Light Crossbow Open World PvP Build
Strengths
- High Burst Damage
- Good Sustain
Weaknesses
- Difficult to pull off correctly
- Low Mobility
Overview
This Light Crossbow build is perfect for kiting and controlling fights using the superior range of the Light Crossbow paired with great utility and defensive abilities from Elder's Guardian Helmet and Everlasting Spirit for great staying power. While the build isn't easy to play, once mastered it can take on and beat many of the top picks for open world PVP.
Equipment
Usage
Elder's Light Crossbow
Explosive Bolt — This is your main damaging ability with a nice medium range that delivers high AOE damage to anyone hit by it. Through the use of Well-Prepared, it is constantly reset every 4th time you use this or another ability. Make sure to use Explosive Bolt as your 4th ability so it resets its own cooldown and you can use it twice in a row to deliver a nice burst damage and surprise your enemies with it.
Caltrops — Use this ability to slow down your targets, always pop it under their feet so they cannot dodge or ahead of them in order to have them walk over it while they kite. This is your only ability that allows you to control range and should be used as much as possible to keep targets slowed and in your range.
Exploding Shot — This is your main burst damage, planting an explosive bomb onto a target that blows up after a few seconds and does high AOE damage to the target and anyone around it. With its low cooldown, it allows you to spam it on cooldown and it should be your priority.
Well-Prepared — Due to the low cooldowns on Explosive Bolt and Caltrops, you get to use abilities often which procs this passive very often and makes it an obvious choice for the build.
Elder's Cleric Robe
Everlasting Spirit — While it takes good timing, Everlasting Spirit is a great defensive ability to help you mitigate a lot of burst damage. Use this against auto-attacks or dot damage in order to activate the shield granting you immunity for a few seconds. It is perfect to use against skills like Death Curse and even Exploding Shot or other abilities you can anticipate.
Aggression — This is your only good choice as it increases your flat damage and is perfect for the build.
Elder's Guardian Helmet
Emergency Shield — Use this ability to provide yourself with a shield depending on your current HP. You get a bigger shield when your HP is under 40% so it's preferred to use this when you passed that threshold. Keep in mind that this also clears all the debuffs from yourself and it should always be used against Vile Curse stacks or other dot effects.
Toughness — This defensive option is preferred over Authority as the 5% CC duration increase doesn't do much for Caltrops.
Elder's Soldier Boots
Wanderlust — While it takes a while for this run to stack up, once it does it can take you very far and outperforms other runs. It is perfect as you keep using Explosive Bolt while the run is stacking up.
Toughness — This defensive option is preferred over Authority as the 5% CC duration increase doesn't do much for Caltrops.
Elder's Martlock Cape
Shield of Protection — We want to use Martlock Cape for it's defense increase whenever your HP drops below 25%. Using this cape is great for baiting enemies into thinking that they can finish you off but the defense increase coupled with Major Resistance Potion helps a lot with your staying power in a fight.
Rotations
- While the rotation is easy in theory, the compexity of the build comes from the correct use of defensive abilities while out-trading them. Use Explosive Bolt on cooldown along side Caltrops in order to proc Well-Prepared that resets your Explosive Bolt so you can keep burning down the enemy as you kite.
Use Wanderlust to stay ahead of other enemies that use runs with shorter duration. This makes it easier for you to kite and keep enemies at range.
Consumables
Major Resistance Potion — Use this potion as a general damage reduction ability before enemy burst damage to lower the received damage and force out their CDs.
Beef Stew — This is the best food to use as it improves your overall damage. Always try to use an 8.2 or 8.1 version as it as it offers great value for minimum price.