December 6, 2017 December 5, 2018
Pirate101 PvP Analysis: “Weathering the Storm”
This will be my first post in a series where I review duels I’ve completed on my channel. Check the “About me” section if you’d like a slightly better description of what I will be accomplishing with this series. Refer to time stamps of the raw video posted alongside my comments in order to find the moment I am talking about.
In this duel, I face off against Mason Mickleson’s Privateer. My gear is as follows for this duel.
At (1:20), his gear is shown. Notable among those pieces is the presence of the Fall Champion weapon (Trees) and the Moo Manchu robe (soldiers). The rest of the gear is a standard privateer build with tower gear and Soul Shroud. This is the most dangerous form of Privateer in the ranked pvp queue for a buccaneer to face. Trees and soldiers stifle the traditionally strong buccaneer approach tools, tower gear puts Privateers at an immense resource advantage, and Soul Shroud supplements the Privateer’s weak 1v1 potential.
(0:35) My starting hand dissuaded me from attempting an early charge. Since my hand was mediocre, I needed to force draws thus the discard of the gunnery card. I spread out companions 2 spaces apart in order to prevent his bomb cards from achieving full value. Ideally this would force him to either hold onto them for the chance of greater damage, or discarding them to build a better hand. Privateer has the issue of having too many viable cards; forcing any undesired discards helps to overcome some of the resource disadvantage.
(2:10) He uses trees offensively by summoning early. If he had waited another turn or 2, I could have used highland charged to force the trees out, or at the least to force him to Valor Fortress earlier than he would have wanted to. Having cut down numerous forests throughout the years, I am very comfortable waiting for his minions to reach me rather than charging head on to force a path.
(4:45) With soldiers up, my goal is to tank as much of the damage as possible through utilizing Hold the Line and my shields.
(13:10) Wu Tang’s strengths are shown here with his ability to top off my health after I’ve tanked a few turns of damage. I’ll likely make a post regarding Wu Tang’s synergy with the Buccaneer class in the future. For now, know that he is the mvp of many of my duels.
(14:35) The strength of riposte on buccaneer is shown here. I consider this to be the strongest epic you can get for a Buccaneer from a pet besides relentless. Riposte has a higher damage multiplier than any other epic in the game which complements Buccaneer’s immense damage output. In matches with melee classes, the damage adds up quickly. Riposte allows me to chip down the forest faster than Vengeance Strike along would allow. In a 1v1 situation, you’ll come out on top vs Buccaneers and Privateers since this epic allows you to punish misses in addition to hits.
(16:30) The positioning of my pirates helps my companions escape the trees’ Hold the Line before his Bonnie Anne can reach the team. Unfortunately, I got greedy and positioned my Wu Tang in a way that left him open to the brunt of Mason’s damage.
(19:41) Although I was punished earlier, Wu Tang’s position allows my weakened Pete to bypass Ratbeard’s Hold the Line and Bonnie’s Over watch. Had this not occurred, Pete would have died with much of his damage unaccounted for.
(23:21) Leaving Ratbeard next to me was Mason’s largest mistake for this duel. It allows me to pass right through and reach his companions. Kiting backwards with his entire team would have kept the duel in his favor. This is the moment that likely swung the duel as I was able to eliminate Nausicaa. I could have chosen to position myself in next to Bonnie Anne as well for this attack; however, I was already taking a risk by using Reckless Frenzy next to his pirate with good dodge stats. Against Privateer, its crucial to eliminate companions as soon as possible so trading Frenzy for Nausicaa and half of Mason’s HP is worthwhile.
(25:30) Once again, choosing to not kite backwards with Ratbeard gave me another swing in my favor with a chance to eliminate Bonnie Anne. Normally, my Walk in Darkness would need to be used to bypass Hold the Line. In this case I was able to conserve them for later moments at the cost of some HP lost from shielding.
An additional comment I want to make involves my positioning of Temujin at this point in the duel. I could charge him blindly into Mason’s companions; however, I am in no rush to take him down. If I go in too early, he will be focused down. Instead, I wait until a better moment when he can either avoid Overwatch 3 or when he can eliminate Ratbeard. This allows me to get a greater value out of a weakened companion.
(31:40) With Bonnie Anne low and mostly defenseless, activating my first Hide allows me to recover HP and prepare to take down Bonnie Anne. In addition, before activating a hide, my potential to take Mason’s pirate down is very low barring immense luck. This hide forces him to use a Fortress.
(35:25) Even if my vicious charge had not beaten Bonnie, I would have been able to stay on the offensive and continue to attack since she would be low. With no viable way to reach or attack me, I could now take my time before my next attack.
(41:40) Temujin gets his chance to attack since all threats are gone.
(43:15) With all companions gone, he has no significant way to threaten. This is a situation in which many buccaneers get hasty, attacking the Privateer through his armors. This would pile on the Soul Shroud damage leading right into a Privateer’s win condition. Instead, I keep my distance and whittle down his Valor Fortress supply. Since I have few buffs left, I lose nothing from using my turns waiting. He has to approach in this situation which is massively in my favor. If he chooses not to approach, I can attack when his buffs are gone.
(55:10) Stuck in a stalemate between the trap, I move back a space. Referring to Alex DeathFlame’s Movement Guide, the game does a diagonal line until you reach the row/column you are moving to. In this case, I’m able to avoid the trap since he moved to the wrong position. This opens my chance to bait out his last fort with my hide.
Beyond this moment, the duel goes linearly where I run away whenever he has buffs up. Eventually he is forced to charge into me before his buffs inevitably run out.
If you’ve enjoyed this review, I have close to 100 raw videos of buccaneer duels up on my channel with still many remaining from this season that I haven’t uploaded yet. Thanks for reading.
