Inifinite Archive tomeshell hunt: intentionally impossible to solo?

Lazy_Voyager · May 7

Key 1 slaps the tomeshells. Except it doesn't because if you're moving it's not going to connect and if the tomeshell is moving it's not going to connect.
Key 2 highlights the tomeshells except it doesn't because you have to be in visual range to see the outline anyway
Key 3 speed boosts, allegedly? I see no difference other than a flourishy flip animation.
Key 4 stuns enemies (it doesn't)
Key 5 snares enemies (it doesn't)

So far I've managed to kill two tomeshells, both while taking considerable damage from the enemies who cannot be stunned in any way, waiting for an opportunity where me and the tomeshell will occupy the same space for two seconds.

I'm guessing the only practical way to complete this is with two people?

Necrotech_Master · May 7

its not too bad to solo

the number 1 skill is a bit weird because it can hit the tomeshells even near the end of the animation when it doesnt look like it should hit them, there is also the small delay when you use it to when it actually deals dmg (maybe half to 1 second) so i use it as im moving toward the tomeshell

number 2 works, but it only has a radius of 50 meters, which is smaller than the entire area, the whole area is maybe 75 meters across so if your on one of the edges, it wont catch the ones on the opposite side of the area

number 3 has a burst of speed then you get a small speed boost for a few seconds after (not a ton maybe 10-20%), i usually use it on cooldown to maintain distance from the hushed

number 4 is a stun, but it only works in a conal (you have to be facing the enemy for it to work), i dont know the width of the cone but its much more narrow than like cleave

number 5 is a snare, but only maybe 50%, its a small aoe so the enemies get out of it fairly fast, but if you keep dropping it, it does kill them (i usually pair it with the 4 skill if i can, stun the hushed and then drop the dot pool on them and can usually kill them before the stun wears off)

the biggest thing about the difficulty increase is you get far less max health to deal with, at difficulty 5, you only have 4500 max hp, which is enough to be 1 shot from tentacles, 2 shot from hushed, or 3 shot from a tornado

racial passives do still seem to apply while your in this form (unsure if this is a bug) so if your argonian you can still heal with pots, nords usually still have a tiny amount of health regen, imperials heal when dealing dmg, etc

SpacemanSpiff1 · May 7

its very possible

1 works, just have to hit it before youre on top of the tomeshell.

2 does highlight tomeshells. just not the whole arena. travel around a bit and try again.

3 the speed boost is brief but useful for getting around tornadoes, past tentacles that may spawn soon, or past zombies if you have to double back.

4 the stun does work, but you gotta be facing the zombie boi. i rarely use it

5 the ink blob slows the zombies and damages them. drop them on cooldown if a guy is chasing you

having 2 people is easier, with less pressure from zombies and a chance to resurrect a fallen comrade.

LunaFlora · May 8

not impossible but can be very difficult

Luke_Flamesword · May 8

I hate so much this puzzle - I defeated it after many tries at maximum level and now I just avoid this. It's ok as one time achievement but it's too difficult to repeat this every time. It should be repeated at level 3 maximum.

Similiar thing is with fight puzzle - it's not very difficult, but at maximum level is so tedious - it takes much more time than other puzzles.

ZOS - pls-, change level of puzzles to level 3 after completion, it shouldn't be at higher difficulty, especially when leads or pages style NOT drop from main bossess except arc ones, so I'm forced to do this. RNG is already bad enough.

MidniteOwl1913 · May 8

It would be more enjoyable if all the side games were reduced in difficulty after defeating them on the max. The lady duelist is a pain, the race one hard to solo, and yes the tombshells ones is not as bad as the first 2 but still not much fun.

I like the goat and the ghost lights aren't so bad. The library one is the easiest.

Or maybe just tie the difficulty level to the arc, so earlier arcs the side games are easier too.

fizl101 · May 8

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

It would be more enjoyable if all the side games were reduced in difficulty after defeating them on the max. The lady duelist is a pain, the race one hard to solo, and yes the tombshells ones is not as bad as the first 2 but still not much fun.

I like the goat and the ghost lights aren't so bad. The library one is the easiest.

Or maybe just tie the difficulty level to the arc, so earlier arcs the side games are easier too.

The race one is easier solo than in a duo at the highest level, find the first 2 buttons you need to press in the right order, then press the others as efficiently as possible. Even in heavy armour you can sprint across. This doesn't work if you have a partner in there, you need to do all the buttons in the correct order then

Dagoth_Rac · May 8

Tomeshell was last side portal that I finished on highest difficulty. But now it is one of my favorites.

The Theater of War fight is more likely to be a success, but it removes all your verses and visions, so it is a long slog in non-optimized gear.

Goat is almost 100% success, but lots of running in circles because you need to keep distance from butcher, or a sweetroll will spawn on a rock that is tricky to get on and off of.

Ghostlight is another likely success, but the don't-go-too-slow-but-also-don't-go-too-fast mechanic is tedious and annoying, and failure often feels like RNG. Like I can move exactly the same but sometimes a light decides to spazz out and run away and there is not much I can do about it.

The tentacle corridor is pretty easy but I need Ring of Wild Hunt to consistently succeed, and then I forget to put my normal IA mythic back on at end and now my build is messed up in next round.

The page fragment scavenger hunt is 100% success, but can take multiple runs.

Sometimes tomeshell hunt will have bad luck and I am boxed in by a tornado and a hushed and a tentacle. I'd say I succeed maybe 70% of time. But it is pretty quick. Either it goes smoothly and I get my reward or it goes to heck and I lose quickly. And then I just move on. So no worries about gear changes or CP changes.

So I'd say tomeshell is hard, but gets easier with practice, and it is the least annoying. At least in terms of getting in and out with as little disruption to my IA flow as possible.

Necrotech_Master · May 8

fizl101 wrote: »

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

It would be more enjoyable if all the side games were reduced in difficulty after defeating them on the max. The lady duelist is a pain, the race one hard to solo, and yes the tombshells ones is not as bad as the first 2 but still not much fun.

I like the goat and the ghost lights aren't so bad. The library one is the easiest.

Or maybe just tie the difficulty level to the arc, so earlier arcs the side games are easier too.

The race one is easier solo than in a duo at the highest level, find the first 2 buttons you need to press in the right order, then press the others as efficiently as possible. Even in heavy armour you can sprint across. This doesn't work if you have a partner in there, you need to do all the buttons in the correct order then

its not hard to figure out the order, theres literally only 8 different combinations that show up on level 5 with 2 players (i ended up just writing them all down, then it takes me 20 seconds at the start to figure out which combo it is, then write the order in chat, then the button presser just has to press them as quickly as possible in the order specified)

the only time ive ever failed it in 2 player is when the runner makes a mistake and goes the wrong way on a split path, or the runner is overeager and goes too fast for the button presser lol

i hate doing the switches one solo though, i always skip it if it comes up

fizl101 · May 8

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

fizl101 wrote: »

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

It would be more enjoyable if all the side games were reduced in difficulty after defeating them on the max. The lady duelist is a pain, the race one hard to solo, and yes the tombshells ones is not as bad as the first 2 but still not much fun.

I like the goat and the ghost lights aren't so bad. The library one is the easiest.

Or maybe just tie the difficulty level to the arc, so earlier arcs the side games are easier too.

The race one is easier solo than in a duo at the highest level, find the first 2 buttons you need to press in the right order, then press the others as efficiently as possible. Even in heavy armour you can sprint across. This doesn't work if you have a partner in there, you need to do all the buttons in the correct order then

its not hard to figure out the order, theres literally only 8 different combinations that show up on level 5 with 2 players (i ended up just writing them all down, then it takes me 20 seconds at the start to figure out which combo it is, then write the order in chat, then the button presser just has to press them as quickly as possible in the order specified)

the only time ive ever failed it in 2 player is when the runner makes a mistake and goes the wrong way on a split path, or the runner is overeager and goes too fast for the button presser lol

i hate doing the switches one solo though, i always skip it if it comes up

True, it isn't hard to figure out the order, but solo its only important to get the first two in the right order, the other buttons you can press closest buttonto furthest away button and get across no problem

Araneae6537 · May 8

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

Tomeshell was last side portal that I finished on highest difficulty. But now it is one of my favorites.

The Theater of War fight is more likely to be a success, but it removes all your verses and visions, so it is a long slog in non-optimized gear.

Goat is almost 100% success, but lots of running in circles because you need to keep distance from butcher, or a sweetroll will spawn on a rock that is tricky to get on and off of.

Ghostlight is another likely success, but the don't-go-too-slow-but-also-don't-go-too-fast mechanic is tedious and annoying, and failure often feels like RNG. Like I can move exactly the same but sometimes a light decides to spazz out and run away and there is not much I can do about it.

The tentacle corridor is pretty easy but I need Ring of Wild Hunt to consistently succeed, and then I forget to put my normal IA mythic back on at end and now my build is messed up in next round.

The page fragment scavenger hunt is 100% success, but can take multiple runs.

Sometimes tomeshell hunt will have bad luck and I am boxed in by a tornado and a hushed and a tentacle. I'd say I succeed maybe 70% of time. But it is pretty quick. Either it goes smoothly and I get my reward or it goes to heck and I lose quickly. And then I just move on. So no worries about gear changes or CP changes.

So I'd say tomeshell is hard, but gets easier with practice, and it is the least annoying. At least in terms of getting in and out with as little disruption to my IA flow as possible.

I now rarely bother with the duelist or ghostlights except with a partner. I have done both solo, but the duelist fight takes a while and may still fail if I don’t time killing the nightmare things just right. Ghostlights used to be okay but now I’m just fed up with it because even being really careful, one will often reset for I don’t know what reason. Goat and corridor almost always succeed. I usually try the tomeshells because it doesn’t feel like it takes long, although I only occasionally succeed solo.

SilverBride · May 8

I really hated this one and couldn't get the last one solo. I ended up doing it with a friend and since he was good at getting the tomeshells he ran ahead gathering these and I followed behind hitting 4 and 5 to keep the zombies off of him. It took a few tries but we finally got it this way.

SkaraMinoc · May 8

Took me 10+ attempts to solo the last tier of tomeshell hunt. It's possible but not easy.

tsaescishoeshiner · May 8

I'm able to solo it like 90% of the time--I agree some of the mechanics are a bit finicky and can be improved to better reward understanding the mechanics.

I just sprint to the outer ring where all the tomeshells are and keep going one direction until I find them all. I spam 3 (sprint) and 5 (goop) while keeping a finger on 4 (stun) before corners where I think a zombie might pop up.

The two nonsense mechanics are that a zombie might pop around a corner and surround you (the stun is unreliable) and the tentacles that you sometimes have to wait too long for while being chased.

Make sure to un-slot any CP that slows you and slot one that speeds you up (in-combat).

1 - Sometimes the tomeshells sprint away--chasing them has killed me before
2 - I just spam the search skill
3 - Sprint works and I just spam it to keep the zombies far back
4 - Stun is janky and needs a range increase, since 1 zombie light-attack kills me and they have too much range and not enough wind-up time (like a heavy attack)
5 - The goop not only slows them, but damages them while they're in it. You'll kill off zombies this way

Otherwise, it's an annoying one. Good luck!

RebornV3x · May 8

funnily enough found it easier solo I was stuck on the last stage of this for the longest time went in solo and completed it after 2 or 3 tries you get double the tomeshells in duo which can be tougher