With the recent release of the Maggot King and its controversial speed task, and the Fractured Archives rewards proposals, it is becoming increasingly clear that the current state of crossbows (specifically ruby bolts) is an issue. To set a baseline, let’s take a look at some max hit comparisons for non-mega rare weapons for all 3 styles: Zaryte crossbow, dragon bolts, max ranged, ranging pot, rigour Max hit: 51 (speed 5) Dps vs bloodveld: 8.301 Sanguinesti staff, max mage, saturated heart, augury Max hit: 58 (speed 4) Dps vs bloodveld: 10.999 Blade of saeldor, max melee, super combat, piety Max hit: 56 (speed 4) Dps vs bloodveld: 11.279 Bowfa, fully crystal, ranging pot, rigour Max hit: 49 (speed 4) Dps vs bloodveld: 10.008 The max crossbow setup has a significantly lower max hit than mage and melee weapons that attack 20% faster, and is well behind the second best standard ranged setup in raw dps. Crossbows are clearly reliant on ruby bolt procs for dps, so why is that an issue? The first and most commonly frustrating issue for players is the reliance on an additional layer of rng. Many speed combat achievements are notoriously reliant on zcb specs, even at mage weak bosses like the Whisperer. Killing heavy-ranged weak bosses like the Maggot King and the Leviathan can feel awful when you get no procs because the weapon’s baseline dps is so bad. That leads into the second issue: the heavy ranged design space. Because of their reliance on ruby procs and inability to stand on their own, crossbows do a very poor job of exploiting the heavy ranged weakness on bosses (twisted bow beats out diamond dragon bolts at maggot king, despite it having 158 standard ranged def vs 43 heavy ranged def). The difference between all dragon bolt capable crossbows is negligible, and the only thing separating the zcb is its bonuses to bolt specs. Any current or future heavy ranged alternatives (like javelins or ascension crossbows) have to compete against ruby bolts, not the crossbows themselves. The mere existence of ruby bolts forced jagex to create an entirely new type of bolt ammo, potentially reintroducing the ammo-switching meta that the quiver got rid of. Maybe the solution is as simple as adjusting the base stats of the crossbow weapons and nerfing the ruby bolt proc effect, or maybe it isn’t. But we’re at a point where Jagex needs to take a look at it. tl;dr: Crossbows’ reliance on ruby bolts and inability to stand on their own dps-wise has caused frustation in-game (rng-heavy gameplay), and complicated rewards proposals for the heavy ranged design space (ascension crossbows) Edit: y’all realize bloodvelds have zero defensive stats and only 30 defense level, right? It’s a training dummy for these purposes. It is meant to illustrate the dps you are doing when rubies are not proccing, to highlight the extreme variance. submitted by /u/Drekil
Originally posted by u/Drekil on r/2007scape
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