How did the difficulty compare to existing dungeons on Normal and Veteran versions?

Vet HM seems fairly straightforward. Comparable to Black Drake Villa, I guess.

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?

Vet HM for all three bosses

What level and build was the character you used?

We used our live character copies.

• Tank: NB (me)
• Healer: Templar
• DDs: mag NB and mag DK

Did you happen to notice or find anything interesting? Just curious…

The secret areas were fairly easy and straightforward to access.

Do you have any other general feedback?

I think aesthetically, this dungeon is the best of the two. The goat and sweetrolls were amusing. And we had fun playing tourist in the room with all the relics.

Unfortunately, the encounters were not challenging, at least when compared to Cellar. We ran through this dungeon blind on Monday, shortly after PTS went live, activated HM on every boss, and got through it without a single wipe. In contrast, we ran through Cellar afterwards, and wiped 4 times on the first boss, 6 times on the second boss, and 10 times on the last boss (we didn't actually clear Cellar's final boss HM on Monday, as we ran out of time).

Clearly, this dungeon's HM is a lot easier than that of its sibling dungeon. And I think it's because this dungeon does not punish players for making mistakes. For example, there are the moving walls on the final boss, which we all initially assumed would 1-shot us if we touched it, but it didn't, whereas the moving walls on the second boss in Cellar was a 1-shot.

The next problem with this dungeon is that the mechanics are not that intuitive. For example, what's the point of the sweetrolls? If you were to ask me what eating the sweetroll as a goat does, I can't answer that because whatever effect it had, it was not obvious. On the second boss, it took us a while to finally realize that the bubble was blocking ranged damage. And that's partly because there's no punishment for failing the mechanic and attacking the boss when bubbled--if the bubble reflected attacks instead, for example, it would become clearer what the bubble did, as well as make the fight a bit more challenging.

The final boss fight is not very melee-friendly, and our mag DK never stopped complaining about it. With all the movement and things to avoid, it's rather difficult to actually be able to damage the boss.

My final observation is that every fight feels very chaotic, particularly the first and final bosses. I suppose this is thematically fitting, but the amount of stuff that was happening felt overwhelming at times. Adds and ground AoEs everywhere, and that effect from the secret area where you get a jet of fire when blocking, while hilarious at first, quickly becomes very annoying, as there is already a lot of visual clutter in the fight.

[*] Did you enjoy this new dungeon?

I personally found this one to be the more enjoyable of the two! While the general aesthetics are a little dull with reused Breton and Ayleid rooms, the plethora of artifacts and knick-knacks on display were pretty cool (seems the Order likes doing Crypt of Hearts 2 . . .)

[*] How did the difficulty compare to existing dungeons on Normal and Veteran versions?

I would put this around Black Drake Villa difficulty - definitely the easier of the two, we one-shot bosses 2 and 3 on their respective HMs during the only blind run.

[*] Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?

Veteran, and HMs for all three bosses.

[*] Which was your favorite boss in this dungeon, and why?

Rogerain the Sly is definitely a unique and interesting boss, which is quite refreshing, and the goat mechanic was pretty fun (once we figured out what the sweetrolls did . . . kinda? Some sort of ult regen? Not incredibly clear exactly, but they buffed something).

[*] What level and build was the character you used?

Our team was all max level live character copies with the following comp:
- Templar Tank
- Magicka Templar DPS
- Magicka Sorcerer DPS
- Warden Healer

[*] Did you happen to notice or find anything interesting? Just curious…

The secrets in this dungeon were fairly easy to find, but I really liked the Goriseli Moraburo area and was glad to see more of it after Murkmire and its associated Battlegrounds map. The fire jet is really annoying to look at after a while though, especially for our tank.

[*] Do you have any other general feedback?

This dungeon might be too easy - we've gotten into the habit of assuming every red area is a one-shot for DLC Vet HM dungeons, but things like the charging wall on the final boss which simply stuns was a surprise.

The dungeon is also incredibly chaotic in terms of AoE damage and ground effects, which causes a lot of movement and isn't friendly to melee players (read: me, the sweeping Magplar) - combined with a ranged shield on Boss 2 and 3, it can make things overwhelming. However due to the dungeon being less punishing in terms of damage, one-shot potential from red areas etc, this was more easily mitigated.

Overall though I was having a lot of fun doing it regardless, it was nice not to be completely stomped (like in Dread Cellar, lol).

Did you enjoy this new dungeon?

Yes, I enjoyed the dungeon.

How did the difficulty compare to existing dungeons on Normal and Veteran versions?
This dungeon was similar to unhallowed grave and black drake villa.

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
We completed the dungeon on Veteran (HM on Boss 1, Non-HM on Bosses 2 and 3).

Which was your favorite boss in this dungeon, and why?
My favorite boss was Rogerian Sly. His dialogue and the sweetroll mechanic was fun to play through.

What level and build was the character you used?
Team composition:

• Tank: Warden | Max CP
• Healer: Warden | Max CP (me)
• Damage: Magicka Templar and Magicka Nightblade | non-max CP

Did you happen to notice or find anything interesting? Just curious…
The secret bosses were easy to discover once the general mechanic was discovered. When you're in the room for the cellar boss, the corner on the right side of the door allows you the option to enter the previous room.

Do you have any other general feedback?
The first boss was fun to play despite not learning the mechanics. We were able to survive with general actions of keeping heals on the group and good damage. However, that didn't translate to the 2nd boss (cellar boss). We did that one on hard mode and there were too much chaos happening in the room. We were unable to determine which mechanics to prioritize as well as unable to determine what was actually causing us to die. The death recap was not helpful since it would provide the name of the attack and enemy like normal but the hints were not helpful. As mentioned earlier, the mechanics were not helpful due to the fact that there was not any punishment for failing the mechanic. We tried the 2nd boss multiple times and got him to 60% before wiping. For the final boss, we were able to complete on non-HM but similar to the previous boss, there was a lot of items happening in the arena that we weren't able to determine mechanics. We also think that our damage caused multiple mechanic skips since at one point we were overwhelmed by mobs. From my experience, the difference between normal vet and hard mode is too immense especially when the mechanics are not able to be determined.