ESO BEST *BASE* DUNGEON COMPETITION: HEMIDEMISEMIFINALS ROUND 3 - VOTE'S CLOSED

Saucy_Jack

In round 3 it's dank against dark as FUNGAL GROTTO goes up against the VAULTS OF MADNESS! The Dreugh, the Spider Cult, or the Mad Architect - who's really got the chops to make it to the next round? YOU DECIDE!

A list of the overall action for BOTH the base and DLC competitions can be found HERE, so people can get a quick glance at the overall action.

All fights will go for TWO DAYS and end at 8PM CST (or your timezone equivalent; figure it out) so this one will end on Friday, March 20th.

FIIIIIIIIGHT!!!

Hapexamendios

Vaults of Madness

Vaults for me. Fungal I is your basic blasé starter dungeon. Fungal II is better. The mechanics are a pain if you don't know them.
Vaults is the best of the three. Has the best story even if you have to wait them to shut up doing the quest. Jumping of the platforms is fun too. See how close you can get to the edge without suiciding.

Flaminir

Vaults of Madness

THAT drop/jump.....

xXMeowMeowXx

Vaults of Madness

Flaminir wrote: »

THAT drop/jump.....

This ^ Still fun after all this time.

zvavi

Vaults of Madness

3 reasons
1. the jump
2. The animations of last boss.
3. Seeing dds die to first boss

ddgsodium

Vaults of Madness

zvavi wrote: »

3 reasons
1. the jump
2. The animations of last boss.
3. Seeing dds die to first boss

See tank die to first boss

x48rph

Vaults of Madness

ddgsodium wrote: »

zvavi wrote: »

3 reasons
1. the jump
2. The animations of last boss.
3. Seeing dds die to first boss

See tank die to first boss

All of this! So many no deaths runs ruined at the beginning, lol.

Love this dungeon. The jumps are really cool and so are the visuals through pretty much the entire thing.

Aznarb

Vaults of Madness

ddgsodium wrote: »

zvavi wrote: »

3 reasons
1. the jump
2. The animations of last boss.
3. Seeing dds die to first boss

See tank die to first boss

See healer failing at keeping his mate alive*
If the healer is good, you don't have to worry about this mechanic.

Agree with other post, this is the only base donjon I still enjoy.
Story, design, animation, jump, etc.. Well made for learn different mechanic w/o get insta-punished.

bmnoble

Vaults of Madness

Someone always fall's to their death.

Its got a good design that makes you fight all the bosses along the way, I hate dungeons that let you skip the bosses either due to short cuts or just putting them in spots off the beaten track towards the end of the dungeon.

zvavi

Vaults of Madness

Aznarb wrote: »

ddgsodium wrote: »

zvavi wrote: »

3 reasons
1. the jump
2. The animations of last boss.
3. Seeing dds die to first boss

See tank die to first boss

See healer failing at keeping his mate alive*
If the healer is good, you don't have to worry about this mechanic.

Agree with other post, this is the only base donjon I still enjoy.
Story, design, animation, jump, etc.. Well made for learn different mechanic w/o get insta-punished.

With two 50k dps dds that dont stop dealing dmg for the mechanic, it is pretty much a one shot if he is targeting non tank... I mean, idk where you find the healer that can outheal one shots, but whatever.

Raisin

Fungal Grotto II

zvavi wrote: »

Aznarb wrote: »

ddgsodium wrote: »

zvavi wrote: »

3 reasons
1. the jump
2. The animations of last boss.
3. Seeing dds die to first boss

See tank die to first boss

See healer failing at keeping his mate alive*
If the healer is good, you don't have to worry about this mechanic.

Agree with other post, this is the only base donjon I still enjoy.
Story, design, animation, jump, etc.. Well made for learn different mechanic w/o get insta-punished.

With two 50k dps dds that dont stop dealing dmg for the mechanic, it is pretty much a one shot if he is targeting non tank... I mean, idk where you find the healer that can outheal one shots, but whatever.

Yeah, this has much less to do with the healing and more with the amount of damage coming in.

FierceSam

Vaults of Madness

zvavi wrote: »

Aznarb wrote: »

ddgsodium wrote: »

zvavi wrote: »

3 reasons
1. the jump
2. The animations of last boss.
3. Seeing dds die to first boss

See tank die to first boss

See healer failing at keeping his mate alive*
If the healer is good, you don't have to worry about this mechanic.

Agree with other post, this is the only base donjon I still enjoy.
Story, design, animation, jump, etc.. Well made for learn different mechanic w/o get insta-punished.

With two 50k dps dds that dont stop dealing dmg for the mechanic, it is pretty much a one shot if he is targeting non tank... I mean, idk where you find the healer that can outheal one shots, but whatever.

You basically need to stop all damage during that phase, then use as few DoTs as possible the rest of the time. It should be plain sailing.

The annoying thing is there is always some yahoo who is too dumb or ignorant to understand this boss and there goes your no death run.

Obviously, if I make it through that with no one dying I am the idiot who bellyflops off the second drop and plummets to my death... and there goes everyone else’s no death run.

Great dungeon. Fun Bosses, the potential for massive ego boosting dps numbers when banekin slaying, a couple of good sets and a useful, if butt-ugly monster hat. What’s not to like?

zvavi

Vaults of Madness

FierceSam wrote: »

You basically need to stop all damage during that phase, then use as few DoTs as possible the rest of the time. It should be plain sailing.

Obviously, i was answering a guy that said it depends only in healer and that if healer is good no one dies :shrug: (or alternatively run 3 dds and then 180k total dps with ready ults you can uber nuke him)

Nairinhe

Vaults of Madness

My fav dungeon to solo during Witches Festival

Raisin

Fungal Grotto II

Yo... people really love VoM. xD It was one of my early favorites too. I think the jumping blew everybody's mind, and is still super fricking fun. The in-or-out mechanic was one of my favorites in the beginning too, and the shattering glass effect is absolutely gorgeous. VoM is the source of much jumping and messing around I've done, there's some nice ways to do the trash pulls, and it was the first vet dungeon I ever soloed. ...Probably because it's arguably a very easy dungeon for being in Coldharbor, and unlocking fairly late. Which is why it's gone very stale for me.
FG2 has a nice set of mechanics going on. Sure they're not particularly difficult and a lot of us have probably outgrown them, but at least they were there. And I personally still enjoy dealing with them. When I was a noob and just starting out with healing, I really liked the magicka-drain boss. I realize now that there's little challenge there, especially with how high PVE healing is, but back then I really felt like I had to think about it and prepare my heals. Would be cool if it had a stronger impact. The lady with the shades also has some fun stuff going on that still trips up some PUGs -- they clearly liked the tether enough to re-use it in Frostvault! Spawn of Mephala concept is cool in theory, probably could use some tweaking. Too often a tank gets stuck in there that can't damage their way out, and for the DDs that go in it's usually too easy to matter. Of course, ideally you don't go in at all, but that's just because people get used to avoiding mechanics if they can. The base is nice, but it could be made more interesting for sure. The final boss I also find fun, for no particular reason. It may stem back to the fact that when I was a healer noob, anything that required me to actually heal people was super exciting. I really appreciate how the HMs were set up for the II dungeons.

Cirantille

Vaults of Madness

Well of course

almightyalfo

Vaults of Madness

Easy choice.

daemonios

Vaults of Madness

Hardly a competition. Vaults is one of, if not the best base game dungeons. It could use a little refresher in terms of difficulty, as there isn't much of it these days, but the map is excellent and makes you wonder what else might be in store for VoM2 that never was.

daemonios

Vaults of Madness

Raisin wrote: »

Spawn of Mephala concept is cool in theory, probably could use some tweaking. Too often a tank gets stuck in there that can't damage their way out, and for the DDs that go in it's usually too easy to matter.

Only the person closest to the portal ever gets pulled in, so unless your team are deliberately sabotaging you and staying further away than the tank, tanking the boss away from the portal should ensure the tank is never sucked into the portal.

Raisin

Fungal Grotto II

daemonios wrote: »

Raisin wrote: »

Spawn of Mephala concept is cool in theory, probably could use some tweaking. Too often a tank gets stuck in there that can't damage their way out, and for the DDs that go in it's usually too easy to matter.

Only the person closest to the portal ever gets pulled in, so unless your team are deliberately sabotaging you and staying further away than the tank, tanking the boss away from the portal should ensure the tank is never sucked into the portal.

And if you pull the boss further away from the cave, no one gets pulled in at all. Doesn't mean PUGs know either of these things, listen, or are 'sabotaging' because they don't understand the mechanic. Literally 90% of PUG tanks get sucked into that cave.

Reverb

Vaults of Madness

The aesthetics, the fights, the story, the copious looting, the long fall with great scenery. VoM is still one of the best. It’s easy enough for players of almost any skill level to complete on Vet, and the mechanics are just hard enough to force them to pay attention and learn.

Wrecking_Blow_Spam

Vaults of Madness

No contest, next!

Claire

Vaults of Madness

No contest. VoM is near the top of my faves.

hasi

Vaults of Madness

I love the slow motion glass animation at the endboss so much.

Varana

Vaults of Madness

This is not even a competition.

There are some spots in FG that look nice (esp. from the entry to the shrine for part II back over the boss area) but overall, it's no match for VoM's visuals. That final boss room alone with its cathedral-like window front would carry the prize. And then they explode!

Also, THE DROP.

As for mechanics, they're all obliterated by power creep these days - in FG even more so. At least people regularly die in VoM, mostly to the Ghost but also because they can't decide whether to be in or out on the Architect. (With an additional element of surprise: sometimes the game decides that for you and kills you even though you were clearly out of that! )
The Harvester's and Grothdarr's mechanics barely register with groups these days, and I'm not sure whether the Daedroth and Death's Head even count as bosses. Iskra has a nice entrance that is overshadowed by the much cooler versions in CoA2 ("This is the end of the line!") and Domihaus. Like with old games, you can understand on an intellectual level how that fight must've been awesome when it came out, with the spectacular lighting in the arena, but today it mostly falls flat.

FG1 is nothing to speak of. It's an introductory dungeon in every sense - length, difficulty, mechanics.

FG2 has somewhat unique boss mechanics on every one of them (except the first Spider) - the shadows and tether, the increasing resistances on the boss that everyone always skips, the teleport to the spider cave, the magicka drain, and the AoEs with the bubble. Unfortunately, they have lost most of their impact these days.

Still, VoM wins by quite a margin.

Reverb

Vaults of Madness

Varana wrote: »

This is not even a competition.

There are some spots in FG that look nice (esp. from the entry to the shrine for part II back over the boss area) but overall, it's no match for VoM's visuals. That final boss room alone with its cathedral-like window front would carry the prize. And then they explode!

Also, THE DROP.

As for mechanics, they're all obliterated by power creep these days - in FG even more so. At least people regularly die in VoM, mostly to the Ghost but also because they can't decide whether to be in or out on the Architect. (With an additional element of surprise: sometimes the game decides that for you and kills you even though you were clearly out of that! )
The Harvester's and Grothdarr's mechanics barely register with groups these days, and I'm not sure whether the Daedroth and Death's Head even count as bosses. Iskra has a nice entrance that is overshadowed by the much cooler versions in CoA2 ("This is the end of the line!") and Domihaus. Like with old games, you can understand on an intellectual level how that fight must've been awesome when it came out, with the spectacular lighting in the arena, but today it mostly falls flat.

FG1 is nothing to speak of. It's an introductory dungeon in every sense - length, difficulty, mechanics.

FG2 has somewhat unique boss mechanics on every one of them (except the first Spider) - the shadows and tether, the increasing resistances on the boss that everyone always skips, the teleport to the spider cave, the magicka drain, and the AoEs with the bubble. Unfortunately, they have lost most of their impact these days.

Still, VoM wins by quite a margin.

I agree with this entire post. Spot on assessment. VoM was so amazing when it came out. It’s still great when stacked up against the base dungeons and has a real shot at winning this, but has really lost its luster due to power creep and the heightened design of the new instances.

Dagoth_Rac

Vaults of Madness

In VoM, ZOS need to add Unhallowed-Grave-style grappling posts to the floating platforms you pass on the way down the big fall. You could still do the full jump, but would also have option to zig-zag down via grappling. Maybe place some heavy sacks on the floating platforms as an enticement.

daemonios

Vaults of Madness

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

In VoM, ZOS need to add Unhallowed-Grave-style grappling posts to the floating platforms you pass on the way down the big fall. You could still do the full jump, but would also have option to zig-zag down via grappling. Maybe place some heavy sacks on the floating platforms as an enticement.

Working off that idea, VoM2 could have you climb up from the last room of the current VoM using the grappling hook, through a crumbling version of the dungeon.

Vulsahdaal

Vaults of Madness

To me, no competition here at all. Fungal is okay (especially for a quick run) but the Vaults of Madness has it all. Great environment, the jumping, the mechanics, the bosses...etc...

But the one thing that really stood out in my mind about this particular dungeon is that it was the only one in which I paid attention to the story and as a result of this, all during that run I found that I was questioning myself more than a few times if I was fighting for the right side.

Cant say any other dungeon made me feel this way.

Puzzlenuts

Vaults of Madness

Always enjoy the big drops

Saucy_Jack

About three hours left to vote!