Whats a good pairing with hand crossbow?

[EmperorC3]

I like big crossbow but rarely use hand crossbow. What are some good loadouts that make it shine?

[iLLuSia]

Winnie and Vetterli are a good choice. Hand crossbow doesn't shine though, it's more of a tool.

[yurisuika]

If you are going for a purely PVE stealth loadout, Suppressed Vetterli + Hand Crossbow w/ Poison + Chaos is a good setup. You can easily take out any monster quietly and can cause some chaos amidst enemy hunters, often getting them into fights. I've used it a lot for solo event farming in previous events.

Not that great for PVP though.

[Der Guteste TTV]

You can either use it as a pvp weapon or utility weapon.

Winfield for example is a great allrounder and doesn't really need a secondary to cover the weaknesses. So using the crossbow with normal/poisonbolt handles all kinds of pve and soundtraps and allows you to move fast & silent more efficiently.

You can also look at the handcrossbow like a small shotgun. It can work up to 15m for chestshots, but it's quite unreliable due to single shot, no limb penetration and bad velocity.
I used to run it with Mosin.

As a utility weapon handcrossbow is unbeaten, nothing even comes close.
And while a 15m oneshot for a small slot is pretty strong it It kinda lacks in pvp since it is unreliable.

[Reqhart]

I used to like silenced vett with Handcrossbow normal/poison bolts for stealth runs. Poison bolts are also good for area/entry denial and in some places can prevent an enemy push when you're low hp buying you time to heal if needed.

[Blame]

As others have mentioned, hand crossbow is more of a utility tool.
Sure, in a pinch it can be effective at killing a nearby enemy, but that's not it's best usage.

[io]

Ok... am I the only one here who sometimes can wipe out the entire squad with the hand crossbow? all you need to do is pick the hunter with skin color that almost blends with map (not 100% color accurate). If you play squad, try to Flanking the enemies while your teammate dealing with them or if you play solo, just take the advantage when enemies are busy with other squad.

if you play stealth build weapon, when you pick any of it, night mode. is. your. best friend.

I know that a few players reconsider the hand crossbow as a tool, but hey it’s a fine tool for killing enemies silently. + it's only cost you 1 slot.

[Barry MaCockiner]

A good aim and patience to acquire it with said weapon.

I'm not a fan of the crossbow sight, they could be better.

Very satisfying to use if you have a good run.

[Haruspex]

Winfield.
High RoF and if you have levering that weapon pretty much answers every situation you need. Poison hand crossbow would just be a quality of life pairing to kill crows

[Dont be Silly Wrap your Willy]

Double crossbows is actually quite a good loadout for a solo. Big one for the main damage and kills , hand one for utility with poison ammo and finishing opponents off if your bolt hits a limb or smth.

[NikemanBOOM]

Originally posted by yurisuika:

If you are going for a purely PVE stealth loadout, Suppressed Vetterli + Hand Crossbow w/ Poison + Chaos is a good setup. You can easily take out any monster quietly and can cause some chaos amidst enemy hunters, often getting them into fights. I've used it a lot for solo event farming in previous events.

Not that great for PVP though.

Pretty much this, I'd say. It's a decent last resort, though. Strong enough to one-tap to the chest. I've also used the poison bolts to wall off some doors or openings with poison. Just a matter of how creative you can be, really.

[Studens Ludens #GameStudies]

Handcrossbow is amazing. it is part of my main loadout.

i take the vetterli bayonett with it, when i start a new hunter.
with a hunter that already won a match, i upgrade to mosin bayonett.

on the handcrossbow i go half normal bolts and the other half poison.
like others said: you do have to see the handcrossbow more as a tool than a weapon. you can get rid of ducks, crows, armored, immolators and basically everything else except meatheads, with one shot. it is amazing. it makes traversing so much easier and fast. it can give you a huge advantage in fights. you can also block entries with poison bolts. and besides the spider you can kill all over bosses with it super fast and safe, especially the assassin as he is vulnerable to poison.

the handcrossbow can also shine as a weapon though !!!
you just have to know when to use it. you can outrange shotguns with it. think of it as a non-RnG shotgun with slightly higher range that requires more precision. i got plenty of 15+meter kills with it. super satisfying!
but sometimes it is better to use the bayonett of the main weapon. it takes some time to read game situations and make the right decision.

[Blame]

Originally posted by FOXHOUND:

Ok... am I the only one here who sometimes can wipe out the entire squad with the hand crossbow? all you need to do is pick the hunter with skin color that almost blends with map (not 100% color accurate). If you play squad, try to Flanking the enemies while your teammate dealing with them or if you play solo, just take the advantage when enemies are busy with other squad.

if you play stealth build weapon, when you pick any of it, night mode. is. your. best friend.

I know that a few players reconsider the hand crossbow as a tool, but hey it’s a fine tool for killing enemies silently. + it's only cost you 1 slot.

Sure, you can wipe teams with a knife, too. Doesn't mean that it's the best weapon for combat.

Instead of hand crossbow, you can use the big crossbow. Or a bow. Or a silenced nagant. With poison ammo. And fanning.

Point is any weapon can kill people, but some are better at it than others. Just because it can be done, doesn't mean that that is it's best use.

I can wipe teams with a bomb lance, though its best use is still for killing ai, especially meatheads and bosses.

[Some Kinda Kobold]

Hand crossbow is dog poo. I've died to melee weapons more than that cruddy thing.

Low velocity, Short kill range. Seems inaccurate? All the drawbacks of a large crossbow with nothing good.

The only 'upside' is you can leave short lasting clouds of poison in windows but at the cost of a perfectly good pistol.

I'd recommend ignoring the hand crossbow even exists and try out the Silenced nagant.