What would be a great Vampire Archer?

Kitsy

Hi.

I am a Wood Elf Vampire Archer. I would like to be as good as i can for PvE questing and taking down bosses.
I understand that if i am an Archer on my first weapon place, i should be something else on the other. But what?

Hope you experts can help me out!

Lynx7386

Personally I use dual bows on my nightblade (one on each weapon bar) and set up one bar for single target and one bar for AoE. I do that kind of thing on all my characters though like dual resto staff on my templar with one damage bar and one healing bar. I find it more intuitive to have one weapon with more options than to use two different weapon types that function differently, especially in the chaos of combat.

Dekkameron

Vampire synergises best with magika based skills really, but you do get the bonus of being able to practically run about in stealth which is always fun.

Unless you REALLY want to use melee weapons, i would also just go for a second bow. but from a purely RP perspective dual wield is a good second choice.

You'll be stacking stamina as you're a primarily bow user, so staffs won't be much use to you.

Kitsy

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Personally I use dual bows on my nightblade (one on each weapon bar) and set up one bar for single target and one bar for AoE.


I find it more intuitive to have one weapon with more options than to use two different weapon types that function differently, especially in the chaos of combat.

Would i not lose alot of potential by only having bows on both? I mean, ive feelt its very limited what i can get from the bow three.
What would you suggest then for each of the bars?

Falmer

On many of my characters I use the second bar as a 'Buffing' bar anyway. Many of my builds put a resto staff there for access to Regeneration, which I can cast before battle.

Depending on your class there are several timed skills that can be cast before or during battle that can be placed on the second bar.

demonlkojipub19_ESO

Im a vampire archer right now and have 2h sword for my other weapon. Restoration staff would also work, probably better, but I like greatswords too much to be optimal

Lynx7386

Would i not lose alot of potential by only having bows on both? I mean, ive feelt its very limited what i can get from the bow three.
What would you suggest then for each of the bars?

You have class and guild abilities, too. 5 action bar slots isnt enough to use those in addition to the weapon skills, so that's why I split it up and use the same weapon for both bars.

For example on my single target bar I'll have draining shot or poison arrow or snipe, and on the aoe bar i'll have volley and scatter shot. In addition to those I'm putting in class skills - siphoning strikes, shadowy disguise, mark target, power extraction, strife, etc.

poodlemasterb16_ESO

Run a fire staff with knockback and the AoE wall of flame for a different approach. You always want to be close at the end, can't have all that life force going to waste.

Kitsy

Ok, i have decided to use Bow for both my actionbars. Can you help me decide on some good skills to have there? One for single target and one for AoE etc?

I was looking at the ultimates a Nightblade have, and i diddent find any to my liking. So i will be using the Vampire Ultimate with lifesteal upgrade.

Maybe if you used this calculator and filled in the skills for me
http://esohead.com/calculator/skills

Soulharvester

If your going to rely on the ultimate, then I would use dots! That will generate your ultimate fairly quickly!

For myself, I have the following:

Dots/AOEs
1. Bow: Scorched Earth, Funnel Health, Path of Darkness, Poison Shot, Drain.
Ultimate: Veil of Blades (Morph from consuming darkness in the shadow line ultimate).

Single Target/DPS/CC
2. Bow: Shadow Disguise, Concealed Weapon, Scatter shot, Assassin Blade, drain or malefic wreath. Just depends what I am doing.
Ultimate: Bat Swarm

Most things are gonna drop before I get to the second weapon.

Facing groups, its nice to have a cc as well as the ability to kite if need be.

Sometimes, there is just no room to kite, so a lockdown is nice to have too.

If I know I am going to lose to a mob, then I cc, then stealth out of hate range.

Dont be greedy with the ultimate! I made that mistake lots of times, thinking, I will need it later. To give you a present example, I can regen 100% ultimate under 3 mobs. Now thats letting the dots do the work as well.

If you want to dash in kill everyting, move to next room type of farming, better to go impulse with a magicka based setup to compliment the regen. How I did it anyway. I have seen some of the pros do it with a pocket temp.

Target order is Healer/Caster/Rogue/Tank. I CC when I have to but overall I save the magicka if its less than 5 mobs.

Blocking is always useful. Just mind the stamina. I dont care about the light attacks, but when an archer has that red cone in front of it. Its best to roll out/block or start looking around for a safe place to res lol.

If you dont have stamina and your in the sights of a ranged with a red cone, you can always cc em.

Siphon helps as well as drain, but against fire mages, best to drop those first...
Assassin blade helps, cant remember the morph but thats saved med a lot in groups.

Veil of Blades is nice for the dmg but can also go with Soul Harvest. Either one will ruin a group.

Gear is heavy/medium, potions are hp/stam/magicka, also use potion reduction on blue jewlery.

Armor is purple and above, set. I prefer the night mother set, which ever one is where it does that aoe knockdown when your health drops to 25%. I just like the animation effects and the loud sounds it makes. My dog barks when he hears that lol. Plus it has saved me about 2 or so times.

I keep an invis potion handy, as well as a movement speed.

Concealed weapon will increase your stealth speed, fyi..

For PVP, I switch out poison attack with silver leash.

Gonna shine later levels but at start gonna feel kinda klunky.

For starters,
I went with shadow first, Veil of Blades and path of darkness, easy to get before 15 or so. Makes life a lot easier. Make friends and join groups when you can.

Works for me anyway.

I would also use 1hand for farming mobs, but when it came time for quest turn in, I would switch to my bow!

Getting resto staff up wouldnt hurt either, always nice to have the heals in groups. When I first started my sorc impulse build, I spent my dungeon crawling as the primary healer lol.

So if I can do it, anyone can...

Stay cool...

Kitsy

I learned yesterday of a ultimate i had not even considered. The fighters guild ultimate can morph into Flawless Dawnbreaker wich will passivly give me 13% additional weapon damage when slotted. This seems very good. Perhaps i should get this for single target fights?