Improving the direct combat viability of archers

DeanTheCat · April 2016

Hello,

Dean the Cat here. I would like to discuss about archers and small tweaks and changes that can be made to improve the bow as a primary weapon. Note that suggested changes do not aim to take away the supportive options a bow offers to a melee combatant.

There are two kinds of archers. One kind is the infamous "Sniper" type, while the other kind is the less well known "Skermisher" type. My suggested changes aims to reduce the burst stacking from "Sniper" types while improving the direct combat capabilities of "Skermisher" types.

Bow Abilities:

1) Poison Arrow
Morph - Poison Injection: Unchanged, as this is a staple supportive ability for melee combatants.

Morph - Venom Arrow: Increase the direct impact damage by 25%, but remove the DoT.
This change gives the bow line a spammable instant DD ability similar to Crushing Shock from Destruction Staff. This opens up non-snipe based damage builds for archers.

2) Volley: No changes, as this is a staple supportive ability for melee combatants.

3) Scattershot: Increase the basic range of this ability to 15m. Grants Minor Expedition when slotted.
The current range on this ability is too short, and granting Minor Expedition when slotted offers archers a means of kiting enemies when paired with Major Expedition.

Morph - Magnum Shot: If target is CC-Immune, knock self back 12m instead of 6m.
This change will allow Magnum Shot to reliably serve as a gap opener against the onslaught of melee combatants.

Morph - Draining Shot: Now also inflicts minor maim.
This allows Draining Shot to hinder the effectiveness of targets it hits as opposed to a true gap opener.

4) Arrow Spray

Morph - Bombard: No changes needed (Though ZOS still needs to fix roots)

Morph - Acid Spray: Increase the DoT inflicted by this ability by 100%.
The damage on this morph is laughably bad. Increasing the damage dealt by the DoT component will make it a less of a no brainer to pick Bombard over Acid Spray.

5) Snipe: Increase basic projectile speed by 50%.
This prevents archers from stacking up to 3 snipes in mid air before the first one connects with the target. Additionally, the lower delay between casting and impact will increase the DPS of PvE archers. Damage on this ability cannot be reduced due to it being the centrepiece of PvE archer builds.

Morphs: No additional changes needed.

Passives:

1) Long Shots - Allow the full bonus of the ability to take effect at 20m.
This will allow an archer a bit more leeway when firing instead of the current 25m+

2) Accuracy - No changes needed

3) Hawk Eye - Reduce the rate at which stacks decay to 6 seconds instead of the current 4 seconds.
This allows for more time to be spent repositioning instead of constantly worrying about stack decay.

4) Ranger - No changes needed

5) Hasty Retreat - No changes needed

What are your thoughts?

(Sorry for poor formatting, typed this on a mobile Web browser)

Mojmir · April 2016

supposed stamina changes in dark brotherhood might bring archery on par, "crosses fingers"

Lynx7386 · April 2016

Not a bad list of suggested changes. however, I feel that your proposed change to venom arrow to make it a spammable ability is actually going to allow 'snipers' to do more burst damage, with it being an instant. You may not be able to stack 3 snipes in a row anymore due to delay, but a snipe -> venom arrow would still put out nasty burst, not that that's entirely a bad thing.

Personally, I'd like to see the changes to the skill line go much further than what you've listed here, I'll throw a few ideas out:

-Rename it to the marksman or archery tree
-Add proper crossbows to the game
-Modify each ability in the archery/marksman skill line based on the type of weapon being used.

That last bit is somewhat similar to how many destruction staff abilities have varying effects based on the type of staff. In this context, a bow is a precise, fast-firing weapon, while the crossbow is a slow brute force weapon. The differences in abilities should reflect this.

If possible, I'd say that the ranges of the two should be entirely different. Keep the 28-35 meter range for bow attacks, but limit crossbows to 20 meter range while giving them significantly more punch. The accuracy passive should continue to give critical chance for bows, but be altered to give critical damage increases to crossbows, in the same light that different types of one or two handed weapons give bonuses through their own passives.

Anti_Virus · April 2016

My thoughts:

Snipe: increase velocity, reduced cast time to .7 secs, remove the 'snare' effect when casting snipe

Draining Shot(Scatter shot morph): increase range from 10m to 20m( all morphs grant Major brutality on hit for 20 secs)

Scorched Earth(Volley morph): Now deals disease dmg (name changed to 'defiled earth') and causes minor defile reducing targetso healing by 15% for 12 sec.

Venom Arrow(Poison Arrow morph): in addition to interrupt, grants empower to the next attack for 3 secs.

Ultimate: Taking Aim, Charge a deadly arrow for 1.9 secs then fire an explosive arrow dealing X physical dmg and knocking the target back.

Morph 1: Archers Boon: New effect while slotted gain minor expedition, and minor force.

Morph 2: Vicious Arrow: New effect while slotted increase weapon dmg by 5%, nearby enemies are set off balance for 2 secs

GreenSoup2HoT · April 2016

Your changes in my opinion would not help the viability of "skirmisher archers" in melee combat because we have mechanics holding the play-style down. Instant cast dps i don't think is necessarily going to change anything, even though most of the suggestions you made are a step in the right direction.

Gap Closer Maximum Range:

I think this is one of the core problems why Archers/Ranged Casters may have trouble against melee builds.

This problem occurs when you want to break distance against a melee build. If you use the ability Magnum Shot for example, as soon as you create that 12 meter distance it is closed 2 seconds later. This is why the Maximum range for gap closers needs to be adjusted. Make melee users have to work for their advantage (being in melee range) while archer builds fight to maintain distance and apply pressure (outside of gap closer range).

This would create that back and forth gameplay between melee and ranged builds for advantages. A ranged build who is very good at staying 12 meters away from a melee opponent with effective snares and kiting could deal a lot of damage. A melee build would now need to use LoS and start play against a ranged enemy to get back into gap closer range after disengage from a ranged player.

I also believe this issue would help Sorceror's with gap closer spam and the nerf to bolt escape. You will now be able to use bolt escape a couple times and possibly get away from a bad fight easier with this reduced gap range. People can still chase you down but in my opinion that's fine. A Sorceror should always be a menace like this. Pulling people away from groups and holding their ground. Always in the distance jumping around drawing attention.

Ranged Archers can also now use hasty retreat and scattershot as a means to get out of range and re-position just like a Sorcerer could with Bolt Escape.

Overall this would make it a lot less punishing to go Zerg Surfing (Pull people off of big groups) since you cannot be gap closed and locked down from so far away.

DeanTheCat · April 2016

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Not a bad list of suggested changes. however, I feel that your proposed change to venom arrow to make it a spammable ability is actually going to allow 'snipers' to do more burst damage, with it being an instant. You may not be able to stack 3 snipes in a row anymore due to delay, but a snipe -> venom arrow would still put out nasty burst, not that that's entirely a bad thing.

Personally, I'd like to see the changes to the skill line go much further than what you've listed here, I'll throw a few ideas out:

-Rename it to the marksman or archery tree
-Add proper crossbows to the game
-Modify each ability in the archery/marksman skill line based on the type of weapon being used.

That last bit is somewhat similar to how many destruction staff abilities have varying effects based on the type of staff. In this context, a bow is a precise, fast-firing weapon, while the crossbow is a slow brute force weapon. The differences in abilities should reflect this.

If possible, I'd say that the ranges of the two should be entirely different. Keep the 28-35 meter range for bow attacks, but limit crossbows to 20 meter range while giving them significantly more punch. The accuracy passive should continue to give critical chance for bows, but be altered to give critical damage increases to crossbows, in the same light that different types of one or two handed weapons give bonuses through their own passives.

@Lynx7386

As much as I would love nothing more than to have crossbows, I don't think ZOS would have the time nor the funds to push through a new weapon type. Therefore, I feel that any improvements that we wish to see has to be done to the current set of abilities/weapons we have.

In regards to your concern with Snipe -> Venom Arrow, all ZOS has to do is to ensure it takes at most 1.3 seconds for the Snipe to connect after releasing (As opposed to the current 3.5 seconds). As the GCD for abilities is 1.3 seconds, this ensures that the Venom Arrow cannot be fired till the Snipe has connected, preventing the two abilities from hitting at the same time (Venom Arrow has a flight time of 0.7 seconds). Wouldn't that solve the issue?

DeanTheCat · April 2016

ShadowStarKing wrote: »

My thoughts:

Snipe: increase velocity, reduced cast time to .7 secs, remove the 'snare' effect when casting snipe

Draining Shot(Scatter shot morph): increase range from 10m to 20m( all morphs grant Major brutality on hit for 20 secs)

Scorched Earth(Volley morph): Now deals disease dmg (name changed to 'defiled earth') and causes minor defile reducing targetso healing by 15% for 12 sec.

Venom Arrow(Poison Arrow morph): in addition to interrupt, grants empower to the next attack for 3 secs.

Ultimate: Taking Aim, Charge a deadly arrow for 1.9 secs then fire an explosive arrow dealing X physical dmg and knocking the target back.

Morph 1: Archers Boon: New effect while slotted gain minor expedition, and minor force.

Morph 2: Vicious Arrow: New effect while slotted increase weapon dmg by 5%, nearby enemies are set off balance for 2 secs

There is a difference between making minor changes with a scalpel and making the same changes with a charge of C4. That will push the bow to "OP" territory and it will most likely get nerfed if those changes go though.

DeanTheCat · April 2016

GreenSoup2HoT wrote: »

Your changes in my opinion would not help the viability of "skirmisher archers" in melee combat because we have mechanics holding the play-style down. Instant cast dps i don't think is necessarily going to change anything, even though most of the suggestions you made are a step in the right direction.

Gap Closer Maximum Range:
I think this is one of the core problems why Archers/Ranged Casters may have trouble against melee builds.

This problem occurs when you want to break distance against a melee build. If you use the ability Magnum Shot for example, as soon as you create that 12 meter distance it is closed 2 seconds later. This is why the Maximum range for gap closers needs to be adjusted. Make melee users have to work for their advantage (being in melee range) while archer builds fight to maintain distance and apply pressure (outside of gap closer range).

This would create that back and forth gameplay between melee and ranged builds for advantages. A ranged build who is very good at staying 12 meters away from a melee opponent with effective snares and kiting could deal a lot of damage. A melee build would now need to use LoS and start play against a ranged enemy to get back into gap closer range after disengage from a ranged player.

I also believe this issue would help Sorceror's with gap closer spam and the nerf to bolt escape. You will now be able to use bolt escape a couple times and possibly get away from a bad fight easier with this reduced gap range. People can still chase you down but in my opinion that's fine. A Sorceror should always be a menace like this. Pulling people away from groups and holding their ground. Always in the distance jumping around drawing attention.

Ranged Archers can also now use hasty retreat and scattershot as a means to get out of range and re-position just like a Sorcerer could with Bolt Escape.

Overall this would make it a lot less punishing to go Zerg Surfing (Pull people off of big groups) since you cannot be gap closed and locked down from so far away.

At this point, I'd be happy if they remove that gap closer snare/stun. That's the main issue with gap closers.

Also, Magnum Shot has a tendency to hit much harder then the gap closer, which means that if a fight becomes an archer spamming Magnum vs a melee fighter spamming let's say... critical rush, Magnum Spam would most likely win.

I don't really expect massive buffs etc at one go, but small improvements here and there are still improvements

Farorin · April 2016

Your idea for scattershot and morphs is my favourite out of all of these, and if they choose any single ability to improve, I hope it is scattershot and it's morphs..

Anti_Virus · April 2016

DeanTheCat wrote: »

ShadowStarKing wrote: »

My thoughts:

Snipe: increase velocity, reduced cast time to .7 secs, remove the 'snare' effect when casting snipe

Draining Shot(Scatter shot morph): increase range from 10m to 20m( all morphs grant Major brutality on hit for 20 secs)

Scorched Earth(Volley morph): Now deals disease dmg (name changed to 'defiled earth') and causes minor defile reducing targetso healing by 15% for 12 sec.

Venom Arrow(Poison Arrow morph): in addition to interrupt, grants empower to the next attack for 3 secs.

Ultimate: Taking Aim, Charge a deadly arrow for 1.9 secs then fire an explosive arrow dealing X physical dmg and knocking the target back.

Morph 1: Archers Boon: New effect while slotted gain minor expedition, and minor force.

Morph 2: Vicious Arrow: New effect while slotted increase weapon dmg by 5%, nearby enemies are set off balance for 2 secs

There is a difference between making minor changes with a scalpel and making the same changes with a charge of C4. That will push the bow to "OP" territory and it will most likely get nerfed if those changes go though.

I think archers need a huge change, currently they are laughable in 1v1 fight

Emma_Overload · April 2016

There are some good ideas here, but the real problems that cause archers to feel weak are not going to solved by tinkering with the Bow line. What is the real problem? THIS:

There is no such thing as "ranged" combat in PvP.

All combat in ESO PvP quickly becomes melee combat because gap closers are too damn strong. I can't tell you how many times I've blown through 40K magicka while trying to Bolt Escape a ganker... and then got gap-closed and wrecked right in front of the base camp sewer door. Gap closers can be spammed over and over, and there isn't really any counter for them.

ZOS needs to re-balance ranged vs. melee combat. When that happens, Bows will feel a lot more effective.

Anti_Virus · April 2016

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

There are some good ideas here, but the real problems that cause archers to feel weak are not going to solved by tinkering with the Bow line. What is the real problem? THIS:

There is no such thing as "ranged" combat in PvP.

All combat in ESO PvP quickly becomes melee combat because gap closers are too damn strong. I can't tell you how many times I've blown through 40K magicka while trying to Bolt Escape a ganker... and then got gap-closed and wrecked right in front of the base camp sewer door. Gap closers can be spammed over and over, and there isn't really any counter for them.

ZOS needs to re-balance ranged vs. melee combat. When that happens, Bows will feel a lot more effective.

Yes, it soo annoying that melee build will spam gap closers all day with no penalty.

ToRelax · April 2016

I didn't think too much about how to make what you call "Skermisher" more viable, since I'm not exactly interested in the playstyle. However from my perspective on the recieving end, I really don't want a reduction in projectile travel time when it comes to Snipe. I'd much rather see it's casttime increased again and some other helpful skills for bow dps in PvE. That would both make bow more interesting (and hopefully viable) to use in PvE, while also working against the stacking of projectiles you described.
If the projectile speed was to be increased, it would be a lot harder for me to dodge ganking attempts, as well as letting me dodge fewer projectiles at once when targeted by several of archers. I almost never get ganked successfully with Snipe, and when it happens there are usually sound problems... heavy attacks are much worse (as I'm sure you're fully aware of).

Birdovic · April 2016

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

There are some good ideas here, but the real problems that cause archers to feel weak are not going to solved by tinkering with the Bow line. What is the real problem? THIS:

There is no such thing as "ranged" combat in PvP.

All combat in ESO PvP quickly becomes melee combat because gap closers are too damn strong. I can't tell you how many times I've blown through 40K magicka while trying to Bolt Escape a ganker... and then got gap-closed and wrecked right in front of the base camp sewer door. Gap closers can be spammed over and over, and there isn't really any counter for them.

ZOS needs to re-balance ranged vs. melee combat. When that happens, Bows will feel a lot more effective.

Absolutely agree here.
Keeping someone at distance is simply too hard. I mean you can ofc knock them back, but then they're cc immunity.
Now you can still root them, but a dodge roll and bam they gap close into your face and thats latest when the "ranged" part is over (basically 2-5 sec lol).

What needs to happen is, that gap closers do what they're supposed to: Close the gap, catch up, maybe add a little debuff, AND deal way less damage.

Best example how it almost went even more wrong, is the 2h maelstrom Weapon Bonus, when Orsinium first hit PTS:
14k dmg over 5sec was the plan!
This is combined with 68% extra damage and a guaranteed crit hit, all while gapclosing.

Lynx7386 · April 2016

You have to look at the counter to that as well. Sure, melee has good gap closers, but you can deal damage at -any- range, while the melee character can only deal damage at close range. Without gap closers, without the ability to get into melee range quickly and efficiently, a melee character is going to become absolutely useless.

I could see the argument for making gap closers less effective if ranged setups had a minimum attack range: you cant cast any spells or shoot your bow at targets less than 8-10 meters away, how's that?

Yea, didnt think anyone would agree to that either.

DeanTheCat · April 2016

ToRelax wrote: »

I didn't think too much about how to make what you call "Skermisher" more viable, since I'm not exactly interested in the playstyle. However from my perspective on the recieving end, I really don't want a reduction in projectile travel time when it comes to Snipe. I'd much rather see it's casttime increased again and some other helpful skills for bow dps in PvE. That would both make bow more interesting (and hopefully viable) to use in PvE, while also working against the stacking of projectiles you described.
If the projectile speed was to be increased, it would be a lot harder for me to dodge ganking attempts, as well as letting me dodge fewer projectiles at once when targeted by several of archers. I almost never get ganked successfully with Snipe, and when it happens there are usually sound problems... heavy attacks are much worse (as I'm sure you're fully aware of).

@ToRelax

Increasing the cast time of Snipe and increasing the projectile speed would be what I would really want, but we can't do that due to Snipe being one of the core skills of PvE archers.

Though destruction staff only has Force Shock as it's only spammable DPS option, Magicka builds by their very nature can easily find other things to supplement a Force Shock weave, whereas a stamina build has no such luxury. There are so few non-weapon abilities that scale of Stamina, which means that the main bulk of utility has to come from the weapon line itself. This means that Snipe heavy weave is mandatory to make up the loss of other additional sources of DPS (Examples being Cripple or Liquid Lightning, heck, even stuff like Skoria and Lich Crystal procs)

Snipe is basically something like a stamina version of hard casted Crystal Frags or Dark Flare. If you compare the travel speeds of these abilities, Crystal Frags travels round 2.5x as fast and Dark Flare travels round 1.75x as fast. As it is, Snipe is a bit too easy to dodge due to the flight time when compared to the Magicka counterparts.

RoamingRiverElk · April 2016

I think that the travel time of snipe is just fine right now - make it shorter and there's no time to react, make it longer and it would just be easier to make more attacks land at the same time, which wouldn't be good.

DeanTheCat · April 2016

RoamingRiverElk wrote: »

I think that the travel time of snipe is just fine right now - make it shorter and there's no time to react, make it longer and it would just be easier to make more attacks land at the same time, which wouldn't be good.

@RoamingRiverElk

Snipe's projectile is notably slower then it's magical counterparts of Crystal Shard or Dark Flare. Yet there isn't anyone complaining that they have no time to react to either Crystal Shard or Dark Flare. Normalising the projectile speed would prevent the stacking of damage to land at once (Which is the main complaint with Snipers), and increase the usability of the ability in direct combat.

This is why I think a projectile velocity increase for Snipe would be needed as it kills 2(3 if you count PvE boss fights) birds in one stone.

RoamingRiverElk · April 2016

DeanTheCat wrote: »

RoamingRiverElk wrote: »

I think that the travel time of snipe is just fine right now - make it shorter and there's no time to react, make it longer and it would just be easier to make more attacks land at the same time, which wouldn't be good.

@RoamingRiverElk

Snipe's projectile is notably slower then it's magical counterparts of Crystal Shard or Dark Flare. Yet there isn't anyone complaining that they have no time to react to either Crystal Shard or Dark Flare. Normalising the projectile speed would prevent the stacking of damage to land at once (Which is the main complaint with Snipers), and increase the usability of the ability in direct combat.

This is why I think a projectile velocity increase for Snipe would be needed as it kills 2(3 if you count PvE boss fights) birds in one stone.

Perhaps, but magicka sorcerers don't really try to gank people from stealth.

DeanTheCat · April 2016

RoamingRiverElk wrote: »

DeanTheCat wrote: »

RoamingRiverElk wrote: »

I think that the travel time of snipe is just fine right now - make it shorter and there's no time to react, make it longer and it would just be easier to make more attacks land at the same time, which wouldn't be good.

@RoamingRiverElk

Snipe's projectile is notably slower then it's magical counterparts of Crystal Shard or Dark Flare. Yet there isn't anyone complaining that they have no time to react to either Crystal Shard or Dark Flare. Normalising the projectile speed would prevent the stacking of damage to land at once (Which is the main complaint with Snipers), and increase the usability of the ability in direct combat.

This is why I think a projectile velocity increase for Snipe would be needed as it kills 2(3 if you count PvE boss fights) birds in one stone.

Perhaps, but magicka sorcerers don't really try to gank people from stealth.

You'll be surprised

I've seen Magicka Sorcerer invis pot gank groups before.

Jim_Pipp · April 2016

Brilliant way of framing the discussion sniper vs skirmisher.

The snipers bread and butter is snipe, but a lot of the bows other skills work better at skirmish range. A very simple way to enhance bow at skirmish range would be to reverse the long shots passive.

Currently long shots gives bows bonus damage, more of it the further away they are, buffing the snipers spamming snipe. If long shots were reversed (and renamed) bow users who want to skirmish in the middle of the action would have their damage buffed, and hopefully this will bring their damage at melee range similar to other melee classes.

Snipe could have a damage buff so it is still valuable at range, it's long cast time is already a deterrent to using it in skirmish range. What I would like is for my stampler to be able to do similar damage with his melee class skills when a bow is equipped as when another weopon is.

phaneub17_ESO · April 2016

This isn't a fix of any sort, but I would like to see the base damage of bows raised up somewhere in between one-handed and two-handed weapons. Currently they have the same damage as one-handed weapons while being equipped like a two-handed weapon. I get it, the ranged is a bonus but it doesn't feel like that much of a bonus that warrants the lower damage.

Johngo0036 · April 2016

@DeanTheCat - I really hope Zenni is reading this post as these are truly MINOR changes that will make the bow a fromiddable weapon on the battle field yet again..

Autolycus · April 2016

I think this list of suggestions does not speak to balance, as it pertains to the relationship of bow relative to every other stamina-based weapon. It seems to me that you are really only considering bow in pvp, and not pve. For example, Venom Arrow does not fit into a rotation any better by removing the DoT component and increasing it's damage. All this does is encourage bow users to spam an ability that was not even intended to be spammed. If anything, the DoT should be buffed, not removed, which would increase the damage potential of bow builds that utilize this skill in their rotation without messing up the rotation itself. If it becomes and instant-cast, high damage, spammable skill, it is in direct competition with snipe, and I don't think this really benefits bows on the whole.

DeanTheCat wrote: »

3) Scattershot: Increase the basic range of this ability to 15m. Grants Minor Expedition when slotted.
The current range on this ability is too short, and granting Minor Expedition when slotted offers archers a means of kiting enemies when paired with Major Expedition.

Considering bow is already renowned for having the best mobility from Hasty Retreat relative to every other weapon line, I don't think this considers how unfair it would be to have 100% uptime on Expedition with no cost. Also, is there even a such thing as Minor Expedition? I can certainly respect the idea of getting a little extra mobility for kiting, but as it stands all we have to do is roll.

I agree that Acid Spray should do slightly more damage, but I disagree that it's completely laughable. Just a few months ago, very few archers in a competitive build used arrow barrage. It was ninja-buffed in a patch, plus the addition of vMA weapons made it a must-have for even melee builds. It's not the skills themselves that are lacking in most cases, it's the lack of things like the vMA bow that make other abilities stronger. There isn't anything in this game right now that makes Acid Spray twice as powerful just by equipping it, like the vMA bow does for Arrow Barrage.