Don't put points in Take Cover

[Steely Jim]

Well, I guess the bitterest pill first, I won't refute that putting 5 points in to the skill won't give the kind of return you'd expect for such a heavy point investment. I have rank 2 in Take Cover due to an accidental double-click at sea; I think 1 point would have been enough, but I don't totally begrudge the extra point either.

My first couple forays with using it had me scratching my head too, because it didn't even seem to be stopping regular cannonballs for me. However, now that I've had some experience with using it, I think I understand it a bit more. It does seem to be more effective against regular cannonballs, but I do get the sense that it might be reducing other types of damage (although, I suppose it's possible that by random chance all my opponents "rolled" low damage scores against me the times I used it).

I've seen the point made elsewhere, but now I can confirm it empirically: Take Cover gives you no protection against anything that is "in the air" when you trigger the skill. I think that's really where the problems start; I think a lot of people trigger the skill after it's too late to stop incoming attacks; then, to compound their problem, the protect wears off too soon and isn't there to protect from the next salvo.

The more minor problem with this skill is the poor feedback it gives when used successfully. Even against regular cannonballs, it won't offer 100% protection when there are many incoming cannonballs; however, when it works, the only real indication is that the cannonball doesn't trigger the "cracking wood" sound that it would if it hit the ship. Other than that, the cannonball looks like it keeps on traveling its normal trajectory; so, if you do get hit by some of the incoming cannonballs, then you never even realize that some of them didn't make a sound because they were deflected by Take Cover.