how to use bow attacks, and swap to bow?

[Delaborga]

i know it requires focus to use, but the bow is in my second slot yet apparently i cant change to the bow and its skills at all in combat even with full focus, if i set it to main hand it works but not secondary

[Rei Niwa]

bow is a offhand weapon, you need to hold the LB(L1) button and it uses focus, you can hold the skill button to charge the attacks.

[Herro]

So i have the bow, when I hold LB(CTRL) to ready to bow i just get my melee skill runes it doesn't swap to my bow runes.

[Purromi]

not runes but i guess the block button

[Matze]

for weapon swapping you need to upgrade your weapons slots (with Ichor/Bossloot) then you can use the left/right dpad. Otherwise it's just an offhand weapon

[Remni]

Bows need to be able to be used as a primary weapon. It feels terrible for them to be offhand and only usable if you have focus. Its a terrible design choice for them.

[inioth]

Originally posted by Herro:

So i have the bow, when I hold LB(CTRL) to ready to bow i just get my melee skill runes it doesn't swap to my bow runes.

Have you figured this one out yet? After starting the game again after the Breach update I tried the same thing but even with full focus and holding L1 the bow would not fire an arrow, but it did show the fire arrow skill.

Somehow something changed though and now I just see my melee skill when I hold L1, even though the bow is in my offhand. Please let me know if you've found a solution.

[Kristowis]

Figured it out. If you're using a primary weapon that's held in both hands (like dual daggers), you can equip a bow as a secondary but you can't use it. Your primary needs to be a one-handed weapon so that the other hand holds the bow. Then you can spend focus using the bow's runes for occasional ranged attacks.