Elden Hollow is the second 4-man group dungeon for the Aldmeri Dominion in Elder Scrolls Online. The dungeon is tuned to level 20-23 players in normal mode, and it’s located right next to Elden Root, the Wood Elf capital city in Grahtwood.
Daggerfall Covenant and Ebonheart Pact can run through the dungeon after they’ve completed their own level 20-23 dungeons, Wayrest Sewers or Darkshade Caverns.
This dungeon guide explains the main boss mechanics in Elden Hollow.
Elden Hollow Overview
The dungeon quest for Elden Hollow can be picked up as soon as you are teleported to the instance. I won’t spoil the story, but once again, you will receive a skill point for completing the quest.
Elden Hollow is filled with bandits, Alit and Spriggans.
Recommended Group setup
Elden Hollow can be a pretty demanding instance for first timers. A healer is most definitely recommended, and having a tank will be highly beneficial to the group.
Bosses
- Akash gra-Mal
- Ancient Spriggan (optional miniboss)
- Chokethorn
- Nenesh gro-Mal (optional miniboss)
- Leafseether (miniboss)
- Canonreave Oraneth
Normal Mode
Akash gra-Mal
Level: 23
Health: 16,060
Akash gra-Mal is the first boss in Elden Hollow. She has no adds to worry about and the fight is pretty straight forward even though she does have a decent number of abilities.
Boss mechanics
- Akash gra-Mal has a frontal cone slam attack which is very hard to avoid. The tank should face her away from the rest of the group.
- Akash periodically leaps to a distant target, dealing light physical damage.
- After each leap, Akash begins to swing her weapon above her head, chasing after the tank and dealing damage to anyone caught in her radius. The whirlwind doesn’t do that much damage and it can be avoided easily.
- The tank needs to look out for her heavy attacks, which can and should be blocked. They are probably the biggest source of damage in this fight.
Ancient Spriggan
Level: 23
Health: 4,818
Ancient Spriggan is an optional miniboss in Elden Hollow. There’s no reason not to kill her, but she’s pretty easy to miss. The fight is very simple and shouldn’t be a problem.
Boss mechanics
- Ancient Spriggan has a frontal cone attack. It’s possible to avoid it, but in all honesty is probably not worth the effort in Normal mode.
- Ancient Spriggan is surrounded by a few spriggan adds, which are easy to AOE down with her.
- Every now and then the boss spawns a kwama add.
Chokethorn
Level: 23
Health: 22,484
Chokethorn is a nasty stationary plant boss in Elden Hollow. This fight will test your group’s ability to move away from quickly expanding red circles of doom. The fight can take a long time because of Chokethorn’s high health pool and the fact that his adds heal him.
Boss mechanics
- Chokethorn periodically pulls distant targets to him.
- The main thing to look out for is his giant AOE poison attack. A red circle will appear beneath him and quickly increase in size. It can be difficult to get away in time unless you are ready to sprint / roll away. You’ll take massive poison damage and be stunned if you fail to get out in time.
- Chokethorn spawns Stranger Saplings around the room. They target Chokethorn with a green healing beam. The heals can be interrupted, but you should just kill them as quickly as you can.
Nenesh gro-Mal
Level: 21
Health: 4,302
Nenesh gro-Mal is the fourth boss in Elden Hollow. He’s an optional miniboss and can be skipped if needed, though I don’t see why you would want to skip him. The fight can be pretty chaotic because of the large number of bandits surrounding him. The adds, especially the healers and casters, should be taken down asap before focusing on Nenesh.
Boss mechanics
- Near the beginning of the fight, Nenesh casts invisibility. This can break the tank’s attention. Just wait for him to pop up and calmly take over again. Meanwhile, the rest of the group should focus on dealing with the adds.
- He has a heavy melee attack which needs to be blocked.
- Periodically Nenesh casts a pool of Shock under him which deals high Shock damage and briefly stuns.
- After the AOE shock attack, Nenesh casts Lightning Form on himself, increasing his defenses.
Leafseether
Level: 23
Health: 8,030
Leafseether is a giant Alit miniboss in Elden Hollow who hits pretty hard.
Boss mechanics
- Leafseether does a highly damaging jump attack on the tank. You don’t seem to be able to avoid it – just eat it up.
- The boss has a frontal cone breath attack which deals quite high damage.
- Every now and then Leafseether pulls targets directly in front of him. He likes to do it at the same time with his frontal cone breath attack, resulting in large damage intake for the group.
Canonreave Oraneth
Level: 23
Health: 16,060
Canonreave Oraneth is the final boss in Elden Hollow. This fight includes both unavoidable and avoidable damage, meaning a healer will be highly beneficial. You don’t necessarily need a tank for this – in fact you’re probably better off killing her from afar with ranged attacks.
Having a dispel ability and AOE crowd control will make the fight a lot easier.
Boss mechanics
- Canonreave Oraneth’s most lethal ability is her poison damage over time attack. She’ll “load” her casting animation for a while and shoot a green blob at someone. The target will take HIGH poison damage over 4-5 seconds and, unless healed or cleansed, will almost certainly die.
- Every now and then Oraneth casts a red circle beneath her, dealing high poison damage and briefly stunning all targets caught in it. It can be tricky to get out of it in time. Getting caught in it will overburden your healer in the long run, because she has to deal with the poison DOT as well. The safest way to deal with the AOE poison attack is to just stay away from melee range altogether.
- Oraneth also casts a poison rune on a random player’s location. If you fail to get out of it in time, you’ll be rooted and stuck half way under the ground. The root only lasts for a few seconds, and you can break out of it with the Break Free stamina ability if needed.
- After a few seconds, 4 skeleton adds will pop up from the rune’s location. There’s two ways to deal with the skeletons. The first way is nice and simple: you kill them. The other way is to ignore them because they despawn after 15 seconds anyway. Having AOE root/CC abilities such as Sorcerer’s Encase or Dragonknight’s Dark Talons will be highly beneficial.