I’ve been thinking: what is the most effective way to use them crossbows? Got a few questions to rack the brain about.
Is any reload speed useful for Varuns? They reload pretty fast on their own. Will it result in better DPS if used on Omnibox and/or with Flywheel?
What’s the best way to build a full set of crossbows (let’s say, 3 Spikes or Toadfish) on your craft? Banana, asymmertic placing, underbuild with bigrams?
Which crossbow is the best, compared to others? Seems like Toadfish would be the obvious leader, being the only legendary one, but there could be a few “buts” which can turn the tables.
As someone with much love for crossbows and some experience, the most efficient way to use crossbows is to sell them if you end up with the misfortune of owning any. As a whole they are all not that great and have been much forgotten like some other guns. They need a crossbow specific codriver at the least.
Not really, even without it they reload fast enough, and even when going full on reloading the boost is not that noticeable. If you plan on not using any modules due to their ridiculous energy consumption, then I’d say go with a reload cabin. I’d advice against it though, they suck, they have a lot of things wrong with them, how the firing works, how the guns perform, how the aiming bops up and down if you go over bumps rather than adjusting right away, how they are not work as much energy as they consume and how most builds with them go into absurd powerscores where they can’t compete at all, I can’t advice against it strong enough
hovers, small track, omni. Never underbuild
Toadfish, it’s still not awesome but it’s the most useful one out of the three. Special mention to Phoenix.
Honestly crossbows were left in the dirt, they used to be super meta but now they just can’t compete. Varuns have been absolutely butchered and the devs have straight up given up on them ever being any good
I believe a large group of guns were placed into one co-driver and it’s Jay. She’s for both cannons and Xbows. Although I would like to have more specific co-drivers but first and foremost I would like to have a good game. And then all the tidbits.
I just don’t like their size/durability ratio. And extra long reload. I ain’t sure but their reload is probably even worse than Avalance’s. Spike and Toadfish’s, that is.
All I don’t like about them is their weird “charge”. What is it for? If they wanted to make a semi-auto Xbow, they should’ve just left it at that and don’t make it complicated. But this is their way, without ounce of irony. Anyhow:
This is only for myself, of course. Not for any PvP fight. Maybe a raid once in a while. Catalina ensures at the very least mediocre 3500 damage on sphere.
I meant the position of them on your car. I don’t like to put them in front of the cabin since it 99% means they’ll be destroyed fast. But the only ones I’ve seen on exhib are horrendous spaced armour ones with slits for Toadfish.
Suspected as much. This is why I’m making the third one
banana build all the way. do angles instead of circles.
reloading cabin.
I learned to play verun’s always moving. If I sit still I won’t have them (pretty much goes for all xbows imo).
I hadn’t used my Varuns much, but this thread got me interested in experimenting with them again yesterday.
Did a quick test in the garage of a reload module, and my numbers on the meter were the same with or without it.
Wondering if I should redo the test with a reloader and a reload boosting cabin, although I suspect it may also have the same DPS.
Turns out you can boost the reload, but not by very much.
With hadron/deadman and the epic reload booster, I can hit one more volley on the damage meter before it resets, compared to no reload boost.
That’s not a lot, and currently the varun’s perk doesn’t really increase damage much, so it’s never going to do well in a DPS battle, even if you’re running a macro to maximize the perk.
I’m having more luck taking more careful shots, and even letting the perk expire rather than waste the shot.
You almost want to think of it as a quick loading cannon like a median, or a slow shooting AC. Harass people from long range with little bursts, then relocate before they locate you.
I’m enjoying them, but definitely not getting many MVPs with them.
Personally I like Phoenixes the most of all the crossbows. They also won’t get you many MVPs, but they’re a really unique weapon and playstyle if you figure them out.
Spikes and Toadfishes are fun, but neither currently have enough impulse to really shine anymore, unless you take them much lower in PS than they’re meant to be used.
Special mention on the Varun goes to being a horrible weapon when dealing with any kind of lag spikes, even small ping spikes that are unnoticeable on other weapons can seriously break the flow of shooting with Varuns, or make you miss almost every shot before you realize that you have bad connection and need to “aim ahead” rather than at an enemy.
So unless you have the most stable connection imaginable you also have to worry about that as well, on top of all the many shortcomings
Aside from casual “connection has been lost”, I rarely have any lag spikes. Yet again, this is because devs wanted to make a semblance of an auto-Xbow but since they want to make the game with a healthy doze of misery (not in that wording but this is their confession), they had to make Varum crappy enough.
My connection is not the best, but I rarely notice it when playing other weapons, but Varuns, summators, arguments, parsers, assemblers and impulse all make me notice how unstable it is in general
Another thing that confuses me about it is that they gave it the firing mechanism of synthesis etc. which was apparently so crappy that they turned them into automatic weapons. I wish they did the same with Varun
I think they were trying to give the feel of mechanically pulling back the bow and releasing it. And to be fair, when I’m in the zone they do feel like that.
But the reward when you connect with a shot just isn’t high enough.
I think they could have their energy reduced to 6 without it being a big problem. If not that, then at least increase the damage and/or impulse.
I didn’t like the Varun, i didn’t get that gun.
But i loved the other Crossbow that shoots explosives darts, The last Droneapocalypse i don’t know why but i didn’t get TOW very often, so i choose the Crossbow with explosives darts over Reaper, Fortune, and Porc (which i hate).
It was great in dronapocalypse, but Phoenixes are harder to use in PVP.
I still recommend them, if you have an appetite for a challenging weapon.
I like them on a fast mobile build, and I don’t tend to focus on any one enemy. Just keep moving, and taking shots whenever they’re available. Even if you miss, sometimes your bolts still blow up at the right time and hit someone driving by.
