Elden Ring: Bow Build Guide | Bows Have a Powerful Secret

In Elden Ring, building a bow-focused build that lets you clear all content and deals even massive damage is actually possible. With the crafting mechanic introduced, this allows players to craft their choice of an arrow to suit all types of situations. There’s also the fact that some of these arrows actually have unique effects other than just dealing damage to your targets.

Now if you want to try out this fun yet really strong build, then read the guide below.

Bow Build Guide in Elden Ring

There are a handful of bow weapons in the game. However, for the purposes of this guide, we’re going to stick with two main bow build variants. The first variant focuses more on status buildups as quickly as possible while the second variant focuses on dealing massive physical damage to your target.

Black Bow

The first variant uses the Black Bow, which is a longbow that functions like a shortbow but with, of course, a higher base damage. What makes it amazing for a bow build is that it comes with the Barrage ash of war which allows you to fire several shots in rapid succession.

This makes it really good for inflicting status effects as you can easily fill the buildup meter with just a few shots. For status effects, you can either go for Bloodbone arrow for blood loss buildup, Coldbone arrow for frost, Poisonbone arrow for poison, Rotbone arrow for scarlet rot, and Sleepbone arrow or Trina’s arrow for sleep.

Personally, I would recommend going for either sleep, blood loss, or frost buildup if you’re going to use this bow. If you want this bow, you can get it from a corpse northeast of the Avenue Balcony site of grace in Leyndell.

Pulley Bow

The second variant uses the Pulley Bow which has a passive effect that increases the range of your arrows. This means you can snipe foes from a greater distance than you would with a standard bow. What makes it particularly good is its Mighty Shot ash of war which allows you to charge it for a small FP cost to deal devastating damage to your target.

To get this bow, you’ll want to head over to a tower located north of the Gelmir Hero’s Gravesite of grace.

To maximize your damage, you’ll want to equip the Shard of Alexander to boost the damage of its ash of war. Then, you’ll also need the Arrow’s Sting talisman to boost the attack power of your arrows and bolts. Next is the Blue Dancer charm, which raises your attack power the lower your equipment load is.

Since you’ll be staying out of your enemy’s reach, you don’t have to worry too much about equipping heavy armor to survive. In fact, you can go as light as possible to benefit from the attack boost and a more agile movement.

The last talisman you’ll want to use to complete the build is the Ritual Sword talisman which increases your attack power while at full HP. You’ll want to make sure that you have full HP at all times in order to benefit from this talisman. As for buffs, you’ll want to use the Flame, Grant Me Strength incantation for a boost to your attack power.

As for the arrow to use, that actually depends on the enemy you’re fighting. If you’re up against an enemy that’s weak to frost, then equipping the coldbone arrow is ideal. Meanwhile, if you just want to focus on pure physical damage, then some great options like the Stormwing bone arrows and the standard arrows are enough.

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