Witch Hunter and Crossbow

In my opinion, Witch Hunter and Crossbow seem like place-holders right now. Crossbow is just the bow without the quiver(in other word, worse), maybe some different element in the skill, but yeah, they are the same.

Witch Hunter I tried a lot and got a decent build (far from meta), but extremely expensive, Hand of Wisdom is mandatory, and all the Lightning stuff, like Lucky and more max lightning damage.

Witch Hunter is cool, but losing 50% armor AND evasion, which is literally a complete defense, to get a small elemental shield? I know elemental is literally the most damage monsters deal, but it is not the only one.

Armour is sad on its own, I recommend energy shield + evasion, while evasion gives you the elemental shield and the energy shield to stay alive.

Evasion alone is horrible, if your ascendancy doesn't give you evasion, like deadeye, even worse if your ascendancy can remove 50% of your evasion.

Energy Shield is strong by itself, if not the strongest defense at the moment, good if you won't use the elemental shield.

Block, unfortunately you need to use a shield to get it, so I can't say it's good to use on the witch hunter, but it's one of the strongest defenses.

Speaking about Witch Hunter ascendancy:

Weapon Master: +20(+4) weapon skill points? What? No thanks.
Just replace it or give something like every time you swap your weapons you get something.

Pitiless Killer and Judge, Jury, and Executioner: Culling Strike and Decimanting Strike are nice, but what else? Nothing, they're good, but not enough. Just give the culling strike more culling threshold and Decimanting strike some debuff that increases the damage taken based on the damage it took, or less damage dealt by it and it will last for a long time.

WitchBane and No Mercy: WitchBane is useless on its own, it feels like a PvP ascendancy, but No Mercy is the best point for the witch hunter. It gives up to 30% MORE damage based on the WitchBane passive meter.

Obsessive Ritual: It's good, but the penalty is INSANE. I recommend reducing the shield gain and penalty, like 15% evasion and armour for the shield, but only 25% less from both defenses.

Zealous Inquisition: Just another useless ascendancy point, literally it's a worse Detonate Deads skills with RNG. I recommend replacing it or just something cool like, no RNG, but dealing the overdamage to nearby enemies.

CrossBow:

It does need an identity, like I said, it's a bow with out the Quiver.
Also some skills literally needs the bow skills to work properly, that's horrible and a bad weapon design. I do like the weapons synergy but literally needing the weapon or won't work isn't fine.

Would be interesting if we get some crossbow's quivers, same idea but different, like more ammunition in the skills, bolt size, things like that.

Any ideas on this?

I'm not asking for builds, I already have one that's good, but the class itself isn't good right now. The problem that the same build would be insanely better in other ascendancies.

The ascendancy is a 1/10, but it's fun and interesting. I hope we will get something to both, the Ascendancy and the Crossbow in the 0.2.0

I forgot to give my opinion to change the Witch Bane:

Change it from less Cooldown Recovery Rate to less Spell Damage.
Or something more interesting that would still in the Witch Hunter Lore.

I'd disagree that No Mercy is the best point. I'd give that to Decimating Strike for elites/bosses and Zealous Inquisition for normal and magic mobs.

That said, I think it does have issues, like the whole "invest 4 points in a path or don't bother" for Decimating Strike, No Mercy, and the elemental shield line. Which doesn't work well with Zealous Inquisition, as that just needs two. And the stupidity of the "bye-bye 50% evasion/armour" for the shield.

Like you, I'd like to see some spirit skills that aren't the short duration banners that are str/dex, rather than using a bunch of full on strength or full dex stuff.

Then, of course, there is the entire armour and lack of hp situation, which means that anything that bypasses evasion can and will kill you pretty easily. So not good for bosses or common mobs that slam and come in packs. But that's a general game-wide issue, and not specific to Witchhunter. But it is a real issue, and why I don't use my witchhunter for bossing at all. Getting one shot is not fun.

I don't think Crossbows need quivers, though. That's a bow thing, and bows should be treated like something akin to 1h weapons due to it, while crossbows are 2h weapons. And Crossbows get a few support gems, so there's that to differentiate them as well.

Overall, though, I'd have to say Witchhunter is my favorite ascendancy, despite its issues. But it does start in a horrible place to do anything interesting with that isn't crossbow.

There've been a few posts about how bad crossbows are, but they get buried really fast on these forums. I cant speak to witchhunter but xbows as a weapon class are TERRIBLE - all drawback, no benefit.

i would also like an ascendency tree with something reload related like "reloads all ammo types at once" and then "your next shot unloads all ammo types reloaded that way" so you can build up a combo.

"

Axterix13#5693 wrote:

I'd disagree that No Mercy is the best point. I'd give that to Decimating Strike for elites/bosses and Zealous Inquisition for normal and magic mobs.

That said, I think it does have issues, like the whole "invest 4 points in a path or don't bother" for Decimating Strike, No Mercy, and the elemental shield line. Which doesn't work well with Zealous Inquisition, as that just needs two. And the stupidity of the "bye-bye 50% evasion/armour" for the shield.

Like you, I'd like to see some spirit skills that aren't the short duration banners that are str/dex, rather than using a bunch of full on strength or full dex stuff.

Then, of course, there is the entire armour and lack of hp situation, which means that anything that bypasses evasion can and will kill you pretty easily. So not good for bosses or common mobs that slam and come in packs. But that's a general game-wide issue, and not specific to Witchhunter. But it is a real issue, and why I don't use my witchhunter for bossing at all. Getting one shot is not fun.

I don't think Crossbows need quivers, though. That's a bow thing, and bows should be treated like something akin to 1h weapons due to it, while crossbows are 2h weapons. And Crossbows get a few support gems, so there's that to differentiate them as well.

Overall, though, I'd have to say Witchhunter is my favorite ascendancy, despite its issues. But it does start in a horrible place to do anything interesting with that isn't crossbow.

Nice, in my opinion, that's me, I do bosses pretty well, I can also share my build and the No Mercy is great, it's 0 to 30% >More< damage, and that helps a lot against bosses.
And I would like more support gems to crossbow tho, the quiver was just an idea.
Same as you, I liked a lot the ascendancy, it's just bad right now.

"

i would also like an ascendency tree with something reload related like "reloads all ammo types at once" and then "your next shot unloads all ammo types reloaded that way" so you can build up a combo.

I think while the crossbow is the "new weapon" from the game, it will improve over time.
An advice: Don't get the crossbow reload nodes neither the crossbow tree side.
Reason: Crossbow reload speed can be increased by attack/skill speed, that does buff your damage tho, so it's better by a lot than the crossbow reload nodes. The crossbow side of the tree(the ones that looks like a crossbow) have a lot off bad nodes until a good one, the only good would be the grenade, that you just need to spend 3 points to get it, so it's fine, but the others, just ignore them.

Crossbow has a gem that reload while consuming something, but have an insane Cooldown and I don't think it's good.
The gem that gives >more< damage based on the bolts reloaded is insanely good.

Im gemling crossbow and it took a lot of love to make it work. Stacking a lot of skill speed cooldowns helps, the less you reload the better it feels. same with attack speed. the faster you shoot, the easier the clears. Onslaught helps a lot. Only took 92 levels to figure this out lol

"

ApacheVE3D#7124 wrote:

Im gemling crossbow and it took a lot of love to make it work. Stacking a lot of skill speed cooldowns helps, the less you reload the better it feels. same with attack speed. the faster you shoot, the easier the clears. Onslaught helps a lot. Only took 92 levels to figure this out lol

Yeah, I'm literally shooting 22 arrows per second in the ShockBurst Rounds, I do have the Onslaught helm, but my helmet is better b/c it gives me a lot of attributes and some defensive things(like HP), I didn't tried gemling but people does like him.

i also learned that skill/attackspeed scale reloadspeed way too late.

but in general i have to say that witchhunter+crossbow just feels underwhelming. the fact that i have to reload every ammo type individually almost forces me to only use two types at maximum, otherwise it would get too much. add the ascendency nodes you get from witchhunter and you get a mid tier class, because there are no benefits to crossbows compared to bow for example, i use 4 different arrow skills with my ice shot - sniper deadeye and it feels really smooth, no way i play crossbow

Onslaught would be a nice ascendancy for merc hehe