When played optimally, the Wild Hearts Bow might be the best weapon currently in Wild Hearts. If you like to tease the enemies from afar and do not like facing them close using the Maul Weapon, Bow is your ultimate weapon in this game.
The Bow is one of the weapons you unlock fairly early on but holds the potential to be the best long-range weapon in the game, even surpassing the cannon.
Although the difficulty ceiling with this weapon isn’t great, you will still need to learn how to manage your stamina efficiently. It has two different modes that work in a distinct way, each consuming a different amount of stamina.
Additionally, you must also have good aim in order to land shots on your enemies’ soft spots. Some players are just natural at this, while others may need to put in a bit of time and effort to practice their aim.
Managing your stamina comes later on though. First, you must figure out how to use the different modes of the Bow in Wild Hearts and all of its moves and combos to use it effectively.
How to use the Bow in Wild Hearts
The main thing with the Bow is the ranged advantage it gives you, allowing you to target the Wild Hearts Kemonos’ from afar. This will require good aim though, so you will have to invest quite a bit of time into practice.
The ability to charge your arrows by holding the attack button also gives you a huge advantage in the form of increased damage output. The longer you hold the attack button, the higher the damage you deal.
You must stay on your feet in combat and escape any incoming attacks by sliding or dodging. With all the range you have with the Bow, fighting up close would be a waste of time. It’s very lightweight compared to the Maul, allowing superior mobility to make plays.
The most crucial aspect you must learn to use Bow in Wild Hearts efficiently is the difference between the two stances.
The Haya stance is ideal for quick plays, but the damage output is not excellent. You can have great agility and quick shots to take out weak enemies. The multiple arrows allow greater crowd control, but you might have to switch to mighty arrows against strong enemies.
That said, you will mostly use the Haya arrows to quickly rain down arrows on your enemies and set them up for the grand attack. Once you are ready, switch to the Otoya stance, which is relatively slow but deals massive amounts of damage.
To unleash the true potential of Bow, you need to learn the attacking combos. Understanding the combination of primary and advanced attacks can open many winning opportunities for you against every type of enemy in Wild Hearts.
Best Bow combos
The Wild Hearts Bow offers a lot of versatility despite having only a few moves and combos. These combos aren’t that complex either, as they are mostly a button or two.
Bows function slightly differently than other melee weapons, so getting familiar with the variations in basic controls is vital. Once you get the hang of the basic controls, you can move on to the basic combos.
For starters, you can change your stance from light damage to high damage (i.e. the stances) by pressing the Square button on PlayStation, the F key on PC, or the X button for XBOX. To put it simply, this will be your ‘Attack 1’ (A1) key bind.
If you press the ‘Attack 2’ (A2) key bind, which is the Triangle button for Playstation, the Y button for XBOX, and the Scroll button for PC, you will Bolster/Strengthen (explained later) your bow. You can press these buttons twice to fully bolster your bow and bring about massive effects.
Similarly, you can use the ‘Special Attack’ (SA) key bind for firing your arrows. For XBOX, this is the RT button, the R2 button for PlayStation, and the LMB for PC. Pressing any of these buttons will fire the arrows.
In this guide, we will use L to indicate the light damage and the Haya stance. For heavy damage, H is used, indicating the vertical Otoya stance. Once you have the controls at your fingertips, you can start executing all the different combos for the Bow.
| Basic Combos | Inputs |
|---|---|
| Bow Haya Combo | Press L multiple times |
| Bow Otoya Shot | Hold H |
| Rapid Burst Haya | A2, Hold H |
| Volley Haya | A2, A2, Hold L |
| Resonated Arrow | L, A1, H |
| Shockwave Otoya | Create Crate, Climb Crate, H |
| Arc Shot Haya | Create Crate, Climb Crate, L |
| Resonant Otoya | A2, A2, Hold H |
The Bow doesn’t have any other aerial combos except firing arrows off of a Karakuri. The two aerial combos that you have for the Bow will mainly be used to close the distance to and target Kemonos’ weak points, making them very useful combos.
Some of the best Wild Hearts Bow combos will aim for a similar effect, and are as follows:
- Resonated Arrow
- Rapid Burst Haya
- Resonant Otoya
The Resonated Arrow combo is recommended instead of the simple Haya and Otoya stance arrows. You can deal substantial damage by combining the Rapid Burst Haya with the Resonant Otoya combo. You must land as many arrows as possible in Haya’s stance and then explode them using charged arrows from Otoya’s stance.
The Resonated arrow combo is the best attack the Bow can pull off. The Resonant shot acts as sort of a detonator, which detonates the rest of the arrows lodged into the Kemono.
Before that, though, you must stick a few quick arrows into the Kemono, so you have a more potent explosion with the Resonant shots. The best way to do that would be with the Rapid Burst Haya combo, which fires arrows at the monster at a fast rate.
Use the Arc Shot Haya to inflict damage on enemies rushing toward your position. This attack increases your chances of landing hits on the soft parts of Kemonos.
The attack combinations using basic Karakuri provide more significant damage and strengthen your Bow after every attack. You can use the Haya arrows right after hitting the Shockwave Otoya combo and inflict more damage due to the boost in its level.
If you combine it with Spring Karakuri, you will fire three arrows irrespective of your stance, providing an excellent opportunity to inflict devastating damage on the foes.
As you may have noticed, some of the best combos for the Bow require you to Bolster/Strengthen it. This mechanism is unique to the Bow and makes great use of it since it doesn’t have a power gauge like other weapons do.
How to Bolster (strengthen) the Bow
You can press the Attack 2 key to Bolster your shot. Bolstering will cause your Bow to glow and deal increased damage with the shot. Whether you are in the Haya stance or the Otoya stance, you will always be able to bolster your Bow twice.
Bolstering your Bow once or twice, or in whichever stance, will vary the types of combos you can pull off and hence the efficiency of the attacks. If you bolster the bow once in the Haya stance, for example, you will be able to execute the Burst Haya combo.
If you bolster twice in the Haya stance, instead of the Burst Haya Combo, you will execute the Volley Haya combo. The same holds true for bolstering in the Otoya stance, which lets you execute combos like the Resonant Shot.
While the damage of the attacks increases with bolstering the Bow, remember that it will also consume more stamina. Moreover, you cannot move while aiming after you bolster your Bow, which is another drawback.
Best Bow skills
The Bow in itself is a great weapon offering a versatile playstyle and a high damage output, but that’s not all to it. You can make this weapon even deadlier by equipping the best Bow skills.
You can unlock a wide variety of skills for the Bow by progressing through the weapon tree, but only a few chosen best will allow you to get the most out of it and make the best Bow build as well.
| Skill | Effect |
|---|---|
| Extreme Archery | Reduces stamina depletion |
| Nocking Marvel | Reduces the time taken for a Bolster |
| Broken Beast Screaming Arrow | Increases the damage output |
| Fusion Reaper | Increases the recovery of Karakuri |
Best Bow build in Wild Hearts
The Bow is a great weapon that allows you to play from a long-range and to put a serious dent in your enemy’s HP with those high DPS numbers. The only problem with the Bow is its stamina consumption.
The Wild Hearts Bow uses a lot of stamina, and managing it can sometimes become very hectic, especially when you’re fighting stronger and faster enemies.
That said, the best build for the Bow would be one that focuses majorly on reducing its stamina consumption while also increasing its damage output.
To make that build, you will have to pick the armor, skills, Karakuri, and Talismans that correspond to the factors that we want to improve.
The armor that we will pick with this build can be used in many other builds as well, as it focuses on stamina regeneration and the damage output of the Bow, which is the general theme in most builds.
We recommend that you wear the following armor set pieces for this Bow build:
- Garuda Hat
- Cut-Throat Body Armor
- Cut-Throat Gauntlets
- Draconid Body Armor
- Cut-Throat Sune-ate
With these armor pieces, you get passive skills like Fatigue Recovery, Fatigue Alleviation, Rude Health, Battle Spirit, etc. which not only help you manage your stamina more effectively but also boosts health and damage output.
Side by side with the armor, you can use some of the best Bow skills to make those buffs more potent. For example:
- Extreme Archery
- Nocking Marvel
- Broken Beast Screaming Arrow
Equipping said armor set along with these skills will boost your stamina and attack damage stats through the roof, and most of your problems with the Bow will be solved.
The same is true for the Talismans with this build as well. Although they may not play much of a role in a full-scale battle, we should still choose the ones that aid in stamina regen and basic attacks to get the most out of the Bow. Some of these Talismans include:
- Savage (+1, +2)
- Ironclad
- Fatigue Recovery
- Sprint Master
Lastly, for the Karakuri, we recommend having at least the Spring or the Crate Karakuri on you. This is because both of these Karakuri, along with serving their own functions, also let you perform various other combos.
What makes this Bow build the best build there is, is that it not only focuses on covering the Bow’s weaknesses but also boosts its strengths even further.
Stamina consumption is not only slowed but the regeneration time of it is further increased, which makes managing it a piece of cake.
As for the damage, it’s increased even further with skills like the Battle Spirit from the Leg armor. This particular skill boosts the damage dealt to Kemono when they enter the enraged mode.
