Newbie here, looking for some early game/solo viable bow builds.

Flipd · March 23

Big fan of bows in general and wanted to main one similar to its playstyle, can someone suggest me a few builds for general pve content.. mostly going to be leveling solo aswell. (i dont own any dlc just base game)

Zodiarkslayer · March 23

There really is no one Bow build to rule them all. Class choice and spammable choice are crucial, because you need to feel the comfortable with it. The best build might not work for you if you aren't capable enough at weaving, positioning and keeping up stacks. For that reason I use Orders Wrath and Gourmand. Not a high ceiling, but simple and reliable.

My preference is to stack crit damage and chance bonuses (75%cc with 124%cd) and have a comparatively lower weapon damage at 5.5k.
Before subclassing, my BowBow Wood elf was a pure Stamina Sorcerer, but nowadays it's almost stupid not to use Assassination and Animal Companions.

My experience with Bow builds is that you need to be thinking about your spammable first and foremost. Everything else kind of derives from this decision.
Snipe is only good if you intend to keep distance and are good enough at weaving to keep the Hawk Eye passive up.
Crystal Weapon is also very good for competent weavers.
Dive has a weird animation and needs getting used to the distance management. But it still is strong.
Imbue Weapon is also an option, but again weaving ...
And also think about that all your other abilities need to be ranged as well.
Sorcerer pets, the Bear and Banner Bearer are all legitimate options.

Hope I could help.

tsaescishoeshiner · March 23

For leveling, you want crafted gear.

Someone can craft you Hunding's Rage and Order's Wrath, which will work pretty much anywhere. For battlegrounds, Night Mother's Gaze is nice. UESP.net has a page of crafted sets, you may see one that looks fun.

That will work until you find something you want to farm for. There are some bow/bow builds that do well enough even for veteran DLC dungeons (which are harder than basegame), but your build will look somewhat different then. You won't need to think about other gear until CP 160, at which point you can still use crafted sets to grind out what you want, but I recommend gold weapons (gives a ~200 weapon/spell damage boost) and purple everything else.

You can pick a class you like, use one spammable ability and as many DoTs and damage buffs as you can and at least one heal, and you're good to go.

I recommend at least two stamina recovery jewelry enchantments to learn how to manage stamina.

Item trait: Divines for dungeons/battlegrounds because you fight better. And training only if you're doing skyreach/dragonstar arena (dsa), because training only boosts monster kill exp (which is usually very low compared to quest/daily random completion exp).

I hope this makes sense—I didn't explain everything out just so it didn't get too wordy.

Kalthea · March 23

I think everyone missed the Newbie part, judging by how readily some terms are being thrown around.

Honestly, if you would like an early build, stick with bow and use the cone and arrow rain attacks for groups, and use snipe and arrow rain for single target. You'll learn over time to add in other Damage Over Time attacks and buffs from your class skill lines.

For armor, try hunting around the early zones for some armor sets that interest you. If you go into your collections tab, and swap over to the fifth tab at the top i believe it is (currently on phone, sorry!) you can search sets by zone to see what armor sets can drop for you. The important thing to keep in mind is that different pieces come from different sources. You won't find a ring on a dungeon boss, for example.

Just search up the zone you are currently in and see what set bonuses you like from it. It will go quite a ways to helping you discover new stuff!

TL;DR: Read everything you have access to!

Zodiarkslayer · March 23

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=566788

Here is a build of my former StamSorc, now thoroughly awesomemised with Subclassing. 😉
Works great with a tank companion.

Soarora · March 23

Bow/bow sorcerer was my first ever build! I’ve always enjoyed Snipe, it’s very bow and it’s a really good skill to get introduced to weaving with (light attacking before you cast the ability, the light attack window for Snipe is pretty intuitive and you can see if you did it right because you’ll shoot 2 arrows). For an overland starter build, I’d suggest going sorcerer or nightblade. Sorcerer has access to streak/ball of lightning as well as dark convergence. The former will let you teleport across gaps whilst the latter lets you generate magicka from stamina. Using streak/ball of lightning and hurricane, you can be pretty fast on foot.
Nightblade is because of cloak which makes doing dark brotherhood and thieves guild quests a whole lot easier.

I want to throw out there though that while you can kind of attack things from afar, please do not stand in the corner in group content (like dungeons). You should aim to stand in front of the healer. If the healer is an actual healer, they’ll be dropping buffs and heals in front of them. Being in the corner means you don’t get those buffs and it makes it more frustrating to heal you. This will mean standing close to the boss.

If you want to do a sick backflip, look into scribing: https://eso-hub.com/en/scribing