Vet Falkreath & vCR difficult with pug?

subarctic

Have Zaan, Balorg, Perfected False God, and done vMA and vDSA, so can my 1500cp mDK just wing it and join a pug doing vet Falkreath? (Need Pillars of Nirn).

And is it doable to use group finder to pug vCloudrest if everyone has over 1000 cp?

Gray_howling_parrot

You don’t need to do veteran dungeons to get dungeon gear. Go into normal falkreath and farm pillar.

Group finder is fine for pugging vCR - but it’s a random group of people, so keep that in mind. Also CP has nothing to do with it. I have buddies that are > 2300 CP that don’t do anything but quest and do normal content. Lots of 1200-1600 cp players have god slayer, don’t make that your only criteria. Discord usability for comms and understanding of mechanics is what’s important

ZOS_Icy

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.

fred4

vCR+0 is doable, but can be pretty dodgy as you usually end up telling the inevitable Oakensoul players to please not wipe the group in the Relequen fight, e.g. to take that mythic off. People are usually also shaky on portals and on the "you'll die by trying to rez someone" mechanic. If this sounds like news to you, then maybe you shouldn't start by pugging it with a random group. At the very least read up on the mechanics, then see whether a group will have you. Like Cooperharley says, CP has nothing to do with it. It's experience with mechanics on vet. The usual way to ensure some measure of competence, in trials, is to ask for the respective Conqueror achievement. vCR has the added difficulty that, if you want to farm all types of set pieces, you'll have to do vCR+0, +1 and +2. Not sure +3 is also necessary. Hopefully not. vCR+3 is progression group territory, as far as I know.

Necrotech_Master

if you need pillar of nirn, why do vet falkreath in the first place, would be faster to do it on normal

vet falkreath isnt really terrible in a pug as long as your dps can pass the dps check on the final boss (have to kill the final boss before you run out of pillars or you will wipe on his shout)

for vCR, i would agree with freds assessment, you might be able to get away with vCR+0 in a pug, as long as you have a couple people who know the portals

vCR+1 takes a little more coordination as a 3rd tank is needed for the z'maja fight

+2 and +3 are where you start getting into prog territory as +3 is the hard mode and requires significant coordination due to the tons of mechanics all going on at once

subarctic

How important is Discord for vCR? It will take a long time on EU PC to find a pug with Discord.

Necrotech_Master

i would highly recommend voice chat if your doing anything over +0, you might be able to get away with no voice on +0, but it would still be good to have some callouts from a raid lead on that one

subarctic

And can I get all the Perfected Relequen pieces doing vCR+0?

Necrotech_Master

yes, however cloudrest is kind of weird in that it drops different things depending on difficulty

+0 will only drop body pieces
+1 will drop body + weapons
+2 will drop body + weapons + jewelry
+3 same as +2 except the items are gold instead of purple (not like its a huge deal to upgrade it now)

El_Borracho

VCR pugs have 3 common problems:

1. The guy who will not swap bars on Relequen for whatever reason, no matter how many times you tell him
2. Too many players run around on top trying to send shards during portal phase and die, which leads to...
3. Players do not kill the shade of the dead player before rezzing him, killing themselves too

There are minor issues as well:

1. The portal DPS is too weak
2. Players do not focus the orbs up top when they spawn
3. Hoarfrost and the yellow AOE

The 3 minor issues can be overcome with a group willing to learn. The top 3 problems are typically what cause a group to wipe and players to eventually quit out of frustration. I wish you luck, but you really should consider joining a guild.

kringled_1

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

yes, however cloudrest is kind of weird in that it drops different things depending on difficulty

+0 will only drop body pieces
+1 will drop body + weapons
+2 will drop body + weapons + jewelry
+3 same as +2 except the items are gold instead of purple (not like its a huge deal to upgrade it now)

Incorrect, you've swapped body and weapons. You will only get weapons at +0. Body pieces start at +1.

boi_anachronism_

Id tell you to probably go get in on a guild run fot vcr. When i pugged it in the past way back when it was the vet trial where I saw the lowest rate of clears. Basically for the same reasons others stated. Just a lot of mechs that arent skippable. It can absolutely be done but chances are it will be a frustrating experience. Anything in the plus range i wouldnt bother puggin.

Necrotech_Master

kringled_1 wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

yes, however cloudrest is kind of weird in that it drops different things depending on difficulty

+0 will only drop body pieces
+1 will drop body + weapons
+2 will drop body + weapons + jewelry
+3 same as +2 except the items are gold instead of purple (not like its a huge deal to upgrade it now)

Incorrect, you've swapped body and weapons. You will only get weapons at +0. Body pieces start at +1.

woops lol

my runs on the trial are few and far between, and the guild i do run with normally does +1 for gear (been years since ive done a +0 lol)

subarctic

I’m looking for Relequen body pieces, so bad news then since I need a guild to do +1.

Guess I play Tales of Tribute instead

fred4

subarctic wrote: »

I’m looking for Relequen body pieces, so bad news then since I need a guild to do +1.

Guess I play Tales of Tribute instead

Hahaha, that made me laugh .

What's the fascination with Relequen? Pillar I can understand. It's easy to use and as far as I can tell it still works. What class do you want to use Relequen on?

subarctic

Skinny Cheeks recommends Relequen for mDK.

https://www.skinnycheeks.gg/dragonknight

Soarora

Do nCR+1. nCR more doable with pugs. Perfected bonus doesn't matter that much.

subarctic

Don’t want to waste money on turning non-perfected Relequen into legendary armor.

Soarora

subarctic wrote: »

Don’t want to waste money on turning non-perfected Relequen into legendary armor.

I wouldnt go legendary either, purple is fine except for weapons and you get a lot of purple mats from vet dungeons. The content apart from parsing that’d require gold perfected relequen is content you’re not going to be able to pug, which then goes back into doing vcr with a guild anyways.

Dagoth_Rac

Relequen does good damage but it is meant for the absolute best groups out there. It is a very unforgiving set. You need to have a flawless rotation, you need to never miss light attacks, you need to have tanks and healers good enough where you can mostly just stand there and parse. If anything interrupts you or the pull does not go perfectly, you will lose Relequen stacks. And Relequen without high uptime at max stacks is actually an awful set.

If you are looking to pug vet dungeons and vet trials without voice chat, you are almost certainly going to be in a group where Relequen will not shine, and where your damage numbers will be worse than just about any other set.

Don't drive yourself crazy trying to get a set that will likely give you disappointing damage numbers.

fred4

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

Relequen does good damage but it is meant for the absolute best groups out there. It is a very unforgiving set. You need to have a flawless rotation, you need to never miss light attacks, you need to have tanks and healers good enough where you can mostly just stand there and parse. If anything interrupts you or the pull does not go perfectly, you will lose Relequen stacks. And Relequen without high uptime at max stacks is actually an awful set.

If you are looking to pug vet dungeons and vet trials without voice chat, you are almost certainly going to be in a group where Relequen will not shine, and where your damage numbers will be worse than just about any other set.

Don't drive yourself crazy trying to get a set that will likely give you disappointing damage numbers.

In addition I'm puzzled because both Pillar and Relequen are medium armor sets. Is that really the way to go on a magicka DK, these days, e.g. will you be able to sustain?

subarctic

mDK whip is partly stamina, but maybe have Pillar as jewels and weapons?

My final goal is to get far into Endless Archive with Sebastian. Will use Skinny Cheeks’ guide on EA - using tanky gear like Perfected Vrol (have already done vKA so hope I can pug that) - but to master EA it’s necessary to learn the mechanics of many bosses, so plan to pug as many vet dungeons, trials and arenas as possible.

Which type of gear is best for a mDK just doing vet pugs in U40?

Also have a sorc with perfected false god, pale order mythic and Mother’s Sorrow and pets. Is the sorc with Sebastian a better choice in EA than mDK?

fred4

subarctic wrote: »

My final goal is to get far into Endless Archive with Sebastian. Will use Skinny Cheeks’ guide on EA - using tanky gear like Perfected Vrol (have already done vKA so hope I can pug that) - but to master EA it’s necessary to learn the mechanics of many bosses, so plan to pug as many vet dungeons, trials and arenas as possible.

EA is entirely it's own meta. In my experience, playing solo, you run into a brick wall with basically any build that isn't specifically made for the Archive by about the middle of arc 4. Doesn't matter how tanky it is or how much conventional damage it has. In fact my tanky Brawler sorc solo build, which is incredibly strong for soloing most other content, was tedious to use and ran into problems by the end of arc 3 when I first ran the Archive with it. A damage dealer that is just slightly tanky tends to do better up to that point and into arc 4. The bosses aren't the issue. The Tho'at fights aren't the issue. The Marauders are only partially the issue. It's the way the trash rounds ramp up and add Tho'at shards from about the middle of arc 4 that becomes your biggest problem.

Do not use Vrol for EA. I respect Skinny Cheeks. He's probably gone further in the archive than I have (middle of arc 5 solo). However I can't believe he'd recommend Vrol. Especially not on a DK where basically ulti-gen / Magma Shell is everything.

Also forget about doing other content before the Archive. Dive right in. The bosses, there, are mini-versions that are heavily altered from their "real" versions where that was necessary to suit the Archive. You have to learn Archive boss mechanics to do the Archive, not "real" boss mechanics. If you want to study, seek out Xynode's 68 EA boss YouTube video, with the caveat that Xynode's coverage tends to have a lot of breadth, but may lack depth. Don't expect him to tell you about every detail. There is no substitute for experience.

In my experience, playing solo, you can get to about the middle of arc 5 in style, e.g. with decent damage and speed. Beyond that I haven't figured it out. It takes too much time tbh. End of arc 4 gives you the final version of the Tho'at fight. You've basically seen everything at that point. It merely gets harder and more tedious after that. The people, who go really deep as a duo, do it with DK tanks that live permanently in Magma Shell, because that is literally the only thing from any class that will keep you alive in the record arc 30+ runs.

The classes that do well for soloing the archive, looking at leaderboards, are warden and arcanist, maybe DK. I have a sneaking suspicion that warden is the most comfortable, due to one particular skill. I've been doing it mainly on templar. Here are my notes on how to build for the Archive:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8008524#Comment_8008524
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/647099/a-true-endless-archive-build/p1
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=583874

• Use Explosive Charge, not Stampede. Explosive Charge is an AOE interrupt, which you'll want for the blobs and other channeling adds.
• Wear the Unleashed Terror set to go with Explosive Charge, which is a decent AOE DOT that can scale up insanely with the Focused Efforts vision. FYI, I tried Carve. It's is by far not the same. The chance for Hemorraghing is relatively low from that. It hardly factors in Combat Metrics. Unleashed, on the other hand, applies that status effect guaranteed and keeps it up longer than is usually the case.
• Switch to magplar and wear the Esoteric Greaves. That's one option to deal with Marauders. Magplar (Sweeps) for the self-healing and to conserve stamina for the greaves. Playing a stamina race won't go to waste, see links above.
• Combine this with Alessia's Bulwark, because enemy weapon / spell damage reduction works in the archive. You may also consider an (Infused) weapon / spell damage reduction enchant on the front bar.
• Alternatively build for resistances and health regen, taking advantage of another vision (I've had up to 9K health regen on my Arcanist that way). Since you can't really block on templar, combine Gaze of Sithis with Alessian Armor, all the while keeping Unleashed on the back bar.
• Use Charged dual-wield weapins on one of your bars. Use Quick Cloak and Poison / Flame enchants. Between Unleashed and those enchants you have Hemorrhaging, Poisoned and Burning covered to take advantage of Focused Efforts visions. Consider using Blackrose dual-wield, if your build has room for it.
• Use Reflective Light for more chances to generate Burning status effects.
• Use Ritual to cleanse DOTs / bleeds, when needed.
• Consider using Elemental Susceptibility to apply more status effects.
• I've seen Azureblight recommended, but I think it's "meh". It's cool when the explosions happen, but it typically was no more than 5% damage in Combat Metrics when I tried it. By contrast, leaning into status effects can completely dominate Combat Metrics, e.g. Hemorrhaging, Burning, Poisoned all at 15% each. I suppose you could have multiple sets ready. In the absence of Focused Efforts, Azureblight may be an option, but so is leaning into crit with something like Sul-Xan. That said, by the middle of arc 5 my templar runs out of steam and needs to become more defensive when playing solo. I think warden may be the better class for higher arcs, due to Crystallized Slab's ability to passively / automatically stun blob shards. On templar you end up having to interrupt them with Explosive Charge.

Ultimately the archive is about tankiness / survival, while doing damage with the offensive visions and verses. The most insane vision is Focused Efforts. One of the most insane verses is Swift Gale, because it hits the Thoat dragon 3 times per application. See video: ~220K DPS against the dragon with Swift Gale and 3x Focused Efforts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBBd36LSsPo

Also, who is Sebastian? Is that a companion? I think you will find the best use of a companion in the archive is to let them die while wearing Pearlescent Ward. Not that I think that will even work well, there, tbh. As a DK, if you want to go beyond arc 5, your priority should IMO be ulti-gen / ulti-cost reduction / Magma Shell time extension (Elf Bane) above all else.

subarctic

Thank you very much for excellent advice

I’m actually a bit disappointed that doing vet dungeons etc doesn’t help you prepare for EA. I like purpose and progress, so nice if vet dungeons had a higher purpose in EA.

Sounds like Warden it is (don’t like arcanist skill animation).

JanTanhide

subarctic wrote: »

Have Zaan, Balorg, Perfected False God, and done vMA and vDSA, so can my 1500cp mDK just wing it and join a pug doing vet Falkreath? (Need Pillars of Nirn).

And is it doable to use group finder to pug vCloudrest if everyone has over 1000 cp?

You should be fine. But as others have posted just solo farm it in Normal mode. That's what I did to get every gear piece from that dungeon. Didn't take long in normal mode. Just blow through it killing everything and check for chests. Even in Normal often I got a piece of gear I didn't have.

Necrotech_Master

running the content will for the most part help understand boss mechanics, it does not necessarily need to be done on vet to see mechanics (as some mechanics from trials/dungeons bosses are missing in the archive, or some bosses in the archive have additional mechanics they do not normally have in content)

some examples:

• grothdarr fight in archive is almost completely different from the normal fight
• vorener winterborne from spindle 2 has a few extra mechanics, one of which is normally only used on a miniboss in kynes aegis
• high kinlord rillis is kind of an amalgamation of mechanics from BC1 and BC2

and like fred said, an archive build is kind of its own thing, a pure medium armor "glass cannon" dps setup will not get you far, most of my dps specs start having trouble in arc 4 (but it does make the first 3 arcs much faster)

my tanky characters can get pretty far, but after arc 3 it will be a huge slog if you dont get the right visions for dmg boosting, or also lack verses for dmg output

subarctic

@fred4

Is it ok to use unleashed greatsword instead of daggers? And why not use Pale Order Ring on Templar?

Do you know good armor sets for Warden in EA? Skinny Cheeck has only U38 info about Warden.

Necrotech_Master

one of the sets i like to run on my warden is ice furnace, its a heavy set but with dps favoring set bonuses

it also goes off constantly because wardens have so much frost dmg, so it adds an extra roughly 1000 dps in an 8 meter aoe around the target it procs on and has a chance to apply burning (good for archive if you get focused efforts)

the other set im currently using is pearlescent ward, which works good if you have a companion or another player with you because it provides a passive dmg bonus, and if your partner or companion dies, it also gives you 33% dmg reduction

subarctic

@Necrotech_Master

Can perfected Vrol be good on a Warden? I have done vKA, but vDSR is beyond my dps, so perfected Pearlescent out of reach.

boi_anachronism_

subarctic wrote: »

@Necrotech_Master

Can perfected Vrol be good on a Warden? I have done vKA, but vDSR is beyond my dps, so perfected Pearlescent out of reach.

I mean vdsr actually has no serious difficult dps check. You can realistically do it with about 50k as long as you can do the mechs. I wouldnt count yourself out. If you can do vka you can certainly do vdsr. Reef guardian and twins is actually the opposite of a dps check. Its dps control. The high burn groups have different strats obviously but you dont need 100k dps by any stretch

Necrotech_Master

the difference between perfected and non-perfected is pretty minimal, if you have non-perfected then that should still work

vrols is just, well not great, since the only real benefit it gives you is major aegis (10% dmg reduction in dungeon/trial/arena), and it wont even have 100% uptime until you get a few stacks of extended favor

i dont actually know either if the slayer/aegis buffs actually work in archive, they work in dungeon/trial/arena and dont work in overland for example, and as far as i know archive is not classed as a dungeon, trial, or arena at least in regards to endeavors, so i dont know if it has been confirmed or not if those bonuses actually work in the archive

the only difference between perfected and non-perfected pearl is like 1200 max hp, which while useful, is not going to be like a make or break difference if you only have non-perfected available