General Stuff:



If you want to focus on bows or do a bow-only run, forget about Longbows (with one exception - Black Bow, more on that later). Use Light Bows!

Your bread and butter are jumping shots into landing shots, sprinting shots aswell as dodge shots. Thats why you should use a Light Bow, because Long Bows can only do jumping shots which also come out much slower. Forget about the normal charged attack. Light Bows also don't slow you down on your horse when firing, making them ideal for kiting open world bosses. Because of all the jumping and constant shooting you will eat up stamina like no other weapon. This means high Endurance investment is recommended.

There are only 2 Bow Ashes of War that you should be using. Mighty Shot for general pve mob clear and heavy headshot damage and Barrage. Barrage gains more value as the game goes on. Later bosses realy like to do the RP-Walk towards you, allowing you to unleash 10-15 arrows with Barrage before the fight actually starts. Easy way to apply Poison + Rot.

All current Bows have terrible scaling that does not improve and remains the same as their starting value. This means weapon upgrades are way more important than attributes to get your damage up. You should be prioritizing Vigor and Endurance early.

Despite taking some time to get rolling, Bows are very viable and can trivialize alot of boss fights. I was able to beat for example Radahn and Nekron Gargoyles on my first try.





Bow Tierlist:



Black Bow

Misbegotten Shortbow (Composite Bow)

Edit: Composite Bow is pretty much the same as Misbegotten. Turns out a D scaling =/= the D scaling on another weapon. Black Bow slightly favours Dex over Strength for scaling. The current damage softcap based off Renalla for Black Bow seems to be a 36/58 split. Since Black Bow is the primary choice for bossing, you should probably aim for higher Dex over Strength. Having a secondary bow like Misbegotten/Composite gives you the flexibillity for Mighty Shot & Rain of Arrows. At the mentioned split, there is only a 3 point difference between Misbegotten and Composite ( L1 Black Bow, L2 Misbegotten, L3 Composite). So if you know you are going to use Black Bow anyway, you can skip Misbegotten farming and instead go with a Composite Bow (it looks better too!).



Thats it basically. I already mentioned that scaling of Bows is terrible. Those 2 Bows stand out because of their D scaling in Strength (aswell as other features). Two-Handing a weapon gives you 1.5 times your Strength and this works for Bows aswell. In terms of attributes, Strength scaling Bows get the most damage. Misbegotten Short Bow also comes with a higher base damage than all the other Short Bows and the range decrease is completely negligable. At +25 and 50 Strength it dealt about 36 more damage than my +25 Composite Bow at 50 Dexterity in my tests. That might not sound like much but most regular arrow shots will hit for 200-300 depending on your arrows/upgrades etc. So a ~36 flat damage increase is more than a 10% damage increase.



So what about the Black Bow? Black Bow is a unique Longbow. Remember when I said you should forget about those? Black Bow is the exception. It shares almost the same movepool as Shortbows, allowing for fast jumping shots and landing shots, aswell as dodge and sprinting shots. It has the essential move pool that is necessary for bossing. There are a few differences however. It has the same regular charge attack as the other Longbows, which is slower than the Light Bow charged normal attack. This is fine because you should not be using those anyway. Unlike Shortbows, the Black Bow suffers from slow down when shooting during mounted combat. It is a unique Weapon and you can't change the Ashes of War on those. You are stuck with Barrage. Ok for bossing, but you lose some of the flexibillity you would have with a Bow like Misbegotten. But just like Misbegotten it has a D scaling in Strength and even a D scaling in Dex, making it ideal for Quality builds. It has the highest base damage of all the Bows that share the Light Bow moveset. In conclusion it has the highest possible base damage in that weapon moveset-category with the highest scaling potential. For bossing and PvP it is best in slot.



If you want the option to use Mighty Shot for mob clear and sniping you will have to upgrade another Bow, and swap in Black Bow for dedicated bossing. That works generally fine, because Black Bow is obtained quite late, and Misbegotten is an early game drop. They both use different types of Smithing Stones, so they won't compete for the same resources.



Talismans and Gearing:



Headshots don't count as crits, so all the crit Talismans won't work. Neither the charged normal bow shot nor Mighty Shot count as actual charge attack, as such Axe Talisman won't work. Claw Talisman does not affect bow jumping shots.

Elemental Scorpion Talismans do work, but only on the small elemental portion of the elemental arrow that was used, providing only a 3-4 extra flat damage increase. They should be ignored.

The only Talismans that give you a noticable damage boost are Arrow Sting Talisman, Alexander's Shard which increases the skill damage of Mighty Shot and Barrage, Blue Dancer Charm and the Spear Talisman.

Arrow damage drops off at the end of the effective range. Arrow's Reach Talisman increases that range resulting in more damage when you are fighting/kiting at max range for example during mounted combat against dragons.

The highest possible "unconditional" damage increase comes from the Blue Dancer Charm, which increases attack power based on how low your equip load is. This is not based on equip load percentages. You will deal the highest damage when your naked, about ~12-13% increased damage at ~15 total weight, with harsh drop offs as you approach 25 weight. If you want to use this Talisman, you will only have small wiggle room for gear/fashion. I personally found 15 weight to be ok for me, and it still provided the biggest damage boost out of all the other options. You will be quite squishy, so beeing good at dodging is necessary.

Turtle Talisman is great for stamina recovery and very noticable in fights with high possible dps uptime.

Spear Talisman increases counter attack damage for thrusting attacks. Arrows do count as such. With jump and dodge shots you will be constantly hitting counterattacks which will get boosted by 50% with this talisman. This should always be in your core talisman loadout, especially for pvp!

Regardless of your talisman choice, you should remain at light weight (< 30% of your max equip load). This will give you the fastest Roll that will cover a longer distance while also providing the most iframes.

There are conditional talismans that you can use like Kindred of Rot's Exultation, which increases Attack power when there is Poisoning or rot in the vicinity. The range for the trigger is short and the buff only lasts about 20 seconds.

Golden Vow Incantation does increase Arrow damage by about 15-20% for 90 seconds, but needs a decent bit of faith. You can get Golden Vow as an Ash of War very early and put it on your secondary weapon. It has no Faith requirement, but only lasts 45 seconds instead of 90. For very lategame or NG++ runs you might want to invest in some Faith + Mind as Incantations become your only untapped source of damage scaling. Flame, Grant me Strength can also be used, but only lasts 30 seconds.



Arrows:



You will use regular vendor Arrows for 80% of the content.

Try to make mostly Fletched Arrows. The distance drop off on non-fletched Arrows is nuts.

Don't craft regular Bone Arrows, unless you ran out of regular ones in a dungeon and you need some extra to get through to the next Grace.

Edit: Still don't craft regular Bone Arrows, but their fletched versions seems to be bugged in a positive way. Not sure exactly why, but they seem to deal strike damage instead of pierce. Very good against pierce resistant enemies, such as Miners. This helps alot with 100% pure Bow runs.



Don't craft Fire Arrows. The Vendor in Caelid next to the ASTRAY FROM CAELID HIGHWAY NORTH Grace has unlimited supply. Buy them! Runes are easier and faster to farm than bones.

Also in Caelid: The merchant at the ISOLATED MERCHANT'S SHACK has unlimted supply of Serpent Arrows. Those deal more hit damage than crafted Bone Poison Arrows and have a higher Poison build-up. Never craft poison arrows.

The Vendor at the HERMIT'S SHACK in Altus has unlimited supply of Golden Arrows. Those are incredible against Death Bird Bosses and Ghost Riders mainly.

Merchant in Dynasty Mausoleum sells unlimited Dwelling Arrows. Kill the merchant to get his Bell to access his stock in the Roundtable. This also unlocks unlimited Blood Roses.



That leaves only a few Arrows that you actually need/want to craft yourself:



Bleed Arrows. You can farm Blood Roses in Fort Haight, after you cleared it. If you don't complete the quest chain the castle will remain empty. Just cycle between the Fort and the Grace. 4-6 Roses per Run, takes 20 seconds. The other option later is the Rose Church in Liurnia. 8-15 Roses per run, ~30 seconds. The Merchant in Dynasty Mausoleum also sells Blood Roses (800 Runes). If you farm runes in the same area, buying is actually faster.

Rot Arrows. Stronger dot than Poison. Deals filthy dps when combined with Poison on bosses that can be afflicted with it. Butterflies are annoying to farm as they don't seem to respawn regularly at the same spot. I have not found the perfect spot yet. So make sure to pick up every single butterfly you see while questing in Caelid and the Lake of Rot.

Lightning Arrows. Recipe is in the Wyndhain Catacombs. It can be rushed very early with the Dectus Lift, before you even fight any boss. Those are your best hit-based damage option against armoured targets, stony guys, dragons and especially against Iron Virgins. They are better than Magic Arrows in pretty much every case. Mats can be farmed early above Lenne's Rise Grace in Caelid after you take the jump-pad behind the tower.

Stormhawk Arrows. Cookbook is in Stormveil Castle. 10 more damage than regular Arrows with very high guard break/stagger damage. Needs Stormhawk Feathers which are a bit harder to farm. Run circles near the Stormveil Cliffside Grace and kill the 6 Birds here. Stormhawk Arrows are pretty much your highest damage Arrow against anything that isn't resistant or weak against Lightning/Fire/Holy. I used those against the big boi bosses. A few of those can easily open up bosses to ripostes. Some bosses like the Deer in Siofra can almost be stunlocked with Mighty Shot + Stormhawk Arrows.

Spirit Flame Arrows seem great on paper because of their high phys portion, which seems to scale better against most bosses. But I have not found a good source for those and as far as I know you can't buy them in bulk anywhere. Semi-rare drop in Nekron. Don't bother, go for the crafted version.

Coldbone Arrows. Cookbook in Carion Manor at the church Grace, upper level. Reachable by jumping down from 3 Sisters. Sadly quite alot less damage than Spirit Flame Arrows but still very good against bosses like Malenia. Crystal Buds are easier to farm when you reach Mountain Top of the Giants. Apostat Derelict Grace has 3 outside the church.



Bone Farm:

Edit (as suggested by TheInuitHunter):

Actually you don’t have to farm the bones, go to the Warmaster's Shack at night and defeat the invader, he’ll drop a Bell Bearing, making the bones available at the Two Maidens

So don't farm Bones, buy them! You can easily stock up 999 + another 999 in your storage.



If you still want to farm them: Near Stormhill Evergaol, south of the Stormhill Shack Grace. About 20 Goats bunched up. I used arrows to quickly kill them (Runes are easy to farm) with Jump-Landing Shots. Jump on Torrent and quickly collect, port to Grace and repeat. 20-30 Bones per run, ~1 min max.





Feathers:

Best spot for me is now at 4 Belfries. The Grace has 3 birds next to it, you can get there before you kill any boss. Kill birds, collect, reset.



Rune Farm:

Do the Rune Farm at Palace Approach Ledge in Mogwhyns domain. With about 800k souls, which takes like 15 minutes, you can fully stock up on all purchasable Arrows (699) and have 2000 bones saved up. You can unlock this farm via Varee after you have beaten Godrick.





Secondary Weapons:



There are enemies that are very resistant to Arrows/Pierce and take virtually no damage from Bows. There are also alot of Shield enemies. To preserve your sanity on your ammo, your secondary weapon should cover that weakness.

I found Flails and Hammers to be the best option (both have the same movepool). High guard damage, don't pling off shields, strike damage that obliterates stone enemies (Miners), knights, crystal bosses. The Jumping heavy attack causes slight stagger, which allows you to queue up 2 more jumping heavies for a 100% riposte on every regular enemy, with shield and without. You can stunlock/kill every non-boss enemy like this. The lategame zone Farum Azula is an absolutely breeze with this strat.



I completed the game at level 129, Hero Class. 60 Vigor/ 40 Endurance/ 57 Dex.

+25 Composite Bow, +25 Keen Nightrider Flail.

Alot of my findings and tests with Misbegotten and Black Bow were done after I beat the game and while fooling around in NG+. In hindsight, Hero also seems to be a good choice for an Archer.

If you go the Faith route with Golden Vow for lategame, Vagabond is the best class for archer. Saves a point more than Hero. Samurai is third place.

Don't pick Bandit for a bow run. Arcane does nothing for an archer build right know. The stat distribution of Bandit sucks balls.

I am currently on my second bow run as a Vagabond.



For builds your are looking at:

50+ Vigor (60 is recommended)

35+ Endurance

40+ Strength

40+ Dex



For Black Bow 40/40 Strength/Dex split, 45/55 split or a 40/60 split are your milestones. You can check with Rennala and optimize your stat spread based on damage gain per attribute point. I would not go past a 40/60 spread, as you will start gaining only 1 point of damage for every 2 attribute points invested due to softcaps and horrible bow scaling.



If you push past level 120 you can start adding Faith till 25 so you can use Golden Vow.

Golden Order Seal is the best weapon choice for your incantations, because it has 0 weight for the sake of using Blue Dancer Charm. You don't need to fulfill the Int req for the Seal to use buff incantations at full power.



PvP Build at 125:

Vagabond

60 Vigor

29 Endurance

34 Strength

46 Dex





Bow Videos:
https://youtu.be/b2YdoEGQX6A