Staff & Bow Time to make some changes

MEBengalsFan2001 · February 2022

Base damage of the bow and destruction staff are all set to 1335 at legendary when at 160 cp gear, which is the same damage as a sword and shield and restoration staff. However, when a player uses dual wield or two handed as a style the base damage that a player can do is increased by 200+ damage. Staff and Bow base damage should not be as low as a player using a 1 handed weapon and shield but also should not be as high as someone using dual wield or two handed styles. I find that buffing Bow and Staff base damage to 1450 would be a great middle point between the melee damage and defensive/healing type of play.

Passives that need updating for the Bow and Staff.

Staff passive "The Penetrating Magic" needs to be updated to state: Your damaging attack ignore 10% of your enemies magika resistance. T

Bow passive "Accuracy" needs to be updated to "Increases your Physical Penetration rating by 2628.

The passive changes would give these two weapon type a bit more in total damage out in content and may actually get more players to use at least Bows as a range option.

I personally like range style of play but the issue I run into is that range attacks you need to be more accurate to hit targets and if you are not you take a bigger damage loss than someone using a 2h or DW but at the same time the risk of being hit harder is not there but the damage loss is. I find getting a slight bump in damage is much needed for these two weapon styles.

Fennwitty · February 2022

In my experience it's quite the opposite. Ranged has a much easier time putting attacks exactly where they want them, and less trouble dealing with mechanics on the ground.

What accuracy issues are you having? Targetting can be a little wonky for particular skills, but you can use the tab-target disambiguation to avoid most of it.

Tab targeting is not what most people would expect coming from other games. When you use the tab-target key, it will highlight one of the enemies currently under your target reticle.

If there's only one enemy under the reticle, it puts a white highlight around it and 'locks' that enemy, effectively making the majority of your attacks prefer the highlighted one even if tons of other enemies are moving around. But the reticle still has to be relatively 'near' or on that enemy.

If there are multiple enemies currently in your reticle (often happens with physically large bosses and the adds around them) you can keep pressing the tab-target key to cycle between those enemies and choose which to 'lock' on.

Definitely a bit of a learning curve. If you forget to unlock a target sometimes you'll shoot at the wrong guy. But it helps.

Adjusting the glow around currently targeted enemies also can be really helpful. There are options to make the currently aimed at enemy glow more brightly/strongly when the cursor is over them. So you can better tell what the game is going to aim your attack at.

AcadianPaladin · February 2022

All my characters are either bow/bow or staff/staff so I'm all for buffing them a bit!

As a soloist, the ranged weapons are fun and give you an initial edge but very soon, all bosses get in your face for the rest of the fight anyway. Thank Kynareth that there is no 'in melee range' bow/staff penalty like some games (such as D&D games) have.

atherusmora · February 2022

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

All my characters are either bow/bow or staff/staff so I'm all for buffing them a bit!

As a soloist, the ranged weapons are fun and give you an initial edge but very soon, all bosses get in your face for the rest of the fight anyway. Thank Kynareth that there is no 'in melee range' bow/staff penalty like some games (such as D&D games) have.

Thank the gods indeed!!!

LeHarrt91 · February 2022

I would like to see some of the Bow passives lose the 'with Bow Abilities' part. So that other skills/ spammables can be used.

ESO_Nightingale · February 2022

LeHarrt91 wrote: »

I would like to see some of the Bow passives lose the 'with Bow Abilities' part. So that other skills/ spammables can be used.

yep, it's too focused on the bow itself.

MEBengalsFan2001 · February 2022

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

All my characters are either bow/bow or staff/staff so I'm all for buffing them a bit!

As a soloist, the ranged weapons are fun and give you an initial edge but very soon, all bosses get in your face for the rest of the fight anyway. Thank Kynareth that there is no 'in melee range' bow/staff penalty like some games (such as D&D games) have.

Actually there is, they just changed the wording of it to state "gives you a damage bonus of up to 12% against enemies at longer range." Basically the closer you are the less damage bonus you get vs. getting a penalty but if we think about it, that is a penalty.

Also the difference between 5-12m (most melee range abilities) and 15-28m (range ability) the distance isn't all that much different. I'm sorry but the range of range attacks are truly not ranged attacks. They are more mid range from my experience. Also it is quite easy for a melee character to jump into range, both 2H and DW offer abilities that allow players to jump to their target.

Range DPS weapons need some tweaks to make them IMO a bit better, especially the bow.

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

LeHarrt91 wrote: »

I would like to see some of the Bow passives lose the 'with Bow Abilities' part. So that other skills/ spammables can be used.

yep, it's too focused on the bow itself.

All weapons passive should not be limited to the weapon abilities other than ones that lower stamina/magicka cost or restores magicka/stamina. This would make all weapons better and provide players more build options.

Right now the staff requires players to use staff abilities to get the passive to by pass 10% of their target spell resistance, but other none staff abilities will not get that bonus making the staff on a build that doesn't use a staff ability but uses a staff less effective in combat. Same with a bow build that get the bonus to damage. Where as 2H gets the bonus damage to any direct damage ability.

I hope the devs look into adjusting weapon passive in 2022 or even 2023.