Any hope for an all stam bow NB?

FlounderOG · June 2015

I'm new to this game (console pleb here) and started a character with my friend. We are just putting points into anything that sounds good at the moment so I want to know if my character will be able to survive much in pvp and late game.

He is a Wood elf night blade
level 21, with all attribute points in stamina.
Literally all I do is bows, never picked up a sword and dont intend to.
My playstyle is usually support, as I dont like being in the middle of the action.
Most of my skills are in the bow line (I use mostly the shot that knocks the enemy back, and venom arrow, but adopted arrow spray and poison morphed it)
Medium armor, just throwing on the strongest things mobs drop or quests give me.)

So how would you improve my character? Also is there some official name for the role I play)

I havent even touched pvp yet, but probably will before too long.

Will post my bar and skill values later tonight as Im supposed to be working now.

Kobaal · June 2015

Bow is great for single target burst DPS in PvP. Use Snip morphed into Focused Aim. Other than that you are really going to want to branch out into either dual wield or 2H. Don't pigeon hole yourself into one weapon. I use Bow a lot myself but usually only for defending keeps from the wall or attacking people on the wall if I'm sieging a keep. For fast pace mele I still prefer daggers or a 2H weapon.

RavenSworn · June 2015

I would say go for 2H, simply because of the utilities that it brings to your dps. Rally buffs your attacks, gives you a nice heal and works even when you switch weapons. Critical Rush crits every time, stuns, and is a really good gap closer. Brawler gives a stamina based shield which increases the more enemies are affected. Wrecking Blow is a fantastic single target spam ability which increases its own attacks via Empower buff.

HOWEVER, dual wield has better options for AOE stamina based attack. Steel Tornado is amazing, Quick Cloak gives you great mobility, hidden blade is a range execute which complements well with your playstyle.

It really depends on what you want for utility, NBs for most part are able to do a lot without the need of weapons but the abilities really complements well with the weapon skill lines, be it Magicka or Stamina based.

Reverb · June 2015

Focused Aim and Bombard are fantastic bow skills for end game pvp.

Hauztein · June 2015

You are in the right path... Right race, right about full stamina... I will give a few suggestions to improve:

In the endgame you will use snipe and poisn arrow... The morphs depend on other things...

You will want passives from Assassination tree, all of them.

You also want Mark, for damage increase, heal etc... It can be cast without break stealth
And Grim focus IF you have a spare slot, just for 8 % damage increase all time.

From NB and bow that is it... You also will may need two skills from Fighters guild tree... Expert hunter, an awesome buff.. And the ultimate Flawless daownbreaker... That give dmage increase all time passively.

For the second bar, you want 2handed weapon because the Rally morph from Momentum, that gives 20% increase dmg for 30 seconds... You can trigger rally and switch to bow... Exp hunter/grim... Mark target, snipe, poison

With champions point you can buff poison damage a lot to raise damage from both snipe and poison arrow, with its right morphs.

Kobaal · June 2015

I did not take the passive from Assassination tree that gives you magika if you get a kill with an assassination ability. It just seemed like a waste of 2 skill points to me. My magika use is relegate to cloak and double take. I have 0 points in Magika and I don't have any issues running out. Those 2 points would be better spent elsewhere in my opinion.

Shaloran · June 2015

Yeah buddy your build is completely doable. If you don't want to use swords, then put another bow on your second bar, and have your skills set for the AoE bow skills and use the other for dropping single target DPS. You can make it work.

FlounderOG · June 2015

Thanks for the help so far, ill have to take a look at it all when i get home.

My friend has a character like mine at the same level, and we duo dungeons that are way ahead of our level, but I know pvp is a totally different animal so i am open to pretty much any strategy.

I cant think of anything more frustrating than melee to me, but if I can use the 2h abilities without actually using the 2h I am very imterested.

Keep it coming folks, you've been a great help so far.

Zsymon · June 2015

I solo'd all content well into Cadwell's Silver with just a bow, never using any melee weapons. As a Bosmer NB you are especially equipped for this because of very high stamina recovery, which means lots of dodging against strong monsters.

For example in public dungeons I would first snipe the ranged npcs, then spam Bombard on the melee npcs until they're all dead, they can never reach you that way, you never get hit. Against CC-immune world and public bosses I would use Crippling Grasp to run around them in circles spamming Venom Arrow/light attacks, and dodging whenever they come too close, which adds an extra 30% speed boost on top of the 40% boost from Crippling Grasp.

Crippling Grasp may not slow CC immune bosses, but it still adds a dot that speeds you up for 8 seconds.

With snipe, venom arrow, bombard and Crippling Grasp, you can solo all dolmens, bosses and public dungeons, you don't even need a secondary bow bar. But use one anyway because it'll make things more interesting, and practicing weapon swapping will help to be good at PvP.

For in Cyrodil you may want one bar for shorter range single target brawling, with Magnum Shot and poison arrow for example, and one bar for long range zerg support, with Snipe and Volley.