The Bow as a Sustained PvE End-Game Single-Target DPS weapon

Marsalla

Greetings All,

Since there has been a great deal of discussion about the bow (and why wouldn't there be), but the discussion always gets derailed, I thought I'd take a shot at it.

As the title indicates, this is for Sustained PvE End-Game Single-Target DPS discussion. Please feel free to include Live experience as the starting point can be very helpful when discussing changes. There seems to be a substantial playerbase that wants to play a Nightblade with a bow, so let's limit the discussion to that, just to simplify things.

Is the bow currently a competetive Sustained PvE End-Game Single-Target DPS weapon?
If so, please post some basics on your build, shot priority/rotation and DPS return at 60 seconds+ single-target.

If not, please post your ideas on producing a balanced solution. Things to keep in mind: Remove as few abilities which are highly utilized elsewhere as possible (PvP morphs, questing abilities) and consider whether or not your suggestion would overpower an ability in another setting. I say that if the bow is in fact not up to this mark,it should have an ability created or updated to exclusively increase damage over time. My initial thoughts to get this going:

1) Poison Injection - since venom arrow is such a strong PvP morph, alter this morph to provide sustained DPS; perhaps allow the debuff to stack (but only w/this morph).
Pros: Does not increase burst, follows the current sta curve, easily balanced by altering the max stack count
Cons: Players would want a different morph for PvP and PvE

2) Arrow Spray/Volley - there are 4 AOE morphs. Alter one of four morphs to be a multi-strike (perhaps similar to Flurry) and alter the sta cost to allow this to be the most often fired skill (MOFS) (calling this "spam" really isn't accurate and I'm excluding light attacks as they aren't a skill).
Arrow Barrage and Venom Spray could easily be changed to pelt a single target multiple times through multiple quick shots or through splitting a single shot (fires multiple venemous projectiles at your target, etc)
Pros: Creates a MOFS that doesn't infringe on any other aspect of the game that also reduces AOE bloat
Cons: Players might have to level an unleveled skill

3) Snipe - this seems to be the shoehorned ability of choice, so let's discuss not increasing its burst and instead increasing its sustained DPS. Remove the additional range from Focused Aim, add a "does not benefit from stealth" and add some sustained-oriented DPS increase (ex. a short-duration bleed, boost to further FAs, greater increased Weapon Damage). Perhaps leave the 20% buff in place through a morph, or add it to both based on PvP needs.
Pros: Shoehorns in Snipe, creates a morph which allows only sustained DPS while not effecting PvP opener balance.
Cons: Players would want differrent morphs for PvP and PvE, and a channeled skill as a MOFS can feel uninvolved in PvE

So those are my thoughts; if some folks with greater experience and/or time than I have would like to jump in that would be great! I like the idea of changing 1/4 AOE morphs most myself, but I'm hoping to see some really useful discussion. Heck, maybe bows are already fine. What do you think? Thanks for reading, and please keep it constructive.

~Mars

TLDR: go read it.

Marsalla

Lots of views for no comments - c'mon folks! Agree, disagree, bring some feedback and opinions!

Artis

I think what they need to do among other things is to simply make attack damage scale more.

It's funny how when you shoot or swing your 2handed weapon you take almost no hp. That's not what you expect when you invest in stamina and make a stamina build. Needs to be fixed.

Richard.A.Ferrellub17_ESO

I have tried everything to maximize my single-target bow dps in end game pve content (specifically veteran dungeon bosses and trial bosses). The best sustained dps that I can achieve is with poison arrow/light attack weave. Using Focused Aim every 10 sec for the buff is a dps loss.

---

V12 Sorcerer
Full Legendary 7/7 Med (infused) + Legendary stam enchants
5 Hundings / 3 Night's Silence
Stam Recovery/Robust Jewelry

My Stats:
2500 stamina
222 weapon damage
55% weapon crit

Under perfect circumstances with flawless light attack/poison arrow weaving, I can achieve 550-600 dps tops on boss fights.

---

I trained Destruction Staff and Light Armor a little bit to test it out. Here are my stats, rotation, and results on the same fights:

Using V10 Destro Staff (blue)
7/7 V10 Light Armor (blue)
lvl 29 Destruction Staff skill
lvl 32 Light Armor skill
1500 magicka
30% spell crit
91 spell damage

Using only light attack/Force Shock weaving, I can easily achieve 700 dps on the same fights.

---

The performance of bows in sustained end game single target dps is complete garbage. They need to give us something here.

Suggestions for Improvement:
Poison Injection DoT stacking, stacks up to 5 times.
Focused Aim change: for 10 seconds, subsequent light/heavy attacks cause stacking Armor Penetration. (10% per application, stacks 10 times, falls off after 3 seconds)

timidobserver

If you see a Bow user's in your trials group leave the group to save time.

Voodoo

timidobserver wrote: »

If you see a Bow user's in your trials group leave the group to save time.

/always a troll somewhere!

...Thanks Richard.A.Ferrellub17_ESO for those stats! I am not giving up on bow as its fun and should kick ass! ...plus I hate! being what everyone else is!

timidobserver

Voodoo wrote: »

timidobserver wrote: »

If you see a Bow user's in your trials group leave the group to save time.

/always a troll somewhere!

...Thanks Richard.A.Ferrellub17_ESO for those stats! I am not giving up on bow as its fun and should kick ass! ...plus I hate! being what everyone else is!

It isn't trolling at all. Evaluating what the group members are running is a good way to weed out bad trials runs and good trials runs. A group with bow users, in my personal experience, has a high likelihood of failing on the third and fourth bosses.

Marsalla

At least we have a little bit of discussion; interesting to see the bow sorc trying to make it work at end game too. I know we're just getting started, but so far the consensus seems to be that the safe way to buff the bow line is to change a morph so that it adds stacking damage. Either from Poison Injection or perhaps FA (thanks for that suggestion). Any thoughts on whether or not the 20% to FA has made it not an active DPS loss?

Richard, was your testing Live or PTS?

Quite honestly, it seems to me that they need to remove the 20% Snipe buff and let that ability be PvP/questing and change an AoE morph to a MOFS in addition to changing Poison Injection's morph from adding damage under 35% to allowing the DOT to stack (probably 3-5 times).

Can we get some more open discussion on how far off the bow line is and what changes might produce a working weapon? This is certainly a major issue since otherwise a major archetype of any fantasy setting will continue to be terrible in ESO's PvE endgame.

Terrible bow users in a fantasy RPG can't be intended.

Richard.A.Ferrellub17_ESO

My tests and results were from Live. It would be extremely tedious to replicate my build on the PTS server for testing.

The cast time reduction of Snipe from 2.0 to 1.8 seconds will not bring it anywhere close to being a DPS gain in single target fights. As it stands you can weave 2 light attacks and 2 Poison Arrows in the time it takes cast Snipe.

If Snipe dps > 2 light attacks + 2 poison arrows, it would be a dps gain. Snipe is currently doing roughly 33% more damage than 1 light attack + 1 poison arrow. By my math, Snipe would require a 1.3 second cast time to be a dps gain.

If they gave Snipe a 1.3 second cast time, that would not help our dps. We would be performing the same dps but just spamming Snipe instead.

JonzzLonewolf

In a sustained fight, using Siphoning Attacks as my only form of sustain, I was only able to achieve 500-650 dps.

Haven't tried 3 potion timer enchants and spamming the tri-stamina pots though..Anyone care to try that?

Marsalla

I have some separate discussion on the Foundry that involves the alchemist enchants and various potion use. None of that is generating a higher sustained DPS. The end DPS has been coming out lower. Very sadly, so far it really seems that unless ESO has a stacking DOT for bows or perhaps an AOE morphed into a single-target ability that a core archetype will stay unacceptable by the game's own difficulty curve. That doesn't sound very good for longevity or console success
Anyone have any similar experience or experience to the contrary? Trying to get this discussion where the Powers That Be can see it so that we can perhaps have a working bow tree when this patch goes live.
For reference, any DPSer needs to pull 800-1000 single target sustained at V12 for trial bosses (please feel free to agree or disagree here so that we can also say where the bar is at).

Dubah

to be honest and i have no idea how he does it, but we have a bow user in our trials group and he can put out 1k sustained single target dps... ill get some info from him next time i see him, sadly i heal and really can't tell you what would be good for a bow, however i have created an alt to play the bow style and pretty excited to get him up there.

nvsg

Hey man I barely read what you were saying but I used the bow all the way to vr12 without using any other weapon just 2 bows as a night blade. I fought through it lol , but then I changed to two hand/bow because of the skills that made me better of a player, plus I was bored of double bow to answer your question is bow good for single target yes I can hold down a heavy attack and hit 1k shots just need to up that weapon dmg bro I could go back to double bow anytime and still feel great about it but smashing around with critical strike is really fun but I rather sit here and watch youtube or streams of call of duty because of there lack of 1v1s in eso

khele23eb17_ESO

nvsg wrote: »

Hey man I barely read what you were saying but I used the bow all the way to vr12 without using any other weapon just 2 bows as a night blade. I fought through it lol , but then I changed to two hand/bow because of the skills that made me better of a player, plus I was bored of double bow to answer your question is bow good for single target yes I can hold down a heavy attack and hit 1k shots just need to up that weapon dmg bro I could go back to double bow anytime and still feel great about it but smashing around with critical strike is really fun but I rather sit here and watch youtube or streams of call of duty because of there lack of 1v1s in eso

The topic is dedicated to sustained PvE damage.

Marsalla

khele23eb17_ESO wrote: »

The topic is dedicated to sustained PvE damage.

Also, thank you Dubah, that's VERY interesting to hear! If we could get some first-hand information that would be truly helpful indeed.

ArRashid

Bombard is an absolute must for leveling an archer, so if something should be changed, it's volley - right now it's too slow to be usable. By the time the arrows start raining down, most mobs are already killed by others. It just locks you from doing anything better for about 1.5-2 sec till you aim it and the animation runs.

Bows don't need much to be usable though.. They sorely lack sustained damage, as all skills cost a LOT of stamina (especially bombard, but others too), and a finisher.

1) change Poison Arrow - either make the DoT stack, or remove the DoT completely and add it whole to the shot as poison-school damage (I'd prefer stacking because instant damage would just promote animation canceling).

2) add a passive/snipe functionality that would work like a stamina version of Crystal Fragments - all stamina abilities having a chance to make your next Snipe instant and half cheaper

3) for the finisher.. I don't know. If we want some relatively original idea, why not making Snipe's PvE morph provide more and more weapon damage the lower the target's HP is? Though the buff would have to be 2x bigger to punch it through the soft caps.. or just make it apply a debuff to the target that makes it take more damage the lower his HP is.. (as it's my philosophy that nothing that can't survive a Snipe or two is worth using a finisher on anyway)

---

Still, this game's biggest problem atm is ANIMATION CANCELING, because leaving it unfixed for so long made people just assume they SHOULD do that (and assume everyone who refuses to use it is a noob who shouldn't even attempt endgame).
I mean, really.. I wish they made some debuff that makes your weapon unequip (or otherwise paralyze you, such as -100% light attack damage) if you cancel animation more than once a several seconds, unless you're wearing a shield (since tanks kinda have to cancel animations to survive, if they are caught swinging weapons when boss attacks them).

Marsalla

So far I've been unable to keep the bow over 800 for 60 seconds on PST, either with snipe or without snipe. My best tries have both run Poison Injection, Crippling Grasp, Imaple, Siphoning Strikes & Flawless Dawnbreaker. Then either Focused Attacks or Focused Aim. I hope we see a PTS pass with a volley morph to single target or a stacking Poison injection this week.

Marsalla

Another topic to hopefully get some discussion moving; current design passes seem to want Snipe as part of a PvE skill set. But it has a dead zone that makes "stack and burn" impossible. Additionally, the very first bow passive works completely against current PvE combat design.

Can we get some thoughts on this or some additional numbers?

Sasky

Yeah, bow gets a damage bonus against distant targets, but no good way to make sure a gap stays open in most PvE situations. As well, most of the trials groups put ranged right up on the boss, which both cancels the bonus and rules out snipe (even if it worked in to decent dps).

Perhaps roll in the 12% damage to all bow skills (they need it anyways) and change that passive to bestow additional damage against poisoned targets instead.

Vuron

I don't want to derail the thread, but thought that I should mention a few points.

I've been playing a NB as a main since I started testing over a year ago. I've used DW, Bow, Resto, Destro, and a 2-hander extensively over the last year. I leveled in live using a single DW bar and used my 2nd bar to level other skills. I have DW, Bow, Destro, and Resto all at level 50. My very first build was a DW/Bow build and my very first PvP weapon was a bow. One of my guildies tried for months to get a Bow/Bow build to be viable and gave ZOS feedback after feedback to try to get it better.

Currently, no "weapon" is really viable for end-game, single target sustained fights. My DW build doesn't use any weapon skills. My, even better, resto trials build doesn't use any weapon skills, either. My flame staff wielding DK doesn't use any weapon skills for single target. Weapons are being used mainly for the passives.

There are many people that are trying to slot weapon skills in their builds, but it seems that bow users tend to want to focus on weapon skills more than any other class. Most people might put a weapon skill on their bar as a stamina dump or for a specific situation, but many bow users want to stack their bar with bow skills and it just doesn't work.

Just for curiosities sake, have any of you tried testing the normal light attack/funnel health trial build and simply replacing the resto staff with a bow to compare the results.

Jaxom

Vuron wrote: »

Just for curiosities sake, have any of you tried testing the normal light attack/funnel health trial build and simply replacing the resto staff with a bow to compare the results.

I haven't tried it, but I don't think it would make much sense at that point. You would be losing 10% damage across the board plus the Resto Heavy Attack Magicka gain if you are in a pinch. If you are going all class abilities, I see no other reason not to have a Resto staff as it synergies the best as a NB.

Vuron

Jaxom wrote: »

Vuron wrote: »

Just for curiosities sake, have any of you tried testing the normal light attack/funnel health trial build and simply replacing the resto staff with a bow to compare the results.

I haven't tried it, but I don't think it would make much sense at that point. You would be losing 10% damage across the board plus the Resto Heavy Attack Magicka gain if you are in a pinch. If you are going all class abilities, I see no other reason not to have a Resto staff as it synergies the best as a NB.

I completely agree, but was curious as to what the actual DPS loss would be. This test would be the apples to apples comparison that is needed to see how far off bow actually is to the staff.

Saying that bow is crap because the light attack/poison arrow doesn't compare to light attack/funnel is not comparing weapons, but comparing different builds. We need to start with a baseline before we can really move forward.

Jaxom

Vuron wrote: »

Jaxom wrote: »

Vuron wrote: »

Just for curiosities sake, have any of you tried testing the normal light attack/funnel health trial build and simply replacing the resto staff with a bow to compare the results.

I haven't tried it, but I don't think it would make much sense at that point. You would be losing 10% damage across the board plus the Resto Heavy Attack Magicka gain if you are in a pinch. If you are going all class abilities, I see no other reason not to have a Resto staff as it synergies the best as a NB.

I completely agree, but was curious as to what the actual DPS loss would be. This test would be the apples to apples comparison that is needed to see how far off bow actually is to the staff.

Saying that bow is crap because the light attack/poison arrow doesn't compare to light attack/funnel is not comparing weapons, but comparing different builds. We need to start with a baseline before we can really move forward.

Yeah, I'm curious to know the DPS loss as well. the LA would certainly take a dps hit since you would be stacking Magicka not Stamina, however, the Bow Light attack deals more damage than Resto Light Attack (I think), so that portion could potentially be a wash. If I had to guess, I think you would be losing the 10% damage to Funnel Health. The other unknown here would be, are you speccing for Spell damage or Weapon damage for the test?

I'm specced for Stamina so I'm not able to test this out thoroughly


While I'm waiting in Queue tonight, I'm going to test out the following:

As a stamina focused build (Weapon Damage, Weapon Crit, Stamina Glyphs), which does more damage, Funnel Health/Light Attack, or Poison Arrow/Light Attack.

If someone could do the opposite, that would be great.

Vuron

I'm leaving for vacation this weekend, but might be able to test outside of trials tonight. I won't be able to completely change my build, but think that I might have some weapon damage rings in my bank that I could use to replace my current spell damage. I can use trifecta food to bump up my stamina further. I should be able to craft a decent bow for the test and might even have some stamina armor sets in the bank.

I should be able to play around with a bunch of combinations to try to compare resto la/funnel to bow la/funnel.

Richard.A.Ferrellub17_ESO

Vuron wrote: »

Jaxom wrote: »

Vuron wrote: »

Just for curiosities sake, have any of you tried testing the normal light attack/funnel health trial build and simply replacing the resto staff with a bow to compare the results.

I haven't tried it, but I don't think it would make much sense at that point. You would be losing 10% damage across the board plus the Resto Heavy Attack Magicka gain if you are in a pinch. If you are going all class abilities, I see no other reason not to have a Resto staff as it synergies the best as a NB.

I completely agree, but was curious as to what the actual DPS loss would be. This test would be the apples to apples comparison that is needed to see how far off bow actually is to the staff.

Saying that bow is crap because the light attack/poison arrow doesn't compare to light attack/funnel is not comparing weapons, but comparing different builds. We need to start with a baseline before we can really move forward.

What is the point? if you want to compare bow to staff dps, you need to compare staff light attack + staff ability weaving vs bow light attacks + bow ability weaving.

Players who play with bow and want it to be viable are not wearing dresses, and weaving with class abilities (using bow only for the light attack).

staff: light attack + force shock weave
bow: light attack + poison arrow weave

You will find that bow will perform 200-250 dps less but with far more resource efficiency.

Suggestion:
Increase initial damage of poison arrow by 50%. Increase stamina cost 50%.
or
Allow poison arrow DoT to stack up to 5 times. Increase stamina cost 50%.

Sasky

Vuron wrote: »

Currently, no "weapon" is really viable for end-game, single target sustained fights. My DW build doesn't use any weapon skills. My, even better, resto trials build doesn't use any weapon skills, either. My flame staff wielding DK doesn't use any weapon skills for single target. Weapons are being used mainly for the passives.

There are viable 'hybrid' builds for trials for destruction staff, dual wield, and two-hand where you use class DoT spells and then use weapon skills for the bulk of damage. For some classes (templar, sorc) these are better than their pure class builds (although they require a lot more work than the NB or DK class builds).

Some of the bow being lower is due to stamina vs magicka: lack of sets for sustain, no equilibrium, and needing the pool for mobility. However, if you compare bow to 2h or dual wield (ignoring the mag vs stam debate), it still falls behind. Part is there isn't a good spammable skill. Part is there's no execution move unlike both 2h or dual wield. Part is the weapon damage of a bow starts so much below 2h or dual wield. Part of it is the passives.

For dps comparison, it's probably best to look between different weapons -- either with pure weapon skills or with class skills thrown in for DoT and buffs.

Varicite

Vuron wrote: »

Currently, no "weapon" is really viable for end-game, single target sustained fights.

Crushing Shock builds disagree w/ this statement.

Marsalla

Interesting to see some open discussion, even if it isn't really in the original vein. I certainly agree that multiple weapon skill lines still need some help. From what I understand 2H is suffering but dual-wield seems to be recovering with the Medium Armor change. I've seen plenty of builds using dual-wield and 1H as well as both staves. Honestly, I'd like to hear from Zenimax whether or not they even want the weapon skill lines they made to be used in PvE - particularly the bow. If they never intend for their weapons to work in particular situations inside the structure of their game they really need to communicate that to their players. And of course if they DO intend for their weapon skill lines to be competitive with weapon-skill oriented builds within their PvE structure they also need to convey that to us.

The only bow-oriented builds I've seen that even pass the viable mark run Poison Injection (which is too weak and really just needs to stack), Crippling Grasp, Impale, either Focused Attacks or Siphoning Strikes (based on fight length), Flawless Dawnbreaker, then something. The something can be almost anything, which is the second problem from my point of view (the first being that the Poison Injection morph needs to be increased 50%ish or allowed to stack). Either Focused Aim needs a straight damage buff AND removal of the dead zone or a volley morph needs to be a single target rapid shot. I also have to say that I feel a change to Long Shots is another route to go down, although leaving that in place for PvP builds might prevent one tweak from impacting another area where bows are working.

Keep the discussion flowing if anyone has some good input, but at this point it looks like one of a very few options is required for the bow skill line to function in PvE is that is intended. At this point the solutions have been out there a good while, and if a fix doesn't go into this patch I have to wonder if it's a logical conclusion that some weapon skill lines are not designed to be PvE skill lines. I'd really like to see something official on it so we know whether or not we're wasting our efforts to help additional parts of ESO be enjoyable. Please do share the results of any testing; you could mimic the Resto Staff damage utilizing Long Shots, but of course not in current execution strategies.

Thanks Again And Keep It Going,

Jaxom

Marsalla wrote: »

needs to be a single target rapid shot.

I think this is all the bow is missing. Give it a single target shot that hits multiple times similarly to what Rapid Strikes does. Have it do increasing damage for each attack where the final attack can be morphed to some sort of cc ability (maybe disorient or knockdown depending on the morph)

Something like ( 155, 195, 235, 275, 375) over 3s (channel) and can be interrupted. Over 3s this would average 411 dps. Give the bow something it can build around.

Edit: adjusted the number to be more in line with other skills.

Richard.A.Ferrellub17_ESO

Jaxom wrote: »

Marsalla wrote: »

needs to be a single target rapid shot.

I think this is all the bow is missing. Give it a single target shot that hits multiple times similarly to what Rapid Strikes does. Have it do increasing damage for each attack where the final attack can be morphed to some sort of cc ability (maybe disorient or knockdown depending on the morph)

Something like ( 155, 195, 235, 275, 375) over 3s (channel) and can be interrupted. Over 3s this would average 411 dps. Give the bow something it can build around.

Edit: adjusted the number to be more in line with other skills.

I would love to see this!

Selodaoc

Rapid Shot
30 Meter Range
Instant
Channeled

Fires multiple arrows that deal xxxx to xxxx damage over 3s. Grants immunity to Stun, Root, and Snare.
Applies snare/knockdown/increased dmg to target depending on morph.