I have been training weapons for a fair time now, but am wondering if I should train a short bow over a crossbow for sniping. Perhaps a repeater, which I am about to get, will even things out... Any thoughts?
The shield penalty pretty much makes it pointless to use Bow as a primary ranged weapon anymore. My stonebow is just as effective as my silverwood shortbow in PvE, and my Bow is 200 ranks over Crossbow. In PvP I can hit people more consistently with SE than with my bow, and they are at equal ranks.
Crossbow doesn't have the offensive/defensive penalty with shield and it allows you to use LT in your offhand at the same time.
I'd go with xbow every time. You could train both, but with the state of ranged and thieves at the moment, the best thing you really have is a harder hitting opening attack to set yourself up for melee. I train crossbow and slings, I opted out of bow since I didn't really feel like training all 3 and I won't ever use bow over xbow, so slings just for the hell of it really.
