A noob wearing 3rd age and wielding a crystal bow
The Crystal Bow is a "very powerful" ranged weapon only used by nerds, bleachaddicts and axers8. It requires 70 Ranging to wield as well as "50" Agility to use. You also have to have completed Roving Elves, which requires Regicide, which requires 56 Agility (ah, so that's why the 50 Agility is bs,) as well as completion of That Quest From Hell
At the time of release, it was probably a decent weapon (that is assuming you could survive Mod Satan's helluva dungeon excursion,) but by today's standards, the rune crossbow (which requires 61 ranged to wield,) is superior in every way.
But it let's me shoot stuff without ammo![]
Oh right, the crystal bow let's you fire magical green things (are those arrows? They look like farts...) without having any ammo equipped. So what's the catch? After 2500 shots, the crystal quincy bow, which apparently thinks it's a plant of some sort, turns into a seed. Fun fact: if you hold enough of these seeds in your hand while standing outside, a certain oversized budgie will fly to you and swiftly remove your hand for you. Wasn't that nice of it?
Oh right, you probably want to know how to get the seed back into bow form, well this will involve planting it in a patch, watering it, waiting 7 FUCKing hours only to find that it's become diseased talking to an elf named Ilfeen who can be found... over there, no wait, she teleported to the other spot. Nope, she's back there again, now she's... er maybe we should just go to one of the 2 places and wait a few minutes... or hours... or days... Whaddaya mean she's in the bathroom?!
Recharging a crystal bow will cost 900k the first time you do it, 720k the second time, 540k the 3rd... until the price finally becomes 180k and stays there for each successive recharging.
For every 250 shots, the bow will lose 1/10th of its charges and a few of its stats (4 ranged attack and 2 ranged strength are taken off for every 1/10th of charges gone) Making it go from a nearly rubbish weapon at full charge to a stinkin' shhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiite weapon when it's at 1/10 charges.
Well it's not complete shit is it?[]
Actually, while the rune crossbow has better dps (damage per second,) when using decent bolts, the crystal bow is an ok weapon for cost-efficiency. Since its recharge cost will remain the same no matter what happens in the market, if bolt prices rise just high enough, using a crystal bow to train could be much cheaper than using a rune crossbow. (but hey, when you've got exploding red guinea pigs, who uses crossbows for training?)
Assuming you've used your bow enough times to bring its recharge cost down to 180k. Since the bow lasts for 2500 shots, each shot costs 72gp.