So, theoretically, what do I and my Companion need to duo Dungeons?

JMadFour

I'm playing a Mage-type ranged character. either NB or MagSorc. My Companion will be a Tank. Isobel, most likely.

If I wanted to duo Normal mode dungeons in order to go slowly and experience the dungeon stories, what would I need to do that successfully?

NOTE: I am not a top-tier, vet trial/arena parse dummy gawd type of player. I am decidedly average in skill, as far as I can tell.

Do I need to have like a fully decked out meta build for my class, and approximately how highly geared/leveled does my Companion need to be in order to survive?

Just so I know what to aim for, and when to actually start trying it.

ZOS_Kraken

Greetings,

After further review we have decided to move this thread to a category we think is more appropriate for this topic.

Thank you for your understanding.

FrancisCrawford

Some thoughts:

1. Before there was such a thing as companions, one could solo the easiest dungeons before Level 50, even if one lacked a young person's reflexes.

2. My limited experience with tank companions is horrible. I'd much rather use them for some combination of healing/shielding/buffing/damage, and deal with boss enemies myself.

3. If you're going into hard content you're unsure about, always take a nice high-powered self-heal. Every class has one or more, and Resolving Vigor is good as well. That said, you also will like to be able to heal your companion, and that lowers the options slightly. Vigor is no longer good, and wardens have to be a bit creative.

My favorite heal if playing with anybody else, even a companion, is the sorcerer's Twilight Matriarch. It heals 2 targets, plus itself, and doesn't have to be aimed or positioned for in any way.

4. "Ticking" heals can differ greatly in magnitude. Critical Surge is a wonderful self-heal for sorcerers. Lotus is smaller, but heals self or others for wardens. Swallow Soul is a great spammable damage skill for magblades because of the heal.

5. It makes sense to use one dropped set, for easy access to jewelry, and one crafted set, for easy access to weapons. Or you can just buy weapons in guild stores. Also, some good weapons can be had as quest rewards or named drops from boss, most especially an infused lightning staff of Mother's Sorrow with a name like "Argonian Muckminder".

6. The right mythic item can of course help a lot. Ring of the Pale Order is great if you're not going Oakensoul.

FrancisCrawford

Of course, some dungeons are harder to solo than others. The first boss of Vaults of Madness is really tough to survive unless you can burn him down fast enough that his mechanics never really start. The same is true of the final boss of Blackheart Haven. One of the early boss fights in Fungal Grotto 2 is certain death unless you do enough damage before being pinned down.

Direfrost Keep can't be soloed without an exploit or near-exploit. The Malubeth fight early in Wayrest Sewers 2 is hard even if you're duoing with another player; soloing would be very hard unless you're quite expert.

Etc.

And some bosses have ccs that are hard or impossible to avoid, but that you eventually get released from, so you need enough tankiness to survive. Fortunately, one of those is the final boss of Spindleclutch 1. If you can handle that fight you can handle most of the other examples in the non-DLC dungeons as well.

ghost_bg_ESO

knowing if it is soloable or there are mechanics (as infamous Direfrost Keep's plates)
patience at first, prepare to spend hour and even more, even in normal non-dlc dungeons,
don't stay in red circle, there are a lot of guides on youtube explaining mechanics

go solo couple world bosses if it works it is one step closer, other problem is to survive the mobs in the dungeon...

even some beginner's build should do (when you know how to use it) - normal non-dlcs can be done with around 10k dps,
may be having heavy armor on body or even 10 health allocated in attribute points, ice staff as back bar (whatever works best)
food and potions !!!

skills - spammable, aoe (mobs-spammable), fast healing and healing over time(hot), having some buffs and debufs is bonus but should work even without them (one hour+ mentioned before)

companions - in normal non-dlc may help as tanks

as beginner friendly - fungal grotto 1, volenfell, banished cells 1... kind of(see guides) - arx corinium, city of ash 1, wyrest sewers 1, tempest island, darkshade caverns 1 (?)

Edit: forgot - also shield skill

KlauthWarthog

Get the Psijiic ultimate, morph to Undo, and get a Ring of Pale Order. Find a good way to inflict Major Breach on bosses and, if possible, mob packs.

The Undo ultimate lets you bypass a couple of boss mechanics that would otherwise require another player around.
A Ring of Pale Order passively heals you while you damage stuff.
Major Breach will make things go down a lot faster. Razor Caltrops does that on an area, but you need Assault 6 to get it. The craftable set Night Mother's Gaze will passively apply it to anything you are hitting, but this is literally the only scenario where that set is worth of a side note, so you might want to not go crazy on it.
Your gear does not need to go above purple for that, aside from the weapons.

chessalavakia_ESO

The Banished Cells I, Fungal Grotto I, Spindleclutch I, Darkshade Caverns I, Elden Hollow I, Wayrest Sewers I, Arx Corinium, City of Ash I, Crypt of Hearts I are all easy enough you will not need anything special beyond a heal.

Direfrost Keep requires a workaround/exploit or someone else to stand on a location.

Tempest Island and Volenfell are also easy enough they don't need anything special beyond a heal.

Blackheart Haven's last boss will defeat you unless you have the means to survive without your abilities for a while. (Also be sure not to go into the water as that can kill you fast)

Blessed Crucible and Selene's Web are also easy enough they don't need anything special beyond a heal.

Vaults of Madness has a first boss that has a stage that reflects your damage back at you so you'll need to heal and stop doing damage to avoid your companion killing you by damaging the boss. The next boss will leave you CC'd for much of the fight. Your companions gear will matter somewhat for the fight as you will be spending a fair bit of time incapacitated but, your companion will likely be able to solo it without an issue the rest of it is easy.

Once you get the the II dungeons and dlc it starts to get harder and you will probably want to be decently geared to make the mechanics easier to deal with. If you already know the mechs, you'll have to put less effort into gearing. If you don't know the mechs on the DLC dungeons/ II dungeons you'll likely want to google them first as some have enrage timers/unavoidable cc/ one shots.

Personally, when I got more into doing the DLC dungeons I swapped to tanking rather than being a dps/heals hybrid because it lets me make far more mistakes. (However, you will hit issues in the fights that have enrage timers.)

One thing to note with your companion is that sometimes the mechanics will beat the snot out of them and they will just sit in red and other times they will actually respond well to the threats or be immune to them.

NoSoup

I very rarely 4 man dungeons these days, my most fun is trying to duo the DLC dungeons with just my trusty companion. From my experiences I can offer this.

Avoid using your companion as a Tank. Even as a tank they will die easily and if you are relying on them to "tank" then you'll be stuffed when they die. Give them 1 or 2 offensive abilities and the rest all heals.

Damage is key. Since it's just you doing real damage you need to have a pretty high damage output while having enough health and armor to survive. To this end I have found lightning HA builds to be the best options. You have two paths you can take here. Using Oakensoul or Pale order. I currently use noble dualist 5 piece (sergent's mail is just as good). 2 Piece Willpower & Perfected Malestrom Staff with Oakensoul. This leaves me two spots for monster sets which I change out depending on the content. If you find you are dying way too much then you'll want to look at swapping oakensoul for Pale order. If you use pale order back bar maelstom, drop willpower and add infallible mage for vulnerability, slayer & additional heavy attack damage. The Pale order path will take longer to clear most dungeons but definitely has higher survivability. The Oakensoul path will give you more raw power allowing you a better chance of getting through encounters before being overwhelmed but leaves you needing a strong heal in your limited 5 skill slots.

This last bit dosen't really help you much but I have found DK to be the easiest to use to solo/companion difficult content. Followed by Templar & then Sorc. Sorc's do have a very good arsenal and are great once you know a certain dungeon like the back of your hand but on the encounters where you're still getting familar with a dungeon keeping your pets alive, keeping your companion alive and avoiding direct damage can quickly become overwhelming.

AlterBlika

My opinion is based only on my experience, and I solo hard content, so some advices can be a "too much" for you.

Companions aren't that great as tanks, so you'd better level them as a healer for soloing purposes. Although from my experience, comanions aren't reliable either (but I'm talking about vet content), so better count on yourself only.

I suggest getting the psijic ulti which allows you to skip most of 2+ man mechanics. Next, you're going to need a good mix of survivability, sustain and damage. Basically, when solo, you're a dd with some tweaks. Some encounters force you to be more defensive (certain vDLC bosses), while others allow you to go more aggressive.

Since you want to solo normal dungeons, you don't really need to have meta gear. Have basic dd sets and throw something for survivability. My stamnb char is running rele+zaan, while my survivability comes solely from master 2h, pale order ring and redguard race (sustain). With this setup I can solo vDLC dungeons, and damage is pretty good. I presume pale order should be enough for you, so then you should focus on damage.

You're aiming at 50% crit, around 4k damage (more=better), decent penetration (I have 10k which is overkill, you should aim for something around 4-5k for normal content, AND have a source of major breach), and maybe some proc sets. Have at least purple gear, jewelry included, with right traits: divines for armor, bloodthirsty for jewelry. Full damage enchantments on armor. In case with jewelry you can use some sustain enchantments if you need it, but otherwise use damage boosts. Potions, albeit expensive, do help a lot. They free up extra slots and help sustain. You can run dungeons without them, but this way you're going to lose damage. I won't recommend anything specific so feel free to choose. You can even switch pale order to something, if it works for you. There are good build editors for ESO which help a lot.

I started to solo when I was below 50lvl. It was hard, but doable. If you have some cp and understand basic mechanics of the game - you're going to be fine. Actually, if built right, you'll even find normal content pretty easy and boring.

As for companions, I never faced an encounter where I would fail without one. They have some potential, I really like their huge shield from resto staff, but they tend to die easily, so I don't count on them.

EDIT: forgot to mention basic stuff like food and mundus, etc, but, if I were to write a full guide to soloing, it'd be too much for a comment. So I suppose that you know already about such things

jaws343

I'd say, it would be difficult to rely on a companion to duo a dungeon unless you can already solo the dungeon. They're nice for bits and pieces here and there but they really don't do enough to cover as a second player.

jaws343

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Of course, some dungeons are harder to solo than others. The first boss of Vaults of Madness is really tough to survive unless you can burn him down fast enough that his mechanics never really start. The same is true of the final boss of Blackheart Haven. One of the early boss fights in Fungal Grotto 2 is certain death unless you do enough damage before being pinned down.

Direfrost Keep can't be soloed without an exploit or near-exploit. The Malubeth fight early in Wayrest Sewers 2 is hard even if you're duoing with another player; soloing would be very hard unless you're quite expert.

Etc.

And some bosses have ccs that are hard or impossible to avoid, but that you eventually get released from, so you need enough tankiness to survive. Fortunately, one of those is the final boss of Spindleclutch 1. If you can handle that fight you can handle most of the other examples in the non-DLC dungeons as well.

A small tip for vaults of madness first boss, if you approach the DPS carefully, and stop doing damage the moment the channel starts, it won't kill you. I either approach that fight as a quick burn or a single target only fight depending on normal or vet.

rpa

Even I could solo Vaults of Maddness including The Cursed One miniboss (except for a while after U35). It's a good dungeon for learning to mind the mechanics.
Anyway, companion should be able to stand on platform, pull levers, not stand in aoe damage, and for forgotthename dungeon simultaneously interrupt 3 enemies around room at same time player interrups the 4th.

katanagirl1

Had to skim because I need to log off, but I am surprised at all the advice against setting up companions as tanks.

Bastian and I have done several non-dlc dungeons with him as tank, and even Falkreath Hold though I died a lot from the mob packs. Isobel and I did Arx Corinium with her as tank even though she is not max level yet. I haven’t tried harder ones yet as I am still working on my dps on a new character.

Zodiarkslayer

Comps are great for healing and buffing.
All currently available are decent to good healers. The key is to use purple light armour in quickened trait. That lets them cast their abilities almost on cooldown. Isobel is the best because of her many heal over times.

Isobel is also the only one that can "tank". With enough quickened heavy armour and some vigorous (I have three pieces vigorous), she stays alive in almost every fight I put her in. Veteran Boss heavy attacks are her limit, but companions generally are not meant to survive them.

The secret to decent tanking is the priority of their abilities in combination with quickened trait. Most guides I see on the internet get that very wrong. The guys writing these guides are approaching things like when they tank personally as players. But you've got to do the opposite. You have to be a programmer and think of their ability bar as one p-regulator made up of conditions and actions. So most of it actually reverses itself.

For Isobel's tanking I use:
1 Holy Ground
2 Blessed Sacrament
3 Solar Ward
4 Provoke
5 Ritual of Salvation
Ult: Deactivate auto casting!!! Never use it!!!

I sometimes swap Provoke and Ritual, if I notice she gets into fights too quickly. Especially with strong Bosses that can be a detriment. Otherwise it is better to have the ground effect of Ritual cast after the taunt. The OneHandAndShield ability "On Guard" can help too, if you have the opportunity to help her out with a little healing. That is what I recommend when you play Templars, Dragonknights or Nightblades, as these classes have great ground HoTs that can heal your companion and yourself at the same time. That makes for an almost "unkillable" Isobel.

Caligamy_ESO

Ring of Oakensoul, the end.

FrancisCrawford

jaws343 wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Of course, some dungeons are harder to solo than others. The first boss of Vaults of Madness is really tough to survive unless you can burn him down fast enough that his mechanics never really start. The same is true of the final boss of Blackheart Haven. One of the early boss fights in Fungal Grotto 2 is certain death unless you do enough damage before being pinned down.

Direfrost Keep can't be soloed without an exploit or near-exploit. The Malubeth fight early in Wayrest Sewers 2 is hard even if you're duoing with another player; soloing would be very hard unless you're quite expert.

Etc.

And some bosses have ccs that are hard or impossible to avoid, but that you eventually get released from, so you need enough tankiness to survive. Fortunately, one of those is the final boss of Spindleclutch 1. If you can handle that fight you can handle most of the other examples in the non-DLC dungeons as well.

A small tip for vaults of madness first boss, if you approach the DPS carefully, and stop doing damage the moment the channel starts, it won't kill you. I either approach that fight as a quick burn or a single target only fight depending on normal or vet.

Good point. Adjusting your build for that single fight only to include no DoTs whatsoever should make it doable, especially if you also dismiss any pets or companions or otherwise prevent them from doing damage to the boss too.

HedgeHugger

Being a werewolf for Blackheart can help.

HedgeHugger

If you use your companion as a tank, be prepared to pick them up and heal them. They are good for distraction tactics, especially on the base dungeons. They are ignored on some of the DLC ones.

robpr

Precognition morph of Undo is a must for "hold" mechanics as companions not always reliably bash things and they do that only in melee range and if they target the specific thing to be bashed.

Example:
Dark elf boss in Cradle of Shadows apply a hold and summons 2 shades that need to be bashed to be free. Companions will target only the boss and wont bash them unless you target them with Y, but that might be already too late.

spartaxoxo

For your companion

You'll want to gear your companion in blue gear and maybe a little purple. It doesn't need to be full purple to survive decently well. I use a mix of vigorous and bolstered, I find that after the companion hits 35k HP, the rest in bolstered works better. But I haven't done extensive testing in that regard.

Your own gear can be whatever you're already using. It's actually more important that your tank companion is geared.

To support the companion, slot a heal. You'll need this occasionally on most fights. If an enemy is gonna heavy attack, just make sure they are topped up with a quick burst.

It helps to have both a burst heal and a hot to help when the burst heal isn't enough.

And finally, I like to use the skill "guard" for certain attacks where they are taking sustained long damage. It transfers some of it to you. This skill is boss specific and should be removed from your bar when that fight is over. Sometimes it's easier to just take that fight out yourself as well.

For yourself

As others have noted, Undo will be necessary for certain mechs.

Necrotech_Master

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Had to skim because I need to log off, but I am surprised at all the advice against setting up companions as tanks.

Bastian and I have done several non-dlc dungeons with him as tank, and even Falkreath Hold though I died a lot from the mob packs. Isobel and I did Arx Corinium with her as tank even though she is not max level yet. I haven’t tried harder ones yet as I am still working on my dps on a new character.

agree with this, i would recommend having one companion set up as tank, one as healer, and one as dps at a minimum so they can help the toon your using

if your on a dps with self heals, get a tank companion or healer companion
if your on a tank get a dps companion

if you have the companion set up properly, they will be fine in 95% of the content, theres only a few mechanics in dungeons that are difficult for them (such as the bear lightning breath in earthen root enclave, since a tank companion doesnt block through it)

Mik195

I'm fairly sure that my bear has higher dps than I do and most the normal base game dungeons are doable. I have Isobel set up with both healing and damage skills. Going just damage and she dies too much.

One thing that really helps me and makes dungeons doable is that pets are immortal. So if I'm having a dizziness spell, I can close my eyes and just hit heal until I feel better and the bear keeps doing damage. That how I got past the first mini boss in Vaults of Madness - I healed and let Isobel and bear do the damage.

One thing to know - yes, the boss really is picking on you. A lot of bosses have a mechanic where they hit 1 group member with a special attack and as the only human available, you get all of the attacks.

Gadamlub14_ESO

It really depends on the dungeon. Base game can be doable just fine without companion and minor tweaks.

Dlc like mazzietun or whichever, need more thoughts to builds.

Some, just simply cannot be completed without other players due to mechanics like tripping multiple switches at the same time.

However what you need to start pushing as solo content is self healing ability and or tanking for your own character. If your companion has the tank role, then you also need to be able to heal them in turn. For sorc, pets can help distract and tank with some heal. Crit surge allows healing when you deal critical damage. (Try pairing with thunder bug set)

A great set to lean on for a beginners magicka set is the phoenix one. It’s from the pvp zones and when you nearly die it pops a massive damage shield and some small damage to help correct your mistakes and quickly heal yourself back up.

mocap

The only dungeon you absolutely must have compaion is Wayrest Sewers 2 first boss. And maybe White-gold Tower first boss if you don't have force lockpicking. Other dungeons (all of them) can be fully soloed at least on normal without companion.

- Fang Lair skeli boss you must have Precognition ult.
- Blackheart haven last boss you must have something around 2-4k passive regen HP and/or Pale Order Ring.
- Direfrost Keep you need long range + gap closer skill (bow Snipe + 2H Charge for example) to exploit troll behind door.
- Mazzatun last boss would be great to have a proc dot build and Pale Order Ring, since boss just spamming statue mechanic.
- Imperial City Prison you must be NB with Shade teleport skill to push the switches.