7

When you start a new game one of the first weapons you get is the old bow. There are several benefits to those who master the use of the bow:

  • It's silent unlike any other weapons you'll get in the first 5 hours of play.
  • It one hit kills humans (at least in the early game).
  • You can collect your arrows and reuse them - infinite ammo.

The draw back (pun) of using the bow is that it is difficult to aim. I've found the reflex sight helps but what is the trick to mastering aiming the bow?

Improve this question
4
  • There's no easy advice other than practice. It takes a while to get used to guessing the approximate distance and the required aiming above the target to hit it.
    – Ivo Coumans
    Commented Feb 11, 2015 at 8:03
  • @IvoCoumans In outposts I can usually get an accurate estimation of the distance. Surely using the reflex scope I can get some higher accuracy. Is there no information on this?
    – Coomie
    Commented Feb 11, 2015 at 8:16
  • very related... gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/188812/…
    – Bob R. Shake
    Commented Feb 11, 2015 at 15:09
  • Preordering the game helps a lot, with the silenced 1911 that comes with it.
    – Hellreaver
    Commented Jan 8, 2016 at 15:05

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
7

Since you mention the reflex sight I assume you're talking about the Recurve Bow rather than the Hunter Bow you get for free near the start. The following all applies to the Recurve bow.

1. Get a better sight

I found the reflex sight to be a modest upgrade over the default sight in terms of accuracy. Upgrade to the marksman sight as soon as you can. It has a distance range scale printed directly on the sight, with ranges for 0-50 meters, 80 meters, and 100 meters.

2. Practice > Math

But even though the marksman sight lists distance values, as IvoCoumans said in the comments, practice is much more important than math in this case.

Relying on numbers means using a conscious mental process: "Hm... that's probably about 40 meters away, so I guess I'll line it up... oh... let's say right about here near the bottom of the 0-50 line."

3. Develop line intuition

I use the bow whenever possible, and I find the lines on the marksman sight incredibly useful. And at the very beginning I thought about it more: "If it's pretty close, line up in the 0-50 range, otherwise aim higher."

But with practice, very soon you won't actually look at numbers and guess distances. It'll just be that something close-feeling goes on the top line, and something further-feeling goes on the next line, and so on. So it's more about developing an intuition of which line feels right for a given distance.

Improve this answer
1
  • 1
    Bingo! Once you achieve that gut feeling after enough practice that you no longer even look at the lines, the bow becomes insanely fun. It's very satisfying to pop around rocks and trees to pick off people shooting at you with assault rifles. :)
    – David Harkness
    Commented Feb 11, 2015 at 18:22

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.