Crossbowmen

[Gorgeous_Joe]

Why are the crossbowmen like machine gunners from WW2 in this game? You hit them and they shoot you, they run around and shoot you three times or more, seems a bit daft considering crossbows were cranked by hand usually with the user bent over and it took quite a while, meanwhile my bowman only shoots once a go? Doesn't seem right.

[Mazzle Dazzle]

Yea I mean I agree. It seems like its significantly stronger than the ranger which is kinda disappointing. There definitely is some power creep I'm seeing with some of these class options.

[Gorgeous_Joe]

Nevermind, after some googling I have found much discussion on this matter already, seems the inquisition have some perks and abilities/equipment that turn their crossbowmen into machine gunners which is just stupid and having REALLY ENJOYED the game after 60 hours of play and now coming across crossbowmen, just straight up leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
Yes, I know you can use abilities and equipment to negate the crossbowman but it still doesn't stop it being utterly stupid when you attack him and he shoots you multiple times in return.

Medieval machine gunner more like......

[Spawnling]

Wait till you build your own Gunner with 100% crit chance and 4 reloads + a free extra shot per turn. You can fire up to 18 shots a turn split between up to 5 targets, if the enemies survive long enough...

Even more fun with the Pirate's lucky charm stamp, giving you +5% crit damage for each crit you land.

[Gorgeous_Joe]

That's just stupid, hopefully it gets a complete rework.

[Spawnling]

Originally posted by Gorgeous_Joe:

That's just stupid, hopefully it gets a complete rework.

It already got a stealth patch, where the number of extra shots from reloads would persist over turns. Now they reset to 0 each turn ^^

Edit: Some clarification.
The Gunner gets 1 extra shot each time he "Reloads".
Reloads are stackable.
The crafted crossbows have the Reload! skill, which reloads for 1 VP.
So you essentially start with 2 shots. Next reload is 3 shots, then 4 and so on.
At the end of your turn, if not engaged, you Reload.


Before the stealth patch you could end your turn at 4 extra shots and would start the next turn with 5 extra shots. Now you start at 0 (which I think was the intended way in the first place).

[Gorgeous_Joe]

Originally posted by Spawnling:

Originally posted by Gorgeous_Joe:

That's just stupid, hopefully it gets a complete rework.

It already got a stealth patch, where the number of reloads (= extra shots) would persist over turns. Now they reset to 0 each turn ^^

It's a start at least

[Spawnling]

Originally posted by Gorgeous_Joe:

Originally posted by Spawnling:

It already got a stealth patch, where the number of reloads (= extra shots) would persist over turns. Now they reset to 0 each turn ^^

It's a start at least

Some other things were also changed.
Sabertooth Brooch now adds 15% crit chance -5% guard (before 10 str -9 armor)
The other Brooch (Aeda Brooch, I think) adds 4 movement -9 armor (before 10 dex -9 armor)
Captain's song from Belerion generates Rum instead of Beer.
The new Song in Skelmar generates Akvavit instead of Beer.

I call it a stealth patch, because I couldn't find any patch notes about it.

[Gorgeous_Joe]

Thanks, updating my GOG version today 40% discount couldn't resist

[ShepherdOfCats]

I came on here raging the first time I came up against an inquisition crossbow, haha. I've worked out how to handle them now. Save them for last. Their individual shots aren't that powerful, but they add up. So you can afford to let them take a solo shot each turn until you can get enough guys tag-teaming to take them out in one go. I have a few guys with bandit heater shields that reduce arrow damage by 90 percent, and I make sure they're juicy targets to soak up fire until I'm ready to deal with them.

[Gorgeous_Joe]

Originally posted by ShepherdOfCats:

I came on here raging the first time I came up against an inquisition crossbow, haha. I've worked out how to handle them now. Save them for last. Their individual shots aren't that powerful, but they add up. So you can afford to let them take a solo shot each turn until you can get enough guys tag-teaming to take them out in one go. I have a few guys with bandit heater shields that reduce arrow damage by 90 percent, and I make sure they're juicy targets to soak up fire until I'm ready to deal with them.

Yeah, I agree, dealing with them isn't really a problem once you know how. My point being though is that the game mechanics are so frikkin stupid it's funny. In the right circumstances they can fire off 4 shots on their turn and when being attacked in melee they can fire off unlimited shots, that is just plain madness. Yes it's a game and yes it's all fantasy but when crossbowmen become essentially modern day machine gunners it just looks silly in my humble opinion. Even one the the perks/abilities is called gunner for friks sake!
What makes it all even worse is that if you have actually seen/used a medieval crossbow, depending on the time period, they TAKE FOREVER TO LOAD when compared to a bowman.

[arthureloi]

It's ridiculous. I attacked an inquisition crossbowman with my pugilist with 4 punches. After each punch, the crossbowman made an attack. After I passed and it was the crossbowman's turn, he disengages without an attack of opportunity, and proceeds to machine gun my team 5 times, killing my pugilist in the process.

It's not even funny, seems like some characters were not tested. Made me immediately uninstall.

[Spawnling]

Originally posted by arthureloi:

It's rididulous. I attacked an inquisition crossbowman with my pugilist with 4 punches. After each punch, the crossbowman made an attack. After I passed and it was the crossbowman's turn, he disengages without an attack of opportunity, and proceeds to machine gun my team 5 times, killing my pugilist in the process.

It's not even funny, seems like some characters were not tested. Made me immediately uninstall.

While attacking with your pugilist he retaliated with low damage melee hits, right? Even if it uses shooting animations it should deal way less damage.
If he shot back with full damage, without losing relolad stacks, the game would be bugged.

Of course he disengages without an attack of opportunity. He even lights you on fire while doing so, because that's the skill from the light inquisition helmet. All inquisition units with a light helmet have that skill.

I guess uninstalling is a valid option over reading what an enemy and their items do.

[LeftPaw]

I'm new to the game and just came across my first crossbow guy. The ****er nearly wiped out my crew. This is screwed up. A crossbow should be slower to reload not faster, doing two shots to every one from my archer. This is crazy, what were they thinking?

Move shoot move shoot and then bugger off out of range of my troops? This is a cheat unit they needs to fix. Or give my brute a sniper rifle that can fire 10 times per turn to even the odds.

[HunterSilver]

Originally posted by Spawnling:

While attacking with your pugilist he retaliated with low damage melee hits, right? Even if it uses shooting animations it should deal way less damage.

Inquisition Crossbows fire and reload every time they take damage even in melee, that's working as intended.

Interestingly it qualifies as a full attack and not an attack of opportunity. This means any tank unit with an Alazarian Tower Shield will instantly kill them, since that retaliates with an Attack of Opportunity every time they are hit by a normal attack in melee. It also means multi-attack units with low guard will get shredded.

Killing yourself by sending a unit against someone who hard counters them isn't the game's fault. It's like having your archers shoot at Bandit Wrongdoers when they explicitly state that they have 90% damage reduction to arrows in addition to their guard. I'm sure with enough effort you Could make it work, or you can just make a smart matchup that works in your favor instead.

Originally posted by LeftPaw:

Move shoot move shoot and then bugger off out of range of my troops? This is a cheat unit they needs to fix. Or give my brute a sniper rifle that can fire 10 times per turn to even the odds.

Most crossbows can shoot 1~2 times per turn, with the exception being the Inquisition Crossbow which mostly just retaliates against you. Like most ranged units they will attempt to stay at range and pelt you while you deal with melee enemies. You can hard counter any crossbow who isn't an Inquisition Crossbow by just engaging them in melee. Works on archers too.

If you want melee units that hit 10+ times per turn you're looking for the Pugilist or Axeman. Standard Cutting Maelstrom builds usually deal damage 10+ times per turn on the low end, and you can have them dealing damage to groups 40+ times per turn against durable enough enemies. Pugilist's Thrashing ability just hits 15 times on its own, not counting any of their other attacks, which in total can easily stack up to 30 times per turn using a Bandit's Katar and unstable oil.

[Doom_Cookies]

Originally posted by arthureloi:

I attacked an inquisition crossbowman with my pugilist with 4 punches. After each punch, the crossbowman made an attack.

Right, this makes sense so far. You get the same thing with enemy tanks from Alazar using their iconic attack of opportunity counterattack shield. Anything that can counterattack is a Pugilist's worst nightmare.

Originally posted by arthureloi:

After I passed and it was the crossbowman's turn, he disengages without an attack of opportunity, [...]

One of The Inquisition helmets grants the ability to disengage and set an enemy on fire. This was almost certainly that ability being used.

Originally posted by arthureloi:

[...]and proceeds to machine gun my team 5 times, killing my pugilist in the process.

This part is strange. As Spawnling implied, if the counterattacks were full damage, they should have consumed the reload stack and the enemy should never have been able to fire multiple times on their turn.

I guess if you already engaged them first with Taunt, they might not have consumed the stacks of reload because they were technically punching you. That crossbow isn't supposed to proc attacks unless a normal crossbow attack is possible, so that's weird even then. I never tried that to see what would happen.