New World BOW Guide and Best Builds

Want to learn how to pierce your targets with arrows in New World? This guide is an in-depth dive into all things BOW in Amazon’s MMORPG!

This guide dives deep into the Skills, Passives, and some builds for the Bow in New World. This guide can be considered a more advanced version of our New World Guide to Weapons for Beginners. By the end of this guide, you should have a thorough understanding of the Bow and with practice be able to fully master it.

The Guide is up-to-date for Patch 1.9.2

Bow Overview

The Bow is a weapon with a variety of useful and powerful skills. It often leans on its DoT skills for consistent damage while using Heavy Attacks to make every shot count. This makes it a bit more unique in the fact that while it tends to be a bit lower in DPS, it can still hit incredibly hard.

The bow lands solely into the Damage Category, as it doesn’t have much utility or room to do much else. While some of its perks can give it some limited utility, there’s just not much this weapon truly offers outside of damage. It is, however, one of a few weapons to be able to apply 2 unique and high duration DoT effects, a strength it has over most other weapons.

Bow Skills, Passives, and Perks

First, we’ll lead off with the skills and passives. We’ll talk a bit about each, their uses, and how effective they are. There’s a lot to cover here, so we’ll break it down per tree to keep things organized.

Alongside the general information, They’ll be given a Rating from C up to S tier for both PvE and PvP. C tier is exclusively for the passives that are not that great, either being forced by another upgrade or generally useless. A and B Tiers are middling tiers, putting them between the worst passives and the best, leaning one way or the other. S tier are the good passives, the ones you’re almost always going for if you pick up a skill or want to because it’s useful in many scenarios.

Skirmisher Tree

The Skirmisher Tree is where your DoT skills are, and tends to be the more favored skills of this tree. This tree also has a fair bit of PvP focus to it, providing plenty of slows for your enemies and Hastes for yourself. The active skills of the Skirmisher Tree are Evade Shot, Rain of Arrows and Poison Shot.

Evade Shot

Evade Shot has you leap backwards 5 meters while releasing an arrow that deals 90% Weapon Damage.

This skill is pretty good for spacing in PvP and PvE, but doesn’t really deal a ton of damage overall.

With a cooldown of 15 seconds, Evade Shot is the Bow shortest Cooldown.

Evade Shot Rating: B – PvE, A – PvP

In PvE it will help you kite an enemy out. However this is a bit lackluster in doing so, as most time you’ll be engaging enemies from a safer range and they shouldn’t often get to you.

This is a great PvP Ability, especially when upgraded. It offers some of the highest kiting potential for the Bow, without requiring oddly or specifically placed shots.

Evasive Knockback

Evasive Knockback adds a 2 meter knockback to Evade Shot’s arrow.

This helps with kiting out melee foes more, or even disrupting ranged opponents.

Evasive Knockback Rating: C – PvE, A – PvP

Evade Shot already isn’t much of a PvE ability. This passive makes it worse by knocking back and staggering foes, which can prevent easy follow-up skill use.

In PvP, the knockback will help create extra distance letting you maintain a safer range easier.

Go the Distance

Go the Distance grants 15% Haste for 5 Seconds on use of Evade Shot.

Seeing as this ability doesn’t require a hit to active and triggers after the skill animation, it’s really solid mobility and amplifies this utility of this skill.

Go the Distance Rating: B – PvE, S – PvP

The Haste can help you with a bit of extra mobility in PvE, whether it’s exploring or just keeping distance from enemies.

In PvP this haste really boost this ability’s identity as a kiting tool. Combined with the Dash and knockback, it makes Evade Shot incredibly strong for spacing and keeping your distance in PvP.

Rain of Arrows

Rain of Arrows launches arrows into the air which come back down and deals 150% Weapon damage in a 3-meter wide area.

This skill is one of your few AoE skills with the bow, and when upgraded can deal heavy damage in PvE or PvP alike.

With a cooldown of 25 seconds, Rain of Arrows is one of the Bow’s longer cooldowns.

Rain of Arrows Rating: B – PvE and PvP (A when upgraded)

Rain of Arrows is a solid AoE option for PvE and PvP. The Initial damage and subsequent Bleed when upgraded deal a fair bit of damage. The additional Slow can make it a decent option to giving you more kiting potential while still dealing a good amount of damage.

Barbed Arrows

Barbed Arrows adds a Bleed to Rain of Arrows. This Bleed will deal 85% Weapon Damage over 12 seconds, or roughly 7% Weapon Damage per second.

While the bleed in total deals a fair bit of damage, in reality, it will deal very little damage and most light regen effects will out-heal the damage dealt.

Barbed Arrows Rating: S – PvE, C – PvP

This is much stronger in PvE, where there’s very few enemies that heal in any capacity. Though the damage is low, it’s more meaningful when it actually sticks.

In PvP, the damage is really minimal compared to most healing and regen effects. Since it’s a Damage over Time effect, it also doesn’t prevent anyone from using consumables to heal while it ticks either. It does have the PvP benefit of constantly removing the full health damage reduction of High CON players.

Hooked Arrows

Hooked Arrows adds a 15% Slow to Rain of Arrows. The effect lasts for 4 seconds.

This is the inverse of Barbed Arrows, being better for PvP rather than PvE, though Slow can still help you maintain distance in PvE.

Hooked Arrows Rating: C+ – PvE, A – PvP

Slows aren’t too useful in PvE unless you’re trying to kite mobs. Thankfully with this being an AoE slow, it can be practical if you aggro too many mobs and need to get more distance from them.

In PvP however, Slows are incredibly good for Kiting. A 15% Slow is a solid middle ground making it noticeable against most foes. With the Bow also being a projectile weapon, Slows can also help you land follow up attacks. It’s still a bit of a situational slow that does require some kind of set up to land consistently.

Poison Shot

Poison Shot launches an arrow that deals 50% damage on hit, while also releasing a 3 meter wide AoE that inflicts Poison. The AoE lasts for 6 seconds. Poison deals 10% Weapon Damage for 20 Seconds. This ability cannot headshot.

This is a skill that despite low base numbers and its inability to headshot, can be a huge threat when upgraded. The Lingering AoE also makes it a half-decent spacing tool, while also increasing its impact in large skirmishes or Wars.

With a cooldown of 30 seconds, Poison Shot is the Bow’s longest Cooldown.

Poison Shot Rating: S – PvE and PvP

This skill offers a ton of AoE damage, and with the lingering AoE, it can result in a longer duration of Poison as it will continually re-apply the Poison until they leave the AoE. This means a potential maximum of a 26 second Poison for a total of 260% Weapon Damage in an area. This makes it a stronger effect compared to the Bleed on Rain of Arrows, while still retaining the removal of the full health damage reduction of High CON players.

Infected Arrows

Infected Arrows increases the damage dealt by Poison Arrow’s Poison to 12% per second for 20 seconds. This is an increase of 20% over the base Poison damage.

This is a pretty negligible boost in total damage of the Poison, but does push the potential maximum damage dealt by the Damage over time to 240% Weapon Damage, or up to 312% Weapon Damage if they stay in the AoE.

Infected Arrow Rating: S – PvE, B – PvP

Much like Rain of Arrow’s Bleed, the poison can be outhealed in a lot of cases by basic consumables. This makes it great in PvE but unreliable in PvP. However with it being a stronger Damage over Time effect, it is a little tougher to shrug off.

Direct Hit

Direct Hit damage is increased to 150% Weapon Damage. This does not affect the damage of the Poison DoT.

This puts the initial hit on par with skills like Rain of Arrows and Penetrating Shot, giving both initial burst and a DoT effect for direct hits.

Direct Hit Rating: B+ – PvE, C – PvP

Skirmisher Tree Passives

Impale

Impale inflicts a 10% Slow for 2 seconds when hitting Full Health enemies.

Impale can be good for kiting bulkier foes with a lot of regen or recovery. Though the overall weak slow that has such a minimal duration and a conditional requirement tends to make it pretty awful to bother utilizing.

Impale Rating: C – PvE and PvP

The combination of short duration and a fairly strict conditional makes it impossible to get any value from it in PvE, even as a way to apply a quick Debuff to make use of Mark. It’s the same for PvP, though more on the duration and strength of the slow holding it back there.

Dodge and Weave

Dodge and Weave grants a 10% haste for 2 seconds after Dodging.

Excellent way to get some extra mobility out of the Bow and overall a decent kiting kiting tool.

Dodge and Weave Rating: A – PvE and PvP

While you don’t get too much kiting value out of it in PvE, it does help improve your mobility, even more so when combined with Archer’s Speed. A weapon Swap into a quick roll gives you a fairly strong boost of speed.

While it’s a minor Haste for PvP, it does give you some much needed mobility without having to expend a cooldown like Evade Shot. This lets you kite a bit more easily and reliably with Light Armor.

Mark

Mark increases your damage against Debuffed enemies by 10% per debuff, up to a max of 30%.

This is easily one of your best and most reliable DPS boosts. With Poison Shot being able to apply a debuff that lasts for 20 seconds, that’s a very large window to take advantage of this passive. Since it can also provide a consistent 20% bonus with just Poison Shot and Rain of Arrows, it’s worth the pick up.

Mark Rating: S – PvE and PvP

With the ease of applying Poison with Poison Shot, there’s next to no reason to ever not take this. The rare cases where you don’t take Poison Shot or Rain of Arrows with Barbed Arrows are the only time you might not consider taking this.

Evasive Tactics

Evasive Tactics increases your damage by 15% for 5 seconds after dodging.

Evasive Tactics is another solid damage boost, though one you’ll have to refresh often. With the condition only being a dodge, you’ll be able to make frequent use of it no matter your focus.

Evasive Tactics Rating: S – PvE and PvP

Given this is an overall damage boost and can affect your DoT skills as well as your normal hits, it’s well worth the pick up. It’ll provide a consistent bump to your damage in both PvE and PvP.

Closing In

Closing In reduces your skill cooldowns by 5% when hitting an enemy below 50% health.

With this being the Bow’s only way to reduce Skill Cooldowns passively, it’s usually worth picking up. The activation condition does however mean it’ll be a bit more valuable in PvE boss fights or drawn-out PvP fights.

Closing In Rating: A – PvE and PvP

While Bow doesn’t have anything but this and general armor perks for Cooldown Reduction, the condition tends to set it back a bit. With a lot of the Bow’s DPS output being either slower Heavy Attacks or DoTs on Long Cooldown Skills, having those skills up consistently to reapply those DoTs makes this reliable pick up, but not always mandatory.

Hunter’s Insight

Hunter’s Insight restores 5 Stamina when attacking a foe with a Debuff.

If this gave more Stamina, it could be really valuable. However, due to Dodge and Weave and Evasive Tactics activating with dodges, this does give just enough Stamina to be able to dodge a third time without additional perks.

Hunter’s Insight Rating: C+ – PvE, A – PvP

This is really hit or miss in PvE, as you’re not under nearly as much pressure to evade attacks, meaning you can let your stamina regen much more readily. Which often makes this useless. However while solo it can be useful for kiting mobs with Dodge and Weave.

With the ever-so-useful Poison Shot giving you a 20 second window to trigger this as much as needed, it can be incredibly useful in PvP, allowing you to more easily maintain Evasive Tactics while keeping a safe distance from your opponent.

Archer’s Speed

Archer’s Speed grants a 10% haste for 5 seconds when you swap to the Bow. This effect has a 10 second cooldown.

The cooldown of this effect sets the usefulness of this passive back a fair bit. However it is still generally decent for getting around quickly when roads aren’t an option.

Archer’s Speed Rating: B – PvE and PvP

In PvE you’ll really get the most use out of this when just generally traversing. While Haste on roads does exist now, this is still useful for getting around if you’re in an area that doesn’t have path to use for that haste.

In PvP it’s an additional Haste you can stack with Dodge and Weave to help your kiting. It’s by no means a must have, but it can definitely save your life in a pinch.

Battle Precision

Battle Precision increases the duration of Debuff and Damage over Time effects by 20%

With most of your consistent DPS coming from DoT effects and having a heavy reliance on debuffs in general for Mark’s bonus; this is a usually a must have. Only recommends to pick up if you’re using Rain of Arrows’ Barbed Arrows upgrade, as it does not extend Poison Shot due to a hard limit.

Battle Precision Rating: C – PvE and PvP (A with Barbed Arrows)

While it’s an indirect increase to damage though Barbed Arrows, it can still provide extra damage while also improving the duration of your slows ever so slightly. It’s very good if you run Barbed Arrows, but without that skill, it loses most or all of its value.

Catch Me If You Can

Catch Me If You Can grants a 20% Haste while 3 or more foes are within 3 meters.

While this can get you out of some more dangerous situations, the limited range of this really hurt this and keeps it from being entirely useful or reliable.

Catch Me If You Can Rating: C – PvE and PvP

If there are three or more foes within 3 meters, you’re probably using the Bow incorrectly. The reality is that due to the extremely low range, this passive will never be useful, even in PvP.

Knee Shot (Skirmisher Ultimate)

Knee Shot inflicts a 10% Slow for 2 seconds when you hit your foe in the Leg.

This severely lacks power for being a an Ultimate Passive. One of the Weakest Slows, with the lowest duration, for hitting a specific part of the body you’re not getting any other benefit out of. It can have its uses in PvP, but very limited outside of providing support to other allies.

Knee Shot Rating: C – PvE and PvP

The fact this tries to try to incentivize going for anything other than Chest/Head hits, its honestly what makes this an awful passive. You’re almost always going to want to aim for the Head for the extra damage and potential healing from Hawkeye. This slow needs to be roughly on par with War Hammer’s Aftershock (20% Slow for 4s) to even be worth any consideration.

Hunter Tree

The Hunter Tree consists of a lot of burst damage and heavy hitting attacks with shorter cooldowns, making these skills generally a little more favored for PvE; though typically only two of them make the cut. The Skills of the Hunter Tree consist of Penetrating Shot, Splinter Shot, and Rapid Shot.

Penetrating Shot

Penetrating Shot launches a powerful shot that deals 150% Weapon damage and passes through targets until it reaches it’s maximum distance of 100 meters.

This is one of your harder-hitting abilities that can be used quickly. It has the potential to be a potent AoE damage option if you line enemies up, but often tends to be unreliable due to the shot veering off to the side after its initial hit.

With a Cooldown of 18 seconds, Penetrating Shot is one of the Bow’s shorter cooldowns.

Penetrating Shot Rating: B – PvE and PvP (A when upgraded)

This is a strong option due to its raw damage potential. With good positioning, shot placement, and some luck; you can deal massive amounts of damage to Melee deathballs in Wars. Though outside of that it can still be a fairly strong single target option for PvE.

Blood Soaked Arrow

Blood Soaked Arrow increases the damage of Penetrating Shot by 10% for each enemy it passes though, up to a max of 50%.

Blood Soaked Arrow is what gives it some pretty insane DPS against a melee deathball in PvP, hitting a max of 220% Weapon Damage per hit when fully upgraded. The odds of the skill passing through that many people in a war is fairly high despite any initial veering off to the side that happens.

Blood Soaked Arrow Rating: A – PvE and PvP

While the shot veering off to the side makes it harder to reliably get value out of, this can still be one of the more potent upgrade for Penetrating Shot. It’s a bit reliant on luck and where your shot hits, but tends to veer off at same angle, making it decently predictable.

Deep Strike

Deep Strike increases Penetrating Shot’s damage by 15% against foes that are 20 or more meters away.

Since you’ll want to be playing at range already, this is a fairly easy passive to make use of. It can be a bit tougher to use in Expeditions, but most areas will allow you have that amount of distance if a tank is holding aggro.

Deep Strike Rating: S – PvE and PvP

Deep Strike is just additional (almost) free damage for Penetrating Shot. Being a more consistent and reliable bonus as opposed to Blood Soaked Arrow, while also stacking with it make it a good pick up if you do use Penetrating Shot.

Explosive Arrow

Explosive Arrow fires an arrow that deals 50% Weapon Damage on hit and explodes on impact with a target or surface dealing 135% Weapon Damage in a 2.5-meter AoE.

Since its introduction replacing the now removed Splinter Arrow, Explosive Arrow has been a strong damage option for both PvE and PvP, due to its high damage and quick animation. Couple this with upgrades that increase its power and damage output and its a force to be reckoned with.

With a cooldown of 22 seconds, Explosive Arrow is a middling length cooldown for the Bow.

Explosive Arrow Rating: S – PvE and PvP

With this being a quick burst of damage that doesn’t demand absolute precision, it’s a phenomenal tool in the Bow’s kit. The AoE makes it very reliable damage, and capable of dealing huge AoE burst damage, something the Bow lacked for a long time. The quick animation combined with raw damage makes it a staple part of many Bow Builds.

Flame Arrow

Flame Arrow enhances the direct hits of Explosive Arrow, inflicting a Burn that deals 8% weapon damage every second for 10 seconds.

Flame Arrow rewards the extra precision with additional damage. While it’s not a huge spike of instant damage, it does however provide a bit of extra power to the skill

Flame Arrow Rating: A+ – PvE and PvP

If you are even somewhat accurate with the bow, this can be another DoT you can apply with the Bow. It’s right there in line with the Poison of Poison Shot and the Bleed from Rain of Arrows, which when all stacked together can make for a potent mix of damage.

Contained Detonation

Contained Detonation increases the Explosion damage to 170% Weapon Damage, but reduces the AoE to 1.3 meters.

Contained Detonation can be really powerful against clumped-up enemies, but similarly to Flame Arrow rewards your precision. It’s a great option, but not always one you should take.

Contained Detonation Rating: S – PvE, A – PvP

In PvE almost any damage increase is going to be valuable, even if it comes at the cost of any AoE. In particular, this makes the skill a very potent bossing tool for PvE. With everything generally grouped up around your tank in group content, you’ll still often hit multiple targets at the same time.

In PvP this is still a strong damage option, but AoE has the potential to be more valuable in certain situations. It’s great for smaller-scale PvP, like Arenas; but the AoE can often win out in larger-scale PvP. It really comes down to preference though as it can be valuable in either situation.

Rapid Shot

Rapid Shot fire off three arrows consecutively, with the first two dealing 100% Weapon Damage and third dealing 125% and staggering foes. This skill deals a total of 325% Weapon Damage.

With the high total damage it deals, this skill is an incredibly valuable single target DPS tool. Since it lacks the short range downside of Splinter Shot, can headshot, and has a higher base damage; it will often outperform Splinter Shot in most of its use cases.

With a cooldown of 14 seconds, Rapid Shot is the shortest cooldown for the Bow.

Rapid Shot Rating: S – PvE and PvP

This skill provides a lot of consistent damage, making very reliable for both PvE and PvP alike. The only downside to this skill is that it locks you in place for a short moment while your fire all three shots, so careful usage is recommended for PvP.

Rapid Accuracy

Rapid Accuracy reduces Rapid Shot’s Cooldown by 50% if all three shots hit the same target.

Being able to reduce its own cooldown for simply hitting a target with all three shots is a strong bonus, but is typically only reliable in PvE. Despite this, it’s still a very good pickup.

Rapid Accuracy Rating: S – PvE, B – PvP

With this being a fairly consistent and easy to use skill in PvE, there’s never a reason to be without this upgrade. This lets you reduce the cooldown to 7 seconds (or less with perks) just for landing every hit on the same target. The only time this won’t trigger is if the target dies before the third shot.

In PvP however, this is a very unreliable bonus as missing any of the three shots on a target will prevent it from activating. Between blocks, dodges, erratic movement, and interruptions it can be hard to consistently benefit from this bonus.

Final Blow

Final Blow increases the damage of the third shot to 150% Weapon Damage.

This is a 25% damage increase, but only for the final shot. This makes it fairly unreliable in PvP against decent players. However it’s still a damage boost, making a good PvE pick up.

Final Blow Rating: S – PvE, B – PvP

Being a damage boost for a skill that can be used quite often makes it a must have for PvE to increase your overall DPS. If you’re consistently hitting the Rapid Accuracy bonus, you’ll get quite a bit of extra damage out of this over the course of most content.

Much like Rapid Accuracy since this requires a specific shot to land to benefit, if you miss you lose all of its value. It’s still a good pick up if you prefer Rapid Shot, but unreliable.

Hunter Tree Passives

The Hunter Tree Passives really reward playing at range and consistent accuracy. This makes a lot of the passives here great for PvE and PvP alike.

Long Range

Long Range increases your damage to foes at least 10 meters away by 10%.

You should almost always be looking to play at this range at minimum, if not farther. This is just free damage, all things considered.

Long Range Rating: S – PvE and PvP

There’s never a reason to turn down free damage. With range being the only condition, there’s basically no condition for this.

Finishing Shot

Finishing Shot increases your damage to foes under 50% health by 15%.

Despite having a condition of being under 50% health, this is a pretty high amount of health to work with and this provides a fairly consistent boost in damage in both PvE and PvP

Finishing Shot Rating: S – PvE and PvP

More semi-free damage. While 50% Health can be a bit more rare in PvP contexts, it still happens fairly often. It’s completely free in most PvE scenarios and really helps you melt bosses.

Surprise Attack

Surprise Attack increases your damage by 20% if you haven’t dealt damage in the last 10 seconds.

Since this bonus is per target, it can be useful in some rare situations. However with a lot of the Bow’s damage coming from consistent DoT effects, this will often keep this bonus from being useful. It’s better to think of it as a slightly more consistent version of Opening Strike

Surprise Attack Rating: B – PvE and PvP

With it basically being a slightly less restrictive Opening Strike, it can be good in the right situations. However, with DoTs being a big part of your damage, how useful this is varies with how DoT effects interact with this passive.

Hawkeye

Hawkeye heals you for 10% of damage dealt with headshots.

This tends to be really good for PvE where you’re less likely to be interrupted while attacking. The healing can still help you mitigate damage from opposing Ranged DPS and Mages in PvP, but isn’t going to save you from most decent melee players.

Hawkeye Rating: A – PvE, B – PvP

In PvE where most things will be running at you, or being held still by a tank, this can help with sustain, so healers can focus most of their healing on the tank. It’s also beneficial while solo to reduce potion use.

In PvP, it can occasionally help in 1v1s with other ranged DPS or Mages, but beyond that isn’t going to do a whole lot for you. Most melee players can outdamage the healing with just a couple hits. This makes it less useful if a melee is good at sticking to you.

Aim True

Aim True increases the speed of Heavy Attack projectiles, reducing their travel arc slightly as well as increase their damage by 10%.

With this making a single Heavy Attack deal a base of `80% Weapon Damage, there’s rarely a reason to not take this. In almost all combat scenarios outside of duels, this will often be your preferred attack while you wait for cooldowns.

Aim True Rating: S – PvE and PvP

This is a fairly good damage increase, especially for basic attacks. It makes it so one second spent charging the shot can be used to focus on aiming without any real loss of damage, as it’ll be double the damage of a regular shot. While Regular shots have their situational uses, this becomes a stronger default just for the higher base damage.

Unbreakable Focus

Unbreakable Focus reduces incoming damage by 10% while Aiming.

This helps mitigate damage from Ranged DPS and Mages, which can be useful as you’ll often be going for Heavy Attacks, which generally means you’ll be aiming for at least a second for every attack.

Unbreakable Focus Rating: B+ – PvE and PvP

This makes it less of a risk to go for Heavy Attacks, but it’s a very light damage mitigation that can often be outdone by socketing Gems, or making use of the Elemental/Physical Aversion perks added in Update 1.2.

Opening Strike

Opening Strike increases the damage of Heavy Attacks against a foe at Full Health by 10%.

Since Full Health is a fairly common occurrence in Wars it can be incredibly strong there, alongside all of your other bonuses. Outside of that, this will often be rendered useless due to your allies. Though in a coordinated group, with all of the Bow’s damage bonuses, this is one of the strongest first-hit bonuses for PvE.

Opening Strike Rating: A – PvE and PvP

While it’s more useful for solo PvE than group play, it has its uses for both. It’s definitely more reliable in PvP thanks to the consistent presence and recovery of healing spells.

Arrow Range

Arrow Range doubles the distance before your projectiles begin to arc from gravity.

Considering gravity kicks in after just a few meters, this is rarely worth the point. It does however makes your shots at ~10 meters more precise and consistent. Anything beyond that range though, and it’s a point better spent elsewhere.

Arrow Range Rating: C – PvE and PvP

While it does provide some medium range consistency, you’re more likely to play at long range, where all this provides is not having to adjust your aim quite as much. You still have to account for drop off either way.

Bullseye

Bullseye increases your Critical Chance by 10%.

While you’re more likely to be aiming for Headshots when possible, this still has value for those shots that end up a little too low.

Bullseye Rating: S – PvE and PvP

While headshots can be consistent with practice, this still helps by increasing your Critical Chance in the common case of not having perfect aim 100% of the time. It also helps the few skills that can’t headshot critically strike more consistently.

Concussion (Hunter Ultimate)

Concussion increases Headshot damage by 20% and grants a 50% chance for the Arrow to be refunded.

This is basically the only Ultimate you have with the Bow in all honestly. It rewards accuracy with a damage increase and a chance to refund ammo. While the Ammo refund is a little less important, skills like Rapid Shot can refund more ammo than what was spent, making it good utility.

Concussion Rating: S+ – PvE and PvP

It’s the only real Ultimate you get for the Bow at the moment. You should always take this no matter what. With most builds using at least one Hunter skill and a lot of the Hunter passives, you should always have access to this passive.

Bow Skill Perks

Below are a list of the Skill perks available to the Bow. The range for the effect value is determined by gear Score. The Minimum value is at Gear Score 100, while the Maximum is at Gear Score 625.

Enfeebling Poison Shot

Enfeebling Poison Shot applies a Weaken on direct hits that lasts for 6 seconds. On your Weapon, this will range from 14% up to a 25% Weaken; on Armor this range is reduced to 4-14%.

This perk got a lot of love with the changes for skill perks to be stronger on weapons. On top of its duration boost, it can now reach a max of a 25% Weaken, which is quite strong.

Weakening Poison Shot Rating: B – PvE, A – PvP

The strict requirement of a direct hit hurts this a bit, but not enough to make it unviable. Due to the nature of Weaken, it’s a stronger PvP perk due to the higher value it provides there. Though it’s still useful in PvE in some situations, and can be particularly helpful in solo play.

Energizing Evade Shot

Energizing Evade Shot restores Stamina and reduces Evade Shot’s cooldown when hitting a target with Evade Shot. On Weapons, this grants 19-34 Stamina are reduces the cooldown by 14-25%. On Armor, this effect is reduced to 4-19 Stamina and 3-14% Cooldown reduction.

This can actually be very impactful to your ability to kite, letting you dodge, use Evade Shot then dodge twice more before running out of stamina. So this strongly complements the base skill, making it worthwhile. The added cooldown reduction makes it even more potent.

Energizing Evade Shot Rating: B – PvE, S – PvP

In PvE you’re not all too likely to use this skill, making it not worth getting this perk in most cases. However in solo play the cooldown reduction can make it a great kiting tool.

For PvP though, it synergizes incredibly well with the basic skill and further boosts your kiting potential. This makes it a must-have if you’re running Evade Shot.

Lasting Rain of Arrows

Lasting Rain of Arrows increases the Slow and Bleed duration from Rain of Arrows. On Weapons, this effect increases Slow and Bleed duration by 20-30%. On Armors, this is reduced to 10-20% increased Slow and Bleed duration.

This is a huge boost in utility and damage for Rain of Arrows and its upgrades. The extra 10% duration for being on the weapon can add an extra half second to the Slow and and extra second and a half of Bleed, which ultimately means this is better slotted in armor when used.

Lasting Rain of Arrows Rating: S – PvE, A – PvP

Even on Armor, this adds up to an extra 2.4 seconds to Bleed of Barbed Arrows, and 0.8 seconds of slow to Hooked Arrows. The Extra Bleed time translates to extra damage, making it great for DoT based Builds. The extra Slow time can be useful when kiting in PvP, but sill add an extra second to the duration of Mark,

Penetrating Rapid Shot

Penetrating Rapid Shot grants Rapid Shot’s arrows additional Armor Penetration. On Weapons this grants 19-33% Armor Penetration. On Armors, this grants 5-19% Armor Penetration.

With this perk being buffed to affect all three shots, this can actually be quite potent now as a general damage option. It’s much less conditional and a better all-around pickup. In addition, being strong on weapons also allows it to ignore more armor, making it great at chipping down beefy frontliners in PvP

Penetrating Rapid Shot Rating: S – PvE and PvP

Due to this skill’s consistency and damage output in PvE, this passive is quite good for bonus damage. Though this skill can be hit or miss in PvP, this perk can make it worthwhile for the extra damage potential it offers.

Refreshing Penetrating Shot

Refreshing Penetrating Shot reduces the cooldown of Penetrating Shot when defeating an enemy with Penetrating Shot. On Weapons, this grants 14-25% Cooldown reduction. On Armors, this effect is reduced to 3-14%.

This is strictly a PvE perk, despite it buffs. While it can get some value in PvP, it’ll typically be rarer for it to do so. With enough targets lined up properly, this can potential to heavily reduce the skill’s cooldown.

Refreshing Penetrating Shot Rating: S – PvE, B – PvP

Since you’re able to consistently defeat at least one enemy in PvE with the skill, it can help your DPS rotations out a bit when using this skill. If you get lucky enough to take out several, it can knock off a ton of the skill’s cooldown. This makes it quite valuable, but will take a lot of practice to do, but really takes advantage of the Bow’s DPS largely being DoT effects.

While less consistent for PvP, the same consistency is there. While it’s harder to fully leverage your DoT effects in PvP this can be a good way to capitalize on it if you get the opportunity.

Empowering Explosive Arrow

Empowering Explosive Arrow grants an Empower effect for 10 seconds or your next attack when landing Explosive Arrow. On Weapons, this grants a 19-34% Empower effect. On Armors, this is reduced to 4-19% Empower.

At the upper end of this perk, especially on your Weapon, this is easily your single strongest damage boost.

Empowering Splinter Shot Rating: A – PvE and PvP

While this is an insanely strong Empower effect, it only lasts for a single attack. This means it’s only strong when used in combination with Penetrating Shot or a fully charged Heavy Attack’s high damage.

Bow Builds

While the bow doesn’t really have too many unique options due to being a strictly DPS weapon, it does have a bit of variation as to how it deals that damage.

Triple DoT PvE Build

As the name suggests, this build focuses on our DoT applications we get, which heavily boosts the single target damage of the remaining skill. This build uses Poison Shot, Rain of Arrows, and Explosive Arrow to deal its damage.

This build is fairly flexible, and can be used for leveling. Due to two of our skills being in the opposite tree from our Ultimate passive, it;s better to spec into this later. This means you’ll be delaying it, or relying on just a single skill to get it asap. Delaying it is a feasible option, as you need a minimum of 4 points to get both skills and their necessary upgrades. Rain of Arrows also forces you to play right around that 10 meter range, due to its very limited cast range of ~12 meters.

For leveling purposes, I’d recommend starting out grabbing Aim True or Long Range, alongside Finishing Shot and Explosive Arrow. Aim True is a more consistent bonus, and gets you in the habit of going for charged shots, which helps you get the most DPS out. Long Range is a safer choice, as you won’t need to fully rely on the charge shots, but your positioning instead. Finishing Shot is a strong early pick up as well boosting our damage against low Health targets. With Explosive Shot in hand, I’d definitely go for the Contained Detonation, as it’ll allow the skill to deal significant damage on its own.

Moving to the Skirmisher Tree, we’re picking up Evasive Tactics, Rain of Arrows, Barbed Arrows, Poison Shot, Infected Arrows, and Mark for now. We’ll grab the last couple passives later. Evasive Tactics ends up being a very reliable damage boost that we can use often. Rain of Arrows along with the barbed Arrows upgrade Provides us with one DoT, while Poison Shot provides the other. We also upgrade Poison Shot here, so we can have both a stronger DoT as well as pick up Mark. These two DoT effects make up a large part of our damage, alongside Mark boosting everything by 20% at this point with both DoTs applied.

Returning to the Hunter Tree, we’re going to pick up Long Range or Aim True, Opening Strike, Bullseye, Hawkeye, and Surprise Attack to be able to make our way to Concussion. We’re taking the second of the opening options, because both are very strong passives. We go for Opening Strike next, as it pairs very well with Aim True and Long Range for a devastating opening burst of damage, occasionally pushing weaker enemies into range for Finishing Blow and Closing In later on. Bullseye Allows both Poison Shot and Rain of Arrows to critically strike a little more often, making a good pick up. Hawkeye gives us a bit of sustain, if we’re accurate.

We take Surprise Attack, for the occasional damage boost it provides and a stronger opener, as it’s a better passive than Arrow Range. However, due to the DoT nature of the build and the fact we’ll have them up constantly there’s very little chance that beyond an opening hit, that we’ll make use of this bonus. I was unable to determine if this bonus was being snapshot if Poison Shot was being used as a opener, but in the case it can apply in such a way, it would be more optimal to take.

Concussion is just the better Ultimate in general, boosting our headshot damage and giving a chance of ammo refund. With this in hand though we can head back over and pick up the last passives from the Skirmisher Tree, Closing in and Battle Precision. Finally, we can round off with grabbing Final Blow. Closing In will help us reduce the lengthy cooldowns of both Rain of Arrows and Poison Shot, while also adding more utility to Rapid Shot. Final Blow we grab last, as it’s a consistent damage boost to our single target skill, which is already heavily boosted by other passives.

Battle Precision is a bit of a toss up, and could be replaced with Hooked Arrows if desired. The biggest thing is that it extends the bleed from Barbed Arrows to ~14.5 seconds, making it easier to have higher uptime on it overall. In comparison, Hooked Arrows provides a bit of extra utility in a Slow, as well as another 10% damage from Mark. However, since this only lasts for a short 4 seconds, I personally like having higher uptime on the Bleed for consistency.

If you really wanted to take it, you’d also want to drop Closing In for Battle Precision, so it at least lasts an extra second longer. This would require a lot more Cooldown Reduction on your gear, specifically Refreshing Evasion. By not taking both, Refreshing and Refreshing Evasion are both equally viable on gear, adding a bit more flexibility to what you want to look for in gear.

Skill Perks, Usage, and Rotations

Explosive Arrow is primarily your burst damage skill. Since it also packs a decent AoE, even after upgrades, it makes for an excellent finishing skill. It’s high base damage also allows it to do fairly good single target damage. If desired, it could be swapped with Rapid Shot, which takes away the 3rd DoT, but gives you stronger single target damage.

Poison Shot is your stronger and longer-lasting DoT, lasting up to 26 seconds if enemies remain in the lingering AoE. It’ll deal up to a max of 312% Weapon Damage over that time, while also applying a stack of Mark for an equal duration.

Rain of Arrows is both decent AoE damage initially, as well as a weak and fairly lengthy Bleed. Between the initial Damage and DoT, you deal 252% Weapon Damage after the full 14.5 second Bleed expires.

For Weapon Perks we’ll be looking to get Keen, Vicious and your choice of Keenly Jagged or Refreshing Move. Keen and Vicious are easy pick ups, as more crit chance and damage helps out our skills that cannot headshot. Keenly Jagged is just outright better on the Bow compared to Keenly Empowered, as it will trigger another stack of Mark (10% damage), and can easily have 100% uptime while also dealing another 84% Weapon damage over 12 seconds. Compared to having 15% Empower for 50% of the time.

Optionally, if you want the more generalized and drop-only perk combination of Enchanted, Keen, and Vicious then aim to get a Lazarus Bow. Enchanted and Vicious cannot normally roll together, making this a good farm-able option with a good set of perks. However, it’s worth noting that Keenly Jagged can make up for Enchanted, only being less general as you’re forced to focus on the target you apply Keenly Jagged to to make the most of it.

For your weapons Gem slot, Diamonds are typically the more consistent and reliable option as your range makes it easier for you to stay at full health. Emeralds are an okay substitute, but their effect doesn’t kick in until the target is below 30% health. Opals are also a good option, as they synergize with the use of Evasive Tactics.

When upgrading to a Runeglass Gem, we’ll absolutely want to go for Sighted. It’s a solid damage increase overall for the build. However, Arboreal can be a good option as well, which cna increase the damage dealt by Poison Shot’s DoT.

For Armor perks we’ll be looking to pick up Empowering Explosive Arrow, alongside Refreshing or Refreshing Evasion. If you’re interested in more PvP then Resilient and Freedom can be great pick ups. For PvE though, you’ll just want Luck for more drops or Ward perks to boost defenses. Empowering Explosive Arrow makes it likely for you to have a strong Empower every so often, which can make your already hard hitting heavy Attacks a bit stronger. The Refreshing perks help with CDR and keeping our DoT uptime very high.

On our Amulet we’ll be looking to get Refreshing or Refreshing Evasion, Health and Fortified Recovery. Health gives a nice little bonus to our HP, and 9.4% is a fairly good boost, equal to a couple dozen points in CON and gets better with more points in CON. Fortified Recovery is a fairly solid defensive layer, which will reduce incoming damage by 10% if you are hit while under 50% health. It won’t stop a one shot mechanic of a boss, but can give you a good amount of breathing room, especially if solo.

For our Earring we’ll want to get Refreshing or Refreshing Evasion, Regenerating and Evasive. Regenerating gives a small bit of extra sustain in the form of a weak regeneration effect that can mitigate a small bit of chip damage. Evasive makes it so when we dodge, we produce less threat and with how hard we can and our constant DoTs, it’ll go a long way in keeping enemy attention on our Tank. For a more PvP setup, I’d recommend Nimble and Purifying Toast.

Finally for our Ring we’ll be looking to get Keen Awareness or Thrust Damage, Hearty, and Refreshing or Refreshing Evasion. We can only Choose Keen Awareness or Thrust Damage. Both are pretty general damage increases, one by increasing the random crit chance of the skills that can’t headshot and the other by just overall increasing our damage. Thrust Damage tends to be the more consistent of the two options. Hearty gives us a bit of extra Stamina, allowing us to generally dodge an extra time without worrying about Stamina being depleted. As a notable mention, the Featherweight Ring from the Lazarus Instrumentality Expedition can be a good farm target, as it provides Hearty, Keen Awareness and Refreshing on a DEX ring.

Skill Rotation

• Dodge
• Heavy Attack
• Explosive Arrow
• Dodge
• Rain of Arrows
• Poison Shot
• Dodge
• Heavy Attack
• Repeat

We start with a dodge so we can activate Evasive Tactics. This is followed with a Heavy Attack to get the most out of Opening Strike and Long Range. Then we use Explosive Shot to get its cooldown going and get more damage out of this first Evasive Tactics. We Roll to reactive Evasive Tactics and trigger any Refreshing Evasion we have before using both of our DoT skills, applying the effects to as many target as possible. We want to ideally use Rain of Arrows first to make use of Empowering Explosvie Arrow, as it will deal more damage due to its hight base damage and AoE.

After this we’re looking to use Closing In with Heavy Attacks filling the time between cooldowns while dodging to maintain Evasive Tactics. We should be able to get two Heavy Attacks and any skill off, or just three to four Heavy Attacks per Evasive Tactics proc.

Double DoT PvP Build

Similar to the PvE Variant, there’s heavy focus on the DoT Skills, though this time we focus more on PvP utility with the last skill. This does also mean we’ll be forced to take the worse ultimate in the end. For this build we’ll be taking all three skills of the Skirmisher Tree, Evade Shot, Rain of Arrows and Poison Shot.

I absolutely do not recommend leveling with this build, as almost all of your damage comes from DoT effects and Heavy Attacks. This makes the build very unreliable for any PvE content without strong secondary DPS Skill.

Should you want to level with this tree, here’s the recommended path to doing so. Start by grabbing all three of your skills, picking up both Barbed Arrows for Rain of Arrows and Infected Arrows for Poison Shot. This gets most of your DPS going very early. To supplement this DPS, we’ll go for Mark and Evasive Tactics then hop over to the other side of the tree to grab more.

On the Hunter side of the Tree, We’ll want to grab all the passives indicated here. Aim True, Long Range, Finishing Shot, Opening Strike, Surprise Attack and Bullseye all contribute to our overall damage. Aim True, Long Range, Opening Strike and Surprise Attack lead to a very powerful opening hit on most weak enemies, and can outright make some disappear. Finishing Shot helps your DoTs and additional attack finish off the remaining Health. Bullseye is pretty optional, but allowing Poison Shot and Rain of Arrows to potentially crit more often will typically be a good boost of damage.

Back over on the Skirmisher side of the tree now, we’ll round off by grabbing Closing in, Dodge and Weave, Hooked Arrows and Hunter’s Insight before picking up Knee Shot. Closing In is a bit weaker here due to the lack of a consistent way to rapidly hit, but still provides enough cooldown reduction that can allow for high uptime on our DoTs. Hunter’s Insight makes it so we can dodge a bit more often, usually with quicker attacks when we need to kite. Hooked Arrows and Knee Shot also help with kiting thanks to their slows.

If we wanted to optimize this slightly for stronger kiting power, we could drop Hunter’s Insight and Bullseye for Evade Shot’s upgrades. This would mean if we can trigger Knee Shot with Evade Shot, we end up knocking them back and Slowing them while providing us with a Haste. We can even add in Dodge and Weave’s Haste as well, for a total of a 25% haste to us, and a 10% Slow for them. If we Roll away, Evade Shot them in the leg, then roll again we can very easily create a ton of distance between us and the person chasing us.

Skill Perks, Usage, and Rotations

Evade Shot is our main kiting tool. When we add in the Stamina recovery of its perk to our existing perks, it can allow for a lot of additional mobility for very little cost. If we go for the heavy kiting setup, it can be an exceptionally strong mobility tool in combat.

Poison Shot is your stronger and longer lasting DoT, lasting up to 26 seconds if enemies remain in the lingering AoE. It’ll deal up to a max of 312% Weapon Damage over that time, while also applying a stack of Mark for an equal duration.

Rain of Arrows is both decent AoE damage initially, as well as a weak and fairly lengthy Bleed. Between the initial Damage and DoT, you deal 252% Weapon Damage after the full 14.5 second Bleed expires.

For Weapon Perks we’ll be looking to get Keen, Vicious and your choice of Keenly Jagged or Refreshing Move. Keen and Vicious are easy pick ups, as more crit chance and damage helps out our skills that cannot headshot. Keenly Jagged is just outright better on the Bow compared to Keenly Empowered, as it will trigger another stack of Mark (10% damage), and can easily have 100% uptime while also dealing another 84% Weapon damage over 12 seconds. Compared to having 15% Empower for 50% of the time. Refreshing Move can also be fairly strong here, giving a decent boost to our already limited cooldown recovery.

Optionally, if you want the more generalized and drop-only perk combination of Enchanted, Keen, and Vicious then aim to get a Lazarus Bow. Enchanted and Vicious cannot normally roll together, making this a good farm-able option with a good set of perks. However, it’s worth noting that Keenly Jagged can make up for Enchanted, only being less general as you’re forced to focus on the target you apply Keenly Jagged to to make the most of it.

For your weapons Gem slot, Diamonds are typically the more consistent and reliable option. Emeralds are an okay substitute, but their effect doesn’t kick in until the target is below 30% health.

For Armor perks we’ll be looking to pick up Energizing Evade Shot, Enfeebling Poison Shot, and Fortifying Rain of Arrows, alongside PvP go-tos Resilient and Freedom. Refreshing or Refreshing Evasion are also still very useful to get where you can as well. Resilient makes it so crit heavy weapons cannot hit you nearly as hard. Freedom reduces incoming crowd control effects like Roots, Slows, and Stuns. The Refreshing perks help with CDR and keeping our DoT uptime very high.

Energizing Evade Shot adds a lot of extra utility to Evade Shot. By restoring Stamina, it let’s us add an extra roll to our escape and kiting power more easily. Enfeebling Poison Shot is more of a supportive perk, but will also give another short window where you have an additional Mark stack allowing for a few seconds of extra damage. Fortifying Rain of Arrows makes the close range nature of Rain of Arrows much less risky by providing a decent Fortify effect.

On our Amulet we’ll be looking to get Refreshing or Refreshing Evasion, Health and Fortified Recovery. Health gives a nice little bonus to our HP, and 9.4% is a fairly good boost, equal to a couple dozen points in CON and gets better with more points in CON. Fortified Recovery is a fairly solid defensive layer, which will reduce incoming damage by 10% if you are hit while under 50% health.

For our Earring we’ll want to get Refreshing or Refreshing Evasion, Nimble and Purifying Toast. Nimble boosts our Stamina regen which can help quite a bit with increasing our mobility. Purifying Toast is a great way to quickly cleanse a debuff like a Bleed or Burn, as well as crowd control effects like a Slow or a Root.

Finally for our Ring we’ll be looking to get Keen Awareness or Thrust Damage, Hearty, and Refreshing or Refreshing Evasion. We can only Choose Keen Awareness or Thrust Damage. Both are pretty general damage increases, one by increasing the random crit chance of the skills that can’t headshot and the other by just overall increasing our damage. Thrust Damage tends to be the more consistent of the two options. Hearty gives us a bit of extra Stamina, allowing us to generally dodge an extra time without worrying about Stamina being depleted. As a notable mention, the Featherweight Ring from the Lazarus Instrumentality Expedition can be a good farm target, as it provides Hearty, Keen Awareness and Refreshing on a DEX ring.

Skill Rotation

This build doesn’t really use a specific rotation. Most of it’s damage comes from Heavy Attacks and maintaining Evasive Tactics for the most damage from your DoTs and Heavy Attacks.

Long Range DPS Build

This build focuses on maintaining your range advantage over most opponents by avoiding skills that force closer range engagements like Rain of Arrowst. For this we’ll be focused on Penetrating Shot, Rapid Shot and Poison Arrow.

This build is one of the go-to builds to level the bow with. You get a lot of upfront damage, but lack the heavy AoE damage of a build using both DoT Skills. It’s generally more consistent and also functions much better as a PvP build as well compared to a double DoT build as it can play from a much safer range.

For leveling this build, we’ll start off by grabbing Penetrating Shot, Finishing Shot, Rapid Shot, and Rapid Accuracy. This gets us our first two skills, upgrading one to provide consistent DPS. We’ll very quickly hop over to the Skirmisher Tree and grab Evasive Tactics, Closing In, and Poison Shot to have our third skill and some really useful passives as well.

Back on the Hunter side of things, We’ll grab Long Range, Aim True, Opening Strike, and Surprise Attack with our next points. These passives very heavily increase our damage, especially if we’re landing our first shot. Then we’ll fully upgrade Penetrating Arrow to really boost its damage and get access to Concussion as well as pick that up for even more damage.

After Concussion, we’ll be going for Final Shot and Bullseye to boost our damage a bit more. Then we’ll head over to the Skirmisher side to pick up Poison Shot’s upgrades as well as Mark to round out the build.

Skill Perks, Usage, and Rotations

Penetrating Shot is a skill that ends up being mostly single target damage, but in rare situations can very easily be AoE with good positioning and shot placement. If you can manage to make the shot pierce several targets, it can put out some serious damage to large groups. It also tends to be fairly decent to fire in to melee deathballs in Wars and other Large scale PvP.

If desired, Explosive Arrow can replace Penetrating Shot as well, for a more consistent AoE option. It packs similar base damage and often can more reliably hit multiple targets.

Rapid Shot is really solid single target damage and very consistent damage at that. It also has the added bonus to be quickest way to activate Closing In frequently, giving it a bit of utility beyond just consistent damage. With a total of 350% damage over three hits, it’s not at all a bad skill for a single ammo.

Poison Shot is our main AoE tool, and a good way to deal consistent damage while constantly knocking any PvP bonuses that only apply at full health. We’ll also take its perk for added utility in PvP and a temporary Mark stack. Its passive upgrades also allow it to provide fairly good single target damage as well.

For Weapon Perks we’ll be looking to get Keen, Vicious and Keenly Jagged. Keen and Vicious are easy pick ups, as more crit chance and damage helps out our skills that cannot headshot. Keenly Jagged is just outright better on the Bow compared to Keenly Empowered, as it will trigger another stack of Mark (10% damage), and can easily have 100% uptime while also dealing another 84% Weapon damage over 12 seconds. Compared to having 15% Empower for 50% of the time. With this build lacking Rain of Arrows, Keenly Jagged is an even stronger pickup.

Optionally, if you want the more generalized and drop-only perk combination of Enchanted, Keen, and Vicious then aim to get a Lazarus Bow. Enchanted and Vicious cannot normally roll together, making this a good farm-able option with a good set of perks. However, it’s worth noting that Keenly Jagged can make up for Enchanted, only being less general as you’re forced to focus on the target you apply Keenly Jagged to to make the most of it. However Keenly Jagged can be stronger in this build just due to the more single target nature of the build.

For your weapons Gem slot, Diamonds are typically the more consistent and reliable option. Emeralds are an okay substitute, but their effect doesn’t kick in until the target is below 30% health.

For our Armor perks we’ll be looking to grab Enfeebling Poison Shot, Penetrating Rapid Shot, and Refreshing Penetrating Shot. Alongside these perks, we’ll also be looking for Refreshing or Refreshing Evasion. In PvE the remaining slots can be Luck or the Ward perks. In PvP You’ll want to go for Resilient and Freedom instead.

Enfeebling Poison Shot is a temporary damage boost from Mark, while also providing additional PvP utility as well. Penetrating Rapid Shot is a solid damage boost for both PvE and PvP, making it a must have. Refreshing Penetrating Shot can help reduce Penetrating Shot’s cooldown, but depends on the timing of the skill after it’s initial use. It has a fairly good chance to trigger on enemies in PvE, but can unreliable for PvP. Then Our Refreshing Perks reduce our cooldowns to increase our maximum DPS.

We fill remain armor perk slots with Luck and Wards perk in PvE to get the most out of each piece of armor. Luck helps us to get more and slightly improved drops. The Ward perks are a solid defensive choice if we can stack them up enough. In PvP we opt for Resilient and Freedom. Resilient reduces damage from crit heavy weapons like other ranged DPS or any melees that get on top of us. Freedom reduces the duration of any crowd control that may lock us in place or otherwise make it hard to escape.

On our Amulet we’ll be looking to get Refreshing or Refreshing Evasion, Health and Fortified Recovery. Health gives a nice little bonus to our HP, and 9.4% is a fairly good boost, equal to a couple dozen points in CON and gets better with more points in CON. Fortified Recovery is a fairly solid defensive layer, which will reduce incoming damage by 10% if you are hit while under 50% health.

For our Earring we’ll want to get Refreshing or Refreshing Evasion, Nimble and Purifying Toast. Nimble boosts our Stamina regen which can help quite a bit with increasing our mobility. Purifying Toast is a great way to quickly cleanse a debuff like a Bleed or Burn, as well as crowd control effects like a Slow or a Root.

Finally for our Ring we’ll be looking to get Keen Awareness or Thrust Damage, Hearty, and Refreshing or Refreshing Evasion. We can only Choose Keen Awareness or Thrust Damage. Both are pretty general damage increases, one by increasing the random crit chance of the skills that can’t headshot and the other by just overall increasing our damage. Thrust Damage tends to be the more consistent of the two options. Hearty gives us a bit of extra Stamina, allowing us to generally dodge an extra time without worrying about Stamina being depleted. As a notable mention, the Featherweight Ring from the Lazarus Instrumentality Expedition can be a good farm target, as it provides Hearty, Keen Awareness and Refreshing on a DEX ring.

Skill Rotation

• Dodge
• Heavy Attack
• Rapid Shot
• Dodge
• Poison Shot
• Penetrating Shot
• Heavy Attack
• Dodge
• Rapid Shot
• Heavy Attack
• Repeat

We open by dodging to active Evasive Tactics then firing off a Heavy Attack. A Heavy Attack is our single highest instance of damage as an opener, being a guaranteed 200% thanks to Aim True before any other bonuses apply. We follow this with a Rapid Shot being our next high instance of damage and to get its short cooldown rolling.

Then we dodge again to refresh Evasive Tactics. This time it’s followed by Poison Shot, Penetrating Shot and another Heavy Attack. This rotation of attacks get our cooldowns going and allows for both Penetrating Shot and the Heavy Attack to benefit from the short duration Mark can be fully stacked.

Following this, we’re dodging to maintain Evasive Tactics, while using Rapid Shot off Cooldown and filling with Heavy Attacks. The other skills should also be used off cooldown with this as well, though holding Poison Shot if Penetrating Shot is close to being off cooldown, as we’ll want to repeat that burst in that short window created by Enfeebling Poison Shot.

Bow Weapon Pairings

Being a weapon that scale purely off Dexterity, this limits the Bow’s possible combinations. This does allow it to pair nicely with a mix of ranged and melee options alike. It can pair well with the Greatsword, Hatchet, Musket, Rapier, Spear, and Sword. Of these options, the top three I recommend are the Greatsword, Spear, and Rapier.

Greatsword

The Greatsword can be a flexible tool, offering greater offense in melee range, or just being a great option to use defensively. I personally preferred a more hybrid build, taking some it for offense, mobility, as well as its defensive capabilities. It’s a great option for Pve and PvP alike due to its flexibility.

To learn more about the Greatsword, you can check out our Greatsword Guide and Best Builds. This will help you plan out a strong build, should you opt for this pairing.

Spear

The Spear has long been a common pairing for the Bow, offering its much-needed close-range offense, as well as providing both Crowd Control and Debuffing capabilities. It’s still a fantastic option even now, and is the easiest of the three recommended weapons to learn.

To learn more about the Spear, you can check out our Spear Guide and Best Builds. This will help you plan out a strong build, should you opt for this pairing.

To learn about this pairing in-depth and how it plays, check out our Bow and Spear Build Guide. This covers the pairing in-depth, including recommended perks and gear.

Rapier

The Rapier is a purely offensive tool in most cases. Its mobility and evasiveness can allow it to be quite defensive, without heavy investment into playing a defensive role. You cna however opt to have it play a more defensive role which can often catch some players off guard in PvP.

To learn more about the Rapier, you can check out our Rapier Guide and Best Builds. This will help you plan out a strong build, should you opt for this pairing.

Other Pairings

Below is a list of other weapon pairings that this weapon is featured in. Check them out for other playstyles available to this weapon.

• Bow and Hatchet: Ranged Assassin Build (PvP)

This is the end of this very in-depth guide to the Bow in New World. We hope you have learned everything you need to know about this weapon, its usage, skills, perks, builds, combos and ability rotations. The icons used in this guide are pulled from newworldfans.com‘s database.

Patch Note Changes

This segment will help you keep track of what has changed for this weapon with the patches as AGS maintains the game in the long-term.

Patch 1.1 “Into the Void”

• Fixed a bug so it cannot fire faster than intended.
• Rain of Arrows, Poison Shot, and Splinter Shot updated to reflect they cannot headshot.
• Evade Shot’s Go the Distance bonus Haste now applies at the end of the skill.
• Poison Shot cooldown reduced to 30s, fixed bug that could have it go on cooldown without being fired.
• Rapid Shot cooldown reduced to 14s, fixed Rapid Accuracy’s Cooldown Reduction not triggering if last shot defeated an enemy.
• Rain of Arrows, no longer hits enemies through closed doors.

You can find the full patch notes for New World Update 1.1 “Into the Void” in our New World Patches archives.

Patch 1.2 “Winter Convergence Festival”

• Rain of Arrows:
  • Fixed an issue that allowed this skill to deal damage to targets through Fort Gates and War Camp gates.
  • The bleeding effect from Rain of Arrows can no longer be stacked by multiple players using the ability on the same target. This change was made to keep the ability consistent with other AoE skills that can be stacked on top of each other.

• Penetrating Shot:
  • Blood Soaked Arrow: Fixed an issue that caused this upgrade to increased damage with each hit instead of after each hit.
• Surprise Attack: Updated description of this passive ability to specify that its effect is per target.
• Improved all Aim Down Sights transitions between abilities and primary shot. This also addresses an issue that prevented Penetrating Shot and Poison Shot from being canceled after exiting the shots.
• Mark upgrade: Fixed an issue where the damage increase would not cap, it will now cap at 30% damage increase against enemy with debuff.

You can find the full patch notes for New World Update 1.2 “Winter Convergence Festival” in our New World Patches archives.

Patch 1.3 ” Expedition Mutators”

• Fixed an issue that allowed Musket and Bow light attacks to be activated underwater.
• Fixed an issue that blocked Bow from entering aim down sights if swapping to Bow while in Musket Sniper Zoom.
• Fixed issue where the Bow Concussion ultimate was applying to all attacks and not just headshots.

February Update

• Rain of Arrows:
  • Fixed an issue where Rain of Arrows could trigger backstabs.
  • Fixed an issue where the Rain of Arrows bleed duration was not able to be extended by perks and passives that extend Bow/Bleed effect durations.
• Evade Shot:
  • Energizing Evade Shot (Item Perk): Fixed an issue where this perk was not triggering if any upgrades were unlocked for Evade Shot.
• Fixed an issue that allowed Rain of Arrows, Penetrating Shot and Poison Shot to be used while encumbered or in deep water.
• Fixed an issue that allowed bow light attacks to be activated underwater.
• Fixed an issue with bow hipfiring that made the canceling windows different than when firing down sights. This fix normalizes the firing rate between hipfiring and firing down sights.

Update 1.4 “Heart of Madness”

• For the starting beach experience in Windsward, the Watcher now offers players a choice of 4 weapons from a weapon rack to better suit their playstyle.
  • Players can choose between a Warhammer, Fire Staff, Bow, or Hatchet.
  • Each weapon also comes with chest armor, light healing potions, and some rations.
• Infinite Ammo: T1 Flint ammo is being replaced by an infinite resource. Players can now fire ranged weapons (Musket, Bow and Blunderbuss) without equipping ammo.
  • If no ammo is equipped, an ammo counter will not be displayed on the reticle and the weapon will still be allowed to fire.
  • If players have a higher tier ammo equipped in a game mode that provides infinite ammo (such as Outpost Rush) an infinity icon will appear on the reticle instead to distinguish it from having no ammo equipped.
• Ammo rarity/damage tiers have been updated as follows:
  • T1 Infinite (Previously Flint) = 1.00x damage.
  • T2 Iron = 1.05x damage.
  • T3 Steel = 1.10x damage.
  • T4 Starmetal = 1.15x damage.
  • T5 Orichalcum = 1.20x damage.
• Flint Arrows: These arrows have been removed from the game due to the addition of infinite ammo. Any Flint Arrows previously created will become Iron Arrows. Additionally, any Flint Arrows posted on the trading post will be canceled and returned as Iron Arrows to the player who posted the listing.
• Ammo weight has been removed.
• Increased maximum stack count for ammo from 500 to 1000.

• Fixed an issue where bow status effects could not be extended via perks or other bonuses.

April 2022 Update

• Fixed the names of four items rewarded from various quests in Reekwater, which were pointing at weapons for other zones. This change affects the rewards for the quests “Seek and Hide”, “A Plan’s Deconstruction”, “The Queen is Dead (Elite)”, and “The Eternal Pool (Elite)”. The weapons affected are: Occult’s Razor, Switcher’s Revenge, Bow of Navarona, and Demon’s Claw.
• Removed Input Buffering when exiting ADS to avoid Hip Fire from unintentionally activating.
• The Regents Bow, which was obtainable from a quest in Reekwater, has been transformed to the Bow of Navarona. All of it’s gear score, perks, attributes, and socketed gems remain unchanged.

Update 1.5 “Arenas”

• Reduced recovery on basic attacks.
• Fixed ability cancels on basic attacks.
• Increased projectile radius on all attacks, except Penetrating Shot.
• Added cancel windows to weapon readying animations.
• Players can now sprint-cancel when lowering the weapon.
• Added missing cancel buffers when lowering weapon.
• Poison Shot and Penetrating Shot now use the same fire/cancel inputs as Rain of Arrows.
• Reduced hip-fire startup and recovery, and increased move speed while hip-firing from 1.65 to 2.25.
• Reduced hip-fire multiplier from 0.8 to 0.6.
• Reduced Charged Shot damage multiplier from 1.7 to 1.5.
• Reduced charge time and recovery for Charged Shots.
• Reduced the power of the Bow’s Aim True Passive from 30% to 10%.
• Fixed issue that allowed players to instantly fire Penetrating Shot or Poison Shot at the same time as a Charged Bow Shot.
• Reduced the Bow’s base block stamina damage from 34-42 to 32-40 depending on its tier.
• Reduced Bow’s Charged Shot stamina damage coefficient by 38%.
• Reduced Bow’s Evade Shot stamina damage coefficient by 75%.
• Reduced the Evade Shot Knockback’s upgrade stamina damage coefficient by 40%.

Update 1.6 “Summer Medleyfaire”

• Added a cancel window to the “Rapid Shot” ability to allow users to dodge cancel out of the ability after the first shot as long as they are not actively firing the subsequent shots.
• Fixed an issue that caused the “Rapid Shot” and “Explosive Arrow” abilities to have too long of a duration between when the cooldown was triggered and the active frames started.
• Added the ability to zoom in the camera when using the “Rapid Shot” and “Explosive Arrow” abilities.
• Fixed an issue that prevented dodge canceling while reloading when exiting ADS.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Bow to leave ADS while rapidly shooting in settlements.
• Fixed an issue that caused the “Archer’s Speed” passive effect to continue when the Bow was sheathed.
• Reduced “Poison Shot’s” “Direct Hit” passive’s damage from 150% to 100%.
• Removed stagger from “Penetrating Shot”.
• The “Splinter Shot” ability has been reworked and is now “Explosive Arrow”:
  • Explosive Arrow – Fire an arrow that will explode on impact dealing 50% weapon damage on hit, and an additional 135% damage to all targets within a 2.5m radius.
  • Flame Arrow – Direct Explosive Arrow hits inflict Burn, dealing 8% weapon damage every second for 10s.
  • Contained Detonation – Explosion damage increased to 170% damage, but AoE radius decreases to 1.3m.
  • Updated the “Empowering Splinter Shot” perk text to state “Empowering Explosive Arrow”. Its functionality remains the same.
• Evasive Tactics – Reduced damage bonus from 20% to 15%
• Long Range – Reduced damage bonus from 20% to 15%

• Energizing Evade Shot:
  • Increased effectiveness while on a Bow:
    • On armor: 4% to 19% based on Gear Score.
    • On weapon: 4% to 34% based on Gear Score.
  • Reduced cooldown by:
    • On armor: 3% to 14% based on Gear Score.
    • On weapon: 3% to 25% based on Gear Score.
• Fortifying Rain of Arrows: Renamed to Lasting Rain of Arrows. It now causes slow and bleed from Rain of Arrows to last longer:
  • On armor: 10% to 20% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 10% to 30% based on Gear Score.
• Enfeebling Poison Shot: The duration was increased from 4s to 6s. Weakness was also increased when on a Bow:
  • On armor: 3% to 14% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 3% to 25% based on Gear Score.
• Explosive Arrow: Now deals increased damage when on a Bow:
  • On armor: 4% to 19% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 4% to 34% based on Gear Score.
• Penetrating Rapid Fire: Now affects all rapid fire attacks and increases armor penetration while on a Bow:
  • On armor: 5% to 19% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 5% to 33% based on Gear Score.
• Refreshing Penetrating Shot: Increases cooldown while on a Bow:
  • On armor: 3% to 14% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 3% to 25% based on Gear Score.

Update 1`.7 “Brimstone Sands”

• Fixed an issue that caused Bow Haste passive abilities to have reduced duration when Haste consumables were active.
• Fixed an issue that cancelled the damage impact of Rain of Arrows when switching weapons after shooting.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Bow string to not animate properly when interrupted while aiming down sights.
• Fixed multiple issues with bows that were assigned gauntlets instead of quivers.

You can find the full patch notes for New World Update 1.7 “Brimstone Sands” in our New World Patches archives.

Update 1.8 “Winter Convergence Festival 2022”

• Fixed an issue that caused incorrect arrow projectile sizes when using the Bow passive Arrow Range. Now all primary arrow shots will have a radius of 0.15 and all charged shots will have a radius of 0.33.
• Updated Evade Shot projectile to work correctly with passive Arrow Range with a radius of 0.33.
• Updated Explosive Arrow projectile size to have a radius of 0.33 from 0.05.
• Fixed an issue that caused unnatural animations to trigger after firing Explosive Shot while idle or strafing backwards.
• Increased the recovery prior to the dodge cancel window after the final shot of Bow’s Rapid Shot. Dodge cancel window was previously too short after the shot, which allowed players to easily bypass the final shot’s recovery, as well as exit the action prior to the arrow hitting the target.

You can find the full patch notes for New World Update 1.8 “Winter Convergence Festival 2022” in our New World Patches archives.

Update 1.9 “Season 1: Fellowship and Fire”

Reviewed all weapons to make more clear differentiations between attacks that are intended to be for Crowd Control and Damage. Removed Stagger from damage-focused abilities, and reduced damage for stagger-focused abilities.

• Evade Shot damage was reduced from 125% to 90%.
• Rapid Shot no longer staggers.

• Ability Updates
  • Penetrating Shot and Deep Strike Upgrade have had their damage reduced from 20% to 15%.
  • Reduced damage for Long Range passive from 15% to 10%.
  • Reduced damage bonus for Opening Strike passive from 20% to 10%.
  • Reduce damage for Finishing Shot passive from 20% to 15%.
• Notable Fixes
  • Fixed an issue where the Bow Dodge and Weave passive was improperly extending its duration if a subsequent dodge occurred while the buff was already active.

You can find the full patch notes for New World Update 1.9 “Season 1: Fellowship and Fire” in our New World Patches archives.

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