So I can equip the crossbow and use it but it doesn't hit for nearly the damage it should based on the damage rating
Probably because (feedback already inserted on nagafen, 1+ month ago) the bow uses crushing instead of focus which is 90% of the gear usable by priests/mages. Already suggested, ignored, then copy + pasted onto nagafen. Alas.
There is a skill (NOT a stat) called AIM that you have to level to effectively use a crossbow on live. I personally saw no crossbows on FG, but that's what I'd check first.
Get the cheapest ammo possible, and find something to shoot at in order to raise your Aim skill. Ideally this would be something with tons of hitpoints that actually doesn't damage you much. I guess you could shell out for the training monkey and shoot at that. I'm guessing Aim affects chance to hit, but I dunno, I haven't seen anything explaining the mechanic other than it's for crossbows. If you mean "there is no gear that has Aim boosts on it", you are correct. But the melee autoattack stats should apply, right?
OK so i maxed my AIM right off the bat as well as piercing. So i need to train crush as well? A guardian in my guild has lower aim than I do and hits harder with his crossbow. I am guessing it has something to do with auto attack multiplier and if so it needs to be fixed.
Gear with offensive skills boosts Aim. Most mages have more +Spell than we need, so switch a few pieces of gear to +Offensive. I'm in the low 290's Aim/Crush/Pierce, but no idea what the miss rate is going to be against something like Darathar (I'll find out tonight). Also, as mentioned, use the cheap tin crossbow bolts when leveling the Aim skill, but you need decent quality bolts to do decent damage for actual combat. Also, I'm not sure you need anything other than Aim, the crossbow does Piercing damage, so that might (probably) be important (I had max pierce before getting the crossbow, so only saw the Aim skill going up). Also a note about range damage in general for mages, chanters do half the ranged damage per hit of summoners and sorcerers. This happened back during CoE release as I recall.
It doesn't appear that 'Aim' is affected by offensive stat bonuses. Perhaps a ranger could verify this? ------------------ Nevermind, it is, but spell skills doesn't effect it so mages kinda get screwed on this one.
There was only the collectors edition level 47 crossbow, and it didn't even come out until we were already in DoF. We also got a crossbow in SF for the hunter's, but it was so poorly itemized that no one bothered to obtain it, at least in my guild. More offensive skills. The only one that matters on crossbow's is aim. In regards to the guardian's hitting harder I have no idea what the auto multiplier is anymore as crossbow's came in after I quit playing and I couldn't really test them. I'd imagine mages aren't(?) using their spell auto attack multiplier's for crossbows, and instead are just using the ranged auto multiplier which is ?. Some clarificiation on things like this would be fantastic. I did a quick google search and came up empty handed. Mage's don't have more +spell than they "need". It's not only increasing your resist rates, it's also increasing the low end spread of your spells based on a curve that is a ? up until level 80, then it's 100 distruption = 2% to the low end. The official math back in the day was x5 your current level gave an extra 2%. So in theory at 250 max, you go up 5 per level in weapon/spell skills, so 25 would = 2% increase? or 50? Not sure how the math is working out, go test it. I didn't have enough spell skills on gear to test it as I avoided spell skills in return of better stats like crit, reuse, cast, etc. I'd imagine it's around there assuming it's based on a curve like most other things at lower levels. The damage done by the weapon in ACT doesn't matter, the only offensive skill that's going to actually change your damage on the crossbow is Aim, as offensive skill also increases the damage spread on weapons. We had weapons for awhile that did magic damage instead of crushing, we made every scout run them in ToV so we could switch to the magical debuff incoming damage multiplier ears instead of having to wear both and getting the most out of our outgoing. Summoners/Sorcs have a higher base auto attack multiplier than enchanters, in CoE you also had the issue of spell skills not adding focus, and enchanter's not having access to focus like sorcs did in their AA's, leading to in general terrible hit rates. Plus everyone just reforged out of auto stats as auto wasn't really doing anything worthwhile.
I can confirm that +Offensive does boost Aim. And you're right, more +Spell does boost the low end of damage, but it's not much. You gain a lot more not missing your ranged attacks. Think it was more like you needed an extra 100 for a couple of percent boost on the low end, but don't really remember.
I'd love to see someone test this out against Crana's wand with maxed Aim and decent bolts. With such a short delay, I imagine auto attack dmg to decrease missing attacks while castings spells, hopefully, significant spell dmg increase with stats/effects. But, what is the net gain? That's a lot of grinding packed zones for potentially negligible benefits.
As long as you continue to hit them as soon as they come up again... If players don't understand what abilities are the most efficient, then the additional reuse may not math out for them. And if they are so lazy they can't determine efficiency of their buttons, they probably shouldn't put in the effort of doing hunters missions. $0.02
Atan, me and you both know 13% reuse is incredibly valuable and worthwhile even if you mindlessly spam buttons.
Yep, overwriting those dots a tiny fraction faster is massive. Prismatic proc is about a 4% dps increase zonewide, this one may be the same. I'll test it myself since there's nothing else to do. It's clear some mage classes will benefit greatly by the crossbow, but I'd say the "upgrade" may not be much for a couple.
And, honestly, you're gambling if you're waiting for the proc. 10% isn't that consistent or reliable by any means. Wait too long hoping for the proc, and you're facing a DPS loss because the time reduced won't make up for the time you sat on that ability. In the end, it actually may be more consistently worthwhile to just continue your normal rotation/skill usage without relying on the proc.
I would never wait for the proc; nor did I imply I would. I say 13% instead of 20 because 13% is the average reuse gained over time. It's in no way worthwhile to hold ice comet until the proc goes off. Instead rely on normalized procs and hit it at the start and get the reuse anyway because eq2.
