Bows and arrows

Kos

Hi All. I play an orc and I plan on taking up archery. Is bow fun to play? How effective is it in pve? Please post your experiences. Thank you.

Artemiisia

Im playing a Breton Templar with bow, and I love it, I rely though mostly on templar skills than actually bow skills, only have snipe on my cast bar

With my templar im currently leveling 3 weapon types to make me able to fit all roles in dungeons if needed.

Shield and sword for tanking
Bow for dd
Resto for extra heals, love mutagen as a life saver

kijima

Venom arrow and snipe are where you need to be in regards to bow skills, they are great for the earlier levels as in 1-50.

If you are just starting out, try to get someone to craft you a bow with the added experience trait for it, that way you'll get your decent bow active and passives skills quicker.

Good luck.

leandro.800ub17_ESO

When I face a 3 pack mob I start with a range bow attack and almost kill 1 of them
then change to DW to finish the job
So yes bow is very good in stamina builds

CapuchinSeven

Bow is probably the only weapon I'd ever consider a Stamina build for. Got hit for a 1000 snipe and a 500 venom arrow a few days back.

I could see myself with a bow stamina build, using my 2nd bar for utility/cc.

As it stands though, I prefer a magic melee build with bow for utility.

Cody

bow is awesome:) I have tried a staff, two handed, sword and shield, but I have twice as much fun playing using a bow than anything else iv tried. venom arrow(morph of poison arrow) is EXTREMLY important. In my opinion, you MUST have it, at least for PvE, as it allows you to interrupt a lot of magical and power attacks. scatter shot is important also, snipe is great, use it if you want to cause as much damage as possible. volley I use for dungeons, and... what was it.. arrow spray? that is a good ability too. I am a NB, I use drained shot(morph of scatter shot) and venom arrow, in my bar. in dungeons I put scorched earth(morph of volley I think) in, and use it to cause back up AOE damage. In PvP I plan to use snipe, as the damage is really awesome.

ayriennub17_ESO

I liked bow 1-50, but in vet levels though it kills my DPS on a wood elf NB. I get better weapon damage out of DW. Bow is still very useful for CC though, using venom arrow for interrupt, aoe root, and a knock back.

isengrimb16_ESO

I have ... Venom Arrow, Draining Shot; Power Extraction and Swallow Soul, and Silver Shards. I think I need to swap out Silver shards for something else; got too used to it with Daedra/Undead areas, but now I'm fighting normals (V1, Betnikh.) I prefer instants over cast-time abilities. I suppose I should try to stick another mana-sucker in there, save some stamina ...

But what?

All that did work fine 1-50; I'm having a struggle with packs of 3 (but at least they don't mean certain death for that character any more.)

It seems to take forever to kill them; that's fine, but I'd like to .. speed things up a tad, and maybe suck more life into me while I'm killin' the trash.

Esha76

A lot would depend on your class and which class abilities you would use with it.

I have leveled a bow/dw NB to VR10, and currently a bow templar at VR4.

Having worked both, one could make a case that Templars are better with bows than NBs. The sole reason being Templars have more abilities to push and shove NPCs around, and keep them knocked down.

With the passives, bows do their most damage at range (Long-shots). Also, bows have an additional passive to do additional damage to off-balance enemies (Hawkeye). The Templar's javelin is perfect for this. Not only does it knock them back keeping them at range, but it also knocks them down thus increasing the damage of your basic attacks in between abilities. Then, when timed right, you can keep one pinned down with Blazing spear as well. This build with most Solo-dungeon bosses.... so easy I expect they will nerf the abilities. I actually won't do it when someone is there with me. More than half the fun of this game is using your abilities to hurt things, blocking, dodging, etc. When I've got things pinned down and pushed back... that DK running with me might as well be wailing on practice dummy. So, in an effort not to limit their fun, I won't do this against solo bosses with others around.

For bow abilities (on both classes) I go with Magnum shot and Venom Arrow. That Venom Arrow might be the best ranged interrupt in the game. Goes off instantly, adds a dot, and knocks casters down when interrupted. The only time I replace Venom Arrow is with silver bolts in daedric or undead solo dungeons, again, for the interrupt and CC.

At first, I wanted to respec Magnum shot due to fear of shotting myself off a cliff or something. To be honest, just be aware of your surroundings. I think it has happened to me about 2 or 3 times total. It has, however, saved my a@@ a great deal of times. Something big gets up in your face, or need to get out of a red circle fast, pop magnum shot and you're saved. I also thought that Hasty Retreat (bow passive increasing movement speed for a few seconds after a roll) would be pointless. Again, it's quite a good boost of speed and can give you a little extra distance from that gargoyle or whatever is trying to pound you in the dirt.

One down side to Magnum Shot however is in the game mechanics. Sometimes, it will shot you into the wall, or whatever is behind you. You cant't get out and have to /stuck. Funny enough just yesterday, I Magnum Shot-ed myself into a cage. Those cages they hold prisoners in... caged like an animal. It was pretty funny actually, but had to /stuck. But it doesn't happen very often.

I had also read about, and tried, a combination of Bombard with Scorched Earth. Bombard will hold them in place while Scorched Earth burns them up. Has been useful in some circumstances. But I have read other people use it much more than I do. However this combination makes Havesters totally easy - even pre-nerf. Harvesters is the exact reason why I leveled these abilities. You will never fear them again, in case you don't already.

Snipe is incredible damage. NB Reaper's Mark and snipe on a clotthie - pretty much a 1-shot. Dreaded pack of three with a healer - Not for long.

Bows are fun, and combined with certain class abilities they can be pretty deadly. Still, I always prefer to have an effective melee on the other weapon bar. Even with the Templar pushing and shoving things around, one or two will still usually get up in your face. But it is a ton of fun to shoot the sht out of them, then when they get up in your face take out that massive 2-hander and crack their skulls.

Many things die... and keeps the Bloodthirster in me quite content.

Skulls for the Skull Throne.

Kos

Hey all, thanks for all the comments and advice

kijima

There is no win button with bow, but timed right and with some synergy in your build it can be pretty devastating, but more than that it's heaps of fun.

I see plenty of people using bow, and they use snipe on first encounter with an NPC which makes sense, but half the people I see using bow don't crouch in PvE which doesn't make sense. Or they crouch once, just for the snipe and don't continually do it. This is where timing comes in, if you can time your shots with crouch, then bow is pretty good but if your timing it out, then it's kinda pointless I reckon.

Yes bow is great for me, it relies on timing but I like that style of play.