Verblonde

Of course - that's why I generally say 'WG', rather than 'you', when I mean the company in general...

30 sec radar on Ragnar too...! (Smaland is 24 with coal mod, but she does get torps)

In my case, if it was *only* the factors you mention, I would have bought this thing on Day 1. Unusually with this ship, some well-liked members of the WOWS community appear to have been treated very shabbily by WG during its development; that makes giving the company any money for it profoundly unattractive...

I can think of far worse ways to think about how good a ship is; I do something similar, although I tend to try and exclude Z-39 and Haida from the list at T7 as they're a bit unfair to compare against.

This illustrates the problem with the new German DDs well: as others have alluded to, they do something interesting, but at the cost of being poor at 'DDing'. I'm currently plodding through the T9 (I mostly avoided having to play Z-31 thanks to early access crates - never have I been so glad of some light whaling!), and in most games I'm probably a liability to my team (even more so than usual); some of this is, of course, user error, but the bulk is that you give up significant efficiency in almost everything that makes DDs influential in return for being able to punch holes through broadsiding cruisers (which you rarely get a chance to do, although - fair play - it is funny when it happens). It's not that I'm never capping, or never killing DDs etc. but rather that you have to try so much harder to do this stuff and you'd do so much better in almost any other (in my case) T9 DD, apart from perhaps the French/Russians (and I suspect that there is a lot of user error in my case there).

I'm not a great player (48% and change overall WR last I looked), but I might suggest thinking along the following lines: Continue playing all classes of ships; you may well be a DD main (I am), but experience in other classes makes your job in a DD easier as it gives you a better handle on strengths/weaknesses, and what each class is trying to do etc. It sounds like you're already there, but try not to think of DDs as one homologous clump, but rather a more diverse collection of ships with divergent capabilities and good/bad points. The most important thing to master is - IMO - not dying; the longer you stay alive, the greater your influence, all things being equal. That's not to say you should hide on the map border spamming torps from extreme range, but rather make sure you have a way out whenever you make a move; ensure you don't blow stealth when the entire enemy team has LoS to you, and so on. Make a careful study of vision mechanics, and how you can best abuse them; also, be aware of potential opponents' capabilities e.g. if you're in a German DD, trying to out-sneak a Kagero (say) is not going to go well; equally, if that Kagero smokes up or spots you when you can't spot him, then your hydro can easily ruin his day, and so on. Never pick a fair fight (this leans into Don't Die): a key job of DDs is (usually) to help despatch your opposite numbers on the opposing team; exactly how you do this will vary depending on what you're playing exactly, but your overall aim is to sink the other bugger and (ideally) do so whilst taking as little damage in return as possible. Heroic mortal combat mano-a-mano can be fun and exciting, but you're generally better off turning up with several mates with a -tonne of heavy artillery to back you up. Don't expose yourself without support if you have a choice, and only blow your stealth when there is a good chance it won't get you sunk. Don't forget your 'p' key - you want your AA off (unless it's shorter ranged than your air detection distance) unless it's actually in use. Related: map your sector reinforcement to something more useful than the default, and make sure you know how to use it. Switch off your AA after you've finished with it. Use your F3 key to draw people's attention to important targets (that usually means radar cruisers and DDs); unless you prod them, most BBs shoot at their opposite numbers which is often pointless. Okay, a lot will do that anyway, but if you can get your allies to support you and sink your main threats, you're much more likely to win. That's not a complete list, and it's a bit general; to deal with the specific, think about what your ship is good at (is it sneaky; is it fast; what's the smoke like (do you even have any); are you all about guns/torps/both, and how does that interact with your sneakiness; do you have a healing potion, and so on) and relate the general points to your specific ship's strengths and weaknesses. Also, don't forget to factor in your captain; a better captain may allow you to do some things that a basic one won't (often relating to stealth). To look at a specific example, lets think about Mahan (next on your journey up the US DD line): When you start off, your stock torps have a range of 6.4 km; with a CE captain and cammo, your surface detection distance is 6.7 km i.e. you can't stealth torp; so your initial playstyle will be about ambush and short-range engagement. You should be fairly practiced at this by now, as that's basically what everything from T4-6 does for a living. Your AA is longer ranged than your air detection distance (5.8 km versus 2.6 km) so your default position is AA off. You can take DefAA over Engine boost if you wish (I do), depending on how bothered by planes you are. Mahan's AA isn't entirely awful (by DD standards) so it is worth making use of, but it's still better to hide from planes if you can (and a good CV player will still kill you regardless) as it's often the spotting that will kill you. Bear in mind that the recent changes to rockets will give you a bit of breathing space while less good players work out how to use them again. You have American smoke (well, duh!); this is worth remembering as it can make an enormous long-lasting cloud sufficient to hide multiple ships at once, but pick your spots - a lot of novice DD drivers will pop smoke when detected but not think about what it might do to their allies' line of sight; try and think a bit about this in advance ("if I get spotted from x, I'll turn hard towards y, then pop smoke and head towards z, leaving that allied ship there still able to see..."). Also, be mindful of radars, as they render your smoke entirely useless for a bit; extra jeopardy if you popped smoke in such a way as to blind your team. Obviously, don't sit still in smoke as well - some bugger will probably torp you if you do. All of this assumes the basic torps; once you get the upgraded ones with the 9.2 km range, you get extra options because you can fire them from stealth. That said, you don't magically turn into an IJN torp monster; your guns are still where the bulk of your work is done, mainly because your longer-ranged torps are horribly slow (and not worth investing upgrades/captain points in) - 55 kts (this at a tier where you can see things that go at 90-odd knots). Besides YOLO shots, think about using your torps to herd people - can you make that opposing BB dodge your torps in such a way as to expose his broadside to your side's fat lads, or avoid an area altogether? Focus on your mini-map and situational awareness in general; whilst you should always do this, it's especially important when you're as sneaky as a brass band on a junkyard truck - there are things in your MM spread with more than a whole kilometer of spotting advantage over you, and some ferocious DD hunters with only marginally less (Cossack/Lightning come in at around 5.5 km), so it helps to know roughly where they are as much as you can. Many (most?) T7 DDs are an unpleasant struggle with their stealth (or rather its lack); this is mainly due to not generally having access to the concealment upgrade which the T8+ ships get. What you do about this will depend rather on what you're facing; you still out-spot cruisers and fatter, so you can still spot them; learn your DDs' sneakiness levels and other characteristics - which can you charge when spotted (an Asashio or a Kagero with torps on cooldown will struggle against you in mortal combat, whereas a Lightning won't so much), and which should you avoid and/or try and lure onto your allies guns. That's not definitive, and the betters players may well disagree in places, but the idea is to give you a sense of the sorts of things to think about, and give a sort of logic that can be applied to anything. For example, if you were the Lightning in the above example, you'd fancy your chances against a Mahan, whereas if you were the Asashio, you'd probably think discretion was the better part of valour (and you'd know what the Mahan was likely thinking too), and try to play in such a way as to maximise your strengths over his...

Serious question: are you using Google translate or similar? This is absolutely not what was suggested to you; what I took from earlier posts was very sensible advice: Don't rush up the tiers (or you can - entirely up to you - but don't whinge when you get your posterior handed to you); there are many good reasons for this including that it gives you a chance to cope with the various 'nasty' mechanics in the game in a logical order, it allows you to develop situational awareness which is essential, and it allows you to develop 'good enough' captains. There are other reasons too, but those are all key. Play all the classes (even CVs if you must); besides reducing the chances of the game getting dull, it'll make you a much more effective player e.g. after a couple of games in BBs, it's doubtful if you'll ever sail in a straight line at constant speed again etc. On top of that, I'd suggest joining a clan (preferably one that uses voice comms in whatever your first language is, and is happy to teach), keep asking questions on here (there are lots of people happy to help, provided people aren't Richards), and when you die in battle, keep watching what the survivors do, although sometimes it may be an exercise in what not to do.

At the risk of complicating things, how about a third category, worth about half a karma point each: Plays tolerably. Didn't potate horribly. Misbehaved in chat but it was witty, so we'll let them off. Apologised profusely for playing a CV. That kind of thing...

Thanks for posting, OP! I'm slightly concerned that I initially glance-read the title as '200 community tokens and a Brazilian' though; that did throw up some momentary alarming mental images...

@Astolfo_Is_My_Waifu has covered off very well why they aren't the same thing, although WG are hoping that people will think they are and so buy more of the '43 version. If you look at the wiki (here:https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Ships_of_U.K.) you'll see that there are two distinct entries for the two versions of the ship; when you open each up, you'll see in the detail what the differences are. There is a general point to be aware of: there are several ships that appear in the game more than once and it is often a single letter or number that differentiates them. In most cases, they are clones with identical stats (Atago, and Atago B, for example; there are several others); the Belfasts are unusual in that they really are different ships in terms of stats etc. So what? So, sometimes there will be missions that apply to one version and not the other(s). The most 'notorious' relate to Black Friday: as a small bribe to those who buy both versions of cloned ships, there has been a Black Friday mission that you qualify for if you have the 'B' version of the ship, but you can only complete said mission in the plain version - it's fairly clear once you've read it carefully, but it catches people out every year. I only bore you with this stuff as it's occasionally worth knowing about because it can catch people unawares and impact the value of a premium ship (usually only marginally though)...

I'm playing the T9 a bit at the moment; she's not remotely good, but tier-for-tier she does seem to be rather less awful than the T7. This is definitely a line for completists only (unless the T10 turns out to be a miraculous improvement over what's come before)!

Unless you're really good (unlike me), by taking Z-31 into battle you do make a positive difference. Unfortunately, it's to the opposing team. I strongly suspect that the main purpose of Z-31 is to get people to spend their free xp (and ideally spend doubloons to get said free xp), and not much else...

In spades! I assume someone at WG keeps track of traffic going to various parts of the forum, including LWM's content. I'm guessing that the (surprisingly sincere sounding) apology issued by the NA guys is indicative that LWM gets a *lot* of eyeballs and is generally well-liked - alienating people like that is biblically dumb, from a business standpoint. It'll be interesting to see how this all ends up panning out, although my working hypothesis is that WG central will find a way to muck this up even more...

The way Ranked works, the different leagues are - kind of - streams by a mixture of competence and persistence i.e. there are two ways to get to the next league: be good, or be very persistent. For the most part, after a few sprints have been completed (like now) the league that people are playing in more or less reflects their approximate skill level. So, by now, if you're in Bronze most people around you are of a vaguely similar standard to you. Of course, there are some exceptions (some better players deliberately stay in lower leagues because they find the aggravation to reward ratio in higher leagues to not be worth it, and there are a few blithering idiots who are playing way too high, but got there by a mixture of luck and sheer persistence. So, knowing this, what do you do about it? My first tip is to try and care less about winning (it'll help your blood pressure); whilst I don't advocate not trying, there are some games where you are Doomed regardless - try and master being sanguine about this. The second suggestion is to play ships that tend to be more influential in the small-team, small-map mode of Ranked; if you play ships which have lower levels of influence, you are more at the mercy of your team-mates. Play things that have greater influence and - if your skill level is sufficient - you have a greater chance of winning (this tends to mean DDs that are good DD-hunters and/or are good at the vision game, or radar cruisers, in particular). The third suggestion is to focus on getting as good as you can with a small number of suitable ships; this may take a while, so you are taking the long view here. Have a look at this graph: This is something that is often seen in the game; people push far too hard and too fast for T10. There are a few reasons this is a bad idea in general, including that you don't have time to pick up the necessary skill-set at the lower tiers before venturing higher, you don't have time to develop good enough captains, and so on. In the specific case of Bronze Ranked, it features T6 and T7 ships, many of which you won't have spent long enough getting familiar with in the scenario that the above graph illustrates. IMO the reason you are struggling is not because MM is stupid, but because you haven't spent the necessary time with suitable ships, and you haven't spent enough time learning the ropes sufficiently yet in general. It'll come, but it does take time.

On the off-chance you aren't trolling: As @Humorpalanta points out, smoke does not make you invulnerable; whilst not relevant to Coop, most experienced players are very capable of hitting someone in smoke. Are you certain you weren't undetected; smoke doesn't protect you from radar/hydro, plus don't forget that firing your main guns dramatically increases your visibility, even in smoke. If you really weren't spotted, then the bots were probably shooting at something they could see that was near enough to you for you to get hit by dispersing shells.

No, sorry, I'm lost...? Still - majestic memery, chaps! I salute you!

It's quite possible that you may - like me - be suffering from a mild problem with the time-space continuum: I'm almost 100% sure 1995 was only a couple of years ago, yet the date on my PC suggest this may not be entirely the case...

A thousand apologies if I just spoiled anyone's childhood...!

Normally, I ignore typos entirely, but occasionally I'm moved to make an exception...

?

IMO: Z-31 is bloody awful, but then I do have Z-39, which is inevitably going to make Z-31 look utter pants by comparison (being able to occasionally citadel cruisers does not make up for much weaker stealth, slooooooow torps, and no hydro). I haven't really played the T8 much, but why would I - I have far better alternatives at the tier. T9 is less dreadful, but is pretty poor at 'being a DD', particularly the whole vision thing. You're basically a sneaky cruiser without hydro, and if your team can handle being - effectively - down one proper DD from the start she isn't entirely worthless. If you're familiar with Black's sea mines, you can make some use of the torps, even if it's just to herd your opponents. T10 I haven't played yet, and it'll probably be a while - I'm only playing the T9 enough to get the daily first win bonus. So far, I'd file the line under 'for completists only'; only play them if you've run out of other lines to play first...

Quite right! If you fancy a giggle, have a look at the memes apropos what the plot of Finding Nemo would look like if it followed the biological reality...!

Besides what everyone else has said, when deciding whether to mount Magazine Mod 1 or not, don't forget the related signal: If you have plenty of these signals, you arguably don't need the Mod. That's not to say there is no merit in taking it, but you are most commonly giving this up to reduce your chances of Detonating (what happens when your magazines do go up):

Didn't she just get removed? A 'proper' T8 KM DD trainer might not be such a bad idea...?

Is it this: It's actually not the recent German DD collection; I think it must have been a mission of some sort...