I take it just for the satisfying critical hit noise you get when it procs. I don't know if I'd call it a must, but it does a noticeable amount of damage on elder dragons, etc, when it hits.

If you don't fully draw back the regular bow, you will get the exact same results. It doesn't actually improve the time you need to draw back to get weaker shots off, just increases animation speed. It's hard to say with absolute certainty since it's kind of a judgement thing, but I'm pretty sure it's doing literally nothing but playing a faster draw animation.

I was just on another thread about archery looking for tips and last night I had a chance to use them. The archery skill is a perfect example of what it takes to develop the skills in Skyrim so they do what you need to do. I poisoned my arrow with Damage Magicka and made a shot that was so far away I could barely see the enemy. I didn't have the zoom perk or steady hand yet and it was the most amazing thing with archery that I've been able to do so far. The archery skill in this game is exquisite and perfect. It's exactly what I'd hoped it would be. Thanks also to the team that worked on archery. It's great!

According to UESP, critical shot does 50% more damage when you have all three perks.

I've seen people say that it only adds 50% of the base damage, so a bonus of 10 damage when using a Daedric Bow. If it would be 50% to the total it'd be worth it, otherwise no. Can anyone confirm?

I personally disagree. M&B is decent, but it is a poor substitute in-game. It feels too unwieldy when I compare it to the experience of actually shooting a longbow in real life. The speed with which the crosshairs digress from the center when you draw is far too fast, to the point that it seems like you are the weakest archer ever.

The TWO PIECE of Skyrim, lol

Some people are easily satisfied. Archery, like the rest of Skyrims combat, is extremely shallow. There is no judging for distance, no hit multipliers, etc, etc.

Ooh, thanks for the warning. I use quick-shot and hadn't noticed because my character is based around using enchantments so hitting faster = faster enchantment procs, but if you are a proper martial archer that could be an issue.

The biggest thing I dislike about archery is the distance you have to be from your enemy before your arrow will score a “hit”. You can have dead aim, and still “miss” your target. (It doesn’t actually miss, it just doesn’t “hit” either, presumably because of the distance.)

I tried an experiment the other night, went just outside Whiterun to one of the Mammoth/Giant camps around there. I took position on some rocks looking down towards the camp, and started shooting at a Mammoth. I was clearly in what I thought should be “range” of the Mammoth. It was easy to aim at as they are so dang big, so accuracy was not an issue. However, I took shot after shot and not one landed home. I kept inching closer until I started landing shots. I had to get way too close in my opinion to hit the dang thing. And when it finally hit, it alerted the two Giants and another Mammoth to my whereabouts, and I was subsequently pwned a mile above The Throat of the World, lol.

Even though it is my preferred style of play, it still makes playing a stealthy archer a pain, because shots that should easily hit your enemy simply don’t register as hits. And when they do finally hit I seem to have to be so close that it alerts everyone to your presence, when it should not have.

Warband is a lot better for Archery and Melee in my opinion, that said Skyrim's archery has massively improved over Oblivion.

I dont get what was so wrong about Oblivions archery. I never really had any problems with it myself, the only thing was the damage was a bit on the low side. But after I figured out enchanting I didnt have an issue with low damage.

Archery + Hunting in skyrim = is just awesome. The big vast landscape and the detail that went into the design of skyrims world adding in the wildlife is a big part that keeps me playing. Skyrim needs wild boars and wild turkeys to hunt tho. Also can we have a clamchowder recipe please.

Simple explanation for this one. There is a maximum range, and it isn't particuarly far. Your shots probably are accurate and may even appear to hit the mammoth, but for whatever reason Bethesda made arrows stop causing damage beyond a certain range.

If you're on PC there are some .ini changes you can make to increase the max range. Can't remember what they are but using 'search' on the forums for 'archery' should yield some answers. In fact, I think it's posted earlier in this thread.

I love it too. Clocked over 200 hours, and all my characters have been archers. Rerolled many times though until I found the perfect archer character in terms of challenge and roleplay. Sneak makes archery boring, and illusion and conjuration also make things a little too easy for my liking.

I'm guessing because it'd make killing landed dragons trivial. Although I don't believe destruction spells have as limited a range as arrows do, so I'm not sure. Obviously destruction is limited by mana I guess.

Mount and Blade archery >>> skyrim on all counts.

Archery is pretty fun when you play it without the crosshair. First, you need to learn to aim, and second, there's no "hand-holding".

That's how I play it on my ranger, and pulling off 10 perfect shots in a row is not only tough, but very satisfying

Let's not forget that Bethesda incorporated an archery MOD from Oblivion into Skyrim.

Uldred

They what? Which mod is that?

Not quite as good as Dark Messiah of Might and Magic (seriously, check that game out), but it's a close second for me.

I never did play it but I heard great things about the game mechanics. Stuff like freezing staircases so enemies fell down them and died, or fireballing people off ledges and in to traps.

Bethesda learned from the mod but they didn't take it and use it. They've given props to the modding community when they said they learned from it too. I used the archery improvement mod in Oblivion but it's not just like the Skyrim archery. Skyrim's archery is way better. That Oblivion mod did make the Oblivion archery better though.

Really? To all the people out there who've actually done archery, do arrows jump UP once you've released them from a full draw?

Do the arrows disappear into a magical vortex after traveling a mere 15 meters?

No?

Yeah, this game does NOT have the best archery gameplay ever. Not by a longshot.