The bow rewards patience and positioning over reflexes. Archers run light armour and high DEX, and their job is to make the enemy bleed before — and after — the lines meet.
Drawing & aiming
Hold to draw the bow toward full power — a full draw hits hardest and flies straightest. Arrows have travel time and drop over distance, so at range you must aim high and lead a moving target, putting the arrow where they'll be, not where they are. Holding a full draw burns stamina and the aim begins to sway, so loose before it does.
The three bows
Bows come in three varieties — all deal piercing — and the choice trades rate of fire against punch and quiver size. Each bow has its own quiver, and arrow counts run from an unspecced minimum to a fully-specced maximum.
| Bow | Arrows (min / max) | Armour penetration | Fire rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simple | 11 / 45 | 15% | Moderate |
| Reflex | 12 / 50 | 10% | High |
| Long | 8 / 35 | 22% | Low |
The reflex bow has the highest rate of fire and largest quiver, which is why it's the go-to for slowing cavalry with massed shots; the longbow hits hardest and bites deepest into armour but looses slowly. Only an archer specced into the right abilities carries the full quiver — an unspecced fighter gets the low number.
Arrows & resupply
Your quiver refills on its own: passive regeneration is 10% of the quiver's max per minute (up to 15% with the right abilities — *Marksman*, *Not on My Watch*, *Huntsman*), and it keeps ticking even while you've got a melee weapon out. On top of that, wounding and killing enemies regenerates arrows directly (active regeneration). Swapping weapons doesn't refresh your arrows — so don't burn the whole quiver on long-range chip when the melee is about to land.
What archers do
- Punish the open — anyone caught crossing ground without a shield is a target.
- Break charges and interrupt — a full-power arrow interrupts an enemy's attack (the *Not on My Watch* capstone makes this a specialty).
- Focus fire — massed arrows onto one called target drop it far faster than spread shots.
- Aim for the head — headshots deal bonus damage.
Staying alive
Archers are fragile. Shoot from behind your own line, keep an escape lane, and kite — never let a fight close to arm's reach if you can help it. Surviving enemy archers is its own skill; see Surviving Archers.
Throwing weapons
The bow isn't the only ranged option: any one-handed weapon can be thrown — and thrown projectiles share the same ammo pool as your arrows, so a bow-and-throw archer manages one resource, not two. See Throwing Weapons.