To survive in Enshrouded’s hostile environment, you need to be well-equipped. Bows are incredibly useful because ranged weapons allow you to engage from a safe position.
No matter how good bows can be on paper, their power scales based on the level of areas you find them in. This means you can get the best bow, but at a weaker level than others with less potential. To get the best weapons in the game, you have to find them in the highest-level areas of Enshrouded.
Why choose to use a bow in Enshrouded?
Building an archer in Enshrouded is a high-investment, high-reward venture. Bows are strong, but to maximize their potential, you need to craft strong arrows, too. You can craft a lot of arrows with different effects, making your weapon more versatile, although it also requires a lot of resources and effort on your part.
You can choose between Iron, Poisoned, Stun, Flint, and Exploding arrows, for example. You can also upgrade your weapons to the Blacksmith to unlock additional effects.
A great advantage of bows is you can deal damage from a safe distance, retain high mobility, and adjust your strategy easily in the middle of a fight by switching arrows. With that said, stamina is a key resource for archers, so increasing it will help you tremendously. It’s best suited to Green classes, which favor dexterity, such as Assassin and Ranger.
Six best bows in Enshrouded, ranked
It’s not easy to rank the best bows in Enshrouded, because there are several categories of them.
You have short bows, the fastest ones that don’t consume stamina, but deal less damage. On the other side, you can choose long bows, which consume stamina upon use but deal heavier damage.
With that in mind, here are the six best bows in Enshrouded. The best way to build your archer is to get one of each so you have better versatility, based on the kinds of enemies you face.
There are many Legendary bows you can choose from, and they all feature similar stats. The difference lies in which upgrades you can unlock on them. Even though the following weapons are ranked, they are fairly close to each other.
6) Ignited Bow
- Rarity: Legendary
- Draw Speed: 0.6
- Max. Durability: 300
- Arrow Speed: +20 percent
- Fire Magic Damage
- Headseeker
- Precise: Increase critical hit chance
The Ignited Bow is strong when you’re still unsure or your strategy or want a weapon that offers the most versatility. The strength of the Ignited Bow is its Durability.
It’s higher than average, so it’s a very reliable weapon. In addition, its possible upgrades cover both magic damage and critical hits, which make it more versatile. It doesn’t particularly shine on other aspects, though, preventing it from being the best.
5) Ornate Wood Bow
- Rarity: Legendary
- Draw Speed: 0.6
- Max. Durability: 250
- Arrow Speed: +7 percent
- Vicious: Increases backstab damage
- Precise: Increase critical hit chance
- Brutal: Increase critical hit damage
The Ornate Wood Bow is another great option for versatility. It can be both strong for Assassins, with the Vicious upgrade that increases backstab damage, and critical damage increases through Precise and Brutal for Rangers, for example. It doesn’t offer any magic damage bonus, however.
4) Fell Commander Bow
- Rarity: Legendary
- Draw Speed: 0.6
- Max. Durability: 170
- Arrow Speed: +7 percent
- Precise: Increase critical hit chance
- Brutal: Increase critical hit damage
- Shroud Magic Damage: Increases backstab damage
- Mana Leech: On hit Leech damage as mana
This bow is strong thanks to its fast draw speed. It’s especially fast, which means it’s perfect for players who need high mobility. It also features a lot of possible upgrades for physical damage. The main drawback of the Fell Commander Bow is its very low max durability, one of the lowest among Legendary bows.
3) Arsonist’s Bow
- Rarity: Legendary
- Draw Speed: 0.6
- Max. Durability: 260
- Arrow Speed: +7 percent
- Precise x2: Increase critical hit chance
- Vicious: Increases backstab damage
- Mana Leech: On hit Leech damage as mana
This is another versatile option. But contrary to the Fell Commander Bow, all possible upgrades boost physical damage. You can get the Precise upgrade two times, which greatly increases your chances of landing critical hits, in addition to Mana Leech and Vicious. Critical hit chance increases are very strong in Enshrouded, and in addition, this one remains well-rounded.
2) Shadowbane
- Rarity: Legendary
- Draw Speed: 0.6
- Max. Durability: 280
- Arrow Speed: +20 percent
- Shroud Magic Damage: Increases backstab damage
- Mana Leech: On hit Leech damage as mana
- Vicious: Increases backstab damage
Shadowbane is a very strong bow to use in Enshrouded‘s late game. It’s especially good for Assassins, because it features Shroud Magic Damage and Vicious upgrades, which greatly increase backstab damage. This bonus is also good for multiplayer. It’s the fastest bow you can get with that many upgrades for Assassins.
1) Wolf’s Snarl Longbow
- Rarity: Legendary
- Draw Speed: 1.0
- Stamina Cost: Five
- Max. Durability: 250
- Arrow Speed: +7 percent
- Fire Magic Damage
- Precise: Increase critical hit chance
- Brutal: Increase critical hit damage
The weapon is described as striking “with the ferocity of a wolf,” and it fits well. Since it’s a Longbow, it costs Stamina to use. But it deals incredibly high damage, combined with critical bonuses that make it especially strong in solo play and for Rangers.
Dealing more damage with each arrow is also useful if you’re building mainly archer, because it’ll cost you less arrows and will save you some tedious twig farming.
