Crossbow Staff Solo Build Guide

Introduction

Welcome to our Crossbow Staff solo build guide. In this guide, we’ll go over our recommended way to set-up the Crossbow Staff weapon combination for Solo Farming. This set-up is primarily used in Abyss Dungeons in the Open World. The main synergy that unlocks this build is the incredible Cooldown Speed you can reach during the Selfless Diffusion window with High Focus. As a result, when built correctly, this build can spam cooldowns that’re typically very long in a standard set-up.

Skills

Below is our Skill set-up for Solo PVE farming:

This combination of Skills allows for large mob pulls and plans to AoE everything down with Fire and Lightning Skills, and the spin-to-win Skill, Merciless Barrage. The build utilizes the Cooldown synergy between Selfless Diffusion, Mother Nature’s Prophet and Chain Thunder for consistent AoE.

Skill Specializations

With 100 total points to play with once you hit Level 50, below is our recommended Specializations for the Crossbow Staff Solo build:

These particular Specializations provides a comfortable set-up for farming mobs in small or large quantities. Crossbow Staff has fantastic PVE damage potential in both Single Target & AoE situations when Specialized properly. See our Skill Specializations guide for more information.

Weapon Mastery

This guide assumes you are at least in the range of Level 13-16 Weapon Mastery. However, if you’re below this threshold, it’s not an issue. Simply spec into the mastery trees that provide the most damage first.

Stats

Stats once you reach Tier 1 Epic gear can vary frequently due to stats built into gear. As a result, try to push for as much Wisdom and Dexterity as possible while farming – gear depending. Below is our recommended baseline Stat allocation:

Strength – 1 Point
Dexterity – 23 Points
Wisdom – 21 Points

For Solo farming, Perception is less required when compared to PVP situations. As a result, remove every point but 1 from Strength and every bonus Perception point and pump it into Dex & Wisdom.

Gear & Equipment

The gear loadout largely, if not entirely, stays the same across all content once you reach Tier 1 Epic. Our Tier 1 Epic set assumes that most of the base content has been unlocked with the Milestones completed.

Early on, make use of your Rare gear you acquired through MSQ. It is totally fine and expected to be in Rare gear for quite a long time – so don’t worry too much! Most of the time, your PVP gear is perfectly fine in PVE.

For advice on Uncommon and Rare gear progression options, check out our Leveling guide.

Guardian

Guardians are a unique transformation on a 10 minute Cooldown that gives powerful bonuses to you for 30 seconds. Some Guardians work as an additional “Active” Skill, while others provide buffs. We recommend the following Guardians for Solo Farming:

Shade Revenant Stheno – Stheno is the most offense-heavy choice in PVE. This Guardian dishes out consistent damage dealing projectiles to multiple targets.

How to Play The Crossbow Staff Solo Build

Our Crossbow Staff Solo build guide not only aims to teach you how to put it together, but also how to play it.

The main objective of playing this build solo is to be able to manage multiple mobs alone and efficiently clear them. Fortunately, the Crossbow Staff excels in PVE content and can easily machine gun single-target and AoE packs with ease. The build is quite mana intensive and requires good management of your Inner Peace and Mana Exchange cooldowns.

Skill Rotations

The standard large pack pull rotation is as follows:

Toggle Mother Nature’s Protest
High Focus
Inner Peace (Cancel it with Defensive Skill/Block)
Selfless Diffusion
Chain Thunder
Judgment Lightning
Chain Thunder
Merciless Barrage
Chain Thunder (spam-able)
Judgment Lightning

This is a quick and easy rotation that just peppers enemies with constant AoE damage from Merciless Barrage. Rotate between Quick Fire and Nimble Leap to reset and re-use Quick Fire to finish low targets. For single-target damage on a solo adventure, you can weave Quick Fire and Nimble Leap into the above rotation to further lower your cooldowns during Selfless Diffusion. Before you even pull off any of the rotation above, you should consider gathering mobs together and simply fully charging a Serial Fire Bomb. This one particular Skill alone deals considerable AoE damage, which as a result, leads to a great opener.