Privateer solo build

[Tanita]

Hi, could I get any suggestion on a solo priv build? No pbs, no groups, just solo OS hunting.

And ideally what ship to use, preferably something cheaper than Vengeance.


Thanks.

[Josh_Brown]

32434045

WIntrepid or PT Mignone if you want to go really cheap.

[kritikal]

Originally Posted by Josh_Brown 32434045 WIntrepid or PT Mignone if you want to go really cheap.

Expert Rigging over Crushing Broadside...

---

More Effective Solo Build; 50532145

This also Works; 51512245

If you think your Better than morale; 30534145

Nuju-

[RAMjb]

Originally Posted by toanuju281 Expert Rigging over Crushing Broadside... --- More Effective Solo Build; 50532145 This also Works; 51512245 If you think your Better than morale; 30534145 Nuju-

how about 50414245?

Granted, is for a character with BOTH albatross and surgical kit, so the loss of surprise below decks doesn't hurt that much. It also loses crushing broadside but you win break rudder that imo is quite important in a 1v1 if you manage to win the stern of the enemy (and if you don't you should revise your tactics) so that allows for more unanswered shots, better than a spike imo, and you also win entangled shot, that helps in both demasting AND boarding...

I hate being forced to spec for stealth tho. Those miles of spotting difference are a huge difference, seeing that all other classes are much faster than privateer on the OS, so if you want to avoid being ganked twice as much, it's a must...(and you STILL get ganked, it's insane how much faster everyone else is on the OS)

[Georgiana Jennings]

Originally Posted by RAMjb I hate being forced to spec for stealth tho. Those miles of spotting difference are a huge difference, seeing that all other classes are much faster than privateer on the OS, so if you want to avoid being ganked twice as much, it's a must...(and you STILL get ganked, it's insane how much faster everyone else is on the OS)

That actually isn't true. Speeds (both OS and battle) are generally pretty close, IIRC the FT is the fastest on the OS followed by the NO specced for Convoy, the CT, the Priv and the Bucc (in that order--the Bucc has less OS speed than the Priv). The Priv actually gets it a bit better in practice, because its speed (both OS and battle) is easier to spec for than any other class's.

It's a similar story with battle speed, tags tend to matter more than battle speed--yet most players are convinced their class is the slowest, leading to massive QQ.

The only thing that leads to a massive speed difference on the OS is Run them Down and the FT OS abilities. RtD does feel a bit unfair but fortunately CT can only use it once every half hour, while the FT abilities are defensive, they take away the FT's ability to tag while s/he goes superfast.

[M.Payne]

Bucc gets 5% passive OS speed from career, but no other skills.

NO can get 20% from Convoy, otherwise 0%. Convoy is a specialized fail build though, so many NOs won't have it. In practice this means the NO will be either one of the fastest or the dead slowest on the OS.

FT can get 15% from Travel 1, 4% from trade 3 and another 5% from smuggling 2, along with Give the Slip (+10% self,/-30% enemy for 30 seconds) and Misdirection (+15% speed/attack invulnerability for 15 seconds). Any build speccing into smuggling will probably not be a combat build, but almost all will have the 15% and its fairly easy to get 19 or 20%.

CT can have 7.5% from Smuggling 5 and 3% from flogging 5, but both are quite hard to spec for, although the career skill Run them down (+10% self/-25% enemy for 1 min) means CTs have a fairly easy time tagging/escaping.

Privs get 5% from Agility 2, and another 5% from Battle 3, both easy to spec for.

[RAMjb]

Originally Posted by M.Payne Bucc gets 5% passive OS speed from career, but no other skills.

true. But rats are a different world. More on this later. And anyway if you want to jump a Buc on a 1 on 1, good luck to you, I'm not going to try my luck against a broken class.

NO can get 20% from Convoy, otherwise 0%. Convoy is a specialized fail build though, so many NOs won't have it. In practice this means the NO will be either one of the fastest or the dead slowest on the OS.

true, too. NOs supposedly are the worst taggers in the OS, tho, due to their career so I find it normal. Also NOs usualy go into the red in groups.

FT can get 15% from Travel 1, 4% from trade 3 and another 5% from smuggling 2, along with Give the Slip (+10% self,/-30% enemy for 30 seconds) and Misdirection (+15% speed/attack invulnerability for 15 seconds). Any build speccing into smuggling will probably not be a combat build, but almost all will have the 15% and its fairly easy to get 19 or 20%.

impossible to tag a decent FT in the red with a priv unless the priv is specced for OS Speed, which is a complete fail (more on this later).

And then FTs are quite fast in battle and hard to force them into battle. And then it's really hard to bring a FT down into combat before he uses his speed to run away due to incredible repairs. FTs should get OS speed bonus ONLY if specced for trade skills. If specced for combat skill, no OS bonus. They're supposed to be fast if they're smugglers, right?. but if they are NOT due to their speccing, why the speed?

CT can have 7.5% from Smuggling 5 and 3% from flogging 5, but both are quite hard to sec for, although the career skill Run them down (+10% self/-25% enemy for 1 min) means CTs have a fairly easy time tagging/escaping.

and here lies the problem. You never are tagged by 1 pirate in this game. You're tagged by 6 at least. Now say 3 of them are bucs, 3 of them are CTs. The CTs rotate the use of Run them down and force people into battle, so the other CTs don't need to use it and the buccaneer lack of OS speed means -nothing-. The whole group is able to force three contacts into battle before running out of RTD, and of course, probably by that time the 1st CT's RTD has had more than enough time to cool down his skill, so it's a endless loop.

not to mention that to tag a single CT into battle is very hard, because they almost always get away by using their speed skill.

Non-ending ganking ability, ability to run away when you try to force'em into single battle means they get such a huge bonus, given the populations of the servers. That skill should be nerfed, not because it's unfair (it should be ok), but because the uberganking rat populations makes it impossible to deal with.

Privs get 5% from Agility 2, and another 5% from Battle 3, both easy to spec for.

Speccing for agility in a 1 v 1 build is mostly fail, you're giving away a skill point that gives you no in-battle purpose, so you must sacrifice something somewhere else.

the one in the Battle line is somewhat different because the skills behind it are pretty decent, so most people spec for it for a good reason. But the agility one? that's crap.

So in the end a priv specced for 1v1 (which is one of the most credible scenario from a historical point of view. Or well, let's say "background" point of view, because they were just hired guns for government, and pirates in most aspects) has just a 5% OS Speed. 2nd worse of the classes (if the NOs aren't using convoy),and equal to the bucs (who don't care because they have their CT friends to gank people).

Privateers, the "legal pirates", who should be one of the fastest classes on the OS by default given their career background, in return, get nothing but being reduced to a slow piece of crap that desperately need stealth to have a chance to enter the red lurking for contacts without being ganked 100% of the time. And even them, they almost always get ganked like mad.

I'd say give Privateers the equal of RtD as part of their career skills specs (maybe "sanctioned piracy?"), and leave everything else alone. THEN things would be ok. Right now?. They're the class that most feels the pain of being the (for all purposes) slowest class in the OS right now.

On the paper they might be not. On practice, they indeed are.

just my opinion.

[kritikal]

Originally Posted by RAMjb how about 50414245?

If one can sacrifice Crushing Broadside, which is painful to do, then it is a viable build.

Nuju-

[Humblepie73]

Originally Posted by RAMjb how about 50414245? Granted, is for a character with BOTH albatross and surgical kit, so the loss of surprise below decks doesn't hurt that much

Don't those two share the same cooldown timer or has that changed? I was under the impression that one can always only use one of them.

[Tanita]

A little necro.

I finally got my character to 50 after a break and I must say I like Josh's build, except I did swap Expert Rigging for Crushing Broadside.

As far as OS speed goes, yeah it's not great at all and I agree that privateers should have similar OS abilities as Cutthroats being more or less legal pirates. What also kinda sucks that Privateer-only ships have only average OS speed except for Vengeance which is a bundle ship. I could live with being slower than everybody and their uncle when I'm in a normal ships, but when I invest money in a privateer ship I kinda expect it to be good at...well, privateering.