Just got TTT last night, so I reckon I can chime in.

I agree with this, but I would like to add that I think that to make the HM stand out from the non-HM the best option would be to only enable blade traps on HM, along with an "increased frequency" in the amount of adds spawned. What I mean by that is that I think the amount of adds spawned should be halved by what it is now for non-HM, but keep it for HM.

This would help make non-HM easier, and make HM stand out more than just by having the increased damage.

I 100% agree with everything listed here.

vHoF is just a very long trial, and that makes it rather grueling, which many people (including devs) also misconstrue for mechanical difficulty. Personally, I'm fine with it.

If anything, if the devs still want to make this trial more accessible, I feel that a nerf to the expected trial clear time in vHoF would be a better position to start in; that way, the nerf to bosses' health would be much more reasonable, and since good groups are already clearing vHoF way under the old 40-minute speedrun limit, perhaps we can bring that down to 30 minutes as well, and tweak the bosses' health according to that standard.

BlissfulDelusions wrote: »

Just got TTT last night, so I reckon I can chime in.

you're welcome uwu

@code65536 I'm surprised you don't bring up the insufferable snare and magicka drain from the lazers between the 3rd and 4th bosses. It exists as the single most pointless and annoying mechanic in the entire trial. If hof mechanics are being re-examined and re-done, that should be the one that goes!

@ZOS_Finn @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_GinaBruno

I wish when ZOS decides to make content more accessible, they would actually think about what makes said content unappealing and inaccessible as the OP has done here, rather than just nerf some health and damage.

Everyone and everything, ZOS, the players who have not done this content, the players who already have and would like their achievements not to be trivialized, the content would be better off if the changes to HoF were altered to what is in the OP than what's on the PTS.

Specifically the two mechanics that have made me type "no thanks" when asked to do this trial are the Draining Shock (magicka drain, probably the most frustrating PvE mechanic in the game, and that's saying something with the poison plants in vMA stage 7) and the poison spheres on the first boss. I think the OP is 100% correct regarding how to better change the fight: the health of the bosses is not the barrier. Good groups are just going to find it easier to burn through and ignore the mechanics, whereas progression groups are still going to get murdered by the poison DoTs.

@ZOS_Finn I want to amend my comments about Fulminate and Melting Point.

I'm okay with nerfing the rate at which the DoT ramps up, to give people more time to react if they get hit. But instead of reducing their damage in addition, I think a better telegraph would be ideal.

What do I mean by this? Well, think about a Kagouti's charge. Before it starts the actual charge, there is a colored AoE telegraph on the ground telling you the path that the Kagouti is going to take with the charge. That way, people can more reliably move out of the charge path before the charge begins. You can avoid the charge without a telegraph, but let's consider what that would require: people will have to look at the Kagouti, determine which way they are facing, and estimate from that what that charge path looks like. All that takes time: looking for the Kagouti, looking at how it's facing, and extrapolating a path from that take a second to mentally process (assuming you can even see the Kagouti clearly amidst all the other enemies and effects that add visual clutter). In contrast, with the ground telegraph, it's a lot easier (and quicker) to accurately judge if you are in danger.

In a similar vein, the direction of the fire AoEs radiating from the Reducer's Fire Whirl is not random and follows a set pattern. And for an experienced, well-coordinated group, it's possible for people to reliably avoid the Fire Whirl's Fulminate and Melting Point entirely through good positioning by the players and the tanks making sure at the Reducer is facing in a good direction. But most groups--even some TTT groups--don't do a good job of avoiding the fire and instead plan on eating the fire and have to find ways to deal with that.

But what if the direction of the AoEs from Fire Whirl were telegraphed before they even radiate out from the Reducer? What if, during the Reducer's wind-up animation for Fire Whirl, you saw three AoE telegraphs on the ground indicating the path of those three radiating fire circles, just like with the Kagouti charge? It's hard to visually judge the direction that the Reducer is facing (particularly while it's doing the Fire Whirl animation, as its body is twisting around) and to then extrapolate whether you're in one of the three paths that the fire will take. But with a telegraph, there would be easy and quick clarity. It would allow people to more readily side-step the fire. And it would help groups better understand the the positioning patterns that would make the fire easier to avoid in general.

I know that adding things like AoE telegraphs is harder than just tweaking damage numbers on an ability. But a better telegraph for the Fire Whirl would be a much better solution than nerfing the damage. It would make the damage easier to avoid with some skillful play and it would do a lot to help mainstream groups adopt the kind of positioning and facing discipline that advanced groups use.

TL;DR: Adding AoE telegraphs indicating the path of the fire from the Fire Whirl will make it easier for people to deal with the mechanic by lowering the bar for and thus promoting skillful play. In contrast, reducing the damage will make it easier for people to deal with the mechanic by making the mechanic less consequential, easier to ignore, and this discourages skillful play. I think most will agree that one of these is a better solution than the other.

vHof is one of my most favourite trials and I main tank it on a regular basis on PS4. What is the biggest barrier of getting good score or tick tock is that it has awful performance on the console.

For example, as the main tank on the second boss, there's a bug that you sometimes don't see the first shade. There are flashing animations all over the place and adding the awful performance (low fps, lag) you can easily kill your group. Forget doing vhof in prime time on Sunday on PS4 EU because that's the worst day for trials.

What I don't really like about vhof is that stun during the shade mechanic and that if there's heavy attack coming from the centurion, it's going to kill me.

How people clear vhof on PS4 is way different than what you do on PC. For example, burning of the first boss is not as common. We have 2 - 3 phases where people go upstairs on the second boss and we always kill the bombers on the triplets.

Triplets is actually the worse fight on PS4 because if a DD dcs (which is very frequent now that console blue screens are rampant) they can't get in, they have to walk a long distance to reach the door that won't even let them through or they will immediately die and won't be able to get up. And if a tank DCs, well, that's rip score and you wipe. Then you have to wait ages for them to come back and it's just awful.

Imho, all trials should have the same mechanics like vss, vas, vcr - that you're immediately being ported to the boss zome when the fight starts. This is really important in vhof especially because of these super long corridors.

Is nerfing the health of the bosses necessary? In my opinion no. As a purely console player, there are much more important things to improve about this trial, and the first one should be its performance. When you reach the triplets you basically have to play with 10 fps

@ZOS_Finn "Joining Encounter in Progress" would be a welcome addition, not just for vHoF, but for all trials. People who are locked out of Rakkhat's room or The Serpent's room aren't able to join the fight. But it's particularly bad for vHoF because of the long distance between portals and the traps along the way.

And finally, my comments about the Update 25 changes after having run the trial.

• The Draining Shock ability no longer drains Magicka of those affected by the Damage over Time. - What exactly is Draining Shock? The laser beams in the hallways still drain Magicka on the PTS and none of the abilities that appear in ESO Logs is named "Draining Shock". We didn't test the drains from the Pinnacle or Sharpened Conduits.
• The health nerfs to the bosses seem pointless. They are relatively modest--about 10% or so. If the idea is to "take the edge off" for low/mid-tier groups, it seems unlikely that these changes to the boss health would affect them.
  • Hunter-Killers health nerf: There are no DPS-check mechanics on Hunter-Killers. When groups wipe on that boss, it's because of deaths, not because of a failure to kill the boss quickly enough. In fact, it's not uncommon for groups that are learning the fight to call for a stop on damage on the bosses. Since shalk and sphere spawns are keyed against boss health percentages, pushing the boss too quickly could mean mechanics piling up too fast and depriving a group of breathing room. So for the Hunter-Killers, a nerf to boss health is very unlikely to help a group that's learning.
  • Pinnacle health nerf: My biggest concern here is the "Rakkhat Syndrome". Top-tier groups now defeat Rakkhat HM on pad 3, completely bypassing the backroom mechanic, the persistent-curse mechanic, and the assassins mechanic. It trivializes the fight. Making it easier to completely bypass the topside mechanic on Pinnacle--which is already possible for competitive groups--is not healthy for the trial. You should not be exacerbating this problem. I simply cannot see how a health decrease--no matter how modest--can be justified. This boss had already received a substantial nerf not long after it went Live, when the Pinnacle's damage immunity during the top phase was removed. (This change in 3.0.8 wasn't initially a nerf, as it was accompanied by a buff to the Pinnacle's health to compensate, but then that compensatory health increase was later undone, thus making this change a substantial nerf.)
  • In general, with the other adjustments that are being made, throwing a 10% health reduction on top seems to be unnecessary. I believe that the (stronger) more targeted changes like the huge reduction in Sphere and Sharpened Conduit health should be sufficient, and I urge that you limit the changes to just those--you can always re-evaluate next patch.
• Toning down difficulty spikes: The other reason that I don't agree with nerfs to boss health is that it's a blanket decrease in difficulty rather than something that is targeted at the stated goal of "difficulty spikes being toned down".
  • Reduction to the sphere health on Hunter-Killers will make it easier to "play the mechanics" and is a fine change.
  • If you seek a further reduction in Hunter-Killers difficulty, I'd suggest looking at a slight decrease in the ramping of the poison DoT.
  • Back when I was trying to clear vHoF for the first time, the biggest stumbling block on Pinnacle was the Simulacra mechanic. And from the random vHoF progression streams that I tune into now and then, that still looks like a major prickling point. Being able to reliably spot that subtle shimmer amidst all the visual effects is difficult for tanks that haven't done this fight a lot. Here, a QoL change would make a huge difference: Add a cone telegraph on the ground for each simulacrum as it does its mechanic. This would greatly improve the visual clarity of the mechanic, and it would do a lot to take the edge off of the Pinnacle fight for learning groups without the need for any nerfs or changes to the mechanic. You've already done something like this for Cradle of Shadows. By adding the telegraphs for the Shadow Spine mechanic, you clarified it and made it much easier to handle without actually nerfing the mechanic. As with what I suggested in post #10 above with the Fire Whirl mechanic, I think better telegraphs that make punishing mechanics easier to deal with is always a better solution than nerfing mechanics (in the case of the Fire Whirl) or a particular fight in general (in the case with Pinnacle's changes).
  • The huge reduction in health for the Sharpened Conduits and, to a lesser extent, the reduction of health for the Centurions, should make the Pinnacle fight more recoverable if a mishap like a bad Palm Strike happens. I think this is a fine targeted change.
  • For the Refabrication Committee, the reduction in damage to the fire and trap mechanics seem to be fine. They are still lethal and cannot be ignored (for example, it killed me as a tank when I did not purge it) but they are noticeably more forgiving.
• Ruined Factotums: In the Elsweyr patch from last year, you made the following change: "Ruined Factotums can no longer be damaged while still spawning in during the fight with the Reassembly Committee." This clip shows the result of that change, where I can "target" the bomber and attempt to attack it, but all those attempts to attack it just results in my character's staff jerking around and not actually doing anything. It's pretty ridiculous. The only thing more frustrating than an add that spawns right on the Reclaimer's Shock Field than is an add that can't be damaged or even properly targeted that spawns right on the Reclaimer. Why was this change even made? I'd say that reversing this change (as well as adding a minimum spawn distance from the Reclaimer) would do more for easing the difficulty (and in a way that makes the fight more fair) than giving the bombers a 26% health cut. If you get a bomber that spawns right on the boss, you could give it a 50% health cut, and it would still be a problem. And if spawn distance was changed and spawn targeting was reverted, it would, in my estimation, make a health cut unnecessary.
• Stun changes: As @Nefas mentioned in his thread and as we called out to @ZOS_Seiffer as he watched the run, the stun removals on the first two bosses seem to either not work or only work inconsistently.

@ZOS_Finn In general, I don't think the changes are that radical or that the trial feels that different, and for the most part, they do seem to hit your stated goal of smoothing out difficulty spikes. My main concern is that, with the targeted changes that have been made, the generic change of a health nerf to the bosses themselves are unwarranted (and specifically in the case of Hunter-Killers, unhelpful, and in the case of Pinnacle, unhealthy).

For me personally and most other players I've done it with, clearing MoL and HoF for the first time on normal and Vet yield the best senses of achievement and excitement for groups. I believe it is because these trials have measures in place to encourage teamwork and measures in place to prevent stack and burns (not including higher end groups). Altering the trial to encourage stack and burn has the potential to turn it into Aetherian Archive in which RNG is the group's biggest foe.


Alternate solutions have been proposed. An example result ideally could look like this for 1st boss:

• Normal trial groups: with decent healers DoTs can be healed for a good amount of time until spheres are killed. The spheres can be killed without breaking a shield with an HP such that they melt pretty fast for a group with 100-150k DPS. The shalks are there but do little damage and melt in cleave. No stuns anywhere. IE have the main mechanics, but make them easy or inconsequential.
• Prog/farming vet groups: the spheres must be broken and killed, but the health and spawnings are spaced out such that it's manageable for a group that can do vSS/vMoL doesn't struggle a ton on this boss. If stuns exist let them be blockable.
• Highly optimized groups: "burn the bosses" is I guess fine as long as the other two above hold. Personally I'd prefer a mechanic to specifically prevent all straight stack and burn tactics as a trial becomes pretty boring once this is possible for a group. Shouldn't our stronger DPS groups have more complexity to deal with in order to finish a boss quickly rather than less?

A possible solution would be to make spheres easier to clear (after breaking the shield) but have the bosses go immune if a certain number of spheres are up (or increasing exponential mitigation for each sphere up). The difficulty can be adjusted with Sphere health and amount/frequency spawned.

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The non-burn strategy of the 1st and 4th bosses are the best tank-team experiences available in the game. The tanking mechanics in these fights are conceptually awesome (some details could be tweaked I guess). Hopefully they don't go away.

I thought MT final boss was going to be a fun tank achievement.....stationary permablocking with buff sets is easier than even vAA (you have to taunt an axe there at least)? Reducing difficulty is definitely called for accessibility, but please avoid turning every trial into: "Tank stand there and just permablock....DPS stand here and parse...Healer spam combat prayer on DPS...it's easier this way than trying to work as a team."

Hopefully, this year's trial is designed to significantly scale mechanic difficulty as group DPS rises. Right now for HM's/vDLCs prog's the best way to clear is to have everyone go to the parse dummy rather than practice mechanics as a team. Make teamwork more important than DPS!

As I noted earlier in this thread, if you're going to do something about the Ruined Factotums, adjustments to theirs spawning behavior should be a much higher priority than a lazy nerf of health.

Here are a couple of clips from the Live server two days ago:

Video clip #1 shows just how long of an immunity period the bombers have as they spawn. Here, I am literally mashing my attack buttons as it spawns, hoping to be able to damage it as soon as its immunity wears off. You can see my character's staff subtly jerking forward as my character repeatedly does the animation of attempting—and then immediately aborting—each attack.

As you can see, the immunity doesn't just cover the period of time when the bomber is rising out of the ground, but that immunity also covers the first two steps forward that the bomber takes.


Video clip #2 is yet another example of just how close to the boss a bomber could spawn. This kind of bullsh*t spawn means that players are exposed to damage meant to punish the failure of a mechanic—when that mechanic is guaranteed to fail.

But this isn't just a matter of players being unfairly exposed to bomber damage from a bomber that you literally cannot kill in time, but it's also a problem for the Planned Obsolescence achievement, which fails as soon as a bomber touches the ring and starts the empowerment animation. Even if you manage to kill a bomber before it completes its empowerment animation, you will have failed the achievement. There is a reason why I have more characters with Tick-Tock Tormentor than I do characters that have Planned Obsolescence.


The immunity period lasting too long and the ability for RNG to give groups the middle finger with a bad spawn location are the kinds of pain points should be higher priorities than the level of a bomber's health, because health nerfs aren't going to help anyone when they literally have no time to kill a bomber. And they are not that uncommon—over the course of just two kills of the triplets boss that day, we ran into three instances of a bomber spawning within a couple of steps of the Shock Field.