2H Crossbow Ganking PvP Build

Overview

Weapon: Crossbow

Focus: Range DPS

Mode: Open World and Ganking

Strengths

• High Burst Damage
• Great CC
• Easy to Play

Weaknesses

• Difficult to pull off correctly
• Low Mobility

This build is up to date for the September 4, 2024, Paths to Glory Patch #3 .

Overview

This 2H Elder's Crossbow build focuses on high burst damage delivered quickly enough and focusing on dismounting players for your group of gankers to catch and CC them to hold them down. Your job is rather simple and this build is a great choice for new players looking into getting involved into ganking.

Equipment

Main Hand Weapon

Elder's Crossbow

Head

Elder's Demon Helmet

Cape

Elder's Morgana Cape

Armor

Elder's Scholar Robe

Shoes

Elder's Royal Sandals

Potion

Major Poison Potion

Food

Beef Stew

Keep in mind: Gear shown in this build is meant as a reference. Choosing the correct tier of gear is very tricky as there are many variables. Some of them being your budget, your spec and minimum Item Power requirements of your guild if used for ZvZ.

You should always check prices based on IP of the items. For example, a masterpiece quality 4.3 Elder's Cryptcandle could be cheaper while providing roughly the same IP as an 8.0.

Usage

Elder's Crossbow

Explosive Bolt — This skill does great AOE damage quickly without any cast time, allowing you to keep moving while dealing damage. Use this as you kite and manoeuvre during a fight.

Sunder Shot — Always apply this debuff before using Snipe Shot as it decreases enemy defenses by a lot based on how high the HP of an enemy is. The higher the current HP, the higher the decrease in defenses!

Snipe Shot — This is your main damage. It tracks a target regardless of their movement and fires a high damage shot while having a rather long range. You need to keep in mind that any damage invulnerability can entirely counter this but your main intention is to dismount people using this!

Well-Prepared — Due to the low cooldowns on Explosive Bolt and the few skills you use in quick succession, this passive is triggered quite often and helps with your overall DPS.

Elder's Scholar Robe

Speed Caster — This skill allows you to use both Snipe Shot and Sunder Shot very quickly, especially when paired with tactical use of Mark of the Raven.

Aggression — This is your only good choice as it increases your flat damage and is great to have.

Elder's Demon Helmet

Hush — You want to always use this once enemies are dismounted as it applies a long lasting silence on any enemy you hit after activating the ability and landing an auto-attack on your target. A purple icon appears over the head of an enemy that was successfully silenced, that is how you should keep track of them and see when they are no longer silenced.

Toughness — This defensive option is preferred over Authority as the 5% CC duration increase doesn't do much for Caltrops.

Elder's Royal Sandals

Defenseless Rush — This is a key part of the build as its boosting your Snipe Shot damage and allowing you to do even more damage, capable of dismounting players off high HP mounts with the sheer damage you deal coupled with the defense decrease applied by Sunder Shot.

File:Aggressive.webpAggressive — This passive offers more damage which is great to have as high damage bursts is the goal of the build.

Elder's Morgana Cape

Mark of the Raven — You want to trigger this before you do your combo. The Mark of the Raven boosts your cast time speed alongside Speed Caster. This allows you to cast both Sunder Shot and Snipe Shot in quick succession and make it easier for you to catch moving players.

Rotations

Dismount Burst Combo ↴

• You want to communicate with your group while ganking so you can position yourself in front of targets' path. Once you know that a target is coming your way, use Defenseless Rush to boost your damage and movement speed. Use Speed Caster to lower your cast speed before activating Snipe Shot to trigger Mark of the Raven but make sure to cancel the channel after the cloak was triggered.

Use Sunder Shot on the target to lower their defenses and increase the damage you do even further. Quickly use Snipe Shot to deal the burst damage. If the target gets dismounted, you should use Hush to silence them and stop them from using a sprint and getting away. Keep chasing them and while using Explosive Bolt and Major Poison Potion to deal damage as your ganking group shows up to help with the kill.

Consumables

Major Poison Potion — You can use this instead of Sunder Shot whenever your combo is on cooldown or you simply want to stop a mount's gallop and deal some damage.

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.