They are right; playing with arbalest yesterday was terrible. I got few kills with shotgunning, but those were people already damaged in melee.
I already thought arbalest was under-powered, because most of time it can't make one shot/one kill; which is the only purpose of the only sniper weapon in the game. I actually believed that it could use a small buff, something like shortening the reload speed by one second, or adding another 5 points to dmg or something like that, because it just isn't that good as a weapon anymore, and because of the slot system it had to be primary weapon. The market usually gives a good picture about how players perceive worth of a weapon, MW Arbalest is a cheap weapon you can get for two loom points.
Anyway, I agree with Dave when he said that everything in Strat should apply to cRPG and vice versa. For many of us it is one and the same game. Before this I was planning to make this my last gen and play as a crossbowman until the end, but now as sure as hell I am not going to do it. Because that would mean I am completely worthless in Strat. For example, yesterday I couldn't pick up any of twohanders because goddamn AI bought only flamberges, and I have only 15 STR and shooting people didn't do nothing. So what was I suppose to do? Pick up one hander even though I have no WPF in that? Off course, I realize that the battle yesterday was only a test. But if things like that remain permanently, there is no point for me or anyone with build like me to play Strat at all.
I know many of the people hate snipers because they can punish even your smallest mistake, but this game is much better with them than it would have been without them. Having that in mind, please try not to kill diversity in this mod any further. You have already killed many play styles, and now there are only 4-5 viable builds left no matter what class you want to play.
