Careers

Your career is your character class. It decides which ship-combat skills you can learn and gives you a permanent career bonus. Captains of Britain, France and Spain choose between Naval Officer, Privateer and Freetrader. Pirates choose between Buccaneer and Cutthroat.

Your career does not lock you out of the basics. Sailing, gunnery, repair and crew skills, and the sword-fighting schools you use when boarding, are open to everyone. Browse everything under Skills.

How career skills are organised

Each career has a career line plus eight themed skill lines.

• The career line starts with a passive bonus you get simply for being in the career, then adds a signature skill every few levels on the way to level 50.
• Each themed line has five skills, learned in order. Every skill requires the one before it, so the strongest skill in a line sits at the end.
• Skills are active (attacks, buffs, debuffs, toggles and repairs you put on your ship toolbar) or passive (always on).

Each skill page shows its line, its prerequisite and what it does.

Naval Officer

The Naval Officer is the line-of-battle captain: tough, disciplined, and at their best leading a group. The career bonus makes your guns fire slightly faster.

• Lines: Defense, Desperation, Disabling, Discipline, Dominance, Escort, Gunnery, Prestige.
• Good at: soaking up damage, steady gunnery, and group buffs that stack when several officers sail together.
• Signature skills: Rapid Shot, Guardian (protect an ally), Break Morale, Invincible (briefly cuts all incoming damage), Flagship and the two Battle Doctrine group buffs, Vital Strike (extra structure damage).

All Naval Officer skills

Privateer

The Privateer is a fast, aggressive raider who wins by out-sailing the enemy. The career bonus makes your cannon fire more accurate.

• Lines: Aggression, Agility, Battle, Deception, Disabling, Flexibility, Survival, Unpredictability.
• Good at: hit-and-run attacks, crippling sails and rudders, stealth on the open sea, and setting up a boarding.
• Signature skills: Terrorize, Jugular, Concentrated Fire (punches through armor), Break Formation, Hit and Run, Tack Upwind, Entangling Shot (makes the target easier to grapple), and the Unpredictability toggles that hide which bonus you are using.
• Note: at level 15 Privateers gain Sanctioned Piracy, which lets them fight, and be attacked by, hostile nationals as if they were pirates.

All Privateer skills

Freetrader

The Freetrader is the merchant and crafter. The career bonus makes your ships more resilient, and the skills are about surviving, escaping and supporting allies.

• Lines: Desperation, Disabling, Escape, Provisions, Ship Mastery, Smuggling, Trade, Travel.
• Good at: the economy, fast open-sea travel, getting away from a fight, and keeping a group supplied and repaired.
• Signature skills: Economic Specialist (advanced Freetrader recipes, plus browsing and buying auction listings in distant regions), Tax Evasion, Smuggled Cargo (give up less cargo when you surrender), Travel, Repel Grapples, Provision Ally (sends a longboat to repair a friend), and the Provision Allies group buffs.
• Note: several manufacturing structures can only be built by a Freetrader or a Buccaneer.

All Freetrader skills

Buccaneer

The Buccaneer is the pirate all-rounder: part smuggler, part pack leader. The career bonus makes any ship you sail hardier and its cannons hit harder.

• Lines: Command, Disabling, Gambler, Prowler, Skirmish, Smuggling, Survival, Tough Crew.
• Good at: group buffs, chasing down prey, crew killing, and running a pirate economy. Buccaneers share the Freetrader’s access to manufacturing structures.
• Signature skills: Unleash the Hounds, Dark as Night (harder to spot, longer attack range on the open sea), Wolf Pack: Prowlers, Heated Shot, the Command group buffs, Sweep the Decks (heavy crew damage), Crime Network (distant auction listings).

All Buccaneer skills

Cutthroat

The Cutthroat is the pirate brawler and boarding specialist, who treats the crew as ammunition. The career bonus makes you faster and more flexible in ship combat.

• Lines: Brutality, Destruction, Disaster, Flogging, Gunnery, Red Flag, Smuggling, Survival.
• Good at: getting alongside, boarding, and sailing off in the enemy’s ship.
• Signature skills: Take Command of Ship (sail away in a beaten ship and send your own back to harbor), Run Them Down, Slaughter Their Crew, the Sacrifice toggles (give up crew for speed or damage), Decimate and Bloodthirst (better grappling and boarding parties), Too Mean to Die.

All Cutthroat skills

Prize ships and pirates

National careers can claim a beaten, abandoned ship as a prize and are rewarded for sending it home. Pirates have no prize court. Instead they can Scavenge a derelict for supplies, ammunition and parts, and a Cutthroat can take the ship itself. See Capturing ships.

Quick tips

• Group buffs from several captains of the same career often stack, so careers shine in fleets.
• Many slowing skills need dismantling shot (chain or bar). Carry some. See Ship combat.
• Want to craft? Go Freetrader, or Buccaneer if you fly the black flag.
• Want to board? Cutthroat for the Pirates, Privateer for the nations.