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In this D2R Unique Bow Guide, let's dive into the best and worst normal, exceptional, elite bows in Diablo 2 Resurrected.
In Diablo 2 Resurrected, there is a massive arsenal to choose from weapon wise but one of the most interesting but sadly underutilized is the bow, which due to its nature as an ammo based weapon lends itself to some interesting design potential. While most people mistake bows as being strictly amazon weapons and the amazon Uniques do contain bows themselves. The reality is the bow in Diablo 2 has a fairly long history of being the source of interesting niche and challenging build types across most of the classes, and also a really strong main choice for the amazon of course.
8. Pluckeye
Pluckeye bow has good stats for its level but doesn't do anything exceptionally amazing. The core design is a mana bow which you'll often see as a tool for mage zones and that will become a thing as we get further in. But due to this one's low damage the only real benefits, you're getting with this bow are the two mana per kill since the enhanced damage is insignificant on a short bow, and the attack rating is quickly outclassed. It could be upgraded to exceptional for a mage zone but with insight coming to bose, it won't be worth the cost upgrade and you can usually find something much better.
7. Winterstring
Winterstring is an actually worthwhile low-level bow for any character who wants to use it, while it won't see use outside of normal mostly due to its pitiful damage. The ability to fire magic arrows is a very welcome tool early on to save money on arrows. With the increased attack speed mod on it, and actually can fire reasonably fast compared to other bows. This isn't end-game gear but we could use this easily into ACT 3 or 4 until really feel the need to upgrade iT.
6. Raven Claw (Long Bow)
Raven Claw is interesting since it's our first bow that actually has common use among non-amazons, mostly due to the explosive arrow effect. And while it doesn't do a lot of damage normally, it pairs especially well on low-level ranger paladins and bow sorceresses working their way through normal and even into nightmare. Its major drawback is that its damage falls off pretty quick but it is still an upgrade from most of our previous bows and at only level 15 requirement is usable pretty early.
5. Rogue's Bow (Composite Bow)
Breaking the level 20 requirement, we have Rogue's Bow, one of the better normal bows since it packs a number of nice mods such as deadly strike which helps compensate for its relatively low base damage, as well as resist all, massive attack speed boosts and some bonus damage to undead, not to mention a small bump to attack rating. It's not great upgrade fodder but it will easily hold you over until you're able to get the supplies for an insight and nightmare or even possibly maybe out of stretch harmony.
4. Stormstrike (Short Battle Bow)
Stormstrike is another interesting bow, this one is more one that we favor for early mage zones thanks to the natural piercing which does add to your own. So while early on, you won't be able to spam your freezing or exploding arrows, this bow can help you get much more out of them. Combined with the good damage for a normal bow between physical and lightning, as well as giving you at least some of the most important normal difficulty resists, it makes a relatively safe pick, though you will be a decent bit into normal before you can actually start using it.
3. Wizendraw (Long Battle Bow)
Wizendraw comes with good damage for normal difficulty, combined with attack rating cold resist and even a bit of cold resist piercing that is really uncommon at this level. It is a sneaky way to get that function on a low low-level sorceress as well, since it packs magic arrows for anyone other than the amazon, it makes a very nice pickup and play kind of bow. Though on amazon, it does give your cold arrow options early on a bit more kind of punch because of that piercing cold, we'd probably rate this one as the biggest normal difficulty sleeper weapon out of all the bows.
2. Hellclap (Short War Bow)
Hellclap has a bit better minimum damage than the last couple of bows, but still a fairly standard, this is a fire weapon setup. With a chunk of fire damage that is decent enough for normal good attack speed, as well as plus the fire skills and fire resist. It's basically what you'd expect if they pretty much just copy-pasted some of the fire swords over to the bowline.
1. Blastbark (Long War Bow)
The last of the normal bows are Blastbark which seems like it would be better than it is, but considering how late you'll start finding it in normal it's quickly outclassed by our later options. That said it's still not a bad bow for a low-level mage zone since it does enough damage to at least get some of the mana from the leech, albeit not enough for spamming yet, and also plus to amazon skills and a tickle of exploding arrow on top of it.
8. Skystrike (Edge Bow)
The fairly underestimated Skystrike is a good bow to find in late normal and early nightmares since there are decent mods that we like to see on bows, such as speed, good damage thankfully, buffed by lightning, as well as attack rating and amazon skill bumps for a little extra love. It is also our first chance to see a chance to caspo this time with meteors, though generally, you'll only rarely see it actually hit an enemy because the meteors take so long to fall, it is fun for the fireworks.
7. Riphook (Razor Bow)
Next is Riphook where we start to see the damage of the unique bows finally start to perk up a little bit in our early nightmare drops. This is a pretty underestimated bow for solo runs because that's some really nice mods with good enhanced damage, slow target, open wounds, life leech combined with solid speed due to the base bow type and mods. It does have to compete with some pretty strong D2R rune words, but if you're lucky enough to find this drop, you could put off farming for insight or harmony for a bit longer.
6. Kuko Shakaku (Cedar Bow)
Kuko Shakaku is a bow with a rather cool history in the game at one time being part of one of the most overpowered sleeper builds in the game until the trick with it was patched out. This bow at first looks fairly basic decent damage with extra fire on top of that as well as points in amazon bow skills and immolation arrow. What makes it special and still does for rangers and bow sorceresses is that it fires explosive arrows combined with the piercing attack. And we will see that combo be important in crossbows too, this is because your fire damage is added to the explosion, so you can probably see why this is a common pick for holy fire paladins and enchantresses as a ranged weapon option. The pierce makes it so that you can have even more of these explosions as well.
5. Endlesshail (Double Bow)
Endlesshail is just a good damage bow with a pinch of cold mod slapped on it. It does give you plus strafe, so it can be semi-helpful there, but it really doesn't add enough of anything to really stand out from just getting good magic or rare bow, and usually, those will give you even more bonuses.
4. Witchwild String (Short Siege Bow)
Witchwild String thankfully pulls us back into the realm of interesting bows, this one being a bow that many players will sometimes even use on ACT 1 rogues until they can make a law bringer for an ACT 5 mercenary or happen to find a reaper's toll. This is because this bow packs a chance to cast amplify damage on striking which really helps out a number of characters. This combined with the bow actually doing good damage for where you'd get it and having deadly strike percent on top of would make it a solid choice regardless. But there's more, this bow has 40 resist all magic arrows and another two sockets on top. While this bow is not best in the slot, it definitely sleeps on a lot whenever it shouldn't be, this is the first of the unique bows that can actually compete with some of the budget rune word bows.
3. Cliffkiller (Large Sige Bow)
Cliffkiller is when we see bose start to get another spike in damage, though unfortunately, the other mods on this don't quite make it exceptionally great just good enough, with its main flair being pretty much just being knocked back and plus skills which is a bit underwhelming compared to some of the earlier and far more interesting designs. So basically it's not a bad bow, but just boring.
2. Magewrath (Rune Bow)
Maintaining reasonable damage and attacking slightly faster, Magewrath also packs a number of interesting mods for a mage zone, since it has proper mana leech unlike the previous contenders, and also has points for guided arrow and blind. While it does lack too much beyond that this is enough to give you one of your first unique options for a proper ice maiden or fire maiden setup.
1. Goldstrike Arch
Goldstrike Arch is another sleeper bow oddly enough while the first fist of the heavens can be kind of fun for a firework show, and even fun in undead areas to an extent. This bow is actually underestimated a lot, it packs reasonable damage boosts with a massive increase in attack rating and attack speed. It is one of a few bows that can easily take you through the end of hell difficulty with your boson and keep your attack speed churning along nicely throughout.
3. Eaglehorn (Crusader Bow)
Eaglehorn is a good weapon and is basically a weird set of mods that come down to more damage more hit chance, that said chant thanks to ignore target defense attack rating bumps and dexterity bumps, it is a fairly reliable weapon even though it doesn't quite have the attack speed of other options.
2. Widowmaker (Ward Bow)
Widowmaker falls into a weird space of either being adored or not even acknowledged by most players. But overall it's actually a fairly fun bow for niche builds and even non-amazon build variants can get a decent amount of use out of it, this is because it packs magic arrows with ignore target defense. Along with classless guided arrow meaning any character can use it and all of that with good damage and deadly strike.
1. Windforce (Hydra Bow)
Windforce is probably the most popular bow in the game. It earns its place by punching through enemies. Even though it is fairly simple in design, with crazy high max damage for bow albeit underwhelming minimum damage, it packs that with good speed for its scale, knockback and mana leech to keep you going.
