What To Do If You’re Attacked On the Sea of Thieves

So you’re sitting there, quite happily emptying a vault after successfully finding a key. But oh no, there’s a ship on the horizon! What do you do? Well, unfortunately, you’re probably in trouble. Sure, you can try and talk your way out of a situation, but if a pirate wants blood, they’ll get it. So here are some handy common knowledge tips, in order to try and save yourself.

I’d actually recommend against running, at least not for hours.

If someone is coming to attack you, they’ll just keep on coming. I’ve been on both sides of the chase, and people are willing to go for hours chasing someone if they want something. Even if you claim you have nothing on board, people will keep on chasing you, because, well, they enjoy it. There can be something thrilling about slowly catching up to your prey, chainshotting them, boarding them and killing everyone on board.

The only real way running works is if you have prepared in advance, and have the Veilbreaker or a Tall Tale that allows you to leave via a portal. But even then, the attackers get what they want, as a copy of your loot spawns at the portal after you’ve gone through it.

Get everyone on your ship, right now.

Really, your ship should be ready to go at a moment’s notice. That means making sure you have your anchor up and someone on lookout at all times. Time is of the essence, and if you are not ready to go, then you leave yourself even more open to attack.

You also need to make sure your body is ready. Eat some cooked food to give yourself extra health and health regen. Sure, that extra health won’t stop you from being one-shot by a cannonball to the head, but the regenerating health will save you food and time. Make sure your pockets are full as well. Have 10 cannon balls at the ready, and keep your cannons loaded at all times.

Have chainshot ready to go

Chainshot is the number one way to take out an enemy ship. Once you take out a ship’s sails, you leave them dead in the water. While a smart crew will catch a fallen mast, it still distracts them from the battle. The sooner you land your chainshots and take out the enemy’s masts, the sooner you can turn the tide of battle, or, potentially, try and get away. But really, chainshots are temporary, so you want to make sure you leave your enemy as dead as possible, rather than just chaining them and running away. Especially if you are on a sloop, which can be easily chased down by bigger ships.

Remember, you need 2 chainshot minimum to stop any ship: sloops need two for their mast, and one shot for each mast on bigger ships.

You can also use an Anchor Ball or Rigging Ball, but those are a lot rarer. And best saved for galleons, which require more chainshots to take down.

Use distractions

If you’re really desperate, then there are things you can to do try and shake them. Skeleton fleets are pretty common world events, and a smaller ship can use a skeleton fleet to distract a larger ship. Skeleton ships have weird AI and will target pretty much anything, but they do prefer larger targets. If you’re lucky, a skeleton ship will use a cursed cannon ball against the enemy ship. You can also sail into the Roar and hope that the volcanoes are on your side. Sending over someone to board the enemy ship is only really an option if the enemy ship is stupid or very, very distracted. An alert crew will quickly hear anyone climbing their ladders, and your crew mate will just end up with a blunderbuss to the face.

You could also sail towards other ships and hope that they help you out, but this isn’t always guaranteed. While yes, sloops and brigs might team up to take down a galleon, there’s nothing stopping a second ship from targeting you instead.

Fight!

The best way to stop someone from attacking you is to kill them. And people can die a lot quicker than you’d expect. One good death will drastically change the battle. Most pirates can’t really withstand a cannonball to the face, so aim for the cannon lines, then, when you have taken someone out, start filling their ship with holes while they can’t fight back.

Ideally, you want to do the following: immobilize them, take out their cannoneers, put holes in the ship then distract the enemy so they can’t spend time repairing. If you can do that, while keeping yourself alive and your ship afloat, then you should be able to escape with your precious loot.

Really though, fighting back IS your biggest weapon. Because people are patient and they will follow you forever. You have to fight eventually, so why not take them down with you?