So, perhaps this is a niche build and won't apply to many boss fights, I'm not sure (I don't have much PvE sustained DPS experience), but I don't think Bow DPS is as poor as some people have been saying, provided one stacks a decent amount of crit.
It will take ~21 more champion points to pull off when 1.6 drops (need 30cp in one of the mage constellations, will only get like 23 to start if you have a v14), but, at least on my DK, pumping 10 CP into the passive for +physical damage, then 10 in physical penetration, then 10 in critical strike damage, you unlock the Champion passive to provide +12% crit.
From there I got 609 crit from ashen grip set, then Sea of Flames (the stamina inferno morph, though I might have the names mixed up) provides a ton of weapon critical. The bow itself provides critical, also running a Khajiit which has the critical passive. All of these combined push me to ~50% crit.
From here I have shadow walker, ashen grip, and red mountain sets all buffing weapon damage, plus flawless dawnbreaker on the bow bar, then igneous weapons* all giving me 2k+ weapon damage together.
Then popping quick cloak (negligible damage really) and spamming Focused Aim, I can sustain 8-9k DPS while hitting bursts of 12K and change.
I initially had lower crit and mroe weapon damage, but then my DPS was hard to push passed the 6k mark with regularity.
It seems the way to get bow dps, at least in pve, is to stack crit like hell and spam snipe.
*Igneous weapons, according to the tooltip, is only supposed to buff heavy attack damage, but currently it is buffing weapon damage stat itself, so this skill may not help so much in the future.
So yeah, these are my findings after not-at-all rigorous testing, in response to some bow DPS complaints I've seen.
What have you guys found?
Edited by ryanmjmcevoy_ESO on February 11, 2015 11:57PM