Compound Bow

Overview
The Compound Bow in ARK: Survival Evolved is an advanced bow and the only bow able to fire armor-piercing. When firing anything other than the metal arrows however, the Compound Bow actually deals less damage than a. Since torpor gain from scales with damage, it is less efficient for taming as well.

The armor piercing ability of metal arrows does not appear to negate some damage reductions, such as wild Rock Elemental. A notable damage reduction it can negate is on titans, making them able to deal 3.3x damage to them.

Unlike the wooden pull-back Bow, the Compound Bow has an actual sight which is brought into focus by the alt-fire button. The sight is only marginally useful because the ARK compound bow suffers from the same screen shake used for the wooden bow.

Players have to pull the arrow around 90% back way to get the maximum damage output. The actual maximum damage output requires players to shoot more rapidly and consume more arrows.

Notes and Trivia

 * Actual compound bows use pulleys to minimize holding force, allowing a fully-drawn bow to be held with a fraction of the potential release energy. The screen shake while holding the ARK compound bow taut is uncharacteristic of this mechanism and may be a design oversight or PVP balance issue.
 * Though the Compound Bow has less damage per shot than the Crossbow, arrows fired from the Compound Bow fly faster and further, as stated in the description.