Shortbow
Shortbows are a short-ranged variant of the bow that does more damage to close targets and less damage to far away targets.
Shortbows have an extra 2 arrow strength to targets within 10 blocks from the shooter, and have 1 less arrow strength to targets further than 10 blocks away from the shooter.
Arrow damage is based on bow charge, and it scales massively. To put this into perspective, the Power V enchantment increases arrow strength by 2.5, making a close-up attack with a shortbow equivalent to Power IV, while also stacking with Power and Archer and Ranger armor damage bonuses.
Shortbows can be crafted with the shown recipe, allowing for use of any wooden planks.
Like vanilla bows, shortbows cannot be repaired aside from combining two together in an anvil, or using the Mending enchantment.
Due to the great danger of facing armed mobs with a shortbow, a build focused on the Protection enchantment will be best if using standard armor. However if Archer or Ranger armor is being taken into account, their poor armor stats may make this redundant, so a standard set with one of each Protection variant would be recommended in such a case.
A Totem of Irregularity with bonuses in speed and armor would be best, to minimize the amount of times you are taking hits and how much damage those hits deal.
- Skeletons may spawn occasionally wielding shortbows instead of regular bows, however this is purely cosmetic and Skeletons are unable to benefit from the increased damage effect.