Referring to the Great Crossbow : Volley, Arbalest of the Damned.

I was going to use this for artificer/rogue past lives at cap. At the very least, its still got the slow and vulnerability on hit, and blunted ammo.

But DPS wise, how does it compare to an inquistive build? Not sure what the best named light/heavy crossbow currently is. The best light/heavy crossbow I have at the moment is Legendary Screamshatter.

What's the best repeater/great crossbow build now even? I seem to recall the most popular was some kind of fighter/rogue/artificer split for endless fusilade?

Not sure how accurate this is, but it sounds like Great crossbows are significantly behind an inquisitive build now? https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/514924-A-Great-Crossbow-build-for-thos...

So how does Volley compare to Inquisitive at cap?

Volley and Hallowed Splinters aren't much different.  Volley has slightly better base damage, better crit profile.   But if someone else in group is stacking Vuln, that's about it.   I doubt that covers up the advantages of the RoF on the Splinters from dual wield the higher RP in the tree.  Plus the law dice.  and NHB.   But asking about "Inquis" doesn't say anything about class splits and asking about Volley is really build unspecific.  That's a weapon not a class or tree.  Obviously it would be some sort of Rogue build, but the devil is in the details.

ManyCookies wrote on Jul 27^th, 2020 at 9:18pm:


Fusialde/NHB is mandatory for any xbow builds I'll play.  Maybe someone else has another build that they have run the numbers on.   I haven't.  But the ROF of Fuslade and NHB is too good and the downtime is too short, from what I can tell. 

I think the confusion is that you linked a detailed rogue 20 GXB build as the basis for your "is GXB behind inquis", but elsewhere you mention thinking of an arti/rogue build (without any level splits) and keep talking about a "Volley build".   Which isn't really a thing.   So, do you have a build you are thinking of?   It would be easier to give feedback on an actual build.  Do you want to run the strimtom build you linked in the OP?

Asheras wrote on Jul 27^th, 2020 at 10:22pm:


Yes, I didnt realise Strimtom was talking about a pure rogue build.

When I said volley, I meant an endless fusilade build. Think the original was rogue 10/artificer 4/fighter 6? I was thinking of doing something like that for rogue/artificer lives. Maybe something like artificer 8/rogue 6/fighter 6 for artificer past lives.

From what ive heard, it sounds like great crossbows are bad unless you are using fusilade. Is that true? I'm honestly not a fan of the "spam action boost" playstyle. Its fine if you are using it for large packs or bosses but if you have to spam action boosts every encounter and run in LD, i don't like that playstyle personally.

And running in LD also means losing sneak attack on many enemies such as undead, since they are immune to sneak attack. Running in SD would solve that problem, but means you get to spam fusilade less. Has anyone tried running a crossbow build in SD instead?

ManyCookies wrote on Jul 28^th, 2020 at 10:50am:


Leveling 18/2 was a cakewalk.

I did 18/2 with gxbow 1-20. 1-5 was Korthos Keen gxbow, 6-13 was ToEE gxbow, 14-20 was Divine Artillery. It was a cakewalk. And I went out of my way to do the more challenging content. I did every quest/raid at level from 1-17, leetstreaking my way to 5k favor. This was before inquis was a thing, before we had all this OP Slaver/RL/Sharn heroic gear.

You'll want to be human:
1 Point Blank Shot
1 Rapid Shot
(A)Rapid Reload
3 Precision
6 Precise Shot
9 Completionist
12 Imp Critical
15 Weapon Focus Ranged
18 Imp Precise Shot
21 Overwhelming Crit
24 Combat Archery
26 Epic Spellpower (positive)
27 Imp Sneak Attack
28 Double Shot
29 Elusive Target
30 Watchful Eye

Tried talking to several more people about this.

They all said that inquisitive just outdamages volley with a fusilade build, no contest, even without the raid loot crossbow.

From what they told me, the law dice is basically sneak attack on steroids, except that its d8 and works against all targets (with the t5 ability).

Dual crossbows fire two shots per attack like TWF, so thats basically 2x law dice AND sneak attack dice.

And with the 30% alacrity in t5 inquisitive, you fire much faster than great crossbows in t5 mechanic.

At cap, any random legendary crossbow is going to outdps volley + endless fusilade.

How true is this?