The new bow....

[Arachnyd]

Anyone else disappointed in its durability?

My wife and I did Bonemass on her world. I started at Level 2, with 100% durability and it broke 2/3 of the way through the fight. We both were kiting, I shoot very fast, bow skill at 100. Used about 120-140 Arrows. She finished him with her Frostner. No deaths, so, no harm no foul....but, jeez....it should have at least lasted through the fight.

Arach

[Suzaku]

Fighting a boss that is 75% resistant to pierce with a bow...

[Arachnyd]

I did it with Drauger Fang <shrug>

Arach

[FissionChips]

Yeah it doesn't have "full" durability until lvl4, which isn't available yet. Would be nice if later weapons had higher durability to start with, but oh well.

[Stellar Remnant]

Originally posted by Suzaku:

Fighting a boss that is 75% resistant to pierce with a bow...

Frost arrows work quite well on Bonemass.

[Suzaku]

Originally posted by MiniHerc:

Originally posted by Suzaku:

Fighting a boss that is 75% resistant to pierce with a bow...

Frost arrows work quite well on Bonemass.

Something nobody has in large quantities unless they go farming in the next area.

Just bring an iron mace, folks. Kills the boss in under 4 minutes. No reason to make this difficult.

[ling.speed]

Originally posted by Suzaku:

Just bring an iron mace, folks. Kills the boss in under 4 minutes. No reason to make this difficult.

But think of all the free levels you'll get with bow !!1

[Rhapsody]

Farming drakes and obsidian doesn't sound exactly free to me, but it doesn't sound very expensive either.

The thing with frost arrows and Biomass (its new name) is that you can use any bow with them since majority of the damage comes from the arrow anyway.

Either way, Spine Snap's durability it's a huge concern even now, or at least not any bigger than that of Jotun Bane for example. Arrows only stack to 100 after all. It's somewhat problematic at bosses, especially the Queen, but magic and crossbows can also be put to use.

Spine Snap also has an advantage against anything that is immune to poison. Draugr fang's bow damage consists of about 1/3 in poison damage. Of course, the reverse is also true if the enemies are resistant to physical damage or piercing damage. It really depends how you prefer to use the bow. If it's your main weapon, draugr fang is probably better since you'll likely be using bow against seekers and can benefit more from poison and greater durability then.

[Kursor1]

A guy did a bow-only run, without skipping biomes. Took him 3 finewood bows, a repair run and 1400 or so wooden arrows to kill bonemass.

[Humpenstilzchen]

Originally posted by Kursor1:

A guy did a bow-only run, without skipping biomes. Took him 3 finewood bows, a repair run and 1400 or so wooden arrows to kill bonemass.

1400 wooden arrows..holy moly..I wonder how many levels in archery he got from this lol

[M.Red]

yikes... really? it only takes one mace, a shield and a few poison res meads and maybe a few minutes to take bonemass down without a bow

but ok, some like it the hard way i guess

to the op, it depends on the lvl of the weapon and your skill how long it lasts.
same goea to the lvl 1 club wich goes down fast.

so maybe a little rebalance on this bow might take place

on the other hand - fighting a boss with high pierce resistance using a bow may not work very well

[Rhapsody]

Originally posted by M.Red:

so maybe a little rebalance on this bow might take place

Only thing that is missing are black forge upgrades. The bow itself or any other gear from mistlands don't need to be touched at all.

[M.Red]

oh,yea. i forgot there are some upgrade elements missing
thx for reminding me

[Arachnyd]

Rhaposody.....thank you, I've come to that conclusion my self :-)

Others: I play this game with the concept of: Don't let 'em close enough to hit you. My bow is maxxed, my bow skill is maxxed.

I kite everything. Sometimes it takes longer, but it's the least risky paradigm. Haven't fought the Queen yet. Unless you cheeze it, it looks like a massive vertical kite. Kiting is challenging in enclosed areas :-)

Bottom line: The bow needs to be able to shoot at least 200 arrows before breaking....seriously :-)

Arach

[Lil Puppy]

It does spirit damage... I needed that in the swamp, not the mistlands. I got a draugr fang bow in the swamp that does poison damage for an area that is resistant to it. I got frost weapons in the mountains against things that aren't really resistant to frost?... sure why not.

The progression and unlock of these weapons is 'logical' but not useful. Now I can use the most powerful bow in the world in the swamp and 1 shot everything, ok, but why is it end game for a bow that's only truly useful in a low level area?
Why can't I just upgrade all the weapons to max equal stats? need a balance pass for sure.
Don't get me wrong, right now everything either goes to 95 total damage or 105 but many of them are spread out so much in different damage types that aren't really useful when you unlock them.

I have all the weapons and I still use the draugr fang because the swamp is a low level area and using the most powerful bow in the game there just seems a waste when everything in the swamp takes enormous amounts of blunt damage. I don't need a spirit damage bow. I would rather have a frost bow or a fire bow, hell, a blunt bow would be better than a spirit bow at this point. But I know for sure that I'll really want a fire bow when the Deep North comes out and everything is resistant to frost. The Ashlands is surely going to be fire resistant so I guess poison is the way to go in the end.

[Hobo Misanthropus]

Lower tier bows use less stamina and draw faster. Considering how much of your damage is tied up in the arrows, as a lot of people have figured out, the better DPS is often to use an underleveled bow, with the most powerful arrows.