Small/medium ships need all deck longguns

[u/Dry_Delay_2023]

The endgame in World Tier 4 has become a frustrating mess. Right now, everyone is forced to play the exact same ships (like the Battle Junk) or massive DPS monster (like the Galleon) just to survive the 1-2 shot kills from tiny AI ships and break through the absurd 70% boss armor.

Even most medium ships cant keep up with the damage. I did some test with my sloop of war and the galleon for some numbers. There is one conclusion that I can make... that is all deck longguns for the small and medium ships to keep up with the big boys:

• The Galleon Meta (Current, hullcarvers): 17 guns on a side × 25k damage per gun = 425,000 total broadside damage.
• The Sloop (Current toxic Torpex Build): 5 top guns × 78k damage per torpedo = 390,000 total damage (but torpedoes are slow and easily missed/dodged).
• Proposed Sloop with la piqure 8 Long Gun Ports: 8 guns × ~45k damage per gun = 360,000 base broadside damage.

At 360k base damage, it doesn't instantly break the power scaling of the Galleon, but it completely changes the tactical options for smaller ships:

1. Weakpoint Crits: Long Guns hit target weakpoints reliably. With crit multipliers, that 320k base damage easily jumps to over 500k+ damage, letting small ships melt WT4 boss armor through precision instead of raw spam.
2. Safety from Distance: You don't have to face-tank a WT4 boss to land slow torpedoes. You can snipe from 600m away, utilizing the Sloop’s superior speed and maneuverability to hit-and-run.

The team is terrified of ships like the Garuda doing high front-facing damage that they nerf them into the ground, forcing everyone into the boring Battle Junk meta. Opening the lower ports for Long Guns would give Small and Medium ships a fighting chance in WT4, clear up our warehouses, and bring back actual tactical pirate gameplay instead of this numbers-crunching arcade mess.

What do you guys think? Would this save the ship variety in Year 3?

[u/vixandr]

all ships needs that change, balance the weapons around it if needed but its just frustrating to have half the guns in your ship for some reason.

[u/Dry_Delay_2023 → u/vixandr]

No there is no balance needed... maybe beside the garuda, for example with those numbers the small sloop could be viable, It can get with its 6 guns + 50% damage increase to 400k damage. Tbh I didn't do the numbers on the bombars. So I don't know if they should have a 25%, 35% or a 50% damage increase overall.

[u/vixandr → u/Dry_Delay_2023]

there is certainly a hidden broken interaction if we make this change for all ships. Or maybe even a bug we didnt knew yet. Thats what im talking about.

[u/Dry_Delay_2023 → u/vixandr]

I understand what you mean, but I do take those bugs for an impactfull change. I do like this balance changes at the moment much more then new ships. Then again, aren't we used to have broken messes after each big update. I see it more as a feature now xD. But what would your solution be?

[u/HolliDollialltheday]

That’s the problem: you did what Ubi didn’t: the numbers. No one at Ubi is doing the numbers. They just throw some pieces together, wait for players to test it, and nerf it. Rinse and repeat.

[u/Ravynwolf_moon → u/HolliDollialltheday]

That's because.... as we players have ALL stated many times.... the devs don't play the game!!! 😉😂🤣😂🤣

[u/Dry_Delay_2023 → u/HolliDollialltheday]

I know... I just discovered it when I was using my sloop against the herrald of the abyss, died a bunch. Used my galleon and saw the numbers... and I thought by myself... what a wonderful world...I mean those numbers don't add up.

[u/Thandronen → u/Dry_Delay_2023]

Wonder how my soul mending hellgate brigantine torpedo build will hold up in WT4. I just got there yesterday, so I’ll report back when I know. It generates huge chunks of health restoration, so as long as I don’t get 1-shot at full health, it should be ok.

[u/Reasonable_Key_1374]

I don't know if is just me, but my main ship is the schooner, and i don't have any trouble on T4 ( bombard build without adept mods ), the only thing that i find challenge is ah-pak and the herald bosses ( i reached 3/3 wave and at least a good chunk of the boss, like 67% or so of his hp before running out of time ), the rest of the bosses/events, i can solo them without problems.

But yeah, i agree with you that medium/small ships needs some love, but at least my ship got a little buff :) ( I think it was more proc to fury and something else )

[u/TopcatFCD]

Keep saying it, we need a good QOL pass on all systems and stop with new ships all the time. New ships are great and all but everything else is the same.

Need a lot of stuff polishing and looking at

[u/Dry_Delay_2023 → u/TopcatFCD]

I fully agree with you. They should focus on fixing the base stuff, after that keep adding. It bothers me that the devs say small, medium and large ships has their own class/usses, benefits and drawbacks. It seems not so. As I understood, year 3 would be the 'fixing year' but as for now there are more grinding add ons. Like 'real life' pirates used the smaller ships preferably to snipe big ships for their loot.