Dethdlr 
A Bow to Pull With
Any good plate tank needs a good pulling bow. You know, one that can hit mobs from way across the room. You may not use it all the time, but you at least have it on your hot bar. They come in handy for all sorts of things. Once you’ve used one with an extra long range, it’s hard to go back to using anything else. They even make questing easier since you can hit the mobs from so far away (less running around).
Old Faithful: Longarm
Up until Sentinel’s Fate, the best bow for the job was the Longarm. This item drops in Deathfist Citadel and can be equiped at level 39. It has a rating of 42.6 but has a range of 4-50 meters. Get yourself some arrows that add +5 meters and you can hit targets from 55 meters away. 55 meters! That’s 60 yards! Over half a football field!
As the levels went by and the expansions came out, a lot of us looked for an item to replace our trusty Longarm. But there just wasn’t anything out there with that kind of range. Until Sentinel’s Fate.
There’s a New Kid in Town
When Sentinel’s Fate launched it included the rodent caves in Sundered Frontier. Inside these caves, either through traveling a long way through them, or by jumping off a cliff to get to the back door (much easier), there is a Roekillik named Ritsy. If you’ve finished A Rodent Problem in Paineel, Ritsy will give you the quest Ritsy Delivery which is the first quest in The Bow of Underfoot Timeline.
Ritsy Delivery has you kill a courier in the area.
Ritsy Business has you kill Toxxulia Guardians for 15 common drop items.
Ritsy Rewards is a bit more complex. You have to kill 5 named mobs, clear The Hole: Demitrik’s Bastion, then return and kill Ritsy. Note: Anyone who is in your group when you kill Ritsy can loot the quest starter for the final quest in the series, whether they’ve done the first three quests for not.
The final quest in the series is called Ritsy’s Lucky String. For this quest, you have to go a little ways into Spirit’s Resonance and kill two golems in the first room, kill the named gorgon bull handler in The Hole, then clear The Outer Vault and Spirit’s Resonance.
Now, in order to make it though this questline, you have to speak Serilian which is kind of a pain but well worth the effort. Once you’ve completed the quest line, you are rewarded with The Bow of Underfoot. It has the same range as the Longarm (4-50 meters) but this one hits like a truck with a rating of 151.1! It also has an AoE damage proc (could get you in trouble so be aware of it) and some pretty decent stats.
So Long Longarm
So after all these years, I’m finally placing my Longarm in the bank. It has served me so well these many years that I just can’t bring myself to sell or transmute it. The Bow of the Underfoot is the new king of bows for pulling on a plate tank and I’m sure we’ll have many good years together. Maybe someday there will be another one, even greater. When that day comes, I’ll place The Bow of Underfoot next to my Longarm in the bank to keep it company. 🙂
lol i still use my trusty longarm, for raid pulls when i dont want a x4 pounding on me all they way back to my healers. Still havnt wrapped up the new hq. i might use my bow 10 times a night, and just for a pull here and there, so i have not been to desperate to get a new one. hopefully i can find time to wrap this one up before the new xpac 😉
Oh so that explains why the main tank in the raid force I’m in was in deathfist one night a month ago for. I think he mentioned something about a bow that could summon arrows or something too.
arrow summoning bow is from DT (now access free), drops from the split-goo drake.
underfoot is easily on par with any drop outside of a HM raid due to that range, (there’s onlt 3-4 fabled bows that i know beat its rating enough to make replacing it worthwhile as a dps item, 2 are hardmode drops, one’s a LotDQ 2nd name “rare” drop and other’s a crappily stated +defence bow from palace).
The risty line is not needed to get the risty’s lucky string quest, the quest itself comes from a body/chest-drop that risty creates after he/she turns aggro at the end of “ritsy’s rewards”, so if someone is asking for help on the line/kill (not many classes that can solo the encounter due to the 4 ^ bodyguards), by all means pull out a character without the HQ and get in there, enough drops for however many people are in the group at the time, and no need to clear that annoying named-kill quest yourself.
and then i read the main info again and realise i said the same as dethdlr :p
Void Reaver, Bow of Shadow – \aITEM -1827682974 -1852341130:[Void Reaver, Bow of Shadow]\/a
is still the best “symbol” for crusaders,
funny thing is this symbol can shoot arrows 😛
(ok hardmode bow from underfoot has better DR but i dont like the stats tbh)
btw: you can Makro a second bow like Long arm or underfoot
row 1: Equip Item: Bowname.
row 2: /autoattack 2
Same makro for your standard bow.
Makro will equip the bow and starts range autoattack.
bow switch works in combat.
@Azzaroth: Void Reaver, Bow of Shadow only has a range of 35 meters. I’m not making any claims at all on what the best normal usage bow is for any class, just one for pulling on a plate tank. 🙂
And you’re absolutly correct about the macros. I tend not to do the /autoattack 2 personally since I’d rather have the ranged attack on my hot bar instead. It also keeps me from accidentally pulling something because I forgot to untarget before swapping bows.
I do however macro in /autoattack 1 with my taunts. It took me a while to realize that two of my taunts weren’t turning on autoattack by themselves since there was no damage component. I want those swords to be swinging as soon as I can. Now /autoattack 1 is in my macro before my taunt.