May 31, 2019
The History of Pirate101’s
Swashbuckler Weapons in PvP
Nothing makes you proud more than being a Swashbuckler. It’s a balanced class. No one sensible dares to call it broken. Gameplay is pretty great, as you can run completely free to play setups and companions. It makes you completely satisfied that you picked Swashbuckler. But what makes a pirate even more proud of their class? Their weapons. Today we’re giving you all quite a great flashback (If you’re a nostalgic veteran player and an avid PvPer) or, if you’re new, a brief history lesson on Swashbuckler Weapons in PvP.
First things first! Let’s g0 6 years back in time. Or shall I say, 20 Levels?
Level 50, new Beginning, new Meta
Back in the days of 2012, the game was newly launched with Practice PvP just introduced. The meta’s fate was a bit mysterious. Many Swashbucklers believed that gear with stats > gear with powers, which was wrong. Players heavily relied on their trained powers but also had a variety of companions to experiment with. It was a nice peaceful era. Which weapons were used in this 50 era? Let’s take a look.
Spy’s Defense
This was the best weapon to start with. It had the highest weapon power of any agility based option, and it was easily obtainable. Despite it looking underwhelming by today’s standards, it served the purpose back in early 2012 meta, providing decent weapon power and being agility based, allowing you to do good damage with hides. The stats weapons meta lasted for some good few months, as you’ll see as you continue reading.
Myrmidon Brace
The cap was then increased by 15 levels. However, the weapons still gave only stats, which made them largely unchanged. Weapon power improves as you level up, so upgraded versions of old weapons were popularized. People who believed in stats over powers from Swashbucklers back then didn’t run protections . Not to mention that hides back then were easy to break by getting hit while hidden. (Easy options included Gunnery, Bombs, Blood flames, etc.) This leaves you vulnerable to all the other classes. Buckler was one of the worst classes in the meta until 2014’s Spring Update.
Blades of Shade
Same meta, much better weapon than Myrmidon. During the 2013 era, Swashbucklers began to use hybrid weapons. Blades of Shade were definitely the best back in that time, as the weapon power was much higher and damage dealt to the enemy was magical damage, unlike Myrmidon’s physical damage. Most classes back then didn’t have any magic resist. This weapon was pretty much used by every Swashbuckler in the PvP Arena. A super hit fogged assassin’s strike would deal over 3,000 damage. That was indeed a great reason to run the amazing pair of BoS.
2014, new Year, new Meta?
As the game started to get ready to receive its second largest and best update, the Spring update, the game received a huge revamp in the combat system. This included powers, gear and weapons. Great new gear and weapons appeared. Among these weapons were some impressive ones that quickly garnered attention. People started to ditch the basic stats based ones, as they started to become obsolete.
Boarding Knives
From here began a new meta, when 5 class weapons were introduced to the Crown Shop with interesting grants. The Swashbuckler one provided an extra assassin, which was pretty handy for PvP. Not just that, the stats themselves were pretty impressive. But the weapon didn’t revolutionize swashbuckler PvP, since gear that gave extra assassins was already available. Starting from this point, Kingsisle started to improve weapons and include some power and talent grants. The next weapon ALMOST made a significant impact on swashbuckler PvP until a wise choice from Kingsisle.
Nefarious Knives
The weapon in its’ current state is completely fine. But the history? It was troublesome. When it was newly introduced from Tower of Moo Manchu as a drop, the weapon gave Black Fog instead of Walk in Darkness. You’d ask me, “What’s so horrible with that if it was easy to reveal hidden targets with Gunnery or Bombs?” Lemme tell you. In the same update, Swashbucklers received a significant buff. Hides were adjusted to not break if attacked. With Black fog being added to this weapon, Swashbucklers would have 2 Fogs. More troublesome, it’d also give every other class the ability to use these knives to hide themselves and their crew. Imagine if Black Fog was still on that weapon and used by a Buccaneer or a Privateer. It’d completely demolish the opponent in a few rounds. Later adjustments were added to change the weapon’s Black Fog grant to Walk in Darkness. Don’t be fooled by the Flanking as a Swashbuckler. The weapon was one of the best to use back in 2014. Boarding Knives and Nefarious Knives were the only choices.
Staff of Power (Swashbuckler)
Pretty scary, don’t you think? This was the second most powerful weapon that the Tower of Moo Manchu introduced (Same tower that drops Nefarious Knives). This Weapon was very unique when KI introduced it, as it wasn’t just giving a new random power. Let me tell you why. Vengeance Shroud is a mini Assassin’s Shroud poison. They differ in that vengeance only applies the shroud’s curse for 5 rounds, while Assassin’s Shroud has the poison and curse. This leaves your opponent unable to heal for 10 rounds if you run Vengeance Shroud and Assassin’s Shroud. Incredibly overpowered if you ask me, especially in Team PvP, as Vengeance can curse every opponent on the board from the other side, thanks to the fact it’s an AoE debuff with infinite range. This is super nasty, but it had one con: The weapon power was very bad. As you can see, 193 was pretty horrible for a Swashbuckler’s weapon power stat at level 65. What makes this weapon special is that it’s the only way you can gain access to this amazing power!
Meta spins right round in 2015…
Like anything in life, nothing remains the same forever. Unfortunately, The same holds true here. As the Ranked PvP update was introduced in 2015, there were major PvP changes. There were some gear and power adjustments, as well as an increase in every companion’s number of epics. Furthermore, Emmett and Scratch were buffed to their current state. Ranked PvP introduced a series of 4 champion weapons, one for each season. These weapons weren’t like any other regular weapons, especially for Swashbucklers (3 of them at least).
PvP Champion Sabres
The introduction of this set of weapons was revolutionary. These weapons aren’t like any other weapons you’ve seen before in the PvP Scene, as every one of them is seasonal. Each season has a new weapon. The spring and fall weapons are among the most powerful in the game. The summer weapon is mediocre. Finally, the winter one is all but unusable. Tournaments and players usually ban some of these weapons due to their insane power level. If you’d like to know more about these weapons and their powers and how they’re used, refer back to this article.
Haywire Weapons
The meta changed once again in 2016, following the release of Valencia II and the Dreadnaught updates. This second update introduced Haywire Weapons. Arguably, they are the best right now for free-to-play, non-champion players. The grants are particularly impressive. For instance, Haywire shot’s damage with fog is insane and Haywire Strike can steal games out of nowhere.
Dark Sea Daggers (2019 Meta)
Things have stayed the same, Meta wise. Not much has changed from 2016 (Except a few gear pieces added from September 2018 update, Maybe?). But regardless, New Ranked PvP rewards were introduced earlier this year for Winter 2019, which are the Dark Sea Daggers. The weapon has better stats, (even better than the current Champion weapons) but the game isn’t a game of stats. It’s a game of powers. It comes with assassin’s gloom. Nothing fancy, I know. But that extra poison could help you if you don’t have anything better to run. So it is a decently good weapon. But of course not the best. How much has changed in the meta? Not much for Swashbucklers.
Conclusion
The Meta is unpredictable. Things change every once in a while. One class that was once at the top can be at the bottom tomorrow. However, if you want to run a balanced class, go for Swashbuckler. If you’re a Swashbuckler already, now you know your weapons. You should have an idea on what’s good and what’s bad to run.
