There are 11 different ships for players to choose from in Skull and Bones, each tailored to excel in specific activities within the game. I’ll delve into the top ship options for various activities among the 5 higher-tier ships available.

It’s important to note that while the best ship in Skull and Bones can significantly affect your gameplay, success isn’t solely determined by your vessel. Factors like weapons, furniture, and armor also play pivotal roles in battles and contract completions.

PvP - Sambuk

We have the Sambuk. This is a DPS ship, specialized in dealing damage and status effects. The DPS favors an aggressive play style. Now, this s the absolute best ship to use in PvP.The Sambuk is better if players are trying to get Torn Sails. It is going to reduce the duration of that effect by 80% if they are successful.

It deals 5,000 burning damage when you apply the Ablaze effect to an enemy ship. Ablaze is going to be applied to enemies within a radius of 150 meters, and it increases damage to ships that have the Ablaze effect by an extra 50%. It’s a really sturdy ship.

Having the blue specter or obtaining sea-fire and Fire Bombard will make your time on this ship amazing.

PvE - Brigantine

The Brigantine has essentially been nerfed in the game. It used to be everyone was using the brig in PvP because you had a faster speed. But Ubisoft put out an update for the game, and they made it so that once you are carrying something like a legendary treasure map when you’re doing the Cutthroat Cargo Hunt event, you are capped with your speed. So, the Brigantine can only go like 14 knots instead of going up to speeds of 18.

The Brigantine is another DPS, so it specialized in dealing with damage and status effects. The DPS favors an aggressive play style. I’m going to say this is best for your typical PvE content but mainly for your manufacture collection runs because these runs for the helm for the endgame Pieces Of Eight can get very tedious. So having the extra speed on this ship is really beneficial to doing those collection runs.

It doesn’t work too great in PvP, but in PvE, you have a perk called Bullhorn. It increases damage from ramming by 45% and it reduces the duration of Torn Sails effect by 80% and it applies flooded to an enemy ship upon ramming. You’re going to deal with increased damage.

Solo Play - Snow

Then we have the Snow, which is an absolute beast for both PvE and PvP again, but this one’s not a DPS. It’s specialized in bracing against incoming damage. It excels in defense. The reason for it is that it has 50,000 health. You can increase that with some of the furniture and stuff you can get in the game.

It recovers brace strength, which it has 25,000 off, by 4% per second whilst you’re bracing. It also increases the brace strength by 50% and the recovery by 150%. This is great for survival as it provides a large health pool. Not only that, whilst you’re bracing, your brace is coming back and bracing is going to stop you from taking the damage. So, this is incredible for both PvE and PvP.

Then in PvE, if you’re taking on rogues and stuff and you’re struggling a bit in the Brigantine, switch over to this because it’s so good at the end in and you might keep yourself alive longer. While it may deal less damage compared to other ships, the tank is still highly effective.

Group Play - Barque

Barque, which is going to be best for group play and healing teammates. So, even if you’re not in a group but you are going to do PvE stuff where there might be other players involved, you can take this ship along, stick some Repair Bombards and stuff on it, and you’re going to heal other players. This ship is a support type specialized in aiding friendly ships. The support excels in providing assists that can help turn the tide of a battle.

The reason you’re going to take this one if you’re playing in group play and wanting to heal your teammates is because the perk revitalized restores 0.5% of severe damage and 0.5% of your whole damage or your whole Health per second, and that happens for nearby ships as well. But it also restores 15% of your stamina, 10% of your severe damage, and 60% more of your whole Health on a friendly ship while using a repair weapon.

Plunder - Padewakang

Then last but definitely not least is the Padewakang. This is probably one of the first high-tier ships you’re going to get your hands on. It’s a DPS ship, specialized in dealing damage and status effects. The DPS is an aggressive play style. This ship is best for if you are plundering or if you’re doing any sort of PvE content against groups of enemies, especially for like the rogues and stuff.

But I’ll try to stick with the PvE content in Skulls and Bones with Padewakang. The perk on this is called Detonate and explosive hits have a 70% chance of triggering an explosion which deals 1,000 damage within a 125 meter blast radius.

That increases to 100% instead of 70% with the explosive hits if the target ship is a blaze. But this ship also increases damage to structures by 50%. So, the towers that are at forts and stuff and your weapon damage radius get increased by 12% as well.

When it comes to plunder with Padewakang, if you stick on Fire Bombards and you have the Mortar, that explosive damage is going to be incredible against those towers and stuff to take them down. So that it’s just you and the ships in them, like in that fight to plunder whichever base you want.