Bows in Palworld sit in an odd spot. They fire one shot at a time, they need a charge, and yet the top legendary version quietly outperforms most guns in the game. If you are deciding which bow schematic is worth the rare materials, the gap between the five legendary options is enormous, and only one of them belongs in an endgame loadout.
Quick answer: The Advanced Bow (Legendary) is the best legendary bow, with 8,700 ATK and roughly 5,219 DPS. Craft that one and ignore the other four for serious damage.
All five legendary bows ranked by DPS
Every bow-type weapon fires from a single-shot magazine, so raw attack value and shot cadence decide the winner. The DPS figures below include the shoot-and-reload cycle at legendary rarity, which is the highest craftable tier and requires Legendary Schematics (Schematic 4).
| Bow (Legendary) | Attack | DPS | Durability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Advanced Bow | 8,700 | 5,219 | 2,000 |
| Compound Bow | 1,650 | 990 | 1,600 |
| Crossbow | 490 | 233 | 1,400 |
| Fire Arrow Crossbow | 490 | 233 | 1,400 |
| Old Bow | 247 | 148 | 700 |
The ranking is not close. The Advanced Bow does more than five times the damage per second of the next-best Compound Bow, and it leaves the Crossbow, Fire Arrow Crossbow, and Old Bow far behind. Those three are early or mid-game tools that never scale into endgame content, even at legendary rarity.
Why the Advanced Bow is the only bow worth crafting
The Advanced Bow earns an S-tier spot alongside guns like the Charge Rifle, Energy Shotgun, and Plasma Cannon. Its 8,700 attack lands as a heavy charged shot with exceptional range, which makes it a genuine long-distance option rather than a backup weapon.
Two traits set it apart from the other bows and from most firearms. First, it is ammo efficient because it does not always lean on gunpowder like standard guns do. Second, its shots are quiet, so you can open fights from range without pulling extra enemies. The trade-off is that each shot has to charge, so it rewards accuracy and patience over spray-and-pray fire.
It fits long-range sniping, exploration, and any encounter where distance or stealth gives you an edge. For tower bosses and dense Oil Rig groups you may still prefer a Charge Rifle or Energy Shotgun, but among bows there is no competition.
Where the other four bows fall short
The Compound Bow is the closest runner-up, but 990 DPS at legendary rarity is transition-tier at best. It carries reasonable durability and works while you build toward the Advanced Bow, though it stops being useful once you can craft the higher-tier weapon.
The Crossbow and Fire Arrow Crossbow share identical numbers at 490 attack and 233 DPS. Their fast shot interval does not make up for weak per-hit damage, and neither keeps pace with endgame content. The Old Bow, at 247 attack and 148 DPS, is a starter weapon that only exists to bridge the earliest hours.
Note: The Advanced Bow also has the deepest durability pool of the five at 2,000, so it survives longer between repairs. Combined with its ammo efficiency, that keeps its running cost lower than its raw stats suggest.
Crafting the legendary version
The legendary bows all require Legendary Schematics, which drop rarely at community-tested rates around 2.5 to 3 percent. You can find them from Field Alpha Bosses, gold chests on Oil Rigs including Feybreak variants, high-level dungeons such as Sakurajima, Feybreak, and the Sealed Realm of Terraria, treasure maps, and arena merchants.
Expect steep crafting costs. Legendary weapons pull heavily on late-game materials like Ancient Civilization Parts, Hexolite, Coralum Ingot, Plasteel, and Circuit Boards. You will know the craft succeeded when the weapon appears in your inventory tagged as Legendary rarity, with the boosted attack and durability values shown above.
If you are farming toward a single bow, spend your schematics on the Advanced Bow and skip the rest. It is the one bow that stays relevant from mid-game all the way through raids, and its long range plus quiet shots make it a reliable pick when you want to fight at a distance.
