Crossbow- What is it good for?

[tofucsek]

The few thing I noticed about crossbows:

-they cost about 50% more than regular bows and offer about 1 dmg plus (talking about light crossbow and shortbow)
-abilities like triple shot or storm arrow don't work with them
-bolts (crossbow ammo) cost about 3 times more than regular arrows

So the question is: am I missing something or crossbows are just plain useless compared to regular bows?

[Poison]

Useless. Can't triple shot, thus they are of no worth, compared to bow.

[Black Hammer]

Ranged attack for your people who aren't archery mains so you don't waste your limited supply of arrows.

[eldercom]

There are some good crossbows so not to waste them i always use them with zurbaran. Though if there was more than one good bow and unlimited arrows, i'd definitely not bother with crossbows

[Poison]

Crossbow ammo costs more, so I am not sure this plan has merit. Better off throwing axes or daggers.

[Poison]

Longbow + Triple Shot is about 10 times more useful than Winched Crossbow + targeted Shot. Well, not 10 times, but significantly.

Winched + Chainbreaker bolts + Targeted is good for, what, 20-30 damage?

Longbow + Chainbreaker + Triple Shot = what, 33-70?

[Poison]

In my last playthrough, I had Aurelia with Madahvar's and Triple Shot, and Zurburan didn't have any ranged weapon at all. He cast rank 1 Ignifaxius if he absolutely couldnt find anything useful to do. Since he regenned 6 a turn, and Igni cost 7, it was pretty much free.

If I had Mad's bow on MC, I'd give Aurelia a Composite bow or a Longbow, one or the other. The lack of Triple Shot on the Crossbow just leaves them without merit in a tactical combat scenario, imo. They might be fine in the Pen and Paper game.

[eldercom]

Originally posted by Poison:

Longbow + Triple Shot is about 10 times more useful than Winched Crossbow + targeted Shot. Well, not 10 times, but significantly.

Winched + Chainbreaker bolts + Targeted is good for, what, 20-30 damage?

Longbow + Chainbreaker + Triple Shot = what, 33-70?

Well, and how many times could you use this combination due to limited arrow supply? Something about one battle of all the game
Tripple shot is good early in a battle when you need to kill someone particular, zurbaran is primarily a mage so in this time he buffs the party. Not to say that you can save some ap without tripple zhot training

[Poison]

There is no need to save AP, I had Zurb with everything I wanted at 18, all stats I wanted, and had about 5000 more points to just throw away, ended up buying up his str/con/courage so Corpofesso would hit more often (which worked), but there is no reason to avoid Triple Shot.

Also, yes, Chainbreakers total about 30, so that part is true, but that is just me not wanting to calculate armor in there. Still Crossbow can use Marksman to avoid armor.

Triple shot loses out slightly, in that respect, but still does well over double the damage of Marksman.

[Selvec]

Sounds to me more like Bow's are to powerful. Which I would totally agree with. Give the enemy 3 bowmen and watch them knock out characters in one round.

[Poison]

I'd argue that bows and crossbows are a wash, and triple shot is too powerful, and since only bows get Triple Shot, it artificially inflates the value of bows.

[tofucsek]

Originally posted by commdt:

Originally posted by Poison:

Longbow + Triple Shot is about 10 times more useful than Winched Crossbow + targeted Shot. Well, not 10 times, but significantly.

Winched + Chainbreaker bolts + Targeted is good for, what, 20-30 damage?

Longbow + Chainbreaker + Triple Shot = what, 33-70?

Well, and how many times could you use this combination due to limited arrow supply? Something about one battle of all the game
Tripple shot is good early in a battle when you need to kill someone particular, zurbaran is primarily a mage so in this time he buffs the party. Not to say that you can save some ap without tripple zhot training

It is actually quite easy to find a way around that limited ammo supply.
In my game mc and aurelia are the archers, both learned the shadow thingy and if you summon them in every fight when the casters have chainbreaker ammo equipped it means that no arrows will be used if you only attack with the summoned ones. Also by using this tactic would mean that storm arrow has a pretty good use, especially with blunt arrows which means 7 shots fired with a knockdown chance and no actual arrows used because only the summoned shadows doing the shooting.
Spell for shadow summon can be bought in chapter 1, costs 250 gold but it's well worth it.

[Poison]

Shadow Clone is totally awesome, when used on a combat character, instead of on a Mage.

I am doing a playthrough now as a Hammer Blow Axe user with a shield, and casting Shadow Clone to clog up half the map around my armored to the 9 hells clone.

[eldercom]

Well it depends on your playing style. Creating a shadow takes one turn and some ae, but my zurbaran is always busy with buffs in the beginning of a battle and can't spare any ae. When he is done with that there's no need in heavy artillery, so he just deals final blows with his crossbow.

[Poison]

Right, but assuming you have Shadow Clone on your MC, you can move up to your full move to the point where you still have an action, then throw out your clone. I would never clone on Zurburan, he just isn't valuable enough as an attacker.

I hear what you are saying about cleanup crossbow use, but by the time you are cleaning up, you need to throw away an action to get out your crossbow, unless you are advocating not using the obsidian dagger on Zurb, which I'd argue strenuously against. At that point in fights, I'm deliberately regenning AP on Zurb, so swapping to crossbow would be wasting 3 AP a turn.

[tofucsek]

The whole idea behind using the Shadow Clone was to be able to use the strongest arrows without ever running out of them.
As I stated and also Poison pointed out, do not use it with Zurburan as he has other things to do. Aurelia and your Mc however more than capable of casting it and just hang back with them after the first turn. Let the Clones use triple shot or storm arrow and enjoy the demolition brought on by your free arrows.