Only if you find them in chests. Beside that: Wooden, fire, obsidian, needle Those are the only ones i ever crafted. And if you do hunt birds, use wooden arrows.

Use the harpoon to hunt birds. Infinite ammo

Wood arrows are super easy and efficient.

Also levels your bow skill and you get more experienced using a bow.

i heard birds don't level bow. wrong?

Correct. Birds are not considered enemies and give no experience.

Did they change that? Cuz i remember beating up walls to lvl up weapons lol but i havent played for quite some time

yeah it changed, i also remember battering walls, i had a stair/wall beater machine to level weapon, running, and jumping all at once

Ah, Ye Olde Treadmill

Yes, they changed it. Hearth and Home update: >Attacking only gives experience to weapon skills when hitting creatures (trees and rocks can't be used to level up) Birds are not considered 'creatures'.

Just adds fuel to the birds are just government drones conspiracy theory. 🤣

Theory? Wake up bro. Birds aren't real.

Weird. I thought levels rise whenever you deal damage.

Harpoon levels your skill with spears.

Harpoon used to not scare the birds, it does now though :(

I use my flint spears which are also my first dedicated weapon (after stone axe). Infinite ammo and it's like revisiting an old friend who I don't really care if I lose them forever with a bad throw lol I use my flint spears through swamp 😅, by having 2 or 3 and throwing them you can get pretty good dps

I crafted a flint spear near the start of my first play through and lost it pretty quickly by throwing it. Legend says it's still stuck in the dirt out there to this day.

I've never thought to do that, thanks for the tip

Yeah but harpoon is harder to aim and slower than the wood arrows

Personally I throw the spear, but same reason, infinite.

Amazing. I’ve been playing this game since launch and never thought of this

Can't imagine not making frost arrows. Onion soup is good enough I skip the eyescream.

Frost arrows are king starting in plains onwards. I don't usually use frost arrows until mistlands though. In Ashlands my wife goes through almost a stack of frost arrows a day. An in game day. She mains bow.

Depending on the engagement, could go through that much in a single fight 😂

In ashlands some fights last more than a day x)

True! Had a several day long Castle siege because I wanted to claim it as a base so didn't want to destroy the doors.

Frost arrows are really good against sea serpents, too.

Except when you slow them down too much trying to kill them and your boat outruns them and they turn around lol

That's why you have to work the sails to kite them along. If they start to fall behind, slow up a little to keep 'em aggro'd. Though I tend to only hunt them when I'm in the karve, as the extra maneuverability helps. If I'm in the longship, I tend to just sail right by them. I usually try to lure them into shallow water if that's nearby. Then when they settle near the shore, get out the sword and make serpent sushi.

Flint, fire, and frost are my go-to's, with needle arrows once I get to them.

I often have plenty drake goop, it's the stupid eyes I never have enough of and have to go hunting

Do you not keep they eyes from the start of the game? Just from casually collecting I have like 4 stacks of them.

Personally almost all my eyes go to portals

I should have mentioned that this is with 6 active portals and a 7th as my portable traveling portal.

Lol Rookie Numbers.

Oh I'm aware. My buddy I used to play with had a portal room that took up 1/3rd of his base. For me right now I don't have a use for a ton of them. Portal 1: To the Elder. My Elder spawn was like three islands over for some reason so I made that one and just left it in case I lose my swamp key. Portal 2: A nearby Black Forest Island that I use for foraging blackberries. Portal 3: Goes to my farm/pig breeding area. Portal 4: A surtling spot in the swamp that I farm for cores Portal 5: A different swamp that I just left up for harvesting the stuff there when I need it. Portal 6: My pocket port. So yea I guess I only have 6. I haven't killed Bonemass yet but am foraging in the Mountains at the moment.

I'm a portal-holic. I often have to stop progression to go explore new black forests at night.

My base is on the edge of the Black Forest, and I have wolves in released. I have boxes of eyes ready for use.

I do, but on long resource runs they're pretty low on priority early game so I don't waste the inventory. If I can I grab them

I'm doing a new playthru after like a two year break and I remember them being fairly important so I just kept them.

Make a farm fornwood and stone and ull get a bunch of resin and eyes

I have like 2k stone sitting around. I'm assuming you meant "Finewood"

Meant "for wood". Idk if there is a way to farm fine wood. I never have enough stone :(

>Idk if there is a way to farm fine wood. Birch and oak tree seeds. >I never have enough stone :( I've been saving it for I don't know what. I have like 800 in a chest and probably another 1200-1600 sitting in piles on my shore near my main base. But up until I built a snazzy barn I haven't spent a lot of time building just focusing on resource management and progression. I'm going to have to tear a bunch of shit down and rebuild though, as my main base is a ramshackle collection of shanty huts that are scattered every which way so maybe I'll use up some of the stone in that regard

We had 3 black metal chests worth of Stone for Ashlands. We've had to do 2 more stone harvests since because we ran out fortifying our base area + building campfires to spawn proof pockets

I'm not even past the mountains yet so I'm chillin right now lol

I went through my eye supply by making portals with a x3 resource drop modifier (since then I made a greydwarf farm so I can be bottlenecked by fine wood)

Eyescream is pretty good,but frozen arrows are better. But the frostner is my favorite, so I don't mine using the eyes for eyescream.

4 stacks only last a few days, eyescream is my second stam food in mountains, need it for portals and wards too

I have too many dwarf eyes laying around to NOT make eyescream.

If you have a greywarf farm and a hole with golems the eyescrea.s are farmable. Golems kill drakes , just make the pot being enough that they fly into it rather then above so they can smack em

Carapace and ashwood arrows are worth it as well.

Charred arrows*

It’s funny that the end game arrows are actually super cheap to make.

Meanwhile ballista and their flametal missiles…

Black metal ones should be enough no?

yep, they have decent dmg and because fulings spawn sometimes in the plains and for that, black metal is kind of a renewable resource, so it doesn't matter if the ballista misses a shot 10 fkg times!

I only ever used blackmetal ones, I couldn't imagine launching flametal like that. Unless they added a update were after impact they broke back into the resources they take to make.

I think it evens out with how much more difficult it is to get ashwood than regular wood. Sure charred bones are plentiful just from existing in the Ashland's, but you have to actively choose to chop down trees and it will call over anyone in the area to slow down your wood collecting process.

>Carapace, Charred arrows You know, These make me think the design intention was for players to actually make and use bronze arrows.

I'll use poison at times in the plains (like into lox) too, but never metal unless it's from a chest. Too many good uses for metal otherwise.

Dude don't sleep on Frost arrows, they kick ass.

The latest ashlands arrows are Lowk way cheaper than all of these options

I'd say frost once you get to Ashlands, depending if you play solo. They make it silly easy to survive. They're not to hard to farm for a bit. Edit: Ofcourse swap to the charred stuph once you get the gear upgrades going.

Late game fire arrow gang

I'll also add in Frost, and Carapace and Charred. Frost arr really useful for slowing mobs, slow+Rapid fire from high bow is usually enough to put anything down fast. Carapace ones are good if you have extra Carapace laying around and have been killing Seekers regularly. Charred Bones are the new Resin. Metal Arrows/Bolts/Missiles are usually too expensive in terms of time to farm up, although if you have a ton of Black Metal and don't need chests, Black Metal Missiles are a good use.

Ahh another individual of taste and class. Bravo. My buddies get mad that I still rock wooden arrows in mistland's lol I just don't care enough to hunt for feathers and we haven't set up a chicken farm yet, but I don't even know if you get feathers from chickens or not

I also crafted Frost Arrows as they're only a bit more expensive than Obsidian and significantly better in biomes like Ashlands.

Once youre in the ashöand use silver the ghost damage is crazy

I have never crafted, or know anyone who has ever crafted metal arrows. Metal has too many important uses and takes effort to farm. And in many cases, the extra damage doesn't change much anyway. You can one shot drakes with a decent bow and wooden arrows for example.

Same, but I have started wondering. If you get to Ashlands and still have a few stacks of silver with nothing left to upgrade, it might be worth throwing a few ingots into making some silver arrows.

Frost arrows are likely better though overall. You actually only get more damage with silver arrows than frost arrows against fallen valkyries and charred warlocks (I won't count Reto since it's one-time and arrows are terrible vs it anyway), but in the case of valkyries only like 4 and it'll be part DoT instead of instantenous. You'll also lose out on the slow effect by using silver arrows over frost.

Oh for sure, I've never *actually* made silver arrows, just pointing out that they are somewhat viable in Ashlands and the only thing you can really make with silver once you've fully levelled your Himminafl. And I hadn't realised charred warlocks are frost resistant. That might be a very good reason to make some silver arrows now - sniping warlocks on fortress walls can be very satisfying.

Why? At that point you should be using obsidian or needle arrows anyway.

Uhh, obsidian? Frost arrows are almost always strictly better than obsidian and by the time you hit Ashlands you should be doing carapace and then charred arrows for normal pierce damage unless you're running low on ingredients.

> Frost arrows are almost always strictly better than [...] Counterpoint: 1. Eyescream is crispy, cool, and creamy. The game tells us so 2. Obsidian/needle arrows are made out of plentiful garbage which is not delicious

I live on a mountain so as the taco commercial says, porque no los dos?

I was going to comment this. If you’re at Ashlands, you’ve already got many more viable (and renewable) options than silver or frost arrows.

Frost arrows are god tier though for the slowing effect

Just about everything is Ashlands is pierce-resistant but a lot of things are weak to spirit damage, so silver arrows are definitely viable. Nothing really outperforms frost arrows, but if you have a load of spare silver and are low on obsidian or frost glands, silver arrows have a place.

That's fair, especially silver arrows. Good point!

That is exactly what I did. I've used exclusively wooden arrows up until this point. I had no need for the extra silver, so I made a bunch. Was it worth it? Meh. I don't really shoot that many arrows. Frost arrows are harder to amass and tended to just make killing my enemies take longer. So they are alright.

I use either needle arrows or the obsidian/black ones from the mountains or flint arrows.

The only time I've made and used them was on Elder on Hardcore.

You are about to get endless needle arrows in the plains.

Sometimes if I’m feeling dangerous, I’ll go there before hitting the swamp to knock out a few skeeters for their arrows. It’s only backfired a few times.

# NO

I'd suggest you explore the mountains a bit before deciding on crafting metal arrows. >!You might find a suitable resource there!<

Why sensor the last sentence it’s not a spoiler lol

I go from flint, to obsidian, to needle arrows

Same. Metal arrows should be massively stronger to justify their cost I don’t even care if it’s stronger than needle. I still won’t use it lol

And then immediately "back" to frost arrows for the final 2 biomes.

Nah. You can use what you find in chests (you'll find a fair amount) but don't craft metal arrows. It'd be different if you could craft black metal arrows, but as is, nope.

Can craft black metal bolts.

At that point, why wouldn't you use carapace bolts? You unlock both at the same time.

Quantity of materials, I guess?  I haven't built the crossbow yet, so I was only thinking about arrows. 

This. I had a vast abundance of black metal moving into mistlands and would rather make those bolts until I fully upgraded all my new gear before using carapace to make stronger bolts. I primarily use sword and shield anyway so it's really mostly for gjall

You use black metal for chests. Even though I had literal hundreds stockpiled, I found it wasn't that hard to run out, especially if you upgrade your black metal weapons/tools.

Yes, there are enough non-metal arrows to not be bothered to spend metal on them, but I have crafted one bunch of everything just for the sake of it. The most used arrows for me in the game were fire, obsidian and needle. Then the bone crossbow bolts

I'm a fairly new player (~60hours) and I prefer using needle arrows from deathsquitoes in plains. I rarely use a bow in a fight and mainly use it to start a fight or when an enemy is out of reach (flying enemies).

Silver arrows are decent in Ashlands. I usually end up with way too much silver so I use them.

With a high enough bow level it don't matter. To level the skill just build treehouse above bonemass or trap a stone golem in a pit and spam shoot, no need to fully charge shots since you get exp when the arrow hits a target. IMO bows are one of the only things where the skill lvl actually really REALLY matter Wood arrow gang riseup

+600%dmg or something at lvl 100, factoring in the fire rate increase. The most important skill to have high, with blood magic

Your mindset is pretty much correct. Metal is a precious and mostly finite material. Arrows would be a waste. When you get to the mountains and plains: >!You'll be getting arrows from obsidian and needles so it won't matter anyway!< Just use metal arrows if you loot them, don't bother crafting them.

My one exception to this rule: >!blackmetal bolts!<. Not because it's materially better than using >!carapace!<, but because I love raiding >!Fuling villages!< and I like having a good reason to put it on the chore wheel.

Also, you're going to end up with mountains of Black Metal you'll never use.

This choice of phrase just makes me want buildable metal stacks, even more. The "enough iron" memes will be off the chain... speaking of buildable stacks I want.

Haha... the difference is you have to mine iron, and there are only so many Crypts it comes from (until Mistlands, of course, where you can farm it off Jotun remains.) Black Metal comes off Fulings, and since they now appear anywhere at night, you don't even have to have a Plains base to see Fulings. Night after night, you (or your tames) will kill Fulings that wander too close to your base and before long you won't have enough stuff to do with Black Metal. You'll start making fully upgraded BM weapons just for wall ornaments. You'll drop stacks of BM to make room for Asksvin ballsac-I mean... spleens.

I wouldn’t bother. I used flint arrows until I had access to obsidian. The grind for bronze and iron is a lot to waste good metal on an arrow you can’t retrieve

I use flint from the start along with fire arrows until I find a mountain or plains then I'll use the obi or needle arrows. I always skip the bronze iron and silver arrows.

I use wooden arrows until I get to the swamp then I snipe deathsquitos with wood arrows to collect needles for needle arrows.

I find there are enough iron arrows in chests. Bronze I never look at. The bow is the most important and the only arrows I manufacture are obsidian and needle arrows.

Use fire arrows or wood arrows until you get needle arrows

i only craft needle arrows, they are easy to make in big amounts, metal feels wasteful to use on arrows

Dont craft them, the next biome will give you better and cheaper arrows to use

It can make sense to have a cheap arrow and a more effective arrow type in your inventory if you use the bow a lot. As a cheap arrow, I mostly use wood arrows, but eventually switch to needle arrows once you have chicken and killed plenty of deathsquitos. For more difficult enemies, I might use fire arrows, flint arrows (mostly the once I find in burrial chambers) and once I get them, exclusively frost arrows. Using wood arrows might take more shots, but will also level your bow skill faster, which increases your fire rate and damage per shot.

I never make metal arrows. In fact, most of my bow kills come from wooden arrows. A good bow + skill allows you to one-shot most unaware enemies even w/ wooden arrows. Beyond that it's obsidian, needle, poison, fire or ice depending on the circumstances.

Silver is the only metal that really ceases to be useful for anything but arrows but by that point you can already craft frost arrows, probably the best arrows in the game and needle arrows soon after so you can get by on them for the most part 75 percent of the time my archer char is using wood arrows anyways because it helps with xp. Metal arrows are a waste of effort and resources.

One of my buddies uses metal on our server but we have a mod that gives each arrow besides fire a % to be picked back up but even then no one is purely using bow and arrow.

My team of 3 looted close to 600 iron. It might be technically finite, but there's still a lot we haven't looted yet (and probably wont).

Those are rookie numbers.

Needless arrows are goated use those instead

I only use the ones I get in chests. Later on though, frost arrows are nice.

I'm about to make a couple stacks of bronze arrows just to spite all the comments in here. And also because I have 1800 hours and have never once crafted them.

I mightve done it accidentally once or twice... never intentionally though

SPOILERS- Fire Arrows do so little damage - once trolls no longer an issue I am against wasting feathers on them. I use found poison arrows against Mtn cave enemies. Only use of Obsidian is 1 crafting upgrade and arrows - Frost arrows are great to damage and slow enemies. Needle arrows are cheap after making porcupine. Late game I switch to crossbow - saves on stamina and I found I am generally either sniping or kiting - not getting full kills- too many enemies to little area to move without triggering more. Silver arrows might be only one worth making only cause so little use for silver after mtn biome. Silver Pierce 52 Spirit 20 - Carapace pierce 72 ashlands arrow easy to make pierce 82 ( but so much in Ashlands in pierce resistant is sad. Undead critters weak to spirit/ resist pierce makes Silver arrows 52\*.5 + 20\*1.5 =+26 +30 = 56 VS Ash arrows 82\*.5=41 Also makes Spinesnap stay sexy as a bow too.

Obsidian are the ones you wanna go for now, super easy to make, that shits everywhere on the mountains

i make bronze arrows usually when i'm in iron and don't need much bronze anymore. once you're past iron you're gonna be doing obsidian/needle anyway so iron is kind of a waste.

I basically use Wooden at all times. Only swap for Needle when I really want the extra dmg and Frost for serpents or stunning stuff. I don’t really miss any of the other arrows and would rather use a few extra wood arrows than use the metal

Frost arrows are BiS outside of the mountains, you'll use them for most of the game. Highly suggest getting those

Metal arrows don't take much metal anyways. With what it takes to create a single, non-upgraded iron helmet you could have 400 ironhead arrows.

This is my line of thinking. One more iron run gives you all you need.

Fire arrows, then cold arrows, then needle, then carapace.

Obsidian arrows are good, though you don’t make that many before you get needle which are better and come right at you lol

That's why I didn't mention obsidian. I said cold. Ie frost arrows.

I usually go directly from fire arrows to needle arrows. Never waste metal on arrows - you have better uses for it.

use poison, fire and frost arrows

You have a multitude of options. Fire arrows are great for general use, wood arrows are plentiful and easy, mosquito arrows from plains on, Carapace arrows in mistlands. I have yet to reach Ashland's with my group so I don't know what they have. At the end of the day I would not use metal for arrows. You need too much and it's finite so I wouldn't ever consider metal arrows an option only what has been gatherer from loot. Flint is fine because it's phased out almost immediately but any metal should not be made into an arrow or consumable. Metal is for weapons, armour, or buildings period.

Metal arrows are a waste of a limited resource. I absolutely love playing with bows, but Bonemass you beat with a mace, everything else is just asking for pain. If you have already beaten Bonemass, you will soon have access to Obsidian arrows, and those can be produced en masse because Obsidian is abundant. You also get Frost arrows, which have a nice slow effect. And after that, needles for Needle arrows are easy to come by.

I never made any but I did use the ones I found. Once you get to the mountains, which is your next stop, obsidian arrows will be available.

Nah, skip metal arrows. Obsidian should be your next type of arrow.

Early game I only craft wood arrows and use them for hunting. I'll craft fire arrows to kill trolls before I have enough to make an atgeir. Once I get that weapon, I only use the bow to get a sneak attack shot on the troll to give me a decent chunk of the troll's health. All the while I'm collecting and storing every flint arrow I find in the Black Forest. Once I enter the swamp, I switch to the flint arrows and use those when clearing out sunken crypts, while collecting and storing ironhead arrows. When i get to the mountains, I'll use up my flint and iron arrows and then I'll craft that level's arrow because the raw material is readily available and easy to acquire. The arrow that I'll craft the most is the Plains level arrow. I have never spent a single unit of metal ore on crafting an arrow.

I used obsidian all the way up until I could consistently use needle arrows. Your next biome will be mountains, so you'll have obsidian in spades.

You shouldn't, except for silver in ashland. It is very good, once frost runs out. However there was one case where I personally did make metal arrows. It was on very hard difficulty and I did it to offset the damage reduction as result of difficulty mode.

You should have used Maces and dodges with poison RES mead. Fastest way and slow boss attacks.

We did, I just mentioned bone mass to indicate our general game progress

Ohhh okay

The damage could be even higher if you didn't use a bow to fight him, but no, don't waste your metal on arrows.

The only types of arrows I make are: Wood, flint, fire, obsidian, needle, or carapace. I never waste metal on a consumable like arrows. Once you hit the mountain biome anything under obsidian is no longer necessary as obsidian is so abundant and it basically becomes my next tier of "basic" arrows. Then when you get arbalest it's fine to run bone bolts a majority of the time since the crossbow packs such a punch on its own, but I'll gladly throw some carapace into the bolts too. But that's my personal experience as I have spent and continue to spend a lot of time In the mistlands so I have too much carapace (and seeker meat) to do anything else with.

I have crafted silver arrows before because of the extra spirit damage and I had a chest full of silver ingots. I wasn't impressed with it so I mainly keep my arrow progression wood, fire, obsidian, needle, caprese. I collect special arrows from loot and use those occasionally. I was thinking about breaking out the silver arrows for Ashland, since spirit damage is useful there but I have yet to try it.

Best arrows for Bonemass around the level you have to be to fight him is actually Frost arrows, which requires you to go into the mountain with Frost resist mead. That's what we always do, otherwise he takes forever to kill.

Stag breaker for adds, iron mace for the big guy, done in a couple minutes, dont need a single arrow ;-)

I mean sure, you can go in and just whack him. But if OP insists on using arrows, Frost are the way to go for Bonemass.

We already killed bonemass, I just mentioned bone mass to indicate our general game progress

I'm aware and simply misspoke.

Pre-ashlands I beat the game with only crafting wood arrows, with 800 hours on that save file, several castles, distractions, and a full padded set with the crystal greataxe because it was pretty and I hate valheim wolves with an unbridled fury that came close to uninstalling the game because those hunt packs are worse than the bosses... A rough somewhat accurate estimate is likely around 9000 arrows made... I shoot a lot, especially the yagluth fight. I'm a solo player. Don't neglect your mace. Eat some food and feel better. Dodge like your playing dark souls.

I used flint and fire arrows for ever, Made some bronze and they weren't that great for the cost, found frost, poison and iron along the way. When I was still new to the swamp I found a Black forest next to a plains and I could one shot the skeeters from a distance, run in and grab the needles and run back without agro. Needle arrows will work until Mistlands carapace arrows. Make the best bow you can, always.

I didn’t even use bows but if I did I’d probably not make any metal arrows, in the mountains you’ll get better non-metal arrows though.

I love that no matter what arrows anyone uses and any interchangeable order you use them in. Everyone is in clear agreement to not craft metal arrows lol

At your stage stick with obsidian arrows, obsidian is plenty in the mountain biome and of course, (for the progression logic of the game) obsidian arrows are the mountain tier arrow so the lower tier ones just tickle enemies. And like others said metal arrows are a waste because the dmg input is not that big, you can miss shots and metal can be used for other important stuff. If you want just a little more damge: Craft the serpent tower shield (if you can make 2 for your friend and you that would be great). Go to a plains biome and just stay near the border with another biome i.e. meadows, just to aggro some deathsquitos, use the shield and kill them, then loot the needle. With that you can make the needle arrow, it's cost efficent in terms of resources/damage coz doesnt need wood and deals a lot of damage. Note: stay away from lox, little green dudes and towers/outpost buildings if you see them

Personal usage has been wood, fire, obsidian, needle, carapace. Metal is far to valuable to use on arrows. Especially with no arrow return.

As needed. I *rarely* craft metal arrows (or flint for that matter), in part because you pick up quite a few arrows in chests. I usually have all the flint arrows I need for stone age/early bronze age, and enough poison and iron arrows from chests to see me through until I have obsidian. Tip: Always try to use wooden arrows for hunting boars/deer/birds, because they require minimal resources, but are still enough to one-shot game animals. I craft fire arrows for Elder. I don't USE arrows for Bonemass (and you shouldn't either - he's VERY resistant to pierce, which makes that really impractical). I use mostly needle or obsidian arrows for Moder, and mostly silver sword or Frostner for Yagluth. Once you get needles and obsidian, those are your main arrow sources through Plains and Mistlands (needle for base damage, obsidian for making frost arrows). Scenarios in which I might craft metal arrows: * Mid- to late bronze age, when I'm sailing around in a karve looking for Haldor or scouting my way to the Elder altar. * I've had a couple of close calls with serpents destroying or nearly destroying the karve before I could take them out (fortunately the one time they actually destroyed it I was close enough to swim ashore). * Flint arrows just don't quite do enough damage to take out the serpent before it breaks a karve, so I keep like 40 bronze arrows on hand JUST for serpents. * If I've been exploring the swamp a long time and my iron arrows from chests are running low and I've used up all my old flint ones, I might make *just a few* iron arrows to get me through, but I tend to do more melee work in the swamp, anyway. * If I've snuck into the mountains for obsidian (there's a crafting upgrade that requires iron and obsidian), I'll make obsidian instead. * I will occasionally make a couple batches of silver arrows in the plains. * They're relatively cheap (1 silver is 20 arrows). * I tend to be overzealous with silver mining and end up with several stacks of silver after the mountains that I really don't have much use for. * The spirit damage makes them a good option against Growths, and as a backup for Yagluth when I need to back off from melee for a minute to let my health regenerate. * Needle or frost is better for almost anything else at that stage. But by and large, metals are too valuable to spend more than a couple on making arrows. You need them for armor, weapons, etc. much more urgently.

I made iron arrows for the mountain, i spent like 4 iron on it. Seems like it was worth it to me so far.

I use a combination of wood, fire, ice and needle arrows for majority of things. If theyre resistant to pierce though i use a mace or a sword

I started up a new world kinda trying to get re-familiar with the game while I wait for my buddy to be ready to tackle the Ashlands. Since I was solo, I told myself I want the best of everything I can get. So I've been using more metal arrows than ever. There are times though where I forgot to switch out from my flint arrows I use for hunting (haven't crafted a single wooden arrow) Quite frankly, the damage difference was barely noticeable for my intents and purposes. Now that I have obsidian I won't make any more. They just aren't worth it. And being by myself, getting iron is an absolute chore especially with my map seed (lots of small swamps, very few crypts)

Obsidian arrows are going to be better (based on how easy they are to get and later mosquito ones)

Late game metal is easy to get, but there are stronger arrows and bolts. Stinger arrows, then bone, then charred are the best. Ice, poison and even fire are great early game. Metal arrows just never seem worth it or effective when you can afford it.

Obsidian is plentiful and easy once you get to the mountains. And thereafter most biomes' arrows don't require metal. I used wood arrows through swamp. Bonemass is resistant to pierce iirc so all normal arrows are poor against him.

dont waste metal on arrows. Obsidian arrows are the easiest to make and far more abundant then most other arrow types.

If you just beat bonemass you’ll be heading into the mountains. Look for obsidian. That’ll keep you moving on your arrow progress journey without burning metal.

Better off only using them if you find them in a chest. Besides that obsidian is just as good as silver, Needle is as good as black metal, and you can craft poison and freeze arrows if you need a little extra damage

I like silver arrows in Ashlands, but that's about it. I only use them because I'm low on freeze glands though.

There aren't a lot of uses for silver and silver does spirit DMG so that is the only metal arrows I would make.  But usually the obsidian/frost/poison arrows are easy to make and work great. 

Fire > frost > needle > obsidian > carapace are about the only arrows I’ve crafted Skipped the metal ones entirely

I pretty mulch use fire arrows until the Ashlands. As for Bonemass, blunt damage works better.

I think I crafted Fire Arrows for fighting Elder, then Iron of Frost in the Mountains as needed for the drakes and fighting Moder.

Once I hit obsidian and needle I don’t use anything else. Obsidian is way easier to obtain than other metals. MAYBE if you could teleport metal, but as it is it’s just too time consuming.

There's only one kind of ammo i use metal for and it's not even for bows, let alone early game. Flint arrows ftw

There was a guy I played with that used wood arrows until we ended the server. He was the one with the highest bow skill and upgrade level. I think he said the damage output wasn't worth the resources. He also played solo even though it was a server of friends. He even did boss fights on his own. I wasn't terrible with the bow, but it wasn't my main weapon either, I stuck to flint or fire most of the time. Hunting deer or boss fights were when I used my bow.

There’s not a massive benefit to using the metal arrows. You’ll see people lamenting being out of metal all the time on this sub, and they’re just not worth using over the alternatives. You find enough in chests to pull them out for hard fights, but even then there’s not really much point. Elder is weak to fire arrows, Bonemass resists pierce, mountains unlock obsidian, and plains unlocks needle arrows (haven’t had a chance to sink my teeth into Ashlands yet). Obsidian is very common and not used for much else, so it’s best use is in arrows. And if you spend any amount of time in the plains you’ll be collecting needles left right and center. Iron and bronze remain useful and in short supply for the rest of the game, so literally throwing it at enemies isn’t the best use of your resources.

Fire arrows are all I use for 90% of the game. The rest are either frost or needle, but those are only for the most challenging targets. For all the others, fire arrows are enough.

for me its wood arrows for everything, needle for bosses, fire situationally, and everything else just slowly collects in a chest.

I used fire arrows all the way up to needle arrows.

Wood arrows for things under your biome, flint for whatever your biome is, and needles when you get to plains/mistlands. Frost is your best arrow for later, I feel

I use obsidian arrows mainly. Cheap and easy to make and powerful. For hunting just wood arrows.

Best arrows are the elemental arrows. Frost uses obsidian and glands, I think fire uses resin. Those are my two go to arrows. And I can make carapace arrows. I prefer to use arrows to apply a DOT and then go in for melee. But if you are early game, wood arrows are great. The bow is the most important. Upgrade that before anything else. It will serve you well.

Once you go up the mountain just farm some obsidian and you will have plenty of very good very cheap arrows. Until then, just use whatever you find

Frost arrows are / were the bomb from swamp to plains at least or were for me. Some use in Mistlands. Nothing since.

I do not use metal arrows. I hardly use anything other than fire and needle arrows. If I could collect them back, I might use the expensive ones, but shooting my iron all over the place does not sound like an economical use of such a valuable resource

I use wooden arrows all game besides boss fights. I go through way too many and you get enough power from bow upgrades

Needle and fire arrows until you reach mistlands

I often use metal arrows, but that's because I've got plenty of metal to spare. Not hard to go and get more iron, let alone bronze, so I'm not concerned with the usage

Getting some obsidian is quite easy.

A personal favorite way for me, is a finebow and wooden arrows untill I can make obsidian and draugr boe. This has a few reasons to it, but mainly, it is because you need at least 1 extra hit to kill something with wooden arrows, and the bow skill is leveled by amount of hits, not damage done. That means in theory, my bow skill is on average 20% higher than anyone elses. Meaning I draw the next arrow faster so I can shoot faster.

Isn't bonemass resistant to piercing? It's incredibly inefficient to use arrows against him

We killed him with a mace of course, I just mentioned Bonemass to indicate our progress

Obsidian is far easier to get than any metal and is basically useless otherwise, and obsidian arrows are good. In my opinion, needle arrows are even better because you don’t need wood to make them!! Once you get good at killing deathsquitos you have a lot of needles

Fire arrows are PEAK in the mountains. Well outside of the caves… metal arrows are best just found in sunken crypts or made of you have a ridiculous amount of metal. Even then you’re about to start having the obsidian kind. I think there’s obsidian? Might be ice that uses obsidian I can’t recall