Rate the weapon: Day two - Ore Bows

[Ami]

Inspired by another topic, it occurs to me that many of us think weapons are bad or unusable, simply because we know what we like. But, do we know what we DON'T like? What's a worthy investment of your time and resources? In the case of polls which have multiple items bunched together, such as the ore swords, pick only the best one. If you love silver sword, but think iron sword is a waste of the bars, vote as if this were a poll for silver sword. I'll be logging these in a spreadsheet and making a compilation of which items users think are good, bad, OP, or a waste of space.
If they're bad, what would make them better? Lower cost? Autoswing? Projectiles? Different attack animation?
If they're OP, what would make them balanced?

Day two: Bows made from common ores.

Personally, I've found a bow made of tungsten/silver to be my second use of the ore, after making a pickaxe. By the time I have enough to make a set of armor, I already have access to meteorite and space gun. Other times, I'll skip the bow entirely and go right to bombing a shadow core in hopes of inspiring a meteor drop.

Previous days
Day one: Ore swords - 1.5

 

[General Milky]

Voted 5.

silver or gold tier bow + frostburn arrows are one of, if not the straight up best, option for taking down Expert EoC. Even in normal mode, it does the job better than most, though shurikens may be slightly more efficient.

 

[Ryan3aly3]

Voted with all the guns and other far range items they're really not worth making voted 2

 

[Vitrolic Medicine]

Assuming, Ore repeaters are counting to this count I would vote for 4. Ore bows are sometimes useful when you're good with aiming.

 

[Eli10293]

I use gold and platinum bows when I am practicing my Expert Eye of Cthulhu speedruns

 

[Xylia]

I voted #2.

Before Yo-Yos, I would almost always use a Silver/Gold Bow against the EoC.... but these days? My weapon of choice is the Amazon. I will make a very rare exception, though, if when I decide I'm going to go after the Amazon, if I have not found a weapon capable of killing Jungle enemies yet, I'll grab a hundred Fire Arrows or so and make a quick ore bow just for getting the Amazon, lol. But this requires me to have not found an Enchanted/Ice Boomerang, Ice Blade, or Starfury. If I found any of these, then I don't need the ore bow.

As soon as the EoC's dead, you don't need the Ore Bow anymore, because arrows are basically useless against both EoW and BoC, and Skeletron goes down easier with a Flamarang than any bow (it's MUCH faster), and even if I did want to use a bow against Skeletron, It'd be either an EoC bow or the Molten Fury/Hellwing Bow instead.

I don't really think there's anything that could improve these bows to be honest. They're like a lot of ore stuff -- just plain too weak and you'll be upgrading them very quickly.

 

[Bob The Peanut]

I voted number five. If you get frostburn arrows and a bow it makes you pretty OP for being five minutes into the game.

 

[Khaelis]

Always. I love using Ranged weapons, especially bows. I'm very efficient in collecting enough ore to make a gold/platinum bow and collecting Ice blocks for Frostburn arrows in the first 30 minutes of a new world.

 

[Xakk]

Bows defy the point I made for Ore Swords - there are not too many ranged weapons hanging out in the world waiting to be found in the early game, especially not before guns. The utility of arrows is not to be overlooked, and the base ore bows are the only ones that can fire them in their natural form. Bullets do not generally carry as potent of side effects as arrows, at that stage, either. That said, there's a reason the last bow is found right after Plantera.

 

[Ezel]

5 - most games, because I often defeat EoC and BoC/EoW with a tungsten/gold/platinum/demon/tendon bow. If repeaters count, I use them too for the Mechanical Bosses. The Chlorophyte Shotbow is also a very good weapon against Plantera.

 

[Okkusen Man]

I usually use the silver/tungsten bow to defeat EoC if I decide not to sequence break and get the Vilethorn or Meteor set. Gold/platinum if I have the materials. Aside from that I usually won't craft the first two tiers since wood bows do well enough until gold and silver are available.

 

[Varsia]

Ore bows are a much better ore weapon than the swords. They are definitely a worthy craft in the early game, especially given the abundance of arrows that a player can just gather from pots. Frostburn arrows prove to be a deadly combination with a gold or platinum bow, and can easy last until the EoC, and maybe even beyond (if they weren't outclassed by the Crimruption upgrades). Overall, gets a 4 - worth getting for a ranger playthrough or if the chests haven't been in your favour, but otherwise chest loot will probably outclass it.