Is Arbalest OK?

[Phew]

Yesterday Desirable hit me with a +3 steel bolt from his +3 arbalest from about 10 yards away. It did about 15 damage (it was raining). He claims it hit me in the face, which is possible because I didn't see the bolt stuck in my torso anywhere.

Make rain increase reload time or something, but that much damage nerf is ridiculous. If I was a dedicated crossbowman, I'd probably just quit whenever it rained.

[Torost]

People have adapted, more MW armor and healthpoints in general.

Other than epeen glory, consider what is best for you team.
That you severly cripple a tincan down to 10-20% health?
Or that you 1shot some already wounded guy/low level guy?

Get a pony and chase peasants and afkers if you want more kills.

[Grumbs]

I think the problem here is OP expects to 1 hit kill by point and clicking with a crossbow..if you shoot at 5 different guys and the 5th is the one to die in 1 hit, that takes no account of the fact you just halved or put 4 guys HP at 3/4 gone

If I swing my mighty long bardiche at someones head and he fails to block I won't 1 hit kill most of the time. And this is melee range against people who can negate 100% of my damage and deal damage back to me

So yeah why on earth should you 1 hit kill with point&click projectiles at range.

[Laufknoten]

Other than epeen glory, consider what is best for you team.
That you severly cripple a tincan down to 10-20% health?
Or that you 1shot some already wounded guy/low level guy?

Yeah, and get 1 or 2 points for that while some shielder who happens to stand near an enemy gets 10 or more points. Totally rewarding.

[The_Bloody_Nine]

I think the problem here is OP expects to 1 hit kill by point and clicking with a crossbow..if you shoot at 5 different guys and the 5th is the one to die in 1 hit, that takes no account of the fact you just halved or put 4 guys HP at 3/4 gone

If I swing my mighty long bardiche at someones head and he fails to block I won't 1 hit kill most of the time. And this is melee range against people who can negate 100% of my damage and deal damage back to me

So yeah why on earth should you 1 hit kill with point&click projectiles at range.

It's an old thread. blame phew for resurrecting.

[Phew]

It's an old thread. blame phew for resurrecting.

I resurrected the thread to talk about rain and how it screws crossbowmen. I don't have a horse in the race, since I haven't fired a crossbow in over a year. I just like diversity on the battlefield, and the rain issue just makes the few dedicated crossbowmen want to respec 2h like everyone else.

[WITCHCRAFT]

The assumed dedicated arbalest build is 15/XX, you can get very high WPF and reload a +3 Arbalest very quickly with this build. If you could one-shot most people with loomed arba/bolts and 160+ WPF there would be more arbalesters than any other class! When I played arbalest sniper, I had no trouble keeping up in kills, hitting someone who is already damage usually drops them, and you can take down even the beefiest enemy scoreboard toppers with 3 or so hits (and no risk to yourself if you have good awareness).

Arbalest is quite well balanced where it is.

[Nightingale]

I resurrected the thread to talk about rain and how it screws crossbowmen. I don't have a horse in the race, since I haven't fired a crossbow in over a year. I just like diversity on the battlefield, and the rain issue just makes the few dedicated crossbowmen want to respec 2h like everyone else.

Well, in the rain I feel like I am giving the enemy HP points instead of taking them away. If you have plate armor I might as well not even shoot at you for I only got 14 bolts, tell me why I am shooting this guy for 1 point? Damage isn't a problem when its not raining... but in the rain I might as well be a lightly armored peasant.

The assumed dedicated arbalest build is 15/XX, you can get very high WPF and reload a +3 Arbalest very quickly with this build. If you could one-shot most people with loomed arba/bolts and 160+ WPF there would be more arbalesters than any other class! When I played arbalest sniper,I had no trouble keeping up in kills, hitting someone who is already damage usually drops them, and you can take down even the beefiest enemy scoreboard toppers with 3 or so hits (and no risk to yourself if you have good awareness).

Arbalest is quite well balanced where it is.

15/27, 175 WPF 6 athletics and 2 ps. Takes around 13-14 seconds to reload. Aiming for people that are already damaged is the 'only' way to play this class effectively. I hardly ever aim for people that don't have arrows or bolts in them already.- Thank god for final bosses heirloom remodeling, I can tell which level of loom is in the guy-  3 or so hits is 20-30% of my pack of bolts. 30% of my bolts and more than half a minute trying to kill the same guy - that would have to be standing still or in the same location after each time I get done reloading, so I could instantly fire at him again.

When you say the arbalest is well balanced, I look at how many people play the class, 4-5 active people NA side, If it was more well balanced don't you think more people would play it? I am not even sure why I play this class anymore to be honest. I should just go Heavy Crossbow instead, cheaper, almost same damage, similar flight pattern. I could even go 2 hander or polearm with a normal crossbow like everyone else does.

Yes, phew how dare you resurrect this old thread!

[Strudog]

played almost 12 gens as a xbow with arbalest, i 2 hit kill everyone, there is nothing wrong with the damage

[Nightingale]

played almost 12 gens as a xbow with arbalest, i 2 hit kill everyone, there is nothing wrong with the damage

I wish I could do that. oh well, I just suck I guess.

[WITCHCRAFT]

I don't recall having to take more than 2-3 shots to kill higher tier mail and lower plate with a +3 Heavy Crossbow and +3 Steel bolts. If you really feel like it takes 14 seconds to reload your arbalest (it doesn't) then swap it for a +3 heavy crossbow, if you can find one. With 150+ wpf, they reload faster than a +0 crossbow and ~100 wpf.

I haven't played arbalest sniper in a few months, but I don't recall xbows being nerfed or buffed in any of the recent patches. It takes around 5 seconds to reload an arbalest with 150 or more wpf, and if you are persistent you will kill anyone that isn't 33/3 with full plate in 3 or less shots. Your kills won't go up, but each shot you land on ANY enemy is helping your team. Softening targets up for your teamates is a big help, especially if it's a 2H hero that would shrug off 7 or 8 swings in melee.

Also you can start moving during the reload animation the second your hand touches your forehead. As long as you keep holding down the reload button, you can complete the rest of it while walking.

[Nightingale]

Also you can start moving during the reload animation the second your hand touches your forehead. As long as you keep holding down the reload button, you can complete the rest of it while walking.

I am counting the reloading time as in the full length of time before I can firing again, not the amount of time I have to remain stationary, I'll go count now and edit it into my post but I am pretty sure its at least 12-14 seconds.

I counted a few times,

9 seconds the first go
8 the second
9 the third
8 again the last.

So it seems to not take as long as I thought... but still 8-9 seconds is a god awful long time in game, and no doubt that helped me believe it was 12-14 seconds 

[//saxon]

PRO TIP: +3 heavy crossbow.

insainly faster than the arbalest and little tiny bit slower than the crossbow to reload.
i used it for 2 gens with +3 steel bolts and i 1hit like a boss my KD:R after both gens i think was about 2100+ kills
its very accurate, looks better, weighs less, got a lower difficulty for pure xbowers, so much cheaper and hasn't got a missle speed difference too notice against arbalest.

its fuckin awesome.


ONLY BAD THING IS: it is extremely rare and hard to get.

[Nightingale]

PRO TIP: +3 heavy crossbow.

insainly faster than the arbalest and little tiny bit slower than the crossbow to reload.
i used it for 2 gens with +3 steel bolts and i 1hit like a boss my KD:R after both gens i think was about 2100+ kills
its very accurate, looks better, weighs less, got a lower difficulty for pure xbowers, so much cheaper and hasn't got a missle speed difference too notice against arbalest.

its fuckin awesome.


ONLY BAD THING IS: it is extremely rare and hard to get.

Been using +3 Arbalest with +3 bolts for 17 16 gens, I might just get one xP

[Tomas]

I almost posted a rage thread about Arbalests seeming to be nerfed a week or 2 ago.

I was using a MW Arbalest and unloomed Steel Bolts at the time and struggling to get any kills.  Then i loomed my bolts to +1 and suddenly was doing well again.  Then I dropped down to a normal Arbalest and didn't even notice a difference.  The lesson I learned from this is that sometimes you just go on a bad run.

Using an Arbalest is one of the worst weapons for relying on the circumstances.  To do well you need; cover to reload, a nice firing position, a distraction so that people can't just dodge, no rain, a team that stays alive long enough for you to reload more than 3 times.  Fail to get these things and you don't really get the opportunity to shine which is why i always go hybrid

120 wpf is more than enough proficiency if you have a brain and then you have plenty of points left over to go melee when it rains