Moon Hunter Keep Dungeon Guide

Welcome to the Veteran Moon Hunter Keep Dungeon Guide! (vMHK)

This walkthrough will mainly focus on doing this dungeon on Veteran difficulty, you will also learn how to beat the last boss on Hard Mode (non-HM included as well).

If you are on normal difficulty, it will all be the same only a lot more forgiving.

Moon Hunter Keep is one of the hardest dungeons in the game. It is also one of my favorites, it has lots of fun mechanics and varied boss fights.

If you are struggling, make sure to follow along with the guide as you go and I will get you through this fantastic dungeon!

Every boss in this dungeon will trigger mechanics based on its health. Maxing out your DPS on any boss is not advised unless you are fully aware of the different mechanics.

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Table Of Contents

• Dungeon Overview
• Dangerous Trash Monsters
• First Boss: Jailer Melitus
• Second Boss: Hedge Maze Guardian
• Third Boss: Mylenne Moon-Caller
• Fourth Boss: The Archivist Ernarde
• Final Boss: Vykosa the Ascendant
• Final Boss: Hard Mode

Dungeon Overview

Dangerous Trash Monsters

In between fights you will encounter some pretty nasty monsters that need to be dealt with properly.

First Boss: Jailer Melitus

The Jailer is the first boss in Moon Hunter Keep and is fairly straight forward. It’s quite easy to wipe on this boss though so make sure you are aware of the mechanics.

Mechanics

Adds

Adds will spawn based on the boss’ health at:

80% – 50% – 30%

The Werewolf adds are the highest priority in this fight, make sure the damage dealers jump on these as soon as they spawn. The tank has to taunt the Werewolves as they will perform a jump attack that will one-shot and damage dealer or healer (even if you block). Dodging is the only way for a non-tank to survive this attack.

Make sure to clear all adds before bringing the boss down to the next mark!

AOE with projectiles

The boss will get an expanding circle underneath his feet that will burst when it reaches it’s max radius. This deals a lot of damage so make sure to stay away from this.

Right after that, poisonous projectiles will shoot out in all directions tracing the ground. These slow you down significantly and put a very nasty DOT (Damage Over Time) effect if you get hit.

The further away from the boss you are when this happens, the easier it will be to avoid the projectiles. Make sure to do your best at avoiding these!

Blood Fountains

Blood fountains will spawn underneath everyone’s feet at the same time, they will keep appearing so you will have to keep moving around!

Avoid stacking with each other as this will intensify the damage and you will most likely go down!

Tip: If you were hit with a poisonous projectile right before the fountains, you will most likely not make it. You will be severely slowed and won’t be able to avoid the fountains.

Pin Down

The boss will randomly pin down the player that holds aggro, this should be the tank. The pinned player will be unable to move nor block.

This attack has to be interrupted by an ally! Make sure to watch out for those red sparkly lines and be ready to interrupt.

You have a few seconds to interrupt him, if you don’t make it, the tank will get a one-shot hit.

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On your way to the next boss you will encounter some smaller Werewolves, watch out for their jump attacks, if you are not the tank, you have to dodge them! Blocking won’t save you.

As you enter the courtyard you will have Stranglers scattered around. You will also encounter Spriggans. Read the top section to understand how to deal with these fiends.

In the last “room” before the boss you will encounter a new type of Spriggan, it won’t attack anyone but it will heal the big bear (they will appear once the bear hits 50% hp).

You will see bright orbs flying from the Spriggans onto the bear, this is how you locate where they are. There will be two of them and they need to be dealt with before you can take out the bear.

This is actually a little practice section for the upcoming boss as you will see in the next section.

Second Boss: Hedge Maze Guardian

The second boss in Moon Hunter Keep is a little different from other bosses in ESO.

Tank

• You should aggro the boss and back off into the gate you just entered through.
• Make sure the boss is always facing you, ie away from the group.
• Standing here (underneath the canopy with your back against the gate) will for some reason protect you from the roots that shoot out from the boss, more on these later.
• That is it for you, this is a bit of a boring fight for tanks 🙂 You just stand here now and hold the boss, making sure he doesn’t turn around or anything like that and this fight will be a breeze. Make sure you are blocking a lot though!

Healer

• Stand behind the boss and keep the tank alive for the duration of this fight, never leave the tank!

Damage Dealers

• This fight is all up to you two! You will need to understand the mechanics so pay attention as we go through it all!

Mechanics

Healing Spriggans

Based on the boss’ health, he will summon Spriggans that will start healing him. He won’t actually gain back health, but you will be unable to damage him further.

The Spriggans will spawn when the boss’ health is at:

75% (x2 Spriggans) – 55% (x3 Spriggans) – 35% (x5 Spriggans)

Before you can resume damaging the boss, we need to deal with these Spriggans.

They will be around the sides of the courtyard, but will also be hiding in the hedge maze.

You need to look at where the bright orbs that fly to the boss are coming from and locate the Spriggans that way.

The Damage Dealers should ALWAYS stick together when moving through the maze! There will be Stranglers within the maze. If one of you gets grabbed by one, you need your ally there to break you free!

Remember, the boss will not regenerate health – So no need to panic, take your time!

The Healer should not accompany the Damage Dealers through the maze, stay with the tank.

Cone AOE

The boss will perform a cone AOE that will carry through the hedge and everything, it has infinite length! This is why it is so important that the tank keep the boss facing the gate at all times.

Any party member hit by this except the tank will drop instantly! Tank – you should be blocking this.

Entangling Roots

The boss will shoot out roots that target all players. You will get snared and take a lot of damage. You have to roll-dodge to get out of it.

Tank: If you are standing with your back against the gate, you won’t be affected by this.

Damage Dealers: While you are in the hedge maze you will not get snared.

Third Boss: Mylenne Moon-Caller

• The third boss can be very frustrating and seem chaotic at first. No worries, if we just focus on the right things, it will be quite straight forward.
• Shock Wardens are the key to winning this fight, make sure everyone in your group understands what to do with them.
• The mechanics on this boss are health-based, if you are struggling, make sure to take it slow.

Mechanics

Shock Wardens (and what to do with them)

Shock Wardens will spawn based on the boss’ health as follows:

80% – 60% – 40% – 20%

The first thing you should know is that; Whenever the Shock Wardens spawn, the boss will enrage increasing his damage output significantly.

Whenever a Shock Warden goes down, it will leave a circle AOE of shock residue on the ground. The only way to cleanse the boss from his enrage is to drag him into this shock AOE. Tank – You need to make sure you do this!

It’s generally good practice to keep the boss close to the shock wardens so that he gets cleansed as soon as they go down.

The Shock Wardens will also cast very very powerful AOEs targeted at each player and randomly on the ground. They will one-shot squishy players!

Damage Dealers: Getting the shock wardens is your number one priority!

Dire Wolves

Dire Wolves will spawn when the boss’ health reaches:

90% – 70% – 50% – 30% – 10%

The wolves will target one player and start chasing that person. You’ll know if you are the target if you get a red effect around your upper body as seen below.

If you are the target, bring the wolves to the tank who will need to use Talons (dragon knight) or any other Crowd Control ability to slow them down or keep them in place.

The wolves deal a lot of damage, if you are targeted, make sure you keep your distance from them!

Damage Dealers: Focus on these wolves, they are not super hard to kill, try to bring them down before the next group of Shock Wardens spawn.

Pin Down

Similar to the first boss, Mylenne will jump on a random player and pin them to the ground.

The main difference here is that the target is random AND anyone standing close to the person getting pinned will also get pinned.

As with the first boss, she needs to be interrupted by an ally. If not – the pinned player(s) will die.

If all four get pinned, it’s a wipe 🙂

Make sure to spread out but not too far, you need to interrupt the boss quickly when someone gets pinned!

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To get to the next boss you will need to make your way through the library. Lots of urns and trunks to loot here 🙂

You will face a few of the Hulking Werewolves along the way, may sure to face them away from the group. Always target this Werewolf first!

You will also encounter some smaller enemies, no big deal really.

Fourth Boss: The Archivist Ernarde

• This is the most difficult and most demanding fight in Moon Hunter Keep (apart from the final boss on hard mode).
• There are many mechanics to pay attention to and the pacing is very important here as well.
• Damage on the boss should be very slow and controlled, you can almost just heavy attack him to build up resources and Ultimate. If you damage him too fast, you will get several mechanics triggered at the same time and you will wipe.

Due to the difficulty of this boss, I will first explain the mechanics. After that, I will take you through the fight from start to finish detailing when each mechanic happens and what to do.

Mechanics

Adds

Adds will spawn in pairs based on the boss’ health, the percentage marks are:

80% – 60% – 40% -20%

• You will get one add spawning in the middle of each staircase.
• There will also be two adds present as the fight starts.
• The Archivist will randomly select one add which he will transform into a Werewolf Behemoth. There is a separate section on the Werewolves below.

Further information on how to best deal with the adds in the step by step section after the mechanics.

Werewolf Behemoth

These are similar to the Hulking Werewolves you encountered on your way here, but these have more health, and deal more damage.

The same principles apply though, they have a cone AOE attack and a big AOE slam. They need to be faced away from the group. See the map below for a positioning suggestion.

This is the only real DPS check in this dungeon, here’s why:

The Werewolf will put a bleed on the tank called Festering Wounds. This bleed will stack and deal more and more damage to the tank the longer the werewolf stays alive. At a certain point, the tank will not be able to withstand the bleed.

The Werewolf needs to go down before the tank does 🙂

You have between 30 seconds to a minute to get the Werewolf down depending on the strength of your Tank.

Healer: Make sure to blast heals onto the tank when he is facing off with the Werewolf!

Needless to say, taking care of the Werewolf is priority number one!

Note: The boss will have a red ring around him, any add that touches this ring will enrage and deal more damage, do not pull the werewolf into this ring!

Colored Runes

Runes will appear along the edges of the room and the Boss will start shuffling runes above his head.

The boss will eventually stop shuffling and decide on a rune which remains above his head. Everyone needs to run to a matching rune and stand inside it. Only one person per rune!

You have a few seconds to get into a matching rune, if you fail, you will die.

As soon as the boss starts shuffling, everyone should spread out so that everyone gets a rune. It’s good if someone takes the top of the staircase in case there is a rune up there.

Below is a map outlining the position of each rune.

It’s a lot easier to be on discord for this as you can call out if you have an unusual clumping of runes near your location etc. Hopefully, they are spread out a bit so that you can each grab a rune, but sometimes you’ll get ie 3 blue runes stacked very close to each other.

Tip: You can see which runes he is selecting by looking at the “portals” themselves as well. Not only by looking above his head.

The correct runes will light up with some golden fairy dust emitting from them. This is a good way to double-check that you are in the right spot. (Keep in mind that these will also keep shuffling until the boss makes up his mind).

Crushing Bubble

A random player will be targeted by the Archivist and will become encased in a bubble.

The other members of the party need to turn to the bubbled person and free him/her by attacking the bubble.

You have 10 seconds to free the person or they will get taken out. You need to react super quick here and max out your dps to free the person. This gets especially tricky when one of the Damage Dealers gets bubbled.

Lightning AOE

The Archivist will target a random player with an AOE, it will take a few seconds before it goes off.

Make sure everyone stays clear of the AOE!

If you are the target: It’s usually best to just stand still and let the other players run away, otherwise you will most likely run into someone 🙂 Also, don’t forget to block!

The Archivist: Step By Step

It’s easy to turn this fight into complete chaos, so let’s go through this one step by step now that you have had a chance to look at the mechanics.

Since this boss is health based, we will take it in increments of percentages.

Step 1: 100% – 80%

First, you’ll want to deal with are the adds. The one on the right has a lot less health than the left one. If you have good DPS, you can kill it before it has a chance to turn into a Werewolf (if that is the one being transformed).

As soon as you get a Werewolf, focus ALL damage on that! Deal with the remaining add after if it is still around. If you wait too long, the other add will also turn into a wolf.

Now we can move onto the boss, just use heavy attacks and some light abilities, no heavy AOEs or DOTs. We want to bring him down to around 90% – 85% and then halt all damage.

Someone will be bubbled shortly, deal with the bubble. After that, the Rune Phase will start.

As soon as the Runes are over, revive any member that didn’t make it, then bring the Archivist down to 80%.

Step 2: 80% – 60%

At 80% we will get another round of adds, that is why it’s so important that we stop damaging the boss at around 85% – 90%. We do not want to deal with a Werewolf while doing the runes.

The damage dealers should deal with the add that spawns on the left staircase. I recommend getting into position and dropping AOEs where it will spawn at around 81% so it dies super quick. This way, if it starts turning into a wolf, you will most likely finish it off before it has a chance to turn.

The tank will ignore the left add and immediately grab the one on the right and hold it over in that corner as indicated on the Werewolf Positioning Map. It doesn’t matter if it turns into a wolf or not. You will still remain there and wait for the Damage Dealers to deal with it.

Once the adds are dealt with, return to the boss with slow damage, restore your resources. Do not push him past 60%!

As with step one, we will get another bubble and then another rune phase.

Once those are done, bring him down to 60% and proceed.

Step 3: 60% – 40%

This will now be an exact repetition of the previous step. Adds at 60%, then bubble, then rune phase. Then adds again at 40%.

Step 4: 40% – 0%

Depending on your DPS, you might be able to ignore the adds at 40% and start burning the boss. The tank needs to pick up the Werewolf of course and point him away from the group. The Damage Dealers should keep maxing DPS on the boss until it’s down.

If this is a bit too tough, you can just repeat the process in Step 2 from 40% – 20%, and then start burning at 20% instead.

I know it’s a lot 🙂 But really, you are pretty much just repeating Step 2 until the end with some minor differences in Step 1.

If you are Alcast then you start burning the boss at 100% 🙂 But for normal players that is not an option.

Final Boss: Vykosa the Ascendant

• Another health-based fight, take things slow, stay in control and this will not be too hard.
• Most of this fight involves dealing with adds and the chained wolves, damage on the boss should be very light. Just do heavy and light attacks on the boss to build up resources and Ultimate.
• Make sure you deal with all adds before you bring the boss down to the next mechanic trigger. Every 10% you will get either the chained wolves or adds.

Tank

• You should stay put in your position as indicated on the map throughout this fight.
• Make sure to always hold aggro on Ary when she is out.
• The boss will throw a bunch of different fears on you. Most of them won’t affect you if you hold block. Try to block as much as possible through the fight.
• Vykosa has a cone AOE that goes really far. Make sure she is faced away from the group!

Healer

• The tank will run low on resources, feeding with shards if you have them is very helpful.
• Pay extra attention when the tank is holding both the Boss and Ary, he/she will need extra healing!

Mechanics

Chained Wolves

• The idea here is that the wolves are connected to each other through the same chain. The chain runs through the walls from one wolf to the other.
• This means: If one wolf is out running around, the other wolf will be stuck by the wall as the chain is too short for them both to run around.

• When the fight starts, the tank should pull Ary (The left, brown wolf) and keep her by the boss in the tank position as indicated above.
• Zel (the grey wolf on the right) should not be taunted by the tank. She will be on a short leash so the Damage Dealers can comfortably keep their distance and bring her down.

At the start of the fight, Damage Dealers should immediately focus on Zel until she is down.

• The chained wolves will swipe players with their claws (this won’t kill you, it will eat up around 75% of your health), so if you get two in a row, you will go down.
• Their cone AOE, however, is a one-shot, except the tank (if you block). Stay out of it if you are not the tank!
• If both wolves are alive for too long, one will pounce high in the air and one-shot anyone who is standing where the wolf lands. Watch out for that.

After that, damage should be focused on Ary. Tank – you should keep her taunted by the boss, don’t let her go.

The wolves won’t actually die, they just cower in their corner when their health reaches 0%.

They will come back when the boss reaches certain health percentages;

80% – 60% – 40% – 10%

At 10%, the wolves will be off their leash and run around freely. The tank should taunt them both.

Damage Dealers can ignore the wolves at this point and finish off the boss.

Small Wolf Adds

Two small wolves will spawn at the back of the room when the boss reaches the following health percentages:

90% – 70% – 50% – 30%

Try to crowd control them with slows or stuns so that they don’t run up next to the boss. We want them separated so that you don’t accidentally bring the boss down to the next mechanics trigger.

Watch out for the jumps! They will jump at their target and perform a one-shot. Make sure to dodge this, the tank can block it.

Deal with the adds first and then resume heavy attacking on the boss until the chained wolves show up.

At 30% you will get 4 adds instead, make sure to save up ultimates for this part.

Fears

Vykosa will summon a fear totem. If you stay within it’s AOE radius, you will get feared and start running in a random direction. Stay clear of the totem!

She will also perform a fear that affects anyone within the AOE around Vykosa herself.

Fireball AOE

Vykosa will randomly shoot out fireballs that hit the ground, deal splash damage and will leave a burning ring of fire for a few seconds. Try to avoid this as best as you can.

Final Boss: Hard Mode

Vykosa on Hard Mode is much harder than the regular version. I do not recommend even attempting this until you have a very good grasp of the regular fight.

All the mechanics on regular are still present, with a lot more added. Let’s go through each of them.

• Your number one priority on HM will be to clear adds, shock wardens are always highest priority.
• Take it slow! Stay in full control over the boss’ health.

Adds

You will have way more adds on hard mode. They will spawn at the following health percentages:

90% – 85% — 70% – 65% — 50% – 45% — 30% – 25% — 10% – 5%

As you can tell, the triggers for adds are very tight! Make sure to keep the damage on the boss slow and controlled!

Do not drop a bunch of AOEs and DOTs on the boss as this will most likely result in an overwhelming amount of adds.

From 90% to 65% the adds will be very similar to the regular mode, but a few more will spawn.

At 50% Shock Wardens will start spawning.

Shock Wardens

As the shock wardens start spawning, we will introduce a familiar mechanic from the third boss (Mylenne Moon-Caller). Every enemy including Vykosa will enrage whenever a shock warden is present. The shock Warden needs to go down ASAP and Vykosa should be cleansed in the lightning residue left by the shock warden.

Once the boss hits 50% shock wardens will also start spawning on a timer right next to the boss.

At 20% shock wardens will stop spawning.

The Archivist Runes

When Vykosa reaches 30% health, you will get a rune phase just like the on the previous boss. This works just the same, everyone needs to find a rune matching the one above the Archivist’s head.

You might only see 3 matching runes, this is because one rune is hidden and will look like this:

This rune needs to be used as well for everyone to survive, it can be a little tricky to spot. It will be the only rune without a symbol on top of it.

Most enemies will freeze during the rune phase. The boss and the chained wolves can NOT be damaged. However, the smaller wolf adds and the shock wardens can be damaged, so focus all your damage on them at this point.

20% Mayhem

At 20% the chained wolves will return, only they will break free from their chains.

What seems to work best here is to take Zel down, ignore Ary and then focus on the boss. Once Zel is down, it’s time to execute the boss, drop Ultis and everything you’ve got!

The tank should be holding Ary and the Boss while the damage dealers nuke Vykosa.

At 10% things will go crazy, you will get more adds, these are the same adds on the archivist, and yes, they will turn into Werewolf Behemoths! Just ignore these and keep nuking the boss! If one add turns into a werewolf, the tank needs to grab it and point it AWAY from the group while the damage dealers finish off the boss. (Unlike what I did in the video below which resulted in both the healer and one damage dealer dying xD )

This fight will take many tries! Keep going until you find a good pace for your group. I included a video of our first Moon Hunter Keep HM clear for reference 🙂