I don't know if this is some bug or glitch, but when I hand a follower a daedric bow (Farkas and Aela), when combat comes, they immediately switch to their default hunting bow. Aela will use the imperial bow, Forsworn bow, and ancient nord bow in my experience. I understand that they will not use anything better than a dwarven bow.

Is anyone else having this issue? If so, is there some remedy to it?

Help me out forum. I'm sick of seeing that damn hunting bow.

(I have an Xbox 360)

Yeah it's a bug. I'm using a mod that fixes this that can be found on the workshop or skyrim nexus. When I first put the mod on I found 17 hunting bows on Lydia.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=8530

EDIT: Sorry, I didn't read the part where you mentioned you play it on Xbox 360

Original post

For if you do not want to use TCG, I have created a small esp. file that should fix it: http://www.mediafire.com/?r33e8m63hqle13s

Place this in your Data folder and activate it using the Data Files section from the launcher.
Note that this plugin only immediately works for followers you haven't recruited yet.
For followers you already recruited, use the following method:

* Open the console using the ~ key and click on your follower.

* type 'Showinventory' without quotes. Look for the hunting bow. In front of it, you can see how many your follower is carrying.

* Type 'removeitem 00013985 #', with # being the amount of bows your follower has.


Note that my plugin only changes the hunting bow aspect and should be removed when using similar but bigger mods, like TCG.

Sorry but as of now, there is no fix for this behavior on consoles. I would love to see Bethesda fix this in a future patch but I'm not holding my breath.

Not all followers have this issue. Lydia uses the bow I give her, so does Mjoll.

yes but she is stuck with her shield. I upgraded and enchanted an ebony shield I found, but she would not use it.
Thought she used the iron shield I gave her but it only looked like the default one.

TGC solves the problem.

It's not a problem I've had with bows, but I have been annoyed with Lydia preferring to use a two-handed weapon even when she has a one-hander that can do much more damage. Jordis does something similar, using a regular Ebony shield as opposed to an Ebony shield with a 40% reduction in shock damage when I load her up with loot to sell.

To those with no access to mods, followers with this bug will use the forsworn bow which you can smith to legendary and add enchants.