I didn't know about the bows gaining poison and lust options, that's cool. For me at least, I never expected unskilled weapons to be on par with endgame bows, that would make bows rather pointless, my point was they need to be usable in all cycles for character role role play and what not and the way they were described basically made them unusable with every cycle. This would in turn, make them useless, being unable to serve there purpose as side weapons for melee focus characters, or do they (and all ranged weapons) serve a purpose other than damage (knocking flying enemies out of the sky for example)?Unskilled weapon by definition will always deal lesser damage in comparison to a skilled archer using a bow. I guess unskilled ranged weapon can gain a +10% to +20% bonus to damage per NG as a compensation for the absence of stat scaling. Still these are meant to be used as side weapon not as main weapon contrary to the bow. You can go all the way around with a crossbow but let's face it your build is likely stronguer if used with a melee weapon if you have that kind of score.
Bow at end game can easily outdamage the melee attack especialy on elementaly vulnerable opponent. A heavy strenght Cowgirl deals about 2k to 3k on a crit. Bow endgame damage is similar at these kind of scores but it require a build entirely commited to it as well as a very high inteligence and speed something wich by default isn't possible with every race.
Keep in mind bow will also soon gain access to poisoning and cupid arrow.
@Coalsack WIth sclaes dyes in gdoc you had in mind PC simply giving Arian them or first going to Rath and make him prepare special dyes for use (from text I understand it would be at least Reptilium + one or more diff color dye(s)).