Lava_Croft wrote: »

Name me any other skill that lets a VR7 player solo a resource without taking any damage, from over 40m distance.

Once again, it's not about dying, it's not about getting hit from stealth, it's not about being able to solo resources and it certainly is not about wanting to ruin the best bow skill there is. It's about the minimal risk involved for a high reward that is the current problem. I don't know the answer for this problem (yet) and all the blanket statements posted here do not really provide any insights either, other than that certain people just don't seem to get my point, which is fine by me.

Spangla wrote: »

Snipe is pathetic and so weak compared to talon spam with no immunity.

I am a nb non bow user and probably the class that suffers the most from snipe.

I promise you talons are way more annoying in every way.

I love finding a bow user - they always die.

Yea they might kill me if im already engaged in a fight with someone else and I cant get at them but so would a talon spamming dk if it was 2v1.

Get real i'm suprised half of the pvp population (dk's) can even speak at all with their heads that far in the sand.

kijima wrote: »

Lava_Croft = Personally responsible for half the anti-bow posts on the forum.

Perhaps all the archers in game could send Lava a bow in the mail, just to show that as archers, we care.

Elendor wrote: »

If you're not seeing the trend that more people use bows every day, you have your head dug deep into the sand. It's been a trend since September, even before the snipe got improved again with the casting time reduction.

Sure, it's a weapon skill, everyone can use it. Every class. That doesn't make a skill any less overpowered. Or doesn't make it any less wrong (and interesting) to have most of the population using one same skill tree. If that's what we're looking for, let's just make one OP weapon tree.

When the majority of players all make their builds wielding the same weapons, mostly with the one skill in mind, that skill needs to be tweaked. That's not rocket science, and that's nothing new either.

It happened before with impulse, and it got to the point where like 70% of the pvp population had it on. It took way too long to get nerfed, but that 20% radius reduction balanced things out. We still see it a lot, both because it's still a decent skill, and old habits die hard, but it's not the best of its kind anymore. And we see a lot more different options out there as a result, with build built around blockade still in destro, but also whirlwind, other class aoes, or bats.

About bats, it was the same issue. When more than one player out of two was vamp, despite the nerfs on bats stacking and ulti costs reductions, well vampirism was nerfed again. Nowadays the numbers are much more reasonable... And outnumbered by werewolves lately, although these rarely transform.

Bow is following the same pattern, with more and more people using it. Either testing it on their characters, or making new ones just for the purpose of focusing on that weapon skill. Figuring out why isn't that hard. A justified nerf is obviously coming.

It's tricky, because the skill tree must not be nerfed into the ground. Stamina must remain somewhat better than magicka-oriented weapons, to compensate for the sacrifice of the class skills, much less useful since they're all magicka-based. If Stamina and Magicka were on par, going Magicka would be a no-brainer. But it's a thin line between somewhat better and owerpowered, and right now Lethal Arrow is way above that line in Cyrodiil.

- Best Range around, both for players AND npcs
- Best Damage output, quite sustainable, and with an insane burst as well
- Best Debuff available (50% healing debuff, sure other skills share it, it's still the best around)
- All that for a quite easy to use 1.1sec cast, and no more dead-zone.

There is only one way we'll get to that nerf though. So if you're enjoying that bow, whether you're yourself convinced that it's somewhat over-the-top or not, please carry on. If you don't use bow and don't think it's OP, please give it a shot, you'll be surprised.

Just yesterday, I did a lovely 3.6K hit with lethal arrow on a poor werewolf. 2.5K from the arrow itself, and 1175 from camouflaged hunter. Of course, the extra-poison damage helps, but still.

On a regular basis, most of my first hits with a bow go for about 1.5K, to which you add camouflaged hunter if you pick your targets properly.
Following hits still crit for over 1.2K most of the time, and if they don't they still seem to vary between a pretty good 700-900 dmg. IF blocked, it still dishes out a good 300-450 dmg, some skills actually do that when they aren't blocked.

And all that on a v12 nightblade created 8 days ago, with v10 green/blue gear, and still quite a few passives missing. Looking forward to a v14 gold weapon.

I'm pretty convinced a tweak is needed for the skill, although I have fun with it as it is. Probably either put a reasonable dead-zone back, OR increase the casting time to something between 1.3-1.5sec. Even if that implies increasing damage by a few %. It would make this skill slightly more tricky to use, therefore harder to spam, to compensate for the great advantages it provides.

NPCs also need to be improved to be able to react to the range of that skill. At this point they just can't. I can solo resources on my templar, but it's quite hard and requires an absolutely perfect rotation. I can solo them on my DK, it's certainly a bit easier, but still requires a pretty solid rotation. It is my belief that NPCs ought to be upped, for resources aren't meant to be 1-manned, just like keeps aren't meant to be 3/4-manned.
But on my nightblade, at the time a resource isn't even a fight. I don't need a rotation, I don't need 2 weapons, or 10 skill slots. Hell I actually just need the one skill to take it without any sort of response from the npcs. Seems wrong to me.

• Range: Bow requires longer range than other weapons, not only for the sake of variety, but also because bow users are extremely vulnerable to damage, especially if spamming Snipe (which is why a good player would never do so). There are no strong ways of recovering health or spamming dmg shields as a stamina build, especially after 1.6 when the resto staff becomes affected by spell damage instead of weapon damage (like it should be).
• Best damage output: only out of the casted skills. Without going into detail, there are combos which do not involve Snipe that deal higher DPS.
  
  Best burst damage? No, magicka Nightblades still have that & Snipe burst damage is a joke compared to what it was before. It's a glorified Crystal Frags now, except it cant ever be cast instantly, which is something you would have to do when playing against skilled people.
• 1.1 Second cast & deadzone: yes, I agree these should be changed. But in return, they should give it back the burst damage it once had & make it viable for people who don't gank loners with 5 other people.

Perichor wrote: »

Dude: Hey ZOS lethal arrow is doing 1.9k+ damage and is nearly spammable and comes with a health debuff

ZOS: ALRIGHTY!! were nerfing refelctive scales HAVE FUN!!!