Hero Siege Pirate Build: Anchor Swing or Cannonball, and How to Choose (S10)

One Class, Two Different Games

Most Hero Siege classes make their identity decision for you. The Pirate does not: community documentation describes Anchor Swing as a melee build and Cannonball as a ranged one, which means the Pirate is really two archetypes who happen to share a character select slot. If you have ever stalled at the class because you could not tell what it “is,” that is why — the honest answer is that it is whichever half you pick.

This page exists to make that pick easier, not to pretend it does not matter.

The Melee Door: Anchor Swing

Anchor Swing is the Pirate you bring into the pack. Its fantasy is blunt and physical — a heavy swinging melee tool — and its demands are the demands of every melee build: closing distance, surviving the close, and reading which fights to leave. If your instinct in an ARPG is to walk toward the problem, this half reads like a name for it, in the same family as Marauder or Butcher.

The cost is the standard melee cost, and the beginner guide covers it: you are punished for standing in area damage, and the difficulty ladder’s later rungs assume you learned to move.

The Ranged Door: Cannonball

Cannonball is the other Pirate — the one that keeps the fight at arm’s length and makes the map itself part of the build. Its demands are the ranged build’s demands: spacing, target priority, and knowing when to give ground. If you would rather solve a pack from outside it, this is the half that matches.

The trade is the mirror image of melee: safety at distance, pressure when something closes on you. Ranged builds that never plan for a monster in their face are the ones that die on the ladder, which is why the ranged classes on this site all repeat the same discipline.

The Mistake Is Playing Both

Here is the assertion this page is built on: the Pirate’s most common failure is refusing to choose. A build split between Anchor Swing and Cannonball looks flexible and plays unfocused — its gear serves two damage patterns, its tree serves two plans, and it ends a season competent at neither. The class’s two halves are not a menu to sample; they are a fork to survive.

That is the same principle the league starter page applies across the whole roster: at the deep end, focus beats breadth. The Pirate just makes the principle unusually literal.

Choosing in the First Hour

You do not need a season’s worth of data to decide — you need one honest answer to one question:

1. Play the campaign’s first act with Anchor Swing. Notice whether walking into packs feels like a plan or like a mistake.
2. Play the same act with Cannonball. Notice whether keeping distance feels like control or like cowering.
3. Pick the one that felt like a plan. Commit the Ether Tree to it and stop re-testing; the fork is behind you.
4. Level the other half later, on a second character if you must. A Pirate alt costs nothing to make and no longer poisons the first one’s build.

Pirate FAQ

Does the ranged Pirate play like the Marksman?

Only at the surface — both want distance, but a ranged build’s feel comes from its own tools, not its range bracket. If you want the site’s reference ranged class, read the Marksman build and treat Cannonball as its own thing rather than a clone.

Is the melee Pirate a beginner-friendly pick?

Melee generally asks for more positioning discipline than ranged, which is why the Viking is the community’s forgiving first melee. Anchor Swing is a real option, just a less protective one for a brand-new player.

Where does the Pirate sit on the tier list?

Community tier discussion does not treat “the Pirate” as one entry — its two halves are discussed separately, because they are different builds. That is the clearest sign that the fork is the class’s defining feature, and it is why this page refuses to hand you a single verdict.