Panocek

TL;DR you won't have buyers remorse if you don't spend anything on the game

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With first part I can agree. With second, not so much

Obviously, spreadsheet says they are having fun and keep paying up for premium experience

Yep, you can set up training room on your own. You can also set bots to be inactive, moving, armed or both. So you can set few moving, but unarmed bots, keep in mind, they tend to sail towards you. Keep in mind, IJN cruisers switch into "heavy cruisers" from tier 5 onwards. That kind of cruiser trades reload for harder hitting guns, which at shorter ranges can impress even battleships Ancient, but mostly still relevant review, also worth watching for lols (as well entire "how to" series)

Derpetto costs 9600 with in game discount. You do the math how much doubloons you have to buy and then tack premium store coupon, if you've got one Bigger question: Tirpitz

Got 30% premium store discount as well. And kinda tempted between discounted Kaga and discounted doubloon pack and then picking ship from armory with additional discount. But then I still don't think WG deserves money for their live server shenanigans.

Yes. Aim at waterline under the funnels/smokestacks to score citadel hits. While hightier UK/Ger BB HE shells exceed 100mm in penetration and can score citadel hits on thinner skinned cruisers as well, damage is much less than AP of the same caliber for citadel. Also any torpedo bulge WILL negate HE shells, while AP will punch through and continue travel penetrating or ricocheting off, depending on angle. Bow on cruisers also can be substantially blapped with AP, while HE can be stopped by turret armor. On other hand, few lowtier cruisers, so called "armored" or "protected" cruisers like Bogatyr, Kolberg or St. Louis can prove themselves tough cookies to quickly dispatch due to well hidden citadel, while very thin plating ensures overpens even from cruiser or even DD caliber guns. So here you might be better served with HE. Outside of protected cruisers, only case when AP can prove detrimental is when having broadside cruiser at very short range, as you can score overpens even through citadel. Shorter fuse time on UK BB can prevent that from happening, though the same feature greatly reduces chances of bow on citadels. You can set up training room yourself and shoot at various ships to see how things work. Also Armor Viewer is invaluable tool

Haven't expected anything and still got disappointed.

5 battleships per team is the norm, because when WG says "BB overpopulation is an issue" they say. But when DD population started to rise, WG was very quick to soft cap number of DDs to 4 per team AP vs HE against BB is case on ship by ship basis - if you have guns that can overmatch enemy BB on majority of places, then AP is prefered, even more so as there is chance of knocking main guns out or scoring odd citadel. If you have too small guns to overmatch and/or facing BB with more uniform BB plating like Germans or Russians, then HE might prove better. BUT, if you have HE loaded and suddenly broadside cruiser appears, then said HE salvo won't be able to deal significant damage to the cruiser Well, currently WG made carriers basically overpowered by neutering AA across the board simply because when they were very close to "balanced" no one wanted to play them, which kinda defeated whole point of REEEwork and WG is last company to admit defeat Though BB had least AA reductions and they are the best AA platforms, especially hightier American ones.

300k avg dmg in Ops when

Can see some use in Operations, where 3TB attack wing and quick plane restock can help. Also premium, so you can put high leveled UK captain on her, in case you've made that mistake and actually have UK carriers.

And since when I care about other people input?

Sinking hours while having fun is good and all, but still can vote with my wallet when I don't like development decisions game is up and running

Well, WG have almost a pedigree now when it comes to balancing things in their games. Instead nerfing what needs nerfing, they nerf everything around to make it as unfun as possible. After all, when no one plays then spreadsheet shows stats decline Then there is conflict with CV REEEwork goal of making carriers more popular to shove more premiums into the store

Game by default tries to run in x64 mode, so try launching replay with x64 client in WoWs/bin64

Bigger question: is really Ark Royal obtainable via cat loot boxes?

This event story episodes are absolut kek. Especially "The Choice"

And I guess there is no group for players who joined during "server stress test" just before OBT?

I wonder if it has something to do with being relatively safe tactic that rarely ends with being blapped back to port

Then there is case of destroyers not being made equal - carrying out torpedo runs with Russian gunboats can yield... lackluster results, just like trying to gun down enemy ships with japanese torpedo oriented destroyers. Brits and Germans indeed have high penetration HE, which lets them damage tougher armored ships but up to a point. HE ignores angle of impact and unlike WoT, works binary - either it penetrates and deal damage* or don't. So "32mm HE pen" projectile from heavy cruiser for example will deal damage to 32mm plating and below regardless of angle, but 33mm and thicker plating will fail to do damage and all you can hope for is to roll fire chance. *assuming ship section you've hit is not saturated https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Damage_Saturation Bad thing about especially Brit BB HE is it can make you complacent with "easy HE and fire damage" - even King George V, having weakest AP per tier in UK line still can devastate broadsiding cruisers and can cause serious dent in hp against broadsiding battleships at short to medium range. Also sitting at long range doesn't really exerts pressure on enemy team, while long range shelling is relatively easy to evade. Art of playing battleships includes balancing just outside of your detection range, usually around 12-14km for higher tiers, so you "disappear" between shots and wait for targets of opportunity to apply AP to the broadside.

Tier 4 is now subject to glorious result of Wargaming balans, known to mortals as IJN Hosho, japanese carrier that got "broken tier" overbuffed with previous patch. And upcoming patch changelog have nothing mentioning nerfs, changes, anything. As much as I appreciate idea of hanging around lowtiers, you might want to get out of tier 5 to not be subjected by Hosho spam as lowtiers have pretty much NO anti air whatsoever. Not that you will free yourself from CV on highers tiers tho. But they aren't as relatively broken as Hosho is. About torps, you simply don't launch them from 2nd line unless you have clear and both way comms with guy(s) in front. Russian BBs have one flaw - relatively short range, which may or may not prove crippling when both teams simply refuse to close in. And keep in mind, you "leading the charge" with rest of the team behind you (which also probably will turn tail on first sight of danger) means you're overextending and probably will be subject of thorough arse spanking from multiple ships. Rock-paper-scissors I don't think ever was the case in WoWs balancing history to be honest. Destroyers does have torpedoes, capable of delivering massive hurt, but that weapon almost entirely relies on enemy making mistake than you being good. Cruisers have firepower to bury DDs with sheer weight of ordnance, but need to spot destroyer first, which usually means putting teammate in destroyer in front of you. On higher tiers certain nations (US, UK, RU) get Radar consumable, temporarily revealing all ships within range. But to sink DD within 20-40s window you usually need entire team putting rounds into DD location. Battleships can be described basically as such "No Weapon in the arsenal of the Imperium or the Traitor equals the Titan Battleship on the battlefield, and a Legion blob of such vast war machines can bring any world to its knees. In truth, a Titan Battleship has only three enemies: folly, hubris, and another of its own kind." — Grand Master Volkus, Ordo Sinister of the Divisio Militaris Sub_Octavian, Lesta of Wargaming Destroyers and cruisers need to spend LONG time blasting HE and hoping for fires, which alongside of flood and overpen damage is 100% recoverable. Torps as mentioned above, rely on enemy being dummy and even then, BB have highest chances of living through simply due to amount of hp, heals and torpedo belt, reducing damage. Only real threat to battleship is another battleship. In return, BB with RNGesus blessing can blap both cruisers and destroyers, former with citadel hits, latter with overpens alone in case you can't be arsed to switch ammo to HE. They also on average have the best AA on their own tier, so carrier most likely will go after them last, after hunting down isolated and low AA targets like destroyers trying to actually do destroyer things Even more so as game economy literally yells "shoot the smallest ones", because what matters for exp and credit calculation %hp damage done, not raw numbers. Thus 3 overpens dealing 3k damage to DD with 10k hp total will net you much more than the same 3 overpens, 3k damage on a battleship with 40k hp.

First six months or so since crates introduction?

"Statistical evidence shows Smolensk to be underperforming, thus following changes were applied: -increased HE pen from 21mm to 32mm (1/4 rule) -increased torpedo range from 8km to 10km"