Andrwe Brown

This is still an issue on 1.21.124.

If minecraft.wiki is accurate, then we have the following

For weapons, the priority is as follows:

• Swords are preferred over bows, over axes, over pickaxes, over shovels, over hoes, over tridents, maces, and crossbows.

  • Only mobs that can use bows or crossbows can pick them up, and only drowned are capable of using tridents as ranged weapons.

• If both weapons are of the same type, prefer the one of a higher tier.

So no mobs at all will pick up bows because

• only skeletons can use bows

• skeletons don’t recognize enchantments as more valuable

• bows don’t have tiers to distinguish them

This will probably be fixed if we add parity to how Java pick up rules work. From the same minecraft.wiki article:

For weapons, the priority is as follows:

• If one weapon is preferred but the other is not, pick that weapon.

  • For drowned, tridents are preferred.

  • For pillagers and piglins, crossbows are preferred.

    • Only piglins already holding a crossbow can pick one up.

  • For skeletons, strays, and bogged, bows are preferred.

• If both or neither are preferred, pick the weapon with the higher base damage value.

• If both weapons have the same base damage value, pick the weapon with a higher quantity of enchantments.

• If both weapons have the same number of enchantments, pick the weapon that is less damaged.

• If both weapons have the same durability, pick the weapon with a custom name.

• If both or neither weapon has a custom name, keep the old weapon.

I want to create skeleton sentries (vs other players) on my castle so I hope this can be fixed.