Any way to kill a whale SOLO?

[George Catcher 367]

Because I already have 64 discovery points and still there at level cap of 53, I decided to hunt down a whale. I rebuilt my schooner, put there 2 ballistas, crafted 60 spears ammo, took all my crew and we departed. After a while we finally met one. I was steering. My crew shoot about 50 spears...

And guess what?

They didn't land a single damage. All spears just hit invisible wall over whale back and stuck there. The whale was swing over the water and all stuck spears were swinging with him. I gave up and back to the port...

So... I wonder. Any way to do it? Or whales also not for me (as well as golden age ruins).

Edited February 5, 2019 by George Catcher

[Percieval 1,067]

Yes. Lots of NPC’s on harpoons. I have only done a couple (few weeks ago) but that worked out fine. I’m not sure if they changed a lot to it in the meantime, anyone else knows? 

[George Catcher 367]

3 minutes ago, Percieval said:

Yes. Lots of NPC’s on harpoons. I have only done a couple (few weeks ago) but that worked out fine. I’m not sure if they changed a lot to it in the meantime, anyone else knows? 

Did U put harpoons to the back of your ship?

[Percieval 1,067]

2 minutes ago, George Catcher said:

Did U put harpoons to the back of your ship?

No to the front. He was dead before it could reach us, the ship is sunk now so can’t check it but I believe we had 5-6 on them. But then again; I don’t know what happened to the whales and harpoons in the meantime. 

[George Catcher 367]

Just now, Percieval said:

No to the front. He was dead before it could reach us, the ship is sunk now so can’t check it but I believe we had 5-6 on them. But then again; I don’t know what happened to the whales and harpoons in the meantime. 

Ok. Thx. I'll keep trying later then.

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

23 minutes ago, Percieval said:

Yes. Lots of NPC’s on harpoons. I have only done a couple (few weeks ago) but that worked out fine. I’m not sure if they changed a lot to it in the meantime, anyone else knows? 

I was gonna say get the whale hooked on meth, but harpoons seems faster.

[DocHolliday 366]

Looks like it was bugged.  2 nights ago we had a ship firing 2-3 harpoons at a whale and they took it down in less then 5 minutes. 

[Ankhwearer 19]

This does sound like a bug.

Also note, other posts say it takes around 100 spears to take out a whale. You didn't have enough ammo anyway.

[George Catcher 367]

8 minutes ago, Ankhwearer said:

This does sound like a bug.

Also note, other posts say it takes around 100 spears to take out a whale. You didn't have enough ammo anyway.

I saw a vid, where guy said "you need around 50 spears".

[Sharana 8]

Depends on the whale and on your hit ratio. The easiest way is to get the whale just behind the ship and have like 5 ballistics there - will melt in no time and most spears will hit.

[Zlax 41]

What you do is tag the whale with a carbine, then sail away just fast enough to keep it behind you in range, then open up with the NPCs. Wastes the least amount of bolts.

[George Catcher 367]

2day I just tried again and shoot that whale (he is still there for a week now) myself. I hit him and even took 750 damage. He didn't aggroed me. Just turned around and went deep underwater. I was following him until hes health bar disappeared. Never see him again... so-o-o-o-o-o... the next question here is - how to make whale aggro and follow you : ))

[Mephos 52]

here a video of me doing it solo on a schooner (blue whale, the friendly one). just showing this to explain you really have to get into the whales face that the speers work. your crew will fire at a way higher range than they can actually hit (not sure why). anyway they used up quite a lot of speers before I switched to firing manual. 

jump to 1:32 if you just want to see how I kill it. rest is me figuring out how close I have to be. 

for the aggressive version it should be easier since I can probably drag it behind me. 

btw schooner build is 5 balista front, 5 balista back, large speed sail, small handling, leveled in weight and crew costs. started with 300 speers, endet up with 160 left but I think I could have killed him with around 50 to 80 probably if I missed less. 

did that around 3-4 days ago after the patch with the whale spawn changes. 

 

 

Edited February 6, 2019 by Mephos

[gimpbrush 8]

hi, i have a galleon with 25 canons (large). is it possible with canons to kill a whales ?

[Ankhwearer 19]

15 hours ago, Mephos said:

here a video of me doing it solo on a schooner

And then the sharks almost got you! And you recovered the dropped gold with 7 seconds left on the timer.

That was full of close calls for you.

 

15 hours ago, gimpbrush said:

hi, i have a galleon with 25 canons (large). is it possible with canons to kill a whales ?

Cannons cannot hurt whales.

[Bowtie 34]

Cruise at the same speed as the whale, so you kite it effectively, then get off the helm and fire the harpoons yourself.

[Zythana 0]

9 hours ago, Ankhwearer said:

And then the sharks almost got you! And you recovered the dropped gold with 7 seconds left on the timer.

That was full of close calls for you.

 

Cannons cannot hurt whales.

Unless they have changed that in the last 2 weeks. i did kill it with cannons like 2 weeks ago. However i did kill it with my back cannons on my galleon. (But did this on private server, there shouldn't be any difference)

Edited February 7, 2019 by Zythana

[trqfreak350 38]

11 hours ago, Ankhwearer said:

Cannons cannot hurt whales.

They can but it's not relevant compared to the harpoons, a normal ship cannon hit for around 150 when we went through they were on aggressive and wasted some shots.

[Mephos 52]

12 hours ago, Ankhwearer said:

And then the sharks almost got you! And you recovered the dropped gold with 7 seconds left on the timer.

That was full of close calls for you.

calculated ;D 

and it was 47s left ^^

Edited February 7, 2019 by Mephos