April 1, 2022

Pirate101 April Fool’s Talent Spotlight – Flanking

It’s been a long time since we last crossed paths, no? Hope everything’s doing well for y’all! Spring has come, and now it’s the start of April. We decided to begin the month with a crucial article for one of the best and most powerful talents in the game, yet nobody realizes it’s potential.

More powerful than blood flames and Frozen Tide. Even more powerful than the Fall and Spring Champion weapons… Behold..

The powerful flanking! One of the best Swashbuckler talents in the game (Hannah claims it’s one of the best talents period). Mostly recommended by Hannah, the flanking 5 lover. She gave us brief details about Flanking as a talent, her history with flanking as well as some insights from her adventures flanking with her beloved first mate and the inventions they made together with Flanking after the introduction of Flanking 5.

History of Flanking

According to Hannah, Flanking existed from the very beginning, when the game first came out. Hannah was mostly interested in flanking due to a curiosity on how to activate it. Unsurprising, as she was new to the game back then.

She tried so many times to make flanking trigger in combat, but she always failed to trigger it. 200 days later, her efforts finally bore fruit when she tried to flank with her buccaneer first mate. She was trying to flank with non-melee units all that time!

Ever since that day, Hannah worked hard to discover the potential of flanking and tried to adapt and learn how all the ranks work.

Triggering Flanking

First, assume an enemy is standing in the middle square. Flanking will trigger if you and a unit on your team (at least one with one or more ranks of flanking trained, whether from a grant, or trained from the secret trainers) form a “sandwich” with the enemy unit. If you’re in the top left square, another friendly unit with flanking would need to walk to the bottom right square. Furthermore, if you’re in left-most middle square and a friendly unit with flanking is in the right-most middle square, flanking would be triggered if an enemy walked through or stopped on the central square. Remember, only units of the same type can flank (melee with melee, ranged with ranged, magic with magic). Or can they???

Hannah’s Discovery of Rank 5

Hannah returns to our story by discovering and making what was once impossible, possible. Hannah’s original wish in discovering how Flanking works is to make sure that flanking can work with any other unit, regardless of being melee, ranged, or magic. As you know, in order for Flanking 1 to 4 work, the other unit you’re using to place the enemy in a flanking position in the middle, has to be melee. But with Flanking 5, you can use a musketeer or even a witchdoctor unit as your co-flanker and flanking will trigger. The weapon type no longer matters, just the positioning of your units.

Chilam Bak and Hannah’s Flanking 5 Adventures

The dream team started to arise when Hannah and her beloved first mate, Chilam Bak worked together to get Hannah Flanking 5 and flank enemies together, despite their type differences. Here’s the setup they’ve shared with us that demolished all their enemies:

Flanking 1 and 2

The first two ranks of flanking are available from the melee secret trainer, who will appear once every three hours in Devilfish Hollow. Rank two builds on rank one by allowing you to flank 3 times a turn instead of once.

Flanking 3

The third rank of Flanking comes from the Empire Bundle‘s robe, the Gladiator’s outfit (any of the level tiers). This rank improves on the previous two by reducing enemy movement the turn after they get flanked. No escape for the wicked!

Flanking 4

Next, Rank 4 of Flanking comes from an Ashes of the Armada pack weapon, the Blue Raptor Blades. In addition to all the previous ranks’ abilities, Flanking 4 increases the critical rating for all Flanking hits by 1. You can also use the Nefarious Knives, but they require Stabby Weapons 2. Using the Blue Raptor Blade will allow you to circumvent that requirement, so even your witchdoctor can flank without wasting extra practice points.

Flanking 5

Finally, the elusive fifth rank of Flanking! It allows you to flank with allies of any time, instead of just other melee units. Hannah got the final rank after months of work developing her perfect pet.

Pirate Testimony

Check out some testimonials from pirates who used Flanking as our Flanking Talent Spotlight comes to a close!

“I’ve never used Flanking before, until I got my hand on my first pair of Nefarious Knives… Does the job quickly and kills the enemies quicker as it triggers my chains!”

~ Anthony Jones

“They lied when they said Blood Flames and Tide with Scratch are the fastest way to kill your enemies, using flanking to kill your enemies is the new rage, and it’s really really efficient!”

~Loyal Rebecca Windlass

“Flank the enemy from the right and left and they’re done for. Best way to trigger your other epics. Thank you to both Hannah and Chilam bak for the innovation of using flanking in a meta where all people encourage flames.”

~Awkward Jonathan Eastwick