Crossbows: ideas to make them better

I'm loving this game and I love the idea and concept of the Crossbow weapon class but I feel that it falls short in terms of execution.

I understand that this is a combo focused weapon but the spectrum of what it can do reliably can fall short when facing hordes of enemies in mapping (except one of two/three builds that can do this). It becomes starkly evident that it needs buffing when compared to the bow due to 3 major reasons:

Bow skills are way stronger and play together much more nicely. The combos are much more varied and synergistic.

Bows have no reload, instead it capitalizes on that down time to channel abilities making them stronger. Whilst the xbow has down time with reload with no benefits.

Bow skills are stronger from range. While the xbow feels like we're playing always very close up.

First I believe that the xbow and all weapons in general should be able to combo reliably and effectively within the range of its abilities, without supplementing it with other weapons. That said I think with some minor changes it can become very competent by itself and provide combo opportunities to other weapons.

So here are some fun ideas to buff the xbow:

1- Frag Rounds / Permafrost / Ice shards

Frag Rounds Needs a damage buff and stun buff and a narrower cone so it travels further (shotguns are not that close ranged at all) and also they should cause bleeding (trench guns being banned and all that...). Also the clip needs to hold 4 or 6 of these rounds.

Permafrost also should benefit of a narrower cone and it should maim mobs until they are frozen solid - the idea being they are slowly being frozen solid.

Ice shard needs to be the single target version of permafrost bolt. It maims on hit and it increasingly causes frost build up. I think the icicles on the ground is not feasible at all due to how quick mobs are and how zoomed in we are, which prevents us to engage in real ranged combat.

2- AP Rounds / High Velocity / Gas Grenade

Honestly I don't like the interaction of AP rounds and HV rounds. It takes forever to pull off and the damage isn't great at all. Once you see the videos of Snipe 1 shotting bosses you feel very disappointed at this "combo" on the xbow.

So to fix this I propose you get rid of the AP rounds (merge it with rapid shot) and the gas grenade (gas arrow is better anyway) and instead introduce an Acid grenade. This Acid grenade deals damage over time and Armour damage over time.
Meanwhile the acid is doing its thing, it should be possible to charge the HV rounds like the snipe skill (just like a railgun ) and make it interact with the stormblast bolts (I describe it further down) to make it stronger.

3 - Galvanic Shards / Stormblast Bolts / Voltaic Grenade / Plasma Blast:

Currently GS works best with the bow skill lightning rod. By itself its kinda meh due to damage being so low and it doesn't play with any other skill in the xbow roster.

Besides damage needing a buff I feel this could be awesome with voltaic grenade by infusing more power to the grenades while they're on the ground, casuing them to explode faster, wider and harder. So its basically sustained smaller damage until the big burst damage at the end.

This could also combo with Stormblast Bolts in a similar way that it does with lightning rods. The Stormblast Bolts on the ground chain GS around in a tesla-coil-arch kind of way and this in turn charges the Bolts in the ground - making the eventual explosion bigger.

Stormblast Bolts being buried conveys the idea that it should function as a mine or trap. So its fitting that it should explode with a proximity sensor besides being detonated manually- this way you could set some traps / ambushes.

Also the Stormblast bolts should accelerate all other projectiles what pass above them (think particle accelerator) making them faster and deal way more damage depending on the charge level on the bolts. - This would efectively turn Stormblast bolts into a combo enabler and a cornerstone in many builds.

Finally Plasma Blast could be enhanced by Stormblast Bolts by absorving all the charges of all the bolts in a radius and fire a Proton cannon level of sustained awesomeness ( 2 or 3 seconds of continuous dps) that you could move in a small radius. This would justify the unskippable charging period.

4 - Ripwire Ballista & Artillery Ballista + Hailstorm Round / Siege Cascade / Cluster Grenade

I think this is where the big opportunity lies to make the xbow very different from the bow! So the main idea of xbow being paired with the merc derives from the famous Genovese Mercs, obviously. So we need to delve in this theme way harder by calling in your merc buddies to come help!

So the way I'd rework this is by :

First making the ballistas be crewed by fellow mercs and have HP. This makes the positioning of the Ballistas important!

Second the ballistas should not cost mana but instead...GOLD! I mean the crews are your buddies but they're all after that money! - Also it'd be cool to have an animation of them quickly putting together the ballista and running away when it's destroyed.

Third, Ballistas should be a platform for the ordinances you could fire on demand; Hailstorm rounds, Siege Cascade, Cluster grenades, and possibly the Stormblast bolts should all be fired via Artillery.

You set a artillery ballista in a safe area of the map and it should fire a massive volley once you call in an artillery strike by tagging the ground / mob with the appropriate marking bolt.

This is the way to give the merc a great way to engage effectively from range and frees the action economy from the extra reloads.

5 - Glacial Bolt

The only viable Ice skill is great DPS by itself against bosses but terrible against mobs.

Its so very cumbersome to use this skill: It requires a change of clip (Frag rounds), to make it do damage and cause frost to mobs, you need to position yourself correctly and the walls meanwhile are being whittled away by mobs before you harvest any benefit - yes they are a crowd control first but the lack of offensive ice alternatives make this skill shoulder more of the burden.

This is needs to be treated as a shrapnel source for all explosives. Everything that explodes needs to be able to cause these walls to explode and cause terrifying amounts of damage.

Also Ice and fire need a fire / ice interaction which I propose be called the brittle mechanic. This idea came from the Frostfire support gem but I feel it could go further: if you heat up and then cool down rapidly a mob or boss you should be able to destroy 100% of their armour as a result.

6 - Rapid Shot and Incendiary shot

Both need damage buffs and they both need to set off the explosives as well. The incendiary shot needs the cone after impact be tremendously bigger in the presence of oil on the ground, make it a wave of fire traveling down.

I think also Rapid shot could be merged with the AP rounds to whittle down armour and give the bonus to HV rounds not the grenades (think as it being a hot tugsten rod being superheated then launched in a railgun via HV rounds)

Also they both need to play around with this Brittle mechanic suggested above.

Thank for reading and hopefully this inspires someone at GGG to make the xbow even cooler!

TLDR: Here are my ideas for more interaction between Xbow skills.