the truth is that xbows are any good only in shootguning now, sniping only if u are dedicated xbower and have some skill in using it, but yet it is somwhere between now, as bows always will be better for sniping and the new role of shootgun is taken by throwers.
btw the only cases when I 1 hit kill anyone are when: I score a nice head shoot, or shoot into a guy in robe(in best scenario chain mail)from very close distance.
Before the (double) crossbow nerf, I had a crossbowman with a heirloomed heavy crossbow. It was fairly effective, since you could engage people very effectively at mid-range, and hitting at those ranges with the old crossbow wasn't a issue with some wpf. The thing is, even though the accuracy (and heirloom effects) were worse then now, it was still effective because when you hit, the damage was fairly massive (86p) so light armoured / lowlevel people with some speed bonus and luck would get oneshotted, and typical people in lower/mid armour twoshotted. In short, good weapon. When the changes came, they nerfed crossbows which was largely fine, because they nerfed archery as well, and only throwing stood out with their doomcannon projectiles.
But now archery is unnerfed and is again killing people with a few shots, well... might as well unnerf crossbows again and return us into full counterstrike mode.