To the ZoS balancing team, with regards to PvE Bow/Bow DDs

Annurang

In the past year or more, snipe (as well as a host of other changes to skills that a bow/bow PvE DD might use) has been adjusted again and again with regards to allowing a degree of counterplay in PvP, which is absolutely understandable. As a PvE bow/bow NB main though, I've only seen my ability to parse drop to ever lower depths. After rigorous research, theorycrafting and testing, while wearing top-tier fully upgraded gear and with strictly single target DPS focused builds (to the point of having marginal survivability for trials) I reluctantly accepted the fact that I'll always be able to produce DPS parses (on trial dummy, from max range without using melee skills) of up to 71-75k dps that is anywhere from 30 to 15% lower than the best DPS classes in game.

Aside from the relatively recent video of this warden (props to @Juhasow for bringing it to my attention)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eE0WN74YoE&ab_channel=Alvin

most classes and especially the NB is forced to stick to melee range (in order to use gimmicks such as killer's blade) to get higher numbers, making bow play completely counterintuitive.

Seeing as bow users (with it being the main damage dealing weapon) is a standard playstyle archetype in literally every MMO-RPG/RPG I've enjoyed so far, I am at a loss to comprehend why ESO chooses to have this playstyle underperform to that extent in comparison to others (with it being the only option for a stamina DD to be a ranged DPSer as well). I understand that we are way too far from grasping how the overall CP overhaul and already announced potential changes might affect every PvE DPS class, but from what has already been released, it is indicated that not only there wont be any significant improvement, but it might drop even further down, once again. From my everyday experience in game, I rarely see other "highly performing" bow/bows (if any at all) as they must be one of the lowest populations of damage dealers, driven by the fact that their "terminal ballistics" aren't nearly as promising as other "decent" PvE dps classes like a Magicka Sorcerer, a fact which leads me to believe that bow/bow playstyle is either being neglected or purposely eliminated from the available options a player has, which directly contradicts ESO's "build diversity" policy.
Despite not being a game designer but only a fellow denizen of beautiful and harsh Morrowind, I am certain there are lots of ways to go about this without affecting PvP performance radically, off the top of my head comes an adjustment to the hawk's eye passive or generally a stacking buff/debuff that takes time enough to make it almost irrelevant to PvP but any kind of change to the "right" direction would be more than welcome. I sincerely hope that this post is taken into consideration by any member of the ZoS "dps engineering" team in order for us bow-loving adventurers to have a rewarding and balanced experience in all of Tamriel!

As to further support my claim, below is some information of my build but as the server is currently down I can currently share only parts of it:

770CP Dark Elf Nightblade (PC/EU)
Mundus stone: The Shadow
Frontbar: Piercing Mark/Lethal Arrow/Silver shards/Camouflaged Hunter/Relentless focus Ult: Flawless Dawnbreaker
Backbar: Dark Shade/Endless Hail/Poison Arrow/Camouflaged Hunter/Leeching Strikes Ult: Ballista (the one that is actually used)
Sets: Tzogvin's Warband (with frontbar weapon) / Arms of Relequen (always on/body) / The Master's Perfected Bow (Backbar) / x1 Balorgh / x1 Slimecraw
(all of the above at legendary/yellow quality with Kuta level glyphs too)
Poison: Double DoT poison
Foodbuff: Dubious Camoran Throne
Traits/Enchants: Precise on front bar / Infused - Weapon damage on back bar / Divines on all pieces / Stamina enchant on all pieces with x1 Health Enchant on Helmet
Potions: Essence of Weapon Power
My CP allocation follows the principles of well known stamblade guides like Alcast's and other well established theorycrafters, that are specifically made for similar bow/bow setups.

Rotation:
Prebuff: Relentless Focus - Leeching strikes - Dark Shade - Essence Pot
Initiate: Endless hail / LA / Poison Arrow / Barswap / LA
Main Rotation: Lethal Arrow / LA / Lethal arrow / LA ... until Endless Hail is almost over, using Spectral Bow proc on Cooldown whenever on front bar in place of Lethal Arrow,
Barswap / LA / Endless Hail / LA / Poison Arrow / Barswap / LA / Lethal Arrow / LA ... until Endless hail is down, then on the 2nd rotation refresh Dark shade/Leeching Strikes together with Endless Hail / Poison arrow -> Rinse and repeat.

By no means do I claim that I have the absolute best bow/bow DPS build, that being said, I have tried lots of iterations, with varying amounts of armor penetration (by adjusting CP or adding a Kra'gh piece) to cater to different group setups always keeping the 18.2k threshold in mind with either frontbar Master's bow (together with poison arrow instead of silver shards) while using Maelstorm Bow for backbar (with a noticeable HP decrease at the loss of a heavy piece) as well as other sets altogether (that introduce lightweight trap in rotation when swapping Tzogvin's) but with no significant DPS improvement.

Build altering suggestions that promise an increase in single target DPS are always welcome and I am more than happy to try them out and prove myself wrong.

PS: My sincere thanks to the ZoS team for taking this huge step with the CP rework and for trying to promote freedom (and consequence) of choice, for the constant attempt to balance this intricate machine that is ESO and generally for taking care our beloved One Tamriel!
PS2: If any of you agree with my points, upvote and help the bow/bow minority become a reliable DPS class again!

Azura's blessings,
Annurang

GrumpyDuckling

Annurang wrote: »

Despite not being a game designer but only a fellow denizen of beautiful and harsh Morrowind, I am certain there are lots of ways to go about this without affecting PvP performance radically, off the top of my head comes an adjustment to the hawk's eye passive or generally a stacking buff/debuff that takes time enough to make it almost irrelevant to PvP but any kind of change to the "right" direction would be more than welcome. I sincerely hope that this post is taken into consideration by any member of the ZoS "dps engineering" team in order for us bow-loving adventurers to have a rewarding and balanced experience in all of Tamriel!

The Hawk Eye passive is my main issue with the bow.

I think it's silly that the bow is forced to deal with this stacking/damage-building nonsense to fully realize the power of the skills, just to see 25% of your damage fade away in all content if you miss weaves in a short window, or if there is a lull in combat.

Annurang

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

The Hawk Eye passive is my main issue with the bow.

I think it's silly that the bow is forced to deal with this stacking/damage-building nonsense to fully realize the power of the skills, just to see 25% of your damage fade away in all content if you miss weaves in a short window, or if there is a lull in combat.

I agree, that severely cripples our ability to switch between targets or do mechanics that require pausing DPS and it gets a lot worse once you factor in Relequen's/Tzogvin's too, but I'm desperate here, I would even be happy with relying even more on it if it could get buffed in a way that doesn't "break" us in PvP (despite the fact that a magDD can just nuke away happily at will), I'm just hoping for anything here, at least for the post to get the proper kind of attention.

QuebraRegra

toxic PVP tactics killing PVE content.

this should have stopped long ago... yet they continue to balance them as a whole. Separate PVE/PVP balance for ALL things. Even the back office spreadsheet tycoons can see that snipe has been killed in PVE?

Gilvoth

it's not just pve, we have the same exact problem with bow as the main weapon in pvp.

goldenarcher1

I'm hoping they do something with bows when the main chapter is released this year.

Eveli sharp-arrow and all that.

FrancisCrawford

Why Silver Shards on the bar if it's not in your rotation?
Why the new Lethal Arrow over a true spammable anyway?

Did I understand correctly that adding a Maelstrom Bow in place of the mismatched monster pieces added a small about of DPS at the cost of a lot of survivability?

AcadianPaladin

@Annurang I agree.

I'm an avid bow/bow PvE soloist. I have four pure archers (sorc, warden, templar, NB) and I have indeed seen their ability to do damage go down, even as my own ability/experience with them has tried to counter that. I recall some time ago being able to open a fight with a +45k crit snipe. Now, the most I ever see is around 38k on my strongest archer - again, that is on a crit snipe at max range.

The idea that archers are safe because they stay at range is simply not true. My archers love opening a fight at max range but if it is a serious fight (WB, group dungeon boss, group dungeon large mob) it very very quickly goes to melee range and remains there for the boss' remaining 1.6m hp. Though I primarily solo, on those rare occasions when I group, my archer is not safe at range either. If she stays at long range, she is off the healer's radar (but not the bosses, as they often like to range target the farthest foe it seems).

Annurang

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Why Silver Shards on the bar if it's not in your rotation?
Why the new Lethal Arrow over a true spammable anyway?

Did I understand correctly that adding a Maelstrom Bow in place of the mismatched monster pieces added a small about of DPS at the cost of a lot of survivability?

The reason you use skills like silver shards on front bar is to benefit from the bonus weapon damage you get from fighter's guild passives, making your lethal arrow the strongest it can be, while gaining access to an AoE spammable to couple with Volley on trash. You usually need a mix of skills from Assassination tree (for crit chance etc) and fighter's guild skills. Now lethal arrow for a bow/bow is the best in slot spammable you could have, prolly as it should be (yes, better than crushing weapon from psijic order) not sure what other ranged spammable for a bow you might have had in mind. As for the Master's front bar I did try it at the cost of considerable survivability, (those are the things you do when you're starved for DPS :P ) after trying it out I returned to my original build (at the bottom my post).

zvavi

bow has one thing doing bad for it, and it is that it forces u into range to gain "maximum" damage. sadly it is not always possible in dungeons/trials, and most importantly, it puts u away from the heals/buffs.

Vateshran bow was a step that might have closed the gap, but since the 33% was additive and not multiplied, it was hurt by old cp (and will be hurt by new cp) for diminishing returns, making it worse than wearing a monster set (especially noticable now when tzogvin is buffed). if they ever make Vateshran bow a multiplied buff, it will open new options for bow users. (i tried making a thread about it, but people were saying that it is still used in no cp pvp, which gets no change if it will be a multiplied buff cause there is no cp there:/)

Annurang

zvavi wrote: »

bow has one thing doing bad for it, and it is that it forces u into range to gain "maximum" damage. sadly it is not always possible in dungeons/trials, and most importantly, it puts u away from the heals/buffs.

Vateshran bow was a step that might have closed the gap, but since the 33% was additive and not multiplied, it was hurt by old cp (and will be hurt by new cp) for diminishing returns, making it worse than wearing a monster set (especially noticable now when tzogvin is buffed). if they ever make Vateshran bow a multiplied buff, it will open new options for bow users. (i tried making a thread about it, but people were saying that it is still used in no cp pvp, which gets no change if it will be a multiplied buff cause there is no cp there:/)

I am sorry but I will have to completely disagree with this, as forcing a ranged bow character to fight in melee completely negates the point of carrying a ranged weapon. Having it DPS independent of range and occasionally firing in melee range would be reasonable but having to stick on enemies to do maximum dps is counterintuitive to the whole ranged concept. To touch a little bit more on that, in other games, there exists a melee DD grp, a ranged DD grp, and healers usually standing together with the ranged DDs. That way when mechanics force one type of DDs to stop, the other group keeps firing and vice versa, while the healers are able to clearly observe the battlefield from a safer distance and rotate when needed (recently I was told it happens on some vet trials on rare occasions in ESO too and that gave me a glimmer of hope). The concept of everyone stacking at a boss' back no matter the class is regretfully in the direction of dumbing down fight mechanics. The sad thing is that most Trial Leaders in guilds adhere to these concepts forcing a lower skill level playstyle and that is probably because certain boss mechanics allow or even force it at times. In my humble opinion, it would be interesting if the rest of the ranged DDs would be toned down to account for the consistency of sustained DPS from range while rewarding the melee dmg dealers with a reasonable percentage (of like 10-15% over ranged which is ofcourse debatable and would require a lot of testing), while having tactics that actually put them in harms way in order to have a balanced DPS output across the board.

As for the Vateshran bow, I like the concept of it being the enabler of niche builds but by no means the established "meta" archers should follow, for the reasons I stated above.

MudcrabAttack

Careful what you wish for, Bow Bow is relatively strong on the PTS since the weapon passives were actually buffed a little. Tzogvin is relatively stronger than live. And there's a new set available to bow users with constant uptime of major berserk, which is pretty huge. And in spite of a nerf to snipe damage on PTS, what's really pushing bow bow relatively higher than melee is the wiping out of 20% damage multipliers from CP. With fewer multipliers watering down the big bow buffs on PTS, Hawk Eye and Long Shots are buffing damage better than on live servers. My guess is it's adding 3% overall damage, which somewhat offsets the nerf to snipe.

Fighting from long range is more of a luxury to me that I happily adapt when bosses do their AOE ground stuff. The bow build I use on my Nightblade is close to yours, but I expect a lot more to happen in melee range, so I would slot killers blade for the passive crit bonus and to have around as an execute, hit things with the cheap NB ultimate for the extra 20% damage buff, and use a different set than Tzogvin while slotting barbed trap for the minor force, those three changes would drive up dps a bit. Vateshran buffs single target damage too.

Next patch I'm adding soul trap back to a bar and replacing incapacitating strike with soul harvest for the ultimate generation, and probably replacing ballista with shooting star. Magic-based damage that scales with stamina is getting a buff next patch, and the regen gained from light attacks while incap strike is slotted is really unnecessary next patch since snipe is cheaper.

BXR_Lonestar

Annurang wrote: »

In the past year or more, snipe (as well as a host of other changes to skills that a bow/bow PvE DD might use) has been adjusted again and again with regards to allowing a degree of counterplay in PvP, which is absolutely understandable. As a PvE bow/bow NB main though, I've only seen my ability to parse drop to ever lower depths. After rigorous research, theorycrafting and testing, while wearing top-tier fully upgraded gear and with strictly single target DPS focused builds (to the point of having marginal survivability for trials) I reluctantly accepted the fact that I'll always be able to produce DPS parses (on trial dummy, from max range without using melee skills) of up to 70-73k dps that is anywhere from 30 to 20% lower than the best DPS classes in game.
Seeing as bow users (with it being the main damage dealing weapon) is a standard playstyle archetype in literally every MMO-RPG/RPG I've enjoyed so far, I am at a loss to comprehend why ESO chooses to have this playstyle underperform to that extent in comparison to others (with it being the only option for a stamina DD to be a ranged DPSer as well). I understand that we are way too far from grasping how the overall CP overhaul and already announced potential changes might affect every PvE DPS class, but from what has already been released, it is indicated that not only there wont be any significant improvement, but it might drop even further down, once again. From my everyday experience in game, I rarely see other "highly performing" bow/bows (if any at all) as they must be one of the lowest populations of damage dealers, driven by the fact that their "terminal ballistics" aren't nearly as promising as other "decent" PvE dps classes like a Magicka Sorcerer, a fact which leads me to believe that bow/bow playstyle is either being neglected or purposely eliminated from the available options a player has, which directly contradicts ESO's "build diversity" policy.
Despite not being a game designer but only a fellow denizen of beautiful and harsh Morrowind, I am certain there are lots of ways to go about this without affecting PvP performance radically, off the top of my head comes an adjustment to the hawk's eye passive or generally a stacking buff/debuff that takes time enough to make it almost irrelevant to PvP but any kind of change to the "right" direction would be more than welcome. I sincerely hope that this post is taken into consideration by any member of the ZoS "dps engineering" team in order for us bow-loving adventurers to have a rewarding and balanced experience in all of Tamriel!

As to further support my claim, below is some information of my build but as the server is currently down I can currently share only parts of it:

770CP Dark Elf Nightblade (PC/EU)
Mundus stone: The Shadow
Frontbar: Mark Target/Lethal Arrow/Silver shards/Camouflaged Hunter/Relentless focus ult: Incapacitating Strike
Backbar: Dark Shade/Endless Hail/Poison Arrow/Camouflaged Hunter/Leeching Strikes ult: Ballista (the one that is actually used)
Sets: Tzogvin's Warband (with frontbar weapon) / Arms of Relequen (always on) / The Master's Perfected Bow (Almost identical performance to Thunderous Volley) / x1 Balorgh / x1 Slimecraw
(all of the above at legendary/yellow quality)
Poison: Double DoT poison
Foodbuff: Dubious Camoran Throne
Traits/Enchants: Precise on front bar / Infused - Weapon damage on back bar / Divines on all pieces / Stamina enchant on all pieces with x1 Health Enchant on Helmet
Potions: Essence of Weapon Power
My CP allocation follows the principles of well known stamblade guides like Alcast's and other well established theorycrafters, that are specifically made for similar bow/bow setups.

Rotation:
Prebuff: Relentless Focus - Leeching strikes - Dark Shade - Essence Pot
Initiate: Endless hail / LA / Poison Arrow / Barswap / LA
Main Rotation: Lethal Arrow / LA / Lethal arrow / LA ... until Endless Hail is almost over, using Spectral Bow proc on Cooldown whenever on front bar in place of Lethal Arrow,
Barswap / LA / Endless Hail / LA / Poison Arrow / Barswap / LA / Lethal Arrow / LA ... until Endless hail is down, then on the 2nd rotation refresh Dark shade/Leeching Strikes together with Endless Hail / Poison arrow -> Rinse and repeat.

By no means do I claim that I have the absolute best bow/bow DPS build, that being said, I have tried lots of iterations, with varying amounts of armor penetration (by adjusting CP or adding a Kra'gh piece) to cater to different group setups always keeping the 18.2k threshold in mind with either frontbar Master's bow (together with poison arrow instead of silver shards) while using Maelstorm Bow for backbar (with a noticeable HP decrease at the loss of a heavy piece) as well as other sets altogether (that introduce lightweight trap in rotation when swapping Tzogvin's) but with no significant DPS improvement.

Build altering suggestions that promise an increase in single target DPS are always welcome and I am more than happy to try them out and prove myself wrong.

PS: My sincere thanks to the ZoS team for taking this huge step with the CP rework and for trying to promote freedom (and consequence) of choice, for the constant attempt to balance this intricate machine that is ESO and generally for taking care our beloved One Tamriel!
PS2: If any of you agree with my points, upvote and help the bow/bow minority become a reliable DPS class again!

Azura's blessings,
Annurang

This seems to be Zos' combat doctrine where ranged characters just do less DPS overall than melee characters to make up for the fact that they don't have to stop DPSing during certain encounters/mechanics force melee range dps characters to stop dpsing. However, I agree that the amount of damage difference between ranged/melee dps is just stupid.

One suggestion I may have for you is maybe trying to replace lethal arrow with a different skill, because snipe and all of its morphs represent a DPS loss due to cast time, similar to a heavy attack. You might be able to push up to 80k DPS if you insert a skill that has a much faster cast time in that slot. I'm less familiar with NB's, so I don't have any particular skill suggestions, but it is definitely something that may be worth looking into.

AcadianPaladin

One thing I like about my bowsorc (my fave of my four pure archers) is that she doesn't have to care about range quite so much. At range, she benefits from Hawkeye but not from Hurricane. Up close the reverse is true.

Rkindaleft

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

This seems to be Zos' combat doctrine where ranged characters just do less DPS overall than melee characters to make up for the fact that they don't have to stop DPSing during certain encounters/mechanics force melee range dps characters to stop dpsing. However, I agree that the amount of damage difference between ranged/melee dps is just stupid.

One suggestion I may have for you is maybe trying to replace lethal arrow with a different skill, because snipe and all of its morphs represent a DPS loss due to cast time, similar to a heavy attack. You might be able to push up to 80k DPS if you insert a skill that has a much faster cast time in that slot. I'm less familiar with NB's, so I don't have any particular skill suggestions, but it is definitely something that may be worth looking into.

I think the problem with Bow/Bow dps in general is that there isn't really another spammable except maybe two (cutting dive for bowden and venom skull for bowcro, and the 4 other classes barely have a viable replacement) that are actually worth slotting over Snipe if you want to play ranged - playing bow/bow at melee distance makes the whole reason to play bow/bow relatively redundant. May as well use dw/bow or whatever other melee setup and have much better dps.

Bow/bow honestly has not been a strong option since Wrathstone/shadow silk nerf, and if they keep nerfing Snipe they're gonna have to do something with passives or skills to make it compete as a ranged option.

Annurang

MudcrabAttack wrote: »

Careful what you wish for, Bow Bow is relatively strong on the PTS since the weapon passives were actually buffed a little. Tzogvin is relatively stronger than live. And there's a new set available to bow users with constant uptime of major berserk, which is pretty huge. And in spite of a nerf to snipe damage on PTS, what's really pushing bow bow relatively higher than melee is the wiping out of 20% damage multipliers from CP. With fewer multipliers watering down the big bow buffs on PTS, Hawk Eye and Long Shots are buffing damage better than on live servers. My guess is it's adding 3% overall damage, which somewhat offsets the nerf to snipe.

Fighting from long range is more of a luxury to me that I happily adapt when bosses do their AOE ground stuff. The bow build I use on my Nightblade is close to yours, but I expect a lot more to happen in melee range, so I would slot killers blade for the passive crit bonus and to have around as an execute, hit things with the cheap NB ultimate for the extra 20% damage buff, and use a different set than Tzogvin while slotting barbed trap for the minor force, those three changes would drive up dps a bit. Vateshran buffs single target damage too.

Next patch I'm adding soul trap back to a bar and replacing incapacitating strike with soul harvest for the ultimate generation, and probably replacing ballista with shooting star. Magic-based damage that scales with stamina is getting a buff next patch, and the regen gained from light attacks while incap strike is slotted is really unnecessary next patch since snipe is cheaper.

To be honest additions like sets that buff "us" aside tzogvin's (which seems to be a staple for the bow/bow builds) are a change that will affect everyone so I don't think it's that relevant, as it will hardly make the bow/bow playstyle specifically improve (MagDDs should get their new toys sooner or later I'm sure). About the barbed trap, this morph is a melee skill that is really hard to utilize in a bow/bow's bar except if he's using Vateshran bow (might as well be done with it and DW at that point :P). I really tried incorporating Lightweight Beast trap though in my rotation with sets different that Tzogv. but with little to no improvement in DPS. Also killer's blade shares the same problem as its melee too (in comparison to it's magicka counterpart which they thought it reasonable to be ranged but the stam version is melee because what kind of crazy person would DPS as stam from range :P) The other thing I wanted to point out is that bow/bows would make sense be on par with is mag DDs as they have the exact same functionality. There's surely lots of changes on next patch but honestly there doesn't appear to be anything targeted on the "class" specifically aside from the snipe nerf. About the possible 3% overall increment I have to say it's a start but what I was hoping for was doing closer to 90k from 70, (in case of a perfectly executed rotation and gear/build) but I'm afraid I'll be left with the hope ;p

zvavi

Annurang wrote: »

zvavi wrote: »

bow has one thing doing bad for it, and it is that it forces u into range to gain "maximum" damage. sadly it is not always possible in dungeons/trials, and most importantly, it puts u away from the heals/buffs.

Vateshran bow was a step that might have closed the gap, but since the 33% was additive and not multiplied, it was hurt by old cp (and will be hurt by new cp) for diminishing returns, making it worse than wearing a monster set (especially noticable now when tzogvin is buffed). if they ever make Vateshran bow a multiplied buff, it will open new options for bow users. (i tried making a thread about it, but people were saying that it is still used in no cp pvp, which gets no change if it will be a multiplied buff cause there is no cp there:/)

I am sorry but I will have to completely disagree with this, as forcing a ranged bow character to fight in melee completely negates the point of carrying a ranged weapon.

Forcing? Nobody is forcing you. I was just stated that the melee bow set that was supposed to close the gap between bow and non bow builds when the fight is forced to melee is weaker than wearing meta sets when fighting in melee.

And if you think being in melee is dumbing down the game that's your opinion, I like my builds melee, that's where AoEs are, both ally and non ally.

More importantly, the 2 healers don't need to babysit 8 dds running all over the place. I had one of those "believing that standing still is dumbing down combat" people that was running around with Selene cone on the first boss in vLoM running away from healer heals, blaming healer for their death when the damage ticks from that cone can be outhealed by a simple vigor even if heal is not there.

PS. As a NB you should be happy cast time on bow was shortened (in addition to more skills per minute, they also line up better with dots). Now u can cast more merciless bows. And the damage loser you will experience (like all of us) will mostly be from CP lost.

Annurang

zvavi wrote: »

Forcing? Nobody is forcing you. I was just stated that the melee bow set that was supposed to close the gap between bow and non bow builds when the fight is forced to melee is weaker than wearing meta sets when fighting in melee.

And if you think being in melee is dumbing down the game that's your opinion, I like my builds melee, that's where AoEs are, both ally and non ally.

More importantly, the 2 healers don't need to babysit 8 dds running all over the place. I had one of those "believing that standing still is dumbing down combat" people that was running around with Selene cone on the first boss in vLoM running away from healer heals, blaming healer for their death when the damage ticks from that cone can be outhealed by a simple vigor even if heal is not there.

PS. As a NB you should be happy cast time on bow was shortened (in addition to more skills per minute, they also line up better with dots). Now u can cast more merciless bows. And the damage loser you will experience (like all of us) will mostly be from CP lost.

Obviously I have been misunderstood, (I might have expressed myself with a poor choice of words too) so I will do my best to elaborate. By saying "forcing into melee" what I meant was that a strong damage buff in melee range with a bow character that actually parses better in the <5 meters range will eventually have him always opt for that range, it's by no means forcing, but if you're after optimized dps you will eventually have to play at that melee range (if e.g. it was multiplicative too).

"if you think being in melee is dumbing down the game":
I by no means support such a claim. It's like saying apples are better than oranges, it's a matter of preference and all playstyles should be supported if there is to be balance. If the mechanics of a certain bossfight require you to do so (stand in melee range) for a phase it's understandable but I am noticing that the "stacking" in melee range tactic is a staple in many (if not most) bossfights making ranged playstyle lose its substance. I neither think that "running around" is a sound alternative, trials require (as they should) discipline, but having a ranged DD group aside the "melee stack" and healers assigned to specific groups of people doesn't seem like an awfully complicated plan, then again this point could be another thread by itself and leads away from the discussion at hand.

"As a NB you should be happy cast time on bow was shortened..."
I actually am. Leisurely drawing my bow only to have my snipe vanish into thin air because my target is already downed, when other DDs have already switched to the next target, always did torture me (not even gonna mention the frustration of getting my LoS broken in PvP).

"And the damage loser you will experience (like all of us) will mostly be from CP lost":
I didn't even touch on the subject of how CP will impact us (of course our total DPS might look worst in the start as we'll have 1/3 of our total CP I get that). What my main point always was in this thread is the fact that the total DPS a bow/bow can output is significantly lower than (probably) any other DD class and that doesn't seem to be able to go up without a targeted buff wherever that might be. A simple solution would be to reduce the snipe damage by a smaller amount (say 15% instead of 21%), but in case that might negatively affect PvP (which I don't think it would but again it's another topic) there can always be an adjustment in form of increased damage-over-time, through hawkeye passive or another completely different (but with similar end-result) skill.

Raideen

props for the write up, but sadly It does not appear that devs listen to feedback on the forums. They are going to use their internal measurements to balance, not actual gameplay (sadly).

MudcrabAttack

You could use the blackrose prison bow instead of Vateshran if you're standing so far away. It's dealing similar damage compared to Vateshran on my Nightblade on the PTS since it places a pretty huge damage over time based on distance, but if an enemy chooses to run up and stand in front of you, or the healer demands you move up close, the DOT is really weak and not worth using.

Nightblade has a somewhat low dps from a long distance since so much of the class power is based on melee, might have better luck with warden or necromancer bow builds, they might be getting the same dps as mages on PTS, just have to wait until the Atronach is fixed

Annurang

Raideen wrote: »

props for the write up, but sadly It does not appear that devs listen to feedback on the forums. They are going to use their internal measurements to balance, not actual gameplay (sadly).

Thnx a bunch for taking the time to go through it anyways! It surely took me more than a while to compile all that to be as convincing as possible! Just hanging on to a sliver of hope ;p

zvavi

idk, I lose around 13% dmg going bow bow, and it feels like next patch it is going to be a bit better too, since daggers are nerfed, bows are buffed, tzogvin buffed, etc etc. I feel like your 70-73k parse is due to lack of gear/personal skill.

Annurang

zvavi wrote: »

idk, I lose around 13% dmg going bow bow, and it feels like next patch it is going to be a bit better too, since daggers are nerfed, bows are buffed, tzogvin buffed, etc etc. I feel like your 70-73k parse is due to lack of gear/personal skill.

Could also be your lack of personal skill with other builds compared to bow/bow that shrinks the gap, ofc I undesrtand skill is a huge factor but I'd prefer if we didn't go there at all, been using my bow/bow for over 2 years and parsing regularly with as much attention to mechanical detail as possible -again I accept being responsible of a DPS loss margin of up to 1 (-2k at most) but not more. As for the gear, it's all listed on the bottom of my original post (everything is yellow, only improvement without switching pieces would be having perfected relequen, if that is what you mean). On an update I managed to peak up to 75k with Vatesrhan bow equiped on front bar (still a long way from 90 and 100k and having to stand at melee range too). I would of course welcome you to share your build (gear/skills/rotation) details and parse numbers so I could try to replicate the better results you claim.

SidraWillowsky

A stamden with the Vateshran bow on the front bar/Maelstrom on back + Swamp Raider + Relequen can pull absolutely insane single-target DPS... in front of the trial dummy. The highest trial dummy DPS I've ever pulled was with this build, and I'm not great with bows. Things completely fell apart in practice, though.

As you mentioned, however, that forces a bow build to be in melee range.

I agree with your post, however; bow/bow builds have been nerfed since Elsweyr and at one point content creators didn't seem to be bothering to come up with bow/bow builds. IMO they need to rework light/heavy attacks to not be so freaking awkward. Bows are so much more difficult to weave on than any other weapon.

Juhasow

@Annurang You're getting 20-30% less then top parses not because bow/bow sucks but because Your setup and possibly rotation are not fully optimised. Bow/bow setup is capable to get way more then 70-73k on iron dummy. Just slotting dual wield on front bar won't give You 20k DPS more. You can oscillate in the 90k-100k departament with bow/bow on stamblade. Certain classes can reach 105k-110k bracket with bow/bow on dummy.

SshadowSscale

QuebraRegra wrote: »

toxic PVP tactics killing PVE content.

this should have stopped long ago... yet they continue to balance them as a whole. Separate PVE/PVP balance for ALL things. Even the back office spreadsheet tycoons can see that snipe has been killed in PVE?

just like the toxic person tactics ruining pvp balance completely with last year's changes where news flash most of them where done for pve and not pvp.... seriously stop whining about pvp whenever zos does something you don't like..... guess what.... most of the changes you don't like a lot of pvpers also don't like.... but it's easier to blame it in pvp than it is for you to blame it on zos apparently

Fennwitty

I want ranged combat to be viable PvE, but most encounters today punish it.

• Bosses will intentionally target or charge the farthest character with unique attacks
• Most heals and buffs are in front of the caster or area with medium range, so you have to be in front of the healer
• Almost all synergies and effects from monster sets require melee/close range
• Hawk Eye helps mainly against giant bosses standing still or during add phases, quickly going away during mechanics or crowd control

Annurang

Juhasow wrote: »

@Annurang Your setup and possibly rotation are not fully optimised. Bow/bow setup is capable to get way more then 70-73k on iron dummy. Just slotting dual wield on front bar won't give You 20k DPS more. You can oscillate in the 90k-100k departament with bow/bow on stamblade.

Have you done it? (or do you have a link to a build video that displays that 90-100k dps). One part of my post is about investigating if there is a way, and by all means any useful information is welcome.

Annurang

Fennwitty wrote: »

I want ranged combat to be viable PvE, but most encounters today punish it.

• Bosses will intentionally target or charge the farthest character with unique attacks
• Most heals and buffs are in front of the caster or area with medium range, so you have to be in front of the healer
• Almost all synergies and effects from monster sets require melee/close range
• Hawk Eye helps mainly against giant bosses standing still or during add phases, quickly going away during mechanics or crowd control

I agree, many boss mechanics need extensive overhauls to allow/favor ranged combat, in many others though I believe we stack for convenience's sake, I bet you though, if Mag DDs had a similar passive that increases their damage (even by a 5%) from range, there would be separate ranged/melee DD groups.
It's a sad enough thing (functionally and aesthetically) making every DPS "melee", it makes it a whole lot worse losing that 12% of your total DPS only and only if you made the mistake of maining bow.

Annurang

SidraWillowsky wrote: »

A stamden with the Vateshran bow on the front bar/Maelstrom on back + Swamp Raider + Relequen can pull absolutely insane single-target DPS... in front of the trial dummy. The highest trial dummy DPS I've ever pulled was with this build, and I'm not great with bows. Things completely fell apart in practice, though.

As you mentioned, however, that forces a bow build to be in melee range.

I agree with your post, however; bow/bow builds have been nerfed since Elsweyr and at one point content creators didn't seem to be bothering to come up with bow/bow builds. IMO they need to rework light/heavy attacks to not be so freaking awkward. Bows are so much more difficult to weave on than any other weapon.

Wanted to let you know that your build suggestion with Rele/SwampRaider is in my sights for testing and I'm slowly putting it together. Was parsing again with Vateshran and I'm seeing a 2-4k dps (from melee range) increase in my build in comparison to non-vate but yeah, having to stay at arm's length kills the fun of playing bow and I haven't found someone that is conscious of what weapon his character is wielding that disagrees with that.

zvavi wrote: »

bow has one thing doing bad for it, and it is that it forces u into range to gain "maximum" damage.

That is a point that is making more and more sense to me as I go through the totality of the issues at hand. Longshots is highly impractical in mass PvE content and the fact that I (and most bow/bow non-Vateshran users) use max range to parse makes our results superficial with the realistic numbers dropping even lower. An adjustment or complete replacement to Longshots is highly necessary when no other class has such range dependencies.

zvavi

Annurang wrote: »

That is a point that is making more and more sense to me as I go through the totality of the issues at hand. Longshots is highly impractical in mass PvE content and the fact that I (and most bow/bow non-Vateshran users) use max range to parse makes our results superficial with the realistic numbers dropping even lower. An adjustment or complete replacement to Longshots is highly necessary when no other class has such range dependencies.

I managed to pull 80k on the PTS, I don't usually play bow bow or NB, so I was very slow (especially since I have 250 ping on the PTS hard to adjust for me as well), my skill/sec was something horrible like every 1.3 seconds, so u can probably hit up to 1.1 with enough practice for 90k+
I did go melee for execute though.