Suggestion Ship Hull Balancing, including a firebrand buff

Sky Kiwi

Pirate Master
Hi! Many of you know me as that guy who went too far when figuring out what ship he wanted.
Well, you wouldn't be wrong.

Often the results I hear from my gathered data are that people are shocked at how the middle three ships (Skull and Bones, Fortune Hunter, and Firestorm) have much lower damage than people expected. Especially Skull and Bones.

While we compare ship stats, please refer to the wiki page on Tier IV-VI hulls.

My suggestion to Skull and Bones is simple. Increase the fury chance. Let's compare the current Copperhead to the current Skull and Bones:
Armour: 180% vs 165% - 15% in Copperhead's favour.
Speed:
90% vs 100% - 10% in Skull and Bones' favour.
Turning:
100% vs 110% - 10% in Skull and Bones' favour.
Cargo: Even.

So far it seems pretty close cut. Until we see this:
Broadside Avg Damage: 265% vs 150% - 115% in Copperhead's favour.

That's a whopping difference. Now it's worth noting that Copperhead's higher damage is unreliable, which is what gives it the risk vs reward approach. Copperhead can (and often will) result in no increased damage, a major flaw. So how about we consider something more reliable?

Storm Chaser vs Skull and Bones:
Broadside Avg Damage:
190% vs 150% - 40% in Storm Chaser's favour.

People often think Skull and Bones and Storm Chaser share similar damage (plenty even think Skull and Bones is stronger). This isn't an unreasonable consideration, as Fury is often considered the strongest cannonball type (though the best gunners know that's because volleys of three). Many people know Skull and Bones will be weaker, but I've noticed when I tell them exactly how much weaker it is they get surprised.

So with all that said, my suggestion is to boost the Skull and Bones broadside chance to 65%. Conveniently, because of the math (see the earlier link again), every 1% chance raises average damage by 1%, making this math easy. This would raise the Skull and Bones broadsides to 165% (might even want to go as high as 70%). The most notable factor here is closing the gap between S&B and Storm Chaser's broadside strength.


Now on to the ships that really need a buff. The firebrand lovers.
Due to Firebrand's measly modifier of 1.25x damage right now, the firebrand firing fire-ships boast a measly 3.75% damage increase for every 15% chance (looking at you there Fortune Hunter). An impressively unimpressive 112.25% (Fortune Hunter) and 115% (Firestorm) average damage for a max upgrade hull.
Considering the effort players put into these ships, and what they could have gained by spending in other trees, this is just depressing.

With the mention of the measly 1.25x damage mult, firebrand ammo is basically useless right now compared to fury. The only merit it has is it uses a different ammunition - which will become somewhat irrelevant when cannon rams exist. Even when the burning effect functions, firebrand is very weak. The burning effect does not stack, and according to the wiki it deals "about 30 damage for every 2 or 3 seconds". We can average that out to "about" 12 damage per second. A round shot, when fully decked out, deals around 830 damage. 415 against armour. That means firebrand's burning effect deals the same amount of damage as a round shot in 35 - 49 seconds (rounded). That is a pathetic number. So we can effectively call firebrand's burning effect useless - even if it did work (which it doesn't!)

My suggestion is to boost Firebrand to a total of 1.4x (maybe even 1.5x) times the damage of round shot (for reference, fury does 2x, thunderbolt does 3x). Ideally, it should do about 1.25x damage immediately, and the extra 0.15 damage should be applied over time. This should stack. Every single firebrand cannonball should do a total of 1.4x damage, even if part of that is over time.
How I envision this working, is if we imagine the firebrand applies 200 burning damage, the enemy ship should take 200 damage over, say, 90 seconds. However, if the ship has already taken 50 damage (and therefore has 150 to go), and it gets hit with another firebrand, the 90 second timer should reset, and the total damage over 90 seconds should be increased to 350.
Being that I've added it to games myself, I am aware that - unfortunately - stacking DoT in this fashion is a bit of a pain to implement. However, I think this would have a very interesting effect in SvS. It would become a repair crew's weakness. If a ship is essentially invincible because the crew is too proficient at repairing, its attackers could switch to firebrand. Over time, the 90-second damage over time debuff would stack to the point where it starts to negate the repair effort of the ship's crew, and eventually even outpacing it. Note that this would only happen in the case of extremely prolonged fights, as if you are capable of sinking them with raw impact damage, it would be much faster to do so.
But it's not all SvS buffs - since we're raising the damage from 1.25 to 1.4-1.5, we'll see an overall increase of damage from it (while still being significantly weaker than fury).

Buffing firebrand like so will naturally buff both the firebrand hulls, so now let's take a look at how it effects those.

Now, Fortune Hunter is a material gathering ship. That is oriented to a large crew, which will always be doing the buck of your damage. With that said, I don't actually suggest any changes to the Fortune Hunter itself - the firebrand buff will be all it needs. Fortune Hunter should absolutely have much weaker broadsides than anything else. And it will, with a new average damage of (0.55 * 1) + (0.45 * 1.4) = 118%, or 122.5% with 1.5x damage Firebrand.

Then there's the Firestorm, the least popular hull out there. Not only is it expensive relative to the other hulls, but there's almost no point in getting it. It yields a miserable 4% more stat improvements than Storm Chaser (120% turn, 114% speed vs 110% turn, 120% speed), but an average broadside damage so low in comparison (115% vs 190%) Storm Chaser doesn't even believe it's firing any special ammo at all!

So I suggest a buff for the Firestorm that, while it sounds incredibly powerful, actually isn't.
Improve the broadside chance to 100% (33% from each level, 34% from the last).
First of all, everyone has always wanted a ship that fires 100% special broadsides. And Firebrand looks awesome. You know this would be the coolest thing ever.
But when you do the math, with a 1.4x multiplier it results in 140% damage. 1.5x would be 150%. With 100% firebrand chance, it would deal the same damage as the average damage of Skull and Bones as it is right now. And remember, we're buffing Skull and Bones, so Firestorm is still the second weakest broadside!
If the burning effect gets implemented, the Firestorm's broadside would be 125% immediately, with an extra 15% over 90 seconds. Really not as strong as it sounds, is it?
But it would be so cool. It would also have a major benefit of allowing captains to forsake putting points in round shot, while still getting the maximum damage output.

However, even if you don't buff firebrand, I still recommend giving Firestorm 100% special broadside chance. It would only result in 125% damage - half the improvement Skull and Bones gets!

TL;DR: S&B and the Firebrand ships have lackluster broadsides. Also, Firebrand itself is lackluster. And give Firestorm 100% special chance - it's not as overpowered as it sounds (still pretty weak, without a buffed firebrand).
 
I would like this to be implemented. Everything you've said makes sense and would make firebrand shot muck more viable.

Hope the devs take notice to this post!
 
The point of the different ammo types and hulls is that they are all different.
If you chose the wrong ammo type or hull, well, figure it out.
To ask that the inherent concept of the game be changed, in an effort to level all playing fields is not what the game is about.
Firebrand is one of the weakest shots in the game, just after round shot, for a reason; it's a low level ammo type.
Next we'll have to ask that Cabin Boy Cutlass be brought up to legendary status, along with the snaplock pistol.
And then we can ask the devs to double our health points, no, triple them!
And and, then we can make it so we can fly, be invisible to enemies, and, well, drive cars around and climb trees and build houses and shoot laser cannons and and and and...
LOL, no. Firebrand is a weak ammo for a very good reason; it's a starter ammo. There's a cannon ram you might be lucky to get that will enhance the power significantly, but you'll have to find it.
That's how the game is.
 
The point of the different ammo types and hulls is that they are all different.
If you chose the wrong ammo type or hull, well, figure it out.
To ask that the inherent concept of the game be changed, in an effort to level all playing fields is not what the game is about.
Firebrand is one of the weakest shots in the game, just after round shot, for a reason; it's a low level ammo type.
Next we'll have to ask that Cabin Boy Cutlass be brought up to legendary status, along with the snaplock pistol.
And then we can ask the devs to double our health points, no, triple them!
And and, then we can make it so we can fly, be invisible to enemies, and, well, drive cars around and climb trees and build houses and shoot laser cannons and and and and...
LOL, no. Firebrand is a weak ammo for a very good reason; it's a starter ammo. There's a cannon ram you might be lucky to get that will enhance the power significantly, but you'll have to find it.
That's how the game is.
Firebrand still is (and by quite a significant factor) the weakest hull damage based cannonball (other than round) even with my buff suggestions. I improved the damage a little bit, but the burning status effect change actually gives it a more unique mechanic, which makes it more interesting.

As for ship broadsides, you'll note that those are also still the weakest. Especially Fortune Hunter.

If you chose the wrong ammo type or hull, well, figure it out.
Side note: I don't even have firebrand unlocked, nor any firebrand ships. I just want more diversity on the ocean.
 
Firebrand still is (and by quite a significant factor) the weakest hull damage based cannonball (other than round) even with my buff suggestions. I improved the damage a little bit, but the burning status effect change actually gives it a more unique mechanic, which makes it more interesting.

As for ship broadsides, you'll note that those are also still the weakest. Especially Fortune Hunter.


Side note: I don't even have firebrand unlocked, nor any firebrand ships. I just want more diversity on the ocean.
The diversity is already there.
The easiest ship and ammo to level up and upgrade is the firebrand.
As the ammo types and hulls become stronger and more powerful, they require more effort, time and skill, logically.
That's why copperhead is the most difficult to obtain.
There are several ship hulls and ammo types to upgrade and all are different for a reason, creating what I like to call diversity.
 
The diversity is already there.
The easiest ship and ammo to level up and upgrade is the firebrand.
As the ammo types and hulls become stronger and more powerful, they require more effort, time and skill, logically.
That's why copperhead is the most difficult to obtain.
There are several ship hulls and ammo types to upgrade and all are different for a reason, creating what I like to call diversity.
Yes they are all different, and that is good, they should stay that way. But they should still be competitive with each other. Why is it you never see Firestorm? Because it's terrible. Diversity isn't just things being different, they still have to exist to even be counted. A single firestorm here and there isn't good enough. We should be striving to get as near an equal mix of each ship type and upgrade as possible.

Also, you say things that are stronger and more powerful should require more effort, time and skill. So why is it that Firestorm, widely considered the worst upgrade, is directly more expensive than storm chaser, which is generally considered one of the most powerful?

I'm essentially saying hey, take these lackluster (in both sad stats and high costs) ship upgrades and give them a buff. They'll still be worse than the ones currently considered the best, but they won't be lagging so far behind.
 
I agree that Sky Kiwi's proposals would help entice people to use different ship upgrades. I feel like the near balanced stats would crest more variety in ships you see at sea, and may also create new strategies.

And keep in mind, even if the devs decide this is a good idea, the stats are always up for further discussion.
 
the stats are always up for further discussion.
Indeed. I've done a lot of looking into the stats/numbers as they are, so I feel have a I fairly good idea of what might be a good improvement - but even so I'm certainly not saying it has to be these numbers.

The bottom line is, firebrand and all its ships are generally considered pretty "meh", and even the Skull and Bones tends to disappoint people when they find out its broadside damage vs storm and copper. Almost any way to change that is a good thing.
 
There's an easy way to marginally increase the sell rates for the fortune hunter and firestorm upgrades, we should take note that a lvl 1 firebrand deals 431 dmg plus the burning for 20 s ( for the sake of consistency we'll use the fixed 30 dmg per 2 s which translates to 15 per s (for an exact number it should be tested more in-depth) ) so the burning dmg till 15 s will be 225 ( 15 s is the volley cooldown, its 12s with the proper skills) so the total lvl 1 firebrand dmg till next volley will be 656 which is 10 more dmg than lvl 2 round shot ( sure in this case would be 25 % more dmg than round shot at the same lvl 1, but doesn't seem enough as at the lvl 5 this % decays) so at lvl 5 firebrand the burn duration is 40 s and to make it viable for use the burn should stack up with each subsequent volleys ( not with each subsequent cannonball fired) so it would stack up to 2 times ( in the actual state) leading to a DoT dmg of 450 when fully stacked translating to a 450 extra dmg to each stacked volley, so that's equal to a lvl 8 round shot dmg ( it fits perfectly to an ammo type based on DoT dmg, still its equal to a lvl 2 Fury shot but the burn dmg could be much more meaningful being the total dmg of the firebrand distributed by 25 or 35% of the total dmg at the impact and the 75 or 65% as burn dmg OR increasing the burn time for a divisor of 3 ( so that the 15 or 12 volley cooldown would be rounded) so that the stack could increase from 2 to a set amount ( lets say its increased to 60 s it would lead to 4 stacks to the 15 s volleys and 5 stacks for the 12 s volleys ( giving more meaning to spend on this skill) so from 4 to 5 stacks the DoT dmg would be 900 / 1125 respectively.

I prefer the idea of increasing the burn time and giving it a stack attribute so the 12 s volleys should be a must for those with firebrand upgrades as they're currently the weakest in terms of dmg; an additional NOTE is the burn time could simply be increased only with rams making more important to use a cajun ram for increasing dmg over using a sea chart or globe. The 12 s volleys will get a free volley at each 5 volleys, making this idea the best suited for DoT dmg so it could work great against strong enemies.
 
There's an easy way to marginally increase the sell rates for the fortune hunter and firestorm upgrades, we should take note that a lvl 1 firebrand deals 431 dmg plus the burning for 20 s ( for the sake of consistency we'll use the fixed 30 dmg per 2 s which translates to 15 per s (for an exact number it should be tested more in-depth) ) so the burning dmg till 15 s will be 225 ( 15 s is the volley cooldown, its 12s with the proper skills) so the total lvl 1 firebrand dmg till next volley will be 656 which is 10 more dmg than lvl 2 round shot ( sure in this case would be 25 % more dmg than round shot at the same lvl 1, but doesn't seem enough as at the lvl 5 this % decays) so at lvl 5 firebrand the burn duration is 40 s and to make it viable for use the burn should stack up with each subsequent volleys ( not with each subsequent cannonball fired) so it would stack up to 2 times ( in the actual state) leading to a DoT dmg of 450 when fully stacked translating to a 450 extra dmg to each stacked volley, so that's equal to a lvl 8 round shot dmg ( it fits perfectly to an ammo type based on DoT dmg, still its equal to a lvl 2 Fury shot but the burn dmg could be much more meaningful being the total dmg of the firebrand distributed by 25 or 35% of the total dmg at the impact and the 75 or 65% as burn dmg OR increasing the burn time for a divisor of 3 ( so that the 15 or 12 volley cooldown would be rounded) so that the stack could increase from 2 to a set amount ( lets say its increased to 60 s it would lead to 4 stacks to the 15 s volleys and 5 stacks for the 12 s volleys ( giving more meaning to spend on this skill) so from 4 to 5 stacks the DoT dmg would be 900 / 1125 respectively.

I prefer the idea of increasing the burn time and giving it a stack attribute so the 12 s volleys should be a must for those with firebrand upgrades as they're currently the weakest in terms of dmg; an additional NOTE is the burn time could simply be increased only with rams making more important to use a cajun ram for increasing dmg over using a sea chart or globe. The 12 s volleys will get a free volley at each 5 volleys, making this idea the best suited for DoT dmg so it could work great against strong enemies.
Making it per volley instead of cannonball is imbalanced in favour of the smaller ships, as the firebrand effect will be less of an increase percentage wise for ships with more broadsides. Though this kind of fits the theme (smaller agile ships), I'm not a fan since it doesn't quite impact the whole ship diversity issue (we'd only see firestorm on sloops, basically). Additionally making it per cannonball still makes the Taskmaster broadside passive useful.

Also adding "one level 8 round shot worth of damage" to a broadside is a very weak improvement compared to other hulls. If we keep the current firebrand base damage we're still seeing 115% base volley damage + one level 8 round shot. Compared to Storm Chaser's 190% damage, and even Copper's 150% damage, this is pretty weak. While on a medium sloop that one round shot worth of damage is an additional 20% minimum (giving us 135% damage, which is actually a good number), on a War Frigate that would only be an additional 10% minimum and on a War Brig it's an additional 8.3% - giving us a total of 123.3%, still a very weak number. Yes the numbers would typically be higher because it's "level 8", assuming your math is correct, and many captains wouldn't be rocking a +3 round shot ram but I doubt it makes much of an impact.

Furthermore, I'd like to know where you got these base damage numbers from. Because if it's from the wiki, those damage numbers have been wildly inaccurate for some time. Of course, that doesn't actually apply to the firebrand burning effect as that's never existed in TLOPO up to this point.

Point being I used only numbers I myself obtained under as much "controlled environment" as possible. I had a pretty big discussion about this in another thread which I can find if you want more info. Currently level 8 cannonball damage values aren't possible to obtain, seeing as cannon rams don't work.
 
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The problem is the firebrand cannot suffer hard changes because it can possibly cause unbalancing with cannon ammo ( cuz its only a lvl 8 ammo) so the changes should be made on the ship side of the thing
 
For sure the firebrand Dmg can increase, but it should be to its burns dmg as I said before, we could hold its current on hit dmg and just increase the Dot dmg to a higher amount or simply ignore the armor and damage the ship Hp directly OR even make the burn dmg a % of the Maximum health of a ship so the burn dmg will always make the same scathe to a ship
 
I 100% support this suggestion, and I am bumping this again as I am a huge user of the firebrand ammo type having a fortune hunter lv 6 as well as a firestorm lv 6.

I have been waiting for the Burn effect to be fixed, and a general buff to the ammo would be great but I see why it could be a long way off if that's not where people's general interests are. The upgrade to the firestorm ship type is a wonderful suggestion, I know I chose my firestorm on my own free will but it is sad when a tier 6 warship is so drastically behind the rest, 100% firebrand broadside would still keep it at the 2nd weakest in the game as Skull and Bones has much more armor.
 
The concept of stacks per shot would need a stack cap because a war brig could reach the cap in one broadside and make use of the stack dmg instantly in the other hand a sloop would take 2 or 3 more volleys to reach the maximum dmg
 
So if the Stack per shot has been implemented now a war brig with firestorm lvl 6 would fire an average of 7 firebrands per volley so its already 7 stacks applied with a timer of 40s each and with every volley with a 15 s cooldown its only possible to achieve 14 stacks simultaneously leading to 3150 extra dmg in Dot effect between each volley ( note the war brig need to shot a second volley to achieve 14 stacks so in the first volley the Dot is 1575 ) considering its a lvl 5 firebrand the total dmg to each stacked volley would be 9262 ( in a scenario where it has the 14 stacks and dont fire any additional volley till the burn dmg ends ( 40s ) ) , and a sloop would make 2212 dmg when fully stacked; being the 40s timer and the number of broadsides cannons the cap of stacks.

Note: the war brig will do 210 dmg per second ( with 14 stacks) so in 15 s ( or between volleys ) the dmg is 3150 and if reach the 40 s limit it would make a total dmg of 8400.
 
The problem is the firebrand cannot suffer hard changes because it can possibly cause unbalancing with cannon ammo ( cuz its only a lvl 8 ammo) so the changes should be made on the ship side of the thing
Changing it on the ship side of things means implementing mechanics that don't exist at all. That's extra work on the devs behalf. Additionally, the burn suggestion I made still only increases the damage by a set amount per cannonball, therefore it's balanced accordingly with both broadside and deck cannon (each shot still does the same % damage relative to round shot, no matter how fast you fire them or in how many volleys).

I 100% support this suggestion, and I am bumping this again as I am a huge user of the firebrand ammo type having a fortune hunter lv 6 as well as a firestorm lv 6.

I have been waiting for the Burn effect to be fixed, and a general buff to the ammo would be great but I see why it could be a long way off if that's not where people's general interests are. The upgrade to the firestorm ship type is a wonderful suggestion, I know I chose my firestorm on my own free will but it is sad when a tier 6 warship is so drastically behind the rest, 100% firebrand broadside would still keep it at the 2nd weakest in the game as Skull and Bones has much more armor.

Well it would still do less damage than Skull and Bones - S&B does 150% with 50% chance, Firestorm with 100% chance would only do 125% damage as it stands now, 135%-140% damage with the extra damage buff I suggested.
 
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