Have an advantage against magika or melee ever? Or is it more of a "Second Attack"

My mystic archer's kill stats break down about as follows:
-Bow: 90%
-Illusion: 7%
-Conjuration: 2%
-Restoration (absorb health on touch spells when forced to fight under water): 1%
-Destruction, blade, blunt, h2h, staves: 0%

Basic tactics for differing situations look like this:
-Normal: Long range poisoned sneak shot.
-Dispersed crowds: Snipe the farthest first and stay in the shadows. Repeat.
-Tight crowds: Mind control spells to get the crowd to thin itself to one. Snipe the survivor.
-Underwater: Block with bow and cast touch damage spells.
-If cornered: Block with bow and immobilize foe with a spell (command, calm, paralyze…), then open fire with bow.
-If charged: Stop the charge with an illusion spell, then open fire with bow.
-Panic button: Invisibility, slip away and reapproach for the snipe (combining a cheap summon with invisiblity spell makes this both easier and more fun).

So, yes, a bow makes a fine primary weapon if you know what you're doing. :dance:

A bow is great for a primary, and in fact only weapon. My current character Teresa uses only a bow for a weapon, with summonses for backup if something survives the first shot. Fighting spellcasters is easy, since magic moves slower than arrows, you can easily dodge their attacks without any sort of cover to hide behind. Fighting melee fighters is a bit tricker, but if you start with a poisoned sneak shot you can often kill them right off the bat. If they survive Teresa summons a wolf and stands behind it. The baddie attacks the wolf, and Teresa shoots it over the wolf's head.

Yes. My bow skill is 100. My blade is 52, my blunt, 12. I can take down multiple enemies, I can fell charging enemies. The other day, I took down 5 goblin shamans and two warchiefs with about 50 Elven Arrows.

I love using nothing but a bow. I don't even use a backup melee weapon. It's good to have high speed and athletics so you can avoid enemies long enough to shoot them to death. Acrobatics has it's advantages too. The only problem is that you can't use it under water but Acadian has a good solution to that problem. :wink_smile:

My thief uses her bow almost all the time, along with a few poison potions. Some enemies are more difficult than others when they move faster than you can back away but in all I much prefer attacking over a distance.

If you use a bow use it either as primary weapon or only as a way to poison at range. As marksmanship level up slowly if will fall behind if not used most of the time.
Second exception is to make a nasty custom magic enchantment on a light bow, fire damage 12, weakness to fire 100 in 3 sec, weakness to magic in 3 sec, now add arrows with fire damage, this has the benefit that magic damage on bows are not reflected.

Find bows very powerful, as master you can single hit to kill almost any npc because it ignores armor. It goes hand in hand with sneak as sneak attacks is easy to get and you want the 3x damage, With high sneak and a fire enchantment it works real well on undeads as you often can stand 5-6 meters away doing +100 damage hits on wraiths and zombies until they dies.
Bows has a major weakness in tight quarters with many enemies, worse if you have to save npc so you can not poison and redraw, here custom enchanted shortswords and daggers preferable with some nasty poisons like paralyze+fire and health damage works wonders.

Not counting Magic as a weapon, Bows and Arrows have the highest damage stats of any weapon in the game. So yes, they can be a primary weapon.

If you're using Stealth, poison, and/or the right enchantments on the bow, you need never know what the enemy's skills are anyway.

I'm new to the bow. What is the best Poison to use on your arrows?

Damage (health, shock, frost, fire) is the most important factor. With skill, you can craft poisons that contain two or three types of damage.
You can also have up to four poisons working on your target at once.
Secondary effects like silence or paralyze can also be handy to include in your poison, depending on the target.
I like damage speed sometimes; you can turn a foe into a permanent statue - either to bypass them or use them for target practice.
Other factors I consider are the weight of the poison (which can be manipulated), and how rare the required ingredients are.

Here is a wonderful link that is very helpful when hunting for recipes: http://www.uesp.net/oblivion/alchemy/alc_calc.php

Generic answer is "whatever hurts/disables your specific target". The thing to remember when choosing enchantments for the bow and poisons for the arrows is that the bow's effects can't change to suit the target, but the arrow's can.

Type of enemy is important, silence is wasted on an ogre but very nice against summoning/ healing daedra, distance to target is also important, for a long range shot use a simple poison as the enemy would be dead on arrival and you don't waste an rare poison if you miss.
Paralyze is most useful on a blade, or then fighting with followers. At battle for Bruma I used paralyze as main effect take them down and let the soldiers kill them, on a bow paralyze let the enemy fall down making them harder to hit.
make a lot of cheap damage health poisons against harder common enemies, add silence for spell casters, damage health+ shock works wonder against daedra. Reserve 3 effect ones for hard fights.

The great thing about a bow is that you can attack somebody without worrying about being blocked and stunned. And you can use it to block incoming attacks too!
If you know how to operate it correctly, bows are just like two hands swords except they cost arrows and provide definite incentive for sneak attacks.

Yes, when necessary (rarely) my character uses her bow to block. She casts a shield spell before doing so for the RP purpose of reinforcing the staff of her bow so it will not be damaged by blocking (this is totally unnecessary in the game of course, but she feels it is important and realistic). Anyway, if forced, she will block with her bow, immobilize her foe with an illusion spell then, then open fire with her bow.

I cannot really see why a 'better bowman' has anything to do at all with Wood Elf (except in TES Arena), just as Redguards have nothing to do with being a better blademasn or whatever - at least in the horrible way races are implemented.

That boost to these combat related skills is good only and purely in the early levels of the game. It should NOT be so, I actually believe that the advantages given should alter the maximum attribute and skill level for that specific character, so the Redguard Bladesmans would reach normally 110 Str and 110 Blade (and impact damage, proficiency, etc...). AS it is, it just s-u-c-k-s IMO.

I accually think it is more OP weapon that a sword, same as destruction magic, as you simply can run away from you foes and kill them without touching you...

Maybe not in game, but when I want to play an archer I almost always go for a Wood Elf because of the Lore. The starting bonus is handy in the early levels, but also sort of realistic. They have a talent for Marksman, sure, but that doesn't mean that someone with less talent isn't as able to become a Master Marksman as a Wood Elf. The Wood Elf just has a head start, because they're talented.

Isn't it the same in real life? Someone with a knack for something will be good at it more easily, but someone with no special talents can still become as good if they practice enough.

yes.... and it's boring.... which is why it should not be like this (agian, imo).

My elf uses her bow combined with sneak.I downloaded the black templar weapons and included was a longbow which does disgusting amounts of damage.That combined with some enchanted arrows makes her nasty in a long distance fight killing most prey in one or two shots.My romps through dungeons and quests are waaaaay easier like this.I only use blades as a last resort when they discover my location and come charging as a group.UV and DR5 make combat that much more interesting.So yeah I thinkthe bow makes agreat primary weapon.

Haa-Rei the Argonian uses an enchanted bow with enchanted arrows laced with poison to drop a few baddies from the shadows. Just keep shooting until the enemy gets within the range of my secondary weapon, the sword. As others have mentioned, a bow can be used to block and in the right hands it can make meelee weapons and magic totally redundant.

As stated. Enchanted bow with enchanted arrows and using poison is an EXTREMELY lethal combo.

And consider that the bow is the only attack that bypasses conventional reflect damage and reflect spell effects active on the target. The target can still block your arrows with a shield, so don’t get cocky.

I've been enjoying levelling my Marksmen so I can use the bow more than I do now, right now I regard it as a sneak attack, I use it when going round dungeons for picking off lesser creatures and initiating a fight with others.
Yesterday a spent a wee while summoning a Zombie for 30 seconds and unleashing at it, levelled up 10 points in Marksmen.

My Character is a Battlemage.Is it right to use bow with my character?