Originally posted by electricdawn:

Bows are NOT OP! It takes way longer to kill something with the best bows available to you at any level and then your quarry needs to be not pierce resistant.

First, no, not really. Bows do significantly more damage than other weapons. A Level 4 Draugr Fang firing either Poison or Frost Arrows do a combined total of 154 damage. The only weapon that I can find that does close to that much damage is a Tier 4 Silver Sword, and most enemies are immune to Spirit damage anyway.

Second, the neat thing about bows is that the arrow damage is fixed. Your skill in something affects the damage that you can actually deal with the weapon (fairly drastically, I might add), but that only applies to the bow itself and not the arrows that are being fired from it.

Third, there are a fair amount of enemies with Pierce resistance. However, alternate arrow types happen to exist. If Wood/Flint Arrows won't work, then use something else. Also, most lower-level enemies that have Pierce resistance don't have much health anyway (i.e. Blobs), so you can just brute-force past the Pierce res anyway. The only exception to this is the Stone Golem; you basically just have to fire off a bunch of wood arrows to kill that nerd (at least, that's my tactic). It takes quite a bit of time, but hey; the more arrows I have to land, the more experience levels I get for Archery, so I don't mind at all.

Originally posted by electricdawn:

Really, I never understood this. Does it make you more "hard core" when not using a bow? Using a bow is dangerous as well, you usually don't have much armor on you, so you can be mobile. You don't have as much health, making you easier to kill.

Root Armor provides both Poison and Pierce Resistance. Melee enemies can basically forget even trying to hit you anyway (i.e. they'll be dead before they get to you, and if they aren't, just dodge their attacks lmao), and Pierce Resistance tells almost every ranged enemy in the game to ♥♥♥♥ off. I let a two-star Fuling Spearthrower hit me (since I was curious as to how much damage I would actually take) and I took a whopping 40 damage lmao. Deathsquitos are also about as threatening to me as a Greydwarf Brute is, if not less.

Also, armor doesn't dictate your health whatsoever, so I don't see what you're on about.

Originally posted by electricdawn:

You can stunlock a troll in (ahem) troll armor and a silver shield. With an iron sword you need maybe 5-6 swipes and he's dead, mostly not breaking the stunlock.

In case you didn't realize this, Trolls are in the Black Forest. You're talking about how Trolls aren't a threat when you're equipped with a shield that's two biomes ahead of the Black Forest. Can you explain to me how that makes any sense whatsoever? An argument that would actually make sense is the Bronze Buckler, since it can most definitely parry Trolls at level 3 and possibly even in earlier levels.

Also, Trolls are weak to Pierce damage, which all Bows do.

Also also, the Finewood Bow is pretty damn good considering how easy it is to make.

Originally posted by electricdawn:

Bow takes way longer. And no, you're not "safe". There's other enemies you might run into when kiting. Your quarry might reach you and give you a quick death.

Do you have zero situational awareness? Sure, it's possible to get caught off-guard, but that can happen regardless of what you're doing.

Also, I don't have to move around much when kiting. Rolling gives you i-frames. Honestly, if you're sprinting away from enemies to dodge attacks, you're wrong.