Plucking the Crow

six2fall

I helped 6 different people fo this today & it was very unrewarding since only get the 3 coffers if have the quest

Sarannah

I'm a solo PvE player(sorc), and managed to solo the boss on my third try. Took me a bit to figure out the mechanics, like killing the tombstones. And the adds kept killing my companion and pets, with no time to revive any of them.

This fight would have been much better without the massive amounts of adds.

azjuwelz

Agreed it would have been nice if the boss dropped at least something. I saw the zone posts but had no clue what they were talking about, went in solo, luckily on my main. Took 3 tries because the first time the adds and cc'ing took me by surprise and the second time I dc'd with the server issues. I'd help others if there was some kind of reward, but this was not well presented /communicated to players.

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Wow, was that a stupid quest. I get it, its basically a plunder skull multiplier. Every time you get 7-8, you get 3 more, but wow was that underwhelming. Easily solo'ed on my light armor DK. Not worth the effort. Will not do again.

Still, it's better than those 5 second bosses...right Oreyn?
I'm mixed. Part of me likes that some are having difficulties with the event boss whilst the other half of me realises they won't be over ecstatic when they get the 3 skulls.

Maybe an extra XP boost from that boss would have been interesting, like 10% more...I don't know..something to get people to trial and error the boss a bit more

I killed it on my healer main (just slotted jabs and an execute).

zharkovian

I welcome new content, however, shame that the reward is mediocre. It would have been nice to be able to loot the boss and plunder skulls only reward for a pretty tough world boss type target?

jaws343

Serenez wrote: »

A few questions as there seems to be some confusion at least on my end.

1. Can this quest be shared in a group? For instance if one player has collected all 50 cursed feathers can this be a grouped event? If it can be shared, can the 50 be earned collectively in a group?

2. I did not read carefully enough or I completely missed the part where you needed to pick up the quest Plucking the Crow before starting to grind for your Plunder Skulls. I did my plunder skulls already and missed the feathers so I need to redo everything all over again, now that I have this quest. Is this indicated anywhere for players as a reminder to pick this up before starting their daily grind? There is a reminder for new players to pick up the starter quest for the Witchmother's Whistle.

3. For players who have already done this, is the consensus that the effort is not worth the reward? Or too difficult to accomplish for solo players?

Saw this and thought I'd speak to 3 as a ton of people seem to be trying to steer players away from this.

The boss as a fairly decent amount of health, but can be soloed in around 3-4 minutes. It's like 15K dps at most. As long as you have a self heal, like crit surge, or even pale order, nothing does even remotely enough damage to really be a problem unless you are just standing in red and doing nothing defensively. And the adds really help with resources and healing if you are running Pale Order and VO/FG.

And for rewards, it's 3 plunder skulls. The normal purple Plunder skulls are on a cooldown of around 3 minutes. So in order to get 3 of these, it would take you around 9 minutes and killing 3 bosses. So a 3-4 minute fight for 3 skulls is well worth the effort if farming plunder skulls is your goal.

spartaxoxo

jaws343 wrote: »

Serenez wrote: »

A few questions as there seems to be some confusion at least on my end.

1. Can this quest be shared in a group? For instance if one player has collected all 50 cursed feathers can this be a grouped event? If it can be shared, can the 50 be earned collectively in a group?

2. I did not read carefully enough or I completely missed the part where you needed to pick up the quest Plucking the Crow before starting to grind for your Plunder Skulls. I did my plunder skulls already and missed the feathers so I need to redo everything all over again, now that I have this quest. Is this indicated anywhere for players as a reminder to pick this up before starting their daily grind? There is a reminder for new players to pick up the starter quest for the Witchmother's Whistle.

3. For players who have already done this, is the consensus that the effort is not worth the reward? Or too difficult to accomplish for solo players?

Saw this and thought I'd speak to 3 as a ton of people seem to be trying to steer players away from this.

The boss as a fairly decent amount of health, but can be soloed in around 3-4 minutes. It's like 15K dps at most. As long as you have a self heal, like crit surge, or even pale order, nothing does even remotely enough damage to really be a problem unless you are just standing in red and doing nothing defensively. And the adds really help with resources and healing if you are running Pale Order and VO/FG.

And for rewards, it's 3 plunder skulls. The normal purple Plunder skulls are on a cooldown of around 3 minutes. So in order to get 3 of these, it would take you around 9 minutes and killing 3 bosses. So a 3-4 minute fight for 3 skulls is well worth the effort if farming plunder skulls is your goal.

This has also been my experience. It's really not that difficult of a boss. The modest increase is worth it. I was expecting more of a challenge but it's really not bad. It's about on par with normal dlc boss, but it's unavoidable damage is lows enough you don't need a healer and none of the mechanics require a 2nd person's help.

If you can't just do it alone with someone healing you, a properly equipped Companion is more than adequate.

SilverBride

spartaxoxo wrote: »

This has also been my experience. It's really not that difficult of a boss. The modest increase is worth it. I was expecting more of a challenge but it's really not bad. It's about on par with normal dlc boss, but it's unavoidable damage is lows enough you don't need a healer and none of the mechanics require a 2nd person's help.

If you can't just do it alone with someone healing you, a properly equipped Companion is more than adequate.

This is far from true for everyone. I've done it 3 times so far on 3 different characters, and each one died once during the encounter, even in large groups. We aren't all vet geared and vet trial experienced. This boss is hard for many of us.

jaws343

SilverBride wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

This has also been my experience. It's really not that difficult of a boss. The modest increase is worth it. I was expecting more of a challenge but it's really not bad. It's about on par with normal dlc boss, but it's unavoidable damage is lows enough you don't need a healer and none of the mechanics require a 2nd person's help.

If you can't just do it alone with someone healing you, a properly equipped Companion is more than adequate.

This is far from true for everyone. I've done it 3 times so far on 3 different characters, and each one died once during the encounter, even in large groups. We aren't all vet geared and vet trial experienced. This boss is hard for many of us.

You don't need to be vet geared at all for it though. Even when excluding FG or VO which are trial earned sets, you can easily replace those with briarheart for stam, or even something defensive like pariah or fortified brass, or even plague doctor. There isn't an actual dps check, it just helps to have more to clear it faster. But needing to be vet ready is hardly a requirement. I'm sure it can be cleared in random dropped gear with the right skills and the right positioning.

SilverBride

jaws343 wrote: »

You don't need to be vet geared at all for it though. Even when excluding FG or VO which are trial earned sets, you can easily replace those with briarheart for stam, or even something defensive like pariah or fortified brass, or even plague doctor. There isn't an actual dps check, it just helps to have more to clear it faster. But needing to be vet ready is hardly a requirement. I'm sure it can be cleared in random dropped gear with the right skills and the right positioning.

Not by everyone.

Vevvev

SilverBride wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

You don't need to be vet geared at all for it though. Even when excluding FG or VO which are trial earned sets, you can easily replace those with briarheart for stam, or even something defensive like pariah or fortified brass, or even plague doctor. There isn't an actual dps check, it just helps to have more to clear it faster. But needing to be vet ready is hardly a requirement. I'm sure it can be cleared in random dropped gear with the right skills and the right positioning.

Not by everyone.

And that's why you can invite people to help you in the instance. Win win if you ask me, although if asked I'd rather teach them how to solo standard world bosses ((which is the difficulty it's at)) than do the fight for them.

SilverBride

Vevvev wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

You don't need to be vet geared at all for it though. Even when excluding FG or VO which are trial earned sets, you can easily replace those with briarheart for stam, or even something defensive like pariah or fortified brass, or even plague doctor. There isn't an actual dps check, it just helps to have more to clear it faster. But needing to be vet ready is hardly a requirement. I'm sure it can be cleared in random dropped gear with the right skills and the right positioning.

Not by everyone.

And that's why you can invite people to help you in the instance. Win win if you ask me, although if asked I'd rather teach them how to solo standard world bosses ((which is the difficulty it's at)) than do the fight for them.

There is no reason that an event boss should be done solo rather than in a group. Joining a group for this boss does not mean the player expects anyone else to do the fight for them. Grouping is a valid option for those of us who choose to.

spartaxoxo

SilverBride wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

This has also been my experience. It's really not that difficult of a boss. The modest increase is worth it. I was expecting more of a challenge but it's really not bad. It's about on par with normal dlc boss, but it's unavoidable damage is lows enough you don't need a healer and none of the mechanics require a 2nd person's help.

If you can't just do it alone with someone healing you, a properly equipped Companion is more than adequate.

This is far from true for everyone. I've done it 3 times so far on 3 different characters, and each one died once during the encounter, even in large groups. We aren't all vet geared and vet trial experienced. This boss is hard for many of us.

The character I am doing it is on is wearing Medusa and Mother's Sorrow, neither of which are sourced from hard content. It's not my main character that's done hard content. I am not doing any rotations or anything complicated either. It's just not that hard of a fight for me. It doesn't mean it's easy for everyone, but I found it easy.

LadySinflower

We do have to collect 50 cursed feathers to craft the effigy for the quest, but it's not a problem to do that. There are a lot of feathers in each plunder skull. It took 8 skulls to get the 50 feathers yesterday for my quest. A combination of purple and gold.

Once you get the effigy crafted from the feathers you go to an altar and open a portal. You go through the portal to fight the wraith of crows. This fight is instanced and the boss has 2.5 million HP. If you don't think you can beat him solo, get a group together before going through the portal.

I almost got him with just Bastian (as my tank) last night, but I was really tired and had a headache. I'm going to try again solo before I get with a group. Good luck to all of you with this boss!

SilverBride

spartaxoxo wrote: »

The character I am doing it is on is wearing Medusa and Mother's Sorrow, neither of which are sourced from hard content. It's not my main character that's done hard content. I am not doing any rotations or anything complicated either. It's just not that hard of a fight for me. It doesn't mean it's easy for everyone, but I found it easy.

And many of us don't, so we choose to group.

spartaxoxo

SilverBride wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

The character I am doing it is on is wearing Medusa and Mother's Sorrow, neither of which are sourced from hard content. It's not my main character that's done hard content. I am not doing any rotations or anything complicated either. It's just not that hard of a fight for me. It doesn't mean it's easy for everyone, but I found it easy.

And many of us don't, so we choose to group.

I never said it was a problem to group, so I am not sure why you're responding as if I did. I am saying contrary to the people who found it really difficult, I personally found it easy to solo. I actually think the hassle of grouping wouldn't be worth the time I saved.

I offered my experience of it being really easy for me (and that I am not some elite player) so that people who haven't done it reading these posts may decide not to skip it because they get the impression it's too hard for too little reward.

There are many players that may get the impression it's elite content and you have to be in the top 1% to find it easy if they go by the forum posts. That's totally untrue. I am not in the top 1% and I also found it easy.

I found it easy on a character who is not even as good as my character that has completed hard content.

colossalvoids

SilverBride wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

The character I am doing it is on is wearing Medusa and Mother's Sorrow, neither of which are sourced from hard content. It's not my main character that's done hard content. I am not doing any rotations or anything complicated either. It's just not that hard of a fight for me. It doesn't mean it's easy for everyone, but I found it easy.

And many of us don't, so we choose to group.

And that's great there's a choice involved. Everyone can fine tune the encounter to their liking.

I personally wouldn't participate in it if it was again forced grouping like Oblivion portals and such.

spartaxoxo

colossalvoids wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

The character I am doing it is on is wearing Medusa and Mother's Sorrow, neither of which are sourced from hard content. It's not my main character that's done hard content. I am not doing any rotations or anything complicated either. It's just not that hard of a fight for me. It doesn't mean it's easy for everyone, but I found it easy.

And many of us don't, so we choose to group.

And that's great there's a choice involved. Everyone can fine tune the encounter to their liking.

I personally wouldn't participate in it if it was again forced grouping like Oblivion portals and such.

I probably would just for the skulls as the boss would melt within seconds and thus be the best skull to effort boss, but I wouldn't like it as much. For me personally it's more fun to try to solo a world boss than be with the masses doing a world event. It's because it's more of a challenge.

I liked this level of challenge because it was enough to add some flavor to the quest, but not so much that it's a chore that feels like it's holding me back from farming skulls well.

colossalvoids

spartaxoxo wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

The character I am doing it is on is wearing Medusa and Mother's Sorrow, neither of which are sourced from hard content. It's not my main character that's done hard content. I am not doing any rotations or anything complicated either. It's just not that hard of a fight for me. It doesn't mean it's easy for everyone, but I found it easy.

And many of us don't, so we choose to group.

And that's great there's a choice involved. Everyone can fine tune the encounter to their liking.

I personally wouldn't participate in it if it was again forced grouping like Oblivion portals and such.

I probably would just for the skulls as the boss would melt within seconds and thus be the best skull to effort boss, but I wouldn't like it as much. For me personally it's more fun to try to solo a world boss than be with the masses doing a world event. It's because it's more of a challenge.

I liked this level of challenge because it was enough to add some flavor to the quest, but not so much that it's a chore that feels like it's holding me back from farming skulls well.

If I would farm the skulls - totally, yeah. 3 skulls for an easy but still not braindead encounter is nice personally. It's kinda slight maelstrom vibe I'm getting and that's to my liking personally.

Would agree with you here, it's pretty well tuned to also be a challenge for some and there's nothing bad in that as you can bring buddies in to help which is a nice option.

spartaxoxo

jaws343 wrote: »

I'm sure it can be cleared in random dropped gear with the right skills and the right positioning.

Yeah. I decided to try that out on my low-level as a result of this post. I wouldn't do it without a group on her again, but it was a fun challenge. Very doable but tricky and long winded at the end because you gotta focus adds instead of the boss. Thanks for the inspiration 🙂 😺

phileunderx2

I sololed it on a Templar in all crafted gear. Avoid the big crow.. Use a shield and keep the adds under control.. Pretty basic mechanics.

SammyKhajit

This one shamelessly spammed invites to other players (very uncharacteristic of Sammy) before a nice person agreed to join.

A good fight but was expecting a bit more… perhaps some dialogue from the boss: “You dare enter my realm? I will peck you to death etc etc!” But nothing.

Anyhow, all three purple skulls dropped an ingredient and a blue/green item. Just glad that quest was over and done with.

DP99

My character is a wood elf stamblade with 888 CP. My gear is five pieces of Briarheart with the rest being bits and pieces of other sets with some decent bonuses for me. All gear is purple or gold level.

I tried it my first time solo with Mirri as my healer to help. Kept my distance and moved constantly sniping the boss with my bow dodging its attacks and the adds as much as possible. Mirri died about half way through, and I got the crow down to about 25% before I got taken out as well.

After that, I wasn't in the mood to try it again solo, so I left and went back to the cave and immediately asked to join a group. Got one in about five minutes consisting of myself and Mirri, three other players and one other companion for a group of six, and we got the boss done in about another five minutes.

Got my 3 plunder skulls, and don't really care to do it again.

I'm just going to do my daily stuff and try to knock out a lot of WBs that I haven't done yet in various zones since this is a good time to do that when a lot of players are having to do other bosses to do the crow boss.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Integral1900 wrote: »

This has to qualify as one of the most badly thought out messages in quite awhile.

You have the technology with the portals in Blackwood to allow players to move through an entrance and all end up in the same instance, so why in the name of sanity didn’t you do it here!

Instead, we get dozens of players all spamming +crow into the chat, not realising that absolutely nobody is configured to accept it to form groups automatically. The result is that you get crowds just standing there! Because I’m telling you now , If you can solo that boss you are categorically in the top 0.00 one percent, like it or not.

Definitely not bothering with that one again. Getting a group for it was impossible, everyone just stood there spamming that same phrase even though they were getting nowhere. Gave it a bash on my own and after being repeatedly one shotted, despite having 60 K health and max resistances, I got bored and left.

Not worth the effort

Think we are overstating that. I solo'ed on a Light armor DK that was certainly not optimized for this sort of thing. It required a bit of kiting and a decent self heal (I used burning embers), just like soloing any WB for the most part. I am a good player, but there are people that are way better than I am. No, I don't think that everyone will be able to solo it, but its just not that difficult of a fight for anyone with reasonable combat experience.

My issue is not with the difficulty of the fight. I actually think its pretty reasonable. It is on par with an average to above average world boss. Can be solo'ed, a mish mash of pugs will clear easily, that part is fine. My issue is with how underwhelming the loot was. Even 3 gold plunder skulls would have been okay with me. The purple ones usually contain junk, which was true of the 3 I received.

EF321

WHY does it need invulnerability mechanic? Why? Seems like every single boss lately has invulnerability. Even delve bosses in blackwood, world bosses, deadlands bosses...

ZOS really needs to chill with these. If you don't want boss to go down fast, give it more health. But please, stop adding invulnerability to every. Single. Boss.

Amottica

SantieClaws wrote: »

This one does not really find this addition to the event very rewarding or enjoyable.

She will just carry on with the other things perhaps yes.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

I agree. I think the addition of this quest and fight is great for the event and similar should be added to other events. However, the reward was underwhelming.

While I was able to kill the boss without serious issues I did find it to be a slight challenge due to the number of adds spawning. I did not realize it was designed as a group boss until a couple of days into the event. lol.

So I think it is good to offer players a challenge while also making it open to groups since not everyone is interested in a challenge.

Jeremy

Integral1900 wrote: »

This has to qualify as one of the most badly thought out messages in quite awhile.

You have the technology with the portals in Blackwood to allow players to move through an entrance and all end up in the same instance, so why in the name of sanity didn’t you do it here!

Instead, we get dozens of players all spamming +crow into the chat, not realising that absolutely nobody is configured to accept it to form groups automatically. The result is that you get crowds just standing there! Because I’m telling you now , If you can solo that boss you are categorically in the top 0.00 one percent, like it or not.

Definitely not bothering with that one again. Getting a group for it was impossible, everyone just stood there spamming that same phrase even though they were getting nowhere. Gave it a bash on my own and after being repeatedly one shotted, despite having 60 K health and max resistances, I got bored and left.

Not worth the effort

This boss should not be one-shotting you with 60k health and max resistance. Not even close. Something is wrong and the fight must have been bugged or something.

As a tank (which I'm going to assume you are based on your defenses) just dodge his flying attack. That prevents him from using his healing beam so you can slowly burn him down. He's not mindlessly easy, but he's not that hard either. Veteran DLC dungeons and Arenas and many world bosses are a lot more difficult than this guy. Trust me, you can kill him solo without being in the top 0.00 one percent. lol

NoSoup

markulrich1966 wrote: »

my cp1600 magplar could not solo this boss, so I left and grouped with 2 other players, now it was ok.

Reward were 3 purple plundersculls, one contained this recipe (not furnishing itself, but the recipe to craft it):

(on my second account I got a vampire furnishing and a bonedust pigment for the witch-tamed bear-dog pet, so they seem to be just usual purple skulls).

Had absolutely no trouble soloing it on my 1200cp DK, it's not a difficult boss at all if you stay out of the green and clean up the adds as you go.

Rewards are rather lackluster

mayasunrising

It's definitely doable solo, but not worth the effort except for the challenge imho. In a group it goes fast and I think it's worth the 3 plunder skulls since it only takes like 5 minutes. It's sort of like paying 50 feathers for 3 bonus skulls.

I gave up trying to solo tho because whenever I got it's health low it ran to the edge of the arena and reset. Did anyone else have this problem?

Amottica

Integral1900 wrote: »

This has to qualify as one of the most badly thought out messages in quite awhile.

You have the technology with the portals in Blackwood to allow players to move through an entrance and all end up in the same instance, so why in the name of sanity didn’t you do it here!

Instead, we get dozens of players all spamming +crow into the chat, not realising that absolutely nobody is configured to accept it to form groups automatically. The result is that you get crowds just standing there! Because I’m telling you now , If you can solo that boss you are categorically in the top 0.00 one percent, like it or not.

Definitely not bothering with that one again. Getting a group for it was impossible, everyone just stood there spamming that same phrase even though they were getting nowhere. Gave it a bash on my own and after being repeatedly one shotted, despite having 60 K health and max resistances, I got bored and left.

Not worth the effort

I am not disagreeing with your complaint about the design. However, I soloed that boss and I guarantee I am not on any leaderboard. Granted, I have years of experience in MMORPGs and used to do high-level progression raiding over the years, but have not done serious raiding for at least a year which is when I parted from my last game.

I just moved out of damage, killed adds until near the end, then focused boss while dancing around it towards the end as the number of adds became overwhelming. I never came close to dying.

Edit: I found out the day after I first killed this new boss that it was a group boss. A friend was talking about the group they were in to kill the boss and I was surprised to find out it could be done in a group. I had just gone in and killed it.