I'm thinking of rolling an elven archer/mage, but first I'm wondering if someone could, off the top of their head, name the best bows in the game and where to find them.

Thanks in advance.

There are good bows?

Huh, I don't recall finding any...

Anyways, from what I recall the best in the game is Ellumyn's Bow, given after doing his quest in Qintarra.

D: 10-20, RNG: 20, (Crit Hit +50 Animals)
Wgt: 5, Spd: 20

Maybe the Arcane Bow is better? Either way, if you play a bowie you might wanna plan on cheating arrows*, cuz you'll go through hundreds of them ridiculously quickly. At least that's my memory, I haven't used a bow in ~3 years.

*By cheating arrows I mean using the stacking trick.

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Pyrotechnic Bow? Nope.
Ellumyn's Bow? No sir.
Arcane Bow? Not even close.

Amusingly enough, the most powerful bow in Arcanum - in terms of both Average Damage per Action Point and Average Damage per Ammo Unit - is a hexed bow. The Long Hurtful Bow found in the ruins of the Ashlag Tribe on Thanatos, to be exact.

Not only is it very damaging by itself, the curse cast upon it randomly casts Harm on both the shot enemy and the archer, and "randomly" means "a whole goddamn lot" here.

"What, the archer as well? Who cares about the bow's power when it's completely unusable", one could point out. However, if the archer maintains a protective spell from the Meta college on himself...

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If you're playing vanilla Arcanum with the official patch, Ellumyn's Bow only does 1-10 damage (with the critical hit bonus against animals).

Its ridiculous speed still makes it pretty useful, in my opinion.

The Compound Bow is worth the money if your MA isn't too high (your chances of critical failure get high pretty quickly). It's slow, but it does 5-18 damage and an elf can use the thing without investing a ton of points in Strength. You can buy it from the Dwarf smith in Tarant.

The Arcane Bow, IIRC does 9-18 damage, which makes it about like the Compound Bow... if you have enough MA and can meet the MSR. Gypsy women randomly sell them.

The Bow of Ecclesiastes (or whatever it's called) that you find as part of the Bow master quest is kind of cool because it has really good range and a To Hit bonus. You may not want to trade it for your training.

Most of the magickal bows you find randomly look neat, but kind of suck. The Charmed Bow looks like a Mongol composite bow when it's equipped, so I wanted it to be awesome. But its damage is only 3-12. The Mystic Bow is one of the better ones and it does the same amount of damage as a Serrated Chakram in exchange for a high MSR.

I've had fun playing archers before, but I can't honestly say I like any of the bows except for Ellumyn's.

Wait, so Muro, let me get this straight - by using a reflective shield (or was it something else?), you can completely negate hex effects on some weapons?

You're forgetting that damage is doubled with expert training.




Dealing ~47% more damage = about the same?




~64% more damage = the same amount of damage?

Forgetting the expert training effect explains this mistake, though.




Depends how we look at it.


Reflective Shield if you want to cast spells, Dwoemer Shield if you don't find the need to do so.


Indeed. It all depends on the nature of the effect, but in some cases such as the Long Hurtful Bow the hex effect is negated completely.

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The Mystic Bow gets a +6 bonus? I thought it was only +5.

You're right that I forgot about the bonus. I thought Expert training just increased your speed. Double damage may just be the best use of 500 gold I've ever seen.

All I meant about the Arcane Bow and the Compound Bow is that they both have a maximum damage of 18 (before bonuses from training).

From my perspective, that makes the Compound Bow a better choice since it's easier to get, cheaper, less dependent on magickal aptitude and requires less strength to use.

Of course, your data proves me wrong since the Arcane Bow clearly does better damage on average. I must compliment you on your superior knowledge, sir.

The Compound Bow can only be bought on your first visit to Tarant. It's actually absent from any inventory list (you're supposed to craft it), and only appears in that dwarven smith's inventory because it was pre-generated with an old inventory list sometime during the development and they forgot to re-generate it.

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Wow. I always thought it was just an easter egg type of deal. I didn't realize I've been taking advantage of a mistake all this time.

Anyway... Making a Compound Bow is a bit of a pain (considering that you have to find a Long Bow somewhere), but I still would rather deal with that than power shop for the Arcane Bow.

hello. ellumyn bow is kind of the levered machanized gun equavalent for bows. so its pretty much a badass, even if youre a technologist.

compound bow is also very good. doesnt need 10 str. ive went trough the game with only the compound bow until i got ellumyn (however its spelled) bow. it can be bought from blacksmiths at lower levels, so be sure to check them out in the beginning of your game. at dernholm, ashbury, tarant, blackroot everywhere. buy 2-3 if youre planning to craft bows later. to build a compound bow before you reach a higher level in the game, you can find a long bow on dak`taan (was that his name?), the leven thief leader at black root from the mayors dagger quest. theyre a bit north-westerish of blackroot, just past the train and the river. you can steal from him with fate points or just beat him up.

ive lost my hope on making a pyrotechnic bow as my skill points wouldnt be enough before i reached level 50. but i found one equipped by the fire master mage in tulla. im playing with the unofficial patch of sogg black tooth so i dont know if its his doing but i remember something like this when i was playing it vanilla too. so you can steal it from her with fate point or just bash her non-rp before fleeing off from tulla towards the ruins. shes in the simons tower first level, somewhere on the east corridors. the room with torches and stuff. dont wait until she falls asleep either. she doesnt. crazy woman.

hope this helps. dont mind anybody, archery kicks ass.

Might be easier to just buy it from a blacksmith or the elven trader in Ashbury.


Indeed, Drog didn't add it. The fire master had the bow already back in vanilla.

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How many kinds of bow can you craft? I didn't even know you could craft bows, but then I never played an Archer.

Three kinds. Compound, envenomed and pyrotechnic bows.

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Cheers. I'm thinking of buffing up bows in my modules (guns too, but I might leave that for another thread). What would you recommend for increasing their damage? I was thinking the damage per second should be close to melee weapons, but the range of a bow is offset by the fact you have to spend money on arrows. I'm not sure how attack speed of the weapon affects DPS though.

My two cents is Ellumyn's Bow every time.

You've got to remember at expert level of bow training you're firing two arrows instead of one - as such I think bows are okay for damage because of this - unless you do remember but you still think they're nerfed? I think using a ranged weapon is the best means of damage mitigation, so though you might be spending more money on arrows you'll be spending less on potions and the like (not the best trade off, as there are plently of ways to heal a character, but it does help keep you alive).

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Not sure if it was the official or unofficial patch that changed this, but ever since some version of the game, expert bow no longer makes the archer shoot two arrows at once. Instead, it makes each of his arrows deal damage instantly twice, essentially meaning double damage. Same result, half the ammo usage.

Also, as I mentioned above, a well managed Long Hurtful Bow is a beast.

I think the problem isn't just bows being too weak but also melee as a mechanic being overpowered. For example, in the hands of an expert/master magickal bows and swords from the same tier (charmed, magick, mystic or arcane) deal about the same average damage per action point, before the strength-derived bonus melee damage is applied, and that one becomes truly insane when it doubles at and above 20 strength.

Now, while it's true that the more powerful bows are decent, acquiring them is truly a pain. A tech archer at least can get a compound bow on his first visit to the blacksmith in Tarant. A magick archer either gets really lucky and finds a magickal/mystic/arcane bow in a chest or - more likely - is stuck with a pathetic short bow followed by an underwhelming elven hunter's bow up to the point when he can get Ellumyn's bow halfway through the game.

If I were to balance melee vs ranged mechanics, for starters I'd make the strength-derived bonus melee damage no longer double at and above 20 strength. Instead, I'd make the stat bonus for 20 strength double a character's carry weight. Perhaps throw in a small perception-derived ranged weapon damage bonus, too.

EDIT:

This is also a cool idea. You'd think being shot at with arrows and bullets would hamper your spring a bit.

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Well hopefully P:E will answer these problems but until then, a man can dream.

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Been testing an Archer in my module and I'd say shooting two arrows at once is a bad thing. Why? Cause regular shooting alone means you spend a LOT of money on attacking. Unlike close combat and magic once you run out of arrows, that's it. And if you have no money? No more attacking. Arrows don't regen over time. Killing stuff at range and quickly is great, but a melee character can rest and heal their HP and keep at it if they run out of potions. A caster can rest and get their fatigue back.

I imagine making the arrows double damage (not shooting more often) was a response to this. Just keeping a more careful eye on ammo helps but you only need to forget once to no longer be able to attack. I'd up the money gained from random creeps and chests but... only Archers need it. Other builds would just become even better as they can spend afford to buy better equipment. I'm going to try putting in creeps that use bows so you can get their arrows, that might fix it. Will probably have to give them a lot of arrows, will see.

Edit:
Also I know arrows only cost $3, but from play testing it's amazing how fast they disappear, especially when you hit an area with little to no gold or items to sell.

I always thought it was kind of neat that tech/magic bows shoot neutral arrows, meaning there's no penalty for a mage shooting at an automaton, or a technologist shooting at a golem.

@ytzk that's pretty cool, I'll have to remember it.

I would say a bow user would have either a magickal or technological focus. The money problem for a magick user isn't so much of an issue, as because you have to have a decent magickal aptitude for a bow you will likely have some back-up offensive spells and so should never really be caught in too much of a bind. Plus, I'd say there's a lot of money to be had in the game anyway - though you're constantly using it up I've never found it to be an issue (well, only early on it the game but I could still use solely my bow for the majority of the time).

For a tech user, most people likely go for the pyrotechnic bow as it's pretty much one of the best bows there is and the schematic is pretty easy to come by (it's in the BMC I think) and most people will want it earlier than when someone has one you can take in the game (fire master in Tulla, there may be another I can't remember). As such, to make it you need a fire obstruction (they are very rare in the game, members of the Willenbecker gang have them and for that you need to do the firearms mastery quest - which you probably won't do as you're using a bow, plus the fact they tend to throw them before you can manage to kill them). To make a fire obstruction you need level 6 explosives, meaning that you can already make explosive grenades at level 5. These sell for over 700 each to firearms salesmen, with the price of the constituent parts being much lower and being spammable if you wait and reset store inventories - hence unlimited money and unlimited arrows.

Still, if you really are worried the most elegant solution for your mod would be to include an arrow schematic that allows for product of arrows cheaper than what you buy them for in a store (like the bullet schematic).

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I'm afraid that's not true. The penalty is there, for it checks the weapon, not the projectile.

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Pff, facts!

Oh well, I guess what I meant was: the penalty versus magick for firearms is a bitch; it's not so bad for bows.

Arrow schematic eh? Hmm might see where I can learn how to make schematics.

Starting to think for the moment I'll just add in chests to the dungeon with some arrows and items to sell. Probably with be easiest for the early part in the game the player is in.

You know it's strange, but I've always heard on this forum bows are terrible (damage wise), but now I think they're just expensive to maintain which can be solved by chests and random bow creeps. Might make a higher level of bow later on so the damage a neutral guy gets scales as well. I want a pure archer viable - not tech or magic. If I went with magic, it'd be better to just buy plenty of fatigue potions and rest as need. Do way better at range with harm then with a bow. Though you don't have nearly as many action points early on - It's amazing how fast a character with 14-18 dex can move and how easily they kill stuff while taking no to almost no damage.

Speaking of bows I must remember to put in expert teachers. Apprentice is nice, but I want to see that double damage in action.