mitigation could be in a very manageable way. I mean, if you're tanking in light armor, I hate to tell you this, but it's not 2014 anymore.

SirAndy

starkerealm wrote: »

DLM wrote: »

idk wrote: »

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.

There's this one shot: Stomp, which if I am not mistaken is dealt to whoever is tanking (the only times it happened to me was when I had agro). Even if you are blocking, being in light armor still means death.

Although that is fine with me, I have done so many dragon fights that I can definitely tell that having a tank makes a huge difference, not so much about having someone taking that bite but mostly to keep the dragon still so that you can find the sweet spot between the neck and a wing.

On a tank, that's survivable. It's a little hard to gauge what the base damage for that attack is from seeing someone else take the hit, but, I'd guess somewhere around 50-60k, which after mitigation could be in a very manageable way. I mean, if you're tanking in light armor, I hate to tell you this, but it's not 2014 anymore.

I'm pretty sure it's dodgeable as well, and telegraphed. I had the swirly telegraph a few times on my light armor Sorc when i engaged the dragon first, starting the fight. Dodge roll seemed to work for me.

I did the 50 dragon kills achievement on that char and only died once, which was completely my fault because i got distracted and didn't watch my health.

JumpmanLane

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

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.

Speak for yourself. My MagDk can survive any of a dragon’s attacks if I’m buffed and block in the red.

I kite and fight, Leap fight in melee range while my lil shield is up. Then kite some more.

Perhaps you’re squishy. I unno. Now I can’t solo a dragon but I only die to them if I’m not paying attention yapping in discord or something.

And geeze I only got 16k health in PvE. Maybe you’re doing something wrong. Lol I’ve killed 25 or so.

SydneyGrey

I think their damage is just fine.

For those saying they don't do enough damage ... wait 6 months until there aren't so many people doing the dragons, then they'll be a whole lot harder. Everything is easy when there are 30 people there.

OP: If you're being one-shotted by every dragon attack, even in heavy armor, your resistances need looking at. I fight them in light armor, and can survive much of what the dragon throws at me (but not everything). You need some sort of magical shield, and to improve your character's resistances to magical/physical damage.

kargen27

SydneyGrey wrote: »

I think their damage is just fine.

For those saying they don't do enough damage ... wait 6 months until there aren't so many people doing the dragons, then they'll be a whole lot harder. Everything is easy when there are 30 people there.

OP: If you're being one-shotted by every dragon attack, even in heavy armor, your resistances need looking at. I fight them in light armor, and can survive much of what the dragon throws at me (but not everything). You need some sort of magical shield, and to improve your character's resistances to magical/physical damage.

Yeah we had the good or bad luck (depending on perspective) of taking on a dragon with just a few people. Part of the fight was one or two people left standing running around like madmen trying to stay alive while the rest res'd then everybody joining back in again.

delta_mystic

Red_Feather wrote: »

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

first time I saw that after the Game of Thrones finale I was like "ahhhhh too soon!!"

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

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...

sounds like a great idea for a new set bonus

Hymzir

My experience with the lizards is pretty different. I do like the way they are animated, for the most part, and I suppose they are okayish as far as being dragons go. They don't have enough horns though, they don't look menacing enough in my eyes. The biggest flaw, however, in the way they look and feel, is the flight animations. The way they sluggishly glide about during fights looks really unbelievable. I get it that they have to fly like that to keep the fights more or less in one location, but even so, I find their in combat flight animations really goofy. Outside of combat, when they are still looking for a spot to land on, their flying looks alright though.

As for difficulty... All you need is about 5 semi competent players to take one down. Killing dragons is super easy, barely an inconvenience. It just takes a bit more time with only 5 players. It's barely tedious enough to be an inconvenience, and I usually wait till there are at least 8 players (including me) around, before engaging one - to speed the whole thing along.

The problem with dragons is, that they stick to a fairly rigid combat script, and don't really deviate from their routine, and they don't have much in the way of AI either. After 10 dragon fights you should have the routine down to a pat. Most of their attacks are really obvious, and easy enough to avoid, dodge roll or block.

The tail slap is the one that hits me the most, since it's the one I find hardest to spot and differentiate from the dragons general movement animations. The thing that kills me the most though, are the earth spikes - I find their AOE indicators bit too small and easy to overlook. Their random spawning can also lead to situations where you dodge roll straight into one of them, while trying to avoid some other attack.

I suppose, if I was running a tankier build, or one with more healing, I could deal with those too. But am running around with 7 medium armor pieces and only 15k health, and the 8k dot those earth spikes hit me with, are rather difficult to deal with. I gotta go into full self heal mode when I run into one of them, and hope the dragon wont target me with anything while I deal with the dot. But that only happens when I get cornered, or am low on resources and get a badly placed spawn due to bit of unlucky RNG.

Beyond that, there really isn't much to fighting dragons. Their big flame attacks are even easier to avoid. The one they do from the air is totally predictable. The one they do from the ground is also obvious, and all you need to do is run away from the AOE. After witnessing them a couple of time, there really is no reason to get killed by them. Except due to AFKing for sudden RL reasons, or for just not caring enough about the whole thing to bother.

I've died a few times simply because I was caught in the blast zone while plinking ranged attacks at the beast, and having my other hand preoccupied with eating something or taking a sip, and thus not having fingers on the move buttons and being unable to not stand in stupid. But so what? I die, I rez and continue plinking at the lizard. Not like there is a meaningful penalty for dying in this game.

Some fights I've just basically stood around shooting at the beast without ever being even targeted by an attack. When there are 20+ players swarming about, the health of the thing goes down fast enough to not give a rats ass about putting any effort into the fight beyond spamming snipe and waiting for the dragon to die. I've participated in dozens of fights where I didn't even bother to have a food or drink buff active, and ran around with only 11k health and still didn't die. All I had to do was to pay at least some attention to what was going on and to not stand in stupid.

I've spent the last couple of days waiting around one of the dragon spawn points while working on other projects outside of ESO. I keep an eye out at the map to see when a dragon spawns, go kill it, loot the corpse, and then get back to working on what ever it was I was actually doing. It sure beats wasting countless hours running characters through the same ruin looting the same set of urns and dusting thousands of lock picks. It isn't, however, any more interesting or exciting than urn farming. It's just less annoying and let's me do other things while farming for stuff to sell in the guild store.

While I agree that dragons are way too easy to kill, I don't think that the damage they deal is too low. Plenty of dragon attacks one shot squishier builds if they don't pay attention, or get careless or just plain unlucky with RNG aoe spawns. The biggest issues is the predictable dragon behavior, and the generally lethargic and lazy way they fight. I've noticed on several occasions, that the dragon can wait couple of seconds between attacks, and most of the time it just sits there on the ground not doing all that much, or is lazily moving from one pre-scripted attack position to another while soaking constant attacks from the players.

It's action economy - it doesn't matter how hard the dragon hits, if it attacks only one target every other second, when 15+ players are pouring attacks on it every second. And even if it kills one of the players, so what? The player just instantly rezzes and rejoins the fight in a moment or two. The dragon really has no chance at all, there is no possibility for the players to fail slaying the beast, and it just turns into yet another boring iteration of the Anchor or Geyser farms.

To make Dragon fights actually exciting and interesting, the dragon would have to be lot more active. It should attacks much more frequently, and attacks several targets at the same time. It should constantly be doing tail slaps, and biting at the same time, and casting spells, and setting things on fire and generally just target multiple players at the same time. The way they are now, means that if there are more than 12 players engaging it, you can pretty safely just sit on the side and spam ranged attacks at it, maybe occasional moving a bit to avoid the various random aoe attacks, but basically never be actively targeted by any of the dragon's attacks.

Better AI and less predictable behavior would also improve the fights a lot. But I think that is probably beyond what the ESO engine is capable of.

One thing would make the fights lot more harrowing and gripping - not letting dead players to rez themselves within the boundaries of the Dragon attack areas. If they had to either rely on other players rezzing them, or going back to a way shrine and riding back to join the fight, there might at least be some actual challenge in taking down the dragons, and you'd actually have to pay attention to what you were doing, making the whole thing a lot more exciting.

Of course, doing so, would also mean that you'd have to tweak the rewards a bit. Killing a dragon and getting a waxed heavy sack contain 10 bananas is not exactly rewarding even with the way things are now, and downright aggravating if they upped the difficulty of taking the lizards down.

But whatever, I don't really care one way or another. I'm happy enough with the easily killable dragons that occasionally drop stuff that is actually worth something. I get tons of jewelry from them, which is speeding my alts jewelry crafting leveling, and they also have a decent chance of dropping furnishing plans, and are lot less boring way to farm for those plans than urns. So I'm happy with the way they are. If they up the difficulty and don't increase the rewards... Well there are plenty of other things to do with my time.

Morgha_Kul

I should explain what I mean when I say oneshot. To me, a oneshot attack is one that kills you more or less immediately, with no way for you to prevent it.

So, that time when my character with nearly 30k health got hit by a fireball (that tracked me even when I rolled), it immediately did around 20k damage. It then did a DOT of around 10k per second. So, 2 seconds and I'm dead. No way to dodge the attack, it was a quick attack with no particular animation, meaning it was nearly impossible to know to block. I just happened to be rolling at that moment, but that didn't help. Now, I have a heal, but that only does around 5k, so I'd buy myself 1 more second at most. No way to prevent it. I call that a oneshot.

Now, the breath weapon should be devestating. That's appropriate (though, I'd like to see some way for players to do that iconic thing where they crouch behind their shield and are protected, like in Dragonslayer). It's the other attacks that I think could use a bit of a tweak... and again, get rid of the aura.

I have many characters. They're all fairly tanky, I build for survival more than damage. Not everyone does. A lower level character with no CP, or a less well equipped character is just not going to be able to participate. THIS is the problem with the power creep. There are now players for whom even these dragons are fairly trivial, but they're completely out of reach of many other players. I'm not concerned solely about my own play here. I am also concerned at the game becoming too difficult for what I expect is the majority of players.

kargen27

"I have many characters. They're all fairly tanky, I build for survival more than damage. Not everyone does. A lower level character with no CP, or a less well equipped character is just not going to be able to participate."

My low level character has participated. I know I was doing no significant damage but was fun just getting a couple of hits in while trying to stay alive. And yeah compared to my other characters he died a lot but I expect that. Doesn't mean I can't participate. In fact it is a great activity for low level characters to try. Teaches how to look for tells, you learn to block and/or dodge and when you die it doesn't slow down the rest of the participants like a dungeon might.

Just get in there start whackin' and have some fun.

regge5

Made a new char, stam 2H necro. Every dragon i see i rush to to do them since they are so epic I only died once. It was on my first dragon an didn't see the 'fly over fire breathing' coming XD
I normaly stand just out of the circle between the wing and tail. Uses death scyth to keep my health topped etc. It's not to hard to pay attention.
I think the dragons are exactly at the right spot. Hard hitting as the massive and strong beasts as they are, but fairly duable to kill in a group

Mathius_Mordred

Personally, I don't think they are strong enough. We are not Dovakin and don't have access to shouts to assist us, they should be terrifying and very very dangerous. I also don't think they should always die, if the attacking group has taken too long there should be an AOE wipe killing everyone and the dragon then takes off and flies away having "won" the day.

My suggestions:

1. Increase HP to the same as a trial boss on hard mode, so about 50 million.
2. Have a time limit on the fight, say 10 minutes, would need to be gauged.
3. If the timer runs out the dragon does a shout or some sort of attack that wipes everyone in the area, it then flies off having won, presumably whilst shouting some sarcastic comment about insects.
4. Rewards, whilst good, should be significantly improved if the above adjustments are made, I would suggest a random monster set piece head or shoulders in addition to the current rewards.

Uryel

They shout like your drunken mate thinking he's Dovakhiin, not like proper impressive beasts. Their voices do lack some BOOM.

Raisin

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

Now, the breath weapon should be devestating. That's appropriate (though, I'd like to see some way for players to do that iconic thing where they crouch behind their shield and are protected, like in Dragonslayer). It's the other attacks that I think could use a bit of a tweak... and again, get rid of the aura.

I have many characters. They're all fairly tanky, I build for survival more than damage. Not everyone does. A lower level character with no CP, or a less well equipped character is just not going to be able to participate. THIS is the problem with the power creep. There are now players for whom even these dragons are fairly trivial, but they're completely out of reach of many other players. I'm not concerned solely about my own play here. I am also concerned at the game becoming too difficult for what I expect is the majority of players.

Being too difficult is the opposite of ESO's problem, and I don't get the impression that the majority is having issues here (although the people that use the forums are not a full representation of the player base IMO).
The thing I take issue here with is you claiming that dragons are "completely out of reach" for many players. That's BS and IMO one of the reasons ESO has such a huge problem with being too easy. If the people who struggle with dragons are low level players, that does not mean it is "completely out of reach" for them. All it means that they currently cannot do it this exact second (and they can still participate even if they die a lot ofc). Good for them, now they can actually get the impression of some sort of progress when they advance into the game. The "I can't do it at level 15 so it's too hard" is such a game-ruining mentality to have. Things are supposed to be out of reach at some point so it feels good when you get there. I genuinely think that you are imagining the dragon situation quite differently from what it is on this. They really are not an inaccessible feature.
That said, I am gonna take the CP off my low level char and see how I fare. Although the be honest my casual, 'play once month' friend, whose ESO skills are far from refined actually forgot to assign CP on her level 12 necro and did quite well in her first few dragon fights, so I think the scaling that low level chars receive may already bridge the gap quite a bit?

Also, I still haven't heard an actual reason why the aura should be removed? We've established that it has absolutely no negative effect on meelee players. I think it's one of the things ZOS did to make you respect the dragon a little more, prevent you from just standing right on top of them. Give the illusion of having to keep your distance. So if it serves the atmosphere of the fight and isn't a threat to anyone, why remove it?

RapidUrsa

Tbf they are dragons, they should be op! We aren’t Dragonborn

Betty_Booms

They are pretty good where they are. Not so hard as to discount new players and they arent a walk over either. I chuck on my torugs heavy pvp gear with btb and an ice staff and i can tank one without too much issue. Definitely bot an optimised tank.

I have also had 2 x 200k furniture patterns drop. So you can get big rewards from them.

Morgha_Kul

So, now that I've had more experience with Dragons, I'd like to change my opinion.

They do a LOT of damage, but that can be blocked very effectively. They still do a fair bit of damage even when blocking, but that's appropriate and necessary, if they're not to be soloable.

I also take back my complaint about the aura. It IS possible to melee with the dragon, and if the aura wasn't there, it would be too easy to get under it.

I do have a question, however. On one occasion, I was out in front of the Dragon shooting it with my bow. It reared up as it was killed, and suddenly I was knocked back, bounced once or twice, and killed off as well. It made me wonder what the heck, as the dragon had already been killed. Does the death roar actually count as an attack? If not, do I chalk this up to lag?

Just curious.

Pink_E_808

Just wanted to add my "they can totally one-shot you"... I hope y'all laugh as hard as I did.

https://youtu.be/APTkPVaC9uQ