I'm back... I want to stay.

[Slack83er]

Hail everyone. Especially those that already know me and whom I've manage to annoy! I've played some other games in this period of absence, and now, I want to try again this title, with a new approach. I have now understood the real nature of this game, and I'm ready to play it as it should. I've recently discovered in P&P my passion for the crossbow. Is it a viable weapon? What class complements this weapon the best?

 

Thank you, hope you can help! 

[Raven Darkholme]

A cipher is pretty viable with a cbow.

It might not be the ideal ranged weapon but it's definitely viable.

It should work well with pretty much any ranged class rogues, rangers, paladins, too.

[Ben No.3]

There's a crossbow called "twin sting", it's a soulbound weapon and binds with cipher, rouge and ranger. There are two builds around here for that, a double-cipher build "ditchomos soulbenders" http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/86049-class-build-the-dichotomous-soulbenders-twisted-twin-ccdps-mophers/ and a ranger "storm and plague caller" http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/85513-class-build-storm-plague-caller/

 

But nice to have you back

Edited September 23, 2016 by Ben No.3

[Boeroer]

Crossbows have no reduced crit damage - so they're not bad for any class that wants to stay ranged and rolls a lot of crits - like rangers and rogues.

There's a nice soulbound crossbow named Twin Sting that shoots two times without reloading. It is bindable to ranger, cipher and rogue. Ranger's special enchantments with it are the best in my opinion. But there are two other nice unique crossbows, too (both in the Endless Paths by the way).

I personally would use crossbows with a ranger. With Swift Aim, Gunner and a lot of DEX it's not that slow anymore.

 

edit: oops, Ben No.3 was faster with the Twin Sting thing.

Edited September 23, 2016 by Boeroer

[Ben No.3]

One thing to consider... Do you want to use a "actual" crossbow or a aralbest (bigger but slower crossbow)? For example, for a cipher I'd recommend a aralbest because of the higher focus gain since they have higher base damage... But they all have lower crit damage, so as boeroer said, a ranger or rouge is better of with a crossbow

Edited September 23, 2016 by Ben No.3

[Boeroer]

However, an arbalest is always overbearing - meaning is causes prone on crit. It's not too powerful because of the long reload phase of course. You can't chain-prone stuff like with an overbearig melee weapon. I think arbalests have the longest reload phase of all weapons by the way and crossbows the shortest...?

 

The first unique crossbow you can get is "Good Friend" and I think it's in the Endless Paths at lvl 8 (yeah, quite late I have to admit). It's not bad for rangers because it has +4 ACC and +25% damage when you and a team mate - preferably that should be your animal companion - attack the same target, which you should always do because of Stalker's Link and Stunning Shots.

 

It may also be that using Vicious Aim, despite the longer reload, is resulting in more dps because of the increased damage and lot more crits. You can counter the reload malus with Gunner and lots of DEX. Yeah, maybe that's even better than Swift Aim. One should make a chart...

Edited September 23, 2016 by Boeroer

[rheingold]

Wendgar is a great option, though it can arrive late depending on your dragon slaying skills. But I had a ranger using it some time ago and it was great. Far quicker than an arbalest and more damage than a warbow and it looks cool. What's not to like! Obviously when I say more damage I mean more damage and not dps if that makes sense....

[Boeroer]

Wendgär is without doubt the best non-soulbound crossbow.

 

And you don't have to kill the dragon, you can also pick the easy road an help him escape.  

[rheingold]

Yeah I suppose you could; I just have this unfortunate moral dilemma about allowing monsters to possess unwilling hosts....

Though it does make things easier.

[Slack83er]

Hey, thanks for your help! So, class-wise the choice narrows down to ranger or rogue? I'm not sure which one I would be able to use... does the ranger have good dialogue options? You know I don't min max so for me some builds are not even viable.. I'll have to choose my own stats and background... do rogue sneak attack even if ranged? Sorry, I don't know anything about those two classes....

[r2d23]

You can also play a cipher with focus on ranged weapons. With Island Aumaua you can take Gunner, Quick Switch and the fourth weapon slot (forgot the name of the ability, sorry). This way you can make up to 4 (or 5, with Twin Sting) quick shots (done by firing and then switching the weapon without waiting for a reload, make sure you bind a hotkey for that) thus generating insane amount of focus and doing tons of damage (casters are always good targets because of poor deflection and low health). After that, you can keep on using your last weapon in a traditional manner (fire & reload), casting stuff and so on.

 

I've had a similar character in my recent playthrough but I used bows and arquebuses instead, and it is insane how powerful he was. I imagine a ranger would be even more devastating with this combination in terms of pure damage output (there was a thread on reddit somewhere about such ranger build succeeding a TCS run in 2.03). No idea about rogues but I think sneak attack works in short range (up to four meters). I wonder if anyone ever tried to do a build of rogue who does sneak attacks with ranged weapons using quick switch tactic or if it is viable at all.

[Loren Tyr]

I'm not sure I would go for a Quick Switching style with crossbows though. Their reload time is much shorter than others, off the top of my head I think about 3.3s (vs about 5 - 6.5s for the other reloadables). Especially if you go for Swift Aim, with that and Gunner you get down to about 1.8s of reloading time (at 10 DEX, obviously). Switching-induced additional recovery is about 0.75s with Quick Switch (unless you do the cheat-switching thing), so that's just a 1 second gain and only for the first couple of shots, but at the cost of two talents (if you take Arms Bearer as well) and a strong pressure to use an Aumaua. And with Twin Sting the gap gets much smaller still. So personally, I'd probably just do traditional fire and reload with a crossbow and use those Talent slots for something else (and maybe take Wood Elf for the additional ACC). 

[Jojobobo]

Hmmm, how does Driving Flight work with Prone/Stun on Crit Weapons? Can it hit more than one guy? I would test, but laziness gets in the way.

[Slack83er]

Thanks again for your strategies, but I really don't require to be a "machine gun". It's enough to be a good character who can hold his own in combat and be useful. Good dialogue options complete the PC. Ranger or rogue seem like good choices to me,... cypher is maybe too difficult to use for a newbie?

[Loren Tyr]

I'd go Ranger. It's a nice rounded class, would make good use of a crossbow (with Vicious Aim or Swift Aim, either one). And you have your animal for added variety as well as nice role playing flavour. I quite enjoying my current mage-wannabe implement ranger and her fluffy pet 'cat' (he grew a little bit on account of the magical mishap that sent her to Gilded Vale) for that in particular as well.

[Ben No.3]

Be aware though that any non melee ranger will drop Res (and even some melee ones)! Not necessarily bad, just something to keep in mind when talking about mental stats. Generally speaking, all dedicated DD and spellcasters have... You can build around if with some classes though (shameless self promotion )

Edited September 23, 2016 by Ben No.3

[Ben No.3]

However, an arbalest is always overbearing - meaning is causes prone on crit. It's not too powerful because of the long reload phase of course. You can't chain-prone stuff like with an overbearig melee weapon. I think arbalests have the longest reload phase of all weapons by the way and crossbows the shortest...?

 

Isn't the longest an arquebus?

Also shouldn't speed penalties hurt the least with a crossbow since they only apply tithe recovery time and that time has the lowest base?

Edited September 23, 2016 by Ben No.3

[Boeroer]

I think arbalests are even slower than arquebuses, despite the ingame description.

 

Vicious Aim causes 20% attack speed penalty as well as 20% reload penalty. Don't fully understand your question. Speed penalties always hurt - it's just not that noticeable since reload normally takes longer than attack+recovery. But you will be slower nonetheless.

 

As Loren Tyr said, with Swift Aim, Gunner and good DEX you can fire with crossbows at a good speed. Swift Aim not only speeds up the recovery, but also the reload phase a lot. The reload phase with a crossbow is very short then.

[Slack83er]

Be aware though that any non melee ranger will drop Res (and even some melee ones)! Not necessarily bad, just something to keep in mind when talking about mental stats. Generally speaking, all dedicated DD and spellcasters have... You can build around if with some classes though (shameless self promotion )

Sorry Ben, don't fully understand your statement. Does it mean that I must drop res in order to get...say... per? or dex? I have still not decided the race and bg also... dunno for now... elf is kinda obvious...

[Ben No.3]

 

Be aware though that any non melee ranger will drop Res (and even some melee ones)! Not necessarily bad, just something to keep in mind when talking about mental stats. Generally speaking, all dedicated DD and spellcasters have... You can build around if with some classes though (shameless self promotion )

 

Sorry Ben, don't fully understand your statement. Does it mean that I must drop res in order to get...say... per? or dex? I have still not decided the race and bg also... dunno for now... elf is kinda obvious...

Yes, basically. For damage dealers, Res is always a dump stat

[Ben No.3]

About my attack speed comment... I figured speed penalties would hurt us the least of all reload weapons with crossbows since their base animation/recovery durations are the lowest, and because the penalties work by %

[Slack83er]

I see... thanks Ben. Any ideas for a good race and background? 

[Loren Tyr]

I did some testing a while back, and got the following approximate reload times at 10 DEX (plus approximate time for a full attack cycle):

- Crossbow: 3.3s (7.5s)

- Pistol / Blunderbuss: 5.1s (9.3s)

- Arbalest: 5.6s (9.8s)

- Arquebus: 6.4s (10.6s)

 

There is a bit of give in those reload times however, that happens with longer animations more generally. But it's close enough for comparison, anyway.

 

Assuming no attack speed penalties/bonuses, the general breakdown of attack cycle duration is 0.2 (idle) + 1.5 (attack) + 2.5 (recovery) + R (reload). Other than the R, this is the same for all ranged weapons except hunting bow / wand / scepter. Which also means that of the reloading weapons, Crossbow actually suffers the most from attack speed penalties (but benefits the most from bonuses), because recovery takes up proportionally more of the total attack cycle. Eg. +20% attack speed means 0.75s recovery. For Crossbow that's a 6.7% increase, for Arquebus just a 4.7% increase.

 

Anyway, with Gunner and Swift Aim (again, assuming no other bonuses/penalties, including armour) recovery becomes 0.8 x 2.5 = 2s and reload becomes 0.56 x R, so for Crossbow that's 1.85s, for a total duration of 5.55s.

[Ben No.3]

Slacker...

Haha, we're there again?

"My hunter was from a small wild orlan village in the Ixamitl Plains. Very proud of their freedom from the larger kith races (unlike their hearth orlan cousins), they lived almost as wild as a pride of lions out there in the fertile savanna. They stayed away from larger kith villages (like human settlements), and mostly hunted and foraged for food instead of farming. As she told Caliscia, my orlan was largely responsible for hunting for her village. She stalked wild antelope by blending into the tall dry grass with her golden fur, inching just close enough to loose arrows. She eventually bonded with a wild warthog, who helped her hunt by circling, herding, and keeping prey closer to her bow.

 

Ora loved her family and village, so nothing could have driven her out just short of exile. Which is exactly what happened: a hard season drove the hunters to search farther and take greater risks. A less seasoned hunter wanted to seek out an elephant graveyard (a river ford where elderly elephants whose last row of teeth have worn down go to eat softer river plants until those teeth wear out and they slowly die of hunger, leaving a lot of elephant skeletons in their wake) since a whole elephant could feed their whole village for a season. He gambled on the meat, lost to the tusks. Since he was beloved by the community, everyone blamed her for the accident (since, as the senior hunter, she should have known better than to try to take on a desperate elephant with nothing but a few bows and spears), and Ora was all but driven out."

-Faerunner, on the backstory thread, 9th of May 2015

 

I find it pretty interesting.... Otherwise, "hunter" background also offers (besides "in my village I was responsible for hunting" and "actually I'm a fisherman and I think another one, but I forgot) that you used to hunt down monsters, which is always interesting

 

Also, thanks Loren! Numbers offer a lot of insight...

Edited September 23, 2016 by Ben No.3

[Slack83er]

Ok mates, I'll try to figure out something as a main Char idea. Orlans sound fun anyway.. i thought of them just not to be the typical elf. is a dwarf any good for a ranger?