Crossbow Skills - Most are not viable in Engame
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Explosive shot, galanic shot and storm burst are the only viable endgame skills.
Armour pierce Fragmentation Any Ice skill None are viable. It makes no sense that 1 shot from galvanic shot when a clip size of 11 does more damage that a 1 bolt clip skill. I was hoping after 10 years you would learn to make all skills viable, not just a select few like it was in PoE1. Addtionally, Ranger is more viable for Crossbow than Merc is. Last bumped on Jan 1, 2025, 2:53:47 AM
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Argh... I just planned a Fragmentation + cold skills build because I'm getting bored of grenades + explosive shot, I'm doing maps 2-4.
Is the damage really so low ? |
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Try it and find out :(
I really like frag shot and APR, but scaling them is a joke. APR spread also makes it miss half the time. For example, APR does the same damage as a non-shocked shockburst shot when you have more damage to fully broken armour and it being fully broken. It's pathetic compared to rest. Last edited by ZeyroKJ#4714 on Dec 19, 2024, 3:47:42 PM
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Even at low level APR is noticeably dropping off. At level 16 you have to use APR to get full armour break and then switch to standard rounds to do enough damage. The only other reason I use APR is for the increased rate of fire because I have +X health on hit on my crossbow.
"I reject your reality and substitute my own." - Dr Who (Tom Baker, 1976).
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Wow, just tested Fragmentation Rounds and the damage is truly abysmal, it takes 10 reloads to kill a random weak mob 10 levels below me.
It deals around 10% of Explosive shot with an equivalent build (and Explosive shot damage is ok but definitely not OP). On frozen targets the damage becomes decent, but the issue is with full freeze specced Permafrost Bolts I cant freeze any single weak mob with 1 shot even from melee distance... I hoped it could freeze in a cone with a couple of shots... |
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I just jack up the armor break amt on armor piercing ammo via support gems (including scattershot) to break armor then switch to basic bolt; my basic bolt DPS outshines everything else and now i dont have to worry about armor on the mob. once broken armor debuff wears off I do it again. Boring, but effective.
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this is not true and you need to read the skills, yes a lot of them aren't that great but you only use frag rounds on a frozen target to break the ice so you double barrel peramfrost bolts to get a guranteed freeze and shoot the frozen enemy with frag rounds for aoe and double damage.
Shockburst rounds are probably the best rounds in the game for dps but the enemy has to be shocked OR electrocuted and then you use them as a conduit for damage as it turns into AOE but both of the damage counts for the target so it will die really fast tool tip is bad but look at the explosion tab mine right now is sitting at 50k dps before its being buffed up by anything besides the support gems and i have room for one more, galvanic shards are used to clear trash mobs, never for single target the beam is whats doing the actual damage i use it for clear but to also proc electrocute with the prime gem so the whole screen gets stunned after i shoot a voltaic nade. Another way to amp even more damage is to pick up nodes for elemental damage and NOT projectile damage, its good and helps a bit but most of the damage on merc is being converted into elemental damage so it scales much better but you do want flat phys on the crossbow itself because that's what the elemental conversions are scaling off of. Another thing to do in the tree if you are using the shots and not grenades is full salvo is almost mandatory you can get up to 150% increased damage if you are fast enough but if you aren't fast enough its atleast 75% just for shooting different rounds. I'm on Tier 8 maps clearing in about 3 minutes trying to find the rares and bosses don't last too long maybe my damage will fall off but im yet to see it happen bosses are usually dead before my rotation is fully amped as well. |
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" You using APR, Fragment rounds etc? Or shockburst? |
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At least you have some viable... chronomancer have 1 and dont work well at all without hug investment.
2024 Activo.
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Galvanic Shards is all I use, with Herald of Thunder and Herald of Ash clear speeds are insane.
High Velocity Rounds, for extra tanky bosses. Specced to shock as much as I can to push herald of thunder to its limits. |
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