Loaded skill is completely OP

[bobagorof]

The Loaded skill is completely OP.
I just had a combat with a group of soldiers, 2 of which were crossbowmen who started off with Loaded.
Every single time they took damage, they responded by shooting their attacker for ~20 damage.
Since they took multiple hits before they went down, one of them wiped out the armour and most of the health off 2 of my mercs. The other severely depleted another and when I was about to take him out, using Laceration, I came in for a nasty shock. Laceration hits twice but I wasn't able to do quite enough damage to kill him - so, he managed to inflict 40+ damage to the merc using Laceration, taking a fairly healthy and very potent fighter and obliterating him from his own attack.

Because there's no way to resurrect characters, that's an immediate 'Quit the game' moment for me, and it's frankly a pretty sickeningly overpowered ability.

I'm not sure if it's supposed to interrupt other abilities that hit multiple times, but it makes no sense - particularly when the mob is able to use their ranged weapon despite being engaged.

[LongshipOarperator793]

Yeah Loaded seems pretty broken when enemies use them. Against Fanatic Crossbowmen if you're using Two Handed weapons and trying to spin to win your character is going to stand there like an idiot staring at the guy reloading and shooting you like 4 times, quite literally nuking your health from full to dying/dead before the character's turn even ends.

Either the skill does a lot of damage in one shot, or shoots multiple times but less damage. It doesn't makes sense for the skill to be able to land multiple shots and does a ton of damage per shot.

[dq_177]

Crossbowmen seems like it didn't have much thought put into balancing it compared to the existing classes.

Its pretty weird the one with a crossbow can easily become like a machinegun compared to the archer characters.

[ShepherdOfCats]

Originally posted by dq_177:

Crossbowmen seems like it didn't have much thought put into balancing it compared to the existing classes.

I think this sums it up.

I'm experimenting with crossbowmen for the first time, with a pirate crossbow using the cannoneer perk, and I think it's brokenly overpowered for the player.

I can send a weak unit to engage an enemy (one that I wouldn't usually use in a frontal attack). Then send my crossbowman to within 4 meters of that enemy, and shoot. This does damage to the enemy and then causes my engaged unit to do an attack of opportunity. Because the pirate crossbow lets you shoot again if you engage within 4 meters, I can cause a second opportunity attack. *THEN* if the enemy has less than 50% health I can try to capture him with the crossbowman because shooting the crossbow doesn't count as a primary attack, because of the weird way they created it.

None of this requires a single valor point, mind you. I'm getting 4 hits on the enemy and a chance to capture, and because of my perk selection I get a valor point for ending my turn next to an ally.

Incredibly powerful.

Based on the devs intro to crossbows:

Unlike traditional crossbow mechanics, which often alternate between firing and reloading every other turn, this class uses a unique "Loaded" and "Empty" system. When the crossbow is "Loaded" it can fire. After firing, it becomes "Empty" and needs to reload before it can fire again.

Maybe it's just me, but I'm not really feeling the 'empty' part, whether its me or the enemy using the crossbows. It feels loaded all the time and you just go wild with it. They make it sound like this unique system but it doesn't really feel any different than taking a shot with the archer and ending your turn (except you can take more than one shot, haha). Anyone else looking at their archers wondering if they should get rid of them and replace them with crossbows?

If they were really going to simulate crossbows of the time period, it would take a full turn just spent to load the thing. I imagine that would be unpopular though.

[Darmachakra]

I agree, but it's not the "loaded" skill, its a special skill of Inquisition crossbows. It's basically a Gatling gun with unlimited ammo and unlimited shooting speed and makes no sense at all. When i first encountered that, my pugilist was shredded to pieces.

See also my topic here where I got pushy answers just for pointing that out: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1527950/discussions/0/575995354921569970/

[ROE]

It sucks. Engage with a tank and then kill them from behind. That is the only way I have found to deal with them.

[Spawnling]

Well the Eyes Mechanism is bugged.
Fanatic Crossbowmen get to shoot back while enaged, even though the weapon has Vigilance.
That shoot does not consume a loaded stack. Every Attack from a crossbo should consume one.
It's not an attack of opportunity, because it triggers Alazarian Heather shield.

Originally posted by ROE:

It sucks. Engage with a tank and then kill them from behind. That is the only way I have found to deal with them.

That or one shotting them is he best way to deal with them. And if you can't kill them before they get to act, ignore them and eat the damage. Maybe taunt them and run to reduce their damage.