Sword VS. Crossbow: A Bit of Math and A Neat Exploit/Trick to Up DPS

[Cereal]

So me and another individual were derailing another topic with this so I wanted to just have it out here as a different post. I did a few tests on the damage for both sword and crossbow and the results are actually quite fascinating. I also discovered a neat exploit that can be used to improve your damage output. If you want to skip the math and go straight to the exploit/trick, just go to the bottom.

TLDR: When attacking a single target, crossbows outdamage swords in the Copper and Sunite Tier, but swords are better in the Mithril Tier. On to the math:

My base is 114 attack and tests were done in the Northern Forests where the ghosts and toxic mushrooms are. Why here? because I needed silk lol and it seemed like a convenient place to test as there is an "arena" room here that can be endlessly reset for easier testing. Sword's Boss Hunter will also be included in the end calculation for the sword as an extra 2-10 damage.

Base + 7-8 Basic crossbowdamage does 43 damage and crits for 83-85, with double strike doing 3 extra damage so 9 per attack. With non-crits you're doing 144 on average from base damage and, with the tickdown on the burn doing an additional 12 per second(since each tick from my stats are doing 4 per hit).

A copper sword does 95-97 and critting for 220-230 with the extra hits from double strike doing 17-20 damage and boss Hunter giving an extra 2-10. At base, you're doing 116-124 per attack. Not particularly impressive compared to crossbows that not only have superior reach but also greater damage.

But once you get to Mithril tier, things start to go into Sword's favor.

Base + 22-24 Mithril crossbow damage is hitting for 52 and critting for 102 with Double Strike hits doing an extra 4 damage. So on average you're doing 168 base damage with a 12 dps burn.

Each swing of a Mithril Sword does 130-133 and critting for 280-290 with the extra attack doing 20. Thats around 152-164 at base. The base damage the two now do is completely equalized, with Swords now having an edge because of their higher crit damage ratio with Duelist and attack speed advantage of 1.

Sunite tier is where things get crazy though. If you didn't already know, Rek'Tari's Mark, which is the Orange tier Nel'Vari Crossbow, has a different firing method compared to regular crossbows. It doesn't rapidfire 3 bolts, but instead fires 4 in a slower more controlled manner. It's attacks are slowed down enough that you have near true full auto on it. It also does less damage per bolt compared to the Mithril Crossbow to compensate for the extra bolt.

So... the Rek'Tari crossbow does 47-48 per bolt and critting for 93, with extra hits doing 4 damage. Thats around 204 damage on average at base with a 16 damage burn.

The Sunite sword does 134-136 with crits doing 324-329 and extra attack doing 24 per hit. This brings the sword to around 160-168 at base and crits slightly boosting that power. Once again crossbow gets on top in the Orange tier when it comes to base damage. Granted, the Glorite sword would likely even things out again, but as I haven't unlocked Withergate in this save file yet, I can't test it.

Do note that this is just for the base attacks against a single target. The moment you're fighting more than one enemy, sword outscales the crossbow in damage output as it now does base damage x amount of enemies getting hit. Special abilities also make things pretty interesting but they can be difficult to test against each other as both are meant for two different purposes.

Basically, Arrow Storm is a boss buster that does 710 damage + a 48 burn damage per second spread out to whatever the arrows hit. The damage Arrow Storm does is a flat amount that doesn't scale with the number of enemies, so what you see is what you get. It's pretty straightforward, just point and fire.

Dash Strike on the other hand is a designed as a mob buster that does 590-610 from Double Strike to everything it hits with a few quirks to it. It's a linear dash, but your character doesn't have to go the entire way for it to connect. You could be blocked by a 3-4 thick rock wall in the mines and it'd still hit whatever is on the other side. It's hitbox can also be extended to the sides of your destination, by changing your direction while you're dashing. It can also be turned into a boss buster because it stuns everything it hits. Including Dynus(at least from my experience in 0.7 when I last fought him). You could unload a huge chunk of your mana bar on a boss with Dash Strike before they can retaliate.

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Exploit Below

Like a deranged anime protagonist, you can wield two crossbows or swords at once by hotbar cancelling. You can do this by having two swords or crossbows in different slots. Alternate between both the slots while holding down the attack button. This essentially lets you attack MUCH faster than normal.

Swords get the most out of this as crossbows takes a second or two to fully unload it's multi-attacks, and switching stops the current basic attack or Arrow Storm. It becomes near useless when you have Rek'Tari's Mark as it already has a near full auto function baked in. Swords don't have this issue as it throws out it's full damage in an instant. It also works with Dash Strike, nearly guaranteeing you stun lock a boss for as long as you have Mana and time the switch correctly.

[Ydyp]

Easy solution: go with magic, I don't even bother with swords and crossbows anymore.

[Gilver Redgrave]

Originally posted by Sairiel:

So me and another individual were derailing another topic with this so I wanted to just have it out here as a different post.

Me whos name shouldnt be spoken out loud. Muhahahahahaaaa.

Also did you include all skills for Crossbow ? Did you include Elf Race Perk ?

As i told you before Crossbow is weaker in terms of stats because it gets so much perks over time aswell as having a Race that increases Crossbows damage.

Originally posted by Ydyp:

Easy solution: go with magic, I don't even bother with swords and crossbows anymore.

I use Magic and Crossbow....because for some reason there are no Staffs in the game.

[Cereal]

Originally posted by Ydyp:

Easy solution: go with magic, I don't even bother with swords and crossbows anymore.

So... thats a funny thing actually. The topic that me and another person were actually derailing was a topic specifically about Magic and the lack of staves. And I'm in the camp that believes magic can definitely be better. Heres some numbers on it from my Magic focused save file to show exactly why I feel this way:

With the same 114 base spell power:
It's main damage ability, fireball, does less damage than a 4 shot volley from Rek'Tari's Mark at 190 base and crits at 396, at a quarter of the attack speed of what the crossbow can output, even with maxed Spell Haste.

it's AOE options are chain lightning and fire beam. Chain Lightning does 202 damage to the main target, critting for 272 and the bounces to 3-4 targets doing 137 when in close proximity to the primary target, down to 40 at max bounce distance. Fire Beam does 73 damage in a line for several ticks, critting for 143. Both are nowhere near as strong as what a Mithril Sword Dash Strike can do as it can hit an infinite number of enemies at once(unlike Chain Lightning's limit of 5-6 targets) while also doing tremendous amounts of damage to the entire group(unlike Fire Beam's poor damage).

And their strongest spell, Cataclysm, does 241 damage per second for 6 seconds for a total of 1446. Comparing it to Mithril Tier Dash Strike and Arrow Storm(their special attacks can be used once every second and a half, so 4 times in the time Cataclysm is active) Dash Strike does 2360-2440, and Crossbow's Arrow Storm does nearly twice the base of Cataclysm's at 2840 with a burn damage of 198 per second after that. And this is just Mithril Tier. Also, Cataclysm has a cooldown, unlike the two special attacks of the physical weapons.

There also aren't many spellcaster armors either. With the only ones available at the moment being the Specter set at 18 bonus spell damage and the Nel'Vari Spark gloves that give 5 for a total of 23 Spell Power. There are some seasonal armors from Blossom as well, but they are very expensive for the stats they offer(like... the Spring Set costs 2100 spring tokens and just gives a total of 10 spell power across all pieces, cape included). Compare that to the available physical sets.

The entire Ore line(with Sunite gloves alone giving 22 attack), the Bush and Aerodynamic sets that are perfect for early-mid game crossbow users(but crossbow focused players can also go for the Ore sets just by merit of them giving attack) and the endgame Phantom Plate set that gives a massive 40 attack alongside a ton of other freebies like 30% chance for Free Air Skip, and mobility bonuses.

But all of this doesn't mean Magic is horribly bad. It's very useable and can be quite fun. It just needs a bit more attention from the devs to really make it shine.

[Cereal]

Originally posted by Gilver Redgrave:

Originally posted by Sairiel:

So me and another individual were derailing another topic with this so I wanted to just have it out here as a different post.

Me whos name shouldnt be spoken out loud. Muhahahahahaaaa.

Also did you include all skills for Crossbow ? Did you include Elf Race Perk ?

As i told you before Crossbow is weaker in terms of stats because it gets so much perks over time aswell as having a Race that increases Crossbows damage.

Haha lmao, ye-who-must-not-be-named.

So it includes all perks for both sword and crossbow so they're on equal footing, but not the Elf Race perk cause I'm a sucker for wings and halos and it would make the post wayyyyy longer. I do think that my tests are more skewed towards Crossbow though since critical strikes are unpredictable. The bonus 30% crit damage that sword gets from Duelist would, in theory, make the two quite even depending on how many crits you can get during a fight. But thats a whole other mess of statistics that can be hard to get right.

Pretty much my results from the tests I've done are: Crossbow is good at single target shredding and ranged safety aka general use in fields and all bosses, and Sword is for mobbing, and cheesing the difficult bosses(seriously who decided to put a stun that works on bosses on Dash Strike?) aka the Western Forest Dungeon and the Dynus boss fight. Focusing on both means you can handle everything the game can throw at you while double dipping into a lot of skills that benefit both.

Ngl though, doing the math on all of this was pretty fun. Also have you at least tried giving Dash Strike a shot yet? Because it's one thing to use just numbers and say that X gets a lot of good perks and another to actually try using the thing it's competing against.

Hell, I thought sword sucked too in my first playthrough, then I put one point into DS. Things spiraled out of control from there and that character ended up becoming a spellsword with an emphasis on the sword part.

[Gilver Redgrave]

Originally posted by Sairiel:

Ngl though, doing the math on all of this was pretty fun. Also have you at least tried giving Dash Strike a shot yet? Because it's one thing to use just numbers and say that X gets a lot of good perks and another to actually try using the thing it's competing against.

I am playing mage sooooo.....

I mean the choice between Dash Strike and lets say a Chain Lightning,Firebal or the Mining AoE Spell that also deals Mob damage isnt really hard for me. :x

[Cereal]

Bit of an addendum: I did a couple more tests, more specifically geared with high difficulty content in mind where the gaps in power would be more noticeable.

TLDR: Both sword and crossbow appear to be nearly equal in terms of clearing speed, with only a few seconds separating them when it comes to dealing with bosses. The big gap exists in dealing with mob swarms where both are separated by more than a minute.

These new tests involved the floors 21-30 of the Western Forest Dungeon(turns out the 1 per day entry limit only applies if you accept the quest reward from Ryder)

I'll make this brief as this topic is pretty long already. Two types of test were done, a boss speedrun test against the Floor 30 boss with just the weapons, and a general speedrun test from floor 21 to 30, with just the weapons, the weapons with magic complimenting them, and then both weapons used together.

In the boss speedrun, the Rek'Tari crossbow can clear in a very consistent 9-11 seconds. An extra second is shaved off with the Elf Racial Trait. The Sunite sword on the other hand is very wonky as theres a pretty big variance in clearance time, at 13 up to 17 seconds. Duelist's crit damage boost may be having a bigger impact on damage than I initially suspected. Dual wielding two Sunite swords puts it nearly on par with the crossbow at 10-14 seconds.

In the general speedrun, the sword can clear in 2 minutes 50 seconds up to 3 minutes 10 seconds. The crossbow can clear the general speedrun in around 3 minutes 30 seconds up to 4 minutes 10 seconds. With 10-15 seconds shaved off with the Elf Racial Trait. The crossbow suffers quite a bit here as it is not geared to handle large mob swarms.

Magic does little to help sword in the general speedrun as sword already covers everything magic can do. Using magic actually increases the clear time of sword by an extra 20-30 seconds. The opposite is true for crossbows, and reduces their clear time by a large 40-50 seconds, with chain lightning and cataclysm being great compliments to crossbow's lack of AOE. Using a crossbow and sword combo, however, is the most effective, with the combo clearing the test at 1 minute 45 seconds up to 2 minutes 10 seconds.

[!?!]

The crossbow is great until you run into something like the slime king, get swarmed and wish you had aoe.

[Cereal]

Originally posted by Gilver Redgrave:

Originally posted by Sairiel:

Ngl though, doing the math on all of this was pretty fun. Also have you at least tried giving Dash Strike a shot yet? Because it's one thing to use just numbers and say that X gets a lot of good perks and another to actually try using the thing it's competing against.

I am playing mage sooooo.....

I mean the choice between Dash Strike and lets say a Chain Lightning,Firebal or the Mining AoE Spell that also deals Mob damage isnt really hard for me. :x

My first character also started as a mage. A single point in DS was a game changer for clearing stuff and it already did more damage than Vacuumulus without any point investment in other physical attack skills and only having half the physical attack compared to my spell power. Since you're using a crossbow, you likely already have points in some of the other physical skills that'd make Dash Strike pretty strong.

Besides, you can always just get that skill point back through community tokens at the Town Hall store, or a crafted skill book from the anvil if you don't like it.

Also, let me get this straight, you're saying sword is bad but haven't tried the very thing that makes it ridiculously strong...?

[kyuzou]

Originally posted by Sairiel:

But once you get to Mithril tier, things start to go into Sword's favor.

Base + 22-24 Mithril crossbow damage is hitting for 52 and critting for 102 with Double Strike hits doing an extra 4 damage. So on average you're doing 168 base damage with a 12 dps burn.

Each swing of a Mithril Sword does 130-133 and critting for 280-290 with the extra attack doing 20. Thats around 152-164 at base. The base damage the two now do is completely equalized, with Swords now having an edge because of their higher crit damage ratio with Duelist and attack speed advantage of 1.

Where can you get the Mithril bow? is it crafted or is it just from a vendor? is there even xbow crafting in the game?

[Cereal]

Originally posted by kyuzou:

Where can you get the Mithril bow? is it crafted or is it just from a vendor? is there even xbow crafting in the game?

You can get the Mithril crossbow from the travelling merchants next to the town hall. And no, sadly you can't make your own crossbows. All of them are shop purchases with some... very questionable costs. The Mithril one is 32k coins, and the Nel'Vari crossbows that are worth using are worth 750 Mana Orbs and then 1750 Mana Orbs respectively

[Gilver Redgrave]

Originally posted by Sairiel:

All of them are shop purchases with some... very questionable costs.

The funny thing is he sells a Heavy Crossbow for 5k. If i scroll down he sells another one for 3,5k.......lol ? Dunno if thats a bug but i did take the discount. x,D

[Cereal]

Originally posted by Gilver Redgrave:

Originally posted by Sairiel:

All of them are shop purchases with some... very questionable costs.

The funny thing is he sells a Heavy Crossbow for 5k. If i scroll down he sells another one for 3,5k.......lol ? Dunno if thats a bug but i did take the discount. x,D

The last slot is a "sale" slot that changes every season I think. A couple seasons ago it was an iron sword, and now when I checked its an iron helment for me. So you got lucky and had that specific crossbow go on sale.

[Gilver Redgrave]

Originally posted by Sairiel:

The last slot is a "sale" slot that changes every season I think. A couple seasons ago it was an iron sword, and now when I checked its an iron helment for me. So you got lucky and had that specific crossbow go on sale.

Good to know.

Sadly in my Summer Season he does not seem to have anything for Sale. :/