Sword Master

The Sword Master is one of the sixteen playable heroes in Pirates Outlaws.

## Lore

"A veteran of the Arena where she learns sword art combat. Kidnapped when she was still a child, she has no memory of her family. Orphan, she growths in the roar of the Arena and learns sword art combat with Lucy Weston, a respected champion of the Arena. She also wins her freedom against her. After she defeats her master and being crowned champion of the Arena, she decides to sail on the seas to discover her past and family."

—Nicolas, Founder of Fabled Game Studio

## Strategies

The Sword Master is a melee-heavy character. Her battles are quick and quite easy to win. She is good for learning the game, farming gold and reputation or trying out new stages.

Survival: Her lifesteal passive and **Berserkergang** card are very good for survival. This means that you can use cards that cost HP instead of ammo (like *Greed*, *Anger*, or **Payment in Blood**) and then get the lost HP back with some melee attacks. You can even get yourself below 50% HP with those cards just in time for a huge attack to heal yourself with more HP than you have lost. Try to get Inspire (Next attack card gains 50% Lifesteal) and upgrade **Berserkergang** early on so you can use it multiple times.

Tricks: Don't put ranged cards in your deck except when completely necessary (e.g. Suppressing Fire for positioning). Use ammo only to cast **Agility** and **Berserkergang** regularly. Agility seems random but is indeed amazing used tactically because it replaces negative status effects. If you do get more cards that require ammo, either get more ammo cards or upgrade your existing ones.

The biggest problem you will face is positioning. You can use **Kick** (starting deck) or **Anchor** (buyable) to position enemies in the right lineup. Or you could just use tactical melee-attacks like **Precision Throw** to blind enemies in the back until you have reached them.

Relics to buy: Everything that buffs melee-attacks is a no brainer. Early on, buy relics that increase your gold (**Purse**), to buy and upgrade melee attacks. If you add Life-Payment-Cards, you should search for **Pepper** (draws 1 if you lose life in your turn). Also **Diamond** is neat (Once per battle; when current HP - life loss > 50% HP, apply 1 blind on all enemies) because you will lose HP and fall below 50% HP regularly and this overrides their buffs.

Packages to use: Buy the Wrestle-package and activate it mostly just for the relics (**boxing gloves** and **knuckledusters**) for better damage output.

**Rage build**

Another approach to Swordsman's strategy is maximizing damage outputs via **Rage**. Try to get high damage cards, **Rage**, **Critical** and **Draw** **cards** continuously to maintain high damage per turn.

**Offense**:

**Rage:** **Pirate Flag** relic (+10% damage boost per Rage level), **Pirate Bandanna** ( +1 rage gained) can bring your **Rage** level to 7-8 in a few turns to arrive at more than 100% damage boost. To maintain the Rage condition, avoid Agility and other buffs, and keep many Rage cards to override any debuff on self.

**Critical:** **Swordmanship**, **Mark** cards bring 2x damage.

Damage buffs such as Skull knife, Boxing Gloves are great for Multi-hit cards.

**Ranged attacks:** Minimize ranged attacks as they don't synergize well with lifesteals, but low cost-high damage cards such as **Convergent Artillery** can offer great damage.

**Debuff** enemies: Keep them on **Marked**. It's better than other debuffs such as Injury.

**Enemies positioning**: Keep cards such as Kick, Hook, Anchor, to position enemies for your melee attacks.

**Survival:**

**HP:** Focus on improving Max HP as **Lifesteal** is activated under 50%, enemies with strong bust damage may break through your remaining health. Berserkergang is costly for its Ammo, but can be used to heal to a health level high enough to take a large hit. Take care of effects that prevent healing, such as the Fishbone curse, or Immune-to-Damage enemies.

**Dodge:** Most of the time the Swordsman should be in **Rage** condition, tank enemies' damage and lifesteal in the following turn. However, when enemies' damage is fatal, use **Dodge** to gamble on surviving hits.

**Debuffs:** Blind, Weakness are good debuffs to minimize enemies' attack. Anchor has a damage debuff that is effective against multiple-hit enemies.

**Tempo:**

**Drawing cards:** To maximize offense and survival, drawing many cards in one turn is essential. To stack your own attack buffs and enemies' debuff, you need to draw and play many cards in one turn before the enemies can nullify your offense. Cards: **Greed**, Relic: **Pepper**, **Dice**. With **Pepper**, any card that costs HP turns into a draw card effect. (**Double Edge, Double-edge Sword, Tainted Ammo, Anger, Bloody Mark, Greed**, etc.). **Curses** that make you lose health in your turn may be used for your benefit, such as Poisoned, Repression, Drown, and enemies' counter-attacks.

Drawing the right cards for the combo is equally important. So cards such as **Focus** and **Excavate** are essential in large decks.

**Ammo**: Having 3-4 ammo is beneficial for combos, especially when your deck contains many ammo costing cards. Get relics or cards to enable this. Get enough cards in the deck to keep your ammo filled.

**Deck size**: Decks in the Arena tend to become large, so utilize the Drawing card mechanism and discarding to control your tempo.

## Gallery

Sword Master In-gameSword Master (below 50% HP) In-game

Doctor Chicken Inventor First Mate