Thrown vs Crossbow

Beg to differ. My last few runs haven't had any craft skills whatsoever, yet I celebrate every time I find a copper, bronze, iron, or steel ingot because even with 0 Tinkering, I can turn them into arrows. I have no archery skill, and even using a Windup Double-Plus Crossbow on floor 11, I'm grateful to have the ability to wear down mobs before they get in melee range (or kill them from the other side of a see-through-able obstacle.) I also have 105+ Iron bolts, 63+ Steel Bolts, and a dozen or more of the Bronze and Copper bolts that I'm still working my way through. I'll use the iron and steel ones once I get through the lesser bolts.

 

No Essence! I always tell myself that, and I never seem to run out of lesser ammo! Use the iron bolts now or you'll never find the chance.

 

You are correct, they do add up if you have nothing better to be doing with your metals (and plastics). You are getting use from this almost solely BECAUSE you have nothing else you can do with the materials. From this approach, crossbow vs. thrown becomes moot, as the answer is "anything and everything I can chuck/launch at the bads" if you have enough strength to make thrown worth bothering with at all.

Tinkering IS the main 'archery skill', so I would have to agree. Archery is right now the skill you take if you already have tinkering AND already have perception, RS, or CK to get you endless metals (or in the case of RS, plastic), particularly since ammo recovery rate does not work on the specialty bolts.

Tinkering is the skill that take things from "wear down" to "mow down" (outright kill before they close). My advice for crossbows comes from experience using them as a primary damage source, complimented by melee/spells/cooldowns, and the conditionals are there for a reason. Upon rereading it, I realize my post does not discuss more casual crossbow use. Thank you for fleshing out some of the ways in which it can be done.

That is quite a collection, which I could see lasting you quite some time. Keep in mind, however, that iron and steel bolts deal 2 and 3 damage (plus your wind up doubleplus and any books/rings etc. that give additional damage). The tinkering versions of the same bolts do 13 and 16 total damage, crossbow upgrades aside.

In conclusion, I should correct my original statements. As has been amply demonstrated, tinkering is not required (nor pretty much required, mostly required etc) for crossbow use. It does, however, make an absolutely MASSIVE difference in the effectiveness of crossbow use, far more than the associated weapon skill. I would say the difference is about as large as the difference dual wield makes if you are wielding two weapons, though you DO need to invest skill levels into it in order to get that amount of benefit, whereas dual wield, you get the fun part from level 1 of it.

 

Excuse the Necro but this is relevant to my current build designs, with Piracy your cannon ability has a chance to leave cannonballs on the floor after use (5 max). You can use it on nothing and essentially farm cannonballs over and over. This gives you theoretically unlimited ammunition for your thrower in the mid range of the game. Something to think about if any of you are still playing