Not getting any loot out of dolmen bosses

Alliantie · October 2018

Yesterday I joined a dolmen group in Alikr just to get some xp and found out you get plunder skulls out of it too. However after a couple dolmens the bosses stopped dropping anything. Even if i touched them a ouple of times. A group member advised me to get a dot attack so I bought Caltrops and spammed it on the boss but it didn't work. What should I do?

Katahdin · October 2018

Try another zone where there aren't 1000 people at each dolmen

DeadlyRecluse · October 2018

I was told only top 12 damage get a Dremora skull from dolmen bosses--I haven't done anything to verify that, really.

I was grinding a lowbie tank up--no Dremora skull from multiple dolmens that got hit by a horde of players, but I got one from a dolmen in a remote area I cleared with just 3-4 others...

SantieClaws · October 2018

Also the skulls are on some sort of timer.

If you get one you won't get another right away.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

Ilsabet · October 2018

The loot drop has to do with how much damage you do, not just getting a hit in on the boss. I'd advise going to a zone where fewer people are farming so you're not competing with half the server for damage.

I've done well in Deshaan, and Shadowfen and Auridon are also good dolmen-farming zones.

Jimmy · October 2018

ONLY Top 12 Damage Dealers get any loot.

Increase your DPS yo!

Katahdin · October 2018

SantieClaws wrote: »

Also the skulls are on some sort of timer.

If you get one you won't get another right away.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

This too.

If you're on PC, there is a plunder skull addon that tells you when the cooldown is over

Galaen_Frost · October 2018

Stopped dropping skulls or loot entirely? You can only get one skull from a dolmen boss per day. After that you have to wait 20 hours to get another from a dolmen boss.

All the skulls work like that btw. You can only get one skull per boss type per day.

SantieClaws · October 2018

Galaen_Frost wrote: »

Stopped dropping skulls or loot entirely? You can only get one skull from a dolmen boss per day. After that you have to wait 20 hours to get another from a dolmen boss.

All the skulls work like that btw. You can only get one skull per boss type per day.

You can only get one special dolmen skull - you should still get the regular plunder skulls.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

neverwalk · October 2018

STEEL TORNADO everything after drinking weapon damage potion.

BuddyAces · October 2018

Katahdin wrote: »

SantieClaws wrote: »

Also the skulls are on some sort of timer.

If you get one you won't get another right away.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

This too.

If you're on PC, there is a plunder skull addon that tells you when the cooldown is over

Omg really? You are my hero of the day. Downloading that when I get home.

purple-magicb16_ESO · October 2018

I was told by someone this morning that you hve to do enough damage to the boss to get one. If that's true that really sucks because at Alik'r dolmens end bosses are put away pretty quick and not everyone is a dd/dps. If true it's a very short sighted move. Also @SantieClaws (edit: deepest apologies for name error)is correct there is a cool down. In previous years it's been 3 mins.

anadandy · October 2018

Those out of the way dolmens that are inconvenient to get to are your best bet - like the one in Glenumbra (Daenia I think)

jlb1705 · October 2018

Alliantie wrote: »

Yesterday I joined a dolmen group in Alikr just to get some xp and found out you get plunder skulls out of it too. However after a couple dolmens the bosses stopped dropping anything. Even if i touched them a ouple of times. A group member advised me to get a dot attack so I bought Caltrops and spammed it on the boss but it didn't work. What should I do?

I was running into the same thing last night. There are so many people burning the boss so fast (less than 1 sec in some cases) that you might not even be getting a hit in. If you're happy to just get the completion XP and the chest loot then the huge crowd is OK. If you want better XP and the skulls there are better places to farm those things than Alik'r dolmens.

Sparr0w · October 2018

Think it's 3% damage to get loot, probably done this to prevent AFK farming/grinding.

Donny_Vito · October 2018

Auridon is a better place to farm Dolmens, in my opinion. You don't have the botters like Alikr Desert, but the dolmens are just as close to Wayshrines so they're easy to access. Deshaan is also another good place. Both of these alternatives still have a few people doing them (so the time it takes to complete is relatively short) but not too much where your XP is taking a dip.

purple-magicb16_ESO · October 2018

Jimmy wrote: »

ONLY Top 12 Damage Dealers get any loot.

Increase your DPS yo!

Not shooting the messenger, but I call role discrimination on this one.

SantieClaws · October 2018

Also it is better for other low level players wanting to complete dolmens if the potential helpers are spread out and not concentrated just in Alik'r.

This festival is a good time to clear a few outstanding dolmens and world bosses with the less well trained apprentices.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

SpacemanSpiff1 · October 2018

Katahdin wrote: »

If you're on PC, there is a plunder skull addon that tells you when the cooldown is over

Thanks! I'm gonna try this out tonight. Hopefully it works like the trial reset tracker for Dremora skulls.

majulook · October 2018

BuddyAces wrote: »

Katahdin wrote: »

SantieClaws wrote: »

Also the skulls are on some sort of timer.

If you get one you won't get another right away.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

This too.

If you're on PC, there is a plunder skull addon that tells you when the cooldown is over

Omg really? You are my hero of the day. Downloading that when I get home.

During my time yesterday in The Forgotten Crypts (Deshaan Public Dungeon).

The cool down timer for the normal plunder skulls is very short, and possibly non-existant, I was able to go from one boss to the other in a matter of a few seconds and got a plunder skull each time the a boss was killed.

BuddyAces · October 2018

majulook wrote: »

BuddyAces wrote: »

Katahdin wrote: »

SantieClaws wrote: »

Also the skulls are on some sort of timer.

If you get one you won't get another right away.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

This too.

If you're on PC, there is a plunder skull addon that tells you when the cooldown is over

Omg really? You are my hero of the day. Downloading that when I get home.

During my time yesterday in The Forgotten Crypts (Deshaan Public Dungeon).

The cool down timer for the normal plunder skulls is very short, and possibly non-existant, I was able to go from one boss to the other in a matter of a few seconds and got a plunder skull each time the a boss was killed.

Unless they changed it, all public bosses do indeed have a timer where you can't loot if you kill too many in a certain amount of time.

This was last year when I was actually farming pub dungeons but if I'm remembering right it's something like 3 bosses in a 5-6 minute span. Memory's foggy but I know if you kill 4 too soon you will get no loot, not just the event loot but loot in general. Someone feel free to explain the loot timers if your memory is working better than mine currently.

bongtokin420insd16 · October 2018

Same for me in summerset.

Danikat · October 2018

I'm doing Witches Festival achievements on my crafter, because I wanted him to learn the motifs and didn't care who did the other achievements so it made sense to do them all together. He has literally 4 skills on his bar (1 from each class line and the soul trap skill) and a tanky build so his chances of doing high damage on anything are pretty much zero.

I specifically look for out of the way bosses where I think there's going to be fewer people around. Then occasionally I realise I've been too successful and I'm left trying to solo a boss on a useless character.

Armatesz · October 2018

SantieClaws wrote: »

Also the skulls are on some sort of timer.

If you get one you won't get another right away.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

Yes and no on timers, public dungeons there is some kind of loophole with those. Take the deshaan public dungeon for instance... you can farm 3 bosses in quick succession and get a plunder skull with no cooldown between the three but only on repeat trip, leaving every 2 rotations you get plunder skulls. Specifically start from that sheriff then proceed to that ghost reading a book and then that skeleton guy hidden in a corner. Then proceed to repeat over and over. I will add I am not sure if it is or is not intended to be this way.

Taleof2Cities · October 2018

Katahdin wrote: »

Try another zone where there aren't 1000 people at each dolmen

^This is the correct answer.^

I did dolmens in Shadowfen and had no issues getting the daily or regular plunder skulls.

Katahdin · October 2018

Galaen_Frost wrote: »

Stopped dropping skulls or loot entirely? You can only get one skull from a dolmen boss per day. After that you have to wait 20 hours to get another from a dolmen boss.

All the skulls work like that btw. You can only get one skull per boss type per day.

No, plunder skulls (purple ones) can drop multiple times from the same boss. Dremora skull (gold) are only one per type of boss per day

randomkeyhits · October 2018

If the dolmen looks even halfway busy, drop dots just before the boss appears, as many different ones as you can manage.

Especially if its laggy, even if your client goes slideshow mode the dots happen server side so will continue to tick.

Trinity_Is_My_Name · October 2018

IIRC it is no longer limited to the top 12. It is limited to you being able to do 3% of damage to the boss before it is dead. Also, there is a 3 minute window between skull drops on bosses, ANY bosses. So if you run into a delve for instance and kill the boss and wait three minutes and it spawns again and then kill it again you will get another Plunder Skull.

As someone else has already posted there is an Addon for PC called Plunder Skull timer that starts the 3 minute timer when you kill a boss. So if you want Plunder Skulls and are running through a dungeon for let's say a Pledge then try to make sure you don't kill the next boss before the 3 minute window or you won't get the Skull.

grkkll · October 2018

I'd try Auridon instead of Ali, but that gets busy at peak times. deshaan is pretty good and there's a public dungeon near one and world boss next to another

pdblake · October 2018

P c Eu auridon is jam packed at dolmens. Im doing a fair bit of damage and not getting anything.

Im done for the day though and got plenty eventually

starkerealm · October 2018

purple-magicb16_ESO wrote: »

I was told by someone this morning that you hve to do enough damage to the boss to get one. If that's true that really sucks because at Alik'r dolmens end bosses are put away pretty quick and not everyone is a dd/dps. If true it's a very short sighted move. Also Santie Paws is correct there is a cool down. In previous years it's been 3 mins.

It's there to prevent botters from swarming a single boss, spamming it down endlessly, and effectively locking the content to other players while also generating horrific amounts of gold. This was an issue at launch, and it is a real danger. As is, bot trains need to stay at 12 or under for maximum efficiency, which cuts down on their impact on the game overall.