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Apr 24, 2024

Best Arrows And Bolts In Elden Ring

Here are the best arrows and bolts in Elden Ring! Bows, Crossbows, and the other missile-firing weapons in Elden Ring are tied to their ammunition. And some of the Arrows and Bolts available to you

Here are the best arrows and bolts in Elden Ring!

Bows, Crossbows, and the other missile-firing weapons in Elden Ring are tied to their ammunition. And some of the Arrows and Bolts available to you from being extremely powerful. Some are better for pure damage, but they are also exceptional at applying status effects, thanks to Bow-only Weapon Skills like Barrage and Rain of Arrows, and the rapid-fire abilities of the Pulley Crossbow.

Related: Elden Ring: Every Keepsake, Ranked

But despite their power, the necessity of ammo can be one of the most frustrating aspects of using these weapons, since they are inherently limited, requiring you to constantly farm for, craft, or buy more. Here are the options you should invest your time and Runes into acquiring.

On the surface, Perfumer’s Bolts seem like worse versions of Explosive Bolts. Both create an explosion when they land, but the Explosive Bolts deal more damage.

However, despite its description not really indicating as much, the Perfumer’s Talisman boosts their damage by 20 percent. If you are trying to use a Crossbow as a sidearm, you’ll need that Talisman slot, so you’ll be better off going for Explosive Bolts instead.

But on a dedicated Crossbow build, Perfumer’s Bolts are a powerful option.

Perfumer’s Bolts are dropped by Pages, which are common in Leyndell, Royal Capital but can be found all over the Lands Between. Fortunately, while Pages aren’t easy to farm, the drop rate on Perfumer’s Bolts is higher than a lot of rare items in Elden Ring, and you get five Bolts per drop, so it’s far from the worst farming experience if you want to do it.

Ballistae don’t have a lot of choices when it comes to ammunition in Elden Ring, and in most cases the Lightning Greatbolt is your best option. The closest competitor is the Explosive Greatbolt; both create a small explosion when they land and deal the same amount of damage, although the Explosive version deals Fire instead of Lightning.

And while you may want to switch between them depending on the enemy you’re facing, Lightning Greatbolts will usually be more useful.

Lightning damage hits harder in the rain or in water, and the Bolts will create a larger explosion when they land in liquid. Meanwhile, Fire damage performs worse when wet.

Additionally, Lightning Greatbolts fly much further and straighter than other Greatbolts, so you don’t need to account for as much of an arc when firing. You can find them in a few places around the Lands between, but if you want a consistent supply they are purchasable from the Hermit Merchant south of the Stargazer’s Ruins in the Mountaintops of the Giants.

If you are trying to deal pure, Physical damage with a Bow or Light Bow, the Stormwing Bone Arrow should be your weapon of choice. Its 55 physical damage is only beaten out by the Great Arrows and Ballista Bolts, as well as the Lordsworn Bolts.

That alone might not be enough to get it onto this list, but Stormwing Bone Arrows also have a few unique advantages: they travel further than normal arrows, and deal substantially higher Poise damage, allowing you to stagger attacking enemies and Stance-break them relatively quickly.

Related: Elden Ring: Ways To Increase Max Health

The Stormwing Bone Arrow is also the only craftable ammo type on this list, requiring Stormhawk Feathers to make them. The Feathers drop from the troublesome Warhawks that you can find primarily in Stormveil Castle.

That is also where you can find the Nomadic Warrior’s Cookbook [10], which contains the crafting recipe for these Arrows. Fortunately, Stormveil Castle is an early-game area, so it will get easier to farm Stormhawk Feathers as you progress.

Radahn’s Spears aren’t the highest-damage option for Greatbows in normal circumstances, although they do appear to fly significantly faster than the other choices. They also deal 20 percent more damage to Gravity-type enemies, like the various Fallingstar Beasts, which is certainly nice, though not exactly game-breaking.

However, the real reason to use Radahn's Spears comes from the 20 percent damage boost they get when you are using the Lion Greatbow (40 percent if you get a second one in New Game Plus). Once you kill Starscourge Radahn, you can buy an unlimited number of Radahn’s Spears from Enia, at the Roundtable Hold, though it costs a relatively hefty price at 800 Runes.

In addition to having higher base Physical damage than the other Elemental Bolts, the Magic-dealing Meteor Bolts have extra damage when used with the Full Moon Crossbow. And since the Full Moon Crossbow already deals Magic damage innately, you can buff your damage in a wide variety of ways.

The most notable of these is a 35 percent boost from Terra Magica, which is especially useful for Crossbows, since the fact that it creates a stationary buff zone isn't as much of a downside.

If you’re looking for a high-damage Crossbow build, the Meteor Bolt-Full Moon Crossbow combo might be your best bet. Meteor Bolts can also be bought infinitely from an Isolated Merchant near Raya Lucaria for 120 Runes. You can find him by starting at the Main Academy Gate Site of Grace and heading South.

If you are trying to inflict poison at long range, Serpent Arrows are your best option. The 78 Poison buildup they inflict is much higher than the other Arrows and Bolts available.

And while Poison isn't as strong as Scarlet Rot, Serpent Arrows are far easier to acquire than any of the Rot-inflicting ammunition.

They’re dropped by some of the snail enemies in the game, but the simplest way to get them is just to buy them from the Isolated Merchant in Dragonbarrow, who will sell you an unlimited number of 120 Runes.

Burred Bolts cause the highest Bleed damage out of all the ammo types, at 65 per bolt. And anyone who has played Elden Ring knows how powerful that status effect can be.

Combine Burred Bolts with the Pulley Crossbow and your opponents will be fully exsanguinated within a few minutes.

You can buy them from the Imprisoned Merchant in the Mohgwyn Dynasty Mausoleum for 200 Runes, but you may run into some problems getting there. This merchant is not particularly close to a Site of grace, and there's a Sanguine Noble guarding him.

As a result, you might be better off killing him and giving his Bell Bearing to the Twin Maiden Husks at the Roundtable Hold.

The Golem’s Great Arrows have the highest base damage among the Great Arrows. And since no Great Arrows can deal status effects, that’s pretty much all you need to know.

However, they also come with the additional benefit of dealing higher Poise damage and causing an explosion of wind that knocks smaller enemies off their feet. This effect is not only powerful on single shots, but it also turns the Rain of Arrows Weapon Skill into an airstrike.

Related: Elden Ring: Best Shields For Dealing Damage

As you might have guessed from the name, Golem’s Great Arrows drop from the non-magical Greatbow-wielding Golems, like the one on the bridge to the Divine Tower of Limgrave. These enemies aren’t necessarily difficult to kill, but they have a lot of health and tend to appear alone, so farming Golem’s Great Arrows is going to take a while.

Black-Key Bolts are an extremely efficient way to cause Scarlet Rot, which is normally a relatively uncommon Status effect. While there are other Bolts and Arrows that can do so, Black-Key Bolts cause 60 per Bolt, higher than the alternatives.

Unfortunately, there is a massive pitfall standing in the way of their usefulness: not only can you not buy them, which is usually ideal, you can’t craft them either.

Getting the other Bolts or Arrows that apply Scarlet Rot isn’t easy, since you need to farm Basilisks in the Lake of Rot to get the Aeonian Butterflies needed to craft them. Not fun. But you can’t suffer to get Black-Key Bolts even if you wanted to.

There are only 90 in the Land’s Between, which might not even be enough to last you until the end of the game.

Sleep is one of the rarest status effects in the game, and St. Trina’s Arrows are one of the best ways to inflict it. Causing 96 Sleep buildup per arrow, your opponents will be settling down for a nap before you know it.

Getting your hands on these Arrows won’t be easy, though. They drop from the Albinauric Archers that exist in the Consecrated Snowfield, particularly Ordina, Liturgical Town.

These enemies harass you constantly from long ranges with their bows, which will make them tricky to farm, but it might make killing over and over again more satisfying.

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Lucas is a freelance writer who has been playing video games since he was introduced to I Spy and Math Blaster as a kid and never looked back. These days, he plays more RPGs than educational games, though.