Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Pirate101: Buccaneer weakness

My Buccaneer is now level 40 and in Mooshu.  Having played the class thus far, I have noticed a glaring exception: no area of effect abilities.  The closest the Bucc comes to attacking multiple targets is if you can pull off a Bladestorm and are stand by a second enemy.  It's seems like a real issue.  Bucc's don't get all that many direct abilities anyway.  The get (by lvl 40) two def buffs, 2 str buffs and 3 direct attacks.  Two of those 4 buffs you won't use as they are lower tiers, and 1 of those three direct attacks, which are all of the same attack in different tiers, isn't very useful as it just doesn't hit that hard.  You get more oompf out of a regular attack.  If you don't spend any practice points, that's all you get.  Now, with a Swashbuckler subclass and a special piece of equipment, i have two backstab/sneak attacks which I always use before my Bucc's attacks, just because they hit harder and one of them causes a bleed effect as well.  The other abilities you get as a Bucc are all passive and, as nice as they are, are no fun.  I'd like some buttons to press and am sorely lacking an AoE attack.

We'll see how it feels once I get to lvl 50, but at this point, my Pirate feels weak and not as useful as I'd like.

3 comments:

  1. I very much have to agree with you on the lack of decent buffs. Having made level 50, and seeing some of the powers my companions have, I am left disappointed. I see that El Toro's powers effect the entire "good-guy" side with no limit to range (I am assuming this is a power that one of the other classes has), however all the bucks strength buffs are limited to those adjacent. This limits its effectiveness tremendously, for very few times will you have a companion next to you that actually benefits from it. Likewise, the privateer defensive power may be cast on any character, but the bucks is self only. While this makes the bucks very tough in hand to hand, the lack of true offensive power, typically makes it a war of attrition against mobs, and while you will survive to the end, your crew takes a real beating as you deliver middle level damage to single opponents.

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  2. I thought about it a bit since I posted this, and I'll be discussing it on the podcast, but if the aggro ability Loud worked properly, I think Buccaneers would work as intended. As it is, when I go into a difficult fight, it's almost guaranteed that my Buccaneer will be the last one standing . . . because all of my companions were attacked first. In order to be a tanking class, which, based on the tooltips at least, Bucks are supposed to be, you can't just have heavy armor, you also have to be able to get the mobs to attack you instead of your crew. While I'm buffing up, my crew is already getting aggro and I don't have the kind of AoE damage I would need to get it back . . . that is, if the game even works this way. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to who the bad guys attack first, it seems mostly situational. To sum up: if I could hold aggro and had at least one AoE attack (a whirlwind blade attack that would swing my 2H'er around and hit all adjacent mobs) I would be totally fine. Battles would be longer, but my crew would survive to do the damage while my Buck took the hits. That's how, I think, they meant it to be.

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  3. i really like buccaneers though cause they are so so strong

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