Last updated: 15.03.2025 (Early Access: Cursed Fleet)
Writing that it has been quite some time since I last posted a character guide for “Soulstone Survivors” is getting old quickly, so let me just get straight to the point. Today, I bring you the newest member of the cast in form of “The Cursed Captain”. In my opinion, “The Cursed Captain” is a pretty solid character, but not necessarily a straightforward one as you will see over the course of this article. But in the current version of “Soulstone Survivors”, experimentation is very much encouraged so switching around skills and runes to make a character perform is pretty fun; and I definitely had a good time working out how “The Cursed Captain” could perform at a decent level with the highest possible curse setting. so, without further ado, let us talk about this sea rat.
Disclaimer:This “guide” is not meant as the only way to play the character described below. “Soulstone Survivors” is a highly complex game, which makes experimentation a vital part of the game and adapting to given scenarios a likely possibility. I am only providing builds to play with that I found particularly successful and only made this guide to put some information on the internet that is not simply content farms copy-pasting the same five paragraphs. I invite anyone who reads this article to give their own input in form of build orders, strategies, or even just anecdotes from past runs, all of which can be used to improve this text to help newer players.
Character Overview:
Stat Changes:
“The Cursed Captain” comes with the following stat changes:
-10 maximum health
+5% critical chance
+20% critical damage
+15% experience
The loss of health points is always a heavy blow since health is my preferred defensive stat in “Soulstone Survivors”. Luckily, this can be fixed with just one level-up worth of passives, so the -10 maximum health are not that big of a deal. And the “Cursed Captain” does have a solid amount of bonuses to counteract that stat loss: A small increase in critical hit chance, a sizeable increase is critical hit damage, and most importantly, a solid increase in experience gain which means that you level up faster and are therefore able to scale into a solid build quicker.
Unique Skills:
Prestige level 5 on “The Cursed Captain” unlocks the first skill in form of “Powder Keg”, a bomb skill that rolls a barrel around which explodes after a short while. It does stun, it applies “Bleed” (which is always good for Bomb builds due to skills like “Shrapnel Bomb”) and even gives a solid amount of Cursed stacks for more tentacle support. And yet, I do not really use this skill since the only build I could see this working in, the Bomb-type build, needs fast, multi-hitting skills since I want to apply as much “Bleed” as possible, which is something that “Powder Keg” simply cannot provide with its seven second-cooldown. The skill might potentially be great, but normally decide against using it.
On prestige level 20 with “The Cursed Captain”, you unlock “Kraken’s Rum”. “Kraken’s Rum” is a buff that increases your damage modifier while also giving all of your skills a chance to apply Fragility for 1% extra damage per stack. I personally like “Kraken’s Rum” since it fits into pretty much every build since damage increases are useful everywhere while the Cursed stacks it builds also help setting up tentacles. You will see this skill quite a bit in again in the section for example builds, so in my opinion you cannot go wrong with this one.
The last unique skill for “The Cursed Captain” is unlocked on prestige level 50 and is called “Eldritch Grasp”. This skill spawn tentacles on the ground with your character as the middle point which damage everything in the area; and the damage is further increased by the number of Cursed stacks you currently have. Now, stacking Cursed sky-high is basically impossible since every twenty stacks will automatically spawn a new tentacle, but the low cooldown combined with the fact that you will pretty much always get some sort of a damage increase is pretty solid in my book. You will see this skill in the example builds, which is as much of a stamp of approval as I am willing to give.
Skill Types:
“The Cursed Captain” currently has access to the following skill types:
- Swing
- Thrust
- Projectile
- Bomb
- Blast
A complete lack of elemental types as well as no access to the trinity of buffs in form of “Arcane Power”, “Bloodlust”, and “Might” should actually seal the fate of this character, right? Well, not quite: Swing brings various good AOE skills, Thrust unlocks interesting options like “Flurry”, Bomb has some solid skills to work with, and Blast builds a solid middle-ground regarding range and area of effect. Combine those skill types with the passives and interactions “The Cursed Captain” comes with and you have a character that is unique to play but certainly strong enough to get through even the highest curse levels.
Weapons:
Iron Tide:
- Iron Tide: -5% critical chance, +5% multi cast chance, “Plunder Shot” as starting skill, with “Gunpowder Burst” as secondary via “Weapon Expert” rune
“Iron Tide” is the starting weapon of “The Cursed Captain” and a perfectly reasonable choice to work with since it provides a unique enough plan to actually form builds with. But before I go into further detail, here are the combined stats when using “Iron Tide”:
-10 maximum health
+5% multi cast chance
+20% critical damage
+15% experience
The unique plan I referred to above comes with the two skills the weapon provides. “Plunder Shot” fires a projectile that builds up Ammunition, which is also the main mechanic “Iron Tide” is supposed to work with. As a starting skill, “Plunder Shot” is completely fine, doing some decent damage while having a low cooldown and some nice bonuses in form of Ammunition and Cursed build-up. The secondary skill, “Gunpowder Burst”, also interacts with Ammunition since it can only be used with enough Ammunition being accrued but is then fired multiple times due to the maximum multi cast effect of Ammunition. “Gunpowder Burst” also provides Cursed stacks, meaning it also helps getting more tentacles on the field for support. Overall, “Iron Tide” is far from crazy, but it is a solid option to use if you want to work with Ammunition stacking.
| Level | Bonuses | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Iron Tide +0 | -5% critical chance +5% multi cast chance | None. |
| Iron Tide +1 | – 2% critical chance +2% cast frequency +10% multi cast chance | – 350 Iron – 4 Quartz |
| Iron Tide +2 | +1% critical chance +4% cast frequency +15% multi cast chance | – 33 Palladium – 4 Emerald – 33 Titanium |
| Iron Tide +3 | +4% critical chance +6% cast frequency +20% multi cast chance | – 5 Emerald – 490 Iron – 490 Tin – 35 Adamantite |
| Iron Tide +4 | +7% critical chance +8% cast frequency +25% multi cast chance | – 3 Helmet of Corruption – 7 Quartz – 7 Emerald – 47 Adamantite – 3 Eternal Core |
| Iron Tide +5 | +10% critical chance +10% cast frequency +30% multi cast chance | – 909 Iron – 65 Meteorite – 5 Horn of Chaos – 10 Emerald – 5 Eternal Core |
| (…) | (…) | (…) |
On top of that, getting the “Iron Tide” to artifact state unlocks the following artifact power. Think of it as an additional skill for which you need 50 stacks to cast it, with every other skill having a chance to give you one stack on activation depending on how long their cooldown is:
This artifact power might just provide a small bonus, but certainly one that works with all the rest that “The Cursed Captain” can do. “Exposed” is a very powerful effect to place on your enemies since extra damage is appreciated no matter what build you are going for.
Jaws of the Abyss:
- Jaws of the Abyss: +10% critical chance, +5% damage modifier, -10% movement speed, +5% area modifier, “Sharktooth” as starting skill, with “Shiver of Sharks” as secondary via “Weapon Expert” rune
“Jaws of the Abyss” is the second weapon of “The Cursed Captain”; and it sure is a strange one, as you will see. But first, the combined stats. Here you go:
-10 maximum health
-10% movement speed
+5% damage modifier
+15% critical chance
+20% critical damage
+5% area modifier
+15% experience
Adding to the loss of health we also lose movement speed, which is certainly not idea. However, we get tones of combat stats for that, which is pretty nice. And the skills do look promising: “Sharktooth” is the starting skill which comes with a low cooldown, applies Exposed to increase the damage dealt to enemies, while also giving you Form stacks for more critical hit chance and Cursed for tentacle spawns. The secondary skill in form of “Shiver of Sharks” works well with those bonuses, scaling with critical hit chance while being Devastating for even bigger critical hits and, possibly, huge damage spikes. The problem that I have with “Shiver of Sharks” is its cooldown, which is a terribly long twelve seconds and really disqualifies it as a damage skill since it just takes too long to come out. However, that is no reason to dismiss “Jaws of the Abyss” in its entirety, since critical hits can still be made worthwhile as you will see further down in the article in the related example build.
| Level | Bonuses | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Jaws of the Abyss +0 | +10% critical chance +5% damage modifier -10% movement speed +5% area modifier | None. |
| Jaws of the Abyss +1 | +13% critical chance +7% damage modifier -8% movement speed +8% area modifier | – 4 Sapphire – 33 Cobalt – 385 Copper |
| Jaws of the Abyss +2 | +16% critical chance +9% damage modifier -6% movement speed +11% area modifier | – 490 Silver – 5 Sapphire – 490 Copper – 42 Titanium |
| Jaws of the Abyss +3 | +19% critical chance +11% damage modifier -4% movement speed +14% area modifier | – 3 Eye of Pestilence – 1 Tourmaline – 1 Amethyst – 665 Silver – 47 Orichalcum |
| Jaws of the Abyss +4 | +22% critical chance +13% damage modifier -2% movement speed +17% area modifier | – 2 Tourmaline – 65 Orichalcum – 10 Sapphire – 65 Meteorite – 10 Topaz |
| Jaws of the Abyss +5 | +25% critical chance +15% damage modifier +20% area modifier | – 3 Amethyst – 7 Horn of Chaos – 3 Tourmaline – 7 Eye of Pestilence – 87 Orichalcum |
| (…) | (…) | (…) |
On top of that, getting the “Jaws of the Abyss” to artifact state unlocks the following artifact power. Think of it as an additional skill for which you need 50 stacks to cast it, with every other skill having a chance to give you one stack on activation depending on how long their cooldown is:
This is probably the worst of the four artifact powers. You still get the minions to deal damage, but “Distracted” is a rather bad ailment to apply, especially if it comes in low numbers since I try to dodge everything the enemy does anyway.
Admiral’s Might
- Admiral’s Might: -10 maximum health, +5% cast frequency, +15% area modifier, +5% multi cast chance, “Cannon Barrage” as starting skill, with “Fleet Strike” as secondary via “Weapon Expert” rune
The “Admiral’s Might” is next in line and allows “The Cursed Captain” to make use of their arsenal of cannons. In my opinion, this is the most straightforward of the weapon to use for the simple reason that Bomb skills are very much tried and tested and stacking “Bleed” and combining that with “Shrapnel Bomb” for massive damage is just a surefire way to make things work. But first, the stat totals:
-20 maximum health
+5% cast frequency
+5% multi cast chance
+5% critical chance
+20% critical damage
+15% area modifier
+15% experience
Like I said, “Admiral’s Might” is a fairly straightforward weapon. The starting skill, “Cannon Barrage” fires a few cannon balls which explode, applying “Bleed” for damage and “Disoriented” for increased critical damage to the enemy while stacking “Cursed” on yourself. The secondary skill is pretty much an upgraded version with higher cooldown: “Fleet Strike” fires a lot more projectiles but chooses a random enemy around you as its target, dealing damage (which can be further increased since the skill has “Impactful”), applying “Bleed”, and stacking “Cursed” on you. Both skills are perfectly serviceable and, like I said before, a Bleed-focused build build with “Shrapnel Bomb” as its main damage skill is very much optimal in my opinion. Combine that with the fact that you gain a long list of stat bonuses while only losing 20 maximum health that you can counteract with one levels worth of health passives and you got yourself a fine weapon to use.
| Level | Bonuses | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Admiral’s Might +0 | -10 maximum health +5% cast frequency +15% area modifier +5% multi cast chance | None. |
| Admiral’s Might +1 | -4 maximum health +6% cast frequency +20% area modifier +6% multi cast chance | – 42 Cobalt – 35 Obsidian – 490 Tin – 490 Copper |
| Admiral’s Might +2 | +2 maximum health +7% cast frequency +25% area modifier +7% multi cast chance | – 7 Topaz – 665 Copper – 1 Tourmaline – 47 Orichalcum – 3 Scales of Prophecy |
| Admiral’s Might +3 | +8 maximum health +8% cast frequency +30% area modifier +8% multi cast chance | – 909 Tin – 909 Copper – 2 Diamond – 5 Horn of Chaos – 5 Fragment of Fire |
| Admiral’s Might +4 | +14 maximum health +9% cast frequency +35% area modifier +9% multi cast chance | – 3 Diamond – 3 Tourmaline – 14 Sapphire – 7 Fragment of Ice – 7 Horn of Chaos |
| Admiral’s Might +5 | +20 maximum health +10% cast frequency +40% area modifier +10% multi cast chance | – 1610 Tin – 9 Fragment of Ice – 9 Scales of Prophecy – 4 Tourmaline – 115 Orichalcum |
| (…) | (…) | (…) |
On top of that, getting the “Admiral’s Might” to artifact state unlocks the following artifact power. Think of it as an additional skill for which you need 50 stacks to cast it, with every other skill having a chance to give you one stack on activation depending on how long their cooldown is:
Even the “Ghost Crew” supports the idea of stacking “Bleed” on the opponents, making a stacking build with “Shrapnel Bomb” as your go-to damage skill even more potent.
Wrath of the Old Gods
- Wrath of the Old Gods: +20 maximum health, +30% critical damage, +10% movement speed, -5% area modifier, “Cursed Shot” as starting skill, with “Ghostly Burst” as secondary via “Weapon Expert” rune
The fourth weapon slot often houses a real powerhouse allowing for strong builds. This expectation is probably why I am a little disappointed to see that “Wrath of the Old Gods” is not that crazy overall. However, I am not saying that it is a bad weapon or that there is no build to be made with it. Let’s start with the combined stats first:
+10 maximum health
+5% critical chance
+50% critical damage
+10% movement speed
+15% experience
-5% area modifier
Apart from losing a fraction of area modifier, it only provides bonuses even without being leveled, which is great. And the skills definitely put in some work too: “Cursed Shot” is a semi-low cooldown option, which in this case applies “Dazed” on the opponent to make them more likely to take critical hits, while giving you “Aptitude” and “Cursed” stacks to increase the critical damage and spawn tentacles for wave clear. The secondary skill, “Ghostly Burst”, takes those “Dazed” stacks and increases its damage according to the number of them on the target. This works similarly to “Shrapnel Bomb”, but unfortunately comes with lower base damage, lower bonus damage per stack, and way less overall stacks to work with since it is way harder to increase “Dazed” stacks then “Bleed” ones. However, I can see “Wrath of the Old Gods” enabling some hybrid build using crits and “Dazed” stacking, which should be fun to work with.
| Level | Bonuses | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Wrath of the Old Gods +0 | +20 maximum health +30% critical damage +10% movement speed -5% area modifier | None. |
| Wrath of the Old Gods +1 | +24 maximum health +36% critical damage +12% movement speed -2% area modifier | – 7 Emerald – 57 Mithril – 665 Copper – 3 Helmet of Corruption – 3 Fragment of Ice |
| Wrath of the Old Gods +2 | +28 maximum health +42% critical damage +14% movement speed +1% area modifier | – 10 Sapphire – 5 Fragment of Ice – 65 Adamantite – 78 Mithril – 5 Eye of Pestilence |
| Wrath of the Old Gods +3 | +32 maximum health +48% critical damage +16% movement speed +4% area modifier | – 105 Platinum – 7 Eye of Pestilence – 14 Sapphire – 7 Fragment of Ice – 87 Adamantite |
| Wrath of the Old Gods +4 | +36 maximum health +54% critical damage +18% movement speed +7% area modifier | – 9 Eye of Pestilence – 4 Tourmaline – 138 Platinum – 9 Fragment of Ice – 9 Fragment of Fire |
| Wrath of the Old Gods +5 | +40 maximum health +60% critical damage +20% movement speed +10% area modifier | – 147 Obsidian – 177 Mithril – 23 Sapphire – 5 Aquamarine – 11 Fragment of Fire |
| (…) | (…) | (…) |
On top of that, getting the “Wrath of the Old Gods” to artifact state unlocks the following artifact power. Think of it as an additional skill for which you need 50 stacks to cast it, with every other skill having a chance to give you one stack on activation depending on how long their cooldown is:
I have yet to understand why the Ghost Crew that is summoned via “Wrath of the Old Gods” does not apply “Dazed”, because that would have been the most sensible choice. However, I do not want to criticize this power too much, since “Fragility” stacking is certainly something I can also work with.
Class-specific skills:
The skill tree for “The Cursed Captain” works pretty much in the same way as it does for every other character. You unlock it once the class has reach Prestige Level 20 and you gain one skill point to spend for every level after that. The skill tree needs 150 skill points to be finished, so gaining all the bonuses means leveling “The Cursed Captain” to level 170. There are four major nodes on the board, which unlock new sections of the skill tree and provide some major benefit. The first one is the character’s passive, while every major node after that unlocks a rune; and what exactly those things do is listed below.
15000 Minor Soulstones: Ghost Ship
“The Cursed Captain’s” passive allow them to summon their ghost ship. After a short while (it states that it takes 36 seconds in-game), a bell will ring which announces that your crew has unearthed treasures in a zone nearby. You just need to stay in the zone to fill the bar, which when filled will drop a ship’s wheel. Collecting the ship’s wheel gives the entire game a green tint to show that the ship is active, which will fire volleys of cannon fire at enemy targets, preferring high value targets like turrets and applying Fragility. Also, while the ghost ship is active, “The Cursed Captain” gains +25% critical chance and +45% damage modifier. The gauge for the ghost ship will slowly run empty and cause the ship to disappear again when it runs dry, however while the ship is active enemies will drop small green flames which can be collected to prolong the amount of time the ghost ship sticks around.
30000 Minor Soulstones: Pirate’s Rum
Unlocks the “Pirate’s Rum” rune, which costs zero rune points and actually takes a Versatility rune slot, increasing your damage reduction by 2 but lowering your attack’s accuracy by 10%.
60000 Minor Soulstones: Curse of the Depths
Unlocks the “Curse of the Depths” rune, which costs three rune points and gives every skill you cast a 10% chance to also give you a stack of Cursed. Also, you gain 4% more critical damage for every active tentacle, which can scale up to 28% since seven is the maximum for tentacles on the field.
10 Violet Soulstones: Devastating Blow
Unlocks the “Devastating Blow” rune, which costs four rune points and takes three skill slots away, but gives every skill you have Devastating, which increases their critical hit scaling multiplier to three instead of the usual two.
| Effect | Cost |
|---|---|
| All skills now have a 2%/4%/6%/8%/10% chance to apply Fragility on hit. (Fragility: Increases all damage received by 2% for 6 seconds.) | – 950 Minor Soulstones – 1900 Minor Soulstones – 3800 Minor Soulstones – 7600 Minor Soulstones – 1 Red Soulstone |
| Increases your critical damage by an additional 4%/8%/12%/16%/20%. | – 1150 Minor Soulstones – 2300 Minor Soulstones – 4600 Minor Soulstones – 9200 Minor Soulstones – 1 Blue Soulstone |
| Increases the damage modifier of the Ghost Ship by 1%/2%/3%/4%/5%. | – 2300 Minor Soulstones – 4600 Minor Soulstones – 9200 Minor Soulstones – 1 Violet Soulstone – 2 Yellow Soulstones |
| Increases the bonus damage gained while the Ghost Ship is active by 1%/2%/3%/4%/5%. | – 2400 Minor Soulstones – 4800 Minor Soulstones – 9600 Minor Soulstones – 1 Blue Soulstone – 2 Green Soulstones |
| Reduces the time to find treasures by 2%/4%/6%/8%/10%. | – 2500 Minor Soulstones – 5000 Minor Soulstones – 10000 Minor Soulstones – 1 Red Soulstone – 1 Violet Soulstone |
| Increases the Ghost Ship’s duration per orb by 1%/2%/3%/4%/5%. | – 2100 Minor Soulstones – 4200 Minor Soulstones – 8400 Minor Soulstones – 2 Blue Soulstones – 3 Green Soulstones |
| Increases your critical damage by an additional 5%/10%/15%/20%/25% while your health is below 30%. | – 1200 Minor Soulstones – 2400 Minor Soulstones – 4800 Minor Soulstones – 2 Violet Soulstones – 3 Blue Soulstones |
| Increases your maximum health by 3/6/9/12/15. | – 1100 Minor Soulstones – 2200 Minor Soulstones – 4400 Minor Soulstones – 8800 Minor Soulstones – 3 Blue Soulstones |
| Increases your cast frequency of your Ghost Ship by 10%/20%/30%/40%/50%. | – 2100 Minor Soulstones – 4200 Minor Soulstones – 8400 Minor Soulstones – 2 Red Soulstones – 3 Yellow Soulstones |
| Increases your experience modifier by an additional 3%/6%/9%/12%/15%. | – 1300 Minor Soulstones – 2600 Minor Soulstones – 5200 Minor Soulstones – 10400 Minor Soulstones – 2 Yellow Soulstones |
| Increases your critical chance by an additional 1%/2%/3%/4%/5%. | – 1000 Minor Soulstones – 2000 Minor Soulstones – 4000 Minor Soulstones – 8000 Minor Soulstones – 2 Violet Soulstones |
| Increases the amount of minerals you collect by an additional 2%/4%/6%/8%/10%. (This effect applies to all of your characters.) | – 1900 Minor Soulstones – 3800 Minor Soulstones – 7600 Minor Soulstones – 2 Yellow Soulstones – 3 Violet Soulstones |
| Increases your critical chance by an additional 1%/2%/3%/4%/5%. (This effect applies to all of your characters.) | – 2600 Minor Soulstones – 5200 Minor Soulstones – 10400 Minor Soulstones – 3 Red Soulstones – 4 Green Soulstones |
| Increases your damage modifier by an additional 2%/4%/6%/8%/10%. | – 1950 Minor Soulstones – 3900 Minor Soulstones – 7800 Minor Soulstones – 15600 Minor Soulstones – 3 Green Soulstones |
| Increases your critical damage by an additional 4%/8%/12%/16%/20%. | – 2300 Minor Soulstones – 4600 Minor Soulstones – 9200 Minor Soulstones – 18400 Minor Soulstones – 3 Yellow Soulstones |
| Increases the critical damage of your Ghost Ship by 2%/4%/6%/8%/10%/12%. | – 2900 Minor Soulstones – 5800 Minor Soulstones – 11600 Minor Soulstones – 3 Blue Soulstones – 4 Red Soulstones – 3 Violet Soulstones |
| Whenever you cast any skill, you have a 1%/2%/3%/4%/5% chance to gain Form. | – 2000 Minor Soulstones – 4000 Minor Soulstones – 8000 Minor Soulstones – 3 Blue Soulstones – 3 Yellow Soulstones |
| Increases your multi cast chance by an additional 2%/4%/6%/8%/10%. | – 2150 Minor Soulstones – 4300 Minor Soulstones – 8600 Minor Soulstones – 17200 Minor Soulstones – 4 Red Soulstones |
| Increases the bonus critical chance gained while the Ghost Ship is active by 1%/2%/3%/4%/5%. | – 2800 Minor Soulstones – 5600 Minor Soulstones – 11200 Minor Soulstones – 2 Yellow Soulstones – 3 Violet Soulstones |
| Increases your pick up range by an additional 10%/20%/30%/40%/50%. | – 2200 Minor Soulstones – 4400 Minor Soulstones – 8800 Minor Soulstones – 17600 Minor Soulstones – 3 Blue Soulstones |
| Increases your damage modifier by an additional 2%/4%/6%/8%/10%. | – 3900 Minor Soulstones – 7800 Minor Soulstones – 15600 Minor Soulstones – 31200 Minor Soulstones – 5 Green Soulstones |
| Increases your critical chance by an additional 1%/2%/3%/4%/5%. | – 3650 Minor Soulstones – 7300 Minor Soulstones – 14600 Minor Soulstones – 29200 Minor Soulstones – 5 Yellow Soulstones |
| Increases the critical chance of your Ghost Ship by 1%/2%/3%/4%/5%. | – 5700 Minor Soulstones – 11400 Minor Soulstones – 22800 Minor Soulstones – 4 Green Soulstones – 5 Blue Soulstones |
| Increases the damage modifier of your Ghost Ship by 1%/2%/3%/4%/5%. | – 5600 Minor Soulstones – 11200 Minor Soulstones – 22400 Minor Soulstones – 4 Red Soulstones – 5 Yellow Soulstones |
| Increases your movement speed by an additional 2%/4%/6%/8%/10%. | – 3800 Minor Soulstones – 7600 Minor Soulstones – 15200 Minor Soulstones – 30400 Minor Soulstones – 5 Green Soulstones |
| Increases your area modifier by an additional 2%/4%/6%/8%/10%. | – 3500 Minor Soulstones – 7000 Minor Soulstones – 14000 Minor Soulstones – 4 Blue Soulstones – 5 Green Soulstones |
| Increases your critical damage by an additional 2%/4%/6%/8%/10%. (This effect is applied to all of your characters.) | – 6000 Minor Soulstones – 12000 Minor Soulstones – 24000 Minor Soulstones – 48000 Minor Soulstones – 4 Violet Soulstones |
| Increases your critical chance by an additional 2%/4%/6%/8%/10% while your health is above 95%. | – 5600 Minor Soulstones – 11200 Minor Soulstones – 22400 Minor Soulstones – 44800 Minor Soulstones – 5 Red Soulstones |
| Increases your block power by 3/6/9/12/15. | – 3600 Minor Soulstones – 7200 Minor Soulstones – 14400 Minor Soulstones – 28800 Minor Soulstones – 4 Blue Soulstones |
Example Builds:
The “Ammunition” Build:
The first build is going to use “Iron Tide”, the first weapon of “The Cursed Captain”. And “Iron Tide” does not hide what it wants to work with: Ammunition. Now, normally Ammunition is built up and then consumed to give the next skill after that maximum multi cast chance, and therefore five additional casts, but “Gunpowder Burst”, the secondary skill of “Iron Tide”, wants that resources all for itself. We can work with that though, as you are about to see. First, the skills for the “Ammunition” build:
- “Plunder Shot” is not only the starting skill of “Iron Tide”, but also a great way to stack both Ammunition and Cursed, which are used in this build.
- “Gunpowder Burst” is the star of the show, being a skill without cooldown that is fired whenever you accrue twenty Ammunition. The entire build stacks Ammunition to fuel it, and the fact that it also builds Cursed and receives a damage increase for enemies hit makes it a solid tool for wave clear.
- “Explosive Shot” is a bit of the odd one out here due to its comparatively high cooldown, but the fact that it builds Ammunition combined with the Shattered debuff it applies makes it good enough to take.
- Since we need to gain Ammunition quickly, I opted to go for some low cooldown options that give exactly that, namely “Quickblast” and “Buckshot“.
- “Rapid Barrage” has a very high cooldown, but do not be fooled since this is one of the best ways to build Ammunition. It hits twenty times and has a twenty-five percent chance to build Ammunition per hit which makes it a useful supporting skill for this build.
- “The Cursed Captain” has access to a quality buff in form of “Kraken’s Rum” for a damage increase and the chance to stack Fragility with your skills, while “Ammo Box” works with the build for obvious reasons. I find them both useful enough to be included.
The start with this build is pretty weak due to only “Plunder Shot” doing damage, since you cannot stack enough Ammunition to trigger “Gunpowder Burst”. This problem does solve itself though: As soon as the first tentacle spawns via Cursed stacks you should start getting results against the first few enemies, and with skills like “Quickblast” and “Buckshot” in the pool you have reliable, fast-firing options to take on the opposition. Combine the constant tentacle support with the pirate ship that you can summon via “The Cursed Captain’s” passive and you should be able to find solid footing over time. And every single skill will increase the rate at which Ammunition is built, which in turn increases the frequency of “Gunpowder Burst” and therefore the damage overall.
In terms of passives, AOE upgrades definitely help since you get to hit more enemies overall and the Lords of the Void from further away. The build is capable of dealing with bosses due to building up Shattered with “Explosive Shot” and potentially Fragility via “Kraken’s Rum” if you opt to take it; but it takes its sweet time getting to a point where things with huge health bars drop. For that reason, I chose to take both a few flat damage increases as well as a bit of defense in form of health and, occasionally, armor. Since we spam skills to build a resource, you cannot go wrong with cast frequency increases or multi cast chance, just keep in mind that “Gunpowder Burst”, the skill this build revolves around, is always cast with maximum multi cast chance due to Ammunition and therefore does not benefit from that stat at all. Pretty much everything in the build has Blast as a skill type, which means that you will gain plenty of power-ups for that group, potentially improving six skills at once. The game also once gave me “Skill Chain: Blast > Projectile” since “Kraken’s Rum” is a Projectile-type skill for some weird reason, but having a 6% chance to trigger another instance of the buff seems pretty solid to me.
The rune page for this build looks as follows: For Tenacity runes, I chose “Improved Repertory” for the extra skill slot since this is a stacking build, “Extended Magazine” as a filler slot that increases Ammunition build-up, “Curse of the Depths” to improve the Cursed stacks I accrue while also improving my damage output, and “Amplified Power” as a generic damage buff. In terms of Versatility rune, I use “Weapon Expert” since I make active use of “Gunpowder Burst”, “Reroll Mastery” to increase my chances of getting the right skills, and “Skill Mastery: Blast” to gain access to “Ammo Box”, “Buckshot”, and “Quickblast”.
The “Crit” build:
I said it before and I will say it again: “Jaws of the Abyss” is a little lacking when it comes to skills. “Sharktooth” is definitely a good skill to use, but I am unwilling to wait half an eternity for “Shiver of Sharks” to do its thing when there are better options to use with critical hits. A bit of experimentation brought me to the following, rather unorthodox skill choice:
- “Sharktooth” is the starting skill and it is good enough to stay around in the final build. Low cooldown, good damage, stacking “Form” and “Cursed”, this skill does a lot and works well.
- “Quick Strike” is probably never going to top the damage chart, but that is completely fine. The combination of a very low cooldown on a skill that gives “Form” and “Haste” and therefore improves both offense through critical hit chance and defense via movement speed is not to be underestimated. And it also scales with movement speed, turning in some good damage after a short while.
- “Incisive Strike” is not only a skill that also shoots in the same direction as most other things in this build, but it also happens to scale with critical hit chance for its damage, which combined with the amount of critical damage I level into makes for a deadly combination.
- “Sniper Shot” is basically the tool to take on bosses with. “Precise” increases its already high base damage even further and “Devastating” means that it crits with an even higher multiplier, eradicating Lords of the Void one shot at a time.
- This is a build that like critical hits, so the critical chance buff “Precision Wave” is an easy pick. I also often pick “Kraken’s Rum” as an additional buff skill since additional damage output combined with stacking “Fragility” on the opponent is too good to pass on.
- The seventh slot normally goes to utility, depending on what I want more. “Sharp Spear” gives more “Form” and “Haste” and therefore improves everything I want, while “Eldritch Grasp” makes use of the “Cursed” stacks and provides much needed all around clear.
The start with this build is actually alright since “Sharktooth” deals solid damage and hits right in front of you for easy aiming. You start with 35% less damage overall due to the runes I use, but fortunately you will hardly even notice that since the critical hits should be plenty from the start and offset the lowered damage. The area of effect of your skills is even more narrow than in the “Ammunition” build up top, so you need to aim a bit more using the mouse but while the first build struggled with bursting bosses the “Crit” build hardly even notices that there were big damage sponges in the first place due to the overwhelming amount of critical hits from your skills plus the burst from “Sniper Shot”. Also, I feel like its worth noting that critical damage increases for “Sniper Shot” in particular are massive, with the green rarity passive increasing the critical damage by a whooping 72%.
Flat damage increases are helpful, but if you have the choice you should always opt to go with critical damage increases since they are higher and you are mostly likely going to crit with every skill anyway. “Vicious Strikes” is obviously nice since the increase in critical hit chance is massive. Further critical hit chance is actually also quite good since it allows you to go for multi-crits and is turned into further damage via “Critical Mastery” rune and the effect of “Incisive Strike”. As usual, I pick “Magnetism” passives until I feel like I gain enough experience overall while bonus movement speed both provides me with the defensive capabilities of dodging opposing attacks as well as further damage potential via fly-by attacks and the scaling from “Quick Strike”. Since the build is a mix of Thrust and Projectile skills, you regularly get passives boosting one of the other, as well as “Skill Chains” which are massively helpful.
The runes for the “Crit” build are as follows: As so often before, I went with “Improved Repertory” for a seventh skill slot. Since I am working with critical hit, I chose to use the trinity of “Fateful Strike” for much higher critical damage at the cost of lowering damage overall, “Critical Mastery” to further improve critical damage depending on my critical chance, and “Vulnerable Target” for a flat critical chance improvement. For Versatility runes, I went with “Reroll Mastery” since getting all the right skills in this build can be finicky, “Skill Mastery: Thrust” to gain access to both “Incisive Strike” and “Precision Wave”, and “Skill Mastery: Projectile” to unlock “Sniper Shot” with.
The “Bleed” build:
I already hinted at the idea of using “Admiral’s Might” for what I would call a classic Bomb build, so let’s get right into it. Here are the skills I am using for the build at hand:
- As I have stated before, “Cannon Barrage” is a solid starting skill that is Bomb-type, hits multiple times, has a low cooldown, stacks “Bleed” on opponents, and “Cursed” on yourself.
- “Fleet Strike” is basically the big brother of “Cannon Barrage” and I personally did not mind the fact that it hits random enemies that much since it still does a decent job of stacking “Bleed”.
- Since I try to stack as much “Bleed” as possible, I have multiple skills that do nothing but applying “Bleed” with a high number of hits. “Bloody Saw” is only decent when it comes to hitting enemies, but already stacks applying “Bleed” stacks without further passives needed, “Bladestorm” is a crazy good AOE clear skill that can stack “Bleed” like crazy, and “Flurry” helps against the big bosses by, you guessed it, applying yet more “Bleed”.
- All of this “Bleed” stacking is meant to make “Shrapnel Bomb” as powerful as possible. While “Bladestorm” and the other skills are enough to take care of the smaller enemies, “Shrapnel Bomb” is what brings the higher burst of damage to take care of the Lords of the Void.
- And as usual with “The Cursed Captain”, this is another build in which “Kraken’s Rum” is a solid buff to work with. More damage output on top of everything else that this build provides is very good, and the “Fragility” stacks on the opponent only further increase the lethal nature of your skills.
The basic idea is fairly simple: Get the skills listed above, then understand how you can improve them the most by getting the right passives. The enablers, which are basically every offensive skill apart from “Shrapnel Bomb”, like more cast frequency and multi cast chance to apply “Bleed” stacks in high numbers. You can increase the damage of those skills, but that is really secondary. What does help is increasing your area of effect, which will make “Bladestorm” as solid tool against the hordes of smaller enemies while making it a breeze to hit stuff with “Flurry”. “Shrapnel Bomb” also like cast frequency and multi cast chance, but it is also the skill that you can choose to increase the damage for in every way possible since it will be the one thing allowing you to take down the massive health bars of the Lords of the Void. As usual, movement speed and “Magnetism” passives are great and should be taken as much as you feel you need to get things going.
More importantly than anything else though is getting “Bleed” improved. You want to get a passive “Bleed” chance on all your skills as soon as possible, and then prioritize gaining more flat damage increases for “Bleed” as well as percentage damage increases as possible. “Dismemberment” is solid and “Brutal Strikes” further increases the amount of “Bleed” stacks you apply which is totally worth taking; and if it drops, you might want to consider getting your critical hit chance to 100% to make full use of it. The skills might feel a tad weak this way, but the insane amount of Bleed damage will make up for it for sure, especially when you drop a “Shrapnel Bomb” that turns all those damaging “Bleed” stacks into further damage.
Unlike the other builds, in this one I tried to get the most possible damage out of the rune slots. The Tenacity runes feature “Improved Repertory” since I am still trying to apply as much “Bleed” as possible, which a seventh skill slot definitely helps with despite the -15% damage modifier. “Sacrificed Growth” translates into +25% damage modifier from level 25 onwards, and the reduced experience gain is basically nullified by “The Cursed Captain” starting with increased experience gain. “Amplified Power” further increases damage over time, adding another +25% when enough Minor Soulstones are collected, while the last rune point went into “Battle Proficiency”, giving the build access to “Prowess” stacks which further increase the damage. For Versatility runes, I went with “Weapon Expert” since I want “Fleet Strike” and definitely take it as soon as possible to get the build assembled, “Reroll Mastery” to get to the right skills quicker, and “Skill Inclination: Bomb” to get to the necessary Bomb-type skills faster.
The “Daze” build:
The “Wrath of the Old Gods” is definitely a crit-based weapon, if one that is less straightforward than comparable options in “Soulstone Survivors”. Instead of simply providing an effect that would make the skills on the weapon heavy-hitters with lots of critical hit chance and critical damage, the two skills instead stack “Dazed” to increase the critical hit chance and scale with how many “Dazed” stacks the opponent has, which makes the best approach in my humble opinion a build using both critical hits as well as ailment stacking, in this case focusing on “Dazed”. Here are the skills I use:
- “Cursed Shot” is the starting skill of “Wrath of the Old Gods” and a perfectly solid skill to work with. It applies “Dazed”, which helps the main strategy of the build, while also providing “Cursed” for tentacles and “Aptitude” for more crit damage.
- “Ghostly Burst” is the secondary skill of “Wrath of the Old Gods” and just as hybrid in use as the entire build. It deals damage that scales with “Dazed” stacks, but does not reach the damage output of other options. However, it also gives lots of “Cursed” and “Aptitude” to make up for the damage being pretty much middle-of-the-road.
- “Overcharged Blast” is damage skill number one, coming with a medium cooldown but scaling with the “Dazed” stacks on the target while providing a big area of effect for easier hits against bosses and wave clear.
- “Thundering Slash” is damage skill number two, scaling with “Dazed” stacks on the opponent but for triple the damage “Ghostly Burst” does, albeit with a much smaller area of effect. Great skill to spam and one of the priority targets for damage increases.
- “Lightning Surge” is a buff skill that provides both an offensive and defensive upgrade. Increased movement speed make run-by attack easier but also increases your chances of survival, while having a chance to apply “Dazed” with every single skill is good for obvious reasons.
- “Spread Shot” might seem like the odd one out here, but I like the low cooldown option that also applies “Dazed” on its own; and it also gives the build another Projectile skill apart from “Kraken’s Rum”, which unlocks some nice passive options.
- The fact that “Kraken’s Rum” was featured in four out of four builds in this guide should tell you that I really like the skill. You cannot really go wrong with damage increases plus more damage output via “Fragility” stacks, which makes this buff so nice to have.
The strange mix of skills actually comes with a few positives regarding the passive skill pool. First off, you will be able to obtain “Skill Chain” skills with Electric, Thrust, and Projectile triggering each other. In one round, I got Electric triggering Projectile to 26%, which is quite a lot for skills that you get for free; and that was only the first round, you obviously can get much higher when going for Overlord and the likes. On top of that, lots of skills in the build are also Frontal, meaning you will get group upgrades for that skill type. The Electric-type skills in the build also stack “Electrified”, which will occasionally shoot lightning beams that Stun, adding yet another instance of additional damage on top of the Ghost Ship, Ghost Crew, and the tentacles. Funnily enough, I seem to have gotten enough cast frequency in the second run to bump that skill to the top rather than anything scaling with “Dazed”, showing that it does some considerable damage.
Movement speed and “Magnetism” are pretty much in every build I make, and this one is no exception; even though movement speed does not need to be taken as much since “Lightning Surge” gives you a sizeable amount when active. Critical damage increases are nice, but in this particular build I also go for normal damage increases to get the numbers higher. And we should not forget that one of the goals is to stack “Dazed” as much as possible, which can only be done via skills inherently doing it since there is no passive allowing us to stack the ailment. This means that cast frequency and multi cast chance are very helpful.
And here are the runes for the “Daze” build. In the Tenacity department, I went with “Improved Repertory” since this is another build that likes to spam an ailment on enemies, which means more skills are better for the build than the 15% damage I lose for taking the rune. Since we are working with critical hits, I went with “Fateful Strikes” to improve the critical damage at the cost of lowering the overall damage a bit, while “Vulnerable Exploit” has the chance to further increase the critical damage seeing how many “Dazed” stacks this build applies. I struggled to find anything meaningful for one rune point, so I decided to go with “Ready for Battle” which allows you to have all your skills ready in less than one minute, giving you the option to only care about passive upgrades after that. In terms of Versatility runes, I chose “Weapon Expert” to start with “Ghostly Burst” alongside “Cursed Shot”, “Skill Mastery: Electric” to gain access to “Lightning Surge”, “Overcharged Blast”, and “Thundering Slash”, and “Skill Inclination: Electric” since most of the skills necessary to get the build going are Electric-type.
