Best Early Bow

[GargonCerlan]

Anyone have any thoughts on this one? I usually use a 6 ith Long Battle Bow or Long War Bow for levels 15-30ish. A friend of mine insists on using 6 tal bow because he loves shooting multi with tons of poison. As far as any set or unique bows go, or other socket combinations in a socketed bow, what would everyone else use from level 15-30 or so? I am actually playing through the quests, so getting someone to rush me to hell act 5 so i can equip a faith GM bow is out of the question. I hope you guys can see what I'm getting at. Let me know what you use.

Thanks,
GargonCerlan

[Leohappy]

I usually start with Arctic set bow which is pretty nice for low lvl. When I reach 28 I equip Skystrike which is first powerful bow. I use this until lvl 42 and then I equip Lycander's aim with which you will cut through nm with ease. The final upgrade is then WF/Faith/M'avs bow.

I believe a gap between arctic bow & skystrike could be nicely covered with 6s LBB w/6 flawless topazes for good ele-dmg.

[lonnie913]

i usually use topaz bows. flawed, then normal, then perfect. they do pretty well.

[Evrae Altana]

I usually go with a Long Bow purchased from Charsi for the beginning. Once I hit level 18, I slap on my bow with Pgems in it (Pskull, PAmethyst, PSapphire, PEmerald, PRuby, Ptopaz). This gives a lot of elemental damage, attack rating, and dual leech.

[GargonCerlan]

I usually use the 6 ith LBB for the nice max damage which in turn gives me a greater leach with rings/ammy in tow. Hard part about this is, not having a high level character to farm hell games for even a white LBB to socket with the act 5 quest leaves me in a tough spot, not to mention no one has them for trade. I do have a sorceress in hell in act 2 at the moment, but she dies very easily and is single tree and act 1 seems to have LOADS of fire immunes. I'm sorta accepting the fact that I may have to use a 4 socket bow or even a set bow. Although without the full set it may not be that useful. I'd like to blow through normal with ease, but without that 6 os LBB i seem to be at an impass. Any suggestions?

[YogiRat]

I used to use gems in early bows, but now I use Iths also. There are a few reasons for this. They are easier to come by, do a half dozen norm countess runs and see how many drop. They are valueless, Pgems are tender. They are physical damage and that = leach. I suggest adding a flawless/Pskull to your Ith bow if you don't have any other ml/ll source. It works for me :)

But if a Ravenclaw, Rouges, Skystrike, Ripper etc. came my way, I'd use one of them. There aren't too many bad unique bows out there.

[phaemoor]

I love skystrike. Lightning damage is cool, and the meteors are pretty. The bow does kill fast though.

[Calcipher]

It's all about Pluckeye. :D I love that little bow.

[Veilside]

i just use the bog standard 3 socket long bow with 3 chipped gems in untill i reach 21 then i'll switch to zephyr stag bow untill level 33 and then i use kuko. did that with the ama i'm leveling atm and she did very well, now using a harmony with a cliffkiller on switch for the knockback.

[Tarantella]

Artic set all the way for those tired of visiting the vendors or picking stuff up in the vain attempt to incrementally improve your gear. Whaddyamean playing the game? :p


With armour, bow and 3 socket headgear socketed with garnet,camphor and beryl jewels of envy,a pair of hsarus -> vidalas boots, a few choice items of jewelry and a sack of charms you can storm through from 2-30 and beyond with barely any points spent in skills.

Mind you a fully tweaked level 25 merc can be quite handy too.

[Indemaijinj]

Three socket Hunter's Bow, three socket breastplate (later replaced with four socket gothic plate) and three socket mask or crown.

...all filled with Jewels of Envy.

[Wmeredith]

I'm a huge fan of both Vidala's rig and the Arctic set. Both have nice damage and fantastic set bonuses for the level you can equip them at.

[Bloodfire]

My pit strafer in the makings is now the owner of an IthIthIthIthIthSkull Long Battle Bow, my damage with a normal arrow is 4-102 at lvl 16 :D

[spekkionu]

I generally start with a 4 socket Hunter's Bow filled with 20 Poison damage over 2 sec Jewels. This gives me a fast firing bow with 80 Poison damage over 2 seconds and no level requirement whatsoever. You can use it as soon as you hit 28 Dex. This is only 2 Dex more than what you start with so it isn't exactly much of a wait.

This bow is fine until you hit level 18 where I usually switch to a perfect gem socketed bow until I can use some of the decent lower level uniques. Uniques like Kuko Shakaku and Lycander's Aim should last until you can equip end game level bows.

[Indemaijinj]

For the midgame let's not forget Riphook or the Rogue's Bow for sheer speed.

[Kinada]

I use a bow purchased from a vendor but then I'm just now remaking my ladder character so I have no loot and I'm still in normal.

I dont play open games so Im kinda stuck with what I can find myself and later what I can trade for.

[Bloodfire]

I've gotten annoyed at how slow my 5 Iths 1 Skull bow was, so I traded it in for a runeword using Ort and Eth in a sup Stagbow. It deals less damage but fires quicker and gives me +1 to all skills which is always nice, and being so cheap also helps.

[Rekk_Dalton]

randow bow till 15 w/ mask and breastplate of envy jewels, at level 15 ravenclaw and switch to max gear/charms or enchant if available to kuko then use that till get main bow

[Painman]

Ladder 3 strafer plan:

Lvl 1-8, 3 chip short bow/hunter's bow

Lvl 9-17, Arctic Set

Lvl 18, switch to a selection of nice rares I found until Skystrike.

Zon is currently @ level 23.

[AnimeCraze]

Enchant + ravenclaw is simply wrong. Each hit KO like 5 monsters.