oce i boarded one I was lagging so bad that I was gone in an instant

Decided to board a Spanish Blood Scourge (level 29) solo (I'm 38). Was reduced to using life drain twice, and had to drink a tonic to survive. 6 Voodoo users at one time! Fun!

yea i still find it kinda unfair that enemies can use thunderbolt chain shot fire and now explosive broads on us

Well, I did a 28 by myself (40) and had no trouble, though I did grape the guys on deck before boarding.

I'm not sure how many there were that spawned, I think three or four, but they were gray voodoos that stayed together; two flames and they were gone.

yea grape shots actually come very handy and today marks the day i finally used up all my grape shots lol

I decided not to sweep the deck with the cannons first. Then when boarding and seeing nothing but grey enemies decided to play Superhero and start throwing daggers. Needless to say, plan B was enacted very quick.

Clearing the deck was the first thing I did, before boarding. Did the quest and all the ships before I even heard there are like three spawns if you just board. Btw I never waited 30 seconds or anything.

Watch the spawns on top of ya, or taking a crew out with a approaching ship. A couple times I had that happen, and took fire before I was even on my ship or could move towards the wheel.

I have noticed the Spanish / French / Jolly Ghost ships got an HP boost (took several lighting and broadsides to bring a War Sloop down??) and they do shoot the firepower at you (sorta - it didn't damage the WF too much) - but the crews are mixed up - a L29 ghost ship with only L9-11 crew.. but a L19 ship with L17 crew? :D LOL

Note - a driect broadside hit (not front or rear) did MUCH more damage (10% vs 60%) on the Ghost Sloops... just an FYI :)

By the way to all of you clearing the deck with cannons.. let me know about your experiances but I am having worse luck doing that. When I clear the deck with cannons then board, they respawn at a higher level. I nearly got killed by clearing the deck of greys and when I boarded they were all yellow voodoo users that were immune to my hex bullets :O

When I just board strait away and staff down the greys quickly it goes much better

immune to hex bullets? ive boarded 4 of the spanish ships so far and all of the vodoo casters ive come across were affected by my hex bullets like normal. they didnt seem much different than an undead gypsy to me.

maybe the one I was desperately trying to neutralize while it voodoo'd a guildy was just a glitch then.

No blue numbers at all. Seemed like I was shooting lead shot.

Seems to work well for me, but I'm not using cannons, I lobbed grenades at them. I think the trick is in part letting the timer run down before boarding, and clearing out the whole crew within 30 seconds or so, they don't seem to re-spawn if you get them all quickly. Leave just one standing after 30 seconds, and they call for reinforcements :)

Just my observation after several attempts yesterday, I could be totally wrong.

I've had that happen when fighting alongside friends. I believe what causes it is the other person was the first to 'hit' it with a weapon. I've had it happen on the Beach and in El Suduron. The other person gets first hit, then my Hex shot just takes down HP but does not disable voodoo.

I forgot about nades. Staff is useless before boarding though.

I worked on the quest last night with a friend and then with a bigger crew as some of my guildmates were doing it too.

After reading here about clearing the decks, I gave it a shot (grape that is) and it made the ships very easy to take.

The sails came down on the sloops very easily and then they sat there. Then grappled, cleared the deck and boarded. Once on the ship, a few flaming skulls or someone using a doll mopped up the re-spawned crew pretty easily. If only the navy/eitc ships were this easy.

The trick seems to be to engage these ships from a distance (and being sloops they can't shoot directly forward).

But the Spanish ships seem to be giving good plunder (or better than the French).

And for the new islands, I have started to call them Porky's and Greedo's.