Summary
- Ranger gameplay in Enshrouded is challenging early on due to the lack of good bows and enclosed combat spaces.
- The game's open-world map offers advantages to archers with plenty of platforms for ranged attacks.
- Specific legendary bows offer significant upgrades, but some are hard to loot and may not be worth the effort.
Playing a ranger in Enshrouded is a little more challenging in the early game. There are better options for new players who want to create a solid solo build. Good bows are rare in the early game, and a lot of the early game combat takes place in enclosed spaces, which is less than optimal for bow users. That being said, once the player is somewhat geared up, gameplay becomes easier.
Enshrouded has an excellent, hand-crafted, open-world map that offers a lot to archers. The profusion of towers, hills, and cliffs, means that ranged players can often find a handy platform to shoot down from, keeping them safe from melee enemies below. This somewhat offsets the problems that players focusing on ranger skills will have when fighting in an enclosed space.
Enshrouded: Best Early-Game Food Recipes
Finding suitable food options can be hard during the early stages of Enshrouded. Here's a list of the most appropriate recipes to consider.
Updated October 17, 2024, by Mac Wheeler: Since this list was originally produced, there have been a fair few updates to Enshrouded. Most notably the huge March 2024 update, which added lots of new content and items, as well as five new dungeons, and some new enemies. The new Hollowed Halls were added, which are tough POIs that offer players a significant challenge, and with these, new weapons and gear were added as well. So this list needed to be updated to reflect the current state of the game more accurately and bring in some of the new weapons.
10 Fell Commander Bow
High DPS But Low Durability
- Power: 25
- Draw speed: 0.6 seconds
- Arrow speed: 20%
- Durability: 170
The Fell Commander Bow in Enshrouded is a fantastic weapon, with great damage output. However, it has a significant Achilles heel in the form of its very low durability. Once this bow has been fully upgraded, it does bonus damage against the Shroud, leeches stamina from the target, and gains precise, savage, and brutal abilities. Despite these excellent abilities, using this bow is going to be situational, due to the aforementioned durability problem. This isn’t a general-purpose bow, a player should switch to it when they want to do as much DPS as fast as possible.
Looting the Fell Commander Bow means killing a Fell Thunderbrute, which has a chance of dropping this bow. These can be found in the Revelwood region of the map, inside a POI that is named the Ancient Bridge. Head for Pikemead’s Reach and then head west a short distance to find this POI.
9 Ignited Bow
Does Fire Damage
- Power: 25
- Draw speed: 0.6 seconds
- Arrow speed: 20%
- Durability: 300
The Ignited Bow is an excellent ranged weapon in Enshrouded. However, it does need to be upgraded to get it to start doing the extra fire damage on every shot. In fact, it is well worth trying to upgrade this bow all the way, as the last two upgrade levels add Headseeker and Recharge abilities.
Unfortunately, this is a pretty hard bow to loot in Enshrouded, and won’t be available until the endgame for most people. The only location to loot this bow from, is the golden chests in the Sun Temple area. This is located close to Scaterbones, in the southeast region of the Kindlewastes. Head to the Sun Temple, and there is a golden chest just to the west that can contain this bow.
8 Silvershot Bow
Does Ice Damage
- Power: 25
- Draw speed: 0.6 seconds
- Arrow speed: 33%
- Durability: 220
The Silvershot Bow is one of the hardest items to loot in Enshrouded. Some players have spent days farming the last Hollowed Halls, the only location it can be looted from, with no luck. And as this is an endgame location, there is no way to get this excellent bow any sooner.
It does need to be upgraded to reach its full potential and start doing additional ice damage Upgrading this bow also adds a double stack of the Sacred ability and the Stamina Leech ability as well.
7 Banebringer
A Hard-To-Find Bow That's Not Worth Farming
- Power: 25
- Draw speed: 0.6 seconds
- Arrows speed: 7%
- Durability: 260
On paper, the Banebringer bow is a good upgrade over the bows that the crafting NPCs can provide. However, there is a specific problem with this weapon in Enshrouded. It seems to have a much lower drop chance than its stats would deserve. It's possible that this is a bug.
Enshrouded: Best Survivor Skills
While perhaps one of the less popular classes, there are plenty of Survivor class skills in Enshrouded to take note of. These are the best of them.
Many players have reported spending a lot of time using the reload/respawn trick on a golden chest in order to loot this bow, but with no luck. And this seems a waste of time, as there are much better chest loot bows anyway. Players can and should use it if they happen to luck into looting one. Otherwise, skip it and go for a different legendary bow.
6 Wildwood Shortbow
Easy To Loot In The Early Game
- Power: 25
- Draw speed: 0.6 seconds
- Arrow speed: 7%
- Durability: 250
For beginner players who are focusing on ranger skills, the Wildwood Shortbow makes an excellent early upgrade to the uncommon bows they will likely already have. It offers a decent power increase and should be fairly easy to loot.
The Wildwood Shortbow is found in chests in Enshrouded. To get a legendary version as pictured above, the player will need to loot golden chests. These can be farmed by reloading the game, as this will respawn everything, including the chest. Keep reloading the game and looting the chest until a legendary Wildwood Bow appears. Remember to bring plenty of lockpicks.
5 Wolf’s Snarl Longbow
Good Mid-Range Bow That's Hard To Loot
- Power: 35
- Stamina cost: 5
- Arrow speed: 7%
- Durability: 250
The Wolf’s Snarl Longbow would be higher on this list if it were easier to loot. Even though this bow can spawn as a legendary weapon from any golden chest in Enshrouded, some players have reported having to spend dozens of hours doing the reload/respawn trick to get one.
If players are desperate for this weapon in Enshrouded, they always have the option of logging into one of the public resource servers and taking one that is available for free. These servers generally restart every hour to respawn all the resources and items.
4 Arsonist’s Bow
Boss Loot Bow
- Power: 25
- Draw speed: 0.6 seconds
- Arrow speed: 7%
- Durability 260
The Arsonist’s Bow is easy to loot, as long as the player is sufficiently geared to handle a tough boss fight. They will also need to have explored enough of the map to unlock the very northeast Ancient Tower.
Enshrouded: Best Wizard Skills
Wizard is one of the most powerful classes in Enshrouded, and for players who choose this route, these are the best skills to pick.
To loot this bow, head to the aforementioned Ancient Tower. Drop down into and survive the Shroud area below. Search around for the Elixir root. There will be a Thunderbrute boss patrolling the area. Find it and kill it. The player may need to reload the game a few times and keep killing this boss until they drop the Arsonist’s Bow.
3 Composite Bow
Easy To Loot In The Kindlewastes Area
- Power: 25
- Draw speed: 0.6 seconds
- Arrows speed: 20%
- Durability: 280
The Composite Bow is arguably the best bow that rangers should try to loot to replace their low-level weapon, simply because it is one of the easier legendary bows to get hold of. This is also a great choice as a backup ranged weapon for warrior and tank-build players.
The player will be signposted to the Kindlewastes as part of the Alchemist NPC quest. All golden chests in this zone have a chance of dropping the Composite Bow, although it may take some time to farm a legendary one. Using runes to upgrade this weapon is a good investment.
2 Forsaken Bow
A Great Bow, But Hard To Loot
- Power: 25
- Draw speed: 0.6 seconds
- Arros speed: 20%
- Durability: 300
The Forsaken Bow is one of the best ranged weapons in Enshrouded, but it can be very hard to get. The only location where this bow spawns is the Sunken Temple region of the map. This is an end-game region, so it is tough to get into and dangerous as well.
Enshrouded: Best Battlemage Skills
Those looking to make the most out of the Battlemage class in Enshrouded should consider using these reliable skills.
Players who do have access to the Sunken Temple can try and loot the Forsaken Bow from any golden chests in the area. Using the reload/respawn trick will help with this. This is a good bow, and it's worth the effort of farming to get it.
1 Shadowbane Bow
Arguably The Easiest Legendary Bow To Aquire
- Power: 25
- Draw speed: 0.6 seconds
- Arrow speed: 7%
- Durability: 260
Although there are other bows on this list that top the Shadowbane Bow on stats alone, this Enshrouded weapon has one significant advantage. It is one of the easiest legendary weapons to loot for rangers, as it can spawn in chests across the entire map.
To loot a legendary version of this bow, the player needs to find a golden chest. They can then use the reload/respawn farming method to try and loot Shadowbane. This is probably best done at the same time as trying to farm something else, such as armor.
Enshrouded
- Released
- January 24, 2024
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Keen Games
- Platform(s)
- PC
- Genre(s)
- Survival, Open-World, Action RPG
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
