Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
- 6.2K All Categories
- 3.1K Everything Achaea
- 1.5K North of Thera
- 26 Archives of the Terraformer
- 257 The Matsuhama Arena
- 885 The Golden Dais of Creation
- 299 The Scarlattan Theatre
- 149 The Blank Canvas
- 2K Getting Help
- 412 General Questions
- 258 Quick Class Questions
- 1.3K Tech Support
- 313 Client Help
- 486 Curing Systems and Scripts
- 841 Off-Topic
- 255 The Wander Inn
- 586 The Universal Membrane
- 298 Class Discussions
- 298 Individual Class Sections
- 20 Alchemist
- 9 Apostate
- 30 Blademaster
- 9 Depthswalker
- 14 Druid
- 4 Infernal
- 20 Jester
- 19 Magi
- 34 Monk
- 11 Occultist
- 8 Paladin
- 7 Priest
- 29 Runewarden
- 18 Sentinel
- 26 Serpent
- 20 Shaman
- 9 Sylvan
In this Discussion
Artefact crossbows and development of the crossbow as a weapon
As I understand it, Knights have the ability to use crossbows, but
I've never seen the weapon used. I am not sure if it's effective, but it
certainly does not seem popular.
As I recall from people debating weapons, crossbows
can hold their own against bows in usefulness. It's standard sacrifice
in speed for attack strength. Also, as I recall, thief-types can use
crossbows, and sneaky serpents can probably use the crossbow to backstab -- it COMES loaded, so the mechanism seems the same as a backstab because you just sneak up, get in position and unload the weapon. There's probably other uses as well -- for example, it could be made to partially ignore armor. (Artefact bows could be better and better and better at this by artefact weapon level.)
So, I was hoping to propose a crossbow equivalent of the darkbow ability, a development of crossbows to be equally good as bows balance-wise by
being stronger but slower in a way that makes them worthwhile, and the
introduction of three Artefact crossbows built on this premise.
Comments
Crossbows just don't have the speed to compete with darkbows/artie bows. That's the entire thing. It's the same issue as rapiers vs scimitar or battleaxe, but the crossbows just don't have the raw hurt that the axes do that make them semi viable over rapiers at times.
@Nellaundra : right, but if they were modified to make up for the speed detriment by raw power in various ways maybe more people would use the weapon.
There's ways to represent raw power other than just the damage -- the weapon could stun or as I mentioned ignore armor, in addition to envenom. And maybe other things.
The last thing today's Achaea needs is bows that stun.
Alrighty, scratch that idea. Maybe something else would work, though.
Crossbows have the exact same speed as longbows and darkbows. Only artefact bows have different speeds. The only disadvantage of a crossbow is lower accuracy, and the fact that there are no artefact versions (and artefact bows do more damage than crossbows).
Isn't that kinda weird though? By the way the weapons are loaded, readied to attack, and fired, them having the same speed and damage seems odd to me.
As long as Crossbows are a worse version of Darkbows gained earlier in the skill, they will always become obsolete. They'll only be used by people who either don't have the Darkbows ability yet, or by the tiny minority who think crossbows are super stylish and totally go with their trenchcoat, buckle hat, and silver witchfinder's lantern. Same problem faced by abilities like Wildcat and Jackdaw in Metamorphosis.
You could add more variables to bow types to differentiate crossbows: speed, damage, damage type, range, accuracy. You could allow crossbows to fire new arrow types, make them stronger at shorter range, let them be used on a target within the same room. But is that worth it? You'd be giving arbitrary buffs to an aspect of classes that is already strong, and needlessly complicating the bow mechanic purely to justify the cosmetic difference between crossbows and darkbows.
IMO if you want to make crossbows more of a signature weapon, and stop them from being overshadowed by darkbows, then take crossbows away from serps and knights and give them exclusively to a new class. Preferably the pirate class
. You could make darkbows serp-only, and crossbows knight-only, but that seems like a pretty bad idea.
Crossbows aren't made obsolete by darkbows, the higher damage on crossbows is pretty significant. If you're a serpent with the marksman trait, the accuracy probably won't be a problem either in most cases, so it's worth carrying around both a crossbow and darkbow (until you get an artefact bow, which does make crossbows obsolete).
The only change I'd make is to allow artefact crossbows, even if they have the same stats as artefact bows and are only cosmetically different (because I'm not sure we need something with even more damage than Lupine Bows).
I don't know, @Blujixapug : a buckled hat with a rosariuswitchfinder lantern may be nice
But that leaves one hand occupied and unable to smite heretics. Now here's a solution: Wear the witchfinder lantern as a hat and replace it with blazing flames.
Now you can scourge and purge with both hands.
Yeah I realised immediately after typing it that I would totally play that class.
Also thank you @Sena for proving me wrong!
I always used a crossbow over a darkbow, and have aim to have my current ranger's bow customised into a crossbow. For me, I found them worth it, and even noticed a slight damage increase between crossbows and darkbows based on my testing. I mainly used it as an RP mechanic of being a soldier, in the fact that crossbows are often more compact and easily carried by such personnel.