Bow - discussion

ArRashid

Since I'm playing an almost pure archer, I decided to write down some insights

1 Poison Arrow
- As with all other DoTs, the fact that they don't "add up" and instead just refresh themselves, makes them more or less useless for everything but keeping nightblades from using shadowy disguise (as it throws them out of stealth almost instantly)

Suggestions:
- make the DoT either add up, or tick faster. I think 4 seconds is the maximum duration which still "makes sense" - anything more means using Poison Arrow more often than every 10 seconds is a waste. So perhaps instead of 5 really small ticks, why not making it two ticks but with higher damage?

2 Volley
- In theory, it should work pretty much like Fire Rune, but it feels clunky as hell. The skill won't allow you to aim it till your previous animation ends (unlike Rune), which makes you lose about 1 second to aim and use, then you have to wait another 1.5 seconds till the arrows finally start raining. Maybe it's just the EU lag, but it makes Volley unusable, because even in dungeons, mages can literally nuke packs of mobs till arrows even start raining down.. which is kinda bad.

Suggestions:
- make it smoother and more usable

3 Scatter Shot
- Great ability, but it feels a bit weak compared to staff's Fire Clench, which does about the same thing, but better - has higher damage AND stuns target instead of just disorienting it.
- Magnum Shot morph is a bit buggy though. In every damn delve I manage to shoot myself through the wall, door, cage or anything else unless I position myself right, which in some heated fights is not quite possible. Especially painful in Cyrondil, where you /stuck yourself to the starting point

Suggestions:
- fix Magnum Shot's backfire. Seriously, why doesn't it have proper collision detection? I'd rather not get thrown back, than to get stuck in the texture

4 Arrow Spray
- I don't know why, but it feels like a lot nerfed version of the NPC arrow spray, which is better in almost every way: it is about 2x wider, slightly longer, you can see it's angle and it hits for about 3x as much.
- Player's Arrow spray seems VERY bad because it's so narrow. I guess the NPC version has about 30° cone (even wider, because it hits even OUTSIDE the drawn area) while ours about 15°, while every single thing in line of sight (be it another mob or a corpse) stops the effect for everything behind it, so you usually end up hitting 1-2 out of 3 targets. It's especially bad when you're standing on a slope, shoot Bombard into a pack that's closing on you, and you root just one..

Suggestions:
- fix targeting issues, maybe making it a tiny bit wider wouldn't hurt as well.. it deals less damage than AoE spells while being about twice as expensive anyway. Adding the poison damage to the base spell and reworking Acid Spray would be a good change as well

5 Snipe
- while I love the last change, it's still not a usable ability. 2 seconds cast time still makes it the slowest spell in the game, while the damage is still lower than your standard heavy attack followed by Venom Arrow (which can be fired together), in the same amount of time. So all Snipe is good for is applying a debuff from it's morphs.
- like Volley, Snipe needs you to be perfectly still (no animation left playing) to cast as well, otherwise it just IGNORES you ever pushing the button, leaving you wondering WTF is happening a second later when you're still not shooting. Especially annoying when you're trying to use Snipe while the enemy is CCed from Bombard or Magnum Shot

Suggestions:
- significantly increase the damage OR significantly reduce cast time.. also, some 200-300 ms buffer to remember you've pushed the damned button would be nice..

---

Pros:
- infinite CC as long as you have stamina (though CCs drain A LOT of it)
- long range
But that's about it..

Cons:
- lack of damage
- lack of finisher ability/passive
- lack of spammable skill (instant skill with instant damage)

Which makes bow one of the worst weapons to dps with (even worse than Resto staff, and before bash nerf, even shield had better dps), currently shares the lowest dps with 2handed weapons. Still, 2handed weapons at least get passively +10% weapon damage on weapons. Bows have damage equal to 1-handed weapons.

Therefore, I'd like to propose following change:

- scrap the DoT from Poison Arrow. Make it INSTANT POISON DAMAGE. Venom Arrow would get interrupt (+ bonus damage on successful interrupt), Poison Injection would function like Reverse Slash and deal higher damage per % of missing enemy heath. That will give Bow a chance to get an actual "finisher", OR a good interrupt, while also providing a good spammable skill in both cases.

As you can see, this would significantly reduce all 3 of the current drawbacks of using a bow in PvE.

---

Bugs and Synergies

I can't say much for other classes myself, but for Nightblade:

Literally EVERYTHING you do with a bow breaks your stealth:
- shooting an arrow before stealthing
- Poison Arrow DoT
- delayed Volley rain of arrows
Making NB archers scream with frustration if they ever try to put Shadowy Disguise on their bars

- lack of meaningful ranged skills for Nightblade (I'm lobbying for changing Power Extraction from player-centered AoE to target-centered AoE, but I'm being quite ignored by ZOS), literally the only thing you have is Strife and passives. Nothing else can be effectively used outside melee range.

---

Please don't take this as whining - I'm trying to provide objective feedback to help ZOS improve their game.

Edit: highlighted the suggestion seems some blind guys weren't able to find it..

Rammi

I agree totally with all your feedback.

The more i watch videos of people in trials and PVP the more I realize that Bow users are terrible (Im A NB which makes it even worse), They put out horrid DPS and the skills are terrible when you compare to other weapon options. I agree with all of you points.

I think I'm going to have to respec from a play style that i enjoy just to be competitive. Which is a joke!

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO

I'm so frustrated with people like you who want them to change everything to suit your style. Poisen arrow is very good and dosent need to be changed. Its an interrupt why would you spam it. Perhaps lowering it on feul injection would be reasonable, or perhaps they did this intentionally so you can't just spam one move all day. I use bow in Pvp just for poisen arrow because the velocity is much faster than most moves and it interrupts. I choose to use it on my close range DPs set up with resto healer on my other. They have to take into account the whole game not just some person who wants to ignore all the other available moves and use only one weapon.

ArRashid

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO wrote: »

I'm so frustrated with people like you who want them to change everything to suit your style. Poisen arrow is very good and dosent need to be changed. Its an interrupt why would you spam it. Perhaps lowering it on feul injection would be reasonable, or perhaps they did this intentionally so you can't just spam one move all day. I use bow in Pvp just for poisen arrow because the velocity is much faster than most moves and it interrupts. I choose to use it on my close range DPs set up with resto healer on my other. They have to take into account the whole game not just some person who wants to ignore all the other available moves and use only one weapon.

Things you need for PvP success:
- moment of surprise
- any ranged weapon
- instant skill to abuse animation canceling from range

Things you need for PvE success:
- AoE CC
- AoE dmg
- single target damage
- finisher
- resource management capable of providing sustained damage over a few minutes instead of 20 seconds
- whole lot of awareness
- survivability (self heal/stealth/reflect/absorb)
- ......

Kego

ArRashid wrote: »

Things you need for PvP success:
- moment of surprise
- any ranged weapon
- instant skill to abuse animation canceling from range

Thats something you need for Ganking, not PvP. In larger and longer PvP fights like Group vs Group, you need a good single Target DMG as well, like in PvE. That is something, Bow suffers. You can make a good hit out of Hide, but after that, you will never ever kill anyone, if the Enemy support is not totally dumb.

Venom Arrow is Quite fine, as it is. But does it really need 2 AOE Skills in Bow? One of those could have been a spamming Skill. Just like Dual Wield, which is the best Stamina DPS Weapon Set currently.

Spammer: Flurry
Debuff/Dot: Twin Slashes
AOE: Whirlwind
Defense: Sparks
Ranged: Hidden Blade

For Bows it currently is:

Spammer: -
Debuff/Dot: Poison Arrow
AOE: Volley & Arrow Spray
Defense: Scatter Shot
Ranged: Snipe (useless outside of Opener and Sieges)

We could use Silver Bolts from Fighting Guild as a Spammer Skill, if it would bring good DMG on the table but that is not the case, it's DMG is like Poison Arrow.

ArRashid

Well, please, try to read through that to notice Volley is useless in every situation possible, and Arrow spray costs about 2-3x as much as other AoEs just because one of it's morphs is a CC.

Both dual wield and 2handed also have FINISHERS that deal SIGNIFICANTLY increased damage under 25%(dual wield) or damage scaling with HP lost (which makes 2h deal progressively bigger damage and seems to be worth from 50% down). That is something bow is direly missing if it's gonna be any good in boss fights.

- if Volley (or poison arrow as I suggested) was reworked into a finisher AND Arrow spray got it's stamina cost reduced (to allow us to use it more than once every 10 seconds if we don't want to run out of stamina), it could give bow a fighting chance against other weapons.

Silver Bolts is a useless skill for anything but daedra&undead&werewolves&vamps. Not to mention it looks quite silly to throw away your bow to use crossbow and then the bow miraculously appears in your hands again..

CapuchinSeven

Kinda finding a lot of this crap about bow "needing a fighting chance" to be a little strange to be honest. It could use a spammer but frankly it is THE weapon to take if you want to ruin a casters day.

ArRashid

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

Kinda finding a lot of this crap about bow "needing a fighting chance" to be a little strange to be honest. It could use a spammer but frankly it is THE weapon to take if you want to ruin a casters day.

On the contrary of what you people believe, this game DOES have actual PvE part, you know. We don't all go to cyrondil on lvl 10 and never come back. And Venom Arrows only work on spells with actual cast time, which are like what, 3 total? Or less?

Thejollygreenone

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

Kinda finding a lot of this crap about bow "needing a fighting chance" to be a little strange to be honest. It could use a spammer but frankly it is THE weapon to take if you want to ruin a casters day.

I think you've been fighting some pretty bad casters Most of the casters in my dueling guild never let me (bow stealther) get them below 20% health, even when I catch them from tstealth. Someone in a robe/resto staff generally will be able to outlast a stealthing bow-user. At least that's been the case for me.

Sure, with a bow I end up getting a bunch of stealth kills on unsuspecting victims, but when someone isn't totally oblivious and has the right gear/skills, I often get outlasted and die (more often because a second enemy rolls through from me taking too long) in any stamina build, simply because someone in a robe can keep their stamina up to block longer. Bow is no exception in this as far as I can tell and have played.

Now of course, my experiences are subject to player skill, but I'd say I've put in enough cyrodiil hours to portray a somewhat accurate description of the dynamic between stamina (bow included) players and magicka players in pvp.

Rammi

I have tried so many different build and im a seriously gimped being stamina focused. I have to reconfigure to be more majicka focused if i want to use my class skills for dps or not.

I play the game everyday and i know I'm a decent player, I'm aware, I try new things and i have added new skills to augments based on recommendations but its meaningless as im stamina focused. I simply know that when everyone around me is majicka and in a grp of 20 me and 2 others are running stamina build that there is a massive balance problem.

Im going to respec to a majicka based build come 1.3 as i have no other choice.

indytims_ESO

I agree with the OP's general thoughts, and applaud him/her for tossing out ideas and such without coming across like a whiner (as seems to be common in a lot of class-gripe-threads).

And for folks complaining about bow-wielders ruining a caster's day if they get jumped - most players worth their salt of any class will have a pretty good chance of ruining your day if they catch you unaware - not just bow users.

I definitely don't want to see bows beefed-up to the point where they dominate, but as they stand now, they suck pretty hard.

CapuchinSeven

Thejollygreenone wrote: »

I think you've been fighting some pretty bad casters Most of the casters in my dueling guild never let me (bow stealther) get them below 20% health, even when I catch them from tstealth. Someone in a robe/resto staff generally will be able to outlast a stealthing bow-user. At least that's been the case for me.

...anything that gets below 40% health and doesn't start holding down block is going to be dead with my bow build.

40% health? Oooh lovely, Ambush (or a charge), Soul Harvest (which is at huge amounts thanks to most of the fight being done with my bow) and Impale. That's about 2k + damage if you line them up correctly, which should be easy with a ranged interrupt and stagger. 1v1 my bow isn't there to kill someone, it's to screw up the casters casting which the bow excels at.

If they do just hold block I'll keep on shooting their stamina will fail and I'll be at full magicka and stamina thanks to Siphoning Strikes, if they hold block and spam attacks then Swallow Soul spam with full medium armour and shield passives and my own block held, your stamina block WILL outlast them and you will take less damage (even less if they keep firing at you and you use Defensive Posture, you can pretty much start loling at this point with 100 stamina regen, Siphoning Strikes and 1900k Stamina and their attacks going right back at them).

There is a weapon swap for a reason, you can't just run around with the bow and never expect to have to switch your tactic and style mid fight, even in real life some of the greatest archer nations in the world gave their archers chain mail and a sword and shield (even mounted archer nations). That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with a bow, it's THE weapon to take if you want to mess up a caster.

Is it always that simple? No of course not, PVP requires thinking on your feet, but the bow is a solid weapon.

Nothing will change how people feel though, I've had it in every MMO I've ever played, "you're lying", "you're only playing bads", "X class must all be bad on your server, because Y class is bad".

http://esohead.com/calculator/skills#mcRXyg0k9MW9M8IPU48fXGH8fXhs8IrtP8GFts8GHRG8IPU48innU8IfVM8IrtP8injt8LxRn8p7JMdBvT6MdBvj6MdBEI6MdBEp6cdBET8y7HLR3a6rR3f6MfQE16MfQE36MfQlr6MfQlu6MfQlI8t7H68g7HrsXy6rsXt6MipLW6MipL46MippV6Mippo6Mippq8C7DLzqa6Lzqq6Lzqu6MGFWc6MGFWi6MGFWA6MGFWn8D7DLzdm6rbMz6MIsaM6MIrv36MIrEf6MIrEh8F7DLzrJ6Lbut6MIPNU6MIPAh6MIPAT6MIPAv8P7ardYw857azx3TH6cx3TJ6cx3TO6cx3T38zf7zzNbo8zu7zzHfYE6zHfZd8zG7zzHQ3F8zI7zzJIoX6zJIkL8zN7zzJZcY8zA7zzKpUN8zL7zzK4EX

Kosilein

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

Thejollygreenone wrote: »

I think you've been fighting some pretty bad casters Most of the casters in my dueling guild never let me (bow stealther) get them below 20% health, even when I catch them from tstealth. Someone in a robe/resto staff generally will be able to outlast a stealthing bow-user. At least that's been the case for me.

...anything that gets below 40% health and doesn't start holding down block is going to be dead with my bow build.

40% health? Oooh lovely, Ambush (or a charge), Soul Harvest (which is at huge amounts thanks to most of the fight being done with my bow) and Impale. That's about 2k + damage if you line them up correctly, which should be easy with a ranged interrupt and stagger. 1v1 my bow isn't there to kill someone, it's to screw up the casters casting which the bow excels at.

If they do just hold block I'll keep on shooting their stamina will fail and I'll be at full magicka and stamina thanks to Siphoning Strikes, if they hold block and spam attacks then Swallow Soul spam with full medium armour and shield passives and my own block held, your stamina block WILL outlast them and you will take less damage (even less if they keep firing at you and you use Defensive Posture, you can pretty much start loling at this point with 100 stamina regen, Siphoning Strikes and 1900k Stamina and their attacks going right back at them).

There is a weapon swap for a reason, you can't just run around with the bow and never expect to have to switch your tactic and style mid fight, even in real life some of the greatest archer nations in the world gave their archers chain mail and a sword and shield (even mounted archer nations). That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with a bow, it's THE weapon to take if you want to mess up a caster.

Is it always that simple? No of course not, PVP requires thinking on your feet, but the bow is a solid weapon.

Nothing will change how people feel though, I've had it in every MMO I've ever played, "you're lying", "you're only playing bads", "X class must all be bad on your server, because Y class is bad".

http://esohead.com/calculator/skills#mcRzyg0k0W9c8IPU48fXGH8fXhs8IrtP8GFts8GHRG8IPU48innU8IfVM8IrtP8injt8LxRn8p7JMdBvT6MdBvj6MdBEI6MdBEp6cdBET8y7HLR3a6rR3f6MfQE16MfQE36MfQlr6MfQlu6MfQlI8t7H68g7HrsXy6rsXt6MipLW6MipL46MippV6Mippo6Mippq8C7DLzqa6Lzqq6Lzqu6MGFWc6MGFWi6MGFWA6MGFWn8D7DLzdm6rbMz6MIsaM6MIrv36MIrEf6MIrEh8F7DLzrJ6Lbut6MIPNU6MIPAh6MIPAT6MIPAv8P7ardYw857azx3TH6cx3TJ6cx3TO6cx3T38zf7zzNbo8zu7zzHfYE6zHfZd8zG7zzHQ3F8zI7zzJIoX6zJIkL8zN7zzJZcY8zA7zzKpUN8zL7zzK4EX

when the link means your skills from the text it is a wrong link. Because their no Swallow Soul and you have Absorb Magic and no Defense Prosture. The skills look like an albion/scout in daoc. Defense with sword/schield and dmg with bow

ArRashid

This threat is about the bow and bow skills in PvE.. you can discuss your PvP nonsense (that honestly have nothing to do with a bow since it can be done with any other weapons) in PvP forum section, please.

CapuchinSeven

Kosilein wrote: »

when the link means your skills from the text it is a wrong link. Because their no Swallow Soul and you have Absorb Magic and no Defense Prosture. The skills look like an albion/scout in daoc. Defense with sword/schield and dmg with bow

Absorb Magic is Defense Posture, it's a morph of Defense Posture.

Defense Posture or Swallow Soul can be used (both can be taken but you lose the charge/teleport), totally up to each player to pick. I prefer shield for the shield passives and because the person I was replying to was talking about fighting casters I used Defense Posture (as it's what I run with) but that build can be altered how people prefer so I gave a few more options.

If I wanted to go total defense with my weapon swap I'd ditch the charge/teleport and slot Swallow Soul and Defense Posture.

CapuchinSeven

ArRashid wrote: »

This threat is about the bow and bow skills in PvE.. you can discuss your PvP nonsense (that honestly have nothing to do with a bow since it can be done with any other weapons) in PvP forum section, please.

Meh, you're still wrong, was just a single example, I can give more for PVE (also this is the skill line section, which has long since blended, there is no PVP skill line section).

You're all going to have to get over the fact that stamina weapons are not to be used with no class support.

It's up to you how much or how few class abilities you use, but you are going to have to come to terms with the fact that a single weapon alone is not the answer to a problem.

Also, you're wrong, that build won't work without high stamina and bow, it becomes useless.

Thejollygreenone

...anything that gets below 40% health and doesn't start holding down block is going to be dead with my bow build.

40% health? Oooh lovely, Ambush (or a charge), Soul Harvest (which is at huge amounts thanks to most of the fight being done with my bow) and Impale. That's about 2k + damage if you line them up correctly, which should be easy with a ranged interrupt and stagger. 1v1 my bow isn't there to kill someone, it's to screw up the casters casting which the bow excels at.

If they do just hold block I'll keep on shooting their stamina will fail and I'll be at full magicka and stamina thanks to Siphoning Strikes, if they hold block and spam attacks then Swallow Soul spam with full medium armour and shield passives and my own block held, your stamina block WILL outlast them and you will take less damage (even less if they keep firing at you and you use Defensive Posture, you can pretty much start loling at this point with 100 stamina regen, Siphoning Strikes and 1900k Stamina and their attacks going right back at them).

There is a weapon swap for a reason, you can't just run around with the bow and never expect to have to switch your tactic and style mid fight, even in real life some of the greatest archer nations in the world gave their archers chain mail and a sword and shield (even mounted archer nations). That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with a bow, it's THE weapon to take if you want to mess up a caster.

Is it always that simple? No of course not, PVP requires thinking on your feet, but the bow is a solid weapon.

Nothing will change how people feel though, I've had it in every MMO I've ever played, "you're lying", "you're only playing bads", "X class must all be bad on your server, because Y class is bad".

http://esohead.com/calculator/skills#mcRXyg0k9MW9M8IPU48fXGH8fXhs8IrtP8GFts8GHRG8IPU48innU8IfVM8IrtP8injt8LxRn8p7JMdBvT6MdBvj6MdBEI6MdBEp6cdBET8y7HLR3a6rR3f6MfQE16MfQE36MfQlr6MfQlu6MfQlI8t7H68g7HrsXy6rsXt6MipLW6MipL46MippV6Mippo6Mippq8C7DLzqa6Lzqq6Lzqu6MGFWc6MGFWi6MGFWA6MGFWn8D7DLzdm6rbMz6MIsaM6MIrv36MIrEf6MIrEh8F7DLzrJ6Lbut6MIPNU6MIPAh6MIPAT6MIPAv8P7ardYw857azx3TH6cx3TJ6cx3TO6cx3T38zf7zzNbo8zu7zzHfYE6zHfZd8zG7zzHQ3F8zI7zzJIoX6zJIkL8zN7zzJZcY8zA7zzKpUN8zL7zzK4EX

I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about bow, and not bow/x weapon, I guess I was mistaken. I just figured, resto staff wielders can use a resto staff in both slots and be equally as effective, why aren't we holding other weapon types up to the same standard?

Imo, a discussion about bow should only include talk about bows, unless comparing to another weapontype. Whatever weapon a player pairs with the bow is a matter of customization, and shouldn't be a necessity, just like is the case with a resto staff in pvp.

Rant continued:

You keep saying it's the weapon to take if you want to mess up a caster, but earlier in the post you said it's not there to kill someone. There are two things I find wrong with this. Firstly, when someone says 'mess someone up with something' in an mmo, I generally think of 'kill' not 'disrupt casting'. Secondly, you amended your statement to 'it's to screw up the casters from casting.' But you have yet to explain how.

Are you referring to venom arrow and the ranged interrupt? That's not bow exclusive. You can interrupt from melee, of course, or you could just use a destro staff and probably do more damage.

Until you can tell me specifically why bow would be any better against casters than any other weapon, forgive me if I remain skeptical. Nothing you've told me can't be done by another weapon type, so I'm merely perplexed about why you say it's the weapon to take against casters. I'm not here to say bow is crap and you can only kill bads with it, or anything like that (that was a joke anyway, clearly not every caster you've ever faced was bad, that's probably statistically impossible). Merely asking you to explain your thoughts.

And for the record, bringing up a hypothetical fight where you seem to primarily use 1h/shield didn't reveal anything to me about the benefits of a bow wielder fighting against a caster. Instead of writing a wall o' text like I am (simply because if I don't, I feel my point wont get across, as it hasn't yet), you could cut to the chase and actually explain this theory you have as to why bow specifically is the absolute best weapon to take against a caster, as you are portraying.

I'm not looking for a discussion about whether bow is good or not overall here, nor what weapon types it works as a secondary weapon to, nor examples of how you can kill some unsuspecting folk with your bow/1h shield combo, nor do I even really care to see your build (maybe the bow bar since I wont use a shield). What I'm looking for from you is a discussion about the bow tree and why it specifically would be any good against casters as you have asserted twice now.

However, as someone mentioned, this is actually a thread about pve, so I apologize for keeping on with an off-topic discussion. I'd just like to get to the bottom of this perceived benefit of bows against casters in pvp, and don't know of a better platform to get it done on ^.^

So, back on that subject:

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

It's up to you how much or how few class abilities you use, but you are going to have to come to terms with the fact that a single weapon alone is not the answer to a problem...

If bow is a solid weapon in pve as you believe it is in pvp (which is irrelevant at this point anyway), where are the bow users getting 1k+ single target dps in trials? Because that's really the only performance that needs to be discussed regarding pve damage dealers.

Furthermore, I'd partially agree with you when saying that stamina weapons are not to be used with no class support. However, class support abilities should, ideally, just include non-damaging magicka support abilities.

Yes, as a nightblade with, for example, DW pure stamina dps, I wouldn't only use stamina skills. I have abilities like haste and mark target to supplement my weapon abilities, but ideally I wouldn't use abilities like impale or soul harvest if there are stamina alternatives out there, because that's what your damage will obviously scale off of.

I just wanted to make this a little clearer, so people won't think its okay to be spamming funnel health as a damager in a pve bow stamina build. So, with that said, I'll go back to my original statement: Can you, with a bow and whatever supportive class abilities you use, pull over 1k dps in a trial setting? If not, no example of a pve setting you give isn't going to convince me that bow doesn't need some love in the pve department of the game. Numbers don't lie

Jaxom

Honeslty, I don't think it's possible to hit 1k+ dps with a bow build, period. I'd be surprised if it can even hit 700 dps (Trial Minimum) in prolonged fights. The skills do not scale like our class based skills enough to compete. The 7/7 LA build, with resto, Funnel Health, Crippling Grasp, and Equilibrium is the only build I'm aware of for NB that can top 1k.

For me personally, with the LA Funnel health build, I can hit 1-1.1K in the first two fights of AA. The wispmother drops to 850 due to the movement.

I'm currently theorycrafting a Bow build (again, it's all theory), that stacks poison damage. There is currently a PvP set that increases Poison damage by 15% for 8s. There two problems here. The set is PvP, which should never be required to compete for PvE endgame and the PvP set is a random drop from bags you need to buy with AP. So, it's going to take me awhile to get the full set to test properly.

If there was a PvE set that we could craft to significantly increase Poison Damage, under the right circumstances, it could be theoretically possible, but until then, I dont think a Bow build will cut it if your aim is completing Trials.

CapuchinSeven

Thejollygreenone wrote: »

I just figured, resto staff wielders can use a resto staff in both slots and be equally as effective, why aren't we holding other weapon types up to the same standard?

My 2nd Nightblade Wood Elf uses a bow in both slots.

Thejollygreenone wrote: »

and shouldn't be a necessity, just like is the case with a resto staff in pvp.

I destroy restro staff users, heal debuffs and you remove their main advantage that means poison, Lethal Arrow and Soul Harvest but most importantly a diseased bow.

Thejollygreenone wrote: »

Are you referring to venom arrow and the ranged interrupt? That's not bow exclusive. You can interrupt from melee, of course, or you could just use a destro staff and probably do more damage.

Bow gains 12% damage at distance plus another 15% when a target is off balance from interrupting a spell making your next heavy attack when you've interrupted hit very hard. Bow works very well with its interrupt which is instant and adds the poison debuff.

Thejollygreenone wrote: »

Because that's really the only performance that needs to be discussed regarding pve damage dealers.

But it isn't though.

As shocking as it might seem to some of you, not every weapon is going to be ideal in every single possible situation in a game based around an open weapon system with weapon swaps.

Funny as it might seem to you, a weapon that offerers the longest range, hardest hitting, double follow up opener in the game (that can be used from stealth) with the best spam able (even on elite mobs) knock back AND a jump back with less cost than a dodge attack AND a ranged interrupt doesn't have to be doing 1k damage in order for it to be a useful viable weapon.

Tannakaobi

ArRashid wrote: »

Since I'm playing an almost pure archer, I decided to write down some insights

1 Poison Arrow
- As with all other DoTs, the fact that they don't "add up" and instead just refresh themselves, makes them more or less useless for everything but keeping nightblades from using shadowy disguise (as it throws them out of stealth almost instantly)

Suggestions:
- make the DoT either add up, or tick faster. I think 4 seconds is the maximum duration which still "makes sense" - anything more means using Poison Arrow more often than every 10 seconds is a waste. So perhaps instead of 5 really small ticks, why not making it two ticks but with higher damage?

...eh!

It's a pretty good attack anyway but, morph it to Venom Arrow and you have a ridiculously effective ranged interrupt.

Hardly useless for everything but keeping nightblades from using shadowy disguise.

I shall continue reading now..

Thejollygreenone

Enclosing discussion with @CapuchinSeven in spoilers in an attempt to not disturb the proper content of this thread:

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

My 2nd Nightblade Wood Elf uses a bow in both slots.

I guess I misunderstood you when you said:

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

There is a weapon swap for a reason, you can't just run around with the bow and never expect to have to switch your tactic and style mid fight

In that I assumed you meant 'you can't just run around with only a bow and never expect to switch tactics/weapons.' Which I then attempted to rebut. I guess your mention of weapon swap gave me that idea, so I apologize if it is the case that I misunderstood you, such misunderstandings aren't quite productive, clearly.

The point I was trying to get across is that in a discussion about bow, I think it'd be ideal if we left other weapontypes out except to compare to, as talking about combinations of bow/x weapon just overcomplicates things. However that seems to have been a one time thing so lets continue down this route

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

I destroy restro staff users, heal debuffs and you remove their main advantage that means poison, Lethal Arrow and Soul Harvest but most importantly a diseased bow.

So do I, the ones that aren't prepared, even without a healing debuff. But the ones that are prepared and of equal or greater skill to me, there's close to no way. And actually, I do underutilize healing debuffs on my bow bar. I only have incapacitating strike on my melee bar to serve that purpose. And indeed that is something that bow gets specifically compared to other weapon types within its active abilities, so brownie points to you on that.

However, as you mentioned yourself, there are plenty of sources of healing debuffs outside of weapon skills. In fact, I'm sure a 2h with disease enchant and arcane fighter would have superior uptime on the healing debuff, although not from range, but I fail to see how that matters except situationally, dependent on the enemies abilities, which is just a matter of which is better between ranged and melee, not something that can be determined in a constant setting. Which brings me into my next point, regarding hawkeye and longshots.

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

Bow gains 12% damage at distance plus another 15% when a target is off balance from interrupting a spell making your next heavy attack when you've interrupted hit very hard. Bow works very well with its interrupt which is instant and adds the poison debuff.

Contrary to what one may assume when facing 'casters' there is actually very little 'casting' going on for casters. A spell caster can and many are equally or more effective when purely instacast abilities. Therefore, I don't think this point is really specific to casters (see uppercut/flurry), and only marginally to bow thanks to the hawkeye passive, which I think isn't used as often as I'd like in a passive.

Also, if you were at max range anyway and getting the 12%, couldn't we just consider this as a base for bow, as it's also not really specific to casters?
(casters can be in melee range, see dragon knights and whips, and melee can be at long range either from being kited or a dw user spamming flying blade while trying to catch up)

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

But it isn't though.

If pure damage output in pve isn't all that needs to be discussed about pve for damage dealers, what else is there to talk about? Are you really suggesting it be ok for bows to severely underperform in trials just because they do ok elsewhere? I think we have very different notions of balance...

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

As shocking as it might seem to some of you, not every weapon is going to be ideal in every single possible situation in a game based around an open weapon system with weapon swaps.

Funny as it might seem to you, a weapon that offerers the longest range, hardest hitting, double follow up opener in the game (that can be used from stealth) with the best spam able (even on elite mobs) knock back AND a jump back with less cost than a dodge attack AND a ranged interrupt doesn't have to be doing 1k damage in order for it to be a useful viable weapon.

Of course not every weapon is going to be ideal in every single possible situation in this game. Talk about strawman argument? But I'll humor this idea anyway, and answer your strawman with a strawman. Of course, you can't run around with a bow and expect to have the most defense out there, if you want added defenses you should pick up a shield or a resto staff, or even heavy armor but that's getting a bit off topic.

But if I want the most sustained damage possible from range, while still remaining as a stamina build. At the moment, this is not possible, while there is no reason it shouldn't be possible. If magicka builds can get either great burst or great sustained in a range build by switching some abilities and not weapons, why can't I expect similar options out of bows? So again, I point to an issue of balance.

If you want a game in which each of the weapon types has a specific role, in that say bow would be the best out of stealth, and 2h had the most burst, and dw had the most sustained, or some dynamic like that, then that's fine, go find a game where weapons are split like that, or make your own. But don't impose your wishes into a game where such distinctions haven't been specified as existent or intended.

So I will state once more, not once has it ever been stated by ZoS, to my knowledge, that bow isn't intended to perform similarly as well in trials because of whatever state it is in pvp. They wouldn't even have been able to tell how it would turn out to be able to make such a statement. So with that in mind, good sir, I believe you are fundamentally incorrect in thinking that bow is in a 'solid spot' currently. I think there is much to be done.

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO

ArRashid wrote: »

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO wrote: »

I'm so frustrated with people like you who want them to change everything to suit your style. Poisen arrow is very good and dosent need to be changed. Its an interrupt why would you spam it. Perhaps lowering it on feul injection would be reasonable, or perhaps they did this intentionally so you can't just spam one move all day. I use bow in Pvp just for poisen arrow because the velocity is much faster than most moves and it interrupts. I choose to use it on my close range DPs set up with resto healer on my other. They have to take into account the whole game not just some person who wants to ignore all the other available moves and use only one weapon.

Things you need for PvP success:
- moment of surprise
- any ranged weapon
- instant skill to abuse animation canceling from range

Things you need for PvE success:
- AoE CC
- AoE dmg
- single target damage
- finisher
- resource management capable of providing sustained damage over a few minutes instead of 20 seconds
- whole lot of awareness
- survivability (self heal/stealth/reflect/absorb)
- ......

Why is this targeted at me? First of all on pve; ya no ***. Second of all. Same for PvP if you don't want to suck. I do not depend on surprise, I have won many 1v1 being knocked off my horse. I don't use bow for range I use it for interrupt poison arrow on a " melee" style build

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO

ArRashid wrote: »

This threat is about the bow and bow skills in PvE.. you can discuss your PvP nonsense (that honestly have nothing to do with a bow since it can be done with any other weapons) in PvP forum section, please.

There is no such thing as talking in pve only context. All changes effect both! If want to ignore one you have nothing to contribute to the community because you do not care about game balance.

CapuchinSeven

Thejollygreenone wrote: »

Enclosing discussion with @CapuchinSeven in spoilers in an attempt to not disturb the proper content of this thread

...right, so you want a ranged weapon, with the best opener in the game, a heal debuff, a ranged interrupt, a ranged cone snare AND 1k damage.


...and the point of using any other weapon would beeee?

ArRashid

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

Thejollygreenone wrote: »

Enclosing discussion with @CapuchinSeven in spoilers in an attempt to not disturb the proper content of this thread

...right, so you want a ranged weapon, with the best opener in the game, a heal debuff, a ranged interrupt, a ranged cone snare AND 1k damage.


...and the point of using any other weapon would beeee?

Resto Staff is THE most OP weapon in the game right now and that doesn't mean everyone uses it. Oh well, this is like throwing peas on the wall.. I'll never understand this PvP mentality.. "nothing is balanced and we don't like that, but we don't like any changes at all either. Better just leave us permawhinning and don't even notice us"

Thejollygreenone

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

Thejollygreenone wrote: »

Enclosing discussion with @CapuchinSeven in spoilers in an attempt to not disturb the proper content of this thread

...right, so you want a ranged weapon, with the best opener in the game, a heal debuff, a ranged interrupt, a ranged cone snare AND 1k damage.


...and the point of using any other weapon would beeee?

Well, since you asked so nicely, here's the long version:

Ranged interrupt goes along with ranged offensive weapon. Both ranged offensive weapons has this, and the hawkeye passive doesn't automatically make it the only ranged interrupt to use, if you ask me. Especially with how little casting actually happens.

Best opener? You mean snipe with venom arrow followed, or double snipe which is clunky as hell? I can get the same or more damage out quicker with ambush+soul harvest. So I'm not sure about the best opener in the game, bow certainly has a great opener, but there are other openers out there that are just as good and kill people just as quick that have nothing to do with bow.

Heal debuff, yeah, again, kinda valid, as I said in the last post. Except for the fact that anyone can get it on any weapon with disease enchant as you mentioned. Or you can just be a templar caster with dark flare,

Ranged aoe snare. I mean..That's a bit obscure to bring up, but...I would expect if a range weapon were to get an aoe snare that it would be ranged. But yes, this is something bows get that isn't widely available like the other three things you mentioned. However, not exclusive to bow either. Sorcs have encase as I'm sure you know, which is the same thing minus the conal.

So if casters can get all of these things, as well as well over 1k damage per second, then yes, I don't believe it's unfair that bow does too. And for that matter, dw and 2h should have similar benefits and be competitive in pve.

But I suppose all of this goes along with a personal philosophy I have in mmos. Particularly for this one, I believe that every offensive weapon type should be desired in a trial for one reason or another, there should be a build with every offensive weapon, in my opinion, that can compete within 200 dps of the top dps build. That is ultimately what ideal balance is in pve, to me.

Anything else?

The short version:

The point of using any other weapon...Let's see.. I could use a destro/resto staff and get every advantage you mentioned, except maybe the ranged aoe root, which I could give up anyway since I primarily enjoy 1v1 and smaller scale combat over AvA, however relevant that bit of information is.

Or I could take the ranged aoe snare in favor of a worse opener by choosing sorc over nightblade, and even then, the opener I would have available would be pretty strong.

So the point of using a staff is I could do any/all but one of these things AND have the option to do at least 1.2k damage per second. There's your reason to use any other weapon. If 2h ever get's the dps love it needs, and dw also get's a few tweaks, there would be reasons to wear those over a bow as well.

Are you intentionally giving me refutable arguments? Cause that's kinda how it seems at this point.

CapuchinSeven

Thejollygreenone wrote: »

Are you intentionally giving me refutable arguments? Cause that's kinda how it seems at this point.

I get that you think you know what you're talking about, I get it, but I really do have to wonder if you've actually done 1k DPS but you are simply SO far off the point I highly doubt that you have.

Your entire post is built around buffing every single attack in the bow tree because you don't like them or to provide this 1k figure you've decided on and you just don't get how 1k builds do 800-1k damage.

News flash, 1k builds are not doing 1k of damage because of a single weapon, 1k builds are doing 1k of damage because of unbalanced light armour passives, insane skill trees giving +20% critical chance and allowing for never ending magicka as long as there is a healer and so on and so on, the restro staff bonus to damage is just a cherry on an already stupidly unbalanced cake with literally nothing coming close for stamina passives or Fighters Guild trees (which is useless outside of killing undead next to the Mages guild).

The problem isn't with the bow and some of you people clearly can't see the wood from the trees, the problem is with passives, armour and class abilities pushing class and magic skills WAY above the pile.

Like I said, you can't see the wood from the trees, better passives and boosts allowing people to gain more from their weapons is the answer not sticking a ton of damage onto of weapon skills like a bull in a china shop (and before you think of yet another smart ass reply, please remember ZOS have already said weapon skills won't be getting any significant damage boosts and that won't be how they are going to balance stamina, ZOS have spoken and for all your smarts, you'd already lost the argument before you posted).

Thejollygreenone

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

Thejollygreenone wrote: »

Are you intentionally giving me refutable arguments? Cause that's kinda how it seems at this point.

I get that you think you know what you're talking about, I get it, but I really do have to wonder if you've actually done 1k DPS but you are simply SO far off the point I highly doubt that you have.

Your entire post is built around buffing every single attack in the bow tree because you don't like them or to provide this 1k figure you've decided on and you just don't get how 1k builds do 800-1k damage.

News flash, 1k builds are not doing 1k of damage because of a single weapon, 1k builds are doing 1k of damage because of unbalanced light armour passives, insane skill trees giving +20% critical chance and allowing for never ending magicka as long as there is a healer and so on and so on, the restro staff bonus to damage is just a cherry on an already stupidly unbalanced cake with literally nothing coming close for stamina passives or Fighters Guild trees (which is useless outside of killing undead next to the Mages guild).

The problem isn't with the bow and some of you people clearly can't see the wood from the trees, the problem is with passives, armour and class abilities pushing class and magic skills WAY above the pile.

Like I said, you can't see the wood from the trees, better passives and boosts allowing people to gain more from their weapons is the answer not sticking a ton of damage onto of weapon skills like a bull in a china shop (and before you think of yet another smart ass reply, please remember ZOS have already said weapon skills won't be getting any significant damage boosts and that won't be how they are going to balance stamina, ZOS have spoken and for all your smarts, you'd already lost the argument before you posted).

Moar strawmans, please. Half the things you're bringing about right now haven't been written by me in this thread, or even really elsewhere.

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

Your entire post is built around buffing every single attack in the bow tree because you don't like them or to provide this 1k figure you've decided on and you just don't get how 1k builds do 800-1k damage.

Prime example^

All my posts are built around getting people to think about what could be improved in bow to give it the competitiveness that I feel ALL weapontypes deserve in an endgame pve (trial) setting. Not getting 'every single attack in the bow tree' buffed.

Never once did I say to buff every single attack in the bow tree. I don't think I've even specified what abilities I'd like to see improved or which I feel don't need it. Nor do I think the dps I personally could pull if I ever decided to spend a bunch of gold on a set for a spec I don't enjoy (light armor resto staff) is relevant to the conversation at hand. The values I discuss and would like to see from other weapon types are derived from numbers I've seen and heard from player who would produce such top end numbers.

Here's a bunch of my thoughts that I don't feel I should have had to specify, or were irrelevant to the thread, but because of such large misunderstandings as my posts have generated for you, I feel I should clarify:

We are actually arguing for the same point, believe it or not. I'd agree in that this almost can be boiled down to just a matter of stamina vs magicka build imbalances. I never stated that I believed it wasn't. Furthermore, contrary to what it seems you have assumed, I don't think bow is the only weapon tree that needs improvement in an endgame pve setting, and therefore should receive endless buffs. I honestly don't know how someone could interpret that from my posts.

I've even said in many of my posts I wish for 2h and dw to get similar love to what I'm asking for with bow, with dw being near where it should with some minor adjustments possibly needed. The reason I speak specifically about bow is because this is a thread talking about bows, so I limit my discussion to that.

I ask for improvements for bow in this thread, because this is a thread discussing specifically bows, and bows fit under the category of underperforming stamina weapons. And I ask for improvements, rather than nerfs to magicka builds, because it seems like a more positive change. Of course that comes with stipulations, I'm no stranger to mmo game balance as you also seem to assume.

So there are either two routes, add in all the passives and synergistic effects for stamina builds that are available to magicka builds, or they can bring down the effectiveness of magicka builds to compensate since as you said they're 'way above the pile.' Which is a known fact by now. Or a combination of both. I'm not against any of these options as it seems you are assuming.

All I care about is, by whatever means ZoS feels fit, that in pvp one can go out with any weapon and have some niche effectiveness. We're already damn close to this ideal. Bow doesn't need all too much help in the department of pvp or pvp related abilities.

But in pve the disparity is much larger, and that's the other part of the 'all I care about for changes' bit: All offensive weapon types should ideally be desired in a trial environment for one reason or another. For that to be the case, dps has to be not 500-700 dps below what one could pull with a different weapon/armor.

Somehow you've deducted that I believe that what bow suffers from is a bow only issue. Weapons and armor are inevitably entwined, and so disparity in one inevitably affects the other. But I believe both are in disparity. Bow itself contributes to some of the trouble the weapontype has in trials, and medium armor/stamina and related stats contribute to a lot of the trouble.

The only reason I'm not bringing ALL that up is because this is a thread about specifically bows, and I like to narrow the discussion down as much as possible while still being productive.

But I guess productiveness goes out the window when posters end up filling half their posts with unfounded patronizing insults. If that's how this is going to continue, I don't think I want to continue on in a discussion with you. And I'm not going to give anyone the satisfaction of answering questions and/or accusations obviously designed to be insulting.

TLDR;

All I'll say is that between champion system passives, spellcrafting buff spells, moar set bonuses aimed in the right direction (some new pvp sets look to have some universal awesomage regarding stamina builds), that eventually bow, along with 2h and dw, will be getting a lot of much needed love.

But I do believe there are things within the skill trees of these weapons that could be tweaked at the very least. Not every ability and morph and passive in the bow tree is perfect, nor is it for 2h or dw, or even arguably destro staff. All I've tried to build my posts around is to promote discussion about some of the things that could be tweaked with bow specifically, and to argue against those I thought believed bow was fine (perfect) as is. If things aren't perfect, there's always room to discuss improvement imo.

P.S. Since you're so curious about this 1k dps figure I keep bringing up, I'll explain:

the 1k dps figure came about as a general number placer because I see resto staff and destro staff builds, depending on class, do generally at least 100dps more than that currently. If a NB with a resto staff can do 1.3k dps which is the max I hear, with having seen screenshots of at least 1.2k, I only figured it was fair if other offensive weapontypes performed within, say, 25% of that number. And even 25% is a huge gap, imo.

If someone could pull at least 900-1000 dps in a trial with any offensive weapon type, while the max for any weapon type was 1200-1300, I'd be content and wouldn't feel the need to discuss improvements. Furthermore, nor do I care if I specifically am able to hit 900-1k dps, as my personal skill is irrelevant in this discussion. I don't even know why you bring that up. As long as someone with a bow, and 2h, and dw could, again, I'd be content.

DuelWieldingCheesyPoofs

IM playing bow over my sorc spells everything is maxed and bow feels great to me, almost one shot things with snipe or atleast half life

Thejollygreenone

inspiral1 wrote: »

IM playing bow over my sorc spells everything is maxed and bow feels great to me, almost one shot things with snipe or atleast half life

Yeah in solo content bow is in a well enough spot, it doesn't have the aoe burst capability of some other builds but it's not really necessary. Bombard and magnum shot are all one needs to keep multiple baddies at bay while you single them out one by one with whatever nuking abilities you choose.

Imo, there's not much disparity between the different weapons anywhere but in high end group pve (trials). In pvp, weapons are diverse enough to serve at least some purpose well enough regardless of what you choose. That's not to say pvp balance is perfect, certainly, but one can run out with a build based around any weapon type, of course depending on class, and do well at something or other.

Likewise, while leveling up, while some things may not be as easy as for someone in a different build, you can run around with most logical combinations of weapons and armor and get from 1-50-vr12 without having to switch.

Kego

Instead of buffing through all Weapon Sets, how about nerfing the few Magicka synergies that let them outperform Weapons?

Like give Stamina Weapons a buff for ~100DPS in PvE and a nerf of ~300 DPS to Magicka.
On that way, PvE Raids would be more challenging with DPS around 700-900, instead of 1000-1300, too.