Bow needs some love

TheS1X

Bow got nerfed ages ago and few my good ingame friends who used bow/bow builds or just bow builds left from ESO.
They just felt that it was nerfed too much all the time and they were more a PVE players whos damage went down till their characters felt useless.
Ofc, there are people who say that, change to something else then, but why? If someone likes the bow, then he/she likes the bow.
Long time people whined about snipers on Cyro and I guess this was the reason why bow got destroyed.
Right now if I play some PVP content I see much more annoying things than bow was, more powerful builds or skills than Snipe actually ever was.
Aren't Jabs worth a nerf if Snipe got nerfed? I do not call out a nerf to any skill atm... I just think that bow needs some more love and needs to be stronger than it is right now.

Larcomar

Snipe is definitely crap now and the old go to sniper proc sets feel a pale shadow of what they were. I can't remember the last time I got killed by a sniper or, if I'm honest, really bothered paying one any attention. I actually laugh when I see someone using venemous smite. Remember when that was practically meta for snipers?

I've abandonned bow on my stamblade, but trying a bow bow on my stamsorc right now. Still early days and still experimenting, but finding that crystal wep, while janky, can be viable, esp if combo with a focused aim. Not a build I'd go one to one with but, with lots of well fitted and lots of swift, feels fun if slightly sonic the hedgehog as a skirmisher.

snipezor

Bow was primarily nerfed because ZOS can't figure out how to resolve desync issues; I wouldn't expect any significant buffs to the line. Better to just to just min/max the build and learn who your optimal targets are and who are not, rather than hope for changes.

GrumpyDuckling

I'd love to see ZOS change the Hawk Eye passive in the bow skill line.

Hawk Eye
"Dealing damage with a Light or Heavy Attack increases the damage of your Bow abilities by 5% for 5 seconds, stacking up to 5 times."

I get how in concept this fits into PVE rotations, but not all instances in PVE lend themselves to letting you stack within the 5 second windows to get the most out of your bow skills. Then, in PVP, forget about stacking Hawk Eye with dodging and LOS being so common.

Hawk Eye feels unnecessarily clunky to keep up.

Callosum

rework one of the snipe morphs into a skill with an instant cast time and cool utility. Would do a lot for the skill line imo.

fred4

Try a Blackrose Arena bow, Magnum Shot, Snipe and Plaguebreak. Then come back and tell us whether you still think a bow buff is necessary.

Ippokrates

It is situational, so during sieges it is quite easy to maintain hawk eye.

Also, the whole point of snipe delay is punch. If you want instant, go for scatter shot. Less dmg but you can combine it with crystal & psijic weapons into instakill ^^

So no, i don't think that bow require buff. Especially with probably most useful collection of arena stuff from all types of weapons. Maybe except Destro.

TheS1X

Yes there are always some broken combinations for every class and weapon but that does not mean that it is good weapon compared with other weapons. I personally don't like that Plaguebreak thing ( It will soon be nerfed anyways because people don't like it ) I want my bow to work with normal sets, not with some OP procs, and bytheway, there is that guy who heavy shots people to death because of procs. Is it because bow is OP or Procs are OP? He can use 2h to HA and one hit people same way.

Callosum

Ippokrates wrote: »

It is situational, so during sieges it is quite easy to maintain hawk eye.

Also, the whole point of snipe delay is punch. If you want instant, go for scatter shot. Less dmg but you can combine it with crystal & psijic weapons into instakill ^^

So no, i don't think that bow require buff. Especially with probably most useful collection of arena stuff from all types of weapons. Maybe except Destro.

totally agree about about snipe when it comes to PVP. My suggestion was considering PVE where snipes delay feels clunky. Making one of the morphs instant would probably not change the delayed burst from being preferential in PVP but would be a nice option for PVE content.

KingExecration

Jabs never desynced people. As a long Templar main you can just move out of our spammable lmao. There’s a universal 20% you can get from evasion too.

Add more reflects and counter play to those setups that can spam you from a mile away. If we have that go crazy with snipe buffs.

BXR_Lonestar

Snipe needs to be reworked so that it is a one-shot kill ultimate in PVP. The other morph can stay the ballista for more damage over time for PVE dps. That would make bow snipers deadly, but not OP because you would have to build up ultimate (and have the right build). Just my 2 cents.

Shepoffire

I think it’s fine but I’ll always agree with a snipe buff

Dalsinthus

Bow could really use some pve love.

For snipe, I wish they would readjust the skill to be an instant-cast spammable with damage adjusted down appropriately. That would both remove much of the desync issue in pvp and make it more viable in pve.

Callosum

Dalsinthus wrote: »

Bow could really use some pve love.

For snipe, I wish they would readjust the skill to be an instant-cast spammable with damage adjusted down appropriately. That would both remove much of the desync issue in pvp and make it more viable in pve.

Yes please! But just one of the morphs

TheS1X

It should have more damage or penetration, most bow users shoot those healer tanks with cotton arrows.

LittlePinkDot

Give me Diablo 2's "GUIDED ARROW"

Vevvev

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

Give me Diablo 2's "GUIDED ARROW"

If it's just an arrow but guided all projectiles in ESO already have that.

Castagere

I have always said that NPC's with bows are my nightmare. They are so much better than players will ever be.

TheS1X

I think Bosmers should have added bow damage passive rather than XP gain.

Iccotak

Using a bow in ESO just doesn’t feel as good as it does in Skyrim or Oblivion.

That’s a consequence of the hybrid combat system

DucLIX

No.

Andre_Noir

Dalsinthus wrote: »

For snipe, I wish they would readjust the skill to be an instant-cast spammable.

God just use fighter guild spammable like [snip] do in Cyro already

[edited for baiting]

LittlePinkDot

Vevvev wrote: »

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

Give me Diablo 2's "GUIDED ARROW"

If it's just an arrow but guided all projectiles in ESO already have that.

It follows you around awhile... Like 90 and 180 degree turns kinda following

summ0004

I would like to see a source of major brutality added to the bow skill line as many of the other weapon skill lines have options here.

Stx

I haven't played my bow/bow dk in years. But he used to do some pretty nice dps in dungeons.

I'm not sure what to do in order to make bows better, adding major brutality to the non poison morph of snipe maybe? Or reducing the cost of scatter shot possibly.

I don't think you can buff snipe without causing problems in pvp, acid spray is already a very good aoe spammable. Volley deals great area damage.. poison arrow could use a buff I suppose, I feel like it got nerfed a few years ago and hasn't really been used much since. I use it on my dk but mostly due to the poison synergies.

Foxtrot39

Well its ranged so due to the "safe distance factor" it would do less damage

I mained bow on my stamblade and never thought of droping it once, I just like it too much

Instead I went for arena bow to up it even further, quite fond of BRP bow for the extra free poison dot but thinking of using Master's bow instead for increased damage on enemy affected by my poison arrow

TheS1X

They should bring Snipe back, it feels pointless atm...
And idea to add Bosmers bow damage passive is not that bad imo, they have bow xp gain passive that is very pointless passive, why not to switch that.
That would bring bow back to meta little bit.

snipezor

TheS1X wrote: »

They should bring Snipe back, it feels pointless atm...
And idea to add Bosmers bow damage passive is not that bad imo, they have bow xp gain passive that is very pointless passive, why not to switch that.
That would bring bow back to meta little bit.

Without putting any consideration at all into impact or balance, I feel that racial experience gain passives should morph into something else - cost reduction, range increase, something - when the related skill line is maxed out.

Carbohydrate

Dalsinthus wrote: »

Bow could really use some pve love.

For snipe, I wish they would readjust the skill to be an instant-cast spammable with damage adjusted down appropriately. That would both remove much of the desync issue in pvp and make it more viable in pve.

Bow is already in a very good spot for PvE.

Accuracy passive gives extra crit, only being beaten by daggers and AY (no AY bow).

Lethal Arrow is a very strong spammable, both for it's base damage and the guaranteed poison on hit. Making it instant cast would make it too strong.

Acid Spray is incredibly strong for AoE fights. It's more costly than snipe, but not even very far behind lethal arrow for single target dps (~2-3k dps behind the skill itself and from the extra poison damage lethal arrow provides).

Endless Hail is another great AoE skill, even more so with vMA bow.

Poison Injection is a strong DoT with an execute bonus.

Magnum shot is one of the highest single target ability damage sources in the game when paired with BRP bow.

Bow/Bow is a little behind melee dps, as it should be. You trade some damage for being able to play ranged when needed.

TheS1X

Why they say then that bow is pointless and bow users are sometimes denied for trials?
Instant Lethal is ofc too much but Lethal needs more damage because it was cut down a lot and lost its stun if I remember right. Stun was op but damage was ok, now it is low and most bow users do not even use snipe anymore, why is that?
PS: Try and go and fight against tanks, sorcs and necros with your bow build, try to 1v1, see who wins.
If bow does not get a buff, atleast bosmers should get bow damage passive because they are meant to be bow users I guess.
It is at least something.

Tommy_The_Gun

Callosum wrote: »

rework one of the snipe morphs into a skill with an instant cast time and cool utility. Would do a lot for the skill line imo.

I think that Snipe should basically be "a toggle" at this point. I mean something like an alternative "stance". So it would change your heavy & light attack behaviour when bow is equipped.