Don't put points in Take Cover

[Samantha Wildhound]

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.

[Steely Jim]

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.

[Dr. Zeppers]

Originally Posted by Steely Jim

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.

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

[Steely Jim]

Originally Posted by SamuelMcMalley

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.

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.