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Crew Training Discussion

AuthorMessage
Admiral
Oct 27, 2009
1439
I have not seen a general discussion on this subject yet and there are many questions I'd like to hear others opinions on.
What abilities are best to train? Is it better to train highest in the main weapon ability for that class (Strength/ Agility/Will) or to diversify and train a mix to defend against damage from other classes? Are abilities like accuracy, dodge, armor and lucky more important? Which are best for each class type?

What are the epic abilities which complement each other best? Is it better to have a broad mix of epics or to keep it narrow and high level in just one or two?

Is there a different crew training approach which is better to take for player versus player vs player versus environment? One that is better for player versus environment?

I look forward to hearing from everyone.

Admiral
Oct 27, 2009
1439
For good musketeer epics, I like how double tap, burst fire and over watch work together.

Ensign
Sep 10, 2011
15
Swashbuckler: give all of your max lvl swashbuckler companions 4 points of dodge, accuracy, agility, and damage
Musketeer: give all muskets at level 65 four points of accuracy, health, agility, and damage
Witchdoctor is where is starts to get weird, lots of resist is good as well as lots of spooky, damage, and will. dodge is also useful for witchdoctors, don't give your witchdoctors agility though
Buccaneer: it gets different for each buccaneer. good damage and health is important, if the companion has tons of armor like Gaspard or Barnabus i'd give them lots of that. strength is nice, dodge is important for any companion with riposte like Gaspard or the Crokagator.
Privateer: lots of health here too, don't forget for companions that are awesome with riposte 2 dodge is important, remember to give decent will and accuracy. damage is also very important, I can't believe I almost forgot that
For musketeers the best epic is burst fire rank 2 or 3 by far, overwatch is great ( if you are a PVE player like me never give any companions overwatch 2, as you rarely see it occur on the small PVE boards with the exception of some battles.) double tap is handy, for PVP true grit and quick draw are extremely useful.
Witchdoctors first thing they should get is improved mojo blast rank 2 if they can get it, then go to mojo echo one and then jobu's ruse. if they can't get jobu's ruse then give them mojo echo rank 2.
For melee companions relentless 2 or 3 comes first, I would probably go for relentless 2, then second chance for some but if it's a swashbuckler like Kobe go for riposte. if the companion has 115+ dodge, try to get them relentless 2 and riposte 2. If they can't get riposte or second chance or any of that kind of stuff, i'd go for relentless 3 if they can get it, like Hawkules. If they can't get any of this I'd go for first strike, repel boarders, vengeance strike, and blade storm.

Hope I helped! Serious William Silver, lvl 65 and lvl 63, Helpful Brian Hawkins

Ensign
Sep 10, 2011
15
William LegendFist on Sep 12, 2013 wrote:
Swashbuckler: give all of your max lvl swashbuckler companions 4 points of dodge, accuracy, agility, and damage
Musketeer: give all muskets at level 65 four points of accuracy, health, agility, and damage
Witchdoctor is where is starts to get weird, lots of resist is good as well as lots of spooky, damage, and will. dodge is also useful for witchdoctors, don't give your witchdoctors agility though
Buccaneer: it gets different for each buccaneer. good damage and health is important, if the companion has tons of armor like Gaspard or Barnabus i'd give them lots of that. strength is nice, dodge is important for any companion with riposte like Gaspard or the Crokagator.
Privateer: lots of health here too, don't forget for companions that are awesome with riposte 2 dodge is important, remember to give decent will and accuracy. damage is also very important, I can't believe I almost forgot that
For musketeers the best epic is burst fire rank 2 or 3 by far, overwatch is great ( if you are a PVE player like me never give any companions overwatch 2, as you rarely see it occur on the small PVE boards with the exception of some battles.) double tap is handy, for PVP true grit and quick draw are extremely useful.
Witchdoctors first thing they should get is improved mojo blast rank 2 if they can get it, then go to mojo echo one and then jobu's ruse. if they can't get jobu's ruse then give them mojo echo rank 2.
For melee companions relentless 2 or 3 comes first, I would probably go for relentless 2, then second chance for some but if it's a swashbuckler like Kobe go for riposte. if the companion has 115+ dodge, try to get them relentless 2 and riposte 2. If they can't get riposte or second chance or any of that kind of stuff, i'd go for relentless 3 if they can get it, like Hawkules. If they can't get any of this I'd go for first strike, repel boarders, vengeance strike, and blade storm.

Hope I helped! Serious William Silver, lvl 65 and lvl 63, Helpful Brian Hawkins
Sorry i accidently put the buccaneer sign before i said swashbuckler

Admiral
Oct 27, 2009
1439
Overwatch and return fire or true grit seem a bit risky to use together. If you have overwatch and return fire early on, your musket crew can die fast exchanging fire with and enemy that returns fire. The true grit and quick draw combo you mentioned for pvp, the idea is to hit harder and faster than the enemy, looking for just that king of long musketeer exchange?
For privateer crew, I can see accuracy damage and dodge, But how big is health? Is it worth it enough to not just put more into say higher damage and accuracy? For those that heal, I can see the will, but aren't a lot of the priavateer weapons strength based? When I cast juju, there are a number of privateers that seem to boost strength, not will, which for players is a function of what weapon they carry. In those cases, are you better off giving crew strength rather than will? I think Lucky Jack might be one of these. Are there privateers that never get a heal? I don't have many of that class, so I'm not sure. If the weapon they use gets strength boost, are they also using their will stat in damage?

Ensign
Sep 10, 2011
15
Calamity Finch on Sep 20, 2013 wrote:
Overwatch and return fire or true grit seem a bit risky to use together. If you have overwatch and return fire early on, your musket crew can die fast exchanging fire with and enemy that returns fire. The true grit and quick draw combo you mentioned for pvp, the idea is to hit harder and faster than the enemy, looking for just that king of long musketeer exchange?
For privateer crew, I can see accuracy damage and dodge, But how big is health? Is it worth it enough to not just put more into say higher damage and accuracy? For those that heal, I can see the will, but aren't a lot of the priavateer weapons strength based? When I cast juju, there are a number of privateers that seem to boost strength, not will, which for players is a function of what weapon they carry. In those cases, are you better off giving crew strength rather than will? I think Lucky Jack might be one of these. Are there privateers that never get a heal? I don't have many of that class, so I'm not sure. If the weapon they use gets strength boost, are they also using their will stat in damage?
Sorry, I forgot to add how you should always train the core stat (Will, Agility, and Strength) that the companion you are training uses. If a privateer uses strength instead of will, give them strength and no will. However most privateers use will, note that we are talking about companions and not captains here. About the return and grit, where did I say privateers should use both? I said return fire for privateers is ok in PVP because muskets are used most of the time in PVP, currently I see most level 65 players use full teams of musketeers and they can stack their espirit de corps with battle zeal to make even their musketeers dodge a decent amount to do return fire as well as use some of the privateer gear with vicious charge and train mighty charge to reduce the opponent's accuracy for more dodge on your team. However, I'd give burst fire before True Grit, Return Fire, and Quick Draw. True grit and quick draw are for your musketeers hitting back and before the attacker, and when you're in PVP the attackers are usually musketeers. By the way, an add on to my last post, I regret saying overwatch 3 is bad for PVE and only good for PVP. I recently got my third bought companion, Pepe Detorteau, (he is awesome for PVP and PVE) and gave him overwatch three which seems to make our crew block a lot because he reduces accuracy and it happens a lot, even with the high range of overwatch 2 and 3. He also has Rain of Mortarshells which is pretty awesome, too.

Admiral
Oct 27, 2009
1439
Good to know, thanks. I came across another post which seems to fit in with training discussions. She is asking about Egg Shen, because she seems to know he ought to be a stronger crew member than he is on her crew.

"Maybe i'm wrong, since he's a disciple already, but he doesn't deal a lot of damage. Although kudos for helping me out with Johnny Ringo in Clark's house, he's not as strong as I thought. Or maybe is it that I need to train him harder? Please reply!

Lovable Natalie level 21"

Also, I have a ninja pig and trained him when everyone was figuring out what different talents would do, and no one knew how much they would advance or how many epics crew could get. I feel like I might have spread out his epic talents too much and might have not used his stat points to best use. I was thinking of retraining him. Does anyone have a ninja pig that turned out really well? What was he trained in? I appreciate the advice, because the other ninja pig threads all seem to be, "How can I get one?"

Ensign
Sep 10, 2011
15
Calamity Finch on Oct 2, 2013 wrote:
Good to know, thanks. I came across another post which seems to fit in with training discussions. She is asking about Egg Shen, because she seems to know he ought to be a stronger crew member than he is on her crew.

"Maybe i'm wrong, since he's a disciple already, but he doesn't deal a lot of damage. Although kudos for helping me out with Johnny Ringo in Clark's house, he's not as strong as I thought. Or maybe is it that I need to train him harder? Please reply!

Lovable Natalie level 21"

Also, I have a ninja pig and trained him when everyone was figuring out what different talents would do, and no one knew how much they would advance or how many epics crew could get. I feel like I might have spread out his epic talents too much and might have not used his stat points to best use. I was thinking of retraining him. Does anyone have a ninja pig that turned out really well? What was he trained in? I appreciate the advice, because the other ninja pig threads all seem to be, "How can I get one?"
About Egg Shen, when he promotes to a disciple I would give him relentless 2 and train him lots of strength, damage, health, and accuracy for talents. I wouldn't give him any other type of talents, only train those four. He doesn't have riposte so he wont need dodge, the dodge he comes with is enough. At goose master, I'd give him
second chance and maybe reset him for relentless three instead of second chance when you get battle zeal. About the ninja pig, I have a map but I never knew it had a code until now so I don't know where my map is. I could have gotten a ninja pig. I know the ninja pig comes with first strike, so when you promote him the first time I'd give relentless 2 and then riposte when he promotes again. I always go for riposte two and relentless two on my swashbucklers whenever I can. For the talents, like I said before, the best for any level 65 swashbuckler is full damage points, full dodge points, full accuracy points, and full agility points. If you follow this your ninja pig should turn out really well. However, I'm not sure I'd use it that much because from what I hear, the ninja pig doesn't get any powers or abilities. If anyone could tell me if he got powers and abilities and tell me what they are, that would be nice.

-Serious William Silver, level 65 Aquila Legend buccaneer, Helpful Brian Hawkins, level 65 Aquila Legend witchdoctor

Pirate Overlord
Mar 10, 2009
6204
Wow you guys are giving fantastic information. I wound up retraining almost all my companions on my first two pirates because I had no clue what I was doing when I trained them. I just tried to give them a little bit of everything, lol. They really kick tush now and it because of players like you the help us to learn what is best. Thank for putting out all that good stuff to show the new ones what this is all about. Well done.

Captain
Oct 15, 2012
538
since your a musketeer i would suggest leveling up your agility.

Admiral
Oct 27, 2009
1439
What do you think is the best way to train Lucky Jack Russell?

Ensign
Sep 10, 2011
15
Calamity Finch on Nov 24, 2013 wrote:
What do you think is the best way to train Lucky Jack Russell?
Lucky Jack Russel, you say? I don't have him, but I think you should give him this:
Talents:
4x strength, as that is his core stat
4x accuracy, you want him to hit
4x health, he doesn't have riposte so he wont really need dodge, although maybe you would give him dodge over health
4x damage, increases his damage along with his core stat
Epics:
I have heard from my friend Cunning Ronan Vane told me Lucky Jack doesn't do relentless very much, so he gave him relentless x1, vengeance x1, and repel boarders x1
I still prefer that you try out relentless x2 on him with a vengeance strike or repel boarders, but if he doesn't do relentless that much reset him and go for relentless, repel, and vengeance
Note: There are lots of bad epics he can get such as cheap shot, but NEVER ever ever EVER give a companion bladestorm x2 or x3. Bladestorm 1 is not bad, just a 2nd or 3rd bladestorm is useless.

Pirate Overlord
Mar 10, 2009
6204
William LegendFist on Dec 14, 2013 wrote:
Lucky Jack Russel, you say? I don't have him, but I think you should give him this:
Talents:
4x strength, as that is his core stat
4x accuracy, you want him to hit
4x health, he doesn't have riposte so he wont really need dodge, although maybe you would give him dodge over health
4x damage, increases his damage along with his core stat
Epics:
I have heard from my friend Cunning Ronan Vane told me Lucky Jack doesn't do relentless very much, so he gave him relentless x1, vengeance x1, and repel boarders x1
I still prefer that you try out relentless x2 on him with a vengeance strike or repel boarders, but if he doesn't do relentless that much reset him and go for relentless, repel, and vengeance
Note: There are lots of bad epics he can get such as cheap shot, but NEVER ever ever EVER give a companion bladestorm x2 or x3. Bladestorm 1 is not bad, just a 2nd or 3rd bladestorm is useless.
Good info there William. Although I wouldn't call bladestorm 2 or 3 useless, It can happen that he could finish off more than one baddy in a turn, it just isn't very likely. Useless means no possible assistance for me or my crew. It is just way down there in the list of priorities. I would not use it because there are higher chances that the others can be triggered. It is possible that there is some hidden boost to having it that we don't know about as we all have come to the conclusion that taking out more than one bad guy per turn isn't likely to happen so we don't pick it. I just wondered if there is a hidden bonus to having this to make up for its rarity of possibility to trigger. Any insight on this developers or have we deduced this one correctly?

Admiral
Oct 27, 2009
1439
What talents do you wish you hadn't trained crew in and who did you train it on? What are the most regretted choices that made you decide to retrain a crew member? Was it a bad talent or just bad for that particular crewman?

Admiral
Oct 27, 2009
1439
On one of my pirates, I gave Bonnie Anne return fire. So far it is the only one I had to retrain. I know return fire is a good talent but the way I use Bonnie not as much, at least till much later in the game. I let her do a lot of finishing off of weak enemies and she double taps a lot for me. In the earlier levels, I needed her heals and big attacks, and did not have as much ability to heal her if she got in a multi-round shoot out with a musketeer I never even told her to attack, because she selected it as a double tap- next target.

Petty Officer
Nov 05, 2012
96
Well, this is what I do. Depending on their class, that is the stats I would put in. For privateers and buccaneers, you put in strength, for swashbucklers and musketeers, you invest in agility, and for witchdoctors you give them higher will for more damage, but from a tactical vantage, you would invest in where your companions, most importantly yourself in where you fall short. Like for example, since Gaspard De Vole has zilch for his resistance, I would invest on will to reduce damage from magical attacks. But that's what I think. Oh, what am I saying, I hardly ever do that! I just invest to get damage! I've been doing that forever! But, both are strategies that I have observed that work.

Admiral
Oct 27, 2009
1439
Anyone know any good training for Tricky Vinnie?

Petty Officer
Nov 05, 2012
96
Calamity: Oh funny you should mention him. With Tricky Vinny as one of my players, he always seems to land a critical to finish off an enemy. That I feel was just a running gag with him, and same with my pufferfish (Little known fact, when Casey met Bentley the pufferfish, he was one of the last one living, since they were hunted to near extinction by the Armada for some reason.) Vinny for some reason likes to be a show off and land criticals to finish off an enemy, that just happens with me. I don't know how, it just does.

Admiral
Oct 27, 2009
1439
I think I have noticed that sometimes, but Bonnie does more of that for me. I don't think Vinnie has the option of getting double tap, but it would sure be nice for you if he did. I thought he was a fun character when I got him, and wanted to use him more, but was never sure about the best talents to give him, and how to best use him. He does make me laugh though, and I'd love to see him get stronger.

Petty Officer
Nov 05, 2012
96
I don't really remember what his epics are with me, I just give him random ones and hope for the best. Though if it doesn't work for his play style (The Show Off), I just reset, and fix that. Nausica's role, is the Psudeo-Legend. She can kill someone, or at least bring someone down to half health no problem. Fun fact, she joined the mercenary guild on Christmas Day!