Why is the Bow Skill-Line for PvE completely useless? (Single Target)

dsalter

NativeJoe wrote: »

I don't use bows...but in pvp I'm taking 14k focused aim shots to the knee....thats 28k pve damage.... I think thats perfectly decent dps lol...

from stealth, sustain wise it drops massivly

EsoRecon

ZOS_KNowak wrote: »

Hey guys,

Thanks for the discussion on Bow PvE DPS. We agree that "pure" Bow PvE builds are parsing a little bit lower than we'd like in dungeon and trial encounters. We want to improve Bow's sustained damage without buffing its burst (especially from Crouch), and we targeted a change that will help out Bow builds without influencing the hybrid Dual Wield/Bow or Two Handed/Bow builds (which are already very competitive).

In the next PTS build, you should see following change to the Hawk Eye passive:

Old Hawkeye:
Increases the damage of your Bow attacks by 8/15% when striking off balance enemies.

New Hawkeye:
Your successful Light and Heavy Attacks increase the damage of all your Bow abilities by 2/5% for 4 seconds, stacking up to 3 times.

A standard Bow PvE DPS rotation should be able to generate and maintain Hawk Eye stacks throughout a boss encounter, and this keeps it out of reach of Crouch burst or hybrid builds who only use Bow to keep up Volley or Poison Injection.

Finally some good news next patch for my stamina NB that loves using bow... Haven't been able to use bow as main source of dps for months now.

Animal_Mother

Kaliki wrote: »

@ZOS_KNowak: Additionally to the Hawk Eye passive change I think it would be great if you could fix Long Shots.

Tooltip says:
WITH BOW EQUIPPED
Gives you a damage bonus of up to 12% against enemies at longer range.

This bonus only applies to bow abilities though.
If it applied to ranged class abilities it would maybe give players running a bow nice synergies (comparable to the crit or flat damage bonuses you get with dual wield or two handed) .

This would be a great idea and almost encourage hybrids again.

Thanks @ZOS_KNowak for the quick response.

Xvorg

ZOS_KNowak wrote: »

Hey guys,

Thanks for the discussion on Bow PvE DPS. We agree that "pure" Bow PvE builds are parsing a little bit lower than we'd like in dungeon and trial encounters. We want to improve Bow's sustained damage without buffing its burst (especially from Crouch), and we targeted a change that will help out Bow builds without influencing the hybrid Dual Wield/Bow or Two Handed/Bow builds (which are already very competitive).

In the next PTS build, you should see following change to the Hawk Eye passive:

Old Hawkeye:
Increases the damage of your Bow attacks by 8/15% when striking off balance enemies.

New Hawkeye:
Your successful Light and Heavy Attacks increase the damage of all your Bow abilities by 2/5% for 4 seconds, stacking up to 3 times.

A standard Bow PvE DPS rotation should be able to generate and maintain Hawk Eye stacks throughout a boss encounter, and this keeps it out of reach of Crouch burst or hybrid builds who only use Bow to keep up Volley or Poison Injection.

DKS indirect buff?

I mean with molten weapons morph that gives major brutality aside from heavy attacks....

edit: I'll test the changes against my ranged DW stamplar (javelin + silver shards + hidden blade)

Contraptions

Thanks for the well thought out and explained change to the passive @ZOS_KNowak. Could we also possibly change the fire damage from the Scorched Earth morph of Volley to poison instead? This would allow the entire bow skill tree to be buffed using one Champion star, instead of the three types of damage we have now: physical, poison and fire.

Elijah_Crow

ZOS_KNowak wrote: »

Hey guys,

Thanks for the discussion on Bow PvE DPS. We agree that "pure" Bow PvE builds are parsing a little bit lower than we'd like in dungeon and trial encounters. We want to improve Bow's sustained damage without buffing its burst (especially from Crouch), and we targeted a change that will help out Bow builds without influencing the hybrid Dual Wield/Bow or Two Handed/Bow builds (which are already very competitive).

In the next PTS build, you should see following change to the Hawk Eye passive:

Old Hawkeye:
Increases the damage of your Bow attacks by 8/15% when striking off balance enemies.

New Hawkeye:
Your successful Light and Heavy Attacks increase the damage of all your Bow abilities by 2/5% for 4 seconds, stacking up to 3 times.

A standard Bow PvE DPS rotation should be able to generate and maintain Hawk Eye stacks throughout a boss encounter, and this keeps it out of reach of Crouch burst or hybrid builds who only use Bow to keep up Volley or Poison Injection.

@ZOS_KNowak

Thank you very much! Excellent change! Great responsiveness.

Alucardo

NativeJoe wrote: »

I don't use bows...but in pvp I'm taking 14k focused aim shots to the knee....thats 28k pve damage.... I think thats perfectly decent dps lol...

That's an initial attack from stealth. Concurrent snipes won't be anywhere near that, and after the first one you won't get hit by it again.. unless you just stand there.

Jeckll

Well the raw damage of the bow line is not the only issue. Dw and 2h use bow dots to compliment their dps rotation. But no other weapon can do the same for bow. Yeah, you can use them for execute and to improve your AoE dps, but single target it's still better to use a melee build with Volley and Poison Injection.

The whole issue for me is Snipe. In my book, bow is supposed to to be about mobility, yet the spam skill slows me down while casting. I literally have to interrupted my Snipe to avoid red circles from time to time.

But it's nice to see ZOS trying to fix it.

Helluin

Jeckll wrote: »

Well the raw damage of the bow line is not the only issue. Dw and 2h use bow dots to compliment their dps rotation. But no other weapon can do the same for bow. Yeah, you can use them for execute and to improve your AoE dps, but single target it's still better to use a melee build with Volley and Poison Injection.

The whole issue for me is Snipe. In my book, bow is supposed to to be about mobility, yet the spam skill slows me down while casting. I literally have to interrupted my Snipe to avoid red circles from time to time.

The new Hawk Eye passive will make pvp players really mad as they lose the additional damage when they use bombard VS groups.

But it's nice to see ZOS trying to fix it.

I agree on melee skill lines and mobility.

About the new Hawk Eye I really like it for PvE and small scale PvP, at least for the skills I use.
Surely for Bombard is a big nerf instead.
The old Hawk Eye was also good in synergy with other bow skills (Venom Arrow, Scatter Shot and morphs) and in PvP.

Maybe some tweaks (like increasing the duration from 4 seconds) can be better for PvE and PvP to avoid possible complaints.

P.s. @ZOS_KNowak
about this issue with Scatter Shot - Magnum Shot, will we have any changement?

Tower_Of_Shame

ZOS_KNowak wrote: »

Hey guys,

Thanks for the discussion on Bow PvE DPS. We agree that "pure" Bow PvE builds are parsing a little bit lower than we'd like in dungeon and trial encounters. We want to improve Bow's sustained damage without buffing its burst (especially from Crouch), and we targeted a change that will help out Bow builds without influencing the hybrid Dual Wield/Bow or Two Handed/Bow builds (which are already very competitive).

In the next PTS build, you should see following change to the Hawk Eye passive:

Old Hawkeye:
Increases the damage of your Bow attacks by 8/15% when striking off balance enemies.

New Hawkeye:
Your successful Light and Heavy Attacks increase the damage of all your Bow abilities by 2/5% for 4 seconds, stacking up to 3 times.

A standard Bow PvE DPS rotation should be able to generate and maintain Hawk Eye stacks throughout a boss encounter, and this keeps it out of reach of Crouch burst or hybrid builds who only use Bow to keep up Volley or Poison Injection.

hmmmmm finally i can make money out of my AP. hahhha

Turelus

Helluin wrote: »

Thanks, kind regards!

P.s. In the name of Y'ffre, a tiny bonus to bow damage or ranged damage should be a must for Bosmer racial passives!
Bandaari are amazing with venoms, but archery is Bosmeri!

I would disagree with this. I don't think a single race should the "x weapon" race. We already see far too much "If you want to be x build you must be y class" having one fully focused in bonuses specific to a single weapon type wouldn't help the issue.

We already have the bonus XP for skill lines which are favoured by our races, I think that's enough.

Alcast

NativeJoe wrote: »

I don't use bows...but in pvp I'm taking 14k focused aim shots to the knee....thats 28k pve damage.... I think thats perfectly decent dps lol...

it does not work that way brah. Pls show me 28k bow dps on Mantikora.

Helluin

Turelus wrote: »

Helluin wrote: »

Thanks, kind regards!

P.s. In the name of Y'ffre, a tiny bonus to bow damage or ranged damage should be a must for Bosmer racial passives!
Bandaari are amazing with venoms, but archery is Bosmeri!

I would disagree with this. I don't think a single race should the "x weapon" race. We already see far too much "If you want to be x build you must be y class" having one fully focused in bonuses specific to a single weapon type wouldn't help the issue.

We already have the bonus XP for skill lines which are favoured by our races, I think that's enough.

Orc has Swift Warrior that grants 4% increased damage with melee weapon attacks.
That's why I wrote ranged attacks, that would be better than just bow so it can be good both for stamina and magicka.
Lore wise it would make sense.
We have just different opinions on this matter.

Alucardo

ZOS_KNowak wrote: »

Hey guys,

Thanks for the discussion on Bow PvE DPS. We agree that "pure" Bow PvE builds are parsing a little bit lower than we'd like in dungeon and trial encounters. We want to improve Bow's sustained damage without buffing its burst (especially from Crouch), and we targeted a change that will help out Bow builds without influencing the hybrid Dual Wield/Bow or Two Handed/Bow builds (which are already very competitive).

In the next PTS build, you should see following change to the Hawk Eye passive:

Old Hawkeye:
Increases the damage of your Bow attacks by 8/15% when striking off balance enemies.

New Hawkeye:
Your successful Light and Heavy Attacks increase the damage of all your Bow abilities by 2/5% for 4 seconds, stacking up to 3 times.

A standard Bow PvE DPS rotation should be able to generate and maintain Hawk Eye stacks throughout a boss encounter, and this keeps it out of reach of Crouch burst or hybrid builds who only use Bow to keep up Volley or Poison Injection.

I really appreciate you guys actually looking into this, but I'm not a big fan of the New Hawkeye suggestion because what happens if you accidentally proc Molag Kena 2pc when you weren't ready? It shouldn't be tied into light/heavy attacks because there's other sets that do the same and you might not want them to go off.
Can't you just remove the off balanced enemies part from the old Hawkeye gear? It's not like bow is OP as it is.

If the reason you don't want to do this is because of PVP/PVE balance then it could have a double effect:

5 items) Increases the damage of your Bow attacks by 15% against NPCs
Increases the damage of your Bow attacks against players by 8%

MonarchChief

Helluin wrote: »

Surely for Bombard is a big nerf instead.

Could you explain why it's a nerf please? No salt, just curious because I like the skill.

Alucardo

MonarchChief wrote: »

Helluin wrote: »

Surely for Bombard is a big nerf instead.

Could you explain why it's a nerf please? No salt, just curious because I like the skill.

A lot of people don't like it because it's an AOE root and snare damaging ability. It does have a pretty hefty cost, so you can't just sit there spamming it all day.

Helluin

MonarchChief wrote: »

Helluin wrote: »

Surely for Bombard is a big nerf instead.

Could you explain why it's a nerf please? No salt, just curious because I like the skill.

The changement of Hawkeye, as explained by Jeckll, leads to less damage because, if you spam just this AoE against multiple opponents, you don't get automatically the bonus against off balance targets.
I'm not a fan of Bombard, but some players could complain about the new Hawk Eye.

Personally I prefer the new one, because it's more all around across contents and you get instead a 15% damage more vs every target (obviously if you use L/H attacks at least) and not just off balance ones.

MonarchChief

Alucardo wrote: »

A lot of people don't like it because it's an AOE root and snare damaging ability. It does have a pretty hefty cost, so you can't just sit there spamming it all day.

You are referring to people who only spam the skill right? Meaning no weaving, etc.?

Helluin wrote: »

Personally I prefer the new one, because it's more all around across contents and you get instead a 15% damage more vs every target (obviously if you use L/H attacks at least) and not just off balance ones.

Could this be considered a buff to the skill then? It's more flexible right? Because if you weave attacks, you would, ideally, have that 15% pretty often (against multiple targets, no less)? Or are you guys speaking mostly in terms of something like "Look, the enemy is off balance, so I'll swap to my bow and get the extra damage", which would no longer be an option?

Autolycus

Alucardo wrote: »

ZOS_KNowak wrote: »

Hey guys,

Thanks for the discussion on Bow PvE DPS. We agree that "pure" Bow PvE builds are parsing a little bit lower than we'd like in dungeon and trial encounters. We want to improve Bow's sustained damage without buffing its burst (especially from Crouch), and we targeted a change that will help out Bow builds without influencing the hybrid Dual Wield/Bow or Two Handed/Bow builds (which are already very competitive).

In the next PTS build, you should see following change to the Hawk Eye passive:

Old Hawkeye:
Increases the damage of your Bow attacks by 8/15% when striking off balance enemies.

New Hawkeye:
Your successful Light and Heavy Attacks increase the damage of all your Bow abilities by 2/5% for 4 seconds, stacking up to 3 times.

A standard Bow PvE DPS rotation should be able to generate and maintain Hawk Eye stacks throughout a boss encounter, and this keeps it out of reach of Crouch burst or hybrid builds who only use Bow to keep up Volley or Poison Injection.

I really appreciate you guys actually looking into this, but I'm not a big fan of the New Hawkeye suggestion because what happens if you accidentally proc Molag Kena 2pc when you weren't ready? It shouldn't be tied into light/heavy attacks because there's other sets that do the same and you might not want them to go off.
Can't you just remove the off balanced enemies part from the old Hawkeye gear? It's not like bow is OP as it is.

If the reason you don't want to do this is because of PVP/PVE balance then it could have a double effect:

5 items) Increases the damage of your Bow attacks by 15% against NPCs
Increases the damage of your Bow attacks against players by 8%

I disagree with this sentiment. In practice, Molag Kena should be up as close to 100% of the time as possible for maximum damage output. Resource management should accommodate this, not hinder it, so if someone is not able to sustain Kena procs, then they shouldn't be using it, as there really is no point in wearing something and not using it to it's full potential. Just as sets that provide benefits like "when you drop below X health" or "has a chance to proc off of something that already has a chance to proc" (e.g. scathing mage) are highly inefficient and sub-prime if the up-time can't be met. There are gear alternatives that offer comparable damage output (albeit slightly lower, typically) with far superior resource manageability.

This adjustment to bows is, as far as I can tell, the most effective way to boost bow sustained damage without impacting burst damage. The stacks can be maintained, at least in theory, for about 95-99% of any given PvE encounter, including bosses.

Helluin

MonarchChief wrote: »

Alucardo wrote: »

A lot of people don't like it because it's an AOE root and snare damaging ability. It does have a pretty hefty cost, so you can't just sit there spamming it all day.

You are referring to people who only spam the skill right? Meaning no weaving, etc.?

Helluin wrote: »

Personally I prefer the new one, because it's more all around across contents and you get instead a 15% damage more vs every target (obviously if you use L/H attacks at least) and not just off balance ones.

Could this be considered a buff to the skill then? It's more flexible right? Because if you weave attacks, you would, ideally, have that 15% pretty often (against multiple targets, no less)? Or are you guys speaking mostly in terms of something like "Look, the enemy is off balance, so I'll swap to my bow and get the extra damage", which would no longer be an option?

Yes, it is indeed a great buff for sustained damage, weaving correctly you should be able to keep it up.
Even if you reach 1 or 2 stacks is already 5-10%.
Jeckll and I wrote just about a PvP situation spamming Bombard where weaving can't be stable and probably we didn't explain it well.

I give you an example: let's say you use Venom Arrow on a casting target or an opponent who is resurrecting someone, you intterrupt him/her, so the following attack with bow on him/her the does 15% more damage.
Same can be applied to Magnum Shot/Draining Shot interrupting a cast, etc.

Now 15% more damage then is just on off balance targets (+ the damage of Exploiter if you have it unlocked in the Ritual) , while with the new Hawkeye, at full stack, you have 15% on every target.

yodased

Definitely not a nerf to bombard simply because you would usually have to engage with the enemy and put them off balance somehow in the first place. You are not opening with the skill.

Now, you can grab a group of mobs, open from stealth with a snipe canceled heavy attacked, and weave a bombard, At this point you have increased your bow damage by 7% on the bombard. If you still have aoe then you heavy cancel the second bombard and you have 12% increase.

napkin math says that an easily attainable overall 9-12% dps increase is significantly better than a possible 15% increase, which is a low possibility.

Especially in AOE situations, since the entire group wouldn't be set off balance typically, you would be doing the extra 15% damage to that one person in the group.

The new passive is a solid increase to the entire mob group.

Me likey.

EnOeZ

ZOS_KNowak wrote: »

Hey guys,

Thanks for the discussion on Bow PvE DPS. We agree that "pure" Bow PvE builds are parsing a little bit lower than we'd like in dungeon and trial encounters. We want to improve Bow's sustained damage without buffing its burst (especially from Crouch), and we targeted a change that will help out Bow builds without influencing the hybrid Dual Wield/Bow or Two Handed/Bow builds (which are already very competitive).

In the next PTS build, you should see following change to the Hawk Eye passive:

Old Hawkeye:
Increases the damage of your Bow attacks by 8/15% when striking off balance enemies.

New Hawkeye:
Your successful Light and Heavy Attacks increase the damage of all your Bow abilities by 2/5% for 4 seconds, stacking up to 3 times.

A standard Bow PvE DPS rotation should be able to generate and maintain Hawk Eye stacks throughout a boss encounter, and this keeps it out of reach of Crouch burst or hybrid builds who only use Bow to keep up Volley or Poison Injection.

Please do the same with HEAVY ARMOR : change it, buff it, make it exist and integrate its mechanics in the game.

Thank you.

LearnThis

I am happy for this change, but as a few have said before, the bow should not be as strong as melee. It is just like they have talked about with magicka damage intentionally being less than stamina. Up close and personal damage has higher risk so it makes sense for it to hit harder. I look forward to hearing from people after testing this on PTS.

Alcast

LearnThis wrote: »

I am happy for this change, but as a few have said before, the bow should not be as strong as melee. It is just like they have talked about with magicka damage intentionally being less than stamina. Up close and personal damage has higher risk so it makes sense for it to hit harder. I look forward to hearing from people after testing this on PTS.

Why do all ranged Magicka builds do more dps than melee stamina builds?
Makes also no sense..... ><

Master_Kas

Tower_Of_Shame wrote: »

ZOS_KNowak wrote: »

Hey guys,

Thanks for the discussion on Bow PvE DPS. We agree that "pure" Bow PvE builds are parsing a little bit lower than we'd like in dungeon and trial encounters. We want to improve Bow's sustained damage without buffing its burst (especially from Crouch), and we targeted a change that will help out Bow builds without influencing the hybrid Dual Wield/Bow or Two Handed/Bow builds (which are already very competitive).

In the next PTS build, you should see following change to the Hawk Eye passive:

Old Hawkeye:
Increases the damage of your Bow attacks by 8/15% when striking off balance enemies.

New Hawkeye:
Your successful Light and Heavy Attacks increase the damage of all your Bow abilities by 2/5% for 4 seconds, stacking up to 3 times.

A standard Bow PvE DPS rotation should be able to generate and maintain Hawk Eye stacks throughout a boss encounter, and this keeps it out of reach of Crouch burst or hybrid builds who only use Bow to keep up Volley or Poison Injection.

hmmmmm finally i can make money out of my AP. hahhha

YOU ARE GOING TO GET ME 5x vicious death for my bomberblade, and 5x marksman for my pewpew! I have to payyyy

Dyride

Kaliki wrote: »

@ZOS_KNowak: Additionally to the Hawk Eye passive change I think it would be great if you could fix Long Shots.

Tooltip says:
WITH BOW EQUIPPED
Gives you a damage bonus of up to 12% against enemies at longer range.

This bonus only applies to bow abilities though.
If it applied to ranged class abilities it would maybe give players running a bow nice synergies (comparable to the crit or flat damage bonuses you get with dual wield or two handed) .

You realize this would be an even bigger boost than that received by DW? Increasing damage at range by 12% is huge, even if someone wasn't weaving attacks.

Anhedonie

Bow needs stronger dot component. That fix won't help. And the duritaion is a bit short, unless this buff not only stacks, but refreshes on each hit.

nikolaj.lemcheb16_ESO

The change is a big nerf to pvp bows.

Right now you open with a sneak snipe that stuns your target and then you get the big damage bonus on that target until he breaks the stun.

With the new system you have to use low damage light attacks to build up dps. So the overall damage potential of bows in pvp is reduced a lot.

Also you should never fix stuff via light attacks as people with low pings cannot animation cancel at all in this game so moving stuff to light attacks put us at even greater disadvantage than we already have.

Toc de Malsvi

Anhedonie wrote: »

Bow needs stronger dot component. That fix won't help. And the duritaion is a bit short, unless this buff not only stacks, but refreshes on each hit.

This buff will be great if you are properly weaving with heavy/medium/light attacks. It is not designed to make bow much stronger in pvp although it will improve open play just not opening burst. It is designed for PVE and sustained boss fights, and it should provide a solid boost to Bow dps although maybe not quite put it on top.

LearnThis wrote: »

I am happy for this change, but as a few have said before, the bow should not be as strong as melee. It is just like they have talked about with magicka damage intentionally being less than stamina. Up close and personal damage has higher risk so it makes sense for it to hit harder. I look forward to hearing from people after testing this on PTS.

This would be more realistic and understandable if this game did not have unlimited gap closing compared to pathetic gap creating. Currently opening with a bow is a dice roll hoping you can burst them before Crit Rush/Ambush + WB/Surprise Attack destroy's you. There is little to no advantage from range in this game as opposed to other games where you can actually kite with gap creator's. That's without even considering that gap creating any real distance in ESO just means you are giving your opponent a stronger hit from crit rush.

Anhedonie

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

Anhedonie wrote: »

Bow needs stronger dot component. That fix won't help. And the duritaion is a bit short, unless this buff not only stacks, but refreshes on each hit.

This buff will be great if you are properly weaving with heavy/medium/light attacks. It is not designed to make bow much stronger in pvp although it will improve open play just not opening burst. It is designed for PVE and sustained boss fights, and it should provide a solid boost to Bow dps although maybe not quite put it on top.

Assuming you don't lag and have a perfect ping, yeah.