Survivability against Bosses

tunepunk · January 2015

Lately I've been doing Veteran level Public dungeons solo and even the group events and bosses.

I find it quite hard to survive at times against some bosses, but i guess these arn't really made to be done solo, but i noticed that as long as I don't run out of resources (magicka & stamina) most of them were pretty much doable.

I play a Sorcerer Bow build so my main tactic for staying alive is not to get hit at all.
It works quite well against Melee bosses if i can manage to stay out of range. But I've encountered some Ranged bosses and Spellcasters wich are way more tricky at times.

What would be a good tactic for hard hitting ranged bosses? Roll a lot? Damage shield? More points in to Health? I tend to run out of resources more faster against ranged bosses, and since CC usually doesn't work i aways have to resort to avoid damage at all cost, but that is quite costly on resources.

I like the challenge of doing it solo, and I don't mind to die a couple of times before i get it right, but would like some advice on gear or useful skills against bosses to stay alive better. Currently my main source of survival is Streak, and Magnum shot, and Whitestrake’s Retribution set to survive occational bursts of high damage.

Any other skills/tactics/sets that may be useful?

Terminus · January 2015

What attribute are you running out of more often (other than health), magicka or stamina?

As a sorcerer I also find I have a huge problem with absorbing arrows, which count as physical damage and is effected by your armor rating rather than spell resistance. I suppose one ability you may want to look at as a sorcerer while soloing is Bound Armor, which will help to eat a lot of the damage. Also, don't underestimate the value of familiars.

And finally, why are you trying to solo veteran level public dungeons?

tunepunk · January 2015

I find regular VR content too easy, so that's why I do public dungeons solo. It's more of a challenge and helps me to improve, when I have nothing better to do.

Public VR dungeons are also a quite easy except for some of the bosses, so this is where i want to improve my play style. Learning to survive bursts of damage and staying alive against bosses is a nice challenge.

I go all in for Magicka (soft cap), health around 2000, Rest is spent in stamina. The reason i don't go for stamina is because it seems blocking, CC break and roll dodge, Sprint, drains a percentage of stamina rather than a fixed number.

Keeping the stamina as low as possible with a high Regen instead seems more beneficial, so gear is 5 pieces of Medium armor and 2 pieces light. The less stamina i have the better it seems, at least for survivability, not for using bow skills.

And that's the main reason I'm using a bow. One heavy attack and I gain a huge ammount of Stamina for roll dodge etc.

The only bow skill i use is Magnum shot. Only because it helps me avoid damage. Destruction staff skill, Destructive Touch works in a similar way but not useful against bosses, so that's another reason why I went for bow instead. Magnum shot pushes me back 6 meters, which is nice

My main damage is simply light/heavy attacks, around (400-500dps) which is not Uber but enough to do some damage.

I'm thinking of trying to max health regen and try go for, 8 trait set, (Orgnum’s Scales), and Balance (Mages Guild skill) To get some really nice health regen when I'm not getting hit and also getting more magicka back.

My main skill setup for bosses right now.
Magnum Shot, Streak, Degeneration, Critical surge, Inner light. Flawelss dawnbreaker.

Degeneration is quite useful, since it's healing me and doing a little,little bit of damange while I'm not doing attacks, and is really cheap, Sometimes i use Poison injection instead.

So I figure, Balance together with Orgnum’s Scales set would heal me more than what Degeneration would do, and also give me more magicka to use Streak more often. Anyway. Just theory so far. I have to wait at least a month before i get all the traits researched so i can try it out.

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO · January 2015

And finally, why are you trying to solo veteran level public dungeons?

Probably because quite often, nobody else is around in the Gold zones. I do this, too. After writing in zone chat and realizing that nobody else is there, I just go in alone, if only for the laughs. Sometimes I manage it, sometimes I get my behind handed to me on a platter. The difficulty varies greatly between dungeons, and many of the bosses are quite a bit beyond my ability, but I have managed to fight at least some bosses and complete the main objective for many public dungeons without help.

Yes, it's more fun in a group, and that's how it was meant to be played, but what do you do when nobody else is around and you are unable to find guild mates who want to do VR6-10 PvE? As a member of the Undaunted I can't just turn back at the door, so I enter.

Dagoth_Rac · January 2015

Familiars to soak up some of the damage that would normally come to you. Bound Armor to mitigate damage. A damage shield like Hardened Ward to eat a lot of damage before it even reaches you. Heal-over-time effects like Rapid Regeneration from the resto staff on a second bar (spell is fairly cheap, so just toggle bar, cast it, toggle back to bow). All of this should give you more survivability.

And don't forget that bow heavy attacks restore stamina and resto heavy attacks restore magicka. So if potions are still on cooldown, use a heavy attack or two to get some extra resources back.

Stannum · January 2015

Tanky builds magika builds are good against such boses. As for stamina builds some can be done with DPS burst run especcially if you are WW. But some like WB storm atronah in Stormheaven or malabal Tor are very hard.

Dyride · January 2015

If they are a ranged caster, you can put on a Sword and Board and be a make-believe DK with Defensive Stance. Rolling consistently is hard unless your stamina regen is high or you are equipping medium armor.

Lynx7386 · January 2015

You could use the projectile absorbing morph of bolt escape as well.

tunepunk · January 2015

Anyone know if 'Venom Arrow' is effective against bosses? Does it work as well for interrupting as usual interrupts? LMB+RMB?
Maybe also 'Lethal Arrow' against healing bosses?

It seems a lot of skills will give the message that they are too powerful for that effect, so a lot of skills are useless against bosses.

NotSo · January 2015

If you are fighting a boss with a ranged magic normal attack, just kill him with sword/shields defensive stance. For a bow type, allow him to waste his time doing power moves unless they are single target power moves.

Stannum · January 2015

tunepunk wrote: »

Anyone know if 'Venom Arrow' is effective against bosses? Does it work as well for interrupting as usual interrupts? LMB+RMB?

It is. If boss is caster and interruptable venom arrow works good. It's also good against boss healers as interrupts their heals.

tunepunk · January 2015

NotSo wrote: »

If you are fighting a boss with a ranged magic normal attack, just kill him with sword/shields defensive stance. For a bow type, allow him to waste his time doing power moves unless they are single target power moves.

So far I had the most trouble soloing healing bosses, and some really hard hitting melee ones or caster types. Healing bosses at the top of the list, if I don't manage to interrupt them on time, they don't kill me but fights last forever.

Seems like resource management is the Key, and some useful skills.

Melee bosses - Stay out of range Kite to death. Most are easy, if manage resources well.

Healing bosses - Interrupt, one missed interrupt and fight is gonna last LOT longer, it seems really important to have enough resources to interrupt EVERY heal. Doable but hard.

Caster / ranged bosses - Combination of roll dodge, block, interrupts and sustained self heals, since some attacks are really hard to avoid. Using the terrain works quite well at times, since they don't cast if they don't see you, planting some traps on the way seems quite effective, since they will try to move to a position where they can see you.

Brasseurfb16_ESO · January 2015

tunepunk wrote: »

Lately I've been doing Veteran level Public dungeons solo and even the group events and bosses.

I find it quite hard to survive at times against some bosses, but i guess these arn't really made to be done solo, but i noticed that as long as I don't run out of resources (magicka & stamina) most of them were pretty much doable.

I play a Sorcerer Bow build so my main tactic for staying alive is not to get hit at all.
It works quite well against Melee bosses if i can manage to stay out of range. But I've encountered some Ranged bosses and Spellcasters wich are way more tricky at times.

What would be a good tactic for hard hitting ranged bosses? Roll a lot? Damage shield? More points in to Health? I tend to run out of resources more faster against ranged bosses, and since CC usually doesn't work i aways have to resort to avoid damage at all cost, but that is quite costly on resources.

I like the challenge of doing it solo, and I don't mind to die a couple of times before i get it right, but would like some advice on gear or useful skills against bosses to stay alive better. Currently my main source of survival is Streak, and Magnum shot, and Whitestrake’s Retribution set to survive occational bursts of high damage.

Any other skills/tactics/sets that may be useful?

Use Ball Lightning morph instead of Streak, Critical Surge for self sustain and use the immunity frame at your advantage so you can build back some stamina.If you manadge your ressources correctly you won't have any issues with ranged bosses anymore.

Brasseurfb16_ESO · January 2015

tunepunk wrote: »

Anyone know if 'Venom Arrow' is effective against bosses? Does it work as well for interrupting as usual interrupts? LMB+RMB?
Maybe also 'Lethal Arrow' against healing bosses?

It seems a lot of skills will give the message that they are too powerful for that effect, so a lot of skills are useless against bosses.

Venom Arrow works against any interuptible skills, sometimes it is even possible to make ennemies rubberband in their animation when they are forced to complete their attack sequences.

For instance, when gargoyles try to petrify your character, if you constantly interupt gargoyles they will keep trying to cast petrify until it succeeds. So with a lot of interupts you can actualy stun lock gargoyles in their animations. Same goes with giants using their shock waves.

tunepunk · January 2015

Brasseurfb16_ESO wrote: »

Venom Arrow works against any interuptible skills, sometimes it is even possible to make ennemies rubberband in their animation when they are forced to complete their attack sequences.

For instance, when gargoyles try to petrify your character, if you constantly interupt gargoyles they will keep trying to cast petrify until it succeeds. So with a lot of interupts you can actualy stun lock gargoyles in their animations. Same goes with giants using their shock waves.

That's really good to know. I never tried that Morph, but it seems very useful since you can't really use the regular interrupt when at range. Seems like I have to reset some skill points and try it out. That skill doesn't cost very much Stamina either so it could probably be used quite often without running out of stamina. Toss in a heavy attack in between to get some stamina back

I think my new main skill setup for bosses would look like this.
1. Magnum shot - Very useful for staying out of range.
2. Streak - Good escape and a little damage when streak through.
3. Venom arrow - interrupts.
4. Critical Surge - Some more DPS & Self heals.
5. Inner Light? - Why? I don't really use a lot of magica based skills. I usually keep it on because it heals me a bit more often when using streak.

Maybe have to rethink my No.5 skill.

* Option 1. Balance? (Mages guild)
I'm thinking to gear up with a lot of Health Regen gear and using, Balance on No.5.
Instantly more Magicka for streak & critical surge, when needed, and some nice bonus to health regen. 40% more for a good ammount of time.
* Option 2. Damage shield skill. Harness Magicka (Light armor skill) or Hardened ward? Could be useful for survival purposes.
* Option 3. Bound Aegis. Some more armor Perhaps? and a little bit of more health regen from passives?
* Option 4. Twilight Pet? Don't know if it's useful against bosses or if it would die too often, but could be nice for more regen, or a save my ass heal.
* Option 5. Elude. Getting hit less is always a good thing.
* Option 6. Elusive Mist. Maybe good if things get rough?

Seems i have some things to try tonight!