crossbow in ExpPT

[Odepa]

I have bow capped until lvl 35, even tought im only rng lvl 26, and Im actually trying to lvl marksmanship. I know that at those lvls not everyone has the best equipment and fighting Mandragoras the real DD are the BLM and RNG; Im planning to use acid, poison and blind bolts besides regular bolts, but anyway I would really hate to leech XP and I have never seen rngrs use crossbow in any ExpPT, is it much difference in dmg from bow vs crossbow? any suggestion? Should I also buy a regular powerbow and trow some arrows from time to time?

[Navia]

I used crossbow alot starting after level 25. Damage isn't as high as +1 bows with horn or fang arrows but you will still get hate -_-

When I leveled in yhoator I said screw the hate control and just swapped from venom to bloody bolts after getting hate and was draining IT mandragoras and smithys for 60-80hp while tanking XD.
If you are still hitting chain4 easily with crossbow there is no reason to not mix it up in xp party. Keeping a crossbow handy with 1 stack of sleep and bloody bolts will save you or your partys butt someday.
I swapped to crossbow with bloody bolts in altepa last night because the desert dhalmel didnt like a barrage of bullets in its ass followed by a split-shot ws :sweat:
Crossbow+Status bolts =

[Timoham]

I always have a crossbow with some status bolts on me. Bloody bolts, acid bolts, holy bolts, sleep bolts. Also keep my bow and some arrows at all times. Bow for damage, bolts for debuffing. I haven't tried the venom bolts since I've yet to find bolt heads to make them and try them out. Same with blind bolts. But I carry enough stuff on me already that I don't really want to add some extras. In XP parties, I ALWAYS use my bolts. I very rarely get TP, but we chain 5 with absolutely no downtime in my static party so it's worth it. With a Galka WAR/MNK using Great Axe, a DRK, and myself, acid bolts are quite nice for the defense down and give the melees extra damage making them kill them faster, so using TP (for now) isn't really worth it since we do more DOT with me using acid bolts than me using 300 damage flaming arrow. Come sidewinder, this'll probably change though.

[Stormos]

people start using xbows after Lv30 when they can start using Holy bolts. before holy bolts, xbows dont get any good bolts that will match the dmg of bows. so my suggestion is to just stick with bows and arrows and switch to xbow at Lv30. acid bolts + holy bolts will do same or greater dmg than bows and also give other melees extra dmg b/c of the def down.

But what i did was just use bow + arrow til Lv67 then switched to Obow + darksteel bolts. I'm in a set with another rng who uses Ebow + scorps and i do same or better but never less than him. Unless he uses unlimited shot + PPArrow - -;;

EDIT: also forgot to put, barrage and ws will do alot less dmg if you use xbows pre-Obow. which was the main reason why i never used xbow before obow ;p

but before you get sidewinder, all of rng's ws are extremely gimp so it really doesnt matter go with whatever you think is better/cooler/suits your style/whatever ;3

[Caspian]

I've been using x-bow and acid bolts since lvl 20. No, its not near as powerful at my lvl now (27). I do about 50 dmg I blv on IT's with a power bow+1, and about 40 dmg with crossbow+1 after the defense down has taken effect. However, I still pull hate after only a cpl shots, and it does lower the defense of your mob, therefore helping your other melees in the pt and overall shortening the battle. Bloody bolts are great at lvl. 25 and whenever I lvl I switch to x-bow to lvl my marksmenship and just tell the whm not to worry about curing me unless it gets really bad.
In short, no they dont do as much dmg, but that just means you can shoot more before you take hate, plus the right bolts can really benefit the rest of your pt. I don't use them as a main, but the 1-2k xp it takes to max my marksmenship skill is a good time to use it.

[nsxtasy]

I find that on some mobs I actually do more damage w/ my x-bow than w/ my bow.

I have Zamburak +1 and Great Bow +1 currently at lvl 38.

I start off w/ acid bolts til defense down hits. Then usually venom shot to stick poison, and then spam holy bolts til defense down wears. I do 80ish +10-30 additional from holy bolts on the Flys and bats in Gustav currently.

w/ Great Bow +1 and horn or silver arrows, maybe 90-100.
And with Serpentine gun and Bullets, 90-120. (90-100 w/out defense down)
I still try and hit acid bolts before the gun and bow also if my tp isn't that high from fight before.

But when you factor in how many holy bolts I can spam, its even further ahead in the damage over the course of the fight.



38rng/19nin