Blackrose Bow as a concept.

Toc de Malsvi

I was thinking today about the problems of this weapon, and discussions I have had in the past in relation to boosting the toolkit for the Archer archetype. While I think it is wrong to neglect the poor versatility of this weapon, I very much appreciate the direction and thought process behind it. Ranged dps for stam needed access to more dots as dots are the back bone of dps in this game, the reliance of bow performance on Hawk Eye stacks makes virtually any skill outside of the bow line under-perform when used with a bow compared with DW or 2H.

This weapon allowed for access to another ranged dot that would scale with Hawk Eye stacks as the damage is based on the damage dealt from Draining Shot. As such it should be good for almost all archer builds. And at max range it is actually pretty good for almost all archers, the problem comes in that the dot length drops off significantly with range. This means means needing to cast the skill 50% more in the 15-20m range and 100% more in the <15m range to keep the dot up. Essentially it guts your dps if you are not at max range, that gutting of the dps means this will likely be an unused weapon.

Compared to the Master Bow which offers 300 weapon damage at all ranges provided you have Poison Injection up, the Blackrose Bow is only slightly better at max range. While being much, much worse at mid to short range. So while I appreciate the direction and thought process, I think the dot length needs to be adjusted to make this weapon worthwhile. Perhaps give it accelerated scaling so the dot length doesn't begin to drop off until sub 10m. Or increase the minimum dot length so that it is not worthless when you need to move closer to the boss.