Verblonde

Don't forget: she looks great too! With my lack of cruiser kung fu, I may get sunk all the time, but I'll look damn fine doing it...!

I suspect one's view on this may depend a bit on what sort of player one is: I'm a grumpy old git, with half-century old reactions and I *really* hate playing against the wheelies: The little feckers are extremely hard to hit* (although it gets less difficult as you get your eye in, especially with higher velocity guns - good luck with KV-2). A lot of players are not terribly good at keeping an eye on the top level game objectives, capping particularly - intelligently played wheelies can effectively win the game via capping and spotting faster than many folk can react. On the other hand, they probably aren't much of an issue if you have teenagers' reactions, honed through years of reaction-based online shooters. *Some years ago, I remember reading about the M1 (or whichever version it was); at less than half a km range, it could move faster than the current Russian tanks could turn their turrets! Fighting wheelies can be a lot like that.

I play both, although I fairly recently took effectively a couple of years off WOT; I have twenty-something K battles, although the bulk are on the NA server. My NA account shows an overal WR similar to WOWS i.e. sub-average, but my EU one firmly red at the moment (mainly because I'm horribly rusty). WOT is *much* more grindy than WOWS: with the right flags/cammo, you can push a line of ships to T10 in around a week (plus/minus), which is entirely unrealistic in WOT. WOT's economy is a lot harsher than WOWS too, which slows things down drastically as well (especially if you make extensive use of the - despised by many - 'gold' ammo). The effective removal of 'universal' premium time (except for actual money through the shop) makes hopping between the two titles a rather less attractive proposition these days too. That said, WOT is still a pretty decent game, and some aspects are arguably more involved/interesting/varied than in WOWS (mostly to do with vision and concealment). That said, I'm mainly playing it for occasional giggles at the moment; I currently much prefer WOWS, and that is my main focus as a consequence...

As an aside, I've been looking at teaching English as a Foreign Language lately; it made me wonder if this sort of thing is just a side-effect of having copy written by people for whom English isn't their mother tongue - missing out words like 'for' is apparently characteristic of those still learning the language, if memory serves.

None, I imagine; the rework is still very relevant to premium choices at the moment though - as things stand, at least some premiums will probably be less viable after the changes (in the same way that some may well be better). Unless there have been some changes that I've missed, I would avoid any cruisers which currently work best with - essentially - a BB captain in them, at least until everything is finalised and we can see what the real impacts are, both positive and negative. Are you seriously suggesting that a player with (at time of writing) fewer than 100 battles above T5 will be able to cope with T8+ randoms after one or two battles in a new premium in Coop 'to get a feel for' [it]?! I'm afraid that's extremely poor advice - this isn't about gate-keeping, it's about having fun with your new purchase, and getting sunk after a couple of minutes because you're out of your depth is not fun (for most people, anyway). A far more sensible approach is to buy premiums that roughly track where one is comfortable with equivalent silver ships. I'm sure there are prodigies out there who can hop straight into a T10 premium(ish) and do magnificently, but I'd bet my left nut that they're pretty rare (and offer advice on the basis of balance of probability). That's not to say you shouldn't buy whatever you like and mess around in Coop with it (I have more than ten times as many Coop games in MO as I do Randoms, for example), but we've been talking - at least in part - about maximising earnings, and that requires Randoms (and other PvP).

I'm not a cruiser meister, but a lot of the variation - I'm guessing - may date from when the guide was produced; what to do with Atlanta changed dramatically after the reework (not for the better, alas)...

As far as the game is concerned, they are not the same ship: one is Scharnhorst and the other is Scharnhorst B. The same is true for all the 'black' ships and their vanilla counterparts, not to mention the various weeb and similar things in the game. For example, this screen-grab shows four different ships, as far as the game is concerned: All the in-game characteristics of these ships are identical, yet for the purposes of the game and how it works they are four different things (and the Kongo is yet another). The game is awash with similar other examples all over the place (with more to come); to avoid ulcers it's worth understanding this and being aware of it whenever buying/grinding ships: any distinct ship (as in it exists as a separate ship in the game files, regardless of aesthetics and/or performance) will not block and/or be equivalent to other versions of ostensibly the same ship. If you happen to have a matched pair (or more), just make use of the advantages and try not to get too upset about any perceived disadvantages, as the latter will achieve nothing productive.

No - they're freebies that reset every so often (the next reset will most likely to be towards the end of the year). The commonest source of 'lost' doubloons, if one is generally paying attention (remember that fully retraining a captain costs 500 doubloons when you move him/her/it between ships) is via the 'auto-replenish' function on signals and/or cammo. Make sure every ship has the option to replenish these using in-game currency disabled, and re-check every time you add either option from a 'neked' position, as it'll try and re-enable the auto-replenish (a major Richard move by WG, but vodka isn't going to buy itself)...

With the utmost respect: might I suggest playing all (or at least most) of the existing content in the game, and fully getting the hang of what's there already, before trying to lobby for potentially (if not done right) game-ruining changes. You basically have missed out on cruisers entirely (one at T5, and nothing higher). You've missed out on almost all the DD lines (IJN DDs to T8, and nothing else of note). You've rushed up the tiers in BBs too - mainly IJN, at the expense of almost all else. There is still a huge amount of variety and interesting content in the game that you haven't even looked at; you really need to get that hang of that lot first...

<meditates on the matter for a suitable period of time> No! Hells, no! I would rather drink a pint of my own diarrhea whilst simultaneously belly-crawling over broken glass and ill-tempered scorpions with my flies undone! (That's a 'not keen' BTW)

Nah - WG will sell as many to as many discerning whales as they can persuade to open their wallets...! Or at least there's been no limit in previous years anyway.

I do have one gripe with the Black ships though: in an egregious oversight, WG appear to have forgotten to make the horns play Venus in Furs as they self-evidently should.

It's worthwhile; like @Captain_Newman I used to always take PM as my first one pointer, but switched to PT once I worked out that - for me anyway - the extra information was resulting in my reducing getting scragged more effectively than a reduced chance of getting stuff shot off was. That said, I try and take both if I can, but the first pick is always PT these days (on DDs anyway). BTW as things stand with the rework, it looks like we'll all be going back to PM (or whatever it's called in the new version) as PT moves to being a 2 pointer, and LS is more essential than the latter (IMO).

You wouldn't for the doubloons alone, but those doubloons do add an additional motivation on top of the existing ones. For me, black ships (and other clones - see earlier) are worth having (in no particular order) because: Each one is another daily win bonus which speeds up captain development significantly. In the case of T7 (and T6 if we ever get any) it avoids having to wait (or pay silver) for a desirable ship to reset after playing Ops; in my case this mainly applies to Scharn and the Myoko clones, but the upcoming Atlanta might be useful for some in the same way). You can run different builds (although I mostly don't) at the same time e.g. full manly on one Scharn, and more sensible gun/survival on the other; when AA mattered, I had one Sims built for AA and the other more conventionally. Extra snowflake at the relevant times, but this applies just as much to just buying a different premium of the same tier (if you don't have them all already). That's just me though, and clearly other people's mileage does vary. I've tended to be time-poor in the past, and clone premiums help with that, so long as they're things I like and play a lot (yes, I do have GZ/GZ B too, but the black one fell out of a gambling box)...

There may have been bundles; I don't remember the details, but the main doubloon 'thing' was from mission chains: (for example) The problem was that WG's usual communication standards struck again (!): many people read the above wording as meaning that if you buy a black ship, you get a mission chain (true) that can be done in that black ship (not true). These mission chains are essentially a modest bribe to encourage people who already have the vanilla version to shell out for a black version of the same ship. If you buy a black ship, you have to have the vanilla one to do the mission (and even if you have both, playing the black one won't count towards the mission chain) and get the doubloons. The other thing to be vaguely aware of is that you 'only' get one go at the doubloon mission - it doesn't reset each year. For example, I got the doubloon mission for Scharn the first year, but not the second year, and if I want any doubloon missions this year, I'll have to get at least one new black ship (where I have the vanilla one already). I imagine we'll have to do the same PSA threads on all this as we did the last couple of years when we get nearer the time...

We probably won't know definitively until WG release the relevant article outlining the offer; I vaguely recall some sort of double-figure % discount compared to the normal ships. The other thing to factor in is that for those who already have the vanilla version, there is a doubloon mission on 'newly purchased' black ships (or there was for the last two years).

First of all, you aren't a gunboat; even though it's on what is often referred to as the gunboat line, you don't get proper dakka until T8. Consequently, you need to build and play the thing more or less like the torp line i.e. it's all about sneaking around (AA off unless/until spotted), spotting, and the bulk of your damage will come from torps; that's not to say you shouldn't use your guns, but pick your spots, such that blowing your stealth doesn't get you sunk by return fire. Your ship build should probably look something like this: (although a lot of folk will take engine protection in slot 2; I don't because of the LS captain skill) You *need* a ten point captain (at least) to avoid being seriously gimped; the first ten points should look like this: This is what is sometimes referred to as the 'standard' DD build, and it's a pretty safe bet for almost everything, or at least it is until the rework (although, based on what's been released so far, it's likely to remain pretty similar afterwards too). If you've done that, the approach is much the same as that for the IJN DDs that you've already played: Surface detection distance should be 5.8 km (assuming CE and cammo on the ship); that's not at all bad for the tier - for comparison, Fubuki clocks in at 6.1 km. You have 10 km torps, running at a reasonable 62 kts (assuming the above build); that's not bad, but unless you're facing radar don't just stand off and spam torps - use your concealment to get closer as that gives your targets less time to spot/evade your torps. Learn the 'worst/scariest case' detection distances of everything you'll face, so you know to what degree you can leverage your stealth (several IJN DDs in your tier spread clock in at 5.4 km, and there are a couple of Brits at 5.5 km to know about too), and as a related note, do the equivalent for radar (until you've learned the detail, assume 12 km for Russians, 10 km for everyone else; although that's wildly inaccurate, it errs on the side of caution, although you may miss opportunities e.g. you're wasting 1.5 km, as it were, if you're working on 10 km radar range for something like an Atlanta, or more for a radar DD like Orkan). Try and avoid planes as much as possible (although your AA is less dreadful than Fubuki, it's still not enough to rely on); your aim is to avoid being spotted as much as you can. If/when a CV does acquire you, remember sector reinforcement, and try and keep an island between you and the opposing surface ships - it's normally surface fire that will do the real damage (unless you do something dumb). That said, if you do meet a competent CV player, you're pretty much dead regardless, so - in those cases - roll your eyes and move on to the next battle (the best you can hope for is for the good CV player to burn some time sinking you). Don't cap too early (regardless of what people tell you in chat); it's generally a far better plan to wait until the worst threats to you have been thinned out - F3 on things you need killed by your allies (usually radars and gunboat DDs in particular); you never know, someone might even shoot them (although you're much more likely to be in luck in competitive modes). When you do try and cap, remember that as soon as the cap starts to tick the opposition know roughly where you are, so always have an escape plan (ideally involving hard cover). Keep a close eye on your mini-map; you need to keep aware of where all your allies are (have they lemminged; are the BBs sniping from the back line where they can't hit anything; can anyone support you - all that sort of stuff), where your known opponents are, and - at least as importantly - what's missing (especially if they're a major threat like radars or DD hunters of any sort). Don't rely 100% on your smoke, and definitely don't sit still in it (most DD mains will have lost count how many kills they've got just by lobbing speculative torps into smoke screens); it's great for breaking LoS and screening allies, but radar can make it actively work against you (they see you, but not vice versa), and - similarly - DDs hiding in smoke are the sort of thing that hydro/radar DDs live for (T-61 at your tier is monstrous at this kind of thing, for example), not to mention similarly equipped larger ships. There's more, of course, but that's a reasonable starter-for-ten...

Unfortunately, you aren't. Sadly, we're almost certainly going to get them added whether we want them or not; the best we can hope for is that they don't entirely ruin the game, but I'm not terribly optimistic: We all know what happened with the reework (still not right more than a year and a half after implementation). The initial sub mode was bloody awful ( @Riggerby covers the why off well). WG may surprise us all and devise a way to add submarines such that they actually improve the game; I'll be pleasantly surprised if that's the case, as they tend to be driven by money more than anything else, and that applies pressure to release things too soon i.e. before they've been got to work correctly.

Aye. Personally, I'm perfectly happy with the following state of affairs: Or this one: Or even this one: All of them are useful for something, whether it's rinsing Ops, or daily first win bonuses for maximum captain training; so far - with the possible exception of GZ if you aren't a CV aficionado - none of the black ships (or other essentially similar higher tier duplicates) aren't of significant use, to the extent that it sucks to get one or other of them.

This. It's not exactly news that things like the black ships are - as far as the game is concerned - different ships (for example, one of the recent directives called for doing a mission in Tirpitz, but not Tirpitz B). This is the down-side of anything approximating a gambling mechanic - you may well get one of the options you don't want. If WG really wanted to avoid this sort of discussion they could just give out a voucher good for any T7 premium, rather than a random box...

@Allied_Winter just witnessed my latest truly terrible performance in Tashkent; suspect my side's victory was largely due to the red team being too busy laughing at me to shoot straight...

FWIW the magic captain isn't really essential, so I wouldn't worry too much about him vis-a-vis whether or not to do the silver line (I didn't complete the campaign until after I'd got Halland, and didn't feel I was missing much): Boosted skill is AR, which is nice, but not usually critical - especially on things with healing potions. Torp reload drops for every eight torp hits (5%); again, nice to have, but rarely critical (a lot of games are largely over by the time you've got those hits). Probably more use if you treat Halland as a torp truck, but that's a bit of a waste. After 20 planes are shot down, continuous AA damage goes up by 20%; yet again, nice to have, but it'll be the most use against high tier CVs, and the game will probably be over by the time you've killed 20 planes, whereas it'll get activated quite easily against a lower tier CV (or possibly idiot high tier) where it's probably overkill. Again this assumes Halland, but it's probably true for any T8+. Obviously, the magic abilities don't work in Clans (or Training, but who cares about that?), so reducing how important they are further. Yeah, it might be irritating to miss out on the captain, but I wouldn't let it impact your decision to play or not play the silver DDs...

It's very helpful for Narai - Scharn is one of the best picks for the Op, and having both versions saves a lot of waiting around (if you don't want to spend the silver to play again right away)...

I'd buy that...

No you don't.