Is Zaan still living?

AJTC5000 · February 2018

Basically as the title suggests. During our runs in Scalecaller Peak we tried equipping prismatic weapons, assuming that Zaan was undead (as Dragon Priests usually are) and would therefore take extra damage. However, this was not the case.

Is Zaan therefore still a living being? If so, how? Is she not of the same era as the majority of the Dragon Priests? Did Peryite grant her an extended life-span along with Spellbreaker? Would be interested in hearing some responses.

cmetzger93 · February 2018

I honestly didn’t know prismatic glyphs did increased damage against undead enemies...

AJTC5000 · February 2018

cmetzger93 wrote: »

I honestly didn’t know prismatic glyphs did increased damage against undead enemies...

Yep, and Daedra too.

WrathOfInnos · February 2018

Seems like Prismatic should work, I was disappointed that it did not. The plot mentions that Zaan is an ancient, dead dragon priest that has been resurrected. Sounds undead to me.

AJTC5000 · February 2018

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Seems like Prismatic should work, I was disappointed that it did not. The plot mentions that Zaan is an ancient, dead dragon priest that has been resurrected. Sounds undead to me.

Concurs with I thought. I wanted to ask their lore team directly if this is intended before I submitted a bug report to @ZOS_Finn

WhiteCoatSyndrome · February 2018

I seem to recall during one of the ESO Lives someone asked if Zaan was undead or a Daedra, and they said she wasn't. That said my impression was that she'd been killed by her original followers after Thurvokun left. So my best guess is that Peryite pulled something like Hermaeus Mora did with Miraak, and yanked her away to safety as she was about to be killed, or otherwise pulled something to make her not-undead. But I will note I haven't played through the dungeon myself, so if there was a hint one way or another in the lorebooks there I don't know about it.

BigBadVolk · February 2018

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Seems like Prismatic should work, I was disappointed that it did not. The plot mentions that Zaan is an ancient, dead dragon priest that has been resurrected. Sounds undead to me.

Depends if by mortals she should be undead, but if she was resurrected by Peryite than she is kinda living (best example of this is Logrolf from the Skyrim Molag Bal quest)

elias.stormneb18_ESO · February 2018

Zaan is definitely dead; she was murdered by her followers after Thurvokun abandoned them. Zaan was only recently awoken by Nathien Mortieu's Peryite cult (a Daedra Zaan seems to have turned to after the loss of her previous master). She wasn't raised by them as an undead servant, though – like other Dragon Priests she was a form of lich who retained her free will in undeath. Until Nathien Mortieu turned up she was asleep in her tomb, however.

The reason she isn't treated as undead in-game is probably a simple oversight – lore-wise she's definitely undead.

AJTC5000 · February 2018

elias.stormneb18_ESO wrote: »

Zaan is definitely dead; she was murdered by her followers after Thurvokun abandoned them. Zaan was only recently awoken by Nathien Mortieu's Peryite cult (a Daedra Zaan seems to have turned to after the loss of her previous master). She wasn't raised by them as an undead servant, though – like other Dragon Priests she was a form of lich who retained her free will in undeath. Until Nathien Mortieu turned up she was asleep in her tomb, however.

The reason she isn't treated as undead in-game is probably a simple oversight – lore-wise she's definitely undead.

Thanks very much for this! The links provide the tangible evidence I need to submit my report.

code65536 · February 2018

@ZOS_Finn Why isn't Zaan considered an undead enemy, for the purposes of the combat system? This seems like a bug to me.

Lord_Hev · February 2018

code65536 wrote: »

@ZOS_Finn Why isn't Zaan considered an undead enemy, for the purposes of the combat system? This seems like a bug to me.

Not a bug, it's purely intentional. Lore-wise she is undead. Ingame combat wise they want her to be one of the strongest dungeon bosses possible. Thus, it is impossible to get boosted DPS on her.

code65536 · February 2018

Lord_Hev wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

@ZOS_Finn Why isn't Zaan considered an undead enemy, for the purposes of the combat system? This seems like a bug to me.

Not a bug, it's purely intentional. Lore-wise she is undead. Ingame combat wise they want her to be one of the strongest dungeon bosses possible. Thus, it is impossible to get boosted DPS on her.

No, it's a bug. There are better ways to achieve a particular level of difficulty--they could've just given her slightly higher health to counteract any Undead damage bonuses, for example. Thurvokun, the Earthgore Amalgam, and Rakkhat are all difficult bosses who are properly treated as Daedra/Undead by the game system.

Ahzek · February 2018

Lord_Hev wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

@ZOS_Finn Why isn't Zaan considered an undead enemy, for the purposes of the combat system? This seems like a bug to me.

Not a bug, it's purely intentional. Lore-wise she is undead. Ingame combat wise they want her to be one of the strongest dungeon bosses possible. Thus, it is impossible to get boosted DPS on her.

Considering how little the Zaan HM fight actually relies on high boss DPS, that seems very unlikely. Especially with fang lair HM being properly undead.

Lord_Hev · February 2018

code65536 wrote: »

Lord_Hev wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

@ZOS_Finn Why isn't Zaan considered an undead enemy, for the purposes of the combat system? This seems like a bug to me.

Not a bug, it's purely intentional. Lore-wise she is undead. Ingame combat wise they want her to be one of the strongest dungeon bosses possible. Thus, it is impossible to get boosted DPS on her.

No, it's a bug. There are better ways to achieve a particular level of difficulty--they could've just given her slightly higher health to counteract any Undead damage bonuses, for example. Thurvokun, the Earthgore Amalgam, and Rakkhat are all difficult bosses who are properly treated as Daedra/Undead by the game system.

No, it's not a bug. Finn literally said on stream when asked. She is not considered undead or daedra. It is intentional for combat mechanics.

WhiteCoatSyndrome · February 2018

Lord_Hev wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Lord_Hev wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

@ZOS_Finn Why isn't Zaan considered an undead enemy, for the purposes of the combat system? This seems like a bug to me.

Not a bug, it's purely intentional. Lore-wise she is undead. Ingame combat wise they want her to be one of the strongest dungeon bosses possible. Thus, it is impossible to get boosted DPS on her.

No, it's a bug. There are better ways to achieve a particular level of difficulty--they could've just given her slightly higher health to counteract any Undead damage bonuses, for example. Thurvokun, the Earthgore Amalgam, and Rakkhat are all difficult bosses who are properly treated as Daedra/Undead by the game system.

No, it's not a bug. Finn literally said on stream when asked. She is not considered undead or daedra. It is intentional for combat mechanics.

I'd bug it anyway. If they want her to be living the least they could do is drop in a lorebook explaining why.

code65536 · February 2018

Lord_Hev wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Lord_Hev wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

@ZOS_Finn Why isn't Zaan considered an undead enemy, for the purposes of the combat system? This seems like a bug to me.

Not a bug, it's purely intentional. Lore-wise she is undead. Ingame combat wise they want her to be one of the strongest dungeon bosses possible. Thus, it is impossible to get boosted DPS on her.

No, it's a bug. There are better ways to achieve a particular level of difficulty--they could've just given her slightly higher health to counteract any Undead damage bonuses, for example. Thurvokun, the Earthgore Amalgam, and Rakkhat are all difficult bosses who are properly treated as Daedra/Undead by the game system.

No, it's not a bug. Finn literally said on stream when asked. She is not considered undead or daedra. It is intentional for combat mechanics.

But that makes no sense. There are no "combat mechanics" involved except from some extra DPS. If the various bonuses against Undead/Daedra would increase DPS by, say, 5%, it'd be much easier--and more consistent--for them to simply increase boss health by 5%. After all, if they were so concerned about combat mechanics, then why is this not an issue for Fang Lair?

The only reason to make the boss not Undead is if she isn't Undead, but in that case, we should get an explanation of how that's the case, since everything in-game points to a murdered Dragon Priest that had been buried for centuries rising up from the dead. If that isn't "Undead", I'd like to know what it is supposed to be and how.

Chaos2088 · February 2018

TelvanniWizard · February 2018

Seems like a Dragon break to me

Grevaris_Elluin · March 2018

Daedra can truly return undead to life. But we don't know if it was your traditional daedra resurrection, (Molag bal as said above) or just a dead dragon priest's (lich) sleep.

AJTC5000 · March 2018

ak_pvp wrote: »

Daedra can truly return undead to life. But we don't know if it was your traditional daedra resurrection, (Molag bal as said above) or just a dead dragon priest's (lich) sleep.

If anything this should further support the Prismatic weapons working due to their effect on Daedra as well.