Are crossbows much worse than longbows?

[Turukano]

Hunter characters like CeHu seem to be less popular than other chars: fighter like MiBe, caster like DEFE or hybrids. Although it's nice to have more ore less unlimited attacks with your ammunition (given by Oka e.g.) collecting them after a fight is annoying.

Recently I had a look at centaurs:

• won a 15-runer with longbows, Oka -> TSO, surprised how easy this was
• struggled with crossbows, sticking to Oka, got the pan runes, died afterwards, disappointed with the difficulty of the game

There are not many topics in the tavern, but as far as I know there are the following differences:

• crossbows are strength based, longbows dex based, I considered this in the games
• longbows are faster (min delay 6) than crossbows (min delay 7)
• base damage of crossbow + bolt is higher than longbow + arrow
• main ammo difference: arrows of dispersal (blinking foes away) compared to steel bolts (+30% damage)

Altogether this looks balanced.

But I had an easy game with longbows and a hard one with crossbows. Well, one reason is of course that I was lucky with slaying bonuses in the longbow game.

I don't want to mention the details of the games - launcher skill was at 27 in both games, and I had launchers of velocity - but it looked like shooting with longbows is much superior than shooting with crossbows. Is this only my personal experience?

Comments of the counsellors/devs are especially welcome.

[Sandman25]

Have you read http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Ranged_combat ?

[Turukano]

Have you read http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Ranged_combat ?

Thanks for asking, I did before I started the games.

[Sandman25]

Have you read http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Ranged_combat ?

Thanks for asking, I did before I started the games.

Then you can notice that longbows have higher damage due to doubled launcher enchantment (that can be +9 as you know). Combine it with smaller delay and you can see why longbows are much better

Longbows:

  Code:

1d({Base damage - 2 + 1d8 + Racial bonus + 1d[2×Launcher enchantment + 1d3]}×Modifiers + Slaying)

Crossbows:

  Code:

1d({3 + 1d10 + Racial bonus
         + 1d[Launcher enchantment - 1 + 1d(Ammo bonus)]}×Modifiers + Slaying)

[tcjsavannah]

I much prefer crossbows to longbows. For two reasons.

1) I don't play Centaur much.
2) Penetration.

[Siegurt]

Longbows are the best-damaging ranged weapon at high levels of skill, that being said, crossbows come with brands that are often preferred (notably penetration)

Penetration is nice for attacking a whole line of critters, and most particularly one smiter which is hiding behind a pack.

That being said, I use longbows when I want my primary damage source to be ranged, Crossbows when I'm picking up a secondary attack (for softening up critters for my melee-er or want a no-mana way to plink popcorn with a spellcaster), slings when I'm using a build which is better off with a shield (Slings being natively one-handed are the best damage per time while wearing a shield), and throwing... Well, I use throwing for blowguns and large rocks, but I don't think I ever train throwing in any invested sort of way.

[Sandman25]

Arrows of penetration allow to kill melee monsters like Mennas without any risk.
Bolts of silver are great vs OoF (3-4 hits are enough).
Steel bolts are good for conserving ammo.
Penetration is fun in corridors.

[Siegurt]

Arrows of penetration allow to kill melee monsters like Mennas without any risk.

There are no such things, did you mean arrows of dispersal perhaps?

[Sandman25]

Arrows of penetration allow to kill melee monsters like Mennas without any risk.

There are no such things, did you mean arrows of dispersal perhaps?

Yes, indeed. My brain does not work well today

[crate]

Crossbows are much, much better than bows at the part of the game where that matters (early on).

You failed to mention the actual best ammo for crossbows, which is bolts of penetration. Steel is actually not that great imo, you get more damage from flame/frost bolts in a large majority of cases.

[Siegurt]

You failed to mention the actual best ammo for crossbows, which is bolts of penetration.

Penetration is fun in corridors.

Penetration is nice for attacking a whole line of critters, and most particularly one smiter which is hiding behind a pack.

2) Penetration.

Who did you mean failed to mention it?

Crossbows are much, much better than bows at the part of the game where that matters (early on).

It's true at low (or 0) skill, particularly early in the game, Crossbows are amazingly destructive, however I find that I run out of bolts pretty quickly, so it's been very hard for me to play a hunter starting with a crossbow. I seem to come up short on bolts about the time I get to the lair (even when I try to be conservative with them) I might just not be conservative enough though. A better player might make better use of the stack of bolts you start with.

[CrazyJ]

I think it depends on the species as well. Centaurs are obviously best with bows, halflings with slings, and minotaurs are probably the best crossbow users. Technically kobolds have better xbow proficiency, but the rest of their skills don't synergize as well with strength based xbow attack like they do with a minotaur. While the RNG might give you some things that make a non-standard choice the best one, in most cases going against your species aptitude will probably make the game more difficult.

It's true at low (or 0) skill, particularly early in the game, Crossbows are amazingly destructive, however I find that I run out of bolts pretty quickly, so it's been very hard for me to play a hunter starting with a crossbow. I seem to come up short on bolts about the time I get to the lair (even when I try to be conservative with them) I might just not be conservative enough though. A better player might make better use of the stack of bolts you start with.

I played a minotaur crossbow hunter of Okawaru and had at least 100 bolts of various types by the time I got to Lair thanks to the warmasters gifts. I died shortly afterwords due to stupid mistakes that got me surrounded, but in general I thought the character was pretty survivable given a little more practice, and I'll probably try running him again. Of course I also had a melee weapon as backup so I didn't have to waste ammo on non-threatening creatures

I'm not too sure though that a mainly ranged character is that viable without either Okawaru or Trog to hand out extra ammo, especially with a crossbow user.

[some12fat2move]

I'm not too sure though that a mainly ranged character is that viable without either Okawaru or Trog to hand out extra ammo, especially with a crossbow user.

IMO for a hunter Fedhas is better than Trog and perhaps better than Okawaru

[crate]

I'm not too sure though that a mainly ranged character is that viable without either Okawaru or Trog to hand out extra ammo, especially with a crossbow user.

http://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/crate ... 103134.txt
http://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/crate ... 090353.txt
for two examples

In the HuAM game I had really bad bolt luck before lair too.

btw centaur is the best crossbow species too

also, just so you know, str is actually significantly more important for both bows and slings (up to a limit, but you are unlikely to go much past that limit unless you also want cpa/gda or worship chei) than it is for crossbows
go fsim it if you don't believe me

[Turukano]

Thanks a lot for all of your comments, I didn't expect that many answers! In my games I got to know many things you wrote, the two most interesting comments were the following:

• Then you can notice that longbows have higher damage due to doubled launcher enchantment (that can be +9 as you know). Combine it with smaller delay and you can see why longbows are much better

  As I said I had a look at wiki but I didn't notice this formula. I'm surprised about the difference!
  
  

• You failed to mention the actual best ammo for crossbows, which is bolts of penetration. Steel is actually not that great imo

  Then I surely overestimated steel bolts and underestimated bolts of penetration.

After my games I had exactly the conclusion which is given here:

That being said, I use longbows when I want my primary damage source to be ranged, Crossbows when I'm picking up a secondary attack

And another idea to think about is the following:

I think it depends on the species as well. Centaurs are obviously best with bows, halflings with slings, and minotaurs are probably the best crossbow users.

But well, enough about hunting! I started a new char, it's fighting time with Trog!

[crate]

I think the reason people say steel bolts are super good is that it used to be true, back when you enchanted ammo, and then people read that old information that no one has bothered to update and just assume it is still true without understanding why. +(largenumber) steel bolts were very good, and enchanting multiple stacks of bolts is not really an option, and enchanting elemental ammo is also bad for a few reasons.
But now that ammo doesn't have enchantment steel is significantly less useful than it used to be. Don't get me wrong--steel bolts are still good. But because flame and frost ammo deal more damage to anything that is at least neutral to that element (and also silver bolts exist for a few things) steel is no longer the best for damage unless you want to carry just one stack of ammo.

[Amnesiac]

I remember that you need 1 str for 3 points of enchantment on bows or something like that, but what str do you need for crossbows?

[crate]

I remember that you need 1 str for 3 points of enchantment on bows or something like that, but what str do you need for crossbows?

0
well you probably want >0 str for other reasons

str helps improve their speed but it's not really a big deal, it doesn't affect xbow damage at all. This is why it's actually less important for xbows than bows or slings.

[ZoFy]

I remember that you need 1 str for 3 points of enchantment on bows or something like that, but what str do you need for crossbows?

0
well you probably want >0 str for other reasons

str helps improve their speed but it's not really a big deal, it doesn't affect xbow damage at all. This is why it's actually less important for xbows than bows or slings.

I still don't get why a crossbow user shouldn't invest into str. For example, a crossbow-wielding KoHu who increases int on every third level up will end up with 14/18/17 stats if 3 of 5 his randomly distributed stats go into str. With 27 Crossbows skill, he'll have 0.87 attack delay, while mindelay is 0.7. Isn't this a bad result?

[crate]

Well sure attacking faster is better. But the difference between .87 attack delay and .7 attack delay is about 25%. You can get a lot of str (at the cost of spellpower or EV--but remember dex does help xbow speed some) and get 25% more damage. But you're not looking at this in context.

For bows going from merely 12 str to 16 str (with 12 dex) gets you 25% more damage at skill 27, and if you're starting from a lower str than 12 this effect gets even bigger! (8 -> 12 str gives you almost 2/3 more damage!). For xbows, you'd need to go from 12 to 18 str to get +25% damage, and the effect is actually smaller at lower starting str (8 -> 12 gets you only 16% more damage). Or, going from 1->12 str with 12 dex gets you +38% damage for xbows, or +539% damage for longbows. No that's not a typo.

The thing with bows is that there's a reasonable str cap after which the enormous returns on gaining str stop; for xbows there are no magic numbers unless your str/dex combined manage to get you to min delay, but you need a whole lot of str (21 str 12 dex worked for me in wizmode) for that to happen and at that point you'd be getting str for other things anyway.

(All this was from testing in fsim against "yak" on whatever 0.13 build I have. I am not actually sure whether that's a yak or yaktaur but I don't think it matters since they have the same AC. I used a +8 unbranded longbow compared to a +8 unbranded crossbow.)

[Amnesiac]

Some time ago I read that you need about 14 str for bows, but is there a breakpoint or does str increase the damage proportionally even after 14?

[crate]

There's some str point (depends on bow enchantment I think) after which str no longer increases the damage of bows (and slings). It will still affect their delay, just like it does with xbows, unless you have reached min delay. For longbows, realistically it is near 15 str that you stop gaining damage. For slings it is much higher. Fsim or reading the source code could get you exact numbers if you care.

[XuaXua]

I always pick up javelins and blowguns. I don't win a lot.

[Amnesiac]

Oh, but blowguns are awesome. You can even reliably paralize a high HD demon at 27 throwing with a +9 blowgun.

[daggaz]

..if you only had some needles of paralization

[ajon]

If I am reading this correctly, you want to put points into strength for lets say a HaHu with slings? I was always just pumping dex every time as I thought it affected slings more than str?

[Sandman25]

Oh, but blowguns are awesome. You can even reliably paralize a high HD demon at 27 throwing with a +9 blowgun.

It depends on what you mean when talking about reliable. It is somewhat d40 vs HD as far as I remember. I would not use the blowgun to avoid a death, but if you have time for 2-3 attempts, it can be useful.

[crate]

If I am reading this correctly, you want to put points into strength for lets say a HaHu with slings? I was always just pumping dex every time as I thought it affected slings more than str?

Str will get you more damage, yes. It also lets you not annoy yourself to the point of quitting your character because it lets you actually carry ammo.

[ajon]

So how much str compared to dex would you want? I did fairly decent with my all dex build unless I did something stupid like thinking I could outgun several orb weavers at the same time.

[ZoFy]

Well sure attacking faster is better. But the difference between .87 attack delay and .7 attack delay is about 25%. You can get a lot of str (at the cost of spellpower or EV--but remember dex does help xbow speed some) and get 25% more damage. But you're not looking at this in context.

For bows going from merely 12 str to 16 str (with 12 dex) gets you 25% more damage at skill 27, and if you're starting from a lower str than 12 this effect gets even bigger! (8 -> 12 str gives you almost 2/3 more damage!). For xbows, you'd need to go from 12 to 18 str to get +25% damage, and the effect is actually smaller at lower starting str (8 -> 12 gets you only 16% more damage). Or, going from 1->12 str with 12 dex gets you +38% damage for xbows, or +539% damage for longbows. No that's not a typo.

The thing with bows is that there's a reasonable str cap after which the enormous returns on gaining str stop; for xbows there are no magic numbers unless your str/dex combined manage to get you to min delay, but you need a whole lot of str (21 str 12 dex worked for me in wizmode) for that to happen and at that point you'd be getting str for other things anyway.

(All this was from testing in fsim against "yak" on whatever 0.13 build I have. I am not actually sure whether that's a yak or yaktaur but I don't think it matters since they have the same AC. I used a +8 unbranded longbow compared to a +8 unbranded crossbow.)

I got your point, but for an arbalester w/o another great damage dealing option (think of a KoHu with a swappable quick blade of flaming/freezing for popcorn), it's not like there's a better option than str. From my experience, even a well-enchanted vorpal crossbow with max skill and min delay has a bit low damage output in the end-game (unless the user has high slaying bonus/abuses monster's weakness/penetrates multiple targets/invokes Finnesse), which encourages boring kiting.
Probably that's just my lack of patience or the build is suboptimal altogether.

Spoiler: show

The latter should be true since i rarely worship Okawaru, even with rangers.

[XuaXua]

Is this "Crossbows favor the strong, Longbows favor the dextrous" info in the item descriptions?

[Sandman25]

Well sure attacking faster is better. But the difference between .87 attack delay and .7 attack delay is about 25%. You can get a lot of str (at the cost of spellpower or EV--but remember dex does help xbow speed some) and get 25% more damage. But you're not looking at this in context.

For bows going from merely 12 str to 16 str (with 12 dex) gets you 25% more damage at skill 27, and if you're starting from a lower str than 12 this effect gets even bigger! (8 -> 12 str gives you almost 2/3 more damage!). For xbows, you'd need to go from 12 to 18 str to get +25% damage, and the effect is actually smaller at lower starting str (8 -> 12 gets you only 16% more damage). Or, going from 1->12 str with 12 dex gets you +38% damage for xbows, or +539% damage for longbows. No that's not a typo.

The thing with bows is that there's a reasonable str cap after which the enormous returns on gaining str stop; for xbows there are no magic numbers unless your str/dex combined manage to get you to min delay, but you need a whole lot of str (21 str 12 dex worked for me in wizmode) for that to happen and at that point you'd be getting str for other things anyway.

(All this was from testing in fsim against "yak" on whatever 0.13 build I have. I am not actually sure whether that's a yak or yaktaur but I don't think it matters since they have the same AC. I used a +8 unbranded longbow compared to a +8 unbranded crossbow.)

I got your point, but for an arbalester w/o another great damage dealing option (think of a KoHu with a swappable quick blade of flaming/freezing for popcorn), it's not like there's a better option than str. From my experience, even a well-enchanted vorpal crossbow with max skill and min delay has a bit low damage output in the end-game (unless the user has high slaying bonus/abuses monster's weakness/penetrates multiple targets/invokes Finnesse), which encourages boring kiting.
Probably that's just my lack of patience or the build is suboptimal altogether.

Spoiler: show

The latter should be true since i rarely worship Okawaru, even with rangers.

I played a pure crossbow KoHu of Oka (viewtopic.php?f=12&t=8078&p=109609#p109609) and I found it very powerful even without any slaying bonuses. OoF died to 3-4 silver bolts, draconians were fun with Finesse and penetrating bolts. But sometimes it can be boring indeed, it took 30+ turns to kill Tiamath (I didn't use kiting, just activated Heroism and Finesse), we were shooting each other for that long (I had AC 38, EV 43 with Phased Shift).

[ZoFy]

I played a pure crossbow KoHu of Oka (viewtopic.php?f=12&t=8078&p=109609#p109609) and I found it very powerful even without any slaying bonuses. OoF died to 3-4 silver bolts, draconians were fun with Finesse and penetrating bolts. But sometimes it can be boring indeed, it took 30+ turns to kill Tiamath (I didn't use kiting, just activated Heroism and Finesse), we were shooting each other for that long (I had AC 38, EV 43 with Phased Shift).

Hey, it seems you're basing your opinion on your experience of employing all the damage boosting factors i listed (except slaying). Without Okawaru (or Trog, who's viable too but usually sets the game difficulty on easy mode), suddenly there's no Finnesse, supply of penetration is pretty short, and even bolts of flaming/frost need to be saved. So you're just forced to abuse translocations and get bored eventually. The solution is probably just ctrl-q with such characters.

[Sandman25]

Hey, it seems you're basing your opinion on your experience of employing all the damage boosting factors i listed (except slaying). Without Okawaru (or Trog, who's viable too but usually sets the game difficulty on easy mode), suddenly there's no Finnesse, supply of penetration is pretty short, and even bolts of flaming/frost need to be saved. So you're just forced to abuse translocations and get bored eventually. The solution is probably just ctrl-q with such characters.

Well, you wrote you don't see crossbow as good weapon unless there is some backup weapon or Okawaru/Trog. I can't argue with that - without Oka/Trog eventually you will run out of ammo and thus will need a backup weapon.
But there is no problem with crossbow, you still can have a pure crossbow user.

[crate]

I have never said str is bad for xbows. It's not. It's just that there's nothing remotely approaching a "magic number" or anything like there is for longbows (or slings).

If someone asked "how much str do you need for GDA in 0.13" my answer would be 0 (since magic numbers for armour are gone). If they instead asked "how much str do I want if I wear GDA", well, that's a very different question.

Anyway imo xbow is better than bows for a large majority of characters, but I said that above. You can win a crossbow character without okawaru just fine, and in fact I already gave two examples earlier in this very topic.

[Sandman25]

crate,
Sorry I think your examples don't qualify as pure rangers.
First:

  Code:

      Demon trident     |       |       |       |       |       |       |   218 |  1620 |  2940 ||  4778
 Fire: Crossbow          |    28 |    34 |    83 |   177 |   417 |   690 |  1576 |  2271 |  2251 ||  7527

Second:

  Code:

Melee: Dagger            |   148 |   169 |       |       |       |       |       |       |       ||   317
       Short sword       |       |    34 |   310 |   769 |    14 |       |       |       |       ||  1127
       Long sword        |       |       |       |    94 |       |       |       |       |       ||    94
       Scimitar          |       |       |       |     5 |   676 |       |       |       |       ||   681
       Great sword       |       |       |       |       |    53 |   455 |   253 |   645 |       ||  1406
       Longbow           |       |       |       |       |       |       |     2 |       |     1 ||     3
 Fire: Bow               |       |    23 |    88 |   991 |   734 |       |       |       |       ||  1836
       Longbow           |       |       |       |       |   698 |  1802 |  1594 |  1282 |   355 ||  5731

[Amnesiac]

I think it's more then ok if most of them are killed with a ranged weapon, because noone in their right mind should waste their ammunition for popcorn. Even my "pure mages" use some kind of a branded/enchanted dagger or an enhancer staff(bacause it's like made for killing popcorn in melee) even though I don't invest exp into weapon skills

[Sandman25]

I think it's more then ok if most of them are killed with a ranged weapon, because noone in their right mind should waste their ammunition for popcorn. Even my "pure mages" use some kind of a branded/enchanted dagger or an enhancer staff(bacause it's like made for killing popcorn in melee) even though I don't invest exp into weapon skills

Well, if a character has greatsword at min delay, I can't count it as a prove that it is possible to win with (cross)bow without Oka/Trog.

[absolutego]

yeah but who cares

[BlackSheep]

Why should it be possible to win using only one weapon?

[Sandman25]

Why should it be possible to win using only one weapon?

Why not? It's possible with melee

[BlackSheep]

And melee and ranged combat are so similar!

[Volteccer_Jack]

It's possible with melee

Doesn't mean it's a good idea.

[Arrhythmia]

The idea of a "pure" character in Crawl is really really dumb. Melee is good, ranged is good, spells are good. So, melee + ranged + spells =

[MoogleDan]

Then you can notice that longbows have higher damage due to doubled launcher enchantment (that can be +9 as you know). Combine it with smaller delay and you can see why longbows are much better

Wait, what? This actually comes as a surprise to me. What's the logic behind having some weapons get 2x enchantment bonus to damage, and some only 1x?

[Sandman25]

Then you can notice that longbows have higher damage due to doubled launcher enchantment (that can be +9 as you know). Combine it with smaller delay and you can see why longbows are much better

Wait, what? This actually comes as a surprise to me. What's the logic behind having some weapons get 2x enchantment bonus to damage, and some only 1x?

Second bonus is from Strength. Longbow uses strength to increase damage (the harder you pull bowstring, the further the arrow flies) while crossbow is a device with fixed firepower and distance, you just need enough strength to actually trigger the shoot.

[MoogleDan]

Well that makes sense, but it sounded like you guys were saying the a +9 longbow would get twice as much bonus damage from its enchantment as a +9 crossbow would. Is that not the case?

[Sandman25]

Well that makes sense, but it sounded like you guys were saying the a +9 longbow would get twice as much bonus damage from its enchantment as a +9 crossbow would. Is that not the case?

The strength bonus is limited by enchantment of the longbow. I guess the better longbow you have the more strength you can apply to it without breaking it down.
At Strength 10 longbows and crossbows are more equal in terms of damage as both apply only one weapon enchantment to total damage. But with more strength the longbows get an extra bonus (you need 14 Strength for +9 longbow to get d9 + d9 damage bonuses, with Strength 10 you get only d9 for +9 longbow)

[MoogleDan]

That's bizarre, I was always under the impression that enchantment bonuses were completely separate from all else when determining damage output. Makes sense I suppose.