ESO Graven Deep Dungeon Tank Guide

Graven Deep Guide by Irreverent Aegis

This is an Elder Scrolls Online Tank guide for the Graven Deep dungeon which is located in the High Isle area.

Graven Deep was released with Update 35 – Lost Depths in August 2022.

In this dungeon you’ll encounter 3 main bosses, each with their own hardmode and 3 optional/secret bosses.

Mzugru, Security Drone – Optional Boss 1

Attacks to look out for

  • Heavy Attack: Just block
  • AOE Single Spin: Just block
  • AOE Sky Missiles: Only happens during the invulnerable phase. Boss shoots up into the sky. AOE circles appear on ground. They are easy to walk out of before they land.

Adds/Mini-bosses Notes:

  • Power Transmitter: A transmitter will appear that will make the boss go invulnerable. Just debuff it for your group to take it down faster.

Mechanics tank is responsible for:

  • Hold aggro, don’t die. 
  • Debuff the power transmitter.

Special Notes:

  • The invulnerability phase of the fight seems to happen on a timer. If you get it more than once, find stronger friends.

The Euphotic Gatekeeper – Boss 1

Attacks to look out for:

  • Leap: The boss will leap to somewhere in the arena. Where he lands, a geyser and a pangrit will spawn. In addition, a couple AOE circles will shoot out from where he lands.
  • Triple Charge: Early in the fight, he’ll triple charge in a triangle pattern after every leap. He’ll end very close to where he started. Later on in the fight, the leap and charge aren’t paired together. The charge will knock you over even if you are blocking. While charging, he will shoot AOE circles in the direction of his movement.
  • After Image (Dragonball style): The boss leaves behind an after image. The after image grows an AOE, then it explodes, sending AOEs everywhere.
  • Heavy Attack: This is often paired with the after image. Expect the heavy to come right after it most of the time.

Adds/Mini-bosses Notes:

  • Pangrit: They will spawn at the geysers when the boss leaps. They can be killed instantly when the growing AOE synergy (called Bristlepitch) is placed on the geyser. They should be taunted if they aren’t killed right away. They do some bat sonar attack and a frontal cone attack. Best to keep those off your group.

Mechanics tank is responsible for:

  • Hold the boss next to where he leaps. It makes it easier for the DDs and the healer to drop the synergy on the geyser.

Additional mechanics tank should be aware of:

  • If Bristlepitch isn’t dropped on a geyser, Pangrits will keep spawning. Also, the Bristlepitch will leave a giant AOE wherever it was dropped. It’ll eventually go away, but it takes a while.

Special Notes:

  • If you get the Bristlepitch synergy, it means everyone in your group is dead. But you already knew that because it’s your fault. You just wanted to finish off the boss yourself because you never get to kill anything, so you made sure they died at like 1% boss health. Then you realized 1% was still way too much for you to deal with, so you ended up wiping anyway. Lesson learned. Make sure it’s 0.1% next time. Anyway, drop the Bristlepitch on the geyser.

The Euphotic Gatekeeper – Boss 1 Hardmode

Differences:

  • Upon reviewing the video, there are no differences other than the boss’s health and the amount of damage he does. If anybody notices anything, I’ll update this.

Xzyviian, Defense Crawler – Optional Boss 2

Attacks to look out for

  • Frontal Conal Attack: Just face boss away like usual and block
  • Exorcist Style Flame AOEs: Boss will rotate his head around 360 degrees and shoot fire everywhere. Ignore it. If you are going to go out, might as well go out in a blaze. Actually, if you die on this boss, your tank card is going to be removed.

Special Notes:

  • This is the most acrobatic dwemer creation ever. Marvel at his gymnastic ability and form a fan club!

Varzunon – Boss 2

Attacks to look out for:

  • Overhead Smash: Boss’s hands start to glow. He raises his hands overhead then smashes them down on you. They put a line of AOE circles in your direction. These circles hurt a lot and will grab you if you stand in them too long, essentially perma-stunning you until you die. In conclusion, don’t stand in the circles. If you are really lazy, you can find the small space between the circles to stand, and if you are in just the right spot, you won’t ever need to move from that spot at all for the entire fight because he’ll keep placing them in the same exact spot.
  • AOE Ground Stomp: Stand inside it and block. Doesn’t hurt that much, even when boss is at full mast.
  • Death Cloud: Boss channels a cloud circle above his head. It sends out an attack every second for 6 seconds that hits all group members. This hurts everybody else a lot more than it hurts you, but it still hurts you more than his other attacks. It helps to have a healer, so your group members survive. As the tank, you can self-heal no problem through this, even when the boss is at maximal size, and you are mystic guarding your DD because you stupidly decided to 2-man this dungeon.

Adds/Mini-bosses Notes:

  • Skeletal Smorgasbord: Boss’s hands start to glow. He raises them from his sides and some skeletons spawn of various names, types, ethnicities, genders, sexualities, and personality flaws. Chain them in so they die in the cleave, or if you want, make your DDs struggle to kill things quickly and/or survive.
  • Skeletal Sacrifices: Boss summons these with the other skeletons. They work like Viagra, but only for Varzunon, who is conveniently made of bones. If they reach the boss, they enter him and make him longer and harder. They can be killed before they reach him, but if your DDs are good enough to do that, then they’re good enough to just stack on the boss and kill him while ignoring these. If they aren’t strong enough to kill them quickly, then this fight is going to take way too long no matter what your strategy is, and you should probably just drop group and leave the party without saying a word. It’s called quiet quitting, and it’s all the rage these days, at least that’s what Tik Tok told me. Regardless, everyone should ignore these.

Mechanics tank is responsible for:

  • Just chain in adds (or be a necro and passively do this), hold aggro, and don’t stand in stupid.

Special Notes:

  • As Varzunon grows in size, his hit box becomes nearly impossible to find. Perhaps that will be fixed by the time you are reading this, but you have to look up really high at him to reapply taunt or to hit him with any melee abilities. Make sure you are on your range taunt bar to make it easier.

If you did the 2nd optional boss, you’ll have the option of activating the laser defence system throughout the fight. After an hour of testing how best to use it, the conclusion is that it’s a stupid waste of time. WTF were they thinking when they made this?

Varzunon – Boss 2 Hardmode

Differences:

  • Overhead smash puts out 3 lines of AOE circles in a T-shape.
  • There are 3 skeletal sacrifices per add summoning phase instead of 2
  • Strategy is the same. Stack and whack.

Chralzak, Sphere 9402-A – Optional Boss 3

Attacks to look out for:

  • Weak downward lightning slap: Boss looks like he’s about to pet you on the head, aggressively. Telegraphed with a big circle on the ground. Shoots out lightning when it slaps. Barely does any damage.
  • Weak 360 degree AOE spin: Does what name says it does.
  • The Stranger: With his left hand, the boss tickles you with a little bit of lightning, for that nice, tingly feel. Doesn’t hurt. Actually, feels pretty good.
  • Aggro ignoring AOE that targets someone other than you: Let’s be honest. You don’t really care about this.

Mechanics tank is responsible for:

  • Tutorial: Block. If you’re on console, put a rubber band around your controller so it holds down the left trigger. If you’re on PC, add-ons play 100% of the game for you, so just turn on the one that blocks for you. While this is going on, text 2 to 3 loved ones letting them know how much you appreciate them. It’ll make them feel special. They won’t even know you did it because some video game webpage told you to.