Crossbow Skills - Most are not viable in Engame

Having lots of fun as a shock merc

Lining up a plasma blast just right at the beginning of a fight can knock 20% off boss HP straight away and guaranteed shocked state to pile on further misery with shockburst rounds

Clear speed is great, single target can be a pain if the mob is shock resistant

But all crossbow skills seem built around combos, which leads me to my major issue with the weapon:

Reload is absolutely clunky as all get out, and bugged if the reload animation gets broken for any reason (generally dodge roll with me) and you then try and shoot before the reload has finished can leave you trying to shoot an empty gun as the reload gets cancelled by shoot

Armor breaking and pure physical damage was very underwhelming and totally useless with any of the elemental skills but it could be great with some bleed if that gets added. I wish there were ice grenades and a way to make shattered ice physical damage and scale that on top of the insane 800% fragmentation does.

I don't mind the reload mechanics but I'm on controller and if I'm holding down the fire key and switch ammo, he doesn't start shooting once it's loaded, you have to re-tap which I found frustrating.

Mostly played lightning merc and got frustrated with the terrible and situational single target damage, here are my thoughts.

Plasma Blast - Useless. Sacrifice a gem slot just so you can use it to first hit a boss with half the beam missing the target. You will die using this for rares in maps. AOE should be larger as you miss many shots due to bad auto aim and it shouldn't require to be channeled fully.

Voltaic Grenade - Without a doubt the worst skill in the game. I do more damage with explosive grenade while built for lightning while this has less aoe and charges by default. It's meant to be an electrocution builder but it's impossible to electrocute anything with this, it builds maybe 2-3% per blast on white mobs. A single salvo of galvanic shards meanwhile is immediate electrocution on a boss.

Galvanic Shards - Great for clearing packs. There's a built in chain mechanic, the beam, that does all the damage so you need more than 2 mobs to do any damage.

Stormburst - Your only source for single target that scales off lightning. Your target has to be either:
Shocked - I shocked maybe 4 mobs a map
Electrocuted - I have the unique gloves but electrocution lasts 2 seconds and then they are resistant to buildup for 5

Even if you managed to shock 100%, random rat mobs running in and out of your line of fire completely ruins your opportunity to do damage to the thing you need to kill making pierce mandatory, remember it takes you 1 second to switch to this ammo.

i would argue that all grenade skills are also underpowered.
they would need to do 5x times the dmg of any other skill to justify the fuse timers . mobs dont wait for you....you know...

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accapulco#5371 wrote:

Plasma Blast - Useless. Sacrifice a gem slot just so you can use it to first hit a boss with half the beam missing the target. You will die using this for rares in maps. AOE should be larger as you miss many shots due to bad auto aim and it shouldn't require to be channeled fully.

Galvanic Shards - Great for clearing packs. There's a built in chain mechanic, the beam, that does all the damage so you need more than 2 mobs to do any damage.

Stormburst - Your only source for single target that scales off lightning. Your target has to be either:
Shocked - I shocked maybe 4 mobs a map
Electrocuted - I have the unique gloves but electrocution lasts 2 seconds and then they are resistant to buildup for 5

Even if you managed to shock 100%, random rat mobs running in and out of your line of fire completely ruins your opportunity to do damage to the thing you need to kill making pierce mandatory, remember it takes you 1 second to switch to this ammo.

Disagree on plasma blast, I use it on rares as an opener as well, positioning correctly is key, there will be some rares your wouldn't want to use it on but they tend to be the ones easily shockable by galvanic, by the time I've cleared the area to prime it I can tell whether it's the kind that'll be vulnerable to plasma and it's not like I need the gem slot for anything else

I don't use auto aim I use right stick, agree auto aim is whacky if there's enough distance between you and target

Shockburst - any white mobs likely to get in the way should be cleared first, but that often gives free shots on the rare as well

I have every +shock and +ailment node I can reach on the passive tree, as well as conduction on galvanic shards and overwhelming presence, shock is generally pretty reliable but there are some mobs that seem fairly immune to it

Agree on voltaic grenade, I don't understand that at all, I use flash bangs for cc

I'm also leveling a monk, it does seem to be more powerful, but I've been dying way more with it as it can't help jumping in puddles

This is pretty depressing to read. I have been wondering why Galvanic Shards seems to do the most damage despite not investing in lightning damage AT ALL. I have been taking physical damage nodes for APR, HVR and FR.

I'm not even that far into the game and it already feels bad but not sure if it's because of what is being described in this thread or just the god awful itemization in the game. I find almost no currency. I find some rares but rarely anything I need and when I do I don't have currency to improve them. I find potential bases but again...no currency to improve them so I just vendor them. Feels bad.

My biggest power spike only come when I happen to find a weapon upgrade but then it quickly falls off in a few levels and it takes entirely too long to find an upgrade.

I haven't invested in lightning damage, mostly physical, and my weapon has no innate lightning damage on it, but I've invested massively into shock chance and rely on the conversion and extra lightning damage supports for galvanic and shockburst for the damage.

Crossbow skills definitely feel undertuned, with the exception of lightning, either there's a key combination ggg know about but aren't telling, or due to the relatively low number of mercenary players compared to other classes they aren't prioritising it.

But, you absolutely can make mercenary work even if you don't use crossbows

As for itemisation, that's a general problem that can be resolved in minutes if you don't mind trading. Exalts can and will drop and spending 1ex on the best weapon can carry you easily for 20 or more levels

The problem is the good dps Cross bows had a massive price hike so getting that trade upgrade is near impossible, the ones I need at 70+ sitting at crazy divine amounts lol :'(

Not only that, but the best ascendancy for crossbow, at least bolts build, is Deadeye. Sure you have fun in acts, or low tier maps with either witchhunter or gemling but that doesn't excuse to make bolts skill feels horrible to use without alot, like ALOT of skill speed / reload speed. And you will just gimping yourself if you are not Deadeye in playing bolts build. Tailwind is just way too overtuned, on top of windward 3% damage reduction. Tailwind bonuses need to be cut in half.

I've always used bow in one slot and xbow in the other for both my ranger and merc chars, but bow is in general better (still nice xbows out there and some nice xbow skills).

As far as ascendendy, Deadeye is my fav of the 4 current options. Didn't like Gem much tbh, a few nice bonuses, but nothing big enough to even cover tailwind with wind ward.

Woah, why are you calling for a nerf of tailwind? I agree, it's great. Ask for buffs not nerfs though man. I like tailwind the way it is. Nerfing it would blow, it's the best part of being a deadeye.

You can be a crossbow using deadeye if you want. Don't nerf tailwind!!

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ZeyroKJ#4714 wrote:

Addtionally, Ranger is more viable for Crossbow than Merc is.

this, but by at least factor 2 (x2).

projectiles? x2, next to each other
poisons? x2 all poisons

no point in playing merc, especially gemling