Notoriety affects weapon points
 

As you level up your notoriety, your weapons loose rep points
Your weapon level affects it too, obviously.

My Pirate, Darkstalker, is getting more rep points than Grim on their swords
A friend that is 30 is getting far less points on things like the seabirds on their pistol than me
(a difference of almost 50 points)
If I recall correctly, they just got to 15 on their pistol.

I've all but stopped my quests for notoriety in the hopes that it isn't too late.

Just thought y'all would like to know if y'all hadn't noticed.

-CLG/CBF (when you put your best foot forward something is left behind)

This makes perfect sense, within context:

I'm a level 17. When I defeat a "green" enemy, I get less rep than a "yellow", and less rep than a "red".

However, someone who is higher level will be judged on that enemy based on their weapon & notoriety.

I notice a slight difference between weapon skill levels (to see for yourself, just toggle through when aimed at an enemy, and see them change from green to gray or vice versa).

-Captain

Im taking this one step further. Your gain is also affected by what skills you use on that particular weapon. Those skills that have more points will garner less overall Notoriety and experience. I have spent many days now trying to find ways to work my weapons using those skills that I did not add to.

This also applies to sailing and cannons as well.

To bring this full circle:
Anything that you get points for, the more time you have to spend on it to defeat it, the more points you get.

When your notoriety increases your weapon effectiveness and strength increases, meaning fewer attacks for defeat.

I have sampled this:

I took the infamous Grunt and took him to almost toast, let him recover.
Suprisingly, I got less points for him.
You loose, not gain points from letting the enemy heal.

The best way to "milk" the most from the enemy is, as Waldenman and others have said; Use your weakest attacks.
For the sword and dagger, I don't use the combo moves; as an example.



Cpt, a side note, if on your weakest weapon they are still grey, they cannot hurt you (they constantly miss) and it is likely that you will only get 1 point or 0 which really stinks.

Also when leveling voodoo, attune as many mobs as possible, run like hell and poke away. Your damage dealt is split amongst all targets thus taking more hexes cast and giving you more rep per kill.

Right now as I'm busy leveling weapons and notoriety, I'm not really assigning my skill points as I earn them. I found by keeping some things on my weapons low, I will gain notoriety/weapon level faster. Since I'm not needing to defeat the enemies in a hurry, there's no need to have my grenades or shots giving huge damage pts.

Hindsight is 20/20....
 

Exactly! I wish now that I had not been strengthening my skills as early as I did. Unfortunatly at the time, we did not have many points of reference for this, and I hope that this will assist others in working their weapons more effectively.

yea i was going crazy leveling up my notority with the black pearl quest but good thing i read this and as soon as i did i stopped doing the quest and started working on all my weapon levels

I'm working on a new pirate now, and not assigning skill points to any weapon to strengthen it. I was thinking about not even taking some of the upgraded skills that I don't currently use until I've gotten the weapon up to lvl 25.

We'll see how it works, lil rose is only a lvl 9 now :p

So what is being said is the best bet for a noob pirate is to just grind awy without applying any skill points and without leveling up through the missions???

thats what happen as soon as i found this out back in dec. i stopped the bp quest and started to lvl up my weapons

Sounds good, Kinda glad then that I waited to join till my SWG sub ran out. Thanks