[PvE (Trials, Endgame)] Bow/Bow stamina DD builds need some love

RandomKodiak · January 2019

Oh and please don't try to say the passive makes up for that because in a trial or even a dungeon the odds you can keep up that 25% bonus is a complete joke

Toc de Malsvi · January 2019

RandomKodiak wrote: »

The big problem with bow/bow (and yes my main is one) is that a bow golded out is the same damage as a one handed weapon golded out. So a duel wield character of anywhere near competence level is always going to have much more damage. I figure it is some "balance" thing but why do 2handers get an extra 15% or so but bows don't? Also of course no spamable for bows other than snipe is why wardens with the bird at range outperform the other bow/bows.

I agree that the weapon damage loss is a significant negative for bows, specifically due to how HawkEye interacts with CP.

I just cannot agree that Wardens outperform the other classes. Especially not because of the Bird. Crushing Weapon is as good or better than the Bird.

And HawkEye is incredibly easy to maintain outside of extreme lag spikes. I have zero trouble with it in all four man content. Only in Trials have I regularly experienced enough lag to make it an issue. Learn to light weave every skill even Vigor and you will find HawkEye stacks pretty easy to maintain.

Letho2469 · January 2019

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

Letho2469 wrote: »

Yagrs build relies on venomous claw which totally contradicts the sense of a ranged dd. Sadly i can't say anything about DK as i never tested it. My warden hits 54k on 6mio. the dummy with major fracture. Sadly no bow build I have seen so far comes even close to that

If you are saying that Melee will deal more then yeah thats true. If you are saying there is a massive gap between melee and ranged thats where I cannot agree. I don't really do much Warden and I don't know exactly what you are doing on your Warden Melee parse. So I cannot truly compare the difference.

But stam DK ranged isn't far behind DK Melee for stam. And stam DK ranged can run in melee and be just as effective as at range, while still slightly behind traditional Melee setups. The only true drawback of DK ranged is relying on Snipe spam.

My testing on Stam Sorc yeilded the same results, slightly behind Melee builds.

Hmmmm dk and sorc are both the weakest stamina melee classes atm. But 49k selfbuffed with a bow is quite much. Could you test it on a warden?

Yet again: Full buffed trial conditions are totally different from target dummy conditions and when playing bow/bow the values should not be compared to melee stamina builds but to the actual competition: ranged magicka DDs.

Toc de Malsvi · January 2019

Letho2469 wrote: »

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

Letho2469 wrote: »

Yagrs build relies on venomous claw which totally contradicts the sense of a ranged dd. Sadly i can't say anything about DK as i never tested it. My warden hits 54k on 6mio. the dummy with major fracture. Sadly no bow build I have seen so far comes even close to that

If you are saying that Melee will deal more then yeah thats true. If you are saying there is a massive gap between melee and ranged thats where I cannot agree. I don't really do much Warden and I don't know exactly what you are doing on your Warden Melee parse. So I cannot truly compare the difference.

But stam DK ranged isn't far behind DK Melee for stam. And stam DK ranged can run in melee and be just as effective as at range, while still slightly behind traditional Melee setups. The only true drawback of DK ranged is relying on Snipe spam.

My testing on Stam Sorc yeilded the same results, slightly behind Melee builds.

Hmmmm dk and sorc are both the weakest stamina melee classes atm. But 49k selfbuffed with a bow is quite much. Could you test it on a warden?

Yet again: Full buffed trial conditions are totally different from target dummy conditions and when playing bow/bow the values should not be compared to melee stamina builds but to the actual competition: ranged magicka DDs.

Unfortunately not for a week or two at least, you should look to @SodanTok. They do considerably more testing with Warden than myself.

RandomKodiak · January 2019

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

I just cannot agree that Wardens outperform the other classes. Especially not because of the Bird. Crushing Weapon is as good or better than the Bird.

And HawkEye is incredibly easy to maintain outside of extreme lag spikes. I have zero trouble with it in all four man content. Only in Trials have I regularly experienced enough lag to make it an issue. Learn to light weave every skill even Vigor and you will find HawkEye stacks pretty easy to maintain.

RandomKodiak · January 2019

I don't agree the warden bird does 3-4k more damage and is instant cast by itself, and it heals (not for as much) and gives you 10% damage if it does, whereas CW is a cast then you light attack. So if you get hit or stunned between CW then light attack you can lose it and need to recast. But each to their own. Glad we can agree on there seems to be no reason for bows to be 200 less damage than 2handers

Bladerunner1 · January 2019

My bow/bow Stamblade in melee range is around 5% behind my DW/bow build on PTS when I can manage to hit all my light attacks. It's basically using the same setup except slotting Focused Aim in place of Bloodcraze. Numbers may improve if I can ever get the hang of the bow light attacks on the front bar, the all-important light attack weaving just seems so different from DW.

With Bow/bow slotted I can envision a playstyle similar to my magblade, where I can put out quite a lot of DPS when I'm up close in melee range with a melee monster set and the soul harvest ability, and then revert to somewhat reduced capacity when mechanics force me to play from a distance. Just having Focused Aim on the front bar at least gives something to do at range, and you get 100% uptime of minor fracture/breach.

A bow DPS could also technically give nearly 100% uptime of infused full-sized crusher if it was requested. It comes at the cost of 7-8% of a single person's DPS (Approx. DPS gain from infused WD glyph), assuming infused crusher would have been provided by a tank. So you trade off 3.5kdps and gain a precise method of applying Crusher while allowing a tank to use double sword and board.

Zeromaz · January 2019

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

NyassaV wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

I wouldn't mind a buff that also occurs in PVP. I don't see many "true" archers (most players run bow back bar), and ZOS is further nerfing ganking with the Khajiit/Bosmer changes.

I wouldn't mind seeing a stronger re-work to the Hawk Eye passive because it has PVE written all over it. In it's current state it's not easy to stack it in PVP, so it can be a wasted passive.
"Your successful Light and Heavy Attacks increase the damage of your Bow abilities by 5% for 5 seconds, stacking up to 5 times"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ6L4omudnE&t=713s

You kinda have to use a 2h on back bar so you can have really but otherwise it's all bow

Using 2H defeats the purpose of making a bow/bow build.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=99GixomxrRs

Letho2469 · January 2019

Zeromaz wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

NyassaV wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

I wouldn't mind a buff that also occurs in PVP. I don't see many "true" archers (most players run bow back bar), and ZOS is further nerfing ganking with the Khajiit/Bosmer changes.

I wouldn't mind seeing a stronger re-work to the Hawk Eye passive because it has PVE written all over it. In it's current state it's not easy to stack it in PVP, so it can be a wasted passive.
"Your successful Light and Heavy Attacks increase the damage of your Bow abilities by 5% for 5 seconds, stacking up to 5 times"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ6L4omudnE&t=713s

You kinda have to use a 2h on back bar so you can have really but otherwise it's all bow

Using 2H defeats the purpose of making a bow/bow build.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=99GixomxrRs

This thread is about PvE endgame trials /w hardmode.

Zeromaz · January 2019

I quoted someone speaking about pvp in this very same thread

Letho2469 wrote: »

Zeromaz wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

NyassaV wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

I wouldn't mind a buff that also occurs in PVP. I don't see many "true" archers (most players run bow back bar), and ZOS is further nerfing ganking with the Khajiit/Bosmer changes.

I wouldn't mind seeing a stronger re-work to the Hawk Eye passive because it has PVE written all over it. In it's current state it's not easy to stack it in PVP, so it can be a wasted passive.
"Your successful Light and Heavy Attacks increase the damage of your Bow abilities by 5% for 5 seconds, stacking up to 5 times"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ6L4omudnE&t=713s

You kinda have to use a 2h on back bar so you can have really but otherwise it's all bow

Using 2H defeats the purpose of making a bow/bow build.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=99GixomxrRs

This thread is about PvE endgame trials /w hardmode.

D

Iskiab · February 2019

I don’t understand the thread. Bows have been and always will be a pvp only weapon, changing some values here or there won’t make a difference.

In pve the requirement for the entire raid is to stand between the healer and tank. Why would you use a bow when that requires you to be far away from your target and the passives focus on mobility?

Letho2469 · February 2019

I don’t understand the thread. Bows have been and always will be a pvp only weapon, changing some values here or there won’t make a difference.

Cool, says who?

In pve the requirement for the entire raid is to stand between the healer and tank. Why would you use a bow when that requires you to be far away from your target and the passives focus on mobility?

That does not sound like sb. who raids endgame content, no offence. ranged is about teleporting bosses and target switches. Watch some vcr+3 videos and you will understand, why stamina dds should be able to use a bow.

Iskiab · February 2019

Sure, use a bow, but that had nothing to do with bow/bow builds. My point is the entire design of bows from the ground up looks like it’s designed for pvp.

Sure you can stay max range on a bow, just don’t expect any buffs or heals, it’s at odds with all the healing mechanics of the game. You can either stand in a spot where you’ll get healing and buffs (between the healer and the boss) or stay in a spot to take advantage of using a bow, the dps a bow/bow can hit are irrelevant.

DoonerSeraph · February 2019

I think the "Long Shots" passive needs a rework, maybe something on the lines of "Adds X weapon damage" or "Increases damage by X%" for skills that have a range bigger than 15 or 20m, so it favors a ranged playstyle, but does not force you to be behind your healer to squeeze that that damage.

Also opens a bit more of play since it can interact with other skills like Silver Shards, Trapping Webs and even Caltrops.

And for people who doesnt like Snipe as "spammable", and although I don't hate it, I would prefer something instant that's not crushing weapon over it, a rework of Magnum Shot to remove CC, decrease cost and maybe increase damage would be a good option of a standard skill bow shot "spammable".

EDIT: Also that critical passive, I'm not sure it gives the same crit rating as dual dagger, if not, maybe that could've changed too.

SodanTok · February 2019

Iskiab wrote: »

Sure, use a bow, but that had nothing to do with bow/bow builds. My point is the entire design of bows from the ground up looks like it’s designed for pvp.

Sure you can stay max range on a bow, just don’t expect any buffs or heals, it’s at odds with all the healing mechanics of the game. You can either stand in a spot where you’ll get healing and buffs (between the healer and the boss) or stay in a spot to take advantage of using a bow, the dps a bow/bow can hit are irrelevant.

Thinking bow/bow is about staying in 28m range to get 12% (additive with CP) boost to only bow skills is so so 2016... Only newbs are running around behind healer because they dont understand the passive damage boost is negligible and also outperformed by minor berserk in every situation (in case you cant get it yourself).

DoonerSeraph · February 2019

SodanTok wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Sure, use a bow, but that had nothing to do with bow/bow builds. My point is the entire design of bows from the ground up looks like it’s designed for pvp.

Sure you can stay max range on a bow, just don’t expect any buffs or heals, it’s at odds with all the healing mechanics of the game. You can either stand in a spot where you’ll get healing and buffs (between the healer and the boss) or stay in a spot to take advantage of using a bow, the dps a bow/bow can hit are irrelevant.

Thinking bow/bow is about staying in 28m range to get 12% (additive with CP) boost to only bow skills is so so 2016... Only newbs are running around behind healer because they dont understand the passive damage boost is negligible and also outperformed by minor berserk in every situation (in case you cant get it yourself).

There's also that, how weak the passive is by itself, it should just be reworked, buceuse its not only weak, but its tooltip is very shallow and misleading to new players.

"Gives you a damage bonus of up to 12% against enemies at longer range.", but the 12% is somehow weaker than the 8% of minor berserk, and it doesn't tell how far you must be, 12m, 28m? This passive is basically a dead slot on bow tree.

Letho2469 · February 2019

Yet even without that passive taken into consideration bow/bow needs a buff IN PVE to be competetive compared other ranged dds. Please don't listen to the oppinions of ppl who have no clue of pve. Ofc balancing has to take pvp into consideration aswell, that is the challlenge that balancing bow/bow is currently confronted with.

SodanTok · February 2019

DoonerSeraph wrote: »

SodanTok wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Sure, use a bow, but that had nothing to do with bow/bow builds. My point is the entire design of bows from the ground up looks like it’s designed for pvp.

Sure you can stay max range on a bow, just don’t expect any buffs or heals, it’s at odds with all the healing mechanics of the game. You can either stand in a spot where you’ll get healing and buffs (between the healer and the boss) or stay in a spot to take advantage of using a bow, the dps a bow/bow can hit are irrelevant.

Thinking bow/bow is about staying in 28m range to get 12% (additive with CP) boost to only bow skills is so so 2016... Only newbs are running around behind healer because they dont understand the passive damage boost is negligible and also outperformed by minor berserk in every situation (in case you cant get it yourself).

There's also that, how weak the passive is by itself, it should just be reworked, buceuse its not only weak, but its tooltip is very shallow and misleading to new players.

"Gives you a damage bonus of up to 12% against enemies at longer range.", but the 12% is somehow weaker than the 8% of minor berserk, and it doesn't tell how far you must be, 12m, 28m? This passive is basically a dead slot on bow tree.

It is very underperforming passive. Not all passives have to be strong, but this one is weak, hasty retreat is combat weak (not that I would ever want to remove it, its just too good for movement and in pvp) and the 5% crit is kinda weak if I consider its in value just half of the same passive dual wield and 2h get (i know 2h doesnt get crit at all but its passive is double of the dual wield one)

DoonerSeraph · February 2019

SodanTok wrote: »

DoonerSeraph wrote: »

SodanTok wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Sure, use a bow, but that had nothing to do with bow/bow builds. My point is the entire design of bows from the ground up looks like it’s designed for pvp.

Sure you can stay max range on a bow, just don’t expect any buffs or heals, it’s at odds with all the healing mechanics of the game. You can either stand in a spot where you’ll get healing and buffs (between the healer and the boss) or stay in a spot to take advantage of using a bow, the dps a bow/bow can hit are irrelevant.

Thinking bow/bow is about staying in 28m range to get 12% (additive with CP) boost to only bow skills is so so 2016... Only newbs are running around behind healer because they dont understand the passive damage boost is negligible and also outperformed by minor berserk in every situation (in case you cant get it yourself).

There's also that, how weak the passive is by itself, it should just be reworked, buceuse its not only weak, but its tooltip is very shallow and misleading to new players.

"Gives you a damage bonus of up to 12% against enemies at longer range.", but the 12% is somehow weaker than the 8% of minor berserk, and it doesn't tell how far you must be, 12m, 28m? This passive is basically a dead slot on bow tree.

It is very underperforming passive. Not all passives have to be strong, but this one is weak, hasty retreat is combat weak (not that I would ever want to remove it, its just too good for movement and in pvp) and the 5% crit is kinda weak if I consider its in value just half of the same passive dual wield and 2h get (i know 2h doesnt get crit at all but its passive is double of the dual wield one)

Thanks for the diagram, very useful info. It is indeed very underwhelming. It sounds stronger than minor berserk by tooltip, but it isn't at all. I agree that no every passive should be super-duper strong and remarkable, but this one and the crit one need some serious work, bows already have a lower weapon damage by themselves, crippling some weapon power based healing such as vigor, and dealing less damage (although the excuse for that is "range").

The crit passive could be bumped to match dual daggers, and the long shots could be completely reworked (with my suggestion already posted above). Thanks for the very useful info @SodanTok !

MashmalloMan · February 2019

Letho2469 wrote: »

Yet even without that passive taken into consideration bow/bow needs a buff IN PVE to be competetive compared other ranged dds. Please don't listen to the oppinions of ppl who have no clue of pve. Ofc balancing has to take pvp into consideration aswell, that is the challlenge that balancing bow/bow is currently confronted with.

I'd like to see a real comparison, no one has been able to provide 1, instead of "Buff Bow/Bow just because". While the passives need some work, I don't agree they're far behind when in melee range my bow build is within 1k dps of my DW/bow build and clearly better in ranged fights where my DW build just spams light attacks.

Ranged =/= Melee.

Melee should do more dps or else there is no point to use melee builds. Risk vs reward. You can fight for better passives, but don't make baseless claims. I'm very happy where bow/bow is with the DW enchant nerfs. They are so incredibly close any more tuning should be focused on making bow/bow rotations more rewarding instead of snipe spamming.

RandomKodiak wrote: »

Oh and please don't try to say the passive makes up for that because in a trial or even a dungeon the odds you can keep up that 25% bonus is a complete joke

You need to work on your rotation, it takes all of 5 light attacks. If 5 light attacks was hard to keep up, people wouldn't use relequen. That's a L2P issue.

MashmalloMan · February 2019

@SodanTok Oh nice, did you make that yourself? Always wondered the specifics, I had heard it was gradual, but didn't know where the max distance required was.

So being in a reasonable range for group buffs you can usually only get about 4% from the passive. Which really only equates to around 2% dps I'm betting.

SodanTok · February 2019

Marshall1289 wrote: »

@SodanTok Oh nice, did you make that yourself? Always wondered the specifics, I had heard it was gradual, but didn't know where the max distance required was.

So being in a reasonable range for group buffs you can usually only get about 4% from the passive. Which really only equates to around 2% dps I'm betting.

Yep. I knew this for some time but never really went ahead and put it in visible numbers. The 4% buff distance is really the usual point with rare cases of 6% in some trials but also something like 0% on Serpent in vSO. Given that even snipe rotation moves around having 50% of DPS from nonbow abilities and on top of that all the buffs like hawk eye, berserker, minor slayer, much more % in master at arms and much more % for light attacks and then passives like warden animal passive or sorcs amplitude/phys damage buff you can guess the long shot passive is reduced by half and affects only half of your DPS.

And well if someone cares about 3% buff in 23m range (instead of 1% in 10m) then they already picked wrong build to play

Ozby · February 2019

SodanTok wrote: »

While some love would be needed its nowhere near as dire as you make it sound. I am not some godlike player so alone with no support I manage 'just' 50k on meta stamina warden build on 6M dummy. On my bow/bow warden I can do 46k. I ddont know anyone who is doing 60k or smth dps but if they were getting that much I am sure they would also be getting much more from bow.

Now dont forget those are melee builds. Builds that are losing DPS in every mobile fight. So comparing it to ranged magicka builds (minus vulnerability ^^) would be much more fair.

The biggest love bow needs and always needed, something to finally say: "yes they are at this dps level" because they would have all the necessary tools is having instant spammable on bow line that would finally work with the passives that are there to somewhat offset the damage difference.

Hrm, 46k with bow bow build seems pretty godlike to me, most bow /bow build players I know only get about 20-26k dps. But hey I am in New Zealand and our ping is crappy so what do I know. I do know though if I was getting 46k Bow/Bow I would scrap my AY daggers.

Letho2469 · February 2019

@SodanTok Nice picture, very useful, thx a lot!

@Marshall1289

Ranged =/= Melee.

Melee should do more dps or else there is no point to use melee builds. Risk vs reward. [...]

Please stop comparing stamina bow/bow dps to stamina dual wield dps, that is no valid point! Bow/bow dds are ranged dds and have to be compared to other (magicka) ranged dds! And nearly all magicka ranged dds can hit ~52-55k dps on the 6mio. dummy with orbs and armor reduction right now. And they scale even better in trials than bow/bow does (passives).

As a side note:
I wholeheartedly agree to that, melees need a significant dps buff aswell for the reasons you provided! But that is an issue for another topic. Melees need a dps boost aswell. They should always hit ~10% more dps on a tank'n'spank fight because target switching hurts them (that is an issue with relequen, that set is bad design...) and they have to close in on bosses teleporting around or adds spawning at range.

Feanor · February 2019

I admit I have an irrational disdain for bow users in this game, probably from seeing so many awful bow players in PvP and enduring what they made out of Legolas in LotR and the Hobbit movies. I don't understand what's so appealing with bows in ESO.

That said, I'd welcome a rework that increases viability in PvE and decreases annoyance in PvP.

Bladerunner1 · February 2019

Has anyone tried ranged Stamina on PTS 4.3.3? I'm confounded by the massive gains, not complaining though as long as it's intended. Has anyone spotted a bow/bow bug?

There was a change to Tzogvins Warband, to Shadow and to CP scaling since the last time I tested in PTS 4.3.1. I'm on a Bosmer Stamblade. But somehow my bow DPS has gotten 10% better whereas the melee numbers have only gotten 3% better. It's right where I want it, but I remain skeptical.

Letho2469 · February 2019

Melee has gotten better? I lost about 3-4k dps (varying from parse to parse) on my stamden! RIP stamina melee, magicka dps is higher on a tank'n'spank fight (except for stamblade ofc).

Good news is that bow is now closer to melee *sarcasm off*

SodanTok · February 2019

I got some huge buffs I cannot explain (maybe race changes + the CP affecting all?). Doing like 2-3k DPS better than I do on live (tho with perfect rele rather than imperfect ^^) I think any better player than me could easily get 50k with warden bow/bow in pure solo 6M (and without snipe). The new set seems to also perform very well or even outperform some other options bow had (read: not having trap and not having AY)

Toc de Malsvi · February 2019

SodanTok wrote: »

I got some huge buffs I cannot explain (maybe race changes + the CP affecting all?). Doing like 2-3k DPS better than I do on live (tho with perfect rele rather than imperfect ^^) I think any better player than me could easily get 50k with warden bow/bow in pure solo 6M (and without snipe). The new set seems to also perform very well or even outperform some other options bow had (read: not having trap and not having AY)

Probably the CP changes. Pet sorc heavy attack shot up to 50k from where the same poster was doing 46k or so before. I have yet to test but I would imagine that is the change. I haven't had time to test in the past two weeks, I'll try some this weekend maybe.

Chilly-McFreeze · February 2019

Feanor wrote: »

That said, I'd welcome a rework that increases viability in PvE and decreases annoyance in PvP.

Changing Snipe to an ordinary spam?

While we're at the annoyance part: turning scatter shot into a knockdown instead of a knock back.