Bow lacks any damage

ArRashid · April 2014

So it wasn't all that obvious till VR levels, but in VR archers (nightblade ones) are really, REALLY weak - killing a singe mob takes about 10 hits and most, if not entire, resource bar (takes over 10 seconds mostly, outside crit-streaks). There was a pyromancer earlier today who was literally cutting though whole packs of the same mobs like a lightsaber through cheese - Silver Shards to initiate while still running, Talons, 2x Impulse - all dead. Whole killing combo took maybe 2 seconds and mobs barely scratched him. Now the same for me - sneak -> Heavy attack+Venom arrow -> Bombard -> light -> light -> Bombard ->heavy+Venom -> Impale ->Bombard -> Impale. You get the idea.

As a nighblade archer with Venom Arrow / Impale / Shadowy Disguise / Bombard / Funnel Health bar I can't seem to do almost any damage.
Every fight now feels like Molag Bal fight - mosquito stings trying to bring down a big guy.
Since Impale is only really effective under 25% HP and Funnel Health is only there for survival (aka VR mobs hit like a TRUCK even from range and after blocking most of it) as it deals no significant damage, I have:
- light attack. Heavys would be better, but you can't block while charging them, which proves deadly at VR and they charge for about 50% longer than most other weapons, or at least feel that way
- Venom Arrow - instant damage equal to light attack or less, DoT that is barely noticable (practically only in the bar for "some" single target ability (Silver Shards deals a tiny bit higher damage at a cost of double stamina) and mostly just for ranged interrupt - due to projectile speed however, mostly useless)
- Funnel Health - again damage equal to light attack.. at least it heals for a bit
- Bombard - again damage of light attack... in a cone. Immobilize is applied "when it feels like it", and most likely not when you need it

To me, it simply seems that Nightblade archer has no ability with higher damage than light attack. Sure, there are 2 better abilities but those require (and/or force) melee range and stealth to be effective.

Guild abilities, that could potentially be helpful, have really low damage even compared to my other skills (looking at you, Entropy), or simply cost about twice as much as any other ability (Silver Shards)..

I really hope there will be some interesting ranged options for Nightblade in skill lines of Dark Brotherhood and Thieves guild, but I'm not too optimistic about that.
Our "utility" skills:
- Haste - broken, works probably only with 2h weapons, with every other seems to have no effect at all
- Mark Target - according to some it's bugged as well, otherwise a suicide button in VR, as if you get aggro, you're most likely to die even if you block
- ....

For now, I've respecced to Vampire Bloodmage healer.. which also means that for soloing I'm even more hopeless than ever, since I've lost even the physical crit from medium armor, making even my mosquito bites less potent.

Crescent · April 2014

Everything has a truckload more HP.

Dragonknights by far stand above the other classes for vet rank soloing, mostly because their AoE class skills are good. And vet rank solo PvE is all about AoE burst because even armor and spell resist over cap will see you killed fairly quickly.

Then you have sorcerer casters. It's such a ridiculously easy playstyle, along with bow because both negate most of the threats if you stay mobile. It's really dumb how much easier it is when you can CC 3 out of 4 mobs with a root and just nuke the ranged mob in the meantime while as melee you're getting pummeled by 4 mobs that hit like a truck.

The only reason you are suffering as a bow user is in the AoE department, because the bow is still broken OP for single boss encounters where you can just kite them to death.

lajnus86b16_ESO · April 2014

Crescent wrote: »

Everything has a truckload more HP.

Dragonknights by far stand above the other classes for vet rank soloing, mostly because their AoE class skills are good. And vet rank solo PvE is all about AoE burst because even armor and spell resist over cap will see you killed fairly quickly.

Then you have sorcerer casters. It's such a ridiculously easy playstyle, along with bow because both negate most of the threats if you stay mobile. It's really dumb how much easier it is when you can CC 3 out of 4 mobs with a root and just nuke the ranged mob in the meantime while as melee you're getting pummeled by 4 mobs that hit like a truck.

The only reason you are suffering as a bow user is in the AoE department, because the bow is still broken OP for single boss encounters where you can just kite them to death.

Kiting has nothing to do with damage output, the damage output from bow is pretty bad all weapon lines suffer from bad actives and bad scaling, and bad abilities to synergize its not just bow all of them, best ones are prolly restostaff/dual wield and destro staff, others have huge problematic issues.

they work but they need to be overlooked.

Maximis_ESO · April 2014

LOL, the bow is not lacking in damage. Get recount and see for yourself.

Alerno · April 2014

I'm only 37 Nightblade bow player, but have noticed a huge drop in bow AoE damage ever since level 30. While doing dungeons if I try to use my AoE skills I get either no hits or so little that I don't get exp or loot from the mobs. Before 30 I could just start with AoE while the tank and melees charge in and get hits on all the mobs.
And yes I know there is coming AoE nerf, but I'm not talking about number of mobs I can hit, but pure damage.
According the skill tool tip my Arrow Barrage does massive 15 points per half second for 3 seconds, for total of 90 points. The mobs die in 2 seconds so no loot for me.

Crescent · April 2014

The damage is not low. I think you people underestimate just how drastically mob HP in vet ranks is scaled up.

And weaponskills don't scale any worse, if anything, their damage formulas actually scale with veteran rank weapons, whereas magicka class based abilities get stuck at their maximum rank damage and don't scale as well.

It's also part of the reason why you may feel weak transitioning into veteran content. Just get weapon upgrades. A blue weapon of your level is appropriate.

I've gone full caster, and outside pulsar spam it isn't that impressive against veteran rank mobs either. Dual wield is right up there with it, it just lacks the AoE stamina based skill damage.

And don't expect to have damage comparable to dual wield, because it should never happen. Melee should always come ahead in order to balance out the risk and positioning inconvenience of playing one. Caster sorcerers are just an outlier and should be brought in line.

I've seen archers in VR just chain kite public bosses by themselves to death where most melee or casters with no roots get wiped by. It'd be really unfair if archers output competitive damage with melee.

And btw in Tamriel Foundry it has been proved that bow attacks actually do more damage than 2H.

Eivar · May 2014

Crescent wrote: »

Dual wield is right up there with it, it just lacks the AoE stamina based skill damage.

As a vr 3 NB i have to agree about DW's AoE dmg, but i've found some skill combos that work pretty well for my AoE bar.

Mirage>Lotus Fan>Drain Power>Whirlwind
seems to work pretty well for me though i wouldn't say it's fantastic dps.....you certainly can't have whirlwind on your bar with your single target stuff and expect to dps competitively.

Crescent · May 2014

All those other AoE's you listed are class based. Some classes like the sorcerer have no good class based AoE. So they're pretty much forced to split stats more and pick up a destro staff for Pulsar/Elemental Ring.

apterous · May 2014

i am v3 nightblade archer and i do just fine, can take packs of 3-4 and do well. i'm single target dps.

Rhythmic · May 2014

ArRashid wrote: »

So it wasn't all that obvious till VR levels, but in VR archers (nightblade ones) are really, REALLY weak...
Whole killing combo took maybe 2 seconds and mobs barely scratched him. Now the same for me - sneak -> Heavy attack+Venom arrow -> Bombard -

Stopped read after that.

nhisso · May 2014

Did you seriously just say bows don't do high damage? LOL!!!

Valmond · May 2014

At vr10, i can do quite reasonable dps with a bow (single target skills), even without any bow passives, even with medium stamina (1,4k or so), wand without any medium armor passives (using light).

Not sure how it would scale with passives and more stamina, but i doubt it would suddenly get bad.

Azuriel02 · May 2014

I do believe that one of the best way to go through VR content as a bow user (and only bow) is to use the Bombard skill (arrow cone that immobilise your target).

I'm v10 since more than two weeks now, and the only real issue while I was leveling was either immune to CC's bosses, or a pack of three mages (well, depend which) or a pack of three mobs with a healer. And I was often outleveled.

These were the only situation where a bowyer could die (or HAVE to die) in my opinion.

But as you said, it takes time cause you CC them, then single dps one, then CC them, then single dps one, and repeat. And when you see a sorcerer that pass next to you and clean packs of mobs in 3 seconds while you take 30s to clean one pack, yeah of course it's legit to wonder if you are doing right.

Enrayha · May 2014

Im v10 Nightblade and the singletarget damage of bows sux. But i kill during normal farming ( no ae ) 3er mob packs as easy as with my dualwield or Greatsword.

Why? Im manabased and use more the stealth/stun combo and play him in low range for that and magnum for meeles. Only ranged mobs hits me but they are the first targets for the surpriseattack.

But for V10 dung bosses i would imho prefer a destro or heal staff if u want to play range. Maybe i dont get it but i am only arround 200 dps during a bossfight who needs only tank and spank. With the others im arround 300 and with dualwield i hit the 400dps.

Ae farming is for me on the to do list with that. But well u can easy farm 5-10mobs with dualwield or destrostaff as nightblade when u use ur ae stun ulti + firerune from mageguild + a timed stealth.

U dont need to tank the mobs down.

Keiffo · May 2014

IDK what you are doing wrong, if anything, but for me the bow is the only thing I can get to work very well.

up to 1.6k DPS AoE in vet dungeons, up to 500 DPS single target boss fights (if I can damage them from far enough away).

I'm a NB VR10 bow user with a +580 armour reduction legendary weapon enchantment. That probably helps a lot. Not sure if it triggers off bombard, if it does, very good.

I tried building up a dual wield setup, and I cannot do it properly at all, I can't get the DPS others have with dual wield and cannot figure out why...

Halrloprillalar · May 2014

Crescent wrote: »

All those other AoE's you listed are class based. Some classes like the sorcerer have no good class based AoE. So they're pretty much forced to split stats more and pick up a destro staff for Pulsar/Elemental Ring.

lolwat

Lightning flood hello? even without a synergy its damage is comparable to pulsar (but much safer since you can be farther away). WITH synergy it is FAR superior to pulsar.

even fire rune isn't too bad (not class skill I know, but still it is in the 'mages' guild).

Crescent · May 2014

Yeah, no, you don't know what you're talking about. Without the synergy the DPS from flood is not even comparable to Pulsar or Elemental Ring. Wall of Elements by far is the better fire and forget aoe.

ArRashid · May 2014

Crescent wrote: »

Yeah, no, you don't know what you're talking about. Without the synergy the DPS from flood is not even comparable to Pulsar or Elemental Ring. Wall of Elements by far is the better fire and forget aoe.

Well dunno, according to tooltip on lvl 1, Lightning Splash deals 3 damage every 0.5 sec for 3 sec (=18 dmg) while Wall of Elements deal 2 dmg every 0.9 sec for 2.5 sec (=6 dmg). Except splash scales with spell power and wall with weapon damage, so idk how their damage compares on high levels.

Crescent · May 2014

Weaponskills scale better with weapon upgrades. Magicka based class skills cap at 50 formula, while weapon skills keep getting buffed with veteran rank weapon increases that factor into their damage formula.

Impulse is really, really strong. So is wall of elements because the fire version does 10% additional damage on top of the base in addition for the additional chances to cause the burning proc.

Lightning Flood is pretty much worthless if the synergy is not used. It's purely a group skill. Which is why I've advocated that they either buff its damage or turn the synergy into an automatic detonation when the spell ends.

steinernein · May 2014

Lightning Flood isn't a bad spell, but it requires your team to shuffle around their skills to accommodate for it to take advantage of the synergy -- I think, if I am not mistaken, that a tank can activate it to help draw aggro.

In terms of self-sufficiency, Impulse and Volatile Familiar are pretty much your only choice. Volatile Familiar, however, is weapon agnostic and is probably far more sustainable and does more damage while not needing as many support skills. The draw backs are that its radius is slightly smaller than Impulse.

ArRashid · May 2014

I think synergies so far are a little flawed - they seem to require a person who just stands by and occasionally push X, because:
- by far most synergies are only open with minimal range and time window - like Flood, Talons, etc
- pressing X while in the middle of a long (practically ANY for practical use) animation won't do anything.

And since I'm playing pyromancer now, I can say that activating any synergy is a PAIN:
- staff animation takes 0.5 (light) to 2(heavy) seconds
- Burning Talons animation takes about 1 second
- Blockade of Fire animation takes about 1.5 seconds
...
and don't forget keystroke lag which seems to persist in this game, making ability activation highly unreliable..

most synergy opportunities are gone till I can push X. Except maybe Gravity Crush and Shackle and such that hold for entire duration, respectively till one of the group pushes X.

And that really gimps my dps in dungeons, since half the time noone of the whole group uses Impale synergy, making Burning Talons just an expensive CC with half the potential damage..

BloodStorm · May 2014

Bombard morph roots all enemies infront of you and Scorched earth rains fire arrows down for damage and then burns them. I use this combo even on single target with siphoning strikes for awesome magicka / stamina regen when I use any attack ability. Pretty much destroy everything but ya it can take a bit to kill things but the amount of CC you have is GODLIKE and I spam Shadowdisguise when I need it. I can win most fight without even being touched PVE wise.