Skyrim is a vast and sprawling world with tons of variety. From your character’s race and class to the ability to create your weapons, armor, and spells, the northern province of Tamriel truly has something for just about anyone.
Here, we’re taking a look at the various Bows in the game and how they stack up to one another, ultimately finding the Top 10 Best Bows offered. Since the game allows for Blacksmithing and Enchanting, we will only be looking at the base stats and abilities found in Bows found in the game instead of ones you can create or improve upon yourself. As Crossbows have been a mainstay for quite a few years now, we will include them in this ranking as well.
So, without any further ado, let’s begin!
10: Daedric Bow
Coming at #10, we have one of the coolest bows available purely from an aesthetic perspective, the Daedric Bow. This weapon, while very cool-looking, has a base damage of 19 points per shot. It has open slots so you can add enchantments to it and improve it through smithing, but as we said before, those will not be factored in.
While it is at the bottom of this list, it’s still a super cool weapon that comes in fairly late in the game and is made dangerous when amped by other additions like the enchantments above and smithing as well as high-powered arrows.
9: Dragonbone Bow
Squeaking out just above the Daedric Bow, we have the Dragonbone Bow with a base damage rate of 20 points per shot. This is a pretty late arrival in terms of the game’s main questline and is made up of those incredibly heavy dragon bones.
If the Daedric Bow was super cool for its design, the Dragonbone Bow is even cooler because of its lore and nature. There’s something awesome about repurposing the remains of a Dragon’s corpse and using it to officially and truly make your character feel like a true Dragonborn.
8: Firiniel’s End
Next is Firiniel’s End. This bow has a base damage of 13 with an additional 20 points of Frost Damage to both an opponent’s Health and Stamina. Frost also slows an opponent for 3 seconds, allowing you to more effectively fire on them as a result.
It is a unique Elven Bow and can only be acquired during or after the Dark Brotherhood questline, “Bound Until Death.”
7: Stalhrim Bow
Found in the “Dragonborn” questline, the Stalhrim Bow is a powerful bow reminiscent of the Ebony Bow with an icy blue finish.
While the bow has a base damage of 17, making it weaker than both the Daedric and Dragonbone Bows, it has a special effect where it will become 25% stronger when given a Frost Enchantment.
Now, I know I said no Enchantments or Smithing, but this is the exception. Rather than just gaining from the Enchantment itself, the Stalhrim has a stacked additional 25% improvement that only occurs when given a Frost Enchantment. For example, if given a +30 Frost Enchantment (only slightly higher than the +20 innate with Firiniel’s End), the bonus will instead increase it to +37.5 points of Frost Damage. This will turn total damage of 47 per shot into a total of 54.5 points of damage instead.
6: Glass Bow of the Stag Prince
Next is the unique Glass Bow known as the Glass Bow of the Stag Prince. This bow is found in the “Dragonborn” questline and has a base damage of 16. The bow also can improve its base damage by 5 points for every 20 animals you kill using the bow. Capped at 25, this initially 16 base damage bow can reach an incredible 41 points of base damage. This makes it the strongest bow in the game in terms of base damage.
5: Dwarven Black Bow of Fate
Hitting in at the bottom of the Top 5, the Dwarven Black Bow of Fate is a unique Dwarven Bow found during the “Dragonborn” questline. It has a base damage of 13 and a unique enchantment that gives it a 50% chance of absorbing up to 25 points of an enemy’s Health, Stamina, and/or Magicka. This means that you have between a 12.5% – 50% chance of dealing 38 points of damage to an opponent.
What makes this particularly useful (and so high on this list) is less to do with its innate damage output and more for its other factors. When facing a particularly powerful opponent (in either Magic or Combat), the “Absorb 25 points of Magicka or Stamina” aspects are much more appealing. As said before, you have between a 12.5 – 50% chance of sapping a fair portion of their Magicka or Stamina with every shot. This, on top of siphoning off their health, makes it incredibly versatile in almost any encounter.
4: Zephyr
Very much a hidden gem of a bow, the Zephyr comes in at #4 on our list and is found during the questline, “Lost to the Ages.” It is a unique Dwarven Bow and has a base damage of 14 with an added ability to fire arrows 30% faster than normal.
Why is this important? We haven’t talked much about the weight of each bow and how that factors into the rate at which you fire a shot. For example, the Dragonbone Bow, with a base damage of 20 points per shot, is much more powerful than Zephyr. However, because of its large size, it takes about 1.5 seconds per shot. On the other hand, Zephyr can effectively double the number of arrows shot in the same amount of time, meaning, in those same 1.5 seconds, it can deal 28 points of damage. This means it has the highest damage-per-second rating in the game, making it an excellent choice for those looking to go full-on Legolas in their playthrough.
3: Nightingale Bow
Now in the Top 3 bows, the Nightingale Bow is a fan favorite for many and with good reason. This unique bow can only be obtained through the Thieves Guild questline, particularly the “Blindsighted” quest. It has a base damage of 19 and has a unique enchantment that causes 15 points of Shock Damage and 30 points of Frost Damage. This means that each shot makes 64 points of damage to your opponent!
Not only that, but because of the Frost Effect, the enemy is slowed for 3 seconds. This means that they are perfectly primed for a second, third, and fourth shot, each dealing 64 points to their health.
2: Auriel’s Bow
A legendary weapon that has made several showings throughout the Elder Scrolls games, Auriel’s Bow does 13 points of base damage as well as 20 points of sun damage, meaning that each shot does at least 33 points of damage to every opponent. This already makes it an impressive addition to this list, and there’s more.
If the enemy is undead (Draugr, Vampire, or Dragon Priest), the bow will triple its sun damage to an incredible 60 points. This means that when facing the countless undead enemies in the game, you’ll be doing at least 73 points of damage PER SHOT. Nothing so far has even come close to the incredible power of this bow. That’s not even talking about the fact that the bow can affect the day/night cycle when fired in the sky or rain down a solar storm on nearby opponents. Yeah, it’s pretty freaking awesome.
1: Dwarven Crossbow
You had to know this was coming, right? I mean, I did say that Crossbows would be on this list as well, and we hadn’t gone over a single one up until this point. So, of course, this had to make the top spot.
The Dwarven Crossbow has a base damage of 22. That alone makes it more powerful than any other base bow in the game without additional aspects, and we’re just getting started. Though it is a fair bit slower than a bow, that hardly matters when you are doing this amount of damage. Not only that, but each shot ignores 50% of your opponent’s armor as well.
When you add it up with the additional potential Enchantment and elemental bolt options, this weapon pretty much outguns every other bow in the game.
Conclusion
And there you have it, folks. These bows are all incredible in their way and will appeal to different people for different reasons. If you’re like me and only enjoyed the Daedric Bow, consider checking out some of these other ones. They are worth playing with.
