What is the point of the Sniper Crossbow?

As far as I can tell the crossbow type weapons are essentially reliant on lock-on in order to be effective. So what's the purpose of a long range crossbow? Am I missing something here? Isn't that kind of a contradiction? I don't think I've ever seen anyone using it.

As far as I can tell its just a longer ranged crossbow. It deals more damage at the limits of your lock on range and I believe it out-damages most other crossbows.

You can actually aim with it, it just takes some skill and a LOT of patients.

I mean, I guess they just put it in the game since NPCs were using it and there was no reason not to give it to you.

Instead of giving us a useless NPC crossbow they should have given us the Tower Knight's gigantic mace. I would have gotten a lot more use out of something like that anyway.

ErrJon6661 wrote:As far as I can tell its just a longer ranged crossbow. It deals more damage at the limits of your lock on range and I believe it out-damages most other crossbows.

You can actually aim with it, it just takes some skill and a LOT of patients.

If that was your plan wouldn't it be a lot easier to just use a bow?

PlasticandRage wrote:Instead of giving us a useless NPC crossbow they should have given us the Tower Knight's gigantic mace. I would have gotten a lot more use out of something like that anyway.

ErrJon6661 wrote:As far as I can tell its just a longer ranged crossbow. It deals more damage at the limits of your lock on range and I believe it out-damages most other crossbows.

You can actually aim with it, it just takes some skill and a LOT of patients.

If that was your plan wouldn't it be a lot easier to just use a bow?

im still sad we never got the giant mace. first time i saw it i was like awesome! i cant wait to get only to find out you couldnt, the reg mace is still pretty badass, my +15 with slb destroys bosses.

It seems like you can get pretty much everything else. I'm hard pressed to think of something else that you can't. Anybody know what that weird thing the butchers carry in their off-hands is? The long, thin, spiky thing?

Mr. Plastic, just want to say that I also don't get what is the purpose of a sniper crossbow, but I have no idea how effective this weapon actually is, I never really used crossbows.

Regarding the butcher thing I don't know what you're talking about, seems like I missed something, I thought they just have the butcher knife...

PlasticandRage wrote:It seems like you can get pretty much everything else. I'm hard pressed to think of something else that you can't. Anybody know what that weird thing the butchers carry in their off-hands is? The long, thin, spiky thing?

No idea, all I know is that they use it during their grab attack.

Anyway, the Sniper Crossbow has swag. That's the only reason to use it.

They never grab attacked me? :| How does it look like- wait I'll look it up on youtube, nevermind.

Wade_Wilson wrote:No idea, all I know is that they use it during their grab attack.

They'll swing it at you by itself too. I think when they're attacking they alternate back and forth.

Darkson wrote:Mr. Plastic, just want to say that I also don't get what is the purpose of a sniper crossbow, but I have no idea how effective this weapon actually is, I never really used crossbows.

I actually just started using them recently. I got a great deal of use out of the heavy crossbow and then the Avelyn is just amazing. They don't really function the way bows do it all, but if you just use them as extra mid-range damage dealers they can be really handy. This is what confuses me about the Sniper CB. It just seems to me to kind of be a contradiction in terms

Darkson wrote:They never grab attacked me? :| How does it look like- wait I'll look it up on youtube, nevermind.

They slam you into the ground using the off-hand tool( which deals no damage) , then raise the cleaver over their heads and slam it down into you. Its a grab attack because you can spam attack/block to break out of the animation and roll away.

Obviously the snipers crossbow unlocks the pendants ability.

I assumed it had a further lock-on range, but I guess that wouldn't be weapon specific. It's got more range, so it's probably good against bosses in large arenas, since the lock-on is extended for those. You can also manually aim crossbows by using the binoculars. Will the Hawk Ring extend the range of crossbows as well?

I thought the butcher stake was supposed to be some kind of tool to tenderize meat.

ublug wrote:I assumed it had a further lock-on range, but I guess that wouldn't be weapon specific. It's got more range, so it's probably good against bosses in large arenas, since the lock-on is extended for those. You can also manually aim crossbows by using the binoculars. Will the Hawk Ring extend the range of crossbows as well?

I thought the butcher stake was supposed to be some kind of tool to tenderize meat.

It does look like some kind of tenderizing implement. I was just wondering if it actually represented a real-world cooking tool that I just wasn't recognizing. I wonder about it every time I see it.

I didn't realize boss fights extended lock-on range. Even if you can aim them with binoculars wouldn't it be a lot more efficient to just use a bow? Any bow? I understand the usefulness of binocular aiming for things like spells, sometimes catching even preoccupied pvpers with things like unexpected lightning bolts, but it just seems like a lot of work/chance to me to hit someone with, what would only really realistically be, a single bolt.

Its a meat hook, just bigger than most meat hooks(same as their butchers knives are bigger than normal)

I could see the sniper crossbow coming in handy in PvE with the binoculars trick, when you want to cheese kill larger enemies like stone dragons, etc. Just set your aim once and keep spamming bolts. Crossbows have no scaling, too, so at base wielding stats they could potentially be better than bows.

Maneater_Mildred wrote:Its a meat hook, just bigger than most meat hooks(same as their butchers knives are bigger than normal)

Now that makes sense. I just couldn't picture From completely fabricating something like that. It made more sense to me for it to be based on a real thing, even if just loosely.

BLA1NE wrote:I could see the sniper crossbow coming in handy in PvE with the binoculars trick, when you want to cheese kill larger enemies like stone dragons, etc. Just set your aim once and keep spamming bolts. Crossbows have no scaling, too, so at base wielding stats they could potentially be better than bows.

It weighs 3 more pounds than the Heavy Crossbow though, has a much higher stat prereq, is harder to find/can't be found till later, and does less damage. Also I'm pretty sure you can get enough range out of the Heavy CB to binocular snipe in PvE without aggroing.

The Painted World dragon comes to mind, though. If you're standing just outside the range of his poison puke, I think the lock-on can be tricky from there--I think he unlocks when he pulls back to draw his breath (been a long time since I killed him from range, don't exactly remember). So at this range, the sniper crossbow might be better.

About the weight, I wouldn't consider that a problem if you're only using it to cheese the larger mobs. Just equip it when you need it, and remove it when the job's done. You don't need to move while you're doing it so weight isn't an issue.

And you get it in Sen's, not exactly out of the way! The stats reqs are higher, that's true, but it's not unreasonable to have those stats at that point in the game.

Just one problem, though: can it only be used with sniper bolts?

BLA1NE wrote:The Painted World dragon comes to mind, though. If you're standing just outside the range of his poison puke, I think the lock-on can be tricky from there--I think he unlocks when he pulls back to draw his breath (been a long time since I killed him from range, don't exactly remember). So at this range, the sniper crossbow might be better.

About the weight, I wouldn't consider that a problem if you're only using it to cheese the larger mobs. Just equip it when you need it, and remove it when the job's done. You don't need to move while you're doing it so weight isn't an issue.

And you get it in Sen's, not exactly out of the way! The stats reqs are higher, that's true, but it's not unreasonable to have those stats at that point in the game.

Just one problem, though: can it only be used with sniper bolts?

I'm pretty sure you can use regular bolts with it. My point is that all things considered, IMO, the Heavy CB is more efficient in just about every way. I feel like the only thing that makes the SCB different or special is an ability that's essentially negated by the weapon type. Have you ever seen anyone using it regularly? In any venue? PvP, PvE, youtube videos, anything?

To me this just doesn't seem like an effective tactic at all. I feel like if this is what you're going to do, than a bow is a completely superior choice

some thing i think would be cool is that since you can backstab with bows, you should be able to riposte with crossbows... but after trying it it doesn't work... also i think crossbows could be the bain of glass cannon builds as they do enough damage to one shot a glass cannon, have decent range and nobody expects them.

You can BS with bows? Like if you have them equipped in your weapon hand? I didn't know that.

Just so you know if you aim your Camera while pressing up, you'll aim your crossbow at the centre of the screen, then you can adjust up or down. It's difficult at first, but with the Hawk Ring you'll find even in the forest you can hit targets for alarming damage at a great range.