Elden Ring: Level 100+ Black Bow Archer Build Guide (2024)

This is a Dexterity/Strength build that focuses on making archery viable all the way through to endgame (barring some sidebosses) in Elden Ring. Your main weapon will be the Black Bow , which you will use to focus enemies down from a great distance. You'll need tons of arrows to make this build work, but you can just use regular Arrows for trash mobs (don't waste anything good on them).

For tougher enemies, you're going to use Serpent Arrows or Bloodbone Arrows (Fletched). These will be best saved for bosses. With that being said, there are going to be some bosses that this build can't reliably take on. Mohg, for instance, will make really quick work of this build - so consider some melee backup, or respecing, before taking him on.

These arrows, paired with the Barrage ability of the Black Bow will inflict a lot of status damage on bosses quickly. They also do a bunch of damage in their own right.

Character Creation

Since you really won't be able to make this build work well until much later, you can pick just about anything you want to start with. I recommend picking the class you feel most comfortable with getting through the game at least one time with. Just keep in mind that we will be focusing on Strength and Dexterity for this build, and will be dropping points in Vigor and Endurance if you prefer builds with more of that in them.

Stat Distribution

Endgame Gear

Weapon

As mentioned before, we'll be using the Black Bow for this build. This Bow is incredibly fast, and has the same abilities as a Short Bow. This means you can jump and shoot, and most importantly, shoot twice in rapid succession. It also has the Barrage ability. This Bow is extemely fast and agile, and does a lot of damage.

This build also has a heavy talisman requirement. We're going to want to get our hands on the Ritual Sword Talisman , the Shard of Alexander talisman, the Arrow's Sting Talisman , and the Spear Talisman . This combination is tailored to suit a pure archer build like this one, enhancing your character's overall damage as well as the damage you will do with arrows. These are my favourites for this build, though if you want to play around with your talisman loadout, you may find some combinations that work better for you.

Armor

As for your armor, you can pretty much get away with anything as long as it's light. You're going to be quite squishy as a pure archer, so your focus should be getting armor that keeps you fast on the battlefield. You could even go naked, if you wanted to.

However, for our helmet, we're going to go with the White Mask .

The reason why we choose this helmet for this build is because we'll be inflicting a lot of status damage. The faster we can bleed our enemies while wearing this helmet, the faster we can benefit from its buffs - a 10% boost to our attack power for 20 seconds. This buff activates as soon as we inflict blood loss on our enemies (it stacks with the Lord of Blood's Exultation buff, so if you were going to pick another talisman to use, it'd be that one).

If you're not sure where to start with light armor, here are some suggestions to get you going:

The way that I liked to play with this build was to forgo armor almost entirely. I used the White Mask and then the Zamor Legwraps , for decency.

This build is a lot of fun to run around the open world with and taking on bosses in arenas where there's a lot of space. Enjoy, gamers!

Elden Ring

Platform(s)

PS5, Xbox One, PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC

Released

February 25, 2022

Developer(s)

From Software

Publisher(s)

Bandai Namco Entertainment, From Software

Genre(s)

RPG, Action

Multiplayer

Online Co-Op, Online Multiplayer

Engine

Proprietary

ESRB

M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence

How Long To Beat

58 Hours