Fixing crossbows

[Carfner]

After playing crossbows for a bit here are my observation so far

1 The loaded/unloaded mechanic is interesting and does make the class work uniquely, but basing everything on it seam a bit overdoing it.

1.5 For early game it doesn't do much until late game where it pays off, which in itself is an interesting idea when it doesn't hinder early game, however some late game combos have you shoot more projectile than bowmen which is really absurd. Granted tehre is a specialisation that makes you shoot more and that just feels weird. I do encourage you to replace it with something more fitting like a standing shield that provides protection or a bayonette for melee damage.

2 Consistantaly accross several new games for testing, crossbow starts with less stats and less xp than the rest of the group which creates a noticeable disavantage that only fades a few levels in.

3 The crossbow is one of the weakest weapons damage wise. Observations show it does less than dagger or bow, katar does less, but deals several attacks (and options) that ultimately makes it deadlier. An easy fix would be to set the crosbow as a 2handed weapon damage/stat wise while the bow would be 1 handed.

4 The canoner specialisation, when upgraded, says the 2nd consecutive shot on an ennemy will cause a crit, yet I never saw netheir my 2nd consecutive shot nor the related attack of opportunity deal a crit. This could be fixed to make the text accurate or you can make it so the 2nd shot deals vulnerability.

5 The randomnes scan backfire easely (and in fact did) I would suggest making it like a katar stance. Katar switch between offensive and defensive and get perks to play on that, scorpion could switch between bleeding, poison and fire bolts, improvement would add fever.

6 out of what 7 starts, only one has no rogue, yet there are 3 story companions who are rogues (possibly 4 I haven't battled the skelmar yet), so please in the name of all that is holy stop adding rogues, in fact all the expansions starting team should have their rogue replaced by something else. As an example, since the crossbow team are legion veteran, the rogue could be replaced by a far more fitting sword or spear or even another crosbow. In fact an ideal original composition would be to have spear, sword, crossbow, then a second of one of them.

6.5 speaking of companions, since vertruse has none, something you could do is have the injured prisoner be recrutable (and an archer), then in the megamine you added between athes and vertuse (great job by the way) there could be a crossbow companion.

[da_mad_king]

Sorry but Crossbowman is one of the strongest Classes in the game. You should go to You Tube and look for a video called immortal Crossbow or something like that. In the Video you can see a Crossbowman destroying a hole Army alone!

[Carfner]

Beating an army 5+ levels below with exploits, late game purple items, ect is nothing impressive.
That is of course assuming the video doesn't use cheats.

Also if you read you would also have seen a nerf I proposed of limiting the reload which is likely part of late game exploits since there are builds and weapons that give youu attacks of opportunity everytime you are attacked, plus shoting several times in your turn to the point where the bowman uses less projectiles in a combat than the exploit crossbowman in a turn. This makes no sense hence why part of the fix is to limit how often you can shoot.

[Spawnling]

I'd say about points 1-4:
Yes Crossbowman gets overpowered once they get a 2nd weapon, granting them an additional reload.

Damage wise Scorpion deals 50-90%, Gunner 30-50, Cannoneer 39-78%, (Arena class 50-90%, level 15 lcass 50-88%)
So the class is stronger than your average Bow 60-100%, Dagger 80-100% and Katar 40-50%*2, as you get at least 2 shots off per turn. (All Dext. weapons use the same stat table, so only the percentages matter).

The problem with Gunner, when you Reload! (skill) before your first shot, you get 2 shots off and then another 3 (150-250% damage with guaranteed crits on consecutive shots), which triggers the level 8 "reload on crit" adding another 4 shots.
Late game you can make an absolute joke out of it with 5 attacks and a total of 19 shots per round, without any "exploits" (attacks of opportunity) or cheats.

Then again late game Swordsman get infinite attacks thanks to the new DLC sword...

[northernwater]

Originally posted by da_mad_king:

Sorry but Crossbowman is one of the strongest Classes in the game. You should go to You Tube and look for a video called immortal Crossbow or something like that. In the Video you can see a Crossbowman destroying a hole Army alone!

Lvl 14 with endgame gear and build?

[Gorgeous_Joe]

Crossbowmen were OP before the nerf and now they are mediocre at best, they need to find a middle ground. Why would you take a crossbowman when you could have an AOE archer? I suppose it's preference, a ranger cutthroat can kill and kill and kill and kill until they run out of moves if you are hitting the right targets. Ultimately it's down to preference i think but I found the Crossbowmen pretty underwhelming after the patch, way too OP before it though. Inquisition machine gunner squads were no joke!

[Alexeiy]

Originally posted by Gorgeous_Joe:

Crossbowmen were OP before the nerf and now they are mediocre at best, they need to find a middle ground. Why would you take a crossbowman when you could have an AOE archer? I suppose it's preference, a ranger cutthroat can kill and kill and kill and kill until they run out of moves if you are hitting the right targets. Ultimately it's down to preference i think but I found the Crossbowmen pretty underwhelming after the patch, way too OP before it though. Inquisition machine gunner squads were no joke!

My observation after the nerf was that lvl 12+ gunner did go from reliably killing 6 enemies a turn to killing 5,8 enemies a turn. Considering that it is a point and click class that doesn't really care about the positioning of itself or its enemies, that's fine.

The gunner still completly outclasses the pugilist as a "bosskiller".

Edit: I just tried out the buffed machinist-class, which is pretty OP. It just takes 2 machinists to kill 30 lvl 17 guards. Not quiet as OP as warriors or swordmen with the infinite attack skelmar weapons, but overall the strongest class without any gimmick weapons.

[Carfner]

Further fixing that crossbows need is that the specialities make them lose stats, normaly a class speciality will give you a varying amount over time and switching from one to other may cause a loss, but crossbows, aside from canoneer, they just lose movement at no gain whatsoever. canoner at least gain some consititution.
but since a crosbow starts with less movement, loosing even more is a pain.
if crossbows were noticable more precise and longer ranged than bows that would be okay, but it is not the case.