The damn Signal Fire Zephyr achievement - Updated, whats wrong with me?!

myskyrim26

The damn Signal Fire Zephyr achievement: how at all?
I did it on my Altmer and Khajiit previously - last year or maybe 2 years before. It was easy because of their skills. Now I want my Imperial to get it and I fail even to complete the quest itself timely. Imperial stamDK. I use Rapid Maneuvr, it is rank 3 now, and I sprint. No result.
Please, don't tell me to find someone to group with. I spent hours asking. I even offered gold. One person responded today, and he was even slower than me. We failed the quest itself. He didn't want to try again.

Updated: I tried to run using Rapid Maneuvr, the Steed boon and Gold Coast Survivor Elixir. And I do sprint. And I do know the map. AND I STILL CAN'T BE FAST ENOUGH FOR THIS CRAP. What's wrong with me?!

Czekoludek

You know that if you find 3 other players each of you need to light only one fire? And how it is possible to fail it with 2 players?

myskyrim26

Czekoludek wrote: »

You know that if you find 3 other players each of you need to light only one fire? And how it is possible to fail it with 2 players?

I can't find even 1 player, how can I find 3? Seems impossible. Noone wants to group. Last year I helped some players with achievement - we did it in a group of 2. But I can't find someone now. I'm trying every day.

Raisin

Technically Rapid Maneuver should be fine. I did it first try/by accident on warden with wings, which is the same buff as rapid just 2 seconds shorter.
Make sure to recast it before it runs out, and have the stamina to sustain it. You can put CP into sprinter if you need to.

I'm wondering wtf the person you grouped up with was doing, as it's impossible to fail with two people. Even without a speedbuff you can get 3 fires in the allotted time, all your partner has to do is light one of the then. There's no way they could take close to 30 seconds to light two.

richo262

Talk to the doofus, turn right, head up the stairs with the house at the top. You don't even need rapids. Rapids / Accelerate does help though.

Start at the house, follow the path, slight detour for the third, end at the skyshard.

DLM

Not trying to belittle you, just stating that if I can do it on under-leveled mag characters on my own I don't see why you couldn't. Especially with the change to sprint, how it takes more time to deplete and how it refills faster when pausing.

Just bring one potion if needed. One of the free Gold Coasts elixir (or another one, can't remember) that we get as daily reward has a speed bonus.

myskyrim26

Raisin wrote: »

Technically Rapid Maneuver should be fine. I did it first try/by accident on warden with wings, which is the same buff as rapid just 2 seconds shorter.
Make sure to recast it before it runs out, and have the stamina to sustain it. You can put CP into sprinter if you need to.

I'm wondering wtf the person you grouped up with was doing, as it's impossible to fail with two people. Even without a speedbuff you can get 3 fires in the allotted time, all your partner has to do is light one of the then. There's no way they could take close to 30 seconds to light two.

I think he was doing it for the first time. I explained that he needs to light the 2 closest, and I light the other 2. Yet we failed.

myskyrim26

DLM wrote: »

Not trying to belittle you, just stating that if I can do it on under-leveled mag characters on my own I don't see why you couldn't. Especially with the change to sprint, how it takes more time to deplete and how it refills faster when pausing.

Just bring one potion if needed. One of the free Gold Coasts elixir (or another one, can't remember) that we get as daily reward has a speed bonus.

I didn't expected it to be hard. I remeber I was doing it easily. So I was surprise I can't do it even with Rapid Maneuver. Will try Gold Coasts elixir tomorrow, I have some in my bank.

Raisin

myskyrim26 wrote: »

Raisin wrote: »

Technically Rapid Maneuver should be fine. I did it first try/by accident on warden with wings, which is the same buff as rapid just 2 seconds shorter.
Make sure to recast it before it runs out, and have the stamina to sustain it. You can put CP into sprinter if you need to.

I'm wondering wtf the person you grouped up with was doing, as it's impossible to fail with two people. Even without a speedbuff you can get 3 fires in the allotted time, all your partner has to do is light one of the then. There's no way they could take close to 30 seconds to light two.

I think he was doing it for the first time. I explained that he needs to light the 2 closest, and I light the other 2. Yet we failed.

He probably didn't know where to go and got lost or fell off or something. But yeah as someone suggested, a movement speed pot could help too.

IDK what you play on but every time I go to Alik'r the zone chat is full of ppl asking to group for zephyr.

WiseSky

5 Cowards gear + 5 jailbreaker

MartiniDaniels

Idk, I did it solo without knowing that achievement exists. In heavy armor. Run Forrest, run!

Streega

I don't understand how it's possible to fail it at all. I just did it on lvl 30-ish High Elf sorc with 10k stamina - no food, no potions, just sprinting. My advice is: go and practice your path before you start the quest. If you do it with a buddy, one of you should take the two north braziers, the other one takes the southern braziers. It takes literally max 15 sec, but you need to coordinate.

Czekoludek

Server?

myskyrim26

Czekoludek wrote: »

Server?

PC EU

Raisin

myskyrim26 wrote: »

Czekoludek wrote: »

Server?

PC EU

Do you play off-peak? I feel like I remember you mentioning that before.
Because PC EU zone chat is full of people grouping for the achievement every time I play. You'll probably have to do it alone if you're playing when most of EU is asleep.

myskyrim26

Updated: I tried to run using Rapid Maneuvr, the Steed boon and Gold Coast Survivor Elixir. And I do sprint. And I do know the map. AND I STILL CAN'T BE FAST ENOUGH FOR THIS CRAP. What's wrong with me?!

Major_Lag

Streega wrote: »

I used a different order - according to this drawing, I did 2-1-3-4, of course with a different path to account for this. It results in a slightly shorter overall distance to cover.

On my magicka characters, simply sprinting without any speed boosts at all, it's just barely possible to do this within the time limit.

When using Race Against Time (or the other morph), that resulted in me lighting the last fire with a few seconds to spare.
On stamina characters, Rapid Maneuver works well.

BTW, you don't need to wait for the whole "fire lighting animation" to finish completely - you can start running when the animation is about halfway complete, and it still counts as having lit the fire. Saves a few seconds.

Raisin

myskyrim26 wrote: »

Updated: I tried to run using Rapid Maneuvr, the Steed boon and Gold Coast Survivor Elixir. And I do sprint. And I do know the map. AND I STILL CAN'T BE FAST ENOUGH FOR THIS CRAP. What's wrong with me?!

Are you lagging a lot or something?

Royaji

Have you considered not taking a lunch break in the middle of the run?

HappyLittleTree

I still don't get how people fail this achievement.

code65536

Streega wrote: »

I don't understand how it's possible to fail it at all. I just did it on lvl 30-ish High Elf sorc with 10k stamina - no food, no potions, just sprinting. My advice is: go and practice your path before you start the quest. If you do it with a buddy, one of you should take the two north braziers, the other one takes the southern braziers. It takes literally max 15 sec, but you need to coordinate.

I've always run 4-3-1-2, never failed it in all the years of running it. Your path is rather inefficient.

In any case, selecting an efficient path is arguably more important than using rapids.

Major_Lag

Incidentally, this achievement is, IMO, one of the more meaningful non-endgame achievements in ESO, because getting it involves some actual challenge - something very rare in ESO's overland content, what with overland/quest bosses having the durability of a wet paper bag.

The time limit is strict enough that even with an optimal path, it's very difficult to light all 4 fires in time without using an additional speed boost, beyond that provided by sprinting.
The more speed boosts you use, the easier it gets and there's more room for mistakes that way.

One easy way of getting a nice free speed boost is to equip 7 pieces of medium armor - if you have the relevant medium armor passive, this will greatly increase your sprint speed.

And a blast from the past: anyone still remembers when Rapid Maneuver used to give about 30 seconds of Major Expedition, instead of the measly 8 seconds it grants now?
Back then it was actually viable to use it on magicka characters in PvE, despite the very high stamina cost.

Bucky_13

Funnily enough, this quest makes the nerf to the duration of Rapid Maneuver really noticeable. Before you could just put rapids and and it'd last 30 seconds to allow you to sprint through the whole thing. Now that it lasts around 7 seconds, it's made the quest a lot harder.

Still, having a bit of movement bonus from gear + sprinting makes it doable solo.

SeaGtGruff

One thing I do is that after I light a fire, I turn and start running to the next one before the game acknowledges that the fire is lit. If you stand there and wait for the message to come up that you've lit each fire, you won't make it in time.

Ryath_Waylander

@myskyrim26 what timezone are you? I am at UTC+2. So 18:00 in the UK is 20:00 by us. If you're still struggling by this afternoon, drop me a email and we'll make an appointment to run it together. I'm @Ryath_Waylander in game and I usually play between 19:00 and 21:00 (17:00 to 19;00 in the UK). My main is a magplar so on my own I slot a speed pot. I run 4, 3, 2, 1. Just before I light 4, I cast rapid manoeuvres, halfway between 3 and 2, I drink the speed pot. Race to 2 and back to one.

code65536

Bucky_13 wrote: »

Funnily enough, this quest makes the nerf to the duration of Rapid Maneuver really noticeable. Before you could just put rapids and and it'd last 30 seconds to allow you to sprint through the whole thing. Now that it lasts around 7 seconds, it's made the quest a lot harder.

Still, having a bit of movement bonus from gear + sprinting makes it doable solo.

Don't use rapids. Just sprint. Sprinting without rapids and faster than rapids without sprint. And with the cost of rapids being what it is and with the adjustments to sprint cost, you're better off just sprinting the whole way and not touching rapids.

And, no, contrary to what someone said earlier, it's easy with just sprint. You don't need rapids. What you do need is an efficient path. The northwest brazier is, again, the starting point that should be used. Most people make the mistake of starting at the closer western brazier, but that involves too much doubling-back.

myskyrim26

Did it finally - managed to find another player. But damn... the thing that I don't get is how could I fail it trying so hard...

DBZVelena

Between last year and now, ZoS changed how sprinting works. This might explain why you had such difficulty this year.

EvilAutoTech

I ran it on a new toon, level 12 Nord Sorc. Naked. I got the achievement. I felt like they had made it easier this year.

Hallothiel

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

One thing I do is that after I light a fire, I turn and start running to the next one before the game acknowledges that the fire is lit. If you stand there and wait for the message to come up that you've lit each fire, you won't make it in time.

Tried that and had to go back & light fire properly 😕

I too am having probs with this achievement this year - even on stam ones! 😩 So OP not alone....

Streega

code65536 wrote: »

Streega wrote: »

I don't understand how it's possible to fail it at all. I just did it on lvl 30-ish High Elf sorc with 10k stamina - no food, no potions, just sprinting. My advice is: go and practice your path before you start the quest. If you do it with a buddy, one of you should take the two north braziers, the other one takes the southern braziers. It takes literally max 15 sec, but you need to coordinate.

I've always run 4-3-1-2, never failed it in all the years of running it. Your path is rather inefficient.

In any case, selecting an efficient path is arguably more important than using rapids.

Yes, running 4-3-1-2 or 2-1-3-4 is even more efficient. However I have never failed using my path either, the difference is maybe 1 sec extra. If you are slow, do this: 1. eat stamina food, 2. sprint to the second brazier and then use stamina potion with Expedition. Rapids eat your initial stamina, so maybe that's not the best solution. The important thing is, choose your path and train few times until you remember all the turns and brazier locations.