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Archery (also referred to as Marksman) is the skill governing the use of bows and crossbowsDG. Each skill point grants a +0.5% bonus to the damage dealt with bows and crossbows. The Archery tree has a total of 9 perks, requiring 16 perk points to fill.

In-game Description: An archer is trained in the use of bows and arrows. The greater the skill, the more deadly the shot.

Skill Perks [ edit ]

Overdraw Critical Shot Eagle Eye Steady Hand Power Shot Hunter's Discipline Ranger Quick Shot Bullseye Archery Perk Tree

Perk Rank Description ID Skill Req. Perk Req. Overdraw 1 Bows do 20% more damage. 00 0babed 2 Bows do 40% more damage. 00 07934a 20 Archery 3 Bows do 60% more damage. 00 07934b 40 Archery 4 Bows do 80% more damage. 00 07934d 60 Archery 5 Bows do twice as much damage. 00 079354 80 Archery Critical Shot 1 10% chance of a critical hit that does extra damage. 00 105f1c 30 Archery Overdraw 2 15% chance of a critical hit that does 25% more critical damage. 00 105f1e 60 Archery 3 20% chance of a critical hit that does 50% more critical damage. 00 105f1f 90 Archery Hunter's Discipline Recover twice as many arrows from dead bodies. 00 051b12 50 Archery Critical Shot Ranger Able to move faster with a drawn bow. 00 058f63 60 Archery Hunter's Discipline Eagle Eye Pressing Block while aiming will zoom in your view. 00 058f61 30 Archery Overdraw Power Shot Arrows stagger all but the largest opponents 50% of the time. 00 058f62 50 Archery Eagle Eye Quick Shot Can draw a bow 30% faster. 00 105f19 70 Archery Power Shot Steady Hand 1 Zooming in with a bow slows time by 25%. 00 103ada 40 Archery Eagle Eye 2 Zooming in with a bow slows time by 50%. 00 103adb 60 Archery Bullseye 15% chance of paralyzing the target for a few seconds. 00 058f64 100 Archery Ranger or Quick Shot

† The paralysis lasts 10 seconds. This effect is affected by any Alteration modifiers, such as the Stability perk.

Skill Usage [ edit ]

Arrow damage is the sum total of the quality and material of the bow and the arrow being used, as well as the bow's draw length. A bow will not deal its normal maximum amount of damage until finished being fully drawn. Arrows that are misfired accidentally before firing the bow result in a damage penalty. Drawn bows can be cancelled by pressing the 'Sheath Weapon' button.

The trajectory and speed of arrows are independent of a character's skill level in Archery; only damage increases with skill level. When shooting an arrow, you will discover that arrows have significant 'loft', or upwards movement, particularly at medium ranges (See Notes). To compensate, you should aim just below the intended target in order to hit it. If the target is moving, aim where they are going to be, as the arrow is a rather slow projectile. Note that the Steady Hand perk affects neither the speed of the arrow, nor the enemy, so lead your target the same as if time was not slowed. If the target is farther away, then aim slightly above it, as gravity has an influence on trajectory. Note that the Eagle Eye perk does in fact decrease the influence of gravity, so do not aim as high as you would if you were not zooming in. Since there is no hit location recognition in Skyrim, trying to achieve headshots will not cause increased damage, but rather may cause your shot to miss if you do not properly account for the arrow's trajectory.

While you have a bow equipped you cannot block attacks; however, you can perform a melee strike with the bow by pressing the 'Block' button. Doing so costs a small amount of Stamina, but will stagger the foe, giving you time to set up a shot, flee to a safer distance, or switch to a melee weapon. In addition, having high skill in Block and the Deadly Bash perk will cause the strike to inflict significant damage. (5.5 * 5 = 27.5 at 100 skill and Deadly Bash 5x damage perk.)

Most bows and crossbows can be upgraded at a grindstone based on perks invested in Smithing. Arrows and bolts can also be crafted if you have the Dawnguard add-on. You should always be on the lookout for better arrows whenever possible, as the damage difference between iron and Daedric arrows is significantly larger than between any other iron and Daedric weapon.

There are places where NPCs can sometimes be found doing target practice, and their arrows and bolts may be retrieved from the target dummy; for example in Dragonsreach, Great Porch, in the courtyard of Castle Dour or in the cistern area of The Ragged Flagon.

Arrows and bolts shot by you that hit your opponent can sometimes be recovered from their corpse; the Hunter's Discipline perk increases this chance of recovery. Enemy missiles that strike you may also be added to your inventory. If an arrow or bolt fired by you or an enemy misses its intended target, it can almost always be recovered from the ground or a nearby object, if you can find it. Note that missiles that strike non-flesh enemies, such as skeletons and mudcrabs, will often bounce back toward you. Enemies that break apart upon death (such as skeletons) will drop all the arrows you have shot them with when they die.

Eagle Eye and Steady Hand [ edit ]

With the Eagle Eye perk, you can press the Block control to zoom in on your target. However, doing so slowly drains your Stamina, and cannot be maintained indefinitely. With the Steady Hand perk, using Eagle Eye also slows time by a 25% (50% with the second rank), making everything appear to move in slow-motion. This effect allows you more time to think through and set up the shot. Although the action of drawing the bow will occur in slow-motion if you have not nocked the arrow before pressing the Block control, there is an exploit around this that can significantly increase DPS (See Bugs). Note that you cannot zoom in while under the effect of the Slow Time dragon shout, regardless of whether you have perks in Steady Hand or not.

Draw Speed [ edit ]

Firing a bow has three stages:

Nock the arrow. Draw the bow. Release the arrow and rest.

The nock stage appears to take about 0.4 seconds and the rest stage about 0.6 seconds regardless of bow or perks. The time required for a full draw depends on the bow, however; heavier bows tend to take longer to draw.

full draw time = Nock + Draw + rest = 0.4s + (1.66s / (weapon speed * (1 + Quick Shot perk))) + 0.6s exemple: Long Bow (without Quick Shot perk) = 0.4s + (1.66s / (1* (1 + 0))) + 0.6s = 2.66s

Detailed Bow Comparison [ edit ]

Note that the base damage and DPS does not include any damage added from the enchantments that exist on some of the unique bows listed.

The equation to easily work out your potential dps is

(bow damage + arrow damage) / time

As you can see above, bound bows are among the best in the game based on base damage, however as they cannot be tempered other bows will eventually overtake them. You can also see that early in the game, the higher damage-dealing bows do the most damage, but as the damage outputs increase, it is the speed of the bow that becomes more important. In the table above, with quick shot and the best arrows, a long bow does more dps than a daedric bow. Your choice of arrow can also have a significant impact on dps early on, but as the damage from arrows is static they will be less influential on overall dps (iron arrows result in a dps of 6.14 for the long bow and 7.61).

A tempered long bow will eventually do more dps than all other bows except Zephyr, Auriel's Bow, and Froki's Bow, due to the nature of the formula. Despite the daedric bow's high damage, its very slow speed is a severe limitation because of how the formula works. Auriel's Bow is the best bow in the game for dps, though at a huge cost of maximum damage. Karliah's Bow is the best in the game for maximum damage in one shot, and has the third best dps rating. However, the slow speed of Karliah's Bow will quickly see it slip behind the other best bows. The dragonbone bow is a good compromise between speed and damage, and it is more than sufficient at higher levels. It has the high base damage that is used for sneak attack calculations (the low base damage of Auriel's may not be enough to one-shot-kill many enemies). The dragonbone bow has the added benefit over Zephyr and Auriel's Bow of being enchantable, allowing you your own custom enchantments that, with sufficient skill in enchanting, can push its dps well above the others.

Range and Trajectory [ edit ]

The primary factor affecting your maximum range is the global game setting fVisibleNavmeshMoveDist ; past this distance, your arrows will "phase through" targets without doing any damage. The default value is 4096 distance units (for reference, a weapon with a reach of "1" has a reach of 141 distance units, by default). This issue has been addressed by the Unofficial Skyrim Patch; it triples the default, to 12288, which should always be enough that the arrow will always impact anything it can reach. The second most important factor is the projectile; it has a maximum range (which is typically not relevant, but can matter for the Riekling SpearDB, which has a maximum range of 4000 - most projectiles have ranges measured in the tens of thousands), a speed, which determines how quickly the projectile travels, and a gravity value, which determines how quickly the projectile drops (higher is faster, for both). Gravity tends to be the same for all of your arrows and bolts, but bolts travel significantly faster - the ammunition page covers these values.

The primary factor affecting your trajectory is the set of global game settings:

f1PArrowTiltUpAngle ; default 2 .

; default . f3PArrowTiltUpAngle ; default 2.5 .

; default . f1PBoltTiltUpAngle ; default 1 .

; default . f3PBoltTiltUpAngle .

These set the angle your projectiles fire at from bows (the Arrow settings) and crossbowsDG ( Bolt ) in the first-person ( 1P ) and third-person ( 3P ) perspectives. A value of 0 is initially flat, along the bottom of the targeting reticle. Positive values tilt the projectile up. See the Notes section below for optimization.

Range and Trajectory are also affected by bow speed. On a full draw, slower bows will shoot arrows higher and with less drop, while faster bows will shoot arrows lower with more drop. This means that at short ranges, arrows shot from faster bows will be more accurate to the crosshairs, while slower bows will shoot high. At long ranges, arrows shot from faster bows will drop considerably, requiring you to aim higher to compensate, while slower bows will hit the target much closer to the crosshairs—though you may still need to compensate for drop depending on the range. Also, slower bows have a flatter ballistic trajectory, which means they will travel further than arrows shot from a faster bow. This effect comes solely from weapon speed—other factors such as weight and damage do not play a role. You can see a comparison of the weapon speeds of many bows here. Of further note, the perk Quick Shot has no effect on range and trajectory, but Eagle Eye does, as it effectively decreases the gravity value of the projectile.

Skill Increases [ edit ]

Character Creation [ edit ]

The following races have an initial skill bonus to Archery:

Trainers [ edit ]

Skill Books [ edit ]

Gaining Skill Experience [ edit ]

Weapon skill gains are based on damage dealt against valid targets (those whose health can be damaged). You can increase your skill level fastest by choosing the best available ammunition and best available bow that has the highest DPS.

The equation governing skill gain in Archery is thought to resemble something like this:

Bwd = Base weapon damage

Bad = Base ammunition damage

lm = Leveling Multiplier (rest, stone, etc.)

x = Damage Translator

bool(DamagingHit) = 1 or 0, true or false

skillXP += bool(DamagingHit) * (lm(Bwd + Bad) / x)

Dialogue [ edit ]

If your Archery skill is over level 30, guards will occasionally say: "Favor the bow, eh? I'm a sword man myself..."

If you have a bow and arrows equipped, guards may also say "Keep your arrows in your quiver, archer".

Notes [ edit ]

Despite being classified as a combat skill, Archery receives skill gain boosts from the Thief Stone rather than the Warrior Stone. This issue has been addressed by version 1.2 of the Unofficial Skyrim Patch; it is now boosted by the Warrior Stone perk.

The movement speed with a drawn bow (shot ready) is reduced in comparison to Oblivion, making archers less mobile. A perk is available to compensate for this.

Arrows will remain equipped (and appear on the back of your character accordingly) even if you have unequipped the bow. This will enable you to pin your bow of choice and melee weapon or spell of choice to your favorites menu, and swap between them on the fly, without having to re-equip your arrows.

Arrows are not accurate to the center pointer. The arrow shoots slightly above the crosshair. Use the archery practice targets to see the exact dynamics for different ranges. Arrows can be forced to shoot through the center point by modifying (or adding, if they don't exist) a few lines in Skyrim.ini , in the My Documents folder. Also, setting fVisibleNavmeshMoveDist to a high value (above ~10000) allows you to hit targets with arrows as far as the arrow can fly, rather than passing through targets (without causing damage) at long distances: Skyrim.ini [Combat] f1PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.7 f3PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.7 [Actor] fVisibleNavmeshMoveDist=14000.0000 Alternatively, if Dawnguard is installed: Skyrim.ini [Combat] f1PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.7 f3PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.7 f1PBoltTiltUpAngle=0.7 f3PBoltTiltUpAngle=0.7 [Actor] fVisibleNavmeshMoveDist=14000.0000 Note: apparently the draw distance of the game is initialized badly, because if you keep it at the default from the very start of the game of a fresh install, then setting fVisibleNavmeshMoveDist to a higher value doesn't have any effect. If you max out the draw distances, then it will have an effect. If afterwards you move draw distance to minimum again, fVisibleNavmeshMoveDist will continue to have an effect.

Arrows can be used as distractions. If you have not been spotted by an enemy, shooting an arrow will make them investigate the point of impact. Be aware, however, that after checking out where the arrow hit they may investigate where it was shot from. Make sure to either kill them quickly, distract them again, or move to safety.

Archery is one of two skills which has a different Console ID than the name, the other being Speech. The actual Console ID for Archery is Marksman . For example, the Console code for improving Archery is AdvancePCskill Marksman <#> . The term "Marksman" also appears in a few other contexts, e.g. Fortify Marksman.

. For example, the Console code for improving Archery is . The term "Marksman" also appears in a few other contexts, e.g. Fortify Marksman. Having high skill in Block in conjunction with the Deadly Bash perk can be useful for an archer. At 0 Block skill, bow bashing only does 1.1 damage, but at 100 Block skill a bow bash does 5.5 damage. With Deadly Bash perk, the 5x damage multiplier brings the bash damage up to 27.5. Bow type does not affect the damage magnitude.

Another perk exists in the Creation Kit but was removed from the game before release. It is called "Trick Shot", and would have been available at 80 Archery skill if the "Quick Shot" perk has already been unlocked. The description for Trick Shot is: "25% chance to disarm an opponent." You can give yourself the perk using the Console command AddPerk 105f1a . It won't appear in your skills menu, but it does work.

Another perk exists in the Creation Kit but was removed from the game before release. It is called "Trick Shot", and would have been available at 80 Archery skill if the "Quick Shot" perk has already been unlocked. The description for Trick Shot is: "25% chance to disarm an opponent." Using the Secret of StrengthDB power will allow you to be able to use zoom ability gained from the Eagle Eye and Steady Hand perk, without using your stamina, for the duration of the power's effect.

Bugs [ edit ]