Bow needs a new ultimate

killimandrosb16_ESO · April 2017

As text says. I admit I am a snipe monkey in pvp/cyrodiil, so feel free to mock me for that, but, the bow ultimate is a total joke. In theory the damage isnt bad, but is it really? 4 second channeling of damage (which actually can be OUT damaged by 4 secs of normal gameplay/weaving -.- ) which can be dodged. I dont really understand what the developers were thinking, and I doubt its very useful in PvE either (as a decent bow damage dealer should anyway be able to outdps the channeling spell in 4 secs). So what would I have instead of this? Either a good AoE targeted ground attack (like sorcs) or a movable shield of some sort or at least a good single target burst attack

danno8 · April 2017

Well you are not suppose to cast it then go have a sandwich you know.

killimandrosb16_ESO · April 2017

so that means you have a good way of actually using this ultimate in cyrodiil? I would very much love to be enlightened as I have it specced but not slotted after a lot of testing. I just can not find any reason why I would slot this ultimate at all, and as a NB I am then stuck with melee ultis, while I want a ranged ulti to go with my bow specc

Narvuntien · April 2017

Magnum shot into Ballista.

See Alcasts PVP bow build.

killimandrosb16_ESO · April 2017

I tried ballista but never found it very good compared to other playstyles ultimates. I dont find the dps good enough at all compared to what I can dish out without the ultimate, and ultimately an ultimate should outdps the normal attacks if its a dps ultimate. Im not trying to be difficult but I dont see the bow ultimate bringing anything worthwhile to the table, compared to other ultimates

psychotic13 · April 2017

Narvuntien wrote: »

Magnum shot into Ballista.

See Alcasts PVP bow build.

This, you can't just cast it at any given time and expect it to wipe the enemy out.

killimandrosb16_ESO · April 2017

Thats not what Im asking for. Im asking for a bow ultimate which is compareable for a bow user to other classes ultimate. The ballistas best advantage point is the fact I can do damage while the ballista fires. I know it has its situational uses. What the bow user needs is a burst ultimate preferably or even a good cc ultimate. Id take roots with poison anyday as an example. I followed and tried Alcasts build and I have all his abilities/gear/skills slotted and Im happy, but not with the ultimate. Its weak. Its not good

Im considering using Soul Assault

Narvuntien · April 2017

I run dawnbreaker for more damage on my attacks and only use my other ultimate.

KeiruNicrom · April 2017

Honestly i think the ability shouldnt be a channel at all. The base ability should be the ballista morph with new morphs being the poison one(still ballistaing) and one that fires less shots but they are larger and do a bit of aoe damage

killimandrosb16_ESO · April 2017

ye dawnbreaker is good but only for the extra damage. It doesnt give bow users any useable attack or ability

I dont know if the others actually play bow as main as its not so common. In theory ballista sounds good, but in reality its weak. I have a mag sorc and a DK as well, and im happy as a salmon with their ultimates

Izaki · April 2017

psychotic13 wrote: »

Narvuntien wrote: »

Magnum shot into Ballista.

See Alcasts PVP bow build.

This, you can't just cast it at any given time and expect it to wipe the enemy out.

When its laggy and you're a stamblade: Fear > Ballista > guaranteed death xD

Toc de Malsvi · April 2017

Narvuntien wrote: »

Magnum shot into Ballista.

See Alcasts PVP bow build.

I have only found this to work on Magicka builds, and to very little effect, they mist when ballista comes out. Most stamina start dodging the moment you cast ballista, it's almost impossible to get a CC on them while ballista is up.

Also Alcast's video is shown on a target not doing anything to defend itself, no buffs(shuffle, Major resolve, shields), not actively trying to kill/CC you.

It is really not a very good ultimate, it is very easily negated in PVP. It's also an incredibly high cost for a single target ultimate with no AOE component.

@killimandrosb16_ESO
Ultimates scale off of max resource primarily, so you can get some decent damage out of meteor or soul assault. Soul Assault is very effective on stamina builds, especially if you get poison injection on them before you beam them.

Stamden · April 2017

KeiruNicrom wrote: »

Honestly i think the ability shouldnt be a channel at all. The base ability should be the ballista morph with new morphs being the poison one(still ballistaing) and one that fires less shots but they are larger and do a bit of aoe damage

I agree. The ballista is the only version of this ult that will ever be worth using. They might as well just make it the base ability and work with it from there.

Avran_Sylt · April 2017

I kinda wish that the bow ultimate was volley (increasing the damage as needed). Then add in a new ability to replace volley that is the weapon class spammable.

Edit: This would give stamina an ultimate comparable to the destro ulti (mag). Only downside being it doesn't follow the player.

SodanTok · April 2017

In PvE Ballista is fine.

In PVP it is actually horrible, both the morphs. It is noob killer tho. You cc someone with your melee range CC, then use your ranged ultimate from melee distance and if they are bad they will die.
If they are not they wont care. It is countered by 3sec of blocking, 2 dodge rolls or 2 shields (1shield stack).
The direct damage morph is also countered by one bash (not sure about interrupt), one CC, 1-2 DK wings or simply by killing that medium armor dude with 20k hp that cant defend himself while he is channeling it.

That is ultimate that deals in PVP around 10k more damage than dawnbreaker. Is single target and costs 175 ultimate.

I dont like skills that counter all defenses, but it is joke when one ultimate is single target and gets countered by everything in the game, while most ultimates ignore half that stuff and some almost everything and can kill whole zergs in one cast

Toc de Malsvi · April 2017

sodantokb16_ESO wrote: »

In PvE Ballista is fine.

In PVP it is actually horrible, both the morphs. It is noob killer tho. You cc someone with your melee range CC, then use your ranged ultimate from melee distance and if they are bad they will die.
If they are not they wont care. It is countered by 3sec of blocking, 2 dodge rolls or 2 shields (1shield stack).
The direct damage morph is also countered by one bash (not sure about interrupt), one CC, 1-2 DK wings or simply by killing that medium armor dude with 20k hp that cant defend himself while he is channeling it.

That is ultimate that deals in PVP around 10k more damage than dawnbreaker. Is single target and costs 175 ultimate.

I dont like skills that counter all defenses, but it is joke when one ultimate is single target and gets countered by everything in the game, while most ultimates ignore half that stuff and some almost everything.

Comparing the damage on Ballista to Soul Assault... On a stamina build, it's laughable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Yp9SSg4J3E

Toc de Malsvi · April 2017

The delay on Ballista, theoretically allows you to set up burst. This works on anyone who is lagging out, or is very inexperienced/bad.

In reality the delay on Ballista's damage is all the time needed to allow you opponent to mitigate Ballista entirely.

killimandrosb16_ESO · April 2017

well, all in all it would be nice to see how many actually use this ultimate in pvp? I can remember the last time I saw it in use, except from when I was testing it (and I tested it a lot and found it personally very weak). I would very much like as mentioned already a burst single target ultimate, or a good cc. I have been thinking about something like snake trap, or den of traps, either applying poison damage as an AoE attack (snakes) or dodgeable traps (3 sec stuns)

mr_wazzabi · April 2017

It should be a cone aoe, not single target.

Same damage, make it an aoe cone and now you have a stamina competitor to destro ult.

SodanTok · April 2017

killimandrosb16_ESO wrote: »

well, all in all it would be nice to see how many actually use this ultimate in pvp? I can remember the last time I saw it in use, except from when I was testing it (and I tested it a lot and found it personally very weak). I would very much like as mentioned already a burst single target ultimate, or a good cc. I have been thinking about something like snake trap, or den of traps, either applying poison damage as an AoE attack (snakes) or dodgeable traps (3 sec stuns)

I use both morphs. One one character because i build him around the use of it and on second because it is the only choice (would probably trade it for meteor if I wasnt lazy to collect books)

I saw it used on me since 1T ~10 times. I died to it 0 times.
The only ultimates that I saw less were 2H ult and dw ulti. Wouldnt probably notice any of these two anyway (except Onslaught oneshot)

Toc de Malsvi · April 2017

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

psychotic13 wrote: »

Narvuntien wrote: »

Magnum shot into Ballista.

See Alcasts PVP bow build.

This, you can't just cast it at any given time and expect it to wipe the enemy out.

When its laggy and you're a stamblade: Fear > Ballista > guaranteed death xD

In my experience its: Fear>(they are not feared cause lag)> fear> Ballista(does not go off cause of lag)> Ballista>They have broken free and now find it easy to mitigate the damage.

And that's on my NB.

Toc de Malsvi · April 2017

sodantokb16_ESO wrote: »

killimandrosb16_ESO wrote: »

well, all in all it would be nice to see how many actually use this ultimate in pvp? I can remember the last time I saw it in use, except from when I was testing it (and I tested it a lot and found it personally very weak). I would very much like as mentioned already a burst single target ultimate, or a good cc. I have been thinking about something like snake trap, or den of traps, either applying poison damage as an AoE attack (snakes) or dodgeable traps (3 sec stuns)

I use both morphs. One one character because i build him around the use of it and on second because it is the only choice (would probably trade it for meteor if I wasnt lazy to collect books)

I saw it used on me since 1T ~10 times. I died to it 0 times.
The only ultimates that I saw less were 2H ult and dw ulti. Wouldnt probably notice any of these two anyway (except Onslaught oneshot)

This^

If you played the first 2 weeks after OneTamriel, you likely got to see 2H, DW, and Bow ultimates. If not you probably only see them once a week or so. They are just not that effective.

hmsdragonfly · April 2017

killimandrosb16_ESO wrote: »

Thats not what Im asking for. Im asking for a bow ultimate which is compareable for a bow user to other classes ultimate. The ballistas best advantage point is the fact I can do damage while the ballista fires. I know it has its situational uses. What the bow user needs is a burst ultimate preferably or even a good cc ultimate. Id take roots with poison anyday as an example. I followed and tried Alcasts build and I have all his abilities/gear/skills slotted and Im happy, but not with the ultimate. Its weak. Its not good Im considering using Soul Assault

Bow ultimate is the deadliest single-target ultimate in the game. Yes, the deadliest. But, you have to learn how to us it, bow ult is not an one trick pony so you can't just click it anytime and hope it will kill an enemy, no, no, bow ult actually requires skills, that's what I like about it.
There are 2 ways to utilize bow ult:
1) Burst. You cannot just use bow ult and expect it will kill something, nope, what I usually do, is firstly keep pressure on the enemy, to drain their stamina. When I know the enemy is low on stam, I cc him then bow ult immediately. Fear + bow ult for stamblade, power of the light + jav + bow ult for stamplar, fossilize + bow ult for stamdk, ballista + streak for stamsorc. You can also use Draining Shot, Bombard or another CC of your choice.
2) If someone is chasing you and you don't want to pick up that fight because you are low in health or in resources, pop up bow ult. Then, you can safely retreat and come back to fight when you are ready.

P/S: I used to be a sniper when i first started PvPing. But once i got better, I deleted my bow one-shot build, it's just too boring because it requires no skills. No shame in being a sniper when you are learning PvP, (you don't know how to utilize bow ult so you must be new). The only thing matters is that what you will do when you get better.

clocksstoppe · April 2017

Stun them before using the ballista you genius.

Vaoh · April 2017

Ballista is fantastic. Very powerful Ult with lots of uses. The other morph dealing high damage isn't as useful and mostly serves as a Stam Soul Assault for zergs.

SnubbS · April 2017

I really like Ballista—maybe do something with the other morph, but Ballista is fine.

killimandrosb16_ESO · April 2017

very different opinions. I guess its natural and I am probably not very good since I can never find myself manage to pull off anything close to the scenario hmsdragonfly refers to. Still cant say I have ever seen this ultimate in use in trueflame where I spend the better of my days

GrumpyDuckling · April 2017

If the cost is reduced by 50 to make it a total cost of 125, then the bow ultimate will be fine. We don't need an entirely new ultimate.

Rohamad_Ali · April 2017

That's strange because on my stamblade I get hate tells all the time for that ultimate . Double check your build .

Toc de Malsvi · April 2017

clocksstoppe wrote: »

Stun them before using the ballista you genius.

There is a one second delay before damage starts, this means they can break free and mitigate.

If you wait to stun, they see it coming and mitigate.

If Ballista was worth a damn, you would see good players and steamers using it everywhere. It isn't.

It can kill people sure, just like anything in the game can kill people. It has too high of a cost, for pathetic effectiveness.

Toc de Malsvi · April 2017

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

That's strange because on my stamblade I get hate tells all the time for that ultimate . Double check your build .

Back when I used to run a pure one shot build with Alchemist I would get tells all the time then too, didn't make it good, you couldn't reliably kill anyone who put any real effort into defenses. It reliably kills offensive players who are used to being protected by zergs.