Dedicated Crossbowmen - where have they gone?

[DrKronic]

I added a xbow with steel bolts to my inventory last night and it was very effective

This was the crossbow I imagine the heavy and sniper for those willing to skimp a tiny bit on the rest of their loadout would be even better

I tried making a dedicated xbow pre latest buff and I didn't notice enough of a buff from wpf but that was pre big bolt and latest damag e buff I think a hybrid xbower now would be dangerous

[Thomek]

I do believe you gnjus. And I also like your new mobile playstyle!

I also think throwing is completely broken however for 2 reasons.

1: The harder wpf cap. More people spec throwing because its more economical. I would like to see this much softer.
2: The accuracy that pthrow gives you, opens the way for pthrow strength monsters with no or little wpf in throwing.

Throwing should be a trade-off between power and accuracy, right now it is power and accuracy in one. I want to see the agi-thrower, with high accuracy but little damage. Right now, my snowflakes are useless, and I need perhaps 7-8 pthrow to do even hit something. (I just want to stun people and go for headshots, not 1shot people.)

Am I right that Pthrow adds; projectile speed + damage + accuracy + unlocking heavier and more damaging throwing weps?

It's too much, and becomes progressively more powerful for each pthrow.  (And it can be used with shield, although pure throwers often drop the shield for more throwing weps.)

[Gorath]

I still play on my xbowman.
1h/shield + xbow (the heavy and sniper reload too damned slow and don't even do enough damage to justify it imo)
140 1h
100 xbow

However most of the time anymore I leave the xbow at home and save myself the upkeep cost since it's just not that useful.  Sure I get a kill now and then, but with how long even the regular xbow takes to reload I'll get maybe 2-3 shots per round before the rest is spent in melee.  I tried using the hunting/light xbows as well, but they take far too many shots to drop your average mail wearing player that even with the slightly faster reload time it just feels pretty "meh".

When I'm on the siege server and on defense I'll bust out the xbow and go through all 15 shots.  Other than that though, I kind of wish I had gone throwing instead.

[Paul]

I have a level 25 crossbowman with 7 athletics and 150 wpf (70 polearm). I don't need to pump strength like an archer and 12 str (4ps)is enough to use my military fork effectively even against armored targets. I'm not planning to use the siege crossbow, the normal crossbow is fine to me. Maybe I'll go for the heavy one later.

I am accurate at bigger distances with my high wpf and the internal multiplier. However, my high athletic skill(7) allows me to fight pretty well in big group battles, setting shots from medium or even close range. If it gets too hot I can just turn and run - only few of them can catch me. The reloading time is not long with my wpf, in fact I'm always astonished that I can almost keep up with the rate of fire of an archer with a long or war bow.

With my piercing damage I am a serious threat to armored targets, usually taking out mail clad victims in 2 or 3 body shots - while insta-kill head shots are very well possible thanks to the high precision. Personally the biggest so-to-say "advantage" of my crossbow char is that I am almost forced to have a good awareness of my surroundings thanks to the reloading break. I just look around everytime during the animation. My archer's awareness level is usually close to zero, but this is more my fault...

[Tai Feng]

Gnjus I meant exactly that - you switched from xbow to throwing. You always were a hybrid and had huscarl shield and pick/axe (whichever it was) - I didn't feel that needed noting.


As for xbows, I myself use sometimes light xbow on my polearm char which has zero proficiency and I find that xbow mildly useful in some cases. Siege one, I dunno, accuracy and reload times are horrible, not to mention the cost. Maybe siege one is fine with wpf.

I tried making xbow char but it doesn't work for me. One round I would do great, killing left and right. Then next 4 rounds it would completely suck. The worse thing was shooting 3x and round over. If my team charges I can either shoot from across the map or.. well, not do much the entire round. My usual playstyle involves a lot of movement, which is why I use polearms.

[Gnjus]

Gnjus I meant exactly that - you switched from xbow to throwing. You always were a hybrid and had huscarl shield and pick/axe (whichever it was) - I didn't feel that needed noting.

Ofc, ofc, no worries there, but you did say that i chose throwing because it is overpowered which is simply not the case. I didnt know (and i couldnt of known since i re-assigned my skill points as soon as the patch was applied ) how its gonna end up. 

[Michael]

This lobbyism crap isn't even funny anymore.

Looks like you have missed something, so I guess I ll quote myself:

And my main is a lancer/ pikeman, so a crossbow buff would hurt me a lot.

Also, I made this char like others for testing purposes only, I will delete him soon.

Already retired.

I have a mid-level crossbowman using a simple crossbow with the ninja-buffed steel bolts and he's super effective.

Screens or it never happened.

Fortunatly I'm playing both, archer and crossbowman, so I can compare and don't have to rely on this kind of pseudo-feedback.

Oh hes butthurt.

My archer alt, level 17:


http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/5534/paris1q.jpg


http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/1671/paris2c.jpg


http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/2999/paris3g.jpg



Couldnt bring something similiar with the level 20 crossbowman.

[Paul]

Wow, that proves it. I stand corrected.

[AdNecrias]

You guys are missing the best way to use an xbow. Pick on from the ground, shoot it, drop it. Enjoy your weakened target.

[Gorath]

http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/5534/paris1q.jpg

Couldnt bring something similiar with the level 20 crossbowman.

3-0?  Yeah, you're right.  On a level 20 xbowman you can go far far above that score.

lol, 3-0 and bragging... Oh Finished.  You're too much.

[ShinySpoons]

My xbowman with 100wpf using the normal xbow and steel bolts take 2-3 hits to kill most targets. More depending on the range. The reload animation doesn't feel very long at all and I frequently end rounds with no bolts left. Generally though, I don't get very many kills with the xbow itself, I'll usually just put one bolt on a target and let someone else finish them off. So, even though I spend most of my time with the xbow, I actually get the majority of my kills with a longsword, which is fine, as people are usually weakened by the time they reach me.

[Trael]

we ended up doing some testing at duel server with rumaahinen just moments ago.

my crossbow char + sniper + steel
we tested different hit locations from different ranges [6k armor + same protection helmet + shoes & near top of line armor]

target:  lvl 27, str 21, powerstrike 7, ironflesh 3, agi 15, ath 5, weapon master 5

results:
1) unarmored target needs 2 hits from sniper + steel to die
2) 6k body armor (mail with surcoat), short distance: 2-3 hits to torso, mid distance: 3-4 hits to torso, long distance no hits
3) 23k body armor (churburg cuirass), short distance: 4-5 hits to torso, mid distance: 5-6 hits to torso, no point in long distance test at this point.
4) 57 armor point helmet, target survives point blank range headshot [personal note: fine with me, if someone really takes top of the line one of most expensive helmets, im fine with them being able to survive one hit to head with massive damage but not going down.]
5) in test with hunting crossbow + steel: target in 23k body armor takes around 2-3% of damage with every hit, so killing with only crossbow becomes practicly impossible without headshots, even from point blank range, based on test headshot, target could take over 3-6 headshots without going down.

target suspects based on his own experience that he would take around 15 hits from some crap bow to go down with better armor and around 5-6 with 6k armor.

gear of tester costs [without _any_ other gear] min. 19 613 gold (just sniper + steel) and with mid tier melee weapon 24k [aka +-0 gold level, without multiplier aka in normal play]
(yes last week or so, i have 3 times seen 3x or higher, glorious autobalance and have went -1k gold balance while using 23-25k gear)


personally:
i still like playing my crossbow char, but yeah, these days it seems to be naked person shooter, instead of serious armor penetrator.
and i can get decent k/d from those naked peoples, if im defending in siege, elsewhere it seems to be mostly just anti cavalry (where i like it, always nice to see how those cav lancers come "hahaa im going to penetrate that crossbow char" just to get bolt in middle of their horses face at last moment, ending up rolling in middle of some pile of my teammates).

target's opinion:
as 2h spammer he now thinks crossbows as joke and does not see that there would be any danger to him from them anymore.

6k armor results were ones that really supprised me, after all we are talking about 20k weapon here.

[B3RS3RK]

I leveled a Crossbowman to lvl 20 now, and regarding the effectiveness it feels VEERY similar to my Archer, on some maps I get a good and positive K/D like 8:3 or something while on other maps I get 0:6 or even worse.I play with a light crossbow and steel bolts now, and the biggest Problem dedicated crossbowman have is the upkeep IMO.The light crossbow, which is only able to score kills on wounded or very lightly armored enemies(Mostly), is already 5,1k, which makes around 250 gold upkeep for it.The normal Crossbow is 7,4k and pretty much the highest you can go without losing money regularly.

Of course higher prices are necessary so not everyone carries a x-bow, but still...The only way to fix this would be making some requirements in skill points for the crossbow, for example power draw.

IMO, the crossbows from light to sniper would need a slight price reduction like this:

Light crossbow: about 4000 gold
Crossbow: about 6000 gold
Heavy Crossbow: about 9000 gold
Sniper Crossbow: about 12000 gold

As said, this would also increase the number of people only carrying a crossbow as sidearm for shotgun purposes, but there is no real way to fix this except for making crossbows require a special skill.

[Sir_Ironlake]

No price reduction. Why make everything similar.

Keep price but make them able to hurt armor. Buff price, but make em able to pierce mail.-

[Jacko]

Price are fine. I like where xbows are right now, but going dedicated is really only gimping yourself. With all the PS you Can Get, you'd be a fool to not pick up a melee weapon when wpp above 150 doesn't really give anything. Hopefully xbows  are in a good place right now, but we won't really know until most players have loomed their xbows x2 ( I failed loomed so I'm not there either).