Balance patch incoming! Don't forget about bow!

Solariken

The primary reason bow is sub-par versus it's 2h/dw counterparts is that all non-bow skills/damage are significantly weaker when slotted with a bow equipped. This is not balance. The way I see it, there are two easy and appropriate ways to balance bow. You could...

1) Equalize the base weapon damage with that of 2h and reduce the tooltip damage of bow skills to compensate. This allows players to use class and guild skills without suffering unnecessary handicap.

And/or

2) Change the Long Shots passive to grant +10% bonus damage to all abilities that have a range of more than 15 meters. This would eliminate the requirement that bow users be near max range to be remotely competitive while also building player damage back up to compensate for the handicap in base weapon damage. This keeps the damage handicap on melee skills while removing the handicap for ranged skills.

I'll admit my bias for suggestion # 1 because I want my Burning Light damage to be normalized (there is no good reason why this effect should be weaker when holding a bow!) I'm counting on you @Wrobel and friends. Please don't let me down.

Edit: Bonus suggestion:

Snipe suffers as a spammable due to its long cast time and ease of interruption. Please consider adding an additional effect to the Hawk Eye passive to reduce the cast time of Snipe by 100 milliseconds for each stack. Additionally, please reduce the base cast time from 1.1 seconds to 1 second.

GreenSoup2HoT

All i want is the bow ult to be reworked. Not ballista, the other morph.

Also revert bombard immobalize since we have roll dodge root immunity. before anyone screams hell no.... encase can still be spammed.

instant proc lethal arrow would be kool. like cfrags

DDuke

I'd like to see both 1) & 2).

Bow needs a lot of work to be competitive with DW & 2H (both their weapon damage and their damage increasing passives like Twin Blade & Blunt, Follow Up etc).


As for the bow skills, after extensive testing I still feel like Snipe & morphs need a massive buff (instant cast or "crystal frag" type proc could work) to be even remotely worth slotting. It's just way too easy to avoid currently and barely tickles unless you have 5x Hawk Eye stacks & are far enough for Long Shots +12% damage, which is just not practical in any way shape or form.

I feel Scatter Shot & morphs could also use a significant range increase for them be viable for a bow focused build (not just backbar CC for a melee build).

Acid Spray needs to be buffed as well, the damage is laughable.

Eradrann

Hopefully something will happen. I love playing a bow and arrow character in games that allow it... but I feel extremely weak doing it in this game though.

Hempyre

I get 60% of my kills from bow skills in pvp, but hell ya lets make it even better!

Solariken

DDuke wrote: »

I'd like to see both 1) & 2).

Bow needs a lot of work to be competitive with DW & 2H (both their weapon damage and their damage increasing passives like Twin Blade & Blunt, Follow Up etc).


As for the bow skills, after extensive testing I still feel like Snipe & morphs need a massive buff (instant cast or "crystal frag" type proc could work) to be even remotely worth slotting. It's just way too easy to avoid currently and barely tickles unless you have 5x Hawk Eye stacks & are far enough for Long Shots +12% damage, which is just not practical in any way shape or form.

I feel Scatter Shot & morphs could also use a significant range increase for them be viable for a bow focused build (not just backbar CC for a melee build).

Acid Spray needs to be buffed as well, the damage is laughable.

Insightful comment @DDuke but IMO Snipe damage would be fine with the change to Long Shots. What really kills snipe is the long cast time and how easy it is to interrupt.

What if each Hawk Eye stack also reduced the cast time of Snipe by .1s? This would buff bow without buffing it as a back bar weapon.

DDuke

Hempyre wrote: »

I get 60% of my kills from bow skills in pvp, but hell ya lets make it even better!

I get probably half my kills from Poison Injection too, that doesn't mean bow is any good, not when you deal the bulk of your damage in melee range, with melee weapons.

DDuke

Solariken wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

I'd like to see both 1) & 2).

Bow needs a lot of work to be competitive with DW & 2H (both their weapon damage and their damage increasing passives like Twin Blade & Blunt, Follow Up etc).


As for the bow skills, after extensive testing I still feel like Snipe & morphs need a massive buff (instant cast or "crystal frag" type proc could work) to be even remotely worth slotting. It's just way too easy to avoid currently and barely tickles unless you have 5x Hawk Eye stacks & are far enough for Long Shots +12% damage, which is just not practical in any way shape or form.

I feel Scatter Shot & morphs could also use a significant range increase for them be viable for a bow focused build (not just backbar CC for a melee build).

Acid Spray needs to be buffed as well, the damage is laughable.

Insightful comment @DDuke but IMO Snipe damage would be fine with the change to Long Shots. What really kills snipe is the long cast time and how easy it is to interrupt.

What if each Hawk Eye stack also reduced the cast time of Snipe by .1s? This would buff bow without buffing it as a back bar weapon.

Not a bad idea - and wouldn't affect PvE since you still get 0,8 seconds of global cooldown with a 0,5s cast time snipe. It would make it better in PvP though.


Just a sidenote: at the moment you get almost the same DPS by spamming light attacks when PI is up (just light attacks) with Poisonous Serpent set equipped than you do with Snipe->LA->Snipe weaves

(Yeah, I actually tried to create a bow proc build this patch - but as usual it turned into a melee proc build rather quick)

Hempyre

Ya, thing is with ranged, it shouldn't do what melee does. It doesn't have the risk of close combat. If it did, (any ranged for that matter) there would be no call to close gap.

Longest range in game, applies posion status effect, (try some synergies here) a 50% dot based execute component, and of course your glyph and set procs, should you run them.

I pull 7-8 k off LA/PI +procs in pvp, and I can do that pretty quickly weaving LA/PI. And ive seen higher on players i assume built more specifically for snipe or whatev.

But ya, I'm all for a buff. Just makes my guy kill better.

SodanTok

I support this idea! (I posted my extensive feedback in proper PTS thread and that exhausted me on bow issues till next patch again)

Solariken

Hempyre wrote: »

Ya, thing is with ranged, it shouldn't do what melee does. It doesn't have the risk of close combat. If it did, (any ranged for that matter) there would be no call to close gap.

Longest range in game, applies posion status effect, (try some synergies here) a 50% dot based execute component, and of course your glyph and set procs, should you run them.

I pull 7-8 k off LA/PI +procs in pvp, and I can do that pretty quickly weaving LA/PI. And ive seen higher on players i assume built more specifically for snipe or whatev.

But ya, I'm all for a buff. Just makes my guy kill better.

Yeah but you aren't seeing the big picture. Bow is strong as a back bar weapon, which sounds like how you use it. However, bow completely sucks as a mainhand weapon and needs updated in ways that don't buff back bar use.

Solariken

SodanTok wrote: »

I support this idea! (I posted my extensive feedback in proper PTS thread and that exhausted me on bow issues till next patch again)

Gotta keep making noise though! Need to be a squeaky wheel or nothing will change.

olsborg

IMO all the bow is good for is poison injection and the hasty retreat passive. Yea id say it needs a buff

josiahva

DDuke wrote: »

I'd like to see both 1) & 2).

Bow needs a lot of work to be competitive with DW & 2H (both their weapon damage and their damage increasing passives like Twin Blade & Blunt, Follow Up etc).


As for the bow skills, after extensive testing I still feel like Snipe & morphs need a massive buff (instant cast or "crystal frag" type proc could work) to be even remotely worth slotting. It's just way too easy to avoid currently and barely tickles unless you have 5x Hawk Eye stacks & are far enough for Long Shots +12% damage, which is just not practical in any way shape or form.

I feel Scatter Shot & morphs could also use a significant range increase for them be viable for a bow focused build (not just backbar CC for a melee build).

Acid Spray needs to be buffed as well, the damage is laughable.

No, bow does NOT need to be competitive with melee ranged skills. Why should you do just as much damage standing 20 meters away as someone who risks being in cleave/AoE range? In the real world, the further away you are from a target, the less energy you hit that target with. Shooting an arrow from close range is MORE effective in the real world...not less(at least from the point the projectile reaches maximum velocity). The drag from the air, gravity etc all reduce the kinetic energy of an object moving through the air, this is physics, which seems to apply to non-magical things in the Elder Scrolls universe otherwise. I believe the same should be true for the magical attacks as well, there should be a damage boost for being CLOSER, not further away.

DDuke

josiahva wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

I'd like to see both 1) & 2).

Bow needs a lot of work to be competitive with DW & 2H (both their weapon damage and their damage increasing passives like Twin Blade & Blunt, Follow Up etc).


As for the bow skills, after extensive testing I still feel like Snipe & morphs need a massive buff (instant cast or "crystal frag" type proc could work) to be even remotely worth slotting. It's just way too easy to avoid currently and barely tickles unless you have 5x Hawk Eye stacks & are far enough for Long Shots +12% damage, which is just not practical in any way shape or form.

I feel Scatter Shot & morphs could also use a significant range increase for them be viable for a bow focused build (not just backbar CC for a melee build).

Acid Spray needs to be buffed as well, the damage is laughable.

No, bow does NOT need to be competitive with melee ranged skills. Why should you do just as much damage standing 20 meters away as someone who risks being in cleave/AoE range? In the real world, the further away you are from a target, the less energy you hit that target with. Shooting an arrow from close range is MORE effective in the real world...not less(at least from the point the projectile reaches maximum velocity). The drag from the air, gravity etc all reduce the kinetic energy of an object moving through the air, this is physics, which seems to apply to non-magical things in the Elder Scrolls universe otherwise. I believe the same should be true for the magical attacks as well, there should be a damage boost for being CLOSER, not further away.

Really? REALLY? Ok, let's have this realism conversation.

Are you implying archers were historically used in melee combat?

If we followed realism to the letter, you wouldn't even be able to draw the bow with someone in melee range without, well, getting impaled by a sword/spear/whatever and dying a horrible, painful death.

There's also a thing or two to be said about how realism & magic, fictional universe don't really correlate <.<


But yeah, while you wonder why someone should do the same amount of dmg from 20m away as someone in melee range, you might want to take a look at someone who's actually doing that -right now-, like most magicka builds for example...

Not that it really matters in a game with cooldownless, spammable gap closers.

Durham

Bow needs to be pumped up in PVE... in PVP the Miats program hurts it bad imo... but there is a fine line here .. you have to careful with range becoming stronger then melee...

Trinity_Is_My_Name

Hempyre wrote: »

I get 60% of my kills from bow skills in pvp, but hell ya lets make it even better!

On no you don't! It's time to start the Nerf Bow Thread now! J.K.!

Yeah, Bow is weak and needs a serious surge in power. I haven't used a Bow in forever because it just doesn't do enough damage in my Stam builds. Buff the Bow!

Ender1310

Buff the bow!

STEVIL

Solariken wrote: »

The primary reason bow is sub-par versus it's 2h/dw counterparts is that all non-bow skills/damage are significantly weaker when slotted with a bow equipped. This is not balance. The way I see it, there are two easy and appropriate ways to balance bow. You could...

1) Equalize the base weapon damage with that of 2h and reduce the tooltip damage of bow skills to compensate. This allows players to use class and guild skills without suffering unnecessary handicap.

And/or

2) Change the Long Shots passive to grant +10% bonus damage to all abilities that have a range of more than 15 meters. This would eliminate the requirement that bow users be near max range to be remotely competitive while also building player damage back up to compensate for the handicap in base weapon damage. This keeps the damage handicap on melee skills while removing the handicap for ranged skills.

I'll admit my bias for suggestion # 1 because I want my Burning Light damage to be normalized (there is no good reason why this effect should be weaker when holding a bow!) I'm counting on you @Wrobel and friends. Please don't let me down.

Edit: Bonus suggestion:

Snipe suffers as a spammable due to its long cast time and ease of interruption. Please consider adding an additional effect to the Hawk Eye passive to reduce the cast time of Snipe by 100 milliseconds for each stack.

IMo with bow being a staple part of Dw/bow and 2h/bow builds we do not also need bow buffed up to be on its own "on-par" with these other builds. being the primary support for both pvp and pve gives bow a solid place and if it were on par dps-wise with dw/bow and 2h/bow why in the world would anyone run those other builds for DPS when they could get to be "on par" with one weapon and the advantage of range with a stamina build?

On the other hand, i feel it is appropriate to DIVORCE the "wpndamd" variable and the "base weapons damage" for everything except weapon skills.

So, for example, uppercut and bloodthirst and poisoninjection would scale their damage partly off the individual weapons' damage as they do now, but their stamsorc hurricane or warden dive would not and would have their damages scale off a factor based on class level or skill line level. (Each tootip then including resource pool and other factors as they do now.)

there would need to be some adjustments made of course as right now the impact of weapon choice on non-weapon skills is already baked into the balances.

Solariken

STEVIL wrote: »

Solariken wrote: »

The primary reason bow is sub-par versus it's 2h/dw counterparts is that all non-bow skills/damage are significantly weaker when slotted with a bow equipped. This is not balance. The way I see it, there are two easy and appropriate ways to balance bow. You could...

1) Equalize the base weapon damage with that of 2h and reduce the tooltip damage of bow skills to compensate. This allows players to use class and guild skills without suffering unnecessary handicap.

And/or

2) Change the Long Shots passive to grant +10% bonus damage to all abilities that have a range of more than 15 meters. This would eliminate the requirement that bow users be near max range to be remotely competitive while also building player damage back up to compensate for the handicap in base weapon damage. This keeps the damage handicap on melee skills while removing the handicap for ranged skills.

I'll admit my bias for suggestion # 1 because I want my Burning Light damage to be normalized (there is no good reason why this effect should be weaker when holding a bow!) I'm counting on you @Wrobel and friends. Please don't let me down.

Edit: Bonus suggestion:

Snipe suffers as a spammable due to its long cast time and ease of interruption. Please consider adding an additional effect to the Hawk Eye passive to reduce the cast time of Snipe by 100 milliseconds for each stack.

IMo with bow being a staple part of Dw/bow and 2h/bow builds we do not also need bow buffed up to be on its own "on-par" with these other builds. being the primary support for both pvp and pve gives bow a solid place and if it were on par dps-wise with dw/bow and 2h/bow why in the world would anyone run those other builds for DPS when they could get to be "on par" with one weapon and the advantage of range with a stamina build?

On the other hand, i feel it is appropriate to DIVORCE the "wpndamd" variable and the "base weapons damage" for everything except weapon skills.

So, for example, uppercut and bloodthirst and poisoninjection would scale their damage partly off the individual weapons' damage as they do now, but their stamsorc hurricane or warden dive would not and would have their damages scale off a factor based on class level or skill line level. (Each tootip then including resource pool and other factors as they do now.)

there would need to be some adjustments made of course as right now the impact of weapon choice on non-weapon skills is already baked into the balances.

@STEVIL that seems like beating around the bush. IMO base bow weapon damage needs to be equalized with bow and there is no way around it. If I have a max-level, max-quality bow and an analogous 2-handed axe, my class skill tooltips should be EXACTLY the same between the two barring boons from respective passives. Weapon skill base damage and passives can be balanced entirely independently and most people are generally on board with melee weapon skills having higher damage output commensurate with risk.

STEVIL

Solariken wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

Solariken wrote: »

The primary reason bow is sub-par versus it's 2h/dw counterparts is that all non-bow skills/damage are significantly weaker when slotted with a bow equipped. This is not balance. The way I see it, there are two easy and appropriate ways to balance bow. You could...

1) Equalize the base weapon damage with that of 2h and reduce the tooltip damage of bow skills to compensate. This allows players to use class and guild skills without suffering unnecessary handicap.

And/or

2) Change the Long Shots passive to grant +10% bonus damage to all abilities that have a range of more than 15 meters. This would eliminate the requirement that bow users be near max range to be remotely competitive while also building player damage back up to compensate for the handicap in base weapon damage. This keeps the damage handicap on melee skills while removing the handicap for ranged skills.

I'll admit my bias for suggestion # 1 because I want my Burning Light damage to be normalized (there is no good reason why this effect should be weaker when holding a bow!) I'm counting on you @Wrobel and friends. Please don't let me down.

Edit: Bonus suggestion:

Snipe suffers as a spammable due to its long cast time and ease of interruption. Please consider adding an additional effect to the Hawk Eye passive to reduce the cast time of Snipe by 100 milliseconds for each stack.

IMo with bow being a staple part of Dw/bow and 2h/bow builds we do not also need bow buffed up to be on its own "on-par" with these other builds. being the primary support for both pvp and pve gives bow a solid place and if it were on par dps-wise with dw/bow and 2h/bow why in the world would anyone run those other builds for DPS when they could get to be "on par" with one weapon and the advantage of range with a stamina build?

On the other hand, i feel it is appropriate to DIVORCE the "wpndamd" variable and the "base weapons damage" for everything except weapon skills.

So, for example, uppercut and bloodthirst and poisoninjection would scale their damage partly off the individual weapons' damage as they do now, but their stamsorc hurricane or warden dive would not and would have their damages scale off a factor based on class level or skill line level. (Each tootip then including resource pool and other factors as they do now.)

there would need to be some adjustments made of course as right now the impact of weapon choice on non-weapon skills is already baked into the balances.

@STEVIL that seems like beating around the bush. IMO base bow weapon damage needs to be equalized with bow and there is no way around it. If I have a max-level, max-quality bow and an analogous 2-handed axe, my class skill tooltips should be EXACTLY the same between the two barring boons from respective passives. Weapon skill base damage and passives can be balanced entirely independently and most people are generally on board with melee weapon skills having higher damage output commensurate with risk.

did you read what i said? Really? i guess not...

First bold - as i said in my example that the non-weapon skills would not be based off the base weapon damage but off some level related aspect.

First italics - so you want to divorce weapon skills and make them independant of the base weapon damage?

Ok so my proposal would:
use the base weapon damage for weapon attacks and weapon skills only and divorce class skills and others from that base weapon damage. IE the weapon's damage would impact the weapon's uses only.

you seem to want to have the weapon's damage impact class skills and divorce the weapon's gifts from it?

that seems to be exactly backwards.

IMO let the weapons be their own isolated package - except for weapon skills and passive's which affect other things. let the non-weapon stuff be based off non-weapon stuff. And "both" would remain affected by resource pools, glyphs, buffs etc as they are now.

NOTE: when i mean divorce it, i mean entirely. No more "gold axe means i get more hurricane damage than a blue axe does."

Once you have divorced the base weapon damage from tooltips outside the weapon's package, then you can see **if** they all need to be homogenized or not.

Now, in truth, the impact of base weapon on class skills has been baked in for while so after all is said and done likely not much overall change but it would sure simplify things a bit while lessening the value of weapon quality and base weapon damage over the entirety of the build.

Xsorus

Miats killed a lot of Bows power in PvP, you can use it for Poison Injection, and its Ballista ult is super powerful....

But everything else in the line is pure *** in PVP

Toc de Malsvi

The most obvious and least controversial change is to level out bow weapon damage while lowering the tool tip values on skills to compensate.

Scatter shot seriously needs some work. It is a terrible form of CC regardless of range, and its best effect currently is that it frequently does not grant CC immunity allowing you to use it multiple times in succession. Adjust the range or make it a hard CC knockdown. Either would be a serious and welcomed improvement. While your at it fix draining shots heal so you cannot dodge it just like they did for obsidian shard.

The ultimate could stand to be reduced in cost by 10. And the "other" morph should be changed to make it useful.

Finally Snipe... Snipe is a troubling skill in that it's greatest value is in picking on players who are locked up fighting other players. Or ganking new players or those in bad lag.

Added to that, snipe is incredibly easy to dodge, and range interrupts can completely lock you out of your primary damage skill. Even further it is reflectable.

Snipe could use some sort of change to make it less focused on killing afk players and more useful.

Toc de Malsvi

One thing I've never understood is why bows don't have a piercing passive. Arrows pierce armor...it's what they do.

Vapirko

Why should bows be on par with 2H and dw? They have the distinct advantage of aoe dots and being ranged.

Toc de Malsvi

What would be cool is they changed long shots to add penetration at close range, while scaling back as you got further out. That way you suffer less in close quarters while losing the power while at max range but gaining the benefit of positioning.

Bows don't need to be 50/50 with melee but currently they aren't close to competitive. The changes of Morrowind really hurt bow output. Heacy attacks were not actually shortened, that is unless you only hold your trigger and just spam heavy attacks, then the 2nd-infinity are shortened. The initial heavy attack though is still long in every test I have run.

DDuke

Vapirko wrote: »

Why should bows be on par with 2H and dw? They have the distinct advantage of aoe dots and being ranged.

1. Both 2H & DW have significantly stronger AoE DoTs, ones with strong effects that actually make them worth slotting (Carve, Deadly/Quick Cloak, Rend).
2. There is no real advantage of "being ranged", it just means attacks are more telegraphed and easier to dodge due to travel times.
3. Half the magicka builds out there are ranged and deal same (or more) dmg than melee builds - why should bow be any different?
4. There's already a passive to balance it out (Long Shots), which makes sure you can't deal full damage unless you're at maximum range - which means that there's an advantage for melee builds when they're close up.
5. Gap closers. No cooldowns.
6. Inability to effectively CC your opponent to kite them, due to cooldownless CC break & CC immunity (root immunity after dodge roll too).
7. Lack of strong Area Denial like mines to prevent opponents from spamming gap closers & staying in melee 24/7 if they want to.

Should I go on? The fact that it creates more build diversity & thus more varied and interesting PvP should be reason enough.

Wouldn't you like to see atleast some of those Viper Selene procblades swap to a different build, so you're not fighting the same thing over & over again?

Rahotu

i'd quite like to see a 'short bow' implemented as a much closer ranged but harder hitting option,just for gits and shiggles

Toc de Malsvi

Vapirko wrote: »

Why should bows be on par with 2H and dw? They have the distinct advantage of aoe dots and being ranged.

I'm sorry did you say AOE "dots" as in plural? What AOE dot does the Bow have that is not accessible while using a bow on the back bar? Further more what advantage do you speak of?

Because there are so many fights that call for ranged dps to survive? Much less that trial leaders would even consider bringing in a bow build? Because it is better for the healer for you to be at range away from them so they can heal you right?

We all know that ranged is such an advantage that every true blue a#1 streamer runs bow builds for PVE and PVP right? Oh wait no that's not the case in fact streamers don't really even play bow builds.

This is all aside from pretending that Magicka are not able to do as much or more dps than bows at maximum range on multiple classes. While there is only one class where bows even come close to "competitive" dps and that must be done at maximum range and you are still 5k+ behind melee.

Vapirko

@Toc de Malsvi first of all drop your bs tone. Secondly I know bow dps who can pull 35k so it is possible. I don't care about mag builds I play all stam and always have. But if you buff bow to the point where it can contend with 2H or dw you're talking about a bunch of ranged morons running around in pvp and killing everyone at range kind of like most mag sorcs. Currently if you want to play pve content with a bow you can do that. I can easily kill most solo content using a bow. The bow is best as a support weapon like all classes and weapons have certain strengths and weaknesses.

Edit: on top of that if bow gets a buff then you'll have all the mag sorcs in here peeing their pants because stam builds are ok par with them and they can no longer half ass it through content and pvp.

Rahotu

i can see it now,bow gets buffed to compare with magicka sorcs....introducing 'wrobel hood'