Don't put points in Take Cover
 

I thought take cover blocked 2 or 3 lighting bolts, it doesn't. My son made a horrible mistake in putting 5 points in Take Cover. I shouldn't even of put 1 point. It is completely deceptive by it's description of what it is before you put a point in it.

The developers are letting me down BIG time on this skill. It does nothing. It doesn't even come up in your current skill icons on the top left when you activate it. The developers should of disabled this skill or took it out completely so people (more importantly children) don't waste points in it like my son has.

If anybody here knows a developer can you please ask them what they were thinking? If anybody says this skill actually lives up to it's description they are covering somethign up or just don't have the skill to know it is worthless. It clearly has a HUGE bug in it for the fact it's icon doesn't even come up in the top left corner.

More and more it is looking like the developers are trying to just make a quick buck off this game. I'm calling Disney and talking to a rep. about this. A lot of things are starting to look more and more like Disney...Money hungry and careless.

it only blocks regular cannon fire so any heavy cannons (fire, thunder, fury ect.) will still do damage

Ive had it save my ship up against a phantoms lightning. before

then u lucky bc i relied on it to save my ship from sinking when a phant broadsided me with lightning but it didnt work even though it was in effect lightning still hit me and sunk me and my crew to davy jones locker

btw i wonder if it is a bug...

ive never seen it work on anything. which makes me wonder if im bugged, or its utterly useless the way im using it.

typical example, select take cover when you see cannonballs coming for you, you recieve the same damage..ok cool..

so with a level 20 skill i can stop those pesky bulwarks and ferrets shooting at me..but, sorry..youre on your own with anything that shoots something a bit more terrifying than peas at you...seems silly, its like giving you a level 20 cutlass skill that only works on undead gravediggers or something.

Well, I guess the bitterest pill first, I won't refute that putting 5 points in to the skill won't give the kind of return you'd expect for such a heavy point investment. I have rank 2 in Take Cover due to an accidental double-click at sea; I think 1 point would have been enough, but I don't totally begrudge the extra point either.

My first couple forays with using it had me scratching my head too, because it didn't even seem to be stopping regular cannonballs for me. However, now that I've had some experience with using it, I think I understand it a bit more. It does seem to be more effective against regular cannonballs, but I do get the sense that it might be reducing other types of damage (although, I suppose it's possible that by random chance all my opponents "rolled" low damage scores against me the times I used it).

I've seen the point made elsewhere, but now I can confirm it empirically: Take Cover gives you no protection against anything that is "in the air" when you trigger the skill. I think that's really where the problems start; I think a lot of people trigger the skill after it's too late to stop incoming attacks; then, to compound their problem, the protect wears off too soon and isn't there to protect from the next salvo.

The more minor problem with this skill is the poor feedback it gives when used successfully. Even against regular cannonballs, it won't offer 100% protection when there are many incoming cannonballs; however, when it works, the only real indication is that the cannonball doesn't trigger the "cracking wood" sound that it would if it hit the ship. Other than that, the cannonball looks like it keeps on traveling its normal trajectory; so, if you do get hit by some of the incoming cannonballs, then you never even realize that some of them didn't make a sound because they were deflected by Take Cover.

I've tested your theory about having to activate it before the ship fires, still does nothing. I tested it out for about 30 minutes just seeing if I could get anything out of it. It actually does nothing. I think the developers know it does nothing, either don't really care enough to fix it, or they plan on fixing it in the "future" like everything else they claim.

I find it extremely sad that Disney doesn't even offer you technical phone support. A company the size of Disney and they can't even give you 1 human being to talk to for support...but that is Disney's reputation today (a very bad one).

yup di$ney is getting more and more bad rep vmk closing potco is till half un-finished

I don't know what testing set up you used, but your best bet at seeing in action will be to lead a frigate at an angle slightly off center so that it can only get one of the forward cannons on you.

When it works you'll still see a cloud of smoke like it hit, but you won't hear the cracking wood sound and more importantly your hull points won't go down. I got it to work this afternoon against an EITC Corvette that kept respawning right on top of me while sailing Salty Flats.

It just blocks a shot; I don't think it would work against a broadside.

then a rewrite of its decrip/ability needs to be done,

says protect ship and shipmates from incoming fire.

i see no disclaimer that says it either plainly dont work, doesnt work with cannonballs already in the air, nor different types of cannonballs, or the ammount it DOES protect. it could say click here for a million dollars for all i care..i wouldnt get it on the basis it does nothing..or the conditions it MAY do something useful are slim.

and since disney is too lazy to fix their bugs, i just see people using the flag ship invincibility bug rather than this waste of a point.

I'm not trying to champion the skill. If anything, then I think it's remarkably underwhelming for a level 20 skill. I wish I wasn't seeing any effect from it because I'd actually much rather believe that it is a bugged/non-functioning skill that is due to be fixed. I'd start with a much better visual cue about when it is operational, and what its operation does to the incoming enemy fire.

oh dont worry about me, i wasnt directing anything towards you, and my frustration is superficial as its just a game:)
I just like venting about a skill i feel is worthless, and i do enjoy reading all the views otherwise, its nice to see everyones experiences and opinions on it, whether they agree or not.

No worries, I just thought I sounded too much like I was defending the skill, which really isn't my position. I'd still love nothing more but to be proved wrong about it working.

However, my thoughts about reporting it to the game devs as a non-working skill, is that they'll just take the position that it is working and it's just that we're not using it correctly. Personally, even if it were shown to be working just as they intended, then I'd still think the skill needed some changes to better signal what it does when it operates. I'd rather be able to list the suspected effects because even if I were just imagining them; it might motivate them to make some changes to "eliminate the confusion."

I was considering putting a point into it just to say I have the skill but I'm not sure about that anymore.

It's not so much a skill as it is a novelty item, so it seems.

The phone number is right on the Pirates website: 877-427-7744

I've called them several times on various issues. Don't expect answers, but they will at least make note of your complaint and send it on (supposedly).

It's also worth sending an email to [email protected], imo.

Several months ago, I sent in feedback about the "Parry" skill. It worked fine at 1 skill point (not a lot, but then I didn't expect it too). But as soon as I put a 2nd skill point on it, the frequency at which I would "parry" went waaayyyy down. I wrote and asked them to look at the code/specs of the skill. Now, I have no way of knowing whether my comments made a difference, but a couple weeks later I noticed the skill was working much more often than it had before. So it can't hurt to try.

This is exactly correct. (It may have been me you'd read that comment on) Most players want to see the incoming fire and click Take Cover to save themselves, but its already too late. You must anticipate the incoming fire, which the extended time/skill points comes in handy if you dont anticipate the enemies fire. The better you anticipate incoming fire, the more effective it is.

All my pirates achieved Sailing mastery before any other skill, and i've used Take Cover with success on all of them.

The primary misconception seems to be, that most people interpret "protection" as a 100% impenetrable shield stopping all damage. If you recieve 1/2 the damage you would have normally, you' ve STILL had protection in place.

Ground soldiers dig foxholes for protection, are they 100%? lol of course not.

Is this skill worth 5 points? No, I wouldnt put more than 2 on it myself.

This skill is also useful in the Boss Battle when your ship is being cannoned from 2+ different locations places at almost any given time.

Zeppers lvl 40 - All mastered but lvl 21 cannons
Groggy McJones lvl 26 - All weapons quest/tp quest finished - avoiding story quest
http://pirates.teamofx.us

I've called this number requesting assistance numerous times.

They are strictly BILLING support, per the individuals I have spoken with each and everytime I call them.

They refer you to the online live chat/bug report process for ALL technical support aspects of the game.

Zeppers lvl 40 - All mastered but lvl 21 cannons
Groggy McJones lvl 26 - All weapons quest/tp quest finished - avoiding story quest
http://pirates.teamofx.us

That had not been my experience, as I have called them about a dozen times on technical issues since the game went live last November.

However, I just called them again and they told me that they are, indeed, the billing department. I asked if they have changed their phone support function recently (as it's been well over a month since I last called) but the guy I was talking to was obviously new (and clueless). When I pointed out that their own website lists that number for Tech Support, he replied: "I don't know why they do that."

It was not my intention to mislead -- and I still think an email to memberservices couldn't hurt.
:mybadki6:

Didnt think that for a moment. As you said, the site SAYS its for technical support. I called them about a month ago for issues with my Port Royal teleport quest I never recieved. I was told they were only billing support at that time. I'd called about a few other minor issues, and had been directed similarly. It appears that they can perhaps flag your already submitted support incident for priority attention however.


Zeppers lvl 40 - All mastered but lvl 21 cannons
Groggy McJones lvl 26 - All weapons quest/tp quest finished - avoiding story quest
http://pirates.teamofx.us

It may have been your post, but it had been a while and I couldn't seem to find the post I was thinking of when I first answered this post. The funny thing ended up being that I had already decided to only put 2 instead of 3 in the skill to start, then I read that thread and decided I better start with just 1; even though I was well forewarned, my own clumsy slicking ended getting 2 points to start off with anyway. I've grown comfortable with extra 2 seconds though.

The best chance to use the skill to avoid damage entirely seems to be single-cannonballs, but I also took no damage once when I right at the edge of the spread of a cannonball broadside from a Phantom (the poor thing had just tried twice to hit me with a Thunderbolt broadside, but I outmaneuvered both attempts). I was at a pretty good distance from the Phantom, and just about 40-degrees off his starboard bow, but I saw the smoke as 2 of the cannon's balls hit but heard no sound and took no damage.