Vet Trials Easy? And

kylewwefan · March 2018

Where do people get the idea that vet trials are easy? They’re only easy if you have a well coordinated orchestrated group. Where do they get the idea that VAA is the easiest Vet Trial?

I answered the call a few times over the weekend. Twice to walk into VAA last boss....both groups had 2 tanks and these DPS thatdance around the boss while they DPS. Well, we know how this is gonna end so I humor them for a minute. Make a suggestion. Then try to get out of there nicely.

I find it disrespectful that the game would allow players to progress this far into a trial and have no chance to beat it.

Merlin13KAGL · March 2018

Assuming the game is actually working correctly. (Not "as intended," but correctly.), nothing is impossible given the right approach.

The bosses should get gradually harder, or there is no progression to be had. Each fight should build on the prior one (teaching in the process).

There are two alternatives:

Faceroll - that's what norm is for.
Brick wall at boss #1, disallowing that same group to get anywhere at all.

They may have cleared previous encounters because they finally figured out what was required of their group to do so. That does not necessarily guarantee a clear all the way through.

TL;DR; There is no middle ground, nor has their ever been. Until ZoS learns how to gradually increase difficulty, or at least offer tiers of options, this sort of thing will continue to exist.

Then, when you throw the buggy instances on top of this, it gets even worse.

code65536 · March 2018

Um, vAA IS the easiest vet trial. It's irrelevant whether you think vAA is hard, because relative to the other vet trials vAA is easier. A group that has problems with vAA will have even worse problems with every other vet trial.

And you don't need a well-coordinated group to beat vAA. What you do need is a competent group that understands the mechanics and strategies of the fight. You can do that fight with a PUG and no comms, as long as everyone is experienced. I've been in runs where people don't understand how chain lightning works. Where the tank thinks that it's more important to tank the mage than the axes. But if people don't make those kinds of mistakes, vAA is braindead easy. And learning what to do in vAA is a lot easier than learning what to do in other vet trials.

But that's the point, isn't it? To learn how to do a fight so that all the right pieces fall together and the fight becomes easy. If people don't make the effort to examine what went wrong and learn what needs to be done, then it will always be hard. That's how vAA works, that's how vMA works, that's how riding a bike in real life works. But I suppose that point is lost on someone who prefers to buy a vMoL skin than learn how to do the trial.

Asardes · March 2018

vAA < vHRC < vSO < vSO HM < vAA HM < vHRC HM < vMoL < vAS+0 < vHoF < vAS+1 < vHoF HM < vMoL HM < vAS+2

vAA & vHRC are pretty PuG friendly, but the HMs are not, also vSO even without HM is a pain with PuGs, and HM is not actually much harder, with only the World Shaper added as extra mechanic. But I won't ever PuG vAA or vHRC HMs or the others. Find a decent guild and you'll be able to farm vAA for gear in 10-15 minutes. Some average skilled guilds can actually do the HM with only one tank that takes all the adds.

code65536 · March 2018

Asardes wrote: »

vAA < vHRC < vSO < vSO HM < vAA HM < vHRC HM < vMoL < vAS+0 < vHoF < vAS+1 < vHoF HM < vMoL HM < vAS+2

I would definitely not place vAS +0 after vMoL in terms of difficulty. vAS +0 is really easy once people understand what needs to happen. It's exceedingly light in mechanics, and the mechanics that you do have are easy to deal with, and I would rate +0 as the second easiest (and also most boring) trial (I rate vHRC as the third easiest rather than the second easiest thanks to the topside boss). So much so that on our very first pull of vAS +0 on the PTS--with a group that had never seen it on normal or vet before--we cleared it. Sure, it took a bloody long time with lots of chain rezzing. But it's virtually impossible to wipe in +0 as long as the tank stays alive. There are no DPS races. No enragements. Nothing that says, "we're beyond the point of recovery".

vAA
vAS +0
vHRC
vSO
vSO HM
vHRC HM
vAA HM
vAS +1 Felms
vAS +1 Llothis
vMoL
vHoF
vHoF HM
vMoL HM
vAS +2

kylewwefan · March 2018

I wasn’t gonna post this. It gets wonky on iPad and tapping low on the screen somehow made it post.

I was a bit irritated the raid leader kept going on about how this is so easy and trying to figure out wats going wrong. Asked a few times wat does the other tank have to do...and tried to get the DPS to calm down, stay in one place and fight. Oh well.

So anyways, I’m about half way to the gold needed for VHOF carry

FakeFox · March 2018

Driving a car is a pretty easy task as well, multiple hundred million people do it every day and most of them don't even think about it or do other things while driving. Never the less if you sit someone who has never seen a car behind the driving wheel, chances are he is dead in five minutes.
The point is, if something is easy it can still require practice or some amount of discipline. Nothing in ESOs trials is actually hard in terms of requiring much mental or physical capabilities. If you think about it mechanics are generally a joke, you go to a certain point or press a certain button with a reaction time of like 2-3 seconds. All it requires is for you to actually know that you have to do it. No matter how easy something is, if you lack the discipline to even follow the most basic orders, you will not succeed and that's' why those groups fail.

Anotherone773 · March 2018

Once you learn a trial and how to run it and it becomes quite a bit easier. Run it a couple of dozen times and you dont need voice coms, a couple more dozen and you can binge watch netflix at the same time, so on and so forth. Its like that with anything in life. People who think a trial is easy have ran it so much, it stops being a challenge.

Asardes · March 2018

Well the tactic for vAA HM is pretty straight forward, with positioning being the most important:
- The tank takes the axes as far as possible, preferably on the jutting rock near the entrance (12 o'clock rock)
- The melee DDs stack in pairs close to the boss, preferably 3, 6 and 9 o'clock
- The ranged DDs and one healer stack behind them at 3, 6 and 9 o'clock
- One healer stays close to the tank and heals him, throws orbs
- For HM the 2nd tank simply taunts and keeps the atronachs in the middle, near the melee DDs so they die in AoE, it is important to kill them fast once they hit low health and enrage; this is slow, but safer, especially if the group is inexperienced.
I'd say proper positioning, popping the mines before they grow (healer and ranged DD job) and blocking meteors on HM pretty much guarantee a smooth finish.

There are further variation to this tactic, for the tank role:
1)The 2nd tank takes the atronachs to the edge of the arena, and only releases them close to the execute phase, at around 20% HP on the boss and the ranged DDs cast Elemental Rage, and one of the healers Solar Prison, and finish them off quickly, also pushing boss into execute or
2) You only have one tank, and he takes both the atronachs and the axes, freeing up a DD spot, meaning you can burn the boss faster and have less adds at the end - both the axes and the atronachs spawn on a timer - but the rest is pretty much the same as (1)
The latter is the one you should take for score, since you don't really need the 2nd tank for the rest of the trial, and you can burn all the bosses faster with an extra DDs.

Kumbiya · March 2018

code65536 wrote: »

Um, vAA IS the easiest vet trial. It's irrelevant whether you think vAA is hard, because relative to the other vet trials vAA is easier. A group that has problems with vAA will have even worse problems with every other vet trial.

And you don't need a well-coordinated group to beat vAA. What you do need is a competent group that understands the mechanics and strategies of the fight. You can do that fight with a PUG and no comms, as long as everyone is experienced. I've been in runs where people don't understand how chain lightning works. Where the tank thinks that it's more important to tank the mage than the axes. But if people don't make those kinds of mistakes, vAA is braindead easy. And learning what to do in vAA is a lot easier than learning what to do in other vet trials.

But that's the point, isn't it? To learn how to do a fight so that all the right pieces fall together and the fight becomes easy. If people don't make the effort to examine what went wrong and learn what needs to be done, then it will always be hard. That's how vAA works, that's how vMA works, that's how riding a bike in real life works. But I suppose that point is lost on someone who prefers to buy a vMoL skin than learn how to do the trial.

This.

vAA isn't really that hard either, and it's by far and away the easiest trial (so long as you aren't doing HM). Any group can clear it so long as the DPS can pull 20k+ (which is very low these days) and you follow the mechanics.

jaschacasadiob16_ESO · March 2018

I am not exactly sure what makes vHR harder than vAA. So many groups can't get psat the Storm Atronach.

s7732425ub17_ESO · March 2018

jaschacasadiob16_ESO wrote: »

I am not exactly sure what makes vHR harder than vAA. So many groups can't get psat the Storm Atronach.

The fire boss (right side) when you split after the first boss. This boss is the run-killer. Lots of random damage all over the place, lots of hard to avoid melee damage, lots of one-shots, and the fight gets harder and harder as time goes on. Pro tip: if your group is having a hard time with this one, just barrier spam.

jaschacasadiob16_ESO · March 2018

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

jaschacasadiob16_ESO wrote: »

I am not exactly sure what makes vHR harder than vAA. So many groups can't get psat the Storm Atronach.

The fire boss (right side) when you split after the first boss. This boss is the run-killer. Lots of random damage all over the place, lots of hard to avoid melee damage, lots of one-shots, and the fight gets harder and harder as time goes on. Pro tip: if your group is having a hard time with this one, just barrier spam.

Well, apart the fact that you can skip this boss and finish the trial if the guys on the left can cope with the doggies. No DPS race but the last boss.

code65536 · March 2018

jaschacasadiob16_ESO wrote: »

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

jaschacasadiob16_ESO wrote: »

I am not exactly sure what makes vHR harder than vAA. So many groups can't get psat the Storm Atronach.

The fire boss (right side) when you split after the first boss. This boss is the run-killer. Lots of random damage all over the place, lots of hard to avoid melee damage, lots of one-shots, and the fight gets harder and harder as time goes on. Pro tip: if your group is having a hard time with this one, just barrier spam.

Well, apart the fact that you can skip this boss and finish the trial if the guys on the left can cope with the doggies. No DPS race but the last boss.

You can. But you shouldn't. Skipping that boss is unintended and is an exploit. A mostly harmless one, to be sure, since the trial is not considered complete and you will not receive a score. But it is unintended behavior, an exploit, and not a true completion of the trial.

BTW, the best way to do that boss is to have a tank, keeping them aggroed, grouped, and AoE-interrupted with Deep Breath. It's one reason I prefer HM runs of vHRC over non-HM ones, because it means we'll have a second tank for the split.

Asardes · March 2018

In non-HM, single tank HRC runs the healer can provide interrupts upstairs (right side split) if he slots Crushing Shock. It works really well since you can just keep HoTs on everyone targeted with Energy Orb (and preferably Rapid Regeneration/Mutagen since people are spread out to keep them topped off all the time), burst with Combat Prayer when needed, and just eye which add starts channeling and hit it fast. Also Crushing Shock is very good on healers if you do the HM since you'll be dealing with more of the same adds at the boss and not all of them are in range of the off-tank. Also for HM is recommended that you have 2 sorcerers in group to cast Suppression Field on remaining gargoyles and silence the ground pounding attacks. But overall Craglorn trials have very simple mehcanics, and IMO you should complete all on HM before you attempt the DLC ones.

FakeFox · March 2018

jaschacasadiob16_ESO wrote: »

So many groups can't get psat the Storm Atronach.

This boss has one god damn mechanic and it's a easy one at that. I don't think there is a easier trial boss in the game.

Asardes · March 2018

I've seen a lot more wipes at Valariel than the Storm Atronach because people fail to pick the pillars right. There should be a discussion at the start (ex. leave the one with mushrooms or the one with lights live and kill the others). Wiping at Storm Atronach means one thing: the players in the group are as thick as bricks

kylewwefan · March 2018

I really didn’t mean to post this. It was an accident. But I think it was said rightly in here the DPS are thick as bricks and likely pulling less than 15k or even less sadly. It is possible.

Pugging, not hardmode there is no need for 2 tanks and with all the poopoo DPS, they don’t need to gimp themselves harder by doing that.

I have personally trained a lot of players how to DPS for Trials so I have a bit of insight. These players have never worked on a skeleton dummy before. It is apparent by the way they dance all around when attacking. As you all know, this is very bad thing to do in VAA because of the chain lightning.

Also, higher damage doesn’t usually come naturally or from just gear, but it comes from a decently executed rotation.

The reflections stayed up for way way too long. I may have been the only one dropping dots on them.

Funny there was nothing below 600cp in these groups. It wasn’t me going on about how this is so easy. I came in to help at the last boss and scratching my head on how this motley crew got here in the first place? It becomes quickly apparent there is not enough skill in the group to finish it.

For a time, many a pug group was convinced HelRa was the easiest Vet Trial. Skipping the top boss it can be, but if the DPS is poo....which it usually is in pugs, the warrior will enrage after 5 minutes and generally cause a wipe.

I don’t like beating on the dummy anymore. Every one of my toons can hit 25k solo and that should be enough to do most anything.

Asardes · March 2018

Barely pulling 15K yet getting into veteran trials is rather dumb. 25K is decent if you don't do HM, but it will be still be a bit of a struggle. I've played with groups that pulled around 220K on the Mage - boss just sits there and does literally nothing - but was horrible. If you want to have better experiences in trials pick decent people to run with, not potatoes. You may bring someone who wants to learn the mechanics, but having all 9 people think they can be carried in there and you'll have a bad time