Bow builds

knoxcoshane

There are a lot of us who have or want a bow build. We are under powered, compared to other weapon builds.
I understand they are leary about others using the buffs for other weapon types.
Why not make it so we get the buffs we need by having a bow on each bar. With 2 bows slotted it would be harder for other weapon builds to get the buffs. Just my 2 cents

Nirnrotten

I remember getting huge hits from snipe while crouched. It was insane to the point of it being unfair. No one should be able to do that much damage from that far away...and from stealth. Ever since then ZOS has been leery of making a hard hitting bow skill.

cyclonus11

We should have a skill called Point Blank that does increased damage from close range. Or... Bladed Bow which puts blades on your bow that you can slash/stab your opponent with.

Lysette

I was actually thinking about that possibility - just to have one bow with a poison and another one without, so that I can switch after what I deem appropriate for the situation and do not have to waste poison on enemies, which can be done without. It does not really make the choice of skills, which belong on the bar, easier though.

There might even be more options, if bars have different weapon types. At least that goes with nightblade class for me - I basically need 3 slots for NB skills - for the initial strike, a gap closer and an execute - so this just leaves 2 slots for weapon abilities and if both bars have bows, this is a very limited choice which I would have to put into these 2x2 slots.

So I am not sure, that this is a viable option, even with the new poisons - 2 different weapon types might still be better.

Nirnrotten

@Lysette That's an interesting idea. I wonder if bow skills like arrow spray or volley have a better chance to proc poison since they are supposed to be multiple hits. With NB and Bow crit passive you could have a viable high crit/poison bow build. With the champion point system changing where poison goes, it could most certainly be viable. Worth a shot imo.

Lysette

Nirnrotten wrote: »

@Lysette That's an interesting idea. I wonder if bow skills like arrow spray or volley have a better chance to proc poison since they are supposed to be multiple hits. With NB and Bow crit passive you could have a viable high crit/poison bow build. With the champion point system changing where poison goes, it could most certainly be viable. Worth a shot imo.

Mr. Wrobel said in the last live show that especially poison arrow and volley are getting a buff and would make bows a far better weapon than before - and my personal view is, that crafted poisons with a specific effect instead of a general poison effect are quite interesting. What is a bit sad is, that other distance weapons like staves will as well be able to apply poisons from a distance, even this is illogical - but still, bow is the only weapon with a really extraordinary range - when using snipe. So this is still an advantage which only bows have - their extraordinary range - and passives going with ranged damage.

Edit: I doubt though, that we will get multiple options to apply poison with a single volley - or think of how that would be with a dual wield skill like flurry where you do as well a couple of hits in quick succession. This would be too OP IMO.

Nirnrotten

@Lysette I thought I read somewhere that flurry will have multiple chances to apply poison effect. That still wouldn't be as OP as with volley tho. Can you imagine poisoning an entire group with one volley?? Let's wait till DB goes live. I'm on PS4 so I don't have access to PTS but I'm gonna try it.

Lysette

Nirnrotten wrote: »

@Lysette I thought I read somewhere that flurry will have multiple chances to apply poison effect. That still wouldn't be as OP as with volley tho. Can you imagine poisoning an entire group with one volley?? Let's wait till DB goes live. I'm on PS4 so I don't have access to PTS but I'm gonna try it.

Now imagine a group of archers, which target a zerg with AoE bow effects and poisons, this would be as successful as english long bow archers in the past. I just wish that this would lead to getting zergs busted.

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https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/267944/regarding-dw-bow-builds#latest

I'll leave this here...

The thread talks about the same problems, Im glad more people are speaking up about this issue.

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Nirnrotten wrote: »

I remember getting huge hits from snipe while crouched. It was insane to the point of it being unfair. No one should be able to do that much damage from that far away...and from stealth. Ever since then ZOS has been leery of making a hard hitting bow skill.

Bow shouldn't just be about ganking that's the problem Zos need to buff bows sustain dmg and leave the burst alone.

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Lysette wrote: »

Nirnrotten wrote: »

@Lysette I thought I read somewhere that flurry will have multiple chances to apply poison effect. That still wouldn't be as OP as with volley tho. Can you imagine poisoning an entire group with one volley?? Let's wait till DB goes live. I'm on PS4 so I don't have access to PTS but I'm gonna try it.

Now imagine a group of archers, which target a zerg with AoE bow effects and poisons, this would be as successful as english long bow archers in the past. I just wish that this would lead to getting zergs busted.

You mean bombard spamming? That's cheesy man.

Lysette

ShadowStarKing wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

Nirnrotten wrote: »

@Lysette I thought I read somewhere that flurry will have multiple chances to apply poison effect. That still wouldn't be as OP as with volley tho. Can you imagine poisoning an entire group with one volley?? Let's wait till DB goes live. I'm on PS4 so I don't have access to PTS but I'm gonna try it.

Now imagine a group of archers, which target a zerg with AoE bow effects and poisons, this would be as successful as english long bow archers in the past. I just wish that this would lead to getting zergs busted.

You mean bombard spamming? That's cheesy man.

IMO zergs and AoE effects are what is causing the lag in Cyrrrodil, so everything what could have the ability to change this player behavior and make zergs undesirable is a way to get rid of the lag in Cyrrodil. As long as there is nothing to make these zergs undesirable, players will not get any more clever and will continue to selfishly form zergs, regardless if this is ruining their fun and the performance of the game. I said this often enough and I have even shown the math behind zergs and why those are the reason for lag spikes - especially when mixed with AoE effects and there are plenty in a zerg.

So I personally am good with pretty much anything, what has the power to destroy zergs and change player behavior. And if a lethal and brutal AoE effect mass-spammed is required to do that, so be it.

Agobi

ShadowStarKing wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

Nirnrotten wrote: »

@Lysette I thought I read somewhere that flurry will have multiple chances to apply poison effect. That still wouldn't be as OP as with volley tho. Can you imagine poisoning an entire group with one volley?? Let's wait till DB goes live. I'm on PS4 so I don't have access to PTS but I'm gonna try it.

Now imagine a group of archers, which target a zerg with AoE bow effects and poisons, this would be as successful as english long bow archers in the past. I just wish that this would lead to getting zergs busted.

You mean bombard spamming? That's cheesy man.

Lysette

ShadowStarKing wrote: »

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/267944/regarding-dw-bow-builds#latest

I'll leave this here...

The thread talks about the same problems, Im glad more people are speaking up about this issue.

Seeing it as "speaking up" is missing the point of this thread IMO - bows are not a really viable main weapon yet and this thread is more about considering if the changes in the DB DLC make it a more viable main weapon or if it is still just support.

GreenhaloX

Bow has it advantages during the big boss fight. You hit from a distance. Especially if your damages absorbing trait is not high enough yet, a bow would be the ideal way to go. Yes, definitely a support role in a group or during big fights. You can make a bow pack some heat, though. You just have to find the right combination of sets that would add extra weapon damages trait. With 5 medium armor pieces, you can get the passive ability of 12% extra weapon damages. You can mixed up a few sets of medium armor pieces and jewelries that will add over 129 (currently for purple) extra weapon damages for each set. So the lament math: 3 x 129 (more if gold), plus the 12%, and if the bow being gold (1332 damages) and high CP of at least 25 (gives 10% extra damages) for the bow in the Atronach.. it will pack some good heat.

Lysette

GreenhaloX wrote: »

Bow has it advantages during the big boss fight. You hit from a distance. Especially if your damages absorbing trait is not high enough yet, a bow would be the ideal way to go. Yes, definitely a support role in a group or during big fights. You can make a bow pack some heat, though. You just have to find the right combination of sets that would add extra weapon damages trait. With 5 medium armor pieces, you can get the passive ability of 12% extra weapon damages. You can mixed up a few sets of medium armor pieces and jewelries that will add over 129 (currently for purple) extra weapon damages for each set. So the lament math: 3 x 129 (more if gold), plus the 12%, and if the bow being gold (1332 damages) and high CP of at least 25 (gives 10% extra damages) for the bow in the Atronach.. it will pack some good heat.

Yes, I am using weapon damage enchants on jewelry with any character, who does not need these slots for darkstride, shadow dancer or night mother's embrance jewelry. And this makes quite a difference with low level characters already. I started out with dual wield, but I am using the bow now as my main weapon. It does not really bother me if this weapon sucks or not, I just like to use a bow in fantasy games - and as my secondary weapon dual wield or sword&shield or staves dependent on the character. But I might try a pure archer with a bow on each bar - preferably Khajiit, I think they are best suited for an archer in ESO, even better than Bosmer.

Azor_Ahaii

You can literally kill people within half a second as a bosmer/khajiit stamina nb with a bow using mage light for empower > heavy attack > poison injection > surprise attack from stealth at close range. If you are at a longer range use ambush before the SA. If used right the bow can be so OP and is the ultimate gankblade weapon.

However bow is pretty useless in everything other than ganking and siege defending. I completely dropped snipe because if you are playing against a good player they will dodge roll before it even hits them. You can hear snipes before they hit you even if the sniper is stealthed.

Tonnopesce

Azor_Ahaii wrote: »

You can literally kill people within half a second as a bosmer/khajiit stamina nb with a bow using mage light for empower > heavy attack > poison injection > surprise attack from stealth at close range. If you are at a longer range use ambush before the SA. If used right the bow can be so OP and is the ultimate gankblade weapon.

However bow is pretty useless in everything other than ganking and siege defending. I completely dropped snipe because if you are playing against a good player they will dodge roll before it even hits them. You can hear snipes before they hit you even if the sniper is stealthed.

Even templar stamina ganking is really good with, snipe>power of the light>medium attack >poison injection, but then you miss the major brutality as a bow user and you need rally in the off bar.

In other scenarios snipe is useless but magnus shot and poison injection are really nice in pvp

failkiwib16_ESO

@Tonnopesceb16_ESO if I'm not mistaken, major brutality can be gained with potions, which renders a skill for the same purpose a dps loss.

Bow is OP for pvp, but only good for providing extra dots in pve or if the overall dps of group is too low for nuking during bossfights such as The Planar Inhibitor, so you have to follow mechanics and bow comes in handy there.

Tonnopesce

failkiwib16_ESO wrote: »

@Tonnopesceb16_ESO if I'm not mistaken, major brutality can be gained with potions, which renders a skill for the same purpose a dps loss.

Bow is OP for pvp, but only good for providing extra dots in pve or if the overall dps of group is too low for nuking during bossfights such as The Planar Inhibitor, so you have to follow mechanics and bow comes in handy there.

In that boss i apply the poison injection DoT and than spam 27k snipes + power of the light, not the Best but Still a decent dps for a bow user

GreenhaloX

Lysette wrote: »

Yes, I am using weapon damage enchants on jewelry with any character, who does not need these slots for darkstride, shadow dancer or night mother's embrance jewelry. And this makes quite a difference with low level characters already. I started out with dual wield, but I am using the bow now as my main weapon. It does not really bother me if this weapon sucks or not, I just like to use a bow in fantasy games - and as my secondary weapon dual wield or sword&shield or staves dependent on the character. But I might try a pure archer with a bow on each bar - preferably Khajiit, I think they are best suited for an archer in ESO, even better than Bosmer.

Good build. I'm looking to add weapon damage enchant too to both my bow and greatsword, but not yet willing to fork out 20K gold on one yet or yet to find a drop. Beyond the norm gold stat, I was able to tack on a bit over 500 extra weapon damage stat with combo sets of powerful assault, Leki, and the 5-pieces med armor bonus. I'm looking to replace the powerful assault set with Hund's rage, when I can find a good V16 set, and to put in the enchant, that will boost another 400 weapon damages. Also, the nightmother is good. I have a piece and looking for 2 more, so I can replace the Leki pieces. I have a nightmother greatsword and can't wait to use it. It will replace my Leki battle axe.

I was using staff as my backup up until I completed the main quest and reaching V16. Initially, I didn't like the bow, I though it was particularly weak in abilities, but since knowing how to combine sets and gaining much more weapon damage, I am liking the bow in this game. I'm more of a 2h, get in your face, close quarter combat type, but the bow is devastating in support, and especially for the big boss fight or in support in fights via PvP.

Just too bad, it doesn't have an ultimate ability for the bow here. I would love to have a powerful lightning fast explosive blast as an ultimate ability or as one of the heavy attack. The snipe is ok, even after morph. It packs heat if you do it right, but it is so darn slow. Much like in Dragon Age Inquisition, I mainly went 2h on there for awhile, but eventually went bow after learning of the thousand cuts ultimate ability there. With that thousand cuts, you're literally taking out 3/4 of the damage bar from those dragon bosses, and even half off the main boss at the end of the game. Now, that would be something to have that ability or similar for the bow in this game.

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failkiwib16_ESO wrote: »

@Tonnopesceb16_ESO if I'm not mistaken, major brutality can be gained with potions, which renders a skill for the same purpose a dps loss.

Bow is OP for pvp, but only good for providing extra dots in pve or if the overall dps of group is too low for nuking during bossfights such as The Planar Inhibitor, so you have to follow mechanics and bow comes in handy there.

You can't be serious here snipe is one of the most predictable and countetable skills in the game. You shouldn't even be killed by it if you run full impen/dmg shields.

Azor_Ahaii

ShadowStarKing wrote: »

failkiwib16_ESO wrote: »

@Tonnopesceb16_ESO if I'm not mistaken, major brutality can be gained with potions, which renders a skill for the same purpose a dps loss.

Bow is OP for pvp, but only good for providing extra dots in pve or if the overall dps of group is too low for nuking during bossfights such as The Planar Inhibitor, so you have to follow mechanics and bow comes in handy there.

You can't be serious here snipe is one of the most predictable and countetable skills in the game. You shouldn't even be killed by it if you run full impen/dmg shields.

An empowered bow heavy attack as a stealthed bosmer or khajiit is devastating. People have hit 25k HA using bows in pvp this way.

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Azor_Ahaii wrote: »

ShadowStarKing wrote: »

failkiwib16_ESO wrote: »

@Tonnopesceb16_ESO if I'm not mistaken, major brutality can be gained with potions, which renders a skill for the same purpose a dps loss.

Bow is OP for pvp, but only good for providing extra dots in pve or if the overall dps of group is too low for nuking during bossfights such as The Planar Inhibitor, so you have to follow mechanics and bow comes in handy there.

You can't be serious here snipe is one of the most predictable and countetable skills in the game. You shouldn't even be killed by it if you run full impen/dmg shields.

An empowered bow heavy attack as a stealthed bosmer or khajiit is devastating. People have hit 25k HA using bows in pvp this way.

You're right here, but since its a heavy attack you could do the same with a 2h.

Tonnopesce

Azor_Ahaii wrote: »

ShadowStarKing wrote: »

failkiwib16_ESO wrote: »

@Tonnopesceb16_ESO if I'm not mistaken, major brutality can be gained with potions, which renders a skill for the same purpose a dps loss.

Bow is OP for pvp, but only good for providing extra dots in pve or if the overall dps of group is too low for nuking during bossfights such as The Planar Inhibitor, so you have to follow mechanics and bow comes in handy there.

You can't be serious here snipe is one of the most predictable and countetable skills in the game. You shouldn't even be killed by it if you run full impen/dmg shields.

An empowered bow heavy attack as a stealthed bosmer or khajiit is devastating. People have hit 25k HA using bows in pvp this way.

I have a bosmer....
With all the possibile buffs active i stand at 4.2k wd 48% crit. And 33k stamina pretty op if you ask me @ShadowStarKing

khele23eb17_ESO

Nirnrotten wrote: »

I remember getting huge hits from snipe while crouched. It was insane to the point of it being unfair. No one should be able to do that much damage from that far away...and from stealth. Ever since then ZOS has been leery of making a hard hitting bow skill.

It doesnt have to be a skill like snipe at all. It definitelly shouldnt have snipe's range. It could be a channel attack that can be interrupted/dodged out of. Similar to Flurry from DW but ranged. Give it strong steady damage. This would not be OP in pvp and would not be used as just another buff to melee stam builds.

crowfl56

Well I was just hammered in Haderus Friday nite on my V16 Temp, by someone that had some bad ass bow skills. I couldn't heal through the attack, bamm I was down and watched him/her level about 5-6 other people that got to close to him.

There is a awesome bow build out there .

khele23eb17_ESO

Lysette wrote: »

Nirnrotten wrote: »

@Lysette I thought I read somewhere that flurry will have multiple chances to apply poison effect. That still wouldn't be as OP as with volley tho. Can you imagine poisoning an entire group with one volley?? Let's wait till DB goes live. I'm on PS4 so I don't have access to PTS but I'm gonna try it.

Now imagine a group of archers, which target a zerg with AoE bow effects and poisons, this would be as successful as english long bow archers in the past. I just wish that this would lead to getting zergs busted.

Now imagine that zerg with bows :P This is a problem - how can you make a tool that wrecks zergs but cant be used by them to wreck smaller groups even faster than now.

crowfl56 wrote: »

Well I was just hammered in Haderus Friday nite on my V16 Temp, by someone that had some bad ass bow skills. I couldn't heal through the attack, bamm I was down and watched him/her level about 5-6 other people that got to close to him.

There is a awesome bow build out there .

I think the issues with bows' mentioned by OP are pve related. Also, 5-6 people? I dunno...

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Tonnopesceb16_ESO wrote: »

Azor_Ahaii wrote: »

ShadowStarKing wrote: »

failkiwib16_ESO wrote: »

@Tonnopesceb16_ESO if I'm not mistaken, major brutality can be gained with potions, which renders a skill for the same purpose a dps loss.

Bow is OP for pvp, but only good for providing extra dots in pve or if the overall dps of group is too low for nuking during bossfights such as The Planar Inhibitor, so you have to follow mechanics and bow comes in handy there.

You can't be serious here snipe is one of the most predictable and countetable skills in the game. You shouldn't even be killed by it if you run full impen/dmg shields.

An empowered bow heavy attack as a stealthed bosmer or khajiit is devastating. People have hit 25k HA using bows in pvp this way.

I have a bosmer....
With all the possibile buffs active i stand at 4.2k wd 48% crit. And 33k stamina pretty op if you ask me @ShadowStarKing

@Tonnopesceb16_ESO @Azor_Ahaii you both are right but for these conditions you are required to be in stealth which sucks becasue that's the only way for bow to be useful.

Lysette

khele23eb17_ESO wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

Nirnrotten wrote: »

@Lysette I thought I read somewhere that flurry will have multiple chances to apply poison effect. That still wouldn't be as OP as with volley tho. Can you imagine poisoning an entire group with one volley?? Let's wait till DB goes live. I'm on PS4 so I don't have access to PTS but I'm gonna try it.

Now imagine a group of archers, which target a zerg with AoE bow effects and poisons, this would be as successful as english long bow archers in the past. I just wish that this would lead to getting zergs busted.

Now imagine that zerg with bows :P This is a problem - how can you make a tool that wrecks zergs but cant be used by them to wreck smaller groups even faster than now.

Actually I gave a couple of options, in which this Zerg thing could be addressed - even seen from a roleplay perspective. I suggested for example to bind the effectiveness of spells and weapon usage to the computational effort required to resolve the interactions related to this zerg - the higher the computation effort would be, the less effective spells and weapons get. This would rather quickly make zergs highly undesireable - problem solved - it is that simple, but it takes the will to do it.

Edit: and the roleplay reasoning behind it - people get in the way of each other and perform less well, if they are too near to each other.

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Idea for a new bow skill:

Skill name: Rapid fire
Range: 28m
Target: single target
Cast time: 1.3 sec

Description: shower you opponents in a hail of 5 deadly arrows dealing X physical dmg each arrow.

Morph 1: concussion shots

New effect: snares for 40% for 5 secs also grant a chance for knock down for each arrow, (4% for each hit)

Morph 2: Piercing fire

New effect: increased dmg and arrows now ricochet to near by targets for half the dmg

Snipe(and morphs) can be a "bow ultimate" it could cost 75 ultimate.