Pirate Crossbower

She is invasion only. Nothing summons her by herself, she does not appear on the coast between events, and meeting one means a Pirate Invasion is already underway. She fills the ranged slot on the bow side, the way the deadeye does with a gun.

The melee pirates you can out position. She reaches you anyway. Her arrows are lit, they cross a good stretch of screen, and a fair share of them set you burning. In a busy wave the fire is what actually kills, not the arrow: you catch a burn while three corsairs are in your face and the healing you were counting on is already spoken for. The burn also runs far longer in Expert and longer again in Master.

• She needs to see you. A block of terrain or a step down in floor height removes the threat entirely while you clear the melee.
• Kill her ahead of the slower bodies. The crowd is forgiving, she is not.
• Once you carry something that stops the burn, such as an Ankh Shield, she drops to background noise.
• Later patches slowed her arrows and shortened her reach, so simply backing off works better than it once did.