The Elder Scrolls Online: Vateshran Hollows Guide
The Vateshran Hollows Solo Arena is one of the most challenging solo content pieces/instances in the entire game to date! Unlike Maelstrom Arena where you have round after round of enemies until the last boss…THIS arena feels like a solo dungeon! You have 3 paths to take and then a final boss, but you can take the paths in ANY order you like, and yes, that WILL affect the outcome!
It has two difficulties (Normal and Veteran) and you are not restricted to what you take (class/role) in anyway!
On normal difficulty you can enter at ANY level and on Veteran difficulty you can enter after level 50 (champion point levels start there). The Vateshran Hollows Arena is located at the South Central part of The Reach map in the Markarth DLC pack.
This guide is designed to teach you EXACTLY how to beat Vateshran Hollows Arena in The Elder Scrolls Online!
Location
Boss Fights
Shade Of The Grove
This boss is pretty straight forward. There are 3 enemies in the room and you can only hit one at a time. To start with only one will be awake, then at 80% it will go to sleep and the power will go to another enemy and you will have to hit them instead. They all share the same health bar. During the fight they will sleep and wake up one by one so you will have to hit the target available. Later in the fight they will still be active but become immune so be sure to hit the correct one. Meanwhile there are some basic mechanics you must follow.
Heavy Attack – The boss will swing with a basic long heavy attack. Time it well and either block it or dodge it.
STOMP – The boss will channel and there will be a HUGE spreading AOE in the room. Once it is full it will pop and explode. You can block this, dodge it, or step to the edge of the arena and get out of it.
Spray – The boss will cast a cone AOE in your direction which can knockback/stun. All you need to do is dodge or block this OR step out of it if you can time it.
Spriggins – These are all around the room. They will attach a beam to you. If you do not get to the one with the beam fast, it will curse you taking away your power to attack the boss. Meaning you cannot harm them. You must kill this spriggan to fix this issue. To avoid this mechanic all you have to do is interrupt it in time. Pay close attention and this mechanic will never be a problem.
Wolves – The boss will spawn wolves throughout the fight. These are small and weak but you must kill them else you will become overwhelmed.
TIP – The boss at execute will have all 3 of them awake. They all follow the same basic mechanics and you will have to ONLY hit the one that is not immune. While this is simple, they will all do their aoe/stun attacks meaning you will want to be careful about maintaining your resources for CC breaking
Leptfire Keeper (secret boss)
This boss is a lot simpler than it looks. The main thing that kills people here is PANIC! There are MANY platforms that make the fight look intimidating. Once you understand the basics it ‘s an easy fight so long as you can keep up heals and buffs if you have any.
All you really have to do is just follow the boss and hit it. But more mentioned below.
Teleport/jump – Throughout the fight the boss will CONSTANTLY jump to other platforms. Simply use your grapple to follow him.
Flame Spin – The boss will spin in a circle breathing fire, be careful to avoid this and/or keep an ongoing heal while this is happening.
Spit/cleave – The boss will cast a small cone AOE in front of it aimed at you. Block this or you will be staggered/stunned/knocked back. You will need to break free if you get caught. You want to avoid this else you risk being pushed off the edge.
Heavy Attack – Seen one of these before? Block it!
Fire spray – The boss will fire loads of small fire AOE spots at the ground, simply watch your feet and don’t stand in them.
TIP: The fight never changes from start to finish. If you can do 10% damage and live, you can kill the whole fight. It’s just very repetitive having to chase it around.
Bonus: Once the boss is dead you will receive a buff. Any time you use a
grapple you will have a green effect rather than the basic pull. ANY
enemy next to the grapple from now on will be automatically Interrupted!
Rahdgarak
This boss is simple, straight forward and above all, a ROYAL pain in the rear end! The reason people fail this boss is because they try to get flashy and CHANGE stuff rather than following the basics. Stick to the basics, keep your resources up, and rinse repeat, and this will be an easy ride. Try to show off too much and panic? and it will be all over all to often.
Heavy attack – His heavy attack is basically a one shot unless you block it or dodge roll it. However, if you have low resists it will hit incredibly hard even through block. So the choice is yours, dodge it, or block it, but don’t let it hit you.
Charge – The boss will wind up a charge and run straight at you. This is simple. MOVE. Don’t let it hit you and it won’t be a problem.
Elemental Change – At 80% the boss will introduce his new mechanic. He will be protected by one of the two major elements in the room. Cold and Fire. If he is cold you need to fight him on a fire platform (redish colour) if he is on Fire you need to fight him on the cold platform (blue).
If he is on the same colour platform as he currently is he will be immune. So you will have to use grapples to get to where you want the boss to be in order for you to hurt him.
JUMP! – EVERY time you jump to another platform, he will follow you with a huge smashing jump. BLOCK when he jumps to you, else you will be stunned and knocked down. The trick to this fight is maintaining resources for CC mechanics. Manage that and you will be fine. Fail it and you will be stunned a lot and end up receiving his heavy attack at the wrong time!
Adds – The boss will spawn two adds per platform when the mages are channeling. Kill these to save you some issues.
TIP: If you take soul splitting trap with you, and use it on the adds, you can benefit from 20% of all 3x resources back per kill. This can help maintain your stamina bar overall for more flexibility with CC based mechanics.
Magma Queen
Teleport – During the fight the boss will teleport to the other side of the room, simply follow her and continue hitting her. She stays in one place for LONG periods of time so you have plenty of “nuke” opportunity.
Scamps – KILL THESE! During the fight a daedric portal will appear. Scamps will flood out of here. They have low health but they hit really hard and put big fire aoes on the ground. These are incredibly weak health wise so don’t cut off your nose to spite your face. Kill them. If you don’t you will end up with as many as 7+ in the room at once. You don’t want that. DEAL with the adds! They are more important than the boss. Her death is inevitable so long as you get rid of the trouble makers.
Iron Atronach/Geyser – The boss will spawn an iron Atronach. He has pretty low health but sprays fire all over the place. You need to dispatch him quickly. Doing so will put a ball of fire on the ground with a synergy attached to it. While this is present the boss will have a Geyser under her which will constantly hurt you with fire balls homing in on you. If you pick up the synergy and throw it at the boss/geyser, you will STUN the boss for around 10 seconds, giving you a MASSIVE window of opportunity to either go for a bit of a nuke OR manage remaining adds/resources.
Fire Path – The boss will often cast a straight line of fire across the floor. Stay out of it, it’s really obvious to spot.
Fire Walls – At low health the mechanics all stay the same so far BUT a new one is introduced. She will cast BIG walls of fire across the room. They don’t hit too hard, you can block them and out heal them but watch for the knock backs and also maintain your awareness of the adds. IF you do not deal with the adds, you will take too much damage and the fire walls will contribute to your death easily.JEFF! – As well as the fire wall, JEFF (Daedroth) will spawn on repeat along with the Iron Atronach and the scamps. Simple rule of thumb here…KILL JEFF! So long as you make sure the room is clear of adds, the boss is not so bad. But you must watch out for the fire breath from these guys as they are pretty devastating. Their health is low though.
TIP: No matter what happens, ALWAYS focus the adds, the boss can take as long as you like. But the adds are what will kill you.
Mynar Metron (Secret Boss)
This secret boss is very simple but watch your feet. DON’T stand in the lava unless you pick up the buff in the middle of the room!
Channel lava spit – The boss will channel a constant random spit of fire across the room with multiple almost meteor type drops on the ground. Mind your feet, don’t get hit by these.
Burst! – The boss will cast a frontal burst of multiple small lava aoes that will travel across the floor at you, these can be avoided at range by getting in the gaps BUT…IF you take the Fire walking buff in the middle of the room (heavy attack the orb) you take BARELY any damage from them. So that can help turn this boss almost into a stack and burn.
TIP: Take the buff in the middle of the room to help vs some attacks but above all if the room is overwhelmed with fire. This can allow you to use the lava area for more space and/or direct the boss’s attacks to those locations giving you more free space in the middle. Bare in mind you have a timer . Don’t get caught in the lava with no buff on you!
Bonus: When the boss is dead you will receive a buff, whenever you heavy attack the fire orbs from now on, you will do area of effect damage to nearby targets.
Pyrelord
This boss is a nightmare for most people but that is generally because they get overwhelmed with all the shiny effects and crazy fire mechanics. Don’t worry, i’m going to break this up for you.
First of all you do NOT have a “DPS CHECK” for this boss. you can take an HOUR on him if you have damage THAT low and you can STILL do it. The trick is ALL in the mechanics. There are 4 basic phases (also in the video)…
1) Breath
2) Spinny Spinny
3) Breath
4) Floor stab
This routine NEVER changes. No matter what his health %.
Breath – The boss will breath fire in front of him when you are close. Walk around him, dodgeroll behind him, whatever gets you out of his face. If you get caught you will have almost a 20second damage over time fire dot on you. Avoid it!
Spinny Spinny! – After the first breath he will channel with his sword in the air and 3 flames will spin around him. You have two options. Stay close and figure out which way it is spinning and follow it around in a circle (note: This direction is random). The other option is to get the hell out of there and stay ranged. While ranged his single target fire balls will still hit you but you will completely avoid getting hit by the spinner.
Floor Stab (The Floor is LAVA!) – After the SECOND breath, the boss will stab the ground and turn the floor to lava! There is an ORB in the room, much like the one you use to run on lava. Heavy attack this and you will be protected.
During this phase there are 3 corners with a circle of concrete at the end and a small pool of lava inside. ONE of these will ignite from this mechanic.
If you stand on the fire while protected, it will go out. If not then it will stay. If he fills 3 of these he will enrage and the whole room will be flooded with aoes you must avoid like fire rain from the sky and across the floor. After that he will apply a heavy attack which you must block.
However, clearly, if you extinguish the fires…you NEVER get this mechanic. You can fight him all day long and never see this mechanic so long as you put the fires out.
Skeletons! – At about 65-70% and 30-35% a Skeletal Colossus will spawn from the portals way back in the distance. They can cause a lot of damage, have a ground stomp and spawn MANY skeletons.
The boss mechanics never ever change (look above for the 4 step rotation) so long as you maintain those, just focus the skeletons. There is no rush, once they are gone they are gone. Just you and the boss left.
Flame buff – At about 50% the boss will buff himself with extra flame damage, kinda like his own personal magma shell, making him hit harder. This is a short duration bonus for him and once it is gone you don’t need to worry about it again. To be honest, it is almost kind of pointless as most people don’t even see it happen.
TIP: Drag the boss to the Fire Orbs to make sure you are closer when he stabs the floor if you can help it. He is melee, he will follow you 😉
Zakuryn The Sculptor
This boss can be tricky because there is an element of multitasking involved when tracking the two different bosses and their health, as well as their mechanics. If you can help it stack them both together as it makes things a little easier. The trick is to try to kill them both about the same time if you can, so balance your damage between the two.
Banekins – The boss will constantly spawn a portal in the room and banekins will come flying out of this chasing your down to try to kill you. You can kill these OR you can put them in the way of Malcolm (The flesh Abomination i call Malolcm yes). If they are in front of him when he does his big SMASH, he will kill them.
Channel Magic – Zakuryn will channel his staff into the air hitting you constantly with damage every second. Simply interrupt this to stop him doing so.
Teleport – Zakuryn will teleport from time to time to get range on you, be sure to get to him fast and bring Malcolm with you. You really should try to keep them together, but he tries to split them up.
Ground channel – Malcolm (Flesh Abomination) will put his hands into the ground making aoe pops land on the ground. Keep moving and avoid these.
Lightning Splashes – Zakuryn will cast lightning splashes onto the ground. try not to stand in these, keep moving. You don’t have to run away like a headless chicken, just mind your feet when it happens. Moving in a small circle will be fine.
Ground Smash! – During the fight Malcolm will emit a HUGE lightning type aoe on the ground to show where his attack will go, get out of this quick, he will punch the ground and if you are inside you will die!
Lightning mages/scream – When Zakuryn get’s scared and/or low health he will put a BIG bubble on himself making him immune to ALL damage. When this happens, be sure that Malcolm is stacked with him and facing him. Then when he does his ground smash, it will HIT him and break the shield and stun him! This is your best opportunity to get a bit of a burn on them BOTH!
ENRAGE! – If ONE boss dies, the OTHER will enrage and heal up to more than HALF of their full health bar. NOW you have to fight THAT boss with all of their mechanics in tact BUT they are massively enraged, hitting much harder than before.
TIP: IF you can hold onto your ultimates and get both bosses down evenly, you can time carefully the ground slam with Zak’s bubble to basically pin them both on the spot and kill them together. This will take practice but you can avoid the enraging if they die together.
Xobutar of His Deep Graces (Secret Boss)
This boss has a couple of simple mechanics but can also hit fairly hard. There isn’t a dps check as such, but there is a mechanic that has to be dealt with else he will heal too much and you will be there for longer.
Teleport – There are two gates. The boss will teleport to one and spawn a spirit. This spirit has some nasty spin attacks. You can either kill it or keep it busy until the portal appears. When the portal appears you will be sent to the boss.
Each phase he goes to the opposite gate. If the add died last time you will get a new one, if not you will get the same one you last had.
Gate 1 – The first gate the boss goes into he will cast lich crystals under your feet. Keep moving in a circle to avoid these.
Gate 2 – Every second gate, he will summon totems on the ground. KILL these fast. IF you don’t kill them, he will channel heals from them. This is the only real problem in the fight. Kill the totems and his death is inevitable so long as you follow the mechanics.
Suck in and BOOM! – Much like the last boss in VDSA, the boss will do a suck in/pull in type channel. Once he has pulled you in, he will erupt with a spreading aoe which hits for very high damage. Get out of this as fast as possible.
Bonus: Once the boss is dead, you will receive a buff. From now on whenever you go through a portal, he will spawn with you for a few seconds and help you kill the enemies in the room.
Lozuzzunth
THIS boss is a lot of fun but can be very mobile! The mechanics are simple but punishing if you get greedy. You can face tank him with plenty of heals OR stay ranged if you are weaker/lack heals or take this arena last.
He will NEVER move from the middle of the room so if you do feel safer at range then that is 100% fine.
Magic Meteors – During the fight you will have to avoid a few ground aoes. They are not a game breaker but the damage can add up, so stay out of stupid.
EYE! – The boss will spawn a large EYE into the fight around the edge of the arena. This needs to die! While it is in the room it will debuff you making you take much more damage. Kill it soon or you will be overwhelmed with too many mechanics.
Fire Wave – This ability is an interruptable attack. So while generally you can bash and stop this attack all together, if the above mechanic is present (the eye) put your BACK to the eye or stand behind it. The boss will aim in that direction and cast the fire wave across the floor.
Be sure that you completely avoid the mechanic but make sure the eye gets hit with it. It will cause MASSIVE damage to it meaning you can easily finish it off and then get back onto the boss.
Disco Watchers! – During the fight there will be green laser beams all over the place making it look like a 1990’s nightclub! There will be a portal in the room. Take the portal and you will be transported upstairs to kill the ones responsible for the terrible lights.
The longer you wait the more will spawn so get up there nice and quick. Kill the watchers and then come back down again. You are limited to time up there so kill what you can.
NOTE: Do NOT get close to them, they have high damage spinning aoe attacks which will knock you off the side.
TIP: Don’t let the Eyes or the Watchers overwhelm you, deal with those mechanics over the boss. The mechanics don’t change, keep doing what you are doing and keep it simple.
Maebroogha The Void Lich
RULE NUMBER ONE! The ADDS are the fight, NOT the boss!
So many people get hung up on “omg i must kill the boss fast”…If you have learned anything from this series to date, it is the MECHANICS that will kill you!
In THIS fight, it does not matter how long you fight the boss for, there is NO dps check for her personally and she barely attacks you. The fight is all the other crazy stuff going on.
So while you do have to of course make sure she dies, you focus should NOT be on her unless you have nothing else to do.The ONLY DPS check in this fight that exists, is the Shade Wall phase (explained below) and even THAT is very low. BUT you must be focused of course.
Understanding each individual mechanic makes the boss fight so much easier to do. Focusing mechanics is key! And then, when you get REALLY good at it, THEN nuke it later if you have to lol!
Strategy wise, i would advise you to deal with the skeleton colossus shades first. The sit around the room doing nothing unless you start hitting health % check points on the boss OR set to timers OR if you damage them.
You can either hit the boss and deal with them one by one and/or as and when they come into the fight, OR you can deliberately pull them in and get rid of them nice and early. The choice is yours but once they are gone, they are gone! (per phase at least).
Shade Colossus – There are 4 of these at the start of the fight. Once they are all gone no more return unless the boss’ health goes up too high (she will heal, more below) in which case at check points more will come into the room.
These deal fairly decent physical damage and have nasty cone attacks of which you must block, dodge/avoid. These enemies are your PRIMARY targets. You MUST get rid of these.
As explained above, these will attack based on the health of the boss going lower and lower, OR they will come in if you hit them. How you approach that is up to you.
If you want to make things REALLY easy for yourself, ignore the boss completely and just go around the room killing them until they are all gone.
Void Adds – Archers, Mages and goo balls of gunk will spawn during the fight. These have low health, cause low damage but also are causing you a problem especially when mechanics overlap. Try to get rid of these quickly. The archer however does have a wind up snipe/heavy attack which needs to be avoided so keep your eyes peeled for that.
Void Yoga!? – The boss will lay on the ground crunched up like a weird insect struggling for breath and big circle AOE attacks will appear around her. Each one has a gap in it so quite easy to find a spot to be safe. Each time she moves the AOE will change in size and location around her. All you need to do is carry on doing whichever mechanic you are already doing, but maintain a safe spot for your feet. Get in the gaps and this won’t harm you.
Frontal Cleave – The boss has a MASSIVE growing triangle/cone AOE cleave that she almost sprays at you. However this takes SO long to spread and finally cause damage that it is almost EASY to avoid. Simply step away from her if you see her doing this
The above two mechanics are her two major attacks. The rest of the time she barely touches you.
Teleport – This is a very old school mechanic but still a relevant one. If you are too far away from the boss. She will teleport to your feet. Be sure to move when she does because she will do damage on contact. If you are never too far away, she will basically wobble around in the air switching from breath to yoga as and when she feels like it.
Shade Wall – THIS is the most important mechanic in the entire fight. So far you know to get the skeletons out of the way, ignore her yoga and watch the cleave. Well NOW she will summon a BIG ring of enemies. They are all connected via energy in a big circle and they will slowly walk to the middle of the room until there is no room left to run. If they reach the middle and start channeling, you will have 3 seconds to get out or go BOOM!
This is a simple mechanic. Focus ONE of the shades and kill it at all costs. If you managed to do so, it will make a break in the chain and you can get out of the circle unscathed.
Remember, don’t touch the chain because you will die, and be sure to kill ONE enemy and get out of there!
Grapple – When the boss gets down to 10% health she will cast a HUGE spreading explosion on the whole map in order to kill you. To avoid this you must grapple to one of 3 major points around the room (each one can only be used once). If you make it, you will be able to take a synergy and enter a portal to get to the void.
In there you will fight a previous boss from the different paths you have already completed.
In order from left to right, it is the Lightning mage first. Then the Minotaur, and then finally the Flame Xyvkin. Their mechanics of course must be paid attention to.
Portal One – Zakuryn: – This boss will channel attacks to stun/snare you which you must interrupt. He will cast lightning on the floor which you must avoid. The easiest way to do this is to just keep moving in a circle until they are over and repeat as much as you need to. He will also change locations occasionally so place your ground abilities carefully as to not have to keep recasting too much.
Portal Two – Rahdgarak: – This boss throw fireballs and pound the ground making large snare AOEs on the ground which also do damage over time. This is probably one of the easiest bosses in the portals.
Portal Three – Pyrelord: – This is probably the most difficult of the Minis in the portals and the most dangerous to take on FIRST. During his fight he will have his breath mechanic from the original boss fight, and his “spinny spinny” attack from that fight too. Remember you can risk it and follow it around, OR you can get to a long ranged position and stay out of trouble.
However this fight does get a little more dangerous. During this fight he will spawn a Flame Shaper. This is a small add with a decent amount of health but he will channel fire constantly unless you interrupt it. You MUST interrupt it! Much like round 8 in Veteran Maelstrom Arena, these guys are a problem!
Back in the room! – This is the final piece of the puzzle you need in order to get this done. EACH portal that you go into the boss will start to heal up. The longer you are in there the more health she will get. And each check point 30%50%70% and 90% she will RESPAWN a Void Colossus. Meaning you will have to deal with them again.
You CAN take your time here and just repeat the first phase all over again (kill skeles then focus the boss) but of course the more efficient you are the less tricky it is going to get.
Once you are OUT of the portal, you will have all the previous mechanics BUT you now have the boss mechanic too.
You will get the lightning from the sky from the first boss. You will get the ground snare from the second, and you will have the flame shaper for the third.
Which order you do this in is 100% up to you but i would recommend going left to right.
Remember this phase will happen 3 times, one per boss until they are al dead, and they happen when the boss reaches 10%.
EXECUTE! – This is where you need to stop panicking. There is NO enrage, no execute specialty, nothing.
You will have to avoid lightning, watch the snares and interrupt/kill flame shapers. The rest of the fight is the same. Avoid the cleave and the yoga, and kill ANY adds in the room. Once they are all dead apart from the odd respawns, it will just be YOU and the boss. If the shades chain comes in of course deal with it, but from here on out it is just YOU and the enemy that doesn’t hit you very much.
Relax, pace yourself, kill the adds, watch your feet. In fact while dealing with the adds you will be killing the boss anyway if you have enough aoe down on the floor.
MORE focus on the adds LESS focus on the boss, and you WILL do it.
GOOD LUCK!
Arena Loot
Here is a list of all the loot you can expect to find in Vateshran Hollows Arena.
On normal the loot is blue and the boss does drop regular Vatehsran weapons.
On Veteran all loot is purple and you can get PERFECTED Vateshran arena weapons from the final chest.
Final Note
Thank you for taking the time to watch the content and read this guide. Be sure on your travels to remember, although once you get very experienced you may make these dungeons much easier and faster… it starts from the ground up and it’s…
“ALL ABOUT MECHANICS!“
Maelstrom Arena
The Elder Scrolls Online: Maelstrom Arena All About Mechanics Addon link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpHMwmZAu-k The Maelstrom Arena is the Hardest solo content in ESO. This is where you go face to face with the arena and all of it’s challenges, ALONE without the help of a group of friends to bail you
Blackrose Prison
Blackrose Prison All About Mechanics Addon link https://youtu.be/LUSIB0nsZuI This Episode of “All About Mechanics” is taking part in “Blackrose Prison”. This is located in the North Western part of the Murkmire map as shown below left. The bosses are marked on the map below right , with their names and
Dragonstar Arena
Dragonstar Arena All About Mechanics Addon link https://youtu.be/zS-qetKW_cs This Episode of “All About Mechanics” is taking part in “Dragonstar Arena”This is located in the North Western part of the Craglorn map as shown below left. The bosses appear in the last round of each arena, and all arenas look pretty