Stealth archer meta is ruining BGs

validifyedneb18_ESO

Stealth archers, those people that, while you're having a fun little 1vX will 1shot you from across the map and from a place, due to the shape of the battleground, that you cant get to without taking a long route round.

The problem I have with them is 2-fold;
1. The 1 shots
Some of these builds are able to wack out 15 - 18k damage on an opening shot, and using some of the block casting and other timing trickery can stack that with other abilities for an opener of 20k, this is generally where most builds sit health wise and without high crit resist or generally very high resistances in general (I sit at around 10k, 12k myself) this is a 1shot. Combine this with a premade with 2 of these builds or teammate buff stacking, and the factor that most of the time you're going to see dips in your health between 60-80% while in a group fight and you have a guaranteed, unavoidable instant kill waiting to hit you. An aside to this issue is that crit resist is really only useful to counter these builds and nothing else, as everything else can easily be healed through by a build designed to 1vX

2. The positioning
I dont think anyone is going to say that the idea you can do large damage from range is bad, the issue is the extreme range and that there is no intensive to get in close. On my frost warden I have AOEs and a spammable that can be played at range, but my ult and iceheart aura are shorter range, and I can be more effective with my ranged abilities when im in the thick of it anyway. It creates a nice dynamic I think, a fencing match of going close to mid range, creating a nice flow. Archers have none of this flow, they instead aim to never get close to anyone, and with the insane dps they pull hope to kill you before you can go to attack them


Finally ill add this, these builds are glass cannons, while they can deal out these stupid 1 shots they can also be burst down in moments *if* you can get to them. This is why I make a distinction between bow spammers who can sit at range and spoil the party, and stealth spammers in general, many of whom do try to cheese the stealth buffs for 1shots with bows but also close in to finish, and if you survive you win because AOE auras and general high burst will 2shot them the second they're out of stealth for long enough to get a cast off.

I dont find it fun, I cant remember the last time I had a game where I died more than I got kills, im almost always top on overall damage, usually top for team score, yet I feel like im playing like ***, because all that happens is I jump into a group fight, get a few kills, then BAM im 1 shot from 60% health just a moment later.
(Not bragging, well, maybe a little, but only to highlight that statistically im doing great but I just feel like im playing ***. 1 mill damage, 20 kills, 20 assists, 10 deaths, usually ~6 unavoidable 1-shot deaths)

I dont like playing against them, I dont like playing with them (they contribute nothing to the team comp and can only kill steal), and most games I play at the moment have at-least 2, usually more. Ive seen a 2healer, 1 tank, 1 bow-blade build where they buff and defend a single player to get all their kills - *** in deathmatch but stupid in relic where I was playing them, ive seen teams of 1 tank 3 archer where they just cc you between them and shoot you down from every angle, ive seen solo builds that just fish to steal kills from teammates the second anyone in a group-fight loses a few % of their health. And yet the second they make a *mistake* by getting too close, they're already dead.

I just dont see the fun, and neither does anyone ive spoken too so far about it.
</rant>

TD;DR - Bow users come in groups, usually 1 shot using the burst mechanics, exclusively steal teammates kills, have no health/defense so die in 2 hits if you can fish them from stealth, pure bow have no reason to close the gap making them impossible to get for anyone who doesn't have strong ranged (And even then you have to traverse the map in awkward ways to get to them, giving them time to get away), and you cant get into a BG without atleast 2 of them.

Opinions?

Aedrion

Howdy

Yes, Snipe is overperforming when it's used from afar while you're fighting one or two other players. It'll devour your health, stun you and defile you. That is unfortunate but I doubt the weapon skills will get revised. We don't get listened to.

When you list your personal stats as 20k HP and ~13k resistances, I would attribute your quick deaths mostly to being a squishy in an environment where - unless you have a good healer on your team - you cannot afford to be squishy.

I would suggest aiming for ~23-24k HP and something to buffer your resistances so that in combat, they're around 17k at least. 20k+ is preferred for BG's if you're a melee class. For Magden, ~17k should do. You can then also run Ward Ally when you get sniped and have low HP.

Also, try to either use line of sight to block their snipes or charge right into their face with a gap closer. If you can't do either, avoid engaging until you know where they are.

Finally, doesn't warden have a great anti-ranged magicka shield that gives you huge bursts of ult? Shimmering Shield? Sounds like keeping that up might help.

validifyedneb18_ESO

Aedrion wrote: »

Howdy
Finally, doesn't warden have a great anti-ranged magicka shield that gives you huge bursts of ult? Shimmering Shield? Sounds like keeping that up might help.

Admittedly I did overlook this, however my bars are pretty full so its hard to swap something in when needed.

As for survivability, I seem to do fine in the vast majority of the games I play when 1vX, spent a long time getting that right right with the amount of health/mitigation/damage/self-heal, but as you probably guessed, archers, and to a lesser extend general stealthspammers kinda throw this balance out of whack

kalunte

how the heck can you call "play 1vX" a "balance" thing? with 20k hp and 10/12k armor...

try archer first, then come back with your thread.

only the first snipe stuns and hurts. snipes from "invisible" dont stun at all. if you have a bit more armor, it shouldnt matter so much.
if you are aware that there is a sniper around and you dont care about him, it is pretty normal that you have issues with it.

the skill animation let you know where the shot comes from and where you can hide, you even have the time to dodge it when it comes from max range (because it makes more than a second to land), block it or reflect it.

you're a magicka warden. most of your spells are unpredictable (no channeling animation/ no travel time), undodgeable (aoe without any red zone on the ground as warning) and instant. besides, it cc without the need of and "stealth". counterpart? medium range.

be glad that you have some reflecting spell to help you close gaps.

validifyedneb18_ESO wrote: »

Aedrion wrote: »

Howdy
Finally, doesn't warden have a great anti-ranged magicka shield that gives you huge bursts of ult? Shimmering Shield? Sounds like keeping that up might help.

Admittedly I did overlook this, however my bars are pretty full so its hard to swap something in when needed.

As for survivability, I seem to do fine in the vast majority of the games I play when 1vX, spent a long time getting that right right with the amount of health/mitigation/damage/self-heal, but as you probably guessed, archers, and to a lesser extend general stealthspammers kinda throw this balance out of whack

unless the X from "play 1vX" is meant to be 0 or 1 and nothing more. in this case, please, forget the entire post.

validifyedneb18_ESO

kalunte wrote: »

how the heck can you call "play 1vX" a "balance" thing? with 20k hp and 10/12k armor...

-snip-

unless the X from "play 1vX" is meant to be 0 or 1 and nothing more. in this case, please, forget the entire post.

Was waiting for the first person to come in here with an argument that amounts to "you're just bad", so the last few days I snipped some of my better games.





My build is just fine. If I say I can "1vX" I can 1vX. Its not like its that rare of a thing, I mean the reason why where are 6 people in the middle fighting in the first place is because they're all giving it a shot.

Bow builds AIM to not be seen, and take full advantage of all the timing *** in this game to stack damage into a single bomb. And thanks to their range and the design of BG maps they are often standing in completely unreachable areas without a 30 second run around. As I said. In which time they're gone. As I said.

My issue is only in part the general strength of the builds cheese/one-shot mechanic however, the other part is that due to this being so OP in BGs atm its also almost unheard of to get into a game without atleast 2 or 3 of these ***, at which point the game is complete autisimo.

Is it wrong to enjoy the chaos of fighting mid? Do zeni want people to be randomly 1shot while having fun in a chaotic battle, from miles away, from a person you couldn't see 1 second before you're dead?

Edit: oh, and as a note, my ultimate provides 30% DR and fortress a further 13%, fortress is up like 90% of the time and can often save me from the initial hit, but sometimes while im capping a flag I get lazy and these *** dont give you a chance to cast it reactively, and my ultimate obviously is a major 1vX ult that is only up when making a large push, meaning that every other time Im still massively vulnerable. Heck even with it on im usually pushing into the enemy hard so still highly vulnerable to a bow-spammer while im on a healing rollarcoaster

TL;DR - get out of here with your "you probably suck so your point is invalid" nonsense and come back with an actual argument

Aedrion

@kalunte

validifyedneb18_ESO wrote: »

Aedrion wrote: »

Howdy
Finally, doesn't warden have a great anti-ranged magicka shield that gives you huge bursts of ult? Shimmering Shield? Sounds like keeping that up might help.

Admittedly I did overlook this, however my bars are pretty full so its hard to swap something in when needed.

As for survivability, I seem to do fine in the vast majority of the games I play when 1vX, spent a long time getting that right right with the amount of health/mitigation/damage/self-heal, but as you probably guessed, archers, and to a lesser extend general stealthspammers kinda throw this balance out of whack

Seeing your screenshots there, I should think your build is very bursty and focussed on dealing massive AoE damage. Frost Warden? It seems to be serving you well enough. If your bars are consequently too full to slot a defensive like Shimmering Shield - which really is an immensely potent ability - then yea, Snipers are going to be your bane since nobody else can get close without being snared or rooted.

Not sure what your MMR is but I've played at higher MMR a good bit and snipers kind of vanish for the most part in there. Perhaps your MMR will climb, seeing how you are doing quite well, and you'll be free of them soon.

validifyedneb18_ESO

Aedrion wrote: »

@kalunte

validifyedneb18_ESO wrote: »

Aedrion wrote: »

Howdy
Finally, doesn't warden have a great anti-ranged magicka shield that gives you huge bursts of ult? Shimmering Shield? Sounds like keeping that up might help.

Admittedly I did overlook this, however my bars are pretty full so its hard to swap something in when needed.

As for survivability, I seem to do fine in the vast majority of the games I play when 1vX, spent a long time getting that right right with the amount of health/mitigation/damage/self-heal, but as you probably guessed, archers, and to a lesser extend general stealthspammers kinda throw this balance out of whack

Seeing your screenshots there, I should think your build is very bursty and focussed on dealing massive AoE damage. Frost Warden? It seems to be serving you well enough. If your bars are consequently too full to slot a defensive like Shimmering Shield - which really is an immensely potent ability - then yea, Snipers are going to be your bane since nobody else can get close without being snared or rooted.

Not sure what your MMR is but I've played at higher MMR a good bit and snipers kind of vanish for the most part in there. Perhaps your MMR will climb, seeing how you are doing quite well, and you'll be free of them soon.

Well thats good to hear atleast. Ive seen a spike of them in the last few days driving me to past this at last.

I tend not to go completely mad with playing BGs so I can avoid the queue times getting worse any faster than they are atm for me. Maybe ill spam BGs for a few days and risk it.

Vapirko

All this is very well documented but so far ZOS hasn’t done anything. Cyrodiil is probably 30% bowblades at this point, there’s no doubt it’s a cheesy playstyle, if exploiting lag and using what is essentially a ranged incap strike can even be called a playstyle. But idk if we will see any changes coming, ZOS has said they want to raise the floor and lower the ceiling and this is definitely doing that. They also said we will see less big combat changes and more follow up on ideas from last time so even though I agree it sucks that these bowblades are always present, always ready to kill steal or mess up a good fight, and though it amazes me how many people take to this type of play, Idk that we will see any changes anytime soon. It’s much more likely that these players will continue to hide from actual PvP and pretend like snipe is balanced and that it should be impossible to 1vX. Tbh I believe that’s why many of them choose to play bowblades. A LOT of people believe balance should not allow for 1vX, they think abilities should do all the work and skill should have no part in it. Snipe builds are the epitome of that way of thinking.

Gilvoth

.

ChunkyCat

Are you wearing heavy armor? That helps.

WhipSmartMcoy

"I can so 1vx bruh! "
That picture from BG's means nothing lol
The four man groups in BG's are like mini balls groups these days and just cause you got the kill hit doesn't mean you're good.
Just because you're not communicating with your group, doesn't mean you're 1vX(ing)

del9

I’ll take snipers over frost warden root spammers any day

Sharee

Makes a build without long range capabilities
Complains when people attack him from long range

I'm sure there's a meme in there somewhere.

Thogard

del9 wrote: »

I’ll take snipers over frost warden root spammers any day

The two build off of and enable each other.

You can’t kite out the frost warden groups because of the snipers on the third team... and you can’t run around the same spot indefinitely looking for snipers because then the ice warden team will catch you.

Bowtards and balltards... with Stambois caught in the middle.

Mojomonkeyman

Thogard wrote: »

del9 wrote: »

I’ll take snipers over frost warden root spammers any day

The two build off of and enable each other.

You can’t kite out the frost warden groups because of the snipers on the third team... and you can’t run around the same spot indefinitely looking for snipers because then the ice warden team will catch you.

Bowtards and balltards... with Stambois caught in the middle.

Why not stamtards? Bias much?

Thogard

Mojomonkeyman wrote: »

Thogard wrote: »

del9 wrote: »

I’ll take snipers over frost warden root spammers any day

The two build off of and enable each other.

You can’t kite out the frost warden groups because of the snipers on the third team... and you can’t run around the same spot indefinitely looking for snipers because then the ice warden team will catch you.

Bowtards and balltards... with Stambois caught in the middle.

Why not stamtards? Bias much?

Stambois are god’s One True Chosen DPS archetype for BGs. It is only through the Dark One Wrobel’s evil machinations that the BGs have devolved and these lesser specs have become viable.

#KeepBGsPure

Aliyavana

I can sympathize with stealth archers now. Clearly being hit with a 40 meter ability for the same damage as a dizzying swing or more is a l2p issue.

Kartalin

Shimmering Shield is too good of an ability not to slot to counter snipers and ranged magicka builds. I use it on my stamden in response to specifically that type of opponent. What’s bad about getting your permafrost up more quickly?

Zeromaz

Its about to get a whole lot worse

validifyedneb18_ESO

Kartalin wrote: »

Shimmering Shield is too good of an ability not to slot to counter snipers and ranged magicka builds. I use it on my stamden in response to specifically that type of opponent. What’s bad about getting your permafrost up more quickly?

True that, should probably suck it up and sacrifice some damage to use it, does feel a little worthless for all games where im not specifically having trouble with stealth archers though.

Also as an aside I prefer northern storm over perma, ~4% more damage and I find the CC worthless when you can pump out CC on demand anyway. But maybe not on a stamina build.

RedTalon

With how popular bows have gotten, I am a bit shocked more are not running with more armor or at-least one handed and shield for their other weapons shot, the shield ulti tends to teach sneak snipes a good a lesosn since most open with lethal arrow and such.

The_Lex

Snipe really does need a rework. Just finished a BG and there were 4 snipe spammers. I can handle 1 or 2 at a time, but I was struggling against 4.

Low skill and OP. Little risk with high reward.

validifyedneb18_ESO

Not sure whats worse, premades of these *** stealth ***. Ran into a premade of 4 stealthies just now, naturally had to come over here and moan about it with coordinated systematic bombing.

Hope they had fun losing, Capture the relic and none of those stupid builds can survive for more than a second when they're carrying the relic out of stealth...

Also reporting back to say Crystal shield really didnt hold up well, atleast against that comp, had to sacrifice elemental drain to fit it on and with the amount of spamming of it I had to do to keep it up against the onslaught of arrows I was pretty much permanantly out of magicka... I mean its a worst case scenario, 4 premade stealthies, but still

Vapirko

Thogard wrote: »

Mojomonkeyman wrote: »

Thogard wrote: »

del9 wrote: »

I’ll take snipers over frost warden root spammers any day

The two build off of and enable each other.

You can’t kite out the frost warden groups because of the snipers on the third team... and you can’t run around the same spot indefinitely looking for snipers because then the ice warden team will catch you.

Bowtards and balltards... with Stambois caught in the middle.

Why not stamtards? Bias much?

Stambois are god’s One True Chosen DPS archetype for BGs. It is only through the Dark One Wrobel’s evil machinations that the BGs have devolved and these lesser specs have become viable.

#KeepBGsPure

Amen. May the brotherhood of Meridias Sacred Sword smite those who hide in shadow.

kalunte

validifyedneb18_ESO wrote: »

Hope they had fun losing, Capture the relic and none of those stupid builds can survive for more than a second when they're carrying the relic out of stealth...

so you admit snipers (moslty stamblades tho) have some weaknesses when it comes to hold a relic, a chaos ball or any standing point in either domination and madking BG.

snipers'd still be able to kill ppl from range but unable to stay alive when the fight gets into melee range (if you're a pure bow user).

when crying about snipes, do you think about your own weaknesses as a magicka warden?

i see only one: you cant have 20skills in each bar to be a walking god.

still you have everything in your class's skill and what lacks with weapons skill.
self heal, group heal, self sustain, high dmg-ing combos, op ult, tools to counter distance dmg, enough tankyness through spells to survive melee too, and both as Magicka AND Stamina. your passives are active during fights, not occuring once you've win the fight (nightblade's design..) well.

you cant do everything at a single time, ok. still you can "1vX" because you dont have to care about who you are focusing at: AOE are for best players, targeting something is definatly a low-skill-player attitude.


and as for your ideas of which fights are proper fights. well it is a personal feeling. you may feel strong, great and smart when running into a fight eyes wide closed (because you're stronger and hit harder!!!!).
accept other ppl can also feel the same when shooting at what looks like, from range, to braindead ppl AOE-ing anywhere, anytime, same in 1v1 than in 1v4, 4v1, 4v4, or any situation you can imagine, aoe whatever it takes, stay packt like sheeps (harmfull ones for sure ).

once upon a time, in kind of another world, ppl had to focus first the healer or the glass canon, in the enemy team.
and you were rewarded for this. not spitted at


(btw, i didnt say you're a bad player, it is not something i say. this doesnt mean anything.)

validifyedneb18_ESO

kalunte wrote: »

validifyedneb18_ESO wrote: »

Hope they had fun losing, Capture the relic and none of those stupid builds can survive for more than a second when they're carrying the relic out of stealth...

so you admit snipers (moslty stamblades tho) have some weaknesses when it comes to hold a relic, a chaos ball or any standing point in either domination and madking BG.

Not to be rude, but one of my key points in the original post was how these builds are fundamentally bad unless they cheese you. The worst of both worlds in terms of creating fun and engaging gameplay.

I fully admit that I am somewhat guilty of the mentality of "If it beats me, I dont like it and should complain about it", but on a fundamental gameplay design level, builds like these are bad. Unless ofcourse they only queued deathmatch, which would be annoying but atleast amenable to their glass-cannon playstyle. But they queue random like everyone else, and end up in gamemodes where all they offer is causing rage to the enemy while being unable to hold their ground enough to play the objective.

Also their prevalence is an issue. Its gotten to the point in the last few days even where there are at-least 3 or 4 of these guys. Only a week ago it was possible I could have a match or two now and again where there was just 1, but its insane now.

NuarBlack

validifyedneb18_ESO wrote: »

kalunte wrote: »

validifyedneb18_ESO wrote: »

Hope they had fun losing, Capture the relic and none of those stupid builds can survive for more than a second when they're carrying the relic out of stealth...

so you admit snipers (moslty stamblades tho) have some weaknesses when it comes to hold a relic, a chaos ball or any standing point in either domination and madking BG.

Not to be rude, but one of my key points in the original post was how these builds are fundamentally bad unless they cheese you. The worst of both worlds in terms of creating fun and engaging gameplay.

I fully admit that I am somewhat guilty of the mentality of "If it beats me, I dont like it and should complain about it", but on a fundamental gameplay design level, builds like these are bad. Unless ofcourse they only queued deathmatch, which would be annoying but atleast amenable to their glass-cannon playstyle. But they queue random like everyone else, and end up in gamemodes where all they offer is causing rage to the enemy while being unable to hold their ground enough to play the objective.

Also their prevalence is an issue. Its gotten to the point in the last few days even where there are at-least 3 or 4 of these guys. Only a week ago it was possible I could have a match or two now and again where there was just 1, but its insane now.

I find it interesting that a "prevalence" of bow users is something of note yet spin2win and DboS I guarantee is more common yet warrants no comments. My guess is its cause your build is weak to the former and strong against the later.

Cause magwardens should eat snipers period. Your refusal to slot shimmering shield is a choice that needs you to accept the consequences. I love games where there are lots of snipers when im on my magden cause they are free kills. I don't run an ice build though and use birds(which also get a damage bonus at range) and reach to blow them up all while they do almost no damage and charge my ult cause of shimmering shield.

That being said I wouldn't be opposed to seeing snipe retuned so that it is buffed for non stealth builds but slightly nerfed or at least have the bugs fixed for the stealth gimmick builds. The reality though is that snipe doesn't exist in a vacuum and a big problem is the NB kit not so much snipe itself. Particularly cloak needs looked at in that regard.

validifyedneb18_ESO

kalunte wrote: »

That being said I wouldn't be opposed to seeing snipe retuned so that it is buffed for non stealth builds but slightly nerfed or at least have the bugs fixed for the stealth gimmick builds. The reality though is that snipe doesn't exist in a vacuum and a big problem is the NB kit not so much snipe itself. Particularly cloak needs looked at in that regard.

A while back I would have agreed with you, but recently what was a slightly annoying stealth meta has become an endless torrent of stealth meta combined with bow buffing.

Its well understood that every good build probably has some gimmick, massive 2h heavy attack 1 shots, huge bleeds, meat shields, but I think when one build suddenly takes up a third of the slots in a general battleground, you have to see there is a problem. Not just because more people switching to it means its probably overtuned, but also because in this case for each new stealthbow there is, the problem gets exponentially worse.

Zeromaz

validifyedneb18_ESO wrote: »

kalunte wrote: »

That being said I wouldn't be opposed to seeing snipe retuned so that it is buffed for non stealth builds but slightly nerfed or at least have the bugs fixed for the stealth gimmick builds. The reality though is that snipe doesn't exist in a vacuum and a big problem is the NB kit not so much snipe itself. Particularly cloak needs looked at in that regard.

A while back I would have agreed with you, but recently what was a slightly annoying stealth meta has become an endless torrent of stealth meta combined with bow buffing.

Its well understood that every good build probably has some gimmick, massive 2h heavy attack 1 shots, huge bleeds, meat shields, but I think when one build suddenly takes up a third of the slots in a general battleground, you have to see there is a problem. Not just because more people switching to it means its probably overtuned, but also because in this case for each new stealthbow there is, the problem gets exponentially worse.

I can see this being annoying in lower MMRs but where i play... i hardly see NBs in general... much less a bow using NB

Vapirko

Zeromaz wrote: »

validifyedneb18_ESO wrote: »

kalunte wrote: »

That being said I wouldn't be opposed to seeing snipe retuned so that it is buffed for non stealth builds but slightly nerfed or at least have the bugs fixed for the stealth gimmick builds. The reality though is that snipe doesn't exist in a vacuum and a big problem is the NB kit not so much snipe itself. Particularly cloak needs looked at in that regard.

A while back I would have agreed with you, but recently what was a slightly annoying stealth meta has become an endless torrent of stealth meta combined with bow buffing.

Its well understood that every good build probably has some gimmick, massive 2h heavy attack 1 shots, huge bleeds, meat shields, but I think when one build suddenly takes up a third of the slots in a general battleground, you have to see there is a problem. Not just because more people switching to it means its probably overtuned, but also because in this case for each new stealthbow there is, the problem gets exponentially worse.

I can see this being annoying in lower MMRs but where i play... i hardly see NBs in general... much less a bow using NB

Probably because not only are these builds going to be useless against coordinated teams, but better players are less likely to want to cheese their way to a win. They’re more likely to want to engage in combat.

IlCanis_LupuslI

validifyedneb18_ESO wrote: »

Stealth archers, those people that, while you're having a fun little 1vX will 1shot you from across the map and from a place, due to the shape of the battleground, that you cant get to without taking a long route round.

The problem I have with them is 2-fold;
1. The 1 shots
Some of these builds are able to wack out 15 - 18k 25-26k damage on an opening shot, and using some of the block casting and other timing trickery can stack that with other abilities for an opener of 20k 30-35k, this is generally where most builds sit health wise and without high crit resist or generally very high resistances in general (I sit at around 10k, 12k myself im at 32k in medium whats your excuse? ) this is a 1shot. Combine this with a premade with 2 5-6 of these builds or teammate buff stacking, and the factor that most of the time you're going to see dips in your health between 60-80% while in a group fight and you have a guaranteed, unavoidable instant kill waiting to hit you. An aside to this issue is that crit resist is really only useful to counter these builds and nothing else, as everything else can easily be healed through by a build designed to 1vX

2. The positioning
I dont think anyone is going to say that the idea you can do large damage from range is bad, the issue is the extreme range and that there is no intensive to get in close. On my frost warden I have AOEs and a spammable that can be played at range, but my ult and iceheart aura are shorter range, and I can be more effective with my ranged abilities when im in the thick of it anyway. It creates a nice dynamic I think, a fencing match of going close to mid range, creating a nice flow. Archers have none of this flow, they instead aim to never get close to anyone, and with the insane dps they pull hope to kill you before you can go to attack them


Finally ill add this, these builds are glass cannons, while they can deal out these stupid 1 shots they can also be burst down in moments *if* you can get to themcloak cloak cloak cloak cloak until the detect pots stop working buff detect pot duration to 30 seconds plz . This is why I make a distinction between bow spammers who can sit at range and spoil the party, and stealth spammers in general, many of whom do try to cheese the stealth buffs for 1shots with bows but also close in to finish, and if you survive you win because AOE auras and general high burst will 2shot them the second they're out of stealth for long enough to get a cast off.

I dont find it fun, I cant remember the last time I had a game where I died more than I got kills, im almost always top on overall damage, usually top for team score, yet I feel like im playing like ***, because all that happens is I jump into a group fight, get a few kills, then BAM im 1 shot from 60% health just a moment later.
(Not bragging, well, maybe a little, but only to highlight that statistically im doing great but I just feel like im playing ***. 1 mill damage, 20 kills, 20 assists, 10 deaths, usually ~6 unavoidable 1-shot deaths)

I dont like playing against them, I dont like playing with them (they contribute nothing to the team comp and can only kill steal), and most games I play at the moment have at-least 2, usually more. Ive seen a 2healer, 1 tank, 1 bow-blade build where they buff and defend a single player to get all their kills - *** in deathmatch but stupid in relic where I was playing them, ive seen teams of 1 tank 3 archer where they just cc you between them and shoot you down from every angle, ive seen solo builds that just fish to steal kills from teammates the second anyone in a group-fight loses a few % of their health. And yet the second they make a *mistake* by getting too close, they're already dead.

I just dont see the fun, and neither does anyone ive spoken too so far about it.
</rant>

TD;DR - Bow users come in groups, usually 1 shot using the burst mechanics, exclusively steal teammates kills, have no health/defense so die in 2 hits if you can fish them from stealth, pure bow have no reason to close the gap making them impossible to get for anyone who doesn't have strong ranged (And even then you have to traverse the map in awkward ways to get to them, giving them time to get away), and you cant get into a BG without atleast 2 of them.

Opinions?

reduce the damage by 75% make it a instant cast with a small dot component, remove the defile, reduce the range to 20m remove the stun from stealth, fix the health dysinc.
Also fixed some of your values(more accurate how hard a snipestacker can hit) I tried a snipestacker for 1h in pvp 2 months ago and was horrified...