Recent Discussions — Elder Scrolls Online

Here's the thing. A game is meant to be fun. After a day's work, you want to relax, explore the surroundings, look for treasure chests and see what's under that stone. You want to do a dungeon with people who won't yell at you or kick you because you aggroed the entire room, or because you're not doing enough DPS, or because you died in every fight. How do you ever learn if you're expected to be uber out the box? You want to take the quest slowly, listen to what's being said and watch the NPCs do their thing. You want to enjoy the stories, the scenery, and all the little extras. And if you're a new player, you want someone who will be helpful when you ask how you know if you have mail, and where do you find it.

We're looking for players who like being in a smaller guild where you can get to know people. Where you'll come and chat on Teamspeak while playing. Where you'll group up with others for dolmens, delves and dailies. If you ask for help, there's a good chance you'll get it, and if someone else asks for help, you're happy to lend a hand. If someone wants to jump naked off the nose for an achievement, you go along because you think it'll be fun. Where you try out non-standard builds because they look like fun and you want to make them work. Really, is a bow-wielding sorcerer with pets viable as a ranger? Let's find out.

We have had members who never say a word, never join in, never respond and they eventually just leave. We've also had members who try and dictate builds and will only play with the best, sneering at those who don't match up. They also leave. We've even had members who wanted to change the way the guild runs. They have most definitely left. But mostly we have members who share knowledge, join in, when they can, banter, offer positive advice and will even whizz you at high speed through a dungeon so you can get the achievement. It's up to you. Try and start things. Join in when you can. Shrug and wait for next time if it doesn't work out now.

I'm not looking for numbers and dead wood. I do remove players who haven't been on for three months, it does look like they're not coming back. I'm more interested in a small, close-knit community that plays together, than a big, faceless guild. I'm more interested in a positive approach, and if the instance is going badly we can change our jewellery, try different food, maybe put on some new skills and try and figure out what we're doing wrong so we can fix it. Together. Yes, failure can be frustrating and even depressing, but we can learn the mechanics and be better next time.

We have an open bank policy, and the bank is aimed mainly at crafters, with materials, motifs, recipes and all the food you need for provisioning writs.

We have some players in their twenties, but they were probably born old. The rest of us are over thirty, sometimes well over thirty. Some even have kids in the guild who are thirty-plus. Others have small kids that start crying in the middle of a dungeon, and we wait patiently while they sort that out.

We also have a facebook page, and a website, both of which cover the community we have built across many games: the guild started in the original Guild Wars, and members of that era keep starting up guilds in different games. The current ESO guild was started by a member who joined us in GW2. We don't really arrange formal events any more; dungeon groups are only four players, and hey, maybe we can try doing it with a duo? Though sometimes we'll arrange a fishing competition, or something else on a spontaneous whim.

If you think you'll fit into the scenario, message me on the forums on@cyberjanet, as I will be on holiday until 20 July.

Edit: We're looking at holding guild membership between 75 and 80 players. Active recruitment is closed, but we might be able to accommodate you.

DISCLAIMER: No information below is in any way based on experience using bow/bow setups in high level (score pushing) veteran trials. Everything said is based solely on my own experience and testing and different people can get different results. Everyone should be well aware that ranged stamina builds ( = bow/bow) lack on DPS, utility and survivability to either magicka dd, stamina melee dd or both.

In short, main point of this guide is to show how to make bow/bow work in any content and for any user.

BASICS
Race: Redguard, Imperial, Khajiit, Bosmer
All four races are viable, but the best pick is redguard, because even on bow build we can somewhat reliably get the sustain from redguard passive even tho it works only on melee. Poison/Disease enchantments on weapon and new Relequen sets can activate it. Second pick could be Imperial or Khajiit. The difference is very minimal. And bosmer is mostly just for the looks or roleplay. The very small regen gain over other racial choices is in no way worth the damage loss.

Food/Drink: Dubious Camoran Throne or Artaeum Takeaway Broth
Always. Sustain is the most important thing (in general and double so on bow). Dubious is cheap, Broth is better, but much more expensive version with very small difference. Don't do maxHP/maxStam food even if you are sustaining 6M dummy with it. And don't do maxStam/regen food even if you think you aren't squishy.

Potions: Stamina+Brutality+Savagery, Stamina+Savagery+Health (must find other source for Major Brutality)

Mundus: Lover or Warrior
What every DD wants is to get high enough penetration that with all other trial buffs and debuffs bosses are close to being stripped naked. There are 4 basic ways to get necessary penetration - CP, Mundus, Sets and Traits. To simplify this choice as much as possible aim at 7000-7500 value (total). In this case it means pick lover if you lack 4000 or more penetration to that value, otherwise pick warrior. To simplify it even more, pick Lover if you have low amount of CP or are not using sets that give penetration.

UNIVERSAL SKILLS
There are several skills you will want to use on any class and most of them have no alternative. First, the most obvious backbar trio (on any stamina build) is Poison Injection, Endless Hail and Razor Caltrops. These skills (and morphs) are mandatory to even attempt reaching respectable DPS. Your semi-spammable AoE skill to damage more enemies is Acid Spray. The other morph of it, called Bombard, is useful if you are beginner or playing solo a lot, but can't compare damage wise. As for main single target spammable skills there are few options. Any morph of Snipe for most damage, but cast time with movement slow can make the use annoying or even dangerous. In that case Psijic skill Crushing Weapon or Warden skill Cutting Dive can be used as instant (less damaging) spammables. To get Minor Force buff use either Fighters Guild Trap Beast or Psijic Accelerate. One morph of Trap Beast forces you to melee range which could be undesirable and second one either requires casting it twice in rotation or losing half the uptime. Both of these issues can be solved by using (preferable morph of Accelerate) Channeled Acceleration to gain Minor Force buff for long time.
To survive all the punishing mechanics, slotting Vigor is never bad choice.
For ultimates, the choices don't differ much either. If you aren't Warden you will need to have Flawless Dawnbreaker on front bar and Ballista on backbar, because these will give you most damage. Warden will want to have Wild Guardian on both bars for any content that doesn't make pets useless or dangerous. For the rest, the same two ultimates as other classes.

CLASS SKILLS
Nightblade must have skills are Relentless Focus and Leeching Strikes, but for some situations using Reaper's Mark or Killer's Blade can be beneficial.

Sorcerer will always slot Bound Armaments on front bar (but preferably on both bars) for the amazing passives it gives. If you can or have to stand in melee range, Hurricane is very good skill that offers even useful armor and speed buff. Critical Surge for some amazing self heals is always recommended when bar space allows it or content demands it. Greater Storm Atronach can be used as alternative to Ballista, giving you less DPS, but offering powerful synergy to others and temporarily increasing your health.

Warden skill bars will always include Subterranean Assault and Bull Netch. Cutting Dive as mentioned above, if needed instant spammable, and Wild Guardian for ultimate. There are many skills in Warden's toolbox that can offer different levels of utility. Most notably Ice Fortress to help with survivability and Green Lotus for self heals or sustain passive (when healing others), but almost any skill Warden has can be used to help dealing with difficult mechanics or when playing solo.

Templar will always have Power of the Light and Repentance. If there is bar space, having any Aedric Spear skill on front bar (and even back bar) for the passive is recommended too.

Dragonknight has no obvious must have skills. Venomous Claw or Noxious Breath can be very useful and the first one even significant DPS gain, but both limit user to melee range. Flames of Oblivion has greater range (still not very large) so that is recommended skill to always slot and use when situations allows. If forced to melee range, ultimate Dragonknight Standard can be used as alternative to Ballista.

CHAMPION POINTS
There isn't big difference in red or green trees regarding CP allocation compared to different builds. So can always use those recommended values or change it depending on content. Since this guide is aimed at any CP level giving clear values for max CP could confuse others and giving values for every CP level would just make my life difficult.
So in simplified version, in red part aim for Ironclad, Hardy, Elemental Defender, Thick Skinned. Having some points in Quick Recovery at least to unlock first passive Field Physician can be very useful too.
In green tree, getting stamina recovery from Mooncalf to 10% should be your main goal with having 14% or even 15% at max CP. Rest is mostly equal distribution between Warlord, Tenacity, Tumbling and Shadow Ward.
For blue tree there is no clear and universal distribution of CP because every class and build work differently. If you have absolutely no idea what to do, putting similar amount of points into Master-at-Arms, Thaumaturge, Precise Strikes and Mighty will be close enough to good, but make sure to supply points to Piercing too to achieve the total (set, mundus, trait, CP) penetration of 7000-7500. Usually having around 30-38 points is good amount. If you are more familiar with your build, calculating own CP or using addon Constellations with Combat Metrics can help you greatly. If you are at max or close to max CP and cant bother with any of this, just copy my distribution from build links at the end of guide.

GEAR
Primary (body) set: Relequen, Vicious Ophidian, Twice-Fanged Serpent, Strength of the Automaton (sorcerer or templar), Hunding's Rage, War Machine (warden)
Obvious choice this patch is overperforming Relequen set, but this set is not useful in every boss situation and obviously not when clearing mobs. Interestingly enough, such situations always benefit from AoE damage or more sustain because of spamming and recasting AoE abilities making Vicious Ophidian perfect replacement for Relequen. If you can't afford to use more sets than one don't make that first choice to be Relequen.

Secondary (weapon) set: War Machine (warden), Briarheart, Vicious Ophidian, Hunding's Rage
The best set for weapon are those that make you lose the least when swapping from it to back bar (where more preferable unique bows have place). This makes mostly War Machine and Briarheart very good choices. But having VO or Hunding on weapons make you lose least amount of stats (compared to other primary sets) and most importantly not lose any stacked buffs (like TFS or Relequen would).

Monster set: Stormfist, Velidreth
In my opinion, 99% of the time you should use Stormfist. Sustain is everything and Stormfist is one of the cheapest (damage being currency) ways to get it. Velidreth with its range still offers some usefulness. All other monster sets are noticeably worse than these two picks and should be preferably avoided (exception is Slimecraw and its usefulness in content where healers can't get good enough Combat Prayer Uptime)

Back bar weapon: Maelstrom Bow, Master Bow, Bow of Secondary set
Your backbar is place for unique bows. There is no choice. If you don't have any, you obviously use same bow as on front to at least get your secondary set on both bars. If you can get Master bow, you put that one there, but your ultimate goal will always be to get the Maelstrom Bow, because it is the most significant DPS boosting piece of gear.

TRAITS AND ENCHANTMENTS
Armor: Divines with Stamina
Jewelry: Infused with Weapon Damage
Weapons: Nirnhoned or Infused with Poison Damage, Weapon Damage and/or Alchemy Double Damage Poisons
For armor and jewelry the choices are pretty clear. Having Infused (on armor) or Robust (on jewelry) is still pretty much good enough, your goal is to eventually farm or transmute everything to the best traits.
Armor enchants are generally stamina ones, but you can always place Tri Stat enchantments or health enchantments to gain necessary health pool values.
Jewelry, when trying to get best DPS, is without doubt always enchanted with weapon damage. But if you keep struggling with sustain (not having stamina is always bigger DPS loss than losing weapon damage) using stamina regen glyph is possible.
Weapon traits and enchantments aren't as clear. Having alchemy poisons (damage health with 2 damage over time) on back bar is the best way which makes Nirn trait preferable, but if you can't bother or afford to craft those, use Infused Trait with Berserker (= power = weapon damage) enchantment. On front bar the best is in my opinion Nirn with Poison enchantment, but you can use Infused too (more single target) or even Infused with Berserker (more AoE damage) if you don't use that on back bar already. Important note for Redguards here. Poison Enchant procs Adrenaline Rush and it's the main way to gain sustain from that passive. Unless you use Relequen (that does it too) always go for Infused with Poison Enchant and even if you dont use Relequen keep at least the Poison Enchant (with Nirn trait) when swapping to different set

Not updated part

Regarding stamina sustain

Bow builds come with rather unique problem of sustaining in current heavy attack meta. Simplified, it could be said that for best DPS always avoid heavy attacks as much as possible. Every heavy attacks on bow comes with no extra perks than slightly more damage and resources gained than on other weapons for the price of very long animation that snares character, creates situation where Hawk Eye passive stack can be lost, obviously lowers your DPS because you aren't casting anything during it and has increased chance to cause animation and combat bug that could results in confusion, canceled heavy attack (no resources), delayed release (dps loss) or in most rare and worst case disable you from doing anything. Also remember that during heavy attack casting, using potion or poison injection cancels heavy attack prematurely.

All this leads to higher need to focus on sustain when it comes to bow builds. Now how to achieve it varies by race, class, skills used, combat scenario, support from group and your own perfection of rotation.
To achieve required sustain while keeping usage of heavy attacks at minimum (lets say maximum 1 per rotation in dummy parse) there are several tools. I try to order them based on what they offer and at what cost (usually getting better sustain means losing some damage)

All free resource management tools available. Those are class specific skills and CP. They all can offer various amount of stamina/sec.
Vampire passive. Being vampire has no damage loss, but can affect your survivability in negative manner. Nearly always worth it. Gives you 25-50 stamina/sec (depends on amount of regen)
Race change to Redguard. The damage difference between khajiit an redguard is minimal, but redguard passive Adrenaline Rush, activated by your poison and disease enchant (on your infused frontbar bow) is usually 100 stamina/sec. Very worth it.
Dubious Camoran Throne Drink. One of the most significant sustain tools, but at big price. Will cost you some stamina (damage loss) and health, which you will need to get from other sources (usually trading more stamina to get the health -> another damage loss). Depending on the regen buffs, this is around 250-315 stamina/sec.
Stormfist Monster set. Big advantage of this set is how it synergies with bow playstyle. This set will proc from any damage and any range, doing AoE damage. While giving you regen on the 1st bonus. Obviously this means less damage than from other monster sets (like velidreth). Depending on buffs, this can be 100-129 stamina/sec.
Vicious serpent set (5th bonus). Best sustain set in the game, that still gives enough damage to be considered worth the use. This set would be must have choice, but unfortunately having this means we are losing any damage gained from monster set, since we cant use 2x 5 piece and monster like DW builds do. Offers great amount of sustain, in some situations even more than necessary.
Drop Acid Spray. This skill, while great, costs a lot. So, while still always use it in AoE fights, you can drop it in single target from your rotation if you are struggling. Stamina gained (saved) very much depends on what you cast instead. On warden if you cast cutting dive instead, you will save around 100stamina/sec.
Stamina Cost Reduction Glyph or Stamina Regen Glyph. The last and worst way to get more sustain. In controlled fights where you just perform your rotation, cost reductions outputs better, but in fights where you do other stuff and in between fights, regen is much more valuable. The price is steep however. You will sacrifice 179 weapon damage for 169 regen (compare this trade to above stormfist vs velidreth, where you trade 129 damage for 129 regen). Always use at maximum 1 cost reduction glyph, but you can use whatever amount of regen glyphs you need. The cost reduction glyph will be usually worth (less than the value) in best situations 189 stamina/sec while the regen depending on buffs 135-165 stamina/sec all the time.

For reasons why wood elf was not choice here, see below on races. In short, redguard gives both more damage and sustain. And overall you lose unreasonable amount of damage on wood elf for very little sustain gain.

Best choice: Redguard Vampire with Stormfist and Dubious Drink

Regarding Racial choice

It is the same tale about race choice like with any other stamina builds. With just small differences. I personally believe, given lesser stamina pool (because of dubious drink) and crit (because of bow), khajiit performs the best of all races. But, and this is important, redguard offers much better sustain for almost no damage loss. Which makes redguard (as in any meta build) the best choice possible. It is because of Adrenaline rush, which we proc with poison/disease enchantment.

Now, there are 2 worse, but still arguably viable races. Bosmer and Imperial. Wood elves give us stamina regen, but very very low amount. Usually half of what redguard gives, while also having 4% less Max stamina). Imperial on the other hand, give us much more damage through his 10% max stam (same as redguard) while boosting our health (so you will have to sacrifice less stamina to get missing health from dubious), but offers no sustain, which can be problematic (and ultimately not worth it, if you have to start using regen glyphs for example).

Best choice: Redguard

Regarding weapon setup

Maelstrom bow is must for the best possible DPS. Master Bow helps noticeably too. Asylum bow is weak and the small DPS gain is rarely worth the sustain strain. Probably good to point out here, obviously use Maelstrom bow on same bar as Endless Hail, Master Bow on bar with poison injection and Asylum bow on bar with acid spray.

You will nearly always want to have Infused train on your front bar bow. It is both important for DPS and for redguard passive. Given the strength of Poison DoT, prefer Poison enchantment over Disease. If you don't use redguard and want to improve your AoE DPS at minimal loss in single target, you can use weapon enchantment too.

Backbar offers more choices. The best one is using Nirnhoned trait with double damage poisons (the craftable ones). Without poisons, use weapon glyph enchantment unless you have it on front bar. If you chose to use weapon damage enchantment on front bar, then you will want to have infused trait here too with either poison or disease enchantment. Remember this setup is worse than the best, but still very much close. Infused will also do nothing and will therefore be useless with crafted poisons.
Other viable choices are also Precise (in any situation) or Sharpened (when you lack penetration because you don't have best set, enough CP or good trial group).

Best choice: Infused Master/Maelstrom Bow with Poison enchantment on front bar. Nirnhoned Master/Maelstrom Bow with crafted double DoT poisons on back bar.

Regarding skills

Snipe is (unfortunately) the main spammable on bow builds. Warden is the only class that can use different skill (Cutting Dive). For all other classes you have choice of two morphs. Stam Sorc should always pick Focused Aim. Generally Focused Aim will always be better in situations without any other source of Minor Fracture and Lethal Arrow in rest. Pick what you prefer and what your usual group composition is.

Acid Spray, this skill will always be damage gain if you use it once per rotation and can sustain it. Always use it in AoE fights, but don't spam it and let at least half the DoT pass before using it again. In single target fights, it is still very good skill, but you can easily reach point where sustaining it costs you more DPS than you get. So always analyze your issues and experiment with not using it.

Lightweight trap. Good, but also expensive skill. For reasons known only to developers, this skill is significantly worse than the melee morph. So if you want, you can use that one. Lightweight will grant you only 6s of Minor Force (the reason we use this skill), but do not reapply it more than once in classic 10-12s rotation. If you struggle with casting it (it can get glitchy) or with resources, experient (like with Acid Spray) not using it and compare DPS results.

Other required skills should be self descriptive. Always use Poison Injection, Endless Hail, (Razor) Caltrops. There is no reason to skip them or replace them with anything else. Skills not mentioned here (or above in the list) are not mentioned for good reasons (=being bad), but feel free to ask anyway.

Regarding Warden

Recommended Gear: 5 TFS, 3 VO (Minor Slayer), Stormfist

With cutting dive as spammable, bow build on warden is easier to use and in combat scenario with many repositioning or blocking/dodging can even output better than Snipe with selfsnare and cast time. Avoid using snipe as spammable even if it offers most DPS on dummy.
You can try to use sub. assault every 3 seconds, but with heavy attacks it can be hard or even impossible. Always try to end front bar rotation with it and use weapon swap as animation cancel - this will also increase its damage, because trait on backbar bow will affect it.
Bear should always be used as ultimate, because it offers very large DPS increase. Unfortunately this class is currently very bad in PVE so all bear does is make your DPS at least close to what other bow builds can do. Lotus skill offers good self heal and given your distance from melee DDs (and possibly AoE damage) can be great sustain tool (healing allies -not you- on warden gives resources).
In situations that call for better survivability, Ice Fortress with armor buff and Minor Protection can be very helpful. Same goes for Shimmering shield (very handy in VMA)

Example of rotation: Endless Hail -> LA -> Trap -> LA -> Caltrops -> (LA -> Lotus if used -> LA -> Netch - if running out) -> Bar Swap -> Poison Injection -> LA -> Sub. Assault -> HA -> Acid Spray -> LA -> Cutting Dive -> LA - > (Cutting Dive -> LA untill last second before bar swap) -> Sub. Assault > Bar Swap
Use bear ulti when it is ready.

Regarding Nightblade

Recommended Gear: 5 TFS, 5 VO

The possibly best bow class when it comes to damage. Has the best sustain and can self DPS 6M dummy without ever using heavy attacks with just class skills, Dubious and Vicious Serpent (real combat may or may not have force you to sometimes heavy attack). If you want, you can slot Killer's Blade and move to melee range on execution phase. It is good DPS gain, and it is just for short time to make sense even on ranged build.

Example rotation: Pre-fight: Leeching Strikes, Relentless Focus
Endless Hail -> LA -> Trap -> LA -> Caltrops -> (LA -> Ballista if ready) -> Bar Swap -> Poison Injection -> LA -> (random rotation, where you recast leeching if needed, cast Relentless proc and use Snipe, all time light attacking in between) -> LA -> Relentless Focus (recast) -> Bar Swap

Regarding Sorcerer

Recommended Gear: 5 TFS, 3 VO (Minor Slayer), Stormfist

Second best bow class. Can be played from any range, because difference between long - mid range DPS and mid - close range DPS WITH Hurricane is minimal. It is better to move slightly closer so majority of hurricane hits targets than to stand somewhere in middle. Acid spray can be used for even better AoE damage output, but avoid it with Automaton set. Using Surge and Hurricane can also greatly benefit your survivability. Always have Boundless Armaments on both bars, while the DPS gain is good in itself, the 20% regen is godly.
Sporadic use of dark deal can also be beneficial. You will be losing DPS (on average probably 800 dps) by using it over heavy attack, but it wont slow you down and will take just half the time. If fight contains a lot of moving, using dark deal instead of heavy attacks can even be DPS gain than constantly cast and cancel heavy attacks (because of need to move out of AoE)

Example of Rotation: Endless Hail -> LA -> Trap -> LA -> Caltrops -> (LA -> Ballista if ready) -> Bar Swap -> Poison Injection -> LA -> Snipe -> HA/LA -> repeat till Bar Swap
Recast Hurricane when needed.

Regarding Templar

Awkward class to use. First you need some Aedric Spear ability on the bar to get the crit bonus, but you don't want to use any really. Jabs can offer some trash fight capability, but we don't really need it. Spear shards can benefit group, if you don't have different templar doing it. Maybe Sun Shield can be sometimes used for protection against hard hits. Javelin for CC. Crescent Sweep could potentially be the best one, replacing Dawn Breaker. But if you have empty skill slot on front bar, there is no need.
Rotation is similar to Sorcerer and cast Power of the Light whenever you can.

Regarding DK

Don't use Noxious Breath if there is another source of Major Fracture. Don't use Venomous Claw unless you fight close to the target and don't mess up rotation by walking forward to cast it and back. Usually don't use Molten Armaments, you won't be heavy attacking often enough, but group without any DK can benefit from your passive giving everyone Minor Brutality on cast. Use bow ulti mostly, but any of these standards can be used too, but you need to weigh in if it is worth it to cast standard and not stand in it (for bonus damage from one morph) or if you want to stand in it. Flames of Oblivion is worth use if you stand in range (~15m).
Your Rotation will (again) be as on Sorc. Preferably have Flames of Oblivion on frontbar so you can utilize them longer. If they are on back bar you will either recast them every rotation (wasting 5sec) or every 2nd rotation (not getting damage for 5sec)

Regarding health

Because it is nearly not an option to skip Dubious Camoran Throne drink, you will generally lack health necessary for some content. The target is usually 18k health when playing hard content or being uncomfortable with this playstyle or mechanics. So you can have lower if situation allows it.
Common ways to achieve that is by using 1 heavy armor piece. Either from crafted set (like Hunding or Mother Gaze), usually chest piece, or by having one part of monster set in heavy. If that is not an option (two dropped 5pc sets and master bow) you will have adjust attribute points for health (usually by 5-15)

Regarding range

At some parts before I already briefly mentioned overall effect of long shots passive on DPS. And in short, it has noticeable, but small effect. Minimum range needed for full 12% bonus is 25m, which will almost never be worth it. First you want to be in area of effect of Combat Prayer to get Minor Berserk (not needed on NB). Second you want to be in are of effect of your healer to gain any buffs offered. So generally you will always be pretty close to enemy (10-20m), in front of the healer, usually in the same pack as other magicka casters. In some combat situations stacking on top of each other and/or going to melee range is even required. Then another important bit is the damage from long shot is low anyway. It increases just your bow skill output (usually less than 50% of your damage) and is additive with all other sources of bonus damage (hawk eye, berserks, CP, warden passives, ...) so usually it will improve the DPS of your bow skills by 3-8%. So half that if bow skills are half of your DPS. And that is usually less even less on warden. So in combat situation, prefer firstly position that can use anything healer offers without making him do stuff he would not have to do without you. Then adjust to avoid as much boss aoe as possible and then to gain as much range as possible.

Regarding overall survivability and true reason why not do veteran trials

There is simple difference between ranged magicka DD and stamina melee DD. Melee DD gets Blade Cloak with 25% AoE damage reduction. Ranged magicka gets range and shields. Bow gets only range, making your survivability big issue in fights where you can't simply outrange AoE damage. There are tools that increases your chances to survive and those commonly are Vigor, Surge (on sorc), Major Ward and Major Resolve buffs. Uncommonly you can use shields with health scaling (like Bone Shield), Warden Shimmer Shield (anti projectile shield) or sources of damage reduction (like Minor Protection on Warden's Ice Fortress). These uncommon sources are often not worth it, offering very small increase in survivability, costing resources and your DPS and giving your teammates just another reason to kick you from group. So golden rule is avoid content you can survive without these.

Closing notes I will dedicate to ZoS
Bow really really need significant changes to how heavy attacks work (or overall how much they are needed in current meta). It also needs proper spammable that is accessible to every class and is not weak like Cutting Dive. Overall DPS coming from non bow skill is lower than from other builds, because of low weapon damage on bow (so even less gained from agility passive, fighters guild passives and brutality buff) and because bow passives do not in any way increase them, except for Accuracy which for some reasons gives as much crit as just 1 dagger.
Another thing is very low survivability of medium armor in PVP and PVE. In PVE mitigated by Blade Cloak AoE reduction inaccessible without DW weapons.
Design of two handed weapons has still negative impact on DPS. Firstly by offering one less set piece (mitigated by using unique bows), then by not having better enchantments or meta traits (nirn and infused giving same value to bow that to 1 sword).
Presence of melee limited buffs is not helpful either. Notably Redguard Adrenaline Rush passive. Related to that is the overall lack of clear bow race choice. Each of 3 top racial choices (khajiit, redguard, bosmer) waste one passive on buff not useful for ranged DPS and no race choice actually offers obvious damage buffs to bow (other than obviously presence of max stamina and crit). For example race like Altmer offers both maximum stat bonus and regen like redguard does, but instead of range/skill choice limited third passive, it has clear damage bonus to everything potential DD Altmer will do.

What stamina ranged DD absolutely needs to be effective

Damage - bow has less weapon damage than other stam builds, less of main resource than magicka builds, less crit than stam builds and less penetration than magicka builds. It heavily stacks damage done % (decrease of efficiency) and that only towards bow abilities. Either current damage done passives (longshot and hawkeye) need to affect every ability, or other parts of overall damage (wd+stam; crit; pen) needs to be increased.
Survivability - bow lack of weapon damage makes own heals less powerful (lesser issue in PVE) it also lacks any defensive ability. Magicka builds have shield, 2H builds have (sort of) shield and DW builds have AoE damage reduction. It would be to great benefit of all (stam builds) in both modes, if AoE damage reduction was present outside of weapon tree (medium armor, Fighters guild, undaunted, ...). If that is not welcomed, then the class that was supposed to be ranged DD (warden) should have its own access to something like that.
Sustain - heavy attacks arent balanced, enough said. DW heavy attacks are fast, do not slow down player. 2H heavy attacks proc beneficial passives. Lightning heavy attacks have splash. Resto heavy attacks offer great sustain. I guess fire/ice are bad too, but most magicka builds (in pve or pvp) either have lightning or resto with them. Bow heavy attacks go against everything by slowing player and making him vulnerable and potentially even losing hawk eye stack.
Race - ALL stamina races for DD, except the worst one (Nord) have 1 whole passive out of 3 not usable in PVE DPS
Skills - lack of spammable on anything but warden forcing classes to use selfsnaring cast time ability (+ for some reason DW has better ranged spammable in dagger); much weaker lightweight trap (with short duration)

My own 6M parses on PTS. Affected by my own imperfection and high PTS ping. Useful for comparison between positions and skill usage. Obviously all subjected to RNG or potential inflation from some buffs and debuffs. All done to maximize stamina used. Unless specified otherwise (in description), always Khajiit with 5TFS, 5VO, Infused Poison Frontbar, Nirn WD Backbar. Always selfbuffed
(NB - need to self cast Major Fracture every 3rd rotation; Warden - MF part of rotation; Sorc - No MF available ; DK - need to self cast MK every rotation; Templar - No MF available)
Nightblade Album Link
Warden Album Link

Build links:
Warden Build

Insightful links:
Alcast's Stamina Warden Bow Build “Racer”
Gilliamtherogue on Asylum Bow (video)
Masel92's Bow/bow VMA run (video; outdated)

Also, sorry for very long text. Bet this would be much better in video form.

Changelog

2018/06/02 - Updated and rewrote first part of guide for Summerset patch
2018/01/04 - Rewrote skills and warden section.
2017/12/29 - Added information about Acid Spray (negative) value regarding stamina sustain
2017/12/24 - Rewrote Champion points setup, Stamina sustain, Racial choice and Weapon setup parts
2017/11/24 - Reworded weapon/trait part slightly
2017/11/23 - Added Dark Deal as viable skill choice on Sorc
2017/11/22 - Marked Imperial as good race choice. Reworded race/class choice to define better and worse options (than from best to worst)
2017/11/21 - Changed Warden Rotation. Added Warden parses. Added recommended gear to Warden, NB and Sorc

New player, Could use some help deciding on a class please.

Current Cost of Crafting Legendary Jewelry...Ouch

[PC] BLOODROOT FORGE Final Boss Fight - CANNOT see lava visuals GROUNDBREAKING BUG

Terrified for Summerset... UI Errors already dog the game.

Cannot deconstruct colored rings

Problem on EU server since 3 week.

Artaeum and Moridunon ?

ESO Class Reps

[Class Rep] Tanking Feedback Thread

Obsidian Covenant - DC PvP Guild

your support team deserves respect

CTD when trying to teleport or change instance (Scarp Keep)

Where is my Nightmare Senche Mount? (Solved)

Dark Royalty, social trading guild, active discord, 470+ members, PvE and PvP

So for console can we play Summerset at midnight on Monday?

Launcher will not download the game

Queens Bounty Pack

Small social guild seeks older, laid-back players

ESO creating a new folder in Onedrive every time the game launches

Everything needed to know about Bow/Bow in PVE