2023 the end of the NB bow ?

Alharion · July 2023

I've always played NB archer, PVE or PVP, but this year has been the worst, nothing works in pvp anymore, a lot of players have noticed the relentlessness of the NB bow, you get smoked in 2 seconds by anyone, I've tried a multitude of set combinations, nothing is stable, one day you find something and it's "woooah" and the next day it's not the same at all, so ZOS has succeeded in its goal of killing the NB bow...

So I imagine that with CPs there's still a way to build something, but with no CP this archetype is dead...

Amerises · July 2023

It probably would be great to kill someone from stealth in two seconds at range consistently anyways?

Udrath · July 2023

In my experience the only way to run bow is with all swift and wild hunt. Wood elf passive helps too. Being able to reposition quickly is great and distance increases damage

Janni · July 2023

Udrath wrote: »

In my experience the only way to run bow is with all swift and wild hunt. Wood elf passive helps too. Being able to reposition quickly is great and distance increases damage

Yep, I have a setup that I use on all of my classes and it works really well on nightblade since it's all about crit. Personally I still prefer it on my warden though. Lots of crit chance. Loads of speed and sustain. I basically never stand still and just constantly harrass people while zipping around. If something doesn't work I run around a rock and try again from another angle. It can't kill everything but most of those builds have almost no chance of keeping up with me so I can just run away if I want.

LittlePinkDot · July 2023

Alharion wrote: »

I've always played NB archer, PVE or PVP, but this year has been the worst, nothing works in pvp anymore, a lot of players have noticed the relentlessness of the NB bow, you get smoked in 2 seconds by anyone, I've tried a multitude of set combinations, nothing is stable, one day you find something and it's "woooah" and the next day it's not the same at all, so ZOS has succeeded in its goal of killing the NB bow...

So I imagine that with CPs there's still a way to build something, but with no CP this archetype is dead...

I can't speak for NB, mine uses bow only on back bar, but....
I'm loving my PvP Arcanist bow build!

I use her in Battlegrounds, dueling and Cyrodiil.
With her impervious runeward and 3x Swift jewelry she can brawl it out with a bow at decently close range. I've been able to duel DK and win.
Just need destruction staff Weakness to elements on back bar. Arcanist has a passive that increases status effect damage by 15%

You need to layer as many DOTs as you can get with the bow. This means using at least 1 proc set that procs very reliably.

Unfortunately I don't think Cloak is as reliable as Impervious runeward.
But Nightblade is getting buffs next patch if you haven't been paying attention to the PTS.

OBJnoob · July 2023

Bows aren't bad in my opinion, and they're getting buffed apparently, so I'm looking forward to that. The only toon I have that currently uses a bow for offense is stamsorc... So, I can see how that would be better than NB. But at the same time NB is really strong right now I'm sure you could make it work if you find the right setup.

Like @LittlePinkDot was saying with their arcanist-- you should probably go DoT heavy if your class spammable isn't suitable for bow. Crippling Grasp immobilizes and is a DoT. Use that, poison injection, double DoT poisons, and just fire assassins will when it's ready.

It might not be the best against real good players but I'm certain you could run around killing people with it. All you really need is assassins will, LOL.

JerBearESO · July 2023

Ballista into knockback catches ppl off guard for a bit of cyro hit and run it's actually pretty nice

Janni · July 2023

JerBearESO wrote: »

Ballista into knockback catches ppl off guard for a bit of cyro hit and run it's actually pretty nice

I've been worried about that one tbh. I usually have it as part of my burst combo but with the new monster set coming out I might be inadvertently helping my targets survive situations they wouldn't otherwise. I've been trying to play with the healing morph instead but not having that ranged stun is really tough for me.