Alternative to VMA bow?

El_Borracho

I am a stam DK DW/Bow setup that currently runs a 5-5-2 of Stormfist head & shoulders, 5 body pieces of (not perfect) Arms of Relequen, and 5 jewelry/weapons setup of Vicious Ophidian. Everything is in the desired trait. I'd like to switch VO out for Berserking Warrior, but don't have the VMA bow. As Berserking Warrior does not have a bow, that presents a problem. Also, it seems like I would be losing lots of sustain by switching VO for Berserking.

So, is there a suitable alternative to the bow (I know there is no equivalent) that is compatible with this build? Or is there another set/combo I should be looking at? Or should I just stick with what I have? The DPS is pretty good (~30K) but would like more.

SodanTok

Master Bow

El_Borracho

SodanTok wrote: »

Master Bow

Understood. Thank you

Mister_DMC

If you can't get a master bow next best thing would be an Agility bow.

Milchbart

Asylum Sanc Bow.

idk

El_Borracho wrote: »

SodanTok wrote: »

Master Bow

Understood. Thank you

And sans that, whatever you are running on your front bar.

Milchbart wrote: »

Asylum Sanc Bow.

I would not suggest this for PvE. Maybe I am missing something but does not seem to be a good fit.

El_Borracho

Mister_DMC wrote: »

If you can't get a master bow next best thing would be an Agility bow.

Also good to know. I have an Asylum Bow and was considering that, but I question its effectiveness, given the Arrow Spray then another ability prerequisites.

Appreciate the input, everyone

Danksta

El_Borracho wrote: »

Mister_DMC wrote: »

If you can't get a master bow next best thing would be an Agility bow.

Also good to know. I have an Asylum Bow and was considering that, but I question its effectiveness, given the Arrow Spray then another ability prerequisites.

Appreciate the input, everyone

I've only seen asylum bow used effectively for gank builds.

El_Borracho

Danksta wrote: »

I've only seen asylum bow used effectively for gank builds.

That's kind of what I was thinking and had seen other threads that echoed your sentiments that its not great for PVE. I can always give it a try. I'm definitely going to give the Agility Bow a run.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

El_Borracho wrote: »

Danksta wrote: »

I've only seen asylum bow used effectively for gank builds.

That's kind of what I was thinking and had seen other threads that echoed your sentiments that its not great for PVE. I can always give it a try. I'm definitely going to give the Agility Bow a run.

Getting a vo bow would be your best bet.

Ramber

As long as its infused/poison enchant it doesn't really matter. Just wait for the next update and see whats best and go from there. If you need vMA tips you can always let me know I've done it in 7 diff toons all classes.

Kanar

El_Borracho wrote: »

Danksta wrote: »

I've only seen asylum bow used effectively for gank builds.

That's kind of what I was thinking and had seen other threads that echoed your sentiments that its not great for PVE. I can always give it a try. I'm definitely going to give the Agility Bow a run.

While not ideal, AS bow could be used in PvE on a bow/bow build. On stamDK in murkmire the discount to poison abilities would allow acid spray-lethal arrow twice per rotation.

Looks like you want a replacement for AY. Briarheart and veiled heritance are both good sets that are competitive with AY, and they have bows. Or even better I would suggest you go TFS and change your mundus to warrior. I'm assuming you would have both the DW and bow as this set, so both 5pc up all the time.

kylewwefan

I would just go with VO /Hundings.

John_Falstaff

In fact, neighboring thread ("The Claw of the Mad God" DK build) uses Acid Spray in back bar rotation, so everything that boosts it might be an interesting candidate. Master bow, tests (from the build's author too) say, performs almost the same as Maelstrom, just single target.

El_Borracho

All good stuff, thank you. Ran the Asylum with the current setup. Very expensive skill-wise to get minimally better DD. Ran into sustain issues because of the Bow bar, which I expected would be more of a problem on the DW bar. The Agility worked better with the sustain, but gave comparable damage as what I was getting with the VO/Relequen setup. Going to give the Briarheart and Veiled Heritance a go this week and see what happens.

Its just so tough to get away from the Relequen + AY damage on the DW. Its noticeably better. But without a comparable bow on the back bar, its a big drop off. Even tried running AY gear + VO jewelry/weapons, but lost the medium armor passives. I see now why ESO took that AY bow out of the game. It would be a beast.

Thanks again, everyone.

usmcjdking

El_Borracho wrote: »

All good stuff, thank you. Ran the Asylum with the current setup. Very expensive skill-wise to get minimally better DD. Ran into sustain issues because of the Bow bar, which I expected would be more of a problem on the DW bar. The Agility worked better with the sustain, but gave comparable damage as what I was getting with the VO/Relequen setup. Going to give the Briarheart and Veiled Heritance a go this week and see what happens.

Its just so tough to get away from the Relequen + AY damage on the DW. Its noticeably better. But without a comparable bow on the back bar, its a big drop off. Even tried running AY gear + VO jewelry/weapons, but lost the medium armor passives. I see now why ESO took that AY bow out of the game. It would be a beast.

Thanks again, everyone.

ZOS took AY bow out of the game the same reason they took Aether Destruction Bows out of the game. The weapon cannot function with the set piece under normal circumstances.

Donny_Vito

I'm taking you've had no luck running vMA and getting the bow as a reward? It seems the best bet might just be to keep running vMA until you get the bow.

Kanar

Donny_Vito wrote: »

I'm taking you've had no luck running vMA and getting the bow as a reward? It seems the best bet might just be to keep running vMA until you get the bow.

Yeah this. But if he cannot do vMA then also probably can't do vDSA.

Relequen + TFS + warrior will give you best results.
Only reason we use AY instead of TFS is because how important always-up pen is and the tfs buff falls off so fast.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

As far as I know, VMA Bow>Masters Bow> whatever you have on your front bar. For pure single target, VMA and masters bow are basically a wash (but I believe VMA is slightly ahead). VMA gives a lot more cleave damage, however, which is why its the meta choice as almost no fights are pure ST.

To be candid, if you are only pulling 30k on a stam toon, your gear is not the issue. You need practice with your class and rotation. If you want to master your rotation, well that's what dummies are for. If you want to really master your class in PVE, well VMA is a great place to start. 2 birds with one stone.

El_Borracho

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

As far as I know, VMA Bow>Masters Bow> whatever you have on your front bar. For pure single target, VMA and masters bow are basically a wash (but I believe VMA is slightly ahead). VMA gives a lot more cleave damage, however, which is why its the meta choice as almost no fights are pure ST.

To be candid, if you are only pulling 30k on a stam toon, your gear is not the issue. You need practice with your class and rotation. If you want to master your rotation, well that's what dummies are for. If you want to really master your class in PVE, well VMA is a great place to start. 2 birds with one stone.

I fully acknowledge my rotation is a work in progress. I was just wondering if there was a suitable replacement for the VMA bow for doing stuff like VMA and to be more effective in vet DLC trials.

Everything I have read says VMA is a nightmare for stam melee, and to date, my experiences in there have proven that to be correct. I don't blame my gear or the game, I know I need to improve. And I know the VMA bow is not the magic bullet that will get my DPS up to 40K. But every little bit helps

I also am giving that Mad Claw build a go. Again, I'm open to all suggestions.

jcm2606

Kanar wrote: »

Donny_Vito wrote: »

I'm taking you've had no luck running vMA and getting the bow as a reward? It seems the best bet might just be to keep running vMA until you get the bow.

Yeah this. But if he cannot do vMA then also probably can't do vDSA.

Relequen + TFS + warrior will give you best results.
Only reason we use AY instead of TFS is because how important always-up pen is and the tfs buff falls off so fast.

Eh, he could if he were in a good group. Stellar group could carry him, even. I know a friend of mine typically does that, he runs a tank, and has a healer acting as an off tank and a guy with ludicrously high DPS, and carries players through vDSA.

El_Borracho

jcm2606 wrote: »

Kanar wrote: »

Donny_Vito wrote: »

I'm taking you've had no luck running vMA and getting the bow as a reward? It seems the best bet might just be to keep running vMA until you get the bow.

Yeah this. But if he cannot do vMA then also probably can't do vDSA.

Relequen + TFS + warrior will give you best results.
Only reason we use AY instead of TFS is because how important always-up pen is and the tfs buff falls off so fast.

Eh, he could if he were in a good group. Stellar group could carry him, even. I know a friend of mine typically does that, he runs a tank, and has a healer acting as an off tank and a guy with ludicrously high DPS, and carries players through vDSA.

You guys aren't that far off. Haven't given vDSA a go because of my concern over my DPS. Don't want to be that guy in a PUG. I know my rotation needs work as I'm more of a casual player. Just was looking for some advice and all of this has helped. Thank you all.

Mister_DMC

30k DPS is fine for vdsa

kylewwefan

If you’re looking for a VMA build to help you get the maelstrom bow, there is no better combo than VO/Hundings IMO.

Relequen is trash in VMA in my experiences.

Also, I used one cost reduction, one Weapon Damage and one Recovery glyph with Dubious and the lover mundus and sharpened Bow/ nirn Infused Daggers and a good bit of points into pen and thermaturge. And Dawnbreaker/Ballista Ult.

Skoria is also a good Monster Set to use even on a stam toon. Keep your hardened armor up, use wings, maybe corrosive armor here and there, possibly meteor.

You would probably be best off with that in VDSA as well IMO. Maybe change Ult around per fight.

All the dummy testing stuff goes out the window when trying to do something other than trials. Like using the standard for more damage. It’s a terrible Ult on bosses that move or go invulnerable.

Mister_DMC

Agreed, nothing beats ballista on bosses in VMA. Dawnbreaker of smiting is actually a better morph in there and depending on class nmg is better the hundings. Nothing will ever beat VO for VMA.

sudaki_eso

I main a stamDK and i am using the current meta - relequen, yokeda + selene. i dont have the vma bow yet and simply are using the vo bow. it works pretty good for me. relequen as armour, yokeda jewelery and weapons. i am only missing out the 5th bonus of yokeda on the bow bar which is a melee bonus anyway. Latest dps test i did i reached 41.5k and i am still using the old lazy heavy attack rotation. Using the new psijic skills all the meta builds are using and switching to more light attacks would boost my dps quite a bit...

Also, it seems like I would be losing lots of sustain by switching VO for Berserking.

Sustain shouldnt be a problem as a DK, do you got all the important passives unlocked? With potions and ultis you shouldnt run out of stamina at any time.

boombazookajd

Just want to point out, that the minor slayer of Relequen and VO doesn't stack. So you're losing that bonus from one of the sets. It isn't the end of the world and probably isn't worth drastically changing your build but I'd recommend scooping up Briarheart to pair with VO.

Especially if you're fixing to hit vMA.

Ditto what everyone else said, the Masters bow is your next option behind vMA.

If you get on band there are always folks there posting for vDSA groups, or go to Craglorn.

My advice: get in to vMA and learn to beat it.

John_Falstaff

@sudaki_eso , heavy attack build wouldn't have that much of a problem with sustain, but try switching to psijic line's Crushing Weapon based light attack rotation, and (unless you're a redguard, and even then, it's a rather expensive spammable), you'll get those problems.

Agility bow seems like something to try, it has better 2-piece bonus than random set bows. Asylum bow would be interesting to test if @El_Borracho would want to try rotation from "Claw of the Mad God" build since it contains both Spray and Poison Injection, and normal AS is rather easy. Just should keep track of AY uptime in metrics and maybe start front bar rotation with rending slashes (so first weave would add three AY stacks in case they fell off).

sudaki_eso

well yeah i am a redguard, just wanted to point out that even without the master bow, vma bow or agility bow you can do pretty decent dps - at least 10k more then OP does now.
If OP has sustain issues then he should do 2 heavys on the front bar or maybe ditch the psijic skill. Maybe its just me but it works fine on a dummy that doesnt move or has any mechanics, in a trial or dungeon i hated that skill, i felt much more comfortable with my old playstyle. Its all up to your personal preference OP. If you want i can send you the link to the video of my latest dummy parse which also shows my gear and cp's. Its an easy 40k rotation...

John_Falstaff

@sudaki_eso , that's an important omission; sustain's world apart between redguards and the runners-up. As a non-redguard (so, DCT as food and small+big piece enchanted for health), I was getting ~36-37k without vMA bow, with Hunding's and VO, and two heavy attacks on front bar - so rotation definitely can be looked at, there's a lot of space to improve over 30k, even omitting Relequen. Heavy rotation is clunky, but at least it gives sustain.

Mister_DMC

I play a khajiit Stam DK so sustain is rough with a light attack rotation. I've always used a mixed rotation with just as many heavies as I need. Without the psijic skill I top out at just under 46k DPS solo on the dummy. Relequen was a large buff as I'm using garbage traits in purple right now and it was 5k higher than the previous setup (VO)

What is the top out for Stam DK on live right now?