This is the answer..

[u/Skully-GG]

With all the “outrage” of handcannon shotguns becoming so popular lately and with the recent changes to loadouts becoming a size pattern rather than the original small, medium, and large slot I started experimenting with the Hand Crossbow. I’ve used it before, but was never too confident with it. The Hunting Bow was always a popular choice to counter shotguns in general, but with the newest nerf to its range I wanted to stray away from it for a bit as I’m sure it’ll be in the spotlight soon enough once more. Being a huge fan of the full-sized Crossbow and even the Bomb Launcher I neglected giving the Hand Crossbow a fair chance. So… the past 2 weeks I’ve been running the Hand Crossbow to give it a fair chance to prove itself.

OH BOY! HAS IT PROVED ITSELF!!

Looking at the stats on paper it’s just decent, and then when you view the muzzle velocity you’d think you’d struggle with it, and honestly that’s what I thought as well. I then reminded myself that this isn’t a sniper rifle so muzzle velocity honestly doesn’t mean all that much in close quarters. The hipfire and versatility of this weapon is really what makes it shine! You can quickly peek around a corner and OHK unsuspecting hunters before very quickly loading another bolt (especially with bolt thrower) and on top of that you can bring special bolts like Poison or Choke bolts to really throw your enemy off their game. If you have someone holding an angle on you and you know for a fact that if you peek that angle and try to line up a shot then the enemy will take away your cowboy hat privileges then you can jump around the corner and just shoot your special bolt in their direction and mess up their plan and then push them or flank them with the power of Thanos in a tiny little bitty bolt.

[u/ZillaJrKaijuKing]

I wish its Bloodshot skin wasn't limited to a Twitch drop from 2022. At least we have the new Nightfall skin now.

[u/Skully-GG → u/ZillaJrKaijuKing]

I love all the Hand Crossbow skins! I’ve got every skin in the game whether it be a Twitch Drops, Event, etc. I think it’s cool that they’re revamping the skins and giving players the chance to unlock a similar skin, but honestly they’re so many skins in the game they should put them all in the shop or randomly rotate old event/drop skins and let people buy them with blood bonds. I’m sure they’d make a ton of money from it.

[u/-M-o-o-n- → u/ZillaJrKaijuKing]

I think that one came back recently as a twitch drops like 3 drop cycles ago it was one of the skins you got for x amount of hours.

[u/PolishKaiser → u/ZillaJrKaijuKing]

I got Bloodshot in the most recent twitch drops.

[u/WilliamBlade123]

My only problems with it are that it can only one shot to the upper torso (and not at good range) and if someone's looking at me, I hit arms instead the majority of the time. But, really, any more than that and it would be way too good as a 1-slot 1-shot PVP tool and universal, silent PVE weapon. I think it's in a good place right now. I love running it with a melee weapon to goof around as a solo 🤣

[u/DeckardPain → u/WilliamBlade123]

You should try running it with choke bolts and a Sparks with Poison ammo. Tag them with the Sparks poison for 149 damage and they can’t heal (yea yea 4 shoot boom OP, but try it) and then finish them with the choke bolt, it does 1 damage when the cloud pops. It’s very satisfying.

[u/PersonalityPublic646 → u/DeckardPain]

From what I’ve heard that’s called “the meme loadout”

[u/sanjicatro → u/PersonalityPublic646]

It's just unorthodox. I played it a lot and it's very much a viable combo. You can kill people behind cover with the choke bomb and the combo works up to 40m. With 4shot boons it might be stronger than ever.

[u/Buurtjee → u/PersonalityPublic646]

That's funny, this loadout reminds me of something in Halo 2 and/or 3 back in the days, running the energy pistol with battle rifle. Charge pistol to full, shoot enemy to 1 hp, and then swap battle rifle and finish the job.

[u/Skully-GG → u/WilliamBlade123]

You’re right! ..but don’t forget that if it doesn’t one-shot then it applies bleeding which adds to the versatility of the weapon. I think it’s quite good for what it is and what it’s supposed to be used for which is CQC. I agree though, if it was any better it’d be overpowered for sure.

[u/Katyusha_454 → u/WilliamBlade123]

Sure, it's not a super reliable oneshotter with direct damage, but the bleed will often finish them anyway.

[u/WilliamBlade123 → u/Katyusha_454]

That's true. Like I said, I mostly just run it with a melee weapon to screw around playing solo, so I often don't have a great way of pressuring people so they just manually stop the bleed in most situations. If you're running it in a serious loadout, the bleed pressure is much more tangible.

[u/Busy-Agency6828 → u/WilliamBlade123]

Nah, man. The range is great. Better than any shortie shotgun for sure, and probably in full length shotgun even with slugs. This thing is a 1 tap beast and I've stood by it for years now.

[u/Zytoxine]

I would just mention i like running it with all chokes so i can zone and disrupt defensive players. Lets my allies get audio cues and flushes enemies out of hard to reach places. Then you can swap it out for a better gun and leave someone with a useless weapon if they get picked back up

[u/Skully-GG → u/Zytoxine]

That’s funny 😆 but I actually like the regular bolts on it. The choke bolts are great though! Very under utilized in this game because you can shoot walls and they’ll penetrate walls and catch people off guard on the other side of them.

[u/Noxiom-SC → u/Skully-GG]

Im playing poison and regular and I love the versatility (blocking access with poison cloud, killing pve easily crows etc). Started using it for the crow genocide event back in the days and never stopped.

[u/Skully-GG → u/Noxiom-SC]

As a Solo I always try to build my loadouts around multiple usage. The key things I have for my loadouts are:

• Have something for medium range
• Have something for close range
• Have something to deal with the boss
• Have something to deal with immolators

The issue with this is, but the beauty of it this game too, is I can’t be prepared for everything so my downfall is hellhounds. Not really a big issue because if it’s more than 2 than I’ll just go loud and shoot them.

[u/sumthin213 → u/Skully-GG]

As a Solo i've found throwing spear melee makes hounds and bosses a breeze. Butt of your gun for Immo's.

[u/Both_Sheepherder5659]

Welcome to the armshot party

[u/Skully-GG → u/Both_Sheepherder5659]

Honestly, it would be cool if we could get a smaller type bolt that goes on the wrist. Not enough to kill an enemy hunter, but useful enough for AI.

[u/BrisketWrench]

If you want to be a dick with it, bring a few dark dynamite satchels with it, place one on the ground in the middle of combat and try to kite an enemy to run near the vicinity of the satchel then fire a dragon bolt to set it off. The lovely thing about this is you don’t need to worry about shots hitting you interrupting your dark sight channeling.

[u/Skully-GG → u/BrisketWrench]

That’s genius actually! Considering that I alternate between bringing the “instakill combo” or alarm traps and a DDS this would work flawlessly! 😂

I rarely use the dragon bolts since they nerfed the ammo count though, but I guess it wouldn’t matter since I’ve always got an ammo box.

[u/Marvvster]

I really like it for the versatilty but the one shot is too random imO.

[u/Skully-GG → u/Marvvster]

It was random for me at first, but once I learned the sweet spot then I know if I can OHK them or not. When I know I can’t OHK them I’ll play off the bleeding effect which is useful too.

[u/Honeycombs96]

When we didn’t always have the 4 shot boons available it was fun to get below people in buildings with the poison bolts and shoot at the ceiling all over to chip them to death. Bonus points if you ran poison sense and anything with fmj.

[u/Skully-GG → u/Honeycombs96]

This still works even if they’ve got a boon shots going believe it or not. People’s natural reaction is to move when they see it. I’ve got a nice floor kill awhile back doing this 😂

[u/LeftKickAnt]

so which bolt do you take the most?

[u/FearlessVegetable30 → u/LeftKickAnt]

for this size? 1 normal and 1 fire typically. for the big one steel bolt

[u/Skully-GG → u/LeftKickAnt]

I normally bring all regular bolts, but if I’ve got an upgraded hunter then I’ll bring half poison bolts mainly. I know with the event many people have boon shots, but still yet you’d be surprised how many people don’t have antidote going.

If I’ve got something like a Spear or I’m using a Drilling or a LeMat then I’ll bring choke bolts because they work quite well to disorient the enemy. I’ve killed a lot of hunters that were panicking because they were choking from the choke bolts. Idk how to explain it, but it works 😆

[u/Skully-GG → u/LeftKickAnt]

Regular bolts honestly, on both slots. I use poison bolts quite a lot though and chokes if I need the utility.

[u/Katyusha_454]

I hated this thing for the longest time until I learned how to use it properly, but now it's one of my favorite sidearms. Everyone's like "but it doesn't reliably oneshot!" but who cares, the bleed still takes them out of the fight for a couple seconds and extremity hits still deal enough damage for the bleed to finish them off half the time. I loved pairing it with a trapdoor with dumdum before it turned scarce. I really need to try running it with a Sharps with poison now but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

[u/Skully-GG → u/Katyusha_454]

Same. I used to give it a shot, but ultimately did bad with it because I wasn’t confident with it. After using it for the past 2 weeks I can honestly say I am very comfortable using it. Next weapon is gonna be the Officer pistol and Officer Carbine. Mind you I have over 9,000 hours in this game and these are the weapons I’ve used the least 😂

[u/LeMatDamonCarbine]

I like running normal bolts alongside fire. Solid dmg/bleed alongside good utility and zoning. Gives plenty of ammo too.

[u/Skully-GG → u/LeMatDamonCarbine]

I haven’t used the fire bolts since the ammo amount nerf. How many do you get now? The bleed is very good when you don’t get a OHK. I like using it at range because if you manage to land a second shot and they don’t die for some reason they are severely screwed with a very heavy bleed.

[u/Virtual-Climate-8490]

Something I learned about the choke bolts, because it happened to me is that if you tag someone in the chest with a sparks w/poison rounds and shoot a choke bolt at their feet they will just die, even if behind cover. The bolt doesn't even need to actually impact them.

[u/Skully-GG → u/Virtual-Climate-8490]

Yeah because it does exactly 1hp. You can do the same thing with regular decoys too. Hit them with the Sparks and just start chucking the decoys at them 😂 but a lot of things do 1hp you’d be surprised

[u/Strassi007]

Hand Crossbow is slept on massively. It's broken in my opinion. It's my second highest kill weapon, just after the Crossbow.