Quick Note on the Serpent Bow to clarify. You CAN hold it in your offhand to get the bonus poison buildup of the serpent bow ITSELF, but if the bow you fire the arrows with is not the Serpent Bow, the status arrows won't get the bonus arcane scaling. On the Serpent Bow Status sheet at the 12:35 mark, the bonus you can get by holding this bow in your offhand is in the brackets under the Arcane. The Arrow status buildup on the same screen is for when you fire with the Serpent Bow.

One small thing about the Black Bow: it slows you down when shooting on horseback, like any other longbow. The "true" shortbows can be fired when gallopping.

Crightt my dude im gonna be honest here, i have massive hangover so im gonna skip to the summary but i'll rewatch these videos like 2-3 times anyways

The golem archers dropping regular greatarrows far more often than the golem greatarrows is seriously one of the least well-known shames in the game. I seriously hope that, when the inevitable DLC is released, a vendor pops up that actually sells golem greatarrows and (somewhat) rights this strange wrong. Make them over 1000 runes a pop if you must so the normal greatarrows are still a decent budget option.

In DS1 there was an extremely obscure mechanic where headshots did something like 10-30% damage to metal helmeted targets depending on whether the helmet was open-faced!

I know it’s been nearly a year since this was posted, but in case anyone scrolls the comments- golden arrows (with fully upgraded bow) one shot skeletons and Beastman skeletons, you don’t need to kill them twice. They come in super handy in catacombs, graves, and Farum Azula

Something very important about Might Shot on the Serpent Bow is that it has extra increased status build up (not just poison). I tested this with bleed arrows yesterday. Pretty cool! I think it’s the most fun PVE bow

1:44 - Both of the fletched shatter shard and rainbow stone arrows are uncraftable, despite their descriptions stating otherwise - we need to raise some awareness about this or it’ll never get fixed!

I love this content, thanks so much for what you do.

Theres something incredibly important you didn't mention. ELEMENTAL ARROWS HAVE SCALING!!! If an arrow has an element, and the bow scales with that element, the arrows will deal more damage. This means Lightning arrows are actually very good, since they scale with dex on all bows. And extremely well by my calculations, doing 4-5 extra damage per point in Dex.

thanks for all you do for the community man, I wish you all the success!!

Since the day I found your channel, around 5 months ago or so, I was waiting for the day you'd cover bows. Great stuff Chrightt, keep it up!

Just quickly advocating for the harp bow. It's the lowest weight shortbow which actually translates to similar AR at lower investments when you calculate the damage bonus to the arrows, too. It also drains less stamina compared to the other bows. It's not a lot less, but it is noticeable. My build is actually a faith build based around optimizing bestial sling and the lower shortbow weight directly translates to higher bestial sling damage. It also makes pretty noises.

You forgot to mention that Mighty Shot increases the effective range and bypasses blocks, but this is otherwise pretty complete.

Fletched arrows should have flown faster for PVP or something as it's so easy to dodge arrows. But the main advantage of having both Fletched and normal is it doubles your arrow pool for that status. Arrow crafting should yield more per craft though, it's pretty lame resting at sites of grace to then go and collect more resources and you use soo many arrows to fight a boss compared to no time investment in melee or magic. They could have at least made enemies and items respawn over time in open areas so you don't need to always rest etc. One thing I think Monster Hunter did really well. Also it was very disappointing to see drawstring greases weren't for bows or that successive hit effects aren't effected by bows.

Best ER tech content. Thank you for blessing us Chrightt

Invaluable info, man. Much appreciated

Love the fact you made a bow guide before a scythe guide

I've been waiting for this video for so long

Great analysis, super helpful for my bow only run.

This video is a gold mine of information. Thx you so much. I hesitated between black bow and serpent bow for a status build (the 2 upgrade with somber stones to make it even worse). I think ill go for the serpent bow.

I just started a second run, and will be using some bows for an arcane build, Thanks for your work, dude.

Great stuff! Seems like unless you want to use great bows, the Black Bow is a pretty clear winner.

This was an amazing bow explanation video. I found the great bow today and couldn’t figure out why my arrows were not working .

Thank you for your work

Thanks for the video, although I am not really into using bows but I must respect your effort.

I wish there were more ashes for bows. Awesome video capoo keep it up

Very complicated but very useful thanks man.

I main bows, and switch out my equip based on what I'm up against in PvE. Black Bow for NPC invaders and other agile enemies, Pulley Bow for sniping to clear out mobs, and Longbow with Rain of Arrows for dragons and other large slow enemies.

Advantage of skyshot is that if you can lock on, it is in range. It's good to pull or knock guards off of ballistas.

Hey well done and thank you.

I mainly use the standard light bow with barrage on it and either bleed or sleep arrows. You can slap it on any build as a status tool.

Perfect timing! Just yesterday I started a sort of challenge run with some friends and I went with bow only, but I was thinking to mix some support incantations. Do you have any recommendations on this approach? (PVE) Bow only with some faith. Great video!

hell yeah best subclass, let's go

You should do a video about optimized consumables builds. Like what pots/items are best along with best farming methods.

Hello Crightt, thanks very much for producing the most valuable Elden Ring content on KZfaq. I have a question regarding the stacking of the Lion great bow passive. Would holding two of these and using Radahn's spears as ammunition not beat the Golem AR in all cases? You mention that having a Golem primary and Lion secondary is optimal, is that because the Golem AR is high enough that it outdoes even the multiplicative double Lion passive? I ask because I am interested in a build entirely centered around maximizing the damage of Radahn's rain

Edit: Good job as always, Chrightt. Not sure if anyone has mentioned it yet or not but I'm fairly certain you can apply the Golden Great Arrow's version of Golden Vow on enemies as an invader. I haven't tested it out personally but from what I've seen from dangitjim's videos, this is the case.

I’ve found the Erdtree Greatbow to be very powerful when stacking buffs correctly, it also helps that you can buff it directly with your physick flask, very solid secondary weapon for a strength faith build

For those looking to do a bow only run: Longbow/albinauric bow with rain of arrows is going to be your go to for applying status especially to large bosses. Wish I could say I found the serpent bow to be more effective, but it's basically just a pvp/single small target bow. Radahn spears + lion greatbow with the ash of war is going to be your boss shredder if they have high status resistance.

I know it might not be worth to cover in a whole new video, but would you be interested digging deeper into Ballistas? (Jar Cannon and Hand Ballista respectively) I know everyone who uses them just applies some buffs and calls it a day, but I was curious to see if there was more to it. For example, are the elemental bolts affected by scorpion charms and tears? do the bolts do poise damage? (I know stormwing arrows do) If so, are they affected by the stonebarb tear and such? Is the ballista damage affected by jumping attacks buffs? What about thrusting damage? (Spear Talisman) Are they affected by RKR? Anyways, love your content, keep it up!

Bow only is the most fun I ever had in this game.

Ufff...i considert to try a Bow only build but too much Brainwork haha xD Thanks a Lot for your efforts with this detailed Video

Well done 👍✅👍

Based Chrightt continues to prove he is the real Wiki

You said the Lion's bonus is applied after defense calculations. Does this mean defense is calculated form raw AR*MV only? Also are buffs applied over the reduced damage (after defense calculations) or on the full amount (before defense calculations)?

For barrage, winged sword talisman and milicents talisman, do they work with that ash of war?

Can't confirm this but i think mighty shot increase status build up per arrow. Might not actually be a thing, need to check again.

Thank u

Mighty Shot also ignores shields partially, about 60%. Kinda like Impaling Thrust.

Thankyou

I'd imagine the erdtree great bow could outperform any bow against undead. I'd hope that's the case. Not sure if Skeletons resist thrust damage like they do in previous games.

I read in reddit, it's said that fire arrow and golden arrow scale with faith scale of Erdtree Bow. So if my build is Dex/Faith, against beast type enemies that is weak against fire, is it better to use Erdtree Bow than Albinauric Bow?

does the horn bow effect frost arrows at all?

15:48 How do you show the hitbox? Is there a mod for it?

A quick note: The erdtree bow is one of my favorite PVE options as a bow, since it gets a massive damage bonus + permakill effect vs skeletons, which is really useful in areas like farum azula with large packs of them or enemy skelly snipers. Edit: Also, for a question,does the horn bow have any effect on cold status scaling since it has int scaling?

The neat thing about Golden arrow ig is that it cost no fp to get golden vow even in pvp, even if said passive is weak.

Question about elemental damage from split arrows... do buffs like flame grant me strength & terra magica apply to such damage?

Did they make misbegotten bow infusable? I can infuse mine

If infuse with enchant shot, some buff and dwelling arrow, horn bow is best bow to snipe some guy in pvp with 700 ar max and 360 ar when no buff

I love da pulley bow 🥺

The only reason I like Fletched vs Unfletched is that it lets me have two stacks of essentially the same arrow. Really handy for taking out some annoying bosses and mini-bosses. Lion Greatbow is my favorite bow in the whole game. Thanks for letting me know that the Radahn Spears are the best option for it and that it double-stacks with two of the bows.

Hey Chrightt, great stuff as always but i felt the gameplay volume was a bit loud, scared the shit outta me with the headphones lol

Is the status buildup on headshots also a 1.5x multiplier, I've been wondering

Are scaling modifiers applied before or after the arrow AR is added to the bow?

Theoretically wouldn't the erdtree bows be good beings all dmg scale via faith?

YES

congratulations The best bow tutorial of youtube. Thank you for ur effort and time to help the bow art in elden ring :)

Chright I just wanted to let you know I actually have a pen and paper when ever you upload idk if it means anything but I just wanted to let you know there’s someone who takes notes on your analysis

One thing you didn’t mention is whether 2 Radahns has a higher AR for the Radahn Spear than off-hand Radahn + Golem. I think you implied that it didn’t, right?

Hey man I hate to ask I know there's a lot of comments but is the black bow also the best for PVE? thanks

why the golem arrows are farmeable easier on PC? I dont understand that part

Chright flexing how he doesn't need to farm for golem arrows Me a console player: Hold my USB

The blackbow is actually such a fun weapon. Archery is actually a fun pve build… or it would if half the bosses didn’t input read and dodge.

Something to note is that the Black Bow cannot be used while galloping on torrent but other light bows can. This is likely to effect your choice for pve on a bow run.

Fortune favours the bowed

7:30 Me too, Chrightt, me too.

why is being on PC make it easier to get some of the arrows? like the Golems?

Cool vid. Thx

You said the full moveset of a lightbow is on the black bow but that isnt entirely true. The standard light attacks are slow on black bow and also you cant use them on horse back like the other light bows. This is very small difference but for pvp having a faster r1 might come in handy in situations. Personally im gonna go for missbegotten on a strength build as i want that faster r1.

Yo, i love your vids can you explain how blackflame's damage over time works? Like how much it will do and if it stacks with itself?

Damn, as a faith build, I invested so many stones into upgrading both erdtree bows...

forgot the red branch bow? or did I miss it ?

crossbow vid when?

The regular standing shot of the Black Bow is slow like regular bows. This is why I prefer short bows. Having to sprint, jump, or roll to shoot arrows quickly isn’t always the best choice.

Just tried to join the discord link. Says invalid or expired?

Are crossbows so different from bows that you do an extra video for them?

I don't get why Fromsoft didn't allow affinities on bows. It feels deliberately restrictive and not in a good way. I prefer having to deal with decent bow builds in PVP than have them be regulated into "weak and forgettable" (except Lion's Greatbow ofc)

So how do PC users get golem greatarrows? Hacks?

What is the use case for bows to supplement a pve build? You made offhand comments about using bows as utility for a non-bow build (eg rather than deliberately going quality stat spread to maximize how damage). But what does using a bow for utility entail? Is it just using the bow to pull an enemy from a group before switching to melee to actually fight it? If that is the use case, does it matter which bow and arrow to use? Shouldn't you just go for the bow with the lowest stat reqs or lightest weight, and use the cheapest arrows? And if it is for applying status, a 15 faith and 12 arcane investment will grant any build access to rotten breath and dragonice, both of which can fully apply either scarlet rot, or Frostbite the status to most bosses in a single burst if you have over 108 fp, even if you do not invest any additional faith or arcane. You can just open any boss fight with one or both of those two moves to instantly guarantee the status on a non-immune boss. As for applying poison on a build that doesn't have poison infused into one of the melee weapons that the build powerstancing, is it actually worth the time to switch to bow to apply the poison when poison does so little damage? Effective dps of the status bow is much lower than effective dps of powerstancing melee, right? Would the total damage you gain from poison throughout the fight, even match the damage you lose from not powerstance striking the target with melee dps during that time? On top of that, is it worth carrying the additional weight of a bow just for status application? Dragon communion seal has zero weight, and can apply rot or ice on virtually any non-immune target in a single cast. Infusing one of your melee weapons with poison/occult costs zero weight. Using a poison bow takes a lot of weight, and costs a lot of effective dps during a boss fight, never mind the cost of arrows. So what is the actual use case for a bow in PvE other than cheesing an enemy who cannot get to you?

Bows are actually incredibly fun. Stick to the purchasable arrows like dwelling and serpent

I complain about the poor damage of longbows and people just tell me to use a greatbow and that's kind of the whole problem isn't it

I'm gonna use golem magic arrows and you can't stop me

HARP BOW.

There are a lot of weapons which are objectively worse and serve virtually no purpose, and I can't fathom a reason for their addition to the game other than a dopamine trigger when you find them as treasure. FromSoftware works in mysterious ways

golem great arrows are so horrendously awful to farm why isn't there a shop for them they're so cool ;_;

Why does sleep dip into every class? Faith users get the torch, not that great. Arcane users get bows, sort of. And intelligence users get the sword, typically the best option.

Love your videos but your volume is too low

I wish bows were better : (

Damn i didnt even know those storm arrows did any poise damage, they might be really useful for a pure storm tempest build

You are wrong about Serpent Bow. If you hold Serpent Bow in left hand and shoot stuff with a different bow or crossbow held in right hand, it will get poison build up. I tested this myself yesterday with Pulley Crossbow.