Ubertron_X

Before the patch I would have 100% said Pommern first, however after the patch it seems wise to always consider your existing premium fleet. If you already have a lot of German premiums Lütjens might be more valuable than an additional ship. If your German premium fleet is small Pommern might be the better addition. As an example in my case Franz von Jütland while trained for Hindenburg is also looking after Pommern, Ägir, Odin, Tirpitz, Prinz Eugen, Scharnhorst, Z-39, P.E. Friedrich and Graf Spee and I would rather consider a unique captain over an additional premium.

Don't you earn more XP in total if you use a 19 point (or lower) captain instead of a 21 point one? If you use a 21 point captain all XP (e.g. 1000) will be converted to elite XP. If you use a 19 point captain he will receive his commander XP as normal (e.g. 1000) and you will get 5% elite XP on top (50 in this example). The downside is that you are operating your ship with a lesser skilled captain and you have less elite XP to spend freely. Having said so I switched from using one of the 21 points Jutland brothers cycling through my German premiums in order to farm elite XP to directly training Yamamoto 19 => 21 by cycling through my Japanese premiums.

Is this part of the same visuals bug that will be fixed with 0.10.1 @MrConway (Pommern displayed twice but with slightly different content)? Edit: One seems to be the "coal" entry and one the "doubloons" entry, Georgia has the same issue.

The thing is that this kind of interchangeability devaluates even legendary commanders like captain Dasha!

Something I noticed while playing for the last couple of days was, that due to the changes made to how commanders work I play less world of warships and more world of commanders, especially the special and unique ones. Note that this will probably not be an universal issue as the "problem" seems only prevalent if you have said special commanders and a fairly large fleet of premium ships. In the old system I had e.g. Yamamoto in Yamato using a standard BB spec, Justinian Lyons XIII on the Ignis Purgatio (Amagi clone), Takao on ARP Takao (Atago clone) and Iona in the Asashio B, with the later three having unique voiceovers each. And yes, while I could have easily used Yamamoto on the Ignis Purgatio I would probably not use him on either ARP Takao or Asashio because cruisers and destroyers usually require a different skillset than battleships. In the new system there is few (non-weeb) incentive to not use Yamamoto on all 4 ships and I will thus probably not use the other commanders for a very, very long time. I know that this is "working as intended" to increase the market value of special or unique commanders, however I found it rather sad that all semi-special commanders (unique voiceovers like the ARP ships or the Transformer captains) have thus been greatly diminished and instead of the Ignis Purgatio, Takao or Asashio and their quirky captains I now "play" Yamamoto. Perhaps this will change over time, however at the moment it feels very strange.

Quoted for truth. On most of the skills that do offer a numerical buff the number simply is too small (and/or penalty is too high). That is the exact reason why people usually select skills that do not offer a buff but that let them do or know what was impossible before. Incomming Fire Alert, Priority Target, Last Stand or Radio Location are usually considered to be among the "better" skills.

My personal take so far: 1. Dead-Eye - Skill can be literally used by any BB, however as BB's seem to have the most viable 4 point skills you might run out of skillpoints at some time, depending on what you are trying to spec for. 2. Super Heavy AP shells (BB) - The penalty on the fire extinguishing time is too harsh. Perhaps some Russian battleboates with their non-existing DCP cooldown timer can pull it off, will most likely avoid it. 3. Super heavy HE and SAP shells (multiple choice) - Gave it a try in Kronshtadt (together with TGG; 18.2 shooting, 18.1 visibility) and was not impressed but perhaps it was not the correct choice of chassis. Cruisers giving up concealment is a real punishment given how the spotting system and established meta work, so I can't see myself taking it apart from meme builds. 4. Heavy AP shells (Cruisers) - Immediately picked it up once I realized that cruisers will otherwise have a difficult time spending points on general improvements. If you do not have workable torps (IJN) or if you do not want to build a dedicated Flak cruiser you are running out of options rather fast. 5. Outnumbered - Even while you could theoretically force it (joining your teams weak flank etc) the skill is still way too situational. Apart from that, who wants to fight at a numerical disadvantage on purpose while being a cruiser yourself? 6. Top Grade Gunner - Looks nice for Moskva or Stalingrad who have bigger concealment than most BBs. Also looks nice in case your cruiser can somehow go DD hunting. However the later is not especially advised in the current meta. 7. Dazzle - Took this skill for hybrid DDs that occasionally get outspotted by or want to battle torpedo DDs more often than not, or for DDs that can't outrange 10km/12km radar with their torps. So if you blink in once in a while the counter battery fire will hopefully not be as devastating. 8. Fearless Brawler (multiple choice) - Prime choice for all "this DD has more concealment than some cruisers" gunboats. 9. Swift in Silence - Nice skill for torpedo destroyers, especially as many of those tend to be rather slow. 10. Extra-Heavy AP shells (DD) - Must be a skill in preperation of the new German DD line. Not worthwhile imho, even for DDs like Z-39.

And all the other surface ship are like: "Where did you come from, where did you go? Where did you shoot from, Dead-Eye Joe?"

The thing is that when general engagement ranges go up the validity of secondary builds usually tends to go down. This is nothing new and could always be observed when transitioning from T8 to T10. And the current "meta" has us seeing another increase in engagement ranges (too early for final judgement I'd say but at least that is what most people claim). Which of course means that even if WG would have kept the old secondary skills, all secondary specc'ed ships have lost efficiency, which in my humble opinion already wasn't very great to start with.

Last Stand is even necessary for some cruisers! *cough* Prinz Eugen *cough*

Last time I counted I had like 27 tech tree T10 ships, so I will require at least 27 fully trained captains in order to be prepared for any clan wars meta change shenanigans. Of those there are 14 or 15 special or unique captains which I will likely train to 21 points first. So while this means that e.g. Franz von Jütland can probably handle his Hindenburg and all my German premium ships on his own, I will still need 2 additional German captains for Großer Kurfürst and Z-52 as I do not plan on wasting doubloons or elite XP on retraining. To do so I need to aquire the "small" amout of 32.4 million elite XP, i.e. 1.2 million per captain as all my T10 captains already were 19 pointers. This is the equivalent of leveling 19 fresh captains from 0 to maximum in the old system. Fun times. Though I have some more than the currently required maxed out (as per the old system) T10 captains as spares I will not dismiss a single one, instead keeping them as "building stock" for new T10 ships of upcomming tech trees. Might dismiss some free 3 or 6 pointers though.

10 still has Concealment Expert and this is all you ever need.

Also note that almost all my old captains will stay on shore leave and have a nice, cold pint in the Winchester until all of this has blown over. (over 100 of them, not all 19 of course)

Also I am shortly before making a reference sheet of which ships that I do own play similar in order to cut down the number on captains needed to a bare minimum, starting with T10, because those are the ones usually used during clan wars. For example, Franz von Jütland is now in charge of a total of 10 ships, keep up the good work Franz!

Might dismiss a couple of commanders up to 6 points escpecially if I got them for free, like the christmas ones and/or have them double, like some ARP ones, and dont need them otherwise. However I will never ever dismiss any other, at least not for silver and I will never consider using doubloons.

Thats my Hindenburg, Ägir, Prinz Eugen, Graf Spee generalist set-up and all I found I could really do.

My first impression using ONLY one captain on 3 different ship types. BB and DD skill trees are still workable and offer viable choices, CAs look shafted unless your crusier has some workable torpedoes or wants to function as an AA ship. Can't tell about CV.

Just specced Dreadnaught and will start the 5 epochs of navy campaign soon...

Met @Uglesett in his Enterprise yesterday while captaining a Azuma myself. Unfortunately for him he was solo while I was in a division and his team let him down big time, so we won rather easily.

Anniversary SC yield (33 SC - T10 ships only): Doubloons 4000 Free XP 150000 Coal 60000 Steel 1500 Premium time 58 Camo 350 Regular Flags 600 Special Flags 175 X-mas container yield (37 containers - T10 ships only): Doubloons 1500 Free XP 50000 Coal 5000 Steel 0 Premium time 0 Camo 72 Regular Flags 500 Special Flags 0 Just some impressions. Of course the sample size is still low thus the luck of the draw is still an issue, however SC's seem vastly superior to e.g. our X-mas boxes. Personally I use the flag containers and can confirm that when I play regularily (which is 2 to 3 containers a day) I get approx. one SC per month (out of 60 to 90 containers). Usual yield is some 50 regular flags so I would not call them bad, but not super either (50 flags = 6 to 7 regular flag containers). Things like ships, doubloons, coal and steel are indeed very nice and welcomed drops, however I also have to mention that while already having received some of the later I am still waiting for a (meaningful) ship out of a SC after 5 years of WoWs (and this is including all anniversary events so far).

Downside: Labelled, classified and used as a DD for matchmaking purposes.

Its almost as if WG does not like stealth & smoke gameplay anymore... /irony

As others have already mentioned tanking is a craft of its own, even in the most armoured and durable ships in the game. Engaging too early will usually get you sunk early and engaging too late will usually lose your game. Battleships may be hard targets, however their individual strength will shine all the more the fewer enemy ships are still left in the game, respectively in their area of action. Also mind that especially for the majority of players range = life. More shell fight time to dodge or angle, more dispersion, more opportunities to go unnoticed in between salvos.