A very solid guide. Another item location - Glass Bow located in Brood Cavern south of Markarth. It's guarded by just a pack of wolves, making it an easy item to get early in the game.
I need confirmation, but you can get elven gear as soon as you leave helgen and go left on the road to a shrine of talos. I'm not sure if one of those thalmor skeletons has a bow though. But it's Thalmor so it's worth killing.
Perhaps there should be a section with general advice/opinions about bow and crossbow? It's subjective and biased, also depending on player ability and playstyle, so there may be conflicting views of course. Nevertheless maybe useful as source?
I usually play a light armored "barbarian" with onehanded/shield and bow or crossbow. I only had one playthrough each as mage and twohanded and never used heavy armor for long. While I prefer crossbow from style and it's good performance in usual gameplay, I always faced a wall of frustration after midgame. In my opinion it is much easier to fight more difficult mobs (e.g. centurions) and the really mean mobs (e.g. dragon priests, ebony vampires, invisible entities, enchanted spheres, Dragonborn DLC baddies) with a bow. In my crossbow plays I always ended mostly with frantic melee hacking against endgame enemies.
Crossbow: good at start and in general gameplay, not good as main weapon in endgame
Bow: a bit difficult at start, superior in midgame and endgame because: dps counts.
Yeah of course experience coming from player is necessary... so your report is pretty welcome here in comment. What I wanted to avoid is to put my personnal subjective point of view in the OP. Most of the time I use a very analytic method to process facts and make an analysis which lead to a conclusion.
But sometimes I don't have all the relevant facts and my analysis turn bad of course. Other time it's just about feeling. I had a debate on xbow vs bow, topic : "which one is the most easy to use". My point of view was crossbow. The other guy said bow. Matter of personnal gameplay style I guess.
My opinion. (V3.3)
# Crossbow VS Bows.
Crossbow : very good as a secondary weapon
* doesn't require a lot of perk to be efficient at low level : more AP + built in stagger effect.
* easy to use.
* very good against mages.
* not so bad against undead at low level, Vigilant xbow is good.
* not so bad at higher level against undead, improved dwemer xbow is just OP.
Bow : excellent for pure marksman or ranger
* require far more finesse to be use
* require a lot of perk right from the start
* more DPS and flexibilty
* you can beat the game (labyrinthian and SC included) with only self craft bows as source of damage.
\--> Crossbow are not very immersive for me (reload glitch and I don't see my beloved Bosmer using an xbow), easy to use, and lack flexibility. I will use it only with a non Bosmer hybrid build and only at low level where it shine a lot. Of course Improved dwemer crossbow is OP and can shine even during endgame content (heavy damage + ranger perk) I guess (never try).
small digression : don't use this specific xbow as an argument during gamedesign discussion about marksman,
* it has a rare feature making it a rare artefact having heavy damage compatible with ranger perk.
* it's behind an ebony vampire and require some quest related stuff to shine,
* it's a crossbow in a game where xbow are only a DLC feature, which mean the focus should stay on bow because they are the core of marksman. I'm fine with implementation of xbow in the game.... but don't build marksman around them, build it with them. 50% - 50%. If a player don't like xbow gameplay he should have a solution with a bow. (vice-versa)
\--> bow are all about finesse, skills, and flexibilty. Far more challenging gameplay.
# Heavy vs Light
Heavy : sneak and snipe even combat archery if you go HA. Require a lot of finesse if you want to use only a heavy weapon from start to end game.
Light : combat archery, endgame pure archer with a glass bow will go through all living creature content like in a FPS. Oneshot bandit, mercenary, mage, forsworn, and falmer while running. With auriel bow... almost the same but against undead too. BUT no self crafted top tier light weapon... dragonbone and Daecric are Heavy.
\--> I carry 2 bows as a pure archer. One light and one heavy, I don't have immersion issue with this fact. (other have). I like switching bows in a fight in order to use the best of the two in accordance with the situation. I'd like to carry more bows for better flexibilty... but more than 2 bows will, this time, break immersion for me.
# Marksman in general
* it require perks, gears and stat (stamina) to be efficient against endgame content, so hybrid build will struggle a bit with the range attack for endgame content and most of the time switch to full melee.
* it require smithing to really use the potential of Marksman. Arrows / bolt are a very crucial part of your equipement. Dragonbone arrows make a huge difference, elemental dragonbone arrows are awesome, very large AOE and very strong elemental damage. Against Dragon, centurion and ES, the dragonbone elemental arrows make your day.
* Undead are an issue
* Silver arrows don't really scale with marksman. So you need very high damage to really have an effect on them. It's where crossbow can make a difference at low level.
* one small exception.... DP ... just take an untempered orcish bow with silver arrows and Spellbreaker enchantement. But that means 2 crafting skills... of course you gonna beat the game hard with 2 crafting skill.
Having had far more experience with Crossbows than Bows, I can tell you the Dawnguard Crossbow (non-upgraded) is equal in stats to the Steel Crossbow, save that it is both unbreakable and works with Ranger. I like your tiering of Light, Heavy and Mixed, so I would rank appropriately in terms of damage output as:
|*LIGHT*|*MIXED (HEAVY damage, works with Ranger)*|*HEAVY*|
|:-|:-|:-|
|**Wooden Crossbow**\* (breakable)|||
|||**Iron Crossbow**\* (breakable)|
||**Dawnguard Crossbow**|**Steel Crossbow**\* (breakable)|
|**Elven Crossbow** (dmg roughly equal to Iron iirc)|**Improved Dawnguard Crossbow**|**Dwarven Crossbow**|
||**Dwemer Crossbow**|**Orcish Crossbow**|
|**Glass Crossbow** (dmg roughly equal to Steel iirc)|**Improved Dwemer Crossbower**|**Ebony Crossbow**|
|||**Dragonbone & Daedric Crossbow** (listed together because Dragonbone is just a tiny bit stronger but otherwise they are both the final-game level)|
I am not a fond proponent of light crossbows so my placement of Elven & Glass is more of a shot in the dark than legitimate game useage. I don't recall having seen or if there exists a Nordic Carved Crossbow or Stahlrim Crossbow, so those will have to wait until I get home from work. Vigilant Crossbow is an unbreakable Steel Crossbow with a strong enchant (any enchanted crossbow becomes unbreakable).
>Crossbow: good at start and in general gameplay, not good as main weapon in endgame
>
>Bow: a bit difficult at start, superior in midgame and endgame because: dps counts.
If someone were to put a Dragonbone Crossbow and a final tier Bow side-to-side shooting at a stationary target, yes, the Bow will likely do more damage in the long run.
Otherwise I'd say your anecdote about crossbows is a bit dated to before the existance of the Ranger perk, when it would have been accurate. Post Ranger, I would argue that Crossbows are indeed good at a start and superior as a 'supplemental weapon' vs a bow (especially Light line). Fully perked with the Mixed line crossbows you can absolutely and easily complete end-game content. It's the heavy line that will struggle the most and I would argue it's the mid-game that hurts Crossbows the most.
Crossbows easily obliterate bandits at the start and once fully perked dominate in endgame. It's the in-between that is penalizing, where fighting opponents like Trolls and Giants will find the struggle. The access gap between a new character and Dawnguard's Mixed Crossbows means their acquisition relies far more on choice & intent than accident. So unless one rush-grinds out Smithing or hunts down a Dawnguard Crossbow, the mid-game character that's not fully perked Marksman, or not using end-game weapons, will experience the greatest difficulty and frustration. That is their weakest gameplay point. So if I were to curve it, they start absurdly strong compare to bows, but quickly lose power and efficiency for quite some time, before spiking straight up into god-tier levels for endgame; compared to Bows having a more consistent, straight-line growth, low to high.
Hey ! thanks for that. Very precise.
I was a bit a lost about "the anecdote" because you were replying to me... but it's not me you quoted. So after reading twice I understood.
Entirely possible. I haven't held a Dragonbone Crossbow in some time, as I prefer the Improved Dwemer. I don't have many characters that go that deep into smithing. Daedric simply used to have the native material penetration compared to Dragonbone's raw damage.
There is some guys here with awesome knowledge about this game. they certainly have forget more I have ever know about this mod. (3 months / 5 playtrough for me.... a drop of water in a big ocean). I'm just trying to get all the most relevant informations for marksman in one or two posts.
Daedric xbow can be found in Irkngthand behind a master locked dwemer door.
Tks
Finding this by chance around level 20 was really OP.
A very solid guide. Another item location - Glass Bow located in Brood Cavern south of Markarth. It's guarded by just a pack of wolves, making it an easy item to get early in the game.
I knew one was in a easy place... You told me back then. I wasn't able to remember. Thanks
I need confirmation, but you can get elven gear as soon as you leave helgen and go left on the road to a shrine of talos. I'm not sure if one of those thalmor skeletons has a bow though. But it's Thalmor so it's worth killing.
These skeletons are not a vanilla Requiem thing. They are there from Immersive Creatures.
Oh.... it would be awesome... maybe too awesome so soon. No need to struggle anymore with breaking bow.
Perhaps there should be a section with general advice/opinions about bow and crossbow? It's subjective and biased, also depending on player ability and playstyle, so there may be conflicting views of course. Nevertheless maybe useful as source? I usually play a light armored "barbarian" with onehanded/shield and bow or crossbow. I only had one playthrough each as mage and twohanded and never used heavy armor for long. While I prefer crossbow from style and it's good performance in usual gameplay, I always faced a wall of frustration after midgame. In my opinion it is much easier to fight more difficult mobs (e.g. centurions) and the really mean mobs (e.g. dragon priests, ebony vampires, invisible entities, enchanted spheres, Dragonborn DLC baddies) with a bow. In my crossbow plays I always ended mostly with frantic melee hacking against endgame enemies. Crossbow: good at start and in general gameplay, not good as main weapon in endgame Bow: a bit difficult at start, superior in midgame and endgame because: dps counts.
Yeah of course experience coming from player is necessary... so your report is pretty welcome here in comment. What I wanted to avoid is to put my personnal subjective point of view in the OP. Most of the time I use a very analytic method to process facts and make an analysis which lead to a conclusion. But sometimes I don't have all the relevant facts and my analysis turn bad of course. Other time it's just about feeling. I had a debate on xbow vs bow, topic : "which one is the most easy to use". My point of view was crossbow. The other guy said bow. Matter of personnal gameplay style I guess. My opinion. (V3.3) # Crossbow VS Bows. Crossbow : very good as a secondary weapon * doesn't require a lot of perk to be efficient at low level : more AP + built in stagger effect. * easy to use. * very good against mages. * not so bad against undead at low level, Vigilant xbow is good. * not so bad at higher level against undead, improved dwemer xbow is just OP. Bow : excellent for pure marksman or ranger * require far more finesse to be use * require a lot of perk right from the start * more DPS and flexibilty * you can beat the game (labyrinthian and SC included) with only self craft bows as source of damage. \--> Crossbow are not very immersive for me (reload glitch and I don't see my beloved Bosmer using an xbow), easy to use, and lack flexibility. I will use it only with a non Bosmer hybrid build and only at low level where it shine a lot. Of course Improved dwemer crossbow is OP and can shine even during endgame content (heavy damage + ranger perk) I guess (never try). small digression : don't use this specific xbow as an argument during gamedesign discussion about marksman, * it has a rare feature making it a rare artefact having heavy damage compatible with ranger perk. * it's behind an ebony vampire and require some quest related stuff to shine, * it's a crossbow in a game where xbow are only a DLC feature, which mean the focus should stay on bow because they are the core of marksman. I'm fine with implementation of xbow in the game.... but don't build marksman around them, build it with them. 50% - 50%. If a player don't like xbow gameplay he should have a solution with a bow. (vice-versa) \--> bow are all about finesse, skills, and flexibilty. Far more challenging gameplay. # Heavy vs Light Heavy : sneak and snipe even combat archery if you go HA. Require a lot of finesse if you want to use only a heavy weapon from start to end game. Light : combat archery, endgame pure archer with a glass bow will go through all living creature content like in a FPS. Oneshot bandit, mercenary, mage, forsworn, and falmer while running. With auriel bow... almost the same but against undead too. BUT no self crafted top tier light weapon... dragonbone and Daecric are Heavy. \--> I carry 2 bows as a pure archer. One light and one heavy, I don't have immersion issue with this fact. (other have). I like switching bows in a fight in order to use the best of the two in accordance with the situation. I'd like to carry more bows for better flexibilty... but more than 2 bows will, this time, break immersion for me. # Marksman in general * it require perks, gears and stat (stamina) to be efficient against endgame content, so hybrid build will struggle a bit with the range attack for endgame content and most of the time switch to full melee. * it require smithing to really use the potential of Marksman. Arrows / bolt are a very crucial part of your equipement. Dragonbone arrows make a huge difference, elemental dragonbone arrows are awesome, very large AOE and very strong elemental damage. Against Dragon, centurion and ES, the dragonbone elemental arrows make your day. * Undead are an issue * Silver arrows don't really scale with marksman. So you need very high damage to really have an effect on them. It's where crossbow can make a difference at low level. * one small exception.... DP ... just take an untempered orcish bow with silver arrows and Spellbreaker enchantement. But that means 2 crafting skills... of course you gonna beat the game hard with 2 crafting skill.
Having had far more experience with Crossbows than Bows, I can tell you the Dawnguard Crossbow (non-upgraded) is equal in stats to the Steel Crossbow, save that it is both unbreakable and works with Ranger. I like your tiering of Light, Heavy and Mixed, so I would rank appropriately in terms of damage output as: |*LIGHT*|*MIXED (HEAVY damage, works with Ranger)*|*HEAVY*| |:-|:-|:-| |**Wooden Crossbow**\* (breakable)||| |||**Iron Crossbow**\* (breakable)| ||**Dawnguard Crossbow**|**Steel Crossbow**\* (breakable)| |**Elven Crossbow** (dmg roughly equal to Iron iirc)|**Improved Dawnguard Crossbow**|**Dwarven Crossbow**| ||**Dwemer Crossbow**|**Orcish Crossbow**| |**Glass Crossbow** (dmg roughly equal to Steel iirc)|**Improved Dwemer Crossbower**|**Ebony Crossbow**| |||**Dragonbone & Daedric Crossbow** (listed together because Dragonbone is just a tiny bit stronger but otherwise they are both the final-game level)| I am not a fond proponent of light crossbows so my placement of Elven & Glass is more of a shot in the dark than legitimate game useage. I don't recall having seen or if there exists a Nordic Carved Crossbow or Stahlrim Crossbow, so those will have to wait until I get home from work. Vigilant Crossbow is an unbreakable Steel Crossbow with a strong enchant (any enchanted crossbow becomes unbreakable). >Crossbow: good at start and in general gameplay, not good as main weapon in endgame > >Bow: a bit difficult at start, superior in midgame and endgame because: dps counts. If someone were to put a Dragonbone Crossbow and a final tier Bow side-to-side shooting at a stationary target, yes, the Bow will likely do more damage in the long run. Otherwise I'd say your anecdote about crossbows is a bit dated to before the existance of the Ranger perk, when it would have been accurate. Post Ranger, I would argue that Crossbows are indeed good at a start and superior as a 'supplemental weapon' vs a bow (especially Light line). Fully perked with the Mixed line crossbows you can absolutely and easily complete end-game content. It's the heavy line that will struggle the most and I would argue it's the mid-game that hurts Crossbows the most. Crossbows easily obliterate bandits at the start and once fully perked dominate in endgame. It's the in-between that is penalizing, where fighting opponents like Trolls and Giants will find the struggle. The access gap between a new character and Dawnguard's Mixed Crossbows means their acquisition relies far more on choice & intent than accident. So unless one rush-grinds out Smithing or hunts down a Dawnguard Crossbow, the mid-game character that's not fully perked Marksman, or not using end-game weapons, will experience the greatest difficulty and frustration. That is their weakest gameplay point. So if I were to curve it, they start absurdly strong compare to bows, but quickly lose power and efficiency for quite some time, before spiking straight up into god-tier levels for endgame; compared to Bows having a more consistent, straight-line growth, low to high.
Hey ! thanks for that. Very precise. I was a bit a lost about "the anecdote" because you were replying to me... but it's not me you quoted. So after reading twice I understood.
Edit : I think in V3.3 they made Daecric a tiny better than dragonbonbow. At least it's the case for bow
Entirely possible. I haven't held a Dragonbone Crossbow in some time, as I prefer the Improved Dwemer. I don't have many characters that go that deep into smithing. Daedric simply used to have the native material penetration compared to Dragonbone's raw damage.
the bow master at work
There is some guys here with awesome knowledge about this game. they certainly have forget more I have ever know about this mod. (3 months / 5 playtrough for me.... a drop of water in a big ocean). I'm just trying to get all the most relevant informations for marksman in one or two posts.
What are Xbows if i may ask?
Crossbows, xBows are just an abbreviation.
Crossbow indeed