Tanking - The Bull Survival Challenge - For fun

Grandchamp1989

Hi fellow ESO players

For a while we've been a small group who've challenged each other in what has been known as "the bull" challenge.

It's a friendly challenge not meant to be taken too seriously.

For us surviving 1 minut alone is pretty decent.
None of us have been able to do the full 10 minutes yet so I decided to bring it to the forum for a friendly, not to be taken too serious, challenge.

We all know the Solo challenge for DPS players - Vet Maelstrom

But we don't have any high pressure challenge for tanks, so in good fun we made our own - The Bull challenge.

What is this challenge you may ask?

You can watch the video (please add subtitles as the step by step is written through subtitles).

Video explaining the challenge:
https://youtu.be/-vrdSG_lzw4

What are the rules?

1. Solo Falkreath Hold - Veteran Difficulty

2. You have to aggro:
-first boss
-3 bulls total (Minotaur)
-2 mobs
More is fine, but not less.

3. The time begins once you've aggro'd the boss and all the bulls.

4. You can not use invisibility potion/skills as it will stop the aggro
5. you can not kill any of the boss/mobs as it will lessen the pressure on you
6. You can not reset the boss/mobs or leave the area of the boss

7. Any class/skill/race/potion is allowed as long as it doesn't breakt the above rules

For us surving the onslaught for 1 minute alone is pretty good.
If anyone would survive alone for 10 minutes the challenge is complete - *None of us have managed this thus far.*

For us this have been quite fun trying to keep our ressources and health under control, alone, under high pressure.
Often you got groups with low DPS or no healer so training these scenario's in a short challenge can be fun.
If you can't see a purpose with it, that's perfectly acceptable, and I wish you all the best in the world, it's just meant for fun.

If anyone is crazy enough to do the bull challenge feel free to post your result (even if it's just 10 seconds) and if anyone is able to break the full 10 minutes, please post a video of it as none of us have been able to do it as of yet!

Chapilliams

Been fun trying out this challenge - Only lasted around 1 min, so still a long way to reach the 10 min lol.

We need something for tanks and healers in game to challenge our setup and skills, so this was a very good
initiative for tank players.

Interesting how long people can hold the bulls - hope to see more from people here.

Cheers!

LioraValkyrie

This brings back memories...

I'm going in with Yolna/Alkosh/Chudan on my sorc.

Will report in this afternoon!

Daffen

Doing this challenge in a pvp tank setup is probably easy. My favourite spot for testing my pvp tank builds is vet hel ra citadel. Aggro every single add at the beggining of the trial (adds at end of bridge, other side of stairs all the way to the gate where boss comes out) and stand still while blocking. This stress tests my tank with max resource drain and healing power. My build is good enough when i am able to survive there indefinately. I cant try this challenge yet as i am unable to play untill next week but i think this challenge will be easier.

Grandchamp1989

Hi again Chap! Oh no - you did great! It's different being in a team and then being alone with 3+ one-shot adds on you for prolonged time. You were very brave for doing it! You did improve tho! And that's what it is all about!

Awesome to see more people being brave enough to do it.

I'm very curious to see who will be the first to do the 10 minutes. We tried for awhile now.

Even thought about going selfish sets like Leeching but the adds die to poison before the 10 minutes are up so it's no good lol.

Daffen

If you guys want to complete the challenge just use my pvp tank build.

https://youtu.be/Y4nKaNxWHHI

Just change out heavy armor skill with resistance buff and hist sap with ironblood.

LioraValkyrie

Done it, 12:00 in combat, screenshot of combat metrics to follow. Thanks for a fun challenge

Grandchamp1989

LioraValkyrie wrote: »

Done it, 12:00 in combat, screenshot of combat metrics to follow. Thanks for a fun challenge

Hey, that's awesome man! You got a video of it too?

Screenshots of CM are so limited lolol and I'm curious!

LioraValkyrie

LioraValkyrie

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

LioraValkyrie wrote: »

Done it, 12:00 in combat, screenshot of combat metrics to follow. Thanks for a fun challenge

Hey, that's awesome man! You got a video of it too?

Screenshots of CM are so limited lolol and I'm curious!

I set up OBS to stream as I practiced and forgot to hit 'start stream' ... facepalm. Maybe I'll have a go again later and remember to press the button heh.

Grandchamp1989

LioraValkyrie wrote: »

Hey! You're a legit badass man! I'm so bad with COmbat Metric, where can I see it say it's vet? These menus confused me sometimes lol.

Hey, if you're doing a video soon Keep me posted!

Congratz man!

And yeah I know about forgetting to press play lol my personal best I didn't get to record either lol.

emilyhyoyeon

this sounds 10x harder than vma, in a standrd trial tank setup at least

Grandchamp1989

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

this sounds 10x harder than vma, in a standrd trial tank setup at least

It's not easy lol.

We're numerous tank players who've given this a shot and done all the vet dungeons and we're pulling 1-2-3 minutes lol.

I'm super curious on how Liora did 12 minutes in vet and I know a lot of the other's will be too when I tell them the challenge is public knowledge lol. Hope Liora bless us with a video there's huge learning potential for me atleast.

LioraValkyrie

I did 19 minutes + on my stream, was just going to go until the bulls died but got RNGd by boss knockback + heavy in the same instant. It's the latest video on there.

emilyhyoyeon

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

this sounds 10x harder than vma, in a standrd trial tank setup at least

It's not easy lol.

We're numerous tank players who've given this a shot and done all the vet dungeons and we're pulling 1-2-3 minutes lol.

I'm super curious on how Liora did 12 minutes in vet and I know a lot of the other's will be too when I tell them the challenge is public knowledge lol. Hope Liora bless us with a video there's huge learning potential for me atleast.

being a sorc tank and using the shield ult probably helps a lot from what I can tell from a quick look

Grandchamp1989

LioraValkyrie wrote: »

I did 19 minutes + on my stream, was just going to go until the bulls died but got RNGd by boss knockback + heavy in the same instant. It's the latest video on there.

Dude, you're a BEAST! I love the idea of using the teleport to stay alive!

Unfurtunately at 9:50 one of the mobs died I think your pet killed it

"5. you can not kill any of the boss/mobs as it will lessen the pressure on you"

I honestly believe you did the 12 minutes first try 100% but since the mob died mate and it was against the rule, I can't give you the Bull Crown just yet lol.

CaffeinatedMayhem

Nice! When I was learning to tank vet trials (esp solo off-tanking - no heals) I was told to walk into vAS straight to the final boss and see how long I could last. I never took that challenge, but now having tankied that vAS with a group, I wonder how long I could last...

Olupajmibanan

Going to try Bloodspawn+Tava+Elf Bane with Magma Shell. In that setup you have Shell active for 17 seconds and can regenerate it in less than 25 seconds.

I just fear that the mobs will die from shell AoE before 10th minute mark.

Dragonredux

I probably try this later and report back. Won't cheese it with leeching or something.

LioraValkyrie

tbh I think the adds were dead before 10m the first time, as you can see everything takes residual damage from basic weapon attacks, pet attacks and riposte passive. I ran it by my calculator, and to keep the little ads (136k health) alive for 10 minutes you'd have to do under 225 dps to them for the duration. Everything in melee range is taking 400+ dps just from being blocked, pet swiped and the odd HA into the pack every few seconds. After 19 minutes, even the bulls (750k health) were at about 20% just from me trying to stay alive, using Yolna, Chudan and Alkosh with no synergies. So sorcs are out of the picture, as you would have to remove your health-based heal to achieve such tiny dps. You'd probably also have to reset your CP to remove residual damage from Riposte.

That's all a bit much work for my taste. The fun was surviving the bulls, keeping the small ads alive feels more like an unnecessary technicality that really limits your build and even class choice. Anyone could build like a PvP magsorc and steak-kite everything back and forth for 10 minutes, but that's not a tank stress test just cheese. Maybe not worry so much about technicalities when designing unofficial challenges you haven't completed yourself, since it kind of takes the fun out of it

Grandchamp1989

LioraValkyrie wrote: »

tbh I think the adds were dead before 10m the first time, as you can see everything takes residual damage from basic weapon attacks, pet attacks and riposte passive. I ran it by my calculator, and to keep the little ads (136k health) alive for 10 minutes you'd have to do under 225 dps to them for the duration. Everything in melee range is taking 400+ dps just from being blocked, pet swiped and the odd HA into the pack every few seconds. After 19 minutes, even the bulls (750k health) were at about 20% just from me trying to stay alive, using Yolna, Chudan and Alkosh with no synergies. So sorcs are out of the picture, as you would have to remove your health-based heal to achieve such tiny dps. You'd probably also have to reset your CP to remove residual damage from Riposte.

That's all a bit much work for my taste. The fun was surviving the bulls, keeping the small ads alive feels more like an unnecessary technicality that really limits your build and even class choice. Anyone could build like a PvP magsorc and steak-kite everything back and forth for 10 minutes, but that's not a tank stress test just cheese. Maybe not worry so much about technicalities when designing unofficial challenges you haven't completed yourself, since it kind of takes the fun out of it

lolol not me, the challenge was a group effort.
And the rules were in the opening post, I like what you did but if you decide they don't matter that's a choice, don't blame me for that choice;)

Jaimeh

LioraValkyrie wrote: »

tbh I think the adds were dead before 10m the first time, as you can see everything takes residual damage from basic weapon attacks, pet attacks and riposte passive. I ran it by my calculator, and to keep the little ads (136k health) alive for 10 minutes you'd have to do under 225 dps to them for the duration. Everything in melee range is taking 400+ dps just from being blocked, pet swiped and the odd HA into the pack every few seconds. After 19 minutes, even the bulls (750k health) were at about 20% just from me trying to stay alive, using Yolna, Chudan and Alkosh with no synergies. So sorcs are out of the picture, as you would have to remove your health-based heal to achieve such tiny dps. You'd probably also have to reset your CP to remove residual damage from Riposte.

That's all a bit much work for my taste. The fun was surviving the bulls, keeping the small ads alive feels more like an unnecessary technicality that really limits your build and even class choice. Anyone could build like a PvP magsorc and steak-kite everything back and forth for 10 minutes, but that's not a tank stress test just cheese. Maybe not worry so much about technicalities when designing unofficial challenges you haven't completed yourself, since it kind of takes the fun out of it

I agree with this: I have a sorc tank, so I used streak, (which is not so much a tank test, as a timing and movement test, since the area has a lot of obstacles, and the boss can also reset easily), however, the biggest problem was the little adds dying around 4-5 minutes.

Cryptical

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

LioraValkyrie wrote: »

tbh I think the adds were dead before 10m the first time, as you can see everything takes residual damage from basic weapon attacks, pet attacks and riposte passive. I ran it by my calculator, and to keep the little ads (136k health) alive for 10 minutes you'd have to do under 225 dps to them for the duration. Everything in melee range is taking 400+ dps just from being blocked, pet swiped and the odd HA into the pack every few seconds. After 19 minutes, even the bulls (750k health) were at about 20% just from me trying to stay alive, using Yolna, Chudan and Alkosh with no synergies. So sorcs are out of the picture, as you would have to remove your health-based heal to achieve such tiny dps. You'd probably also have to reset your CP to remove residual damage from Riposte.

That's all a bit much work for my taste. The fun was surviving the bulls, keeping the small ads alive feels more like an unnecessary technicality that really limits your build and even class choice. Anyone could build like a PvP magsorc and steak-kite everything back and forth for 10 minutes, but that's not a tank stress test just cheese. Maybe not worry so much about technicalities when designing unofficial challenges you haven't completed yourself, since it kind of takes the fun out of it

lolol not me, the challenge was a group effort.
And the rules were in the opening post, I like what you did but if you decide they don't matter that's a choice, don't blame me for that choice;)

I believe the issue was that the rule regarding mob death seems to be impossible to follow beyond a certain point because basic token minimal damage drops the squishier mobs earlier than your manufactured duration... a duration that you admit had never even been approached by your group so you had no idea there could be an unexpected counterintuitive issue.

You and your group hadn’t made it past a minute. How could you predict that the token minimum damage would, over time, be more than enough to drop the weak mobs.

I would use a metaphor with a manual transmission car in first gear being expected to go slower, but it seems nobody has a clue what those are anymore so...

Before you pass judgement on people for the pets killing the weakest mobs maybe make it ten minutes yourself and experience that issue yourself firsthand.

Moonsorrow

Edit: Did try the challenge, all smooth until mobs starts to die too early even if took out minor procs and so on. Cannot bother to take out CP passives.

So best way to do that challenge is to Roll Dodge around doing nothing on a hp recovery build on a class without any form of passive damage from heals/buffs/utility.. meh.

Elwendryll

For sorcs, just set your pet on passive so it doesn't do damage?

BlueMoonRising

I've tried this with Bahraha's+Leeching and while it's pretty easy to survive, little adds die way too soon. I don't think this is a great test of tanking because you basically have to be doing 0 damage for 10 mins to pass the requirements. It's also very easy to kite the adds and take no damage.

Elwendryll

A tank doing damage is always a nice little bonus It's not unusual for me to do 5-10k dps, it ends up being several millions total damage on a trial boss fight.

Grandchamp1989

Cryptical wrote: »

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

LioraValkyrie wrote: »

tbh I think the adds were dead before 10m the first time, as you can see everything takes residual damage from basic weapon attacks, pet attacks and riposte passive. I ran it by my calculator, and to keep the little ads (136k health) alive for 10 minutes you'd have to do under 225 dps to them for the duration. Everything in melee range is taking 400+ dps just from being blocked, pet swiped and the odd HA into the pack every few seconds. After 19 minutes, even the bulls (750k health) were at about 20% just from me trying to stay alive, using Yolna, Chudan and Alkosh with no synergies. So sorcs are out of the picture, as you would have to remove your health-based heal to achieve such tiny dps. You'd probably also have to reset your CP to remove residual damage from Riposte.

That's all a bit much work for my taste. The fun was surviving the bulls, keeping the small ads alive feels more like an unnecessary technicality that really limits your build and even class choice. Anyone could build like a PvP magsorc and steak-kite everything back and forth for 10 minutes, but that's not a tank stress test just cheese. Maybe not worry so much about technicalities when designing unofficial challenges you haven't completed yourself, since it kind of takes the fun out of it

lolol not me, the challenge was a group effort.
And the rules were in the opening post, I like what you did but if you decide they don't matter that's a choice, don't blame me for that choice;)

I believe the issue was that the rule regarding mob death seems to be impossible to follow beyond a certain point because basic token minimal damage drops the squishier mobs earlier than your manufactured duration... a duration that you admit had never even been approached by your group so you had no idea there could be an unexpected counterintuitive issue.

You and your group hadn’t made it past a minute. How could you predict that the token minimum damage would, over time, be more than enough to drop the weak mobs.

I would use a metaphor with a manual transmission car in first gear being expected to go slower, but it seems nobody has a clue what those are anymore so...

Before you pass judgement on people for the pets killing the weakest mobs maybe make it ten minutes yourself and experience that issue yourself firsthand.

lolol I'm not sure where you get under one minute from, in the video test I showed 3 minutes, which I later said was not my best, as I didn't get to record my best either.

In regards to his performance I gave him many praises, but it was not done by the rules the rest of us followed.

Everyone of us was doing the challenge based on the rules given. This means we couldn't use certain gear / setups that gave increased survival, but also applied damage. This is fully intended to discourage sets such as "Leeching", "DPS heavy set up" and yes even pets that would kill off the mobs. If mobs got killed during the test it would lessen the pressure which wouldn't be fair towards people who did the fill test with every mob attacking them. And since we didnt want the survival test to be a dps race it was a natural choice to say none of the mobs could die during the challenge.
We all did the challenge under these circumstances and followed the rules, trying to time our heavy attacks on bulls/boss and not use DPS centric spells and armor- And that does make the challenge harder - I agree.

I can easily take my DPS in there and murder the mobs in 10-20 seconds and kite the boss around for 10 minutes, that was not the challenge.

We spend weeks in the test and someone saw and wated to do it in an afternoon.
I gave him props, but it was not within the rules given. He did what he stated was a stress test, but it was different from our survival challenge, because the mobs died. It was not the same challenge.

If you can do 7 minutes in this challenge before you die or a mob die that's awesome, but maybe someone else with a different setup can pull 7 minutes and 10 second before the same happen and then they're ahead. That's the challenge too. It's a hard challenge and I too was surprised when someone stated they did 10 minutes in an afternoon, even though he did amazing.

I can easily put on Azurablight and Leeching and kill off mobs and only worry about the odd enemy heavy attack here and there - that was not the challenge.

A huge part of the challenge was not to kill the mobs, and it was stated from the very beginning so it can come as no surprise.
The challenge was to see if anyone could do it under those rules. And if no one could, then to see how long people would last - as I said even if it's only 10 seconds.

If people don't want to abide by the rules that's perfectly fine, but they were stated and made clear. If people think they're stupid I don't really care lol. Don't do the challenge if you don't like the rules. Make your own group and challenge each other like we did. This is our challenge and I made it public, if people wanted to give it a go. Or don't, either way everything is fine:)

Charon_on_Vacation

Olupajmibanan wrote: »

Going to try Bloodspawn+Tava+Elf Bane with Magma Shell. In that setup you have Shell active for 17 seconds and can regenerate it in less than 25 seconds.

I just fear that the mobs will die from shell AoE before 10th minute mark.

i know elf bane has/had? the issue with several abilities that it would increase the dot timer, but not the secondary effect, in this case the damage reduction.
does elf bane indeed increase the damage reduction part too?

abzdeman

I'm going to try this!!! I'll use leeching and dragon with bloodspawn and try ult regen build

Alienoutlaw

will be giving this a try later will post results