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For the conclusion of our ranged-weapon review, we bring out the crossbows. You ready to play with the heavy stuff?

Well lookie-lookie with what we start, the Nerubian Slavemaker. Never seen it? We haven’t, on our own person or anybody else’s. Where does it come from? Old-school Naxxramas, the final bossman himself, Kel’Thuzad. The biggest, baddest instance of the pre-Burning Crusade, we seem to remember that only 2% of WoW subscibers ever entered the palace, (although we cannot confirm that number). This was a shame as it was also considered the best instance Blizz ever made.

This was a weapon to dream about, it was. Our Core Marksman was uber schiznit back then, but it paled in significance to the ultimate 40-man ranged weapon loot. If you ever got one of these things, you have a guild of 50 or so hard-core raiders to thank.

Now we all move to Outland, level to 70, start building out Shattrath factions rep, and eventually become King of the Ogres. Go build rep with Ogri’la, and you can work your way towards the first epic crossbow outside of Naxxramas, the Crystalline Crossbow.

Holy cow, that’s a long wait for a new crossbow, isn’t it. And it’s not even on-par with the epic bows and guns that drop in the regular 5-person instances; those weapons are level 115, this xbow is level 110.

If one just looks at the stats, though, it is a perfect weapon for starting Karazhan. It’s got +Hit, something very few hunters have enough of at the beginning of their raiding career. It’s packing pure Agility, which means RAP, Crit, and armor for both hunter and pet, and the Stamina is always welcome. BM Hunters can appreciate the 2.8 attack speed as it’s not too slow. If you’ve been unlucky in love and loot and haven’t gotten a level 115 bow or gun, this crossbow is a perfectly fine weapon to show up for your first attempt at Attumen.

You do show up for Kara, you control your aggro, you trap like a pro, you Misdirect when necessary, and you take very little damage. Good work, foshizzle, and your raid takes down Attumen. ZOMG, lo’ and behold, a hunter weapon drops! The Steelhawk Crossbow is an upgrade every hunter is going to want. It’s got +Hit, something most of your level 115 bow and guns lack. It’s also very pretty, and kind of a status-symbol of becomming a Kara-raiding hunter. Welcome to 10-man progression and keep up the good work.

You don’t raid. Your schedule keeps you out of Kara, you don’t have time to commit to four hours of WoW, your spouse wants to level her druid with your alt, whatever the reason. So you do battlegrounds when you can and have accumulated a nice chunk of honor points.

Congratulations, take your 27,000 honor and purchase a Gladiator’s Heavy Crossbow. Nice and slow for those big crits, this is a pure-PvP weapon. And it looks so good! You 0/41/20 and 11/41/9 hunters are going to develop intimate feelings for this sweet piece of hardware, that’s certain.

PvP is your bread and butter. Not only do you do battlegrounds, but you found a good partner for arenas and have done a lot of them. Can you accumulate 3,261 arena points? If so, you can go drool over your own, personal Merciless Gladiator’s Crossbow of the Phoenix. If you’re an arena player like we are, just going for fun and stories, this will do you fine, of course. But if you’re actually good at arenas and can jack your personal rating into the 1800s, you can skip this guy. We’ll show you why in a minute.

Instances! you bellow. Doesn’t anybody in SSC or TK or anywhere drop a stinking crossbow? Well, yes, there’s one. Legionkiller is Black Temple loot. Very interesting to look at, but the stats just don’t jump out and give you their undivided attention, do they.

Very high DPS, but the attack speed is a one-size-fits-none. A little too slow for BM, a little too fast for MM, it has no sockets, no Ignore Armor, no nothing fun to show the guildies. It’s level 141 loot and does over 90 DPS, but totally frillless. It’s as if the Blizz programmers suddenly realized that they forgot to put in a crossbow since Attumen, but they were late for lunch and didn’t want to take the time to build a proper Black Temple-grade weapon. Type, type, type, OK there’s a crossbow, we’re off to Bennigan’s. Sad, really.

Does patch 2.4 hold anything in store in the crossbow world? Oh yeah, yes it do. Check this monster out, the Crossbow of Relentless Strikes. The programmers got back from lunch to get this one right, that’s certain.

Lookie at the stats on this gorgeous creature! The perfect BM speed, Hit, Crit, and Attack Power. It’s Badge of Justice gear, as of this writing it’ll cost 150 of the buggers. Can you farm that many badges without going batty? Unfortunately, we cannot. Running daily heroics and clearing Kara every week, we just can’t muster the effort for it. We’d rather watch a movie with Mrs BRK than spend four hours beating Opera and Prince anymore.

Alright, we told you not to blow your arena points on the Merciless crossbow and here’s why, the Vengeful Gladiator’s Heavy Crossbow. For 3,750 arena points and a personal 1850 arena-rating, you can have the ultimate crossbow in the game. If you were unable to get a decent raiding bow or gun, this thing does enough damage that you could raid with it if you chose, but it is a PvP weapon at its heart, obviously.

OK, we’ve done your ranged weapons. We’ve enjoyed this project so much, we’re going to keep going with melee weapons! Stay tuned for ‘em!