Newbie NB Archer question - Follow up

Sixsixsix161

Note: I posted this earlier this morning as a question, and I can't find it. I've searched everywhere, but no can do. If someone found the other one, please tell me how to delete it.

I'm new to this game, and I've been playing for a couple of weeks now, and currently have four different characters. These questions pertains to my NB Archer, but also apply to my other characters.

My archer is a NB wood elf. Her racial "increases experience gain with the bow skill line by 15%." That's a very good racial, and not something I would give up to make another character my archer. But the NB is a melee character, and their skills come from three trees: Assassination, Shadow, and Siphoning.
In order to get to the Bow skill line, you have to click on Weapon, and then select Bow under that - which really isn't that great as far as damage is concerned. If you don't know how to kite, you'll learn fast.

Hypothetically, to increase my damage, I'm going to select, under Assassination, the Assassin's Blade skill, which thrusts a magic blade .... for 700 magic damage. I'm setting up my first bar, and the first two skills come from the bow skill line. As the third skill, I put the Assassin's Blade there because it does a lot of damage (it doesn't but I'm just using that skill as an example). Then, the last two skills come from the bow line, again.

Now, how does that work during a fight? Does my character switch to a melee weapon when I push the button for that skill, and then goes back to her bow skills for the last two buttons, or does the Assassination Blade skill convert to a bow skill and fires an arrow that does 700 points damage? Or, are the melee skills useless for my archer, unless she switches to a melee weapon? Then she wouldn't be an archer, so that defeats the purpose of making a pure archer build.

Along the same line, here's my second question. While researching archer builds, someone suggested building a sorceress archer. So again, you have to select the Bow skill line from Weapon to get those skills, but how would the three casting skills convert to archery (I'm not talking about the daedric minions which you can have, but the skills that cast flame and ice spells, for example - and a lot of them depend on your staff). I take that it doesn't translate to bow skills?

Hope I explained that correctly, and thanks for your help.

Lynx7386

Killer's blade, veiled strike, death stroke, and the other nightblade-specific abilities which attack your target with a 'weapon' all summon a magic dagger when you use them. You dont need to switch weapons, and those abilities can all be used with a bow equipped.

In general, none of the class abilities require a specific weapon to use. In fact, you could use them all with no weapon equipped at all. To answer your question about sorceror archers - none of the sorceror class spells require a staff, they can be used with any weapon. I myself have a sorceror archer, and it works out fairly well.

As far as the racial skill bonuses go, that 15% increase to bow experience is only going to help you level up the bow slightly faster. Once you reach level 50 with the bow, that passive skill will do absolutely nothing for your character - all of the racial skill/experience bonuses are the same way. What makes wood elves better archers, or melee characters, is the fact that they get 21% higher stamina regeneration while in combat from the yffre's endurance passive, as well as extra stamina and poison/disease resistance from the other passive.



A few other things to note:

Killer's blade has a morph called impale, which increases the ability's range to 18 meters over the normal 5 meter range. This works well with a bow setup, since it lets you execute killing blows at medium range (bow max range is 35 meters, for reference).

Dark cloak (shadow tree) has a morph called shadowy disguise which increases the critical strike chance of your next attack by 100% for 2.9 seconds (after passives in the tree to increase duration). This ability is exceptionally useful with the bow, since you can activate shadowy disguise to turn yourself invisible and then hit the enemy with a snipe that automatically crits.

Cripple, in the siphoning tree, has a morph called crippling grasp that immobilizes and slows a target at long range. It's useful for nightblade archers trying to keep an opponent at long range, and it does decent damage over time as well.

If you dont plan on using a twohanded weapon for the +20% weapon damage buff that momentum provides, you can use power extraction (a morph of drain power in the siphoning tree), which requires close range but will increase your weapon damage by 20%.

Grim focus in the assassination tree works well with a bow too, due to how fast the bow can fire off light attacks. The ability, when used, boosts your damage by 8% for 20 seconds or so, but after you use 7 light or heavy attacks you can activate the ability again and it will summon a magic bow to shoot a single arrow at your target, dealing heavy damage. Works as a good long range execute and meshes with the bow animations well enough.

Nestor

Two things. First, to find a thread you made, click on your name to see your profile, then you will see the Discussions which are threads you created. Only, I just see this one, weird....

Anyway, what your really doing with the bow is ranged attacks, either to set up Melee, or just kill from afar. Your right in that the bow itself does not do that much damage, but that goes for most weapons. It is the Bow Skills that you want to use, and weave in light/heavy bow attacks in between skills. The skills from the NB line that I used with the bow are Cloak (because there are bow skills and passives that really increase your damage when you attack from stealth) then use Snipe as an opener and poison arrow for follow up. You can also use the bow skills that give an AoE attack if your going against multiple mobs. There are other NB skills that can help with Bow Attacks, it has just been a while since I used a bow on my NB. So, I don't remember them. But not all skills in the NB are melee focused. Twisting Path for instance is a great crowd control skill to use, and make you faster so you can get out of range and use the bow more. Also, there is Shades to go and attack the enemy for you. So, go through the skills and see what will help you either ranged or with crowd control and use that.

Also, Stamina is the name of the game for Bow users, that will scale your Skill Damage, so the more of that you have, the better. Note this is assuming your using a Stamina based Nightblade which you would if your going Bow, as opposed to a Destro Staff Nightblade who would want to be Magic Focused.

Edit, as for Hidden Blade, that is a "magical blade" that appears when you use the skill. As long as you are in range, it will fire.

Also, if your going pure Bow, you can have two bows equipped, use one bar for AoE attacks, and one bar for DPS or Boss fighting. If your L15, then you can swap between them while in combat.

kylerjalen

Sixsixsix161 wrote: »

Note: I posted this earlier this morning as a question, and I can't find it. I've searched everywhere, but no can do. If someone found the other one, please tell me how to delete it.

I'm new to this game, and I've been playing for a couple of weeks now, and currently have four different characters. These questions pertains to my NB Archer, but also apply to my other characters.

My archer is a NB wood elf. Her racial "increases experience gain with the bow skill line by 15%." That's a very good racial, and not something I would give up to make another character my archer. But the NB is a melee character, and their skills come from three trees: Assassination, Shadow, and Siphoning.
In order to get to the Bow skill line, you have to click on Weapon, and then select Bow under that - which really isn't that great as far as damage is concerned. If you don't know how to kite, you'll learn fast.

Hypothetically, to increase my damage, I'm going to select, under Assassination, the Assassin's Blade skill, which thrusts a magic blade .... for 700 magic damage. I'm setting up my first bar, and the first two skills come from the bow skill line. As the third skill, I put the Assassin's Blade there because it does a lot of damage (it doesn't but I'm just using that skill as an example). Then, the last two skills come from the bow line, again.

Now, how does that work during a fight? Does my character switch to a melee weapon when I push the button for that skill, and then goes back to her bow skills for the last two buttons, or does the Assassination Blade skill convert to a bow skill and fires an arrow that does 700 points damage? Or, are the melee skills useless for my archer, unless she switches to a melee weapon? Then she wouldn't be an archer, so that defeats the purpose of making a pure archer build.

No, your character does not switch to a melee weapon nor does it convert to a bow skill and fire an arrow. Its a "magic blade" that launches if you are in range of your target. If you choose the second morph of the skill which is 'Impale' then your magic blade has more range.

Sixsixsix161 wrote: »

Along the same line, here's my second question. While researching archer builds, someone suggested building a sorceress archer. So again, you have to select the Bow skill line from Weapon to get those skills, but how would the three casting skills convert to archery (I'm not talking about the daedric minions which you can have, but the skills that cast flame and ice spells, for example - and a lot of them depend on your staff). I take that it doesn't translate to bow skills?

Hope I explained that correctly, and thanks for your help.

Correct. Bow skills are bow skills. Sorc skills are sorc skills. None of them convert to others. They can only morph to more powerful versions of themselves.

RavenSworn

I started my nb as an archer myself and I too was abit confused with the abilities. Well here we go.

First up, the first skill you unlock is Assassin's blade, which while deals low damage initially, it gains a 300% when the enemy reaches a certain threshold of Hp. In mmo terms, this ability is considered as an execute ability. So for eg; you cast this skill and deals 700 damage for 1234 magicka. Once the enemy reaches 20% Hp, the ability now will deal 2100 magical damage for the same amount of magicka.

The current iteration of the ability is a melee ability, but once you are able to 'morph' the ability, it can change into two slightly different abilities: Killer's blade, a stamina based ability and will be in melee, and Impale, a magicka based but is now a ranged ability. All of your class skills will have morphs, but not every ability will have a stamina based Morph. Do note as well that while initially class skills will use magicka, all physical weapons such as bows, swords or 2handers will use stamina, with the exception of destruction staves and restoration staves which logically uses magicka.

You don't need to use another melee weapon to use the class skill, or even a ranged weapon to use a ranged class skill such as the sorcerer abilities. The animation for the class skills are unique and will not be affected by your weapons.

As a side note, take a further, indepth look into the NB class skill lines. You will notice that while it may seem the NBs are only using melee abilities, there are many, if not powerful abilities that will help you as a pure nb archer. For eg; Cripple, in the siphoning tree, has a Morph that will immobilize a target from distance. Reaper's Mark, a Morph of the Mark of the Hunter, deals a debuff on the target that reduces the target's armor and spell resistance AND also will heal you for 60% of your max health and gives you a buff that increases your damage.

Hope this helps! Cheers!

- RavenSworn

Sixsixsix161

Thank you very much everyone, I have lots of notes to take, things are clear now.

SedoUmbra

Saying a Night Blade is a melee class is not strictly true. There are many Night Blade abilities in Shadow and Siphoning that are perfect for archery, just...stay away from the Assassination tree if you have a Bow, unless you have Scatter Shot morphed to Magnum Shot and plan on spamming it.

TheBull

Assassination abilities up your crit. Keep that in mind OP.

Sixsixsix161

One more question.

I really like the way you can morph a skill. However, when you first spend a point to get the basic skill, it doesn't show you what it can morph into.

Is there a list published somewhere that shows what a skill morphs into, so I can research the skills before spending a point and then discovering that skill isn't what I wanted? It's not that I mind spending a point, and I have plenty of them because I go around each area and get all the shards (I have an add-on that shows each shard's location).

I've been Googling this, but haven't found anything.

Thanks.

flexiboolder074

Sixsixsix161 wrote: »

One more question.

I really like the way you can morph a skill. However, when you first spend a point to get the basic skill, it doesn't show you what it can morph into.

Is there a list published somewhere that shows what a skill morphs into, so I can research the skills before spending a point and then discovering that skill isn't what I wanted? It's not that I mind spending a point, and I have plenty of them because I go around each area and get all the shards (I have an add-on that shows each shard's location).

I've been Googling this, but haven't found anything.

Thanks.

www.esohead.com is a site where you can find this. its not the best but it wil give you an idea.

RavenSworn

Currently, there is an app on the Google playstore, called eso skills done by zam I believe. If you are on the pc there are lots of addons that help with the info you need.

You can also go to tamrielfoundry.com for good info and analysis of each class and role and more.

Sixsixsix161

Thanks again for the help.