Elder Scrolls Online: Harrowstorm DLC

Finally got around to trying the two new dungeons with tio yesterday :) We started with some old familiar dungeons to get us warmed up and then off we went.

First up was Icereach. Basically a prequel to Direfrost Keep; a dungeon that's been in the game since the very beginning. The dungeon is in the mountains between Skyrim and High Rock and is basically just a snow-covered ice-clad fortress full of Forsworn witches and Hagravens. It had some interesting mechanics that'll probably prove really difficult on veteran before we really learn them. First of which was the use the flames engulfing one of the players in the group to thaw the stranglers that would siphon the life from another player. Another was the dps race against the Mother Witch and how to utilise the flames and the ice storm against each other. We never really tried this because normal doesn't require it, but I have an idea that you're supposed to use the flames engulfing one player to stop the ice storm chasing another players. Kind of get them to neutralise each other. The Enervating thralls were just annoying on normal, but probably real threats on veteran.

The story in this dungeon reintroduces Lyris Titanborn; one of the Five Companions from the main quest and it was so nice to see her again :3

The second dungeon was Unhallowed Grave. This is a desert dungeon found in Bangkorai. It's being infiltrated and looted by a Forsworn summoner and his army of draugr. This dungeon posed a bit more of a challenge to us, even on normal. The second boss of the dungeon needs to be defeated with the help of a puzzle and this puzzle took us ages to figure out, but once we did figure it out we defeated the boss pretty easily. The third boss was pretty straightforward, but the adds it summoned enveloped the dps and healer and you had to defeat them alone because you couldn't move. The add created a wall of spinning swords keeping you close until you killed it. Will probably prove really fricking annoying on veteran. The fourth boss gave me flashbacks to the last boss of Vaults of Madness. It was basically that with the added heavy use of the grapple hook introduced in the game with Elsweyr last year. Instead of just going outside or inside a bubble depending on where the Lich does his attack (as is the way in Vauls of Madness), this boss had you grapple to ledges to avoid attack in the main area and then grappling back to avoid the attack on the ledges. Easy to figure out, but difficult to get a proper grap on in mid-battle (at least enough grap to avoid falling off :P tio!!) And then we had the final boss. The Forsworn summoner, which seemed like a pretty straightforward boss, until he summoned the largest frickin bone colossus ever in recorded history and I was too busy trying to get a picture of it to keep everybody alive. That monstrosity will prove a definite challenge on veteran.

This second dungeon relied heavily on the grapple hook. Both to navigate it and to defeat the bosses. And it's one of the few novel idea that's been introduced to ESO lately. The grapple hook is a lot of fun and it was definitely a different experience to have to rely on it to complete a dungeon.