ZPayaZ
08-23-2021

MBA.inherit + IGP, Gunboat Refit, skill.slot.Drainage. ssup1 and OS.(SE/Foggy) this ship is good for SOW? why always row ships?

V_I
08-23-2021

The main issue of sail vs. row ships in SOW battles always comes down to speed. Sail ships rely on the wind while row ships have the added benefit of increased speed from rowing, especially if you refined it. It isn't impossible to fight sea monsters in SOW with sail ships, it just requires a lot of practice to handle their attack patterns and most sail battleships are not fast in the ring. A very strong persistent headwind coming from the north during battle is also an issue to deal with.

If you start a battle from the west or east of a monster, then you can avoid some of the worst issues with sail-only ships. But the only sail ship victories that I know of in SOW still had row ships in their fleets to compensate for the added handicap, and the sail ships tended to do hit and run strikes, continually moving to the east or west much of the time until their players got a good feel for when it was "safe" to shoot up close.

If the monster's focus stays on other players, that helps too, since sail ships often are not able to move quickly enough to avoid when a monster uses its blue ring attack to physically relocate on the battlefield, causing massive damage to any ships that cannot move out of the way in time. Being hit by a single monster attack also tends to drop your speed to 0, which isn't very good for sail ships.

After about two years of monster hunting, the sail ship that I noticed that seemed best suited to SOW was a UWC version of the Surprise. I think it was Ambush Surprise? Maybe it was another one, not sure. It also really matters which monster you're fighting, since Cetus and Leviathan have very different styles of play.

That's all I can say on it, as I'm a sail ship user who turned to row ships to better support my teammates. Good luck to you! Sail ships are very cool, and I hope one day they can be used in SOW more easily than they can now. :)

quick
08-23-2021

A big issue not mentioned with sail ships for SOW is that row ships naturally have higher crew than sail ships, Cetus variants and Frozen Leviathan will eat through crew quite quickly making FS maltese galley very popular as a minimal investment ship for SOW and sail ships decidedly not, as FS and cheap UWC options just don't have high enough crew.

Ambush Surprise happens to be quite good as it has low volume (good acceleration) and high crew (353).

The speed issue isn't as bad as it once was, steel phantom panels can be used to achieve quite good acceleration but the wind from the north can't/shouldn't be ignored still and needs to be played around.

In my opinion a phantom panel of some kind, doesn't have to be steel, is a must for sail ship being used for SOW since they are so heavily nerfed to begin with relative to rowers by the north wind.

(Additional thoughts:
Blue attacks can be avoided/sail ships have won with aggro/as support before vs Azure Cetus, depends how you play it. If you sit too far away the rings can be too large to escape when Cetus does the blue attack, but if you're in the right spot can be avoided regardless of wind.

As was mentioned there is a distinction between Cetus and Leviathan fights. Cetus is a more structured fight where sail ships can function better, there are reliable safe zones between attacks you can focus on dodging within while doing damage. With Leviathan to be within range to do decent damage you will need to put yourself with range of attacks. Leviathan variants' attacks are also faster than Azure Cetus's (which in turn are faster then normal Cetus's) so it becomes quite difficult to escape attack range without being hit and still hoping to do damage. That being said sail ships have been used successfully in combination with row ships up to and including the Frozen Leviathan fight.)

quick
08-23-2021

Oh and, I think a sail-only fleet would be quite fine for both Cetus variants but I think most decide it's not worth the bother, much easier and safer to just use rower. A bit of a shame KOEI made it so difficult for them.

Gudebuddha
11-25-2021

With Chapter 2: Rhodes and Ephesus the level req. changed to:
45/35/80