so what should i be doing for dungeons?

Darkspecialist · March 2021

so was looking up gear for my end build. went to this pirate place on vet because the game allowed me to go there..i did not belong because i would get one shot on the end boss. leading up to the last boss was fine..group never needed healing but group kept dying to mechanics on final boss. wasnt just me but i know i didnt belong.

if i assume i will always last till the last boss and die the same way to mechanics and being one shot..is it taboo to at least give it a shot a few times in hopes all the previous bosses will give me something useable?

if i didnt do it this way what order does one go before moving on the vet dungeons?

Sangwyne · March 2021

First, I highly suggest (if you are on PC) getting a UI addon such as Bandits or FTC or something that gives you indications when a mechanic is coming your way, such as Snipe, so that you can learn what cues exist in the game and react to them accordingly. Next, don't be afraid to let the party know you haven't done the dungeon and would like their help with learning the mechanics, chances are they'll teach you or at least give some helpful advice. And yeah, sometimes dying is part of the process, it helps you learn what you need to avoid and what you need to actively be doing in certain boss fights, so don't be discouraged if things aren't going your way yet, it's perfectly fine to give any dungeon a shot, most people will understand. Best of luck.

FrancisCrawford · March 2021

If you haven't been somewhere on normal first, you shouldn't go there on vet.

People say the difficulty gap been normal and vet is so high that normal doesn't prepare you for vet. That's overstated. At least you'll have a better chance to understand what you're seeing if in fact you've seen it before, in the literal sense of "see".

And if you're talking about Blackheart Haven -- yeah, that last fight is tricky, although "one shot" isn't how I'd describe it.

If you meant Tempest Island -- that's tricky on vet too, because you're supposed to keep running toward and away from the boss depending on what's going on at the moment. The core mechanic of the final fight is that the further you are from the boss, the more likely you are to get one-shotted, but she has an AoE dangerous enough that you need to run out of it. So run out of the AoE when it happens, then run right back close to her to continue the fight.

Ceejengine · March 2021

Start with norms just to see the place and where the bosses are. It gives you a great idea of what's coming up. Vet content adds new stuff bosses do but after a wipe or 2 you'll get it down.

Then, honestly, for almost all vet content, you can do amazing work with hybrid builds. If you wanna heal, look for some magicka dps sets too and try to find a good middle ground in terms of your skills + morphs. If you stack magicka, look into getting something like a Mother's Sorrow set, and pair that with a healer set. For monster helms, look at something that helps with sustain or allows you to more passively heal folks.

Bogdan the Nightflame set - passive heals
Symphony of Blades - sustain
Balorgh - Increases damage
Earthgore - Heal for days
Maw of the Infernal - AFK DPS

Any of those 5 can very easily allow you to fill 2 roles at once. You need to accept you're not going to do as much damage as a dedicated dps, you won't have tank HP, and you won't overheal like mad.

I hate to say it - I really do - but ESO is slowly phasing out dedicated healers in non-trial combat. Most folks bring their own self heals, tanks have access to enough heals to fill in the gaps, and dedicated healers will be mostly dedicated to over-healing people.

Most bosses in most dungeons are strictly a DPS check. The faster you can kill them the fewer mechanics you need to participate in, and it also drastically reduces the damage the boss is outputting to the team. What that means is you'll see a lot of crews option for 1 tank, 3 DPS, or just 4 DPS with one being slightly tankier than the others.

What I've found keeps me most engaged in vet content is to make up my own builds. You can go to the sticker book in the collections tab and look at every single armor set in the game. Pick two you think might be fun together, then find a monster set to finish off the build. Pick your skills based around what you enjoy + what you can bring to the party, and then go try to clear content with that set up.

There's a few general milestones you need to hit, like minimum health or crit rating, but those are usually easy to reach, and anything beyond the accepted minimum is just a bonus.

You'll start tweaking and modifying your builds until you have it exactly the way you want it. That's when the game is most fun, when you show up with a super non-meta build and just shred through the content. I love getting the occasional "dude what is your build that was awesome." whispers.

Magdalina · March 2021

Blackheart, even on vet, is one of the easier dungeons out there. The only somewhat challenging part is the mech of last boss - he will occasionally turn a random member of the group into a skeleton. While skeleton'd, you cannot use skills, can still use synergies, block, dodge and get healed by party members. In order to un-skeleton a fellow group member, your group needs to kill the little skele ads coming out of the water. Often if the group's dps is high enough, that part is just straight ignored and the boss is basically 3 manned without active participation of the skeleton'd person.

Now if you did get one-shot over there...I'm assuming you're not a tank because I don't think anything there could one-shot a tank, so you probably a dps/healer. I don't remember for sure but the boss probably does have a heavy and you could probably get one-shot if you were hit by that. That'd mean that either your tank wasn't doing his job (could be a fake tank with no actual taunt too) or your tank got skele'd and couldn't do his job. Either way, you should be able to dodge a couple heavies on your own. Watch for it, if the boss attacks you and starts channeling a heavy - you probably wanna dodge, or at least block (if you're on PC, addons such as Combat Alerts will tell you about a lot (but not all) of these attacks in advance).

Another popular cause of death there (albeit not quite getting one-shot) is being overrun by ads/everything while in skele form, there is some damage there, it can add up and you can't really do anything about it in skele form, just hope your healer heals you (and do try to walk out of red/block obviously). If your healer isn't actually healing (maybe a fake healer too), that might sometimes become a problem.

Generally most vet dungeons are pretty easy and do come down to some mechs and dps. Healing and tanking are honestly less of an issue in the majority of the dungeons (although a bad tank can and will definitely wipe you in a vet dlc) compared to dps. There are a lot of dps-related mechs even in base game dungeons (non dlc), a lot of them are so mild most groups don't even notice them but if your group's dps is low (less than...Idk, 20-30k maybe?) you might run into them and be unable to pass.

I don't think that you need to have done normal before you do a vet (I feel that normal is way too easy and doesn't really teach you anything), but, like others have said, mentioning it's your first run might be of help. Also try to pay some attention to what your teammates do, especially if they live where you die. What is it that they do differently? Did they dodge/block in time? Did they position themselves in a safer place? Did they use a shield (magicka builds often do)? Did they bring a selfheal? Did they bash a channel that you missed? Did they just do 5 times more damage than you and hence skip the mech you died to (that one might be harder to see but addons such as CombatMetrics on PC tell you the % of group dps that you do. Assuming you're a dps of course)? It's a matter of having a proper build and getting some practice in really.

SeaGtGruff · March 2021

While you guys are talking about dungeons, and normal versus vet, I have a question.

How can you tell if you're in a normal dungeon or a vet dungeon?

To be clear, I don't run dungeons frequently, but when I do I typically try to run them solo by just walking up and going inside, rather than by queuing for them and running them with a group-- so I'm really asking about walking in or porting to them, not queuing for them.

It's my understanding that it used to be the case that "I" dungeons were normal and "II" dungeons were vet, but that this was changed a while ago so that either version (I or II) could be either difficulty (normal or vet). I know that when you're walking into a dungeon that has I and II versions, you get a choice at entry as to whether you want the I version or the II version. But is there a way to choose whether you want normal or vet if you're just walking in?

I guess you can tell I don't do dungeons much.

FrancisCrawford · March 2021

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

While you guys are talking about dungeons, and normal versus vet, I have a question.

How can you tell if you're in a normal dungeon or a vet dungeon?

To be clear, I don't run dungeons frequently, but when I do I typically try to run them solo by just walking up and going inside, rather than by queuing for them and running them with a group-- so I'm really asking about walking in or porting to them, not queuing for them.

It's my understanding that it used to be the case that "I" dungeons were normal and "II" dungeons were vet, but that this was changed a while ago so that either version (I or II) could be either difficulty (normal or vet). I know that when you're walking into a dungeon that has I and II versions, you get a choice at entry as to whether you want the I version or the II version. But is there a way to choose whether you want normal or vet if you're just walking in?

I guess you can tell I don't do dungeons much.

The word "veteran" is the most confusing and overused in the game. You're right as to the old usage and its current obsolesence.

Veteran vs. Normal mode is now just a degree of difficulty for the same content. (There's also Hard Mode adding more difficulty to certain specific Veteran mode fights.) The default is normal mode, and if trash mobs in a dungeon tend to have around 33K HP, you're probably in normal mode. If they're all over 100K, you're probably in vet mode.

The way you choose is via the icon that helps you join a group. Even if you're solo, if you wanted to enter a dungeon or arena in Veteran mode, you'd go to that icon.

zaria · March 2021

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

While you guys are talking about dungeons, and normal versus vet, I have a question.

How can you tell if you're in a normal dungeon or a vet dungeon?

To be clear, I don't run dungeons frequently, but when I do I typically try to run them solo by just walking up and going inside, rather than by queuing for them and running them with a group-- so I'm really asking about walking in or porting to them, not queuing for them.

It's my understanding that it used to be the case that "I" dungeons were normal and "II" dungeons were vet, but that this was changed a while ago so that either version (I or II) could be either difficulty (normal or vet). I know that when you're walking into a dungeon that has I and II versions, you get a choice at entry as to whether you want the I version or the II version. But is there a way to choose whether you want normal or vet if you're just walking in?

I guess you can tell I don't do dungeons much.

The word "veteran" is the most confusing and overused in the game. You're right as to the old usage and its current obsolesence.

Veteran vs. Normal mode is now just a degree of difficulty for the same content. (There's also Hard Mode adding more difficulty to certain specific Veteran mode fights.) The default is normal mode, and if trash mobs in a dungeon tend to have around 33K HP, you're probably in normal mode. If they're all over 100K, you're probably in vet mode.

The way you choose is via the icon that helps you join a group. Even if you're solo, if you wanted to enter a dungeon or arena in Veteran mode, you'd go to that icon.

You should get an shield watermark on the loading screen in veteran, also the map tell if its normal or vet.
Its not uncommon to select wrong here.

zaria · March 2021

Magdalina wrote: »

Blackheart, even on vet, is one of the easier dungeons out there. The only somewhat challenging part is the mech of last boss - he will occasionally turn a random member of the group into a skeleton. While skeleton'd, you cannot use skills, can still use synergies, block, dodge and get healed by party members. In order to un-skeleton a fellow group member, your group needs to kill the little skele ads coming out of the water. Often if the group's dps is high enough, that part is just straight ignored and the boss is basically 3 manned without active participation of the skeleton'd person.

Now if you did get one-shot over there...I'm assuming you're not a tank because I don't think anything there could one-shot a tank, so you probably a dps/healer. I don't remember for sure but the boss probably does have a heavy and you could probably get one-shot if you were hit by that. That'd mean that either your tank wasn't doing his job (could be a fake tank with no actual taunt too) or your tank got skele'd and couldn't do his job. Either way, you should be able to dodge a couple heavies on your own. Watch for it, if the boss attacks you and starts channeling a heavy - you probably wanna dodge, or at least block (if you're on PC, addons such as Combat Alerts will tell you about a lot (but not all) of these attacks in advance).

Another popular cause of death there (albeit not quite getting one-shot) is being overrun by ads/everything while in skele form, there is some damage there, it can add up and you can't really do anything about it in skele form, just hope your healer heals you (and do try to walk out of red/block obviously). If your healer isn't actually healing (maybe a fake healer too), that might sometimes become a problem.

Generally most vet dungeons are pretty easy and do come down to some mechs and dps. Healing and tanking are honestly less of an issue in the majority of the dungeons (although a bad tank can and will definitely wipe you in a vet dlc) compared to dps. There are a lot of dps-related mechs even in base game dungeons (non dlc), a lot of them are so mild most groups don't even notice them but if your group's dps is low (less than...Idk, 20-30k maybe?) you might run into them and be unable to pass.

I don't think that you need to have done normal before you do a vet (I feel that normal is way too easy and doesn't really teach you anything), but, like others have said, mentioning it's your first run might be of help. Also try to pay some attention to what your teammates do, especially if they live where you die. What is it that they do differently? Did they dodge/block in time? Did they position themselves in a safer place? Did they use a shield (magicka builds often do)? Did they bring a selfheal? Did they bash a channel that you missed? Did they just do 5 times more damage than you and hence skip the mech you died to (that one might be harder to see but addons such as CombatMetrics on PC tell you the % of group dps that you do. Assuming you're a dps of course)? It's a matter of having a proper build and getting some practice in really.

If you are an tank you want to taunt often so you keep agro for an long time after becoming skeleton.

The last boss is an soft dps check, you need to kill the skeleton mob and especially the archers faster than they spawn.
So tank want chain or silver leach to pull them to boss again not an problem with good dps.
One tricks if you have problems there is to pull the boss to the top right of the map, not up the ramp but in the corner below it.
This will group the archers and they die easier in AoE.
Only one shot might be the boss heavy attack, however if you have lots of skeleton archers the damage adds up.

Stanx · March 2021

On the 'group' screen you can select default "normal" or "veteran" which applies to dungeons/arenas you lead or solo.

Darkspecialist · March 2021

yea it was that tempest island dungeon.

as for gear..this end gear stuff i should be getting..does that drop off the last boss only or anywhere in the dungeon? and is it a for sure drop, at least one piece for someone in group?

Magdalina · March 2021

Darkspecialist wrote: »

yea it was that tempest island dungeon.

as for gear..this end gear stuff i should be getting..does that drop off the last boss only or anywhere in the dungeon? and is it a for sure drop, at least one piece for someone in group?

Oh. Well that one's not so bad too

The only trick there is positioning. The boss will charge anyone who gets too far away from her and that will probably one-shot you. However, she also does an aoe around herself sometims that does pretty high damage and is also likely to one-shot everyone but tank. The perfect sweet spot is like right outside that aoe range - far away enough to not be in the aoe, close enough for her to not charge. Or you can go closer to her then as soon as you see her start doing the aoe, roll out of that, then walk back in close range. It's a very funny fight actually because it's really easy with right positioning - just stack in the right place and burn - but with the wrong one tank will sometimes end up soloing lol. One issue is that there are wandering whrilwinds there which will sometimes softly push you into that aoe so gotta look out for that.

It's not surprising you wouldn't know that on your first run but that's why you probably should've mentioned it being your first run. You could also figure it during the fight - the bosses don't just do something out of the blue, they always follow the same pattern. Like with Tempest, after a while you can definitely notice that she always charges the person furthest away from her - moreover, you can actuallyh stop her charge if the person furthest away quickly moves closer in, have like a second to do that.

lolo_01b16_ESO · March 2021

Weapons and Jewelery drop from the last boss, armour pieces drop from the other bosses. Some bosses also have "named drops" that have a different name, but behave like a regular item. Those named drops can also be weapons of jewelery for the earlier bosses. Each player gets one guaranteed drop per boss.
Chests inside the dungeon can contain any items. Unlike chests in the open world, everyone in the dungeon can loot the chest and get something from it. Additionally trash mobs have a very small chance to also drop any item.

Nestor · March 2021

Magdalina wrote: »

Blackheart, even on vet, is one of the easier dungeons out there. The only somewhat challenging part is the mech of last boss - he will occasionally turn a random member of the group into a skeleton. While skeleton'd, you cannot use skills, can still use synergies, block, dodge and get healed by party members. In order to un-skeleton a fellow group member, your group needs to kill the little skele ads coming out of the water. Often if the group's dps is high enough, that part is just straight ignored and the boss is basically 3 manned without active participation of the skeleton'd person.

Also, when in Skeleton Mode, your Light and Heavy Attacks are super buffed, or at least they used to be. So, just light and heavy attack the boss and you will contribute a bunch of DPS to the fight.

FrancisCrawford · March 2021

Stanx wrote: »

On the 'group' screen you can select default "normal" or "veteran" which applies to dungeons/arenas you lead or solo.

Exactly.

And you can also check that part of the UI for Normal vs. Vet when you're in the dungeon, if you think something might have gone wrong.