Summary
Playing a ranger inEnshroudedis a little more challenging in the early game. There are better options for new players who want tocreate a solid solo build. Good bows are rare in the early game, and a lot of the early game combat takes place in enclosed spaces, which is less than optimal for bow users. That being said, once the player is somewhat geared up, gameplay becomes easier.
Enshroudedhas an excellent, hand-crafted, open-world map that offers a lot to archers. The profusion of towers, hills, and cliffs, means that ranged players can often find a handy platform to shoot down from, keeping them safe from melee enemies below. This somewhat offsets the problems that players focusing onranger skillswill have when fighting in an enclosed space.
Updated June 09, 2025, by Mac Wheeler:Since this list was originally produced, there have been a fair few updates to Enshrouded. Most notably the huge March 2024 update, which added lots of new content and items, as well as five new dungeons, and some new enemies. The new Hollowed Halls were added, which are tough POIs that offer players a significant challenge, and with these, new weapons and gear were added as well. So this list needed to be updated to reflect the current state of the game more accurately and bring in some of the new weapons.
10Fell Commander Bow
High DPS But Low Durability
The Fell Commander Bow inEnshroudedis a fantastic weapon, with great damage output. However, it has a significant Achilles heel in the form of its very low durability. Once this bow has been fully upgraded, it does bonus damage against the Shroud, leeches stamina from the target, and gains precise, savage, and brutal abilities. Despite these excellent abilities, using this bow is going to be situational, due to the aforementioned durability problem. This isn’t a general-purpose bow, a player should switch to it when they want to do as much DPS as fast as possible.
Looting the Fell Commander Bow means killing a Fell Thunderbrute, which has a chance of dropping this bow. These can be found in the Revelwood region of the map, inside a POI that is named the Ancient Bridge. Head for Pikemead’s Reach and then head west a short distance to find this POI.
9Ignited Bow
Does Fire Damage
The Ignited Bow is an excellent ranged weapon inEnshrouded. However, it does need to be upgraded to get it to start doing the extra fire damage on every shot. In fact, it is well worth trying to upgrade this bow all the way, as the last two upgrade levels add Headseeker and Recharge abilities.
Unfortunately, this is a pretty hard bow to loot inEnshrouded, and won’t be available until the endgame for most people. The only location to loot this bow from, is the golden chests in the Sun Temple area. This is located close to Scaterbones, in the southeast region of the Kindlewastes. Head to the Sun Temple, and there is a golden chest just to the west that can contain this bow.
8Silvershot Bow
Does Ice Damage
The Silvershot Bow is one of the hardest items to loot inEnshrouded. Some players have spent days farming the last Hollowed Halls, the only location it can be looted from, with no luck. And as this is an endgame location, there is no way to get this excellent bow any sooner.
It does need to be upgraded to reach its full potential and start doing additional ice damage Upgrading this bow also adds a double stack of the Sacred ability and the Stamina Leech ability as well.
7Banebringer
A Hard-To-Find Bow That’s Not Worth Farming
On paper, the Banebringer bow is a good upgrade over the bows that thecrafting NPCscan provide. However, there is a specific problem with this weapon inEnshrouded. It seems to have a much lower drop chance than its stats would deserve. It’s possible that this is a bug.
Many players have reported spending a lot of time using the reload/respawn trick on a golden chest in order to loot this bow, but with no luck. And this seems a waste of time, as there are much better chest loot bows anyway. Players can and should use it if they happen to luck into looting one. Otherwise, skip it and go for a different legendary bow.
6Wildwood Shortbow
Easy To Loot In The Early Game
For beginner players who are focusing on ranger skills, the Wildwood Shortbow makes an excellent early upgrade to the uncommon bows they will likely already have. It offers a decent power increase and should be fairly easy to loot.
The Wildwood Shortbow is found in chests inEnshrouded. To get a legendary version as pictured above, the player will need to loot golden chests. These can be farmed by reloading the game, as this will respawn everything, including the chest. Keep reloading the game and looting the chest until a legendary Wildwood Bow appears. Remember to bring plenty of lockpicks.
5Wolf’s Snarl Longbow
Good Mid-Range Bow That’s Hard To Loot
The Wolf’s Snarl Longbow would be higher on this list if it were easier to loot. Even though this bow can spawn as a legendary weapon from any golden chest inEnshrouded, some players have reported having to spend dozens of hours doing the reload/respawn trick to get one.
If players are desperate for this weapon inEnshrouded, they always have the option of logging into one of the public resource servers and taking one that is available for free. These servers generally restart every hour to respawn all the resources and items.
4Arsonist’s Bow
Boss Loot Bow
The Arsonist’s Bow is easy to loot, as long as the player is sufficiently geared to handle a tough boss fight. They will also need to have explored enough of the map to unlock the very northeast Ancient Tower.
To loot this bow, head to the aforementioned Ancient Tower. Drop down into andsurvive the Shroudarea below. Search around for the Elixir root. There will be aThunderbruteboss patrolling the area. Find it and kill it. The player may need to reload the game a few times and keep killing this boss until they drop the Arsonist’s Bow.
3Composite Bow
Easy To Loot In The Kindlewastes Area
The Composite Bow is arguably the best bow that rangers should try to loot to replace their low-level weapon, simply because it is one of the easier legendary bows to get hold of. This is also a great choice as a backup ranged weapon for warrior andtank-buildplayers.
The player will be signposted to theKindlewastesas part of the Alchemist NPC quest. All golden chests in this zone have a chance of dropping the Composite Bow, although it may take some time to farm a legendary one.Using runes to upgradethis weapon is a good investment.
2Forsaken Bow
A Great Bow, But Hard To Loot
The Forsaken Bow is one of the best ranged weapons inEnshrouded,but it can be very hard to get. The only location where this bow spawns is theSunken Templeregion of the map. This is an end-game region, so it is tough to get into and dangerous as well.
Players who do have access to the Sunken Temple can try and loot the Forsaken Bow from any golden chests in the area. Using the reload/respawn trick will help with this. This is a good bow, andit’s worth the effort of farming to get it.
1Shadowbane Bow
Arguably The Easiest Legendary Bow To Aquire
Although there are other bows on this list that top the Shadowbane Bow on stats alone, thisEnshroudedweapon has one significant advantage. It is one of the easiest legendary weapons to loot for rangers, as it can spawn in chestsacross the entire map.
To loot a legendary version of this bow, the player needs to find a golden chest. They can then use the reload/respawn farming method to try and loot Shadowbane. This is probably best done at the same time as trying to farm something else, such as armor.
