In the course of testing a lot of TM and crossbow tonight, it became clear that crossbow and full aim is not equal to capped TM and full target. By the math, stancing down TM to below effective crossbow, I would still hit more consistently (PVP testing, unbuffed for both sides) with TM. This remained true even when I put up a 600 mana IOTS for agil/reflex (which seemed to make no difference at all). Also, the LX definitely hit more consistently, so the balance difference showed up big. Plainly, the damage "boost" from HX is not worth the balance to-hit drawback. It's not even close, at least against LC.

The difference in to-hit between TM and crossbow wasn't much, about 10-14% better with TM. Maybe that's warranted given the fact that TM requires an exhaustible resource (all spells were at 100 mana in the testing). I like my TM, but I also really like my crossbows. I am really banking hard on crafting options for improvement at this point. Force of impact seems to have no effect at all PVP shots with target in LC. In my mind, a slurbow should FOI like a 149 stone greatsword, even if damage is nerfed some to account for ranged defense advantages. I use both those weapon types, and it doesn't seem close to ballpark equivalent. Maybe FOI for crossbows is drawing from the bolt too much?

Leafhead bolts were the ammo, forester LX and slurbow were the bows. Appraisals below.

The forester's crossbow is extremely well (11/17) designed for improving the force of your attacks.
You are certain that the crossbow is well (9/15) balanced and is very well suited to gaining extra attack power from your strength.

The clockwork slurbow is perfectly (17/17) designed for improving the force of your attacks.
You are certain that the slurbow is reasonably (7/15) balanced and is reasonably (7/15) suited to gaining extra attack power from your strength.

Bolt:

very heavy (10/26) puncture damage
poor (2/26) slice damage
poor (2/26) impact damage
no (0/26) fire damage
no (0/26) cold damage
no (0/26) electric damage

The leafhead bolts is dismally (2/17) designed for improving the force of your attacks.

<<1) What's your agility and defender's reflex? To-hit with a weapon is modified a good deal by this.>>

99 agility vs 100 reflex. And for TM, 99 disc vs 100 reflex. With capped IOTS (agil/ref not in MM SOI), maybe 110-115 agility vs 100 reflex.

<<2) What spell(s) are you using as a point of reference?>>

DO, and the testing was to-hit so if TM mechanics on to-hit are universal (barring DFA and weird cyclics etc), it shouldn't matter much there. DO is not DFA.

I do have quads and pulzones, but they weren't tested. I'd like to do that test, or see that test, to see if it really is ammo making a to-hit difference. We already established pretty clearly earlier, and I think Kodius confirmed pretty clearly, that ammo was driving damage, but I hope it does not drive to-hit accuracy. I reserve the right to take that back completely if crafting makes great to-hit bolts accessible, thus opening up the usable crossbow range. Haha

>>TM spells, as I understand it, no longer have any kind of accuracy bonus spell to spell. They should be all equal to-hit barring DFA.

This is a 3.0 change? Can you point to me some archived post that indicates this, for my own knowledge? This is mostly what I was thinking might influence test results.

When I went looking for the posts, all I could find were vague references or confirmations that damage TM mechanics were the same spell to spell (Raesh recently stated this flat out in the paladin folder 2/15, forget the thread). Maybe there is still accuracy variation. Doh.