The random normal dungeon (rnd) gives you valuable rewards once a day (10 transmute crystals). Everyone runs them and veteran player rush, rush, rush. To experience the story, it's better to find equally new players, friends or guildies, and do the dungeons with them. It's probably best to actually avoid experuenced players. The base game dungeons are easy enough on normal mode. The DLC ones are tougher, even on normal mode.

Like etchedpixels said, overland content / questing is easy, designed for people who don't learn much about combat.

Public dungeons and Craglorn group delves are marginally harder.

Each of the original zones has 6 world bosses, one of which is harder than the others. DLC world bosses are harder. One of the hardest to solo is the Unfinished Dolmen in Wrothgar.

Skyreach Catacombs in Craglorn is one of the places people use for grinding, because there are so many mobs in there and they follow you. You don't lose aggro, like you normally do when you cover some distance. Experienced players will do the main areas of the upper level in about 3 pulls in total. It's not particularly hard, but you need to be familiar with AOE damage, healing, and interrupts. You can start by biting off as much as you can chew. I liked the "throne room", one of the side rooms in Skyreach when I was a new player.

There are two solo arenas, Maelstrom and Vateshran. On veteran mode, these are hard. Maelstrom especially is well worth doing (on vet) as it will teach you a lot. Try it from maybe CP600 onwards. Vateshran is more AOE focused with a more even difficulty until you get to the last boss, which is hard. To be honest, there is specific gear that makes these arenas easier, but I'm not going to divulge all the secrets yet .

There are also two 4-man arenas, Dragonstar and Blackrose Prison. Dragonstar will give you a fair bit to learn on vet. It's kind of medium difficulty, except for the final boss, which is hard. Long and boring for experienced players. Blackrose Prison on veteran mode is said to be among the hardest content in the game. If you reach let's say 1K CP and you run a particular build, you can solo the first arena on vet. I think someone has done the first two. Doing that is, perhaps, the ultimate test of how good your build is and how well you handle the base game mechanics. However at that level, you're very much at the limit of what can be done solo and there isn't a one fits all solution. Some veteran DLC 4-man dungeons have also been soloed and require an entirely different class / build / playstyle than Blackrose Prison.

OK, so the above was kind of a detour to the very hardest thing you can do solo. Aside from PvP, of course. There is always PvP. Being good at PvE and PvP requires pretty different skillsets. Should you be into PvP, probably start with duelling friends and doing Battlegrounds. I prefer open world, but it's unpredictable. As a brand new player you will likely be streamrolled wherever you go, but more so in open world. Grouping up can help, of course.

Anyway, in terms of dungeons, normal DLC dungeons are harder than base game ones, probably on the level of the easier base game veteran dungeons. This is 4-man content I'm talking about now. Vet DLC dungeons are just plain hard. All vet dungeons have an even harder "hard mode" too. In some cases the last boss is just a little harder. In the newer DLC dungeons you can activate hard mode for multiple bosses and there are secret bosses that may open up an additional challenge boss at the end, for example in Black Drake Villa and Coral Aerie. This is something to look forward to as you accumulate more CP.

Trials involve 12-man groups. There is no group finder. You can do the with a guild or you can go to Belkarth, in Craglorn, and watch zone chat for people looking for trials. Some of the normal mode trials are easy and / or you will be carried. You will have to learn the lingo. LFM = Looking for more. DD = damage dealer. H = healer. T= Tank. nCR+0 = normal mode Cloudrest / easy mode. nHRC = normal mode Hel Ra Citadel, and so on. Hel Ra and nSS - normal Sunspire - will yield two very useful sets for solo play, Vicious Ophidian and False God's Devotion.

Plectro wrote: »

If you like the challenge and enjoy the combat mechanics, there's definitely some difficult content to look into. Most questing and stuff you find on the map is pretty trivial. However, in general the progression onwards from normal dungeons and trials will look something like this. Some people may disagree and swap those around but this in general is a good way to progress through content if you're interested in a challenge:

Arenas - 1-player / 4-player
Dungeons - 4-player
Trials - 12-player

You can also try to solo some dungeons. Soloing normal dungeons is fairly doable. If you're really up for a challenge, you could try to solo veteran dungeons. I have even seen some players solo DLC Hardmode dungeons while I struggled there over a month with a full 4-player group. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it. Some very skilled players can truly push the limits of what is possible.

Here's my personal progression recommendation if you're thinking getting through the PvE game in terms of difficulty and developing your combat skill:
- Difficulty level 2:Veteran Dungeons (non-DLC)
- Difficulty level 3:Veteran Dungeons (DLC)
- Difficulty level 4:Veteran Trials (non-DLC, a.k.a. "Craglorn trials") (Sanctum Ophidia, Hel Ra Citadel, Aetherian Archive)
- Difficulty level 5:Veteran Dungeon Hardmodes (DLC)
- Difficulty level 5:Veteran Arenas (Maelstrom and Vateshran are solo, Dragonstar and Blackrose Prison are 4-player)
- Difficulty level 6:Veteran DLC Trials
- Difficulty level 7:Veteran DLC Trials Hardmodes
- Difficulty level 8:Trial Trifecta achievements (No-Death, Speedrun, Hardmode all in the same run. Gryphon Heart / Godslayer... and such)
- Difficulty level 9:Scorepushing and leaderboard competition. (The gap between lvl 8 and 9 is massive. Players who have already gotten all trifecta achievements may move on to improve their score and try to get those achievements with a faster time, higher DPS, optimize as much as possible)

good way to look at things, although there are some things that might need to be broken out

for example i would say vet dragonstar arena is way way easier than vet blackrose prison (in your list i would put vDSA at around level 3 or level 4 difficulty)

Im lvl 42 or 44 and feel the dungeons got more difficult. Atleast i couldnt solo one instamce i tried to gain experience for fighters guild. I couldnt even kill the first boss and died on trash before it too. I just got notification i unlocked dlc dungeons when i leveled up, i though i were allready playing those. Have to test it today. Im positive vet dungeons with grp finder party will be challenging enough and trials if i get into any.

Vilhone wrote: »

Im lvl 42 or 44 and feel the dungeons got more difficult. Atleast i couldnt solo one instamce i tried to gain experience for fighters guild. I couldnt even kill the first boss and died on trash before it too. I just got notification i unlocked dlc dungeons when i leveled up, i though i were allready playing those. Have to test it today. Im positive vet dungeons with grp finder party will be challenging enough and trials if i get into any.

Vet dungeons are a weird mix. Some of them are little more than "normal dungeon with more health/resist" or "we made the hard aoe attack at the end actually hurt a lot", others - particularly DLC ones - take on a whole new complexity.

Normal trials are easier than most DLC dungeons. It does vary by trial - Hel Ra is rather easier than Sunspire and Sunspire is a lot easier than the recent ones.

The game is much better now im lvl48 and ran some dungeons and even wiped couple of time. I died many times. The tank left and we tried to play it without but got spanked by boss and couldnt advance until tank joined it was some new instance prison of something i think. I think the dlc dungeons are better or then game sometimes miss match the group. But last run were nicely balanced and challenging i love it. I may even find vet dungeons hard when im eligble to join someday. It was very easy to die allready. I liking the game more and more.