Ubertron_X

What Wargaming has done right this time is that you can partially or fully complete your normal missions while playing a "fun" mode. So regarding missions you are more or less free to chose if you want to go for a regular battle or big hunt. What is not equal however is the "loss" of other income, most prominently XP. As such I will not and never have seriously invested time into these modes as I need every single XP on my captains, not on the Orlan. I do understand that you "trade" those XP for other stuff (available via the battle point lottery), however I am not as much interested in those as I am in XP.

The whole process of choosing and receiving containers is outrageous if you take a minute to think it through. I don't wanna know how many years of total life time is wasted with mandatory animations. And thats made even worse in all cases of insufficient content like the one reported.

You should first check on your right not to incriminate yourself...

I am not too hard on WG, using premium time since I started my journey with them in 2010 and occasionally buying tanks, planes or ships for money, gold or doubloons, however I usually only keep T10 non-premium ships in port in WoWs. As such Lepanto would have only been a transitional ship anyway and as I am not short on credits either the tempation to play it like 6 weeks earlier was not too great. Still I am very much opposed to the loot box type pre-release of tech tree lines as has happened the last couple of times. Nonetheless I agree that the T4-7 ships and permacamos are fine and will hopefully help to lessen the pressure on the MM queue.

Got lucky just this one time and had Lepanto as the very first offer for 1500 doubs. Was quite tempted initially but still did not buy it, mainly due to time constraints (why buy something early if you can't play it sufficiently) and because I do not support those kind of early release models in general.

Because they are only "junk" if you only consider foolproof one-size-fits all as proper skills. Considering the different nations and their individual characteristics I use 8 of those 12 skills on my destroyers, for example better turret traverse on IJN as well as some KM and SN. 2 Mandatory though.

Then you might need to rethink. In between torp heavy, gun heavy or hybrid there is a lot of variation after 10 to 13 skill points (PM, LS, SE, CE & AR).

I think you might be dismissing the damage boosting skills far too easily. For example in order to surpass FTT with AR you need to have lost 50% HP. And they stack.

My biggest gripe with smoke gunboat DDs (Haragumo, Friesland etc.) is that they usually need a spotter instead of providing spotting. Not necessarily bad ships though.

WG logic: Lots of flight time because BBs stay back plus tighter groupings = easier to dodge, da?

Its the plus icon in the top center of the screen when you are in the commanders view (either for changing or assigning a commander). 4 slots for 100 doubloons.

But...but...but... there is a pinned thread for this! /sarkasm

I bought the Ignis Purgatio last time it was around as an alternative to the Kii and was pleasantly surprised by the voiceover until I took a captain rework to the knee...

Full reset via the magic button and skilled a couple (5) that are currently on their way to 21 points and which can be used on many premium ships of their nation (namely von Jutland, Yamamoto, Halsey, Kuznezov, Cunningham), simply to give me some diversity while playing. The rest of my commanders stays unskilled until further notice.

Thanks, seemed to somehow have missed this episode.

@MrConway : What would be interesting to know (at least for me) would be how HP are recovered when using the Repair party consumable to each area of your ship. As far as I know ammo type, damage and damage zones have now been covered however the topic of repairs has not yet been touched. Just saying...

Instead of a hard reduction in spotting time an alternative solution could be to increase the dispersion of the firing ship if it is "late to the party". For example: Firing on a detected DD within 10 seconds of its detection: Normal dispersion. Firing on a detected DD within 15 seconds of its detection: Dispersion increased by x. Firing on a detected DD within 20 seconds of its detection: Dispersion increased by x+y. Firing on a deteced CA or CL within 15 seconds of its detection: Normal dispersion. Firing on a deteced CA or CL within 20 seconds of its detection: Dispersion increased by x. Firing on a deteced BB within 20 seconds of its detection: Normal dispersion. Many dev strikes on DDs or CAs (CLs) occur when the enemy shots have been fired within the last few seconds of its visibility, i.e. when the DD or CA has already gone "dark" and started manouevering while the shells are still in the air. Depending on where the shots come from it may take up to 35 seconds before the fired upon ship can freely manouver again. Increased dispersion of "late" shells could help with that whithout compromising overall reaction times.

While pondering for a bit over what to skill for my favorite ships I noticed that not only the new skills themselves may prove problematic (*hint* cruisers *hint*), but also how the improved skills of some commanders have changed (mostly because the old skills are gone for some classes or have been moved) and some of my cherished builds have thus simply been vanquished. For example Franz von Jütland, who was my prime captain for Hindenburg and Prinz Eugen, always protecting his team from those pesky torpedoes using Hydroaccoustic Search plus Hydroaccoustic Search Modification 1 plus Vigilance can not do his job anymore as Vigilance has been removed from both DD and CA (where it is best). He can now only use his improved Vigilance skill to the fullest in German BBs that actually have Hydro and only from T8+ which I do consider a brutal reduction in flexibility. And due to his 2nd improved skill not being something to write home about either WG has somehow managed to make an already struggling special commander even worse. What is your take on special commanders with improved skills in the new skill tree, respectively what kind of positive surprises or similar setbacks have you experienced with your favourite ships and special commanders?

Will (and have) reset almost all with the exception of a selected few selected special unique commanders (like Yamamoto, Halsey, Cunningham, Kuznetzov) which are on their way to 21 points and will be used for the daily grind, whatever it currently is (dockyard, new year, dailies).

Christkind

When your DDs fail hard you often basically have to play the long game. Stay alive for as long as you can, deal as much damage as you can, hope for a miracle. And those are not as rare as you might think. Just because your DDs might have been bad or inexperienced players does not exclude the possibility that the enemy DDs might be too. I have seem my good share of "unopposed" DDs falling pray to (non-radar) cruisers or even battleships late in the match asking myself how this is possible. Or you have the better CV, cancelling the enemy DD advantage. Or in very rare cases even the much better surface fleet. I have won a good share of battles where our surface fleet managed to annihilate the enemy surface fleet despite losing our DDs early on. And there is few most DDs can do versus a pushing capital ship that a) knows that there is a DD around and b) is not distracted by other enemy ships especially if you add some hydro or radar to the mix. However your observation about the match influence of DDs is correct as is your observation that because of this fact it is often very desirable to trade in a friendly cruiser for an enemy DD. In fact if there is a reasonable chance of killing an enemy DD I will often also risk my own cruisers while trying to do so.

"...Sound of the drums Beating in my heart The thunder of guns Tore me apart You've been Thunderstruck..."

Improved skill is 1/1.25 = 0.8 btw so you have either 13% or 20% faster turrets (e.g. Yamamoto). I actually use this skill a lot on IJN torp boats or some Russian DDs (e.g. Gremy or Leningrad) in order to keep the guns trained on the enemy while heavily evading / kiting.

Unfortunately I can't help you here, as despite the Tirpitz being one of my oldest premiums I never bothered to use any secondary builds apart from a lone GK specced to farm secondary hits in PvE. My number of battles in the Pommern is small still, however the results and gameplay experience are best described as mediocre and astonishingly a lot worse than when I actively used the FdG. However there was a lot of meta shift in between when I last used the FdG and me now using the Pommern, so perhaps my playstyle has not adjusted yet.