ESO BEST *DLC* DUNGEON COMPETITION: HEMIDEMISEMIFINALS ROUND 6 - VOTE'S CLOSED

Saucy_Jack

It's a daedric prince versus a dragon as MARCH OF SACRIFICES battles the LAIR OF MAARSELOK! Will Hircine have a successful hunt? Or will the azureblight overtake the Hunting Grounds? 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 Thursday, March 26th.

FIIIIIIIIGHT!!!

zvavi

March of Sacrifices

Tbh i like Lair of Maarselok. Both it, and especially Moongrave Fane actually feels like a healer is needed. But nothing beats participating in hircine's hunt.

Reverb

March of Sacrifices

Gorgeous setting, interesting fights that punish poor teamwork great story and connection to lore. I also think the scaling fro, normal, to vet, to HM is spot on. It’s everything I want in a dungeon.

emilyhyoyeon

March of Sacrifices

LOM is the only DLC dungeon that actually puts me to sleep. visual and thematic design is nice, but so are they for many, many other DLCs. bosses are just not challenging enough

MOS visually gives me a headache and the first two bosses are eh, but the others are challenging enough. Balorgh is one of the coolest bosses thematically imo, and hardmode is super fun. thematic design of the dungeon is cool overall

code65536

Lair of Maarselok

LoM is long, and it has a couple of fights that seem poorly-designed (Cancroid and Maarselok Perched).

But it makes up for it with by far the best HM of any DLC dungeon.

MoS has one of the most annoying fights (the Indrik boss in MoS and the maze boss in MHK are the most dreadfully boring and artificially drawn-out fights in any DLC dungeon), and I'm still salty at how poorly-tuned the MoS HM was originally.

So it's an easy win for LoM here. No contest.

DraconicFalcon

March of Sacrifices

March of Sacrifices wins this one. And it is mostly because of how horrible Lair of Maarselok is.

While Lair of Maarselok has some of the best visuals, it suffers from horrible pacing, very high DPS checks (Moongrave Fane is also guilty of this by throwing out a large chunk of adds at once during boss fights though it will not be noticable by high dps groups), and poorly designed mechanics. Like... what is up with that very long stretch after the perch fight? While it does not seem to be any longer than something like Fang Lair or Depths of Malatar, it certainly feels like its much longer and a slog. The canceroid and the perch fight is what I am thinking about, and it is just stupid that those two fights provide more frustration and challenge than the final boss on non HM. I will give credit where credit is due, vLOM HM is one of the best and fun Hard Modes I have ever done in any vet DLC dungeons. However, it does not make up the fact that the rest of the dungeon is still horrible and unenjoyable.

My reaction to March of Sacrifices is just generally "this is alright". Some interesting fights and pretty good visuals, the HM is not as good as LOM, but at least the rest of the dungeon isn't aggravating to go through.

Cirantille

March of Sacrifices

It is just beautiful

FierceSam

Lair of Maarselok

Loved LoM when it came out. It looks fantastic and is kind of refreshing, but it becomes tiring really, really fast and unlike many dungeons, it feels like it gets longer the more often you play it. There seems to be no coherence about the mechanics here and they build on the ‘invisible’ AoE tropes introduced in MoS, which really should not be encouraged.

MoS is very pretty, but lots of the mechanics are poorly indicated (eg the take lurchers to different coloured ‘invisible’ AoEs to debuff them). There’s still a cheese that hasn’t been addressed at all. Not at all fond of the ‘can’t see the trap because of the fog’ mechanic either.

I do like mini Hircine and the extra Indrik Hunt though.

Raisin

March of Sacrifices

I do enjoy LoM. As many have said the HM is truly great, and I appreciate the ideas of the mechanics in the boss fights. I think they fell flat a lot, as the dungeon can easily feel tedious, but they're definitely mechanics I'd rather see fixed than done away with. The cleanse mechanic continuously accompanying the trash at the end is cool too.
However, MoS is absolutely bomb. The overall dungeon design is superb -- it's beautifully designed, the map feels open and huge, yet filled with flora. The adds are hiding nicely and don't feel like "we put a chunk of enemies here" encounters because of that. Many creatures seem to be there because they're just there. It feels fairly naturally populated by dungeon standards. The quest is nice and exciting. The optional indrik hunt was a great idea and can prove to be a lot of fun.
The Tacyr fight unfortunately is no fun with high DPS and after the first time... But it is really cool the first time so I still gotta give them props. The last boss is also very enjoyable; there's a nice amount of movement out of the hunt phases, and I do enjoy the hunt phases and the HM a lot as well. Lots of cool themes going on overall, memorable characters as bosses, opportunities for exploration (checking out the three huntresses houses!)... It is a pretty good dungeon.
The one downside is that this dungeon is an absolute pain to run as a werewolf (some boss phases force you out of ww form), which is a damn shame.

Edit: Also completely forgot to acknowledge the fact that the Selene lore in LoM was A+++

Ratzkifal

Lair of Maarselok

MoS is great and I mean really great. But LoM continues a story that we all wanted to see a continuation of.
I also don't like how we were pretty much unable to save Hanu's life for no reason at all. We have a healer in our party for crying out loud!

TigressCreed

March of Sacrifices

Lair of Maar is aesthetically beautiful but the most drawn out dungeon with so many bugs on console that trying to finish it on vet is a Russian roulette.

The_Drop_Bear

Lair of Maarselok

Everything in the March was so bright and flash it was sometimes hard to see what was happening

almightyalfo

March of Sacrifices

MoS is one of the best dungeons in game while LoM is straight up trash.

karekiz

March of Sacrifices

LoM HM would have easily won if....you know. 90% of the other encounters were at all fun.

So as a whole March wins out. It may not have the better HM, but it doesn't feel like a slog to play through, even the worst fight I will take over the others in Lair.

Saucy_Jack

And March of Sacrifices adds another sacrifice to the March!