Just as everyone else it seems, I feel forced into using a crossbow for maximum vulnerability damage. What I would like to see, is for the inherent stat to roll on either piece of gear. Crossbows could roll with distant damage and Bows with vulnerability. The only real difference between weapons at that point would be speed and raw damage output.
The affixes already roll that way, I’ve gotten bows with close damage affixes and crossbows with distance affixes. Why not also allow them to roll the inherent also? Yes devs could take the easy way out and allow transmog of bows/xbows, would probably satisfy most. However, I would like the faster and smoother play style of a bow but with an inherent vulnerability bonus. Albeit with the sacrifice of the higher damage output of a crossbow.
It truly is a shame, but unfortunately I don’t think they are going to change it. All weapons tend to roll the same implicit, it would I guess kill the “identity” of the weapon if they can both roll both implicits.
As it stands I am pretty sure all good rogues run crossbow and swords, since the vulnerable damage and crit damage contribute vastly more to the damage bucket calculation than distant and close damage do (for bows and daggers respectively).
It really sucks because I wanted to use Skyhunter for my build, but it just can’t compete with the massive vulnerable damage of a crossbow. Change skyhunter to a crossbow and I’ll gladly use it! Especially since I think the crossbow is the only item in the game without a unique…
I surprisingly found a rare “rare” named cross bow last night that came with a massive SHADOW DAMAGE modifier and overly rolled stats to make up for its lack of a 4th modifier - level I788 - I couldn’t believe it - this thing rolled 56% core dmg +39% shadow damage on it + 60% vulnerable +58% to crowd control.
And get this - to RE-ROLL IT - Only cost 5-10 gold per roll - for like 50 rolls!
BUT - As soon as I put an aspect on it, that cost jumped to like 5 million -_- haha
Dropped randomly from a boss in Ulders Cavern or whatever its called!
Yes, I’m running a xbow and swords also lol. I have a decent rolled windforce ilvl788 but it’s smoked by a rare crossbow I have that’s ilvl798, by a significant margin. Xbow rolled with damage against close, crit damage, vulnerability damage, and dex.
I’ve swapped back and forth multiple times and can’t justify using the bow. The lucky hit proc does happen more often than you’d think, but the loss of a 2hand aspect and 120-130% vulnerability hurts a lot.
My major concern is that distant builds aren’t viable anyway, due to bubble shields. Any build relying on “damage vs distant” is putting themselves at a disadvantage, as soon as one of these bubble monsters pop up (and God forbit there are several of them with overlapping bubbles) you have to move in melee and lose 200%+ damage boosters and fight in melee with no way to remove the bubble at all.
I have Windforce, World of Hakkan, and Shadow grasp, good gear overall, around level 78 and I can’t even make progress at a reasonable rate vs my level 85 barbarian that just melts everything with similar gear (actually worse, I’m still using a sacred Harrogath and lowrolled Gohr).
I have stacked plenty damage vs ranged on the rogue, it’s lacking a lot of items but it should do very well overall… I spend a whole minute every time I see a bubble, really not fun, whereas my previous TB/trap rogue was decimating everything.
And then there’s Barrage, that ability that forces you into melee despite being a bow user… Just why? I can’t even use bow spells effectively, always need to carry a crossbow.
“Damage vs. distant” is one of the best modifiers for a range build. Just because it doesn’t help vs. force field elites doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take it for the 95+% other mobs you can target at range.
That’s like saying “+dmg % vs. vulnerable” is useless because not every enemy you attack is vulnerable, or “+core skill dmg %” is useless because sometimes you use basic attacks.
Distance builds aren’t very viable for console players anyway due to the lack of being able to really zoom out. When I use caltrops I can’t seen mobs that are further out than one step past my caltrops circle.
It’s not about distant builds being viable, it’s about vulnerable damage being an objectively better stat in terms of overall damage. Because of how the damage buckets work, damage vs distant is going to add less damage than a vulnerable damage roll of the same amount. Thus, since the rest of the stats they can roll are the same, the crossbow is superior. Damage vs distant is a good stat but other ones outshine it to the point where a perfect weapon won’t include the stat in favor of one that adds more damage, like crit damage, dex, or vulnerable damage.
+Crit chance/dmg, +vulnerable dmg, and +core skill dmg are the biggest ones to go for I think. Followed by +dmg vs. distant, +dmg vs. cc/slowed (depending on your setup), +dmg vs. healthy/injured, etc.—for range rogue at least.
You don’t need vulnerable for everything. Vulnerable is for strong enemies (typically bosses) and enemies which are over-leveled (so high tier NM dungeons). Anywhere else a bow can one shot most enemies. Skyhunter which crits on the first hit. Combine with high crit dmg and imbue crit dmg and it is going to clear packs of enemies quicker than a Xbow.
ie There is no point to putting vulnerable on a pack of enemies and hitting them for half a million damage with a +high vulnerable build. When the enemies have 30k health.
I would argue differently. Any NM I’ve run with the vulnerability debuff is noticeably more difficult all around. I’ve gotten to where I just break those down when I get them.
Since vulnerability is multiplicative and not additive, a 60% debuff of vulnerability is significantly more detrimental than a 60% debuff on ranged damaged. Especially since most rogue gear rolls with heavy vulnerability percentages. When running NM with either one of those debuffs, the reduced vulnerability damage is always the more difficult just due to how the damage weighting is calculated. I’ve gotten to where I just break those down when I get them.
I have also experienced the bubble issues that were mentioned and it can shut down a run. I can shadowstep in and stun one bubbled elite and burn down it and a second, but if there are three or more bubbles layered, I’ll probably die.
I ran a 41 last night that I thought would be a pretty chill run before bed, until I hit a pack exactly like that. Four bubbles all with vampiric and increased health. Having to stay inside the bubbles to attack but leaving to avoid being cced, was causing me to lose my vulnerability debuff from exploit, and since the bubbles kept shifting I couldn’t lay down consistent shots since they would hit another bubble and be blocked.
Kept having to reapply with shadow imbue or concealment but it was this back and forth dance. I did kill the pack but I just kept thinking that if I’m doing this in melee range I might as well have a melee build.
The argument that ranged damage is great for everything else in a dungeon is fine and good, except that so is a melee build with mobility. In fact after putting this down I think I’m going back to a combo point melee build tonight.
So this may sound weird but yes on paper the crossbow is better… but have you used a bow? I literally CANNOT use a crossbow after using a bow. The attack speed not only stacks rapid shot faster but ALSO the animation for firing is faster so you are more mobile.
To top it off I am doing MORE damage with similar bows (I think because of my long range playstyle!)
This is true for trash mobs, but having vulnerable damage on an implicit helps you to oneshot elites, which are the real concern. Also lets you chunk bosses
I thought the “bubble” was large enough you could be inside it and not be in melee range hence you are still at distance as the game defines it and get the buff?
Least you can avoid nightmare dungeons with “elite enemies suppressor” affix and hopefully won’t often face more than one of the bubble elites if any.
Also can some maths explain me why people keep saying implicit between sword and dagger…sword is better
Crit damage rolls at +26.2%? 5/5 And close at +30% 5/5. So why would sword be superior for anyone other than ranged players? Even if you pick up weapon mastery passive 3 times =9% You have max~ 41% crit+ 9% from imbue/passive 50% chance to crit = 1.09x1.262x0.5 + 1.09x0.5 = 1.237 increased damage. So you would need a 5%[x] multiplicative bonus to bring it inline with daggers. Which I don’t see anywhere except if you pick up deadly ambush paragon legendary I’d rather pick up tricks of the trade or cheap shot bigger scalers and uptime. Even exploit weakness which seems less has the largest density of intelligence nodes of the boards around its glyph. What am I missing?
A single bubble yes, the issue mentioned is the multiple bubbles stacking. You’ll shoot at one but as there is another overlapping bubble it’ll get caught by the next one, meaning you have to get closer to the target than in a single bubble. Also seems like most of my sigils roll with suppressor for whatever reason.
The issue regarding those stats is that close/distant damage is not multiplicative but additive. Vulnerability is multiplicative just like crit damage.
This is why vulnerability and crit damage provide a larger increase than close/distant even though at face value the percentages are the same.
Close damage goes towards a big bucket which encompasses all the “damage vs” or “damage to” stats, whereas crit damage is in it’s own bucket. So because your general damage bucket is going to be large by default, and its multiplied by the crit bucket, an equal percentage of crit damage is going to give you more damage than an equal percentage of close damage. It is the same for vulnerable and distant damage, since vulnerable is it’s own bucket (making it the most efficient stat to stack generally) while distant damage goes into the big damage bucket.
Yes we have used both, which is why we are complaining lol. I think a lot of us prefer to use a bow but the crossbow provides an objectively better stat.
Almost all damage affixes go into you adding base damage as + damage to close/ranged/cc/stun/daze/poison/imbueand so on and then all of those additive sources get multiplied by critical strike damage at a percentage of your critical strike chance. So if I have 1+0.3+0.25+…n terms all are multiplied by CSDxCC. So if all additives were called N and critchance was 50%
as base CSD is 1.5x . it’s 1x(N+0.6)x0.5 +1x(Nx0.6)0.5x1.5 versus 1x0.5xN+0.5x2.024x1N
Which simplifies to 1.05/0.262 =N =4
So as soon as your additive damage bucket =+400% or more critical strike damage is better. Which I think between aspects and all the affixes and paragon should be pretty assured to be true
Im already at circa +450% with affixes and paragon without considering aspects.