Struggling with Bow and Rail, advice?

[ApathicAlpaca]

Is it me or are bow and adamant rail very dependant on good boon and hammer RNG?
If I do not find triple Special with rail, I'm basically done for. If I am unlucky with Cast-on-Attack bow, the same.
I have not really tried the other aspects because I found rail attack damage is hilariously low, bow attack takes way too long, bow special is a joke...

What aspects and boons do you usually get for these weapons for higher heat runs?
Until now I mostly tried blade rift cast-on-attack with bow (Artemis seeker duo) or rocket/bomb special with rail. But it's not easy, even then.

Both weapons seem to compare very badly to Aegis or Fists tbh.

[squat_instructor]

Bow:
[Zagreus] - Artemis/Aphrodite attack + Dual Shot/Triple Shot/Chain Shot hammer = big damage/crits
[Chiron] - Demeter special + Arctic blast | Dio special | Artemis special = damage stacking or high burst
[Hera] - Artemis/Dio cast = big burst

Rail:
[Zagreus] - Artemis attack + Artemis dash + Spread Fire hammer = clearing rooms in 2 nanoseconds
[Hestia] - Artemis/Aphrodite attack = MASSIVE damage/crits
[Eris] - Any high damage special + Triple Bomb/Rocket Bomb/Cluster Bomb = great AOE clear

Those are off the top of my head or those I prefer running. Both weapons are highly powerful and prime options for 32+ heat apart from Chaos Shield.

[Yuretz]

Right now my favorite bow combo consists of fully charged Hera aspect, Poseidon/Demeter for main attack, Zeus for special. Improving special with Jolted effect and any other Zeus upgrades helps a lot.
Athena dash + Hermes multi-dash are good for survival, but are not entirely necessary. Spell and Call - whatever you can gather. For Hammer upgrades i prefer explosive shot and more arrows for the special, but all of isn't build-defining.
Tactics is simple: keep distance, land a main-attack succeeded with 2-3 specials. Repeat.

Rail still stays very hammer-dependent for me, that is true.

[squat_instructor]

Hestia aspect is literally the least boon dependent aspect with which you only need an attack boon and you're set to beat the game at the moment you acquire it. Anything on top of that is just icing on the cake.

[ApathicAlpaca]

I should probably add that I do not have the resources to upgrade aspects yet so stuck with Level 1 aspects for now. So Hestia max is out of the question, for example.
Guess I'll have to be lucky with hammer. I will give Artemis a try with bow, thanks.

[Lorska]

You can build rail for poison and that doesn't require any hammers. Start the run with dio, get aphro when you can and just ignore/sell all other boons and stack levels on your poison attack. Extra points for running into eurydice for that rarity upgrade.

[Anderson]

For the bow, Hera Aspect is very good. AOE specials, like Poseidon and Athena work very well, allowing you to charge massive damage aoe blasts. Good upgrades include Sniper Shot (300% extra damage to distant targets), Dual Shot (less range, but otherwise basically doubles your damage), and Rapid Fire (DPS general increase, and very good with Dual Shot).

For the Rail, I had a really strong run using Zeus boon for attack, combined with Extra ammo/accuracy upgrade. Result was a very fast-firing, chain-lightning clown fiesta.

[ApathicAlpaca]

Well, Zeus Rail is nice vs thrash but horrible vs bosses in my experience. I lose so much health in the reduced hydra chamber or even against Hades. The fact you need to stand still to DPS is just a terrible design choice.
For Hera I'd need max rank, waiting for the drop is just impossible.
Mostly on bow and rail bonus darkness I try for a Rift Blade build, which has its own RNG win-or-break: either you have boon choice and miss early Artemis or Ares (whichever you did not pick as keepsake) or you have room choice and get the wrong boons all the time. It's cursed, I tell you, CURSED.
Just BARELY survived with Blade Rift build just because I did not get the legendary nor chaos cast damage boost.

I definitely need some other way than Bladerift to finish with bow/rail but try as I might, it's just so much HARDER than with fists or shield. Sword is OK, spear is meh but rail and bow? I hate 'em :|

[Mazerath]

Personally, with the Rail, the best combo I found is a Zeus/Poseidon combo.
Use the Poseidon trinket and get the attack boon, use Zeus for a lightning strike boon like the special, then the duo boon where attacks with knockback inflict 40 via lightning strike. Pair that with Posiedon's legendary that double knockbacks, and you deal a crazy amount of damage