Can someone explain (potential) usefulness of a crossbow to me?

[Bronthir]

Hey guys,

As my first character I picked Velmir. He is starting with a spear and a crossbow so in the early game I used crossbow and everything was fine. Enemies were dropping only shortbows so not so great weapons, I wasnt even picking it up. I thought that I'll stick to use a crossbow all the time because of better accuracy and armor piercing values but later I found warbow. I tested it and basically never looked back. Better accuracy of a crossbow was meaningless because Im using take aim all the time anyway but Im shooting twice as fast. Also about armor piercing, my warbow have the same armor piercing values as my crossbow BUT bodkin arrows have +25% armor piercing while bodkin bolts only 10%... so in the end Im shooting twice as fast, can shoot twice in 1 turn with a bow from volley rather than just shoot and insta reload from a crossbow and thanks to all of this I can kill most of the enemies from range before they can reach me while being mostly spear user. I have only 4 points into ranged weapons... (level 10) When I was using crossbow I was content with just softening enemies before melee. I could only kill enemy with it when I started from a max range and had a time to shoot every 3 rounds and most of the time I was just wounding them. I also have basically the same damage per shot with my bow and crossbow.

For example, In one of the last dungeons with a bow at lvl 9 I entered a room and found a boss + 2 enemies. I was able to kill 2 mobs easily and take nearly 50% of boss health before he finally reached me. A cant imagine doing it with a crossbow. Maybe I might be able to hurt boss only or kill 1 mob, just it.

Recently I also unlocked Brynn merchants so I found new tiers of weapons and while better crossbows are well... better, I still see them as a significantly inferior to a bow. From what I saw, crossbows have some crit efficiency but damage is basically the same as bows, while bows can have far superior range (like 12 tiles for a longbow).

Its worth to mention that I didint invested even single point info perception so Im shooting my bow with basic weapon accuracy + take im. I nearly never miss. Only 1 crossbow I saw in a Brynn shop was standing out from others. I dont remember its name but the main feature was -15% to weapon skill energy cost and only -10% to basic accuracy, so It looked like nearly perfect crossbow for full archer that is using many active skills. Cheap skills + possibility to shoot without takim aim (because only -10% accuracy while he invested a lot into perception and accuracy items) but still... if he was a full archer, why not using for example longbow and constantly crit people from 12 range (unaware target)? Im not counting even insane long shot with such a distance. Sure, longbow have enormous +40% energy cost for skills but still there are other bows with +10% or +15% with 10 range, same armor pen as this best crossbow I saw and still can shoot much faster.

From what I saw there are some nice synergies with a crossbow in a ranged tree like dexterity, free reload and take aim for killing enemy in melee or headshot instant reload and (I think) also take aim for killing enemy with it but still, in terms of raw potential... well... :D Any crossbow lovers here?

In my opinion crossbows need damage and armor piercing buff.

Edit:

I saw a video from year ago and there the same crossbows that in my game have 25 damage, there had 36 damage rofl. Devs nerfed it hard. Too hard.

[Heau]

Crossbows are meant more as a secondary to a melee main with less investment into ranged tree and per attributes.

In particular, the one skill that gives you free reload and automatic take aim when you swap back into a bow#xbow load after a melee kill gives you a bigger action economy with xbow than with bow. Lets you poke the next enemy before he reaches you or maybe slow kill mages from a distance if you lack mobility in your melee kit.

In effect, xbows also have more front-loaded damage. I.e. the very first shot since you were able to do the reload before engaging combat is decent early game.

XBows were not for skilled sharpshooters in the medieval era and I think its intended that they fill more of a niche for melee swaps than as pure ranged.

They have no short-range / point-blank penalty unlike bows so they have some some other areas of value.

[brown29knight]

Early game, they do more damage than a bow with better base accuracy, and as you can pre-load them, the first shot is no slower than a bow. Great as a melee side-arm, to soften up foes.

Late game, headshot (skill) instantly reloads your crossbow if it kills (which it almost always does vs. human sized targets), leading to massive damage spikes, and several of the ranged skills are more effective with crossbows, applying bonuses twice. This means a late game crossbow user with a maxed out ranged tree is frighteningly powerful.

Also, the carved crossbow is a beast that breaks ALL the rules. Massive crit/crit damage, and a truly minor acc penalty make it a weapon you can fire without taking aim, thus getting all the double crossbow skilltree bonuses, and still firing as fast as a bow that takes aim. It has the downside of a lower max range, meaning longshot will be the only skill that hits out to max vision range, but by the time you can get one as a ranged character, you'll likely have a +3-4 to your vision and range from Perception, so while it is shorter range than most end-game bows, it is still farther than a new character can see. The Brynn Crossbow is much the same, it has very good accuracy, damage AND range, making it a beast of a weapon, but it lacks the 10% crit chance of the carved crossbow.

Mid game (where you are at Brynn, and level 10) You are almost always better off with a longbow. The elves have a nice bow for sale from the start, and it isn't too much work to unlock the Edders bow at the carpenter, which if you can stand the energy cost, is a god among bows.

Also, I should note: any bow with a range of 10 can fire as far as you can see. Perception increases range AND vision, so a range 10 bow will keep increasing as your vision does. The only exception to this is the survival skill that grants +1 vision. At that point you need a 11 range bow to shoot as far as you can see. Any greater range is useless, as the foe is out of sight. The carved crossbow has a range 8, every other endgame bow/crossbow has 11 or more.