Leon Dreadpratt's Guide to Looting

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Introduction


I am Leon Dreadpratt a level 50 pirate and a master looter. Though I do not have as many famed as some super looters I think my 65 (in counting) famed weapons qualifies me to share my strategies and expereice on how to get famed fast.

The Two Secrets to Looting
Do you really want to hear the secret to getting good loot? Really? Ok fine. There are two secrets to getting famed: looting a lot and luck. Sound boring. Well its the truth.

The amount of time you loot has a direct effect on how many famed weapons you will get. If you loot for 10min a day with all the best strategies on the best servers you will not get as many famed as if you spend hours a day hacking way at some random guys. Something important to note is that I say how much you loot not how much you play. There is a difference. If you play for hours but spend 99% of your time fooling around, you will not get famed. Obvious, yes, but a common mistake. For this reason I suggest if you really want ot sart being a serious looter, you should master everything and get all your missions and other priorities done first so you can focus all your time on looting.

The other big secret to looting is luck. You could spend hours killing thralls or urchinfists and get no famed. But then you could be walking out to leave and get your lost sword of el patron from a random spineskull you shot as you walked by. True story, happened to me. There are people who ask "what guy, and what time, and what server, exactly, did you get your legendary weapon?" To be totally honest, no one seabeard is better that one other seabeard, looting at 9:37am is no better than looting at 10:24pm, and even though one day one server is a bit better, the next day that might change, and no server is always better. Though there certainly are strategies to improving your odds of getting famed, these are all ways to be able to kill the most, or the highest level guys. There is no way to guarantee you will ever get anything at all.

Well enough of the obvious it is time for the tips, tricks and strategies. The reason you are reading this.

The Server Trick


There is a little known trick that can really help increase your loot. The trick is that different servers give different amounts of loot each day. Though there is no statistical proof for this, in my experience I have found it to be true. This was first discovered by The3rdJoker, a user with perhaps the most famed weapons I have ever seen. His idea is that different servers give better or worse loot. Now he talks about it somewhere else and goes into much more detail about exactly how and why it might work but all you need to know is this. On any given day not all servers are equal. By "better loot" I mean that you wll get more skulls per guy, the number of famed in those skulls does not change. Now the common mistake is for people to go off and spent half their time swiching servers and not looting. Remember what I said before, the biggest secret is the time spent looting. Here is how you can use this trick most efectivly. Choose any server. Go to where you want to loot. Spend some time looting. If after maybe 15 or 20 minutes if you can tell the loot is really sub par, change servers. Spend another 20 minutes on the new server. If the loot is still not good change again. Try and remember the best server so far if you really can't find a good one after 5 0r 6 changes. The differences are normally subtle. Although sometimes there will be big changes in loot quality. Say one server gives you a skull every 20 guys then a new server gives you a skull every 10, of course stay there. It might be hard to tell the difference in loot quality. If you find it is harder for you to detect the differences, spent more time on each server, really try and get a feel for the loot quality. On the other hand after some practice you might be able to get really good at sensing loot quality. One good way to quicken the process is to go to a guy that is easy to get to from a port of call, but also gives good loot, Neban works very well. Kill him a few times to get a feel for the loot. Is he mostly gives pouches or even nothing at all? Change servers. Is he giving a skull every two or three kills? Good server! Once you have a good server you can go to a different place on the same server knowing you will get good loot. With this trick you can find a good server in maybe a half hour, giving you plenty of time for uninterrupted looting. Always remeber the server with the best loot. Odds are it will stay good for at least a day or two. The important thing with this is to be content. If you find a moderately good server stay there, don't keep searching for the Holy Grail server, you will never find it and only waste precious looting time. Finally you don't need to sacrifice finding servers for other things. If all your friends are looting at one place, even if it is not a the best server, its fine to hang with them even if you know you might get slightly better loot looting alone somewhere else.

Kinds of Looting
Now I have found that there are three types of looting you can do depending on what you are searching for. There is, looting for numbers, looting for famed, looting for cursed. There are different strategies for each and I will go into them next.

Looting For Numbers


Now by this I mean looting just to increase your total famed count, the number of famed weapons you have ever gotten. For this there is only one guy, Foulberto Smasho. Now by now I really hope everyone has realised how good he is at giving famed. But the problem is, he only gives knives. Now when he first came out I with the rest of the game was there all the time. But after a few days some thing odd happeded. I realised I had gotten every knife in the entire game, both famed and legendary. Geeze, well I guess now there is nothing else he can really give me that I want, huh. Well now he is not such a great guy but he is still useful. Because he gives so many famed a few hours there can easily add five or more famed weapons to your list. This can be good either for bragging rights or for those people who simply like the excitement of getting that nice blue weapon in a skull chest!

Looting For Famed


Now this is a huge category of looting. It is for people looking for a better variety of famed than foulberto but also want to get a good number. There are tons of different strategies for this but I will go in to my favorites here.

Big Bad Bosses
There are several big bad bosses in the game that give really great loot. They are very well known and popular. My five favorites are, Darkhart, Neban the Scilent, Remington the Vicous, Jaques le Blanc, Tomas Blanco, and Devilroot. One of the good things about bosses is that they respawn faster. Meaning you aren't wating half and hour to have someone to kill. And obviously the best thing about bosses is that they give very very good loot. The strategy for bosses is simple, 1) get a group of higher levels, 2) kill them a lot. Doing this for a few hours can often lead to a nice shiny new famed.

General Darkhart
Darkhart might be the most popular. He gives very good loot, he has relatively low lives, and he is in a very good spot (there are all the different merchants around him). It is not uncommon for him to be surrounded by pirates looting. He can easliy be taken on by a single 50 or a group of 30s and 40s.



Neban the Silent And Remington The Vicious
The two assassin bosses are also very popular. Neban the Silent in Padres and Remington the Vicious found on Kingshead. They give very good loot. They have double the lives of another boss their level which makes them very dificult. However it is not known weather the extra lives actually make them give better loot than other bosses. They can be very difficult, but not impossible for a single 50 to kill, but even better is a group of 30s 40s and 50s.

Devil Root
Perhaps the least known great boss is devilroot. He is the highest level boss in the game (except for Foulberto Smasho) which makes him a very tough adversary against even the strongest pirate. In the past he gave very bad loot. This lead many people not to go to him very often. Then, rather recently, they fixed him to give extreamly good loot. Sadly he is still not recognized as a good looting boss though hopefully some day he will gain the title as most a very popular boss for looting. He is again a little tough for a single 50 but no proplem for a group.

Jaques le Blanc and Tomas Blanco
With the recent updates there are now two new popular high level bosses. Jaques le Blanc can be found on Isla Cangrejos and Tomas Blanco can be fond on Cuthtroat Isle. They both appear at level 35 and give very good loot. Similar to darkhart a single 50 can take them on quite easily or a small group.

Sailing
Saldly sailing is very unrecognized as a way to get famed. However with the right tactics and a good crew you can get some famed you couldn't get anywhere else (such as the highly sought after admirals line of weapons!) Like with enemies, the only possible way to get good loot is to kill good guys. With ships however that can be dificult as the best ships that give the best loot are extreamly hard to sink, and also your ship doesn't get its lives back, unless you repair, but even that takes way to long to have to do after every ship. However, with there right tactics you can easily take down some of the toughest ships in the game without taking any damage. This meathod is so good it might even be considered cheating or a glitch. So good you will cry when you try it out and kill a Juggernaught in your light sloop. Here is, is my "come and get me" method. The idea of this method is simple, keep the enemy pointing right at you so they can't fire any cannons. It is far easier to do this with a good sized crew but if you are good you can do it solo. Also you need total leadership over your crew and only half as many crewmen as can fit on your ship so everyone can have a cannon on the same side. These two things are absolutly nessesary. The easiest way to totally screw this up is by having some stupid guy shooting at every single ship within a hundred yard radius.

Step 1: Find
Start by finding a target. Make sure it is a really high level, war class works best. Also make sure no other ships will come over and attack you while you are focused on the target.



Step 2: Position
Second zoom your compass all the way in (press the + button until you can't anymore) now position the target ship so it is right on the edge of you compass, directly to your east or west and stop. Then manuver the camera so you are looking at the side of your ship facing the target ship. Now tell all your crew which is the target ship, to go to that side, use lightning, and tell them to only shoot that ship. The edge of your compass is the perfect range so that lightning can reach it but you have enough time to kill it before it gets too close.



Step 3: Lightning
Once one person has shot it at least once it will turn and start coming towards you. Sometimes it might shoot a few rounds at you as it is turning but don't panic. As long as it is facing you it can't do anything. Even frigates with front cannons won't shoot you. Now just wait. The ship will come towards you as your crew slowly damages it. If the ship is particulairly hard or you are getting nervous you can tell your crew to hit the sails to slow it down or stop it.



Step 4: Broadsides and Fury
Once it is a quarter of the way on your map, you can use your broadsides. Try to avoid having your crew either sink or stop it until now as you will get less rep. At this point the ship is doomed. As it comes closer still you can tell your crew to use fury. No problem.



Step 5: Sink and Plunder!
The hardest ships in the game stand no chance against this strategy. (now of course the reason I call this a cheat is because it only works becuse the ships are computers and have no brains, any smart ship would just turn and shoot back). With this method you can go around the hinderseas and start collecting a good hull full of plunder. One of the best things, that some people still don't realize, is that as you sink more ships better cargo will replace worse cargo. (the order from best to worst is: loot skull chests, loot chests, loot pouches, royal chests, treasure chests, cargo crates) This means that even if you have full cargo if you get a royal chest it will replace a cargo crate, or if there are no crates it will replace a treasure cheest. So if you are at it long enough you could end up with a hull full of royal chests, a hull full of loot, or even a hull full of skulls!

Cannon Defense
I know for a fact that canonn defense can be an extreamly good way to get famed canon rams. However I am not a very expirenced cannonner so I cannot give very much advice here. Through talking to many other, far better, cannoners I have gathered enough information to write a good guild to cannon defense. However if another more experinced cannoner wants to add or change something (especially to the strategy section) just ask in the talk page and than feel free.

From what I have heard you get loot every 6 waves in cannon defense. After wave 6, after wave 12, after wave 18 etc. Now you are not guarenteed to get a famed cannon ram or even a cannon ram each time. After wave 24 it seems people start getting famed. Now getting this far in cannon defense obviously is the hard part, and it can take quate a lot of work to do it.

Practice Your Aim
To start off, if you want to get anywhere you yourself need to be good before you can start thinking about playing for famed. To get better simply practice and play often. Don't worry about strategy or getting very far, just work on aim. If you want you can even play alone. Try and sink all those pesky sloops by yourself!

Organize A Good Group
Once you feel you have mastered aiming you need some good friends. This can be very hard. Often it is hard enough getting four people to start at the same time, let alone four good people. I cannot help you here, you need to figure out some way to organize this yourself. Either in the game, on the wiki, amung real friends however you can.

Basi c Strategy
Once you have a good group you need to have some strategy. The most important thing to know is that in the begining you need to save money for ammo later on. On of the most obvious signs of someone who has no idea what they are doing, is one that buys every new ammo the second they unlock it. Ammo like target shot, smoke bomb, and hot shot are a complete waste of money. Even ammo as tempting as mines or scatter shot are best left alone. Of course if you are not planning on getting very far you do not need to worry about saving up and you can buy all the ammo you want. But if you are hoping to get anywhere, save up.

The Good Ammos And How To Use Them
Once you get far you need to know what ammo is useful and how to use it. At level 10 you unlock your first good ammo, powder keg. Now this ammo is extreamly expensive and only good if you know how to use it. Unlike some poeple think it is NOT a large mine. Although it floats, if a ship runs over it is dissaperes without doing any damage. However if you shoot it with round shot after it is placed, it explodes doing massive dammage to a large area. This makes it etreamly good for taking out a large group of difficult ships in one shot. The important thing though is not to waste it as it is extreamly expensive. Only use it when you know it will be most needed.

Next you get bullet at level 11. This ammo goes straight once fired and is very good for shooting ships getting away.

Next comes cold shot at 13. This can help by stopping ships to then be hip by other rounds like powder keg.

The next good ammo you get is bait shot at level 16. As you would think ths is best used on the biggest toughest ships of the heavy war classes that can pose a larger threat otherwise. Like powder keg it is extreamly expensive and you can not waste it.

Finally firestorm can be used like a, cheaper, but slightly less powerful powder keg that does not have to be shot. It will do pretty good damage to a lare area like poweder keg, but without the need of a trigger.

Open Fire!
Make sure everyone in your group is familiar with these strategies. Once you have a good group of people who know what they are doing you can finally play for real! It will take a long time though. A good game can last hours. But in that one game you can get several famed cannon rams. Even the highly prized revenant cannon ram!

Looting For Cursed


This is the final kind of looting. It is for those who want the best weapons in the game and don't mind getting them very rarely. Of course there are only two places to go for these weapons: Islqa Tormenta and Raven's Cove. Now I have no real proof for this but in my experience Raven's Cove gives more cursed than Tormenta. It might just be a coincedence but I got all three of my famed cursed blades on Raven's Cove though. Either way I'm not going to bias my guide and will give strategies for both places. The maijor reason why it is harder to get famed looting for cursed than it it looting for famed is because there is no boss that can give cursed. This means that the very effective 'big bad bosses; stragtegy doesn't work, decreasing your likelyhood of getting famed. If there was a good boss that gave cursed everybody would always loot at him because you could get as many famed as normal looting and the posability of getting cursed. However since ther is no cursed giving boss you neew to make new strategies for looting for cursed.

Tormenta: Round and Round
Now in case you haven't noticed the cursed caves are a big circle. This allows for what might be my favourite looting strategy. For this you only need one thing, a good gun. It is possible to do this without one but it makes a a million times better. I also suggest having steel shot at 5 for this so you can make the most of the gun. For most people I would suggest a good blunderbuss. One that can consistantly do more than 2,500-3,000 damage is good as it gives a guarenteed one hit kill. If you have one, a good pistol can be even better. For this you can get away with slighly less damage because it is quick to reload and take a second shot whereas with a blunderbuss you can get into trouble if you have to reload. Any pistol that does more than 2,000 damage should be good. Once you have your gun go to a quiet server. This is important because this is a very unsocial way of looting beacue you are essentially going around killing everything in one shot. Once at the server with the gun, the strategy is simple; follow the circle of the caves killing every guy you pass in one shot. The reason this is such a good strategy is not beacuse you are killing very good guys but beacuse you are smply killing so many guys so fast you get very good loot. Also if you are alone you know you are killing every guy in the entire cave which eliminates the annoying times where somone else gets a skull chest for killing somethig without you. And you always end up thinking "what if that was the skull chest with my legendary cursed blade!" and driving yourself crazy. But with this strategy you know that if any guy in the entire place is going to give a skull chest you will find him.



Tormenta: Gold Room
The gold room might be the most popular place on tormenta. It is very good for a small or medium sized group of 40s and 50s to go to hang out and loot. It has several high level guys in very close quarters making it very effective and it is hard to miss any loot, often a major problem in a larger area.



Tormenta: Thrall Hall
This is the other candidate for most popular room in tormenta. It has slightly better guys meaing better loot. However since the guys are more spread out is is easy to miss a skull while you are in one part killing someone and someone else is in another part killing someone else. This can be extreamly annoying. However a good organised group of 40s and 50s who can agree to kill every guy together can get very good loot here.



Ravens Cove: Idol Four
This is certainly the most popular part of Raven's Cove. It is very similar to the gold room in that is has several high level guys is a small area. The guys are slightly easier however making it possible for a single 50 or a group of 30s and 40s to loot here.



Ravens Cove: Traitor!
To the south west of the mines there are a few traitor ghosts. These are the most powerful ghosts. These are often popular for a single 40 or 50 to loot hoping the better guys will give better loot.

Good Luck!
Well that is all I have to say on my favourite subject. This is by no means a complete guide to everything there is to know about looting. Not all of my methods and strategies may be very efective to everyone and there are plenty of other methods out there. I made this guide to hopefully help other pirates use their time most effectively and to increase the amount of good loot you get. I really hope this helps you reach all your legendary dreams.



- Leon dreadpratt 01:06, May 6, 2011 (UTC)