I wish the maximum Precision was 99%, instead of 95%, considering that you will never hit that mark with crossbows against more or less serious enemy.
Pretty much every model suck balls except for Tornado and Cyclon. And Cyclon practically suck balls too because of its underwhelming damage. It's useful only when you need to finish or stun an enemy.
Scope is useless. I don't think someone would prefer it instead of Anatomically-Aware Scope or Super String.
And crit-based build is basically non-viable, because of DC.
Your statements tell more about your flawed approach to the game than the actual game itself.
If one was to read all the doom and gloom about DC in this thread and then make a crossbow character, this is almost certainly the kind of outcome you'd expect. There are a
tiny handful of enemies throughout the game that are crit immune. The
vast majority of other enemies in the game get utterly dominated by crits - and the crossbow platform itself in many ways demands and rewards a crit-focused character.
If a crit-based build is "non-viable", then what is a crossbow build that is "viable"?
I had no trouble beating the game (sans the mutagen scanner bug) with the original unnerfed DC enemies on Hard as my first playthrough, completely blind. This tiny handful of enemies was not difficult - just annoying and badly-designed. They demand attrition, and a crossbow character is not designed to do that - like sticking a square peg in a round hole. There's nothing one can change about the crossbow character to make it "viable" against these creatures - it's going to be an annoying attrition fight either way. Claiming that this small handful of creatures invalidates one of the pillars of strong crossbow builds is just not sensible.
The best crossbow in the game is the Zephyr. It's strange to me that you'd peg the Anatomically-Aware Scope as a very good component and then completely miss out on this point. Though, an optimal setup is going to have an AA Zephyr + something else (I prefer a scoped or HR Tornado). Throughout the game it's the beginning of the fight that really matters, and the AA Zephyr demands its spot by beating out the other contenders soundly on this point.
I agree with some of the general criticisms of crossbows. It is, at the moment, the
worst possible build to play without good crafting, and most of its problems stem from the existence of Super Strings. Non-crafting characters get shafted because they'll never deal the crazy damage that's possible. Crafting characters get shafted because this component
must be part of every crossbow, making crossbow crafting a bit boring. We're left with stuff like AA Zephyrs. It would be cool to have an HR/AA Tornado or a Pneumatic/Scoped Cyclon or other combinations. Right now we're left with Super String + Something Else if we're trying to do the best we can.
But really making statements like "crit-based build(s) (are) basically non-viable" is a bit like saying "wielding two weapons on a dual-wielder is basically non-viable". Yeah crossbows aren't completely broken like some other builds, but they are perfectly capable of going through the entire game and (most importantly) are a very fun build to play. They dominate most everything, built correctly, pre-DC - and in DC they only struggle with those small handful of attrition creatures.
There's no question in my mind that the strongest/easiest build in the game is stealth omni-psi with high mobility.
It has its weaknesses, the main one being that without the element of surprise and initiative it can be torn apart like sopping wet tissue paper being clawed by a grizzly bear, but nine times out of ten the fight's over (or nearly over) before enemies have the opportunity to exploit those weaknesses.
By far the easiest build I've gone through the game with is the PSICON, even after all the nerfs. One can thoughtlessly stumble around - no sneaking or planning required - and obliterate everything. PSI powers are honestly far too strong on high-level characters. They feel pretty good around lvl 8-12 but end up trivializing the game later. It's still pretty fun but there's just no challenge to it whatsoever. It's especially bad with good crafting. I prefer the sneaky style myself because there's the challenge of getting the initiation right, at least.
