Nautical Training Hotspot: Haunted Skyway

The Haunted Skyway in Cool Ranch is more than an a skyway that is completely unique. It's more than an important questing location and home to the infamous fights with Captain Blood and Deacon. In fact, this location is a spacious and effective training location for what may be the most tedious part of the game: nautical level training.

Nautical level is the one part of the game that is really optional. It is not required to get as high a level of ship as possible, but makes a good ship great. That's because the gear and equipment that goes on a ship can make or break it, and that equipment requires a certain nautical level.

Training Tip: For tough battles, don't just use the highest level ship you have, use the one that allows you to equip lots of equipment. If a new ship alone can overpower your current ship with gear, your nautical level is too low.

Besides having the coolest ship in the Spiral, it'll also make ship-to-ship battles much easier, and will provide you with a variety of unique attacks that make for some exciting moments (not to mention photos).

There are two main types of ships to fight based on your level. First, between the two windlanes, are Ghost Ships. These are low to mid-thirties in level, usually 32-34. Even as high as level 25, you can receive as much as 205 experience from these ships. 

Training Tip: These may seem fairly easy, but their simplicity allows you to fight continuously, moving back and forth to fight other ships between kills. They're far enough apart, that it isn't likely you'll engage two. Consequently, you won't need to worry about wasting time healing between battles.

The beauty of these ships is that, once engaged, they do not move. That means that staying outside of the boarding range (orange target circle) will prevent any possible boarding. I'm not sure these ghosts even make an attempt at close range!

Training Tip: You can't equip items during a ship battle, so check out any new ship parts you receive after each battle - they may make for a much more effective killing.

These moderately leveled ships make for good training. Better yet, they can drop gold in the hundred, and commonly drop ship parts. Keep this in mind with these ships specifically - instead of defeating one for much experience, you're defeating many for smaller amounts. Ships will drop ship parts that are either relevant to the ship you're using, or relevant to the world in which the ship is located (Cool Ranch, in this case). That being said, if you have your free MooShu ship with little or no pieces of equipment, fighting these can yield much-needed rewards, and may be worth the sacrifice of abilities that another ship has.

Training Tip: Armor, while useful, actually slows your firing rate. You will probably find, at decent nautical levels, that these ships are fairly simple. Sacrifice the bit of ship health by removing the ship armor. This will make for a more offensive approach, which is more effective in a variety of cases.

If these are too simple, then try a few of the harder ships in this skyway! Beyond the windlane against the outer part of the skyway (not against the cliff faces), are several level 47 ships - these can make for some impressive experience. However, they can be tough, too.

When considering whether or not to defeat these ships, ask yourself - how much experience do I get from Ghost Ships? How fast do I defeat them? Can I defeat enough in the time it takes me to defeat one level 47 ship and heal afterwards to better that method?

Be careful - these ships tend to chase you around, so watch out for boarding possibilities. This can really slow training down! While they occasionally drop ship parts, you'll more often find yourself with a nice pile of gold. Fortunately, these ships are very far apart.

Training Tip: While you typically don't find them around the best training areas, ships can be backed up to Bone Snakes and Bloodbats - be careful, those are a time-consumer that you're not interested in!

While there are other ships in the skyway, they don't offer the same benefits that these do, but feel free to try them out! A common question here is why not train in MooShu? In MooShu, many ships aren't even as high as the level 47s we find here. Not only that, but nearly all decent MooShu ship spots and crowded, and battles with multiple high level ships are something to avoid for sure!

Fighting in groups here is extremely easy, because the ships are as spread out as anywhere, and two figureheads are better than one, right?

Training Tip: Get some friends together to train nautical level. Not only will you become noticeably wealthier, but you'll also get new ships and equipment!

I highly recommend you try fighting with friends - the XP will absolutely roll in even with two people. Add one or two more, and you'll be flying through those nautical levels!

What do you think? Have you tried these methods? Have any other favorite spots? Let me know! As always, thanks for reading (if you actually made it through my long and detailed post), and see you in the Spiral!