Crossbow / Dagger PvE Build Guide

Skill Builds

Buffs/Debuffs

• Weak Point Shot - Making use of this as often as possible can increase your party's clear time by a substantial margin.
• Wind Snatcher - You can swap Weak Point Shot with this skill when you want to increase your Attack Speed further by using it after Knife Throwing.
• Lightning Infusion - With the ability to throw out so many hits, you get max stacks quickly.
• Mother Nature's Protest - This skill synergizes well with so many of your skills including Knife Throwing. Each hit from this skill also procs your Mortal Mark bonus damage attack.
• Selfless Diffusion - This is your key method of lowering cooldowns! Allows you to multiply your total damage anywhere from 1.5 to 4 times the amount due to offhand attacks being able to Crit and/or Heavy Attack as well.
• Mortal Mark - The duration of this mark can be extended with Selfless Diffusion.
• Mana Exchange - This is your only active skill for Mana Regen with this specific weapon combination. You can morph into Orc Brawler to regain 4% of your Max Health whenever you use this skill to lower the HP Cost.

Mobility Skills

• Nimble Leap - While being a mobility skill, you can also reset Quick Fire. This interaction of skills makes for a great "filler" when waiting for other skills to come off cooldown.
• Block Blade - You can use the stationary block version to instantly regain mana on fury attack blocks which becomes your primary source of Mana Regen.
• Cleaving Moonlight - It's worth mentioning this skill is also considered a mobility skill. So, for example, it procs Nature's Power.

Passive Skills

• Ambidexterity - Crossbow / Dagger is heavily reliant on offhand weapon attacks making this a must have.
• Nature's Power - Mobility skills are quite easy to maintain so you can keep this buff up indefinitely.
• Bloodlust Stack - With Crossbow / Dagger, your "Attack" skills are such low cooldowns, it's not difficult to maintain high stacks or max stacks.
• Piercing Strike - Bonus Damage is done per hit dealt so this synergizes well with the number of hits you're doing. This adds a lot of extra damage as long as you're stacking Bonus Damage.
• Destructive Fang - Bosses tend to have higher Defense so it's important to stack as much damage potential as possible.
• Assassin's Instincts - Crossbow / Dagger weapons tend to have high variance in damage between min and max damage so it's important to get as much Critical Hit as possible.
• Murderous Energy - This combined with Epic Inject Venom can help you keep your poisons up on a target almost indefinitely.
• Wrathful Edge - Crossbow / Dagger relies heavily on landing Critical Hits so this is a must have for damage.

Skill Prioritization

1. Use Quality Skill Growth Books to upgrade your skills from Green to Blue in the order shown below. Once all skills below are Green, use the rest on other skills used in the builds above.
2. Use Rare Skill Growth Books to upgrade your skills from Blue to Purple in the order shown below. Once all skills below are Blue, use the rest on other skills used in the builds above.
3. Prioritize getting all these skills to blue first before getting them to purple. These are universal skills you always use.
4. Upgrade the rest of your skills as you play the game.

Active Skill Priority

Passive Skill Priority

PvE Gameplay and Skill Rotation

PvE is all about getting 20 stacks of Thunderclouds and then using Thunderclouds Bombing to deal massive damage, repeating every 3-4 seconds.

Stat Priorities

Use the following stat priorities when playing a Crossbow / Dagger build in PVE:

• Primary Stat
  • Dexterity
• Secondary Stats
  • Strength and Perception

You have 49 Stat Points to distribute however you see fit, and gear gives additional stat points that you cannot change. It's free to reset the Stat Points so that you can "respec" whenever you need to as you progress and swap out items. Above are the main Stats you should be attempting to reach with the given builds in this guide.

Crossbow / Dagger excels when stacking very high Critical Hit, Attack Speed, and Maximum Weapon Damage. All three of these things are given to you by stacking Dexterity!

Mid-Game

Your first goal is to hit 60 Dexterity. For PvE, we care mainly about increased Critical Hit, Attack Speed, and Maximum Weapon Damage so place enough points to reach 60 Dexterity. Then allocate points into Perception to reach 40, this grants us increased Buff Duration which works on skills like Selfless Diffusion and Lightning Infusion. Last, you're going to place points into Wisdom up to 30, while all the rest you can either toss into Wisdom for higher Weapon Damage, or Strength for a little extra HP.

End Game

With Purple Gear in the End Game, you can reach all of your desired Stat Breakpoints. 60 Dexterity grants increased Critical Hit, Bonus Damage, and high amounts of Attack Speed before using our buffs. Getting to 50 Strength also grants 100 Heavy Attack which can give you higher chances of doing double the damage. 40 Perception grants increased Buff Duration so it's worth taking, and then if you get extra points, you can toss them into Wisdom. Having 30 Wisdom increases Maximum Mana.

Gear Progression

The additional Attack Speed trait from Rex Chimaerus's Rake Bow in combination with the increased Weapon Damage item effect from Lequirus's Thorny Edge make these the highest performing weapons in PvE. The fastest times in Gate of Infinity are 1-2 seconds using these weapons.

(**Read the warning!**) T2 Crossbow / Dagger PvE Build

No Rune Synergies or Resonance

• This setup allows you to acquire all the pieces yourself through grinding and Substance Transformation.
• Silent Tracker is a good T2 Dagger because of the ability to get Attack Speed as a trait. However, you can maintain the weapon effect of Lequirus's Thorny Edge which allows for higher consistent damage output.

Guardians

Guardians are special transformations that add offensive or defensive buffs or attacks to your character for 30 seconds. For damage purposes, Shade Revenant Stheno is the best option for Crossbow / Dagger.

• Shade Revenant Stheno is a Guardian that shoots projectiles against all enemies around you for 30 seconds. The reason this Guardian synergizes so well with Crossbow / Daggers is because the projectiles that hit enemies proc the Thunderclouds Weaken from Lightning Infusion, additional projectiles from Mother Nature's Protest, and even the bonus damage procs on Mortal Mark.

Gameplay

Summary

• Crossbow / Daggers PvE revolves around getting 20 Stacks of Thunderclouds and then using Thunderclouds Bombing to explode them for high damage every 3-4 seconds.
• Getting over 50 Strength, 60 Dexterity, and possibly 40 Perception, this build gains high Attack Speed, Heavy Attack, and Critical Hit that guarantees you the highest output damage as fast as your fingers can press your skills!
• Skills like Selfless Diffusion help lower your cooldowns to the point where you're constantly rotating through your skills with little to no downtime between cooldowns.
• Selfless Diffusion increases the chance for these two weapons to proc Offhand Attacks increasing your damage by 200-400%. This is something only Crossbows and Daggers can do.
• Crossbow / Daggers can utilize Bonus Damage, unlike any other weapon combination due to the high number of hits you're able to throw out.

Credits

Written by Bloo
Reviewed by Dredscythe