Best Bow Combos, Strings, and Tips in Brawlhalla

Bow is one of my favorite weapons. String extensions, zoning, and great offstage play, all wrapped up in one weapon. If you want to learn how to optimally use Brawlhalla’s main zoner, check out this article.

How to Play Bow: Tips and Tricks

Neutral game

Bow’s neutral game is built around its main mixup, SLight>Mixup (read more in string theory). Though DLight is your combo starter, it is too risky to use in neutral. There’s a lot of versatility baked into Bow’s kit, so it has a lot of ways to approach neutral.

Even with this flexibility, SLight and NAir are staples in neutral, and you can stick to them for a majority of matchups.

Offstage Game

One of Bow’s main strengths is found in its offstage dominance. DAir is an excellent move for dogfighting, especially when coming from the stage, and NAir is a great defensive move for people trying to edgeguard you.

When you knock an opponent off of the stage, you’ll probably want to follow them, as you’re super safe in a dogfight, and you already have advantage.

Edgeguarding

You can get most kills early with a Bow, as long as you edgeguard properly. Using a falling DAir or SAir can lead to some really early (light orange) kills, when approaching deep from above, and the Ground Pound can be used to scrape the corner/high wall.

Every air attack is good offstage, but, in general, DAir is your strongest kill move, SAir is better against aggressive dogfighters, and the Recovery can be used for mixups in the air.

The Bow Moveset in Brawlhalla

NLight

A very unique NLight, with no long lasting hitboxes. Very useful for anti air, also hits grounded when it’s stacked. Use this in neutral against floaty enemies.

SLight

The grounded mixup starter for Bow. You can look for so many different reads out of this, so downloaded your opponent is super important

DLight

The main combo starter on Bow. NLight does the most damage, but NAir, Recovery, and SAir can kill in the right situations.

NAir

Nair is a nice hybrid move. At low percentages, it’s a good juggler for high landing, and it kills at later percentages. It’s also true out of DLight, and has great use in defense against enemy edgeguards.

SAir

Sair in one of the main offstage kill moves for Bow players. It’s also true out of DLight.

DAir

The secondary attack to use in neutral (along with SLight). You can mix up your neutral aggro approach by dash jumping into a DAir, which gives you an opportunity to read the opponent for a DLight/SLight.

Ground Pound

Bow’s GP is the strongest in the game. Pretty slow, but the highest force in the game, and a decent hitbox for scraping the wall. Also has a pretty quick startup, so you can go pretty deep with it.

Recovery

Bow’s recovery is very simple - basic angle, nice hitbox, average damage. You can use it to approach someone who plays too far up on the corner. It’s also true out of DLight, and is a decent kill option.

Best Bow Combos and Strings in Brawlhalla

DLight>NLight/NAir/SAir/Recovery

The main combo for Bow. You’ll be looking to use this every time you get a dodge read. If you get a good enough read, you can even do SLight>DLight>Whatever.

Sair>SLight

A true way to start your mixup from the air. You have to hit the later part of the SAir for the SLight to be true, but this still works as a string.

OTHER GOOD BOW COMBOS AND STRINGS
Side Light > Side Light > Down Light > (Legend) Neutral (weapon) Sig/Heavy
Down Light > Side Air
Side Light > Down Light > Neutral Light > (Legend) Neutral (weapon) Sig/Heavy
Down Light > Neutral Light
Neutral Light > Jump > Neutral Air
Side Light > Down Light > Recovery
Side Light > Down Light > Jump > Side Air > Down Air
Side Air > (Land) > Side Light
Side Light > Down Light > Neutral Light > Jump > Neutral Air > Jump > Recovery
Down Light > Neutral Air
Down Light > Jump > Neutral Air > Chase-dodge-up > Neutral Air
Down Light > Jump > Ground Pound
Side Light > (Read) Spot-dodge > Down Light > Jump > Ground Pound > Jump > Neutral Air
Down Air > (Land) > Side Light
Side Light > Down Light > Neutral Air > Jump > Recovery > Chase-dodge-up > Recovery > Chase-dodge-up > Neutral Air
Neutral Light > Neutral Light > Neutral Light > Neutral Light > Neutral Light > Neutral Light > Neutral Light > Neutral Light > (Wait) > Neutral Light > Neutral Light > Neutral Light > Neutral Light > Neutral Light
Side Light > Down Light > Chase-dodge-forward-up > (Pivot) > Down Air > Side Air > Down Light > Jump > Side Air
Side Light > Jump-dash > Down Air
Down Light > Ground Pound > Chase-dodge-up > Recovery
Down Light > Down Air

For more specific strings and combos for legends with a Bow please check out:

• Best strings and combos for Ember
• Best strings and combos for Azoth
• Best strings and combos for Koji
• Best strings and combos for Diana
• Best strings and combos for Yumiko
• Best strings and combos for Kaya
• Best strings and combos for Munin
• Best strings and combos for Vector
• Best strings and combos for Zariel

Bow Theory: Downloading

Because your only really threatening move is DLight, and the main way to hit a DLight is to get advantage from SLight, most opponents will be ready to disengage when hit with a SLight. This means that hitting the DLight is actually pretty difficult, and you’ll need to learn how to download/condition your opponent to properly utilize the kit. I recommend just going for DLight>NLight at first, and watching how exactly your opponent reacts.

The next time you hit a SLight, hard read that reaction, and see what happens. If you successfully read the opponent, they’re likely to change their reaction next time, so just restart the process. If they changed their reaction, try and look for a pattern (In>Out>Jump is really common, along with Spot>Jump>Spot). If you can learn these reaction patterns, you can get 4-6 hit strings consistently with Bow, it just takes time.

Bow is a great weapon for beginners and experts alike. You’ll like it if you enjoy a high mechanical skill ceiling, watching your opponent and punishing their habits, or going deep for greedy kills. If not, then you might want to check out our Weapon tier list for brawlhalla. If you don’t know what legend to pick who has a Bow, we recommend you to check out the best legends with Bow in Brawlhalla.