Please implement "Learning" Mode for Trials and Veteran Dungeons

RakshaTheKhajiit · February 2015

Joy_Division wrote: »

Let's analyze that Praxin fight and try to envision how a "training" run might possibly help players. I've done this fight over 100 times and I this is what all groups need to do:

1) mitigate the damage from first horde of spiders. If they do not do this, it is an instant wipe.
2) aoe them down and spam healing springs.
3) second wave isn't nearly as bad since less spiders and tank can taunt big boss, but mitigation and aoe still necessary
4) third wave: this is a huge DPS check, specifically AOE. Groups must quickly take down the trash while the tank holds aggro on the mini-bosses. Healers need to be CCed and killed as priority targets.
5) fourth wave: there probably will still be stuff alive from wave three. More adds, at this point there will be a spider boss, a charger boss, and a nightblade type boss. This stuff has to die quickly before Praxin becomes hostile.

In a training wheels scenario, how is a group supposed to learn ANY of these mechanics? I'm totally serious.

Maybe break it into separate fights? Things like that can be fun (maybe except DPS checks, these seem boring and pointless), if they aren't served all at once. I feel that fights which have multiple unforgiving mechanics where 1 mistake = group wipe belong to the 'hard mode'.

Maw the infernal from BC could be an example of a nice, fun fight. It has mechanics that you need to learn, you can even get one shot if you aren't paying attention. However, if anyone messes up something, group can still recover.

Syntse · February 2015

RakshaTheKhajiit wrote: »

Maw the infernal from BC could be an example of a nice, fun fight. It has mechanics that you need to learn, you can even get one shot if you aren't paying attention. However, if anyone messes up something, group can still recover.

Tank keeps maw on the edge or edges keeping lot of playground free from fire, doesn't stand on fire breath. Healer keeps tank alive. DDs do ranged dps. Done. Might be fun for some, personally I see it a bit boring one. Could be easily boss fight in normal dungeon.

RakshaTheKhajiit · February 2015

Exactly. That kind of boss is casual enough to not get people frustrated, yet will teach you something. Masochists pr0s could get hard mode with constantly spawning adds 1 shooting everyone if not DPSed fast enough

Joy_Division · February 2015

Jaerlach wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Jakhajay wrote: »

DeathDealer19 wrote: »

lol this is hilarious. Vet dungeons are already tuned for casuals. You can faceroll all of them. Ive 2 manned some vet dungeons lol. Trials.....AA and HRC are so easy its ridiculous. SO is difficult and I LOVE IT. so fun. Any casual player can complete everything aside from maybe Vet DSA and Sanctum Ophidia. Even those. We carry casuals all the time through them

Are you a DK?

I'm a casual player (v14 Sorc DPS), and have a great bunch of other casual players that we often run through things with. Yet we struggle with some endgame content. We only managed to do vet CoH when we could scale it down to v1 (That Spider Daedra boss...) We had a couple of cracks at Vet CoA, first hitting the playwall with the 2nd boss and the 3rd. We also attempted normal mode DSA and after 8 hours we got to the final boss only to be absolutely and thoroughly steamrolled. Not by him, but by his boss adds.
We followed what written guides we could (video guides are rubbish with the game running in the background) and most of them are like, 'oh, the second boss is really straightforward' and yet we wipe again and again and again until it's not fun anymore. Like the Fire Maw in Vet City of Ash, he does not need adds. He's hard enough without them.
So we stop and think and change our skills and try different tactics, and it doesn't help.

Don't tell me this content is easy. Don't tell me I need a better crew. Just point me to a well written guide which caters to non-DKs

On the other hand, I can see that a training mode is a bad idea. What would be better would be to tone them down a bit. Not nerf them into Oblivion, but helpful things like spawning fewer adds each time you wipe

He doesn't need to be a DK...just someone with the best gear who has all the fights memorized such that they know exactly how to exploit every challenging dungeon fight.

*Every* group I run in CoA uses the door exploit vs the Fire Maw so you don't have to fight the adds. They exploit the Lich in Wayrest Sewers. I actually ran with a group who literally just ran past the Guardian Boss in CoH. They claim the content is catered to casuals and don't even realize they very reason it is so trivial to them is that the intentionally make it that way.

He also won't admit the tough fights you can't exploit - like the Ash Titan in CoA - is legitimately difficult if even one member of your group is inexperienced. It is very difficult to "carry as casual" through that fight because the tank must know exactly what they are doing to kite the atronachs, the healer expends a crazy amount of mana healing that fight, and the DPS need to kill the Titian fast before the tank and healer run out of resources. I have been in numerous groups with three players who knew what they are doing wipe and wipe and wipe on that boss because of one inexperienced player. You can't just read a guide for that fight. You have to intuitively know to dodge the fire waves, block/avoid fire rains, and not make a single mistake in your defined role or else the raid will wipe. It is a very unforgiving fight because the best and most experienced player is dependent on the weakest and least experienced doing her job correctly.

That's crap, I've done no death runs of coa without the door glitch, and the pipe thing in wayrest is harder than the real fight since the wraith spawn can one shot the tank.

As far as skipping Ibelgast or other skippable bosses (eh, bc have them), all those bosses are very easy for their instances. People skin em to save time.

vet city of ash is the most recently released content in the game and is one of only 3 things that is v14 (dsa and so). It is very hard when you have not learned the bosses or are not well equipped. Ash titan is 10x harder when the dps is not excellent because the tank kiting isn't sustainble. Many groups copy the kite/ignore strat without acknowledging they lack the dps to execute it.

Lets not talk about vet coa and vet bc in the same discussion. Coa is supposed to be a lot harder.

It's not crap according to the guy who I was talking about:

DeathDealer19 wrote: »

lol this is hilarious. Vet dungeons are already tuned for casuals. You can faceroll all of them. Ive 2 manned some vet dungeons lol. Trials.....AA and HRC are so easy its ridiculous. SO is difficult and I LOVE IT. so fun. Any casual player can complete everything aside from maybe Vet DSA and Sanctum Ophidia. Even those. We carry casuals all the time through them

baratron · February 2015

Black_Wolf88 wrote: »

if you want learning mode, then there already is one. its called guides.
there is lots of websites that offer full explanation of bosses+more, and even video of all dungeons and trials as they go trough it and talk about all hte important parts/mechanics.

if you cant complete a dungeon or a trial after watching and reading guides, then that means your team suck. either find a better group or try to work out the problems.

Could you provide links to some of these wonderful guides, please? I have Googled and found precisely two: Dulfy.net and Deltia's Gaming. Videos are not very helpful to me personally because I struggle to understand speech over game sounds, and few gamers' videos are subtitled (and don't even start on Youtube "automatic captioning", it's a joke).

Jakhajay wrote: »

On the other hand, I can see that a training mode is a bad idea. What would be better would be to tone them down a bit. Not nerf them into Oblivion, but helpful things like spawning fewer adds each time you wipe

This would be helpful, as would the suggestion made by @RakshaTheKhajiit of simply splitting some of the more awful fights into stages. So you don't have to constantly "redo" a stage that you've completed.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Hmm...if you doooooooo play and have not come across people harping on the concept of damage mitigation enough to fully understand its importance, then to my point above, you ought to diversify the people who you do play with. I get it, easier said than done.

Over 900 hours with my main, and I also have a V7 and a V2, as well as a couple of newbies. So yeah, hours in the game isn’t the issue.

I also have over 1000 hours in Skyrim, and somewhere around 400 hours in Oblivion. But I played those games on low difficulty level. Both of them I started on the super-newbie level. And when I stopped playing Skyrim, I'd only made it up to Adept (the middle difficulty level). This is my first MMO. My experience with text-only MUDs in the 90s is completely irrelevant

.

The only way I'm going to be able to "diversify" the people I play with is by quitting one of my Guilds, because I'm already at 2 social Guilds and 3 trading Guilds. Perhaps if I spend enough time doing high-level PvE content, I'll be making enough money that I won't need 3 trading Guilds. Hrm.

Joy_Division wrote: »

baratron wrote: »

I think my bars were set up something like:
Destruction Staff: Critical Surge / Inner Light / Impulse / Thundering Presence / Crushing Shock / Greater Storm Atronach
Restoration Staff: Critical Surge / Inner Light / Daedric Minefield / Mutagen / Illustrious Healing / Soul Strike

Hmm...my initial response to this is "jack-of-all-trades is master of none." I'm looking at this bar and I *think* you are DPS, but you have 4 skills that do not help in this regard and a 5th that is redundant (Critical Surge).

I was the Healer. I usually am unless we pick up someone else who prefers to heal. (I run dungeons in AD with a core group of 4 friends, and will consider running one if our Tank and one of the DPSes are online).

Critical Surge is on both bars because I can't swap weapons quickly enough to recast it when I need to. I get a lot of lag spikes because I am stupid enough to play on the North American server with my friends when I live in the UK, and I seem to spend an awful lot of time hammering on the Command key (Interrupt/Break Free) trying to get my abilities back so I can swap weapon. I am not really sure how 1.6 will improve this since I have pretty much run out of key bindings already. (I play on a laptop, have a lot of addons, and none of the Mac function keys can be used by the game).

Joy_Division wrote: »

4 person groups are supposed to by more than the sum of their parts. The reason why you have a tank is so you don't have to waste a slot and resources on Thundering Presence.

Of course, if we are fighting a single boss (or even two). But what about the hordes of trash mobs? I need to be able to keep myself alive so I can heal everyone else! That's why I'm talking about needing Thundering Presence, Bound Aegis, or Hardened Ward.

By the way, this is what my character looks like in 1.5, having eaten V5 level food and cast Inner Light and Critical Surge:

I just hit V12 and I need to get/make new armour. I run 5 Light/2 Heavy, for the sole reason that I die too quickly in 7 Light.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Daedric mines is expensive, inflexible, and weak damage.

Crowd control for the hordes of spiders. I'm still talking about that horrible fight in Veteran Spindleclutch that ends with Praxin as a lich (if you manage to get that far without dying). That's also what the Greater Storm Atronach was on there for. It seemed to be essential for us not to wipe (well, every time I didn't manage to drop that Ultimate immediately, all four of us died within 10 seconds).

Joy_Division wrote: »

My DPS PVE arrangement as a sorcerer:

Destruction Staff: Mage's Fury (BTW this skill is mandatory for DPSing. It is their only competitive damage skill). Elemental Ring, Crushing Shock, Critical Surge, Inner Light, Flawless Dawnbreaker.
Restoration Staff: Healing Springs (trumps Illustrious Healing), Spell Symmetry, Lightning Flood, Evil Hunter or Something else, Inner Light, Atronach or Negate depending.

Do you mean Endless Fury or Mages' Wrath? I have Endless Fury IV but pretty much never use it because the tooltip claims it only does 176 Shock Damage (unless the enemy happens to be below 20% health). Daedric Minefield, which you already said was weak, does 317 Magic Damage. Crystal Fragments does 653 Magic Damage (and I run the Srendarr addon which shows when it's ready for an instant cast).

Why Elemental Ring over Pulsar? I love running through dungeons and seeing the health bars drop! Even though I know the true effect is much lower than it shows, I still thought it was useful.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Working as a group *should* come naturally provided each player more or less sticks to their designated role and stays out of red circles.

One of my friends (Nightblade DPS) is extremely bad at red circles. Figured out the other night that he's colourblind, though. Hence this thread, which doesn't say anything useful yet.

Joy_Division wrote: »

baratron wrote: »

Can you explain to me why people like Spell Symmetry so much? If I'm already in danger of dying because of too many monsters, how is reducing my Health further going to help? I really don't get why it's a standard part of a lot of mage PvP builds.

Because it is the best skill in the game for a magicka DPS. To be clear, I *hate* the spell because it trivializes resource regeneration and renders basic attacks a huge DPS loss. But that is just my opinion and I'd be a fool not to use this spell as it can literally double your DPS, or at least for DKs with their Flames of Oblivion skill.

Now all this assumes, group content. I never use Spell Symmetry is PvP or solo questing because I don't have a dedicated healer to circumvent the supposed penalty for using this skill. What this spell does is *very* effectively turn a healer's mana pool into huge amounts of DPS.

So basically it's something to use when you've got a Templar with you who can cast Breath of Life? That... almost makes sense. (Flames of Oblivion? My DK doesn't know that one.)

OK. So you showed me what your DPS PvE arrangement as a Sorcerer looks like - what about your Healer PvE arrangement? Since that's what I usually am.

Also, let's push the boat out. Don't suppose you've got a Dragonknight Tank, Dragonknight DPS, and Nightblade DPS set of bars too? Tank uses Heavy Armor 1 Hand & Shield or 2-handed, Nightblade DPS uses Medium Armor, Dual Wield or Bow, the Dragonknight DPS depends on which particular friend it is. One uses Destro and Resto Staffs, the other seems to be going through every weapon in the game but is currently using Bow. I'm not sure about his second weapon.

btw - if this would be better off taken to PM then I don't mind, but I'm assuming that some of this is useful for other people to read too

.

Syntse · February 2015

baratron wrote: »

Also, let's push the boat out. Don't suppose you've got a Dragonknight Tank, Dragonknight DPS, and Nightblade DPS set of bars too? Tank uses Heavy Armor 1 Hand & Shield or 2-handed, Nightblade DPS uses Medium Armor, Dual Wield or Bow, the Dragonknight DPS depends on which particular friend it is. One uses Destro and Resto Staffs, the other seems to be going through every weapon in the game but is currently using Bow. I'm not sure about his second weapon.

So this is your group? and issue dungeon is Spindle?

First swarm of spiders. All block, DK (tank or dps) drop flag, nb drops veil, DK Tank may use talons couple of times, all who can, do aoe while blocking (impulse and whirling blades). Should be over in couple of seconds.

2nd pack is more relaxed but again tank can use talons and DK drop another flag here and people aoe the little ones then concentrate quick dps on the big spider while tank keeps it aggro. With good dps this is done before next wave.

Then comes the nightmares, spider daedra and healers. Take care of spider daedra and healers quickly (dk chains help a lot as it can pull them all together and then your party can aoe them down) while tank has aggro on the nightmares. Then go for nightmares. All this should be done before boss activates but if not then tank needs to keep aggro on nightmares and the boss while you finish nightmares and after that it's almost cakewalk.

Big thing in the final phase is when the boss casts ring to one of you, you do not try to get out from it. Stay in the middle as long as it lasts. Tell to your party that you have the ring so they can also be aware that it doesn't run them over. Tank should keep distance to Praxin because one of its attacks are 3 ground attacks spreading in a cone. If standing too close it's most likely instant death, futher away it's easier to not get hit by them.

RakshaTheKhajiit · February 2015

Syntse wrote: »

First swarm of spiders. All block, DK (tank or dps) drop flag, nb drops veil, DK Tank may use talons couple of times, all who can, do aoe while blocking (impulse and whirling blades). Should be over in couple of seconds.

Hehe, this looks like pr0 group that knows what they are doing, have everything important unlocked and maxed, ultimates charged before every fight with resto staff exploit.

What happens when casual group of templars, nbs and sorcs comes to that fight? Spiders spawn, everyone drops their random ultimates they happen to have at that time, then everyone dies because they never expected getting swarmed like that. Now no one has any ultimates left, so next try will be without those. After several wipes, spending some skillpoints to unlock new skills (some of them wont do much because they are completely unleveled) they finally managed to get past those spiders, only to get wiped by next wave. Everyone rage quits in frustration, thinking that if some random boss in that dungeon is so punishing, there is no way to get past final one. They wont even dare to try for example vet Elden Hollow, which is not nearly as punishing as this fight.

I cant now recall other bosses in Spindle, but I guess if those annoying mechanics that Praxin now has were spread out thorough other bosses in this dungeon, it wouldn't be nearly as frustrating.

Syntse · February 2015

RakshaTheKhajiit wrote: »

Syntse wrote: »

First swarm of spiders. All block, DK (tank or dps) drop flag, nb drops veil, DK Tank may use talons couple of times, all who can, do aoe while blocking (impulse and whirling blades). Should be over in couple of seconds.

Hehe, this looks like pr0 group that knows what they are doing, have everything important unlocked and maxed, ultimates charged before every fight with resto staff exploit.

Yet bunch of casuals that do play often together do it this way and have no issues. Though I would not mind if people see me as pr0. (lol)

Everyone rage quits in frustration, thinking that if some random boss in that dungeon is so punishing, there is no way to get past final one. They wont even dare to try for example vet Elden Hollow, which is not nearly as punishing as this fight.

I cant now recall other bosses in Spindle, but I guess if those annoying mechanics that Praxin now has were spread out thorough other bosses in this dungeon, it wouldn't be nearly as frustrating.

Yes much rage quitting most likely happens and people do not know that it is the toughest fight of the dungeon. All the rest of the bosses in the dungeon are just easy.
1. Mad Mortine (nothing mentionable in this one)
2. Blood Spawn (Just dps the hell out of it, healer needs to heal through the pounding)
3. Praxin Douare
4. Flesh Atronach Trio (nothing special here)
5. Urvan Veleth (just run when bat swarms)
6. Vorenor Winterbourne (don't stand in blood pools, block the charges)

Yes Elden Hollow is prolly the easiest of them all. Wayrest and Darkshare is not that difficult either. Banished can be bit difficult because of not being able to block Imiril and Rilis.

nagarjunna · February 2015

Please don't do easy mode. It would defeat the whole purpose of these dungeons. Lots have been said in this thread both for and against this so I won't add to that except to say this!

If you are struggling in game to complete dungeons (whether trials or Vet dungeons) and the people in your guild are not helping you then you are most definitely in the wrong guilds. All my guilds support what I want to do, and if they don't or I don't feel I am contributing then I will leave. I do both PvP and PvE however mainly I PvE.

I'm a trials trainer for some of my guilds and I take learners through trials and I have a standard set of questions for the group - by the way this is applicable to most dungeons!

Basic Preparation (valid up to but not including 1.6)
Food - Blue or Purple depending on your type of build, I use Fortified Sweetroll when I run as Templar Healer
Potions - normally Spell or Weapon tri-potions depending on your build
Charges - ensure your weapons are charged up
Armour - repair it

Roles - define it, if you're a Sorc don't be the main healer (and yes I know you can be a good healer) do the DPS thing.
If you're the templar, don't DPS (and yes, I know we can DPS just as well as most others - kinda), just be ready to heal and have off-DPS. Or Tank it...

Spells on the bar - for example, in AA I need the following:
Elemental Drain - A Sorc should be running this
Spirit Siphon/Combat Prayer - A Healer(s) should be running this
Rapid Maneuvres - DK should run this (and then switch it out later on after it's no longer needed)

However its also important to consider YOUR role and what YOU bring to the fray! You have a really difficult thing to do, you have to, for the first time, learn to work with others; you have to take into account their needs, their strengths and their weaknesses so that when you start you have the best chance. That is terrifically hard. TeamSpeak is a must by the way!

So when running a dungeon or a trial with a team (no matter how large or small) prepare well and you up your chance to complete successfully.

I'm not the best healer in the game by a long shot, nor am I the best Sorc, or DK or NB... and yet I still get invited! How did I get to this stage? Luck, being in the right place, asking questions constantly, but above all by being willing to learn and take advice and by having a positive attitude.

See you in-game!

ZOS_The_Adoring_Fan · February 2015

Thanks for the suggestion. And as always, we appreciate hearing your feedback about any difficulty spikes, bugs, or exploits in Dungeons, Arenas and Trials.

Magdalina · February 2015

RakshaTheKhajiit wrote: »

Syntse wrote: »

First swarm of spiders. All block, DK (tank or dps) drop flag, nb drops veil, DK Tank may use talons couple of times, all who can, do aoe while blocking (impulse and whirling blades). Should be over in couple of seconds.

Hehe, this looks like pr0 group that knows what they are doing, have everything important unlocked and maxed, ultimates charged before every fight with resto staff exploit.

What happens when casual group of templars, nbs and sorcs comes to that fight? Spiders spawn, everyone drops their random ultimates they happen to have at that time, then everyone dies because they never expected getting swarmed like that. Now no one has any ultimates left, so next try will be without those. After several wipes, spending some skillpoints to unlock new skills (some of them wont do much because they are completely unleveled) they finally managed to get past those spiders, only to get wiped by next wave. Everyone rage quits in frustration, thinking that if some random boss in that dungeon is so punishing, there is no way to get past final one. They wont even dare to try for example vet Elden Hollow, which is not nearly as punishing as this fight.

I cant now recall other bosses in Spindle, but I guess if those annoying mechanics that Praxin now has were spread out thorough other bosses in this dungeon, it wouldn't be nearly as frustrating.

You can get through first wave of ads without any ultimates. That's what a lot of teams do in fact, to save ultimates for everyone's favourite - waves 3&4.

First of all, only way you "never expected to get swarmed like that" is if it's your first ever run in vet Spindle after 1.5. That's okay, we all had a first run at some point, and it's perfectly normal to wipe as you learn the mechanics - that's why next try you WILL expect to get swarmed like that and be prepared. Second, I'm not sure but I think it bugs out sometimes when all spiders target one person and he insta dies, even if it's tank standing in 3 ultimates, Springs spam and blocking(seen that). That's frustrating, I agree. However, that's relatively rare and you still have enough time between waves 1 and 2 to res that one person. Third...well, obviously you all should be blocking during first wave. If you have a DK, talons, talons, talons(if you don't have a DK, you can still make it, mind you). Have healer start spamming Springs a few seconds before ads appear(you can count time by NPCs' lines, I usually start casting Springs at "why is nothing ever easy?"). If you're still having troubles, use Circle of Protection for a bit of extra defence, Volcanic rune for extra CC.

Praxin is one of hardest fights in all vet dungeons imo, including COA. I think it's mostly due to 1.5 being a blanket buff of all bosses stats without regards to specific mechanics(as a result last boss in Spindle is still a pushover and Praxin is almost worse than all of COA together). However, by now we all got used to this and even find it occasionally fun;) You can do it, don't let it discourage you. But yes, it will take some practice, good teamwork and possibly learning new skills. There's nothing wrong with that.

If you're NA EP I'd be happy to explain that all in game or run with you myself, again.

onlinegamer1 · February 2015

The_Adoring_Fan wrote: »

Thanks for the suggestion. And as always, we appreciate hearing your feedback about any difficulty spikes, bugs, or exploits in Dungeons, Arenas and Trials.

Thanks for the reply, although I nearly missed it, as its not adding the green logo to the forum thread list.

Cogo · February 2015

The_Adoring_Fan wrote: »

Thanks for the suggestion. And as always, we appreciate hearing your feedback about any difficulty spikes, bugs, or exploits in Dungeons, Arenas and Trials.

Hi

This is not meant in any bad way but making a WoW type "LFG" version of encounters where its almost impossible to fail will vastly reduce the value of the dungeon and rob players of the experience to learn them.

One reason why ESO is sucessful, is that you can not do everything in the game while watching tv.

When something is rare, it has value. When an encounter is difficult and require player skill and cooperation more then gear and classes, it also gets a lot more valuable and fun to aim to complete.
These encounters also have rewards for your effort. If everyone had these rewards they would loose their value and almost become "required" to do anything.....

Any encounter that are easily overcome, becomes boring.

There already is a "Practice" for all harder encounters, no matter where in the game they are and how experienced of a player you are.
It is called playing. ESO Dungeons and mechanics are the closest to Everquest raids I have yet to see.
Even when you know them, you still have to do them well, or fail.

Everyone can learn to do them. But it does require a lot of factors like teamwork, setup, patience and old fashion will to overcome the challenge.

I think the problem is:
When some players can not do a harder encounter, they seam to stop trying. This is fine too. Everyone does not need overcome the harder things if they don't like the risks.

But to learn anything in ESO, you simply have to do them. Sometimes it takes a while but even if you fail, you learn.
I have noticed that players who isn't dungeon players, who I team up with to show them dungeons, they often do horrible at first, but improve very faster after a few tries.

A simple thing as not charge into mobs when the group isn't ready, isn't obvious to all players.
Common things like block, roll, what to use and that it isn't the healers job to keep you alive at all times, isn't either obvious for a player who never done dungeons.

If this just sounds like a bad player, try Cyrodiil if you have never been there. That is a learning curve as well, which never ends.

Very good players in ESO who don't like PvP and never set foot there, would be just as "newbie". But again, playing in Cyrodiil and learning will improve them as well. It takes TIME. You do not master Cyrodiil in 2 days, following a guide.

Please do not make any form of "Test dungeon mode".
Better if you update a new player guide to dungeons and harder encounters. Many players believe that you only need Vet 14, good gear and good builds according to others, in order to do well in high end encounters.

To back up my suggestion. Those players who do pretty decent in Vet dungeons, mostly have done the group dungeons 1-49.
Yes, they may not be that hard to do, but that is the first learning curve for everyone.

I've seen plenty of Vet 1-6 players in Cyrodiil being very good. When I ask, they lived in Cyro pretty much the whole game.

Personal skill, is a skill bar you only can raise by playing ESO. It has no max level, but how much you have and how fast you raise it depends what game play you manage to overcome.

"Grinding" easy things like previous in Craglorn without any risks or need for effort only created players with high Rank chars who lacked the skills to take on these harder encounters.

onlinegamer1 · February 2015

To ZoS, Cogo is an example of the elitists who are ruining your game, and who you definitely should not listen to.

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO · February 2015

Slurg wrote: »

onlinegamer1 wrote: »

This difficulty setting would allow people with bad builds and horrible hand-eye coordination to complete them.

Thanks!

I think you may not be serious about this suggestion.

However something like this would perhaps keep the less competitive players from trying to get into groups with the hardcore crowd (which they really don't like because bad builds get groups wiped), and perhaps reduce the cries to reduce difficulty that have ended up making a lot of things less challenging for everyone over life of the game.

So in that sense an "easy mode" wouldn't be the worst thing in the world as long as rewards were significantly reduced of course.

as long as the only way to get shoulders is gold key, no amount of training wheels will stop inexperienced players trying to get in groups for a chance at best gear. Easy mode will not help the problem you addressed.
people giving friendly advice instead of being jerks and whining about casual bads might help though. I have had subpar players try new things from politely explaining why its a good choice.

a ps the gold key challenge is EXTRA difficult and not necessary to complete the content, its extra hard with an extra reward... just saying

Jaerlach · February 2015

baratron wrote: »

Black_Wolf88 wrote: »

if you want learning mode, then there already is one. its called guides.
there is lots of websites that offer full explanation of bosses+more, and even video of all dungeons and trials as they go trough it and talk about all hte important parts/mechanics.

if you cant complete a dungeon or a trial after watching and reading guides, then that means your team suck. either find a better group or try to work out the problems.

Could you provide links to some of these wonderful guides, please? I have Googled and found precisely two: Dulfy.net and Deltia's Gaming. Videos are not very helpful to me personally because I struggle to understand speech over game sounds, and few gamers' videos are subtitled (and don't even start on Youtube "automatic captioning", it's a joke).

Jakhajay wrote: »

On the other hand, I can see that a training mode is a bad idea. What would be better would be to tone them down a bit. Not nerf them into Oblivion, but helpful things like spawning fewer adds each time you wipe

This would be helpful, as would the suggestion made by @RakshaTheKhajiit of simply splitting some of the more awful fights into stages. So you don't have to constantly "redo" a stage that you've completed.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Hmm...if you doooooooo play and have not come across people harping on the concept of damage mitigation enough to fully understand its importance, then to my point above, you ought to diversify the people who you do play with. I get it, easier said than done.

Over 900 hours with my main, and I also have a V7 and a V2, as well as a couple of newbies. So yeah, hours in the game isn’t the issue.

I also have over 1000 hours in Skyrim, and somewhere around 400 hours in Oblivion. But I played those games on low difficulty level. Both of them I started on the super-newbie level. And when I stopped playing Skyrim, I'd only made it up to Adept (the middle difficulty level). This is my first MMO. My experience with text-only MUDs in the 90s is completely irrelevant .

The only way I'm going to be able to "diversify" the people I play with is by quitting one of my Guilds, because I'm already at 2 social Guilds and 3 trading Guilds. Perhaps if I spend enough time doing high-level PvE content, I'll be making enough money that I won't need 3 trading Guilds. Hrm.

Joy_Division wrote: »

baratron wrote: »

I think my bars were set up something like:
Destruction Staff: Critical Surge / Inner Light / Impulse / Thundering Presence / Crushing Shock / Greater Storm Atronach
Restoration Staff: Critical Surge / Inner Light / Daedric Minefield / Mutagen / Illustrious Healing / Soul Strike

Hmm...my initial response to this is "jack-of-all-trades is master of none." I'm looking at this bar and I *think* you are DPS, but you have 4 skills that do not help in this regard and a 5th that is redundant (Critical Surge).

I was the Healer. I usually am unless we pick up someone else who prefers to heal. (I run dungeons in AD with a core group of 4 friends, and will consider running one if our Tank and one of the DPSes are online).

Critical Surge is on both bars because I can't swap weapons quickly enough to recast it when I need to. I get a lot of lag spikes because I am stupid enough to play on the North American server with my friends when I live in the UK, and I seem to spend an awful lot of time hammering on the Command key (Interrupt/Break Free) trying to get my abilities back so I can swap weapon. I am not really sure how 1.6 will improve this since I have pretty much run out of key bindings already. (I play on a laptop, have a lot of addons, and none of the Mac function keys can be used by the game).

Joy_Division wrote: »

4 person groups are supposed to by more than the sum of their parts. The reason why you have a tank is so you don't have to waste a slot and resources on Thundering Presence.

Of course, if we are fighting a single boss (or even two). But what about the hordes of trash mobs? I need to be able to keep myself alive so I can heal everyone else! That's why I'm talking about needing Thundering Presence, Bound Aegis, or Hardened Ward.

By the way, this is what my character looks like in 1.5, having eaten V5 level food and cast Inner Light and Critical Surge:

I just hit V12 and I need to get/make new armour. I run 5 Light/2 Heavy, for the sole reason that I die too quickly in 7 Light.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Daedric mines is expensive, inflexible, and weak damage.

Crowd control for the hordes of spiders. I'm still talking about that horrible fight in Veteran Spindleclutch that ends with Praxin as a lich (if you manage to get that far without dying). That's also what the Greater Storm Atronach was on there for. It seemed to be essential for us not to wipe (well, every time I didn't manage to drop that Ultimate immediately, all four of us died within 10 seconds).

Joy_Division wrote: »

My DPS PVE arrangement as a sorcerer:

Destruction Staff: Mage's Fury (BTW this skill is mandatory for DPSing. It is their only competitive damage skill). Elemental Ring, Crushing Shock, Critical Surge, Inner Light, Flawless Dawnbreaker.
Restoration Staff: Healing Springs (trumps Illustrious Healing), Spell Symmetry, Lightning Flood, Evil Hunter or Something else, Inner Light, Atronach or Negate depending.

Do you mean Endless Fury or Mages' Wrath? I have Endless Fury IV but pretty much never use it because the tooltip claims it only does 176 Shock Damage (unless the enemy happens to be below 20% health). Daedric Minefield, which you already said was weak, does 317 Magic Damage. Crystal Fragments does 653 Magic Damage (and I run the Srendarr addon which shows when it's ready for an instant cast).

Why Elemental Ring over Pulsar? I love running through dungeons and seeing the health bars drop! Even though I know the true effect is much lower than it shows, I still thought it was useful.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Working as a group *should* come naturally provided each player more or less sticks to their designated role and stays out of red circles.

One of my friends (Nightblade DPS) is extremely bad at red circles. Figured out the other night that he's colourblind, though. Hence this thread, which doesn't say anything useful yet.

Joy_Division wrote: »

baratron wrote: »

Can you explain to me why people like Spell Symmetry so much? If I'm already in danger of dying because of too many monsters, how is reducing my Health further going to help? I really don't get why it's a standard part of a lot of mage PvP builds.

Because it is the best skill in the game for a magicka DPS. To be clear, I *hate* the spell because it trivializes resource regeneration and renders basic attacks a huge DPS loss. But that is just my opinion and I'd be a fool not to use this spell as it can literally double your DPS, or at least for DKs with their Flames of Oblivion skill.

Now all this assumes, group content. I never use Spell Symmetry is PvP or solo questing because I don't have a dedicated healer to circumvent the supposed penalty for using this skill. What this spell does is *very* effectively turn a healer's mana pool into huge amounts of DPS.

So basically it's something to use when you've got a Templar with you who can cast Breath of Life? That... almost makes sense. (Flames of Oblivion? My DK doesn't know that one.)

OK. So you showed me what your DPS PvE arrangement as a Sorcerer looks like - what about your Healer PvE arrangement? Since that's what I usually am.

Also, let's push the boat out. Don't suppose you've got a Dragonknight Tank, Dragonknight DPS, and Nightblade DPS set of bars too? Tank uses Heavy Armor 1 Hand & Shield or 2-handed, Nightblade DPS uses Medium Armor, Dual Wield or Bow, the Dragonknight DPS depends on which particular friend it is. One uses Destro and Resto Staffs, the other seems to be going through every weapon in the game but is currently using Bow. I'm not sure about his second weapon.

btw - if this would be better off taken to PM then I don't mind, but I'm assuming that some of this is useful for other people to read too .

Mage's Fury is an execute. You only use it on low health targets, IE bosses and mini-bosses. it will massively increase your dps on those targets. You should never cast it otherwise.

Either morph is fine, as the benefits of the morphs are not consequential for their PVE use. Most people like Endless for PVP. There's no need to have breath of life for spell sym. You just need to be inside a healing springs - breeath will really sap the healer's magicka and should only be cast for heavy damage bursts. Elemental ring does much more DPS than pulsar as you can stack the dot it places and it has a higher chance to add burning (and if you are dpsing you need to use inferno staff). Pulsar is a healer's offbar skill. More dots = more chance sto crit = more ultimate = more ultimates.

As far as aoe control, NEGATE is your best sorc ultimate for damage mitigation. It stuns everything!