May 6, 2019

Companion Spotlight
Bosun Budd

Have skill? You have a win. Have Bosun Budd? You have a strategy. Welcome to our companion spotlight for one of my favorite companions that I’ve just bought recently, Bosun Budd! This companion isn’t like any other indeed. He does play a critical role in one kind of strategy in PvP that is actually fun, if you’re using it of course. Also annoying if it’s used against you. Let’s be off!

Quick note: The strategy mostly works only in Spar Chamber and against a few classes. I don’t recommend to use this in Ranked Halls as the design of the battleboards can be pretty limited.

Tips upon recruiting:

Make sure to purchase him at level 70 to recruit him 2 levels ahead from your levels for better stats and damage. If you do that, You will guarantee recruiting a level 72 Bosun Budd. Which makes a noticeable difference
Bosun Budd’s stat talents are very limited. And by limited, I mean it. He can get only 14 stat talents, Unlike most of the other companions that can get up to 17.

Bosun Budd Companion

Bosun isn’t just your typical companion. In fact, you don’t get to recruit him easily. Why is that? Because the companion is kept completely locked for you to purchase until you go through a certain dungeon to unlock him. Bosun Budd comes from the depth of Cool Ranch in one of the haunted sides in Haunted Skyway. He plays an important role in the story as he keeps Captain Blood’s cards away from you to keep the pirate player unable to finish the game of cards that Captain Blood played with Death long ago. Once you defeat Bosun Budd in Miranda’s Mines and defeat Captain Blood and complete Miranda, you finally get to unlock the companion. And by unlocking him, I mean just having the ability to buy him from the crown shop.

Bosun Budd’s Powers and Talents

Starfish Shuffle – Summons 8 starfish traps. Explodes once the enemy is near the trap

Consume Starfish – Destroys one Starfish trap and Bosun Budd gains 908 Health in return

Bosun Budd gets to have 2 Starfish Trap powers and 2 Consume Starfish powers later in his 2nd promotion. Talents line might not be very impressive, but it works pretty great. As of now at level 70, he can get Vengeance Strike 3 Riposte Second Chance and Bladestorm as it is the best setup that suits him right now in PvP.

Bosun Budd Strategy

After Valencia II’s release that included a 2nd promotion for Bosun, This companion as I said earlier plays a critical role in this strategy for PvP. There’s 2 kinds of strategy. First one is Bosun Corner, and the second one is Bosun Fortress.

Bosun Corner

Corner strat is to have a team of Bosun Budd, Bonnie Anne and any 3rd companion that is decently viable (I personally use Battle Angel as a 3rd companion) and all the 4 of you corner basically in any of the 4 corners of Spar Chamber. When the opponent is about to charge your crew or is any close, Use Bosun’s starfish summons as they’ll make an immunity wall surrounding you and your crew. But always keep Bosun next to Bonnie Anne on the top. Make sure Bosun is next to the Pillar exactly if you’re going to corner. Then keep spam basic hitting your opponent with Bonnie Anne as her Burst and Tap crit chains eliminates the targets while you stand completely immune. Here’s how it looks when you try it in game:

Bosun Fortress

Bosun fortress mainly relies on keeping bosun budd alive for as long as possible to make this strat successful. Basically all you’d do is stay near a wall in spar while bosun is next to you then summon bosun’s starfish traps. It’d make a great wall of starfishes that’d keep you in great immunity that way and invulnerable from any kind of attacks. As shown:

These strategies work very well versus Bucklers and Buccaneers. Very annoying. But nothing’s perfect until the end.

Cons

There’s counters to this strategy. Such as Bonnie Anne’s Scatterblast or Gunnery IF the opponent knows you’d use him. If you surprise your opponent with this setup you’ll do great.
It can blind your range if you bring a ranged unit as a 3rd unit.
It cannot be used much in Ranked due to the size of battleboards.
The companion himself cannot get 17 stat talents like the others. In fact, he gets a lower number than that.

But the point from this strategy is to kill as most units as possible from your opponent and put them in stress especially if they don’t know the counters. This setup works best for a 1 time surprise to frustrate your opponent who’d never see that team coming from you

Starfish Consuming

The starfish consume power doesn’t work the way you think (An AoE heal or heals your pirate). If Bosun is near one of his starfish traps and he’s almost dead, you can save him by using this power. It basically removes a starfish trap but in return, it gives Bosun nearly 1000 health. Which is great for such a companion with Vengeance 3. You’d honestly want to use that to make sure he’s going to survive that long especially if you still haven’t used his second wave of starfish traps or plan to use them to give your opponent a hard time.

The Effectiveness of this Strategy and the keys to make it successful…

It’s no surprise that this strategy isn’t much reliable but it does help Witchdoctors and Privateers a lot more than Swashbucklers and Bucks. Even though it’s also pretty viable for both Bucklers and Bucks but you know what I mean. There’s always better choices for these 2 classes. I personally love using it on buckler vs other bucklers for the first time to give them a tad bit of annoyance the first time to fight them. The keys are very simple:

1) Right positioning of your units in a corner.

2) Picking the right time to use the starfish traps is very important. Especially vs Buccaneers with their annoying charges or Swashbucklers who like to bait. Or other kind of Swashbucklers that likes to run a full buccaneer companion gear and setup. It does help a lot in these very situational matches!

One last thing for recommendations, do NOT run this setup against ranged classes such as Witchdoctors or Musketeers as it is pretty easy to them regardless to reach you from the other side of the board as it wouldn’t work. The main reason behind this strategy is to help counter melee classes.