Add a crossbow in the form of a unique bow

Tala Moana,

Crossbows have been suggested several times, with many good arguments why they would fit in the world of Wraeclast. The closest thing we've gotten so far is the Siege Ballista gem, but never an actual item.

I understand that adding an entire new weapon class is a huge thing to ask, so I suggest to add a crossbow to the game in the shape of a unique bow. In my opinion such a unique (cross)bow would feature these kind of stats:

"The Machine" (unique bow):

500-600 physical damage
20% less attack speed (1 attack per second)
no critical strikes
ignore enemy armour

I will give some clarification on the stats:

=> The physical damage per hit is immense and consistent. This represents the fact that crossbows can potentially store more power than handbows. When crossbows were introduced in Europe, they were feared even more then early firearms because of their raw power.

=> Less attack speed: To compensate for the high damage, the speed is abnormally slow. Game-wise it's a balancing trick, but it also fits reality: reloading a crossbow takes considerably more time then firing the next arrow from a bow.

=> No critical strikes: Crossbows were seen as a major threat because they didn't require a skilled soldier to perform well. While handling a longbow took years of training, a crossbow was deadly even in the hands of the most unexperienced combattant. Bow users in PoE mostly tend to go crit, and this could represent the fact that only skilled people (with a lot of increased crit and accuracy) can handle a bow well. Crossbows don't require this investment to be deadly, but as a downside a highly skilled archer will not have much advantage with a crossbow (cannot crit). Game-wise, this compensates both for the high damage and adds variation to the vast majority of crit bow builds.

=> Ignore enemy armour: In regular PoE, this doesn't offer much advantage as monsters generally have low armour rating. However, with low damage-per-hit skills like barrage it can still make a difference. The stat however is mostly there for lore: crossbows are amongst the best armour penetrating weapons ever invented. They were the bane of heavily armoured knights. In PvP PoE, this stat can actually make a significant difference against heavy armour builds.

Please comment, add, suggest, be nice.
If you just like the idea, bumping with +1 is appreciated!

I like the idea or can't crit and ignores enemy armour. That is a nice idea.

Well x-bows required a long time to reload, so rate of fire should be low. Meaning no barrage since that would be totally impossible. High damage, certainly so a + 35% to damage dealt but -50% to rate of fire or something like that. The downside to doing high damage and mostly ignoring armor was the way low rate of fire due to being hard to reload.

Enemy Armour is already really low based on what existing information we have, but I love the idea of Armour penetration. Thus I would suggest that it ignores enemy Physical Damage Reduction instead, or something like X% less enemy PDR.

The highest one has like 900 armor or something. So that won't help much.

+1

Nice idea and solid justifications.

Wouldn't it require animation updates for every character? Sound prohibitively expensive to develop.

"

Gauhron a écrit :

Wouldn't it require animation updates for every character? Sound prohibitively expensive to develop.

Add a new Bow Line akin to the Thrusting Swords. To justify having a new Crossbow-Inspired Bow Set

With something like 5-10-20% Chance to Knockback on Hit with Attacks or something else as its innate mod.

"

Wouldn't it require animation updates for every character? Sound prohibitively expensive to develop.

I think the animation is very close to that of normal bows, so it should be ok.

"

The highest one has like 900 armor or something. So that won't help much.

"

Enemy Armour is already really low based on what existing information we have, but I love the idea of Armour penetration. Thus I would suggest that it ignores enemy Physical Damage Reduction instead, or something like X% less enemy PDR.

As I said in my opening post, this stat is mostly there for lore purpose but could make a difference with low-hit physical damage, like Barrage-GMP e.g.. It also has a niche use in PvP against heavily armoured builds.

The suggestion of not only taking into account armour, but physical damage reduction all together is interesting. However, I have a few issues on this. Firstly monsters also don't have such high physical damage reduction so it will still not make a very significant difference. Secondly, I don't really know what endurance charges refer to in reality (maybe a mental willpower to overcome physical pain better for a moment?), but I don't see why crossbows would negate some of that and other weapons won't.

"

Well x-bows required a long time to reload, so rate of fire should be low. Meaning no barrage since that would be totally impossible. High damage, certainly so a + 35% to damage dealt but -50% to rate of fire or something like that. The downside to doing high damage and mostly ignoring armor was the way low rate of fire due to being hard to reload.

Did you check my suggested crossbow? It has low fire rate and high armour penetrating damage, so you should be satisfied. I'm not sure what you want to say here.

I do think however that Barrage would be cool on a crossbow, and can easily represent the Chinese fast-firing but less heavy hitting repeating crossbows of the middle ages.

"

It's a decent idea that would open viable "bow" builds on the left side of the tree.

"

+1

Nice idea and solid justifications.

"

I like the idea or can't crit and ignores enemy armour. That is a nice idea.

Thanks guys!