Bow needs a buff

Fawn4287

The bow is really only used as a backbar for the expedition buff and with poison inject being so weak, there are really no skills worth running (unless your a snipe stacker). Compare to sword and board. S+B backbar offers more resistance, decreased block cost, and increases block mitigation. Skills like ransack and low slash offer incredibly long lasting and cheap buffs and debuffs, whilst the bow offers only minor defile on a skill no good player slots. It really needs some sort of tankyness and major fracture added to a skill in order to make it somewhat competitive to the utility sword and board offers.

Jimmy_The_Fixer

Bombard is probably one of the strongest abilities in the game for group utility.

Snipe is still a pretty good spammable.

Ballista is a lot of damage, if predictable.

Dodge roll passive is great.

I give Bow a C+

Luede

Fawn4287 wrote: »

The bow is really only used as a backbar for the expedition buff and with poison inject being so weak, there are really no skills worth running (unless your a snipe stacker). Compare to sword and board. S+B backbar offers more resistance, decreased block cost, and increases block mitigation. Skills like ransack and low slash offer incredibly long lasting and cheap buffs and debuffs, whilst the bow offers only minor defile on a skill no good player slots. It really needs some sort of tankyness and major fracture added to a skill in order to make it somewhat competitive to the utility sword and board offers.

you have to be more creative. dont know what class u play, but u can build bow dmg bar without sniper. use crushing weapon, proc sets, and maybe relentless focus/bound armaments or other class skills, which are usefull.

80% of my pvp kills come from bow bar.

Fur_like_snow

Bombard is prob the best root skill in the game. PI has seen better days that’s for sure but that skill got gutted like all the other DoTs.

SodanTok

Indeed bow does need buffs and indeed not to skills. Snipe needs some shifting around with the stats kinda like dizzy got (dmg nerf but cast time shortening) and so does Poison Injection (needs more power in execute part instead of the regular part).
Bow properties and passives really need buff for long time. Currently bow passives and innate weapon damage just make bow significantly inferior to all other stamina weapons when it comes to class/other skills.

- It has just crit passive compared to actual choice 2h/dw get and its just half of value they have. While 2h doesnt get crit at all, nobody is running around frontbarring 2 daggers and nobody would be running around with crit 2h outside of very niche crit builds in PVP either yet choosing bow is like running with 1 dagger.
- Even the weapon damage of bow is like running one handed weapon without shield or second weapon. People are literally golding out their jewelry pieces to get 16 more weapon damage from each jewelry enchant yet putting bow on frontbar or running any damage/healing skills on backbar bow is like not having 2 jewelry enchants at all.
- Long shot passive promotes often noobish/toxic and in generally inferior long range playstyle on top of only working on bow skills, literally serving as near dead weight passive in any real pvp combat.
- Hawk eye passive while great on paper again just promotes limiting playstyle of having to keep constant light attacks to maintain buff (that included of being totally limited to back barring bow) and being shoehorned into using bow skills for most of damage or not getting any benefit at all

Anyway, nobody cares. Not ZoS not players really. If some bow skills or smth kills people there will be some nerf threads but when that is settled most of playerbase will be happy and comfortable if all bow is good for is to dodge roll on it. Poison Injection nerf was the first time in last 4 years when some serious PVP people came out of woods to complain as it was the only bow skill people used for real.

Iskiab

SodanTok wrote: »

Indeed bow does need buffs and indeed not to skills. Snipe needs some shifting around with the stats kinda like dizzy got (dmg nerf but cast time shortening) and so does Poison Injection (needs more power in execute part instead of the regular part).
Bow properties and passives really need buff for long time. Currently bow passives and innate weapon damage just make bow significantly inferior to all other stamina weapons when it comes to class/other skills.

- It has just crit passive compared to actual choice 2h/dw get and its just half of value they have. While 2h doesnt get crit at all, nobody is running around frontbarring 2 daggers and nobody would be running around with crit 2h outside of very niche crit builds in PVP either yet choosing bow is like running with 1 dagger.
- Even the weapon damage of bow is like running one handed weapon without shield or second weapon. People are literally golding out their jewelry pieces to get 16 more weapon damage from each jewelry enchant yet putting bow on frontbar or running any damage/healing skills on backbar bow is like not having 2 jewelry enchants at all.
- Long shot passive promotes often noobish/toxic and in generally inferior long range playstyle on top of only working on bow skills, literally serving as near dead weight passive in any real pvp combat.
- Hawk eye passive while great on paper again just promotes limiting playstyle of having to keep constant light attacks to maintain buff (that included of being totally limited to back barring bow) and being shoehorned into using bow skills for most of damage or not getting any benefit at all

Anyway, nobody cares. Not ZoS not players really. If some bow skills or smth kills people there will be some nerf threads but when that is settled most of playerbase will be happy and comfortable if all bow is good for is to dodge roll on it. Poison Injection nerf was the first time in last 4 years when some serious PVP people came out of woods to complain as it was the only bow skill people used for real.

Agreed, destro has the same issues.

It’s supposed to be balanced by status effects for destro staves but it doesn’t really balance out in pvp, only PvE.

SodanTok

Iskiab wrote: »

SodanTok wrote: »

Indeed bow does need buffs and indeed not to skills. Snipe needs some shifting around with the stats kinda like dizzy got (dmg nerf but cast time shortening) and so does Poison Injection (needs more power in execute part instead of the regular part).
Bow properties and passives really need buff for long time. Currently bow passives and innate weapon damage just make bow significantly inferior to all other stamina weapons when it comes to class/other skills.

- It has just crit passive compared to actual choice 2h/dw get and its just half of value they have. While 2h doesnt get crit at all, nobody is running around frontbarring 2 daggers and nobody would be running around with crit 2h outside of very niche crit builds in PVP either yet choosing bow is like running with 1 dagger.
- Even the weapon damage of bow is like running one handed weapon without shield or second weapon. People are literally golding out their jewelry pieces to get 16 more weapon damage from each jewelry enchant yet putting bow on frontbar or running any damage/healing skills on backbar bow is like not having 2 jewelry enchants at all.
- Long shot passive promotes often noobish/toxic and in generally inferior long range playstyle on top of only working on bow skills, literally serving as near dead weight passive in any real pvp combat.
- Hawk eye passive while great on paper again just promotes limiting playstyle of having to keep constant light attacks to maintain buff (that included of being totally limited to back barring bow) and being shoehorned into using bow skills for most of damage or not getting any benefit at all

Anyway, nobody cares. Not ZoS not players really. If some bow skills or smth kills people there will be some nerf threads but when that is settled most of playerbase will be happy and comfortable if all bow is good for is to dodge roll on it. Poison Injection nerf was the first time in last 4 years when some serious PVP people came out of woods to complain as it was the only bow skill people used for real.

Agreed, destro has the same issues.

It’s supposed to be balanced by status effects for destro staves but it doesn’t really balance out in pvp, only PvE.

Yep, tho for destro it helps its the only choice. You could remove all passives and halve the spell damage of it and ZoS would just buff class skills and passives to keep some mag/stam balance they are trying to preserve. For bow it just means its always gonna be significantly weaker option. Good when DW/2h are OP and bad when they were balanced.

Iskiab

SodanTok wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

SodanTok wrote: »

Indeed bow does need buffs and indeed not to skills. Snipe needs some shifting around with the stats kinda like dizzy got (dmg nerf but cast time shortening) and so does Poison Injection (needs more power in execute part instead of the regular part).
Bow properties and passives really need buff for long time. Currently bow passives and innate weapon damage just make bow significantly inferior to all other stamina weapons when it comes to class/other skills.

- It has just crit passive compared to actual choice 2h/dw get and its just half of value they have. While 2h doesnt get crit at all, nobody is running around frontbarring 2 daggers and nobody would be running around with crit 2h outside of very niche crit builds in PVP either yet choosing bow is like running with 1 dagger.
- Even the weapon damage of bow is like running one handed weapon without shield or second weapon. People are literally golding out their jewelry pieces to get 16 more weapon damage from each jewelry enchant yet putting bow on frontbar or running any damage/healing skills on backbar bow is like not having 2 jewelry enchants at all.
- Long shot passive promotes often noobish/toxic and in generally inferior long range playstyle on top of only working on bow skills, literally serving as near dead weight passive in any real pvp combat.
- Hawk eye passive while great on paper again just promotes limiting playstyle of having to keep constant light attacks to maintain buff (that included of being totally limited to back barring bow) and being shoehorned into using bow skills for most of damage or not getting any benefit at all

Anyway, nobody cares. Not ZoS not players really. If some bow skills or smth kills people there will be some nerf threads but when that is settled most of playerbase will be happy and comfortable if all bow is good for is to dodge roll on it. Poison Injection nerf was the first time in last 4 years when some serious PVP people came out of woods to complain as it was the only bow skill people used for real.

Agreed, destro has the same issues.

It’s supposed to be balanced by status effects for destro staves but it doesn’t really balance out in pvp, only PvE.

Yep, tho for destro it helps its the only choice. You could remove all passives and halve the spell damage of it and ZoS would just buff class skills and passives to keep some mag/stam balance they are trying to preserve. For bow it just means its always gonna be significantly weaker option. Good when DW/2h are OP and bad when they were balanced.

I think bow’s issue isn’t really bow itself sorta, though better passives would help.

When I’m on my magplar bow’s really effective against me, when I’m on my magden I use shimmer and bow/bow people get stumped and think I’m hacking. There needs to be a middle ground.

Fawn4287

Iskiab wrote: »

SodanTok wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

SodanTok wrote: »

Indeed bow does need buffs and indeed not to skills. Snipe needs some shifting around with the stats kinda like dizzy got (dmg nerf but cast time shortening) and so does Poison Injection (needs more power in execute part instead of the regular part).
Bow properties and passives really need buff for long time. Currently bow passives and innate weapon damage just make bow significantly inferior to all other stamina weapons when it comes to class/other skills.

- It has just crit passive compared to actual choice 2h/dw get and its just half of value they have. While 2h doesnt get crit at all, nobody is running around frontbarring 2 daggers and nobody would be running around with crit 2h outside of very niche crit builds in PVP either yet choosing bow is like running with 1 dagger.
- Even the weapon damage of bow is like running one handed weapon without shield or second weapon. People are literally golding out their jewelry pieces to get 16 more weapon damage from each jewelry enchant yet putting bow on frontbar or running any damage/healing skills on backbar bow is like not having 2 jewelry enchants at all.
- Long shot passive promotes often noobish/toxic and in generally inferior long range playstyle on top of only working on bow skills, literally serving as near dead weight passive in any real pvp combat.
- Hawk eye passive while great on paper again just promotes limiting playstyle of having to keep constant light attacks to maintain buff (that included of being totally limited to back barring bow) and being shoehorned into using bow skills for most of damage or not getting any benefit at all

Anyway, nobody cares. Not ZoS not players really. If some bow skills or smth kills people there will be some nerf threads but when that is settled most of playerbase will be happy and comfortable if all bow is good for is to dodge roll on it. Poison Injection nerf was the first time in last 4 years when some serious PVP people came out of woods to complain as it was the only bow skill people used for real.

Agreed, destro has the same issues.

It’s supposed to be balanced by status effects for destro staves but it doesn’t really balance out in pvp, only PvE.

Yep, tho for destro it helps its the only choice. You could remove all passives and halve the spell damage of it and ZoS would just buff class skills and passives to keep some mag/stam balance they are trying to preserve. For bow it just means its always gonna be significantly weaker option. Good when DW/2h are OP and bad when they were balanced.

I think bow’s issue isn’t really bow itself sorta, though better passives would help.

When I’m on my magplar bow’s really effective against me, when I’m on my magden I use shimmer and bow/bow people get stumped and think I’m hacking. There needs to be a middle ground.

I think the overall feel for all non bow users is that beacuse op bow ult and snipe, people are happy for bow to be weak, and I would include myself because these skills are just ridiculous how noob friendly and strong they are. I think the entire weapon line needs a PvP rework, with snipe/lethal arrow and the ult needing a significant damage reduction and some debuffs added to some of these skills, and possibly even a major brutality buff

TheBonesXXX

Draining Shot needs reverted back to the stun, it sucks as a timed burst heal now. Plus I need my clutch peels back.

KillsAllElves

Nerf all resistances when entering into pvp.

JobooAGS

Not a buff, a rework. Starting with snipe and long shots passives

Rhaegar75

I agreed...apart from annoying Snipe spammers...bows have little to offer to 'normal' players

I guess the speed bonus is nice but not essential

Vyvrhel

Rhaegar75 wrote: »

I agreed...apart from annoying Snipe spammers...bows have little to offer to 'normal' players

I guess the speed bonus is nice but not essential

"Normal" players used Maelstrom bow in PVE for the bonus on Endless Hail pre nerf, and Master bow in PVP for the weapon damage bonus.
The typical rotation in PVE pre nerf was to lay down aoe dots on bow bar (having also the weapon damage enchant on the bow which would transfer to the front bar and would likely proc during the aoe application phase) then swap to the front bar. Those are the reason why a bow was a mandatory back bar for stamina builds pre nerf.

About the snipe spamming - blame the zerging in PVP. I use bow skils and I am absolutely not shamed, since these is the only abilities which really works when running with a zerg, I have severe client issues at melee range. Spamming ranged abilities is the only way how to hit anything, be it a mob or a player, when zerging.
When in IC off event, none of my death recaps ever shown the Snipe skill, or any bow skill IIRC.

BaiterOfZergs

Bow can use a little rework , think the hate for snipers and other buggy skills get in the way. Although bow builds do sort of get an indirect buff with the buff to Kena.

Solaire

No.

MartiniDaniels

Main bow issue is existence of shimmering shield (for snipe builds) and netch (free spammable purge removes poison injection which is main reason to have master's bow at all).

Against other classes bow is fine, you have high damage, mobility, ranged execute... weak execute maybe, but it is lightning fast attack so weaved with LA it deals some damage below 30%. Also you have access to ranged heavy attacks so paired with mobility you can restore a lot of resources while receiving less damage.

But anyway 2H+S&B is better for everything with exception of kiting imo. I think something like access to major fracture will be nice to increase bow damage potential.

Decimus

While I think bow builds are in a pretty good place right now, there's a few weak links they should address for the sake of build diversity.

First of all, Poison Injection... they nerfed the DoT damage significantly, but added the execute modifier to the direct damage portion in the last patch.

Why is this a problem? Because Poison Injection ticks every two seconds, meaning every time you use that Poison Injection in execute range for the direct damage, you simultaneously refresh the DoT - meaning you get no DoT ticks at all if you try to make use of it as a spammable execute.

Easy solution: take a look at Acid Spray. DoT ticks every second, meaning that by the time you land the second weave the DoT has already ticked once.


Secondly, the passives... as has been mentioned before in this thread, they currently lock you into using bow abilities and discourage using actual class ranged abilities.

Even a Bombard/Acid Spray with Long Shots & Hawk Eye stacks for example will always deal more damage (in an undodgeable AoE format) than something such as Silver Shards.



Those are the two things I'd like to see addressed before anything else when it comes to bow.

Dr_Ganknstein

Are people crying about snipe in this thread? Tell me this, how many 1vX videos do you see where people are using snipe in their rotation? I think PI should be brought back to where it was before they buffed it to the point to where it was nerfed to be worse then before they buffed it. That sentence sounds strange right? Kinda like how they buffed/nerfed PI. Should have never messed with it.

Fur_like_snow

Snipe is trash because the servers are hot garage so you end getting your health desynced when some coward is spamming it on you.

PI feels schizophrenic it doesn’t know what it wants to be anymore. Is it direct damage or a dot execute? Right now it’s better on low health targets as a spammable than how it worked as a back end execute. Make a choice ZeniMax.