Please fix the glitch where followers will not use bows that you give them.

My follower Aela is level 50. has 100 archery skill and even when I give her an enchanted Daedric bow, she still pulls out the dinky hunting bow. Even with Daedric arrows, her attacks are next to useless.

This is something that everyone knows about but I have not seen that it is being addressed.

This issue has bothered me ever since I first gave Lydia a Glass bow that she wouldn't use and every follower since has had the same issue. I tried leveling up my pickpocket skill and taking the bow away from her and it doesn't even show in her inventory.

Would everyone please cosign?

I love this game and this is the one glitch that keeps bugging me after all this time.

Yeah, it makes archery-skilled followers significantly less useful. And not only will they not use better bows, but that damned hunting bow will always get re-added to their inventory every dismiss/recruit cycle reducing how much weight they can carry.

A fix (along with proper level-scaling for followers) would indeed be nice.

Interesting.

I just gave Argis an elven bow, then a dwarven bow when I found one and he was quite happy to use them.

See the 3rd paragraph here:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Followers#Follower_Equipment

Signed this, frankly amazed that they haven't fixed it yet.

Oh! Oops. *bows out quietly*

I've found that certain followers on my current character either don't use different arrows or bows. Most of them use Hunting Bows and whatever arrows I give them, but some of them like Erik the Slayer on my current save will use whatever bow I hand him but only Iron Arrows. x.x

Which followers start out without bows? And is it worth taking one of those kind of followers if they have no archery skill? Maybe I will post this question in the hints and spoilers section.

That's not really correct though. They will use the bow you give them provided that you DO NOT give them any arrows.

Do they need their original arrows to still be equipped for this to work? (usually fifteen steel arrows?)

Same here. Have an archer since beginning (because melee gets burnt by my fireballs ) but I have to give him the bow every few minutes again because he switches to his default wodden bow.
Don't remember his name but it's the elf from the first village after escaping.

And they don't need arrows? Just give him one of a kind an he has an unlimited amount... could be fixed as well.

This is why I just hopped onto the Skyrim forums today for the first time.

I created the "Dwarven Bow of Ownage (Legendary)" (Damage 110, 42 points Frost damage and 42 points Shock damage), just for Lydia, but while sneaking through Movarth's Lair I notice she's using her Hunting Bow!

When we got back home, I dismissed her, but when I tried to pickpocket the thing out of her inventory, it wasn't there!

So I have to take away her Ebony arrows before she'll use the bow?