Stonefire Machinations - Too Hard

Master_Michl

For anyone having trouble with this quest - this is how I managed to do it on VR5 (DC).

1. Stand up on the wooden platform on the left side of the room and shoot the mage
-> both enemies will aggro, but the meele will not be able to get to you so the AI will de-aggro him in 3-4 seconds.
2. Now only the mage will come for you, hide behind the big box left of the door to get him to com back all the way to the door (to give you more room to fight)
3. If done correct you will have to fight only one elite at a time (three in total)

AvalonRanger

>>The difficulty scaling in the VR area is crazy.

Yes indeed.It's almost impossible to beat enemy by solo.
I'm blade fighter, not mage.
I think melee attack is too week for veteran area.It's not well balanced.
So,I can't handle 20% of non group veteran quest by solo in each veteran area.

Terrible bad game balance is not only quest Stonefire Machinations ,but also exist in everywhere of this game. Once,it needs totally adjustment.

Arrora

I tried this quest yesterday and found it quite difficult. I looked up some suggestions on how to defeat the two mobs as I couldn't even get past beating them in order to get the main boss to spawn. I rejigged my spells and I managed it first try today.

VR4 Sorcerer with Destruction staff.
Abilities:
1. Rune Prison II (Dark Magic lvl28)
2. Fire Clench IV (Destruction Staff lvl50)
3. Crystal Blast III (Dark Magic lvl28)
4. Volcanic Rune II (Mages Guild lvl9)
5. Invigorating Drain III (Vampire lvl7)
R. Greater Storm Atronach III

I had my ultimate at max before going in as I knew I would have to fight this boss with its help at some stage after my experience yesterday.

I started off by casting Rune Prison on the caster which aggro'd the melee towards me. I used my heavy staff attack on him and Fire Clench to knock him back before carrying on with two more heavy attacks. I used the knockback a second time before recasting rune prison on the caster to keep her locked down. I carried on like this to conserve magicka for the fight with the caster as I knew that would be tough. The melee went down easily and I was still at 100% so I moved to the caster. I had to stay in melee range of her or I would have no chance. I died once fighting just her and respawning inside the room does not reset the melee (luckily). I tried again at full health and magicka and kept knocking her to the back of the room by the door where I entered. This was lucky because it meant I did not aggro the boss when he spawned and I had time to regen health and magicka once again.

I knew from reading here that the boss would respawn the two adds again at 50%, which he did. I used the same strategy as earlier by casting rune prison on the caster and using my knockback on the two melee (the boss and the add). I kept my focus on the boss, however, and when he got low on health (I did not notice the % but he did not die) the two adds despawned and the fight was over.

In the end I did not use Volcanic Rune or my ultimate, but once had to use my vampire ability and one health pot when fighting the caster.

I know this won't help everyone, but once I'd done it I felt kind of silly for not trying it this way in the first place.

Good luck and happy hunting!

crdroxxpl

This quest is ridiculous. I can beat my way through the temple, isolate the melee with Agony, kill the caster and then the melee. But as soon as I get The Mane to less than 3/4 health, the two elites I JUST KILLED are respawned. No answer from the ESO staff. They are either completely ignoring this, or they made a mistake they can't fix. Either way this P-ed me off, because now I cannot progress the main alliance story.
Anyone else know how to get around this for a Nightblade?

crislevin

crdroxxpl wrote: »

This quest is ridiculous. I can beat my way through the temple, isolate the melee with Agony, kill the caster and then the melee. But as soon as I get The Mane to less than 3/4 health, the two elites I JUST KILLED are respawned. No answer from the ESO staff. They are either completely ignoring this, or they made a mistake they can't fix. Either way this P-ed me off, because now I cannot progress the main alliance story.
Anyone else know how to get around this for a Nightblade?

this has been mentioned many times, trick is to use a long ranged spell/weapon to aggro the mane, then engage him far from his spawn spot (such as the entrance/stairs you came in), this way, he will still call two minions, but they will be too far from you and will not participate.

jesterstear

crislevin wrote: »

This is not too hard, its a simple trick.

This faction (AD) has many quests work the same way, such as when you beat the hound, or save the gambler, all about attract boss to certain distance away from its original spot.

Indeed, but I'm not sure that "work" is the operative word. Both the fact that you can so cheesily avoid fighting adds as well as the fact that the game agros more on you than intended both seem buggy/badly designed to me.

Unless it's a stealth/infiltration quest with an element of realism, you should face the same number of mobs spawning together each fight. Random number generator shouldn't come into it and those allies he summoned should have the intelligence to follow the boss when he chases after someone is ranging him. But it should be balanced so that you can realistically beat all three without cheating.

crislevin

jesterstear wrote: »

crislevin wrote: »

This is not too hard, its a simple trick.

This faction (AD) has many quests work the same way, such as when you beat the hound, or save the gambler, all about attract boss to certain distance away from its original spot.

Indeed, but I'm not sure that "work" is the operative word. Both the fact that you can so cheesily avoid fighting adds as well as the fact that the game agros more on you than intended both seem buggy/badly designed to me.

Unless it's a stealth/infiltration quest with an element of realism, you should face the same number of mobs spawning together each fight. Random number generator shouldn't come into it and those allies he summoned should have the intelligence to follow the boss when he chases after someone is ranging him. But it should be balanced so that you can realistically beat all three without cheating.

I don't consider it cheating, in reality, every battle is fight with experience and strategy.

E endlessly crushing my head into an iron wall, now thats unrealistic, because that would assume I learn nothing from repeated dying.

I am fairly confident this is indeed what the game developers wanted.

jesterstear

I don't like it because it seems a little crazy he'd summon adds that aren't linked to the boss. Normally if there's a group of 3 mobs by a camp fire and you shoot one of them, they all come, but mobs at the next camp fire won't. Logically these summoned adds should be linked to the guy that summoned them, but make them beatable for goodness sake. Make them normal adds, not elite.

It's a cheesy video game screw-you moment because until you've wiped once and seen where these adds spawn, you won't be able to avoid that death.

Something is wrong with the setup. IF they are supposed to summoned by the boss after his health reaches a certain point, they should despawn if the boss resets. And if they are supposed to be there at the start of the fight then they should not be summoned again, because that is stoopid hard.

dbishop

ayejay76b14_ESO wrote: »

I pretty much had to "cheese" this quest. As a healing templar with a resto staff I stood back at the furthest range i could and used Eclipse which as was a non-damaging ability that reflects spells back at caster. I targeted the caster with in and then ran all the way back towards entrance. Only the Caster came at me. I killed him and then got the melee guy. I used the same tactic on next part and pulled the boss back with Eclipse to the back door and killed him solo. The other two respawned during fight but were out of aggro range and didnt attack at all.

Thank you so much for this tip. I had unlocked Eclipse but never used it properly.

Phazzle

This quest is clearly glitched. Those adds should not persist after you die.

I just completed it using @Master_Michl 's strategy. Over the course of several attempts based on what I had done in the fight before and whether or not I had been in the zone. The quest either had the 2 elite adds, had just Mane, had 2 non-elite adds, or had 2 non-elite adds and Mane. It's not supposed to be this hard. It's definitely a glitch. If I were to hazard a guess I would say you can just kill the 2 non-elites which summons Mane, then fight Mane alone until he summons adds and either kill him (winning) or die (at which time the elite adds despawn).

RatsnevE

Deleted.

Mystwraith

crislevin wrote: »

crdroxxpl wrote: »

This quest is ridiculous. I can beat my way through the temple, isolate the melee with Agony, kill the caster and then the melee. But as soon as I get The Mane to less than 3/4 health, the two elites I JUST KILLED are respawned. No answer from the ESO staff. They are either completely ignoring this, or they made a mistake they can't fix. Either way this P-ed me off, because now I cannot progress the main alliance story.
Anyone else know how to get around this for a Nightblade?

this has been mentioned many times, trick is to use a long ranged spell/weapon to aggro the mane, then engage him far from his spawn spot (such as the entrance/stairs you came in), this way, he will still call two minions, but they will be too far from you and will not participate.

This didn't work for me.

Killed to first two as suggested above from the wooden ledge and waited for Mane to spawn. Switched to bow and agroed him from as far as possible and took the fight to the entrance door. Got his health down and then he summoned his mates and even though we were fighting by the door they still agroed!!

Died - tried again.. died... rinse and repeated till I had no armour left and no matter what I done when the adds were re-summoned they agroed me from maximum distance away.

Oh, I'm a VR5 NB archer and have tried everything I know and how now given up in this quest so now my growth is stunted and no way to advance in quest line or get the achievement for quests in the area unless it is doable at VR10?

crislevin

Mystwraith wrote: »

crislevin wrote: »

crdroxxpl wrote: »

This quest is ridiculous. I can beat my way through the temple, isolate the melee with Agony, kill the caster and then the melee. But as soon as I get The Mane to less than 3/4 health, the two elites I JUST KILLED are respawned. No answer from the ESO staff. They are either completely ignoring this, or they made a mistake they can't fix. Either way this P-ed me off, because now I cannot progress the main alliance story.
Anyone else know how to get around this for a Nightblade?

this has been mentioned many times, trick is to use a long ranged spell/weapon to aggro the mane, then engage him far from his spawn spot (such as the entrance/stairs you came in), this way, he will still call two minions, but they will be too far from you and will not participate.

This didn't work for me.

Killed to first two as suggested above from the wooden ledge and waited for Mane to spawn. Switched to bow and agroed him from as far as possible and took the fight to the entrance door. Got his health down and then he summoned his mates and even though we were fighting by the door they still agroed!!

Died - tried again.. died... rinse and repeated till I had no armour left and no matter what I done when the adds were re-summoned they agroed me from maximum distance away.

Oh, I'm a VR5 NB archer and have tried everything I know and how now given up in this quest so now my growth is stunted and no way to advance in quest line or get the achievement for quests in the area unless it is doable at VR10?

I will have to let you know when I get there, in Malabal Tor at V3 now. it worked fairly well when I ran my non-vet Temp through it.

this is a main quest, I don't see how you can skip it, V10 gives you 50 more magicka/stamina, 75 more health, maybe 100 more armour, I don't know how much that would help.

If you want, I can send you a few fortified mudcrab cake, which add 280 health/magicka for 1 hr. If you are only short on health OR magicka, but not both, you can also buy food that add magicka or health from chef in major cities (e.g., Elden Root, right next to the wayshrine)

Mystwraith

crislevin wrote: »

this is a main quest, I don't see how you can skip it, V10 gives you 50 more magicka/stamina, 75 more health, maybe 100 more armour, I don't know how much that would help.

If you want, I can send you a few fortified mudcrab cake, which add 280 health/magicka for 1 hr. If you are only short on health OR magicka, but not both, you can also buy food that add magicka or health from chef in major cities (e.g., Elden Root, right next to the wayshrine)

Thanks for the advice but I always go around with my stats buffed by food.

Well decided to give it another go just now and surprised myself.

Killed the first lot and then Mane spawned. Same happened again and his adds agroed me when he called them even though we were by the entrance. I died and respawned in the same spot. Jumped on the ledge and took out the mage. Tried to agro the melee add but it would also agro Mane.
So, took a deep breath, and jumped down and agroed Mane from as far back as I could and it worked!!! Yay! Only Mane agroed so I managed to take him out and complete the quest despite having 0 armour.

Me is happy now

crislevin

congrats, this is literally the hardest quest in AD campaign if you aggro all three, rest will be easy.

crislevin

Okay, finished him at V3.5, died once, because as above post mentioned, the two adds aggro'ed even when the fight was near the door.

When I re-spawn at the initial entrance ( I have no soulgem), ran back to mane's chamber, all two adds and mane are already there. Funny thing is, I attacked the mane from a far (restoration staff), he was aggro'ed, but two adds weren't.

So mane ran to me and got spanked, two adds never moved.

nathan_bri

Allow me to join in with my own peeves about this quest at VR5. After dying 4-5 times, hopelessly outgunned, I log out in frustration. 10 minutes later, after reading about some "tactics," I log back in with some renewed confidence that I might be able to tackle this and succeed. I am now faced with three elites standing side-by-side. This quest is hosed. Call me when they fix it.

crislevin

nathan_bri wrote: »

Allow me to join in with my own peeves about this quest at VR5. After dying 4-5 times, hopelessly outgunned, I log out in frustration. 10 minutes later, after reading about some "tactics," I log back in with some renewed confidence that I might be able to tackle this and succeed. I am now faced with three elites standing side-by-side. This quest is hosed. Call me when they fix it.

does my above description helps at all?

mansona87_ESO

Ugh.. had to cheese this one too. LVL 38 templar. I got to the point where Mane already had both the adds up and got stuck there for a while.

The trick is to use the wooden platform on the right side of the room to pull the mage, and jump down to fight it when the melee elite and mane de agro. Once the mage is down, pull the Mane and the melee elite. As they run towards you, jump onto the large white box immediately left of the door (it has a smaller box you can jump on first). The Mane and his elite will stick around for a few seconds before despawning. The goal here is to jump down from the large box onto the small box to keep their interest, and at some point, the Mane will backflip and land on the large box. Attack him for a few moments while his melee elite de-aggroes and then jump down from the box to dispatch the Mane. It took me a few tries to get it right without both of them deaggroing.

But yeah, stupid hard for a solo quest.

Lorgren_Benirus

Nightblade here and I didn't use any wooden platforms or sneaky tricks. VR4, quest was VR5. Went in first, defeated two adds and got the boss. Was fighting the boss when it popped 2 adds again. Note that boss had almost 11k health and each add had almost 8k health. And it's a frikkin' narrow area with limited space to move around. Got killed first time when mage blasted me with a freight train of a flame spell when I got cornered, I believe it hit me for about 1,4k. Got back up and tried again, taking on the made but then the boss landed some 1,3k hit on me. The "death recap" screen shows the hits landing on me in range from 400 to 600 points per pop.

Tried few more times with different loadouts but nothing worked really, in the end it was either one big hit from the boss, from melee add or from mage which did me in. So, I had Swallow Souls, Killer's Blade, Blinding Fury, Refreshing Path and Surprise Attack loaded. Ultimate was Soul Tether. Note that the Ultimate was already active as I had smacked some mobs outside and also inside to build it up, somewhere around 200%'ish. So finally thought that hey, I'll try that "pull-the-boss-to-the-door" thing, so abandoned the quest, picked it up and got to the boss fight stage, sneaked in and backstabbed the made and took it down fast, it had like 2,2+k health. Melee add had almost 8k so it took a bit of smacking to take it down. I had pulled that add closer to the door so when it died, I was right against the door with my back. Boss popped at the altar and I pulled it with Swallow Souls. Boss got to me and I slapped it with Surprise Attack (lowers armor) and then with the Ultimate. And just kept whacking away at it, basic attacks and Blinding Fury and occasional Killer's Blade, refreshing Swallow Souls as needed. At some point the adds popped and I thought that "they can't reach me and thus won't aggro, I hope, they wrote so on forums". Well guess again, it doesn't work, they did aggro anyway. So I thought that this is it, screwed again but I'll go down while swinging my swords. So I just kept smacking away at the boss as furiously as I could, popped a potion, refreshed Swallow Souls, Refreshing Path as needed..

My health was getting pretty low already, I was like at 20% or so, thus I just stood there and kept swinging. Stamina out. Mana almost out. Just kept swinging at it. And then poked it for what it was worth with my Killer's Blade until mana was gone and splat! No, not me, the boss went down. And when it went down it also took the adds with it. So yeah, killed it at VR4, but died few times, racked up repair bill, hated the quest and the fight and the veteran content overall.

jubilatum

This quest is too hard for VR5 its almost impossible to do, tried and tried. Please make it easier, spoils the game.

mkorny

All whine and no learn, makes *insert name* a dull boy...

One-shot it with a NB vr5 full craglorn geared: Plate +DW + vampire 10

I just came to this post because a friend of mine told me to get "tips" here, because it was "too hard" ...

Really guys, it's a matter of thinking... not a hard thing to do in a game...

1ne2woBe

mkorny wrote: »

All whine and no learn, makes *insert name* a dull boy...

One-shot it with a NB vr5 full craglorn geared: Plate +DW + vampire 10

I just came to this post because a friend of mine told me to get "tips" here, because it was "too hard" ...

Really guys, it's a matter of thinking... not a hard thing to do in a game...

Get over yourself buddy. Yes, we all came into this fight with full Craglorn gear. Oh, and of course we all came into it being a level 10 Vampire. You can't fool us. We know why you came to this post. And I'm positive 'thinking' was not involved when doing so...


I myself came to this post due to I too am having difficulty defeating this boss. I had been having fun being challenged and defeated a quite a few times within ranking up in this game since day one. However, this boss has just crushed all hopes of being able to progress. Sorry, but I will choose not to respec my character just because I rolled the dice incorrectly when starting this game creating my character. I will choose to not become a vampire just to complete a quest. And I will choose to not use my Craglorn gear that's been sitting in the trunk next to my bed collecting dust after all these levels.

Thanks. It was fun. I'll retire from fighting/questing for a while and pick up a trade. Perhaps enchanting. I heard enchanting was a nice retirement job.

stimab14_ESO

Quest is simply impossible for V10 melee toon. I have 2000 hp. Each of the three mobs AUTO attack for 350+. I literally can't run into attack range before I am at 50% HP. I can sacrifice an ability slot for my charge...but now I am down to a single attack since I am forced to stack the other three slots with a heal and two shielding abilities. Even with a damage, and two spell resistance shields, I get 1 maybe 2 heavy attacks in and I die. Hell....i literally am dead before I can use up my stamina pool with instant Executioner attacks. I simply can't nuke one of the two adds before I am dead in 7-10 seconds. Don't have the dps.

No, I DON'T have Craglorn gear. I am in quest blues and some crafted purples. I have been doing the quests in order. Is the design intent to do this quest as a V14? or in full Craglorn epics?...because I am pretty certain that is what it takes against three elite V10 mobs taking 20% of your health per attack.

SavagePanda115

You can cheese this easily aha

Severan

SavagePanda115 wrote: »

You can cheese this easily aha

This was posted when the game launched... It's been fixed for a long time now

starkerealm

Severan wrote: »

SavagePanda115 wrote: »

You can cheese this easily aha

This was posted when the game launched... It's been fixed for a long time now

On one hand, I kinda miss the old pre-nerf Cadwell zones, on the other, I am so much more relaxed now.

It probably says a lot that when I looked at this thread I was sitting there going, "what quest?"

enricor

Master_Michl wrote: »

For anyone having trouble with this quest - this is how I managed to do it on VR5 (DC).

1. Stand up on the wooden platform on the left side of the room and shoot the mage
-> both enemies will aggro, but the meele will not be able to get to you so the AI will de-aggro him in 3-4 seconds.
2. Now only the mage will come for you, hide behind the big box left of the door to get him to com back all the way to the door (to give you more room to fight)
3. If done correct you will have to fight only one elite at a time (three in total)

great thanks for this post!! ...this is the way I did it, and it was super easy.
for me, mage came alone, then melee was easy

Lirkin

I killed the first two and was working on the main mob and the other two responded and killed me. This is ridiculous as they were both elites when they respawned

paulsimonps

@Lirkin Dude thread is over 2 years old, and just noticed this is its second necro