Bow vs. Heavy Bowgun vs Light Bowgun?

[iiTimW]

Hi!

Currently HR 70 and so far I've only used the Longsword and Dual Blades. I really want to get into ranged weapons though!
What are some of your recommendations? I've read online that Bow is best suited for speedruns, while the Light Bowgun is suited for a support role?

These 3 are a bit confusing to me, and before I start making an entire build, I'd really like to know which one is best suited for me.

Could someone help me point out the most important differences?

Thanks!

[Athrex84]

Bow is both about easily never getting hit and also making yourself the easiest thing for the monsters to hit. You can dash around a lot and generally be very hard to hit for the monster. However, your damage isn't great unless you use dragon piercer which involves really knowing the monsters so you can line up the shot to hit as many hit boxes as possible while also not dieing because you are stuck in an uncancellable animation for a very long time. Good dragon piercers feel amazing. Missing or getting 1 shot because you can't dodge feels terrible.

Bowgun is mobile but has the bowgun (reload) style gameplay. has status effects and generally is a good all arounder.

Heavy Bowgun is .....for a certain type of player. (not me) Almost anytime you have your weapon drawn you are limited to being able to only dodge certain attacks. Heavy Bowgun gameplay is about finding the right time to draw your weapon and fire to do high damage but its a very slow/methodical gameplay style filled with drawing/putting away the bowgun a lot.

Playing ranged in a group is different than melee. Ranged gameply is not always easy and safe. Monsters will at random go after any character who is attacking from range. Because of this you do not want to play from very far away. All you end up doing is inconveniencing everyone not using a Bow/Bowgun in your group because they have to chase the monster to you. Your teammates chasing the monster means they are not damaging it.

I am by no means an expert and I almost exclusively use the bow. This is my 2 cents.

[ArtificialQT]

If you build your Heavy Bowgun with a Shield attachment right, you can become the Terminator.

[Shinzawa]

i find HBG really fun to use for some reason. makes monster sleep > bomb > wyvern blast > cluster repeat.

[Cappuccino Assassino]

The game becomes a third-personal shooting game when u play these weapons.(I prefer the bow OwO

[moomie]

If you're speed running I would avoid dragon piercer actually. it's cool as heck but the power shot combos is where the DPS is at.

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by loathecraft:

If you're speed running I would avoid dragon piercer actually. it's cool as heck but the power shot combos is where the DPS is at.

I would just avoid DP entirely. It's an AWFUL ability that does lower DPS than any of your other attacks. There are only two times you ever want to consider using Dragon Piercer: Waking up a sleeping monster, and cutting a tail. It's the only attack you have that can cut tails, and it is technically the largest single-hit damage, so doubling that for wakup is OK. However, you'd get more damage out of just comboing a monster while it's trying to stand up, rather than recovering from DP.

To OP. Bow is an amazing weapon. Combo to full charge level (3 default, 4 max), then dodge to reset your attacks while maintaining the charge level. That way you can spam charge level 4 shots constantly, until your stamina runs out.

[Venusgate]

Originally posted by Athrex84:

However, your damage isn't great unless you use dragon piercer

Don't believe his lies.

Bows advantage over most other weapons is mobility to plant all of your hits on weakpoints. You're best dps is just keeping your shots flying at Max charge throughout the whole fight.

I've seen a dragonpeircer build work 1 in 100 times, but it's very dependant on player knowledge of monster moves and monster type

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by Venusgate:

Originally posted by Athrex84:

However, your damage isn't great unless you use dragon piercer

Don't believe his lies.

Bows advantage over most other weapons is mobility to plant all of your hits on weakpoints. You're best dps is just keeping your shots flying at Max charge throughout the whole fight.

I've seen a dragonpeircer build work 1 in 100 times, but it's very dependant on player knowledge of monster moves and monster type

Even if your target were a stationary pole the size of Kulve Taroth, DP still just doesn't have the numbers to compete. It has a couple niche uses relying on its non-damage properties, but absolutely no place in a good damage rotation.

[funkmonster7]

As a predominantly bow user, I don't use Dragon Piercer that much. It is powerful, but if you have more powerful armor with skills like Weakness Exploit and other skills that compliment it, machine-gunning arrows does more damage than a single Dragon Piercer.

Dragon Piercer also has another problem in that while charging, you are locked into it. If the monster decides to charge you, you can't dodge roll. You also cannot aim too far away from the cone-like area that you initially aimed at.

Lastly, Dragon Piercer will do damage based on the distance you are from the monster at the time when you fired it. Which means, if you fire Dragon Piercer just exactly at critical distance (the distance where your weapon does optimal amount of damage), then theoretically, only the first 1 or 2 hits will trigger the critical distance damage, and everything else after it (Dragon Piercer pierces everything in its path) does less damage. So, DP is only useful when you are shooting point blank, at a monster's face and hoping it comes out through the monster's @ss.

I played with all 3 ranged weapons so far, I like bow the most because your damage is not based on your ammo, which is limited. With Bowguns, if you miss your aim, you just wasted a bullet. You can craft more, and at higher levels, you will have Pierce 1-3, Spread 1-3, Normal 1-3 in your inventory so you hardly ever run out of ammo. (There is an unlimited Normal Ammo 1 but its damage is puny.) However, sometimes, you'll use up almost every ammo you bring to the fight, and have to recraft everything when you return to base. You can bring crafting material with you to craft ammo but that takes up space you can be using to grab crafting material along the way (I'm a hoarder).

As someone said before, LBG is an all-rounder with some mobility, some bombs, special shot drops some mines on the ground, handy for killing monsters that charge at you all day. HBG will most likely use Shield mods to block anything that charge at them, and shoot the monsters in the face whenever possible. But HBG cannot miss, and they must make use of enemy weaknesses.

Lastly, HBG needs to use traps a lot. My friend who mains the HBG brings 1 pitfall, 1 shock trap, and crafting material to craft an additional trap for each: so, total of 4 traps. He doesn't use a Shield mod so that might be why, but from my own experience, if you fight something like Odogaron (the red dog in Rotten Vale), without traps, it's darn near impossible to fight it alone, even if you have Shield mods.

Basically:

Bow = shoot a lot, but stay within close range, dodge roll or slide around to get better positioning and keep shooting. Use Dragon Piercer when monster is immobilized to pierce it head to tail. Dragon Piercer is Parts Breaker, and some fireworks. Very tactical playstyle.

HBG = complete opposite; shoot when you are certain you will land a hit, any range is fine as long as you are not defenseless when you are charged at. Use Cluster Bombs and other explosive ammo, and traps to immobilize monsters. Heavily strategic playstyle.

LBG = mix of both bow and HBG but doesn't excel at either one. The only thing strategic about LBG is planting your Wyvernblast mines, and don't shoot over them because any gunfire over the incense of your mines will detonate them.

One other thing I forgot to mention: as a bow user, you just want to keep shooting arrows, preferably not with the coatings on. Because coatings are limited as well, so you want to use them when you have fully charged up arrows. In this way, bow is similar to LBG just at much shorter range, yet without the need to reload ammo.

[el diablo anda suelto]

Give me that sweet cluster with dark devourer

[Hammer Of Evil]

HBG shield / spread is good memes.

HBG Mirv Mode with devil hbg is fastest clear time with 4 ppl.

bow - probably best single handed dps/element/status without pissing off your whole team in the process.

lbg - idk lol. seems underpowered next to bow and hbg imo.

ps, anyone who clusters in a multiplayer pub deserves special place in hell. =)

[Demerzel]

Originally posted by iiTimW:

I've read online that Bow is best suited for speedruns, while the Light Bowgun is suited for a support role?

Bow is a super aggressive weapon with the right skills.

You have to focus on the elemental damage. So for example legia's snow bow for ice. You need 2 pieces of rathalos and 2 pieces of lunastra armor. Rathalos setbonus buff the elemental damage and lunastra setbonus gives you 50+ stamina. You also need as much affinity as you can.

When you have all the skills you will zip around the monster like the flash in the comics.

It's easy to achieve 30dmg per arrow. And since you are sliding you will constantly firing 3 arrows per shot. This is why people says it's a speedrunner weapon because with the right skills you can be super aggressive and do a lot of damages.


I disagree with funkmonster on the hbg. I played a lot with it. And I never felt the need to lay down traps. odogaron went down easily.

It's just a matter of equipment.

Both the HBG and Bow heavily depending on the armor and skills. While a greatsword user can get aways with a drachen armor and a wyvern igniter.

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by Demerzel:

Originally posted by iiTimW:

I've read online that Bow is best suited for speedruns, while the Light Bowgun is suited for a support role?

Bow is a super aggressive weapon with the right skills.

You have to focus on the elemental damage. So for example legia's snow bow for ice. You need 2 pieces of rathalos and 2 pieces of lunastra armor. Rathalos setbonus buff the elemental damage and lunastra setbonus gives you 50+ stamina. You also need as much affinity as you can.

When you have all the skills you will zip around the monster like the flash in the comics.

It's easy to achieve 30dmg per arrow. And since you are sliding you will constantly firing 3 arrows per shot. This is why people says it's a speedrunner weapon because with the right skills you can be super aggressive and do a lot of damages.


I disagree with funkmonster on the hbg. I played a lot with it. And I never felt the need to lay down traps. odogaron went down easily.

It's just a matter of equipment.

Both the HBG and Bow heavily depending on the armor and skills. While a greatsword user can get aways with a drachen armor and a wyvern igniter.

Lunastra armor is NOT meta for bow. Stamina cap up does not actually increase your DPS, because 9 times out of 10 you are going to start firing again before you fill your stamina to full anyway. What you DO need is either 5 Constitution or 3 Constitution+Dash Juice. Reducing the cost of shooting and dodging drastically increases your DPS potential.

You should be able to get to about 60 damage per arrow, with 6 arrows per power shot while using power coatings. You can actually hit a monster for over 400 damage in a single attack with Bow, and you can spam that attack about once per second, with an additional somewhat smaller attack in the middle.