DoT on ranged boss fights in vet dungeons

Beesting · December 2014

Hi,
After my 5 hour failed attempt last night to finish vet CoH because we kept wiping at Nerien'eth i went to work and after that i thought i would ask you guys for some advice.

I found a good video on google ( UK Mer N Fur deadly crypt survivor) and i immediately saw a diffence how they handled the adds, nuking them down on their platform with something that looked like meteor.
And the whole team ran to the platform at once. So that is something to try out next time.

But my question is how to keep DoT 's on bosses that are far away?
(Dk build using resto/destro)

For most bosses i go with engulfing flames (10m range) and unstable flames (5m) , elemental ring, than just crusing shock them, rotating that works well.

But for Nerien'eth it doesn't because he tp's around the room and if i would run to him i get hit by the massive Aoe he does.
So i just rotate light attacks with crushing shock, but i feel i am missing something...

Same for the Engine Guardian boss in vet Darkshade, when i range attack it with crushing shock it feels weak and running up is a bad idea.

I was wondering if the elemental drain morph of weakness to elements is any good or if you have some other tips how to increase dps on those hard to kill bosses specificly because it is hard to use the short range DoT skills in those fights.
I have looked at scalding rune as well but i have not tried it because i use the volcanic rune morph as it is OP for solo questing.

Thanks for the help, keep dodge rolling

Beesting · December 2014

@magnusnet‌ if you have a minute to share a ranged Damage over time ability i have overlooked, i would appreciate it, as i will be leveling some morphs this week hoping to do better next week on the vet CoH pledge.

spryler · December 2014

I am also a DK fire mage (Altmer). On bosses where you are forced to stay at considerable range, sadly all you can do is weave light/med attack and crushing shock. Every once in a while I am close enough to put my 2 dots on (engulfing flames and unstable flame), but I don't try to keep them up 100% of the time like I do on most boss fights. You can improve your dps by improving how efficiently you weave the light/med attacks and crushing shock.

You have the right idea with elemental drain though, that is a great idea. Evil hunter is another good way to boost your single target dps, if the boss is affected by it. I also tend to have Igneous Shield (I use that morph because I sometimes heal) on my bar to help out the healer on tough bosses in Veteran dungeons. Igneous weapons is another option.

PBpsy · December 2014

For Dk that is kind of hard to do. Searing strike 5 m range is kind of the worst thing about DKs. You can get Entropy and Scalding rune( great for DK) for some ranged dots for every class however.
Elemental drain and weakness to elements are indeed useful for DKs and they work nicely in these long range fights.

s7732425ub17_ESO · December 2014

5 hours for CoH? Seriously?

Anyways, a simple light attack cancelling + crushing shock rotation will be 500 DPS for one person. If you don't have crushing shock, use a bow. The combined DPS should be 1k, and the adds will go down very quickly. If an add is not dropped within 10 seconds, your DPS party members are very weak and need to get better. You absolutely cannot use melee for this fight. Don't be the stupid person that uses melee.

If the tank cannot hold the boss and 2 adds at a time, then the tank needs to get better. I admit, it's very hard to hold 4 adds for the gold key. The easiest strategy is to just run away from the adds so that they just chase you around the room. But the tank should be able to handle the boss and some of the adds.

The healer needs to focus primarily on the tank. The DPS members should hardly take damage during the fight. The only damage they should be taking is from the big skull or the small skulls, but these can be mitigated by a single HP potion. If any of the DPS die during the fight, it's not the healer's fault at all. If the tank dies, the healer was not doing their job.

Magdalina · December 2014

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

5 hours for CoH? Seriously?

Anyways, a simple light attack cancelling + crushing shock rotation will be 500 DPS for one person. If you don't have crushing shock, use a bow. The combined DPS should be 1k, and the adds will go down very quickly. If an add is not dropped within 10 seconds, your DPS party members are very weak and need to get better. You absolutely cannot use melee for this fight. Don't be the stupid person that uses melee.

If the tank cannot hold the boss and 2 adds at a time, then the tank needs to get better. I admit, it's very hard to hold 4 adds for the gold key. The easiest strategy is to just run away from the adds so that they just chase you around the room. But the tank should be able to handle the boss and some of the adds.

The healer needs to focus primarily on the tank. The DPS members should hardly take damage during the fight. The only damage they should be taking is from the big skull or the small skulls, but these can be mitigated by a single HP potion. If any of the DPS die during the fight, it's not the healer's fault at all. If the tank dies, the healer was not doing their job.

O.o Are we still talking vet COH last fight? Because my experience seems quite different from yours. Tanking boss, AFAIK, is pointless, none of his attacks follow taunt. Avoiding damage is main thing you have to get down right for this fight, and it's on dps to stay out of all that red and block skulls etc. Healer won't outheal it all and it's certainly not tanks fault if you stood in the aoe and got 1shot. Most groups wipe because people can't avoid dps/don't block/dodge etc. Well, unless we're talking about hardmode where tank is actually needed in first stage.

Far as dps goes, I'm not a DK so can't say much, but I'd say don't worry too much about it. First stage(which is where I assume you were having problems) is not a dps race, better be slow and steady than fast and sorry. Focus on avoiding damage and staying alive rather than doing damage. And good luck;)

Gyudan · December 2014

I just wanted to thank you @Beesting for being a player that asks for help and advice instead of calling for nerfs. Thanks for the attitude.

I don't play DK and my sorcerer doesn't have DoTs, so I can't really give you any advice on that specific aspect, but at least they're not necessary to take down that boss.

For Crypt of Hearts boss fight:
- If you're not going for the advanced objective, try to AOE the students as soon as they get summoned. Keep ultimate up for that moment and spam impulse (you appear to be magicka dps).
- The fight requires a lot of dodges, especially when the boss teleports on a random player and does a huge AOE circle. Try to anticipate it and move as soon as he starts teleporting.
- Block the big skulls.
- A templar healer is a must-have because of the size of the room and the fact that all players are spread to avoid the AOE. I did it as a sorcerer healer (mostly mutagen, ward ally and healing springs) several times but it's much harder.
- At 35% Nerien'eth will grab his sword, then immobilizes one of the players. During that phase, everyone has to do damage (including the tank and DPS). If you don't do enough damage in time, the immobilized player will die.

For Darkshade Caverns boss fight:
- Always stay at max range. Melee DPS and tanks are useless and should switch to ranged DPS.
- Kill the adds as soon as possible, don't let them stack.
- When the boss is in fire phase, dodge the red circles as much as possible and stay away from him, right at the limit of your ranged attacks.
- Templar healers are very useful to easily restore HP from players who got hit by a fire attacks.
- When the boss is in poison phase, the group has to stack together to get as much heals as possible. Healing springs and combat prayer should be enough.
- When somebody dies, the entire group has to move to the location of the body (unless the boss is standing on it). Resurrect when it's safe to do so and always keep an active healer. If the healer is resurrecting, a backup healer should be ready.

TehMagnus · December 2014

Heya @Beesting,

So for the last boss fight (which has been a "place to wipe" for many many many people doing COH including experienced players), the technique is the following:

For silver keys you have to, indeed, rush to the platform where the boss spawns the adds and AOE them down with elemental ring (if you use stamina this fight will be very very hard but you can still do it).

The tank and the healer are extremely important in this fight, the tank doesn't really need to stay near the boss since the boss does only ranged attacks. Taunting with Inner beast every ~10s is enough to keep agro (I'm not even sure this is useful before enrage mode because I think he doesn't care about aggro) and then he can focus on the adds that spawn and taunt them/tank them close range.

Once the adds are dead (this should take less than 10s seconds with AOE or even single target DPS) resume focusing the boss until he goes for the sword in the middle.

When he is in the middle grabbing the sword, everybody needs to "stay apart" and the tank can focus on the boss. Note that if you have enough HP, you can survive any of his attacks without blocking (with 2500 hp I can sustain any of his attacks). He will then grab one of the players and kill them in a couple of seconds if you don't do enough damage to him. This is the tricky part because at the same time, the "chain AOE" from the floor will appear and if one of the people in the group is standing near the person that the boss is holding, then his AOE will kill that person. Stay away but in healing range, roll dodge the chain from the ground and nuke the shield of the boss. Repeat as needed. He will also jump a player sometimes (2,5k hp lets you survive this if you don't block it). There is a short animation before so you can block in advance if you are quick enough.

Keep DPSing the boss and voila!

To get the GOld key, the technique is the same except the tank has to be tanking 4 of the adds that spawn before the boss takes the sword in the middle. In order to do this, the tank should hold agro of the 4 adds and tank them away from the party while they DPS the boss. This depends of your DPS. With my group we never kill the adds because we get the boss down to "enrage" mode before he spawns the 3rd wave of adds. If your DPS is lower, you can consider killing the first or the first and second wave of adds before the tank begins to aggro them.

The other usual attacks from the tank involve small skulls flying to everybody (Breath of Life to heal this or a couple of well placed healing springs), a big skull flying towards one palyer (you can block this), and he will also jump a player and do a big AOE (to avoid this just run away from him as soon as he teleports on a player).

This is for the strategy.

Regarding your question about DoTs, as a DK, you have 2 DoTs to worry about at your level: Engulfind and Unstable flame (eventually you'll be able to also add an elemental ring DoT but the DPS increase is marginal). These two DoTs run out after 10s so all you have to do is get near the boss every 10s, apply both DoTs and then move away again and DPS him.

In order to track those buffs and since Zenimax refuses to improve their UI, you can download multiple addons that do this. FTC (foundry tactical combat) will show you your DoTs in for of a square with a timer. I personally prefer to use Srendarr buff tracker: "http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info396-Srendarr-AuraBuffDebuffTracker.html"

For most bosses i go with engulfing flames (10m range) and unstable flames (5m) , elemental ring, than just crushing shock them, rotating that works well.

But for Nerien'eth it doesn't because he tp's around the room and if i would run to him i get hit by the massive Aoe he does.
So i just rotate light attacks with crushing shock, but i feel i am missing something...

If he TPs on you, you can apply the DoTs before running away.
If he TPs on someone, wait for the AOE, move in, apply DoTs, move away.
If he TPs to spawn the adds, get close, do an engulfing flames on the adds & the boss (the DoT in the adds won't kill them but will give you faster ulti regeneration), then do an unstable flame on the boss.

Key is movement

.

Yes Elemental drain is good but as a DPS you shouldn't be using it and leave that task to someone else

. That being said, since you use resto staff as a secondary, you can slot it and apply it on the boss. Scalding rune is Meh since the nerf.

I did the dungeon two days ago and recorded it I think, will try to upload video of last boss kill.

Sorry for wall of text.

Edit: There are no really useful range DoTs you can apply on a target that I know of so you have to get close to apply the DoTs. In order to reduce the travel time to this boss, it's best to stay in the middle of the room near each other (except tank who can stay a bit away from group but in range for heals) and stay a bit away from eachother so you don't have more than 1 "Chain AOE" on you at one time.

TehMagnus · December 2014

Couple of extra tips:

The DK DoTs earn strength over time, this means that in order to maximize your damage output, you should renew them only when they have ran out or 1s before they run out.

Only one person needs to be using elemental drain on the boss since the effects don't stack

Edit:
Use minion from ESOui to manage your addons, this allows to keep them up to date easily without touching the files in your PC. You can also download Compatibility tool 5 from @Garkin which allows outdated addons to work most of the time.