Fellow Soldiers, It has been in my mind for a while now: the Hunter QCX Crossbow. Whilst this weapon is "silent", many say that the weapons is useless besides this. The weapon however possesses the ability to drop maxes (with extreme skill and immeasurable luck), and allows the stalker infiltrator's viability as a powerful class to be raised to the next level. It can now (thanks to the patch soon after its release) drop an enemy with max nanoweave with 2 shots up to 40m. I am aware that a sniper can do this more efficiently, and even take it to the point of headshotting moving enemies in the hundreds of metres mark, but being able to do this to a vague extent, and at the same time have the ability to sit down in the long grass and seem "almost invisible", is a treasurable asset. More importantly however, I feel that being able to do shot-knife combos with my hexedge for the Exceptional Directive is very valuable, as this weapon allows me to (potentially) sweep past an enemy and drop him as I go. There are a limited number of reviews on YouTube about the Hunter, and those that are there all take a big dump on it, and basically tell you not to buy it. What are your general opinions of this weapon? Is it good? Is it bad? Should I buy it? (even for the sake of my exceptional directive?). Thanks for reading!
The QCX is a sidearm. Sidearms are not meant to compete with primary long arms. They are supposed to be a "oh man out of bullets grab my pistol" or "guy in front of me time to put down the snipe rifle" option. They should be more viable than knives or fists, but not much more effective than that. So not only is the QCX a sidearm, it is a utility sidearm. This means that it trades killing power for support power. So even against already-relatively-weak sidearms it should be significantly weaker than that. Plus of course a crossbow in common military use during the 29th century is pretty silly as it is. Next they're start introducing swords, spears, and heavy rocks to our futuristic sci-fi arsenal.
For any class besides infil: Sucks as a weapon, IS INCREDIBLE as a support item. This mainly shines through with a supportive engineer, as with unlimited ammo + recon darts, you can canvas almost an entire base with recon darts, which in a HUGE asset to your team. For infil: Stalker cloak. Crossbow. Camp enemy vehicle terminals. Camp top of towers. The crossbow is awful for hitting moving targets, as it had very bad muzzle velocity. However, against stationary targets, it is incredible. Camping an enemy vehicle terminal is great, because essentially you are denying the enemy armor and sunderers. You can do this from very, very far away, as long as you compensate for the large drop the crossbow has. (I would recomend the Quadra 4x Croshair scope). It's also good for flying a ESF w/ejector seat over a tower base, bailing on top of the tower, and killing all the snipers and engi AV turrets on the landing pads. Just to show you the effective range of the crossbow, I got a 122 meter kill on a LA the other day while on top of a tower. He was stationary, but it was still pretty cool. Also, if you are really crazy, get a full platoon of stalker infils w/ explosive crossbow and troll enemy armor. Simply incredible.
I Auraxium'd The Hunter QCX and I absolutely loved it. The majority of my kills with it were as an LA because, you know, people don't look up in video games. If you want to use it as a Stalker/Infil just to do the shoot+knife combo, then it serves it's purpose.. however if you want to use it as a Stalker as your main weapon all the time, you'll find it's way too slow and not really practical. All in all it is a very situational weapon and you'll need to get used to the drop it's bolts have.. but once you do, you can be super effective depending on your play style. Very situational.
Use it for every load out, shoot detect bolt at building I am going into, identify targets, sweep them out. I bought the Commish, but hardly use it because detect bolts are that good. (or i am that bad)
Due to its low rate of fire it doesn't work well as a backup weapon like a pistol. It does work well as a special purpose weapon, it goes well with the stalker cloak, the recon darts are quite good for non-infiltrators and the explosive bolts can make enemies panic. If you want a secondary weapon that is a solid backup weapon, then the Hunter IS NOT what you want.
It's a weapon that was added specifically for infiltrators, but ironically the infil gets probably the least use out of it because we've got actual darts already. I wouldn't take it on a Stalker loadout for anything besides working on my Slasher auraxium--every other job can be done better by a different loadout.
Practically it is a great stalker weapon (So if you play alot of infiltrator you will enjoy it) but yeah, the explosive bolts to near to no damage at all, their only good for a distraction. If you can play without a sidearm to protect you though, the recon darts are great for any class if your fighting smaller bases :3 USE THE TRY NOW FUNCTION!!! (BLUE BAR WHEN YOU SELECT TO UNLOCK IT) Everyone seems to forget about this awesome little button.
If you want to play stalker infiltrator, this is arguably the best weapon. It's fantastic for picking off slightly damaged targets (and infiltrators) with a single headshot. Just watch for people taking cover and you can be pretty certain you'll finish them off. Anyone crouched is almost a free kill, since even after they realize they're taking damage, it takes a moment for them to stand up and run, so they usually can't dodge the followup shot. In close range, the bolt+knife combo is excellent, although with the OHK knives coming out, that's a bit less of an attraction. At least it's an option for when you want a stealthier approach or you get caught offguard.
the crossbow comes with a longer time to equip than other sidearms, and yes it's not something you fall back to in this oh **** moments, its this weapon you pull out to sneak up on someone and kill him, while he is busy doing something else (shooting your friends for example). I like this weapon, and im still looking forward to join a squad/platoon of stalker infils witht he explosiv bolt, so we can troll some tanks and well, this weapon is not maid for rambo, this weapon is made for the bored predeator, that want to have some new toys.
I'm a stalker infi and I love it. Bought it with SC a while ago on some offer, and only now I've really re-discovered it and started to pay more attention to it. I wouldn't use it on any other class though (unless for recon darts, then yes), but for an infiltrator it's a real gem.
There was only 1 sword, and you could only get it if you went to SOE Live, or were granted it by a GM. Black Ops also had access to it, but only while they were BO. (BO had access to every item in the game.) It was called the Fusion Blade.
Buuuut as an engineer, you have unlimited ammo, and can canvas an entire base due to the Hunter's RoF. I have done it multiple times before locking down a point.
I love it as a secondary for my infiltrator with a parallax, one shot from the parallax; followed by a shot from the QCX crossbow is a great combo. I posses the underboss too, and I eventually picked the QCX crossbow over it on my infiltrator.
