Privateer PVP Tactics

[Cavell]

I needs me somes, apparently.

Had my first ever PVP battle tonight, just before the servers went down for the launch patch, and got thoroughly owned, though it wasn't without some bright spots.

Setup was myself - 21 Privateer - in an Expedition, while the other guy was a 21 'rat in a Postillionen. I should note that I had -just- gotten sunk in the same boat by an unfortunate Open Sea crash which allowed some NPC rats to hop all over me, and I was on my way to Grenville to pick up fresh outfittings when I saw this dude zooming along, flagged. Since I wasn't particularly attached to the Expedition, I decided to give it a shot, despite only having General outfittings.

Neither one of us was upwind of the other when the instance popped, and he immediately started coming for me on a beam reach. This is when I made my first mistake; I turned tail and ran the same course, with the idea of keeping him at range for a while and whittling down his sails. The one thing I had the advantage with in the entire fight was speed, which is what let me stay in it so long in the first place. I dicked around a little, winding back and forth to pepper him with bar at extreme range - I was looking at 15% accuracy - while he, for his part, opened up with roundshot, and then switched to bar as well. His guns had the range on mine, which meant that he was landing more hits and doing more sail damage than I was.

I turned around and headed for him, hitting Improvise Sails along the way, and we closed pretty quick. I switched to Star, he switched back to roundshot. We got in nice and close, and started going round and round, and this is the part that freaked me out - he was out-turning me. In a Post. Which I'd always heard turned like elephants on ice skates.

He got me down low into structure before I decided that I wasn't doing enough sail damage to take the beating - I'd gotten him to about 50%, though he popped the 'rat version of Imp Sails and a consumable to get back up to around 75% - and I ran for it at 90 degrees, getting out of range and staying there long enough to let my Imp Sails and Imp Armor cooldowns come back. Popped them, turned again, and this time went in with the intention of boarding.

Long story short, we ended up broadside to broadside at about 50 yards, I hit Terrorize just before he graped me to hell and back, knocking me down to about 25 crew with a single broadside, whereas he was still up at the 90 mark or so. I was still trying to board, but he got it off first, bringing four waves to my one. I actually beat him back - apparently I'm pretty good at AV combat - but this is where I think I made a total noob mistake. We pop out of the AV combat instance, and I check his debuffs real quick and see something related to grapple defense. I thought it was an immunity, perhaps because of the fact we'd just done boarding combat, so I didn't stick around to try to counterboard and just ran for it. He sank me with about three broadsides to my stern armor.

So what should I have done differently? Since that knocked all the durability off my Expedition, I'm strongly considering getting a Post, just because the heavier guns and the fact that he absolutely must have had it purely rigged for +turn won the fight, in my opinion - he was hitting me with both broadsides with shocking regularity, while I was doing my damndest with Crew Focus: Maneuver to do the same, and getting severely beat. I had several opportunities to run, but I was resigned to losing the boat thirty seconds into the fight, and wanted to see how it'd play out.

[Captain_Korr]

I think the reason you found him so manuverable is that he likely had alot of his upgrade slots filled with manuverability upgrades.

As for tactics, other than the fact that you likely should have stuck close to him and reboarded, yours were fairly sound. Sometimes if you're up against a decent opponant who has a bigger ship there is no sure way to win.

[Tulor]

When an expedition fights a Post they should really get in close and turn the fight from a slug fest into a turning fight. At a range and giving equivalent outfittings a post has better dps and much better broadside armor. The turn rate on the expedition will allow you to dominate the post once you close in very close. Attempt to get to the aft or stern of the post (there's really very little he can do to stop you), switch on unpred. maneuverability and crew focus manuev. Cut back and forth either behind or infront of the post. He will be unable to effectively bring his guns on you due to very poor (comparitavely) accel and turning accel, and even if he does he will most likely hit your side armor which you can simply repair using skills. Meanwhile you can pour shots into his nose/back, quickly cutting into his structure and forcing him to blow a structure brace since pirates have no structure repair skill (only NO's can do that). I've killed plenty of pirate/NO driven posts in my expedition during the boarding party, and this strategy is very effective.

It's very difficult for me to give you a whole lot of advice though. The only real advice I can give you is this. Whenever you go up against another ship/class in a 1v1 fight you must quickly assess how your ship is better than your opponents, and how your opponents ship is better than yours. Probe your enemy to figure out the kind of outfittings they have equipped, and then come up with a plan to force the fight to go down the path that favors your strengths.

Also, realize the if you had 0 outfittings you were probably ruined. If you want to pvp you really generally must have outfittings/gun powder/repair consumables (especially the all important structure brace). If you are have 0 permanent out fittings then you are very much outclassed by anything even remotely close to your level.

[Cavell]

Oh, yeah, I knew the lack of outfittings was going to cost me the fight, but I just wanted to dip my toes into the PVP waters with something I was willing to lose, and the opportunity presented itself while I was, ironically enough, on the way to buy outfittings.

Once I saw that I was no match at ranged, I tried to do precisely what you recommend, getting in close and turning it into a maneuverability battle. I'm not kidding, though, when I say that he won it. The only thing I can think of is that he must've had a ton of +turning outfittings stuck on that thing, because it was nimble as all hell.

[warian]

I also find its a good idea to pick one type of shot and stick with it. Switching shots means you wasted a ton of time on nothing.

[Captain Lackey]

Surprised no one mentioned that pirates are absolute demons with +Turn %.

[Tulor]

Not at level 21.

They either have rum rations OR sac for victory unless they want to skip the repair skills (not a good idea btw). Either way unpredictably trumps those skills individually.

And if they sac for victory you can use stone shot until their crew is ruined and then switch to bronze.

[mrowz0r]

Not at level 21.

They either have rum rations OR sac for victory unless they want to skip the repair skills (not a good idea btw). Either way unpredictably trumps those skills individually.

And if they sac for victory you can use stone shot until their crew is ruined and then switch to bronze.

If you ask me (which you didn't) stone shot is one of the most powerful shots in PvP, especially against pirates. It lowers their crew making it harder for them to board you as well as reducing their reload rate and acceleration, as well as lowering their armor hopefully making them burn a CD. All this while still slowly hurting their sails.

[Ravenau deLusan]

...Long story short, we ended up broadside to broadside at about 50 yards, I hit Terrorize just before he graped me to hell and back, knocking me down to about 25 crew with a single broadside, whereas he was still up at the 90 mark or so. I was still trying to board, but he got it off first, bringing four waves to my one. I actually beat him back - apparently I'm pretty good at AV combat - but this is where I think I made a total noob mistake. We pop out of the AV combat instance, and I check his debuffs real quick and see something related to grapple defense. I thought it was an immunity, perhaps because of the fact we'd just done boarding combat, so I didn't stick around to try to counterboard and just ran for it. He sank me with about three broadsides to my stern armor. ...Assuming your crew numbers (25-90) are correct you couldn't board him because he had more than twice as many as you did. I didn't think the boarding light would even come on if you didn't have the required 50% of the enemy crew.

I'm not sure why you couldn't counter-board because both of your crews should have been small numbers after a successful defense. Was your boarding light on? It should have been green immediately after loading unless they changed it by adding an immunity timer. I haven't done any PvP boarding since the game went live, but I know the devs want to fix board-shooting.

Anyway, you had a good fight and got some good advice here from other posters. I'm sure you know you lost all your active ship skills when the boarding commenced. More than once I've forgotten to turn them back on - much to my embarrassment.

[bpdlr]

I needs me somes, apparently.

Had my first ever PVP battle tonight, just before the servers went down for the launch patch, and got thoroughly owned, though it wasn't without some bright spots.

Setup was myself - 21 Privateer - in an Expedition, while the other guy was a 21 'rat in a Postillionen. I should note that I had -just- gotten sunk in the same boat by an unfortunate Open Sea crash which allowed some NPC rats to hop all over me, and I was on my way to Grenville to pick up fresh outfittings when I saw this dude zooming along, flagged. Since I wasn't particularly attached to the Expedition, I decided to give it a shot, despite only having General outfittings.

Really, I don't need to read any more! Doesn't matter what skills you have, don't take a naked boat to a PvP fight.

[Captain Lackey]

Assuming your crew numbers (25-90) are correct you couldn't board him because he had more than twice as many as you did. I didn't think the boarding light would even come on if you didn't have the required 50% of the enemy crew.

It doesn't.

I'm not sure why you couldn't counter-board because both of your crews should have been small numbers after a successful defense. Was your boarding light on? It should have been green immediately after loading unless they changed it by adding an immunity timer. I haven't done any PvP boarding since the game went live, but I know the devs want to fix board-shooting.

Yeah, there's a timed effect on both ships after boarding, no matter the outcome of the board. The effect is that those ships are immune to being boarded. It lasts 30s/1m, never timed it, when it's really mattered I've been too busy trying to get the heck away, it's at least 2 broadsides long. (Heh, new unit of time measurement. "Yeah, its about 5 broadside's traveltime.")