Verblonde

Ten yesterday, and got Wujing (and no absolute rubbish, that I recall, rather to my surprise); based on a test run in Coop - quite manly build, naturally - she seems fun enough, but I agree with the 'JB is better' sentiment. Given what I tend to do with BBs (mess around in Coop and do missions), she seems to be a worthwhile addition to the 'no impulse control' collection... Edit: I just had the (entirely ridiculous) Saipan clone fall out of a second batch of five (which'll be my last); I must say - whilst all the oft-remarked problems vis-a-vis her being Saipan are entirely fair enough - the aesthetic of those ridiculous planes is all kinds of glorious/ludicrous (in equal measure)...!

IMO Siliwangi is a sub-standard Loyang; if you have Loyang, you don't really need a less stealthy version with weaker guns (and there are far better torp trucks than Siliwangi), and even poorer AA. Fen Yang at least gives you something different, even if that 'something' is a nerfed Aki that *needs* IFHE (so, probably a unique captain as the rest of the PA line doesn't need that skill). My personal view is that the best of the three is undoubtedly Loyang, and after that comes Fen Yang (some way behind), with Siliwangi trailing; that does assume that you want to do 'traditional' DD things though. I would absolutely rate Siliwangi first (out of the three PA premiums) if your taste is more towards longer-ranged torping...

Dev Blog (changes to test ships, including Vampire II, and fixing DefAA coal mod issue on Fen Yang): https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/114 Also Dev Blog (messing about with new KM DDs): https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/115

This. There are quite a few ships at T7 that are objectively quite decent, right up to the point where they face T9s; there are a small number of noble exceptions (Haida being the main one that springs to mind), but only a very few. I'd actually forgotten quite how badly some T7 DDs lose the vision battle, until last night when I unlocked Jervis again on my NA account - Gordon Bennett, she's about as stealthy as a marching band riding on a scrapyard lorry...!

DDs do seem to be the way to go this season; as you know, I'm not a good player, but my WR on EU (Silver) is currently somewhere in the mid fifties I think, and my NA account (Bronze) is in the mid-sixties (smaller data set though). Besides it helping that I'm playing ships that I am comparatively less bad in, a lot of players seem to struggle to deal with an opposing DD that resists the urge to either YOLO, or just torp snipe from the borders. The other factor seems to be that if you get unlucky and your side gets all the Deadeye BBs, it's perhaps easier to deal with in a DD as you often control the vision contest, which the fatties struggle with? I've found radar very helpful too (the only T8 I have on NA is Orkan), as winning the DD battle often seems to decide the eventual outcome, at least in the absence of CVs.

Like I said, 'need' is too strong a word; I play to win - always, pretty much - and currently don't find I miss RL (I did try it quite a lot in the past, and did find it essential in small team competitive, before all the radar and CVs showed up). I should note that you and I appear not to be playing the same DDs though (in terms of nations and types); that's not to say I'm suggesting you're wrong (you're almost certainly a much better player than I am), but that rather the value of RL varies drastically with ship, and allies i.e. based on the intelligence gathering environment that you find yourself in. My feeling is that RL becomes more important when you are playing as an 'army of one' as that is when you need all the data you can get, because no-one else is providing it. My high point captains (where RL becomes an option i.e. *minimum* 14 points) are almost all operating in a high tier environment, which is lousy with radars, hydro, and CVs; also, most of the playerbase are predictable. In that context, the chances of you really having no idea where opponents' ships are reduce dramatically, to the extent that RL data becomes merely nice, rather than essential (and the down-sides start to bite e.g. as soon as I see the RL 'detected' symbol light up, I know to pay attention, in which probable direction, and to what likely threat). To repeat, I'm not for a second suggesting that RL is a bad choice, but rather that it is not a slam-dunk 'must have'. (FWIW I'm only talking about DDs here.)

(Although I'd been here for at least a couple of years before trying the stuff...)

I would dispute this, if only because you can do a lot with the four points elsewhere, and when you have a bead on someone they know it too - you have a bearing to them, but they also gain a rough idea of your location at the same time. I prefer to take people unawares. I'm not saying RL is a bad pick (far from it), but I don't believe it to be mandatory; that said, I do tend to focus on DDs that are either very good, to tolerable at worst, when it comes to vision control (and I spend a lot of time on situational awareness, so I usually know *roughly* where most of the opposing side are already).

PT is still incredibly useful (all of my initial cruiser builds have it so far FWIW), but - as @Panocek alludes to - the increased cost has knock-on effects elsewhere out of proportion to 'only' increasing in cost by one point. I've left it out on many of my experimental DD builds as doing so allows me to try some of the new additions; having said that, I'm starting to think that a lot (although not necessarily all) of the new skills don't have enough impact consistently to make up for the loss of PT. For example, Dazzle looks nice to have, but I can perhaps get more use from PT (and something else), as the latter tells me exactly how many of the opposition are pointing main guns at me and when; this is invaluable when determining if being spotted means I need to evade/run *right now* or if I have time to get off a couple of torps before doing so - that sort of thing can often make a significant difference to a battles outcome. For clarity though: I'm not saying any of this is the way things absolutely are, but rather that this is currently what I'm thinking about a work very much in progress.

I'm not a BB expert, by any means, but I believe it's a transaction: If you are playing entirely for yourself (so, star-saving in Ranked for example), sitting back is probably sensible, although you will give up game influence and so be more likely to lose. Of course, not getting damaged makes no difference to your end of game costs. A well-timed push/tanking session can be invaluable, as the amount of fire it takes to sink one BB is often of a similar order to that needed to kill multiple smaller ships; also, if the reds are shooting your BB, they aren't shooting more influential ships like DDs and radar cruisers. Even a badly-played pushing/tanking BB can contribute directly to their team as a mere damage sponge; the better played ones can be very useful, as they'll do meaningful damage at the same time (there is a reason that even Deadeye BBs at long range are not high on my DD's lists of concerns), and also know when to break off and heal, before repeating the process. Unless you can get a Dev Strike and/or they're silly enough to present broadside, most damage to BBs is healable; this means that - if the BB is competent - a lot of fire from the reds will be wasted (if they're stupid enough to go after BBs at the expense of more pressing targets, as often happens). This wasting of enemy fire doesn't happen nearly as much with 'Deadeying' BBs. TL;DR a well-played BB doesn't play purely for Damage/survival (which Deadeye encourages), but rather also plays to divert fire from more vulnerable/influential allies. Basically, you swap some/all of your health (which you have lots of, and can heal at least some of) for the win. Of course, this does assume that your smaller allies know what they're supposed to be doing too!

The question will be what constitutes a 'big' change; my fear is that the yes/no balance between a small number of skills per tree will change enough that anyone who wants to optimise their captains will 'have' to change, but the changes on their own won't be so drastic that WG feel obliged to provide a free reset. I don't believe that many (any?) of us believe for a second that these changes are about anything other than making more money, so the eventual answer will revolve around what makes WG more money in relation to manageable customer upset.

My plan at the moment, FWIW, is along the following lines: Play as much as possible while the respec is free, and try and test as many possibilities as possible during that time; bonus points for building up a decent stash of ecxp in the process and/or getting some key 19 pointers closer to 21 points. The day before the next patch, reset every commander I've used during the test phase (trying not to forget any class trees, as I have several captains that have been used in all four classes via premiums). After that, focus on as few captains as possible, and ideally avoid the 'special' captains as much as possible, whilst still playing a reasonable amount. I'm assuming that WG will make some sort of Richard move with regards to buffing/nerfing captain skills, and do so in such a way that we basically have to pay; by using non-special captains to start with, it increases the chances of my having to mothball captains that matter less (due to their having sub-optimal builds that I won't pay money to fix). Hope like hell we have a reasonable idea of where this is all going to end up before I 'need' to commit to builds on my more valuable 'magic' captains...

BTW you may find the links in this Daily Bounce article of help too: https://thedailybounce.net/world-of-warships/world-of-warships-commander-skill-rework-recommended-builds/

@Panocek's advice above is actually pretty solid i.e. get to CE as quickly as possible (with a possible exception being made for BBs where you might want FP first?). FWIW the following is my (mediocre player) current thinking for DDs, as that's the class I'm least bad at: Your first ten points want to be essentially the same as prior to the rework (the 'suggested' skills in this screen-grab are Asashio's): For the old system I would have taken PT as my first 1 pointer, but lots of people went with PM instead, so no change here for them; PT fans have to get used to no longer knowing how many ships are pointing main guns at them. Some heftier DDs might want to forgo SE for three points, and take something else, but I nearly always find I regret doing so. The next step is to think about what your 21 point captain would look like (or it will be after the free respec is done); with the new system, respeccing captains is very expensive (doubloons), and you are going to be spending a long time on 19, and especially 20, points - the jumps to 20, and 21 points are 500K and 700K xp respectively. As such, you want to plan ahead so that - as much as possible - you don't ever have to rebuild your captains. So, your goal is to pick skills for intermediate captains such that they're as effective as possible, but will still bring you in (eventually) at your 21 point finish without having to reset anything. In light of that, a 21 point build might eventually look like this (this is one that I'm testing for Gearing/Somers, where I get my torp boosts from ship modules, and gun boosts from the captain): First, I'm *not* saying this is what 21 points for Gearing/Somers *should* look like, but it is an option that I'm testing while we have a free respec in place; the point is to have an end-point in mind. So, I now need to identify which skills are most crucial and in what order, bearing in mind that I'll be running with 18, 19, and 20 points for a long time; do I want to be missing one expensive skill, or several cheaper ones? In this particular case, I think I would leave Dazzle to last, as being without that is exactly what I had with everything prior to the rework (that assumes that Dazzle proves to be worthwhile, and worth giving up the extra consumable charge or RL for, say). Broadly speaking, for DDs, my current general thinking in terms of captain skills sequence is roughly as follows: Standard ten points. Does the ship have a heal? If yes, pick SI, otherwise pick AR. AR, if you don't already have it. Are you an Ikea DD? If yes, Liquidator, otherwise 'reload primary weapon faster' skill (torps or BFT). Unfinished thoughts to 21 points...! Basically, I don't think we have definitive 'this is the right thing to do' builds for DDs yet; WG have succeeded in their (alleged) aim of making there be more than one viable build for DDs. The most valuable advice - IMO - seems to be to test as much as you can while the free respec is on and then reset everything the day before it ends, and then run on as few captains as possible, while we wait to see where things end up after any rebalancing. If you have any special captains, there is probably a case for not building them out right away, but using more anonymous ones in the initial period after the free respec - if you mess one of them up, it'll be less annoying to have to park them until the next time there is a free respec (if there ever is). Imagine having to ditch Cunningham, say, because some crucial skill you gave him gets rebalanced...

On a related note, I would pay (a small amount of) money to change the sound effect when my Pan EU torps hit to 'squeaky toy' noises... (BTW +1 for sorting out the original compensation problem.)

Okay, I'm afraid I'm now firmly in the 'Deadeye should be removed entirely or nerfed into the bedrock' camp. It's not making BBs more accurate that's the problem, but (IMO) that it's apparently making the majority even more averse to tanking than they were before; the impact on the game has several times today been even more drastic than which team has the better CV, and that's saying something. Whilst I happily accept that camping BBs is hardly a new thing, Deadeye just seems to have made it even worse. (Sorry, just needed to vent after several games in a row thrown by 'Deadeye BBs')

For some reason, I have the impression that trying to forget submarines would be approximately akin to trying to forget some upcoming horrifyingly invasive bowel procedure, possibly involving some pneumatic medical apparatus of sufficient power to easily raise Tower Bridge...!

Whilst taking the mickey is the natural response; the following may be of help: Your only other CV (that you've played in Randoms) appears to be a T4. Your first step is to play lower tier CVs until you understand the class better (Ops in T6s are a good way to practice against fairly painless opposition). Once your skills/experience have caught up a bit, then return to Saipan (which, I gather, isn't exactly easy mode for most people anyway). Finally, get some advice from proper CV players, as my skill-set is more about avoiding CVs, and killing planes when I can't evade. While there is some scope for AA builds with the captain rework, I'd be very surprised if many people are using them - you generally give up too much when you focus heavily on AA.

And thus getting the PA version falling out of a crate is all but guaranteed...!

Me too, which was why I bought one waaaaaay back, when they were briefly available. Like *most* of the ships on the short lists, she's pretty decent; the entire problem was that WG's marketing didn't explain properly (or at all, really) how the Xmas boxes actually worked.

You're entirely correct, if it's one-on-one; I was more thinking about trying to help team-mates that said BB was shooting at, so meaning he isn't focusing his attention on me. It's probably way above my skill level though, as you have to appear just as the BB is about to fire at your allies, and then disappear again right after, before anyone can take too lethal an interest in you. Like I said earlier, better to just torp the blighters, especially at my skill level.

It would certainly be helpful to have indicators that tell you when one of these 'if-when' skills activates, if only to inform decision making in 'edge' cases. It also reminds me that I was wondering if there is a way of telling if a BB has Deadeye or not, beyond the current tendency to head for the map borders if they have? It occurred to me that - especially on smaller maps - sneaky ships like DDs have the potential to make partial 'mission kills' on BBs by merely being within the BB's 'standard' detection distance and allowing themselves to be fleetingly spotted (maybe by surfing their own detection distance). It's probably quite a lot of work for marginal gain (why not just torp the buggers if you're that close?), but being able to effectively knock four points off an opposing captain's value is perhaps at least worth vaguely contemplating?

Isn't this a bit chicken and egg? There are only - what - three four Ops at the moment (four five, if you count Newport); are you really surprised that people get a bit bored? Also, you only get the decent rewards once, and then there is a precipitous drop to just silver and xp. Why not try the following: Rework the existing 'missing' Ops; the work should be dramatically less than building a new one from scratch, and ought to roughly double the cycle time of Ops, so reducing boredom. Give people a reason to replay the things: have some sort of intermediate rewards related to stars that reset each cycle; the initial rewards should stay as 'once only' things, but perhaps put in coal, extra silver, xp of some sort, basic signals, and so on (i.e. low value, but *something*), depending on how many stars you get, but - again - once only per reset. So a similar order of magnitude to the easier monthly rewards for just playing. The Ops are an excellent inclusion, especially for the PvE crowd, and they absolutely do make several of the premium ships on offer a lot more attractive (not just Mysore), not to mention 'National' permaflage (more of which could be another useful income stream). Edited because I think I forgot one!

FWIW there is a very good chance I wouldn't have bothered with Mysore if T6 Ops didn't exist: for me, she's not much use for other modes so would have been a waste of money.

Reminds me: I really need to try mine out properly; I've mostly been messing about with doing missions since I gave mine her initial Coop run-out...