I was just at Voluund or some such... which is a dungeon I was directed to by this mysterious friend whatever that sends you a note after you get your first shout.

Anyways, I went there together with Lydia, taking on the mobs in the dungeon decently enough. Some of them take a few swings before they go down (like the draugr wight things) but it's not too bad.

Then I get to what is presumably the end (past the door you unlock by getting two weapons) and the boss becomes impossible.

Not only is there a dual wielding ghost boss that literally two-shots both me and Lydia... but another mob, a wight, is also linked in the fight... and to make it even better the wight also summons an ice elemental.

Ontop of that, besides us getting killed in literally 2 hits, the boss has what seems like 25 times more health than rest of the tough mobs in the dungeon. Shooting him multiple times with a bow from range and powerattacking him with a onehander about 4 times before I'm stamina drained will take him to about 85-90% on his health... how am I supposed to defeat this boss when he has such an enormous amount of health as well as doing such a huge amount of damage.

I would need, at least, 50 health potions to get through that fight and even then I'm not sure it would be enough.

What gives?

Rest of the dungeon was fine and I was expecting a tough boss... but not one you can't defeat at all. I tried to reload the game multiple times and in the end I just had to call it quits. Screw it... totally torpedoed my fun and enjoyment in the game to be completely shut down like that on the boss. And sure, I guess some people will say learn to play or some other form of troll attempts. But honestly, I played oblivion alot and I tried different builds in Skyrim as well. But the boss in this dungeon went from "decent challenge" on the minibosses (where you get the two weapons to unlock the main door) to completely impossible on the end boss.

It felt like I was level 5 trying to fight a level 30.

Is there any fix to this ? Sure, I can lower the difficulty, but that means I'll just steamroll everything else in the dungeons which would make the game pretty dull. I want a challenging game, but being shut down on an impossible boss is one of the worst ways to deflate motivation to play the game.

If there is no real fix to this then I don't see how I'll be enjoying Skyrim much, knowing the bosses at the end will just destroy you everytime you finally get there.

maybe you should get stronger before going back. and get better equipment as well

Just lower difficulty when you get by the boss, when done you put it back as it was before.
In this way you won't steamroll the dungeon and won't get one hit killed by bosses.

Wont boss just scale up then and thus not making it any easier anyways?

Or am I missing something about the whole scaling system?

That fellow was damn hard to kill, yeah. I lured his minions away from him, back through the little hallway thingy that led to the room. finishing them off one-by-one. Then a lot of shouting, health potions and 2h powerattacks. Alternatively, use ranged attacks and don't ever let him get close (unrelenting force might help, as does summoning things to delay him or going to hard-to-reach locations.

Is there any cliffs you can fus ro dah him off. That usually works for me when dealing with hard bosses.

That guy is tough one, tougher than your usual Draugr dungeon bosses. He dual-wields two unique weapons that have frost enchanments and slow your movement down on hit. Best bet is to take him out with sneak attacks, if you don't sneak, try to stay out of melee and use long range attacks, if you don't do ranged attacks have heavy frost resistance gear and potions and lots of healing capacity. Or come back at a later level. IIRC he won't grow past level 30.

Edit: Yup, http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Kvenel_the_Tongue confirms he won't grow past 30.

It is my understanding that scaling only takes place the first time you enter a dungeon.

So a dungeon is scaled by, let's use an example of levels 10-15. So if you enter the dungeon at level 6, everything will be level 10. If you go back into that same dungeon at level 18, since you've already set the scale once, everything will still be level 10.

I am unsure about how this works with bosses.

Swallow your pride and come back later. I actually think this is a good thing, these super-enemies. You can go around feeling all badass, until a strong enemy one-shots you. To me, that is a motivating factor.

The dungeon probably has a higher scaling range so like 10-20 or higher. so if you are lower than 10 it would have scaled to a lvl 10 dungeon.

That is true, there is a level scale for each dungeon, and the dungeon's enemies are locked to your level (or the upper/lower limit if you are over/under the scale) when you enter it. In case of Volunruud, the boss scales from levels 1 to 30, so entering at level 1 would have the boss locked at level 1, whereas entering at level 30 or above would lock him at level 30 and between them at your level.

Loot does seem to somewhat scale to your level on revisits, i found a glass weapon from bleak falls barrows once on a revisit.

And in my opinion there's too few of these poweful bosses in the game.

You are just too weak for that fight. Either your level is too low, or you leveled up on skills that don't help you fight or survive. I've said before that health is by far your most important attribute to bump on level ups. It should be 2X or 3X magicka or stamima, if not more. If you need to drop the difficulty to survive, you've done something wrong. I have not found a single boss yet that can't be taken down on the first try, on Adept. I'm on my 3rd playthrough now. The few times I've died have been the result of carelessness when wandering around, or a nasty trap in a dwemer ruin.

I've found having Sanguine's Rose handy to provide a constant stream of distractions is useful. I was there recently and provided a bit of fire support from the shadows while my boys took care of business. Took a lot of them though. Cowardly and drawn out, but ultimately effective.

I had a very similar experience yesterday. I was playing a mage on Master difficulty, and in a dungeon, most of the enemies would go down with a few firebolts. Then I get to the boss, and one firebolt didn't even take away 1/50th of its health. I find it a bit strange though that some others are experiencing this with melee characters, because I have never experienced this with my melee characters. I only expected this to only happen with destruction mages.

I once went to Forelhost quite early, about level 15 or so, and it seemed to be spawning draugr of a higher level than I would have expected - I don't know if it's supposed to do that or if it was some kind of glitch. But after endless waves of wights and scourges battered me, I had to swallow my pride and backtrack.

It was good to be humbled.

There are no impossible bosses in this game. If its to hard for your character either run away and come back later when you a higher level, as the dungeon is locked to the level you are when you first enter it; Or turn the difficulty down.

I didi the same thing. It was great having to use traps, hit-and-run tactics to succeed. Took me almost 2 hours and many reloads to clear the place out. But when i finally killed the boss and got a dragonpriest mask, i did not feel good using it due to my char being argonian

Yes, conjure up whatever you can in the big fights. They are a huge help. Flame atronachs are cheap to conjure and very effective at distracting and even dispatching a boss's minions. Just stay away from them when they get killed. LOL

Just as simple as that - your damage is too weak if even a Draugr Wight takes more than one hit, your armor rating is probably too weak, you do not have enough magic/elemental resistance.

Your equipment is too weak because you do not utilize enchanting-alchemy-smithing properly. And I'm not taking into account the fortify restoration potion glitch either, as you can make a more than strong enough character without it.

Seriously... how am I going to 1 shot wights with a 1H in the very first dungeon I am sent to after I get my very first shout at the very beginning of the game?

Yes I understand that leveling up blacksmithing and using enchanting to boost your overall damage potential as well as mitigation / resists is needed, later on.

Do you expect me to have daedric, glass or even dwarven armor immediately after I get the first shout and the reward from the Jarl of Whiterun, which is something as simplistic as a leather tunic or a semi-useless axe?

I'm handling everything else in the dungeon without dying, reloading or even using health potions... then wham... killed in two hits while doing almost no damage to the boss. I don't see how this is logical, or good dungeon design, radiant system or not. If the boss is going to be near impossible, or requiring me to spend a full afternoon just leveling smithing and enchanting as well as stockpiling healthpotions to be doable at teen-levels, then the full range of mobs in the dungeon should also be giving me alot more grief than they are.

If the minibosses wiped me out 5 times before I finally manage to defeat them, then yes, I'd understand the current difficulty of this endboss. As it is right now though, there is such a huge gap between the strength and health of the end boss compared to everything else in there that it feels as if the whole scaling thing has gone completely bonkers.

Guess I'll just leave and come back later, if I can bother to continue with the game. Not very motivated to go explore another dungeon considering how weirdly the boss difficulty is scaled compared to rest of the dungeons.

Interesting...Today I was in the same dungeon and the boss was not that though, used some healing potions and it was OK. I usually try to fight strategically don't run into the room where the boss is because usually some others attack at the same time. Try to kill them one by one by running in and out. Also using the shout that slows time is very useful during boss fights

What level were you when you went to Volunruud? And do you remember the type of the most difficult Draugr you met? Sometimes the leveling gets messed up and give you a tougher dungeon than you are supposed to get. I kept getting a room full of Draugr Deathlords at Dustman's Cairn when I was entering the dungeon at level 10. A while later I discovered that it was not normal to get Deathlords at level 10 and the game was glitched somehow. Starting a new game fixed the dungeon leveling problem for me.

According to this thread I saw a while ago http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1367346-high-level-dungeons/ , other people think Volunruud is challenging at early level also.

I heard that dungeons located at higher elevation is higher level and more difficult. Looks like Volunruud is located at a fairly high elevation area.

I guess you just got lucky.

They are not scaling that hard + monsters have scale caps. So you should eventually kick it's ass. Why do people think everything should be solvable at level 1.

The 'mysterious friend' thing is just highlighting the location of a random word wall. The draugr will be scaled to your level, but that dungeon has a tough boss who probably doesn't scale down enough for your character to handle that early - he's kinda a 'name' boss and not a generic scaled draugr. AFAIK there's one questline that sends you to that dungeon which is probably going to be a good few levels into the game unless you're targeting that particular questline from the outset. And you don't have to go through the dungeon for that quest anyway.

It's unlikely you'll have the same experience in other dungeons. Unless it's Forelhost, LOL.

In my first playthrough I started the companions early on and got sent to some falmer dungeon where I got totally owned. Myself, I think it's better Bethesda have started to mix it up a bit and do your head in than the dull predicatablity of rigid scaling they've employed previously.

Don't charge in like a "true nord"
Get better gear
Level up
Enchant stuff
Try to get some sneak shots.
Use a follower that's ranged with staffs... Dule wielding is devastating. Fus ro dah. Run to heal or quick attacks
Use potions...

Or better yet put it off till later.

Personally if you want easy mode try turning difficulty to easy. I like being forced to level and upgrade my gear/character