1. Does anyone know how the damage works in this game for bows? Do you just add the bow damage and the arrow damage?

2. What would be the most useful enchantment to put on a bow?

3. Is it possible to find a Daedric bow and then upgrade it to legendary? I want to use the light armor if I even use smithing but I want a strong bow obviously.

4. You can't create arrows, so how can I rely on it without being able to control how much ammo I have?

1. Yes, I think it adds
2. Anything that does damage will hurt them no matter the arrows
3. Not sure, I dont use Daedric items, but Im sure you can
4. If youre on PC, theres a few mods thatll let you make them, if not, and you do the civil war quests, after taking a fort, loot the arrows from the bodies there, thats how I got all of mine.

1. Damage is mostly coming from the bow of choice but also add in arrow damage, how far you draw the string before firing and what enchantments you have on the bow as well as any archery effects on your gear, along with the perks you have invested in archery.

2. I find shock a valued enchantment for me since there isnt alot out there with shock resist. Ive also used fire with good results.

3. I can't remember when you may start finding daedric weapons or even if you can. I am pretty sure you can't just find the gear but I am pretty sure the weapons will be found in loot at some level. (EDIT: looking at the wiki, they say only the highest levels will you find daedric weapons in loot)

4. There are mods to create arrows on pc, however its easier to just find the 'hotspots' like the drunken huntsman in whiterun and the fletcher in solitude and revisit after waiting two days for the inventory to respawn. A couple hundred arrows last me multiple missions and being an elitist with arrows I always use the best of the best.

(EDIT: the arrow mod on pc requires some rarerharder to get ingredients like hagraven feathers, so in all honesty its easier to buy)

I don't know the answers, but I've seen a few posts around about running out of arrows. I personally don't find this a problem, since the arrows are weightless. Obviously if you're playing a stricter style where you limit how many you carry, that will be different.

I've only come close to running out of ammo once, and then I happened to hit up dungeon with lots of skeletons and scraqed up about 70 ancient nord arrows. Not the best by far, but better than nothing! And I've also found that while the arrow type does make a difference, it doesn't seem to be so significant as to render even the basic arrows worthless.

1. Does anyone know how the damage works in this game for bows? Do you just add the bow damage and the arrow damage?

(base) Bow Damage+Arrow Damage=

If you add an enchantment, sneak attack, points in to how much damage your bow does in the perk tree and upgrading your bow that factors in too.


2. What would be the most useful enchantment to put on a bow?

Depends on your preference. I go with Fire or Fiery Soul Trap. I avoid Frost because most enemies in the game seem to shrug cold attacks off.


3. Is it possible to find a Daedric bow and then upgrade it to legendary? I want to use the light armor if I even use smithing but I want a strong bow obviously.

Yes and Yes. You can create it or cross your fingers and be lucky enough to find the item in a random chest.


4. You can't create arrows, so how can I rely on it without being able to control how much ammo I have?

When your in sneak mode you tend to use less ammo. If you get the perk "Hunter's Discipline" in the Archery tree you do get more arrows back from what you defeat but by all means its not perfect.

What I do is, if a certain amount of arrows, like glass start showing up, I don't use them right away, I'll use them once a steady stream of them start popping up frequently at any merchant.

Also when I am done fighting I will look around the area to see if any arrows hit the ground or got stuck in a wooden door/pole etc.

1. Yes, pretty much this. Also, perks in Archery increase the damage done by your bow, but not by arrows.

2. Depends. Shock for mages? Frost for melee? I'd probably go with fire+shock, but I don't enchant so I'm not qualified to answer this question.

3. You can find Daedric armor and weapons as random loot, but it happens only on the highest levels and is very rare. You'd be better off crafting the bow yourself, since you still need the Deadric perk in smithing to improve it to legendary (without the perk you can only go as high as flawless, unless you're using a Fortify Smithing potion).

4. You can buy arrows. Every blacksmith sells them, there's also a fletcher in Solitude. However, it won't be long until you find out you have many more arrows than you can use. Ammo isn't an issue in Skyrim except at the very beginning.

2) In my opinion it would be paralyze and soul trap. I put both of these with a high charge. If I can paralyze the enemie for only a second I can put more arrows in him. Soul trap keeps your bow charged. It helps to have Azura's Star or the Black Star.
3) It's possible to create one without getting it from the blacksmithing perk. But you need to have your conjuration skill at level 90.

Yes always pick up your next level in arrows and start collecting...good advice there.

Lol @ picking up your arrows....I don't know how many minutes I spend sometimes looking for that one or two arrows that missed and hit the floor lol

PARALYSIS

1. yes you add them.
2. most likely a frost enchantment because it drains stamina as well.
3. yes it is, but you need to be a very high level to begin to find daedric items..... i think level 50. im level 42 and i havent found a single one.
4. whenever you find arrows, just loot them. They weigh nothing, and half the draugr and half the bandits have them. Also, you may want to get the perk that lets you find twice as many arrows off of dead bodies.

It looks like arrow damage adds directly to your damage per shot (the damage number displayed in the inventory menu) and is unaffected by perks, weapon skill, or enchanting. So steel arrows add the same 10 damage per shot to a high level archer with all perks and a bunch of fortify archery gear that it would to a low level archer with no perks or archery gear. Totally forgot to include arrow damage in my dps plots... doesn't make a huge amount of difference at high levels though.

Probably paralysis for pure ownage. Bear in mind recharging it raises your enchanting skill.

For daedric bows, you can find them. However I seem to see them a lot in my thieves guild contacts inventory. You can upgrade to legendary without the "double" perk if you try. However a glass bow is more or less as good as daedric.

You shouldn't run out of arrows. Nordic arrows are a good type early on. If you find you have plenty of cash then just gradually buy the higher level ones at smiths.

If you can find a Ebony bow and turn it into daedric at the atronach forge, however... it will probably be weaker then your upgraded Elven bow. Why? there is no cap at legendary. With X smithing weapons of that typed can be improved twice as much. If your smithing is fortified enough to get daedric to legendary status without the perk. Whatever equipment you have a smithing perk applies to will be more powerful when upgraded.

.....

What does this have to do with archery lol?

He wants the daedric bow but light armor of a benefit for stealthy archer types so he's taking that side of the smithing tree.

i replied to the wrong thread, srry.

Take your best arrow and give one to a follower who uses a bow. They will continue to shoot that arrow type until it is replaced with a better one. You'll find their misses scattered about the ground and many of their hits will be found in corpses. Conserve your best arrows by typically using inferior arrows until you really need to use a good one or you have plenty.

WRT to number 2, I currently carry two Elven Bows improved to Epic - one has a fire damage enchantment, and the other has a shock damage one. With a glass helmet that has a fortify archery enchantment, the bows do 65 base damage with an Archery skill of 80. The fire damage bow is useful for most normal enemies and the undead, while the shock damage one is good for mages and other magical sorts.

WRT to number 4, there are so many arrows to be had that the point is moot. I have the perk that lets you recover twice as many arrows, and I don't even pick up Iron or Ancient Nord arrows any more - I have hundreds and hundreds of them, and I'm about ready to stop picking up Steel arrows as well for the same reason. And I use those all the time on all but the strongest enemies. I don't have as many of the higher damage arrows, but I've never run out of them either. I always check smiths and weapons merchants when I visit cities, and buy out their stocks of Elven, Glass, and Ebony arrows. I haven't found anyone who sells Daedric arrows yet, but I'm only at Level 40.

Take the base bow damage based on material (daedric having a higher base than steel for example), then add in the effect of your skill in bow (at 100 you'll do more damage with the same bow/arrow combo than at 25), then add in the perks that increase the damage done by the bow. Throw in gear enchants and potions if applicable. Then finally, throw in the arrow to the damage score.

As someone said, I found shock to work great because so few enemies are resistant. Paralyze is too % chance to proc dependent making it unreliable.

The thing with upgrading is that the various stages of upgrade are...

00-19 = Fine
20-39 = Superior
40-59 = Exquisite
60-79 = Flawless
80-99 = Epic
100 = Legendary

What I have a hard time figuring out is what is meant by "...and improve them twice as much".

I just got to 80 in BS and went up the heavy path. I have the ebony perk and can bring ebony equipment to epic status where at 79 I couldn't even bring them to Flawless (I think I was capped at Exquisite). My nightingale armor (for which I don't even know what that is, it uses Void Salts) can only go to Exquisite despite my BS skill at 80. The exception to all this seems to be the Blade of Woe which doesn't use a material and is currently upgraded to Legendary even though I'm not at 100 BS.

So based on that, if you want to get your Daedric bow to Legendary, you would've needed to go the heavy armor route instead of the light. This wouldn't be so bad if there were dragon weapons and the dragon stuff was top notch but it's not. Daedric at just 90 BS (Dragon at 100) is top gear. Even daedric weapons are best and if you went light side, you're stuck at Exquisite I think. Clearly not thought out very well by the Devs. There should've been dragon weapons and the dragon material gear should've been best.

By mid-level 20, you should have 5 or 6 different types arrows in your inventory. You'll pick them up after fights, find them in dungeons, etc.

My assassin was using 14 dps arrows, but also had 16, 18, 20, 22, and 24. (of course she started at the lower point with iron arrows). I save the high damage arrows for special bosses, and since there really not a lot of those, she never had a problem keeping arrows in stock.

Also, there are enchanted pieces of gear that will add 25% and 30% archery damage increases (helmets, gloves, rings, and amulets that I've seen and am using.)

I disenchanted several of those enchanted pieces, and then add the damage enchants back onto my gear, so now she has + 90% increased archery damage.

I have not found any daedric bows yet, and have completed over 80-some dungeons, but have a long way to go yet since the wiki says there are over 150 dungeons in the game.

Legendary is not the cap it simply a title one legendary ebony bow can be superior to another. Let me give you an example, my archer, assassin has steel smithing, arcane smithing and elven smithing. My smithing level is 100 and with my crafting equipment its fortified by 125%.

I picked up with Ebony bow awhlie back and had just thrown it in a trunk planning to sell it later. I never got around to it so it will serve as an example.
Without smithing it will deal 51dmg in my hands not counting arrows or other magic boosters, my unmodded elven bow deals only 39dmg.
With 100 smithing alone the Ebony Bow is brought to 70dmg(flawless) and the elven bow to 74(legendary). A Dwarven bow on the other hand goes from 36 to 55(flawless). Do you see now what improve twice as much means?

Now lets say I have my smithing gear on.
Ebony Bow 81dmg Legendary.
Dwarven Bow 66dmg legendary
Elven Bow 101dmg Legendary*because my perk lets me improve it twice as much*

On a side note, I have some mods that enhance the gaming experience but none that give free stuff or make the game easier and I do not use the console to get free stuff either - that is my choice and you may be different.

The console and mods are PC only as far as I know and should you want to use either (PC) then there are plenty of avenues to follow to find out how to do so.

This is a really good breakdown of how this works. Nice one!

I've decided to slow down my use of smithing, since I was too tempted to just grind it up and powerlevel. Honestly, the arcane smithing perk is too high up! Forced me to grind through heaps of steel daggers just to not have to worry about enchanting a good piece of armour and then not being able to improve it any more.

OK so the perk is like a +100% BS enchant doubling the amount it is increased by but only to the material the perk refers to.

Yet without the perk, you seem to be capped at Exquisite (or flawless?) even if your BS is 100 but with enchants, you can have two identical weapons at Exquisite title but with different base damage.

And yeah, I also think the arcane smithing perk is too high.