Undertow

This guide explores building of the Undead frigate, Undertow.

Introduction

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Undertow is a mighty hunk of ship capable of destroying a myriad of foes. With powerful hardpoint stacks and impressive damage output, this ship makes for an excellent generalist. We're gonna look at Undertow's playstyle and cover three builds.

An overview of this ship:

• Cannons only on broadsides
  
• Passive--Poltergeist: Gain high-damage orbiting projectile on kill
  
• Tier X: Cursed Cannons (Iron shot disables enemy cannon quadrants, with cooldown)
  
• Pros and cons:
  + Many cannons; good damage output
  + Versatile options for both defense and offense
  + High crew
  - Low armor
  - Weak to ramming if untreated
  - Slow movement and turning

Cannons: Skullcracker (I), Torrent (V; high crit chance/dmg, quick reload, +range), Ouroboros (IX; short range, high-power)
Utility: Dredgetide Rudder (II; +30% knockback resist, +30% ram dmg resist, +20% turn rate), Blitterspite Sails (VI; +20% max speed, +20% acceleration)
Defense: Deadiron Bulkhead (III; +45 crew, +10% hull integrity, -25% boarding cooldown), Shadeplate Armor (VII; +30% armor dmg resist, -5% max speed)
Offense: Dreadculler Deck (IV; +30% board range, -10% captain cooldown, -10% cannon reload), Catacomb Gunports (VIII; +3 cannons on each broadside, +5% firing delay)
Unique: Cursed Cannons (X)

Undertow's my favorite Undead ship.

First things first, always always ALWAYS run Fungus (resist bosun) and Shadeplate armor. 60% armor damage resist total is one of Undertow's most powerful features. This makes Siphon the best it can be, and gives you an upper hand against virtually all builds.

Another stack you may want to consider is 80% ramming damage resist, by pairing Lord Farthom or Ashfoot with Dredgetide Rudder. Dredgetide gives a great turn boost and the 30% ram DR is great, so I'd run that hardpoint either way.

Finally, another mate/hardpoint stack is running a cook (captain) with Dreadculler Decks. This gives -40% captain cooldown, ranked third behind Dread's -50% and Tide's -55%.

Most successful captains are Greavus Leaguemoor and Morte Shadehowler (I use Greavus). Both of these have the ability to give 100% critical damage resist when used with Fungus.
Greavus ramps up Undertow's damage output even further, letting you subsequently board, hit with poltergeist, and unload cannons (which, as you've probably noticed, dish out a lot).
Morte amplifies Undertow's crippling powers, as you can disable a quadrant with cursed cannons, then later make it hard to be hit at all with the fart cloud, chaining those in succession.

The Crit Tank

High damage output and damage resistance--is it too much to ask for both?

60% armor damage resistance goes a long way. Stick a crit cook on there and you have critical chance resist to boot. To finish the harmony, use Torrent cannons and a powder monkey (the legendaries are nice if you can). Torrent cannons are like if Harbringers and Sawtooth had a baby--not as much base damage, but high range, great crits, great accuracy, and fast reload. Grab the level 5 mate traits Thrill of Victory and Sneaky (Guarded if you want to be absolutely evil) and you can shred through most anything.

Speed is one of the first problems you'll notice. However, you've got the range--and Siphon--to compensate. Anyone fast enough to run away will have to get out of their cannon range, barring perhaps a Cinder and some Furies. But Torrent cannons come with extremely high sail damage, enough that one volley can often bring a ship below half.

Another thing to watch out for is your hull. You've got 600, but that can go away very quickly if you don't keep your armor topped off or if you aren't expedient in dispatching boarding builds.

I've only suggested loadout for cannons and armor, really; the other hardpoints depend on how you want to run your ship. Go back to the general considerations above and see what you like!

The Undying

The Undying build is a floating fortress of doom. It can soak up massive punishments while still dishing out painful barrages. Let's dive right in.

Loadout

Mates

Fungus (Resist Bosun)
Bonnie (Resist Shipwright)
Enok (Speed Navigator)--sub for Wikken the Lost, if you have him

Hardpoints

Cannons: Ouroboros
Utility: Dredgetide Rudder
Defense: Shadeplate Armor
Offense: Dreadculler Deck

Captain

Greavus Leaguemor or Morte Shadehowler. Merridan is a mobility option, which isn't quite what this build's going for. Also, the two suggested provide a stacking crit damage resistance.

My current Undertow build, ever since I found this one I was hooked.
As you can see, this has Fungus as usual, but opts for Caedmon (resist shipwright), and Wikken the Lost (simultaneous speed and damage boosts).

This build offers one of the most durable ships possible in the game. The stacks of hardpoints and mates amount to 60% armor damage resist (50% if you run Wikken), 50% hull damage resist, 40% ramming damage resist, and 100% critical damage resist. This means that 720 hull turns into an effective 1440. When full on armor boons, you have 750 on a broadside, which acts as 1500. This means repair boons and Siphon are also twice as effective, since it takes 2 damage to remove 1 hit point.

Damage is not sacrificed in the slightest. Ouroboros cannons are like Undead Bowbreakers--they punch holes through just about anything without much need for augmentation. Still, Wikken the Lost adds a welcome 10% damage buff that increases this effect.

[Torrent cannons aren't as great in this case because there isn't base damage to augment and crits aren't emphasized. So opt for Ouroboros (i.e. Undead Bowbreakers). These need next to no augments because of their sheer power, but Wikken gives them some anyway.]

While slightly faster than the crit tank, speed is still a struggle and this time you don't have the range to handle it. You do, however, have the durability. Find some terrain and use harpoon or fart cloud to make sure the enemy cannot avoid you from afar. In any case, the ability to tank an entire minefield is certainly worth it.

The Charger

I thought it'd be great to have a combo of ramming and boarding, so I tried it out. Conrad the Bonecrusher, a helmsman, and a navigator might make a good combo, or perhaps throwing in some crew damage with Ouroboros and adding Mortal Glyphs on Greavus. However, in order to be good at all these things, you'd need too many mate slots.
This is where Undertow's versatility becomes a disadvantage; you'd be better off just shooting them with iron shot anyway. So my jury's still out on this one, but I'm still keeping an eye open.