I see a lot of prejudice towards bow builds, and how people cringe and dislike when players run them – at least poorly. Therefore, I decided to write a thread about my character, a Redguard Sorcerer by the name of Muyu (now Smepic). She was created in December 2014, when Stamina Sorcerers were actually uncommon.
Playing as an archer was fun and what I wanted to do. I headed to Cyrodiil when I was veteran rank two, despite the fact that you had to be rank fourteen in order to be competitive. Since I ran a bow build, I ganked for the most part – and still do – but Magicka Sorcerers and tanky Dragonknights were dominant at this time, so there was almost always a brawl after my intial Snipes.
As for my sets, I used
Hunding's Rage and another random crafted set. They served me well, paired with Scatter Shot, Snipe, Poison Arrow and Streak. Even though I was a rookie, simply utilizing the build in Cyrodiil gained me experience. I eventually learned what every skill in the game did, how to counter abilities and builds, as well as when to block and roll dodge with a medium armour build. After a name change to Smepic and a lot of surgery, here she is now:
I mainly PvP, but I don't switch my gear for PvE. I use
Marksman's Crest,
Morag Tong and one piece of
Molag Kena. Almost full purple and almost full Impenetrable. My poison of choice is
Damage Health Poison IX. I currently have 447 CP.
My off-hand bar has a two handed weapon with the skills Shuffle, Dark Deal, Rearming Trap, Resolving Vigor, Rally and Reviving Barrier. It's just a buff bar, but it's very important.
My main bar, for PvP, has a bow with the skills Draining Shot, Lethal Arrow, Poison Injection, Streak, Camouflaged Hunter and Soul Assault. For PvE, I switch Draining Shot for Endless Hail, Streak for Acid Spray and Soul Assault for Toxic Barrage.
I got 22 833 DPS on Valaran Stormcaller. This was without Spell Power Cure and Aggressive Horn, as well as with PvP gear.
In this fight I got 26 044 DPS on Stormfist. Here I had 84% uptime on Minor Savagery, 77% uptime on Aggressive Horn, 33% uptime on Major Force, 28% uptime on Minor Berserk, no Spell Power Cure, and again – PvP gear.
- Hawk Eye: Increased the amount of times this passive ability can stack to 5 times from 3 times. It continues to increase your damage with Bow abilities by 2/5% per stack.
The bow passive Hawk Eye is buffed in the next patch, which is just the more reason to play a bow build. If you want to be an archer, whether it is for PvE or PvP, go for it – just don't expect to be great straight away.