Crossbow analysis

I'm only level 71 with crossbows so far, but it's far enough to know the leveling aspect.

Issue summary:
1) Crossbows lack a quiver and add nothing else
2) Early skill choices have 1 bolt
3) Shots are not on target


1) Said by so many others, but crossbows don't get a quiver yet have the same available properties. The only difference is that crossbows can roll strength (a downside). Since quivers can get around half the added damage as well as some nice additional properties such as attack speed, this is huge. Remember that two-handed weapons get 50% more from damage mods than a 1 hander and now can be wielded in one hand with giants blood. Two handed weapons weren't even used often in PoE 1 due to the missing stats that an off hand provides. Even if the crossbow skills were amazingly strong to compensate (I'm not seeing that) the attack damage affects other things (ex. heralds).

2) The increased attack speed is offset by reload speed, but it's not even close to paper sheet DPS of a bow until almost 10 bolts loaded. Yet, all we get are shotgun skills and grenades? It's possible to play it, but painful and the swap to bow to level was like a whole new game. The first crossbow skills are the WORST experience of any weapon and this is coming from someone who hates spark witch.

3) Any shots at even 4m are a bit off target and maybe 1 in 4 will miss any medium sized enemy. The shotgun skills are expected to be inconsistent, but even ranged skills are dragged down.

All this said, I will probably still try to get it to work for a bit. They aren't terrible, just not seeing the advantages over other options (higher attack speed skills?). My first character was a crossbow mercenary and I almost quit the game if I hadn't gotten some uniques for spell casters and tried another character. I have over 1k hours in PoE, so my initial reactions to the game were less than possitive, which has mostly changed now.

They are trying something new with crossbows and its not quite there. The fact they didnt get much mention in the current patch notes was a little disheartening but there WERE some bug fixes.

Adding my findings to your post:
Back to Basics: I was fortunate enough to get a bow and xbow base at the same level/ilvl for comparison, so I immediately busted out my spreadsheet and got to work. This is what I found:

Adv. Composite Bow: 36 - 61 physical damage, ilvl 51, req 117 Dex
Adv. Varnished Xbow: 19 - 78 physical damage, ilvl 51, req 65 str/65 dex

When I looked at the stats side by side, something seemed off, so I dug a little deeper and this is what I found:
For the BOW, the minimum damage value is 59% of the maximum damage value.
For the XBOW, the minimum damage value is 24.36% of the maximum damage value.
While the XBOW has a higher maximum damage, it is only 21.79% higher than the BOW
The XBOW is a 2H weapon, while the BOW is 1H. This allows the BOW user to equip a quiver for even more stats.
The BOW requires LESS stat points than the XBOW (117 vs 130, or 2/3 stat nodes)

Given the information above, the only thing the XBOW has going for it is the skills it comes with. A wider damage range introduces more uncertainty into combat so even if the max damage is higher, you're less likely to hit it consistently and skill damage is based off of your hit damage anyway.

Playing Around: I've played merc for at least 50 hours and if I was to sum up the class in one word it would be "clunk". The Xbow ammo skills are clunky and fiddly to use (grenades are fairly straight forward; this may explain the popularity of grenade builds). Ranger flows much better because when you push the hotkey, the skill goes off.

ETA: I put together a build that works well for mapping, though breach and ritual are pretty much offlimits to me (too many mobs too fast). I've done a few iterations of it and I'm dying to try my final version, but its defo an endgame build. Most of the issues I run into involve the crossbow not responding as expected. Dodge roll with an xbow is almost a death sentence, really.

87 with the crossbow character now. The points I had before still stand and while the character can do tier 15 maps, it's painful and bad map mods put it over the limit of the character.

I really hope the fact that Crossbows aren't considered a 2 handed weapon for affixes is a bug/oversight. That's the big WTF moment when you realize you can't get even close to the same damage as any other weapon choice.

As said, grenades are the common way to play them. The skills sort of make up for the lack of stats on the weapon itself, but it's just a stealth nerf to supplementary damage sources such as heralds (you know, the most powerful part of attack builds right now).

Meanwhile, Ice Strike exists with insane attack speed, damage, and quarterstaff base 10% crit chance. Cool

"

Dracobane#7006 wrote:

As said, grenades are the common way to play them.

I am playing without grenades, finished act 2 SSF atm, but it's too easy and gameplay is kind of primitive. I am just one-shotting large groups of monsters with V-shaped ice shot paired with herald of ice, killing everyone else with high-velocity rounds (with 3 projectiles), and do nothing else. Didn't die once, and not sure if will finish campaign, it's not interesting enough, with zero challenge. On maps gameplay would probably degrade even further and it certainly will become even easier.