Balance patch incoming! Don't forget about bow!

Toc de Malsvi

Xvorg wrote: »

What if ZoS delete bows from the game but adds 2H and shield throwing?

Hmm. Some times horrific things shouldn't be even uttered.

SodanTok

Xvorg wrote: »

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

Solariken wrote: »

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

Xvorg wrote: »

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

Bows actually suffer a damage loss when range is closed which is something many refuse to acknowledge, which almost mirrors the damage loss to melee with the exception that GAP CLOSERS are many and everywhere, and GAP CREATORS are few and pathetic.

But flame reach is *** great as gap opener.

Even Flame clench is decent based on its 17 mts range

Scatter shot? 10mts... at max range and with Magnum's you can open a gap of 22 mts and STILL being hit by a gap closer... oh, but you can increase it's range with that too OP set, Eagle's eye... 25 mts, so the enemy needs 2 steps to gap close you... crap!

Last week I was trying a combo with magnum and LA and you can hit an enemy 3 times in ~1 sec, problem is that you can't control your knock back... you can even be sent towards the enemy. And being a 10 mts skill, one step of the enemy puts him in range for a Dizz swing.

One of the thing's I wanted to do in ESO was a bow build like the one I had in Oblivion... and with soft caps it was kind of possible to do that since you needed to use both resources to do dmg. Currently the game forces mag/stam specialty and that makes stam ranged harder that magicka ranged... Even as a templar/warden using DW you can have better results playing ranged just sloting Shards, Flying blade and jav/racer, since flying blade gives major brut, Shards snares and increases wpn dmg, and Jav stuns, and that synergyzes with Ruffian passive LoL...

Destro knock back is much better than anything else in game but I wouldn't call it great. Players will get CC immunity and the knock back itself can be dodged. While the damage on gap closer's can be dodged the gap is still being closed every time they use it, without CD's it is neigh impossible to balance gap closer's with gap creators. Either ranged has advantage because they can keep the gap, or melee has advantage because they can force no gap.

Also while addressing the gap close/create balance would help ranged stam vs melee stam/mag, it won't change the imbalance between ranged stam and ranged magicka. As such I do not think it is the best course for seeking balance.

Which is why in addition to better gap creators (starting with a range increase on Scatter Shot), we need good area of denial sets/abilities. This is why I LOVE Eternal Hunt and sorcs love their mines - it creates a disincentive for people to mindlessly spam gap closers on you lest they be shredded. ZOS could maybe give Lightweight Beast Trap a larger activation radius, but I really hope they add some active abilities to the Thieves and DB skill lines someday that might support bow play.

I agree with the change to Lightweight Trap. However I would like to further point out that a significant portion of why this is an issue at all is again because magicka ranged does not suffer a damage loss in melee. If anything their damage goes up in melee.

Only stamina range suffers a damage loss in melee and they are not actually competitive at ranged to begin with so they are far behind the bar compared to every other setup. Which I think you already know but I think its important to point out for those who may be reading.

There was an old passive that could've been useful for bow in close range... If I remeber it increased dmg on enemies set off balance. In a 75 ritual + 120 attro CP build it should work paired with dodgeroll + venom arrow.

And that opens a nice niche.

Funny enough, I always felt that was very useless passive and the rework of it towards more pve boosting passive we have now was very needed, but damn Now I miss it in PVP With CP rework, 120 in atronach is finally legit (and I currently run that build). Reinclusion of it would still have barely noticable effect on bow pvp, but could be interesting (more so if scatter shot was changed to knockback + off balance ranged attack)

Feanor wrote: »

Well, it wasn't to be for 3.1.4. But at least we get the oblivion glyph meta now. Isn't that fun.

Well, at least this cancer meta is finally something doable on bows (enchants do not discriminate). Viper meta, heavy armor meta, tornado meta... pretty much all the 'metas' as long as I can remember (which is not much) were not doable with bow.
Not that I plan to join the cancer. Well unless it is very bad form of cancer that makes game unplayable.

firedrgn

Vapirko wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

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?

yeah I definitely want a bunch of stealthed proc blades hitting 15 or 20k with snipe. With my pve build in cyro I can hit people for 10k snipes.

Hmm I have been meaning to go,test in cyrodiil.

What does your,snipe hit for in pve.

I have 15K tool tip damage and can crit as high as 42k. I use stealth passive . and mage skill line and major. Brutality.

DoonerSeraph

The problem with bow both in PVE and PVP is that snipe is sssloooowwww, slow as molasses in a cold day. Its so slow even in pve is a DPS loss if you use it even with high base damage. In PVP you have a skill thats:

1. Dodgeable
2. Interruptible
4. Did I mention slow?

You can keep 2 but not the 3 without making the skill weak. Its also reflectable but thats fair IMO.
You could make magnum shot a 28m skill without the CC, that would help bow users, magnum shot is terrible, the self knockback can bug you in hilarious ways and its as confusing to user as it is to the target.

IMO Snipe should be a little faster or undodgeable(not both), cut its cast time in half and mayyybe it will be good on PVE and PVP outside of ganking.

Another problem is how lacking are options for ranged stamina DPS, there are silver bolt, light beast trap (that no one steps on pvp and loses the double proc on pve), caltrops (okay-ish, hella expensive too), DW flying dagger (eh), then we have some class skills as javelin (not good dps because of CC, making it expensive), asaassins scourge (good, but needs to proc), cutting dive (CAAAW), and what else? I dont think sorc and DK got any stamina ranged skills.

You basically cant fill 2 bars with ranged stamina skills that have utility,enough dots and buffs, especially to justify standing away from the group stack!

The Long Shots and Hawk Eye passives should be reworked to help all stamina ranged skills (perhaps even lowering DPS as you are in melee ranged, D&D archery come to mind as you cant shot well if you dont have enough space), also LW Trap could give 12 seconds of minor force, we are already losing the second very strong dot, and having to cope with the travel time of the trap.

That said, playing bow on open field pvp requires you to be very creative, I can win most battles against magsorcs that are one trick ponies with their frags, my backbar is SnB so i just cast defensive stance or spell wall and force the trigger happy guys to think well before they cast the next spell, PVP is more about surprising the opponent than using a predefined combo.

I think thats it, sorry for the long wall of text!