Verblonde

Apologies for any repetition from earlier posts, but I tend to think along the following lines. General points: The most important things to have a grasp of are the game's vision mechanics, and situational awareness - those are the key skill/knowledge sets that it is necessary to master. Use your mini-map. A lot. Make it as big as your monitor can handle, and set it to display as many range circles as you can realistically deal with. Learn as much as you can about the capabilities of your opponents, especially things like spotting distances, and who has things like radar/hydro (and what ranges they have). You almost always want *at least* a 10 point captain (T5 and up); the reason for this is CE - any DD that makes significant use of stealth is gimped without it. Specific to the RN DDs: They are a pretty poor 'first' DD line, although if you already have a solid DD skill-set from other lines, they are very good ships (in general). To do consistent damage, you will almost certainly have to make use of your guns; when you do this, you blow your stealth, so pick your moments (ideally when you are shielded from as much return fire as possible). You are not the sneakiest thing in your tier spread (all of T5-7 will face opponents with 5.4 km concealment), so know who your opponents are and how sneaky they can be - a surprising number of people in the game seem to have no idea how to equip their DDs, but you can't rely on this, so always assume the worst and play accordingly (at least until you know better). Following on from that, always build for stealth: always fit cammo (one that gives both of the 'standard' bonuses), and make sure your captain has CE; RN DD stealth is pretty mediocre until T8, so you need all the help you can get. You get 'defensive' hydro from T6; make sure you understand how to use it - it's a very powerful tool (to the extent that I have a coal hydro mod on everything from Jervis upwards), and can mitigate your lack of stealth - Jervis especially - with judicious use. I normally build my RN captains for maximum stealth and maximum dakka; if you have the points though, Jervis especially can benefit a lot from a captain with RL - if you're out-spotted, it can be helpful to know which direction your nearest foe is, if you don't know by other means. Your AA isn't *entirely* catastrophic, but it certainly isn't good enough; besides the obvious (switch it off - P key - when not in use, if the range is longer than your air spotting distance), for the tiers you mention, it isn't much help. Learn how to use your RN smoke to evade planes - it's arguably the most useful type for this as you get a lot of charges. Get good at single firing your torps, and don't forget that you have a stealth window from T6; however, your torps are usually less important to the battle's outcome than your guns, so don't get too hung up on maximising their use.

Incidentally, if WG are ever running short of ideas, I note that their were a couple of 'flotilla leader' variants on the basic class, which had an extra gun (so, five in all): maybe an 'extra dakka' Gallant might have a place in the game at some stage...?

After reading a bit more, the in-game Jurua looks like it's rather 'as originally designed', rather than 'as built' - the basic design was meant to have four gun turrets, but the last one ('Y') was dispensed with, to make room for other equipment. So, you're right: the model isn't quite right...

I'm not sure this is entirely fair; assuming Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Harvester_(H19)) is correct, the fewer guns thing was a later modification. The two ships in game are also different models (as someone mentioned elsewhere): This is Gallant's bridge: This is Jurua/Harvester (sans snake): As far as I can tell, the stats are entirely copy/paste, but the models are different, and Jurua is - more or less - as built, rather than as modified to focus on ASW (as Harvester).

Ah, I take it that this is the WOWS-specific version of the hemline theory of economic catastrophe?

@Pen_Me_Daddy just witnessed my latest embarrassingly early exit from a battle; luckily, pretty much everyone else on the team was less incompetent than I, so we got the win. Excellent work on your part sir!

*How* is Snuffleupagus still not in the lead?! That's all kinds of wrong. To borrow a phrase from the <shudder> Americans, y'all need Jesus...!

I've been exploring the possibilities of Black Mesa, and Valheim, when WOWS gets a bit much - it's remarkably therapeutic to step away for a bit...

Perhaps, in this case, your team was so in awe of your snakey magnificence that they forgot what they were supposed to actually be doing...?

There are some things so dark and horrifying that it is unwise for the mind of mortal man to contemplate them...

His is certainly of superior quality, although I do feel that NdJ/Jurua gives him a run for his money... What we're really missing is an epic 'RAF' moustache option for the RN captains!

Dev Blog (tweaks to IJN hybrids): https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/119 Dev Blog (next Big Hunt event, and Italian BB containers etc.): https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/121

I believe it's a little below average; according to WOWS Numbers my overall 48.77% WR is 'below average', by 0.2%. I'm not sure how dynamic these stats sites are, although logic ought to suggest that the average shouldn't shift about very much...

Done and done.

Of course you should: the torp launchers look like blowpipes, and it's got lianas and everything! Plus, you can always switch it off when your eyes start to bleed... (BTW the Correct answer to the poll is - naturally - Snuffleupagus!)

Behold: (Skane, since he was no longer needed for VU) (NdJ/Jurua) (Technically Hizen, but in reserve; Hizen may be a bit meh, but at least the 'tache is of the required standard) (Donskoi) (Algerie) Disappointing showing from the Brits, Germans, Americans and PA (beards, of course, don't count). (Yes, I really should get out more, but it's snowing heavily today, and bloody cold!)

That would be extremely helpful: not being able to do resets from within the 'all skills' tab means that it'll be very easy to accidentally miss a particular captain/class combination. I kind of assumed this was deliberate - if a player misses a class reset on a valuable captain, perhaps they might spend money (doubloons) to fix it when they realise...

WG must be feeling frisky this week - another Dev Blog (HMS Tiger '59 at T8, and Weimar at T7):https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/120

I hadn't checked; fair play to WG if they modelled Jurua separately (I believe she was slightly different, physically, to Gallant)...

I've found the Gearing one to be worthwhile: you basically trade some dpm for better concealment (5.6 km with full concealment build). Of course, that can be a terrible trade if you're not practiced in the art of operating with lots of radar and CVs around the place... I'm currently giving the Groz one another go; the first time around, I missed the torp damage too much, but I'm liking it rather more this time (probably due to having got used to more heavy usage of the dakka with things like Smaland)... The others that I have are gathering dust.

Gallant pre-dates the RN DD line, so she (and therefore Jurua too) gets fairly standard smoke FWIW:

I suspect you may not be distinguishing between small and large data-sets: in an individual game (or even a dozen or so), the individual players on your team will have a drastic impact on your WR (although you should recall that it can easily be a positive impact, if you happen to get a unicum on your team, rather than someone tuberous); once your data-set starts getting into the hundreds, then the effect of individual other players becomes largely irrelevant, and the only constant is you. The bulk of Random games are going to have their result regardless of what you do; however, it's the edge cases that matter if you are concerned about WR - these are the games where your good performance will clinch the win, and/or where doing less well will clinch the defeat, and over a large enough sample, tell you - in general terms - how good the player is. For example, lets look at this hapless berk: Clearly a potato? Maybe a unicum? Nope, just a slightly sub-average player: TL;DR: WR is a pretty decent metric (provided you know what you're looking at; which mode are we talking about; which ship(s) and so on...), but only with a decently sized sample set.

I wasn't either; I just looked at the bundle and thought that - as much as the snake cammo is pure quality - there was no way I was spending real money to get silver etc. I did think there was a reasonable chance that the cammo tab would include the snake, but I wasn't sure if it would do so right away...

To answer my own question, you can: I object to bloated bundles that include things like silver etc. so bought the basic ship (I like Gallant, so why not, plus I can train my majestically-mustachioed NdJ captain in her too); it now seems I can get just the snakey goodness, without the useless cr4p in the bundle. Hurrah!