@wujuwarrior1375
I have a very STRONG losing streak in PvP but here is what I've learned by losing so much.
It may seem obvious, but I'll say this anyway - your best defense against any other player or crew is HITTING your canon ball shots. Period. If you can't apply pressure, you will lose every time. It's that simple.
When I play with my 4-man crew, I've seen that no matter what we try, the other team ALWAYS gets shots off before we do. The other teams can usually hit their shots too, so we are technically behind the curve before we even get a shot off. We tend to get hit 2-4 times before we can get shots off ourselves. So, whomever gets first shots off AND hits tend to win, if they can keep the pressure going.
Chain shots are chain shots. The best ammo in the game, no question. The crews that wreck us the worse, OPEN with chain shots. The only real defense against chains is distance or aiming for their canons and stopping them from firing chains in the first place. Easy to say - hard to do.
I've learned that the good crews aim for your canons first. If they can knock you off canons, you can't apply any pressure at all while they have free reign.
Boarding. I'm not a fan of cannon boarding TBH. But the game mechanic is still fun so I get I why it exists. For my crew, it is ultra important to defend effectively. Double-gunned boarders usually kill half the crew before we kill the boarder. One more way to keep our crew behind the curve, which gives them more time to canon our ship or canons. It is frustrating dedicating precious seconds guarding the ladders with two teammates, meaning those two teammates can't rep or fire, until we get the all-clear.