Cauldron
This dungeon you will have access to in the dungeon finder at level 45. However if you travel to it directly you can go in at any level. This dungeon is located in Deeshan as shown on the map below left.
The bosses are marked on the map below right with their names and locations. This Elder Scrolls Online Dungeon Guide will explain all you need to know about the mechanics as well as offering possible strategies for you to apply in order to defeat them.
Boss Fights
Oxblood The Depraved
This is a simple boss but he hits like a truck! Make sure no matter what, the tank does NOT drop the taunt in this fight else a DPS or Healer is going to take a swift backhand to the face and die.
The boss realistically should be tanked in the center of the room while turned away from the group. Maintain this position at all times as the tank to make it pretty simple throughout. NO ONE should be standing in front of the boss apart from the tank.
Heavy Attack – The boss will occasionally fire off a massive heavy attack at whoever has aggro. Kind of a slam attack. If this is on the tank, all they need to do is block. If it is on a dps/healer (which it should NOT be) then they will have to dodge roll or die.
FART!! – The boss will fire off 3x light attacks one after the other and then after turn his ass on the tank and fart at them with 3 different poison GAS AOEs…I could explain it cleaner and more professional of course but let’s face it…a farting boss is funny!
But seriously, avoid these circles if you can as they will cause a lot of damage especially for anyone who is NOT a tank. Mind your feet. They’re pretty slow so not too hard to avoid but you will be punished if you walk into them.
A missed opportunity for ZOS to call the effect “Backdraft!”…
ok I’m done now…
Don’t stand in Stupid.
Globs! – The boss will run to the middle of the room and spit into the air causing multiple Globs to spawn around the room. These have pretty low health so not too hard to get rid of but technically you are on a timer. Each one will try to move slowly towards the boss. ANY that REACH the boss will cause him to consume them and empower him. He will hit harder for a short while and will glow red. If he consumes multiple, the buff for him will stack making him stronger and stronger to a point where his heavy attack will quite literally wreck a tank.
With this in mind, be sure to keep the boss AWAY from the globs and the dps members of the group should focus THESE over the boss in order of priority.
NOTE: At 25% and under the boss will go into almost an enraged loop where he will CONSTANTLY spawn Globs every minute or so. This is basically your execute window.
IF you can kill all the globs and then hit the boss OR maintain a dot or two on him, you can rinse repeat this and eventually kill him. Slow and steady and all.
Failing that if you DO have high damage, it is risky, but you can just save your ultimates for this and go for the kill. The choice is yours but understand the pros and cons of your actions. If you are too slow he WILL get buffed!
Charge – The boss will try to CHARGE at players once he has spawned the Globs. He will run in a straight line straight at the chosen player and knock down and potentially kill anyone he runs over. This is a REALLY easy mechanic to avoid…Interrupt it. If you bash/interrupt it, you will never have to deal with it.
Lich Crystals – The boss will occasionally channel with his hand to the ground and spawn Lich Crystals under each player, simply move out of each one that appears under your feet before they explode until he stops channeling.
Bubble Prison – The boss will encase a single player with a Bubble prison effect. This needs to be broken but attacking it. So any dps available in the group should go to THIS mechanic to break them free. If this doesn’t happen the player inside will take HUGE damage and have the potential to die. It isn’t a guaranteed death for ALL players, but it hits so hard it may as well be. This is usually the furthest person away, so keep an eye on your group. You don’t have long to free your friend.
Taskmaster Viccia
This boss is Chaotic, but incredibly simple once you nail down the individual mechanics. While it looks like lots is going on, it’s just dramatic, not necessarily complex. Take a breath and have a good look at the room.
The tank should hold the boss as still as possible at all times (pending certain mechanics) and the group should literally just pay attention to their feet. DO NOT stack, and do NOT run away. You need to be fairly close for the most part but without putting yourself in danger.
Heavy attack – This should always be on the tank unless they drop aggro, which is a big no no! Don’t drop the taunt! If it is on the tank, the tank must simply block, if it is on someone else, they must dodge roll or die.
BIG BOOM!!! – The boss will channel a MASSIVE aoe from where they are standing. Get out of this as soon as possible. As the tank all you need to do is get to the edge of it and stand THERE…The boss will come to you, and now you have your new position to hold them in. When the boss does it again, resume your previous position.
So ass the tank you are standing still until the boom, them moving slightly, till the next boom, and move back again. This will give you VERY simple control over the boss and the movement of it will be limited so the dps can make more use of ground based abilities since you are not running around the room.
While the large aoe is on the ground,. NO ONE should be standing in it as it will do very fast and high damage over time.
Lightning Traps! – The boss will spawn lightning circles on the ground all around the room. These usually land in 4s but can overwhelm the room quickly. You do have a helper NPC (Drathas) in the room getting rid of these in groups throughout the fight BUT you will have to be patient for this to happen.
You CAN put on a damage shield and BLOCK and walk into them to remove them but you will still take a lot of damage. The safest way to deal with these is to focus, and just watch your feet. DON’T stand in them.
BIG TIP: If you can draw a line between YOU and the BOSS and there is a lightning aoe between you…MOVE! If the path is clear you are safe, if not you are in trouble (see below).
Chain Pull – The boss randomly (usually the furthest away player which is why you should NOT be running to Grahtwood!) PULL a player to their feet. This can be annoying but not life threatening UNLESS, you have a lightning ground aoe between you and the boss directly.
As mentioned as a tip above, if you can draw a line between you and the boss, and nothing is in the way, all you need do when you get pulled is break free. However if there is an aoe between you, there is a high chance you will be the target and the boss will drag you through it and kill you in transit.
Positioning is key.
Mages Wrath!? – IF you are too far away the boss will channel at the ranged player. This can be interrupted and MUST be as soon as possible. If you fail he will cast a lightning strike/mages wrath type attack them which can and will cause a huge amount of damage, usually a one shot to a dps/healer player.
Adds – The boss will Spawn adds in 3 phases, around 75% 50% and 25% (give or take current mechanics and dps of the group).
This is simple. Kill them as a priority. There are a specific amount of adds and phases and when they are dead, it will just be YOU and the BOSS. Don’t make things difficult and ignore these. Kill them as your priority targets and then go back to the boss again.
They have low health but the majority are ranged so you may need to interrupt some of them to stop them channeling and also watch out for arc type AOE skills (arrow spray) from the archers.
After the last wave, relax, there will be NO more adds.
Molten Guardian
IN a nutshell this boss is a pussy cat so long as the tank maintains a taunt. IF a dps/healer is hit by the boss, they are pretty much dead, but if the tank maintains aggro, it’s literally all about your feet. The tank should hold aggro at all times and be ready to move when mechanics change.
No dps or healer should ever stand in the boss’s face directly.
Heavy Attack – Very simple, the boss will wind up a large heavy attack with a slight frontal cleave. The tank should block this.
Teleport – During the fight the boss will teleport to a new location. When this happens he will spawn two small adds very similar to itself. These should be your priority targets at all times. They don’t have a huge amount of health but they do have their own unique mechanics and LOVE to focus people who are not a tank if they are not taunted. The tank should grab these (they don’t move by the way) and the group should kill them before returning back to the boss.
NOTE: 25% health and under the boss will teleport VERY often meaning you can get overwhelmed with adds if you are not careful. be sure to ALWAYS kill the adds.
Lava Spit – The boss will spit into the air making it pretty much RAIN lava/fire balls. These will land on the ground and burn on the spot. Don’t stand in them, they do fire damage. Pretty simple. Don’t panic and run around the room, just look at what you are doing.
BIG BOOM! – The boss occasionally will cast a HUGE aoe that spreads to almost half the room. You have 3 options here. Get out of it, block it, or JUST before it goes boom…dodge roll it. It’s really obvious and really easy to avoid so long as you don’t panic. If you fail however as a dps/healer, you are dead. As the tank it’s a BIG hit and knock down. Don’t mess it up!
DEBUFFED!! – This one is massively overlooked. The boss will fire off light attacks, like fire balls, and the adds will do this too. They do hit dps/healers quite hard but they have another side effect. EACH successfully placed fireball on a player, will cause them to have a debuff on them. Each fireball will add a stack to the debuff and restart the timer (look at the end of your base game debuff timers it is always on the far right). While this is on you ALL fire damage you take is stronger, and the more stacks, the worse it gets!
These fireballs can be dodged to avoid the debuff entirely OR blocked.
So if you are the tank, be sure to block it, as a dps/healer if you see it coming, now you know what to do to avoid it.
Channel Fire – This mechanic is the pug killer because complacent players REFUSE to interrupt things assuming they are too good to apply a basic skill because “someone else should do it”…don’t be that person.
Basically the boss will put his hand to the ground and channel CONSTANTLY making each player take fire damage per second.
This mechanic hits very hard, people should NOT stack, and someone should interrupt the boss as soon as possible to stop this.
ADVANCED: IF you are an extremely advanced group and you have prepared for this and agreed to do so, you can IGNORE everything i just noted above.
Instead, spread out, do NOT interrupt it, and make sure your healer is in the mood to carry the hell out of you!
IF and only IF, your group has enough mitigation and heals combined and you can maintain that throughout the channel…as a group you can actually spread out a bit (not stacking) and out heal the channel! This means the DPS get around 30seconds of raw BURN on the boss.
At execute this is a game changer if you can do it, because instead of him jumping around the room, you go for the burn. It doesn’t matter if you have 10k dps or 100k dps, so long as you can out heal it, this method can be taken advantage of.
Again this is advanced and i would highly recommend you don’t do this unless your group is prepared for it. Else you are going to wipe.
Lyranth’s Prison – SAVE HER!!
This boss is kind of an arena rather than a raw BOSS. Feels like multiple waves of Add pulls.
However this is more punishing than most add pulls. The prison has a health bar, and if you die, that health bar gets reset. Start again!
The trick to this is, pick up the oil/poison/fuel synergy. Walk over to a conduit type structure, and then run straight at the middle. This will draw a line which will be ignited once the lightning strikes BREAKING the conduit and spawning a group of enemies.
Repeat this until all conduits are blown up and the fight is over.
You get 10 seconds with the fuel so you can blow up the conduits one at a time, two at a time, and if you are REALLY sneaky you can get x3!! BUT, there is a price. EACH one, is ONE add pull. If you pull more than one, you face multiple at the same time.
This is literally down to your group to decide how to approach this.
It is tricky to explain the full mechanics since this is not a boss but big waves of enemies but i will note the priority targets that will cause you a problem.
Bone Colossus – Low health, BIG hits! This should be killed as soon as possible else you will have to deal with his fire mechanics. If he starts to stretch out his arms and scream he will place meteors all around the room and you must keep moving to avoid them. This is the same as the colossus that spawns in one of the last rounds of maelstrom arena if you are not killing the channeling Dremora. So not a totally new enemy.
Kill him fast, or watch your feet. Either way there is no dps check for him, just risk if you don’t pay attention.
Ogrims – These as small but they can be annoying. While they do not pose a huge threat damage wise, they do channel beating their chest and knock people over, these need to be interrupted else people will get stunned while getting hit by other stuff.
MEGA JEFF! (Daedroth) – Massive lizard with flaming breath. Simple, kill it, but keep it facing AWAY from the group at all times as the tank. If he breathes fire on the group, they are quite literally, toast!
Nigel! (titan) – Big and scary with not too much else. This target does cast ground aoes and punchy heavy attacks at the tank but really he isn’t too much of a problem in comparison to some of the others. Keep him turned away from the group at all times as the tank, dps stay behind him, and of course watch your feet.
Xyvkin Archers!!! – THESE are your priority target at ALL times. No matter what else is in the room, you MUST kill these. The Daedra may look scary but the archers are the problem. they will hit the tank with shots which have damage over time on them and the ticks are insane. I’m almost convinced they are health % based because they hit THAT hard.
Over all other targets, be sure to kill these first, or you’ll have a dead tank in no time.
NOTE: Tank needs to taunt these asap else the dps/healers will be targeted. They cannot be chained so you may have to show off a bit positioning wise!
Storm Atronachs – Each wave, storm atronachs will come into the fight. These are technically bombers. They have low health and they explode. basically, when they go boom, get away from them.
Baron Zaudrus – (Valkyn PANTS!)
The final boss is tricky, chaotic, and scary as hell to look a. BUT surprisingly his mechanics are not actually THAT complicated. Just a little fiddly when all of them are firing at once.
Spread out, do NOT stack ever and pay attention to your feet!
The tank must keep him turned away from the group at all times (avoid frontal cleaves) and maintain stamina in order to dodge/break/run if need be.
The boss is slow with his attacks but because so much is going on it feels faster than it is. Above all, do NOT panic. Clear your head of any panic and get a clear view of what’s going on and this will be a quick and easy clear. Don’t do that? you will be here a LONG time.
Focus is key here. If you yolo, you die.
Heavy attack – The boss heavy attack at the tank, and this has some serious range on it too despite being a melee hit. Block it or die. If for ANY reason this is on a DPS/Healer, you must dodge roll.
Lightning – The boss will cleave in the direction of the tank with a big swing. When this happens ANYONE caught in the cone will take damage and receive an AOE attached to them which will channel lighting damage over time.
DO NOT STACK!!! If you don’t get caught by the cleave you won’t get the effect, if you DO get caught and you stack with someone else, THEIR dot and YOUR dot will stack and you will die rapidly. Stop hugging your friends they don’t like it while you are carrying a charge!
This is why the tank should keep this boss turned away from the group at all times. If you are careful you can actually make it so NO one but the tank, ever gets this.
And technically the tank can avoid it too bu dodge rolling, but it is incredibly fast and quite frankly just adding more mess to the fight. Suck it up, don’t stack.
Fire Geysers – From 60% and under the boss will start spawning Fire Geysers under player’s feet. You need to avoid these as much as possible.
Sometimes it is tricky so don’t panic if you do get caught but your healers need to be on point.
If you have a good healer you can out live the damage over time fire effect you get from it. if not you are pretty much dead.
So avoid at all costs of course, but be sure the healer is awake just incase. This will happen for the rest of the fight!
Quake! (Hard mode only) – The boss will cause a large eruption effect on the ground much like that from the Dragonknight skill lines. This will do damage over time and cause a large snare (slow movement effect). Generally this is on the tank so be sure to just get out of it when you can. Don’t hang around in here too long especially during the fire vents/walls else you will get caught out. The intention is to slow you down, don’t let it.
Flame vents/Fire Walls – During the fight the boss will put his weapon into the ground and turn on the Flame vents. Basically this is a HUGE fire wall that you cannot pass. It will go around the room anti-clockwise or clockwise, whatever it is doing NOW it will be different next time (it rotates back and forth).
This is simple…don’t get caught. If it touches you, you die!
Mid way through the fight you will end up with 2 walls, and then at very low health (25% and under) you will end up with FOUR walls making the room split into quarters. Don’t panic. Just stay away from the walls and you will be fine. It’s the same mechanic, just a tighter space.
The tank at this point needs to be VERY careful. HUG the middle of the room since it is the shortest distance and rotate away from the fire while maintaining aggro on the boss.
NOTE during this time he will STILL heavy attack and cleave so watch your blocks!
ROCKS & ADDS! (Most important mechanic) – The boss will slam the ground and rocks will come out of the ground.
These will get in the way if the fire wall is coming and you can find yourself stuck and dead…but above all they have another effect to them.
EACH rock, contains a single add! This could be a scamp, a watcher, or a JEFF! and all their mechanics come with it. Jeff will cast ground aoes and fire breaths, scamps will shoot fire, etc.
You MUST no matter what, ALWAYS focus the adds above the boss in order of priority.
The boss has ZERO dps check, you can fight him all day if you like, but you MUST kill those adds.
How do the adds spawn? Simple…if you blow up the rocks in their current state, or the wall kills them…they will spawn. However there is a PLUS side to this.
There will be a ghost khajiit in the room and it will have a synergy around it for you to take. IF you take this, you will glow for around 5 seconds.
All damage you do in THIS state will be VERY high against the adds, meaning you can clear the room of them quickly.
However, there is more. If you LIGHT attack or HEAVY attack ANY of the rocks while in this state. You will instantly kill them, and instead of an enemy coming out, a blue flame atronach will come out to help you!!!
Every single rock can have a friendly add spawn from it so long as someone is constantly taking those synergies and constantly freeing them from the rocks! You can get to a point where you have so much help from the Flame atronachs that you never see a bad add in the room, making it a very simple fight with just you and the boss.
ROCKS & ADDS (hard mode) – Exactly the same mechanic! However, instead of around 2-3 rocks per phase, you can end up with 5-6. YES that means two things.
1) more bad adds if you don’t pay attention
or
2) an abundance of friendly adds to make your life so much easier!
TIP: This KEY mechanic makes the difference between winning and losing, it can dramatically change the tide of your completion. Pick up the synergy, kill the rocks while in this state, and get the NPCs to do the work for you. Watch your feet, and above all, relax. Panic is intended to mess this fight up, don’t do it.
GOOD LUCK!!!!
