Of course, but it applies equally to an already fast bow..

So couldn't you just take the weaker but faster bow and smith it to be better? And add fire damage?

Well yes, but in the same way you could smith a heavier bow. It is a tradeoff, speed vs damage.

Im currently using deadric legendary bow doing 126 dmg + 20 shock dmg and a chance of paralyzing target for five sec. So I prefer the dmg bcs I rely on being undedected and kill them of scilently one shot at a time. =)

I play a character who's primary weapon is a bow. I found early in the game if you go to the companions and then go down stairs in one of the rooms on the left there is a display case with an elvin bow that you can take. For early on it has pretty high damage. If your going with light armor you can take the elvin perk in the smithing tree and upgrade for twice the damage. I used that bow for a very long time until I got my glass bow that does 295 damage. Also using poisons will help a ton. For arrows go to
The fletcher in solitude and he usually sells them.

Udey pretty much covered what I was going to say. I didn't know until late in my first playthrough how bow weight and draw speed were connected. I used much heavier bows than necessary most of the time, which created problems when I couldn't snipe all the mobs in a given location. If they charged me, I was screwed (until I got the Quick Draw perk).

Imperial Bow or Orcish Bow give the best ratio of drawspeed/dmg outside of quest rewards or unique loot.

I personally like the Nightinggale Bow, though it is possible to make much better bows through upgrading your weapons and enchanting them.

If you level anything excessively with a trainer, you should only do either combat or defensive skills (unless you've got those maxed already, of course). If you power level something like smithing, for example, your character level will go up, making the game harder, but your character will still be weak because you haven't leveled any comabt or defensive skills.

If you've already got relatively good combat and defensive skills, leveling the other skills will be fine.

I've been severly neglecting my Smithing skill, and its only about 30, and my character is in the low 30's for level, so I cant smith much. So my best bows are things I have found. I have a Glass Bow, and a Dwarven Bow of Thunderbolts. The Dwarven Bow is a few points lower on base damage, but with 20 points of electrical damage, it has more raw power overall. I do have that Drainspell Bow too, and its pretty nice.

@OP

Sneak bonus plus poison plus elven bow is rocking for me at lvl 26ish. There are lots of weakness to/damage health ingredients around. Adding the 3X sneak multiplier does some business

That is a distict possibility, but it says Drainspell Bow...


Yes! I picked up about 6 of those and then had to drop them.

Do you know the weapon speed for the two bows that you listed it the spoiler button section?

Also, does anyone have tips on how to increase restoration quickly, I usually don't get hit by the enemy so healing spells never happen.

Turn undead spells or trainers in restoration. =)