Best set to pair with New Moon Acolyte for full ranged Stamden

DarkIight

Hi guys!
I'm playing a full ranged bow/bow stamina warden since 3 years and I really like this playstyle. First of all I am aware that as dd class a full ranged stamden is not the best option, I know this, but I don't care... I always liked archers in every fantasy mmporg I've played.
Anyway what I would need to know is the secondary stamina set I can pair with new moon acolyte. I am currently using Briarheart, I have also tried Tzogvin, but it seems that NMA + Briarheart outperform a little more damage. I am also using Harpooner mythic pants and one piece Velidreth. I have armor penetration as mundus stone and my 4 active warfare skills are: master at arms, deadly aim, biting aura and wrathful strikes. Unbuffed my weapon dmg is 4113 and critical chance is 38.4 %.
As aoe damage I am quite satisfied, I am a little bit weak in single target damage output. On world bosses, playing alone, I rarely overpass 30k average damage. My lethal arrow ability very rarely overpass 40k dmg in a single hit, just a couple of times I have hit 42k. Is it normal that a bow/bow stamden does this numbers on single targets or am I missing something?
Which is the best stamina set to wear together with NMA? Consider that I have no access to trials or arenas, I mostly play alone. I can also handle quite well stamina management having absorb stamina gliph on main bow and stamina recovery food.
Any suggestions will precious for me.
Thanks

Darklight

Larcomar

As ever, I'd ask what it's for. Briarheart is a nice set but I find stuff like tzogvin, kinra's where you need to build stacks tends to perform badly in regular content like overland / rnds' because stuff dies so fast. Obv better in vet where fights are longer.

If this is for fairly casual solo play tho, for bow /bow you could try something more specialised like swamp raider and/or morag tong. I run those as my "tooling around overland" build - you know, ranger type, bear, bows.... - but he actually doesn't do bad dps.

It really depends what abilities you're using though. Swamp raider buffs poison and disease abilities by 600. Morag tong is "When you deal direct damage, you cause the enemy to take 10% more damage from Poison and Disease attacks for 5 seconds."

So if you're mainly using abilities like lethal arrow, poison arrow, arrow spray and sub assault it works out pretty well. Your lethal arrows will be about as strong as you can get for stdps, while arrow spray + sub assault synergise really well - they have the same footprint and really strong, in your face, aoe.

I'm not sure I'd take that into vet content, if only because stuff like your arrow BARRAGE/ endless hail are going to be comparatively weaker. But for tooling around solo it's alot of fun. The only pt I'd flag is that the initial hit from arrow spray does not (for some unfathomable reason) appear to trigger morag tong from what I can tell. A LA will though.

edit - other stuff you might consider is proc sets stuff like syvarra's or, ofc, plaguebreak. Thing about plaguebreak is that the explosion procs when a mob dies, so it can clear trash quite fast. I personally wasn't a fan - I find arrow spray + scroch more than enough to clear trash - but I know some people who love it for casual play.

Runefang

Monster: Kra'gh or Skoria
Body: NMA (I wouldn't, but thats fine)
Front bar and jewels: Tzogvin's or Grpyhon's reprisal
Backbar Master Bow (easy enough to farm nDSA solo, though extremely boring!)

Change to thief mundus (you're close enough to pen limit with the above)

MudcrabAttack

I love my bow bow warden too.

If you are in 4 player dungeons, there’s usually very little penetration built in to a stamina warden. Tzogvin has a line for penetration, or I would use more light armor (which adds 938 penetration per piece of light armor) You could easily swap new moon acolyte out to light armor. The caveat to a light armor build is you run low on stamina, so it helps to throw in magic skills like winters revenge, mystic orb, degeneration, fetcher infection

Or go with some light armor like Bahsei or the moon hunter set if you don’t run trials. Moonhunter will proc fast if you slam a group of mobs with acid spray. Medusa also works (weapon +jewelry) if things keep dying before tzogvin has a chance to build up. Swamp raider is strong if you primarily use poison skills, but lately I’ve been using a lot of magic/ice/bleed based damage.

A Warden can gain a lot of single target damage from using charged trait on the front bar weapon

When you use Winter’s Revenge a charged weapon will give near constant uptime of chilled, which gives you 10% more crit damage from glacial presence passive

If you change out lethal arrow for cutting dive, a charged weapon will give near constant uptime of hemorrhage status damage on a target, cutting dive will add extra bleeds as well as having 2% more passive damage modifier. The poison status of lethal arrow tends to get overwritten by other poison procs, resulting in diminishing returns on poison dps

Between subterranean assault and acid spray, a charged weapon will give near constant uptime of poison status

If you stick a flame glyph on the front bar charged weapon, and you weave light attacks, you get near constant uptime of burning status

It all adds up to plenty of extra damage on one target, while at the same time the rest of the build is decimating huge groups of mobs with tons of AOE damage

Fizzyapple

I love love bows and you'll find that the few of us who use bows around here are sort of fanatics. I am a dedicated full time Bosmer Jaqspur /jk.. but honestly its all I play. You most definitely can make bows work it just takes more time to master than any other weapon type. Here is a quick parse I recently did playing around with agility and testing out BRP after patch.



This was with Relequen MA bow backbar BRP bow front bar Agility almost any monster shoulder piece and Harpooners Kilt.
The best setup for bows in practice (day to day) is Tzogvrin and Relequen.

Cutting Dive is great but it will only increase your DPS over snipe if used within the off-balance window only. Full frost glyphs front bar the added uptime to chill even with winters revenge is significant. Only if you play warden of course.

If your serious about playing bows I am more than happy to help you with anything you need. There aren't many of us.

Just for fun I did this because I always hear people moan about snipe spammers in randoms.



This is a full parse with just snipe and light attacks. Not great but nothing to cry about in randoms.

Then for fun I decided to do it again but with only one complete set.



Snipe spam one set.. Ill come back with a new parse I was able to almost hit 100 with a full rotation but only one complete set I'll post it when I do a new one its sort of old.

I used to like NMA but you will move on from it eventually its holding you back as it did me. You have reached its full potential . Its really a pvp set tbh.

Relequen is literally designed for us. Not templars. Its a ranged bow users set and it synergizes with our most important passives so if you can grab that it will improve your output if that's what you you're going for.

Honestly it looks like your doing great and ahead of the game also you have a great attitude I am going to guess Bosmer?

Unless your in a trial or you have a tank that you know is debuffing you will rely on your own penetration. I do on average 50-60k dps on bosses in normal dungeons with randos and that's because I'm running lover with Kragh shoulder plus the minor breach from focused aim. Interestingly ill do the same damage (60K) with an organized 4-person group same setup.

Never ever run lethal arrow unless you are in a trial or organized group where you talk to the tank and you know your getting the pen you need its never worth it in almost all situations. Even in trials if you think you'll ever need to damage something the tank isn't breaching (ALMOST ALWAYS) don't slot that morph. I don't care what some website says don't do it. Even if you dont need the breach in one fight you will in another and the damage difference is 1-2k on a full parse but if you dont have the pen your numbers will dip dramatically.

For medium armor bow users your number one concern at all times is hitting 18,2k pen on your target.. and also keeping range of course. Your numbers dip the closer you are to target.

Playing bow/bow is more like a passion than just a weapon choice and if you work at it you can do magic with it.. beat meta or use it in pvp front bar as a bruiser or whatever and win.

A frost glyph front bar is the right option for bow wardens I have tested this for more hours than I care to admit. MA bow backbar with endless hail and a WD glyph yeah I know its stale but its still leaps ahead of any other option for bow users backbar. Also we are a unique class in that we get to choose some mag versus stam morphs. Change one out for a mag morph and you will never have to worry about sustain issues ever again. Best thing to happen from the hybridization for wardens.

The best advice I can give you though is stick with it its top tier but you really have to work at it most people I know who played bows were in love with it for about 2-3 weeks then moved on. It's not the weapon for you if you want instant gratification.

My highest parse this patch is 112 but I'm sure you can beat that if you give it a shot.

Actually the best piece of advice is to be Bosmer.



I took this when I did the parse to show how we BaBs do things. (badass bosmer)

Your end-game should be fun so try and optimize that best you can and everything else will come together.

If you have questions I'm @fizzyappleberry in-game and please feel free to mail me anytime.

Long post sorry but I did say we are fanatics.

Tannus15

inferno staff is the best bow in the game

you can run a "full range stamden" with double inferno if that's what you want to do




honestly this build needs work, it's just an alt so some of the gear isn't the best, but it was fun to do.