probablyafk wrote: »

My problem is that right now there's so much vitriol on the forums and in towns right now about people failing in dungeon groups that it's kinda disparaging. Prior to One Tamriel I would have gone on some lower scaled runs to learn the mechanics so that when I do join in a run I'm don't get kicked for not knowing what I'm doing ... but now there's no option to do that.

Is the only option out there to trawl some youtube vids and learn the mechanics for a dungeon? Or is it fine to just jump in - i.e. the mechanics not that hard.

The main thing is that it's incredibly rare for a dungeon party to go bad IME, and I have been playing since beta. I've been farming dungeons over and over since the start of the Witches Festival and I have not been in one bad group, in fact the people have been really amazing and polite, right from level 12 up to max CP. When people say goodbye they often say things like, "really nice group, thank you". So don't let forum posts skew your view, you know how it is, keyboard warriors come to the forum to whine, real warriors are too busy playing to whine!

ESO dungeons are not mechanically hard, they are very simplistic and the game is casual friendly. However, from a confidence perspective it's not a bad idea to watch YouTube playthroughs etc.

I'm levelling an alt at the moment and what I've been doing is deliberately selecting the normal dungeons below my 'rank' in the Finder, so that I know I can do my job in the heat of it whilst also noting mechanics and how they affect my new role. I would say do not do version 'II' or veteran variants of any dungeon until you know the normal 'I' variant inside out.

Normal / Version I dungeons - DC territory

Glenumbra - Spindleclutch I : Fighter's Guild expedition was hired to clean the cave and proved to be hacks. Now you have to save what remains of them and hear a giant-ass spider whisper you sweet nothings in a menacing yet oddly sexual manner.
So, spiders as well as spider bosses should be bashed when they start to eat out the corpses of their spider friends and heal. Otherwise, the dungeon is quick and easy, just like some people I know.
Apart from the last boss : the Whisperer. She has two attacks which won't go on the tank. One is called Arachnophobia aka Fear. It hits at random, and if it hits you, your screen will go white and you will be stuck in an unbreakable stun for 2 seconds. The other attack is called Spit. It is crucial that the tank faces AWAY from the group, because this spit is very difficult to dodge and one shots. So, best if the tank tanks her while standing on the small stairs behind the boss. As soon as the boss turns away from the tank, you have to dodge, because she will spit/arachnophobia you. The 2 DD and Healer should not be packed but stand at equivalent distances from one another, so that you see the person on which she plans spitting. It avoids wasting stamina and DPS dodging for nothing. You especially as a mana sorc. Apart from that, she will periodically pull players to her in a cocoon and do a large AOE attack. Break the cocoon and get the hell out of it. At any rate, this fight is difficult for mana builds because of stamina regen issues. I know that I failed survivor's challenge the first time on HM since I had no stamina left to dodge the 3rd or 4th spit on my mana sorc. (And got so much crap for it, even though we got the achievement like 15 minutes later).

Stormhaven - Wayrest Sewers I : Breton traitors conspire against King Emeric in sewers of all places (idk why people keep thinking that sewers, cathedrals, basements and dark, shady places make for awesome plotting rendez-vous areas. If I were them, I'd do it in a nicely lit and totally not shady looking mansion or something, because nobody looks for evil cults in taverns and boudoirs).
At any rate, all bosses are fairly standard. The second boss in the room with the altars will port around and summon spectres. Said spectres do frost lines on the ground that will immobilize you but otherwise not do significant damage. They remain after the boss dies, so feel free to kill them before doing in the boss, but it's not mandatory.
The last boss will do a cone cleave attack that you can easily side step and tank can block. Periodically, she will disappear from the room and summon spectral bats. Just kill them with aoe damage, and if your healer's fast enough, you can even get a free repentance out of it.

Rivenspire - Crypt of Hearts I : Cheating woman got her soul shattered, imprisoned and tortured by a jealous husband under daedric infulence for whom "an eye for an eye" was simply not enough.
The Bone Colossus boss will keep moving around the room, so your ground dots will be mostly useless. Also, this boss is crosseyed, meaning there's a chance his charge animation will point one way, but he will go another. So be prepared for it, just in case.
Last boss: Twin Daedras Ilambris- Blue and Red. The Blue one is a melee 2h dude whose heavy attacks the tank must always block. The Red one is a stationary fire mage that will remain in the middle of the room. Best if the tank packs the Blue one on him so that you can dot him down. For this fight, once one of the Twins dies, the other will go into "enrage" mode. Meaning constant huge aoe damage attacks. Best if you kill the Red one first, if only because he does aoe stuns and fire lines on the ground around the room. While you can avoid the fire lines by side stepping them, they're annoying and hurt a lot, and the stun covers almost all the room, so there's that. Once the Red Twin is down, focus the remaining Blue one. His enrage mode consists of lightning small AOE bubbles on the ground and lightning strikes which are accompanied by dramatically raising his hands in the air. You can avoid them, and if needed, the tank can move the boss around the room.

Alik'r Desert - Volenfell : You help treasure hunters reach some fabled Dwemer treasure, killing evil Imperial treasure hunters along the way.
Quintus Verres : Untauntable boss. Yeah, he ignores the taunt, and as such will just aggro on a player. Hopefully said player feels tanky and is ready to block his attacks, cause they one shot. In the meantime, the tank can chill, go through his friendslist and think about his life. At 10% health, he will go back to his backpack, and summon a huge gargoyle. Said gargoyle will finish him and start the next boss fight. It will do a cone aoe attack that will petrify players, so best if the tank turns it away from the group. Otherwise, fairly standard.
Boilbite : Assassin Beetle boss + 2 adds. It ambushes on a random player and does small poison AOE ground dots, which you can escape.
Dwemer Steam Sphere boss : reached after a tunnel of steam. Said steam one shots, so you need to cross the tunnel at intervals when it doesn't fire. Otherwise, the boss does small aoe attacks which can be sidestepped.
Last Boss: 3 dwemer centurions - Blue, Red, Green. The Green one heals, the Red one will aggro on random players and do fire dots, and the Blue one will stay on the tank and do lightning attacks. Focus the green one first, if you can since it heals. Then red, then blue. The poor guy who has the aggro of the Red centurion has to move. Even with Hardened Ward on a sorc dps, you take too much damage to stay in one spot.

Bangkorai - Blackheart Haven : Crew of skeleton pirates straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean goes on a mutiny and needs your help with killing their captain. Said Haven also contains harpies and daedras.
First Mate whatever boss: surrounded by harpies, she will charge a cast attack that does "void" on a random player and one shots him. The tank has to BASH it. You can see her charge her cast like a templar charges a dark flare. If you or your tank doesn't bash it, someone will die, and you'll have their death on your conscience, and it will all be very sad.
The Roost Mother harpy boss: teleports around the room and does a lot of fire aoe, so dodge, dodge, and again dodge.
Captain Blackheart: last boss. Emerges from the water in a really epic way. He will summon skeleton archers which the tank has to taunt and pull to the boss to kill them with ground dots, and will charge a random player and transform them into a skeleton for 15 seconds. Once a skeleton, you're useless. You cannot heal nor do damage to the boss, so feel free to run around and dodge the arrows from archers the tank hasn't taunted. If you're lucky, the boss will spare your healer. If the tank's the one being transformed, just block the boss' attacks (they don't one shot. Well unless you don't block/dodge) until your tank is back to normal.

Normal / Version I dungeons - EP territory + Coldharbour

Stonefalls - Fungal Grotto I : Probably evil cultists need your help in cleaning a grotto perfect for their probably evil rituals. Said grotto has an epic goblin vs. dreugh fight for territory. You side with the goblins after killing their chief in an Xv1, if only because they look more sentient.
Second Boss: Goblin Chief King whatever. Will do the inner rage synergy on a player. Said attack explodes after 3 seconds doing aoe damage, so the player targeted by it should move just a bit away from the group before it explodes to avoid hurting others. (It's not a strong attack though, so feel free to stay packed if you feel like it). Additionally, he will cast a purple link between two players. As long as this link holds, both players will lose health and ultimately die. As soon as you see this link, the players bound have to move AWAY from each other until it breaks.
Dreugh King: last boss. Does a huge AOE attack that will one shot, so move out. He will also spawn 2 waves of mudcrabs that easily die from ground dots on the boss. Otherwise, fairly standard melee enemy. At 40% he will move to the right corner of the room and resume the same mechanics.

Deeshan - Darkshade Caverns I : Shady Dunmer hires you to clean his mine, turns out to be evil, and so you hunt him down through dwemer ruins lying beyond to avenge all the innocents you've killed while helping him.
Last Boss: Dwemer Centurion. He will randomly target a player and charge him with a red cone aoe in front of him. Said player needs to run. Don't stay in the red cone of death, just kite the boss around the room. The rest of the team can distance damage him. Otherwise, it's a fairly standard melee boss. Tank him away, DDs dps from sides/behind, healer heals.

Shadowfen - Arx Corinium : Abandoned Imperial fort has Nereids vs/ Lamias fight for territory. You help the Nereids, probably because they look cuter and have boobs.
Wamasu Boss: emerges like a badass from a waterfall and does lightning AOE. Said AOE touches all the water surfaces, so move on the land when it hits. Makes sense since water conducts electricity. (Well not water per se but the minerals contained within, but whatever).
One of many Lamia bosses (the one in the room with the lever you have to pull to get the drawbridge down) : will emit a shrill (a song maybe. at any rate, sounds like a shrill). During this channel, you will have to go under a protective purple sphere that will appear in the room. Said sphere will be located above the Lamia's pet snake, so don't kill it before the boss.
Last boss: Sellistrix, queen of the Lamias. The room will be mostly water surfaces with small patches of land. The boss will do a shrill aoe cone attack on the tank, so he has to tank it away from the group to avoid collateral damage. She will also summon lightning to touch all water areas, so when it hits, go on the land. When the lightning aoe goes on the land, move to the water.

Eastmarch - Direfrost Keep : 3-D projection of a dead Nord guides you through his ancestral home, which has been overtaken by an evil frost witch.
The boss in the very left side of the dungeon, where you have to stand on pressure plates to open the gate to it, will summon scamps who will one shot someone once they explode. When scamps appear - focus them, they die super easily.
The last boss: Frost Witch whatever. She will mostly ignore the taunt. Seriously, it says she's taunted, but she will keep damaging other players. She has several mechanics: 1. She will do a drain animation on a player. You have to CC break instantly. As long as the drain holds, she heals. For a lot... 2. She will teleport to a player and launch an aoe attack, which one shots. Everyone needs to get out of it. 3. She will summon several frost atronachs during the battle. Said atronachs die easily from the ground dots, no need to bother with them.

The Rift - Blessed Crucible : Dunmer gambler asks you to fight in gladiator style battles, which he rigs in your favor (which is mostly pointless since you would've won anyways). Consequently, the public as well as arena competitors turn on you, and you have to fight your way through them to save the unfortunate gambler.
The Pack : Standard waves of adds followed by 3 bosses which turn into werewolves at around 30% health. Just bash the healer boss, and otherwise DPS.
Second-to-last boss : dunmer dude with 2 flame atronachs around him. Kill the atronachs - they heal the boss.
Last Boss - Lava Queen, whom you fight on a platform surrounded by lava. While seemingly a standard melee boss, she will periodically do fire lines all around her. These fire lines are very difficult to avoid if you're in melee, and will one shot. Stay ranged. You can clearly see the animation before she launches the attacks (she crouches a bit on herself and starts casting), so just get the hell away from the boss. The tank should too. These lines really hurt Additionally, she will summon flame atronachs that will grant her temporary invincibility via channels from them to her. They will be around the edges of the platform in the lava. You need to kill them, then resume DPSing the boss. But seriously, avoid the fire lines, they're a b***.

Coldharbour - Vaults of Madness : Free the ghosts of imprisoned workers of the Mad Architect in a dungeon with lots of potential for fall damage. Said workers looooove to talk, meaning the quest takes ages. Just like the Blessed Crucible and City of Ash, it's a fire-fire lava-lava dungeon, so vampires beware.
First boss : Specter. He will do a channel on a player. While the channel holds, ALL the damage you do to the boss will be transfered to the player caught. So, if you really want the no-death run, just stop all DPS when it happens. And avoid dots. Otherwise, make sure the player's sacrifice was for the greater good and avenge him.
Second Boss: Harvester. She will stun a random person for 20 seconds. 20 seconds of unbreakable stun is annoying but there's nothing you can do about it, so just chill. She will also have healing bubbles going towards her from all sides, just like any standard harvester. Said bubbles are down in one or two Force Pulse, just make sure you don't forget them.
Grothdarr : Does really cool lava aoe, but make sure you side step.
Titan boss : does a jump-stun and randomly aggros on a random player with a wide line of fire reaching all across the room. Just dodge it.
Last boss - Mad architect aka the Boss with by far the coolest mechanics in-game. It's a stationary lich boss that will summon daedra casters and melee zombies from around the room. These will die from ground dots, just make sure the tank pulls them to the boss. Then, he has two mechanics: if he summons a purple globe around him, stay close to him for the duration. Going outside will one shot. If however, the ground beneath his feet glows purple, gtfo dodge. Staying close will one shot.

Aaaaaaaand that pretty much covers it, and now i'm tired and not even sure it was worth it. At any rate, good luck man, and hopefully this helps.

@probablyafk You're welcome, glad I could be of any assitance. For your bars, if you're playing with double destruction staves (which are the way to go now), your bars should look like this : lightning staff on your front bar (heavy attacks with it do AOE damage which is perfect for trash waves. They also make restoring magicka easier), and fire staff on your back bar (fire wall of elements does more damage).

First bar : crystal fragments - velocious curse - force pulse - bound aegis - inner light -- Destro Ulti. If you're planning on sticking to PvE mostly, you need the stationary morph, the one that does additional effects. With a lightning staff, it will last 2 seconds longer whereas the fire staff morph does 10% more damage. However, given the tooltip, a 9 second x 8.1k damage is better than 9.1k for 7 seconds ( I gave an approximate tooltip, can't remember the exact one but my point still stands). Also, lightning has a chance to proc the Implosion passive from your Storm Calling tree, which is great.

Second bar : power surge - liquid lightning - boundless storm - bound aegis - flame wall of elements - Meteor / Overload.
If you slot overload, on the overload bar, you'd have to have bound aegis - inner light - execute - hardened ward and rearming trap (for the Minor Force : extra crit damage), but you can just move stuff around depending on the buffs you have and need.

Depending on your group, a few changes are possible. If you feel squishy or that your healer isn't reactive enough, you might want to replace boundless storm with hardened ward (conjure ward morph - daedric summoning tree). You would lose about 1k damage that boundless storm ticks provide you, but if it helps you survive, it would be worth it.

A good thing to know too is that sorcs' sustain sucks. A lot. So you should get used to constantly being out of magicka. Of course than can be lessened with proper group buffs provided by the healer, but don't have high hopes for it. So don't hesitate to chug potions every 44 seconds. Oh and, regarding potions, invest 3 skill points into the Medicinal Use passive of the Alchemy crafting tree. It's seriously worth it.
Basically, when you look at the potion's effects, it gives you 20% + magicka recovery for less than 20 seconds by default. Investing in that passive lengthens the duration of the increased mana recovery, meaning that on crafted potions, it will last more than the cooldown on your potion (47 seconds compared to 44). And while crafted magicka potions (Spell Power pots they're called) are expensive as hell and regular looted magicka potions suffice for normal dungeon runs with randoms, if you want to pull a very good DPS, you'd need to spam them.
One raid usually represents around 100 of these, and to give you guesstimate, it's about 20-21k gold per stack. Or you can craft them yourself. For that, you'd need Lady Smock - Corn Flower - Water Hyacinth and Lorkhan's Tears, but said flowers are expensive too and rare to find. If you feel like making some gold, run around the Hollow City in Coldharbour and harvest them. That's how I made most of my gold in-game, though the place is constantly packed. I remember I went there at 4am on a week night once, and met 6-7 other farmers picking the same flowers in a manly fashion. Point is, ESO flower market is one of the most profitable one, and as a magicka sorc, you're one of the classes who needs them the most.
Also, given that you're a magicka sorc, you have the advantage of speed and mobility over other classes, which is awesome. Should you actually consider farming your ingredients, don't forget to slot rapid maneuver or refresh boundless storm every 7 seconds to gain the 40% increase movement speed, slot streak to teleport. And if you're really gung-*** about farming and have 2-3k gold to spare, you can get yourself special farming gear for cheap. I recently made it and have no regrets. It's such a wonderful feeling to steal columbines from under other people's noses. (5 Fiord's Legacy - 5th piece bonus reduces the cost of sprint and increases the sprint's speed by 15% and 3x Cyrodiil's Crest - increases mounted speed by 15%. Pair that an undaunted shoulder and head piece that gives you stamina regen / max stamina, and slot a shield on your back bar for the extra well-fitted piece. (Naturally, all your pieces should be in well-fitted to reduce the cost of sprint even more)).
At any rate, that was a huge digression but I feel that it was needed. #Flowersmatter

So, back to the whole magicka regen issues. If you're running dungeons with inexperienced healers, they probably do not offer group buffs on top of healing. In this game and in the dungeons you are attempting, healing per se isn't vital. Other than the one-shot mechanics that cannot be healed through, enemies deal no significant damage to warrant 100% uptime on healing springs and Breath of Life. The healer's role such as it is, is to provide group buffs that increase your DPS, and it does make a significant difference. So, a good healer should debuff the boss with elemental drain, which would restore a lot of magicka to you, throw shards and necrotic orbs for stamina and magicka regen, and try to keep the maximum uptime on combat prayer for the 8% more damage. An excellent healer would also wear Spell Power Cure and aether / worm and debuff the boss even more with Power of Light, but we're not here to talk about their class.
Should you realize that your healer does not provide orbs or shards, cry about it until he does so. Seriously, being out of magicka because of their ineptitude annoying as hell. And if you see that he doesn't put elemental drain on, I'd advise to replace Velocious Curse by Elemental Drain and apply it yourself. The skill doesn't cost magicka and will restore a great deal to you in addition to lowering the enemy's spell resistance.

Regarding wards and self-healing. Sorcerer is by far the worst class for self-healing and healing in general, having no passives that increase it like major mending/vitality like DKs and templars do, or spammable skills like the nightblade's 900mana cost Swallow Soul or Sap Essence aoe that heal the caster. Your survivability as a sorc is conditional on shields, and though it's a very important thing to know and use for PvP, it holds for PvE too. You have several options for shields, and while you can stack all of them in PvP, in PvE you have a limited amount of slots and have to chose between Hardened Ward, Healing Ward and Harness/Dampen Magicka. Given that healing ward is conditional on a restoration staff, that's out of the window.
I know a lot of players and YT builds suggest using Harness Magicka (the Annulment morph from Light Armor skill line tree) which restores magicka to you when you get hit by spells. The amount of magicka restored increases with the number of light pieces you have. Hardened Ward is just the last skill in the daedric conjuring tree. Thing is, I am sticking to Hardened Ward for several reasons : 1. it costs less. 2. when you slot it, you gain 20% increased stamina recovery from the daedric tree passive, which is useful for CC breaking and other unavoidable dungeon mechanics. (On your front bar, you get the same stamina recovery by slotting Velocious Curse) 3. by slotting it, you also gain more spell damage from the Storm Calling tree passive that increases your weapon and spell damage per Sorcerer ability slotted. 4. in PvE you don't need to spam shields. And given that they now have a 6 second duration, most of the time, you don't take nearly enough damage in these 6 seconds to restore a significant amount of resources to you.

As for light armor pieces, optimally, you should wear a 5 light - 1 medium - 1 heavy piece to benefit from the Undaunted Mettle passive (Undaunted skill line tree). You probably haven't unlocked it yet, but it gives you 6% more health - stamina and magicka if you wear 5 - 1 -1. Be proactive and chose/craft your gear accordingly to be ready for when you unlock it. (To maximize your resistances, you should go for a heavy chest, but as long as you have a heavy armor piece equipped, it's good. Personally, I wear a light dark brotherhood robe because it look cute and heavy Ilambris helm, but i'm the sort of person that would go for style over mini-maxing. Heavy chest is just really nitpicking).

Finally, for your rotation. Before the combat, buff yourself up with surge + boundless storm. Then apply liquid lightning and wall of elements, switch to the front bar, apply curse (or elemental drain if your healer doesn't have it) and weave force pulse and light attacks. Use crystal fragments only when they proc instantly, and resume the LA + force pulse weaving. Reapply your dots when they run out. Keep your ulti for when the tank throws an Aggressive War Horn (Alliance War ulti which optimally, the tank should use. It increases your stats by 10% for 33 seconds and gives you more crit damage the first 9 seconds). If the tank doesn't run it though, just ulti dump at your convenience. For bosses that aren't stationary, Meteor is superior to Elemental Rage since it has more damage on its initial impact. Or if you have overload slotted then use it.

You have add-ons that can help you with keeping an eye on Crystal Frags procs and your buffs in general. FTC for instance will write on your screen CRYSTAL FRAGS PASSIVE whenever it's up. It will also be accompanied with a sound effect. If you dislike add ons, you can just rely on watching your crystal frags icon glow whenever your passive procs. Your hands will also have small purple rocks gravitating around them, but this can be hard to see if you have boundless storm on. Also, once you know your rotation, you don't need to look at your bars, and eventually, if you stick to this class, you'll conceivably be able to play without UI for the lolz.

That was a no UI duel I did with a friend, but yeah just relying on visual cues for the frags' proc is a b*** so I'd suggest using add-ons. ( I would've put a screenshot from PvE, but sadly my lack of memory space forces me to get rid of everything as soon as I'm done uploading/using it).
Srrendar is the best buff/debuff add-on and while I think my interface is prettier, it all boils down to personal tastes.


Edit: Oh and regarding the dungeon mechanics. If you're doing the dungeons in normal mode, the mechanics I have put so much emphasis on will hardly one-shot. However, once you graduate to the vet version of said dungeons, it will. I know I used to stand in the red and shieldstack through out of laziness, but once I got to the vet versions and got rekt in spite of my shield, I realized that I should just dodge or side-step. Better get used to it now.