Wayrest Sewers I (normal)

This was one of the Undaunted pledges the other day, so I ran it with Bastian on PC NA. I think it was the third time I've run it with him, although it might be the fourth. In any case, he's always died, sometimes more than once-- at the Rat Whisperer, at the Hungry guy, etc.

This time when I ran it, I managed to keep Bastian alive through the entire dungeon. It was quite the challenge at some of the bosses, such as the Rat Whisperer and the Hungry guy, because I had to keep taunting the boss plus all of the mobs and adds to keep them away from Bastian. But I was really happy to finally make it all the way through without losing him a single time.

I think working with Bastian is helping me improve my performance as a tank.

Can't really think of anything recent, its one of those things if the run goes well, you don't really have much reason to think back on it much.

Its only when things go poorly that a run tends to stick in my memory, mostly due to a bad running usually taking more than an hour compared to a good run which depending on the dungeon can be anywhere between ten minutes to half an hour at most.

I only remember 2 very funny trial runs,regarding to dungeons my runs are mostly normal.

A few naked runs, with only fists equipped, which went surprisingly well.
Alas one screenshot, but still, good times.

Lady_Galadhiel wrote: »

I only remember 2 very funny trial runs,regarding to dungeons my runs are mostly normal.

I meant to say that trials are fine, too, but I forgot. And arenas, delves, group delves, and public dungeons are also fair game; in this case, "dungeon" is more of a loose term for all these things in general-- delves being "baby dungeons" and trials being "dungeons on steroids," as it were.

BoraxFlux wrote: »

A few naked runs, with only fists equipped, which went surprisingly well.
Alas one screenshot, but still, good times.

I like the idea of a naked run, where a group goes in with no gear of any sort-- no armor, weapons, food, or potions-- and can only use whatever they come across in the dungeon. I haven't had the nerve to try that, though-- certainly not solo.

zvavi wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Wayrest Sewers I (normal)

This was one of the Undaunted pledges the other day, so I ran it with Bastian on PC NA. I think it was the third time I've run it with him, although it might be the fourth. In any case, he's always died, sometimes more than once-- at the Rat Whisperer, at the Hungry guy, etc.

This time when I ran it, I managed to keep Bastian alive through the entire dungeon. It was quite the challenge at some of the bosses, such as the Rat Whisperer and the Hungry guy, because I had to keep taunting the boss plus all of the mobs and adds to keep them away from Bastian. But I was really happy to finally make it all the way through without losing him a single time.

I think working with Bastian is helping me improve my performance as a tank.

So you created a thread because there were many "group bad experience topics" so you wanted one with "group good experience" and then go on about your solo experience with Bastian? I am very confused, aren't those 2 things contradictory?

What can I say? I'm very confusing.

But seriously, there are also negative threads about players trying to solo something and getting frustrated, venting about it in the forum (which could also be considered a toxic attitude of a sort), and then the thread gets a lot of critical replies that can get pretty toxic. So "nontoxic thread" in this case refers to more than simply players' treatment of each other in a dungeon run; it also means a player's own attitude while soloing content, and forum members' attitudes when participating in a thread.

Anyway, jump in and share your own good times, if you wish.

corrosivechains wrote: »

nothing noteworthy but I also haven't had any of the bad experiences some seem to experience, and I quote, "everytime I run a dungeon!"

There's a pretty fitting quote from the show Justified about people who always have a bad or toxic time when engaging in group activities.

I haven't really experienced toxicity, either, except for a few rare instances that were only very mildly toxic. I don't know if it's because I usually play solo, or what. But this wasn't meant to be a nontoxic discussion of toxicity, just nontoxic stories about dungeon experiences (where "dungeon" is a broad, umbrella term).

I was farming SPC on my healer a year or two ago. If I'm looking for a specific item/set I'll start a dungeon run by saying so, and then ask politely at the end if anyone had something I wanted, and if they'd be happy to sell it to me (I usually offer 50k to incentivize people to really check their drops )

Most of the time people are happy to make that trade! I had one really bad encounter though where a SPC weapon I wanted dropped (we all know how rare that is...) and the guy said 50k wasn't enough. He demanded 200k. When I said I didn't have that much he told me that sucks for me, and that he'll just vendor it instead (this was before sticker books). Literally couldn't wrap my head around how someone could be so awful. But! A few days later looking for the same weapon, I received a direct message from a different person saying they'd got the SPC weapon I wanted. They were really apologetic that they hadn't noticed during the dungeon run, saying they were a new player so they struggled to sort through the inventory quickly. They said they'd happily travel to my location and give it to me for free.

I was so amazed at their kindness and willingness, not just to remember me and get in touch, but also to give it to me for free (50k is HUGE for a new player). I told them I was at Vivec's wayshrine and they said they only owned the base game, asking me to meet somewhere else. After the trade I asked why they hadn't bought any DLC yet, and if they were interested in one more than any other. They said they didn't have much money, but would love to get Summerset one day. So to thank them for being one of the kindest members of the community I'd met so far (and try and encourage kind players like that to stick around ) I instantly gifted them the Summerset Chapter. We've been friends in-game ever since.

@aaisoaho, I haven't run Moongrave Fane yet, but I'm glad you all had a fun time, wipes and all.

At first I thought you meant Moon Hunter Keep, which I got talked into trying with some fellow guild members right after the DLC it's in was released, and which did not go well at all-- in no small part because of my own terribly inept performance, I'm sure. That "Moon" in the dungeon's name confused me, but then I'm easily confused. It just goes to show how unfamiliar I am with most of the dungeons in this game.

zvavi wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Tanking for Bastian has helped somewhat in that respect

Main issue in ESO is that there is no solo environment to practice roles (excluding dd, with maelstrom and vateshran), with big difficulty spikes on all roles. You need to relearn your role every time you walk into the "next content" which is great in my opinion. still remember my first cultural shock tanking vSCP.

ESO is my first and only MMO, so I was totally unfamiliar with a lot of things, especially about group roles.

"Tank" was one thing that really stumped me, because when I went looking for help online I got conflicting descriptions about whether a tank should be high in health and survivability (which was what I'd assumed) or high in stamina and damage (which I thought was supposed to be someone else's role within the group).

I was more interested in solo play, anyway, so I just split my AP between Health and Stamina, tried to find whatever heavy armor I could that gave decent benefits, and built my character around 2-handed melee fighting. A few of the players I met and friended would tell me "you're so tanky," so I figured I must be doing something right, although I felt like my damage was way too low for me to do much group activity-- adequate for the content I was mainly doing, and for the way I enjoy playing (melee fights that take longer than 2 hits and where I feel like there's a risk of dying), but not adequate for grouping.

Then I was grouping with random players to kill world bosses or do stuff in Craglorn and people would start asking me, "Why can't you keep aggro?" or "Gee, aggro much?" I had no idea WTF they were talking about, so I had to go look it up. As a solo player, I had no need for learning and slotting any taunt skills. But since I was getting drawn into occasional group play, and was expected to fill a certain role within the group-- you know, that "tank" role I'd selected on my character sheet back when I had no real understanding of any of the three roles, but knew my damage wasn't good enough to choose that as my role so I went with tank instead-- I decided I'd better start using S&B on my back bar, learn a taunt skill or two, and slot it.

I've been working on my tanking skills from time to time, although I don't group up often enough to practice much-- and when I do, I swear there's always 1 or 2 other players in the group who insist on taunting as well, and it's really difficult to get better at something when other players are interfering with what you're trying to learn.

So tanking for Bastian has been helpful in the sense that he never deliberately taunts a boss, although it's still challenging to keep him alive in situations where there are multiple bosses that must be aggroed at the same time, or 1 boss and a multitude of adds or mobs. It's certainly not the best way to learn, but it's a start. If I can keep him alive through an entire dungeon, it's a small victory that feels good!

I plan on taking Bastian into the Blessed Crucible today on PC NA to see if I can keep him alive-- I wanted to try it last night after completing the Blessed Crucible on PC EU, but I was so dog tired that I had to turn in early. I haven't even bothered to recruit Mirri and Bastian on PC EU yet, so my PC EU main is strictly a non-companion sort of guy right now, and I have a lot of fun soloing content with him.

I run PUGs all the time, mostly 2 rnd normal per day and specific vet dungeons occasionally. The first is always a surprise, anything from an awesome group to fake-roled players that barely do any damage. If this happens it's an unpleasant experience, but toxic behaviour is very rare. In several hundred runs I had only one really bad guy, who was there as faketank, no taunt slotted, not doing any dmg and throwing bad word at me because I didn't give him the piece of gear he snuffed in my drops. So, basically my experience in PUGs is pretty positive.

This es especially true when PUGging vet dungs. People are really nice, explain the mechs if you ask. Made a couple of friend from such runs.

I’ve been playing the game as a DPS for years, and I get the most fun pugging the vet dlc dungeons. 99% of the people I encounter in those pugs don’t want to fake their support role, they usually can’t fake it since things hit so much harder.

Take last night for example, it was Vet March of Sacrifices, 2/3 of the others in the pug said they were after a Balorgh helmet, so they were probably somewhat new to the vet version, although I didn’t ask. A few moments of typing out what to expect at boss fights from time to time was all it took, we knocked down everything along the way at a good pace, didn’t even do the shortcut at the bouncing werebear boss (they didn’t know the shortcut and I don’t like the shortcut since it feels cheap), then we passed equipment around at the end. Everyone said it was a good /fun run.

This is how a big majority of group finder vet dlcs go, many of those pugs have one or more players saying it’s their first time on vet, and using a little patience explaining things usually goes well.

Like showing tanks that they can zig and zag across the room of clones in the boss fight of Depths of Malatar to cluster them all into our AOE damage, which can turn a typically long messy slog into a painless and fast experience. Or the occasional moment when we realize that the group has enough dps to burn the clone boss in one round, and show how to mark the real boss to help focus them down.

Those are my favorite dungeons.