Ubertron_X

While in principle this is a more than solid and very advisable strategy because you will never have a ship your are currently playing underperform due to the captain not being maxed out it also has its own inherent little flaw(s). If you do 1000ish games in Asashio in order to get a 19 points Yamato captain, but have actually never played Yamato even once the initial struggle will be huge, despite the captain being maxed out. Player experience on the ship is not to be underestimated and especially true in an evironment, where there are fewer premium ships available. For example every single one of my T10 ships is helmed by a 19 points captain. In contrast to this I rarely play T10 apart from grinding LMs, mostly because I dislike the T10 gameplay. As such it always is a very steep learning curve when I join clan wars, because even if the captain may be maxed out my player skill on the respective ship will be not. Which means that there is a certain charm in bringing your captain to 19 points "organically", i.e. using the line / ship itself.

I usually aim for rank 11 for all the flags, camo and stuff that is within easy reach and then simply stop there. My "ultimate" goal however is not the normal flags and camo but collecting the rank 14 or 15 reward flag.

What kind of containers do you use? I usually always go for the flags and camo container since they changed try your luck a couple of years back and the normal camo is stacking so high I usually even sell the single benefit ones.

With some minor compulsive disorder I tend to immediately "eliminate" small stacks of camo whenever I receive them, so the UI is not clusterfracked and the camo stacks quite nicely. Also it is easier to find specific camo, e.g. extra credits or captain XP when you have fewer stacks. I admit though that I have never bought any camo in the shop (apart as part of crates) as the prices seem excessive, even while using coupons.

What tiers and ships are you playing? Using mostly premium ships that come with their own camo (which admittedly is not as good as others) and not playing T10 much I have not much trouble stockpiling camouflages. Resetting and regrinding ship lines for research points is more or less the only way for me to spend large amounts of camo.

In some cases I think players simply need to disable the fire effects on the UI because they actually can make single fires look more dangerous than they really are.

No. Cruisers are the last line of defense against DDs once your own DDs (and/or CV) have failed. Else good luck in ever finding a properly build and played torp DD in your mighty BB.

In principle by just having that superior dpm, not by actually using it. If a Cleveland or similar radar cruiser comes within 9km or 10km of your general position there is few you can do in a DD if (and that is a big if of course) you do not have proper support. More often than not I found myself pushed from caps or away from advancing enemy BBs while fighing rearguard actions (usually when the friendly ships on your flank are already dead, have run away or did not show up in the first place). In general however cruisers more often then not can't do much, especially at the start of the battle when enemy opposition is still at a maximum. Due to shorter ranges and generally being weaker targets CAs and CLs usually get spotted early and targeted hard by enemy BB and CA (an potentially also by enemy DD). Shoot once, evade for 20 secs sometimes is normal.

Apart from farming secondary hits for missions in coop that is exactly the question that I am asking myself every time I sink the usual suspects German or American BB from afar.

Understandable. However as I already said, ideal conditions for a pure torpedo DD would be a) the absence of an enemy CV, b) the absence of an enemy DD and c) few or none radar cruisers. Even if one of those conditions is not met, you might be in for trouble. And this is nothing that affects Shima alone as I just recently had real trouble getting decent games in Kamikaze R while helping a friend through the lower tiers (lots of double CV games).

The thing is that after a couple of thousand games I have seemed to realize that being able to deal with the enemy DD is much more important than to be able to launch dozens of torpedoes at unsupported capital ships, simply because said DD will be the enemies first line of scouting (protecting his CAs and endangering your CAs) and defense, potentially spotting my precious topedoes way too early. As such all my DD builds and style of play follow a simple rule: Kill or drive off the enemy DD first! As such I want to have at least a minimum fighting chance against most enemy DDs, leaving them either dead or crippled after having had to deal with me and my supporting ships. On the contrary I can not understand that when a Shima meets a Gearing how the Shima can be dead and the Gearing still full or near full health next time I look. If all else fails use those guns people.

I disagree on that. Its only a one trick pony if you build it like one. And as the days of battles that contain no CV, almost no radar, clueless BBs and potentially no opposite DD are clearly over I do not recommend to spec Shima soley on torpedoes. Shima has good concealment and very hard hitting guns, so try to utilize them to your advantage (for example I use Aiming System Mod 1 upgrade and BFT captain skill on mine, see below). Of course you are no Haragumo showering capital ships with shells out of smoke or Gearing that has more than amply firepower for a prolonged knife fight in between DDs, however it is easily possible to wittle down "superior" enemy DDs by keeping them spotted for your team and/or using hit-and-run tactics and whatever friendly support you can muster to send them back to port early (and be especially dangerous while kiting away). If need be you can even kill low health cruisers just by using your guns. Too many players simply ignore the 6 wonderful guns this ship has and even without any CV present are then wondering why they cant bring their torps to bear while the enemy main fleet is shielded by multiple layers of DDs and radar cruisers. However this might be an agressive school of play that may not be for everyone. The usually better acepted build is going full torpedo, full concealment and evading (and/or predictive torping) enemy DD using the RL captain skill.

Its still in because it is a major part of the intro video when you start the game. Why else of course!

WG be like:

I'll take a Currywurst with a side of Kitakami please!

What I was immediately wondering when I read the contents: Was there any reason to include the Hipper instead of the Eugen? To me the containers content does not seem consistent unless you assume a certain evil intent. And even when not the Eugen, why not Graf Spee, PEF or T-61 instead? I mean, T9 prem, T8 prem, T7 prem and the a "random" T8 silver ship? Where is the logic in that?

The best thing in this patch is the ability to move consumables around, and by a long way. Also diary worthy and thank you WG.

If you want to influence battles probably DDs are your best choice at T7, e.g. Haida, Z-39 or Leningrad. Be aware though, that both Z-39 (no BFT) and Leningrad (EM) need a quite specialised captain and Haida is Commonwealth, so don't expect to train many captains on the ship.

Probably this. Sound of shell getting rammed into the barrel and the breach closing.

You put up a good fight throughout the game, however during the final stages of the map I just decided to not seek the shoot-out with @piritskenyer as I had already drawn some carrier attention (and some random Omaha) and could not manoeuvre as freely as I would have liked to.

Thats a way better idea than the game suggestion to spend a mere 1.500.000 doubloons to convert all my ship XP to free XP. And yes, I had a good laugh when I logged in this weekend.

The thing I like most about Thunderer is not her guns but her agility. Yamato, Montana, GK or Kremlin might be the better ships, but dear god, they are such bricks.

The problem is that different game modes usually require different skill sets (random, ranked, clan wars) which also very much dependend on the rules set for the different modes (e.g. CV allowed or not). And speaking from personal experiece at least I can not be bothered to either have multiple captains for one and the same ship or use doubloons, elite xp or free xp to respecc my captains every time a new ranked or CW season starts. Which means that I usually spec for the most common game mode (random) and have to live with the fact that I will fight ranked or clans wars with a suboptimal captain.

Having finished every line except CV I usually reset exactly one line once the new x2 becomes available. Bought Ohio but never played it once yet as I am generally not much interested in T10 play. I only get hold on all T10 I can muster (no 2m FXP ships though) for possible CW use or snowflake events.

Des Memes Playing only sporadically I can't hit sh1t with the guns, especially AP due to the uberfloating arcs. And I tend to push caps too hard too early to make use of the radar.