Hey Heroes! Today, I'll breakdown how you can get the most out of everyone's favorite early-game hero, the Pirate Queen.
I'll go over the best gear, jewels, weapons, pets, and forge options for the Pirate Queen.
You'll have the misfortune of unlocking the PQ at the end of your first month in the Login Calendar, making her essentially a starter hero. Her dual-wielding, pirate hat-wearing, white bullets whirling character will be a staple throughout your early game.
The only hero to unlock insta-kill chance through levels, her ability to one-shot horde makes her an early favorite for events like the Guild Event and Arena.
You'll need to utilize her deadly accuracy and lightning-fast reflexes as you progress into harder content with insta-kill disabled. But if you load up on projectile speed, unlock her forge, and get her whirling, she'll reward you with progress into mid-game.
So, strut your stuff and make it rain with bullet time. Welcome to the Pirate Queen Spotlight.
Three themes will emerge from the guide below. The Pirate Queen is:
Your focus is on giving her the biggest chance to proc her instant kill ability. She also has a stun chance built into her kit, which helps to deal with horde in the Arena and generally.
Pirate Queen's main weapon scales off of projectiles and projectile speed, but that doesn't alter your build priority that much.
In some early cases, you can prioritize ranger gear over rogue gear. That build mimics the Arena Build we'll get to in a second.
That being said, as you move later into the game, you run the HvH standard max damage per second (DPS) gear build.
| Helm: Rogue | Gloves: Rogue |
| Chest: Rogue | Necklace: Rogue |
| Boots: Ranger | Ring: Wizard |
However, there is one instance where you always dramatically change up your gear for the Pirate Queen.
And that instance is the Arena.
The Arena is one of the few major events where they did not turn off insta-kill by default. That means you can use the Pirate Queen Insta-Kill Cheese build to progress further in the Arena than a typical hero.
As I mentioned earlier, you use a combination of ranger gear for the increase in projectiles to pair with +1 starting gear for the Arena. That leaves you with a build like this:
| Helm: Noble | Gloves: Ranger |
| Chest: Wizard | Necklace: Ranger |
| Boots: Ranger | Ring: Ranger |
You won't be able to clear Arena with that build, but you should be able to progress further earlier in the game than you could with any other hero. Expect to still get stuck around Stage 16 or 17 in legendary gear. At that point, it's best to switch to the Blademaster to clear the last several stages.
Note: If one of the curses disables insta-kill, it also disables the Pirate Queen Cheese.
Pirate Queen utilizes the typical early-game weapon build based around her primary weapon and dragon's breath. You have some flexibility around the last weapon and tome because her primary weapon, Flintlock, scales off of projectile speed.
Here's a general priority early game build for the Pirate Queen:
Flintlocks
Dragon's Breath
Fire Orbs
Bombs
Chain Lightening
Crossbow
Ice Wand
Bomerang
Tomes to compliment the build are:
Cooldown
Area
Duplicator
Damage
Crticial
Speed
Life
Movement
You typically don't evolve Crossbow because the increased number of projectiles apply a ton of vulnerability to targets. The vulnerability application increases your overall DPS more than the evolution to Crossbow would. However, the speed is probably worth it on the Pirate Queen, particularly when you hit her 4* forge to evolve Flintlocks.
Here's a general priority for late-game build for the Pirate Queen:
Flintlocks
Bombs
Fire Orbs
Chain Lightening
Crossbow
Ice Wand
Bomerang
Tomes to compliment the build are:
Cooldown
Area
Duplicator
Damage
Speed
Crticial
Life
Movement
When you have 4* forge, always grab the projectile speed tome. And I would probably substitute ice wand for crossbow in that build unless you also have a 4* forge crossbow.
The Crit Tome plays into the Rogue 4x multiplier gear, and life tome pairs with ice wand if you grab it mid-run. The same thing goes for Boomerang + Movement tome.
The Arena generally prioritizes a different set of weapons, but more specifically with the Pirate Queen. Your goal after getting disruption is to maximize the number of projectiles that can apply instant kill.
You want to run as much instant-kill as possible with the additional +1 starting upgrades to get these S+ priority weapons:
.
Boomerangs
Movement
Ice Wand
Bombs
Chain Lightening
Crossbow
Again, in my experience, evolved boomerangs are the single most important weapon in Arena and worth using the restart mechanic to get.
Like every other section in this guide, you will split your build between maximizing DPS and cheesing the Arena. The big difference is the Arena will run an Assassin jewel if you have one, while possibly a movement speed or two. However, in my testing, the movement speed jewels did not help me kite horde if I did not hit the priority weapons, so I don't recommend it.
Ultimate Charge
Ultimate Duration
Vulnerability
Cooldown til 60%
Projectile (P)
Projectile Speed
Area
Run cooldown jewels until it hits 60% in the detail window. You cap cooldown at 60% because you get 30% from cooldown tome. 90% is the max cooldown cap in Normal, Hard, Arena, Boss, and Guild modes.
I prioritize projectile speed after cooldown instead of area of effect so that her Flintlocks get around the battlefield faster.
Area has a soft cap on Area Of Effect when the inner ring of 4* Fire Orbs hits the side of the screen. But that's not really a worry until you have Heroic gear.
You have some leeway here to use much higher-level jewels instead of lower-level cooldown jewels. For example, I'd consider a level 7 Projectile (P) over a level 1 cooldown. You can always test which does more damage in your game by doing the same run with the same gear and weapons but changing the jewels.
Ultimate Charge
Ultimate Duration
Vulnerability
Assassin
Cooldown til 60%
Projectile (P)
Projectile Speed
Area
Some people swear by adding a movement speed jewel for Arena. I just don't see it, so I won't recommend it.
I think the forge is a pretty easy call for the Pirate Queen.
What are we trying to maximize? Insta-kill!
How do we maximize it? Projectiles!
With that in mind, I go:
The 3* forge for 1% global cooldown is fantastic. Luckily, the login calendar will throw Pirate Queen tokens at you over time, making it relatively easy to get.
Main Pet. The best main pet for the Pirate Queen is your highest-level pet. Typically, that means the Pyrokraken or Emberpaw. I just now, after about 300 eggs, got the Hydro Basilisk. The highest-level pet should do the most damage.
Passive Pets.I typically run my next two highest-damage pets as my passive pets. That means either Emberpaw and/or Pyrokraken, plus an elemental striker with a damage bonus if you don't have an epic main pet.
Main Pet. I really like the Hydro Basilisk as a main pet. The ultimate slow is great, the geysers do a ton of AOE damage, and it's ranged. It's a great combo across the board.
I just now managed to grab the Crystalsaurs, which should start doing more damage once I get it to an equivalent pet level.
Generally, your highest-level pet should do the most damage.
Legendary pets will eventually become your main pet.
Passive Pets.Right now, I am running Pyrokraken and Crystalsaurs as my passive pets. I like them for the ranged DPS that isn't limited by the Emberpaw radius. If you have a higher level Strom Gryphon than Basilisk, I would swap in the Basilisk for Pyrokraken.
The limited radius of Emberpaw means it's very situational in my book.
A lot of this will come down to your own testing, honestly, as there's no 100% ideal setup.
