Zanik's crossbow

Zanik's crossbow is both a quest item used during the The Chosen Commander quest as well as a high level crossbow that is one of the rewards for its completion.

As part of the quest, the player must augment Zanik's existing crossbow with additional items, reassemble it when broken, and then use its special attack to defeat the Bandos Avatar. During this time, the crossbow itself cannot be equipped. Instead, a dialogue option allows use of the special attack.

After quest completion, the player retains the augmented crossbow, which requires 48 Ranged to wield. While similar in appearance to the Dorgeshuun crossbow, it has significantly higher stats similar to that of an adamant crossbow. It can fire up to adamant bolts (including bone bolts and silver bolts, but excluding enchanted bolts). It cannot fire broad-tipped bolts. It has a negative Prayer bonus, but wielding a prayer book, Falador shield 2 or Falador shield 3 in the shield slot cancels that out.

The special attack, Defiance, takes up 50% of the special attack bar and deals increased damage as follows: When the special attack used, lightning seems to blast out from the crossbow.
 * 30-150 extra damage against monsters.
 * Up to 150 extra damage against players who are using prayers or are using god-related equipment ('equipment marked by the gods'). Unlike the damage for monsters, no minimum amount of damage is specified attacks on players in the RuneScape Knowledge Base (see http://www.runescape.com/kbase/guid/special_attacks).

Under the right conditions, the special attack can hit well over 600 (150 special attack damage plus the regular damage the crossbow does).

Should players lose the crossbow, they may retrieve it from Oldak in exchange for an adamant crossbow.

Trivia

 * It is one of only two pieces of equipment to have a negative Prayer bonus, the other being the Ancient staff. The reason of the negative prayer bonus of Zanik's crossbow might be because it's designed to kill the Bandos Avatar.
 * Although there is no Ranged requirement for The Chosen Commander, the requirement for the crossbow is 48 which is two higher than the adamant crossbow's; its closest equivalent.
 * It is a good alternative for training Ranged because it can fire Bone bolts, which are only coins each in the Grand Exchange.
 * There is a glitch when wielding Zanik's crossbow with Lunar legs in Standard Detail, where the legs are stretched to the end of the crossbow. This glitch has not been fixed.
 * Its price is an adamant crossbow, which means it is strong yet cheap to replace.
 * In the first few hours of the release the player would receive a debug message when using the Special Attack:
 * [[File:Zcbowdebug.png]]


 * Although all enchanted bolts up to and including diamond are also up to adamant, they are unable to be used with Zanik's Crossbow. This is probably due to the game's inability to use the bolts' special attack and the crossbow's special attack at the same time.
 * Zanik's crossbow and the Dorgeshuun Crossbow are the only crossbows with special attacks.
 * While it looks like the Dorgeshuun Crossbow, the holding positions are slightly different with Zanik's crossbow being held slightly closer to the body.
 * It can be used with the mithril grapple.
 * Sometimes, when the special attack is activated, there is a glitch where the character keeps the crossbow at their side as if they aren't firing, and the bolt of electricity comes out of nowhere.
 * This crossbow is commonly used in PvP activities, such as Clan Wars, because of its special attack which deals extra damage to players using prayers and wielding/wearing god items, as most players use either Deflect curses, Protect prayers or Soul Split, etc.
 * The special attack is very effective against the statues in the Bandos throne room.