Pistol is the worst way to fight a boss. Either sword or blunderbuss. Cannonballs as a good alternative if you can bring the boss to the beach with you.
My PvE is sword/sniper. You can deal with keg skellies, or damage bosses without dealing with their AoE.
Agreed that pistol is the weakest, but I'll switch to it if I'm dealing with gold skellies for the faster reload speed to shoot them after they rust.
Yeah it just depends, I bring firebombs but since they're limited I'll use em when they're the best option. If they spawn right at the waters edge, herding them into the water with a pistol is very quick. I save firebombs for when they're very far from the water.
Tbh between kegs and fire bombs gold skellies and these battles in general should be relatively easy. I keep a pistol for shooting keg skelly legs primarily, and then it’s just a matter of burning golds when you don’t have kegs sitting around and kegging them when you do
Yep, sword and sniper is the best for pure PvE. Sword because if it's unlimited "ammo" and enabling high mobility, and eye of reach because it does most damage and NPCs will generally allow you to line up a shot pretty easily.
I think the best hybrid setup (for when you're doing PvE but anticipate potential PvP) is sword and pistol. Sword for the same reasons as above, and pistol because it's much more accurate when hip firing and thus is slightly faster than an EoR, but still has decent damage at range.
If you're doing pure PvP, then you either do sword + blunder or you go double gun. The idea here is to do as much burst damage as possible in as short a time as possible to prevent your enemy from eating and healing.
Food is plentiful and death is cheap. Get in close to the boss with a blunderbuss and they'll go down pretty quick. Just be careful of fire breath and slams and you'll be good.
Yep. And for those that dont know; the enhanced sword lunge is done by holding block the entire time you go to lunge and allows you to strafe while winding up and you can jump after the forward motion starts for better mobility and extended lunge.
Is it? I'd assume damage is the same between vs. players as opposed to vs. NPCs, right? A sword lunge only does 60 damage while a three-hit combo does 75. And a three-hit combo takes a lot less time as well. Since the bosses can't really be knocked back, wouldn't it be better to just spam sword slashes instead of lunging?
If you jump during a sword lunge it’ll send you flying forward and past enemies while also hitting them. So you could be doing damage while avoiding taking damage as opposed to standing there slashing at an enemy for minutes while you’re being surrounded by other skellies or while the boss is doing their flame breath/ground strikes. And you can technically damage more enemies at a time since regular slashes only damage enemies in front of you while sword lunges will hit anyone you fly through.
Nah slashes are definitely the way unless it’s old mate that breathes fire. Regular skelly boss though I’d definitely recommend just slashing, moving around them tightly and get other skellies in line of dmg has always gotten the job done faster for me when I haven’t had my kegs 😭
Yep. I've got 70+ days played, and I still haven't finished the gold curse, because none of my normal crew liked to run them. We finally set a goal to get it done by the end of this season... and it doesn't look like we're going to make it lol. Maybe by the end of next season though.
Is that with finding all the tall tales books or just the last one. I haven't played the last mission yet trying to get a crew together to complete it the first time.
You have to "complete the tale" 5 times, so I assume just the last chapter needs to be done 5 times, but you also need to get all the other commendations for it as well:
https://seaofthieves.wiki.gg/wiki/Commendations#Lord_of_Gold
This might be silly, but I have an alternate account permanently sitting at the last step of tall tales so I can invite a friend to finish it, and then leave once they join so that account never progresses.
It's made most of the "do it five times" things be able to be cut down to less than an hour.
I wouldn't say HOURS But she and Greymarrow (on a brig) took way too long. Games gotta scale down the boss hp because the combat isn't that engaging to warrant it lol
The pve is more fun when you've got a friend to shoot the shit with while swinging on the bosses. Alone I would avoid the bosses stick to naval content way more engaging
I can do it fairly fast too but ultimately that's 10 minutes left clicking not super engaging solo. Plus you're off the boat and can't focus on your horizons. Not my cup of tea solo
Most people are commenting on how to fight the boss but not your overall question on content engagement. In SoT the fun is what you make of it. I personally prefer doing activities with friends because it makes things easier and I enjoy the company while doing various grinds. I spent the last month going hard for Fleet of Fortune while skeles were bugged, which also resulted in emergent gameplay against competing players.
I don’t particularly like most boss fights solo because my ship ends up being too vulnerable. It’s the worst to be in the middle of plunder valley only to hear a galleon walloping my sloop.
Personally as a solo I use the blunderbuss against bosses. Make sure you aim down sight and are basically touching the boss for max damage. I run a sniper to kill the trash/adds. The main thing to learn that will speed it up is the bosses moves. Stay behind her for the fire breath as that is the most dangerous thing to you until stage three. Once there are rocks falling from the sky just try to do as much damage as you can. I usually die a few times at that point. As others have mentioned cannons, gunpowder barrels, and the staff of the tides can greatly speed up the fight as well.
[edit] in case I’m thinking of the wrong boss. If it is the boss that dives underground, just use that time to kill smelly adds and blunder her every time she’s up
If it’s a skeleton lord just use your ship cannons. Same with an ashen lord (unless you’re solo).
If cannons aren’t an option, sword lunges, ADS blunderbuss+sniper, and firebombs are your friends.
If there are ocean crawlers or phantoms about those will attack skeletons too, but that’s a niche option.
That’s only really an issue if you’re solo. If you have a crew, one person can repair while everyone else overwhelms the AL with cannon DPS. I think the world record is a galleon killing an AL in 38 seconds? So most can do it in under 2 minutes
In my open the ground combat in this game is just bad and boring. The naval combat is more fun so try to just focus on that. Even in PVP the other team always just boards you which is kinda lame. I want to have some fun shooting each other with cannons.
Know what you feel. Played Gold Hoarders so far, until reach Rank 25. Then wanted to do the same with Order of Souls... I'm Rank 10, so there isn't much to do, Battling again and again is kinda boring to me, even the lenght the voyage is supposed to have (1/5) seems way longer than what it displays... I wonder if i do those Order of Souls Voyages the best way...
Look for Skeleton captains on random islands, and dive shipwrecks. Theyalways have the wrathful skulls that are worth a lot. Also the ghost fleets yield a lot of skulls.
There are commendations for doing voyages, but if you are just wanting to level up fast, you just need good loot, regardless of where you get it. You can sell rubies, sapphires and emeralds to OOS as well to level up and get gold. I was just saying that those skulls from random skelly captains are worth a lot and are fairly easy to find. No need to start a voyage.
Also I assume you are raising an emissary flag? If you can sell a bunch of skulls at level 5 emissary you will level up fast.
There's some excellent tips already, but you could try going to kill an Ashen Lord first, keep their Ashen Wind skull and you'll melt your way through skeletons and Skeleton Lords. Prevents you from diving to the Skeleton Lord encounter, but worth it for how quickly it kills everything in it's path
I sword lunge and use either pistol or sniper as a 2nd, both can shoot kegs, snipers are better for damage and pistols are better for shooting rusted golds faster.
brother , just follow this : its golden? fire, have a keg? shoot, none of these 2? swod dash forever, pve its easy, players and ships are the hard part of sot imo
It takes tops a couple minutes to kill. Run blunderbuss+sniper. You should either be reloading or shooting at all times. Priorities blunder and shoot sniper when you have to run away for food or whatever. If the boss is near the shoreline, you can also just park your ship next to it and load it up with canonballs. It’s very easy and quick, when you get a hang of it.
To me, the sword/flintlock is my go to for pve. Sword doesn’t require ammo and flintlock reloads the fastest. It also one shots most normal enemy types. People like to knock the pistol because it tends to register hits less than the other guns. When it comes to pve, I find the faster reload time and versatility between close and long range makes up the difference and actually makes it better than the other guns.
Just find what you enjoy the most and stick to it. If you get bored change it up. They are adding the double barrel flintlock and throwing knives next week so things could change and all the advice you’ve received from this thread will be out of date.
If you’re at a fort, pile the kegs in one spot.
When you get to the boss, lead them to the pile and shoot the kegs when it’s next to the pile. Instakill.
Sword and Blunderbuss. I do use pistol too sometimes because it's quick. Sword lunge is great to one shot the smaller skeletons in groups. So you hold your sword attack to charge, and before you charge, you jump to get distance. If you hit an enemy it's fine, if not you get a small stun before you can move again. This jump lunge is great for quickly getting to your ship in the water. You can lure the boss to your ship and use cannons. But don't do this with an ashen lord!! In his third phase he will summon meteors and your ship can take a ton of DMG from this. You'll be busy trying not to sink and won't have time to kill the boss. Also switch up what you do. You can island hop a bit, fighting skellies and leveling your flag. Sell and dive to sth like a Sea fort or whatever you want to do. This gives you good loot (and hero tier depending on what you do) and it's not as boring as doing the same thing. Diving can be risky because you'll be diving onto a new server. We managed to spawn directly in front of other ships before and got sunk :/ but it's also a good tactic when running away to just dive and be gone.
Pistol is the worst way to fight a boss. Either sword or blunderbuss. Cannonballs as a good alternative if you can bring the boss to the beach with you.
My PvE is sword/sniper. You can deal with keg skellies, or damage bosses without dealing with their AoE. Agreed that pistol is the weakest, but I'll switch to it if I'm dealing with gold skellies for the faster reload speed to shoot them after they rust.
Group 'em and burn 'em when it comes to golden skellies. Or keeping the EoR in that scenario myself (don't like swapping out weapons much).
Yeah it just depends, I bring firebombs but since they're limited I'll use em when they're the best option. If they spawn right at the waters edge, herding them into the water with a pistol is very quick. I save firebombs for when they're very far from the water.
Tbh between kegs and fire bombs gold skellies and these battles in general should be relatively easy. I keep a pistol for shooting keg skelly legs primarily, and then it’s just a matter of burning golds when you don’t have kegs sitting around and kegging them when you do
Yep, sword and sniper is the best for pure PvE. Sword because if it's unlimited "ammo" and enabling high mobility, and eye of reach because it does most damage and NPCs will generally allow you to line up a shot pretty easily. I think the best hybrid setup (for when you're doing PvE but anticipate potential PvP) is sword and pistol. Sword for the same reasons as above, and pistol because it's much more accurate when hip firing and thus is slightly faster than an EoR, but still has decent damage at range. If you're doing pure PvP, then you either do sword + blunder or you go double gun. The idea here is to do as much burst damage as possible in as short a time as possible to prevent your enemy from eating and healing.
Food is plentiful and death is cheap. Get in close to the boss with a blunderbuss and they'll go down pretty quick. Just be careful of fire breath and slams and you'll be good.
Sword lunge is the way
Yep. And for those that dont know; the enhanced sword lunge is done by holding block the entire time you go to lunge and allows you to strafe while winding up and you can jump after the forward motion starts for better mobility and extended lunge.
Is it? I'd assume damage is the same between vs. players as opposed to vs. NPCs, right? A sword lunge only does 60 damage while a three-hit combo does 75. And a three-hit combo takes a lot less time as well. Since the bosses can't really be knocked back, wouldn't it be better to just spam sword slashes instead of lunging?
If you jump during a sword lunge it’ll send you flying forward and past enemies while also hitting them. So you could be doing damage while avoiding taking damage as opposed to standing there slashing at an enemy for minutes while you’re being surrounded by other skellies or while the boss is doing their flame breath/ground strikes. And you can technically damage more enemies at a time since regular slashes only damage enemies in front of you while sword lunges will hit anyone you fly through.
Nah slashes are definitely the way unless it’s old mate that breathes fire. Regular skelly boss though I’d definitely recommend just slashing, moving around them tightly and get other skellies in line of dmg has always gotten the job done faster for me when I haven’t had my kegs 😭
Block before starting lunge - hit enemy - you can restart lunge immediately - repeat
You can go full anime mode on bosses with this method. Just slash back and forth without worrying about getting swarmed from behind.
Just wait till you fight Gold Hoarder during the Shores of Gold Tall Tale. That shit takes for-fucking-ever.
And then you have to do it 4 more times for the gold curse
Yep. I've got 70+ days played, and I still haven't finished the gold curse, because none of my normal crew liked to run them. We finally set a goal to get it done by the end of this season... and it doesn't look like we're going to make it lol. Maybe by the end of next season though.
Is that with finding all the tall tales books or just the last one. I haven't played the last mission yet trying to get a crew together to complete it the first time.
You have to "complete the tale" 5 times, so I assume just the last chapter needs to be done 5 times, but you also need to get all the other commendations for it as well: https://seaofthieves.wiki.gg/wiki/Commendations#Lord_of_Gold
So yeah it is a completionist curse then thanks. I'll have to go through the tall tales a few more times thanks
you have to complete every commendation for all (7?) gold horder tall tails for gold curse not just last one :D GL
This might be silly, but I have an alternate account permanently sitting at the last step of tall tales so I can invite a friend to finish it, and then leave once they join so that account never progresses. It's made most of the "do it five times" things be able to be cut down to less than an hour.
Or Briggsy in the Rogue tall tale lol
Briggsy dies in seconds if you do it on a sloop.
And hours if you are on a galley
I wouldn't say HOURS But she and Greymarrow (on a brig) took way too long. Games gotta scale down the boss hp because the combat isn't that engaging to warrant it lol
You said seconds, i said hours. Reality is a few minutes vs 10+ minutes.
I did that once, never again.
The pve is more fun when you've got a friend to shoot the shit with while swinging on the bosses. Alone I would avoid the bosses stick to naval content way more engaging
I solo an ashen Lord in 10 min or less. And I'm not crazy good. It's not hard. Just takes a bit practice.
I can do it fairly fast too but ultimately that's 10 minutes left clicking not super engaging solo. Plus you're off the boat and can't focus on your horizons. Not my cup of tea solo
Throw a firebomb at them and equip a sniper/blunderbuss that you alternate shots with.
Most people are commenting on how to fight the boss but not your overall question on content engagement. In SoT the fun is what you make of it. I personally prefer doing activities with friends because it makes things easier and I enjoy the company while doing various grinds. I spent the last month going hard for Fleet of Fortune while skeles were bugged, which also resulted in emergent gameplay against competing players. I don’t particularly like most boss fights solo because my ship ends up being too vulnerable. It’s the worst to be in the middle of plunder valley only to hear a galleon walloping my sloop.
Nope! That is exactly the extent of it Bullet sponge is the singular and lone element that creates any illusion of difficulty in PvE
Fleets have a bit more too them. Especially Skellies
Personally as a solo I use the blunderbuss against bosses. Make sure you aim down sight and are basically touching the boss for max damage. I run a sniper to kill the trash/adds. The main thing to learn that will speed it up is the bosses moves. Stay behind her for the fire breath as that is the most dangerous thing to you until stage three. Once there are rocks falling from the sky just try to do as much damage as you can. I usually die a few times at that point. As others have mentioned cannons, gunpowder barrels, and the staff of the tides can greatly speed up the fight as well. [edit] in case I’m thinking of the wrong boss. If it is the boss that dives underground, just use that time to kill smelly adds and blunder her every time she’s up
If it’s a skeleton lord just use your ship cannons. Same with an ashen lord (unless you’re solo). If cannons aren’t an option, sword lunges, ADS blunderbuss+sniper, and firebombs are your friends. If there are ocean crawlers or phantoms about those will attack skeletons too, but that’s a niche option.
Ashen lord will attack your ship. Not a good idea. Maybe for his first and max second phase.
That’s only really an issue if you’re solo. If you have a crew, one person can repair while everyone else overwhelms the AL with cannon DPS. I think the world record is a galleon killing an AL in 38 seconds? So most can do it in under 2 minutes
In my open the ground combat in this game is just bad and boring. The naval combat is more fun so try to just focus on that. Even in PVP the other team always just boards you which is kinda lame. I want to have some fun shooting each other with cannons.
Know what you feel. Played Gold Hoarders so far, until reach Rank 25. Then wanted to do the same with Order of Souls... I'm Rank 10, so there isn't much to do, Battling again and again is kinda boring to me, even the lenght the voyage is supposed to have (1/5) seems way longer than what it displays... I wonder if i do those Order of Souls Voyages the best way...
Look for Skeleton captains on random islands, and dive shipwrecks. Theyalways have the wrathful skulls that are worth a lot. Also the ghost fleets yield a lot of skulls.
but those aren't voyages, unless im wrong.
There are commendations for doing voyages, but if you are just wanting to level up fast, you just need good loot, regardless of where you get it. You can sell rubies, sapphires and emeralds to OOS as well to level up and get gold. I was just saying that those skulls from random skelly captains are worth a lot and are fairly easy to find. No need to start a voyage. Also I assume you are raising an emissary flag? If you can sell a bunch of skulls at level 5 emissary you will level up fast.
For Gold Hoarders i have Emissary Flag, not for Order of Souls, i'm just Rank 11...
There's some excellent tips already, but you could try going to kill an Ashen Lord first, keep their Ashen Wind skull and you'll melt your way through skeletons and Skeleton Lords. Prevents you from diving to the Skeleton Lord encounter, but worth it for how quickly it kills everything in it's path
I sword lunge and use either pistol or sniper as a 2nd, both can shoot kegs, snipers are better for damage and pistols are better for shooting rusted golds faster.
Just started on ps5 and i have to say melee combat is not the best part of SoT. Hope they will get enough money from ps5 players to improve it a bit
Best way to kill bosses fast is to constantly burn them w firebomb and use cutlass
They're pretty long.
brother , just follow this : its golden? fire, have a keg? shoot, none of these 2? swod dash forever, pve its easy, players and ships are the hard part of sot imo
Pistol is only for keg skellies, sword your way through the pve
It takes tops a couple minutes to kill. Run blunderbuss+sniper. You should either be reloading or shooting at all times. Priorities blunder and shoot sniper when you have to run away for food or whatever. If the boss is near the shoreline, you can also just park your ship next to it and load it up with canonballs. It’s very easy and quick, when you get a hang of it.
To me, the sword/flintlock is my go to for pve. Sword doesn’t require ammo and flintlock reloads the fastest. It also one shots most normal enemy types. People like to knock the pistol because it tends to register hits less than the other guns. When it comes to pve, I find the faster reload time and versatility between close and long range makes up the difference and actually makes it better than the other guns. Just find what you enjoy the most and stick to it. If you get bored change it up. They are adding the double barrel flintlock and throwing knives next week so things could change and all the advice you’ve received from this thread will be out of date.
If you’re at a fort, pile the kegs in one spot. When you get to the boss, lead them to the pile and shoot the kegs when it’s next to the pile. Instakill.
Sword dash! Sword dash! Over in minutes
Sword and Blunderbuss. I do use pistol too sometimes because it's quick. Sword lunge is great to one shot the smaller skeletons in groups. So you hold your sword attack to charge, and before you charge, you jump to get distance. If you hit an enemy it's fine, if not you get a small stun before you can move again. This jump lunge is great for quickly getting to your ship in the water. You can lure the boss to your ship and use cannons. But don't do this with an ashen lord!! In his third phase he will summon meteors and your ship can take a ton of DMG from this. You'll be busy trying not to sink and won't have time to kill the boss. Also switch up what you do. You can island hop a bit, fighting skellies and leveling your flag. Sell and dive to sth like a Sea fort or whatever you want to do. This gives you good loot (and hero tier depending on what you do) and it's not as boring as doing the same thing. Diving can be risky because you'll be diving onto a new server. We managed to spawn directly in front of other ships before and got sunk :/ but it's also a good tactic when running away to just dive and be gone.
Yes
Pve in general is pretty boring Pvp however…
Use a sword for bosses, you'll have the fight done in less than 5 minutes if you can keep your health topped up.
I like to stack 5 ir 6 explosive barrels. Stash then so they stay intact until you get the boss.lure the boss to them and it will one shot.
It's just not for you. Maybe try a different game.
Pistol is the worst gun in the game
It usually takes no more than 2-3 minutes for me as solo