Greatbows | Elden Ring Wiki

What damage type is the horseback melee moveset? Strike? Standard?

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Surprisingly effective if u dont want to use spells.

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If you used these, you didn’t really kill the host.

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Igons bow skill is "Igon's Drake Hunt" which is better than "Through and Through" ;)

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if u use greatbows u might just be dumb. literally two times less dps than light bows or medium bows

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That's a nice greatbow shot you have lined up. Would be a shame if there were like 10 different ways for me, a pure melee build, to outdamage you at range.

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I have 15 gyattdamn dex and it's still not enough to use the strength-based projectile weapons without heirlooming.

Bazinga.

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The best greatbow, in terms of one shot physical damage, is the default greatbow, surprisingly. This weapon at +25 deals a base of 306, with the right stats can add 282 more phys dmg, but it shines when you put the Igon Drake Hunt on it, giving it +75% more dmg. This would bring the total to 1029, while +25 golem greatbow would be dealing 921.7 with its ash of war, and Igon's bow would deal 943.5 with Igon Drake Hunt.

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so forgotten that there's not even a "greatbows are op" video. been using golem's on the side with a pure strength build

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I love these but the dev team forgot about this weapon class. Despite the lack of ashes of war, variety of bows and the sad speed between shots... I'm still able to damage heavy armored people on pvp for around 650 points. Since people never using these and the fact that they need to get close to hit you eventually they take that nice arrow in the knee (actually the lock on usually hit them on the head).
That said max hp usually caps at 2k so pretty solid damage, also with enough poise you can face tank and throw people on ground by hit them on melee range and set up your next hit
Far from great, not optimal in any circumstance but you can make it work consistently if you try
Just take care, when you got your bow on left hand and melee weapon on right L2 / LT will not activate your ash of war, instead will equip your bow on both of your hands

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Testing Igon's versus Golem's both at +9 with both Arrow sting talismans equipped at 70 strength and the Shard of Alexander.


The test was done against the Leyndel knights outside the Capitol.

Igon's does 700 with regular great arrows 817 with Igon's harpoons.

Using Igon's Drake hunt Ash of War Great arrows were hitting for 1284 damage, Igon's harpoons were doing 1499.

On the Golem's greatbow regular Great arrows were done 795 damage.

Using the Through and Through ash of war regular great arrows were doing 1204.

Using the Lion greatbow in the off hand alongside Radahns spears for the 20% damage boost.

Igon's did 842, using the Ash of War it did 1284.

Golem's did 957, using the Ash of War it did 1443.

Even on a suboptimal stat investment the Golem's greatbow was objectively better.

Even swapping Igon's ash of war onto the regular greatbow wouldn't make a difference despite it out damaging Igon's with only a small dexterity investment as the Igon's Drake hunt Ash of War appears to lose any damage bonuses applied by your offhand greatbow.

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Disappointing that nobody can appreciate the sheer damage-to-ammunition ratio of these, or the simple joy of blasting **** down. Gives me conniptions.

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Good against dragons

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It ain't no magic

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With the relatively high stat requirements, high stamina consumption, slow draw speed, and the constant need to buy expensive arrows, these really ought to deal a lot more damage.

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A single type of arrow makes it good for pvp. The weapon class

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Yeah they don't do much damage but they're great fun if you treat them as ranged utility on a physical build. The extra knockback can send mobs off cliffs and rain of arrows can melt big slow targets. All that plus it's an amazing weapon class for invasions. Situational but fun.

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I've been playing through with dual greatbows and honestly the majority of my time has been spent farming the golem great arrows needed to up my damage output, so its a really fun build if you have the patience. I've made it to godskin duo so far with this.

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it's very funny to me that most of the comments here are complaining that these are too weak, when they are almost inarguably the best invasion weapons in the game. well, sort of. Erdtree greatbow is completely pointless and greatbow is just worse than golem's. but golem's with golem arrows is possibly the easiest invasion win in the game, and still good in duels too. radahn's rain with the right talismans is very often a one-shot kill. these are not weapons you can just use whenever, wherever, you have to use their range to your advantage, and are much more potent fighting other players than for going through PvE. that said, still a handy tool for the toolbox, picking and/or knocking off annoying enemies and then switching back to your main weapon for the rest of the encounter

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These should have a range of 60, with one of them at 65 (Golem bow maybe?) for variety. It's always stood out as weird to me that the Pulley Bow can out-range much bigger bows that, if the draw animation is anything to go by, put a lot more kinetic energy into the arrows they fire than that of any regular bow, pulleys or not.

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no assassin's gambit = no fun

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Is there any way to make these damn things properly usable? I swear I must be missing something, because every time I try to fire, my character has to SLOWLY set the bow down to brace it on the ground before pulling back the string and firing, which is understandable... but then, even if i'm mashing the attack trigger, he PICKS THE DAMN THING UP AGAIN after he shoots, so he has to SLOWLY set it down again before he can fire again! There HAS to be a way to remain in firing stance between multiple shots that isn't appparent to me, because otherwise that's just ridiculous. It's like a non-katana-wielding swordsman sheathing his sword between every swing.

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I wish there was a Great Arrow 1 and Great Arrow 2.

Because using a normal bow and greatbow is so tedious. Having to change arrow all the time in the midst of combat.
There are situations where bosses have so much health and is immune to both poison and bleed such as, Elden Beast. This means you have to use something else instead of the crossbow or bow such as a melee weapon.
But with Lion's Greatbow you can kill Elden Beast thanks to it's amazing weapon art and designated arrows, but it is so tedious to manage because you have to swap out your bleed arrow or serpent arrow for a Great Arrow type

My wishes is this will change so I don't have to swap all the time. Please give us a Great Arrow 1 and 2 slot.

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these really deserve to do more damage, considering how much heavier and harder to use they are compared to staves/seals.

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RIP Greatbow weapon art lock on glitch

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I’m not sure if it does or not but if you can infuse the great bow with an element on the through and through skill like poison or something then the infusing is pointless until possible ashes of war in the dlc

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I just want these to be able to be boosted, using either spells or greases, would cause them to be usable late game being able to deal damages that enemies are weak to

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Greatbow scaling needs to be adjusted. I understand that increasing the damage on greatbows has the potential side-effect of making the Hand Ballista and Jar Cannon obsolete, but considering that you could also increase the damage of said weapons to compensate, and the fact that aside from the Golem Arrows, greatbows don't have access to AOEs, this hardly seems like an issue. I also think that levels in Strength should minimally shorten the time it takes to draw and load all bows, crossbows, greatbows and ballistae, like how Dexterity shortens the time it takes to cast spells.

First thing's first, I love the Erdtree Greatbow, and I use it on my STR/FTH Tree Sentinel build. It deals respectable damage when buffed and with high enough levels, but it doesn't change the fact it deals less damage than every other greatbow. I would recommend changing the scaling of greatbows to the following:

Erdtree Greatbow, fully upgraded: High C in Faith, Mid D in Strength, E in Dexterity.

Greatbow, fully upgraded: Low D in Strength, High C in Dexterity.

Golem Greatbow, fully upgraded: High C in Strength, Low D in Dexterity.

Lion Greatbow, fully upgraded: High D in Strength, Mid D in Intelligence, Mid D in Dexterity.

Also, make the Golem Greatbow infusable, and add more Ashes of War for greatbows in general. The Through and Through Ash is pointless, as it can only be applied to the standard Greatbow, that ALREADY HAS that Skill. Add Sky Shot at least!

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Lack of a true obscuring ring is the biggest nerf this class received in PvP. I'd still say they're underrated for invasions, you'll get plenty of opportunities to chunk people and force them into cover, often knocking them off a ledge. Don't underestimate the war of attrition, you have hundreds of greatarrows and great bolts that hit for 400+ each. Give them hell if they let you.

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the range on bows can seem really deceptive. but ive figured out that if you have the arrows reach talisman, the maximum range can be gauged on whether or not a players head takes up nearly the whole of your crosshair at full zoom

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one-shot PVP builds, anyone?

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comically large bow

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would be nice if a stat increased the pullback speed, maybe strength since dex has cast speed.

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Only four greatbows and only one unique weapon art. ...I mean Radahn's Rain is a very GOOD weapon art in the right situation, but I can't help but feel cheated every time a unique weapon has a non-unique weapon art.

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These are cool and all but where is my milwood

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i wish you could put endure on these bad boys, might actually be kinda good for invasions then.

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no STR only GB? These all require leveling into DEX

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I just want to put it out there that great bows in the Haligtree are hilarious. Now if only we could get a good ole "fus roh dah" in here. Rejection is funny too, but I really want to send these marshmallows flying.

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I had two great bows in my inventory and I could not pickup a third. I placed both of them into my storage and same result. Anyone else have this issue? Bug?

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These need to be sped up significantly. Im a greatbow enjoyer, but there's really no reason to use one over a jar cannon outside of through and through. And they require significantly more investment to do less damage per shot, ash aside.

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We need a dex-scaling greatbow just like the demonslayer greatbow in ds3. Hope will be added in a future dlc

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Feels like Greatbows in general could use a big buff. They have the same range as longbows and can't be used crouching or on horseback. They deserve an advantage more than just better damage.

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You always two hand bows so... 13 STR for "Greatbow" & "Erdtree" 15 STR for "Radhans" and 16 for "Golem's"

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I love using the Greatbow with Enchanted Shot as a finishing move, it always catches people off guard in PVP because the shot is super delayed, and instead of attacking me most players just begin panic rolling to dodge the shot, it's super funny.

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The Erdtree greatbow with holy great arrow turns into your normal shots are like the skill from DS3 millwood great bow (exploding shots for area dmg) :) enjoy.

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I wish i could infuse bows with knight resolve

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To the people who are saying that greatbows are useless and that Jar Cannon is the best:

On paper Jar Cannon is the obvious winner. I'm going to use Golem Greatbow as example. At both +5 Jar Cannon deals about 100 more damage than Golem Greatbow (tested on Banished Knight using regular bone ammunition for both). That's a big difference.

However, in practice, it is different. Jar Cannon takes 4 seconds to recover before you can do another action like dodging, weapon swapping and shooting another greatbolt. Golem Greatbow takes 2 seconds to recover. Furthermore, for 9FP you can use ashes of war Through and Through on Golem Greatbow to deal more damage and lower the recovery time to 1.5 seconds, meaning you can shoot 2 greatarrows in 3 seconds as opposed to the Jar Cannon shooting 1 greatbolt in 4 seconds. That's a big difference.

So, saying that greatbows are useless is not true when they are just as useful as every other ranged weapon type in the game. It really comes down to how you use it. Everything has its pros and cons and by using the Jar Cannon over Golem Greatbow you will be sacrificing speed for damage.

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From testing with 50/50 str/skl, it appears ballistae do more damage than greatbows... unless you use the greatbow skill (through and through), then greatbows do more damage.

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Golem Greatbow seems to be the best one, has the best scaling + highest base damage. For me at least, I hardly ever use the weapon skills, so it is possible that Lion Greatbow works better for those who prefer skills to raw power.

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Does it still take forever to aim and fire an arrow like in Dark Souls?

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Is there only two types of great arrows?

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Where's the Horned greatbow?

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There is no oni slayer bow this time?

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Erdtree Greatbow-
60 Physical
65 Holy
Crit 100
Range 50

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The archer golem in Limgrave tower bridge drops a golem greatbow

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I've seen at least two more Greatbows BESIDES the Erdtree Greatbow being used by other players online. Clearly lots of people are getting these weapons, but its being updated on this site at a snail's pace.

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There is a Golem greatbow. Not sure whether it’s a random drop, but I got it from the golem outside Morne Castle

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There's another greatbow called Golem Greatbow which you get from golem outside of castle morne

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There is a bow called golem greatbow, you can find in youtube

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You can get the Earth-tree great-bow by killing the chariot behind the fog-wall (need a keystone) in Tomb of knowledge. To kill it you have to get all the way around where the 2 Scions are (drop down the ledge) and up the elevator, there is a tough halberd enemy here so careful. After you killed him, stand where he stood and look up, there are 3 pods on the ceiling. Shoot the chains when the chariot is almost underneath to kill it

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