[Guide] March of Sacrifices, Vet HM: Tips for surviving the hunt

code65536 · August 2018

1: Stay together

My friends and I have found that the best way to survive the hunt is for people to stay together. It means that you have a better chance of surviving if a strangler grabs you, and your healer is better able to help you.

What we found works best is to have an agreed-upon rally point that everyone goes to as soon as the hunt starts. My group had designated the entrance area as our rally point, and everyone goes there ASAP as soon as the hunt starts. Waiting for the trap to spawn just means that people wander around like headless chickens for the first few seconds of the hunt, whereas going to a rally point means that we start the hunt together.

We'll wait at our rally point for a few seconds for the shades to come a bit closer, and then we'll run either clockwise or counter-clockwise around the room, depending on what makes the most sense at the time. (E.g., if the first trap is easier to reach if we go clockwise from our entrance rally point, then we'll loop in that direction.)

We'll keep looping around the room like that, until all four shades have been trapped. If we fail to trap a shade, it's easier to get it on the next loop around the room than to backtrack--backtracking is exceptionally dangerous.

2: Gotta go fast

You must be mobile; there are several options--pick one:

Major Expedition
- Class abilities: Refreshing Path, Boundless Storm, Falcon's Swiftness
- Other abilities: Hasty Retreat (bow passive), Accelerate (Psijic), Rapid Maneuver (though the stam cost is probably too high for this)
- Speed potions: For tanks and stamina DDs, crafted Speed potions are very strong (Thistle/Dragonthorn/Namira-or-Scrib make Speed/Stam/Power potions), or if you're thrifty, you could use the Roguish Escape Draughts found in Thieves Troves
Swift jewelry
Bolt Escape

You also need some form of snare removal, to deal with the snare from the wolves:

Efficient Purge (Alliance War, Support)
Shuffle (Medium Armor)
Forward Momentum (2H)
Retreating Maneuver (Alliance War, Assault)
Reflective Plate (Dragonknight, Draconic Power)

Note: Snare immunity does not work at the moment; only snare removal is working.

3: Dealing with stranglers

My favorite moment from the dev run of vMoS HM was when Rich Lambert exclaimed, "f*** you, strangler!". But there are ways to deal with them!

First, stay together. You have a far better chance of freeing your allies if you do.

Second, have one or more people run a stun. Shock Touch (Destructive Touch with a lightning staff) is a nice ranged stun ability available to the healer and any magicka DD. Sorcs can use Rune Prison/Cage instead if they prefer. The stun serves two purposes. First, as you approach a strangler, you can stun it so that your team can safely run past the strangler without being grappled. If you were to listen to our voice comms, you'd probably hear something like, "Tank: I see a strangler up ahead. Me: Okay, it's stunned." Second, if someone does get grappled, a ranged stun means that you can free the person more quickly, without having to run to them. With practice, I can turn around, cast the stun to free my teammate, and go right back to running the loop without missing a beat. Crushing Shock can also be used to free people from range, but I really prefer Shock Touch because it can also be used preemptively.

Another option for dealing with the stranglers is using Time Stop. Cast one on the strangler as you approach it, and as a bonus, it can also CC any direwolves that are chasing you as you lead them through the bubble.

If you have the time and opportunity, it's a good idea to kill the stranglers, but there will often be times when the shades are close behind in hot pursuit, and you just can't afford to stop to kill stranglers, in which case stunning them is really, really nice. If you have someone who is not being hunted, they can run a bit further ahead to lay ground DoTs on a strangler or stay back a little to finish off a strangler. Just be careful that whoever does this doesn't stray too far from the group.

4: Dodge those fireballs

The fire DoT that you get during the hunt does more damage than the fire DoT that you get during the normal phases of the hunt. You really need to dodge them. Listen for the boss's audio cue (he'll say something before casting the fireballs, such as "I'll burn you to a crisp!"). Alternatively, there's an addon that can help with that.

5: Survival is important; DPS is not

I change my gear when I do the Hard Mode of the Balorgh fight. As a magicka DD, I put on the Amber Plasm that I use for PvP, because it's nice having stamina to dodge and having the magicka to maintain my shields and purge those snares. Alternatively, health-stam-magicka tripots are nice for making sure that you have stamina to dodge. When I do this fight on my magicka nightblade characters, my entire back bar is devoted to surviving the hunt: it's a lighting staff with Harness, Refreshing Path, Shock Reach, and Efficient Purge. Different classes and builds will have different skill setups that make the most sense, but just keep in mind that the entire Balorgh HM fight is really a fight of survival where DPS isn't that important. So don't hesitate to tinker with your bars and gear to get a setup that works for you. Good luck!

Left4Daud · August 2018

Solid guide.

Does your group play out all hunts, or skip all but the 20% one?

code65536 · August 2018

Left4Daud wrote: »

Solid guide.

Does your group play out all hunts, or skip all but the 20% one?

Now that we have a better idea of how the skip works, we do try to skip them. But sometimes we will miss a skip, and of course you will always have to do at least one hunt even if you try to skip, so I always try to be prepared for dealing with a hunt.

Left4Daud · August 2018

That’s how my groups have started to handle it to. And only having to do one, or even a second “accidental” hunt makes a huge difference in the flow and difficulty of the fight.

Question is again, is skipping hunts intended, or maybe unintended but at this juncture acceptable?

The dev silence leads me to possibly believe so.

code65536 · August 2018

Left4Daud wrote: »

That’s how my groups have started to handle it to. And only having to do one, or even a second “accidental” hunt makes a huge difference in the flow and difficulty of the fight.

Question is again, is skipping hunts intended, or maybe unintended but at this juncture acceptable?

The dev silence leads me to possibly believe so.

I'm pretty sure it's a bug.

Left4Daud · August 2018

Probably. It’s just curious how it was the only thing in your earlier MoS bug report that wasn’t acknowledged by the devs.

I mean surely they are aware of it, having witnessed it during their own ESO Live playthrough. So why be silent about it?

erlewine · August 2018

Frozen Water seems to always happen immediately upon conclusion of a Hunt Phase, so it's important to remember to get right to an island when a Hunt phase is ending. Especially after the final one sub 20%. It's also important to quickly burn the boss dead after the final hunt phase, because at that point there's simply a timer and he will enter yet another Hunt phase, after about 30 seconds or so. It's similar to Zaan - where she will go into yet another Statue phase on a timer sub 20%.

Czekoludek · August 2018

How you can skip a hunt?

code65536 · August 2018

Czekoludek wrote: »

How you can skip a hunt?

I think it's a bug, so I wouldn't count on it being there in the future. There is a thread where that bug is reported that contains the relevant details.

snegurd · August 2018

Good guide, this is exactly how my group has been running it.

If you are unable to stun the stranglers I have also found that you can roll through them and dodge their grapple attack. This takes some timing (and it's unlikely you have excess stamina for it) but it can help if you get separated from the group or if you're the last one standing and don't have a stun.

Zer0oo · August 2018

I still need to laugh about that i used my pvp setup for the last boss. (7 impen ftw)

A few additional tips:

Having some aoe cc/root for all the wolfs helps
use tri food and tri pots if you have not enough stam to dodge
place some aoes while you run to get rid of some of the doggies (when they are rooted/cced)
having dds spam mutagen helps / do not be afraid to change to a healing staff
have high execute dps after 20% you want to nuke him (just spam your class execute)

In general most pvp builds are working well on this boss since in pvp you need to kite(movement ) a lot, have self-survival and stam sustain to dodge.

Mureel · August 2018

code65536 wrote: »

Left4Daud wrote: »

That’s how my groups have started to handle it to. And only having to do one, or even a second “accidental” hunt makes a huge difference in the flow and difficulty of the fight.

Question is again, is skipping hunts intended, or maybe unintended but at this juncture acceptable?

The dev silence leads me to possibly believe so.

I'm pretty sure it's a bug.

Having finished the VMHK things, we're on MOS now; so thank you! This is valuable!
(My group has wildly different play times and I'm mid-house move, so coordinating has been lulsy at best!)

Sebar80 · August 2018

My 2 cents, completed 4 times so far as a tank:

Rapid Maneuver - not worth it 8k stam speed buff only works until the next skill use which is usually very short time
For snare removal run efficient purge (tank)

Run time stop, any morph (tank). Drop on stranglers while running towards them, position yourself behind it, let wolfs walk in to it and allow 2-3 seconds for dps to kill strangler and damage/kill some wolfs before moving again, do the same on traps (time stop on trap) for wolfs. If healer and tank running time stop wolfs can be almost perma cc'ed

Tanks should run high mag regen on this fight to be able to spam magica skills. Boosting damage is not important. Ebon is worthwhile. My go to set up at the moment is Shadowrend/Chokethorn+Ebon+Dragon

Run some form of support healing preferably magic, I use cauterize as a bit of help during the hunt, maybe Symbiosis could work but i did not try it yet.

Also run as one group always in the same direction, be it clockwise or anticlockwise. You can make shortcut for the last trap in the hunt but earlier it is risky, people will just go in different directions leading to wipe. Have one person to call it, usually the healer.
When you hear boss saying something during hunt, roll on 2 (fireballs incoming), healer should call this mechanic through the whole fight.
i noticed electrified water doesn't hurt that much but the poison do. Out-heal electricity avoid poison unless doing the achievement but its just easier to do in noHM vet.

Its good for tank to avoid any bleeding by roll dodging heavy attacks, after heavy its usually poison activation or electrification so it is also good to get some distance fast.

For "out of hunt" always lead the boss in triangle, and let group know how it will look like, I always aim him at exit island (he starts poison phase), he rush/stomp there, I move to left island aiming him to outer arena (for ice breath attack away from group) he also electrifies the water just before he moves to left island. Than, roll dodge (fireballs) in to the water in between islands (in this time he will activate poison again) aim at exit island rinse and repeat. this way if the group follows properly one less thing to worry. Please note his pattern of attack may get a bit off especially if after long time there, its usually go back to normal in next try. I also seen out of syncs attack, look a bit like he is using animation cancelling

Chose the right moment to push pre-execute hunt at 20%. ALWAYS dodge the fireballs before final hunt
Keep him at 21%, let him rush and stomp, as soon as animation for stomp (red growing circle) is starting dps as much as you can (save ultis/horns), I seen him drop to 14% before final hunt. Its important as hunt is from this point on timer (I believe it is 30s) and to make it easy you don't want any more hunts. Forgot wolfs and stranglers go for a kill before next hunt.

Hope it helps if only a little bit

serrintine · August 2018

The stranglers spawn at the same locations and I've found that you can pretty easily see them long before they actually come into full view because targets in the fog emit an orange glow.

Occasionally it might just be a dire wolf but if you see the glow staying still and also spitting at you or an ally it's definitely a strangler, so you would know to pop a timestop on it ahead of time. By the time your group runs by the strangler it will have been stunned or be stunned within a second or two.

code65536 · August 2018

Zer0oo wrote: »

I still need to laugh about that i used my pvp setup for the last boss. (7 impen ftw)

Yea, I personally prefer running Amber on this fight (and my Amber pieces are all Impen because I normally use it in PvP).

Sebar80 wrote: »

Run time stop, any morph (tank). Drop on stranglers while running towards them, position yourself behind it, let wolfs walk in to it and allow 2-3 seconds for dps to kill strangler and damage/kill some wolfs before moving again, do the same on traps (time stop on trap) for wolfs. If healer and tank running time stop wolfs can be almost perma cc'ed

Good point. I forgot to mention Time Stop in my guide (I've amended it). We use Time Stop as well, though not preemptively as you do (usually dropping it when we pause to wait for the boss to path through a trap--dropping it ahead sounds like a pretty good idea, though).

LordDov · August 2018

Also if you and your group are far enough away from the boss you don't get feared when the hunt begins.

Merlin13KAGL · August 2018

FWIW, I think they stealth nerfed (in the right direction, for once) the visibility during the hunt.

Either they dialed back the darkness or amplified the visibility of the red eye effect of the adds, as they appeared to be more visible in last night's run vs what they initially were.

You no longer have to be in their lap to actually see them.

Jaimeh · August 2018

These observations are from my own experience with the hunt phase; even if it can be skipped, at least until they fix it, it's good to learn the hunt with your group and have a strategy on how to deal with it, because no matter what, there will always be one at the end. We delegated tasks so that for example one person could stun stranglers, another person was running a CC skill, etc., but we all had a form of speed boost. This is so you can conserve stamina for roll-dodging the fireballs and boss attacks (instead of using it to sprint). During the hunt, have a standard rally point and direction, and don't change it on the spot, that is, if you have agreed to go clockwise, don't go the opposite way if you see a trap, and just keep looping around, because you risk getting into the fire left behind by the charges. We moved in the periphery, and went in during electric phases. We also found that always making sure to kill the wolves made a big difference. If a couple are still alive, but the shades are upon the group, just run and finish them off on the way. Move to the opposite side of the trap in relation to where the shades are coming from, and wait for them there so that they won't skip it. The stranglers don't necessarily need to die, just to be stunned, so they don't grab someone as you pass. The most important thing is having good communication call outs: for seeing a trap, for being grabbed by the strangler, for anything. Also, it's good to prepare for the hunt, by having the boss on the furthest island from the rally point, having your ulti up for wolves, and a full stamina pool. That phase is really chaotic and panic-inducing, but keep moving along with everyone, and do your task (be it stunning, healing, CC'ing wolves). Being together and keeping an eye on each other goes a long way in successfully finishing it. Finally for that fight we found that each role had to go a bit out of their 'comfort' zone and do other things, mostly to do with survival, like having an extra Barrier on a DD, or the tank running Cauterize, or the healer having a dps skill. Survivability takes precedence, so do what you need to do in order to make it through, by wearing 'selfish' sets, using health tripots, instead of spell/weapon damage, etc. Having a pattern of actions, and finding the perfect balance between moving too fast and lingering, goes a long way in finishing it (with half the group still alive at least

).