A simple buff to improve bow and stamina builds in general

frostitomik · April 2016

Bow has been a great weapon for pvp ganking but is almost useless in delves etc. How about a buff that will give you stamina sustain while using a bow. There is a passive, which when you do 3 or 4 heavy/light attacks, will increase your dmg. Change it so it will not only improve dmg done but also it will reduce the cost of stamina abilities for next few seconds. That way bow would become a great pve sustain weapon and it will not affect pvp much. What you think about it?

Birdovic · April 2016

The idea isnt too bad.
However, the bigger problem is the dps I think. Its outperformed by other Stam Weapon Choices or Class Abilities.

frostitomik · April 2016

Yeah but this would make bow a perfect secondary buff/debuff/tick weapon while using DW or 2H as your primary dps weapon. You can do 4 light attacks in 2s, apply buffs and swith to your primary.

GaldorP · April 2016

They changed one of the bow passives in the TG Update with the intention of making the bow a better main weapon for PvE. I really tried to get good dps with 2 bow bars on my main character, but it was still so far below what I could do when using the bow as secondary and two-handed or dual wield as main weapon that I don't really consider it an option (I would deliberately choose to do less dps for style reasons which is kinda unfair towards the random groups I'm playing with).

I assume the main balancing problem with the bow is that it's really good when you're firing from a place the enemy can't reach in PvP. In PvE or open field battles where the enemy can get to you with a gap closer, however, bow range is not that much of an advantage. It's sometimes even harder to dodge enemy attacks when you're far away (harder to circle a boss); healers can't reach you as easily with heals and there's many boss mechanics where it's a bad idea to stand too far away from the rest of your group (spider boss that turns you into a cocoon in vCoH, the boss that pins you to the ground in Veteran Fungal Grotto, etc.), and you also can't activate synergies; all your short-range spells that offer additional dps can't be used anymore from range (the Dragon Knight's Searing Strike and Fiery Breath, for example).

The bow still needs a boost as a main weapon for PvE when it comes to single-target dps, in my opinion.

vontariel · April 2016

It's like 3rd?4th? thread about this topic in last 3-4 weeks on this forum.

ATM bow is viable only as support and gank weapon. Ofc, you can play with it and finish any content, but other choices are much more efficient.
Bow (esp. snipe) needs serious look upon to be viable weapon for PvP outside gank scenario. And numbers should be tweaked for PvE.

@frostitomik: Mainhand bow has nearly no issue with stamina. And bow it's currently best support for stamina users. We don't need for it to be even better support, we need for it to be better as main choice.

Anti_Virus · April 2016

No Snipe just needs a shorter cast time, travel time, and allow you yo move quickly instead if snaring you. Also scatter shot and morphs needs a redesign or needs to be removed because that skill is completely useless.

With the Snipe changes Archers can deal reliable dps OUTSIDE of stealth ganking and large groups.

dday3six · April 2016

The problem with balancing Stamina in PVE is PVP. Typically melee would deal more damage on tooltips to compensate for less uptime because of positioning around mechanics. However in ESO because PVE and PVP share the same rule set that can't happen. Even in your suggestion OP, you had to consider the purposed changes effect on both PVE and PVP. See that is what I view is the real problem.