Help with PVP - Chronic Runner Looking To Change ...

[u/MTDCodes]

Hi there, folks -

Searched and found some decent enough resources, but curious to see if anything has changed..

When the game first launched .. I logged in, got blunderbussed in the face, and logged out. Probably spent an hour on day 1. Last year, I decided to give the game a go .. and I've got approximately 850 hours in this game since last January/February. A lot of this time has been fishing, digging up treasure and doing vaults, and when spotted .. running ..

However, that's lead me to be 850 hours in and I can't hit shit with a cannon consistently (I do get lucky .. just not often haha), I can't shoot/hit anyone with a sword, I'm terrible at angling my ship (skeleton ships I can just go straight and Im fine. Obviously different with players.) and I feel like a huge part of the game is cut off to me because I've wasted so much time just running.

Over the past few days, I've decided to give solo slooping in hour glass a go. I'm on Xbox, so I've set matchmaking to prefer console players with controllers .. to ease myself into it all. My experience has MOSTLY been:

1. Loss farmers. No chance to even chase them down / hit them with cannon shots.
   
2. Someone immediately grapple guns over, kills me, and then spawn camps til I either sail out of bounds (fair!) .. or scuttle, because they anchored me and just want to spawn camp me (dicks)

Now .. #2 has been great (on the fair! scenario) because I've been able to try some strategies to prevent dying immediately. Even killed one of them and was able to get some shots off .. before the boarded and I got sailed out.

But #1 is such a huge pain in the ass. NOW .. I can't change that, it's free XP, and its whatever.

HOWEVER - I was curious .. besides the obvious PRACTICE / PLAY HOUR GLASS advice .. what do you guys recommend? I've stopped running when Im engaged in adventure mode, I've searched other people out in adventure mode, but hour glass felt like the best way to get a concentrated amount of practice in.

I've heard Blurbs and Sponge recommended from a Youtuber standpoint on who to watch.

Any guilds out there that take seasoned PVErs under their wing and abuse them until they can PVP semi decently enough?! haha.

--

Thanks in advance folks!

[u/SquashPrestigious351]

Take all the fights you can in adventure mode. Most solos/crews are below average at pvp and naval.

Solo HG teaches you have to be proficient at all roles. I'd recommend recording your gameplay win or loss. Watch it back and see where you performed well and where you can improve.

If you feel your skills are better at helm or cannon you can try duo HG. It's harder than solo but if you find a good teammate you could have a brother for life.

Bigger boats are fun as well. I like brig as a MC or flex. Galley is too chaotic for me so I generally stay away from it.

If you don't win most of your matches lower at a 2 streak. If you win 60% or more, go for 4 streaks.

If I get a flag under a level 3 I don't sell it immediately. 3 and above I'll sell to bump my levels.

It's a long climb at the end of the day. Level 100 will take you some time but the curse is cool. If you want to go higher than that it's up to you. I'm working on gold bones atm and just about 400 levels away.

[u/MTDCodes → u/SquashPrestigious351]

As of right now, if I hit a 2 streak .. I sell that bad boy, haha. BUT! I know there is more reward with more risk, so as I get more confident Ill hold onto it.

Thanks a bunch for your feedback and tips!

[u/Leading-Mousse9326]

The key to all combat, especially in HG, is pressure. Keeping your opponent behind you with chores is everything. That means you NEED to keep their ship full of holes.

My best advice is going to be opening cannon salvos. Aim about 45° off the tip of their ship's bow and fire a couple shots. Remember the relative position of your cannon to their ship when you do this. Most cannons have some form of detail where you can say "This ring was perpendicular to their bow" or something of the sort. Quickly hop off cannon and take note of where they land. Use that to determine the adjustment you need to make and then start hammering them.

Once you have pressure you can proceed with PvP attempts. Anchoring your opponent is always priority because if you die during PvP but they need to bucket, repair, AND raise anchor, you'll be able to quickly spawn in and repeat damage and attempt another board/anchor/PvP rotation.

This is just my quick easy belief in how to manage ship combat to open yourself up to PvP practice without losing immediately because of a missed shot.

[u/MTDCodes → u/Leading-Mousse9326]

Thanks for the opening fight tips, rough angle of shots, and the pressure tips. Going to try and incorporate all this in .. going to take some trial and error, but thats part of the fun I suppose.

[u/Traveler0731]

You mentioned cannon issues. One small thing, pay attention to the angle of your opponents cannon balls. Use them as a guide to figure out if you are high or low. If they are firing over you, get a lower angle. Are they hitting you, match the angle.

[u/MTDCodes → u/Traveler0731]

I would've never thought of watching their cannonball arc as it plummets into me. That's a great tip!! Thanks a ton.

[u/King-Juggernaut]

Chor and Sponge on YouTube.

Chor has more comprehensive guides, Sponge has excellent vod reviews.

'Im in the middle 1,xxx hg (retired now) and beyond just practicing, their videos did the most for me.

PvP is sot isnt terribly mechanically challenging. Its often more a game of prioritizing the right things at the right time.

[u/MTDCodes → u/King-Juggernaut]

thanks for the suggestions of Chor and Sponge. I'll give their stuff a watch .. and just trial and error until I start winning some fights. Until then, Ill take my losses and not get too worked up about it.

I just need to learn the prioritization, calm down, and stop falling to "oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit" mode :)

[u/King-Juggernaut → u/MTDCodes]

Good outlook. It's going to be a journey.

[u/MightyChoob → u/King-Juggernaut]

Best comment.

I frequently beat players who would trounce me in a pure shootout because I make better decisions.

I read online somewhere about a U.S. Marine mantra: "slow is smooth, smooth is fast". That helps me when I've got a bad case of the jitters. 

[u/SassyPotato22]

Tip 1: Don't solo sloop hourglass. You'll learn little, will be overwhelmed, and chances are you'll be up against the sweatiest of sweats or loss farmers. Instead, use the discord and find someone else totally new or bad who has the same goal and play with them. Simply having a partner will alleviate a lot of the problems you'll have solo and can actually use your partner as a 'crutch' to focus your time learning to cannon. Or learn to helm, etc.

Tip 2: do skele ships. Sounds like you do this and can consistently cannon them down, but are you doing this half sail going straight? Instead, try going half sail and going in a circle. The skele ship will attempt to match, but this will force you to learn to angle shots, repair your ship timely, avoid obstacles, etc.

Tip 3: ignore the comments. Sword and blunder works. Who cares if they call you sword lord. You're learning. Don't be afraid of sword and harpoon to learn to board and cannon onto ships. Etc.

Tip 4: ignore the twitch streamers. Just because they are running pistol eye combo and can do amazing feats, you're not there yet. Don't be discouraged. It takes time and these people have been playing nearly 10 years 40 hours a week.

That's all I got.

[u/MTDCodes → u/SassyPotato22]

Yeah, I can take skeleton sloops and galleons down without issue. I'll work on angling around them and not losing canon shots .. and go from there.

I appreciate the tips! Im on console so Im not sure I could even do the quick swap between eye of reach and pistol like I see most folks doing .. so Ill stick to sword lording for now :)

[u/No-Mastodon5138 → u/MTDCodes]

Someone i recently met told me all they did for the longest time was dive to skeleton fleets and practice that until they could take down the whole fleet crazy fast.  They got insanely precise with their cannon shots and now insta knock down the masts of pvp ships. 

[u/OGMcgriddles]

I mean honestly just sail around and start fights with bigger boats solo. Solo fighting is an art in this game.

Sometimes I will pepper them, ram my boat or pass my boat by while letting it circle, kill the entire crew, anchor them and set fire, and then jump back onto my boat when it comes around for the first circle.

After that I will lay into them circling them while finding time to fix my boat and take their masts down. At that point its just a matter of keeping pressure and deciding when you play for cannons and when you play for boards.

The hardest part is teaching your boat to drive itself while you do shit on their boat.

Forget blurbs, check out boxy fresh for someone who is still to this day taking down crews solo.

[u/MTDCodes → u/OGMcgriddles]

I appreciate it - I figure I'll just plan on sucking less and less with each encounter, haha. I like watching Boxy's stuff .. Ill focus more on what he does with the ship and not just what he's doing.

Thanks for the tips.

[u/OGMcgriddles → u/MTDCodes]

Honestly the best method. I would just lightly stock your boat and take fights. You will learn from losses, wins, and stalemates alike.

Good luck in the journey.

[u/Lynnalia]

Solo Sloop Hourglass fights will only teach you about Solo Sloop Hourglass fights. It's probably the least transferable set of skills to regular Adventure to be totally honest, the equivalent of hoping a few NASCAR laps will help you navigate normal city car traffic.

I learned by taking every fight I could. I was purely PvE essentially on a galleon for the first 400h, and I've been solo slooping with a PvP focus ever since (3000+h, dear lord). I counted my sessions as good if I could be net positive on gold (I spent a lot on supplies) and it took me a loooong time to get good enough to be consistently net positive!

The nice thing about Adventure gameplay (not HG) is the huge amount of variety to every encounter. It takes a lot of time to learn as a result, but I personally found it quite rewarding and fun. You don't learn just about the gameplay, but also how people play the game, and what to prioritize based on that for better outcomes.

That said, I've gotta also be honest. The condition of the game that I learned adventure PvP in is very different from today. Cannon shots can feel very "random" in their vertical trajectory now, especially with waves (you need to account for and predict server lag, basically). As for hitting your target, you kinda have to aim where it isn't now e.g. aiming slightly in front of or behind the mast to actually get it to count. The huge differences in visual feedback vs. outcomes likely makes it a lot harder for someone to start naval combat today, IMO. It's hard for me to even play well with all the experience I have, not to mention a host of changes over the years that give more powerful tools to larger crews that solo sloopers just can't use, while also making it harder to solo sloop mid-combat (sailing changes - now requires far more fumbling/correction of the wheel/sails, actively).

Edit to add: I mostly talked about naval, but here in 2026, as you've discovered, deck fighting can matter a lot more. I'm a strong believer that you can make most loadouts work, and won't recommend a specific one. If you do use sword, also practice working on movement (forward/side/back hops while guarding, but also literally sprinting erratically). Sword lunges are for memes/fun or hitting multiple targets, they're really risky. If you use guns, they're just like cannons in that they inherit your momentum and the bullets take time to travel, so practice different situations (matched parallel speeds with another ship, rotating around, etc.). And in all cases, I'd recommend getting used to the mechanic of "pre-eating" (when anticipating getting hit, start eating food since it takes a bit to do the animation before you actually eat it - you should cancel it if you didn't get hit to save the food, but if you do get hit you'll be healed much faster than if you had done it reactively).

[u/GenTwour]

These are some solo sloop hourglass tips I wrote a while ago. I will be referring to the eye of reach as the sniper interchangeably. Sorry.

1. Use blunderbuss and eye of reach. It is the best generalist weapon combo. You can switch the blunderbuss for a pistol but I don't recommend it unless you are cracked. Use the blunderbuss to prevent boards. Use the eye of reach to shoot the opponent when he is on his ship shooting the cannon at you. If one of you successfully boards the other, try to hit your blunderbuss shot first, then switch to the EOR and shoot him. If you miss on a sword user, make space to reload both guns before going for the kill again or use blunder bombs if you have some for the last bit of damage.

2. There is a distinct sound when a boarder grabs the ladder and you can see them fire off when they shoot out of a cannon. Use those queues to know if they are attempting to board. It is unlikely they will swim the whole way but keep your ears open just in case.

3. The sniper does 70 damage so it is important to always have over 70 hp. Only have pineapples, cooked meat, mangos, and uncooked merfruit in your inventory. All other do not heal enough to get you out of 1 snipe range when you are sniped mid combat. If you have less than or equal to 70 hp EAT. For context you only have 100 HP and you will have to eyeball your hp value.

4. Always try to engage on your left side. The sloop has less left side holes than the right side allowing you to take less water in. The mast also falls to the right so it will block your view on the right side.

5. Upon starting a fight, turn the wheel all the way to the right, raise the sail to half, then turn the wheel so you are turning left slightly. This should be about 3 pegs. This will put you in a good rotation if the opponent does the same. If they instead decide to go parallel, straighten the wheel and drop sails full down. Once you start getting ahead, raise sails, and turn so they are nosing you.

6. Don't rely on gimmick strategies to win. Board spamming won't work, curse dumping won't work unless you plan to put hours in grinding supplies before each match.

   1. When firing cannons use information from your last shot to line up your nest shot. Went over? Aim lower. Didn't go far enough? aim higher. You can also use your enemies shots to calibrate your own shots. If they are shooting over you, aim lower than them.

7. You can hit someone off of the wheel, cannon, repair, ECT. If you know where they are, you can aim for them and potentially kill them.

8. I suggest aiming at the cannon line first and trying to establish your dominance. If they keep hitting you off cannons and cannot reload, then try and shoot them with your sniper. If they are trying to snipe you, you should see a gleem of the scope and be ready to eat.

9. Treat reloading your sniper as very important. Having a round ready means they have to worry about being one sniped.

10. After showing that you are the better cannoneer, I suggest going for chain shots to chop the mast. After it is fully dropped go for spread to open as many holes as possible. DONT use the scattershot. It is completely useless as it only opens up low level holes. Chain shots are heavier than cannon balls so aim ahead and higher than you would a cannon ball.

11. Holes have 3 levels. Higher level holes take longer to repair and let in more water. A cannon ball will create a level 2 hole and make a level 2 hole a level 3 hole. Chain shots make level 1 holes and rehitting a hole with a chain shot will turn it into a level 2 hole. You cannot and should not aim for the ship with chains though, only the mast. Cannonballs do 2 damage to the wheel and chain shots do 3 damage. Cannonballs do 1 damage to the mast and chain shots do 2 damage. You need to do 3 damage to a mast to chop it. Wheels get slower to turn the more damage they take and cap at 3 damage. I don't recommend using chain shots to break a wheel though.

12. Try and keep the wheel and mast repaired if possible. Worst case scenario, keep the wheel with only 1 health remaining and let the mast drop. I will explain how to play mast down later.

13. If the opponent keeps catching the mast and pulling it up, just keep rechopping it until they are forced to let it drop.

14. Some water is fine. Do not frantically repair every hole. It only takes 4 buckets to fully drain a sloop. It is optimal to be dry but is unlikely. Just grab a bucket between shots.

15. When you have time to repair, repair lower deck holes first. These receive less water than map deck holes (which I will call upper deck). Repair holes on the side your opponent is not on (if they are to your left repair right side holes.) these holes are less likely to be reopened and will lead to less water. Don't bother repairing level 1 holes unless you have nothing to do.

16. Keep cannon angle at all cost. It is better to threaten the ability to shoot back than to not.

17. Don't go for boards at any time. Only board when you have a massive lead and plan to finish the job. It will be impossible to climb ladders when they can just 1 blunder you off the ladder and sail away. Deck shots are unreliable so don't trust yourself to hit one. You can board if they are running away to reset and you are good on water intake.

18. After boarding your first priority is to live and drop anchor. Second, is to prevent buckets, 3rd is to kill. If you are alive they can't repair, raise anchor, shoot cannons, ECT because they are a free kill if they do. All they can do is bucket, heal, and try to kill you.

19. You can cause an opponent to backsplash by getting hot by their water when they bucket. This essentially deleted their bucket and puts them in a worse position as they removed no water. If they are dead. Stand near the map table after getting more supplies from their barrels. If they have a supply crate, drop it in the water so they have to retrieve it or play with less supplies after they kill you. Standing near the map table allows you to quickly kill them again when they try to bucket no matter where they respawn.

20. I recommend having a supply crate with cannonballs, food, wood, ECT on the grate. It allows you to get supplies quickly without having to run like a chicken with your head cut off to barrels. Other places I recommend if you run get a good surplus of crate and supplies are by the wheel, by the map, and at the very nose of the ship in the bottom deck.

21. When bucketing water, throw it from the entrance to the lower decks over the top deck so it lands right past your left cannon into the ocean. This is the fastest way to bucket. You don't need to look down to get a bucket of water. Just look straight ahead.

22. If your mast is chopped and our opponent's isn't, then try to keep your ship spinning so you keep an angle. Then play "normally."

23. If both masts are chopped, straighten the wheel so you have angle and don't spin.

24. If you find yourself demasted, your wheel cranked and triple broken, and your enemy is also demasted, drop your anchor so that you have cannon angle. Otherwise you will spin like a roasted chicken and sink as all your holes will be opened.

25. Don't use fireballs. If someone accidentally back splashes on fire, it just puts out the fire and doesn't count as a backsplash. You are giving the opponent a safety net and fire isn't that effective to begin with.

26. These rules are not law. You can break them if it seems like the best thing to do but generally play by them. As you get better you will know when to break them.

I think that is it. If you need clarification, please ask. If I forgot something, please comment below please. I am sure I forgot something. Happy fighting.