For Thy Archers

[Tygravius]

Are you picky about what arrows you use? Do you only use one certain arrow for certain situations in your role-playing? Perhaps you only use matching arrows with matching bow? Do you poison you arrows alot? Do you find some arrows are stonger than others even though they're not strengh-wise (I do for some reason. Glass at times seems dominate over others. Don't know why) I perdominatly use Ebony, Glass arrows. Elven as my backups. For some reason, my character doesn't like Dwemer arrows (they bounce off Centriums too)

What kind of enchaments do you use? Personally, my daedric has fire at 20. One ebony with soul trap and another ebony that reduces magic and gives a shock to boot. I'm always caring at least 3 bows.

For Thy Archers! Tell us you ways!!

[Guy Corbett]

Im getting into the bows more this time. I didnt have much use for them as my mage. Is there a good place to collect the more powerful arrows so im not forking out gold on them?

[Tygravius]

As you level up, they become more frequent. Dragr will start using Ebony. Rarely do you see NPC's with Daedric. Usually you have to buy them. The Fletcher in Solitude has them sometimes, along with a Daedric bow (if you don't have the smithing to make one)

Another hint is to give your follower "one" arrow of your choice and he/she will use that arrow. Then when the person/creature is dead you can pick the arrow out of them. It's a real slow, methotical way to get a 'high level' arrow like Daedric, but those bad boys are spendy. You can also plant a powerful arrow in one of the guards/archers in Solitude, then pick them out of the target. I did this, but it didn't work for me. Mason, I believe, wrote about this. Easy way to get quite a few arrows of your likeing.

[Guy Corbett]

Cheers Ty Yeah Ive tried a couple of those methods. I raped j'zhargo of his eleven arrows at the sky cloud temple he just kept firing them lol Didnt realise they were tied to lvl aswell I will have to keep a look out for that.

[Abaddon]

You also need to remove the default arrow type from the guard, this may be why it's not working.  If you don't have the perk to pickpocket equipped items then:

- Reverse pickpocket one of your awesome arrows onto the practicing guard

- Wait until nightfall and go into the guard barracks (they're in the castle, to the right when you enter) find the sleeping guard with the awesome arrow and pickpocket the Steel ones (or whatever) from him.

[Sithis Nerevar]

I always upgrade to the strongest arrows as soon as i can but i try to reserve them for harder opponents and use my elvin arrows for general cannon fodder npcs. Being the greatest assassin in skyrim i of course regularly poison my arrows with a scary amount of sick satisfaction as i fire them from the shadows unseen by my prey. I found the bows this time around to be vastly improved and use them as my primary means of attack, coupled with a very high skill in archery and sneak i can kill most enemies with 1 poisoned arrow to the mush!!!! 

[Unix]

I play as an archer from the first time, she is my one and only character. I used Ebony for a long time but I felt that Lindariel is way too strong now so I changed it to Dwarven, which is my favourite (best looking for me). However I never dropped my Ebony bow, witch won the hardest battles for me. Now I am carrying 997 Ebony arrows (saved up a bit hehe) and 368 Dwarven arrows. Always use a match of bow-arrows, and always have some poisons at hand. Paralysis is my favourite, it makes a battle fairly easy. With weaker enemies I used to give a shot of paralysis for 10 secs, then my companion Meeko does the rest. Groupwork!  LOVE Archery in this game!

[Paul]

Great topic

Oddly enough, my last three or four Oblivion characters were - in one way or another - orientated around bows. Yet I've barely picked up a bow in anger in Skyrim yet!

So thats a definite future character. As such I'm interested to see tips, ideas, suggestions on this thread

[Shane Wigmore]

I must say I'm almost the opposite of you Paul. In Oblivion my last bunch of characters were all mages. Now come Skyrim, all my main characters use bows :) 

[0fhm2rm1rrg5w]

The archery in this game has a really good feel. I'm a sneaky archer and I have the perk that gives a paralysis bonus, plus I enchanted my ebony bow with paralysis. I love how paralysis works, and it's great for hitting targets that freeze up and fall off their high places!

[Jordan Butler]

Agreed, Bilal. I always felt that, even in Oblivion, the marksmanship was a bit stiff, but this has a real fluid feel.

[THATSRESPECT]

This is my first archer character in the Elder Scrolls series.  I have to say it has been awesome to perk up this skill and use it in game.  I never knew what I was missing in Oblivion.  Other then the run ins with the creatures of the wild, I have to say it does neutralize the enemy quite a bit. It was fun to rip through the Thalmor at Northwatch...and was still a challenge.  But undead pretty much sneak shot kills instantly.  Once I get to 100 I'm going to switch to one handed and go from there, but archery definitely is the way to go.

[Piper Jo]

Lucy had an excellent orcish bow of fire, and she would use the most damaging arrows in her quiver and poison with weakness to fire, if no better poison was available.  She would then attack with fire in some form of another.