Questions about what skills I want as a Privateer

[Fractured]

I'm pretty positive Boarding will be my big thing, getting in, and cutting up some pirates! So what are some recommended skills?

[Screwloose]

I think all the Privateer skill lines are good, it just depends how you want to get the job done.

The Unpredictability line gives you a selection of skills that make you great at one thing and a little less good at everything else. If you run the one for whatever you are doing at that point in time then they can be very effective. Also they all have the same buff icon so enemies won’t know which you have running and they are a different kind of buff so will stack with many other skills.

The Survival line gives you Defense skills which are very handy and repair skills that require no materials and are on a different timer to the repair items so you can use the Improvise Sails Skill and then a Hull Patch straight away.

The Flexibility Line has two good buffs and skills that will help you manoeuvre, very useful when trying to get into a good position vs a harder hitting ship.

The Disabling line is great for setting up targets to be boarded. It probably isn’t really needed against NPCs, but to board a PC is going to be a lot harder and you are going to have to cut their movement and maneuver a lot. Also in larger PvP battles the ability of Privateers to cut the movement of opposing ships making it hard for them to stay in formation with their group mates is very handy.

The Deception line gives you the Stealth to sneak up on other Players in the Open Sea as well as skills that let you quickly recover Morale so that you can swiftly use other skills and to make your Crew more resilient so that you can have them available for boarding.

The Battle line has skills that are good if you want to play a more Cannon Fire style, which you might want to against a target that you don’t want to board. Even if you do want to board softening a ship up with the Battle skills isn’t going to hurt.

The Agility line lets you avoid NPC aggro on the Open Sea, makes you turn faster, lets you generate much more valuable rewards from abandoned ships, lets you sail faster upwind which is very handy getting into a good attack position and lets you attack anyone near a Port in Contention in the same way a Pirate can.

The Agression line lets you buff your Speed and Manoeuvrability for a short time, to improve your accuracy and damage and Morale.


One of the good things I have found so far is that as long as I use a skill I get good returns for it.

I have rechosen my Captaincy Skills once and I dropped the second and third Flexibility skills. Not because they were bad but because I wanted to see if I could do without the +Maneuver toggle, which I had been using a lot and was great, and the way the Offence and Defense Buffs work I could really only use one of them, and 99% of the time it was the Defense one, so I dropped the Offense one.

Personally at level 28 I have gone heavily into the Agility line and the Survival line and have a couple of skills from the Deception, Disabling, Flexibility and Unpredictability lines.

All the skills can add to your effectiveness, you need to chose ones that you think you will use.

And don’t worry about choosing wrong. You can get a Skill Respec that allows you to rechoose your skills for turning in 10 small pennants or 5 or the lowest Commendations at your Nations capital.

[Fractured]

I was really looking at the disabling line, think I might go heavy in that.

[Saerol]

For leveling, I'd suggest going for Grease the Wheels in the Agility line first, and up to Improvise Sails in Survival after that.

If you plan to PvP early on, you can go with disabling next, or if you'd rather PvE your way up, pick up the unpredictability skills, the 5th tier "Unpredictability: Offense" is a flat 25% damage increase on all of your shots while active. Very few skills can compare over time to it, especially in PvE.

I personally haven't touched the Flexibility line since beta, as the turning rate toggle I found wasn't needed when you have Unpredictability: Maneuver, Agile Rigging in the Agility line, and the option to swap in to Crew focus: Maneuver when you need to make a quick turn. The battle prep. abilities aren't bad, but at the same time, aren't amazing either.

I actually pre-planned what skills I wanted to take and in what order during pre-boarding, respecing several times to check the various abilities I didn't have a chance to use in beta.

-----
01 - (Agility) Evade Aggression
03 - (Agility) Agile Rigging
05 - (Survival) Defense I
07 - (Agility) Grease the Wheels
09 - (Survival) Improvise Armor
11 - (Survival) Defense II
13 - (Survival) Improvise Sails
15 - (Unpredictability) Unpredictability: Speed
17 - (Unpredictability) Unpredictability: Defense
19 - (Unpredictability) Unpredictability: Maneuver
21 - (Unpredictability) Unpredictability: Grappling
23 - (Unpredictability) Unpredictability: Offense
25 - (Agility) Tack Upwind
27 - (Aggression) Tracking Shot
29 - (Aggression) Burst of Speed
31 - (Aggression) Death's Embrace
33 - (Battle) All or Nothing Shot I
35 - (Battle) Increased Damage
37 - (Aggression) Hit and Run
39 - (Disabling) Terrorize
41 - (Disabling) Cut Shroud
43 - (Disabling) Foul Lines
45 - (Disabling) Damage Rudder
47 - (Disabling) Cripple Enemy
49 - (Agility) Sanctioned Piracy
-----

Obviously, there is some room to swap skills around. You could get the 2 battle skills before starting the Aggression tree, or even swap out cripple enemy, damage rudder and foul lines in favor of completing the battle line for Crippling Broadside if you want a nice burst damage ability.

[Cavell]

The nice thing about privateers is we have some pretty nice choices as far as skill lines go. Some people hate Unpredictability, others swear by it. Personally, I think that's very nearly our defining skill line, but YMMV.

The lines I've enjoyed the most are, in no particular order, Battle, Unpredictability, Survival, Agility, and Disabling. That's pretty much my build right there, with things left out here and there - the final skills in both Disabling and Survival, for example. I'm not a big fan of the Flexibility buffs, nor do I really like Aggression - I always get hit, even if it's just with swivels while all up on some dude's stern, so Tracking Shot and Hit and Run don't benefit me much.

Unpredictability gives you the ability to gain a fairly massive buff in the area you need it most for as long as you need it - albeit at a hefty morale cost as well as some smaller debuffs. I didn't think I'd like the middle three much, but Maneuver's unbeatable, while even Grappling has its uses. I don't use Defense all that often. If nothing else, Speed is invaluable both for escaping and ensuring that no one else does, and it's the first skill.

Battle's damage, pure and simple. Crushing Broadside + Unpredictability: Offense is a pretty potent combination, great for putting some serious hurt on a guy's armor or bringing down his sails that much quicker. There's a passive 5% damage buff that I don't think ought to be skipped as only the second skill in, too.

Agility gives you another passive buff, this time to turn rate, as well as Grease The Wheels - great early, meh later - and one of the real gems of our class, in my opinion: Tack Upwind. Speed rigs + Unpred: Speed + Crew Focus: Sailing + Tack Upwind, and you can outrun a lot of cutters/xebecs close-hauled in a square-rigger, which is saying something, especially since damn near everyone can chase downwind.

Survivability provides a decent defense toggle that doesn't come with any penalties aside from morale as well as two repair skills that will save your letter-of-marque carrying butt more times than you'd care to count.

Disabling, simply put, gives you the resources to do what we're meant to do: dictate the terms of the engagement. Get ganked and have some speed-tricked Lancer on you? Cut Shroud from a stern chaser. Have that big, slow NO pointed up into the wind? Hit his rudder so he stays there for a while. Etc.

Ultimately, it's pretty tough to build a "bad" privateer, I think, though I'm sure it could be done.

[Montbrun]

From the PotBS Wiki:

http://www.potbswiki.com/index.php?title=Privateer

[deepfred]

i started with disabling and finished the line before taking anything else. haven't regretted it once. i have played an NO to a higher level than my priv, and i've been impressed by how much faster i can complete missions - at least up to 21. the downside, is until i get more offensive oriented skills, as opposed to debuff oriented ones, i'm not helping quite as much on DPS with my society groups, but that's not something people complain about, just something i realize makes me appreciate what the NO brings to the table.

in order, i took disable 1-5, survival 1-4, and am currently on 2 of agility with the intention to finish out the line for sanctioned piracy. after that i'll probably go 1-5 in unpredictability to see what i think about it, and if i don't like it swap to something else. i'm guessing by the time i've used all 25 available points i'll have 1-4 in flexibility cause i like maneuverability over most things, and deception 1-4 for the 40% crew boost.

as far as boarding goes - another big thing to conisder is ship outfittings. i use grappling cannons as high as i can get them, tough sails and streamlined hulls. i use +grappling offense and speed/accel/turning oriented general outfittings when i can find them.

i roll from one side to other a lot when approaching targets, using one type of shot on one side, and another for the other side. eg chain on one side and grapeshot in the other, so i can get off all my debuffs quickly and easily. in fact, with aft cannons i'll use all three types of shot and very quickly get all of our debuffs on a target with the right approach. makes boarding incredibly easy and fast.

for example, a couple of levels ago i solo'd a mission called irish eyes are smiling that i was kind of dreading to attempt solo (3 waves of enemies that were around level 17 - 3, 3 and then 4 boats). it turned out i was boarding so fast i had the first two waves down almost the moment the final wave came in and killed the final 4 even faster. it was cake, it was fast-paced, and it was very fun.

[Hypocrite]

Good tips!