Player's Guide

Every character in Pirate101 –your pirate, a companion or an enemy – can have Talents, Epic Talents and Powers. As your character and companions level up, you can assign new ones. But what exactly are they?

Talents

Talents are buffs: things that improve the character’s attributes (Health, Strength, Dodge, Damage, etc). Once obtained, they are always active on the character and cannot be removed (unless you reset the character). The one exception to that is Talents that are on items for your pirate – those Talents exist on your pirate only as long as the item is actually equipped (that is, having them unequipped, but in your inventory, does not grant the Talent to your pirate).

In the picture below, Hoodoo Cornelius has leveled up and can learn something new – the lightning bolt in the upper right corner indicates this. When you click on the green New Talent button, a panel with the possible Talents she can learn is displayed.

Each time it comes up, you can make one selection from the list.

Below is a player’s pirate at his Class Trainer trying to learn some new skills. Shooty Weapons 1 is a Talent, as it adds more points to doing damage with Shooty type weapons. Tough 1 would also be a Talent, as it adds 10 points to Health.

When training a pirate, any icon without a border and no colored background is probably a Talent or Epic Talent.

So which talents should you pick? It’s your choice, but this may help.

Epic Talents

Epic Talents….well, they’re just epic!

Epics do not buff attributes, but they DO give a character a new ability. For example, take a look at the screenshot below. Bonnie Ann has finished her first promotion quest and can learn an Epic Talent ( both Epic Talents and Powers are also referred to as “Abilities”).

This time, there are 5 Epic Talents to choose from; each time there is a list, one choice can be made. These Epic Talents allow Bonnie Ann to do something new that she hasn’t been able to do before. For example,

1. Double Tap – If Bonnie Ann’s shot defeats an enemy, she might get to shoot again
2. Quick Draw – If an Attacker’s targets Bonnie Ann, she might get to shoot the attacker before the attack
3. Return Fire – If an Attacker attacks – but misses Bonnie Ann - she might get to attack them

You can put your cursor over any listed Epic Talent to see what each one does, before selecting one. Note that these Epic Talents are all “might get to” – these are not guaranteed to happen. And attacking is not the same as actually hitting (an attacker with a high Dodge attribute, for example, can move out of the way of most normal attacks). And Level 1 Epic Talents will happen, at most, once per round, so if Quick Draw is learned and two attackers target Bonnie Annie, she could only fire at one of them (although if she later learned Quick Draw Level 2 then she could potentially fire at both).

Still, Epic Talents are really nice to have. They work automatically, too; you don’t have to do anything for them to happen. Your pirate or companion will just take the appropriate action IF the game says they can take the action. So that’s pretty nice.

Player pirates also can learn Epic Talents from trainers (their own, or those in other classes).

As with normal Talents, the Epic Talents all have icons without a border or colored background.

Each Class has their own set of Epic Talents, tailored for their own skillset. But, of course, player pirates can learn those of other classes, by using Practice Points at trainers.

Powers

Like Epic Talents, Powers are used in combat and learned from Trainers or other means ( Companions may learn them when completing special quests). All Power icons have a border and colored background.

Powers are not automatic. The player must choose to use them, and choose which one to use (from the Powers that a pirate or companion knows). When Combat starts and one of your companions or your pirate – let’s call them “units” – is selected (indicated by the white circle on the combat interface), any Powers that they know are displayed along the bottom (when they know more than can be displayed, the game will randomly decide which ones to display – for your pirate, you can influence that decision as to which ones will show up via the My Powers screen).

You can put your cursor over each Power icon along the bottom and get a pop-up displaying what the power does.

In the screen above, the player’s pirate is selected and that pirate knows 6 Powers. The screen can display up to 7 Powers, so the last position is blank. Any one of those Powers can be selected for this round, but only one Power can be used by a selected unit in a round. That is, each unit can either get a Power or Attack or Move command.

In the image below, we see that Bonnie Ann is selected and that she knows two Powers. But one of them – Second Wind – is grayed out!

When a Power is grayed out, that means it cannot currently be used. In this case, this healing Power can’t be used because everyone in the party is already at full health… so there’s nothing to heal! Another reason a Power might be grayed out is if it requires a target and all the possible targets are out of range. The thing to remember is that a grayed-out Power is only temporarily unavailable.

To use a Power, click on the icon. If it requires you to choose a target, then click on a target. That’s it; once you’ve given the unit the order to use a Power, the game will then select your next combat unit or wait for you to click DONE if that was the last one.

If you change your mind, you can just click on that same unit again which will cancel the command you gave that unit. Using a Power removes it from further use in that combat, so there will be an empty spot on the interface in the next round. When the interface comes back, any additional Power can fill that slot if the unit knows more Powers than were displayed.

Getting rid of a Power during Combat (without using it)

If you see Powers show up that you don’t want to use in this battle, you can right-click to discard them during a round, making room for more known Powers to show up next round. You can discard as many Powers as you want for any unit, but the empty spots won’t be filled by other Powers until the next round starts. Discarded powers also won’t show up again until your next battle.

Note that you can have multiple copies of the same Power (usually because an equipped item grants you another version) – discarding one won’t discard them both.

Who's Got What?

Eventually, you’ll want to see which Talents, Epic Talents and Powers your pirate and Companions know. There are two screens that can show that to you.

For your Pirate, go to the My Powers screen by moving the mouse up to the screen top and clicking on the Hook icon.

When it first comes up, you see the Powers that your pirate knows. You can click on each one to see what it does. The number below each icon indicates for how likely it’ll show up in the Combat Powers interface, when combat first starts – the lower the number, the more likely it is there at the start. You can move the Power icons around, so that favorite Powers are more likely to appear when combat starts. No guarantees, of course.

Notice the blue arrow with the yellow star in the upper right? Click on that to see a list of all the Talents and Epic Talents that your pirate knows. Since Talents and Epic Talents are always on and aren’t selectable during combat, there’s no reason to sort them.

For Companions, you want to bring up the My Companions page (also under the Hook icon in the drop-down menus). With a Companion selected, the icons for the Epic Talents and Powers (i.e. the Abilities) that they know can be seen at the top of the 3D window on the right, where the Companion can be seen.

Looking at Bonnie Ann again:

You can see her Abilities (Powers and Epic Talents) displayed across the top of the 3D window, on the My Companions page.

She has two Powers – the first two icons have a border and backgrounds – and one Epic Talent.

Again, you can put your cursor over each icon to see what they do.

Notice the little yellow triangle at the bottom, center? Click on it to get a panel showing more info:

Now we can see those same Abilities across the top, and her learned Talents below that. She’s learned two Talents in Agility and Will, giving her even more buffs on those.

Below that, Bonnie’s current Attribute values are displayed. The attribute values include any buffs that her Talents have granted her.

There’s now a little yellow triangle at the top. Clicking that will close this panel (as will selecting a different Companion).

Next Up: Training Your Pirate

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