What is it?
A confused school with little purpose. A ranged attack school but with few abilities of its own and no focus.

What should it be?
A ranged school with the capability to alter its attacks to be a nuker, crowd control or debuffer.

How would it accomplish this?
By changing the types of bolts it uses and by customizing the components of its crossbow, when combined with a set of natural abilities. Bolts are a consumable that are produced in bulk and consumed when the crossbowman uses attacks or abilities. Bolts are produced by a crafting school, though the particulars of that have not yet been defined. Bolts will have minimal if any bulk to encourage players to hold different types in inventory.

Types of bolts:

  • Standard
  • Poisoned
  • Burning
  • Freezing
  • Electrified
  • Barbed (Bleed)
  • Life Drain
  • Strengthened - Armor piercing
  • Chained (Root)
  • Exploding (AoE)


How would bolts be used?
Crossbow attacks and abilities will be updated to consume a bolt with every attack. An ability will allow you to override the type of bolt that the crossbow consumes to the specific type (listed above). Switching between bolt types will have a delay.

How are some of these bolts different from abilities such as Flame Attack or Elemental Archer’s arrows?
Attacks will still do piercing damage (or other damage types if you have overridden it with a buff), but these bolts will have additional damage or capabilities. Chained, for example, will have a chance to root. Exploding will do AoE damage. Burning will have a chance to cause a short flame DoT.

Crossbow mechanics:
Crossbowman will alter the functionality of their crossbow using Mechanisms. These will be purchased from trainers or crafted by tinkerers and then socketed into the Mechanism Socket. Mechanisms would be crafted by Tinkerers or other schools. Some combinations of mechanisms can produce additional bonuses or results (like item sets).

Mechanism Sockets will work just like other sockets for Crystals and will take up a tech slot. That means you could have up to 3 Mechanism Sockets on a Tier 5 crossbow.

Types of mechanisms:

  • Standard Cartridge: By upgrading the cartridge for the standard crossbow, the wielder can greatly improve the reload rate of bolts. Improves the recycle rate of attacks and abilities.
  • Improved Cartridge: By upgrading the cartridge for the standard crossbow, the wielder can greatly improve the reload rate of bolts. Improves the recycle rate of attacks and abilities, but also lowers the delay when switching bolt types.
  • Enlarged Chamber: By upgrading the chamber for the standard crossbow with a larger chamber, the wielder can enhance the firing capabilities of the crossbow. Reduces the accuracy of the crossbowman's attacks, but adds a number of bonus attacks.
  • Improved String: By upgrading the string for the standard crossbow with a, the wielder can improve the power of the crossbow. Bonus DPS to every attack.
  • Hardened Bow: By upgrading the bow of the standard crossbow with one made from treated wood, the wielder can improve the accuracy and range of the crossbow. Increases accuracy and range of every attack.
  • Sight: By upgrading the sight of the standard crossbow with one made of better materials, the wielder is able to target specific locations on the target and to extend the firing range of the crossbow. Increases range, but also grants some specific abilities such as Target Head (mez), Target Feet (root) and Target Vitals (bleed).
  • Grip: By upgrading the grip of the standard crossbow with one made of better materials, the wielder is less likely to lose hold of the crossbow when in close combat. Allows the wielder to block some attacks with their crossbow and a counterattack, Retaliatory Smash, which would be usable after a successful block.


Abilities
There would be a few tweaks to the existing unique Crossbowman abilities, but for the most part they would remain the same. The bulk of the changes would be to the functionality surrounding the crossbow itself. Lowering the recycle rates across the board would be the big change.