So I've been reading about the awesome power of drain speed enchantments on bows, but for various reasons I can't get the drain attribute effect for spellmaking. I tried making a bow with 30pts absorb speed, but it's not really having the desired effect (it's not giviing me the unlimited sneak attacks I was hoping for). I'm guessing multiple hits of absorb speed don't stack, but would a more potent spell effect make a difference? What about damage speed? Would that work, or should I just go down the elemental damage/weakness route instead? Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Absorb Speed is a touch spell so it won't work on a bow unless you're in touch range, so not exactly what you want. Check the wiki for ways to get the Drain Speed effect. Easist is the Orrery DLC. Or doing the KOTN questline.

If there's a sigil stone that provides the absorb speed effect that might work (absorb health from a sigil stone does work on a bow, maybe because it's an insta-effect, unlike the self enchant). Not sure how effective it would be.

I've found elemental damage to work fine. Max damage if you combine fire/frost/shock. Another nasty possiblility is to add a short term command spell.

Mara

Acadian's the one to talk to. He's the expert on bow enchantments ...

~ Dani ~

You can enchant with drain speed if you know any drain attribute effect. There are no such spells to buy. The easiest way is, as Mara said, is the reward for the Orerry DLC. That and more info is laid out here: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Drain_Attribute

The beauty of drain speed goes beyond briefly immobilizing your foe. It can reset their AI, making them go stupid for a second. Let's say your bow has drain speed 100x1sec. If you are hidden from long range when you shoot your foe, he will 'forget' you just shot him and you will remain hidden. Note that his allies may detect just like they normally might.

Some of the illusion effects can make for a good 'immobilizing' bow if you are interested in that. A simple bow enchanted with demoralize100x1second + turn undead 100x1second + soul trapx1 second can be very handy for 1 vs 1 fights. As long as you keep shooting, your foe will 'dance', confused between charging and running away - effectively immobilized. Command creature and humanoid can be interesting for this as well. Although I generally prefer spells for mind control effects, one advantage of putting them on a weapon is that there is no spell magnitude effectiveness loss like spells can suffer if you are wearing armor. An effect enchanted on a bow doesn't care if you are wearing armor or not. This can be helpful vs higher level enemies that require full magnitude mind control power to work.

Note that calm and paralyze are not available at the enchanting alter for you to put on weapons.

I find that immobilizing bows are very handy for a character like mine - a glass cannon no melee mystic archer. For characters that can capably back themselves up with a blade, bows enchanted with simply lots of damage work fine.

I have not tested any of the absorb effects on a bow except absorb life. I did make an absorb life bow. It works, but only at touch (point blank/melee) range - which is in keeping with its reputation as a touch effect. Useless for bows of course. I would guess the other absorb effects would work no better on a bow.

Thanks for the replies; sadly I don't have the Orrery DLC, am not an Orc, I shan't be doing KOTN for rp reasons and don't want to mess around with glitches, so I guess my speed-killer bow ain't gonna happen. My experience with the absorb speed bow would suggest that yes, it only works at point-blank range, so whilst a nice idea for a back-pedalling archer (maybe on a dagger with a touch of paralysis or calm or something...) it's definitely not practical. And I didn't realize Damage Attribute wasn't even available as a spell. Nevermind. I'm playing an Imperial Agent (took inspiration from a thread here) and have a bunch of powerful illusion spells, so it's probably unnescessary anyway; you can often get a bunch of sneak attacks in a 1v1 just using Command, at least if it's dark enough. I guess I'll go down the elemental damage route.

get deadric bow, enchant it with fire damage 20 pts for 2 sec and soul trap for 2 sec. its really effective. a grand soul gem will give it a capacity of 16 shots on a charge.
for even more kill power, poison the shot with elemental damage (fire or frost 9pts for 30 sec combined with damage health 7pts for 30 sec) its a real killer.............

Suggestion:

Put Weakness to Poison + Weakness to magic on a bow. Use it for first shot, or several shots (make duration 4 secs or more).

Switch to second bow and use Drain/Damage Speed poison. Of course, you could also simply use Drain/Damage Health and the enemy will be immobolized... permanently.

Another method is Drain/Damage Fatigue. Works very well for immobilizing.

Mutliple sneak shots? Invisible, shoot... turn invisible again, shoot... rinse and repeat ad nauseum moving to different locations if need be.

Also, I never really bother once my Marksman hits 75... the frequent knock downs immobilize very well.

You can make damage speed poisons easily enough.This won't allow you the unlimited sneak attacks but you can damage a creatures speed to the point that they can't move at all,allowing you to shoot it or slash it at your own leisure.

I have found that I can get multiple sneak attacks just buy being a good sneak.Long distance shots as Acadian said is the key,dark areas help alot as do chameleon potions or spells.

Since most of my characters don't use magick and as a result they don't enchant there own weapons or armor I have found that the bow of silence I found to be quite good at helping me out against wraiths and other spellcasters that are immune to poisons.

As Acadian has said the drain speed bow is without a doubt the best bow to make.

For those without access to the Orerry I suggest that you make up a Demoralize bow. The AI on enemies is not reset, but the bow makes the creature dance back and forth in the same way.
The main feature that a bow needs is to stop the enemy from swamping you.

Drain health (or shock or fire) damage
Demoralize up to level 25 for 1 sec
Soul Trap

will do the trick.....

what about enchanting arrows would they be worth it for first shot kind of thing like said weakness to poisen and magic. They may or maynot dissapear , also would it cost less?

Command effects are quite usefull on a bow also. Tag someone with a bow and their allies will finish them off for you. Acts like a frenzy effect that never wears off under the right conditions.

"Drain health 100pts for 1 sec" can be highly effective and it still leaves plenty of room for other enchantments late in the game. At lowish levels it's flat out overpowered racking up tons of one-hit kills with just a simple steel bow and iron arrows using this.

Without mods, you cannot enchant your own arrows (perfect amber/madness arrows notwithstanding). But yes, enchanted arrows can help. Remember that for sneak shots, the only thing that gets the sneak multiplier is the base damage of the bow plus the base damage of the arrow.

Well, I ended up enchanting my bow with a 100 points of drain health plus elemental damage/weakness and soul trap, and it's kinda absurdly powerful, so much so that my marksman levelling has slowed to a crawl. With this and master-level illusion spells I fear I have made the game a touch too easy (command - invis - shoot - invis - I never get touched), and may have to crank up the difficulty to compensate. Invisibility is amazing for Oblivion Gates though. Anyway, cheers all!

I'm glad you're having some success!

Yes, while still trying to level marksman, it is helpful to limit yourself to a bow that is just powerful enough to get the job done. My character held off on enchanting her top of the line bow until marksman was maxed. Prior to 100 marksman, she was interested in hitting lots of foes lots of times with her bow. After 100 however, she now makes a game of seeing how few arrows she can use to kill her foes.

The drain health x 1 sec is extremely powerful at lower levels. At mid to higher levels, when enemies have lots more hp, it will fade in effectiveness and you will likely want to replace it.

As an alternative to replacing Drain Health, simply use Weakness to Magic on enemies prior to shooting them with Drain Health. Each WtM will multiply the Drain Health and thus make a 100 pt drain perpetually effective even against strong enemies. However, like other effects, enemies that have reflect spell abilities are dangerous. All others are targets, though.

How is this :
Damage health 10pts 2 sec,soul trap 2 sec,weakness to poison & magic 14% 10 secs,drain speed 100pts 1 sec.
What is the best duration for weakness to poison/magic for a bow ?

go for sigil stone damage health, alot of hits before it needs a recharge

Using the Alter of enchanting is IMO better,add soul trap and use Azura's Star.

zero: you will want to put soul trap first on your bow effects, and have it be one second longer than your longest damage. Why only 14%? Is it too costly to go to 100 in magnitude? You want the poison and magic weaknesses to last as long as it takes you to pull out another arrow, nock it, fire it, hit your enemy. I add a one to one and a half second pause in between my bow shots, as I do more damage that way. Try it sometime on an ogre out in the woods. I find with a small pause, holding the arrow at the ready, I tend to "rock back" enemies, if not knocking them down or paralyzing them. (Marksman at 100). My guess for this part of the enchantment on the bow: 3 - 4 seconds.

My bows are either high-end, sigil-enchanted or have minor custom spells like Turn Undead and the like. As a mage, most of my killing comes in the form of either Destruction magic or poison applied to a bow shot.

on the subject of getting that bow skill up - remember to make maximum use of the trainers at each level up - expensive it maybe, but those +5 extra skill points at each level up sure build up, especially at the higher skill levels when training with Alawen. Doing it the hard way by simply shooting everything takes forever..........