Bow Decoration priority - Pierce / Forceshot / Spread / Mind's Eye?

[Moraisu]

Hello there,

While trying to obtain the ever elusive Mighty Bow 2 (using 3 piece Legiana at the moment for that) I decided to visit the mender and burn all my excess decorations, ended up gaining one Forceshot Jewel 3, one Pierce Jewel 3 and two Spread Jewel 3, oh, and one Mind's Eye Jewel 2, and now I am quite confused :D

What I gather from what little information that there is is that the damage boosting decorations damage only apply to the raw damage or the weapon and not elemental one, I already have Critical Boost Level 3 from 2 Kulve Taroth's, Constitution maxed and I also maxed the current weapon element, now I am trying to figure out which one should I swap out for the new decorations that I got..

It also does not help that all those jewels are 3 slot jewels, having to trade them for two 4 slot decorations, huh.... I am out of ideas here, any help is much appreciated =)

[Zhou Yu]

Not a bow main but I can offer some advice. Pierce gems for bow arn’t that great unless you’re heavily focused on the dragon piercer. Normal/Spread gems can be good if you find yourself leaning to one of those moves more than the other whilst going through charges. Crit boost doesn’t effect elemental damage. I would personally use Mind’s Eye over elemental or expert gems because it allows you to be farther from the monster, and thus safer from attacks. Lastly, try to get a series of Kjarr elemental bows as they naturally come with Crit Element vastly increasing your damage and making affinity that much better for you.

[Moraisu]

oh... oh I just found out that Affinity only affects raw damage, hence the "you must have the Silver Rathalos armor set"... oh dear... and I have 300 hours of total playtime, sheesh.

edit: Right, what you just said =)

[Zhou Yu]

lol, but affinity is still great without crit element because the bow only really has quick small (damage wise) attacks.

[Just Life]

Legiana set is awful and is not worth using for the mighty bow gem effect. Forceshot and spread are nice to have but not needed as it only boost about 10% the physical portion of your arrows and bow are mainly deal elemental damage. To me they good if you have some spare slots to fit them in. The best thing is to have bow for every element type along with each +elemental damage charm. Use your 1 slot deco slot to fit in +element damage till you max it out. Affinity is the most needed so try to get that as high as you can before you do anything else since you need to crit for critical element to proc.

The main thing is you'd want the armor set with critical element (Velkhana) and when it become opened to you, true critical element (Silver Rathalos).

This video is very helpful. It is rather long but is worth the watch if you want to get better at the bow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OccXXn2JxHg

[Aelin Galathynius]

Pierce only affects Dragon Piercer which you should never use as it leaves you vulnerable to attack for far too long.

As for normal vs spread, that comes down to which one you use more. Always get one of each.

I'm currently trying to learn bow and I think but i'm not 100% sure, that normal should be the one to take the second level. I've looked up the recommended combos and RT is used more than B plus normal gets a higher increase at level 2 than spread so I'd say go for normal over spread for the second point.

Level 1 for both is +10% level 2 is +15% for spread and +20% for normal.


You'll also need to make a bow for each element and use the appropriate element attack skill at max level.


The video that Just Life linked has all you need to know about the stamina skills, he's right it is a long watch but it explains everything.
TLDR: use stamina surge 3 then get 50% stamina reduction via a combination of:
Constitution which is 10% per level
Dash Juice, 25%
Felyne Blackbelt, 20%


This guide from Phemto (a bow speedrunner) will teach you all the basics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHfwND6FMxs&list=PLb4ZyyapUiHkxfeNDoyFV6d1ZGjNiYgAT



Going off what I've seen in speedrunner videos:

The highest damage combo for when a monster is stationary ONLY is B x3 then RT x3

The best combo seems to be RT x3, B then once you have max charge you spam dash RT B, dash, RT, B until stamina runs out.
To regen stamina use B, RT x3, B.
B, dash, RT, B is the fastest way to get to max charge.

The catch with these combos is explained in the video Just Life linked, to use their terms, some of the combos are stamina negative, some stamina neutral and some stamina positive. Knowing when to use which one will require practice.

[Moraisu]

Thank you for all your help. Thank you for using the buttons instead of the names of the moves, yes, I am on a controller, although keyboard seems to be better for bow, but I got used to it, that and my 200 euro mouse is a lot more expensive that my 40 euros controller, so I tend not to abuse it when I can :D

Interesting, I was going for Dash B Dash B Dash B, only using RT when all my arrows would not hit the target, but using Dash RT B Dash RT B does make sense stamina wise, hence damage wise as well...

The stationary part does make sense, considering that a stationary monster would get hit by the full.. I guess most people seem to call it the coconuts :D Going to check my decorations and see what I can swap out then,

Hum, I can forge two Velkana parts and lose the Might Bow 2 boost, so you are saying that the boost from velkana, when using a hight afiinity build is highter than using the 4 piece legiana Mighty bow boost? Huh... that is going to mess with my attack rotation memory :D

[Seamus]

Originally posted by Moraisu:

Thank you for all your help, huh, I had no idea that elemental damage only counted when criting and I am clocking around... 300 hours of gametime, huh. Thank you for using the buttons instead of the names of the moves, yes, I am on a controller, although keyboard seems to be better for bow, but I got used to it, that and my 200 euro mouse is a lot more expensive that my 40 euros controller, so I tend not to abuse it when I can :D

Interesting, I was going for Dash B Dash B Dash B, only using RT when all my arrows would not hit the target, but using Dash RT B Dash RT B does make sense stamina wise, hence damage wise as well...

The stationary part does make sense, considering that a stationary monster would get hit by the full.. I guess most people seem to call it the coconuts :D Going to check my decorations and see what I can swap out then,

Hum, I can forge two Velkana parts and lose the Might Bow 2 boost, so you are saying that the boost from velkana, when using a hight afiinity build is highter than using the 4 piece legiana Mighty bow boost? Huh... that is going to mess with my attack rotation memory :D

No, elemental damage always applies, not just on crits.

Elemental damage just doesn't crit without the critical element/true critical element set bonuses.

[Seamus]

Say a single arrow hits the monster for 20 physical and 30 element(numbers pulled squarely out of my ass).

A crit would deal 25(20*1.25) physical and 30 element.

That same crit with critical element added would be 25(20*1.25) and 40.5(30*1.35)

I don't know the bow true crit multiplier offhand, but, it'd be slightly more.

[puzzlefox]

Bow main here

1. Legiana set is bad. It's not worth it for mighty bow.

2. Spread is the one to prioritize. One level of spread is enough. Lvl 2 has diminishing returns, but if you can afford it, go for it.

Pierce, just pretend this one doesn't exist. Dragon piercer builds are sort of fun, but it's a weird, awkward playstyle and has niche applications. Dragon piercer should not even be used unless you build for it. I have a piercer build, but literally the only fight I use it on is phase 1 of shara. But it does do hilariously massive damage to her.

Normal shots is okay, but I wouldn't stress your build to fit it in. None of my main builds have it. If you do use it, I would only do one level of it.

Trueshot is similar to pierce. Just ignore it unless you build specifically for slinger burst.

3. Build silver rathalos or safi armor. Silverlos is slightly higher dmg (unless you have maxed out kjarr bows. If you do, then kjarr bow + safi armor is stronger. by a lot.) But it's hard to build on since its bloated with useless skills. I personally swear by safi armor, and always have even before it was the meta. It provides a lot of comfort and comes with crit boost 3 and evade window 3 which rules. Lots of deco slots make it easy to fit in elemental attack and resentment and/or agitator.

Namielle armor is also a decent budget option as well. Namielle beta is the more practical option, but namielle gama has its uses.

Not having mighty bow isn't the end of the world. It's a dps loss, but it's not that huge of one tbh. If the dps loss bothers you, then you may have to sacrifice a bit of comfort. I use constitution 2 which is on the low side, but stocking up on dash juice helps a lot.

[Moraisu]

Oh, He did say Critical Element, not elemental damage =)

I see now, huh, very interesting.

[Aelin Galathynius]

Originally posted by Seamus:

Say a single arrow hits the monster for 20 physical and 30 element(numbers pulled squarely out of my ass).

A crit would deal 25(20*1.25) physical and 30 element.

That same crit with critical element added would be 25(20*1.25) and 40.5(30*1.35)

I don't know the bow true crit multiplier offhand, but, it'd be slightly more.

True crit is 1.55 for bow.

[Seamus]

Originally posted by Aelin Galathynius:

Originally posted by Seamus:

Say a single arrow hits the monster for 20 physical and 30 element(numbers pulled squarely out of my ass).

A crit would deal 25(20*1.25) physical and 30 element.

That same crit with critical element added would be 25(20*1.25) and 40.5(30*1.35)

I don't know the bow true crit multiplier offhand, but, it'd be slightly more.

True crit is 1.55 for bow.

That's what I was told, but I couldn't remember offhand and didn't have the energy to go digging for the value myself.

[Aelin Galathynius]

Originally posted by puzzlefox:

Bow main here

2. Spread is the one to prioritize. One level of spread is enough. Lvl 2 has diminishing returns, but if you can afford it, go for it.


Normal shots is okay, but I wouldn't stress your build to fit it in. None of my main builds have it. If you do use it, I would only do one level of it.

I'm not a bow main so I want to ask this:

Highest damage combo for when a monster is stationary B x3 then RT x3

Best combo for when the monster is up and you have stamina is RT x3, B then once you have max charge you spam dash RT B dash RT B until stamina runs out

To regen stamina use B, RT x3, B

B, dash, RT, B is the fastest way to get to max charge

The above is all info I looked up when I decided to start leaning the bow.

Normal shots gives 10/20%
Spread shots gives 10/15%

Based on the above combos you would use normal shots more than spread shots and normal gets a higher bonus at level 2. Given this I would pick 1 level of each and then if I could fit a second level of only 1 I'd take normal.

Can you explain why you would take spread 1 and spread 2 before taking normal 1?

[Aelin Galathynius]

Originally posted by Seamus:

Originally posted by Aelin Galathynius:

True crit is 1.55 for bow.

That's what I was told, but I couldn't remember offhand and didn't have the energy to go digging for the value myself.

I had to dig for it too, wasn't as simple to find as it should have been.

[Moraisu]

I guess spread shots are that more more powerfull than normal ones, hence the lower 15% damage boost that the decoration offers, I am yet to find a Silver Rathalos and also yet to fight Safi'jiiva, so I guess I'm going for the Velkhana armor, love the helm with Divine Blessing, the rest.. not so good, huh.. the chest has Quick Sheath 2.. I wonder, does it help when you want to shoot a Thousand Arrows, no, you don't seath the weapon, just put it to the side... damn.