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So You Want to Be a Champion?

Pirate101 PvP Champion Series: Part 1

TAL_Rough

If you’re reading this, you may be new or struggling in the Pirate101 Arena, or just need that extra push to become a Pirate101 PvP Champion! Well lucky for you, you’ve come to the perfect place! I’ll be giving all of you a series of articles explaining the bare bone basics to Pirate101 Ranked PvP with tips from the Champions themselves!

This first article will discuss:

The current class tiers
How to adapt to the current class tiers, including key powers
Suggested companions and tips for setting them up

Class Tiers

In any game with classes or specifics, such as (for Pirate101), Companions, Gear, etc., they can affect how powerful a specific class or character is prior to stepping into battle. Tiers are assigned to a class based mostly on:

How often they are played,
How consistent they are against all match ups, and
How powerful their arsenal of powers as well as companions are.

Currently this is the most common tier list you will find coming from a competitive player’s thoughts:

Tier 1

Privateer: Naturally trained protections (Valor’s Fortress, Armor and Shield) as well as able to easily obtain more through dropped gear, able to slow down the game with their large amount of protection and heals to out value other players. Firstmate’s Boon allows for a large amount of burst out of nowhere in combination with high haste companions (Such as Goronado/Nausica).

Buccaneer: Naturally trained protections (Leviathan’s Call/Triton Song and Chorus/Kraken Lament), Chorus allows us to out value trade other melee units, Tide 3 and Elusive 3 makes our dodge insane (even musketeers miss), we can chain down units very effectively, Vengeance strike cleans up summons very easily and helps stop our units from being chained, massive amounts of haste with Vicious Charge and Highland’s.

Tier 2

Swashbuckler: Black Fog allows for a lot of early game pressure and burst. 50% chance to be immune to traps (Summer Flames, Bombs, Gracie’s Trap, etc), insane amount of dodge, Hides are both amazing at being used for defensive and offensive capabilities, you can use Hides to prolong games and time out protection buffs, Assassin’s Shroud and Staff of Power’s Curse helps nullify your opponents ability to heal, mass amount of DoT’s to avoid Valor’s, Hide doesn’t break if it doesn’t break Valor’s Armor. Their Hides are easily removable with people making Scent in all there pet pools, Quick Draw 3 on Musketeers make there Nausica less impact as Black Fog is negated, Sundering Strike can target hidden units and trigger epics to remove their hide, very squishy and don’t have that much dodge for a “rogue” type class.

Witchdoctor: Amazing value with a lot of powers, best spell power in game to make their heals and absorbs stronger then average. Best summon controlling with AoE’s to remove there enemies. Juju line of powers to help make their companions of all classes go mayhem (specifically Bonnie Anne). They are super squishy and never dodge, if a Buccaneer gets through your Hold the Lines units and summons they can chain your Pirate with there own in one turn unless you get lucky.

Tier 3

Musketeer: Lots of large AoE’s, Chains with Super Strike, Overwatch 3 if you can achieve it is amazing. Nausica destroys us, ocuboros (Reduce spell power) turn one is very difficult to recover from, Double Tap 3 hurts us in Musket vs Musket then it does help us (only useful when reduced), doesn’t have any natural protection so falls into the problem of either not having enough powers or not enough protection, has to always bring Purge so they don’t waste their limited resources on trying to kill Nausica.

One very important aspect you should know is that, regardless of where your class stands on the Tier list, it will always be playable and able to reach champion. However, I HIGHLY recommend that if you’re starting Pirate101 and are planning to PvP that you pick one of the tier 1 classes as they have a lot more leeway and help to teach you many aspects of the game.

How you can adapt the Class Tiers into Ranked PvP

Now that you know which classes belong to the top tiers, let’s begin by figuring out some strategies we can use to help adapt this information into our PvP. Adapting is a very useful skill to learn. The first way to adapt is to play one of the top tier classes. This is normally the most common strategy. The second way is using a class that is heavily favored versus the top tier classes.

Using Tier 1

Using a tier 1 class is normally the easiest route to adapt to the Meta. You can create your easy path to Champion by following some of our other (upcoming) amazing guides on these pretty fantastic classes and the rest of this article, with a sprinkle of skill and such of course!

Using The Anti-Meta

This is the more complicated route but through practice it will work the best. You can use this strategy by still using a tier 1 class. The entire idea behind making anti-meta gear and companion sets is that it’s the best way to rank up. Why is that, you ask? Since the majority of our matches will be against the tier 1 classes, creating a set designed to target those 2 match-ups will give us an advantage (like setting for your opponent in Wizard101). We should win those match ups 90% of the time. The 10% losses will be caused by RNG or being outplayed/making mistakes. Since over half the players in ranked will be using the tier 1 classes and items, we can easily guess what they will use. We simply bring the best items that work against them. While we may be disfavored in random match-ups versus an uncommon class, we can take 1-2 losses while winning the rest.

So, what are some key ingredients to disembody the current meta then? Lets get into our evil experiment!!!

Powers

Purge Magic

Purge is an amazing power for dealing with the 2 top tier classes. Buccaneer and Privateer are both heavily defensive classes with Forts and Leviathan’s Call being in their trained arsenal and Tower Gear pieces. Being able to threaten them with this is extremely important. Alongside that, Purge Magic also gives +8 accuracy, which helps increase the chance of our hits landing on them while they’re in Elusive and Tide!

Revive

Revive is more of an oddball tech choice. However, this card has overwhelmingly shined since the rise of Privateer and a more slow grueling late game orientated meta. In Wizard101 heals are straightforward. You can discard them, knowing you can shuffle and obtain more. Heals in Pirate101 are different because every power — including the heal itself — is only usable once. Once you use it, that power won’t return and you’re limited to what you’ve brought. There are no redo’s and every time you use a power, it matters. Value is the best word we can use to describe it.

Revives are amazing late game as they can keep you alive as well as allow you to bait out plays from your opponents. Revive also gives you a bit more health, which you can use as a resource as the game goes on. Bringing 1-2 is extremely popular at the moment and I personally bring 2 on all my characters.

Note: Having rally on your pet can also help towards this!

Companions

Companions are also a key resource to understanding in this game, they’re our loyal side kicks who will help us run down our enemies with no mercy!

Here are some of the more common companions you will find being used across the Brawling Hall universally:

Nausica

I’m pretty sure, if you’ve ever stepped foot into ranked pvp or the Sparring Chamber, you’ve seen this girly before. She is by far the most common companion for Pirate101 PvP. She is from the Empire Bundle which if you decide to purchase after reading this, make sure to redeem her only after reaching max level (70) so she gets a juicy 3 level advantage and stat bonus.

Common sets for Nausica are:

Control – True Grit 3, Burst Fire 2, Quick Adjust 1 (Basic)
Shredica – True Grit 2, Burst Fire 2, Double Tap 1, Quick Adjust 1 (Basic)

I highly recommend going with the Control Nausica set unless you’re a Privateer/Swashbuckler. If you are a Privateer/Swashbuckler going with the more offensive Shredica is a very good investment to combo her with Firstmate’s Boon/Black Fog.

Talents: Rank 4 of Tough, Rough, Accurate, and Agile, Rank 1 of Dodgy

Old Scratch

Next target on our most common companions list is none other than Old Scratch himself. While Nausica is just outright amazing for every class, Scratch comes in second due to his limits of mostly finding an auto select spot on the more ranged classes (Musketeer, Witchdoctor and Privateer). His amazing +100% increase spell power for 3 turns is insane. You can give a companion a 2.8-3k absorb, deal base 900+ bombs and much more! Along with that, he gets a +50% for just some more giggles. He also has a simplistic +25% for 10 turns, which normally is used right before he is about to die or just when you’ve used the 100% and 50% bonuses to last you the rest of the game.

Common Set I recommend using for Old Scratch:

Improved Mojo Blast 3, Mojo Echo 3, and Witch Hunter 1

Talents: Rank 4 of Tough, Rough, Accurate, and Spirited, Rank 1 of Dodgy

Goronado

Next up is the Golden Monkey himself, well his counter-part… Goronado. This monster of a companion easily found his way into the meta alongside the infamous Black Fog and new complaint of the year: Firstmate’s Boon. These 2 powers complement Goronado’s passive Jump well. He is able to cross the ranked board with his Vicious Charge power (with x2 damage), a x4 attack, and another guaranteed x1 damage on any adjacent unit to the original target or the original target themselves! Then, with Highland Charge and the Buccaneer’s offensive nature, Goronado fits on a Buccaneer’s team as well. While he is time to time substituted, you will find him in 3 out of 4 matches, so it’s good to take note of him or try him out yourself!

Epic sets commonly used on Goronado:

Control – Vengeance Strike 3, Relentless 2, Bladestorm 1 (Basic)
Aggro – Relentless Rank 3, Bladestorm Rank 3

Talents: Rank 4 of Tough, Rough, Accurate, and Strong, Rank 1 of Dodgy

Bonnie Anne

Our final member to the party is indeed the Queen herself, Bonnie!

Bonnie surprisingly is not seen as common anymore in some classes like Musketeer, due to her spot being taken by Scratch, while Nausica is obviously the better Musketeer choice for classes like Buccaneer and Swashbuckler. Even some Witchdoctor’s and Privateers switch her out for Goronado to create a more aggressively capable team composition.

Some common sets for Bonnie are:

Anti-Musket – Quick Draw 3, Double Tap 2, Burst Fire 2, Return Fire 1
Conservative Buckler – Quick Draw 3, Double Tap 3, Burst Fire 2
Control – Overwatch 3, Double Tap 3, Burst Fire 2
Control Conservative – Overwatch 3, Double Tap 2, Burst Fire 2, Return Fire

Talents: Rank 4 of Tough, Rough, Accurate, and Agile, Rank 1 of Dodgy

Overall, picking from these companions and messing around with team compositions is a great start. While other companions may be more appealing to specific classes, the ones mentioned here are seen in play in most matches, and you should take them into account when selecting your gear.

That’s it for our first installment of “So You Want to Get Champion?”, stay tuned for more. Hopefully this helps you learn to make the right decisions before even entering the arena!

Have fun PvPing!

The post Pirate101: So You Want to Be a Champion? Part 1 appeared first on Duelist101.

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Pirate101: So You Want to Be a Champion? Part 1