Silver Bolts vs Venom Arrow

MorHawk

So I've compared these two before, and it has been dismissed for various reasons, the main one being that it didn't scale off weapon power and stamina like the bow skills did. However, I just saw this in the patch notes:
"Damage from Silver Bolts...is now based on stamina and weapon damage instead of magicka and spell power."

EDIT:
I've now tested them on the PTS, and confirmed the above is indeed the case. Comparative damage figures are below. These are taken from a VR14 template with a full set of Ophidian equipment (including bow). All Medium Armour passives were taken, as well as Ranger from the Bow line for a 20% cost reduction, and 39 points were put into stamina (10 were put in magicka).

Venom Arrow
Cost: 147 Stam
Damage: 255 initial, 290 over 10 seconds (545 total)
Extra: Casting targets are interrupted, put off balance, and stunned for 3 seconds.

Silver Leash/Shards
Cost: 284 Stam
Damage: 315
Extra: Knocks down Daedric/Undead with a 5% chance to nuke them, and a choice of a pull on second use or hit 2 other targets for 53% each.

Both have 28m range, and are instant. I left out Poison injection, as observation on the forums has established it as almost universally inferior for spammable DPS. Damage ratios based on initial damage for both are below:
VA: 255/147=1.735
SL: 315/284= 1.109

So pretty definitive answer here that Venom Arrow is indeed the superior DPS spammer. I've heard rumours that Bolts was stealth nerfed in the last patch, and given the old base figures on ESOhead, that would seem to be the case, but nonetheless, this is how it is now.

MorHawk

Silver Leash/Shards

Just looking at raw spammable single-target DPS, I get a Damage/Stam ratio of .375 for the former, and .413 for the latter, ignoring the DoT (as, I am informed, it doesn't stack).

Khivas_Carrick

Venom Arrow

I use both, but I like the color blue and the Venom Arrow Morph proves rather helpful in PvE situations since it costs way less when wearing Medium Armor.

MorHawk

Silver Leash/Shards

Khivas_Carrick wrote: »

I use both, but I like the color blue and the Venom Arrow Morph proves rather helpful in PvE situations since it costs way less when wearing Medium Armor.

You made your choice based on the poll colour and armour bonuses that affect both skills? Oh dear. Good start.

DuelWieldingCheesyPoofs

i dnt know the animation on the silver bolts seems slower.

maybe you could venom dot and silver bolt, but ive not tested this yet, also interested to know.

combine with snipe morph for extra weapon dmg.

DuelWieldingCheesyPoofs

i seem to find that doing dots /any dots

"seem" to make down time in dps but i dnt know

DuelWieldingCheesyPoofs

tested

id say venom, on my vet 7 it costs double stam and does about the same dmg, animation IS slower.

I very rarely run out of stam but SB just gobbled it up in about 10 secs, seemed less dps.

However - i have no guild passives and its only rank 1, venom is full rank.

Ashanne

Can anyone confirm that silver Shards damage is based on weapon damage right now?
From my observations, I have 220 weapon damage and Silver shards does ~300 damage. While Venom Arrow does ~450 for me.
I don't recall very well the values before the patch for Silver Shards but i'm pretty sure the damage didn't go up after the patch.
(I might be wrong...)
I got very excited when I first saw the change in the PTS patch notes only to get disappointed last night when I logged into the game....
Right now, at the cost and damage value of Silver Shards, and Immovable and constant blocking all over Cyrodiil, it is useless. (Venom arrow cost under 180 for me, and Shards a little under 300 Stamina)

MorHawk

Silver Leash/Shards

inspiral1 wrote: »

tested
id say venom, on my vet 7 it costs double stam and does about the same dmg, animation IS slower.
I very rarely run out of stam but SB just gobbled it up in about 10 secs, seemed less dps.
However - i have no guild passives and its only rank 1, venom is full rank.

I'm really not trying to disparage peoples' opinions simply because I disagree with them, but you tested a rank 4 skill with a rank 1 one? You really feel your conclusions are valid?

ana.radu85eb17_ESO wrote: »

Can anyone confirm that silver Shards damage is based on weapon damage right now?
From my observations, I have 220 weapon damage and Silver shards does ~300 damage. While Venom Arrow does ~450 for me.
I don't recall very well the values before the patch for Silver Shards but i'm pretty sure the damage didn't go up after the patch.
(I might be wrong...)
I got very excited when I first saw the change in the PTS patch notes only to get disappointed last night when I logged into the game....
Right now, at the cost and damage value of Silver Shards, and Immovable and constant blocking all over Cyrodiil, it is useless. (Venom arrow cost under 180 for me, and Shards a little under 300 Stamina)

It does seem like Silverage has a longer animation time, but those numbers are surprising. I know the Ranger passive applies a 10% discount to Bow skills, but it shouldn't be *that* much cheaper. Also, are your damage numbers inclusive of the DoT, or just the initial hit? Either way, that's again surprising. And yeah, I'd be interested to see that scaling change verified too. Might just make a PTS template tonight.

Ashanne

Ranger II has a 20% reduction
and 7x medium =14% -->Wind Walker II passive
plus one ring

MorHawk

Silver Leash/Shards

ana.radu85eb17_ESO wrote: »

Ranger II has a 20% reduction
and 7x medium =14% -->Wind Walker II passive
plus one ring

1. Ah, yep, my mistake. 20%.
2. Wind Walker affects all stamina abilities, does it not, rendering it moot for this discussion?

DuelWieldingCheesyPoofs

I'm really not trying to disparage peoples' opinions simply because I disagree with them, but you tested a rank 4 skill with a rank 1 one? You really feel your conclusions are valid?

i never said they were? i also said HOWER its only rank one and i have no passives!

Really wish people would learn to read before they get on there high horses thinking they know everything ....jesus

DuelWieldingCheesyPoofs

You clearly want it to be better so just use it and get over it lol

Ashanne

u asked why the skills were so cheap. and that was my explanation..indeed wind walker affects all stamina and so bow too.silver shards costs even more because he base cost is way greater than venom arrow costa.

MorHawk

Silver Leash/Shards

inspiral1 wrote: »

I'm really not trying to disparage peoples' opinions simply because I disagree with them, but you tested a rank 4 skill with a rank 1 one? You really feel your conclusions are valid?

i never said they were? i also said HOWER its only rank one and i have no passives!

Really wish people would learn to read before they get on there high horses thinking they know everything ....jesus

Lol. You still made an assertion that VA was superior. I am simply saying that your conclusion is baseless.

Despite what it may appear, I am not biased here. The point that Ranger is a 20% discount, and that SS has a longer animation, are now leaning me towards VA. Taking just the former factor into account, VA actually very marginally comes ahead on Damage/Stamina, and that's just from the initial hit. With an interrupt.

Either way. I'll set up a PTS template tonight.

DuelWieldingCheesyPoofs

shall we do a bet ?

20k gold says venom is better :P

MorHawk

Silver Leash/Shards

inspiral1 wrote: »

shall we do a bet ?

20k gold says venom is better :P

1. I *just* said that the evidence points to VA.
2. I ain't got that much money! lol

DuelWieldingCheesyPoofs

if it does do more dmg its very situational,

(unless its reduced in cost as it ranks)

for pve its bad because it drains so much stam, probs wont be any left to blocking or dodging.

For pvp, i guess it faceroll burst on vamps?

Khivas_Carrick

Venom Arrow

MorHawk wrote: »

Khivas_Carrick wrote: »

I use both, but I like the color blue and the Venom Arrow Morph proves rather helpful in PvE situations since it costs way less when wearing Medium Armor.

You made your choice based on the poll colour and armour bonuses that affect both skills? Oh dear. Good start.

Easy there bub, I made the poll choice based on color because I use both, but Venom Arrow Costs 154 Stamina where my Silver Shards costs nearly 300, and both themselves are so highly situational it isn't funny, but I van almost guarantee that Venom Arrow will be put to use more often than Shards. That said, again, both populate my bar.

DuelWieldingCheesyPoofs

You know another thing thats interesting

Snipe is not 1.8 cast time, and with the weapon dmg buff i wonder if its possible to spam it? Did they reduce the cost too ?

can you test that also? my PTS crashes

DuelWieldingCheesyPoofs

typo is IT 1.8 cast time

DuelWieldingCheesyPoofs

Snipe: Reduced the cost of this ability by approximately 20%. We also reduced the cast time for this ability to 1.8 seconds from 2 seconds

ima try spam it with VA dot in Banished cells on Fire boss

Thejollygreenone

Venom Arrow

I use neither. Silver shards is too costly and will cause a stamina user with no active regen options to run out very quickly. On the other hand, venom arrow has lower damage than it really should as a spammable because its actually a dot.

So my personal preference is to use scatter shot, because it's cheaper and does similar damage to silver shards, but frees up the use of poison arrow as a dot. You say poison injection has been proven universally inferior, as a spammable, of course. It's a dot focused morph.

Using it as it was intended though, refreshing every 10 seconds and getting a boost under 35% (mine ticks for 220 noncrits at this point), added with another execute makes a very potent execute phase. Furthermore, bow doesn't have access to many decent dots, which are used by most successful trial rotations, which is why I incorporate it into my rotation.

But anyway, since you didn't add a third 'other' option, and the discussion is between venom arrow and silver shards, I'd have to side with venom arrow, simply because of the state that stamina regen is in for stamina based dpsers. Having a lower strain on the resource pool may be necessary. Or it may not, I know I choose the lower cost alternative (draining shot).

Thejollygreenone

Venom Arrow

Imo, snipe is still too clunky to use as a spammable. It can be weaved in with light attacks, but the dps is pretty sad. Although there's one saving grace to this method, which is lethal arrow and the morag tong set.

I doubt anyone has been able to find the whole set yet, but if anyone does I feel a lethal arrow spam with poison injection rolling and possibly acid spray as well might do some respectable dps. In this case, lethal arrow (snipe) would be an acceptable 'spammable'

Dekkameron

The noise of silver bolts annoys me too much to use it often.

MorHawk

Silver Leash/Shards

Okay, so first off, it sucks that the PTS templates still don't have max Guild skills, so I can't do a max level comparison. As it stands though, Venom Arrow is kicking Bolt's tail back to the stone age.

With a VR14, 25 points into stam, full set of Ophidian, Wind Walker and Ranger passives maxed and Weapon damage of 144, I'm hitting VA for 238 and SB for 273. This is with costs of 147 and 284 respectively, so VA has almost double the Damage/Stamina. I don't think maxing the skill out would catch up on that, but I will at some point grind it out to be sure. Looking good for Venomness.

Second, I have confirmed that changing Stamina and Weapon Damage does indeed alter the damage of both skills, so yes, they both scale off the same stuff now.

DuelWieldingCheesyPoofs

Okie pay up please !

DuelWieldingCheesyPoofs

Snipe GCD seems to have gone, i shoot snipe by the time it hits im almost done casting another. Going to try lethal arrow spam tomorow.

Stannum

Venom Arrow

VA - is more universal and is more stam/dmg effective, but SB is definitely better to clear undead/daedra areas (such as dolmens/crypts, etc) and it's also good vs vamps/ww in PvP.
So if you don't have place on your bars for both skills then VA is better for pure bow build in PvP (may be with camo hunter) and in PvE it can be replaced for SB on daedra/undead locations (for CC).
My bow bar is secondary in PvP so i use SB (for vampire check and spam it if check passed) in common shooting I use lethal arrow or ligh attack spam with camo hunter buff. If i need burst damage i use my main DW bar (with flying blade).

R0M2K

OP:

You are not considering the bow pasives.

MorHawk

Silver Leash/Shards

R0M2K wrote: »

OP: You are not considering the bow pasives.

Read the rest of the thread please.
I mean, come on, it's not even a page man. Will update the OP though.