How feasible do you think it would be just to focus on the bow and leveling the ranged weapon skills. Does anyone think you'd get to a point where you could take down a mammoth with one shot without any magic involved?

One of my favorite things in FO3 was getting really good with the sniper rifle and being able to take almost anything out with long-range stealth critical by the end.

No idea... I'm rolling bow atm and it seems that it can become pretty darn powerful... No idea if it's enough to one shot the most stuff...

I wonder if a critical hit with a bow has an animation like the sword.

@Claude said:

I wonder if a critical hit with a bow has an animation like the sword.

I'd be cool with impaling a dude on my bow.

I really hope the archery is good as well. I plan on playing a 2H+heavy armor guy first, then playing through as a stealth+bow guy if it is viable. I liked stealth killing dudes with a bow in oblivion.

I will be trying this soon and will report my findings after I've gained some levels.

I can't speak for Skyrim and I've only used my bow as an opener here but I played a bow heavy character in Oblivion and the key there was actually leveling sneak so that you'd get a higher sneak critical bonus.

The bow is definitely more powerful than in Oblivion. It definitely seems practical to level as an archer. You will need some melee though, especially for the somewhat frequent claustrophobic caves/dungeons

In my first Oblivion play through I tried to be an archer, but I was quickly disappointed after realizing that the mechanic wasn't refined enough to allow for that experience. Thankfully, I've heard from a number of sources that archery is a much more reliable combat option. Don't know if you'll ever take down a mammoth, but at least we won't need to put 25+ arrows into bandits.

Archery is great so far, only just started but i like it, just you still have to have something else when enemy's close in.

Yeah I'm sure you would be able to become powerful enough to one shot most enemies. Level scaling is reduced. Another benefit of course is that you don't have to close in on enemies.

I haven't gotten to check out the bow-related perks yet, but I remember from dropping into the stream yesterday that Greg got a pair of gaunlets that increased bow damage by 15%. I assume if you gather together a complete set of armor with these buffs, assuming they stack, that alone could almost double the normal damage, before perks are even applied.

I really hope bow is a viable option. Even though I'm styling myself as melee first, I want to roleplay my character as a hunter, and I want to get good at creating stuff out of dropped hide, meat, etc. Of course I could just beat wildlife with a mace, but a bow seems more authentic.

I played Oblivion with pretty much pure archery and I'm going about Skyrim the same way, so hopefully!

I'm loving the archery. I'm focusing on Two handed weapons with archery as my secondary, and it is quite powerful. I can one hit many enemies with a sneak attack, and I only have 27 archery and 2 points in the tree. I'm looking forward to getting it up higher on my current character and eventually starting a wood elf as an archery focused character, as it does seem totally powerful enough to hold it's own. Edit: (Doing 2H weapons which are at level 40, archery which is 27 as I mentioned, light armor which is 28, and sneaking which is around 23 or 24. It's working quite well to sneak around, pop guys in the head while sneaking to engage and shoot them as many times as I can before they get to me, then slaughter them with 40 pounds of cold steel.)

As a Wood Elf archer, my main problems have come when facing Master Vampires and when multiple Spriggans show up. When enemies charge at me I switch to my fear-inducing hand axe (it makes enemies flee) and pick them off with my bow as they run away.

This is mostly working for me. I have to fall back on shield and axe every once in a while, but it's pretty satisfying to be able to kill most normal enemies with a distant sneak attack.

Maybe I was spoiled by Fallout 3--and this may change as I continue to level and get perks--but it seems like, even when pretty well hidden, most enemies see me before I even know they are there. Outside of dungeons, If I see people from a distance, I usually don't know that they're hostile until they're already after me.

People show up on your compass when they're pursuing you, but quickly disappear once they've forgotten you. I don't expect to see everyone on the compass at all times, but I wish the game did at least something to represent your situational awareness a little more. It would also be nice if you could remember where you left your horse without actually in real life having to remember where you left your horse.

I'm playing a rogue focused character and archery is awesome so far.

Archery rocks. Dungeons are the only time it starts to get awkward, but then when I noticed that if I continually string arrows at point blank range on dudes instead of pulling out a sword I do about twice as much damage it all became easy. Also do you like slowing down time? I like slowing down time. Use a bow.

I'm using just the bow, my melee skills are shit and if played right you can wreck things.

kite, heal, shout them away and shoot em dead. getting stealth kills is also a huge help, can 1 shot most people really far away.

Archery is wicked. I like using the bow before a fight, or to totally avoid one, and then once I take down a few guys with the bow, I'll go in with the mace/axe/sword and shield.

Definitely seems more powerful than in Oblivion.

I played for a couple of hours today for my lunch break and cleared out the whole den of charus in the northeast almost exclusively using the bow.

Rolling around as a rouge archer with one handed dual wielding as my fall back and am loving it. I've always tried to play archer in games and not until this one have I actually enjoyed it. I think it goes without saying but if you are playing archer you want some sneak skills to go with it to get the damage boosts of being hidden.

How much damage does the melee attack on the bow do? Is that feasible for keeping enemies at bay?

@Ravenlight: None as far as I can tell I've tried to finish off a couple of kneeling enemies with it with no luck.

@Junpei said:

Rolling around as a rouge archer with one handed dual wielding as my fall back and am loving it. I've always tried to play archer in games and not until this one have I actually enjoyed it. I think it goes without saying but if you are playing archer you want some sneak skills to go with it to get the damage boosts of being hidden.

This is exactly what I'm doing and it's very satisfying! Use the bow for long to mid range and when enemies get close I'll switch to a one handed/spell or two spell combo. I'm still fairly early on and am enjoying magic slightly more than one handed stuff, so I've been focusing on upgrading sneak/magic/archery.

I love the sneak + bow combo. One thing that's been bugging me, though. Everything I've read online states that the bow is silent, which isn't really the case. I've yet to fire an arrow at someone without a bunch of enemies being alerted before the arrow even lands. I still get my sneak attack bonus, but then have to spend the next 20 seconds laying low.

The bow is definitely more powerful than in Oblivion. It definitely seems practical to level as an archer. You will need some melee though, especially for the somewhat frequent claustrophobic caves/dungeons

I've been catching up on a lot of miscellaneous quests and thieves guild stuff and have been one shot sneak attacking with my bow. I just got the power shot perk and the perk that let's you recover more arrows.

Also started working on my one-handed. Both with high sneak is awesome!

Just started using the bow + sneak for some fun stealth kills.

I do find however, that the bow/arrow has a few drawbacks:

• Really tough to use when multiple enemies are attacking you (prolly makes sense to switch out or run away at this point).
• The controls (on the 360) aren't quite precise enough to nail a moving target (though I'm sure this will improve as I get better).
• The animation takes sooooo long - its tough to fire multiple shots in succession.

@coonce: There are a couple of higher perks that help with these issues. The "ranger" perk basically allows you to continue running around when you draw the string on the bow. Another perk (can't remember the name) lets you draw the string a lot faster than normal. Once you get both of those perks, you can be a much more efficient melee archer.

@coonce: I found that the Eagle Eye (zoom) and Steady Hand (bullet-time) perks helped a lot with moving targets.

@coonce: You definitely get the hang of aiming with the 360 pad after a while. But I know what you mean about multiple opponents.

I usually set up a fire rune on the path they'll be coming in from to cause some damage. If it's a really tough fight, I might use paralyze poisons on the bow. Then it's just a matter of seeing how many shots I can make before they finally notice me and charge. Once they're close, I switch to dual-casting and spray them with ice/fire.

On a few really difficult fights I do hit-and-runs from as far away as I can - they don't really regen health that fast (or at all?), so I can just wait them to reset and take another shot. Invisibility potions come in handy when faced with the impossible (e.g. inside Azura's star).

Wouldn't recommend this playstyle to impatient people - sneaking through a long dungeon (like Mzulft) while carefully sniping monsters takes forever.

The bow is primarily the first attack option, which works even better is surrounding enemies don't work out where you are, allowing you to get extra shots in. I never use it as a primary weapon, it's useless because of the time taken to reload. Other than that, i get out my shield and mace to get up close and personal. I also discovered that you bitch slap Dragons with a shield because of this.

One-shot: probably not (although perhaps if you leveled high enough). 
 
Archery is a quite viable path tho.  As people have said, sneak helps.  I used some destruction magic early on, but at this point I can kite bosses in dungeons without too much trouble, and non-bosses rarely get close to me.

With a combination of archery, stealth, enchanting, smithing and alchemy you can become an insanely good archer. I even stopped carrying the daggers I was swapping to for close support, I just keep shooting. On one step above normal difficulty, some things can kill you pretty fast if you let them close, but that's where your other skills come in.

Enchanting lets you put +bow damage and + alchemy on your gear. Smithing lets you keep one step ahead with better gear and have the hardest hitting bows around. Alchemy is the game breaker. The potions you can make are excellent, including +bow damage% yet again. The poisons are where things really start to shine. Long term paralysis poisons that include 100+ poison damage on one shot are easy to make as long as you stay proactive in gathering ingredients and have good skill/gear for alchemy. Health potions of course for when things get hairy. Damage magicka poisons for casters, and just plain one shotting 90% of enemies are all great.

I'll also say it's a very tedious playstyle that isn't for everyone. You have to take your time exploring dungeons as every room needs to be tackled as sneaky as possible to avoid having a stand up fight. I spent a good 2 hours or so collecting a specific ingredient that makes more powerful damage health poisons(there are specific ingredients that appear to have greater effects than the majority of others for some reason). You're sneaking around a lot, and pausing pretty often to sift through poisons and pick the right one for the task at hand. Some stronger undead appear to be immune to paralyze and can be a bit tough to take on. Otherwise though, it's just a lot of being really sneaky, taking out entire rooms before they locate you, and never letting it be a fair fight.

A quick question about this. Do you guys not shoot a guy from stealth, quickly retreat until they stop looking for you, and then shoot them again when they are back in their original positions? You can repeat this over and over until guys die (unless there is a healer in the group) without having to directly engage anyone. I know it kind of breaks the reality of the situation (i.e. dude gets an arrow in the back of the head, searches for culprit for 20 seconds and then shrugs his shoulders and goes back to doing what he was doing before) but instead of reloading the same encounter 8 times because 4 dudes jack me up, I can take out all 4 without ever meleeing a single one. In addition, stealth and archery go up really quickly. It doesn't work as well outdoors, but in dungeons, stealth archery reigns supreme.

Just food for thought.

Taking advantage of enchanting, smithing and sneak in addition to archery will allow you to be an incredibly effective bow user. Even on the highest difficulty setting, I can clear whole dungeons without being seen, one-shotting everything. It's pretty awesome.

I'm pretty damn high in Archery right now. Yes, it's certainly viable to use bows pretty much exclusively.

I wish there was a perk that gave a % chance to impale onto any surface nearby, or at least to decapitate. Something to add to the enjoyment I get from one-shotting people between the eyes.

With the stagger effect perk for bows you don't really need anything else if you play sneaky, I was creeping around dungeons one/two shotting most fools and if they ever got to close, I'd just force push em and sprint back a bit.

I'm basically pure archery and stealth. I honestly feel like I've broken the game. My bow does 150 damage and I can take down a mammoth in 2-3 shots if I'm sneaking. The chance to stagger makes most enemies useless and the faster drawing eliminates Coonce's problem. I'm playing on expert and I feel like a fucking god.

Archery and Sneak are the way I'm going. Had no problems so far.

@Ninja_Welshman: Archery + sneak = Giant ownage. I love shooting a giant in the back and then hiding behind a tree or rock until it says I'm hidden again. Rinse and repeat, and you'll have a dead giant in no time. And if he does find me, whirlwhind shout and a good deal of stamina potions are a blessing to have.

@Subjugation said:

@Claude said:

I wonder if a critical hit with a bow has an animation like the sword.

I'd be cool with impaling a dude on my bow.

Or, something like in Max Payne, the camera follows the arrow as it hits the target.

@AlexanderSheen: I'm surprised they don't have that because Fallout 3 had some nice sniper rifle VATS animations.

Archery feels the exact same as in Oblivion, which is a good thing. Take advantage of the 3x sneak bonus and you can one shot most things once you start gaining levels.

Been taking out giants/mammoths around level 30 in two shots (with steel arrows) with thanks to the sneak ability to multiply bow damage, putting a few points of perks in archery for the zoom then leveling up the crafting skill to make the dwarven bow an epic quality item doing twice as much damage on it's own. Takes a little while of crafting to improve things but when you start improving them to be twice as good as normal it's pretty good in the game.

@Sorasha said:

I'm basically pure archery and stealth. I honestly feel like I've broken the game. My bow does 150 damage and I can take down a mammoth in 2-3 shots if I'm sneaking. The chance to stagger makes most enemies useless and the faster drawing eliminates Coonce's problem. I'm playing on expert and I feel like a fucking god.

Get the Nightingale bow and upgrade it.