Captain Flameheart and his fleet of ghost ships are attempting to take over the Sea of Thieves. You can participate in the world event if you see the massive orange skull in the sky with a beard and a large hat. Sail to the location, and you should find an enormous ghost fleet circling the island. Take them down one by one to summon stronger ships, and eventually, Flameheart’s flagship, the Burning Blade.
Defeating Captain Flameheart
The world event features four waves you need to complete to survive and beat the captain. Upon completing each wave of the event, you and your crew must face a new fleet of battle-ready ghost ships that appear. The orange skull above the event should be speaking to you the entire time, continually throwing banter about you and your crew’s chances, and steadily becomes increasingly worried as the battle draws on.
First Wave
The first wave in the event should already be ready for you to battle when you arrive, and only features grunt ghost ships. The grunt ships only require three direct hits from a cannonball before they disappear, making them exceedingly easy to take down. How they usually defeat players is their overwhelming numbers. You want to make sure to bounce back and forth between repairing your ship, bailing water, and having someone on a cannon. Sometimes, it’s better to fix the ship and bail water than to have someone firing back. You will complete the first wave after defeating seven grunts.
While grunts are easy to take down, they carry Storage Crates of the Damned, containing a good amount of wooden planks and cannonballs. You will pick them out in the water by the ghostly spirits circling them, much like seagulls do for barrels in the water. You and your crew want to go out of your way to obtain them throughout the Captain Flameheart encounter.
Second Wave
All of the remaining grunt ships from the first wave will enter portals to depart the island. After that, two ghost Ashen Dragon Ships appear with a pair of grunt ships. While the grunts have the same amount of health from the ones you defeated during the first wave, the Ashen Dragon Ships are significantly more durable, firing more powerful cannons, and require 10 direct hits from your cannonballs before disappearing. Once both Ashen Dragon Ships are gone, the third wave begins.
Third Wave
This wave is exceptionally similar to the first one, where you need to take down seven grunts ships before going to the next wave. It’d be good to take your time with this wave to grab any Storage Crates of the Damned that you find.
Fourth Wave
The final wave consists of going against Captain Flameheart’s ship, the Burning Blade, alongside a pair of Ashen Dragon Ships from the first wave. There are also a handful of regular ghost captains sailing around the island with a pair of grunt ships protecting them. You will win the wave and complete the event after defeating the Burning Blade, which requires 24 direct hits to disappear. Although, you can delay the fight and acquire more loot by taking down captain and Ashen Dragon Ships before taking down the Burning Blade.
Your best strategy is to switch between firing on the pair of Ashen Dragon Ships and shooting the Burning Blade. While they may look similar, the Burning Blade has a distinct burning heart on its sails, making it easy to find. To walk away with the most loot, you want to capture any of it that the stronger ships drop because these can easily despawn over time. The loot is shown by the ghostly specters hovering above them in the water.
Other player ships can potentially join this world event at any time. They can show up to form an alliance with you against Captain Flameheart or steal your hard-won loot.
