Help needed for my Bosmer Bow/Bow Templar build

screamingabdabs

Hi,

I have a Bosmer Templar and thought I’d try a hybrid build using the Wrath of the Imperium 3 piece. This gives max 454 damage to ranged direct damage abilities and (I think) many Templar and bow skills have a ranged direct damage component or are pure ranged direct damage.

I’m pairing it with the 5 piece Witch-knights defiance (max 756 damage to poisoned enemies) as bow skills have access to poison and this could give me an additional 1210 damage to most of my attacks once I poison something. The only one it won’t (I think) is Caltrops, which I will eventually morph to Razor Caltrops for the major breach, as this is pure aoe. It’ll only benefit from the Witch-nights buff.

Annoyingly Wrath of the Imperium is only available as jewellery or weapons and as I am having sustain issues I’m running it as 1 ring and 1 bow to make way for the Torc of Tonal Constancy (450 recovery to one pool if the other is below 50%). Since I have a mix of magic and stamina skills I’m finding this works and I generally don’t have to pop mag/stam potions.

I have access to Major Brutality etc with Venom arrow and Savagery etc with Reflective Light.

For increased crit chance I have one piece of slimecraw and ice heart as light armour and am running divines on most of the body.

Both bows have poison damage glyphs, however I don’t know how often weapon glyphs fire now – it used to be every 4 seconds.

I know this will not be a meta build, but its fun though I am having a few issues.

Although I am running the Thief mundus, unbuffed my crit chance seems a bit low at only 32.4%. The only two armour without divines are Slimecraw (infused with max stamina) and Iceheart (infused with max magica), since that’s how I got them. I’m not sure if switching these to divines will have much of a difference, but any suggestions as to how I can increase my crit chance?

I’d like to use a basic Master’s bow, but if I do I’ll loose the torc’s or the Wrath of the Imperium’s bonuses. If I run this as a back bar, will its poison arrow damage buff carry on working when I swap to the front?

With 5 pieces of witch-knights, 3 of Wrath of the Imperium, 1 each of Slimecraw and iceheart and the torc, I have a wasted slot and I have no idea how to fix this.

With 4 stamina and 2 magica damage skills I’m guessing I should max out stamina for the damage? Or would it be better to split the pools (as a classic hybrid)? My current skills are:

• Front – Venom arrow, Blazing Spear, Acid spray (I wondered about bombard for the snare but am not sure how often poison glyphs fire), Honour the dead and Restoring Aura (again for sustain)
• Back – Venom arrow, Reflective light, Silver shards (for a fighters guild buff), Caltrops, Acid spray.

Would different skills improve matters, while keeping the basic feel of the build?

Many thanks in advance.

Firstmep

Just for the record, what content do you want to use this for?

screamingabdabs

Thanks for the reply, didn't think of that.

PVE mainly, dungeons and some trials with a few battlegrounds - though I'm rubbish at PVP.

Since I think Witch-kights is a flat buff it should work in Cyrodiil, but as above I'm rubbish at PVP.

Firstmep

Right. Okay so, first off wrath imperium doesnt do much for your build, as you have a lot of damage over time skills, and their dot component doesnt get buffed by that set. You are also missing 2 very important templar skills, radian destruction and purifying light.
These will boost your damage by quite a lot, especially on a ranged build.
I am not a fan of torc of tonal constancy, but it's a decent mythic.
I would probably drop wrath of imperium and the masters bow, and instead run a different 5 pc set for your backbar.
You mentioned your crit chance being low, so something like briarheart would work well, it's an overland set, so it's easy to get and has 2 lines of crit chance too.
Witch knight works in battlegrounds btw, but for pvp I wouldn't use the same build as for pve.
I have played bowplar in pvp this patch, and either sheer venom or way of fire would work very well on him. Or both xD.

Elendir2am

If I skip my comment about how trials are unfriendli to bosmers and how bow/bow build is far from best, there is 2 points from me.

1. Make different build for PvP and build for PvE. They need very different skillsets and gear.
2. Bonuses from arena weapons transfer from back bar to front bar. So your venom arrows will give you its bonus from Caustic Bow after swapping as well.

I have also 2 comments on venom arrow.
1. Poison Injection execution bonus overperform damage from venom arrow, when you find different source of Major Brutality and Sorcery and it is easy to find different source.
2. Thunderous Volley from Maelstrom Arena were used more than Caustic Bow, because of its enchantment + AoE. I don't know, how it changed with U35.

AcadianPaladin

Would love it if someone would back me up or correct me, but I think if both bars have the same weapon glyph they share the same cool down which translates to don't do it. Use poison on one bar but something else on the other. I think. Suggestions for a Templar archer might be poison + the glyph that does damage and gives you back some stamina.

Zodiarkslayer

For basic/normal PvE, Solo and group, there is one rationale: use sets that boost everything, not just one small part of your build.
That's the reason why Order's Wrath, for example, is so good. Light attacks, Dots, AoE, the spammable, healing, simply everything is boosted by it.

The core of a Bow build lies in the spammable. My pick would be Crushing Weapon drom the Psijic Order skill line.
Snipe, Bombard, Silver shards are all good choices, too.

Witch-Knight only works with high poison uptime or guaranteed poison procs. It's literally made for DK, not Templar.

Anyway, my recommendation is:
Keep Slimecraw and Iceheart for now. Stormfist is an option, too.
Use Order's Wrath and Tzogvin's Warband, however you get it.
Try to mix armor weights so that you get two light pieces and five medium.
Maelstrom Bow on the backbar.
All Stamina Glyphs, NO MAGICKA!
All spell damage glyphs on jewelry, we are talking templar here
FB glyph poison, BB weapon damage glyph.
Sharpened as frontbar trait, Infused for the backbar.

Dubious Camoran Throne or Artaeum Takeaway Broth.
The Thief Mundus
Tri Pots

Skills FB: Radiant Glory, Camouflaged Hunter, <spammable>, Power of the Light, heal flex (i.e. Repentance, etc.), Crescent Sweep
BB: Endless Hail, Blazing Spear, Venom Arrow, Extended Ritual, Restoring Rune, Meteor or Ballista

Edit: better format

MudcrabAttack

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4GcepdE7lhU

This skill build is probably close to what you want.

Just swap the flame staff for the bow,
swap Elemental Weapon for lethal arrow (single target) or acid spray or silver shards for AOE,
swap Siroria for something like Pillar of Nirn or Tzogvin or orders wrath.
Swap magicka armor glyphs for stamina
You could also easily swap relequen over to coral riptide on a wood elf

Here’s the gear I typically run on a wood elf nightblade archer
https://www.esologs.com/reports/N6fCTXwZPJHAKhvp#fight=3&type=summary&source=1

screamingabdabs

Many thanks for the suggestions Sadly I am currently unable to try many of them right now due to missing DLC (eg don't have High Isle and probably won't get it) or missing armour pieces - still need to do some more runs.

As a stopgap I have switched to 5+5+mythic+1 monster so now I am running Witch-kights and Deadly Strike, the torc of tonal with a slimecraw head

I also switched my mundus from Thief to Shadow. I expected this to drop my dps as I'm now critical striking less often but was surprised that it raised it.

I saw a vid of someone running Ritual of retribution on a bow Templar so am trying that. It doesn’t seem bad as a fire and forget on the back bar

So my DPS is currently 30.5 k from around 28k, better but I suspect I can improve just by not stuffing up on my rotation so much.

I have kept the masters bow for now on the back bar and placed my AOEs there, since they will be buffed by the poison arrow bonus. I now have a Deadly strike bow on the front, along with all my dots and silver bolts from the fighters guild. I also kept the venom arrow as so few groups seem to have any interrupt.

Once I have enough fighters guild I’m thinking of slotting Dawn breaker for the 3% passive damage bonus. Useful or not?

I was running poison glyphs on both weapons, but am wondering if Decrease health would be better? I don’t believe poison from skills and weapons stacks?

So current skill set is.
Front – Venom Arrow, Reflective light, Acid spray, Silver shards, Radiant oppression, Rapid Fire
Back - Venom Arrow, Blazing Spear, Acid Spray, Razor caltrops, Ritual of Retribution, Rapid fire

Finally can someone post their DPS on a dummy that does not have any buffs please? Something like the stone husk. I am finding a lot of 4 person groups lack things like breach right now and would like to compare my sets for such encounters with others.

Many thanks

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h29gyYVg8gA&amp;list=PLvk-E9x4-Zgd2OoQfaPFVr28T4ZabqVPU&amp;index=1

I'll post this here as the rotation is solid. You can tweak the gear around if needed slightly. I'll be trying this soon on a 3 mil dummy, will let you know how it goes.

Pelanora

Elendir2am wrote: »

If I skip my comment about how trials are unfriendli to bosmers

Just to take this thread slightly off trajectory, why are trials unfriendly to bosmers?

WrathOfInnos

@Pelanora Groups will be providing enough sustain (Symphony, Master Resto, Orbs) and penetration (Alkosh, Crusher, Tremorscale, Crimson Oath) that none of Bosmer's bonuses are useful. The speed is nice, but doesn't really translate into combat effectiveness.

Pelanora

Ah OK. Thank you. 👍