Dark bow

The Old School RuneScape Wiki also has an article on: osrsw:Dark bow

For this item's augmented variant, see augmented dark bow.

Dark bow
Release																				11 June 2007 (Update)
Members																				Yes
Quest item																				No
Properties
Tradeable																				Yes
Lendable																				Yes
Equipable																				Yes
Stackable																				No
Disassembly																				Yes
Noteable																				Yes
Destroy																				Drop
Actions
Backpack																				Wield
Values
Value																				120,002 coins
High alch																				72,001 coins
Low alch																				48,000 coins
On death																				Reclaimable Value: 1,582,494 Reclaim: 1,582
Weight																				1.814 kg
Examine
A bow from a darker dimension.
Grand Exchange
Exchange																				1,582,494 coins (info)
Buy limit																				10
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Advanced data
Item ID																				11235
Links																				MRID • recipe

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The dark bow is the second most powerful shieldbow in the game, behind the strykebow, and requires level 70 Ranged and 70 Defence to use. While it shoots at little over 7 seconds between attacks (double the time in between attacks (3.6 seconds) compared to other shieldbows), it shoots two arrows with each shot resulting in the same amount of arrows shot over time as any other shieldbow. It is a drop unique to dark beasts, which require level 90 Slayer to kill.

The dark bow is classified as a shieldbow, so wielding it allows the use of abilities requiring a shield.

A wyrm scalp can be added to a dark bow to turn it into a more powerful strykebow. It is also used to recharge a degraded strykebow. Each dark bow provides 20% charge, so five are needed to fully charge the strykebow.

Combat stats

Requirements
70 , 70
Class			Slot
Ranged
Tier			Type
70			Shieldbow
		Auto		Ability
Damage		371.0		672
Accuracy		1486
Style		Arrows
Range		9
Speed		Slowest (7.2s)
Attributes						Damage reduction
Armour				297.2		PvM: 7%			PvP: 0%
Life points				0		Style bonuses
Prayer				0		0.0		0.0		0.0
FAQ • docs

Special attack

The dark bow's special attack, Descent of Darkness

The dark bow has a special attack called Descent of Darkness which fires two shots for 148-338% ability damage each, or 296-676% total. The in-game description incorrectly states that using Dragon or Dark Arrows will increase the damage, but in fact, all arrows regardless of type will deal the same percentage of ability damage based on their tier. The special attack uses 65% adrenaline. Upon using it, no ammo is used.

The dark bow's special attack with dragon arrows equipped, Descent of Dragons

When Dragon arrows are equipped, the special attack has the name Descent of Dragons.

Other uses

A dark bow is required for a master clue scroll emote clue, along with culinaromancer's gloves 10 and infinity boots.

The dark bow can be used for the Archery competition minigame. It can also shoot as fast as a player can shoot the target and close the score window, allowing the dark bow to be just as fast as any other bow in this minigame.

It is not possible to use this bow for barbarian firemaking. Attempting to light a fire using a dark bow will prompt the following message: "The innate darkness of the bow sucks all heat from your firemaking attempt. You realise that this type of bow is useless for firelighting."

Development Diaries

The Impetuous Impulses development diary has a description of the development of the dark bow. The diary contains artist impressions of the dark bow, which form the basis for the development of the bow itself and its special attack.

Colouring

In a Guaranteed Content poll created by Jagex on 16 February 2010, the dark bow was nominated for a recolouring, similar to how the abyssal whip was recoloured (allowing the player to decide between four colours). The poll ended on 22 February 2010, with the dark bow winning with 24% of the votes. The coloured versions of the bow are obtainable as a reward from the Barbarian Assault minigame. After Jagex said a new item was to be coloured, people suspected the dark bow would win the poll. As a result, the dark bow rose in price from 1.1m to 1.9m within a few weeks. The dark bow increased further in price just as the Abyssal whip did after the update.

On 29 March 2010, Commander Connad was updated so he would recolour dark bows because it was the Guaranteed Content poll winner. The colouring will make the bow untradeable; however, to remove the colouring, simply use a cleaning cloth and the bow will return to its regular state. Buying a colour for the dark bow and abyssal whip costs 50 points in any role. Once purchased, the colour can be used on either weapon as many times as needed. The dark bow has the same colour options as the whip: yellow, blue, white, and green.

Augmented variants cannot be coloured, nor can coloured variants be augmented.

Products

This is an auto-generated list (update now), and shows the first 100 items alphabetically. For all items, click here.

Item	Skills	Materials	GE price
Enchantment of dread	80	8 × Sliver of power 6 × Shifting components 2 × Dark bow	40,401,475
Strykebow	Unknown (edit)	1 × Dark bow 1 × Wyrm scalp	N/A

Drop sources

For an exhaustive list of all known sources for this item, see here.

Source	Level	Quantity	Rarity
Dark beast (elite)	114	1	Rare
Dark beast	101	1	1/1024

Disassembly

Dark bow
Disassembly category	Shieldbows
Disassembly XP	21.0
Item quantity required	1
Material count	12
Base junk chance	?  23.0% Your actual junk chance depends on your junk chance reduction researched. See the table below for all values, and Junk for more information. Reduction Junk chance None 1 23.0% 1 34 22.8 2 49 22.4 3 64 21.9 4 69 21.4 5 78 21.0 6 83 20.3 7 91 19.8 8 95 19.1 9 105 18.5
Common materials
Stave parts	35/100
Tensile parts	30/100
Flexible parts	30/100
Rare materials
Precise components	3/100
Strong components	2/100

Gallery

• 

  Concept art - Special attack

• 

  A green dark bow

• 
• 

  A yellow dark bow

• 
• 

  A white dark bow

• 
• 

  A blue dark bow

• 

Update history

This information has been compiled as part of the update history project. Some updates may not be included—see here for how to help out!

• patch 18 February 2019 (Update):
  • Players can now use magic notepaper to note dark bows.

• patch 2 March 2015 (Update):
  • The dark bow now has a 70 Defence requirement.

• patch 10 January 2011 (Update):
  • Using this weapon now counts towards the "Get the Point" Task.

• patch 13 May 2010 (Update):
  • Stopped players from looking like they’re running on the spot while using a dark bow and your target is dying.

• update 11 June 2007 (Update):
  • Added to game.

Trivia

• Before the Evolution of Combat, this weapon had two special attacks, these were as follows:
  • Descent of Darkness inflicted up to 30% more damage and did a minimum of 50 damage per arrow (25 on players).
  • Descent of Dragons inflicted up to 50% more damage when using dragon arrows and does a minimum of 50 damage per arrow (80 on players).
• On 8 October 2013 with the release of elder bows, the dark bow's Ranged level requirement was increased from 60 to 70, and the damage and accuracy bonuses were also increased. This was done to preserve the dark bow's title of best shieldbow in the game.
• On 2 March 2015, a level 70 Defence requirement was added to the bow.