Crossbows are not assault rifles

A real, medieval crossbow was taking a while to reload, about a minute for the heavy crossbow kind. It was also quite a scary weapon, able to pierce through plate armor.

In PoE 2, a crossbow shoots about 3 times per second, until you have to change the "clip". It even has an integrated grenade launcher.

These are not crossbows, these are assault rifles.

Now, maybe the crossbow is meant cater to the needs of players who forgot the world is a medieval fantasy, and just want modern firearms (with a very indulgent game/dungeon master). Okay, fine!

But what about those who want to equip a crossbow and actually feel like they are using a crossbow?

Why are there no crossbow skills that take several seconds to reload, for one powerful shot able to take out 10% of a boss' life?

Where are the actual crossbows?

I dont think a realistic crossbow would feel good in a game like this.

You have a weapon that has less range and overall less damage potential than a bow, takes way longer to reload while immobilizing you, and the only advantage over a bow is that you can better fire it from cover...

I prefere the PoE2 Version over a realistic one.

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StragusPoE#7529 wrote:

Where are the actual crossbows?

In a museum.

Pretty sure you can't summon skeletons or call down lightning IRL either, OP.

If you're ever wondering how X works in a fantasy game, the answer is "because magic."

That being said, there is absolutely a crossbow skill which works as you're describing. If all of the different crossbow skills correspond to different guns, Plasma Blast is the Railgun. It's very slow and shoots through literally anything for enough damage to oneshot rare monsters. If you can make it chain off terrain, you're in for a good time.

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StragusPoE#7529 wrote:

But what about those who want to equip a crossbow and actually feel like they are using a crossbow?

Why are there no crossbow skills that take several seconds to reload, for one powerful shot able to take out 10% of a boss' life?

Where are the actual crossbows?

Hard agree, crossbows should feel like crossbows... few second cooldown but hit like a Mack truck. I don't like to current implementation as they feel more like assault rifles as you stated.

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CharlesJT#7681 wrote:

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StragusPoE#7529 wrote:

But what about those who want to equip a crossbow and actually feel like they are using a crossbow?

Why are there no crossbow skills that take several seconds to reload, for one powerful shot able to take out 10% of a boss' life?

Where are the actual crossbows?

Hard agree, crossbows should feel like crossbows... few second cooldown but hit like a Mack truck. I don't like to current implementation as they feel more like assault rifles as you stated.

an IRL Longbow hits harder then an IRL crossbow. The advantage is that you need less strength to operate it and less technique, not the damage potential.

Just press the trigger button once every 30 seconds and enjoy your real medieval roleplay. Sure, you'll die quickly but so would have a real medieval crossbowman when faced with zombies and other magical creatures.

while the xbow has multiple settings (shotgun, rail gun, AR, 50 cal w/ WP loads etc.) all of these settings can feel clunky to use. It seems like every time I switch a skill there's this weird pause between switching to the skill and being able to use it.

I'm not sure if its reloading every time I swap skills or what, but it makes it difficult to combo them effectively like we're supposed to. Heck, I couldnt really get permafrost/frag to work reliably simply because I couldn't hit things w/ perma fast enough to freeze em.

Currently w/ galvanized bolts i'm running thru act 2 with an AA-12 and while its a blast (heh) I agree with OP: this isn't what a crossbow is supposed to feel like.

Having said that, slowing down the ROF in the current game design would be a death sentence. There are already several loads I cant use on boss fights because they slow you down too much. Making xbows slow but highly damaging will just increase frustration on boss fights when you miss.

It's called steampunk. Get over it. Not everythign has to be accurate medieval lore.