Bow needs a new ultimate

Tommy_The_Gun · April 2017

killimandrosb16_ESO wrote: »

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

That is why everybody is destro ult monkey in PvP. It is almost impossible to dodge & block this. And if you get stunned by sorcerer or rooted by DK... there is no way to avoid dmg. And yes I also use bow in cyro PvP and it just ridiculous how even magicka builds can perma-dodge...

BohnT · April 2017

Why do you have to ruin this thread with some useless discussion between 2 people who blame each other to be scrubs?
That is not a healthy discussion that gets us anywhere.

I post some arguments for and against it in no specific order.

1. The Bow ulti has a really high damage potential, I deal ~28k damage to a heavy armor player who isn't blocking.
2. It has a lot of counters and is one of the most situational ultimates in the game which combined with its high cost results into low usage rates. Either you don't come into a situation where it is useable or you are in this situation but don't have the 175/167 (with hawk's eye) that is one reason why you don't see it often in game.
3. It drains resources from the enemy, lots of them actually you have 13 hits over 4 seconds which drain stamina from blocking ppl, you need 2 dodge rolls to almost completely ignore the damage - - -» you guaranteed have to dodge once with the cost penalty active. You deal lots of damage to magicka builds which have to spam ~3 shields to survive the balista only.

In all these situations you can increase the stam / mag drain with your own abilities or kill them.

4. The balista morph is currently the only useable morph of this ultimate, the other one is simply to bad as are completely vulnerable during the cast and one bash/cc/interrupt counters 175 ultimate points entirely.

In the end the bow ultimate really deserves to get a buff imo.
I have 3 proposes what you could do to make it better for its cost and better for a wider spread of people.

1. Decrease the cost to 125 ultimate to have an overall higher uptime potential
2. While casting the other morph, you get the blessing of hircine who protects you from any damage you take during the channel - - - > 100% dodge chance during the channel. This would make it way better and useable as you can use it and don't have to worry that you'll be dead in 1 second because you wear medium armor and only get small heals over time. The ultimate would still leave room to counterplay.
3. Make the ballista the base version and add 2 new morphs.
1. acts like the current ballista but has a burst upfront and cc's the enemy before the ultimate starts.
2. The ballista now fires arrows into the air which target the enemy and deal aoe damage around the target in a 5m radius, if there are more than 4ppl in the aoe they are rooted for 3 seconds, you can't block the damage of the ability.