Verblonde

I see that the new PT ('Argus Eyed' <rolls eyes>), and Adrenaline Rush both now cost an extra point - probably reasonable, especially the latter, which was ludicrously cheap. The DD section includes several good 1-point picks; however, I suggest this isn't one of them: Gordon Bennett...!

It looks like they might fix a - for me - perennial whinge with Manual Secondaries though:

This was a problem area that stuck up for me too: I was under the impression that most of the BCs worked best with - essentially - a BB build.

Heh - from the proposed new skills thing: Looks like all my manly ships will definitely be getting Man Sec now....

It seems to be intermittent - I just got in....

Looks like the 'details' bit has wet itself (too much traffic)...

So, no change for cruisers, but it gets cheaper for DDs? Mild 'yay' I suppose....? Presumably, the BB bit is all about secondaries? I won't grumble if I can make my manly ships a bit manlier, I guess.

Even WG aren't that ghastly/stupid:

Well, you never know: WG *may* not screw this up...

I do it for a couple of reasons: Most importantly, I'm a bit dopey in BBs, so having the secondaries go off automatically can be a useful alarm that I didn't notice something sneaking up on me (tunnel-vision resistance, essentially). Man Sec only shoot at a single target, in a single direction; without it, your secondaries shoot at more or less everything in range, and do it automatically (with slightly increased efficiency if you ctrl-click on something). It's fun. As a very minor factor, it gives a boost to AA, but I wouldn't take it for that alone. I have tried Man Sec in the past (and will do again, when I have a good enough captain spare and/or we get a free reset), but found the overall effect less satisfactory for me. FWIW if Man Sec did what it does currently at the selected target, but also did the automatic thing a) when you haven't selected a target and b) when some guns can't shoot at the selected target, I'd take it like a shot...

It's quite possible that 60% were; however, it isn't because they are pay-to-win - unless you've reground a line multiple times, premium ships can often mean a better captain as most people don't have a 19 pointer (or similar) for every silver tier. Besides that, the rewards are usually better in premiums; if we must play ranked, decent rewards are not an unreasonable hope for putting yourself through it. From memory, there is one BB with 10 km torps (I assume that's what you mean, and 'trop' isn't a slang term I was previously unaware of) - Kii - not exactly a byword for tanky. The German ones are all - I think - 6 km range, and trying too hard to use them will most likely get you sunk. I believe you are correct. Question though: are you saying this is an advantage of premium or silver ships? Given how many idiots get sunk trying to use their torps when the shot isn't on, you can make a solid case that torps on BBs are a disadvantage (I happen to like them, but most of my BBs tend to live in Coop, where torps are less of a stupid idea).

My P2W must be broken; can I get a refund? Needless to say, the list goes on. Is WOWS pay-to-progress-a-lot-faster? Absolutely. Is it pay to win? Absolutely not. These are my top-ten ships, with 50+ battles on them, sorted by WR: Five each premium and non-premium; small data-set, but you take my point... IMO, the only meaningful advantage you get from (some premiums) - excluding the 'OP male-chicken-up ships' (Belfast, GC etc.) - is an element of the unknown when people haven't bothered to learn the basics of all the ships in their MM spread e.g. to judge by their behaviour in the T8 Sprint, a measurable number of players didn't know about Orkan's radar; there's no way Orkan is OP, but I got the drop on at least a few smoke campers who didn't know about her party piece.

I imagine the proper CV players will be along shortly to explain why you're doing it wrong, although speaking as a DD main I'm a huge fan of opposing CVs that focus on doing damage, because it means they aren't doing their job i.e. spotting me, and making my life miserable as a result. My point earlier still stands, only perhaps more so: at time of writing, you have fewer than 200 games in CVs (in Randoms), and of those only 7 are at T4 and 39 at T6; your most played ship is Kaga (125 games). That isn't nearly enough to have mastered CVs, especially given that how they work is unlike all the other ship types; also, besides lacking the skill-set, you probably don't have a good enough captain for at least some of these ships either, which will be gimping you further. I would suggest going back to T4 for a bit (sorry, newbies in all the surface ships) and starting from first principles with the IJN line; after that, practice with the T6 a lot and only then return to T8. The IJN line also has the merit of you having Kaga available as a captain trainer. WOWS is not like a typical shooter; you can't just go at it with good reflexes and hope to do well - if you don't take the time to learn and practice, you'll consistently get your posterior handed to you, and this has very little to do with relative tiers....

I believe the upcoming asymmetric mode is PvP...

I was thinking slightly unworthy thoughts about the Kami/Fujin, but then I am a bad person...

What do you reckon? Next fault and removal some time around tea time this afternoon? (I'm very glad it's back as well)

Only if you are still within your first dozen or so battles. WOWS has many faults but the power differential between tiers isn't one of them (play WOT if you really want a reality check on this front); with a bit of applied intelligence and modification of play style, you can generally usefully contribute more or less regardless of relative tiers. This is your problem, not the relative strengths of the ships across tiers: (You need to drop down a few tiers and build up the necessary skill-set)

Full disclosure: I'm a DD main, so most of my experience comes from sinking BBs, rather than playing them; however, the KM BB line is the only one that I've played all the way to T10 (so far) as I rather enjoy them. So, in that context: So far, you've only played German ships, and almost all of them have been BBs; you'll do a lot better if you a) diversify both class and nation, and b) don't focus too hard on the high tiers; the journey up the various trees is at least as important as the destination, so don't rush (Gneis after 144 battles - at time of writing - is way too fast). As to captain builds, you basically face a bit of a dilemma with the Germans: on the one hand, a tank/survival build is optimal if you want to win games, whilst on the other, more 'manly' builds are generally - IMO - a lot more fun. At this stage, the sensible approach is to go pure tank/survival; build the 'fun' captains later in your WOWS career when you have the spare captains/xp, and - most importantly - the skill to not get your posterior handed to you (manly play is harder as you have to be better at situational awareness and timing, plus you're less likely to survive if you mess up). So, a tank build captain might look like this: That's not to say this is 'right' (many players would want BoS, for example), but rather the sort of thing one should be thinking about. FWIW this is my 'sensible' high tier IJN BB captain. What I run on my manly ships looks more like this: I think of this as 'semi-manly' because I wimped out and took FP over ManSec (although really meant for Coop, this captain needs to not be entirely disastrous against real people too). This is my Currywurst captain, but I used the same build from T7 upwards (and on my manly US BBs too). To reiterate though: this build is fun, but not even remotely optimal. In summary, if you want to win, go 'tank'; if you want to have fun, go 'manly'. As a newbie, I would advise the former, at least whilst you're developing your skill-set. BTW you might find this site of use when thinking about captains: http://shipcomrade.com/captcalc

@Baikam - additionally: looking at your stats, it looks like you've rushed up the tiers faster than is usually advisable; also, the bulk of your games are not in Random mode. Mistakes are punished harder at higher tiers, so the 'survive' bit *might* give you less trouble at lower tiers (T5-6, say). Don't forget that you can't get achievements in Coop mode.

This is a screen-shot of your achievements (at time of writing); you currently don't have any Dreadnought awards (second row, second from the right). They're not hugely uncommon, but you need to be playing the right ships, and in the right way. Most of mine were got in DDs (ridiculously), but the easiest class for this is probably BBs. You're basically after ships with good heals (bonus points if they're better than average at healing citadel damage etc.) that get shot at a lot, hence why BBs are a good pick - tanking damage is a key part of your job with them. If you're actively trying to earn one, don't forget that you have to survive the battle, as well as getting damaged by at least four enemies...

Whichever you're better in, presumably? Of course, it'll all depend on what the meta ends up being like.. Personally, I'll only be aiming for R10 as usual, and start with my favourite DDs (at least until it becomes apparent that I'm playing the wrong class, like with the latest Sprint); depending on the prevalence of CVs, I'm assuming that anything that's entirely defenceless against average CV players will be a poor pick though.

It might be Salisbury cathedral I suppose; we all know how keen on that the Russians are...!

Zilch from the freebies; Mainz and Pommern from premiums (had Hipper and Zed already)...

Dev Blog (turn Bismarck into a cathedral): https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/69