Crossbows - what is it with them?

Hi all,

Would love to know the views of the community on crossbows. 5 playthroughs in and several toons trialled and not yet have I gotten to grips with them. Are they an acquired taste? Or are they really just a little bit crappy? Anybody swear by them?

Well, I've never tried them. They're helpful for hitting an enemy quickly if you are far away, but bows have better reload speed, albiet at the cost of slower start up speed, and are easier to use at range, although they are slower traveling.

Basically, crossbow bolts travel faster, in my experience, and the first shot comes out of the bow faster, but they reload slower and aren't as accurate at range.

my sl40 uses them, he dont really have the dex for much bow use, and i use the crossbow because he dont have any real ranged attacks if and when needed. because of the reload time you would not use them like you would a bow. ill post more on how i use it in a little bit

crossbows are great for shooting the wasps in blight town if you can't wield a bow or magic.

I used to use them a lot when I first started playing the game. The advantage that I find that they have over bows is that you can go one-handed with them so u could still use your shield.
A +5 Lightning Avelyn with a good stack of Lightning bolts is great for taking down retreating players in PvP I find. It's a bloody pain of a weapon to get though, I died tons of times trying to get it in the Duke's Archives.

An extra 300-ish damage instantly at a distance

I think they are crappy, but several times I see peeps pelting me with Bolts, or trying to. They're ez to dodge.

great for ctaching runners, and its an excellent addition to a slow str build to randomly shoot an opponent while he's backing out of range of your giant club.

They have an awesome stun function.In PVP,if you wait until your opponent is mid attack when they are very close,firing your crossbow will usually get a headshot with some counter damage,stunning them for a moment.I find it kinda funny with they start bleeding out from their head.

Flankydizzle wrote:The only one I ever use is the Avelyn and it's cake to get if you use the save/reload glitch.

Which glitch is that? Do you save/reload on the platform and let the game drop you down onto the shelf?

morte wrote:

Flankydizzle wrote:The only one I ever use is the Avelyn and it's cake to get if you use the save/reload glitch.

Which glitch is that? Do you save/reload on the platform and let the game drop you down onto the shelf?

Reload before you hit the ground.
Not even a glitch, it puts you back in the last stable area.
People just exploit it for no reason.

Slightly off topic but has anyone fired a crossbow when you don't have the strength to one hand it? Every time I see that animation it gives me a bit of a laugh every time.

Crossbows are handy for low-level guys. Upgrade the CB to max and it's great against the game. Use the binoculars to aim beyond lock-on range.

CBs are good against bosses, too. Avelyn is good against moving targets, such as Kalameet. Seath is too easy using a crossbow because you can lock-on anywhere in his cave.

I gave up trying to kill the four kings with a crossbow, but since I did it with a shortbow, I think it should be able to be done.

I didn't think much of crossbows until I did my SL6 Deprived run. In that run, the heavy crossbow + sniper bolts + hawk ring were instrumental in my success. Since crossbows don't scale I could do fairly good damage (can even boost it with Power Within). I also got fairly decent at free aiming the bolts to hit targets beyond lock range.

Avelyn using lightning bolts can be useful against invaders, too, if they are running away from you. When will people learn not to run away in a straight line? :-)

CB offers the best dmg'per'upgrade ratio, meaning that you can get quite a boost upgrading even Light CB to +5, and shine brightly with Red Tearstone Ring on low levels. I always do that to hunt down titanite Demons, Painting Guardians, moskitoz, ratz and other low poise PVE.
PVP shines brightly as a surprising attack or Pyromancer'/miracle trolling.
I always prefer Heavy Bolts, but still have Lightning ones as an alternative for cheap turtles. Also, CBs do mixed damage when upgraded to Divine.
I just like them.

I love crossbows because of personal taste but overall, I'd say they are not as popular as I expected them to be. Useful for pulling enemies, certain bosses are actually a lot easier if you use crossbows only for example Seath, Kalameet, Manus. Nito can turn into a complete cakewalk if you know how to dodge his ranged attack (not like he's challenging in the first place lol). And it's also a nice change in PvP, you can catch some people off guard
Allow me to do some shameless self promotion here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZClKVemeEI
Dual wielding crossbows is completely useless, but it looks fun^^

I hope, FROM will improve crossbows in DkS2...I think about a ring for faster reload or maybe a ring which enables you to do the Chester sweep kick, would be fakken cool

I find them to be a simple easy to use wep that most builds can use but lack of scaling and the lack of proper aiming dissuades me from using one primarily. Shame as love crossbows

Crossbows are viable for low level, high level, pve and pvp.

It's all in how you use them.

For instance a mage using HCSM and an avelyn can be deadly.

Pursuers --> Avelyn would be great too, but I refuse to use pursuers.

Crossbows have been an established viable weapon for some time now.