I know regular bows (Hunting and War) and firearms have their nice roles. What could the Arbalest and crossbow fulfill as a weapon in builds?

I know regular bows (Hunting and War) and firearms have their nice roles. What could the Arbalest and crossbow fulfill as a weapon in builds?

 

Well, if you've got a way to remove & prevent concentration (Chanter, Druid), and you can reduce the reload time (Streetfighter rogue, Ranger to a lesser extent), I suppose you could interrupt people constantly.

 

Course, pierce-immune enemies won't be damaged by those weapons.

 

EDIT: I've toyed with the idea of combining a Chanter w/ either a Streetfighter rogue or a Ranger using Crossbows and/or Arbalests. As a joke/reference, I was thinking of naming the character "Kanye West".

Edited November 15, 20187 yr by hansvedic

I have found the Essence Interrupter bow that you can buy in Port Maje to be a really awesome bow. It is expensive but with some enchantments is a one shot kill weapon. It will even make kills your allies. And wait and see what it can do when made mythic.

The Arbalest modal is nice.  I like to make that the alternate weapon for a primarily-melee character, and use it as a combat initiator. 

A Black Jacket/Ranger with Crossbow as his basic weapon and three arbalests as interrupt-fallbacks is a good char to ensure that enemies can't get off a spell/ability.

 

If you see an enemy starting to do dangerous stuff just switch to a loaded arbalest (with modal on) and shoot the guy. Since reloading can be cancelled the arbalest will be ready to fire immediately after switching.

Huh. Neat. I'll have to try a quick-switch Black Jacket build sometime, I guess you'd be able to get 0s Switching Recovery.

 

Now we just need more crossbows and arbalests.

I have found the Essence Interrupter bow that you can buy in Port Maje to be a really awesome bow. It is expensive but with some enchantments is a one shot kill weapon. It will even make kills your allies. And wait and see what it can do when made mythic.

 

While the Essence Interrupter is indeed pretty darn awesome, I think that fact is somewhat off-topic, given that the topic is about using Crossbows and Arbalests.

 

EDIT: Still, it can be a good backup weapon for pierce-immune enemies on a crossbow or arbalest build.

Edited November 15, 20187 yr by hansvedic

Thanks, everybody! A lot of great ideas with quick switching, back-up weapon, ect. I really would like to see more crossbows and arbalests before/during/after the last DLC (even if it's one more each). The one that scales with Arcana doesn't work for me well and Fleetbreaker comes too late to enjoy for me.

Even pierce immune enemies get interrupted or knocked to the ground. Two quick arbalest users can pin down bosses pretty much the entire time.