Elemental Bows

So I had been under the impression that making your bow elemental doesn't cause the arrows to do elemental damage, because the arrows have their own traits that more directly influence the damage they do when they hit, but I just pvped a guy who was shooting me with something at long range that was causing lightning damage when it connected. It didn't look like a crossbow, and I was also far enough away that it would have been difficult for him to be hitting me as accurately as he was with a CB. Can someone explain this to me? Not necessarily what he was using, just what the whole deal is with elemental bows.

Did it shoot multiple bolts? If so it was the Avelynn which is a crossbow that I think is alot more accurate than regular crossbows.

No it definitely wasn't the Avelynn. I was at enough range that he would have had to have been aiming manually, but he was quick and accurate about it and I was moving around. It actually happened at the second bonfire in the Demon Ruins. Down below all the Lesser Capras. I was at one end and he was at the other and he was hitting me accurately. That's a hard thing to do with any CB, let alone to do it as quickly as he was, and on a moving target. He very well may have just been using the sniper CB and was just amazing with it, but it didn't look like it.

Also, I'd still like a better understanding of Bow upgrades. I usually just go standard and let my bow scale with my dex. Should I be doing something else?

Don't quote me on this, but I think that the only path that benefits bows is the fire path. I've heard that going fire will cause the fire arrows to do more damage, BUT ONLY FIRE.

The darkmoon bow also makes the moonlight arrows do more damage I believe.

IDK what that guy was doing though

Fire or Chaos Composite Bows with fire arrows work great for low levels. Maxed out they can do close to 300 damage, depending.

Don't know how to make an effective ltng. bow.

I have a glass toon for Anor Londo co-op (sl 55 with 50 faith, lol) who uses an Occult Comp Bow with Moonlight Arrows. With head shots I can 2-shot the Silver Knights.

Well I think one should just stick with standard because I don't see the point of an elemental bow that does not transfer said element to the arrow. A thought is he might have been using the DM bow and dealing magic damage rather than lighting.

Actually that logic makes perfect sense. I'm surprised I haven't considered that. Usually if I go crossbows I do lightning and use lightning bolts. It only makes sense that a fire upgraded bow would be beneficial with fire arrows or a magically upgraded bow would be better with moonlight arrows. I'm actually using an INT build right now too. Maybe I'll try going magic or enchanted and use moonlight arrows and see how it goes.

@Redmund: no it was definitely lightning. If it were magic I wouldn't have known the difference. I noticed it was lightning because when I was being hit I was taking the lightning damage animation.

Btw, is it possible to still find the player on your 'players met' list and ask him? I'd be really interested if he found a way to get effective ltng. damage from a regular bow.

I actually tried to do that right away, but I was summoned by another player who had been invaded, and I can't remember which name came up as the summoner. So I just sent out messages to both of them and neither have gotten back to me.

If it was just a CB then he's the most skilled player I've ever seen with one. The only way I've ever been able to do that and really make it work is either in tandem with a bow or with the binoculars so that I can aim it first, and even then I can only ever really manage it on stationary targets, and it's still not the easiest thing to do.

Maybe he's taking advantage of some kind of glitch that allows you to extend your lock-on range? Anybody ever hear of anything like that?

Am I missing something? If you actually saw lightning it could only be a crossbow with lightning bolts.

That's what I'm thinking too. I've just never seen one used that way. I guess it's easier for me to believe that someone's cheating than that someone's just that good. I've logged a lot of hours in DkS. Seen a lot of PvP. Watched a lot of DkS videos. And in all that time I've never seen anything like it. I'm not saying it's impossible. It's just baffling me. I was way way outside his lock range, and rolling around, and being hit by successive arrows/bolts. He probably hit me with 4 of them in a row. Almost killed me with them in fact, and he was all the way at the end of that long hall. I just don't see how that's possible. Maybe I'm asking the wrong question. Has anyone else ever seen a crossbow used this way before?

A lot of tests have been done on elemental bows. If I remeber correctly the elemental damage of the bow will transfer to a non elemental arrow, but they will only look like normal arrows without the visual effect of elemental arrows (fire arrows).
You can also manually aim a crossbow by looking through the binoculars.

Yeah I know, about the binoculars I mean. He was firing at me way too quickly for that, and I was visibly taking lightning damage. I'm as confused as everyone else is.

If there really is no way to get visible lightning damage effects from bows, then I'm convinced I experienced I knew glitch. I can't imagine what else it could have been.

I'm sure it's probably possible to use a crossbow from that distance, it would just take a lot of practice. How fast was he shooting at you though? Also, were the arrows falling by the time they reached you?

If he was using a sniper crossbow, he would've been firing off arrows very slowly, but the range on that thing is ridiculous so the drop probably wouldn't have applied yet. The longbow and the light crossbow have the same ranges and fire in almost the exact same amount time, so it might be hard to tell between those

P.S: As I was typing this, I just tried hip firing the crossbow with no lock on and it's really not all that difficult. After about a minute I was able to hit all my targets within 2 shots, however they were all stationary

I'm actually not entirely sure if they were dropping or not. I was busy trying to evade them. See I've learned to hip fire CB's at stationary targets also, but even in the best of circumstances it's difficult and unreliable. I was light rolling around and ducking behind pillars and he was just pelting me with them. It wasn't quite fast enough to be the Avelynn. Judging solely from his firing speed and our range, I'd say it could easily have been either a bow or a CB he was just tapping the trigger with.

If he was pelting you, we can rule out the sniper crossbow. It's very slow in comparison to other crossbows and would only be able to get off about 1 shot every 4 seconds, and that's if you're just mashing R1. It's possible that he might have just been getting incredibly lucky with random shots from a crossbow

I didn't consider that, like he could have just been spamming bolts and getting obscenely lucky. I find that easier to accept than it was based on skill. It was just too much to be only skill

I just made a lightning longbow to test if it makes the effect appear or not, and in PvE with feather arrows, the effect doesn't appear, but I have yet to actually test it on an invader/host, so it's possible the rules might change. Other than that, we have to assume it was either a hacker or else someone extremely skilled/lucky with crossbows

Well he did beat me in melee combat also, but I absolutely was damaging him, so if he was hacking he wasn't hacking his lifebar. Our host hadn't killed any of the enemies around us and like a little punk he kept running and hiding behind the Capras and healing himself. So I'm positive I was damaging him.

@PlasticandRage- Are you playing on a PC or an Xbox? If so, have you considered that it may of been a Hacker, who has found a way to fire lightning bolts from a bow (if that's even possible), or who has simply added lightning damage to arrows.

Neither Gaz, Ps3. That's kinda why I considered that last. Not saying I don't think Ps3 hackers are around, but the general consensus seems to be that there aren't many.