Hello, fellow pirates! It’s Librarian Husky. Welcome to the ultimate guide for navigating the vast and thrilling seas of Sea of Thieves. Whether you’re a fresh sailor just setting foot on the deck or a seasoned pirate seeking to refine your skills, this comprehensive guide by Librarian Husky is here to help you conquer the waves. Dive in to uncover essential tips, advanced strategies, and invaluable insights that will make your pirate adventures more rewarding and exciting. Ready your sails, sharpen your swords, and let’s embark on this journey together. Happy sailing, and may the wind be ever in your favor!

Game Overview

First things first, I’m going to be brutally honest here. The game is permanently in various states of bugginess and latency. I’m not trying to scare you off. Sea of Thieves still remains one of, if not the best, multiplayer experiences in the last decade.

Character Selection

So when you do start the game, you’ll be asked to pick a character. Take as long as you’d like. Just know that all hitboxes are exactly the same, and the only downside to a bigger pirate is you might stick out a bit more when hiding on enemy ships. But I say, live your life, just pick your favorite.

Game Modes Overview

You’ll be tossed into the game world from now on. When booting up, you’ll have to pick between Safer Seas, which has PVP disabled and it’s just you and your crew, no one else, or High Seas, which is the full game. In exchange for privacy, Safer Seas offers a significantly watered-down version of the game. Feel free to pause here for the full list.

Choosing Your Adventure

While High Seas sounds scary, I suggest just jumping right in. You’re going to sink, get in fights you don’t want, and lose a lot, but it’s nothing to feel bad about. That’s just how you get better at the game, little by little, piece by piece. Staying in Safer Seas just allows bad habits to form, which will make it harder to defend from other players when the time comes.

Ship Types and Crew Recommendations

Moving on to Ship Types, the Sloop is best for one to two players, the Brig is for three, and the Galleon is for four. I really don’t recommend using a bigger ship unless you have the crew for it. You can try Open Crew, the game’s public matchmaking service, but it’s very hit or miss with the quality of players you meet. It’s best to have your own crew or join the various discords around.

Playing Solo or with a Crew

You can totally play solo; it is generally considered the hardest way to play the game, but you’ll definitely learn fast from your mistakes. Alternatively, finding a crew can enhance your experience. There are many communities where you can join a crew, such as Discord groups.

Game Settings and Key Binds

Let’s talk settings. The very first thing that you have to change is your FOV—set it to 90, or you won’t be able to see a thing. Your most important key bind is for food; then, if possible, add key binds for planks and your bucket. If on controller, you’ll want to set your sensitivity as high as you’re comfortable with. Also, you don’t want to have to take your hands off of the analog sticks when jumping, so rebind jump to one of your bumpers and food to X/A.

Gathering Supplies

Before leaving the outpost, you need to make sure you gather Supplies from barrels laying around. This will ensure you’re stocked up with cannons, planks, and fruit. Fruit heals different amounts of health. From highest to lowest, it’s pineapples, mangoes, pomegranates, coconuts, and then bananas.

Cooking and Healing

You can cook fish and meat on the stove in your ship, which will also heal you and provide overheal, healing missing health over time. You can switch between all your food by hitting your food key bind multiple times.

Purchasing Supplies

If you have spare gold, you can buy Supplies straight from the merchant on the dock or even just a storage crate, which makes gathering Supplies infinitely faster. If you own your own ship, which we’ll talk about later, you can also buy Supplies from the shipwright.

Sailing and Anchoring

Once you’ve set sail, the number one rule is do not anchor your ship unless you’re trying to do an anchor turn, and even then, raise it back up immediately. If you need to stop somewhere, just raise your sails all the way up ahead of time and slowly come to a stop. This way, you won’t be stuck if an enemy ship pulls up on you.

Sail Management

Make sure your sails are always maintained properly. Always turn the sails to catch the wind as best as they can, unless you’re going directly head-on into the wind. In that case, you’ll want the sails facing straight forward. It doesn’t really make any sense, but that’s just how the game works.

Sloop Sail Management

The one outlier is the Sloop, which should always have the sails facing straight forward if it can’t catch the wind at full billow.

Captain’s Table and Quest Selection

Your Captain’s Table is your central hub for all things PVE. This is where you’ll decide which quest to go on and how to get there. You can take the immersive route and just sail yourself, or you can choose to dive and fast travel directly to your destination. You can even dive to World Events after you level up in various factions. Be warned, however, if you try and fast travel with loot on your ship, you’ll lose all of it.

World Events and SE Forts

Speaking of World Events, there are missions marked by various clouds and tornadoes in the sky, accessible by everyone on the server. But if you’re looking for a more relaxed event for a quick play session, consider looting SE forts around the map.

Factions and Loot

So you’ve got some loot, now what? Well, each type of loot belongs to a certain faction found on every Outpost. The majority of factions are capped at level 100, but you can Prestige, called distinctions in this game, up to a total of five times per faction, earning unique rings with each go-around. Hitting level 50 in three factions will earn you the coveted Pirate Legend status.

Emissary Flags and Multipliers

It doesn’t change the gameplay loop all that much, but you will get some very cool cosmetics and some PL-specific quests. A great way to make the grind to level 100 much easier is by flying an Emissary flag. These are purchased with a one-time fee for each faction at level 15. Once you vote to raise this flag, you increase its grade by collecting loot belonging to that faction. With each grade increase, you earn a higher multiplier for gold and rep earned for that trading company, capping out at a 2.5 times multiplier at grade five.

Risks of Emissary Flags

If your ship sinks, however, you will lose your flag and have to start over. The number of little toy ships on Emissary tables will show you the number of crews in that server using that flag, which can be a good way to gauge server activity. The number one mistake that new players make involves the Emissary system, but we’ll come back to that later.

Captaincy and Ship Ownership

Your first major goal in Sea of Thieves should be owning your own ship. This is called Captaincy and costs hundreds of thousands of gold, depending on the ship type. This will allow you to name your ship, buy extra Supplies, and most importantly, turn in all of your loot, no matter the faction, at The Sovereign tower on each outpost.

Creating Guilds

A recent addition to Captaincy is guilds. If you do own your own ship, you can use it to create a guild, which you can then invite other pirates to join in order to share your ships and earn rare cosmetics.

Guild Emissary Rank Five

If you hit rank five with a Guild Emissary, you will be marked on the map for all players.

Game Sense and PVP Knowhow

We’ve made it to the most important part. Without a doubt, the most valuable knowledge in Sea of Thieves is game sense, mechanics, and PVP knowhow. It doesn’t matter if you don’t plan on attacking other players. As long as you’re sailing outside of Safer Seas, PVP will find you, and the following knowledge will save your life and your loot, so pay attention. Most of all, remember the golden rule of Sea of Thieves: loot isn’t yours until you’ve turned it in. It will get stolen, you will sink, but there’s always more out there, so don’t sweat it.

Weapons Overview

Let’s start with Weapons. Now, in Season 12, there are a total of six Weapons to choose from, with blow darts and a grappling hook coming in Season 14 at the end of this year. I recommend new players start with a sword and the double-barrel pistol or sword and Blunderbuss. The normal pistol is an all-around good choice for most situations.

Sword and Blunderbuss

The motto for the sword is “easy to learn and hard to master,” as it has a lot of hidden tech involved to get really good with it. We’ll get into that in a minute, but it’s a good option for close-quarters combat and defending your ship. The Blunderbuss, at point-blank range, can one-shot other players, making it ideal for such situations. However, if you’re fighting in the water, other strategies might be necessary.

Weapon Effectiveness and Strategies

The Eye of Reach is obviously good at long range, but more importantly, it’s typically used with the Blunderbuss to quickly two-tap players with successive shots. This is called double gunning and is generally considered the sweaty way to play Sea of Thieves. The sniper does deal 70% damage, so make absolutely sure you are always above 70% health, or you’ll be killable in a single hit. No, really, always be sure to heal.

Double Barrel Pistol

The double barrel pistol lets you shoot two shots before reloading, or you can charge both for more damage. It has a shorter range than the normal pistol but a faster fire rate. Think of it as the middle ground between the pistol and the Blunderbuss. The extra shot paired with the sword makes it good for players who aren’t yet confident with their aim in PVP.

Throwing Knives

The throwing knives are all about stealth and style. You can use them to shank for low damage or stab for high damage, but you can also throw them as a ranged weapon. If you miss, they can be picked back up from the world by any player with any loadout, not just you.

Sword Combat

The sword attacks in a three-hit combo. If you’re being attacked, you can block all of these hits, and after their combo ends, it is then your turn to start swinging and start your combo. Unfortunately, this can be pretty buggy because you can actually have your combo interrupted by the other player.

Advanced Sword Techniques

If there’s too much lag, hold block and jump in any direction to do a sword hop, allowing you to phase through other players to get behind them. You can also use this while running to keep your movement erratic and avoid getting shot. If you hold down the attack button, you can do a sword lunge for high damage, but if you miss the enemy, you will become stunned. Lastly, the most important move with the sword is the lunge jump. If you hold block while activating your lunge, it’ll allow you to not only move faster but jump during the lunge. You have to hit jump right when you hear the lunge noise start, and that will let you travel much faster into water and jump bigger gaps.

Wind Cer

There are a couple of tools you can find just around the world. New in Season 12 is the Wind Cer, and this thing has a ton of uses. It can blow wind into your sails, knock players away, propel yourself in water, turn a rowboat into a jet ski, put out fires quickly, and even prevent fall damage.

Effective Cannonball Usage

Pay attention to where each shot lands and then readjust accordingly. Try to hit the lower decks of an enemy ship to make them take on more water. You can also aim for the enemy cannon to prevent them from shooting back, or if you’re close enough, harpoon them from their cannon over to your ship so you can fight them there.

Types of Cannonballs

There are different types of Cannonballs, namely chain shots, scatter shots, and cursed Cannonballs. Chain shots can break parts of an enemy ship and are actually heavier, so they need to be aimed slightly higher than normal Cannonballs. Mostly, you’ll want to use these to knock down an enemy mast so they can’t move. This is how you’re going to want to open most fights. It’s worth noting that all masts fall down after just one shot except for the sloop, which takes two shots.

Scatter Shots and Cursed Cannonballs

Ship parts can also be damaged by normal Cannonballs, but less efficiently. Scatter shots shoot multiple tiny projectiles at an extremely short range. The purpose of these is to create minor tier one holes to eat up enemy resources and create pressure. Cursed Cannonballs apply various special effects to enemies: green affects players and purple affects ships. These can be used at opportune moments to change the tide of a battle.

Special Ammunition

Blunder bombs, firebombs, and the Bone Cers are special; they can be used by hand or by cannon. Firebombs are good for burning bigger ships like galleons, especially.

Using Special Tools in Combat

When enemies are immobilized, using a Bone Caller will summon a skeleton crew to fight by your side or on an enemy ship if you shoot it via cannon. These can help relieve pressure in a fight by creating a distraction, and you can even summon your own skeleton crew to fight a rival’s Bone Caller.

Blunder Bombs

Blunder bombs are one of the best Weapons in the game. They can be used to keep enemies away, do major damage, and even prevent people from fixing their ship. When steering, you always want to have your cannons aimed at the enemy ship without them being able to aim at you. Typically, your goal is to circle behind and around them as you shoot.

Death Spiral Maneuver

If the enemy is immobilized, you’ll want to do what’s called a death spiral and circle around their boat, laying down heavy damage. To make a perfect circle, match the percent you’ve spun the wheel with the percent you raise the sails. For example, if the wheel is half turned, raise the sails by half.

Ship Repairs

Don’t forget to keep your ship repaired and bucket water out. Be sure to repair lower holes first. The holes in your ship can be Tier 1, Tier 2, or Tier 3, which will not only change the size of the hole but also the amount of water coming in. Prioritize repairing higher tiers first.

Balancing Repairs and Attacks

A difficult thing for newer players is learning when to prioritize repairing versus attacking. It’s all about pressure. Pressure is what keeps you alive.

Creating and Exploiting Holes in Enemy Ships

If the enemy has no holes on their ship, you need to hit at least one or two so they can’t afford to send someone over to board you. If your water level isn’t too high, you might want to take a couple of shots before you start repairing. If your ship is seconds away from sinking, you’ll hear a heavy death groan.

Protecting Against Boarders

You’ll also want to protect yourself from boarders. When someone tries to board you, you’ll hear several sound cues. They might shoot themselves out of a cannon, which will make a whistling sound. Then, you’ll hear a mermaid pop up, the sound of swimming, and most importantly, a telltale splash when they grab your ladder. Listen for this noise at all times.

Dealing with Boarders

If someone is boarding your ship, you can either chop them off the ladder with your sword, Blunderbuss them right as their climbing animation ends, or blunder bomb them off. Speaking of mermaids, not only do they bring you back to your ship, but they completely give away your position if you’re trying to be stealthy. They only show up when you’re far away from your ship, so if you’re close by and you see a mermaid, that could mean there’s a player sneaking about near you.

Strategy to Sink an Enemy Ship

The strategy to sink an enemy ship is this: immobilize them either by anchoring or knocking their mast down, shoot lower holes, shoot yourself over, and board their ship. Then, camp them until their boat sinks. If that sounds a bit too intimidating for a new player, remember to take it step by step and focus on one task at a time.

Emissary System and Reapers

Remember when I said earlier one of the biggest mistakes a new player can make involves the Emissary system? While you should definitely give Emissaries a try, they make you a target for PVPers in the Reaper faction. The Reaper Emissary flag ranks up by collecting loot from all factions, and once at rank five, the Reaper Emissary can see all other Emissaries on the map in real-time to hunt them down. Don’t worry though; Reapers are always marked on the map at all times, so keep a close eye on any around you, and if they are headed your way.

Reaper Chests and Reaper’s Mark

It’s slightly confusing, but there’s also Reaper Chests, high-value items marked on the map at all times, and the Reaper’s Mark. The Reaper’s Mark is the super cool-looking red flag in your flag box that will mark you for PVP anywhere you go. Funnily enough, it’s strictly used by new players who don’t know what it does.

Using the Hide Emote

You can get the free Hide Emote in the Emporium above the purple Order of Souls tint under the Pirate tab. Find the Hide and Sneak bundle, and it should be in there. This emote lets you curl up into a little ball but, more importantly, hides your nameplate from other players, letting you stow away on their ships.

Skull of Siren Song

You may have noticed this glowing scroll on your mast, and this is the Skull of Siren Song. If you activate this, you’ll be placed in a server-wide shared voyage to bring Briggy a skull that she needs. The voyage requires getting a key to open a chest that has a skull in it, which you then have to bring to a certain island. All of these things, including the final island, are marked on the map for everyone. If you get the turn-in, you get an easy 50,000 gold. Surprisingly, despite the potential reward, people don’t often pursue it.

World Events

A cracked skull glowing red marks the Fort of Fortune, and a skull with only red eyes marks the Fort of the Damned. The Fort of the Damned is a player-activated event you can start by lighting all the lanterns in the fort. You get different colors by dying in various ways and getting the flame on your way out of the Ferry of the Damned. If you’re a Pirate Legend, you can use the Skull of Destiny. Afterwards, you put that skull or a ritual skull in the center, and then the event has officially started. This event contains a lot of valuable loot, so you will definitely have PVP in your future if you choose to activate it.

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