Updated for Patch 3.24
Bows are associated with Dexterity and can be used with Bows-specific Attack Skills or any Spell, but you won't see them being wielded often by Spell-casters as Staves or Wands are much better suited for them in almost any case. There are niche situations where Spell-casters are forced to use Bows because of the Skill Requirement (Mirror/Blink Arrow Summoner) or Support Gem Requirements (Manaforged Arrows Hierophant). Bows allow you to perform range Attacks with Projectiles often referred to as Arrows to distinguish them from other types of Projectiles. These are selected mostly by Deadeye characters - the ascendancy specialized in Projectiles, but you can of course use this weapon on any character with enough Dexterity.
Bows are some of the most used weapon types in the game, but not the Unique ones, almost all of them are bad. They're all severely understated with extremely low DPS, which is the stat most valued on any Attack build. Normally you could expect to buy a 900 Elemental DPS or 500 Physical DPS bow after day one or two of a new league. Most Unique Bows are around 300 to 500 DPS. That's very low. The exceptions to this rule are Voltaxic Rift and Widowhail. These can reach very high DPS, but the list we've put together should still prompt you to explore the potential of all of these weapons or explain how they work and why some builds use them.
Bows | |
Silverbranch - It's great for a level-1 weapon - it has increased Damage and Attack Speed with additional Accuracy and Mana on Kill. It would be hard to get a better Bow that early, but the Quill Rain, which is available at level 5, is usually better, so not a lot of players choose Silverbranch just to get to the Ledge a bit faster. | |
Required Level: 1 +1 to Level of Socketed Bow Gems |
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Widowhail - You have to have a good Quiver to make it work. Usually, it requires a high character level as Bows are supposed to provide you with necessary flat damage, but if it's sourced from elsewhere, like Hyrri's Ire, you should be able to make good use of it. It's also used in builds that don't need a weapon with flat damage at all, like Spell builds. We have implemented it in the Manaforged Attribute Stacking Inquisitor. Here it's combined with The Poised Prism and Intelligence to gain tons of added Lightning Damage with Attacks. | |
Required Level: 1 (150-250)% increased bonuses gained from Equipped Quiver |
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Quill Rain - It's one of the best early-level weapons, it has very high Attack Speed but low damage. You can hold onto it until Act 5 or 8, even further if you have other sources of added damage, such as Blackheart Rings, or if you don't need added damage because you scale up with DoT, as is the case with Toxic Rain. It's the most efficient in builds that value Attack Speed, such as Toxic Rain or Storm Rain builds. | |
Required Level: 5 +(10-20) to Dexterity |
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Replica Quill Rain - It's not as good as the original - its Attack Speed is lower. It has a built-in Arrow Nova Support that you can link with any Bow Attack which causes you to fire more Arrows in a nova-like formation while lowering the damage. It's often used with Caustic Arrow to apply additional stacks of Poison, but you can simply get the Gem, even in its awakened version, and link it up in a Bow that has more than 50DPS. | |
Required Level: 5 Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 1 Arrow Nova |
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Storm Cloud - Has quite good Lightning DPS, for a level-9 weapon at least. It can be used in any low-level Lightning Damage Bow build, like Galvanic Arrow or Lightning Arrow. | |
Required Level: 9 No Physical Damage |
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Roth's Reach - Another fine leveling weapon for some kind of Elemental Damage Bow build, such as this Elemental Hit of the Spectrum Deadeye. It's great at clearing due to Chaining but has relatively low DPS. | |
Required Level: 18 +(15-25)% to Global Critical Strike Multiplier |
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Doomfletch - This one can be used with most Bow Attacks, especially with Trinity Support to generate Resonances and deal more Elemental Damage. Remember to Convert the remaining Physical Damage with Skills (like Lightning Arrow, Ice Shot, or Burning Arrow) and Masteries or Hrimsorrow Gloves. It's a leveling weapon. | |
Required Level: 28 (20-24)% increased Elemental Damage with Attack Skills |
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Death's Harp - It has high Crit Chance, some Crit Multiplier, and fires additional Arrows. You can try it out if you want to specialize in Critical Strikes early - it's good with any Physical or Elemental Hit-based Attacks. | |
Required Level: 32 (30-50)% increased Critical Strike Chance |
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Iron Commander - Seen only in Siege Ballista Hierophant. It's a very specific build where you summon a bunch of Ballista Totems to fight for you. | |
Required Level: 32 (30-50)% increased Critical Strike Chance |
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Replica Iron Commander - It's very similar to the original, but instead of Siege Ballistas per Dexterity, it increases your maximum number of Shrapnel Ballistas per Strength. See it in action here. | |
Required Level: 32 (30-50)% increased Critical Strike Chance |
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Infractem - At level 53 you can start using Infractem - it has good DPS and increases your Movement Speed. Be wary, you cannot Leech Life, but you can still gain it on Hit - there's a small node for 4 Life on Hit near Ranger's starting location with the Blood Drinker notable nearby that will help you stay alive. It's good with Drillneck Quiver. Replace it later with a Bow with higher DPS. | |
Required Level: 53 (30-50)% increased Critical Strike Chance |
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Replica Infractem - This Bow, unlike the original, causes your Projectiles to Fork instead of Piercing all targets. You can even make your Projectiles Frok twice with the Snakepit Ring. It's a good substitute for the regular Infractem if you don't want your Projectiles to Pierce. | |
Required Level: 53 (30-50)% increased Critical Strike Chance |
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The Crimson Storm - It's fine for low-level Physical Bow builds. It can be used in rudimentary Bleed Bow builds but no one considers it a real end-game weapon as you can get a much better Rare one with higher DPS and Physical Damage over Time Multiplier. | |
Required Level: 57 6% increased Movement Speed |
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The Gluttonous Tide - We have no idea how to make it a usable item. It could make you fire a lot of Arrows if you have a high Maximum number of Frenzy Charges and at least one Minimum Frenzy Charge, but the DPS of this Bow is just too low. It's only usable on low-level characters with high Crit Chance. | |
Required Level: 58 (120-160)% increased Physical Damage |
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Xoph's Inception - It's just a regular Bow with mediocre DPS - you can use it with a Skill where the damage type doesn't matter, like Elemental Hit of the Spectrum, or with Hit-based Burning Arrow, but typically you can get a better Bow much cheaper. | |
Required Level: 58 (160-190)% increased Physical Damage |
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Hopeshredder - A Bow with low DPS that causes you to take Cold Damage over Time. Even with excellent Recovery and 10 Frenzy Charges, it has low damage, and the chance to Avoid Elemental Hit Damage from Hits does nothing against omnipresent Physical Damage. It's bad. | |
Required Level: 60 Adds (130-150) to (270-300) Cold Damage |
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Null's Inclination - We don't know about any Minion build that can realistically scale up Dexterity (maybe with an exception for Blink/Mirror Arrow). This Bow is not a build-enabling item - it's too weak. Minion builds prefer a weapon that increases Minions' Gem Level. It can't be used in a non-Minion build either. It has too low Damage for any Attack, and the trigger-on-kill gimmick is useless during boss fights. The Blink/Mirror Arrow of Bombarding Clones may be good here if combined with The Writhing Jar; their 3-second Cooldown is overridden by a 0.25-second Cooldown, but this potential is yet to be explored. | |
Required Level: 60 Adds (50-80) to (130-180) Chaos Damage |
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Arborix - This Bow really wants you to Dash, but it offers only ~300DPS. We would have to try very hard to justify it, and frankly, we have no idea where to even begin. | |
Required Level: 62 +(15-25)% to Global Critical Strike Multiplier |
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Chin Sol - It deals 50% more Damage at Close Range which is a lot of extra damage - you can combine it with Point Blank Keystone and Empire's Grasp Gloves to draw in the enemies instead of pushing them back. It's a niche case and definitely not end-game-oriented. Note that the Close Range applies to the source of damage, not your character, so you can combine it with Ballista Totems. | |
Required Level: 62 +(15-25)% to Global Critical Strike Multiplier |
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Darkscorn - It's good in a Scourge Arrow/Toxic Rain Pathfinder build. It improves Poison Damage, but requires your character to have high Chaos Resistance (it can be very good with Chaos Inoculation or Divine Flesh). Any other Attack Poison Bow build should at least consider it. | |
Required Level: 62 +(15-25)% to Global Critical Strike Multiplier |
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Reach of the Council - It's a funny Bow that has currently no use on account of its low DPS. The modifiers here apply to Arrows, so you can't benefit from these Projectile interactions in a Spell build. | |
Required Level: 64 Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 20 Greater Volley |
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Voltaxic Rift - One of the best weapons, often irreplaceable. It Converts all Lightning Damage to Chaos, allows Chaos Damage to Shock, and lets you apply especially powerful Shocks (Shocked enemies take increased damage). Because of that, its actual DPS is higher than it may seem. It's often used in Mirror and Blink Arrow Summoner builds to apply Poison, but you can also implement it into any Lightning Damage build with only a few adjustments like we did in this Voltaxic Rift's Storm Rain Deadeye build. | |
Required Level: 64 Adds 1 to (600-750) Lightning Damage |
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Xoph's Nurture - We see no use for it, even in an Ignite Bow Build (such as Explosive Arrow), you would be better off with a Rare Bow with DoT Multiplier or Gem Level mods. | |
Required Level: 64 Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 20 Ignite Proliferation |
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Lioneye's Glare - The Far Shot is its most notable feature - it can significantly improve your DPS; the thing is, most Deadeyes will pick it up from their Ascendancy Skill Tree. Non-DoT non-Deadeye Elemental Bow users won't even look at the 500-DPS Bow, you can probably get twice as much for a single Divine Orb. For a Physical Bow, it's good only as a budget option. The extra Maximum Mana will also help while using Precision. | |
Required Level: 66 (20-24)% increased Elemental Damage with Attack Skills |
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Windripper - Windripper is often wielded by various low-budget MF Elemental Deadeye characters. It's also used in party play by cullers. The "15% increased Quantity of Items Dropped by Slain Frozen Enemies" is the main reason for it, so be sure you can Freeze your foes. We recommend it for this Ice Shot Raider speed-farming build - it Freezes rather efficiently. | |
Required Level: 66 (20-24)% increased Elemental Damage with Attack Skills |
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Replica Windripper - It's just a low-damage Elemental Bow with one unique selling point - it grants you Energy Shield on Killing a Shocked enemy. Indeed, Bow users can't easily recover their ES (you could grab the Life and ES on Kill small nodes near Shadow's starting location), but often they don't need to. | |
Required Level: 66 (20-24)% increased Elemental Damage with Attack Skills |
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Nuro's Harp - It's very bad. Light Radius is pointless. Use Frostblink/Vortex if you want to create a Chilled Ground, and a Sulphur Flask if you need Consecrated Ground. A weapon slot is too important for such shenanigans. | |
Required Level: 58 (30-50)% increased Critical Strike Chance |
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Slivertongue - It's another bad weapon. It improves the Projectiles that have already Forked with a decent +50% Crit Multiplier and up to 200% Crit Chance. You could set a Hydropshere near the enemy and Hit it first (just be sure your Projctiles don't Split or Pierce - these occur before Forking), and have an actual source of Fork (like Snakepit or Support Gem). It's not worth the hassle, its damage is still laughably low. | |
Required Level: 68 (30-50)% increased Critical Strike Chance |
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