Pirates are **WAY** too common in shipping in Settlers/Phrecia

I would like to know more about how it spawns. May be completely random, but if there is ways to increase/decrease the RNG that would probably satisfy both people who are wanting to spawn it and wanting to avoid it.

I have been spawning it much more recently after a long time of not getting him. The rewards are good if you are doing it consistently. Even if the fight takes 10 minutes, 60k gold is probably a fair bit more than most builds struggling with him beating him can farm in maps in that time. The problem comes from the large penalty for not beating him. So that is why there is a large range of opinions on it, because the spread of outcomes is much larger than with other bosses, where you don't incur extra penalties for loosing or avoiding the fight. That in itself along with 1 portal are mechanics that are not seen throughout the game.

Got him again, this time after splitting a bigger shipment in half. First half made it fine, second half got caught just minutes away. Ended up finishing the level up to 92 in other content expecting death.


Did read up on how going to top of the map simplifies avoiding most of the waves. Still had to be mobile and watch the telegraphs. Finally got him this third time around, tho he seemed to sit at 0 for a while (yay vines). Not quite the ease of elder, but we also used to see elder in white maps. But I do see what people mean about him being an easy boss.

However, I think the friction point is the single chance of failure and him being able to show up before your character is "ready". I really don't like how 0 risk is not 0 risk, having randomly lost a crew member to a bar brawl just a shipment or two before, let alone pirate attacks to even a very skilled crew.

I also get why people often prefer it came up more frequently, as if I did more damage it would basically be the equivalent of quite a few map runs of gold rolled into one.

What I like about the town is its a more complex mechanic that goes beyond the usual reskin of spawning monsters in some fashion for loot drop at end. I did enjoy it for a while but it does get old, tho it doesn't help that the character I'm on was initially only expected to hit 80 for some skin rewards.

I will say this -- like when I was working to 100, it did "feel" like the game would eventually throw in something forcibly dangerous despite running specifically easier and safer content. The shipping feels alot like those lines, where its fine for a bit but no matter how safe you play it the game eventually tries to kill you/ruin your day despite trying to take the slow and steady course.

pirate is just a dps check and gold donnor if you pass the check.

He is not very friendly to new players, forcing they to face something too hard before they realize the hard parts of this game. But in the game there are a lot of events harder than pirate, and we grind those events.

Before you can face him, just ship to Riben Fell with 2 Verisium Bar with a level 2 or 3 sailor, if the pirate came, abandon the shipping. This strategy will give you not bad rewards and minimal the cost. Those scrabs from this shipping strategy can be trade for chaos for arm a correct builded character to fight the pirate. But it's just as grinding the maps, the drops must be a lot for get some "rare" scarabs to make a lot of chaos.

don't try this in Phrecia now, it's only 4 days left, you can try it in settler.

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Before you can face him, just ship to Riben Fell with 2 Verisium Bar with a level 2 or 3 sailor

So this will lower the spawn rate? Does seem to correlate with my results. When sending these small shipments it feels like I spawn him less. I seem to remember in trailer for the league Chris saying cranking up the shipment would increase the pirate spawn chance. Getting the risk meter higher doesn't seem to do that though, it just goes of total value of the load?

no effect for the spawn rate as I know.

I see, I misunderstood. So your advice is just send small shipments early on with low value sailors so avoiding the fight will not result in a large penalty when abandoning the shipment or loosing the fight?

I think this in the links below is what I was remembering, although I might of jumped to some conclusions that were not there. Also it was Mark explaining all the mechanics, Chris was only in the intro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFVLcNTXtxM (League reveal)

8:23-9:55 (Explaining Shipping)
15:23-16:30 (Explaining boss encounters)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSj7y7fQ4X8 (Q and A)

38:45 - 39:14 (Talking about ship getting commandeered, and it being avoidable)

He's talking about multiple things at once, so it could be that it doesn't apply to everything. It seems to me that it is fairly easy to avoid the mapping boss, because he only seems to spawn on very high level maps. Workers certainly lower the chance of failing maps or negative encounters on the shipping. He says it is possible to get it to the point where commandeering will not occur. Which sounds to me like there is a way to influence the pirate fight spawn.

This is an off the cuff Q/A from before the league though. Could be that I am misinterpreting it, or it has changed or it doesn't apply to the spawning and only the impacts on the shipment.

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Belegur85#5784 wrote:

I see, I misunderstood. So your advice is just send small shipments early on with low value sailors so avoiding the fight will not result in a large penalty when abandoning the shipment or loosing the fight?

not just early, I'm doing it now. The pirate is not a problem for me, my dps is enough to send him into phase 2 in seconds.

The are three best shipping strategies, 2 Verisium Bar, or 1500 food goods each type and dust, or 3000+ food goods each and dust, with correct sailors of course. The last two need a lot gold to maintain 6 farm plots salaries. And I get tired of that in settler league, so in phrecia I just use the 2 Verisium Bar strategy, the reward is not bad.

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Belegur85#5784 wrote:

I'm trying to look up the level of the fight. The wiki says 84, which is what I have noticed, but I had the feeling that if you encounter him earlier it was easier, like Catarina. Doesn't look to be that way though. Maybe you need more power before attempting this fight, as t10 map is a fair way below lvl 84 content.

If he's level 84, then definitely. I'm now over 84 but haven't hit him in a while. It seems like I was getting a terrible run of RNG.

Yeah I think it might always be lvl84. Originally I thought it might scale with the character, but since I started checking and the information I've seen, it appears to be lvl84.

Pirates are awesome. Easy gold and chance at power runes.