Best damage 1-bar Oakensoul bow build

malistorr · September 2022

I'm a bow-using Nightblade and use the Lethal Arrow skill from range as my main attack with the Perfected Vate bow which buffs that skill. I'm using Oakensoul and a couple of damage sets. I was wondering, since Lethal Arrow says it applies the Poisoned Status Effect, wouldn't using a weapon poison with that skill be redundant and therefore a waste of damage? My understanding is that you can't poison someone twice but please explain to me in detail if I'm wrong. And if I am correct, then wouldn't using a poison glyph on the bow (and no weapon poison) also be a waste of the glyph/damage if I'm already applying the poisoned status effect with Lethal Arrow?

If that is the case and I should be choosing other options, what glyph and trait do you recommend on the bow and why? Since Lethal Arrow from stealth guarantees a critical strike I was thinking going precise on the bow would be a waste and instead I should go with Sharpened (since my pen is low currently) or Nirnhoned. I don't know if there would be much difference in my damage between the 2. And I was thinking maybe the fire glyph (wouldn't it do a lot of damage to vampires and be smart to use since there are so many vampires around?) or just the weapon damage glyph (for increased overall damage). Input about the above topics is appreciated as I'm trying to max out my possible damage output in PVP. This is a glass cannon Oakensoul 1-bar bow nightblade build. I'm not doing melee/DW/2H at all.

Necrotech_Master · September 2022

equipped weapon poisons dont always deal poison dmg, and they can also do a myriad of other effects than just raw dmg

your example with the poison glyph is correct though, because lethal arrow is already guaranteeing a poison status effect, the glyph will not help there, i personally tend to use the restore stamina enchant because it helps with sustain, but if your going for burst dmg, you could try the oblivion dmg glyph (for unresistable dmg), or fire glyph to proc burning

you can also get more pen from other stuff such as balorgh monster set (for a gank with the bow ult, or some other like a meteor with a lethal arrow follow up), and some CP slottable such as the one that increases pen for every negative effect on the target

you can also stack other burst procs on there as well such as scavenging demise set (which triggers off critical poison dmg, follows the target so they have to dodge, hits pretty hard)

if you want to use 2 5pc sets instead of a monster set, you could have 1 pc of a monster set that gives weapon and spell dmg, or pen depending on what your aiming for (valkyn skoria is 1pc pen bonus for example)

malistorr · September 2022

I'm currently using 2-sets that give me basically just lots of weapon/spell damage so no proc sets. And no monster set since I'm using the Vate bow and Oakensoul. I have sets like Defiler, Sellistrix, and Scavenging and tried them. But with people so tanky I found I wasn't really killing anyone but newish players (those with low health and bad builds). The procs don't proc often enough IMO to give consistently good damage. I hate having to wait up to 10-seconds after a good initial attack (that almost never kills anyone) to be able to get another strong attack off.

So based on what you said definitely no to the poison glyph when using Lethal Arrow. So what is recommended? Go with sharpened, nirnhoned, or charged with fire glyph? Or if having any of these 3-options would net me about the same amount of damage then I won't stress about it and I'll do whatever's cheapest/easiest. I was thinking that having a fire glyph might be a good/the best option since there are so many vampires out there. I figured the fire glyph will damage a vampire more than a regular player but not sure.

Necrotech_Master · September 2022

i personally run sharpened trait on my bow, i can maintain about 6k pen (i also run the mundus stone for penetration)

fire dmg does do more to a vampire, up to a point, once their undeath passive starts kicking in, even fire dmg will do less dmg to the vampire player than a non vampire player

because this is a high health meta, an oblivion dmg enchant could probably net more dmg since its based on the players max hp (i believe the gold oblivion dmg enchant is 7.5% hp dmg

on a 30,000 hp player, 7.5% dmg would be 2250 unresistable, unblockable dmg (with the downside being that it cannot crit or apply any status effects of its own)

it sounds like you got dmg covered already, so you probably need to get some penetration in the build, because you have to assume most players are running at least 30k armor (33k is the armor cap with 50% mitigation, due to the battle spirit you would basically be doing 75% less dmg on one of these players if you had say under 1000 penetration, before accounting any other sources of mitigation like major or minor protection)

malistorr · September 2022

I'm currently slotted to max mag and spell damage because of the hybridization changes of the recent patches. I did this because I like a lot of mag and mag recovery so I can almost perma-cloak. This is my only form of defense and helps keep me alive in fights because I'm a glass-cannon type. So I have all divines armor and the atronach mundus. Along with food and 1 magic recovery glyph I'm close to 2,500 mag recovery. I realize I could go with the lover mundus for better damage and I'd like to, but my mag recovery would suffer and I wouldn't be able to stay in cloak for very long.

My pen is only about 3-5K I believe so I'll try to change my bow to sharpened to see how it goes. I'll change my glyph to fire I guess since it was poison. If fire seems underwhelming I guess I can try oblivion or spell damage. I was hoping there would be a definitive answer as to what might be best but it sounds like it's all situational and ZOS did a good job of making sure that many options would be about the same. If anyone else has feedback please share and thanks so far.

Necrotech_Master · September 2022

if your using all divines with a recov mundus, thats approx 500 recov, so even if you dropped that i think you would still be around 2000 mag recov

and if you needed an extra skill to help with sustain you could get the siphon strikes mag morph which would give you a heal and recovery when doing light/heavy attacks, or even just the burst mag after the skill times out (i know your limited on bar space due to oaken, but if you dont have to worry about other buffs and have a good rotation with 3 attacks then you could still make use of it)

another option would be the refreshing path which grants minor recovery buffs, but im assuming you use a combination of shadow image and cloak for defensive measures and then 3 attacks

my stam NB doesnt use invis cloak (i use dark cloak for an extra heal) as im set up a little more like a brawler and i dont feel like i have too many stam issues with 2100 stam recov unless im dodge rolling a lot

malistorr · September 2022

For my build to work in most fights where I'm not in a huge group just zerging people down, I really need the 2,500k mag recovery because of the high cost of the cloak skill and the fact that you have to recast it every 2.5-seconds or so. Sometimes I swap the infused mag recovery ring and go with infused spell damage instead if I feel like I won't need to be hidden for long periods of time. But I notice a difference even with dropping 300 recovery or so. I'm already getting minor recovery buffs from Oakensoul.

I don't think Siphoning Attacks will work for me as it doesn't return magic fast enough and I don't have bar space. I use:

1. Lethal Arrow (buffed by Vate bow)
2. Poison Injection (execute, will replace with Impale to get the Hemmorrhage passive)
3. Concealed Weapon (more damage and speed) barely use melee skill
4. Inner Light - (crit chance, max mag, find other nbs)
5. cloak to hide and stay alive

Necrotech_Master · September 2022

the only thing i would suggest for the skills is that inner light is probably going to be a bit more meh

the problem with inner light is that oaken is giving you those crit chance buff, so realistically your only getting the tiny amount of max mag and the reveal

you might get a bit better bonus out of slotting flare, that would net you major protection (which oaken does not give), and still give you the anti stealth, although it would be at a target location instead of around you

or you could drop it entirely and run detect pots, im not sure if you can buy those from the alliance war vendor, but they definitely can be crafted

that would give free up a slot on your bar for both poison injection and impale, although honestly impale is slow to use and requires the target to be below 25% to even get the bonus so you might be better off slotting like assassins will, as that will also give you an additional burst dmg (from the proc), and some additional dmg as you build stacks

malistorr · September 2022

I've tried both of those skills. I don't really need the protection because of stealth and I like having the reveal around me instead of targeted. If I drop the detect skill I may just slot a heal instead as I frequently get annoyed by not being able to heal without using a pot. It both causes me to burn through pots quickly which gets expensive and/or leave fights at least temporarily to go wait for my health to return. or I'll use Merciless Resolve again. I was a bit underwhelmed using it the 1st time. Maybe because my pen is low and everyone seems tanky these days.

Necrotech_Master · September 2022

merciless resolve is pretty good for doing a burst combo with meteor as you can get them to land pretty close together, and i have hit squishy people with them for good amounts of dmg, if they are tanky enough that skill wont register much dmg, then neither will snipe as its about approx 4-6k less base dmg than the proc on assassins will

if your doing good with focus on the bow, then you could slot a heal such as vigor, im assuming you are more of a solo player so resolving vigor would probably be better for you (stronger heal and minor resolve, not provided by oaken)

if you want a reveal, then i would say use whatever your comfortable with using

the tank meta is real for sure lol, which is why balorgh monster set can help (spending 500 ult with that grants about 11500 pen and 500 more dmg) and if your at about 5k pen, then you would get boosted to like almost 17k pen for 10 sec, basically the duration of your toxic barrage

Zodiarkslayer · September 2022

My experience is that perma cloak and oakensoul do not mix well. I tried it. I failed. I moved on.

If you want to perma cloak with a Nightblade, there is no better set than Vestures of Darloc Brae. But you have to use two bars to get your defense on one bar and your offense on the other bar.

If you want to Broakenbow, there is no way to fit perma cloak sustain into that build, without giving up a lot of damage. In your case the penetration part of damage.
In the current 30k Meta there is no way one lonely Nightblade is notching kills without about 15k penetration plus Major Breach.

My build worked the best once I moved away from stealth and learned how to utilize mobility and I switched to Crushing Weapon from the Psijic skill line.
But that was just me. Your milage may vary.

malistorr · September 2022

You are right about giving up damage. I have about 2,500 mag recovery to be able to perma cloak. I have tried Darloc Brae. Heck, I've tried probably everything. And I get a lot of kills and have a lot of success. But the build is mostly a support role in terms of killing. I need to be following players that are distracting the enemy. If I just run up on 1-10 enemy alone I'm probably not going to be taking out any decent players. But honestly that would be the case even if I was 100% speced into damage. Everyone is just way too tanky and has too much health these days. The bow abilities are just so under-powered because of all the nerfs in the past few years and poison arrow take an absurdly long amount of time to even fire, especially in the horrible lag that is grey host. When I fire that skill I slowly walk around with the bow pointed in the air and maybe the skill fires, maybe it doesn't, and half the time I'm dead because of the skill "getting stuck". I need a combination of speed and mag recovery to stay alive. If I build for mostly damage I will just increase my deaths by quite a bit and I'll have to constantly hide behind a big group to stay alive. I'm still tweaking things to find what balance I like best. I don't like the new tank/healing meta. It's nice that players can stay alive a bit longer but having tanks that take 10 DPS to kill, and it takes a few minutes, is pretty ridiculous.

blktauna · October 2022

I've basically given up on bow in Cyrodil because of the horrendous skill delay. That and their location calcs are so wrong I'm told a target is out of range when I'm on top of it. I can't even tab target some people.