I want the explosion, yeah, but I also want the speed. [He already has explosive bolts of a sort. Small explosives so they wouldn't weigh down the trajectory of the shot too much but inevitably they were still less reliable than regular bolts and this had so much more potential.]

Explosives are nice when they hit their mark, but they'd be nicer if they couldn't be dodged. [And that last bit is ultimately Rocket's main goal. Crossbow bolts were fast, but with so much magic in the world, all it took was the slightest forewarning and his bolts would hit useless against a rock shield, be burned up, thrown off course by air, miss due to reflexes or magic faster than his 'mundane' weapon. It wasn't fair and Rocket had a mind to even the playing field.

His crossbow is heavily modified, designed to hold smaller and larger bolts, the mechanisms stripped and streamlined, it's obvious this isn't Rocket's first step into the world of 'improving' his weaponry.]

Launching the arrowhead is good, exploding it is good, both happening at once just makes a mess and only one or the other happening is ineffectual.

I need it to work. [He wants it to work, but Rocket had made a habit of treating want exactly like need.]