The Wukong Prime patch brought us another Prime Crossbow in the form of the Zhuge. It offers a built-in Thunderbolt but on a delay and superior critical stats at the cost of five percent status chance. The weapon also sports superior fire rate and a larger magazine plus a very interesting reload speed mechanic if we fully unload the magazine.
While the crossbow has slightly less base damage the explosions mean we can leverage two sources of procs on a target. The range of the explosions being three meters and the detonation is on a one-second delay which can results in self-damage if you're not careful, especially in a run and gun scenario. A consequence of this mechanic seems to be the non-functionality of Thunderbolt which was a fan favorite on the Zhuge.
Another thing to keep in mind is that (at the time of recording) the weapon does not break Ivara's cloak even thou the Crossbow is specified as being alarming.
The Build can take a couple of forms, outside of the mandatory mods you can go for a standard elemental approach or you can leverage Hunter Munitions plus the weapon's high base slash damage for a double-dip slash build. No matter which way you chose to go the weapon performs very well.
While the Zhuge Prime is a bit quirky and not the most comfortable weapon to use it's certainly a performer and I consider it the best crossbow we can use at the current time so it gets a full recommendation.