We all start off picking up a Rusty Iron Bow and a few Iron Arrows in the tutorial dungeon, but that's not going to be our final weapon. To get the Ultimate bow (or maybe a selection to be swapped as needed) will take time and levels.

This thread isn't to nominate your Ultimate Weapon, but to find out what intermediate stages you go through, while you only have steel, or elven bows as a base. What enchantments do you add to the mid-level bows, or do you just use whatever you find and wait for Daedric/Perfect Amber/Madness level before you make your own? But feel free to state your target weapon if it makes sense of your path to get there. For example, do you keep any intermediate weapon as a "ethereal-only" or other special-purpose backup?

I'm playing a new archer through, and I found that I did "wait for Daedric" before enchanting, but it wasn't a conscious choice.

My main character still has her first Rusty Iron Bow! It's way more useful now that she can actually do something with it... Anyways, it's the original one from the dungeons. And it's just on the wall of my house, even though I hardly ever use it. Nostalgic purposes, I guess.

Back to the point... This is actually kind of a hard question. My characters all use bows as their main weapon type, so you would think I have some kind of plan for how I move from bow to bow. Basically, I guess I just use whatever happens to be the best bow I can find. I'm ashamed to admit I almost never Enchant anything, but when I do it's always Ebony or some special bows that look cool, like Perfect Amber. I don't even bother with Daedric bows anymore, I've grown bored of them over the years. They're too easy to get (to a Morrowind player it seems sooo wrong that you can get Daedric off of every other bandit that you come across, and I still haven't gotten used to it after all these years of Oblivion...) and not as pretty as Ebony, for example.

I go bandit hunting and kill the archer bandits before they can use up all their arrows or break their bows and see if there's anything better than what I have now. My higher level characters use Ruin's Edge (it's pretty!) and self-Enchanted Ebony and Amber bows, my midlevel characters usually use Shadowhunt. I have some mods that add really cool bows, so I use those randomly too.

I get a steel bow as soon as I am able, and this is my main bow until I can get my hands on a Perfect Madness Bow. Which I then self-enchant. Sometimes I use the Ebony all game, just love how it looks. But I love Perfect Madness more....

I'm starting to utilize my marksman skills, and I have chosen the Ebony bow as my favorite.

I self-enchanted with Silence, and like the whole- 'Silence, run in and attack, run away, rinse and repeat' thing, but I'm looking for a better destructive option.

I guess b/c of it's overall strength and usefeulness, I'd suggest using a shock damage enchanted bow. I really like the higher lvl 'Bow of the Dynamo' with shock and soul trap. The glass one looks ok, but prefer ebony.

I find that I come across tons of frost bows, but frost is just a waste of time.

Hope my ideas come across correctly.

I choose my weapons, bows or otherwise, based purely on how they look. I could care less what the damage they do is, health, etc... I avoid the steel bows because I don't like how they look, so I stick with iron until I can get silver. I like the designs on it. If I find a Dwemer bow I will use it, but I do not seek them out either. The bronze look it has is nice, but the stave kind of looks segmented, like a bug. My last stop is Elven, which is my favorite. I love the golden color and especially the designs on it, plus the graceful sweep of the stave.

I grab a fine steel bow as soon as possible, and bypass silver completely. Apart from that, I just use whatever I come across. My characters raid bandit and marauder dungeons regularly, so mid to late game they tend to pick up a good enchanted bows to use. And eventually they enchant their own bow as their ultimate weapon, once they've picked one they like the look of.

I try for a silver bow drop from one of the duelling foresters. Or I'll use a fine steel bow at first. I enchant a bow asap, sometimes just with fire for the first one. Enchanted weapons are reserved for those special occasions until Armorer hits 50. Then whatever the character likes. I don't much like drain speed, makes combat boring. My latest character, a strict non-caster, uses a bow enchanted with an absorb health sigil stone and also carries one enchanted with soul trap, also from a sigil stone. (Self enchanting a bow with absorb health doesn't work, but the sigil stone does). She's my only character to ever complete the nirn root quests - from hunting mud crabs to recharge her weapons since she can't summon things to kill for their souls.

Mara

Mostly play archers and usually upgrade bows then I find them. I’m pretty boring, find new bow upgrade with shock sigil stone, continue, usually jump some materials in the start, favourite is amber. I have started to make a second bow, usually a lighter one like elven, who I enchant with a nasty self enchanted effect: soul trap, drain health, fire damage, weakness to magic and weakness to fire. Use fire here as I mostly use them on undead who are immune to poison and has lot of health at high levels. Downside with the bow is that you has to recharge it often.

We use the unenchanted bows my character finds for awhile. A couple nice options at lower levels are the permabound bow and the grummite bow (grummite bow is only available if you are on PC with UOP installed - then grummites carry them; otherwise they carry iron). We use unenchanted bows until my character can repair magic items (poison helps a lot during this period). My character uses that time to get into the Arcane Univerisity and build up her repertoire of known spell effects for later enchanting. She also learns how to make black soul gems and gets a few bandit filled ones standing by.

Once my characater can repair magic items, she starts enchanting bows. Bow enchanting tends to take two tracks depending on the character:

1. A character who backs up their bow with a blade. This type of archer (ranger?) wants damage on her bow. Shock + soul trap works great.

2. A character who backs up their bow with magic and does not use melee. This type of archer (mystic archer) wants a bow that will immobilize her foe so she can keep shooting. At lower levels, demoralize + turn undead + soul trap works well. At higher levels, I prefer drain speed + shock damage + soul trap.

When she finds a stronger base bow to enchant, she does so. Ultimately, we prefer the look, power and grace of the daedric bow as the final 'chassis' for her 'big girl' bow.

I did that for a while, then I went through a period of treating pre-enchanted bows as disposable, i.e. use up the charges or item health, then switch to another and sell it. The state of charge doesn't affect the price (although it probably should, as repair state matters while you're a Novice at Mercantile). Eventually I made Armorer a Major for the initial boost, and reduced that period to where it made little difference which strategy I use, so I no longer think about it. While you're in your early stages, it appears that you'll find a better bow to switch to often enough, but it does pay to carry an unenchanted backup in good repair at all times!