PTS Update 34 - Feedback Thread for Dreadsail Reef Trial

ZOS_GinaBruno

This is the official feedback thread for Dreadsail Reef Trial. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?
• What level and build was the character you used?
• Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
• How did the difficulty compare to existing Trials on Normal and Veteran versions?
• Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?
• Did you complete the Trial?
• Did you have any companions with you?
• Do you have any other general feedback?

Wolfkeks

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?
Shiver me timbers! Ayy mate! This one was pleasantly surprised by how fun the new trial was! The jumping puzzles and 'Super Mario' moments where you shrink were super funny!

What level and build was the character you used?
3600+ Test build - Mag Necro

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
Completed the trial on normal. Will update this once we did it on vet.

How did the difficulty compare to existing Trials on Normal and Veteran versions?
It was def not harder than the older trials in combat sense - but it was harder not to fall to your death by accident.

Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?
Took us 4 tries until we understood the last bossed mechanics. Not sure what the mechs were for the first 4 bosses - we kinda melted them before we had to do mechs.

Did you complete the Trial?
Ay!

Did you have any companions with you?
No. We learned in Rockgrove that if your grp dies and you have a companion out no one can rezz lol. We did not want to try that one out here.

Do you have any other general feedback?
A super fun trial overall. The jumping moments were rather fun and I hope we'll see more of it.
Also poor Pennystone - we ran into him - killed him and he just wanted to chill - RIP
I'm not sure if I love the mount though - don't get me wrong, I love wolves! - but it feels like I've seen this once before.

SeaUnicorn

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?
Yes, liked the setting and the fights

What level and build was the character you used?
CP 2000 something Sorc Healer in Ro/Jo/Nazaray. Live copy of the character.

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
Veteran non HM

How did the difficulty compare to existing Trials on Normal and Veteran versions?
Boss 1 seems a bit too mechanically complex for a non HM fight, the rest seem to be pretty well balanced. In terms of incoming and outcoming damage requirements seems pretty in line with latest DLC trials.

Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?
The color dome swap mechanic on 1st boss took some time getting used to, especially the part that requires people to swap it on time, as you take damage while holding it. Considering we had very experienced players running through and it took some time figuring it out, I can see how newer less experienced players will have heck of a problem with it. May be make it not as punitive when you get the color wrong on non-HM? It is very cool for HM version though. Can see the challenge in trying to finesse the domes and cleave both the bosses at the same time.
The horse mechanic on 2nd boss is hilarious, it is so random that it takes you by surprise. I laughed so much when I got trampled by it.
The Bubble-bomb mechanic on last boss is really hard to see with all the effects going on. I can see how people who are color-blind would not be able to identify it. May be some advance telegraph around targeted people feet similar to color swap mechanic on Twins in vMOL?

Did you complete the Trial?
Yes

Did you have any companions with you?
No

Do you have any other general feedback?
Leaderboards did not work after completing the trial.
It would port me to "in combat" when we already completed the fight.
You probably heard enough about the Mount reward by now. But yeah, can we have something as amazing as Sunspire mount?

TheRimOfTheSky

Is anyone else tired of going to random islands and having no idea where they're supposed to be? Could the marker for the player when in the trial be moved to this island down southeast? Keep the map marker the same but make the same but move the inside location here

Razorruk

General Feedback:

The Trifecta mount reward is an incredibly lazy re-skin of the "Flame Atronach Wolf" Apex mount, just a different colour. Please invest further time and resources into designing a worthwhile reward.

Further feedback to follow

WhiteCoatSyndrome

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?
What I got to play of it, yes.

What level and build was the character you used?
CP 1500+ Mag Sorc with Master Resto staff, Earthgore, Kag’s Hope, and Olorime.

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
Played Normal, did not complete.

How did the difficulty compare to existing Trials on Normal and Veteran versions?
Can’t answer this, see above.

Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?
The boss with the holes in the floor - I got stuck in one of the passages and couldn’t move. We were also having difficulty figuring out why the drop would kill us in some cases but not others.

Did you complete the Trial?
No, although I will note we only had six people in the group.

Did you have any companions with you?
At some points yes, between 2-4 at various times. I personally dismissed Mirri in the stretch with the poison plants because she seemed to be setting them off.

Do you have any other general feedback?
I will say it’s very unkind to require us to throw multiple switches at once when the poison plant things spawn on top of the switches.

SeaUnicorn

Update for Tideborn Teleria
The Soaked Wound DOT that main tank encounters hits them anywhere between 7k and 12k (depending on class) every 0.5s. And it is up for 80% of the fight.
The Maelstrom mechanic also seems to ramp up to 7-8K DOT that ticks every 0.3s on every single person on the team. This seems to be way over-tuned.

Similar tank mechanics in Rockgrove HM:
Death Touch hits MT for 9-13k every 1s and is up about 37% of the fight.
Reconstitute (Abomination Bleed) 9-13k every 1s. Uptime can be controlled based on how much damage team does to Bahsei
1s frequency is much more reactable and total damage received is less on the most challenging HM to date. In addition there are windows of downtime for the tank to recover resources.

Similar healer mechanics in Rockgrove HM:
Nova (shell phase AOE) ramps up from 5 to 14k with 1.3s frequency.
Creeping Manifold hits for flat 12k with 1.3s frequency.
The 1.3s frequency is much more in line to being reactable by a healer who has 1s GCD on AOE burst heals and may experience occasional latency

Katerrr

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?
Yes, the focus on having a lot of mechanics that need to be completed as a group is very nice.

What level and build was the character you used?
3600 CP warden healer

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
Vet only.

How did the difficulty compare to existing Trials on Normal and Veteran versions?
The Veteran version is a nice challenge. It reminds me a bit of vMoL in the old days before power creep basically ruined the trial. It's nice to have a mechanic heavy trial again. The fights are entertaining without being overly long which is a nice change from the long bossfights in Rockgrove.

Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?
On last boss it's quite annoying that the Rapid Deluge mechanic doesn't give any indication of how large the AoE circle beneath the afflicted players' feet are until it explodes at which point it's too late. It would be nice if there were a telegraph like with the instabilities on Falgraven, so people can get a better idea of how far they need to spread.

Did you complete the Trial?
Yes, a couple of times.

Did you have any companions with you?
no

Do you have any other general feedback?
Please don't make HMs simply by tripling the boss's health pools. It was so dull on Xalvakka. And it would make the last boss absolutely terrible.
I really like this trial so far though. It gives everyone something to do and to pay attention to. I do wonder however, how it's supposed to be possible to meet the speedrun requirement given how long trash takes.

code65536

My thoughts after the first week...

Boss 1: I love that the difficulty of this boss fight is based on teamwork and coordination, not "let's tune all the numbers up to 11". It's been a while since we've had a good fight like that (Twins, Triplets, Cloudrest). Sunspire and Kyne's were notable in their lack of interesting group-play mechanics.

That said, this fight feels too punishing for non-HM vet. In particular, the channels during the MultiLoc; just one tick getting off can kill people and cascade into a quick wipe (if it kills someone who's been prepositioned for the next jump), which would be fine if this were HM, but this is not.

And this fight again highlights the longstanding problems of DPS disparity in ESO PvE. With mainstream damage levels (e.g., the group that Finn ran with on Thursday night), you see all the mechanics. With higher damage levels (coordinated group), the tank swap mechanic doesn't show up until the final 2-boss phase. And with even higher damage levels (competitive group), they can ignore the tank swap mechanic.

Bugs: Sometimes a pair of people will die to Firebrand and Frostbrand even though they are tightly stacked on top of each other. This happens inconsistently.


Boss 2: I don't have much to say about this fight, in large part because it's rather confusing. The Reef Heart mechanic for people jumping into the pit is fairly straightforward, but up top, you have bosses splitting into copies and suddenly disengaging and running halfway across to the other side of the room. Things like target priority are not readily apparent, and this results in this fight feeling unsatisfying.

Bugs: People can get stuck in the water downstairs and their only recourse is to leave the instance and port back in.


Boss 3: Can we please not have these "let's just tune all the numbers up to 11" encounters? It's lame, to put it bluntly.

Where do I start? How about, as a tank, if I eat a light attack unblocked, it chunks out 2/3 of my health. The light attack lands with two hits, and each one hits for about what you'd expect from a vet boss light attack. But there are two of them, one physical and one cold. These are the kinds of numbers you might find on HM. But on non-HM? No thanks.

Or the heavy attack. If I dodge it, I am penalized with an AoE that traverses the entire ring. If I block it, I get two hits, just like the light attack, one doing physical damage and one doing cold damage. And each one hits for over 15K through block on the 1H&S bar, with Bracing Anchor slotted. So well over 30K in blocked damage for a heavy attack. On a boss fight where I'm also eating 12K DoT ticks every 0.75s. I'd consider these levels of damage to be high but doable for HM, but on non-HM? This is ridiculous.

Oh, and later in the fight, we get the joy of having Suffocating Waves or Nematocyst Cloud on top of all the DoTs and other damage. This fight is grotesquely overtuned for the kind of audience that non-HM is supposed to target.

The cleave on the tank is completely untelegraphed, as is the extent of Deluge, as others have mentioned. The use of obfuscation to artificially boost difficulty in Kyne's Aegis was not well-received by anyone, and you're doing that same thing all over again on this boss.

Bugs (?):

• Is the boss's cleave on the tank supposed to extend all the way to the landbridge as well?
• Why are we able to hit the boss with melee light attacks from the outer edge of the ring, while other melee abilities are out of range from that distance?

Moltab

Tideborn Telaria needs some adjustment on damage values. The maelstrom is manageable for coordinated groups, but it's extremely high damage comparable to third floor Falgravn, if you plan to increase that for HM it could very easily become too high to manage.

Second thing is the slaughterfish, if the intention is for people to go in the water to reduce the Deluge damage and range then the slaughterfish need to be adjusted, because currently that damage can't be shielded and heals don't hit in the water so the timing is extremely sensitive as it also seems you need to be fully swimming for the mechanic to work. You can manage in other ways, but if you plan to increase the damage or make it a one-shot on HM if you don't use the water then slaughterfish needs to be tuned down in damage, or be able to be shielded. And also pets often despawn when sorcs or wardens go swimming, which is not ideal either, not sure if that's a fixable bug or not.

Vaoh

The trial itself is looking like another banger like Rockgrove was. Very nice!

However I feel something needs to be said about the rewards from Dreadsail Reef. I want to give feedback on this part so there will be reason for people to farm this trial a lot:

Current Rewards

NORMAL CLEAR
• Title: Dreadsail Scourge
• Dye: Pyandonean Purple

VETERAN CLEAR
• Title: Seaborne Slayer
• Body Marking: Stormsurge

HARD MODE CLEAR
• Title: Hurricane Herald
• Face Marking: Stormsurge

TRIFECTA CLEAR
• Title: Soul of the Squall

ALL ACHIEVEMENTS
• Title: Swashbuckler Supreme
• Mount: Stormsurge Howler

New Rewards

NORMAL CLEAR
• Title: Swashbuckler
Appears as Name, Swashbuckler.
• Dye: Pyandonean Purple
• Body Marking: Tideborn
• Face Marking: Tideborn
Stormsurge Body+Face Markings have been renamed to Tideborn.

VETERAN CLEAR
• Title: Hurricane Herald
Appears as Name, Hurricane Herald.
• Skin: Ethertide (datamined skin)
Totally fine to use some other skin as long as it is decent.
• 1% chance to receive “Runebox: Reef Dweller”, a fancy tradeable polymorph.

HARD MODE CLEAR
• Title: Taleria’s Scourge
Appears as Name, Taleria’s Scourge.
• Ability Skin Pack: Tideborn
Includes a water-themed Ability Skin for each class Ultimate.
• 5% chance to receive “Runebox: Reef Dweller”, a fancy tradeable polymorph.

TRIFECTA CLEAR
• Title: Everlasting
Appears as Name the Everlasting

ALL ACHIEVEMENTS
• Title: “of the Deep Sea”
Appears as Name of the Deep Sea.
• Mount: Deep Sea Howler.
Think of the current Stormsurge Howler.
The differences would be the following:
- Blue-green texture used all around the body is replaced by a clear water bubble-type texture which is see-through and always moving/pouring onto the ground.
- Rock textures are replaced by coral textures.
- Blue-green aura effects are replaced by water effects.
- No longer has a constant “icy” humming sound.
- The “rear up” animation forms waves around the mount, and for a time the mount leaves behind a trail of water similar to the Surfglow Courser.
- The “mount summon” animation shows the mount forming out of water coming in from all directions.

So far all the discussion I’ve seen regarding the rewards are all disappointment except for the mount. And once people see the mount more they tend to like it less and less due to the Cold-Flame Atro Wolf model, textures, and constant “icy” sound.

Anyway just my thoughts!

tmbrinks

First thoughts on Hard Mode.

The last two trials have seemed to be tuned in all facets for about 30 total players in the game to be able to have a fighting chance at the "trifecta". Mechanics and damage (taken and required) are beyond reach for many who do not play this game as a second job.

I understand the need to have some difficult content, but I'd also rather not have to wait 4 years for enough power-creep to even have a chance.

I have every other solo, 4-man, and 12-man trifecta in the game outside of Rockgrove on Live right now. Me, and others in my group, are among the 0.1% of players already in the game in terms of what we've accomplished (I'm fairly certain that less than 1k players on all servers of about 1m active players have all the trifectas through Kyne's), and first impression is that this will be impossible for us to even attempt.

If this is the direction that the trials are going to go... I don't know what to do, because there won't be any raiding for me to do. I already can't really re-run old content because of AwA, and the new trials are tuned so specifically and punishing to groups without god-tier DPS.

The mechanics are fun, it's the best mechanically sound trial since vMoL.

code65536

When doing the vets in the first two weeks, a common refrain that I've heard from multiple people are, "These mechanics are interesting. I wonder how they'll ruin them when HM is activated." Well, now we have the answer to that.

This is already the most mechanically-intensive trial ever. Why did you feel it was necessary to layer on top of that ridiculous numbers?

For example, first boss: The damage on the tanks were fine in regular vet. They needed healers, but it wasn't anything crazy. You've already added a lot of difficulty to HM with new mechanics like the chaining of players who activate the domes and the sword/axe and the atros of the "wrong" element. Why couldn't you have just left it at that? I'm so <insert favorite expletive here> sick of these insane DoTs on the tanks and needing guard to survive, etc.

That sort of difficulty through brute-force incoming damage can be somewhat excused in trials bereft of difficult mechanics, like Sunspire and Kyne's, but here, they serve to distract from the (rather interesting) boss mechanics. It's as if you've created a nice dish with complex flavors and then proceeded to drown it in hot sauce. This was the mistake that ruined the one mechanically-interesting fight in Rockgrove, and you're repeating it.

---

Second boss, you added Orgnum's Fire, which does 75% of the victim's remaining health in unresistible damage and defiles them by 75% for 20s. It's a little bit like Cloudrest's Baneful Mark, except healing someone to full doesn't remove the effect, and multiple people (including tanks) just have to deal with a 75% defile that lasts for a third of a minute. Why? Was there not enough incoming damage in this fight with players alternating between poison and lightning damage and tanks getting eaten alive by the cones of multiple Reef Guardians?

The second boss, even in regular vet, is a chaotic mess. It's made even worse in HM. Why are the visual models for the bears so huge? It's really hard, esp. for tanks, to see what's going on or what's on the ground with so many giant-sized enemies covering everything. And this is on top of bosses disengaging and running off (and it's hard to tell where because the center columns line of sight everything) and ground being filled everywhere with AoEs (as one person put it, "there are so many AOEs nothing means anything"). At the very least, you could scale down the models so that there's just a bit less visual noise.

And what's the point of the horse?

---

Final boss. Why do we have 8.6M-health adds that spawn every 30s?! Are the mechanics not interesting enough that you feel like you need to add an overtuned DPS check on top?

And why do you not exempt the OT from Deluge? The MT is exempt (if there are enough other targets), but why not the OT? Swimming is a death sentence when they have the attention of the behemoth (or, often, behemoths, since they have 8.6M health and spawn every 30 bloody seconds).

Deluge is going to be brutal for console. You have 8 people getting Deluge, and if just a single person fails to go swimming, they will wipe the group. That's pretty harsh. But what makes it worse is that you have to time it well. Go into the water too late, and you risk exploding on land and wiping the group. Go in too early, and you become fish food. The slaughterfish do ramping unresistable damage scaled to the player's max health. Stay in the water for 3s (which includes the time to get in, wait for the eruption, and get out), and the slaughterfish, cumulatively, will eat away over half of the person's health, which leaves them with just barely enough health to survive the Diluted Eruption. There's no visual telegraph like a growing circle to let people gauge how long they have until they explode. So for people playing on console, how do you expect them to reliably time it so that they're not going in too late or too early?

Thanks for adding the cleave telegraph, but it's way too faint and almost invisible.

code65536

One more comment: I liked Coral Aerie's HM. It has a difficult final boss where the difficulty is all about mastering the mechanics. There aren't crazy health-scaled DoTs or stupid DPS checks. It's a difficult fight, but that difficulty is all about just learning and playing the mechanics well.

After Coral, I had high hopes for Dreadsail. That you'd give us a trial with interesting mechanics (unlike the HMs in Sunspire or Kyne's) without tuning the incoming damage and DPS checks to unreasonable levels (which was the mistake that was made in Rockgrove's HM). Needless to say, I'm disappointed, and frankly, I'm not sure I'll continue raiding if this trial goes live without major adjustments.

Just give us fun fights. And leave the <bovine waste product> at the door, please. Thanks.

skinnycheeks

tmbrinks wrote: »

First thoughts on Hard Mode.

The last two trials have seemed to be tuned in all facets for about 30 total players in the game to be able to have a fighting chance at the "trifecta". Mechanics and damage (taken and required) are beyond reach for many who do not play this game as a second job.

I understand the need to have some difficult content, but I'd also rather not have to wait 4 years for enough power-creep to even have a chance.

I have every other solo, 4-man, and 12-man trifecta in the game outside of Rockgrove on Live right now. Me, and others in my group, are among the 0.1% of players already in the game in terms of what we've accomplished (I'm fairly certain that less than 1k players on all servers of about 1m active players have all the trifectas through Kyne's), and first impression is that this will be impossible for us to even attempt.

If this is the direction that the trials are going to go... I don't know what to do, because there won't be any raiding for me to do. I already can't really re-run old content because of AwA, and the new trials are tuned so specifically and punishing to groups without god-tier DPS.

The mechanics are fun, it's the best mechanically sound trial since vMoL.

I was going to write up something longer, but this pretty much sums up the way that I feel too.

I wish there were more incentives/rewards aimed at the leaderboard type stuff for trials. Something to please that very small group of players that these latest trials, rockgrove hm and dreadsail hm, seem to be targeting. The amount of time, effort, and sweat that rockgrove hm and the planesbreaker achievement require are just on another level. And I know that is exciting for those that are in that very small minority. But I don't think it is healthy for the trials scene overall. I'd love to see something rewarding for those players still, without it being put into HM clearing and achievement hunting.

I'd like to see a trend of putting more focus on difficult and punishing mechanics and less focus on god-tier DPS checks and incoming dmg checks.

Thank you for providing a place for us to share our feedback.

EDIT: I will say, I think the 1st boss on HM seems like it is designed in a better direction than I initially thought. The fight is very doable if you take your time and respect the mechanics. Just very punishing if any mistakes are made. Which is good for a HM I think. It will be very tough to do a speed strat on, but that is a different discussion.

Moltab

Lylanar and Turlassil HM:

The execute phase, where both bosses are up, can become unplayable based on rng due to the 2nd boss being able to do any mechanic while the 1st boss is jumping. It can happen that 1 boss jumps and while half the group is still stunned, the boss who didn't jump starts channeling, creating a situation where you need 1 type of dome to free people and the 2nd type to interrupt, at the same time. With it dealing 20k+ per tick swapping domes is not quick enough to save that situation. You should restrict what mechanics one boss can do in close proximity to the other bosses' jumping.

JerBearThe3rd

Very mechanic heavy, which is a nice +. I do think it's a little too mechanic heavy. First boss HM is an immense challenge but manageable with good coordination. The second boss HM (Reef Guardian) seems completely unmanageable at the moment with the sheer number of spawns of everything - boss splitting, number of reef hearts back to back, adds, overpowered adds (the incendiary), and then the stacks of lightening and then empowered poison blooms with how quickly it becomes too much. I love the move towards focused mechanics, but I already know of some groups giving up hope as there aren't any moments of reprieve thus far with the pacing and volume even when attempting to slow it way down. I think there could be some tweaks on that pacing of reef hearts and the volume of boss splits. Thank you for attention to this.

qcell

My exposure to the new content:
I have been playing Dreadsail Reef in two groups, in two different roles since week 1 for an average of 13-15 hours a week.

I have spent 50-75 hours writing a Dreadsail addon, diving deep into combat events, effects and logs for all the boss fights. An early version can be found on ESOUI/Minion (Qcell's Dreadsail Reef Helper). I fully completed the trial in veteran several times, including the first kill by an EU team (video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z61wkZs-kTo).

I have, as of the end of week 4, not cleared a single HM boss.

My previous experience
My group and I have completed all trial and dungeon achievements in the past several times. Me and a few players in our group have every achievement in the game - not only group content, and no exceptions. I am saying this not to brag, but to hopefully bring some credibility to my strongly worded incoming feedback - rather than letting the comment be dismissed.


My first thoughts
The veteran version is very difficult, but doable with a coordinated team. From here onwards, I will be mostly talking about the HM version and the trifecta.

I agree with tmbrinks, code65536 and skinnycheeks that Dreadsail Reef is, more than ever, absurdly cranked up to 11. The numbers are too high, but probably many other players provided ingame /feedback about that. The trial, as it stands in PTS, is too difficult with several key aspects broken and unplayable. I love most of the mechanics, I love the new trial conceptually but it is, in my opinion, implemented poorly.

The way the mechanics are layered and interact and overlap with each other turn what could be deep interesting fights into bug-plagued encounters. It makes players have to handle corner-cases that happen too often, and shouldn't even be possible in the first place. The first boss may require you to free your allies with a dome, and interrupt with the opposite dome, in the same place at the same time (see Moltab's comment, or my bug report below); the second boss provides a heal-check mechanic more punishing than Baneful Mark (cloudrest) and Lokke's tombs layered with other sources of unmitigatable damage, with added artificial difficulty through random repeated targeting; and the last boss just has about 2x the amount of reasonable incoming damage/debuffs as any other HM fight, while keeping the group on the move and the tank far away.

• BOSS 1

My longest analysis, since it's where I spent the most time. You delivered a more difficult twins fight. I LOVE it. I think this may be my favorite fight so far. In Hardmode, the spawned atronachs alternate colors which is such a beautiful small change that increases the fight complexity by several folds. It allows players to take higher risks and stack them, or play it slowly and kill them one by one (fine for the HM kill, 10+min fight not viable for Swashbuckler Supreme). The first 2 phases with 1-boss are fine. The coordination required on jumps is fun, and it provides a puzzle for groups to solve. So far, the fight involves a lot more thinking than regular fights, and that's great.


Nice words:
But then we reach the last phase, the 2-boss phase. On paper, it sounds perfect. When I brainstormed and wrote all the ways to tackle it, I got excited. Frigidarium/Charred Constriction + the spikes are such a fun way to make 2 bosses work together, and have your allies help you. But then, we tried it. Mistakes are very punishing, which is fine for a HM fight. The difficulty and team-work is beyond any other boss fight, since almost everyone has to execute mechanics - that's new.

Not so nice words:
Enemy casts are unpredictable and line-up erratically. You start your raid, you wipe and try again, and start realizing that the _unfortunate overlapping of mechanics_ is not a coincidence, and that it happens every pull. A boss jumps to the right, the left group has to go and free the group. But then, the boss gets stuck and starts channeling in place. Suddenly everyone has to drop domes, and you have to handle that case. Fine. Then, you realize that the spikes are not cast and a boss is channeling and at the same time, you need both colored domes in the same position - but they explode!

See a pattern?
Bad luck. Next pull? No. In the next pull, you see the boss loses aggro and, even though it's under the effect of a taunt starts attacking the group. Well, a bug, they'll fix it.

Bad luck. Next pull? No. In the next pull, stunned people from frigidarium/constriction have no way to avoid the incoming damage from the Biting Billow/Scalding Swell, the shockwave resulting from the destroyed weapons. So they get one-shot without giving them a chance to counter-play the mechanic that usually they block or dodge.

Bad luck. Next pull? No. Because you had to switch domes to interrupt a boss that decided to cast right after it jumped - before coming back to its stable position, now the domes are not active and the Frostbrand and Firebrand that are commonly cast to people inside the corresponding domes are now mixed. 3 brands on the left, of mixed colors, and 1 on the right. Well, that's confusing. But we got addons and voice-chat for that. It's solved.

Bad luck. Next pull? Perhaps. Our group has been making some progress, maybe with some more pulls and a few more weeks we can get a messy kill. A no-death, though? All the random factors would need to line up perfectly.

Closing remarks
I get it, we are not good enough. In fact, no one is. In 4 PTS weeks (2 weeks of HM), there has been exactly one EU group and zero NA groups that managed to get a Lylanar+Turlassil HM kill.

To put this into perspective, we killed Oaxiltso HM (Rockgrove's first boss) on the first/second day its hardmode was enabled. Not only us, but several other PTS raiding groups.

qcell

• BOSS 2

- The first guardian seems to be designed to go to the Chalice, but with some weirdly angled pulls it can be forced onto the previous/next symbol on the initial Reef Heart/Heartburn cast. Intended or exploitable? If it forcefully started on the crown or cross consistently it would make for a better flowing fight.
- The last wave of plant explosions before the plant grows one size is in some cases not visible.
- The random-targeting nature of Bombard and King Orgnum's Fire, and the inevitability of the second one gives little space for strategic counterplay.

Suggestions
- If you only read one, please let it be this one: Remove the randomness of King Orgnum's Fire targeting. Keep the difficulty by doing a simultaneous cast to 3-4 players at once and then never again - rather than one cast after the other.
- Let us remove/cleanse King Orgnum's Fire 20s healing debuff. If a player is fully healed, the debuff should go away. Or maybe if a player dumps resources below X%, the debuf goes away. Or maybe if a player has 0 stacks of building static or volatile poison AND is fully healed it goes away. Give us a way to deal with it, please.
- Clean up Bombard. A lazy 3-target random fast-paced cast for 7k damage is not fun. Do you want players to block-cast and not light attack for a few seconds? Do you want to force a barrier for each heart? Why are tanks even taunting the mage?
- Standardize the spawn positions for incendiary mages. Each hole has a fixed position, but make them consistent relative to the hole (always to the left, or the center, or any pattern...).
- Make newly replicated Guardians spawn near the Guardian that created them, rather than far away and then make them run at light-speed making them effectively un-tauntable.
- Shift the front-loaded difficulty of the fight (replication cast at high %) towards the end of the fight. It will help the fact that after killing several Guardians the fight becomes a lot more controlled and calm, and it will relax the hectic opening that is gate-keeping progress. To clarify: fairly spreading out the difficulty is better than an anticlimactic ending.

• BOSS 3

As SeaUnicorn pointed out in an earlier comment in this thread (#7), and many of us reported through the in-game /feedback, the incoming damage on veteran was unreasonable. Thanks for fixing that. Now only the HM players need to deal with it, at least.
Cool, we learned how to handle Deluge. Now the HM surprise is that 8 players get it. Having 8 players do it is not much harder than having 5 players do it, but it's artificial inflation because, look:
- When a platform is down, and the group is killing a channeler with at least (and now at most!) 2 players, it means every remaining damage dealer and healer in the island will get Deluge.
- This also implies that doing two platforms at once, with 4 players gone is impossible, since the remaining 8 players would all get Deluge, including the tanks - making them unable to heal and block incoming damage by Taleria and the Sea Behemoths.
- The incoming damage from Slaughterfish is brutal, it's oblivion, HP-scaled and it ramps up. A minor mis-timing will cause unforgiving deaths on an already almost-impossible trifecta challenge. It's fun to go swimming, but let the mechanics work with each other. This will be VERY difficult to time correctly without an addon. Reduce or remove slaughterfish damage while having deluge. It still makes players do the same choreography and doesn't let them stay in water too long - just in a more fun way.
- The 1 meter radius explosion of Diluted Deluge is clunky, given the position desync of players, and the very small window of time to react when dipping in the water. Is the radius needed? Show it visually or, even better, just scrap it. Get rid of it. It makes players question themselves and ask “did I mess it up? I was in water… no?”.

- The spawn frequency and/or health of Sea Behemoths is way too high in HM. Every 30s. What a cool way to keep the offtank entertained huh? It's not. It can perfectly be killed during still phases, but this is a bigger issue during Winter Storm and almost impossible keeping up with the spawn rate when mechanics line up poorly, such as spawns at the same time we need to spin around, or send some of the damage to the channelers.

- The Arcing Cleave affected area telegraph is difficult to see even at max brightness, and only rendered after the barnacle blade already happened. Even milder than the crashing waves, that already received feedback both on Taleria and Coral Aerie.

- The damage over time of Soaked Wound. 85-90% uptime on the dot on the main tank is ridiculous. The most comparable fight is Bahsei, with the forced (not dodgeable) Bleeding, Scalding and death touch on tanks. Those came in phases, they were predictable and regular and had a much lower uptime on the tank. That gave small windows to recover for the next window of burst damage. On the other hand, Taleria makes tanks play selfish non-team work setups and essentially forces having a healer dedicated to the tank - a weird choice given that most aoe buffs are capped at 6 players per cast and the tank needs to stay so far away.

- The DOUBLE damage (physical and cold) from Taleria's Barnacle Blade (light attacks) and Coral Slam (heavy attacks). Cool idea. She has 4 weapons, so 2 types of damage. Or uh, wait. 4 is not 2. Forget about it, 2 is enough - more than enough. I am not asking for more types of damage. It’s nice to need both physical and spell resistances, but tanks have both resistances anyway without explicitly building for it. Seriously consider lowering the damage, Falgravn's HM light attacks are very hard hitting, and place a poison dot but they don't come in pairs. The numbers need to be adjusted. Sprinting during the winter storm while having to take small stops to block a light attack is clunky and very error prone. Goooo stop. Goooo stop. This may result in forcing tanks to build into well-fitted dodge-heavy builds.

- Same comment for Taleria's heavy attacks. I'm not a fan of punishing tanks who roll-dodge heavy damages (it was fun with Xalvakka's 4x evisceration!). The punishment is those water spouts that do almost nothing and clutter the area. Consider removing it - we're already punished for dodging heavies on trash and boss 1.

- The 3 mage debuffs. Oh boy *sigh*. One is not like the others. Attribute (hp, mag, stam,... ) reduction is BRUTAL, the healing debuff is also BRUTAL when it overlaps with high-incoming damage phases, but then we got the third, the quirky little brother that offers a movement speed reduction. Sure, it's annoying when you have to spin, but it's not comparable to the other two. Adjust the other two down, not the movement speed up - please. In veteran they can mostly be skipped/ignored by burning the channelers with high DPS bursts - in Hardmode probably not so much (I haven't reached them to see how much health they have - including the shield). Imagine! After all the issues already mentioned a group reaches here no-death, and the extreme debuff causes a death that can barely be avoided. You got a demotivated group that will stop buying crown crates.

TRASH
Fun concept, original group-splitting, lever pulling and clever foreshadowing of the volatile poison and building static stacks. Brewmasters' potions stun for too long. The last trash pull is too cluttered, and since it comes in two waves (upstairs and downstairs), less structured than the infamous “Kyne’s Aegis last pull”.
It seems difficult, but I can see how we can learn and get more efficient and used to it. Thanks for the guard-rails on certain bridges, an important subtle touch. Being frozen and pushed into the depths is frustrating, but there’s intuitive counterplay. Well done on this one.


Trial difficulty comparison
- After a year of Rockgrove, there are 8-10 different EU groups that have achieved Planesbreaker. A similar amount in NA. I am not counting several successes by the same (or mostly similar) groups, which would increase the number. I unfortunately don't have an exact number of unique players, but would love to know it.
- I know first-hand of multiple groups that had done all dungeon and trial trifectas in the past, including Godslayer+Dawnbringer that disbanded, and decided to leave Rockgrove due to its disproportionate difficulty.
- This trial as it stands in PTS, compared to Rockgrove as it stood in PTS, seems to be several magnitudes of difficulty above it.
- Is the audience of Swashbuckler Supreme those same 8-10 groups, or even fewer? Is it the top 2-3 score-pushing groups per server?
- The amount of players raiding HM and trifecta got severely culled after the difficulty curve Rockgrove presented - and it will get even more culled with Dreadsail unless massive changes are made.
- Example 1: code65536. Comment above: "I'm not sure I'll continue raiding if this trial goes live without major adjustments". Code is the most knowledgeable player regarding combat events, has done everything pre-Rockgrove and created an addon with 1.7M downloads and the unreasonable new trial is driving him away. ZOS, I beg, start damage control.
- Example 2: skinnycheeks. Comment above: "The amount of time, effort, and sweat that rockgrove hm and the planesbreaker achievement require are just on another level". This is THE reference player for endgame builds, he's likely done more parses and build combination tests since PTS came live than your full QA team in the last quarter. ZOS, I beg, do listen to these valuable players.

Reward Structure
I want the achievement, with or without rewards. I personally don’t care about this. But a lot of other players do. Listen to them.


“too much text ”
TL;DR: Dreadsail Reef HM is way too hard. Please make it easier. I have 100% achievements and I don't think I'll ever get this one. I don't think anyone will as it is, in fact.

qcell

Dreadsail Reef HM Bugs
by Qcell

Note: I will edit the post and add more issues as I encounter them.

BUG 1
Tank gets the Devitalized debuff from Lylanar (see debuffs on top of my HP bar) even though it was a blocked hit. The damage is fully absorbed by a shield/barrier, and the game doesn't detect it as blocked - rather absorbed. In this case, I should gain Rattled/Hindered instead.

- The game still recognizes when an attack is blocked. It shows up in esologs as blocked, and addons get the correct events.

{DAMAGE_SHIELDED} [Lylanar]->[Player] : Replenishing Barrier (40239) : [20959]
{BLOCKED_DAMAGE} [Lylanar]->[Player] : Broiling Hew (167278) : [0]

The game is detecting both. The mechanic seems to be checking `blocked damage > 0` rather than checking `is the damage blocked at all`.

Video: https://www.twitch.tv/qcelleso/clip/GiftedHumbleSalsifyTakeNRG-DxWQvOvpHlSP3TRr


—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————


BUG 2

Issue:
Dreadsail Reef HM: Turlassil will skip the cast of Glacial Spikes if it's about to begin its Numbing Shards.

What happened:
Lylanar casted Charred Constriction, and Turlassil was meant to follow with Glacial Spikes. Yet he decided to cast Numbing Shards.
Event-wise, it may have started the channel before Lylanar's cast, and the right way to go would be: take fire dome and interrupt first.

What should have happened:
Either Turlassil interrupts its channel to cast Glacial Spikes, or postpones Numbing Shards.
If the game knows Lylanar is about to cast Charred Constriction, do not let Turlassil start channeling Numbing Shards in this situation.

The same applies in the symmetrical/opposite situation.

Video: https://clips.twitch.tv/ProtectiveEndearingFishWTRuck-C3c3e1WyR1rOB6DM


—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

BUG 3

Issue:
Dreadsail Reef HM: Players take full damage from Biting Billow/Scalding well when stunned by Frigidarium/Charring Constriction.

What happened:
Frigidarium stunned several players, not letting them mitigate damage, while the weapon's wave (Biting Billow) hit them for the full damage. Additionally, I (tank) went from 100% to 45% hp while stunned. See proof on the logs screenshots.
Additionally, the boss that loses aggro on jump light attacked a player (separate issue, but equally concerning).

What should have happened:
Frigidarium should provide mitigation, similarly to how it does to Numbing Shards, Frigid Blood, etc...

The same applies in the symmetrical/opposite situation.




Video: https://clips.twitch.tv/AdventurousCrepuscularGoatSpicyBoy-nwVWvnue93f7fxnq

Troodon80

I'm going to have to agree with just about everything qcell, Code, et al, wrote above. The major issue with this trial is the way the mechanics overlap in ways that shouldn't realistically happen if you want the fights to be "fair," and not just up to seemingly unpredictible RNG (first boss casts with Frigidarium/Constriction), together with incredibly high DPS requirements just to clear, and the incoming damage (especially on tanks). All of this just makes it an unfun experience on hard mode. Regular veteran is already going to wipe PUGs on the first boss. Not that I disagree with the design of difficult content being unpuggable, mind you. But there are significant issues with just first boss, most of which others have already covered so I won't be going into them in much detail.

Second boss is such a weird fight in its design of having the boss/splits run off and become invulnerable. It means you can't just stack and burn, which is fine, I don't like the premise of stack and burn fights, but... but... This fight by itself with the amount of health it has and the timings on which Reef Hearts become active, I'm not sure how you expect this to be a fast fight, but still the speed run is 30 minutes? Groups were pushing hard just to get the speed run on regular veteran and some of that was making use of the fact that Acid Reflux wouldn't get interrupted, making second boss less than a minute fight.

You made it so you can no longer burn through the health since it will now cancel its Acid Reflux cast for either Replication or Charge (Geyser Blast). The health either needs to come down or you need to extend the cooldown on Reef Hearts so that people can actually do DPS. As it was, we almost always had two people missing from the fight dealing with a Reef Heart. You can have multiple Reef Hearts active, which means you might need to assign multiple groups of players and not just alternate, meaning even less damage to the boss. On top of that, I want to give an honorable mention to Speedy Gonzales.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn8Sckrb00A

Hilarious though it is to see... Please fix this. Please. This isn't just a "me" issue or a "lag" issue. Multiple people in our group see it at the same time, and others do not. There's a desync of some sort, somewhere, but you need to fix it. It's been like this since the first week of PTS.

Last boss hard mode. Well. Where to even start. Deluge on 8 players. When players are dealing with the mage or just dead, tanks are very likely to get it. Who thought this was a good idea? But you want light attacks which deal 15k*2, a nice DoT which ticks for around 13k on a tank, and you expect me to jump into the water and be defenceless against so much incoming damage that now also can't be healed because Slaughterfish act like a heal negate? People at ZOS just really, really, really hate tanks, I assume? Honestly, if I were in charge of this fight, I'd just scrap it and start from scratch.

Then you add in double walls to make it even more of pain to heal the tank if they're on the other side, but no grace period in the boss's Arcing Slash for the tank to move to the other side without wiping the group to cleave damage? I understand that making healers feel relevant is a seemingly daunting task, but there are better ways to do it than just throwing even more damage at the tank.

Nothing in vMoL or vHoF hits this hard, debuffs this much, and yet a great many people would agree that those two trials are among some of the best experiences, and even most memorable, in the game.

Here's my DTPS for Tideborn Taleria:


Here's the highest scoring log for vMoL hard mode damage taken:


Look at the absurd difference. That's 16k per second. You basically want the healers to be babysitters? Now ask yourself, or better yet tell us because I'm a bit confused and I've seen it as a trend in more recent content (and I've even defended some of it because it wasn't "that bad"), what you're actually hoping to achieve. How do you reconcile the difference between this content just heaping on the damage and the absurd overlapping and seemingly RNG/broken mechanics (as qcell and others noted on first boss), and something like vMoL, despite vMoL now being "easy" content (subjective) it is by far more memorable for people going through it for the first time.

I'm not even going to start on the damage from Maelstrom. Just please tone down some of the damage (even more, a lot more) in hard mode and either fix or redo some of the mechanics. It's getting silly. If you want future-proofed content that will be "easy" in four or five years from now when you've overhauled the CP system again and DPS output is in the millions instead of 120k-150k at the highest end, or maybe even longer in its current iteration, you've really outdone yourself. Chef's kiss. I'll be sure to come back in a few years when you've enabled the powercreep.



But if you want content which will actually be fun and enjoyable by more than just 12-24 players on release, you're really missing the mark.

Edited for typos.

icAirborne

I really like the difficulty of the HM's in this trial but there are details that are just cracked out the wazoo and should be tweaked imo. For example the bosses of the first fight should definitely share a mechanic cooldown timer (or a larger one if they already do), because in twin phase it's all gas no brakes to a pretty unreasonable degree if you ask me. I've already seen numerous amounts of times where the elemental flare and group stun mechs overlap. Besides that I really like how intricate and punishing the mechs are of this fight.

For second boss HM I just don't see how you could possibly even think to get the trifecta achievement with the sheer amount of stuff you need to kill combined with the lethality of the mage and frequency of portal mech. A lot of time is spent just surviving mage and killing that, while people are almost always downstairs dealing with the reef. Took us like 3 mins to get to around 70% hp so ye. I havent really seen far past that point at all, so maybe it speeds up? Idk.

Troodon80

One additional "bug" or oversight is Hindered. Or, rather, the tooltip for it. The value I tend to get from Hindered is around 39670. Sometimes it's higher (rarely) and sometimes it's lower. I'll explain why. It's not based on max health; if you use a Weakening Enchantment the total value of the heal absorb is reduced, e.g. for me it was reduced from 39670 to 37410 with a one-handed infused weakening glyph. Interesting to note that this means enemies here seem to have a weapon damage of 3967 which I've not seen concrete numbers on before, though it used to be said years ago that enemies used a weapon damage stat rather than weapon+spell damage stats seperately. However, the tooltip is bizarre in that the value is based on your weapon damage.





I don't know if ZOS just never expected anyone to actually look (granted, it is a pain to do so). In which case, why bother with the tooltips? Doing GetAbilityDescription(abilityId,nil,"player") in this case, for some reason, returns the value based on the person's own weapon damage (at the time of the screenshot, it was 2685 for me) rather than whatever the stat is you use for the enemy showing on the tooltip (which is, of course, variable if you count in Weakening, even the Mending set, etc.). But the value isn't representative of the actual heal absorption right now.

It would be nice if this was fixed so that people can actually tell how much the heal absorb should be.

code65536

Troodon80 wrote: »

Doing GetAbilityDescription(abilityId,nil,"player")

* GetAbilityDescription(*integer* _abilityId_, *integer:nilable* _overrideRank_, *string* _casterUnitTag_)
** _Returns:_ *string* _description_

@Troodon80 You're supplying the "player" tag for the caster parameter, when the caster should be the enemy who applied it.

Troodon80

code65536 wrote: »

Troodon80 wrote: »

Doing GetAbilityDescription(abilityId,nil,"player")

* GetAbilityDescription(*integer* _abilityId_, *integer:nilable* _overrideRank_, *string* _casterUnitTag_)
** _Returns:_ *string* _description_

@Troodon80 You're supplying the "player" tag for the caster parameter, when the caster should be the enemy who applied it.

Yes, my point exactly. Presumably the game is also doing that as the tooltip is based on the player's weapon damage. Please see the screenshot (you can't miss it, it's huge) from in-game.

code65536

Troodon80 wrote: »

Yes, my point exactly. Presumably the game is also doing that as the tooltip is based on the player's weapon damage. Please see the screenshot (you can't miss it, it's huge) from in-game.

Oh, ok, I see what you're saying now. Yea, that's kind of a long-standing issue because the UI has never kept track of the source of the effects that show up on your character sheet (and even then, many of them won't have a usable tag, e.g., the trauma from atros or the Overseers).

Troodon80

code65536 wrote: »

Troodon80 wrote: »

Yes, my point exactly. Presumably the game is also doing that as the tooltip is based on the player's weapon damage. Please see the screenshot (you can't miss it, it's huge) from in-game.

Oh, ok, I see what you're saying now. Yea, that's kind of a long-standing issue because the UI has never kept track of the source of the effects that show up on your character sheet (and even then, many of them won't have a usable tag, e.g., the trauma from atros or the Overseers).

I'm aware. Just for reference, I posted more for curiosity than "Gamebreaking! Unplayable! Pls fix asap!" since I've never seen concrete numbers on enemy weapon damage values.

code65536

Back in 2019, when Sunspire was released, I have a log from Yolnahkriin HM. The first two ticks of the ramping bleed from Yolnahkriin's light attack hit for 713 and 1425, and the highest observed tick was for 8908.

I have a log from Yolnahkriin HM, from just a couple of weeks ago, and the first two ticks of that exact same bleed hit the tank for 827 and 1550, and the highest observed tick was for 9426.

Why am I talking about Sunspire in a thread about Dreadsail? While there has been a lot of offensive power creep over the years, THERE HAS BEEN NO DEFENSIVE POWER CREEP. In fact, our ability to mitigate some forms damage has actually decreased slightly over the past few years, as you can see from this example of Yolnahkriin HM's bleed.

For people who have kept close track of the combat changes over the years, this isn't a surprise. For example, Minor Maim, which tanks could easily keep 100% uptime on multiple targets, was reduced from 15% to 5%. In fact, these days, you need both Minor AND Major Maim (5% + 10%) to achieve the same easy-to-maintain 15% mitigation that we had in 2019. Years ago, a templar could throw a Nova down in an "oh crap" moment and make a difference with that ultimate's 30% Major Maim. Now, it's only 10%.

Minor/Major Protection was reduced from 8/30% down to 5/10%. Well, at least we have an easy source of that 10% Major Protection now, if we're on a bar where we've sacrificed an ability slot for Flare. So I guess there was a tiny little buff here.

CP 2.0 was a mixed bag. Mitigation is down (and will be down even more, thanks to a fresh new round of CP nerfs in Update 34), but we were compensated for that with more health. We also gained Bracing Anchor, which makes a noticeable difference in surviving the blockable damage that made up the large majority of incoming damage pre-Arkasis.

Wait, Arkasis? Why am I now talking about Stone Garden? Because that marks the starting point of this "new era" of content design. That's when you invented the abomination of the health-scaled DoT, which you then proceeded to use to pollute every single dungeon and trial DLC since. Remember how I said the CP 2.0 mitigation loss was compensated for with more health? That actually makes things worse here. And what about Bracing Anchor, the one good thing for tanks that came out of CP 2.0? Nope, that doesn't work for DoTs!

I can't put into words without violating the decorum of the forums how much I--and many tanks that I've spoken to--loathe the health-scaled DoT. It doesn't feel good to need to be babysat by a healer. It doesn't feel good to take constant 11-15K DoT ticks every second, when the DoT from Yolnahkriin HM topped out at 9K at the tail end of its gradual ramp-up. And if we want to make a selfish build to survive this kind of damage, what can we do? Most selfish sets just give you more health, which is not surprising since deeply ingrained in the ESO combat system is the notion that more health = more selfish = more tanky. And selfish sets that proc heals can only put a small dent in the amount of incoming damage from these health-scaled DoTs. The best defensive set that I could think of at the moment is Bani, which provides a mere 10% Major Maim. On a single target. And it doesn't even work on Taleria because the boss is technically out of range.

Some of my favorite tank fights in this game were in vHoF, specifically the first boss (back when people were not doing burns), second boss, and triplets. These fights were fun. Because instead of nervously watching our health bars every second, we had fun mechanics to play around with. And those were hard fights, but not because there was a lot of indiscriminate incoming damage, but because they required mastering the mechanics. In vHoF, high incoming damage served the purpose of punishing mistakes. Mess up a swap and leave the triplets tethered for too long? Then they hurt. But if you're doing everything right, the damage was mild. As it should be! These days, it's just high damage all the time every time. It's not fun, and I'm frankly <insert word that would violate the forum's decorum> tired of it. And based on what I've heard from other tanks, they are too.

As I've already said earlier in this thread: Let the mechanics stand for themselves. I spent literal months progging vMoL twins back in 2016 when that trial came out. I'm okay with hard content. I'm okay with content that takes time to learn and master. What I am not okay with is for that difficulty to be the result of high indiscriminate damage that exists just for the sake of making the tanks miserable. Keep in mind that you could take an unblocked heavy attack on the twins fight--yes, even back in 2016--and survive. You didn't need stupid damage levels to make that fight difficult or interesting. Why do you need it now?

Disturbed125

I don't think there's a lot more I can add to the discussion that Code/Brinks/Qcell haven't already said. Their breakdowns are pretty much how I feel about this trial on both vet and vet hm.

I would really like to emphasize Code's post about power creep. While its true dps has seen significant power creep over the four years I've been playing, I can't remember a patch where we've had any significant tanking power creep. Tanking is already a center stage role in this game. That in itself turns people off from playing the role and those that do choose to try, start out playing with half a deck. We have limited tools at our disposal to be "tankier" add health, add resistances, apply debuffs/buffs or dodge. Over the years de-buffs/buffs have been nerfed to shadows of what they once were, resistances have been stagnant for years and now the options to add health or dodge roll attacks are being punished. The difficulty being piled on to this one role over the last 2 years has honestly reached the point of oppressive, its no wonder at higher levels that you see so few people wanting to tank. Requiring a pocket healer for the tank just to barely survive during an encounter isn't fun for anyone involved but when we're taking 15-20k dots every second with very short recovery windows all while trying to maintain debuffs and our short taunt durations there's just no other way to survive. I could go on for a whole page talking about the high incoming damage but other mechanics such as DSR's second boss where there's just a million things to taunt in a game with no aoe taunt (and our soft taunt from chains being removed for the range taunt "fix" that did nothing to improve its reliability) or the new swashbuckler add who essentially just does what he wants and when empowered by a brewmaster will 1 shot his target are also deeply frustrating as a tank.

I know there's people who are just going to say "git gud" and we most likely will. We'll cobble together something that works no matter how unfun it is to do, but that's problem. The role isn't fun to play with all this going on, our tanking tools are beaten, chipped, and heavily worn versions of what they once were with the latest trial and dungeon designs really starting to make that fact show.

Troodon80

code65536 wrote: »

I can't put into words without violating the decorum of the forums how much I--and many tank that I've spoken to--loathe the health-scaled DoT.

+

In fact, I said the same thing to you during PMs months ago.

Yeah, I hate having to use it [Mist Form] in Rockgrove. And just for one boss. Their penchant for adding health scaling damage/DoTs (which also apply healing debuffs in the case of Rockgrove) are horrendous.

They really need to stop this.

Consider, too, all the nerfs you mentioned in this upcoming update alone. I can only surmise that ZOS don't want tanks in their game and want to make it as painful to play as possible. At the same time, they must really hate healers because they've relegated them to babysitters. "Here's a ton of damage. Good luck healing everyone!"

Just as a reference point on the incoming damage. So even today Death Touch + Bleeds can be a problem for tanks/healers to work through while at the same time being able to get their round of buffs/debuffs off.

Now look at these numbers.



This is Death Touch on me. Off tank has Bleeds, obviously. That's 6191.7 DTPS on me during the Bahsei fight while active.

This is the DTPS on some of our DDs during last boss.



To reiterate on this point. The DDs are taking as much damage as the tanks take during the Bahsei fight both from Bleed and Death Touch, a fight that some tanks/healers consider a very unfun fight due to this damage. The main tank will take more than double the DTPS that they do during the Bahsei fight. Have fun!

This is absurd. Someone at ZOS signed off on this.

They need to tone it down by about 50% just to make it acceptable and that would only put it around the same level as Bahsei which some still consider an unacceptable level of difficulty. Now compare this damage to any of the older trials, most of which have mechanics which are more enjoyable and, to a greater degree, engaging. Damage is going up but mitigation is going down. What use is Bracing Anchor block mitigation against health scaling DoTs or Oblivion-like damage (à la Creeping Manifold). This is part of what I meant by it getting silly. They need to clear their checklist of the mandatory "health scaling DoT ☑". I defended the light attack damage from last boss in Shipwight's Regret. But health scaling DoTs are an abomination and a plague on ESO at the moment. I'm not a fan of excessively high impact damage from light attacks, but that at least is somewhat manageable because there's a cooldown and periods where you don't need to block and can regain resources.

Vaoh

One point I would like to make about all of this feedback about difficulty....

ZOS, do not forget there are console players too. We have worse game performance and no add ons. My server has only 21 players with Planesbreaker which is only two PB completes (3 players are in both runs).

Furthermore it sounds like you’ve double downed on the Swashbuckler Supreme meme title since you wrote an article about it. This means you are giving trash rewards for an impossibly difficult task.

You really need to listen to feedback on this one.