(TL:DR: Rubies are limiting crossbows and warping design space, crossbow progression feels flat, a lot of bolt procs are undertuned/irrelevant.) People have been shitting on aquanite hopper since it was unveiled, but in reality, it is just a symptom of the bigger problem with crossbows and how terribly balanced they are as a whole. I think the summer sweep up would be perfect for crossbows to get some long overdue attention, especially with the announcement of strong range upgrades with Blood Moon Rises which are only going to push crossbows even further behind. 1.) Rubies are a clear problem that is limiting crossbow design and creativity. They were never designed for monsters with such high health, and no other mechanic even comes close to adding such a substantial amount of flat damage with no other input. When people talk about how strong ZCB is they are really just talking about how strong it is to proc a ruby bolt on command, because without them it would be complete trash if we’re being honest. The good thing is I think this is a pretty straightforward fix and just comes down to adjusting the health threshold and how it scales to better suit the modern version of the game, and I can also see them being even more fun to use depending on how it’s done. Here is a good comment explaining the history behind them and how a quick fix ended up shaping the entire crossbow meta for the last 9 years. 2.) DPS without rubies is genuinely horrible. I feel like this is an unspoken truth that everyone kind of knows but you really have to see the calcs to get an idea. Here are some comparisons of ZCB in max gear with diamond dragon bolts against a few bosses. I’m primarily comparing it to Bowfa as a t80 weapon but also threw in Hunter’s Sunlight Crossbow for shits and gigs. Bear in mind, this is quite literally the most favorable situation a crossbow could be in with the second best DPS bolt that is supposed to be strong against enemies with high defense. (Budget = Assembler, B gloves, Anguish, Suffering, D’hide boots) As you can see it’s really not even close. In max, Bowfa beats ZCB in every situation including heavy weak bosses by a pretty wide margin. Even a budget bowfa setup at less than 1/4 the cost beats max diamond bolts in every neutral defense situation, and it’s even able to hang with it against heavy weak bosses (no wonder ironscape is obsessed with CG). Even HSCB, a disposable midgame crossbow, starts to beat ZCB in most hypothetical matchups with some gear upgrades. This isn’t just to show how bad enchanted crossbow damage is, but more importantly validate my earlier point that rubies are dictating the entire weapon class. There is absolutely no reason why the best crossbow in the best gear should require ruby bolts for relevancy. The question should be “What bolt is the best fit here” instead of “is there enough health for ruby bolts”. 3.) I understand not every proc needs to be a strong meta option, but some of them are straight up unusable or just inferior versions of other procs (go read what topaz bolts do and have yourself a good laugh). This ties in with my last points and is a secondary reason why ruby bolts feel so polarizing, because most are not even worth considering. It would be really cool and refreshing to see some of them get reworked or rebalanced. 4.) A small amount of ranged accuracy is the only thing separating crossbows, and as a result progression feels flat. There is less than a 1% difference between any of them when using the same ammo (exception being ZCB due to its passive) and if you aren’t using dragon bolts you may as well just be using a rune crossbow because It’s basically the only factor separating it from the higher tier crossbows. There’s also no real “Amethyst tier” alternative to enchanted bolts, and as a result makes dragon bolts disproportionately more important and expensive than other dragon ammo. I think that clearer separation between crossbows and ammo types would help progression a lot and make it feel more fleshed out. I actually like the concept of aquanite hopper and think it would be really cool if you could pair up different bolt-crossbow-offhand combinations depending on the scenario but that will never happen with rubies being as polarizing as they are in their current state. From there, it opens up design space to play around with crossbows a little more. What is your guy’s opinion? submitted by /u/loffredom
Originally posted by u/loffredom on r/2007scape