Another Archery question...

What good long-ranged companions are out there that are good? I heard Aela is but I'd have to finish the companions questline and I also heard her bow equipment is glitched. So yeah...who else is there?

I had Feandal as companion for some time, I dotn really know if he was good because I didnt really look after him.

I haven't come across anyone yet whose bow equip isn't glitched in the same way Aela's is (no matter what bow you give them, they always use Hunting Bow)... but I did use Onmund, who is technically a mage, but also has points in archery and never goes charging in. He always hangs back and casts Sparks or shoots.

I'm playing a sneaky archer and I go everywhere with Marcurio, the mage you can hire in the Bee & Barb in Riften. He's great. He has excellent sneak skills and follows behind me while I set up my shots and uses destruction magic or his bow for ranged attacks (he only breaks sneak to attack once I've been detected and favors magic over his bow). He comes with a dagger in his inventory you can see so I take it away from him to keep him using ranged attacks. I don't give him maces, axes, etc to carry for me because he'll equip those.

I don't know how you can get his default bow away from him if you are playing on the console, but if you are on the PC you can do it in the console by doing showinventory and then using the id of the hunting bow (remove item) he comes with to get it and his iron arrows out of his inventory to give him better equipment. He'll also use staves if you give them to him.

The problem I've run into using the showinventory/removeitem trick is that the stupid Hunting Bow keeps reappearing (though thankfully the Iron Arrows don't) when I least expect it. Part of the reason I stopped using followers altogether was because I had to keep micromanaging their bows. It seemed like the Hunting Bow always came back whenever I loaded a save, and sometimes when I fast traveled, but I can't really be sure.

Erik the Slayer, Rorikstead. . He is using an Ebony bow and a daedric sword. He's not long range only but I prefer my companions to be in the midst of the action. I also have Meeko the dog.

You might try removing more than one. I think the first time I did it he had about six of them in his inventory and in frustration I removed 99 to be sure they were all gone (removeitem 99). I've not had any problems with a reappearance of the hunting bow and I've upgraded his bow several times.

aela works good the entire game..as far as a bow, i upgrade an imperial bow and enchant it with fire damage and she jams with it...it does tons of damage, she's good at archery..she doens't need a ebony bow if you smith and enchant your own bow for her...she's pretty tough, even when you get her from the beginning of the game...i just give her enchanted armor and gear and she is still fine even at high levels.

Personally if i am playing an archer type character, i like a mage or sword backing me up. They charge in and start hacking away, keeping the bad guy busy and take all the punishment, i back up and let go with a volley of arrows

I've only used companions when a quest forces me to use one, but so far on my sneaky archer Eola seemed the least annoying. She raised some corpses along the way which was fun.

I play a full Archer and have been using a Brotherhood companion. They don't glitch and will use the bow you give them and will swap between sword/dagger and bow depending. I outfitted mine in Nightingale armor, Nightingale Bow and Dagger of Woe.

I have found the most useful to be Jenassa, Marcurio, and Borghakh Great-Heart who is surprisingly good with a bow.

Jenassa's bow glitches, definitely. But she was my fav for a while.