Use your favourite features in-game with our Desktop AppIt doesn’t take long after washing up on the shores of Windrose to realise that pirate life isn’t all sea shanties and buried treasure. Between boars that can drop you in a single hit, intense naval battles, and a massive world that takes time to navigate, the game offers a huge amount of content- but finding your rhythm can be challenging.
If you’re struggling to get going, these essential tips, smart workarounds, and a few OP strats will help you go from castaway to feared captain in no time.
The map in Windrose is enormous, so fast travel quickly becomes essential. Your first priority should be placing a Fast Travel Point at your main base as you’ll return here often for quests, crafting, and inventory management, so having a reliable anchor point is crucial.
Whenever you venture out, always carry a Fast Travel Bell. Once you land on a new island, build a Tent so you can respawn there, and then create a Fast Travel Point straight away. After that, you can clear the island and get a ton of XP.
You will want to travel back and forth to offload the lot and complete additional quests. Once you have cleared the island, you can dismantle the Fast Travel Point and recover your materials. Since you can only have up to 10 active points at once, it’s worth being selective about permanent locations.
Forgetting your Fast Travel Bell can be really frustrating and time-consuming if you manually journey back to your base, or if you intend to craft all the materials to create another one from scratch. Luckily, there are a few things you can do instead:
This instantly returns you to your tent on the island. You can find these potions in treasure locations like pirate dens, or craft them using:
Naval combat is one of my favourite mechanisms in the game. It is a great feature of the game, but it does take some practice to master. However, during my short time on the high seas, I’ve come up with some tips to help you.
Firstly, targeting the stern or the rear of the ship deals significantly more damage, as this is where ships are at their weakest. Although it can be a bit harder to hit. Secondly, as ships are constantly moving, you need to lead your shots to land them. Do not aim directly at the ship, but aim slightly ahead so they hit the ship as they continue moving forward.
Check out our Navel Guide for Windrose Here!
Now, let's move on to combat on the high seas. With so many targets to choose from in a fleet, who do you focus on?
Your main focus should be gunships first. They’re weaker and easier to kill compared to hauler ships or main ships, but they deal consistent damage and are annoying to face.
Keep an eye out for the “ready to be boarded” icon when you’re shooting these ships. Once that pops up, the ship is disabled, and this is your chance to hop on the ship and take loot. But, when this is a gunship, don’t bother.
Destroying any ships with non-loot treasure chests is a good idea, so you can focus on getting loot and the rewards.
While it may sound counterintuitive, when fighting against fleets, you should not be afraid to sail down the middle of them. Once you fire your starboard side, there will be a long cooldown, so you can switch to your port side and abuse the cooldown to hit multiple targets in quick succession. Plus, the enemy ships do not avoid friendly fire, so they might hit each other's ships!
Now, let's move back to living on the land. Combat in Windrose is very unforgiving, and everything you do costs stamina: attacking, dodging, sprinting, everything drains it. However, there is a lifesaver which many players overlook- Blocking. Blocking is tied to your Posture Shields, and not your stamina.
Even if your stamina is depleted, you can still block incoming attacks as long as you have shields remaining. Look at the shield icons at the bottom of the screen. This makes blocking a critical survival tool when you’re exhausted.
Food such as Bananas are OP in Windrose. They’re a vital resource to keep your Stamina topped up and allow you to stay in the fight for longer. One of the best early-game foods is Coconut Milk with Bananas, which boosts endurance (your stamina stat). Bananas aren’t found on your starting island, but they’re common in nearby jungle areas.
Food is not the only way to manage your energy; you also need the Rested Buff. The Rested Buff significantly improves stamina regeneration, but it disappears when you die, so it is always important to refresh it before heading into the unknown.
It only takes a few minutes to refresh your stamina, and the fastest ways of doing it are by fast-travelling to your base and waiting before teleporting back, or boarding your ship, as it shares your base's comfort level, which allows you to regen stamina really quickly.
Hunting crabs that are found along the jungle shores can provide you with loot such as Crab Shells, which can be used to craft a trophy that permanently increases your base’s comfort level. It is exceptionally rare, but crafting it extends the duration of your rested buff. These drops are rare, so collect crabs whenever you see them. But don’t bother with the large undead crabs, as they don’t drop shells.
As you get XP and gain levels, you'll be dumping points into your stats. A lot of players stress over making the perfect build, but here is a massive tip: you can reset your stat points at almost any time. You can reset your points at any time and use this feature to your advantage.
This flexibility lets you optimise your character for whatever task you’re tackling.
It might sound rather simple, but to save yourself hours of grinding, kill every single Boar you see. Boars are your primary source of Rough Hide, which is used in crafting armour and weapons, building ship pieces and then upgrading and enchanting equipment.
Throughout your play through, you’re going to need tons of the stuff, and Boars are the easiest way of getting it. They’re easier to kill than Wolves or Goats.
As a bonus, Boars also drop meat, which can be cooked, and they occasionally drop Boar Heads, which can be sold for silver or turned into trophies.
Windrose can be quite challenging, but it also rewards you for being strategic. By following everything we have suggested in this guide today, you’ll see yourself having a much easier time in Windrose moving forward!
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