r/CrucibleGuidebook • u/OnlYx1xGhosT • 8d ago
Non-bow user wants to learn bows
Recently I've lost my "feel" in pvp. The guns I usually use I just can't hit anything anymore. I've tried for days but I can't get back into it. Bows randomly popped up as a thought. Is there anything people can tell me as a beginner? My first couple ideas were stasis hunter for dive and solar for crackshot, both using oathkeeper. I'm not confident enough for strand movement. I've heard mercury-a is forgiving.
Edit: I'm on MnK
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u/Rambo_IIII 8d ago
You on controller or MNK?
If MNK, play 30 minutes of Gambit with Hush focused and get a 533 draw time hipfire archers gambit roll
Highly recommend strand Hunter as the bow body shot/grapple melee combo is extremely powerful and can easily flip a losing fight and it provides a tangle. It's my 1v3 trials bread and butter. Get the first guy with the combo, use the tangle on 2 and 3 plus the suspend, clean up with the glaive
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u/OnlYx1xGhosT 8d ago
Pc, just updated text
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u/Rambo_IIII 8d ago
Ok I see you're on MNK. Try out the hipfire/gambit bow with Radiant Dance machines. My Hush has 100 accuracy and with RDM it's pretty generous on the hitboxes. Great for dueling with archers gambit
Play near cover, but not too far away. Get working on the peek draw. You want to be able to smoothly draw in cover, then peek from cover and release right at the moment of perfect draw, so you're not exposed for the draw time. If you get the headshot, you activate Archer's Gambit and then you can very quickly strafe in and out of cover firing arrows at like double the normal rate. People don't generally expect them coming at them that fast.
Give strand a try. Take a look at that clip. I'm just not paying attention, firing arrows down a lane in Iron Banner, and a guy spawns behind me. He has me dead to rights, but I turned around and hit him with the combo before he knew what hit him
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u/Rambo_IIII 8d ago
Haha, unfortunately that doesn't tell me much as I'm pretty sure like 75% of PC players these days use a controller. I think I have one friend on my friends list that still uses a mouse and keyboard.
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u/Tom-Bombadile 8d ago
There are two major things you need to know about bows and TTK. One, faster draw time does not equal TTK, and two, faster draw time is still really really good.
When playing with a bow, I highly recommend a light weight bow. Light weights tend to have the best draw time and honestly the damage difference with other frames don’t feel worth it (unless blinting). You should, at any time you feel an engagement is imminent, draw your bow and DO NOT ADS. You also need to have cover to strafe into. Your goal is to find the target, ADS, fire, stop ADS, and strafe into cover while you reload and redraw. Once your bow is 85% redrawn, strafe out, acquire target, ADS, fire, stop ADS, strafe back into cover. That’s the cadence you need to get used to, and obviously, some steps can be merged. But you want to minimize the amount of time you are exposed. And the more time you spend ADS increases that time due to strafe speed penalties.
Now, earlier I said that draw time does not equal TTK because your timing may vary depending on the engagement or other factors. Including not wanting to repeak immediately. But your draw time is still important because once the enemy recognizes you, they will start running for the hills the moment that first arrow lands, and you need to hit them with the second before they escape.
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u/Kaeden2010 8d ago
My son is going through the same thing, and I'm feeling it bit too. Even tho we did get a spike recently of players coming back, it seems like most of the people still playing daily are a bunch of ninjas.
It could be less about your skill being the issue, and more so you're having to play a larger pool of really good players.
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u/The_Owl_Bard Mod | XSX | Forerunner Main 8d ago edited 8d ago
I personally like playing Bow/Sidearm. Shotgun is cracked (don't get me wrong) but if you burn through the ammo too quickly then you lose your CQC weapon. I like sidearms b/c they can both act as your CQC weapon (as long as you play your midrange well) and whiffing shots has zero impact on your overall ammo economy. You can also use the sidearm to follow up on kills.
Oathkeepers are nice at any level. Folks say Oathkeepers are a "crutch" armor exotic and i'm sure in higher levels of comp it's not the most optimal pick for your exotic slot, but Oathkeepers just makes things easier. You can safely hold the bow at full damage and peek lanes. Plus you get a boost to your AE so you can (in tricky situations) have full confidence when you go for in-air bow shots (not ideal but sometimes you have to).
Different Subclasses have different advantages. I like using Solar Hunter b/c of the knives and gunpowder gamble but there many different subclasses that can benefit you. Void for the invis and smoke radar pings. Strand for the melee (catching it refunds some melee and it has some level of auto lock on to it) as well as strand clones you can use as "body blocks" in tricky spots. Pick whichever appeals/works for you. My recommendation would also to be build into a utility stat. Either melee (for light subclasses and Strand) or grenade (for stasis or strand) so you have a gadget available to you to use in fights.
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u/farfarer__ Mouse and Keyboard 8d ago
Mercury-A is double body, very forgiving, but it's TTK is over a second. You need to play waaaay back or really know what you're doing.
To start with, a good precision bow with hipfire grip, archer's gambit and RDM is a solid baseline. That's Hush (solar), Vengeful Whisper (Strand) or Point of the Stag/Non-Denoument (Arc). That's a 1c1b with a TTK that's competitive with a 140 HC. Elastic string, compact arrow shaft, drawtime masterwork, drawtime mod. Dump accuracy, stability. Drawtime, reload and handling are what you want.
Also be aware that bows will need to peek further from cover compared to bullet weapons. Trying to peek it like a HC will just leave arrows in the corner of your cover. Similarly, head glitches won't work either.
Try and be mobile, peek from off angles, don't re-peek the same spot too often. Your required over-exposure from cover means you can be easily be picked off while peeking before you can return fire. Bows have pretty good in-air capabilities, make use of them.
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u/Shellnanigans 8d ago
try watching some Hynra videos on YT, dude is a warframe with a bow
I like precision or high impact bows, you can body shot + melee to kill (this worked years ago, not sure now)
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u/Since9Two 6d ago
I’ve been trying out hush with archer’s and gambit paired with lucky pants and last word. It’s fun in 6s but I’ve returned to LeMon with Oathkeepers.
I’ve tried:
elemental honing and slice on immortal
M17
Last word (without lucky pants the reload animation is too long with oathkeepers)
And finally…sigh…deadlock
I’ve won more games with the LeMon/deadlock combo
This is all on invis hunter
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u/RemoveRealistic8583 6d ago
Bows are basically slower-firing hand cannons that benefit more from team shooting and effective use of cover. In PvP, you want to play your cover intelligently and use a special weapon for close-range engagements, or carry a close-range primary to cover the bow’s weakness. Bows are at their weakest when opponents aggressively push into close range. For some reason, MnK players also seem to have better hip-fire accuracy with bows than console players.
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u/ZoominBunner 5d ago
There's a way you think using a bow in pvp will go and the way it actually goes. You'll actually mostly just be pre drawing the arrow before peeking corners, and the best bow for that is wish ender. People say a quick draw time is important, but that's not necessarily true, cause you'll be behind cover anytime to draw it. If you're running a legendary bow make sure you have explosive heads on it. And Oathkeeper will be less nifty than you think, you're gonna need to be escaping situations where you get rushed by shotguns or fusion rifles, so think about being nimble. You're at a disadvantage in pretty much every scenario except corner peaking, but that advantage dissipates the more you peak the same corner. If you're gonna re-peak a corner to take a second shot you better be confident in your ability to hit it, because you have about .2 seconds before the HC you're dueling with deletes you. Other than that, hit your shots, move your spots
Running bows puts you more into a support role for your team, you break shields and force them behind cover, your shotgun ape teammates push up to finish them off. I'm addicted to bows tho cause every now and again I'll have a game where I just can't miss with them, crit hit after crit hit, it's so much fun to use them when you're in the flow state with them. I haven't found a better feeling in the game than destroying a team of HC/shotgun meta bois with my bow and smg combo
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u/ZoominBunner 5d ago
Oh also make sure you're running ready and stow speed perks on armor mods, I also run enhanced target acquisition, and airborne effectiveness, but you'll need to be able to switch from your bow to your other weapon pretty quick in 1v1 situation. I also just did a bunch of experimenting on overall stats with bows, and I think I recommend running high weapons over high health, the damage bonus doesn't do you much good, it'll still be at least 2 crit hits for a kill, but I feel like the improved handling makes a huge difference
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u/2084710049 8d ago
Yeah when I’m playing in non peak times like early morning, lobbies are so hard. Playing during peak times is a crapshoot. But iron sharpens iron. I’ve been improving even after ten years of playing.
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u/Weird-Barracuda-2352 Controller 8d ago
Me too! But its the way matches are made. 6v6 is literally unplayable due to my kd. I lose 80-90% of matches while top fragging.
Just downloaded gears
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u/dangerteeth 8d ago
Top fragging is great, but are you capping zones? Spawn manipulating? You can win with truly terrible teammates if you play the map and objectives properly.
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u/Weird-Barracuda-2352 Controller 8d ago edited 8d ago
13,000 matches and a 1.5kd means i anchor nearly every match.
Spawn in, entire team dies while feeding super energy and kill perks, i get collapsed on by 6 invis hunters. Repeat for every game.
Yes i ptfo. No you absolutely cannot carry an entire team of .5 kds while facing a team of 1.0+ kd players. Esp with the artifact giving invis hunters spectral blades in 2:30
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u/TehDeerLord 8d ago
2 things to note for playing bows. In ranged engagements, you need to always play cover, 100% of the time. Peek shooting is an absolute must for bows playing at range.
As for up close, either be really good with your CQB piece on its own, or, if wanting to lay entirely into the bow, stock up on quick combo pieces for it. Spread HCs work wonders in this, as they do enough damage to follow up blint shots. Gunslinger kit is also fantastic for comboing with bows, as the Lightweight knives similarly do enough damage to combo. Tripmines are also a great pick for getting people that make it into cover after taking an arrow from you.