Verblonde

I haven't yet; might give it a go later, once I've finished some outstanding missions, but won't lose any sleep if I don't get round to it (as others have said: CVs!).

<suitable period of introspection> Naaaah!

It's more than the cammo; special ships have half the maintenance fees ('service cost') that silver ships do, before you even start with cammos. Have a read of this: https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Economy#Service_Cost Basically though, a silver T10 without permaflage costs 180K silver to service, whilst a special T10 running its included permaflage costs 45K silver - that's a substantial difference, especially if not running premium account.

It's too soon to tell definitively if WG are going full OP-sell-nerf-OP-sell-nerf and so on; given that doing so overtly would be bad PR I have a nasty suspicion that they may be thinking along the following lines: If new premiums can now be nerfed then there is less need to spend time/money trying to balance them, as any mistakes can be fixed later. This way, they get better data as it's from 'everyone' rather than a few rarefied testers, and probably save a bit of money in the process. Valuable bonus: they get to see how much people tolerate a smaller-scale OP-sell-nerf cycle, so informing if/when/how they go 'full unscrupulous' later on. I smell the 'boiling frogs' approach to changes that people won't like: do it a little at a time, and people will tolerate a lot more than if you do it all in one go...

Simple answer: yes. Slightly more expansive answer: she's very good value for the price (which is probably partly why she's being removed), having been at that level since before all the dragon flags etc. got released; she's also pretty effective if your BB kung fu is strong (and she's good value in Narai, even if it isn't) - as a DD chap, I view Nelsons in Ranked as a very serious threat (if/when I get spotted). She's also worthwhile having for 'fires' missions. As others have alluded to, you do have a citadel the size of a small continent, and you do lumber a bit (I view Nelsons as a fine place to put my torps, given the chance), so she isn't an OP monster. For me, another major plus is she has a lot of character, and is - of course - very real and has a lot of history about her (I'm quietly hoping we'll get Rodney too at some stage for similar reasons). So, I think she's very much worth having, and I don't even like BBs very much (they smell, and their mothers dress them funny)...!

As an experiment, I tried Ise out in Ranked earlier (just one game, because I'm not a complete scumbag): the opposing team did seem rather keen to sink me, it has to be said. It also ought to be mentioned that - in this case - it probably lost them the game, as while I was getting my Dreadnought, the cruisers and DDs on my side had a more or less free rein, and basically won the game (although I believe I bagged a couple of kills)...

There is some truth in this: I just had a Ranked game lost by our 'friendly' DD who decided to liven up an otherwise dull afternoon by blowing my Haida out of the water with his torps; that, combined with subsequent blithering idiocy lost us the game. I fear it's all classes at the weekend...

Being sensible: I'd suggest it depends on several factors: I can't imagine there is much chance she won't be nerfed to some degree; will you get your money's worth before that happens? Subs are coming; ditto. Do you object to giving money to WG on general principles?

Entirely coincidentally, I am in FACT, Queen Nefertiti...

This is basically what happened when the CV reework initially went live; I get the distinct impression that WG don't like stealth play much - it requires thought both to do, and to counter, and an awful lot of WG's customers struggle with that (which means less money for vodka). As before, we'll have to wait and see how all this ends up when the dust settles; most premiums tend to settle at quite low levels, so if we end up with just an occasional Ise that's probably okay (speaking from the perspective of a stealth DD enthusiast), but if it's every game (more or less) then that's very different. The solution last time (with CVs) was to focus on DDs which are balanced around cr4p stealth; if you're mostly spotted anyway, you lose relatively little effectiveness if the opposition's spotting capability goes up even further. It sucks in that you basically have to park your IJN torp boats entirely (amongst others), but it isn't entirely untenable. I seem to recall getting quite a lot of value from my Sims last time around, for instance...

Aye, we (well, *I* anyway; dunno about others) are a bit conflicted: On the one hand, Ise is clearly a bloody silly addition to the game, due to the spotting aspect. On the other hand, she is (after only a few games in Coop, I admit) the most fun I've had in a BB for ages - usually, with BBs, you have to wait around for half a minute (+/-), dribbling, before anything very much happens; Ise gives you the opportunity to do other things, and you have to think a bit to optimise the use of guns versus planes which makes her even more interesting. Of course, she was a very real ship, which appeals to the history buffs. So, I bought her, even though I feel slightly bad about doing so; hopefully, WG will put a hard cap of one per side or something (yes, I know I'm delusional)...

You, sir, make an excellent point. I have seen the light. Why is my WR in Ranked not 95%?! Clearly, MM is rigged. It's all a sinister deep-WG conspiracy... FACT (bumper fun-size font for maximum truthiness)

Ahem. Once upon a time there was a bit of a wassock, who struggled with game mechanics above about T4, and the fact his tin foil hat was on far too tight. Everyone else, even though they felt slightly guilty for mocking the afflicted, laughed and pointed. The end. (Yes, I'm a bad person, but I struggle to take anyone seriously who feels that typing 'fact' repeatedly in caps makes their gibberish any less nonsensical.) OP: you'll do a lot better if you simply ask people for advice vis-a-vis sucking less in Ranked, rather than ranting about nonsense conspiracy theories...

Rubbish. Ranked is an entirely different beast, compared to Randoms; you need to adjust your ship picks and tactics to each mode. Incidentally, labelling stuff as 'FACT' doesn't make it any less nonsense; just a small FYI.

I believe I read something (Daily Bounce, probably) about some data-miner having found a plane icon with depth charges... Wasn't the original idea for the 'missing' CVs to be support carriers, or something like that - AS work sounds in that sort of ballpark. Also, wasn't Bogue (as an escort carrier) at least partly about that in RL?

The Correct answer to this is, rather than playing CVs, to get neked, liberally coat your joy department in strawberry jam, and belly-crawl over a really ill-tempered ant heap. The sensible answer is, as others have said, to focus on the US and IJN silver lines; they're the standard 'how to CV' lines. The KM are also fun, but a bit weird (AP rockets require a different approach to HE), and the RN are meh. I should emphasise that I rarely play against real people, and my CVs almost entirely live in Ops, with an occasional foray into Coop to do missions. If you can't be bothered making people's lives miserable from T4, the T6 premiums are both fun, albeit both a bit weird. They're good value for Ops though. IMO Ark Royal is probably the safe bet, although her planes are horribly slow (Swordfish); Erich Loewenhardt (about to be removed) is very worthwhile too, although you do need to master the dive bombers as her torp planes are pretty hopeless (unlike the KM silver options). To be clear: I view CVs as a bloody menace to the game, so all my views are very much not from a PvP perspective; they can be a giggle against bots though.

I imagine things are about to get even more hilarious as all the weekenders come out to play...

Me too, on pretty much all counts! I've only given her a couple of runs out (in Coop; in solidarity with my DD brethren, I have no intention of playing PvP in her), but I hate to say it - she does seem to be infinitely more fun to play than the bulk of BBs, for the simple reason that you have a lot more to do. I'm guessing she'll be good fun in Ops too (which marketing genius didn't think to change the Ops cycle such that the *only* T7 Op wasn't in rotation when the ship was released?!), but that'll have to wait a week... I must say though, that's an awful lot of torps in one drop at T6...! (All previous remarks about the real danger from this thing in PvP being spotting still stand.)

I would urge caution with WOWS lootboxes; they don't usually map exactly with the equivalents in WOT. For example, for the Christmas ones, the odds of getting *a* ship in the medium-sized options have been about 1 in 20, with 1 in 10 for the large ones (and tiny for the small ones). But, you'll note that I say *a* ship; in recent years, there was a short list for each container type and if you got a ship, it was a lot more likely that you'd get something from that list (hence all the Makarov references you'll see dotted about the forum). To make it worse, WG 'forgot' to mention the short-lists in the most recent iteration, with resulting uproar and refunds (and you probably know how keen WG are on the latter). Basically, the short version is that if you have no premium ships already, your Xmas boxes will most likely drop all the less desirable/lower tier options first, and only after you've got through the dross will you get superior drops. Essentially, the fewer premium ships you have, the worse an idea buying Xmas boxes becomes. Conversely, if you're a whale like me who already has most of the premium ships, Xmas boxes become a viable pick as any ship that drops will be worthwhile (assuming you already have all the dross). That's the Xmas boxes; almost all the others are less worthwhile to spend money on in general. Also, make sure you read the blurb *carefully*; for example, many boxes don't give duplicate ships (which in WOT would give you gold - I got a lot of gold last Xmas that way) - if you run out of ship options, you only get the poorer drops options remaining.

96.6%?! Jayzus! <puerile> I do hope WG do add helicopters in some form to the relevant ships; nothing to do with gameplay, of course, but more to do with the scope for schoolboy 'mighty chopper' type jokes... </puerile>

How on earth did you get hired then...?!

You're entirely right; one possible advantage of zombie heal and good concealment together is that you force the radars to blow their charges, and you have a better chance of surviving the ensuing attention than many other options. Of course, I'm not very good, so - in my case - a 'better' chance is a long way from being a certainty...!

'Stealth' is my glib answer; assuming you're facing typical WOWS players and not unicums, good concealment, and knowing how to make use of it gives you a horrifying advantage over many players (even when you're not very good, like I am). Neustra is noticeably sneakier. Besides that, Neustra's heal is of the Zombie variety...

More or less. IMO what makes her so good is that she's an excellent balance between all the key DD factors; she's not majestic at anything, but she's good enough at most things, and that heal makes you more survivable than almost anything else around T9. Because you're so hard to kill, if you know what you're doing, it makes doing the key battle-winning DD job of "don't die" a lot more achievable, even with a bit of risk-taking thrown in. Apart from radar/planes, you can be quite sneaky, you have a solid 10 km torp armament, and the guns are 'good enough'. She's basically a solid all-rounder. I should mention that most of my games in her have been in Ranked (which she's good at), so that does colour my perspective a bit.

It's probably the pixel equivalent of this: Presumably WG's aim was to minimise the distress of people who bought her for the original steel... (Being sensible, if you're a DD main, she's an excellent addition to one's collection, even if you do pay over the odds...)