Ensnaring arrow and pierce mechanic problem.

I am starting to theorycraft my puncture bow build and i was thinking of going ascendant for the 25% bleed multiplier and +2 pierce and extra arrow. And this is where i realized it was going to be counter-synergistic with ensnaring arrow against boss because of

"Ensnaring Arrow is a new bow utility skill that fires a single arrow. When it hits and doesn't pass through an enemy, a rope shoots into the ground, pinning that monster to that point. "

The priority is pierce > fork > chain. So it's not possible to cancel the pierce. Only way to utilized the new ensnaring arrow is having 0 global pierce and having your main attack linked with the pierce gem but the pierce gem is more projectile damage and does not work with bleed. Not sure what's the point of this skill. I think crimson dance is still going to be a most have because of it. The only exception i found is bleed siege ballista (innate pierce) with ensnaring arrow or a bleed melee build who weapon swap to ensnaring arrow.

Almost every build got global pierce and is going to make ensnaring arrow useless. My suggestion would be to make ensnaring arrow unable to pierce even if you have pierce chance.

I can kind of confirm that, have been playing around with the skill for quiet a while now all the way through to maps and it feels absolutely unintuitive. And even if you try to set it up like you described with no global pierce, the investment is not worthwhile at all.

Iam not 100% sure if the math on one big bleed might still be technically better than crimson dance but the opportunity cost is way too high.

I was hoping it would be a nice CoH setup with maybe even withering touch for my caustic arrow build but even there it just creates problems. I do need some amount of global pierce of CA, no way around it. So the skill is pretty much useless.

Also, id say, even if it works, the feeling, both visually and the audio, it doesnt feel good. It feels more responsive to slow packs with toxic rain. By a mile. And id argue that slowing is kind of the big identity of ensnaring arrow... so yeah.

I am using it aswell atm , level 85 and it just seems so weird , was going to use it to clear with and puncture for singletarget ... imagine actually having a skill for singletarget in this game .

Regardless , as it is right now its so niche , bowbuilds that don't go global pierce/fork/chain in endgame are so incredibly rare , if it could be changed so that the first target it interacts with it ensares that would solve all the problems of the skill .
That make it usuable in a plethora of builds instead of this "bleed debuff" as it is used for solely as of now.

Yeah it kinda sucks. I mean the skill is nice for the extra damage and cursing things. But the pierce not working with it kinda Fucks up Deadeye using the Pierce node. Also I think if it pierces or Chains or forks it shoulpd Tether those Monsters together instead of tethering to the ground.

Yep, pretty disappointed with it as well. Had some good ideas for Mirage Archer + Curse on Hit, but having Piercing Shots for my build kind of scrubbed that idea. Kind of makes it naff for a lot of builds, maybe they should consider making Ensnaring Arrow unable to pierce? Or they can make it a volley animation, like Rain of Arrows. I don't know why anyone would want this ability to pierce, you're using it to slowdown your target, why would you want it to pass through and not do that? It's a cool idea for Bow skill, but seems useless in a high percentage of builds with it's current implementation.

Cheers.

Just noticed Ensnaring Arrow does not work when your pierce lmao...


Its sad :(

This needs to be fixed. So far the only boss it's worked on is kitava (who turned green and I assume it did).

I wonder why I even have the skill slotted when it does absolutely nothing.

No attention from the staff?

You made a new skill that is completely counter intuitive to its purpose. There are a number of ways you can fix it, or at least make it usable while you figure out your real goals with it. Pick one.

I was theorycrafting a build with it because it sounded good on paper... and that's literally the end of it. It basically isn't a functional skill. Make it unable to pierce, or a "rain" effect, or similar to Binding Shot in WoW, or...whatever you need to do. There is currently no reason to use your new skill, as much as I would like to.

Fix this damn skill dude, wth...you can't even viably play a bow build without pierce, and the fact that this doesn't work half the time even without pierce is messed up...

Also this skill needs a better visual indicator, I can't even tell when I'm snaring or not. Make the ropes neon green or something. The dirty grey and brown thing mixes in with the ground too much.

Yeah it took me a long time to even notice it's not working with the pierce, could use both a better visual indicator and change it to be useful.

I mean the only time to use the gem is vs a single boss mob, where it doesn't work for most builds