For farming the Gem Crab at level 70 Ranged, the best bow-style pick is usually the highest-tier bow you can actually equip and afford, but the crab’s very low defense means your damage mostly comes from attack speed and consistency rather than fancy accuracy stacking.

Practical pick

  • If you want a simple answer: use a magic shortbow / magic shortbow i if you have it, because it is fast and efficient for low-defense targets.
  • If you are using cheaper ammo-friendly options, a rune crossbow can also be solid, but it is not a bow and is usually more about convenience than raw speed.
  • For pure “bow” farming, the key is usually speed over damage spikes, since the crab is easy to hit and Reddit discussion points to very fast multi-hit style options being popular for this content.

Best-value setup

At level 70, a good practical setup is:

  1. Magic shortbow i if you have the imbue.
  2. Magic shortbow if you do not.
  3. Upgrade only if you have a clearly better ranged weapon available that still fits your budget and ammo supply.

Why this works

The community sources around gemstone crab farming emphasize that it is a low- defense target, so extremely high-end accuracy gear is usually overkill. That means your biggest gains come from a fast weapon, decent ammo, and staying active without downtime.

TL;DR

Magic shortbow i is the best straightforward bow choice for farming Gem Crab at level 70 Ranged in OSRS, with regular magic shortbow as the budget fallback.