Today In Tamriel, ESO Character Updates and Stories Options

[RaderOfTheLostArk]

Yes, it does take a group. I'm at CP810 and still can't do it solo. mALX and I failed one together, and needed to call for help recently, although that may have been because I was deliberately running a glass tank, and relying on having a healer (which we didn't at that point). It would probably be a good idea to participate in a full 4-player group, with all the standard roles, so you see how it's meant to happen. That will take a bit of organising.

Acadian and I have done one with a healer/tank duo, but his healer has some dps capability, or that would not have worked either. At level 45, you probably have a mix of skills, and could use both a healer and a tank to run with, even if you duplicate some of their skills.

Do you have the "MyBuild" add-on? That makes it easy to post a screen-shot of your equipment and stats, so everyone can see what support you need.


Edited to add that Public dungeons typically have five or six bosses at the one-pip level (seen at the ends of their health bar). Those have 100k to 250k hit points, and generally fight solo. World Bosses are at the two-pip level, and have 1-6M hit points. They may have adds they can summon to make it harder. In the pledge dungeons, the mini-bosses are two-pip, and the main bosses three-pip level of difficulty, and summoned adds and other mechanics come into play, making the hit points a lesser part of the equation.

You can't even solo it at the highest level?! Shor's bones, then what the Oblivion was I thinking?! That goes back to my gripe about how the level scaling is done in the game, but I won't get into that at the moment.

I do not have the MyBuild add-on, so I'd have to look into it. I don't have any add-ons, in fact, so I guess I should change that. You're right that I have more of a mix of skills, but I usually go up-close and personal but with some magic-casting ability (I haven't even used a bow yet, but I am focused on my other skills). I can do a bit of healing, but nothing like what Acadian can do with Buffy. Since I'm such a lower level than all of you, I probably couldn't be a full-on tank in a Pledge dungeon, but I can definitely throw in some support. I've killed a few World Bosses with you all in guild meetings, but if they aren't as tough as Pledge mini-bosses and especially bosses...yeesh.

Oh yeah, you are not going to be able to solo the Pledge dungeons before you have your CP Points built up. I still can't solo them; but Acadian and a few other people I know can; but I've never been able to.

But Ghastley is right = you can and def should start going through them with a group first if you ever plan to do them solo; get to know the dungeons (and especially learn the boss mechanics) as your character develops; so maybe when your character is fully built up you might be able to begin soloing them.

I am still in total awe of Acadian and Buffy doing them solo!!! I think Acadian uses a very high Crit percentage and high penetration. If you are in a group; you don't want your penetration over 38%; but in solo play you would probably want that even higher.

I doubt I'll ever be able to solo them, but thank you for the advice. I'll take the advice anyway.

Acadian and Buffy are absolute beasts. But just to be sure, you mean you don't want your penetration UNDER 38%, right?

It's worth pointing out that some dungeons just can't be done solo, because of their mechanics. There are several where one player in the group is targeted by an attack that can't be resisted, and the other players have to prevent the victim from being killed. If you're the only choice for the attack, and have no support, you can't win.

Only a few of the pledge dungeons can be solo'ed, but two good players have a decent chance of doing any of them on normal difficulty, as long as they have appropriate builds. If you don't take a tank and a healer, you need to do their functions. And if you only have a tank and a healer, it could be slow going.

I think I'd drag the other person down too much to be able to tag-team a Pledge dungeon, but I think I'd be capable in a 4-person (MAYBE 3-person) or more group. I've started getting some CPs, at least, since I hit level 50 last night.


Perhaps we could all do a Pledge dungeon or two in our next guild meet? I don't want to force anyone into doing it, though.

This post has been edited by RaderOfTheLostArk: Aug 13 2019, 09:19 PM

[mALX]

Oh yeah, you are not going to be able to solo the Pledge dungeons before you have your CP Points built up. I still can't solo them; but Acadian and a few other people I know can; but I've never been able to.

But Ghastley is right = you can and def should start going through them with a group first if you ever plan to do them solo; get to know the dungeons (and especially learn the boss mechanics) as your character develops; so maybe when your character is fully built up you might be able to begin soloing them.

I am still in total awe of Acadian and Buffy doing them solo!!! I think Acadian uses a very high Crit percentage and high penetration. If you are in a group; you don't want your penetration over 38%; but in solo play you would probably want that even higher.

I doubt I'll ever be able to solo them, but thank you for the advice. I'll take the advice anyway.

Acadian and Buffy are absolute beasts. But just to be sure, you mean you don't want your penetration UNDER 38%, right?

No, I meant it the way I said it. If you are playing regularly in a full (proper) group of 4 (Tank, Healer, and 2 DPS) or 12 (Trials) - your penetration should NOT be OVER 38%

It is all based on what you do the higher percentage of the time. If you are playing solo most of the time and just grouping using the "Groupfinder" to "PUG" group yourself (or very occasionally grouping with friends at Guild Meets, etc) = by all means get your crit and pen as high as you can so you can go in kicking butt.

(But if you frequently do Pledges and Trials with a group regularly together; you will want to adjust your build for teamplay rather than solo play; (and that means toning down your penetration if you have it maxed out for solo play).

The reason for that is that the take from Boss kills are based on percentages of a player's contribution to the kill. If your penetration and crit are maxed out for solo play; you will be doing the major percentage of the Damage (altering the curve so no one else's contributions will be able to match yours).

[ghastley]

There's also diminishing returns. More than 33k resists do nothing, over 38% penetration adds nothing and when you're min/maxing for damage, too much health is bad, too. You want to regenerate magicka and stamina at exactly the rate you use them, and no more.

And all of that requires equipment and Champion points you won't have for another year, if you're building your first character. But when you've got there, there's not much else to do! Except furnishing houses, and fishing.

[mALX]

Yeah, there are def ceilings on how much you can build all your combat stats; but it will be a long time before that will effect you unless you accelerate your CP/XP. (and you can always reset any stats or CP Points you might want to change later for a reasonable in-game gold fee).

[Acadian]

Here's what I know about spell/weapon penetration. Note this is PvE only; PvP is very different since enemy players' resists run the gamut but are generally way higher than any boss would have. Overland mobs have about 9.1k resists so more than that is wasted on them. On the other hand, big bosses have 18.2k resists.

There are spells that reduce a foe's resists and since most organized groups run those spells, a dps in an organized group generally goes for well under 18.2k pen. So it is a combo of who (if anyone) you are fighting with at your side, and who your foes are, coupled with the fact that big bosses always represent much more of a threat so they are arguably what you might focus on.

A general tip is that adding 500 pen adds about 1% to your damage up until you reach your foe's cap. In my case, each and every version of Buffy is a soloist who likes to consider herself a boss killer. So whether she's playing as a mage or archer variant, she likes quite a bit of spell/weapon pen respectively, depending on what type of resist debuffs she can apply to her foes. All mage variants of Buffy run Elemental Drain, for example, to debuff over 5k mag resist from her foes.

Here are some sources of penetration and rough numbers below. I'm not recommending all these things by any means but it is a good list to pick and choose from.

Spell Pen: 5x Light Armor passive bonus gives 4900 pen. A gold staff with sharpened trait gives 2750 pen. 5 pieces of Spinners armor set gives 3450 pen. 55 CP in Spell Erosion gives 4200 pen.

Weapon Pen: 5 pieces of Spriggans armor set gives 3370 pen. 55CP in Piercing gives 4200 pen. I didn't check the numbers but a gold bow with sharpened trait should give about 2750 pen I figure.

[mALX]

Said much better than I could about the teamwork. So if you are regularly doing Pledges in a group; the entire group's pen is counted together for the cap; so if you over-penetrate it hurts the whole group.

When you get into Trials, the leader of the Trial will tell you what armor they want you in and what they want your CP Points set at for on things like Penetration. (and many times they will tell you what to put on your bars as well; such as "Crushing Shock." Pia wore light armor and used a destro staff; so in Trials she had to keep her pen at 32 so she wasn't using up too much of the group's pen stat.

But if I take her out to solo play in a hard dungeon; she can always up her pen and crit to make up for group members that aren't there. (although I'd be scared to even try to solo a Pledge dungeon, lol).

[ghastley]

To illustrate what Acadian wrote:

Blossom

She has the Spriggan's Thorns set (including her bow) - five pieces - plus 60 CP in Piercing.

She needs a Stormfist helm, to match her shoulders, and the five pieces of Hunding's give her decent critical percentage. The only thing really holding her back is my skill, or she could take on a world boss. I still wouldn't take her into a pledge on her own, and I'd prefer a whole team of four.

[ghastley]

Unna has the "Hero of the Pact" achievement, and Blossom got the "Hero of the Covenant" one, so I designated Wizwen as the Dominion achiever - she had more quests already completed then Taminwe or Cat Man Dhou - and we completed her fourth zone's Adventurer yesterday. Only Reaper's March to go, but she's done exactly zero quests there so far, out of 45.

We're doing these mainly so we qualify to buy the Manors for gold. I'm not sure we ever will, as they're about 3.8 million apiece, but I'd prefer the gold to be the only consideration.

We did buy a few more small homes - Flaming Nix and Sisters of the Sands apartments, and the Cyrodiilic Jungle house - to provide for some zones where we didn't already have a base. Being able to port directly out of the end of nowhere saves a lot of effort. Laurie is sorting through her plans for basic furnishings.

There are a few zones with not much choice in housing, such as Shadowfen only offering mud huts, and Rivenspire with only Ravenhurst, where we haven't done that. On the flip side, we have both Twin Arches, and Mournoth Keep in Bangkorai, but that zone is two halves, with not much connection between them. We also have two on Vvardenfell, two in Summerset, and there aren't any in Wrothgar if we wanted one. Moonmirth is being used as a furnishing warehouse, as you can't really go anywhere from there.

Many of the homes we have are empty, or almost so. The Summerset ones are waiting for more Alinor plans, although I'm getting tempted to add a single bed of each racial style to the townhouse, so that everyone feels at home.

[RaderOfTheLostArk]

So I finally started taking screenshots in the game. I'm guessing there is no way to remove the HUD when taking screenshots? Not like you can pause the game like in a regular TES game, so that is what I imagine.

Anyway, this might be spread out in several posts since there are a bunch of them. Won't be in chronological order either, probably.

Desert storm

Dolmen party

This Dolmen sure is popular

Whoa...um...is it getting hot in here?

UNLIMITED POWER

Interview with the vampire

Duel in the Far Shores

Down goes another Tharn (In case there are those who don't know what I'm referencing, Jagar Tharn is the final boss and main antagonist of Elder Scrolls I: Arena, which I beat several years ago. That game is set several hundred years later than ESO. And I headcanon that all my main characters in the TES games--well, the ones that let you pick an Argonian--are related, so my bloodline will be dueling another Tharn later.)

This post has been edited by RaderOfTheLostArk: Aug 22 2019, 12:59 PM

[ghastley]

So I finally started taking screenshots in the game. I'm guessing there is no way to remove the HUD when taking screenshots? Not like you can pause the game like in a regular TES game, so that is what I imagine.

You can remove the HUD. If you go into CONTROLS, you can assign a key to toggle it on and off. I forget the actual wording, but it's something like "Hide UI". All the options are listed, and quite a few are just not assigned to any key. I use the Num Pad '-' key.

And I forgot to mention that it doesn't turn off everything. Enemies and allies will still have their bar over their heads when in combat. This shot from the last guild meet shows what I mean. No UI except that one health bar. If I hadn't triggered the dummy, it wouldn't be there.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Aug 22 2019, 01:58 PM

[Acadian]

Nice shots, Rader - you adorable little monkey!

[RaderOfTheLostArk]

Nice shots, Rader - you adorable little monkey!

If Cincy's scales weren't red, you'd be able to tell that he blushed at her comments. He's got a thing for human (and some elven) ladies, but even he was taken aback by how forward she was. Not that he's complaining.


Ya boy is a Master Alchemist now! Now the focus is on Blacksmithing, Clothing, and Woodworking. Provisioning will probably be last as I am so far behind on that. I'm deconstructing whatever glyphs I can find for Enchanting, but I'm not that great with that crafting skill.

Also, Cincy took a brief trip to Vvardenfell. Had no idea I had access to it because I never bought the DLC. Just found a navigator who could take me to it, so that was a neat surprise. Although I think I remember hearing that some DLCs would be free at some point long after release?


More screenshots!

Stylin' and Profilin' (some sets of armor that I really liked the look of):
The Golden Knight (right after I started playing again)
The Silver Knight
The Blue Brawler
The Red Ranger

A Glitch in the Matrix

This looks like a good place to sit

Cincinnatus vs. Angof

Lighting up the night

Caius? Caius Cosades? Are you home?

[ghastley]

Also, Cincy took a brief trip to Vvardenfell. Had no idea I had access to it because I never bought the DLC. Just found a navigator who could take me to it, so that was a neat surprise. Although I think I remember hearing that some DLCs would be free at some point long after release?

It seems that you have ESO+, in that case, the DLC are available as part of the subscription, and you also have Summerset. You can confirm that without going there, by just using a jewelry station. Elsweyr is still a chapter, so that will show in the maps, but you can't go there. It won't stop you getting treasure maps, as ZOS want to tempt you into buying.

[haute ecole rider]

Congrats to Cincy on his Master Alchemist achievement! It took a long time for my Maz to reach her Master Crafter status, and another few months to get grand master crafter.

Today marks Julian’s (and my) third-year ESO anniversary! In honor of the occasion, I have taken my first vacation day in ten years (first paid one in 20) and have a bottle of wine set by. Today is Julian’s day, and we will explore Elsweyr together. When I explored it with Do Rah, we kept telling ourselves that Julian would enjoy the land and the culture, not to mention the people and the cuisine!

I hope to have Julian fighting dragons by the end of the day . . .

[RaderOfTheLostArk]

It seems that you have ESO+, in that case, the DLC are available as part of the subscription, and you also have Summerset. You can confirm that without going there, by just using a jewelry station. Elsweyr is still a chapter, so that will show in the maps, but you can't go there. It won't stop you getting treasure maps, as ZOS want to tempt you into buying.

Nope, I don't have ESO+. I should have clarified that it was the only DLC I can access that I did not directly buy (I have ESO Gold Edition, so I got the Imperial City, Orsinium, and a couple of other DLCs with it). It looks like it is free for a limited time. Seems that it goes through September 2nd.

Congrats to Cincy on his Master Alchemist achievement! It took a long time for my Maz to reach her Master Crafter status, and another few months to get grand master crafter.

Today marks Julian’s (and my) third-year ESO anniversary! In honor of the occasion, I have taken my first vacation day in ten years (first paid one in 20) and have a bottle of wine set by. Today is Julian’s day, and we will explore Elsweyr together. When I explored it with Do Rah, we kept telling ourselves that Julian would enjoy the land and the culture, not to mention the people and the cuisine!

I hope to have Julian fighting dragons by the end of the day . . .

Congrats to you and Julian!

[Acadian]

Rader, nice screens. Cincinnatus is making great progress and 'grats on blowing through CP160 already!

Rider, happy 3rd anniversary to Julian! Buffy celebrated hers a week or two ago.

[haute ecole rider]

Yes, we calculated our total hours played:
Julian has 1243 hours under her belt as of 1 pm today; only Maz has more at 1354 hours.

My total ESO time among all seven toons equal 5410 hours and 38 minutes - over 225 days altogether. I believe this is the most I've ever played a single game . . .

[ghastley]

I picked up the daily log-in reward last night on Spreads, who hasn't done any Cyrodiil, because it doesn't benefit a magsorc. She got a level from the AP and two extra Skill points! That was better for us than the 100k gold, which hasn't made much of a dent in the 3.8 million you need for a mansion.

[mALX]

Yes, we calculated our total hours played:
Julian has 1243 hours under her belt as of 1 pm today; only Maz has more at 1354 hours.

My total ESO time among all seven toons equal 5410 hours and 38 minutes - over 225 days altogether. I believe this is the most I've ever played a single game . . .

How do you find this info out?

[Acadian]

There is a command you can use in the chat box: /played.

That will give you the time played for that character in days & hours. Go through that with all your characters, add 'em up then convert the days & hours to pure hours. No way to accurately account for any deleted characters.

Anyone who has the game via Steam can get an hours readout anytime from Steam.