How to make crossbows viable?

[⎛⎝Sharkestry⎠⎞]

inb4 "you don't, they suck"

i'm level 50 and running a stealth archer build that's working well for me. I'm reliably killing enemies at a steady pace and having a good time.
Yet, using a crossbow gives me a feeling of completely handicapping myself compared to just using a bow. I cannot reliably kill enemies with a crossbow.
What type of build/perks do you need to actually make crossbows viable in normal gameplay? Do I just need a better legendary? My current one is mediocre, at best.

[Insane]

Crossbow is a weapon that is not suitable for high end content even if you try really hard. It's more than enough for normal survey of map to kill some trash mobs, but not for events or anything else. It's a weapon for fun an joy. No more than that. It's not that they suck, it's just that game in itself is not well suited for this type of weapon. Feeling of completely handicapping yourself will never go away if you will continue using this weapon. Better legendary will fix some of it's issues, but please do not waste any legendary certs to get a better one.. There are some unique bolts for crossbow, you might want to try them as well.

[PotatoBasket]

They used to have an auto-fire that fired three bolts simultaneously that made it fairly deadly at close range. Combined with explosive or plasma it could be quite a decent 2nd tier weapon.

The reason they don't? They can't. Or just don't care. One of the many "But why?!" moments all players share when they realize it.

Like the Hellstorm Missile launcher that in the story (spoiler) is devastating BoS level tech that "shouldn't be in the hands of settlers". Turns out it's kind a shabby tier-3 missle launcher that you have to perk everything into and use Vats+crits to compare with even tier-2 weapons.