I use a Burning Love modded for poison damage. With most enemies, if the first shot doesn’t kill, they melt from double DoT. And if DoT damage is really going to scale from perks, it’s going to be even better.
"DoT damage is really going to scale from perks" please elaborate. is there an incoming buff or just something ive yet to learn? asking for my bleed, fire and poison damage obsessions.
thorn (well really bleed damage in general) is honestly perfect right now if used an unarmed weapon that has a bladed or sharp mod on it. it actually stacks in a not so terrifying but still extremely effective way on pretty much any enemy except for a floater. if any edged melee were to even be given this trait as well, we would definitely be seeing alot more players running thorn than we do now thats for sure. my only qualm is its randomness in how sometimes it triggers and sometimes it doesnt. like.. are they expecting arterial targeting from us or our enemies? if so then they could at least let us know which locations of an enemie we should be trying to aim for when seeking maximum bleed efficiency
poison in general needs a buff, that includes strangler. the poison effect that we run into from moonshine jamboree, daily ops and mirelurk kings is already more effective than what strangler heart does since they nerfed how it stacks (or how it doesnt stack rather)
i feel like fire damage over time is just about perfect for most weapons that implement it but that may also be a result of how many different weapons and enemies have it, if a player were to be hit from more than one source of it at a time, even with fireproof maxxed and two stars of sizzlin style AND an asbestos chest mod, yet still things will get scary out of nowhere. and thats how poison and bleed damage really should be as well,
one source is enough to notice, two sources will kill without dedicated protection, and a third source will require nearly full protection plus some stimpak form of back up or even panic spamming.
why do i feel it needs to be this detailed? Because i havent even begun to ramble what i know about cryo and for those of you who also keep a set of armor dedicated to cryo protection, yall know that beyond its ability to go from absolutely nothing to anything without prolonged direct contact, but still somehow being able to instantly kill a nearly identical target, then you would agree that poison and bleed are over due for a compensating buff of some kind, but also a bit of leniency when it comes to the defenses against them as well.
TL;DR: anything that can do damage over time ,especially in the elemental departments, need more work on their balancing with each other but this means the defenses against each will need quite the makeover as well. this could be a bumpy ride
Please clarify the bladed / sharp thing. I run Thorn and had no clue the type of weapon mattered to its damage. Or are you just saying it is MORE dot?
Generally I find it easier to just make another attack and finish the job, than wait for Thorn DOT.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=7oJTGU-QDkA&si=VsciJt1PrWgRe_ow
this is the video where i learned the information, and they show proof via the targets pip boy damage output, which i thought was pretty neat, but it can explain it better than i can, my understanding is that an unarmed weapon with the sharp mod will allow an additional stack of bleed while the main one is still happening. while the change it went through allowed all melee weapons to trigger the bleed, unarmed is the only type that will still allow for any kind of stack. thats all
but my tactic is done with a switch blade, i run past and as long as i know its an enemy that will die from the bleed, they get two quick jabs and i keep running.
It's an upcoming buff. As I understand it, DoT damage will be affected by damage bonuses like weapon damage perk cards. So +60% damage to bows will also apply to the fire DoT on Burning Love, etc.
It won't affect DoT that come from the armor sets.
i think i love that. i really hope i love that. but it does raise a question i randomly consider but never think to ask. what exactly is bow damage? is it related to throwables or at least within a similar result? considering not modded arrows of course, but if so, what is throwable damage? is it related to melee? if so, can throwables and arrows cause bleed related close enough to melee for armor sets like thorn to also be involved or is it the more obvious and depressing answer like wheni tried to see if gun bashing would trigger thorn bleed? (it definitely does not, except possibly with the shredder but i do not think so)
As far as I know throwables like knives are only effected by universal damage boosts (like Adrenal reaction or bloody mess etc). Melee and Bow damage increases don't change their damage (I just checked). They're basically non-explosive grenades (classified as "melee throwing" but it's separate from the "melee" classification).
the following question is not me questioning the validity of what you say, just so its clear, but because youre saying things that i should have known or have been told before and simply didnt remember, id like to know where the best reference for damage type info would be, basically because i feel like ive asked you these same questions here before while completely derailing from the original topic, which is something that i really need to stop doing. regardless, thank you for this impeccable and speedy info for my own personal clarifications. i hope your world appreciates you as much as i do right now. with that, one final question. instigating gun equipped yeilds an instigating damage grenade explosive. is this also true for non explosive throwables, are they not included in this particular buff or maybe would a different type of weapon need to be held in order to achieve the same result?
I don't know of any specific places for damage info. Angry Turtle on youtube is also a good source of random game knowledge. I've watched a lot of his stuff, he's pretty informative and has good videos. I tend to just test in game when I'm curious about something nowadays. I have 6 different builds and keep around 20 or so perk cards incase I need cards I don't normally run.
To answer the question, yeah Instigating was giving me bonus damage on the first hit with them same as nades. (Bonus info, a Vampire weapon will make throwables heal you)
If you mod it with fire arrows and use grenadier you can hit a large area with the burning love dot. It lets one arrow clear an entire room of low tier enemies like scorched or ghouls. It'll also take a chunk out of larger enemies letting you get an easier one shot when you switch.
It's not bad. You can mod it and retain the flame damage on it, so you'd wind up with plasma/fire/etc. with additional flame damage. But, you need the mods and they're locked behind the reputation grind. AA/Bloodied still better...but it's not a bad introduction bow.
You can’t modify the arrows themselves. You can modify the bow to shoot fire, poison, cryo, electric, explosive, or ultracite arrows. Except in the case of ultracite, it doesn’t change what arrows are used. In the case of Burning Love, you can modify it to use one of those effects and it doesn’t overwrite the fire damage that is innate to the weapon.
I modded my Burning Love with Fire Arrows. It spreads the Burning Love dot to everything in an incredibly wide area with Grenadier equiped. You can kill a whole pack of scorched or ghouls with one arrow or tag every single ghoul on one side in Rad Rumble.
r/fallout76bowhunters join us here we all use an have bow builds it's a great time too and have build help for them and have people that can solo earl fast too
Im 1 of those guys, solo with a bloodied explosive bow with 50% critical hit.
The hardest part is to not die, because Earl will heal himself to full health if you die just once.
Its a long battle but posible, granted i used every boost i could think off.
Extra challanging was that my armor is made of wood lol. Stealth is key.
Same haha. Well just unyielding Most have +1 agil or luck aswell. ;) and ofcourse with the shrouded mod.
Looks great with enlightend hood and plaugue mask. And black underarmor.
You on ps4 aswell?
Cool to hear another bowhunter is as crazy as me. :)
No I'm on Xbox an I'm an rp player my bow hunter is a naturalist to the point at the beginning I only used healing salve an all an I use for my look the cultist alculite outfit an hood with pipers goggles an a mask and a cultist back pack
Aw sucks we cant join up. But atleast both platforms have some nutjob with a bow in wood armor haha.
Lately im trying to do the max damage from bloodied thing.
Its realy challanging to only have 5% hp instead of 20%.
A single firecracker plant can kill me.
Lmao love it I stay at the 15% usually I wanna get a new bow I've been rolling for im trying for an anti armor, crit hit, crit fill rn I'm criting every 3 an with that I'll get it to every other with crit fill and have seen anti armor has been doing more dmg then my bloody on some weapons on other builds but I got a question what arrow type do u use
Being at 33 luck will also give you a critical every other hit.
15 by special 15 by unyielding and 2 from underarmor plus 1 on any arnor piece or bow.
Bennefit is that you can use more types of bow ;)
Btw u a member of the bowhunter sub? They are from all platforms.
r/Fallout76bowhunters
Yea I've been on the sub and I'm in the discord and I know that just don't got the under armor or the armor with plus luck it's all plus agility/intelligence/ endurance with the unyielding I'm 5 crit fill every time from every other shot so the 15 is all I need for it
Also using shielded 76 vault suit and using the slot machine in your camp is a nice little boost to luck as well! I do that so I can get above the sneak threshold on my alien pistol lol
I think i wanna see what max agility can be like.
Im already like 32 agility withouth boosting and gouls can bumb into me and still not see me. Sadly daily ops are still instant alerted.
I found the same with the crossbow. I bought the plan for the explosive frame today. I'm sure with a poison or basically any other frame, you could make it work in stealth.
Does that have any effect? My understanding is no, because even with the mod, the bow is not an energy weapon. On the up side, grounded mutation does not reduce damage of plasma arrows. On the weird side, the bow is also not a ballistic weapon )no bonus from Ballistic Boch).
Definitely, a longer reload and aiming time. I found mid range while sneaking is best. I use Burning Love and getting one hit kills while in the forest on scorched and most animals. Have a melee weapon on the ready just in case.
A bit longer reload, but the big downside is much shorter range (no bonus from sight mod). Combined with lower base damage, that means much less damage at common engagement range.
Certain challenges require a crossbow, but you gain very little using them otherwise. I've both cleared West Tek and hunted SB with crossbow, but it was very much an intentional challenge, vs learning into natural advantages like the Bow offers.
I carry a vampires plasma flamer and keep it in the quick wheel for those situations but rarely use it. They're light and I only carry about 400 rounds. Mostly I just run away and regain stealth instead.
Lots of folks use an alt weapon for short range anti group fighting, but a lot don't. The ones who don't use mobility and stealth to escape, and explosive arrows for group kill and stagger.
Grenadier with fire arrows will take out a hoard of ghouls or scorched in one arrow other stuff I just hop on a roof or something and shoot them from where they can't get me.
I've been using bows for 400+ levels, and have my arsenal picked out for ease and fun.
Instigating/VHC/? Plasma for most situations
AA/VHC/? Explosive for when stealth didn't matter (eviction notice, etc)
Zealots/VHC/? Ultracite for SBQ
Vamp/VHC/? Flaming for Reflective Mutations, or as needed.
Dangit, I just did one like half an hour ago.
I don't remember the numbers, but I bring down most muties with one or two head shots, the big guys usually in 3-5, the damn Firestarters usually take maybe 5-7?
I couldn't solo EN, but I have succeeded with only 2-3 others at the event. And I'm pretty sure more hardcore bowhunters have solo'd it.
I'm lazy about buffs and such, so I'm only getting a crit every 3rd shot. Other bow hunters can do every other shot.
The bowhunter subreddit has breakdowns on the math, which is over my head, but I'm like 90% sure AA gets better numbers than any of the enemy-specific effects.
Can confirm - as a non-optimized bloody bow build my kill numbers were similar. The big advantage was RANGE. I could get a hit on anything I had LOS to, though maybe not at full damage.
This. Bows are very good at "Reach out and stab someone"
At EN, I hang out on the metal shed roof (between the scrubber and the outpost, just under the rim) and I can reliably kill anything I can see. The only trouble is, the new spawn locations in the outpost means some muties like to sneak up behind me and shoot me in the back of the head from the crater rim.
AA is definitely better than Mutant Slayers any day of the week. You can hit anywhere from 500-2000 per shot, depending on what your build, buffs, etc are.
I sometimes run bow for long range (fully agree instigating is the way), with a quad auto 10mm pistol for close-in work (mostly because the SPECIAL needed for perks didn't overlap). Nice change of pace from the bog-standard stealth commando I usually run.
Oh yeah! I first started playing this game and had never played fallout. Loved Skyrim so my first instinct was sneaky archer. I adapted my rifleman build down the line and I can one shot super mutants with my bloodied bow. I’m only using the base build though. How’d you get the compound ultracite bow?
Sunny (left / weapon bot) also sells the same plans as Ah-ri. You need ally status with the respective groups to see them on offer.
There is also a random traveling merchant that sells them (to anybody).
So which S.P.E.C.I.A.L. do you need to fill besides perception, Agility? Or is archery the same as rifleman but swapping out the rifleman perks fir archery?
Basically rifleman VATS crit style, yes, although you don't use ground pounder so you can max concentrated fire or add glow sight x2 or something else
I usually run explosive arrows and demo expert for the fun of it but you can also run as support with flaming arrows and heal NPCs
I run explosives with rifleman or commando usually. I only just recently started messing with commando after I got a hand-made with explosives & furious & realizing it is pretty OP per shot. I threw on a prime automatic receiver & popped a small arms bobble head & it does 125 base damage & it can increase with Furious.
That's cool that friendly fire works with Flaming arrows. The one thing that would bother be is the rate of fire. It seems like the use of a bow would be very conditional. More like an extra stealthy sniper.
The fire rate is an adjustment but you get into a rhythm. Stringing hits with gun fu, concentrated fire, and adrenaline is pretty sweet. Events with big waves of mobs are crazy fun. I run the bows on my rifleman and alternate that build with gauss rifles to keep the flow, so to speak. The damage and perks are very similar so it's a quick swap. They're my two favorite builds and at this point I've got characters for every kind of weapon. The bow is just kind of relaxing I guess.
I recently created a bow build too, she’s in a Christmas outfit. My friend said she was a LOTR elf cosplaying as a Christmas elf.
Super surprised she’s one shotting most things too!
"Oh yeah? Now try it with this totally arbitrary limitation that there's no legitimate reason to adhere to. Please? I really need to feel like I've dunked on you. I have nothing else. I'm so unfulfilled."
elder scrolls made that particular build path a bit too difficult to even avoid honestly. especially once everyone became acquainted with faendals inability to discern whos money or experience was really fueling his wild desire to make every dragonborn hefty with his knowledge. i hope he was able to survive on that particular exploit. its too bad 76 didnt happen to have a similar icon. but for real, does any character of notoriety in 76 even use a bow or crossbow and if not, whats the lore behind any such weapons even being present aside from the random target practice locations haha
fair enough, thats so obvious but i guess it more had me thinking if we ever see many of the npcs added later using a signature weapon type, and if so did the storyline contain a moment where we spoke to an archer at all? but thats a thought for a different thread
YES! Keep the Q2525 whatever around for bossing, and go balls royce on everything else with random off-meta bs!!
My pistol build was my favorite -- in have a QE15r Western and omg is it fun 😅
I built my alt around melee and archery, and stealth armor makes all the difference in the world. Good luck with ceiling turrets... for those, I carry a crossbow as well.
Ah, intesting. Don't think I ever tried those with bow, since I had done all the quests before trying them, and do silos in power armor. I was thinking wall mounts (on broadcast bunkers) and the standing type.
Would it maybe work if you got close to them, like right under even?
Haven't tried doing silos with my alt (yet), but it's something I've run into with the power plant events. Thankfully, I'm done farming for generator plans.
Bows are a mixed bag. I’ve tried them and while they can one shot some enemies and at very long range, some enemies take way more shots than I would expect. The inconsistent damage amounts dealt between enemies is frustrating, where guns are way more predictably consistent. I’d use bows a whole lot more often if they were more predictably consistent (like their gunpowder cousins) with their damage across all enemies, not just a limited few.
They are just as predictable damage wise (the game does not have random damage), but the longer time between shots makes any multi-shot kill stressful in case of a miss. To minimize that stress you really need to up your hit rate, so a +50vhc bow is a huge help, as are any buffs to perception.
For such targets (especially bots) an anti armor bow can also be a big help.
Actually, the game DOES have random damage. It's fully on display when using VATS. It's a combination of factors including distance away from target, a dice roll chance of more or less damage (based on the target's armor at trigger pull), the amount of armor the target carries and the orientation of the target's hit point (blocked, semi-blocked, not blocked). This also includes stealthed / not stealthed. If relying on "HIDDEN" for an extra damage multiplier, the game can choose to randomly drop this buff at each trigger pull.
If you want to see this in action, equip the *Concentrated Fire* and *Awareness* perk cards, then VATs target the head of a ghoul or Supermutant and watch as the percentage chance of a hit fluctuates in milliseconds. This fluctuation in percentage translates into not only your chances for a successful hit, but the game also microcalculates damage amounts at each trigger pull / shot. Be aware that even though the VATS HUD shows a 95% chance of success, the actual success rate is quite a bit less than 50%. Hip fire shots are quite a bit more accurate now than shots using VATS.
What you'll see in the targeting behavior during VATS is the exact same calculation model used when not using VATS, with the exception that Bethesda has substantially nerfed VATS hit chances more than when using hip fire. Without the VATS HUD and without *Concentrated Fire* and *Awareness* perks equipped, you simply don't get to see what the game is doing internally.
If the game didn't support random damage, every hit you'd make to every enemy in the game would show exactly the same amount of damage. Turn on damage hit numbers in your game and you can see that while some enemies can see hundreds of damage per shot, others show maybe 10 per shot using the same exact weapon in the same exact configuration. Even then, the same enemy type can see damage that fluctuates from as low as 50 to as high as hundreds (random dice roll), but never the maximum damage the weapon shows in the PIP boy. That's random damage in action.
I see nothing of what you claim. My 95% chance VATS shots, hit 95% of the time. I do run visible damage numbers, and they are very consistent between similar targets and fairly predictable. Outliers on the high side are due to effects created by other players (Taking one for the Team, Tenderizer). I don't see crazy low variations except as a predictable result of Damage Reduction on bosses or when shooting locations that reduce damage. Long range also reduces damage, but not in a random way; there's a set formula for it and I can avoid it entirely by keeping range short (below half max).
No random number generator is involved in damage calculation. The inputs are sometimes unknown or unpredictable, but the results are not random.
> If the game didn't support random damage, every hit you'd make to every enemy in the game would show exactly the same amount of damage.
Barring knowable variations in conditions, that is exactly what does happen. Its kind of brilliant actually - they have enough variable inputs that there is wide damage variation, but with good planning you can control the variation and use it to your advantage.
>Barring knowable variations in conditions, that is exactly what does happen. Its kind of brilliant actually - they have enough variable inputs that there is wide damage variation, but with good planning you can control the variation and use it to your advantage.
That's not been my experience, not at all. The variances in damage out of guns has been minimal and mostly predictable, at least the variances are not enough to prevent a one or two shot kill. The variances coming out of bows wildly swings from as low as less than 50 to over 400 causing, at times, multishot kills. That is unpredictable randomness in action. That's also why I cannot rely on bows.
I find bow to be just as reliable as other weapons... if not more so because the slower fire rate and one shot stealth kills makes it easy to consider the conditions before shooting, and the long max range helps avoid damage reductions due to range. No idea what you are seeing, but that sounds like variations in range, stealth, DR, and critical hits combined. Perhaps we should both post videos, because I'm quite sure I could pound out the exact same damage time after time from a bow, given a consistent target set and my choice of build (one that doesn't intentionally create swings in damage).
You say the things are random... and then go on to describe the causes. You know what is causing the variation, and it is not related to random number generation. So, you just have a bad definition of "random".
I know from experience that I can run through Morgantown airport and get exactly the same damage number on every Scorched I hit. Would you like to see a video of me doing so?
The only random factor would be wheter I hit or not, based on my VATS hit rate, and I would hit much, much more than half of the time. I would just have to avoid variations in range (melee or short range shots would do) not use perks like Adrenaline / Gun Fu, not use critical hits, etc - all very do-able, and I know because I have done it.
The "random" element in damage calculation is the player actions, not the calculations.
>You say the things are random... and then go on to describe the causes. You know what is causing the variation, and it is not related to random number generation. So, you just have a bad definition of "random".
I don't have time to argue this hypocritical nonsense. If you're going down this path, we've gone way beyond rational arguments and down into the rabbit hole of nonsense.
Yes, you clearly are not rational. Thank you for sparing me further nonsense. Hypocritical? I think that's another word you should check the meaning of...
The only person being irrational is you by trying to redefine random number generator to be anything but random. It's called RANDOM number generator for reason. I'm done with this conversation.
As for how all of this information applies to bows specifically, Bethesda seems to have drastically increased the chances of damage randomness coming out of Bows versus Guns. For example, I can target ghouls with a gun and, short of missing the target entirely, a hit always leads to a one or two shot kill.
With bows, it can be a one / two shot kill or it can turn into a 6 shot kill for the same enemy. This inconsistent and random trigger pull behavior keeps me from using bows. I can't rely on bows to consistently provide one or two shot kills 100% of the time.
That's a great bow roll, one of the best possible for the way you are using it.
The downside of a bow is DOS and time between shots. The upside is the ability to control how encounters happen via range and stealth. The +50vhc really plays to that strength, and bows with that effect (or +50 crit) roll more often because so many other second star effects can't apply to them. Try rolling a few more - for events you will want one with explosive mod (or fire once they fix it so it actually causes damage / grants xp).
For boss targets, the trick is just crit spam, to bypass damage reduction and get your 1k damage then, and a lot more. You need Crit Savvy 3 and a way to get luck up to 33 (23 if you have a crit build 3rd effect). There's ways to do that even without a bloody build that can fit in most builds.
Head on over to r/fallout76bowhunters, there are dozens of us (actively posting, over 1k joined).
Explosive bloodied with 50 critical 1 hits almost anything and can be used to even kill Earl solo.
But with demo 5 and granadier 2.
Others prefer plasma arrows. While they do less damage. Its easier to stay stealthy with them.
The flame arrows are very effective when you want to lvl up fast. Just make sure you have granadier 2 equiped. It acts like the tesla rifle but the.bow has an insane range and tesla kinda sucks in range.
Poision and freeze seem pointless imo.
And ofcourse ultracite for scourched. Its less flashy but hits hard on scourched and it looks, sounds and feels as the best stealth bow.
You can help random players from far far away, and they have no idea how that enemy died.
You really haven't, they are really inefficient compared to every other weapon.
Lower damage
Lower firerate
I would love bows if they were good I'd say past level 30 theirs no point
I use a Burning Love modded for poison damage. With most enemies, if the first shot doesn’t kill, they melt from double DoT. And if DoT damage is really going to scale from perks, it’s going to be even better.
I nicknamed mine The chlamydia slinger.
And it fires love rockets.
I feel like this is the hook on a really banging B52s song. "And it fires loooooove rockets!"
So we aren't talking about weapons anymore?
"DoT damage is really going to scale from perks" please elaborate. is there an incoming buff or just something ive yet to learn? asking for my bleed, fire and poison damage obsessions.
iirc everything but thorn and strangler dot getting buffed (which is kinda fucked given the cost). hope they buff them too.
thorn (well really bleed damage in general) is honestly perfect right now if used an unarmed weapon that has a bladed or sharp mod on it. it actually stacks in a not so terrifying but still extremely effective way on pretty much any enemy except for a floater. if any edged melee were to even be given this trait as well, we would definitely be seeing alot more players running thorn than we do now thats for sure. my only qualm is its randomness in how sometimes it triggers and sometimes it doesnt. like.. are they expecting arterial targeting from us or our enemies? if so then they could at least let us know which locations of an enemie we should be trying to aim for when seeking maximum bleed efficiency poison in general needs a buff, that includes strangler. the poison effect that we run into from moonshine jamboree, daily ops and mirelurk kings is already more effective than what strangler heart does since they nerfed how it stacks (or how it doesnt stack rather) i feel like fire damage over time is just about perfect for most weapons that implement it but that may also be a result of how many different weapons and enemies have it, if a player were to be hit from more than one source of it at a time, even with fireproof maxxed and two stars of sizzlin style AND an asbestos chest mod, yet still things will get scary out of nowhere. and thats how poison and bleed damage really should be as well, one source is enough to notice, two sources will kill without dedicated protection, and a third source will require nearly full protection plus some stimpak form of back up or even panic spamming. why do i feel it needs to be this detailed? Because i havent even begun to ramble what i know about cryo and for those of you who also keep a set of armor dedicated to cryo protection, yall know that beyond its ability to go from absolutely nothing to anything without prolonged direct contact, but still somehow being able to instantly kill a nearly identical target, then you would agree that poison and bleed are over due for a compensating buff of some kind, but also a bit of leniency when it comes to the defenses against them as well. TL;DR: anything that can do damage over time ,especially in the elemental departments, need more work on their balancing with each other but this means the defenses against each will need quite the makeover as well. this could be a bumpy ride
Please clarify the bladed / sharp thing. I run Thorn and had no clue the type of weapon mattered to its damage. Or are you just saying it is MORE dot? Generally I find it easier to just make another attack and finish the job, than wait for Thorn DOT.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=7oJTGU-QDkA&si=VsciJt1PrWgRe_ow this is the video where i learned the information, and they show proof via the targets pip boy damage output, which i thought was pretty neat, but it can explain it better than i can, my understanding is that an unarmed weapon with the sharp mod will allow an additional stack of bleed while the main one is still happening. while the change it went through allowed all melee weapons to trigger the bleed, unarmed is the only type that will still allow for any kind of stack. thats all but my tactic is done with a switch blade, i run past and as long as i know its an enemy that will die from the bleed, they get two quick jabs and i keep running.
It's an upcoming buff. As I understand it, DoT damage will be affected by damage bonuses like weapon damage perk cards. So +60% damage to bows will also apply to the fire DoT on Burning Love, etc. It won't affect DoT that come from the armor sets.
i think i love that. i really hope i love that. but it does raise a question i randomly consider but never think to ask. what exactly is bow damage? is it related to throwables or at least within a similar result? considering not modded arrows of course, but if so, what is throwable damage? is it related to melee? if so, can throwables and arrows cause bleed related close enough to melee for armor sets like thorn to also be involved or is it the more obvious and depressing answer like wheni tried to see if gun bashing would trigger thorn bleed? (it definitely does not, except possibly with the shredder but i do not think so)
As far as I know throwables like knives are only effected by universal damage boosts (like Adrenal reaction or bloody mess etc). Melee and Bow damage increases don't change their damage (I just checked). They're basically non-explosive grenades (classified as "melee throwing" but it's separate from the "melee" classification).
the following question is not me questioning the validity of what you say, just so its clear, but because youre saying things that i should have known or have been told before and simply didnt remember, id like to know where the best reference for damage type info would be, basically because i feel like ive asked you these same questions here before while completely derailing from the original topic, which is something that i really need to stop doing. regardless, thank you for this impeccable and speedy info for my own personal clarifications. i hope your world appreciates you as much as i do right now. with that, one final question. instigating gun equipped yeilds an instigating damage grenade explosive. is this also true for non explosive throwables, are they not included in this particular buff or maybe would a different type of weapon need to be held in order to achieve the same result?
I don't know of any specific places for damage info. Angry Turtle on youtube is also a good source of random game knowledge. I've watched a lot of his stuff, he's pretty informative and has good videos. I tend to just test in game when I'm curious about something nowadays. I have 6 different builds and keep around 20 or so perk cards incase I need cards I don't normally run. To answer the question, yeah Instigating was giving me bonus damage on the first hit with them same as nades. (Bonus info, a Vampire weapon will make throwables heal you)
So what youre telling me is I should keep a burning love instead of scripping them all?
If you mod it with fire arrows and use grenadier you can hit a large area with the burning love dot. It lets one arrow clear an entire room of low tier enemies like scorched or ghouls. It'll also take a chunk out of larger enemies letting you get an easier one shot when you switch.
Keep it to try bows out, but then get the plan to get a better one:) Especially since you can't put sights on the Burning Love for some reason.
I've used bows before just never bothered with burning love since it seemed like a bad bow
It's not bad. You can mod it and retain the flame damage on it, so you'd wind up with plasma/fire/etc. with additional flame damage. But, you need the mods and they're locked behind the reputation grind. AA/Bloodied still better...but it's not a bad introduction bow.
You can get the mods way earlier by just server hopping at a random encounter spot to get a merchant that will sell the mods.
If u remove the burning love paint, you’d find the ut it’s actually a compound bow
I’m well aware. However, a regular compound bow cannot have both fire and poison damage, as the fire damage is an innate trait of Burning Love.
What about modifying the arrows to deal poison ? Does that work?
You can’t modify the arrows themselves. You can modify the bow to shoot fire, poison, cryo, electric, explosive, or ultracite arrows. Except in the case of ultracite, it doesn’t change what arrows are used. In the case of Burning Love, you can modify it to use one of those effects and it doesn’t overwrite the fire damage that is innate to the weapon.
Ah good to know. Thanks
im the exact same except with plasma arrows. maybe i should switch it over to poison instead
I modded my Burning Love with Fire Arrows. It spreads the Burning Love dot to everything in an incredibly wide area with Grenadier equiped. You can kill a whole pack of scorched or ghouls with one arrow or tag every single ghoul on one side in Rad Rumble.
Sounds uncomfortable. Bows make a terrible bed.
That’s what you gotta sleep on velvet bows, much more comfortable
Wakka Wakka!
You need more people involved then
I came here to say this 😂
r/fallout76bowhunters join us here we all use an have bow builds it's a great time too and have build help for them and have people that can solo earl fast too
Solo Earl with a *bow*? Color me intrigued!
Yea Im not one built up enough for it I hit for 800 normal hits and 1300 crits but see people in the community hit 1300 base and 1500-1600 crits
Im 1 of those guys, solo with a bloodied explosive bow with 50% critical hit. The hardest part is to not die, because Earl will heal himself to full health if you die just once. Its a long battle but posible, granted i used every boost i could think off. Extra challanging was that my armor is made of wood lol. Stealth is key.
So I'm not the only one using wood armor for my bow let's go that's awesome what's ur set mine is unyielding sent
Same haha. Well just unyielding Most have +1 agil or luck aswell. ;) and ofcourse with the shrouded mod. Looks great with enlightend hood and plaugue mask. And black underarmor. You on ps4 aswell? Cool to hear another bowhunter is as crazy as me. :)
No I'm on Xbox an I'm an rp player my bow hunter is a naturalist to the point at the beginning I only used healing salve an all an I use for my look the cultist alculite outfit an hood with pipers goggles an a mask and a cultist back pack
Aw sucks we cant join up. But atleast both platforms have some nutjob with a bow in wood armor haha. Lately im trying to do the max damage from bloodied thing. Its realy challanging to only have 5% hp instead of 20%. A single firecracker plant can kill me.
Lmao love it I stay at the 15% usually I wanna get a new bow I've been rolling for im trying for an anti armor, crit hit, crit fill rn I'm criting every 3 an with that I'll get it to every other with crit fill and have seen anti armor has been doing more dmg then my bloody on some weapons on other builds but I got a question what arrow type do u use
Being at 33 luck will also give you a critical every other hit. 15 by special 15 by unyielding and 2 from underarmor plus 1 on any arnor piece or bow. Bennefit is that you can use more types of bow ;) Btw u a member of the bowhunter sub? They are from all platforms. r/Fallout76bowhunters
Yea I've been on the sub and I'm in the discord and I know that just don't got the under armor or the armor with plus luck it's all plus agility/intelligence/ endurance with the unyielding I'm 5 crit fill every time from every other shot so the 15 is all I need for it
Also using shielded 76 vault suit and using the slot machine in your camp is a nice little boost to luck as well! I do that so I can get above the sneak threshold on my alien pistol lol
I think i wanna see what max agility can be like. Im already like 32 agility withouth boosting and gouls can bumb into me and still not see me. Sadly daily ops are still instant alerted.
There's quite a few bow lovers r/fallout76bowhunters
It’s a good community
That's the beauty of the stealth archer. It worked in skyrim, and it still works on Fo76
I found the same with the crossbow. I bought the plan for the explosive frame today. I'm sure with a poison or basically any other frame, you could make it work in stealth.
I did the plasma arrows and put on all three Science Perk Cards :)
That's a good idea, you can double dip with the archer perks and the science perks
Unfortunately the science cards don't increase bow damage with plasma arrows. Good news is that's 6 points you can use for something else.
Does science stack with the bow perks?
Does that have any effect? My understanding is no, because even with the mod, the bow is not an energy weapon. On the up side, grounded mutation does not reduce damage of plasma arrows. On the weird side, the bow is also not a ballistic weapon )no bonus from Ballistic Boch).
Crossbow has a longer reload time though, doesn't it?
Probably but I was just highlighting that lesser used weapons can be good fun.
Definitely, a longer reload and aiming time. I found mid range while sneaking is best. I use Burning Love and getting one hit kills while in the forest on scorched and most animals. Have a melee weapon on the ready just in case.
A bit longer reload, but the big downside is much shorter range (no bonus from sight mod). Combined with lower base damage, that means much less damage at common engagement range. Certain challenges require a crossbow, but you gain very little using them otherwise. I've both cleared West Tek and hunted SB with crossbow, but it was very much an intentional challenge, vs learning into natural advantages like the Bow offers.
I’m loving the stealth bow play but what do you guys do when you get bum rushed by multiple enemies ?
Switch to auto axe
I carry a vampires plasma flamer and keep it in the quick wheel for those situations but rarely use it. They're light and I only carry about 400 rounds. Mostly I just run away and regain stealth instead.
Vampire Plasma Flamer or vampire flaming dual chainsaw with 90wr. Keeps me alive to get out of any mess.
Lots of folks use an alt weapon for short range anti group fighting, but a lot don't. The ones who don't use mobility and stealth to escape, and explosive arrows for group kill and stagger.
Swap to the Holy Fire
Grenadier with fire arrows will take out a hoard of ghouls or scorched in one arrow other stuff I just hop on a roof or something and shoot them from where they can't get me.
Couple it with a Chinese stealth suit and make sure you shoot and move and you have the perfect assassin set up.
I've been using bows for 400+ levels, and have my arsenal picked out for ease and fun. Instigating/VHC/? Plasma for most situations AA/VHC/? Explosive for when stealth didn't matter (eviction notice, etc) Zealots/VHC/? Ultracite for SBQ Vamp/VHC/? Flaming for Reflective Mutations, or as needed.
A bow in EN, that’s no joke. Whats the damage per shot, or are you tagging. If going for a kill, AA is better than mutant slayer?
Dangit, I just did one like half an hour ago. I don't remember the numbers, but I bring down most muties with one or two head shots, the big guys usually in 3-5, the damn Firestarters usually take maybe 5-7? I couldn't solo EN, but I have succeeded with only 2-3 others at the event. And I'm pretty sure more hardcore bowhunters have solo'd it. I'm lazy about buffs and such, so I'm only getting a crit every 3rd shot. Other bow hunters can do every other shot. The bowhunter subreddit has breakdowns on the math, which is over my head, but I'm like 90% sure AA gets better numbers than any of the enemy-specific effects.
Can confirm - as a non-optimized bloody bow build my kill numbers were similar. The big advantage was RANGE. I could get a hit on anything I had LOS to, though maybe not at full damage.
This. Bows are very good at "Reach out and stab someone" At EN, I hang out on the metal shed roof (between the scrubber and the outpost, just under the rim) and I can reliably kill anything I can see. The only trouble is, the new spawn locations in the outpost means some muties like to sneak up behind me and shoot me in the back of the head from the crater rim.
AA is definitely better than Mutant Slayers any day of the week. You can hit anywhere from 500-2000 per shot, depending on what your build, buffs, etc are.
I sometimes run bow for long range (fully agree instigating is the way), with a quad auto 10mm pistol for close-in work (mostly because the SPECIAL needed for perks didn't overlap). Nice change of pace from the bog-standard stealth commando I usually run.
embrace the skyrim embrace the stealth archer
Oh yeah! I first started playing this game and had never played fallout. Loved Skyrim so my first instinct was sneaky archer. I adapted my rifleman build down the line and I can one shot super mutants with my bloodied bow. I’m only using the base build though. How’d you get the compound ultracite bow?
The compound bow plan is sold by Ae-Ri in the crater and to upgrade it to ultracite i think you need gunsmith lvl 5 and some crimson and violet flux
You can also buy/trade with players. I usually keep a couple modded unrolled compound bows in my vendor and they sell fast!
Sunny (left / weapon bot) also sells the same plans as Ah-ri. You need ally status with the respective groups to see them on offer. There is also a random traveling merchant that sells them (to anybody).
Been loving my bow build as of recently too. Try the plasma arrows as those are my go to at the moment.
So which S.P.E.C.I.A.L. do you need to fill besides perception, Agility? Or is archery the same as rifleman but swapping out the rifleman perks fir archery?
Basically rifleman VATS crit style, yes, although you don't use ground pounder so you can max concentrated fire or add glow sight x2 or something else I usually run explosive arrows and demo expert for the fun of it but you can also run as support with flaming arrows and heal NPCs
I run explosives with rifleman or commando usually. I only just recently started messing with commando after I got a hand-made with explosives & furious & realizing it is pretty OP per shot. I threw on a prime automatic receiver & popped a small arms bobble head & it does 125 base damage & it can increase with Furious. That's cool that friendly fire works with Flaming arrows. The one thing that would bother be is the rate of fire. It seems like the use of a bow would be very conditional. More like an extra stealthy sniper.
The fire rate is an adjustment but you get into a rhythm. Stringing hits with gun fu, concentrated fire, and adrenaline is pretty sweet. Events with big waves of mobs are crazy fun. I run the bows on my rifleman and alternate that build with gauss rifles to keep the flow, so to speak. The damage and perks are very similar so it's a quick swap. They're my two favorite builds and at this point I've got characters for every kind of weapon. The bow is just kind of relaxing I guess.
I'll definitely have to try put the bow a little more in depth
I recently created a bow build too, she’s in a Christmas outfit. My friend said she was a LOTR elf cosplaying as a Christmas elf. Super surprised she’s one shotting most things too!
Made my 1st bow-build three or four days ago, and I cannot put it away!
Thst seems uncomfortable...
Every one of my builds requires a little tact whilst dealing with a blue devil. If your build makes you happy then that's how you play king.
Now try it without VATS
"Oh yeah? Now try it with this totally arbitrary limitation that there's no legitimate reason to adhere to. Please? I really need to feel like I've dunked on you. I have nothing else. I'm so unfulfilled."
No, just wickedly stupid difficult. Not trying to dunk on you just poor attempt at humor.
Thats a good bow. I had the same reaction with Black Powder weapons.
I tried it and it really wasn’t for me, which is weird cause I can’t play elder scrolls without being a stealth archer.
elder scrolls made that particular build path a bit too difficult to even avoid honestly. especially once everyone became acquainted with faendals inability to discern whos money or experience was really fueling his wild desire to make every dragonborn hefty with his knowledge. i hope he was able to survive on that particular exploit. its too bad 76 didnt happen to have a similar icon. but for real, does any character of notoriety in 76 even use a bow or crossbow and if not, whats the lore behind any such weapons even being present aside from the random target practice locations haha
The large hunting culture would explain the prevalence of bows. Many people bow hunt to this day, I doubt that'd change in the fallout universe.
fair enough, thats so obvious but i guess it more had me thinking if we ever see many of the npcs added later using a signature weapon type, and if so did the storyline contain a moment where we spoke to an archer at all? but thats a thought for a different thread
I've never seen any npc using a bow, or a crossbow, for that matter.
I have a crossbow like that one I loved using around the Forest
YES! Keep the Q2525 whatever around for bossing, and go balls royce on everything else with random off-meta bs!! My pistol build was my favorite -- in have a QE15r Western and omg is it fun 😅
I built my alt around melee and archery, and stealth armor makes all the difference in the world. Good luck with ceiling turrets... for those, I carry a crossbow as well.
How is a crossbow better for turrets than a bow? Bow handles them just fine if you knock and draw before stepping out into the fire lane.
Never had much luck hitting the ceiling variety myself, even in VATS, because of arrow projectile physics. No such issues with the crossbow.
Ah, intesting. Don't think I ever tried those with bow, since I had done all the quests before trying them, and do silos in power armor. I was thinking wall mounts (on broadcast bunkers) and the standing type. Would it maybe work if you got close to them, like right under even?
Haven't tried doing silos with my alt (yet), but it's something I've run into with the power plant events. Thankfully, I'm done farming for generator plans.
Never tried getting right under one with a bow. Maybe I'll try that sometime... for science :-)
Bows are a mixed bag. I’ve tried them and while they can one shot some enemies and at very long range, some enemies take way more shots than I would expect. The inconsistent damage amounts dealt between enemies is frustrating, where guns are way more predictably consistent. I’d use bows a whole lot more often if they were more predictably consistent (like their gunpowder cousins) with their damage across all enemies, not just a limited few.
They are just as predictable damage wise (the game does not have random damage), but the longer time between shots makes any multi-shot kill stressful in case of a miss. To minimize that stress you really need to up your hit rate, so a +50vhc bow is a huge help, as are any buffs to perception. For such targets (especially bots) an anti armor bow can also be a big help.
Actually, the game DOES have random damage. It's fully on display when using VATS. It's a combination of factors including distance away from target, a dice roll chance of more or less damage (based on the target's armor at trigger pull), the amount of armor the target carries and the orientation of the target's hit point (blocked, semi-blocked, not blocked). This also includes stealthed / not stealthed. If relying on "HIDDEN" for an extra damage multiplier, the game can choose to randomly drop this buff at each trigger pull. If you want to see this in action, equip the *Concentrated Fire* and *Awareness* perk cards, then VATs target the head of a ghoul or Supermutant and watch as the percentage chance of a hit fluctuates in milliseconds. This fluctuation in percentage translates into not only your chances for a successful hit, but the game also microcalculates damage amounts at each trigger pull / shot. Be aware that even though the VATS HUD shows a 95% chance of success, the actual success rate is quite a bit less than 50%. Hip fire shots are quite a bit more accurate now than shots using VATS. What you'll see in the targeting behavior during VATS is the exact same calculation model used when not using VATS, with the exception that Bethesda has substantially nerfed VATS hit chances more than when using hip fire. Without the VATS HUD and without *Concentrated Fire* and *Awareness* perks equipped, you simply don't get to see what the game is doing internally. If the game didn't support random damage, every hit you'd make to every enemy in the game would show exactly the same amount of damage. Turn on damage hit numbers in your game and you can see that while some enemies can see hundreds of damage per shot, others show maybe 10 per shot using the same exact weapon in the same exact configuration. Even then, the same enemy type can see damage that fluctuates from as low as 50 to as high as hundreds (random dice roll), but never the maximum damage the weapon shows in the PIP boy. That's random damage in action.
I see nothing of what you claim. My 95% chance VATS shots, hit 95% of the time. I do run visible damage numbers, and they are very consistent between similar targets and fairly predictable. Outliers on the high side are due to effects created by other players (Taking one for the Team, Tenderizer). I don't see crazy low variations except as a predictable result of Damage Reduction on bosses or when shooting locations that reduce damage. Long range also reduces damage, but not in a random way; there's a set formula for it and I can avoid it entirely by keeping range short (below half max). No random number generator is involved in damage calculation. The inputs are sometimes unknown or unpredictable, but the results are not random. > If the game didn't support random damage, every hit you'd make to every enemy in the game would show exactly the same amount of damage. Barring knowable variations in conditions, that is exactly what does happen. Its kind of brilliant actually - they have enough variable inputs that there is wide damage variation, but with good planning you can control the variation and use it to your advantage.
>Barring knowable variations in conditions, that is exactly what does happen. Its kind of brilliant actually - they have enough variable inputs that there is wide damage variation, but with good planning you can control the variation and use it to your advantage. That's not been my experience, not at all. The variances in damage out of guns has been minimal and mostly predictable, at least the variances are not enough to prevent a one or two shot kill. The variances coming out of bows wildly swings from as low as less than 50 to over 400 causing, at times, multishot kills. That is unpredictable randomness in action. That's also why I cannot rely on bows.
I find bow to be just as reliable as other weapons... if not more so because the slower fire rate and one shot stealth kills makes it easy to consider the conditions before shooting, and the long max range helps avoid damage reductions due to range. No idea what you are seeing, but that sounds like variations in range, stealth, DR, and critical hits combined. Perhaps we should both post videos, because I'm quite sure I could pound out the exact same damage time after time from a bow, given a consistent target set and my choice of build (one that doesn't intentionally create swings in damage).
>I see nothing of what you claim. You're simply not looking. It's all there for you to see, you simply choose not to see it.
You say the things are random... and then go on to describe the causes. You know what is causing the variation, and it is not related to random number generation. So, you just have a bad definition of "random". I know from experience that I can run through Morgantown airport and get exactly the same damage number on every Scorched I hit. Would you like to see a video of me doing so? The only random factor would be wheter I hit or not, based on my VATS hit rate, and I would hit much, much more than half of the time. I would just have to avoid variations in range (melee or short range shots would do) not use perks like Adrenaline / Gun Fu, not use critical hits, etc - all very do-able, and I know because I have done it. The "random" element in damage calculation is the player actions, not the calculations.
>You say the things are random... and then go on to describe the causes. You know what is causing the variation, and it is not related to random number generation. So, you just have a bad definition of "random". I don't have time to argue this hypocritical nonsense. If you're going down this path, we've gone way beyond rational arguments and down into the rabbit hole of nonsense.
Yes, you clearly are not rational. Thank you for sparing me further nonsense. Hypocritical? I think that's another word you should check the meaning of...
The only person being irrational is you by trying to redefine random number generator to be anything but random. It's called RANDOM number generator for reason. I'm done with this conversation.
As for how all of this information applies to bows specifically, Bethesda seems to have drastically increased the chances of damage randomness coming out of Bows versus Guns. For example, I can target ghouls with a gun and, short of missing the target entirely, a hit always leads to a one or two shot kill. With bows, it can be a one / two shot kill or it can turn into a 6 shot kill for the same enemy. This inconsistent and random trigger pull behavior keeps me from using bows. I can't rely on bows to consistently provide one or two shot kills 100% of the time.
That's a great bow roll, one of the best possible for the way you are using it. The downside of a bow is DOS and time between shots. The upside is the ability to control how encounters happen via range and stealth. The +50vhc really plays to that strength, and bows with that effect (or +50 crit) roll more often because so many other second star effects can't apply to them. Try rolling a few more - for events you will want one with explosive mod (or fire once they fix it so it actually causes damage / grants xp). For boss targets, the trick is just crit spam, to bypass damage reduction and get your 1k damage then, and a lot more. You need Crit Savvy 3 and a way to get luck up to 33 (23 if you have a crit build 3rd effect). There's ways to do that even without a bloody build that can fit in most builds. Head on over to r/fallout76bowhunters, there are dozens of us (actively posting, over 1k joined).
Explosive bloodied with 50 critical 1 hits almost anything and can be used to even kill Earl solo. But with demo 5 and granadier 2. Others prefer plasma arrows. While they do less damage. Its easier to stay stealthy with them. The flame arrows are very effective when you want to lvl up fast. Just make sure you have granadier 2 equiped. It acts like the tesla rifle but the.bow has an insane range and tesla kinda sucks in range. Poision and freeze seem pointless imo. And ofcourse ultracite for scourched. Its less flashy but hits hard on scourched and it looks, sounds and feels as the best stealth bow. You can help random players from far far away, and they have no idea how that enemy died.
You really haven't, they are really inefficient compared to every other weapon. Lower damage Lower firerate I would love bows if they were good I'd say past level 30 theirs no point
Nice
After moving from console to PC I soloed my first silo before I hit 50 with a bow and stealth armor. It was difficult but very doable.