A Pirate Looks At Folly

[Prince Caspian]

Well, I did my first pirate hunt yesterday. Here are my thoughts.

#1 - I couldn't accept any quests with my Main, because the Gargoyle Goof kept saying he couldn't see my boat, even though it was literally parked an arm's length away from the tavern (on several sides). Does the OWNER of the boat have to accept? If so I guess I need to shift ownership. Anyhow I just went after the coordinates.

#2 - Soloing these ships can be done, but my GOD it's cumbersome. Good luck trying to bring the ship around to use the other side's cannons (getting shot up all the time while you are hamsterdancing alongside). And by the time you can actually work the cannons, you have been blasted by flamestrikes, arrows, bolts and grapeshot by the other ship.

#3 - I stand in awe of the orc cannon's pinpoint accuracy. After all, my ship is on the port side, yet the orc ship only has cannons on the starboard side... and they fire, the cannonballs apparently stop midair, teleport to the other side of the ship, and then reverse course. I suppose. It's the only way I can explain why my ship is damaged by cannons apparently firing off the wrong side and harmlessly into the sea.

#4 - When orcs go to sea, apparently they gain superpowers. Orc Mages now take like 16 hits to kill (instead of 2) and they rattle off Flamestrikes like Mel Tillis' stutter.

#5 - Speaking of Super Powers, these Dread Pirates need to have a red S on their chests. I was firing with my Legendary Archer with 200DI, hitting virtually every time, and peppering him with grapeshot, and after 30 minutes he still was at 75%. I probably could have taken him down in I had 5 hours and roughly 400,000 arrows to spare. Tremendous waste of arrows. These guys are in a big need to be nerfed. A dread pirate should NOT be tougher than a Doom Dark Father.

#6 - It is interesting to fill the holds with all manner of goods and shipping supplies, but at the end of the day, it all equates to about 4k, if that. Considering what you had to go through, the rewards need to be MUCH better. Why not be able to take the ship as a prize?

#7 - Teleport away = your conquered ship is gone. Whoops.

#8 - On the AI front, the enemy ships don't give pursuit very well. They should be a bit more relentless and bloodthirsty, especially when an attacking ship is getting away.

#9 - Wow. Resources to fix the ship are extreme. But lots of folks already covered this. I think this is a prime reason why the payout needs to be a DAMN sight higher.

#10 - Does it injure your character to stand adjacent to the cannon? I don't think it does, but it always says "stand back!"

 

[Trebr Drab]

If I remember correctly, ships are supposed to offer defensive protection from outside attacks. Boarding a ship is supposed to mean attacking as normal. Have you seen the damage numbers? I hope they didn't do something goofy like boosting HPs until a ship is boarded to accomplish this.

Overall, I think the intent is that you need a crew to be effective with ship combat. I like that idea. I'm tired of games making everything solo friendly. So I'm not "on board" with some of your thoughts.

 

[Rotgut Willy]

#2 - ... Good luck trying to bring the ship around to use the other side's cannons ...

Try the verbal command, "come about".


But with yours and others accounts of battle with pirate ships I think I'll not bother with pirates just yet. Rotgut Willy is an ABC Archer/Fisherman but usually sails solo.

 

[Adol]

I'm currently in the process of soloing pirates on my tamer; it can be done quite easily when you've got into the little foibles of it, but I'm not sure if an archer has enough damage for the pirate himself...

Basically though, set up icons for the ship controls before sailing. You really only need Left/Right and Forward, but I have them all to save typing map controls. Get the gargoyle ship and stand where the mast goes, so you can access 4 cannon at once. Then, sail into the naughty people area, and locate a pirate ship. Sail around the BACK of the ship, line up with the left or right hand side of your own ship as you prefer, return control to the tiller, and stick close to him by using the Left/Right icon to order the ship to follow. He'll keep turning about, but be unable to get his port or starboard towards you, and as only the front cannon can hit you like this, you should be able to ride out most of the damage. Then, pepper his ship with grapeshot until you immobilize it, whilst sniping off all his Mateys. If you can remove the crew before the ship stops, switch to Cannonballs.

Once his ship is stationary, and this is vitally important until the next patch, MOVE YOUR SHIP TO JUST AHEAD OF HIS FRONT SIDE CANNONS. He'll keep firing his own cannon despite being mugged, and thus damages your ship constantly; get out of his arc of fire. He can still turn around even when crippled, so don't bother trying to sail around the back again. Then, as a tamer I just leap across to his ship and set my pets on him. Using an average Greater Dragon, or a 3.9 rated Bane with a 3.5 Mare I can pretty much go AFK at this point; he doesn't do much damage himself, he's just got insane hit point regen, but this level of damage takes him down in about 5 minutes. If you want to use the rope to tie him up, aim for under 8% hit points; he can still be tied even whilst being eaten or damaged, so don't worry about stopping your attacks.

Keep your ship out of cannon arc whilst looting, and you're done! I just did my second pirate today, and came out of it with a 98% healthy ship (He got one broadside off I think) and only needed the two cannon on the left (as I didn't let him get around me, just forced him left until he hit the shore) so 72 ingots in repairs for them. Not a massive amount of loot on board as usual, although this time they did have the food chest too (just what ARE those gourds used for anyway?!) but Lone Nose Bonnie is right now being sailed to captivity...

 

[Xalan Dementia]

Ive been having good luck with pirates so far. I run a fully loaded heavy cannon gargy ship, but only need 2 cannons on one side to take out pirates. I load one with cannonball one with grapeshot (until side crew is dead then both goto cannonball) I run the cannons while keeping myself healed with cleansing winds (orange petals help against the orcmage) after a few shots hit thier ship I start dropping Hail Storm on the crew, the orc mages are much weaker after a few cannon shots hit. then once all but the pirate is dead I focus on cannonball shots till the target ship gets into its second dmg phase. Now pretty much everytime i get the ship dmged enough i get the message that I cant board it while its moving, so I move my ship infront of the target ship, once there i can board the enemy ship. On ship its just a matter of keeping a RC up and helping with debuffs and dmg spells. my pirate hunting char is just my main mystic/sw/mage so when i have a lvl 6 arcane focus i hit the pirate with that once or twice, just enough to get him into the Binding range. Soloing can be very easy and sometimes its nearly impossible, Some pirate ships really like to move around when attacked, and others will sit and fight back. My favorites are the ones that are already in battle with another pirate ship, fun to watch and cash in on.