Procrastes

I'd recommend you to get the Cossack and the T-61 for starters. That will get you a very entertaining tier VIII ship whose only real downside is that she's a bit lacking in the torpedo department, along with what is possibly the best all-round tier VI destroyer currently in the game. Or if you really want a good all-round torpedo boat/gun boat hybrid at tier VIII specifically, you could get the Lo Yang instead. Best of luck, Captain @Harvin87!

According to Einstein's theory of PC gaming relativity, time passes more slowly when you are looking at a loading screen. So I guess that might explain it...?

This is more or less my own opinion as well. The USS Black worked eminently well as the lone DD on the team in the first tier IX ranked season. First you steam on towards the nearest drop point, and you send those fast-loading, long-range torpedoes heading for the second nearest drop point - the one on the enemy side of the map - as soon as they are loaded. Mind you, this was before long-range, fast-loading torps were a known feature in the game, so there was a fairly substantial chance that they would catch your enemy off guard. Second, you pick up the first drop. If you're lucky, this is when you will get notified that one or more of your slow-moving but super stealthy torpedoes have struck home. Third, you press on. If you run into the enemy destroyer, you smoke up instantly and radar him. Since this is ranked and everyone is horny for ranked rewards, you will get a fairy tale level of back-up from your team in taking the enemy destroyer apart. Fourth, and assuming that there are no more destroyers on the enemy team, you begin feasting on the tears of your enemies and driving their women before you. If there are more enemy destroyers left, go to 3. Things were never that easy for the Black in normal random battles. For starters, the maps were bigger and so your 43-knot torpedoes (a.k.a. float mines) were far less efficient, as you had fewer obvious choke points to go for. You also had more enemy ships to deal with, which meant more radars and overall more incoming fire when you were spotted. But I always found her to be a good ship. The meta has changed even more now, obviously, and after having experienced the Östergötland and the Halland with their 90-knot torpedoes, I'm not sure how it would feel to go back to Black. Also, I have fairly recently acquired the Daring and the Kitakaze, both of which are stronger and more versatile ships.

I'm not going to join the pie-tossing contest (if there is one), but... ...here's a story that I feel might be related to the topic of the thread. I just recently played a tier X game, doing rather well in my Daring in spite of us losing the battle and me getting chewed out for abandoning a cap.* But during the battle, there was a conversation going on in all-chat between two BB players in the red team, and they were less than thrilled with events. It went something like this: BB player 1: "HE is the bane of this game." BB player 2: "Agreed. It is as bad as CVs." I must admit, I was a bit flummoxed by this. I mean, sure, no one enjoys getting slowly roasted to death by a gentle rain of high explosive shells from an invisible enemy, but comparing that sort of experience to carriers...? Really? I checked my post-battle stats, and during the whole course of that battle, I did a little over 7000 HE damage to the battleship of one those players. Doing that damage took me about the same amount of time that it would have taken the battleship to fire and reload and then fire another full salvo. Of course, others may have done a lot more HE damage to him than I, but it still begged the question: Has HE spam suddenly become that much worse in the game, without me noticing? Or was this just another example of a big bad battleship whining like a little [beep]? Don't get me wrong, I'm not pointing any fingers. I frequently whine like a little beep myself - but I usually don't post it in chat for all to see. Try as I might, I have little understanding for battleship players who propagate for the removal of HE ammunition from the game, since this is really only another way of saying that what they actually want is to be invulnerable to attacks from ships of other ship classes, while themselves being able to delete these at will. It should be eminently clear that having this kind of power imbalance would be very bad for a multiplayer online PvP game like World of Warships.** As for the topic of the thread, I don't think battleships are in a bad state as the game currently is. With the eventual arrival of submarines, this may change - unless battleships are given some form of functional ASW themselves (which I believe they should, but that's a discussion for another thread). But in relation to destroyers and cruisers** things are pretty much as they have always been, with either party equally able to outwit and outplay the other. Cheers! * In actuality, what happened was that I executed a well-timed tactical retreat in order to avoid being caught and obliterated by numerically superior enemy forces. (I don't often have the acuity and situational awareness to pull this off, by the way. In most cases I am caught and obliterated.) ** Insert obligatory CV 'balans' joke here.

Ok, here is some semi-constructive feedback on this issue. I was just notified, in the game,that I had completed a stage in the Dockyard, and I was prompted to go there. This got me the birds-eye view of the dockyard, with the little spinning loading wheel. It continued to spin, and spin, and spin. I could not exit, since there was no exit button. I looked up this forum topic, and read through a number of alternative fixes that a) require me to perform some computer-fu stuff which is quite frankly a bit above the level of complexity that I am comfortable with, and b) are not, from what I could gather from the various posts, guaranteed to work. First we had the Puerto Rico incident, which could perhaps most charitably be described as an embarrassing moral hiccup on the part of Wargaming, and now we have this new Dockyard event that instead seems to disrupt the technical functionality of the game. I am beginning to develop a Dockyard problem. As of now, I've tried the suggestion of Alt-tabbing my way on and off the game screen, and whether it was this operation or just the universe taking pity on me I can't say, but the wheel stopped spinning and I got out of the dockyard. Whether or not I will ever dare to go back in, is currently an open question. I have of course no way of knowing what is on Wargaming's current to do-list. But I would suggest that some priority is put on fixing this issue. Getting stuck in the Wheel of Time while on a visit to the docklands, is not an experience that begs for repetition. Best regards!

Now that is one mean feat in a cruiser! My congratulations! I got my first Kraken in the Arkansas Beta, and that was a special experience for me at the time. I pointed my guns at a nearby enemy and pulled the trigger, and he simply... exploded. I then did the same on the next enemy, and the next, and so on - and they all just exploded and sank. I'd seen people do that on youtube, but I'd never before been able to come even close to doing it myself. These days I know that a Kraken in the Arkansas Beta is not all that much to write home about, given the kind of alpha damage she can dish out with a full salvo at close range. But getting a Kraken in the Kuma, now? Respect!

The Kuma is probably the best and most versatile tier IV cruiser in the game, hands down. The Duguay-Trouin has more range, and the Svietlana has a wicked close-range punch, but the Kuma is just a solid and reliable performer across the line. The old gal's got good guns, good torps, decent speed and concealment, and even a little fighter plane to top it off. A wonderful little ship!

Good plan! Then, @El2aZeR would bring El2aZeR stats to the German CV spreadsheet, and WG would nerf German CV:s into the seabed. On second thoughts, let's not condemn El2aZeR to German CV:s forever..? It is a silly place.

I agree that low tier can be a lot of fun! And I am still noob enough to not qualify as a seal clubber, so I guess that's a good thing, too. I have been nosing around those tier II-III Pan-Asian destroyers... but considering how much of the opposition at those tiers is likely to be other destroyers, which you can't torpedo, I have been giving them a pass so far. The Shenyang at tier IV is a pure-bred killer, though. And so is the Isokaze, now that you've mentioned her. I got her some time ago and played a number of battles in her, with some success. People tend to dismiss her as a Russian low-tier and forget about her torpedoes - which can be a very silly thing to do. An ambush destroyer if ever there was one. She's not as strong or versatile as the ubiquitous Clemson - but the problem for Clemson, is that everyone knows about her. Mothers tell their children to shoot her on sight. The Isokaze has gone more or less under the radar (not that there is a radar at tiers II-IV, fortunately). Best regards, Captain!

The Italians built some beautiful ships, to be sure. And you could squeeze in an entire cocktail party on that bridge - could there be a more perfect place from which to enjoy the view across the bay of Napoli?

Well, someone has done so now! I must confess, I have little or no personal experience of them. But I would infer that they come highly recommended?

Jolly nice, I say! must go and have a look as soon as I get home tonight! On the topic of stylish ship designs: Have you spotted that nifty, covered drink veranda across the stern of the Bogatyr? That's where you have your vodka on ice after burning down the colonial outpost securing a heroic victory against overwhelming odds, obviously!

I play the Emden now and then, more as a tribute to her spectacular history than for her abilities in the game. A ship like the Bogatyr is just so much better in every way, even counting the tier difference, but the Emden has a special place in my port! It is good to see those old, illustrious ships appear on the team lists from time to time! I almost forgot: What's up with the "evil German cyberman" thing? Is there some special camo pattern that I've missed, or what?

I have heard good things about the Gangut before. Just to get an idea; how does she stand in relation to the Imperator Nikolai I? Personally, I think I like the gun turret layout on the Nikolai better...!

That notorious double or triple CV-infestation at tier IV has hit those low-tier battleships especially hard, yes. You have my consolations, but I guess that doesn't help very much. The best advice I can give you if you like to play low-tier battleships, is that the Orion at least has a fair chance of beating off a few air attacks - especially since those low-level carrier players usually won't bother to dodge worth a damn. Most other low-tier battleships are all but helpless against air attacks, unfortunately - and I can't see how this is a good thing for the CV players either, since with no real opposition they won't actually learn anything until they reach tier VI.

This is very true! a) Load the torpedo tubes. b) Start up "Das Boot" by U96 (with loudspeakers).* c) Seek out the enemy, and pursue him without fail until either he, or you, lie at the bottom of the ocean floor. d) Toast your enemy in Valhalla! *

Moggi...?

By all means, do! The senior commander of my commonwealth forces, Admiral Sir Harold Allen (D.S.C., D.S.O, 19 pts.), uses the Vampire as his pleasure yacht!

My go-to ship for some low-tier R&R is most often the Bogatyr. She's got style, she's got panache, and she's got more guns on her than a Mississippi wedding witness. If you absolutely have to burn down every colonial outpost in the neighbourhood, accept no substitute! That said, you can't go very wrong in the König Albert or the Orion. Or if you do, you have plenty of weight to throw around while you go looking for your way out. And if you prefer to play the assassin's game, striking from the shadows and disappearing like a ghost into the night - choose the Shenyang or the Clemson!

Good point. But I suspect that many who would hesitate to fork over 50€ for a poor man's tier VIII Amagi clone, would happily spend 10€ on an alternate version of a tier III ship, just for laughs. If you ask me, though, I believe that they should rather sell special camos for existing ships, than push out new premiums that are nothing but clones of old ones but with some tweaked-around stats.

What I'm wondering is, why haven't they already gone for an all-out... Cthulhu Mythos Squamous Camo Collection? It would be the obvious thing to do. The Mythos already abounds with tentacles and squids and fish-gods and all sorts of squamous horrors, so the marine theme is there from the start. And it's all open source now, or most of it anyway, so they can go right ahead without worrying about intellectual rights and stuff. It would be Eldritch and Unmentionable and Nerdy as Heck. I mean, sure, having "Blood for the Blood God" written in Ruinous Runes on the prow is seriously cool - but does it beat sailing out under the Wrong Stars, flying the Elder Signal and with the call for "Iä! Iä! Cthulhu f'thagn!!!" written i Aklo across the stern? (Hint: No it bloody well doesn't.) To be fair to Wargaming, they have already come a good part of the way with some of their special halloween camos. It only needs an extra touch of cosmic horror!

Hmm, yes, that would work. But I would have rather gone for something a bit more steam-punkish, with a knife-prow and a lot of turrets. The Bogatyr, perhaps, or the Nassau? The König Albert?

Thanks for the kind words! I agree that well-timed, cycled radars can create no-go zones for destroyers. I have been on the receiving end of this, and it can be an intensely frustrating experience - so well played by the captains of those radar ships! The worrying part is that an increase of radar ships can potentially lead to a worsened game environment with more passive gameplay, to the detriment of all players (and not just those in destroyers). It hasn't happened yet, though, and hopefully it never will. I haven't experienced the massive influx of stealth-radar toting, rail-gun wielding Russian cruisers that I dreaded to see with the last patch, either, so I guess there is that as well...?

In order to build a game that incorporates real life features in a way that represents reality enough for them to be recognizable while still functional in an arcade setting, Wargaming has by necessity had to make more than a few tweaks and adjustments to how things work. The radar consumable in its current form is no exception. It's really not a radar as such, but a magic 'radar' spell that reveals all enemies in the nearby area for a very short period of time. As a DD main, I'm not a huge fan of having too much radar around. But I can see why Wargaming has designed the in-game radar consumable this way. Real life WW2-era radar did not go through islands, true. On the other hand, it typically lasted for more than twenty or thirty seconds once you turned it on. So while your radar wouldn't reveal a destroyer that was hiding on the other side of an island, you could have it turned on more or less indefinitely, making it impossible (or at least impractical) for the destroyer to wait out the radar duration and then sneak up on you for a torpedo attack. In a real life naval engagement where radar made the difference between seeing or not seeing the enemy, it could be almost completely decisive if used well. The night battle of Cape Matapan between the Royal Navy and the Regia Marina in 1941 is a good example of this. The British had access to radar while the Italians had not, and so the British were able to completely dictate the terms of the engagement. I'm not sure if this qualifies as the most one-sided engagement in naval history, but it should at least be a good contender. I imagine that it would have been much less decisive if the Royal Navy had built their radars to last no more than thirty seconds, so as to avoid making them too unbalanced in relation to the Italians (whose access to SAP ammunition would have been of little use if they couldn't see to shoot properly). In a real life wartime environment, technological and tactical innovations are aimed to eliminate counter-play altogether and thus winning the war. In the World of Warships the aim is much different, namely to create a balanced battle environment where everyone has an equal chance of victory. It is a game of play and counter-play. The in-game radar, as it is, can be countered or played around*, whereas a radar that is always on could not, even if it can't see through islands. The only viable counter-play would be to stay in the cover of islands, and leave the radar ships sitting out in open water. Needless to say, this would lead to static and boring gameplay. To sum it up: If WoWs radar didn't go through islands but still only lasted around 30 seconds, it would be a largely useless feature in the game considering how much of the battle area on most maps consists of small islands and archipelagos. If it was compensated by having, say, a five minute duration (which could probably be be said to simulate the notoriously unreliable WW2-era radar sets fairly well), this would make the gameplay quite intolerable for destroyers and other stealth-reliant ships. I think radar in WoWs is rather well balanced as it is, although having more than two (competent) radar ships on a team can have a tendency to lock up the gameplay for opposing destroyers.* Cheers! * But don't get me started on the subject of Russian stealth radars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cape_Matapan

I'd hoped for WG to achieve the same kind of look here as they did with the WH40K-inspired KV2 in World Tanks; I quite liked that one. But these two ships just don't have enough, well, grit. Ships in the WH40K universe are ancient, battered sentinels, worn with age and covered with the stardust of millennia spent in service to the Emperor of All Mankind (or, as it were, the Ruinous Powers). These ships are too technicolour, they look more like a collaboration between Warhammer40K and LEGO™.* * Which would be hilarious, of course - but in its own context.