Nicky's Guide to Improving Loot Drops

Probably the most talked about aspect of the game is how and where to find the best loot. I’ve read guides that touch on several ideas for looting, and I think most of them have some valid information, but I haven’t seen my discovery mentioned by anyone yet.

I have more than a few mastered pirates, so several months back when I was looking for something different to do, I decided to loot for cheat cards so that I could get a full deck. I was missing a few of the lower level cards, so I went to loot from lower level bosses. I decided to bring along a low level pirate so that I could build up some gold and get a few decent loot items for him. I soon noticed a trend with the loot drops that I was getting. When the lower level pirate was there I was getting plenty of loot drops. But, when I tried to loot alone I wasn’t getting anything. This second, lower level pirate, soon had the nickname “Leprechaun”. He was most definitely a good luck charm for loot. We found loot clothing items, and a few famed weapons. Without him there, the loot drops mysteriously vanished.

I tried experimenting with my mastered pirate and my lucky leprechaun, to try to figure out why the loot changed when he was around.

I eventually found the answer.

It’s actually pretty simple. As a level 50, the lower level boss was a gray level for me, and very easy to kill. My lucky pirate was a low level, and the boss was a red level for him, and quite difficult to kill. I experimented with this for several days, and found that what I had discovered was potentially quite valuable knowledge.

What I found out:

If a player SEES the enemy as red, then the liklihood of some type of loot drop is about 80% of the time.

Yellow is probably 60-70%

Green less than 50%

Gray is practically 0%

Everyone sees Darkhart as a red level. Therefore, the percentage for a loot drop is pretty high.

The important thing to know about this discovery is that YOU don’t need to be the one that sees the enemy as a red level. If you have a higher level pirate and you have someone on your crew that sees the enemy as red, then the loot drop rate will still be high. As long as the lower level gets one hit on the enemy, everyone will benefit with a better drop rate.

This is a great incentive to invite lower levels to loot with you. A fast and easy way to test this is to go to Kingshead and fight the veterans on the field. If you see the veterans as gray levels then you’ll be lucky to get anything other than the occasional loot pouch. After you verify how bad the loot is, invite someone that is about level 14 to loot with you. Have them use sweep on all the veterans, and you’ll see the obvious change in your luck.