Can we have some boosts for crossbows, because they are still redundant and a waste of an entire subclass of items. They are too slow to be practical or fun, and they don’t even have the damage to show for the slower attack speeds. About the only thing about xbows that ppl can cite is the Buriza, but it’s nothing fantastic and only of use in untwinked PVM and Insight will replace Buriza after patch, so xbows are actually going to be fully redundant now. I would suggest upping the base damage on xbows or removing the ias frames cap on xbows currently, so that at least they will be usable.
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Yes, correct. But you can add basically all shields in the game that are not for max block builds. Who uses them since we have Spirit? Nobody.
Just delete all xbows and shields, because it is a pain to see, that there is no love for uniques anymore. Same strategy as for D3 with “set only”. Here is will become “runes only”.
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Ok, uniques are buffed, but their drop rates are reduced to match drop rates of runes for Dream, Dragon or Exile. How would you like that?
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We don’t want them to be the most desireable items in the game, we want them to be more usefull than right now. And you again are only capeable of thinking in endgame… There are runes that drop more frequently, and still good to have, and desirable.
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You can’t compare those. There is actually no comparison at all. About 85% of builds use Spirit/SS, the others use dozens of options from all categories. If you pvp you would know it.
Unlike shields, crossbows have literally 0 use. They are obsoleted in every way by regular bows. Even untwinked pvmers don’t use crossbows at all. They use bows, javs and even spears, but never crossbows. Just to give you an idea of what a redundant entire subclass of items looks like. Nobody picks up xbows. Xbows are a complete waste of space in the game.
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Well one type of Xbow was used by Beast Bear hybrid builds for maximum attack speed but 2.4 made that impossible.
It was Chu-Ko-Nu or Demon Crossbow with -60ias and 5os for shaels or 15/40s.
But it was mediocre at best 
So yeah crossbows are useless in D2 now.
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Are they really trash DPS-wise, or they are ignored because of class-specifics? Like, Bowazons prefer to use GMBs because of +skills, and Act 1 mercs cannot equip Xbows.
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I think we can agree that the original developers meant for crossbows to be a slower attacking but more powerful missile weapon. I’d like to see a base damage increase on all crossbows too or a base damage decrease on bows.
Historically, bows were very fast and powerful weapons in the proper hands. One of the reasons they were phased out was because it was quicker and easier to train soldiers to become effective at shooting crossbows. A bow can technically be nearly as powerful as a crossbow, but it needs to be a very high poundage, and that requires a great deal of strength and training - you can’t grab any old peasant from the city and hand them a bow like that, they simple couldn’t aim it or be trained to use it effectively in time for a proper battle.
So even though cross bows have slower reload time, their ease of use and ability to quickly train troops how to use them effectively made them quite popular…
Diablo 2 has some nice little details in it, like the fact that assassins do not need keys to open locked chests…
What the Devs could do if they wanted to make crossbows more unique is to make bow class weapons almost un-usable to characters other than the Amazon (and maybe the Assassin too?).
Other classes would basically be limited to cross bows (assuming characters like sorc, paladin etc were never properly trained from a young age to use bows).
Obviously limits a few “character fantasies” but that’s just a comment, idea…
yes they are really trash dps wise. Not because of the class specific items but the fact that ordinary bows do the same amount of flat weapon damage but have a much higher ias frames cap
Pvp is just a fun mode for some minority, sry not interested. I play Diablo 2, which its core is PvM.
Shields are useless. Except stormshild maybe or Mosars. The end.
A huge amount of them are cured not even worth selling.
Insight doesn’t hold a candle to Buriza. More ED%, but no max damage boost, no 100% pierce, no IAS, no dexterity boost. High ED% buriza is only slightly weaker than Windforce.
Talking about Buriza, i think it’s one of those odd weapons that is detremental to upgrade to elite (you get more DPS by spending the extra 53 points into dexterity rather than upgrading Ballista to Colossus Crossbow with 163 strength required). I think that should be addressed.
Also it is not the only crossbow that is good. There is demon machine - it’s a good weapon for enchant sorc.
I don’t disagree that crossbows are generally inferior. They are, you are just overexaggerating a bit.
I wouldn’t mind crossbows getting a small distinct feat, like an automod of pierce or reduction of target defense, or slight damage buff.
But you know what’s even worse than crossbows? Daggers. There’s the fleshripper that some people use on smiter sometimes, and a couple of caster daggers (wizardspike and spectral shard) that’s it.
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I have a Shael’d Buriza and with +100 IAS it fires at the same rate as an unmodified grand matron bow. Given they both do about the same base damage that is just embarrassing. Crossbows need to either fire faster or hit harder to see any use.
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Oh. I guess, my PvM Dream Sorc doesn’t exist then. And all those people discussing Holy Fire upgrade are dirty PvPers, so they are not “users” (weird how all the footage I’ve seen about Dragon build is PvM though).
“Shields are useless because I said so, anyone who found an use is playing the game improperly” is such a convenient position, I’m in awe.
Colossus Crossbow has much higher base avg than GMB, but with how Buriza gains damage from +max it is less relevant (and has other downsides to upgrade).
I’ve looked it up and cannot agree with “the same amount”. Maybe attack speed is more meaningful, since it affects more than simply DPS, but also CB, procs and other hit-based mechanics.
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Yep, Chu-Ko-nu allowed to reach 4 frames attack from level 25 until 54’s phaseblade
‘Faith’ Gorgon Crossbow is the most powerful crossbow for a summoner necromancer, if he wishes to substitute bone spear with a physical attack and still buff skeletons.
Demon crossbows are trash though.
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honestly im not neck beard enough to talk about deep stats but i agree with the sentiment. xbows need love. side note there should be magic rare and unique quivers for bow/xbow. ffs just hire the PD2 mods already
You can’t compare shields to crossbows. Lol.
You are just trying to compare something that almost everybody is using, to something that nobody is actually using.
There’s no comparison between daggers and xbows. By even saying there is something to compare it is already being misleading. Wizspike is BiS for some builds and is sometimes used as a temporary. Spectral shard is staple for Non-Expansion chars. Xbows aren’t picked up at all, not even for untwinked pvm. I already looked at them from every angle months ago over there https:// forums.d2jsp. org/topic.php?t=84825989&f=148&p=568952231 (delete the 2 spaces for the URL) , but there’s actually not much to it because anybody who has used a ranged char for a few weeks would be able to tell you there is no use for xbows.
There isn’t anything to talk about if you are looking at regular bows and xbows in this game. I just took the crappiest ultra-budget version of regular bows and put it beside the absolute best version of xbows just to show the total redundancy of xbows. I guess I could just take another ultra-budget regular bow: goldstrike arch, and then there isn’t really anything to compare anymore lol. You just compared it to another regular bow (windforce), but it’s not even close. Buriza can’t touch it in any way. Xbows honestly have nothing. Xbows are just there to eat up your runes and give you nothing for it. They’re just non-biodegradable waste material in the game. You will have to do something about it. They hazardous also, because ppl will try to use them, and die!
I already looked at Demon Machine, if you check the URL I just posted and scroll to the original post. A half synergised fireball/meteor already deals more damage than Demon Machine no matter how many points you spend on your enchant skills. It’s a redundant strat that is not even fun, because of the speed on xbows.
Nope, there’s no exaggeration there. It is just as described. I wouldn’t have posted this if it wasn’t.
Amplify damage procs double or triple your damage output depending on enemy stats. So it’s not some small advantage or anything. Basically you want a fast attack speed and pair it up with atma’s scarab+razortail to proc amp on multi/strafe. An xbow wouldn’t be able to proc anything. I reckon I could probably bring insight/harmony and atma’s+razortail to p8 worldstone and clean house, but I doubt I would want to be stuck with a buriza there. Lol
I dunno my hypothesis is that if anything involves an xbow, there will always be another setup that will be more effective than it. Why not just go standard attack on beast z which any pvm necro can use? There’s also stuff like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLdFJiqLZUI but the standard bone necro setup also deals more damage than this. Faith colossus crossbow on a strafer also deals good dmg in pub pvp games but I’d rather just use a standard faith gmb for that. That’s just about the full list of known uses for xbows that people have found in a couple of decades, and all of them are non-practical (unless on self-gimping challenges).
You build around xbows sorta just to say “I built around waste material, got somewhere with troll waste material, which means I have gotten past every challenge this game has to offer, and then I will discard the xbow and never bring it back again”. xD
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Just as you have specified 2 daggers, i can specify 2 useful crossbows: demon machine (enchant sorc) and buriza (bowzon and fury druid).
However, i was more thinking about daggers for stabbing. There is fleshripper that is used for smiting and kicking, but that’s not really stabbing.
I specified all BiS uses for those. What you specified were not BiS uses but people intentionally using garbage options just to say they played the game in every way possible. You can’t even begin to compare it.