Best Weapons for Ironeye – Elden Ring: Nightreign

Ironeye is one of the most flexible classes when it comes to what they equip and what they carry, and they even have a passive that helps them with that (the boosted item drop rate).

Yes, yes, you do want to have a bow with good rarity in your main hand, which makes things nice and simple, but this weapon can be wielded one-handed without any penalty: have you considered what you want to do with your off-hand? (Who said you can’t throw a Seal on there to enchant your bow, for example?)

In this guide, we will walk you through your best options for main-hand bows, your best weapon skills and passives, and some off-hand and swapping ideas that will prepare you to make the best out of any run.

Ironeye Best Weapons

Main Hand Archetype: Bow, Epic+, with Affinity Damage/Status Effect, Barrage or Rain of Arrows

Status Effects are your friend: you will see bows with Poison (most common), Scarlet Rot, Blood Loss, Frostbite, and Sleep — take those. Ironeye doesn’t deal a lot of damage, so Status Effect buildup is the next best thing. Affinities are more effective than base Physical Damage also — Fire, Magic, Lightning, and Holy — and when matched well against enemies these are more likely to break their stance. These kinds of effects are the best assistance you can offer your teammates.

Best Weapons

Here is the table of items that are likely to drop in a state closest to the ideal item:

Rank	Icon	Name	Base Rarity	Base Affinity/Effect	Ideal Changes
S		Erdtree Bow	Epic	Holy	None
S		Serpent Bow	Epic	Poison	None
A		Horn Bow	Rare	Magic	Upgrade to Epic*
A		Black Bow	Epic	None	Has Status Effect
B		Red Branch Shortbow	Rare	None	Upgrade to Epic*, has Status Effect
B		Harp Bow	Rare	None	Upgrade to Epic*, has Status Effect

*Requires Smithing Stone [2], obtained from the Tunnels and occasionally sold by merchants

The table above doesn’t list Legendary weapons, but if you complete Shifting Earth Events with your group, those will make for a fantastic main hand.

Clutch Option for Weapon

• Any Rare Bow, preferably upgraded to Epic (with Smithing Stone [2])

Remember that a Seal in your Off-Hand could enchant your Main Hand and give you that effect you just didn’t manage to get during the run. Also, definitely make use of Throwing Pots and Grease. Yes, it’s not going to be as consistent of a damage output, but they exist for a reason.

Bottom line, stock up on Exalted Flesh (+ Physical Attack) and just try to add to the pool of DPS as much as possible — supplement heavily with Marking Skill and save your Ultimate for resurrection and urgent invincibility in boss battles (see our How to Play Ironeye guide).

Best Weapon Skills

• Rain of Arrows
• Barrage

Rain of Arrows is especially effective against slower/bigger targets, and helps with accumulating status effects. Same goes for Barrage, which can handle moving targets at the expense of not being able to get past shields (which is less relevant when your teammates hold their attention).

Best Equipment Passives

Best:

• Improved Ranged Weapon Attack, Improved Attack Power When Two-Handed/Wielding Two, Successive Attacks Improve Attack Power
• Improved Dexterity/The Ironeye’s Grief
• Improved Stance-Breaking/Improved Stance-Breaking When Two-Handed
• HP Restoration Upon Attacks

Secondary Options:

• Improved [Element] Attack Power — If it matches your Main Hand
• Improved Dodging
• Less Likely to Be Targeted — If you are less confident in your dodging
• Improved Attack Power at Full HP — If mastered staying back and rarely taking damage
• FP Restoration Upon Attacks — If making use of Weapon Skills like Barrage
• Improved Stamina Recovery, Increased Maximum Stamina

Your priorities are improving your DPS (since that’s one of your weaknesses), assisting with stance-breaking, and surviving (since your defense is another one of your weaknesses). The more you are behind on levels, the more you should lean into survival and staggering assist. The more confident you are feeling, the more you can lean into Attack Power and Stamina (which mostly just helps you shoot faster).

Oh, and remember that these effects can appear on weapons other than bows. The Improved Ranged Weapon Attack is especially infamous for ending up on other items. Ironeye offers a higher rate of item drops as his passive skill (both for party and himself), so make use of it by checking passives regardless of the item type or rarity.

Off-Hand Ideas (Optional)

Sometimes dual-wielding bows makes sense: if you got Affinity/Status Effect on each, you don’t need to think about swapping anything around (especially if you got more bows in other slots and cycling through is confusing): Fire could work on venomous enemies, and then you can fire off Poison on a fire-themed boss, for example.

That being said, you might see a really nice Epic Shield drop from the chest without anyone grabbing it, or have a Dormant Power reward without anything useful except for a Seal with a higher-tier Heal spell. As discussed earlier, you are entirely flexible with these as long as you have your bow, so why limit yourself?

(Of course, do not equip an off-hand item if you have a Weapon Passive that benefits two-handed wield.)

That being said here are some good ideas:

• Seal Weapon that enchants Main Weapon (e.g., Order’s Blade enchants RH with Holy) — note that this replaces the weapon skill
• Seal with Heal, Great & Lord’s tier (heals self and allies)
• Rare Shield — not Wooden Shield
• Melee Weapon that scales well with Dexterity

The reason we mention not taking Wooden Shields is because they have lower Dexterity scaling compared to regular Shields.

Seals that enchant your Right-Hand weapon replace the weapon skill. You can switch to Two-Hand wielding of your bow in between applying the Seal to get your bow skill back. You can perform a similar switch back and forth with shields, if using their skill.

Greatbow & Bow Setup

One more idea to throw your way:

• Main-Hand an Epic Greatbow for its Rain of Arrows, and Off-Hand a regular a Bow to shoot with

Typically, Crossbows, Greatbows, Cannon, etc., are just not worth main-handing. The steady output of the regular Bow has the flexibility to land attacks persistently — that’s why the big bad tends to drop his aggro on the tank and go after you sometimes. You are just that good.

That being said, there are some magnificent Greatbow drops available, so check them. If it’s an Epic Greatbow with elemental damage and a Rain of Arrows, you might actually get some mileage from putting it in your main hand for its skill. (Try to stock up on Starlight Shards or FP-boosting passives if you commit to that.)

You can also use the Greatbow shot as an opener, and maybe while a boss is fully stationary, but definitely use your Off-Hand Bow for all other attacks. Ironeye shines best leaving the chaos to the frontline and offering the reliable flow of steady damage from the back.