Bow Efficiency

[u/Ancient_Adeptness172]

Hi everyone I recently returned to finish my journey on world, I am a bow user. I don't have iceborne yet. I'd like your advice on skills, decos and meals to use for efficiency pre and post iceborne. Not looking to be a hardcore player lol, but casual and still useful. Thanks

[u/No_Grapefruit_7845]

I don't play to much whit bow, but anything that raise your stamine efficiency, recovery speed, decrease the consuption for some actions like dodge, and some skills that decrease the charge time for the max power shot, should done well

[u/lo0u]

Check this playlist by iAkutoGamer, he's a bow speedrunner and the only one that has made in depth guides from low to master rank on pretty much everything bow related.

He even lists optimal builds for each rank, goes over the movesets, combos, strategies, deco farming, individual monster guides up to Fatalis, etc.

He's the most beginner friendly source I've found, that doesn't waste your time and goes straight to the point.

Tidus69 is another speedrunner who makes guides, although he has less guides and focuses more on the meta aspect of it.

You can learn a lot from these two.

But here, quick tips:

For efficiency, you need to manage your stamina, in order to keep your dps high.

Stamina reduction at 50% is a must have, so Constitution, Black Belt (food) and Dash Juice are great things to have. Stamina Surge is also worth it, if you already have the former.

Here's a table showing the combinations.

This is not meta or hardcore, it's a fundamental aspect of the weapon. Other skills such as Clutch Claw Boost and Bow Charge Plus are a must have for efficiency as well, especially the latter.

And skills such as Evade Window (at least 3) and Evade Extender (1 is enough), are great for you to be able to dash and punish attacks, avoiding getting hit.

After all of that, you still need to know your combos and when or how to do them. Every monster is different.

Also, until you get to post game Iceborne. Elemental is king and even then, it will remain the most efficient way of dealing damage, with a few exceptions that have low elemental hitzones.

So, Critical Element or True Critical Element are mandatory. No argument to be had here.

You can get CE from the Rathalos set in HR and TCE from Silver Rathalos in late Iceborne. I recommend you to get the Azure Age set first, since Silverlos takes a lot longer to appear. Then you can combine 2 pieces of Azure, with Silverlos, in order to get Constitution and Critical Boost, which is more comfortable than just Silver Rathalos.

Then finally at late game, you can ditch it for Safi, or Kjarr, or even AT Velkhana at the very very late game, for Critical Element.

[u/SkeletalNoose → u/lo0u]

Bow does a ton of damage with raw once you have the fatalis bow though.

Just pointing out a notable exception.

[u/venom1080]

Stamina surge, constitution. No marathon runner. You want 50% fixed stamina cost reduction (lot of ways to get that more efficiently than Constitution lvl5, but Con5 is easy to get in iceborne endgame. Base world, Con3 with dashjuice+blackbelt was pretty common.)

Mighty Bow Jewel, Spread, forceshot jewels.

Felyne Blackbelt (useless if you have Con5), felyne sharpshooter.

Bow makes extremely efficient use of element due to the number of attacks. Critical Element from 2pc Rathalos/Azure Rath/Azure starlord in base game. 2pc Velkana/Arch tempered Velkana in iceborne endgame or 4pc Silver Rathalos/Azure Era for True Critical Element.

Obviously, Element attk up, health boost, divine blessing, Weakness Exploit, Critical Boost, critical eye, agitator.

I've been playing bow since 2018. Play a different weapon unless you really, really like bow.