Lots of great points being made here! I think I commented something similar on one of your previous buff main hand Bow threads: how can ZOS buff a skill line that is already SO strong without creating Elder Archers Online?

ZOS sold this game on the oft quoted line of "play the way you want." They never said that you could "play the way you want and still wreck content/people."

Choosing to "Main Bow", you're basically saying that you refuse to use other tools at your disposal. Even Robin Hood has a dagger in his boot.
The strongest builds in this game don't restrict themselves to a single weapon line like you have chosen to do. My point is, it's odd to handicap yourself, and then ask to be buffed to the point where you can be as successful as people who don't have your self-imposed handicap.

Just my two cents.

DDuke wrote: »

Suru wrote: »

How I imagine main handing a bow would go.

Snipe, Poison injection, heavy attack, Snipe, LA, Snipe (by this time they are hit, can react, CC break roll dodge) Its the way it goes, adding counterplay. You can continue to main hand bow by keeping your distance and using your abilities but your ability to kill is hindered open field. My suggestion to those really enjoy this kind of style without getting gap closed is to stay in a cozy keep and keep spamming snipe from the ledge or to zerg surf snipe in PvP or make sure you are doing content with a tank so you can stay at range at all times.

After your first Lethal+PI+HA combo, people are already gap closing you & then you are dead. I understand it's a "counterplay" to what the bow users are doing, but what's the bow user's "counterplay" to that? You can't disengage when people can gap close you whenever they want, break or roll dodge your bombards & completely negate any chance of ever using the bow outside melee range.

You say "stay in a cozy keep and keep spamming snipe from the ledge, or zerg surf snipe" - do you really believe this is enjoyable gameplay, and makes the bow users feel strong & useful like the other builds out there?

If bow was the only thing I enjoyed in this game, I'd be swapping to some other MMO that does it much better.

Suru wrote: »

you can add to this rotation by

Snipe, Poison injection, heavy attack, Bar swap, Crit Charge, Soul Harvest, Surprise Attack LA, execute. So much more DPS and killing capability.

Yes, but now you are killing people with your 2H or DW, not bow.

Suru wrote: »

-"What people need to understand is Stealth Snipe DOESN'T EQUAL how archers should operate."

The game is play how you want to play, you cannot say "This is how bow should be played only" by inferring different gamestyles with a bow are not how archers should be played. You opinion is your and I respect it, but I do think you need to adapt to the way the game is. Since Skyrim a TES game, bow was stealth stealth stealth. Its inherent strength. The reason why these gamestyles are around are because they are fun, effective and nostalgic. As I said before, for every good archer, there are tons of bad ones. People pick it up but never really l2p and use if to its maximum efficiency to get the most out of it.

You say the game is "play how you want to play" (ugh, I hate this phrase), and then proceed to tell him he should play it like Skyrim. I agree that if people want to build for sniping from stealth, they should be able to do that.

But why shouldn't they also be able to fight outside stealth with that bow, without dying a humiliating death?

The reason people make posts like these is because there are other playstyles that are fun, effective and nostalgic. Playstyles which currently either do not exist, or do not work.

Insinuating that people complaining about bow need to "l2p" and make some FOTM gank build isn't helping anyone.

I did not say at any point that this game is like skyrim. I had clearly stated they are different games, and later on said why the stealth gameplay is here with bows, due to people playing skyrim. It was derived from it and people think they can do the same thing here but cannot.

You choose to die a humiliating death with bow because you put yourself in that situation. You chose to fight. Choose your fights, decipher risk vs reward. Good pvpers use both bars for an entire skillset for varying situations. In a 1v1 you would have all the time in the world to use your bow skills if you got lucky enough to find one open world. You can use a bow mainhand, you would just need to practice how you create space and reposition yourself to attack again. Say you fight a DK maining a bow, you have just been rendered almost useless.

I'm mostly trolling about the keep snipers, but they are annoying and put in some work when defending keeps.

If you're picking up bow and expect to be able to kill someone with a couple snipes then prepare to be disappointed unless you are built for it. There are already fotm gank builds out there with footage with it featuring bow.

I've just noticed that I've already responded to OP in different threads without realizing it on other topics which were...ugh... Saving myself the trouble and the energy replying further about trivial topics. @DDuke Every other playstyle with bow exists, in stealth, out of stealth. Whether or not is effective, is how you play it. Gank builds using just bow abilities or rotation , using bow abilities in a rotation, and utilization bows for their passives. Bow as a weapon and skill line has always been really common among players and probably now more than ever, being utilized in most stam builds.

DDuke wrote: »

The_Outsider wrote: »

Lots of great points being made here! I think I commented something similar on one of your previous buff main hand Bow threads: how can ZOS buff a skill line that is already SO strong without creating Elder Archers Online?

ZOS sold this game on the oft quoted line of "play the way you want." They never said that you could "play the way you want and still wreck content/people."

Choosing to "Main Bow", you're basically saying that you refuse to use other tools at your disposal. Even Robin Hood has a dagger in his boot.
The strongest builds in this game don't restrict themselves to a single weapon line like you have chosen to do. My point is, it's odd to handicap yourself, and then ask to be buffed to the point where you can be as successful as people who don't have your self-imposed handicap.

Just my two cents.

The strongest builds in this game all have one thing in common: they're melee.

Having your buffs on bow bar & maybe using it for ganking only doesn't really make you an "archer".


What about people who want to play mainly on bow bar, and have the buffs and other stuff on DW/2H bar?


You are claiming bow skill line is strong already, allow me to laugh. That is not the case. Not in PvP, not in PvE. Not anywhere. It's always an off bar, because that's all it's capable of.

And since this specific thread is about PvP mainly, let me explain why it isn't viable there as main bar: because you cannot kite in a game with cooldownless gap closers & nothing to prevent people from getting to your melee range.

It's the opposite of "Elder Archers Online", it's "Elder Melee & Sorcs Online".

That's not true at all, lol. The strongest builds are not melee. Or ranged. The strongest builds are a combination.

And Bow IS extremely strong atm. Just not at what you and the OP want it to be strong at.

Not strong in PVE? Show me a high output Stam build that doesn't use bow.
Not strong in PVP? It's THE most common weapon among Stam users in Cyrodiil.

Of course if I run around in Cyrodiil using ONLY dual wield or ONLY my 1h/shield, my build will not be viable! Why should the Bow skill line be any different?

We all know how DPS rotations work.

Also, you can easily do a DW/DW, DW/2H, 2H/S&B or DW/S&B build and make it work in PvP, even better than any Bow variant.

Of course you can make it work! That's the whole point. BOW works as it is now. And no, those combinations are NOT better than any bow variant. DW/DW, lol.

Remaining unaddressed, I resubmit my previous: Bow is really strong atm, just not at what you want it to be strong at.


Like I said, there are many weapon lines that aren't suited for a "main bar" as you insist that it be considered. And if they ARE suited, it's situational (DW is a great main bar for AOE, not single target. Good luck with Rapid Strikes in Cyrodiil. 2H is suited in single target situations, good luck using Cleave on a Zerg). Just like Bow.

By first look of bow skills combining with the current meta, bow doesnt look good.
I dont think thats the case, even tho I want slightly rework on bow myself.

Bow have one of the most broken cc in the game, bombard, and also this aoe is better dmg then steel tornado if you dont count the execute.

Scatter shot, yes its useless, range 10m wtf.

Volley skill, one of the best skills in the game right now for dmg, even as single target. No discussion here.

Snipe have the highest range in the game, beating the standard 28m range skills.

After three light attacks, you can empower snipe with a mages guild skill, for example the inner light other morph I dont remember the name. Anyway, your snipe will have a higher tooltip then *** wrecking blow.. From highest range in the game.

Snipe have a channel time, witch is sort of ok, but the thing is, your movements are very slow while sniping, making it hard to place your character while constant using snipe. Many time both pve and pvp, i need to cancel snipe animation because of this, specially in maelstrom.


Some unique bow rework could maybe be something like:

Passive: increase critical chance by 1% each second. This reset when you critical hit.

Snipe: every time your snipe critical hits within 10s, reduce the targets armor by 100. (Information- minor fracture is 1000 and major fracture is 5000, this would give a reason to actually use snipe on trial bosses)

Or

Every time you critical hit with snipe, increase critical dmg by 1%.

Kartalin wrote: »

Suru wrote: »

Its how you use the bow which makes it lethal. For every good bow user there are 100 bad ones. (Damn you @kartalin q.q probably the only bow user to really get me from time to time xD)

@Suru Lol, that's only if I get the drop on you. Otherwise you still have the advantage so far.


Bow is nice, but it's not something you could rely solely on for pvp. There's many things that go into making it effective, such as rotation and gear. And even then I use that for my initial attacks and then switch to 2h to ambush in (when feasible). But I only use Lethal Arrow and Poison Injection in my primary build. I guess Bombard if I were to run in an organized group, but I haven't really done that since the TG update dropped.

Volley to me is such a pain to use though. You have to place the circle on the ground where you want it and then activate the ability. In the latest patch notes they announced an update to where you could edit your settings to make it (and similar things -- caltrops, burning spear, etc) instantly activate where you are pointing, like how the Templar ultimate Nova works. I think it's much more attractive for pvp with that change (and the buffs it received) but since I don't have a maelstrom bow I'm not really into it myself.

With my dual wield build, I'm using at most two abilities from the DW skill line: steel tornado and/or flying blade. Otherwise I'm reliant on my class abilities which are all melee based.

So I think the problem OP is having with maining bow is this: Magicka builds all have ranged class abilities they can incorporate (though the effectiveness of some of these is debatable). This is not the case with stamina builds. If you want ranged attacks as a stamina user, everything comes from things other than class abilities...depending on how you count Templars' Power of the Light ability which isn't direct damage by itself.

Yes this right here, an the problem is not everyone wants to play melee builds. Most fantasy games have some form of viable ranged dps, look at dragons dogma, final Fantasy realm reborn, WOW, and runescape etc. They all have:
Warrior class- melee tank class
Mage- ranged glass cannon caster class
Rouge-melee range glass cannon assassin class
Hunter- ranged glass cannon dps class

Eso has all but The "hunter archetype"

The_Outsider wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

The_Outsider wrote: »

Lots of great points being made here! I think I commented something similar on one of your previous buff main hand Bow threads: how can ZOS buff a skill line that is already SO strong without creating Elder Archers Online?

ZOS sold this game on the oft quoted line of "play the way you want." They never said that you could "play the way you want and still wreck content/people."

Choosing to "Main Bow", you're basically saying that you refuse to use other tools at your disposal. Even Robin Hood has a dagger in his boot.
The strongest builds in this game don't restrict themselves to a single weapon line like you have chosen to do. My point is, it's odd to handicap yourself, and then ask to be buffed to the point where you can be as successful as people who don't have your self-imposed handicap.

Just my two cents.

The strongest builds in this game all have one thing in common: they're melee.

Having your buffs on bow bar & maybe using it for ganking only doesn't really make you an "archer".


What about people who want to play mainly on bow bar, and have the buffs and other stuff on DW/2H bar?


You are claiming bow skill line is strong already, allow me to laugh. That is not the case. Not in PvP, not in PvE. Not anywhere. It's always an off bar, because that's all it's capable of.

And since this specific thread is about PvP mainly, let me explain why it isn't viable there as main bar: because you cannot kite in a game with cooldownless gap closers & nothing to prevent people from getting to your melee range.

It's the opposite of "Elder Archers Online", it's "Elder Melee & Sorcs Online".

That's not true at all, lol. The strongest builds are not melee. Or ranged. The strongest builds are a combination.

And Bow IS extremely strong atm. Just not at what you and the OP want it to be strong at.

Not strong in PVE? Show me a high output Stam build that doesn't use bow.
Not strong in PVP? It's THE most common weapon among Stam users in Cyrodiil.

Of course if I run around in Cyrodiil using ONLY dual wield or ONLY my 1h/shield, my build will not be viable! Why should the Bow skill line be any different?

OMG, can you PLEASE read my OP,

1.) Stam builds that use bow in PVE uses it as A SUPPORT WEAPON, just drop volley and go to town on melee dps.

2.) You can run around cyrodil with melee weapons only and do just fine people only use a bow for poison injection and the movement speed buff. Check argument number 2 in my OP its the same thing you are saying hete which I debunked.

3.) MAKE AN ARCHER BUILD in PVP that can 1vX like a heavy armor melee dk or light armof ranged destro build and they you can say the bow is "OP".

4.) I think you need to play other fantasy games to see what im talking about, playing eso has blinded you and others into FoTM builds and it's sad.

The_Outsider wrote: »

Lots of great points being made here! I think I commented something similar on one of your previous buff main hand Bow threads: how can ZOS buff a skill line that is already SO strong without creating Elder Archers Online?

ZOS sold this game on the oft quoted line of "play the way you want." They never said that you could "play the way you want and still wreck content/people."

Choosing to "Main Bow", you're basically saying that you refuse to use other tools at your disposal. Even Robin Hood has a dagger in his boot.
The strongest builds in this game don't restrict themselves to a single weapon line like you have chosen to do. My point is, it's odd to handicap yourself, and then ask to be buffed to the point where you can be as successful as people who don't have your self-imposed handicap.

Just my two cents.

1.) If you read my earlier posts i've stated that I run a bow and dual wield build. So im pretty sure @DDuke doesn't double bar bows either

2.) No one is "REFUSING" to use other weapons. Flawed logic here you can literally use two destruction staffs and do fine with it, what if destro staff sucked and as a mage you couldn't use it effectively, so you WERE FORCED TO PLAY MELEE TO COMPETE. No one is hanicaping themselves using any weapon combinations that's YOUR opinion, however bows aren't preforming like a valid weapon skill line its just a support role in this game.

3.) I'm getting sick and tired of you and other people trying to tell me how to play, if I want to play as an archer I will I won't let someone else tell me to L2P or any other nonsense.

4.) Just because bow is to YOUR liking in your build where bow is a back up weapon doen't mean everyone like it so that's why we have forums to ask the devs for changes like @DDuke said why is it a problem for archers to be a thing in PVP and PVE? Why can't I build a characters around bow as a main weapon and dual wield to support? I can build a ranged magic build and be effective in every aspect of the game, same with a heavy armor melee build but I CANNOT say the same for a bow focused build which requires a group to be fully functional/ stealth play because half of the skills in the bow skill line is utility.

Heavy armor users asked for changes for a while now although some felt they were unwarranted.

Maybe another weapon skill line like crossbows could be cool since you Heavily OPPOSE bow play.

Look up dragons dogmas ranger class. It's class that runs a long bow for main dps and dual wield for back up, and it very effective.

The_Outsider wrote: »

ShadowStarKing wrote: »

The_Outsider wrote: »

Lots of great points being made here! I think I commented something similar on one of your previous buff main hand Bow threads: how can ZOS buff a skill line that is already SO strong without creating Elder Archers Online?

ZOS sold this game on the oft quoted line of "play the way you want." They never said that you could "play the way you want and still wreck content/people."

Choosing to "Main Bow", you're basically saying that you refuse to use other tools at your disposal. Even Robin Hood has a dagger in his boot.
The strongest builds in this game don't restrict themselves to a single weapon line like you have chosen to do. My point is, it's odd to handicap yourself, and then ask to be buffed to the point where you can be as successful as people who don't have your self-imposed handicap.

Just my two cents.

1.) If you read my earlier posts i've stated that I run a bow and dual wield build. So im pretty sure @DDuke doesn't double bar bows either

2.) No one is "REFUSING" to use other weapons. Flawed logic here you can literally use two destruction staffs and do fine with it, what if destro staff sucked and as a mage you couldn't use it effectively, so you WERE FORCED TO PLAY MELEE TO COMPETE. No one is hanicaping themselves that's YOUR opinion, however bows aren't preforming like a valid weapon skill line its just a support role in this game.

3.) I'm getting sick and tired of you and other people trying to tell me how to play, if I want to play as an archer I will I won't let someone else tell me to L2P or any other nonsense.

4.) Just because bow if to YOUR liking in your build where bow is a back up weapon doen't mean everyone like it so that's why we have forums to ask the devs for changes,

Heavy armor users asked for changes for a while now although some felt they were unwarranted.

Look up dragons dogmas ranger class.

ShadowStarKing wrote: »

The_Outsider wrote: »

Lots of great points being made here! I think I commented something similar on one of your previous buff main hand Bow threads: how can ZOS buff a skill line that is already SO strong without creating Elder Archers Online?

ZOS sold this game on the oft quoted line of "play the way you want." They never said that you could "play the way you want and still wreck content/people."

Choosing to "Main Bow", you're basically saying that you refuse to use other tools at your disposal. Even Robin Hood has a dagger in his boot.
The strongest builds in this game don't restrict themselves to a single weapon line like you have chosen to do. My point is, it's odd to handicap yourself, and then ask to be buffed to the point where you can be as successful as people who don't have your self-imposed handicap.

Just my two cents.

1.) If you read my earlier posts i've stated that I run a bow and dual wield build. So im pretty sure @DDuke doesn't double bar bows either

2.) No one is "REFUSING" to use other weapons. Flawed logic here you can literally use two destruction staffs and do fine with it, what if destro staff sucked and as a mage you couldn't use it effectively, so you WERE FORCED TO PLAY MELEE TO COMPETE. No one is hanicaping themselves that's YOUR opinion, however bows aren't preforming like a valid weapon skill line its just a support role in this game.

3.) I'm getting sick and tired of you and other people trying to tell me how to play, if I want to play as an archer I will I won't let someone else tell me to L2P or any other nonsense.

4.) Just because bow if to YOUR liking in your build where bow is a back up weapon doen't mean everyone like it so that's why we have forums to ask the devs for changes,

Heavy armor users asked for changes for a while now although some felt they were unwarranted.

Look up dragons dogmas ranger class.

No need to get hostile, mate. And you're right these are just my opinions. Everything on here is just opinions. That doesn't invalidate them.

I did read your other posts.
And I actually agree that bow could be changed to allow for the archer-esque archetype that many would like to play. I simply disagree with the opinion that bow is somehow weaker than other weapon lines.

No one is hanicaping themselves that's YOUR opinion, however bows aren't preforming like a valid weapon skill line its just a support role in this game.

I'll even turn it on you (but without caps). Just because Bow isn't performing how you would like to see it perform, doesn't mean that it isn't performing well, or is sub-par in some way.

Apologies for the hostility but it seemed like you ignored my OP where I debunked common arguments.

I've made tons of posts about how I archery proforms in this game and Ive been met with the same arguements over and over.

I know that bow isn't a terrible skill line, it does well in dungeons(although not top dps) its a good skill line on builds but thats it.

I have yet to see people use bow outside of ganking or large groups simple because like you said it handicaps me for that specific playstyle outside of ganking/groups but it shouldn't.

No one wants bow to be OP nor the new 'META' just want it to be a viable build that break the same boring and monotonous stam melee builds that exist today.

Don't fret though as I don't see any bow buffs anytime soon. Not enough people care about it and plus people think its fine which it is but only for support/gank

At least other MMOs have and archer class this game doesn't .

Ajaxduo wrote: »

People really need to chill, it's not a matter of making something OP it's simply sharing and discussing ideas of what could be improved/changed. We get it already, bow can gank...you can situp there on the side of your keep and pull the old snipe + ha + pi combo. You picked off 1 guy in zerg ggwp *yawn*VD+proxy*yawn* jokes aside come on...surely it should be able to do more than that? It's the most boring play style in the game. We aren't asking to gut your precious magicka builds, stamina just needs some love. I'm sorry that DB of Smiting was taken away...it should of stayed magicka imo. I generally think that certain abilities (mainly ultis) should have stamina & magicka orientated morphs (if it makes sense that is). Oops...ranting ಠ_ಠ

Anyway! At the moment you have 2 main reasons to use bow; PvP - Snipe ganking. Arrow Spray for the occasional rooting. Other than that it's used as a back up buff bar. PvE - Poison Injection at under 50% and Scorched Earth with vMSA bow for dps sustain. Other buffs, rarely used as a 'main' DPS weapon due to the fact you are going to waste a lot of potential DPS (Snipe weaving is clunky and weaving injection thus clipping the DoT is just odd imo). I play both stam and mag builds on my toons (just fyi) and I keep hoping that we'll get a change to the bow line which will enable us to use it competitively in PvE. Up the base weapon damage to bring it in line with other weapons, lower Snipe's damage to compensate for the base increase, add something we can effectively 'weave' our DPS with a channeled series of shots (ranged flurry basically). For PvP? More range consistency. Magnum Shot could apply major expedition and a knock down if the target is in melee instead of knocking you back. Eh.

Magnum shot needs more range imo it also could add a Silence for 1.5 secs after its use (if the target isn't CC immune)

What you said about archers is exactly what I mean its just a gank/support role( however most ppl do see it that way) they believe its fine since they use it for back up and utility.

Remeber the breton assassin hero from the cgi trailers? During the siege of the Wgt covent troops were advancing on the wall, the breton fired a couple of arrows and sniped 3 imperial archers from a very far range, at the time I though that was badass and I wanted to do that when the game released.

How would a Bolt Escape nerf to Gap Closers effect an Archer in Cyrodiil?

OrphanHelgen wrote: »

ShadowStarKing wrote: »

OrphanHelgen wrote: »

By first look of bow skills combining with the current meta, bow doesnt look good.
I dont think thats the case, even tho I want slightly rework on bow myself.

Bow have one of the most broken cc in the game, bombard, and also this aoe is better dmg then steel tornado if you dont count the execute.

Scatter shot, yes its useless, range 10m wtf.

Volley skill, one of the best skills in the game right now for dmg, even as single target. No discussion here.

Snipe have the highest range in the game, beating the standard 28m range skills.

After three light attacks, you can empower snipe with a mages guild skill, for example the inner light other morph I dont remember the name. Anyway, your snipe will have a higher tooltip then *** wrecking blow.. From highest range in the game.

Snipe have a channel time, witch is sort of ok, but the thing is, your movements are very slow while sniping, making it hard to place your character while constant using snipe. Many time both pve and pvp, i need to cancel snipe animation because of this, specially in maelstrom.


Some unique bow rework could maybe be something like:

Passive: increase critical chance by 1% each second. This reset when you critical hit.

Snipe: every time your snipe critical hits within 10s, reduce the targets armor by 100. (Information- minor fracture is 1000 and major fracture is 5000, this would give a reason to actually use snipe on trial bosses)

Or

Every time you critical hit with snipe, increase critical dmg by 1%.

No snipe just needs a faster velocity and and slightly lower cast time.

Also bombard doesn't have higher dmg than steel Tornado, bows weapon dmg is lower that dual wield.

This is all you got from my answer?
Weapon dmg is you stats, it doesnt mean that the base dmg on the actual skill tooltip is higher. Last time I checked, bombard had around 6,5k dmg each spray while steel tornado had like 4 or something (just to compare the gap).
This was last time I checked, and Im pretty sure its still the case.

Dont know why Im saying and teaching these stuffs anyway, you are a tunnel vision complainer with bad attitude who never in your life have ever said: oh sorry, I was wrong, my bad.

Sry I couldnt keep this professional but you annoyed me, kid.

Lol really? Kid how old are you? Also i'm not "always" trying to be right I simply stated that bombard usually deals less dmg, if you didn't remember weapon dmg effective and max stam effects the tool tip value of abilities.

On my dual wield bar I have higher weapon dmg and I was able to get a 5.4K steel tornado tool tip, although bows bombards toop tip can reach 6K it usually won't hit for that much depending on the range (had mine hit for 3.9k on average)

If you are automatically going to classify me as a tunnel visioner, then i'll classify you as another toxic member of the community.

Sugaroverdose wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Sugaroverdose wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Sugaroverdose wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Sugaroverdose wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Sugaroverdose wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

Easy bow build. Stam nb.

5x eternal hunt - Mobilise easy soft cc to keep range.
5x marksmen - Obvious reasons.
1 Bloodspawn
1 Kena.

Bar 1 Bow - Ult - Flawless Dawnbreaker.

Bombard - Root.
Draining shot - cc with snare.
Crit cloak - Free crit and some survivability.
Psn Injection - Your mean dps skill which you will weave, can also use venom arrow if you prefer.
Relentless Focus - Dmg buff/ regen buff as well as the burst in the build.

Bar 2 - 2h - Incap strike/ Meteor/ Soul tether/ ww Etc.. Person choice.

Rally - Obvious reasons
Shuffle - Obvious reasons
Shadow image - Minor main, extra dmg as well as the best mobility in the game.
Vigor - Heal obviously.
Mass hysteria/ Sa/ Free slot basically.

Pretty sure that will work fine, You'll be dodge rolling a lot hence the high regen so spec into roll reduction. Should be easy enough to play, buff up, stick shadow image. CC as soon as you can, root when you want, weave with psn injection. Use relentless proc, cloak when needed.

You have zero chance of ever killing a good stamina DK or magicka sorc with that build, as it lacks the necessary burst damage.

Maybe next patch it'll be slightly better with disease dmg dealing Relentless, but I'd say it's still not enough.


In a duel, I can hit a stam DK with a Lethal+Heavy Attack+PI combo from Shadowy Disguise with a full dmg setup of Marksman & 5k weapon dmg, and it still isn't enough burst - next thing you know you're crit rushed & snared, roll dodging & spamming bombard trying to create distance, steadily running out of health and stamina - and then you die.

Only thing capable of creating distance (when it works) is Shadow Image (I wonder how stam DKs & templars would do a bow build...), which is a bandaid fix to the main problem:

You don't have enough time to deal any damage before someone uses gap closer on you, and you can't really prevent those gap closers by any means.

What's the difference if you will be ranged magicka templar or ranged magicka nightblade or ranged magdk? Only one who have ability to instantly break distance is sorc.

Yes, but how is that relevant to the thread? :P

All those builds deal the same damage at range as they deal in melee, where as bow is reduced to tickling damage and your only decent direct damage ability (Snipe) gets interrupted 99% of time.

Not to mention the lack of any decent damaging ultimate for bow builds.


But to be honest, the main thing keeping melee builds away from magicka sorcs isn't streak, you can always gap close that. What keeps melee builds away are the mines & the awesome area denial they provide.

More ranged builds need area denial like that, especially bow builds.

How much times snipe get's interrupted? I didn't ever seen anyone who stop attacking and starts bashspaming(which also will not let them kill 'sniper'). Mostly snipe spam may get interrupted only if you face magsorc with destro, and shock+LA weaving, if sorc uses shock+MA weaving he will not be able to interrupt 50% of casts.
Compare it to darkflare and you get same result.

Every ranged build have downsides, just adapt, if you think that your attacks deals not enough damage - get damaging sets, 50% of them don't even care about your stats and boosts only from CP and % damage output buffs.

And, it's relevant to the thread because topic starter does says that "magicka builds are good at range while bow users not"

Ehm... maybe you're not aware, but in the bow skill line there's a passive that grants +12% damage based on your range to the opponent.

Also, if you try to spam Lethal Arrow at melee range I don't know what to tell you... Same goes for Dark Flare.

The only difference between those two is that a Snipe cast from melee range tickles, where as Dark Flare still deals full damage.


Hopefully this sheds some light as to how range dependent bow is.

Furthermore, ranged magicka builds have access to good direct damage that doesn't scale with distance to target, such as:

Funnel Health
Force Pulse (or Crushing Shock)
Blazing Spear
Aurora Javelin
Frost Clench
Jesus Beam

Where as bow has only Lethal Arrow as direct damage (rest being DoTs or utility skills) and all the damage scales based on distance, which is impossible to maintain with 0 cooldown gap closers and no area denial.


Oh, I'll also give you 100k gold if you find a bow build dealing more damage than mine (Marksman +8% & 5k weapon dmg).

javelin cost a lot and does scales of distance.
Blazing spear is first hit CC, but in fact it's nothing more than ground-based aoe
Frost clench doesn't really deals much damage it's more viable as root if you don't have another
Jesus beam is 3k hits for non execution range targets and it's cannot be considered as 'good range damaging ability' it's channeling execute after all.
Force pulse isn't good damaging ability, it's good way to interrupt, weave on sorcs until frag procs, and counter to dk reflect

Funnel health only one ability from this list which is pure damaging ability without any downsides.

xeloki, 20k heavy attack. PS4 EU Sugaroverdose, will wait for mail.

Buddy, I know Xeloki (Alcast) in game & I'm aware of his videos.

However, the build I have is the most burst damage you can currently get out of stealth, far surpassing anything else in the game.

My Lethal Arrow tooltip reaches 26k & with proper timing lands at the same time as a heavy attack and a poison injection for a total of 30-40k burst damage.


But that's all the bow does - gank.

Which is a problem.

I still want my 100K.

Then what about to make more direct requests like: reduce damage output but increase range control? Are you want ability to lock everyone in place and play in 'duck hunt'? Or what?

I can't really get what do you want to see, because you only talking that "bow is sh*t"(while it isn't) and don't even try to make some suggestions how to make it better without making it OP.

What? Can't tell if you're trolling at this point.

Let me recap what I've suggested so far:

• Increase the range of all bow skills (and light/heavy attacks) to match that of Snipe.
• Increase the traveling speed of Snipe and/or reduce cast time+damage to prevent multiple projectiles from landing at the same second.
• Fix Scatter Shot (and morphs), remove the anti-synergy between other bow skills (damage from Poison Injection instantly breaking disorient from Scatter Shot).
• Revamp Scatter Shot to knockback target & apply schrapnel mines on ground in front of target to provide some much needed area denial, and help you stay at long range.
• Passively allow casting skills while sprinting when bow is equipped.
• Add stamina based pets that can CC and/or immobilize opponent to help you keep distance to target.

None of this would buff the only strong aspect of bow, burst damage.

Instead, it would make the other aspects more desirable & could make bow work as the main weapon for other people than the Xv1ers.


Tell me how that would be a bad thing?

Or would you rather that every bow user is a ganker or Xv1er, and the remaining stam builds spam Wrecking Blow?


Just curious, have you even played a bow build? I've been playing one whenever possible since 2014.

1. OP (light armor builds mostly will die before getting in range of their abilities, focused aim now isn't OP just because you need to be in 28m range before you get boosted range)
2. Bugfix
3. Bugfix
4. Spammable Immobilize, OP (this one makes mele magdk duck with reflects)
5. OP (Major expedition from roll dodge and damage while sprinting, good thinking)
7. Spammable Immobilize, OP (this one makes everyone duck)

Want immobilize - use trap beast, or reroll into stamsorc and use new 28m mines which arms instantly.

In case you didn't know, on any sorc build not speced heavily into magicka and spell damage the mines will do next to no damage, and if placed that far away in an open field why wouldn't your enemies just, idk, walk around them? Add in their cost and well, great idea. So unless you are going to do something other than complain about other peoples suggestions, is there anything else you care to add?