Verblonde

No, I'm sure you are being pessimistic; I can feel it in me water: you will receive plenty of ramming flags...!

Ouch! That can't have been much fun!

FWIW I absolutely wouldn't suggest Yudachi at this stage - she isn't nearly as bad as people think, but there are far better things to get instead, even just within T7. *Maybe* have a look at her once you've played a lot more IJN torp boat games. I rather like Yudachi personally, but I do have a 19 point TA (which makes the torps tolerable - 12 km range is enough) captain to put in her; she'd be a miserable experience for a comparative newbie...

Obvious favourites for me (that are still available) include things like Haida, Z-39, Scharn, and Boise, off the top of my head, BUT T7 can have troublesome MM since some semi-recent changes. A couple of other things to have on your radar: It's a good idea if your first/early premium ship purchases gel with the captains you have on your silver ships; besides more efficient use of the premiums themselves (due to captain training), a premium with a sub-standard captain can be painful to play. For example, Haida is excellent - IMO - but a very poor choice if you don't have a way to generate at least a 10 point captain (13-15 better), mainly because she has no corresponding silver ships at the moment. You're very early in your WOWS career (sub-500 random battles at time of writing), so you may not yet have settled on a main class and/or favourite play style; it might be better to wait, or get some lower tier things that cost less, in case your preferences shift. It's worth picking up some of the 'free' premiums from the Armory [sic] i.e. the coal ones i.e. Aigle, Blysk (works with your Pan-EU captains, especially if you went BFT), and Anshan are all worthwhile (if you have at least a 10 point captain). Don't forget Ops: they can be a useful mode for earning and missions, provided you have suitable ships; however, top picks for Ops are not necessarily the same as for other modes e.g. unless you're *really* good, most DDs tend to be a liability in Ops. If paying money, get something you can use a coupon for, or is otherwise cheap - premium ships are over-priced compared to many games' DLC. So, some specific suggestions, having looked at your stats/ships: Your most played ships seem to be the Ikeas; Blysk is a slam-dunk choice here: she's been a bit power-crept, but is still a decent DD. More gun orientated than the silver line, and don't expect the Ikeas' terrifying (for a DD) AA. Best of all though, you can get her for coal, and you have a better chance of having at least a 'good enough' captain for her. Your cruisers are mainly low tier, but the Russians seem to be most played; suggest the T5 Kirov, for coal, and she suits a captain from the silver line too. That's your lot, at this stage. There are loads of good premiums, but your chances of getting the most from a lot of them (especially at T7) will be limited at the moment due to lack of captains and/or experience. Permit me to offer some further suggestions: If you really do want some variety, get it via other silver lines; you appear to have missed most of the classic 'first choices' of lines to play; you'll do better in the long run if you play those (examples include IJN/US BBs, DDs, and Cruisers - these were the first lines introduced to the game and as such are the least weird; your RN BBs are a poor first line as they teach you bad habits, such as spamming HE, for example). If you want to buy something more powerful to increase your chances of winning, it won't work; in general, WOWS is lousy if you want to P2W. If you buy a premium, you will indeed have a shiny higher tier ship (if you buy a higher tier one), but then so will everyone else, and they'll be more experienced, and they'll probably have better captains. Take the time to get 'good enough' captains; this means at least 10 points when you're into the +2 MM bracket. I know this is all a bit dull (and we all feel the urge for the new shiny - look at my ships list for a particularly powerful example of that + poor impulse control), but you'll do best if you take your time, get a few more modest tiered premiums first that mesh with your silver ships, and then get livelier once you've got more experience and captains. Of course, most people ignore this entirely; if/when you do, you can use the things in Coop whilst skills/captains/etc. catch up, so it isn't a total loss short-term....

@Excavatus has summarised neatly your issues, and what to do about them (and by the sound of it, you've followed his - and others - advice). As a general rule of thumb, almost any consistent trend in results, over a large enough data set, is down to the player; good or bad, your results are almost entirely down to you. The more interesting thing is what you do with this information. I would suggest that the most useful learning from this thread is a bit more than simply 'play (the right) BBs in the current Sprint'; if you have a problem with the game in future, you will get far less blunt help (and you *will* get help - the forum has a lot of people happy to assist fellow players) if you couch your posts in terms more akin to "x has happened, and I don't understand why, or need help avoiding it in future" you'll get a far gentler response than if you err more towards "x has happened and the game needs changing and/or it's everyone else's fault!". At the risk of sounding a bit 'Kumbaya', this forum is pretty good at providing guidance and help to those who ask (and sometimes those who don't ask, but clearly need it!), but people do better when they avoid a fundamental pitfall: don't be a Richard.

Quite a striking season: did appallingly badly initially, playing my usual DDs (mainly Black and Jutland); eventually made it to R3. Things cheered up after I was given the invaluable advice to switch to BBs (GA, specifically) - more or less straight to R1 after that, with only one (star-saving) loss. It's interesting what a remarkable difference the switch to 3v3 (and the importance of the caps) made to optimal ship choices.

After the utter and complete ignominy of my earlier attempts in DDs...! <sounds of frantic scrubbing in the background> Edit: I just looked as well - Gordon Bennett! There's something wrong with my bloody DDs this week...!

Thanks again, @DFens_666 - just ranked out, with only one (star- saving) loss en-route; great tip! Right, now I'm off to scrub off the BB Cooties, with a wire brush and Dettol...!

You will face it at that tier though: there are a few premiums that have it (Atlanta, Belfast, and Sharkbait).

I just tried exactly that - two wins from two, with a most satisfactory level of manliness (if not good sense). I think I may have to temporarily dispense with my aversion to BB Cooties for a bit... Thanks for the advice - much appreciated!

Well, I'm doing dreadfully so far (even worse than usual); it's quite interesting - from an objective standpoint - I did well in 1v1 (a lot of which was due to having a Tirpitz, if I'm honest), and did fine in sprints in larger teams at T9, but this time I seem to be playing like a bag of spanners in 3v3. Besides the whole "if a third of the team is rubbish, you're going to lose" thing (me being the third in question), the usual ship choices don't seem to be the same as usual e.g. Black - for me - hasn't worked as well as usual; perhaps due to needing people to shoot at stuff that you radar, and not being as effective as an 'army of one' due to eminently avoidable torps. This is probably a good thing, as it does mean you have to think a bit differently to usual...

You're thinking the latter configuration of the ship (she lost a turret, and a torp laucnher)? As launched, she had a more conventional configuration (I believe) - that was what I was speculating about. I'm liking your idea very much too - a change from Haida/Z-39 would be welcome.

Full disclosure: I suck in all cruisers, even more so than other classes, so this isn't the view of a competent player. However, I am a DD main, so do have a primary target's perspective... I'd go with Chapy: The key thing that both T8 Russian cruisers do is 12 km radar, so the primary consideration - for me - revolves around this; Chapy's simply runs for much longer (coal mod is a nice addition too) - Tallinn's radar is of too short a duration to make spotted ships' lives miserable, even with a coal mod. Chapy is - I believe - a bit sneakier; whilst it's useful on its own, it also means she gets a larger stealth radar window, which allows her to maximise her key strength. Both have decent guns (others have outlined the pros and cons), and largely hopeless torps; I don't feel this stuff provides much to choose between in terms of game influence. Speaking as - most usually - a DD driver, I don't worry that much about Tallinn (especially if solo) because I'm confident I can usually evade the fire that heads my way during its radar run-time, whereas I view Chapy as a much more serious threat...

HMS Cavalier would be nice (perhaps give her the souped up French engine boost as a nod to her history?), although I'm not sure which tier to put her at. One option might be a fairly high tier thing (9 or 10), focusing a bit more on torps (and AA?), rather than the more usual RN dakka; make her more stealthy than Daring - maybe 5.6-5.7 km(ish), so as to continue the IJN +0.1 thing we have at T8? Alternatively, just go T8, with more torps, but less dakka than Cossack? I'm assuming the original 4-gun configuration. Something else I hope to see is Dido, of course - she'd probably end up as a kind-of T6 Atlanta (longer-ranged torps, but lower rof?), assuming she's implemented similarly to the Blitz version.

You made me curious. Behold, the majesty:

Really? There's rather a limit to how OP a T3 can be, surely? If anyone with torps gets anywhere nearby, it's deader than plaid for a start...

Most people are agreeing with you! This is however a topic that has been gone over a myriad times (although I don't blame you for missing it, as most stuff gets lost in the interminable sticky CV thread, because WG don't want CVs' failings talked about all over the place), so you shouldn't be surprised by a certain amount of flippancy...

First, welcome! Second, what @ColonelPete said. Plus, there follow some areas to look at/think about: There is a lot to learn in WOWS, and it does take a long time to get good at it (or never really, in my case); unlike a lot of shooters, you need to develop a lot more cunning - fast reflexes alone won't do the job. Watch some YouTube tutorials (iChase is often a good place to start:https://www.youtube.com/user/ichasegaming), although be mindful of the date; the game has changed a lot, especially over the last year or so (CVs/AA in particular), so older films may be of less use. In the game, make sure you have the alternative interface enabled, and make sure the mini-map is as large as practical on your monitor size - situational awareness is arguably the most important thing to develop (alongside an understanding of vision mechanics, although the two are intimately related) in the game. Switch on as many of the range circles on the mini-map as you can process; besides feeding into the all-important vision/awareness game, some of them can provide helpful 'quick-reckoning' aids for estimating distance. Having fettled your mini-map sufficiently, make very sure you use it; better players will spend a lot of their time playing via the mini-map, rather than the main display (although it varies with class/activity etc.). Don't rush up the tiers too fast; it used to be the case that the textbook advice was not to go above T4 until you were consistently achieving a satisfactory WR in most/all classes, however WG have made a pig's ear of the T4 CVs (especially their population) and they currently make the game - arguably - unplayable for new players until they hit about T5. So, I would suggest pausing for a while at T5 for a while, until you've got the hang of all the surface classes, and press on only then. As you go up the tiers, the opposition gets stronger, they often have far better captains than you'll have had a chance to develop yet, and players will be more experienced; so, if you want to avoid getting scragged most of the time, a more dignified rate of progression is advised. Take the time to learn about the various ships in your MM spread (don't forget: when you get to T5 you start facing +2 MM); what are their strengths/weaknesses/weird abilities etc. The wiki (https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/World_of_Warships) is a good place to look for this information, as well as for information about game mechanics etc. Besides basic stuff like BBs are huge and armoured, DDs are small and sneaky etc. look out for things like radar (T7 is the first tier that gets it - currently on a few premiums only), and hydro in particular. Play all the ship types; besides keeping the game varied, this is the best way to understand the capabilities and aims of all the ships you'll face in the game e.g. once you've played a few DDs, you'll probably never drive your fatties in a straight line (at constant speed) again! Focus on developing a few good captains, and make sure you understand how the various skills etc. work. A good captain makes a significant difference to a ship's effectiveness, and becomes more and more important as you go up the tiers. Your shorter-term goal is to get to at least ten points (you can buy ready-made ones from the Armory [sic] and earn freebies from various missions and Ops etc.), as that's (for most ships) the soonest that you can unlock CE.. Longer term, you're aiming to get your first 19 pointer (and then more of them); 19 point captains are particularly valuable as all the captain xp they earn can be used to boost any other captain, so speeding up the development of later additions. Your first 19 pointer will make your second faster to achieve, and then the third will be faster still, and so on.. Understand though that the first will take quite a long time to get - the jump from 18 to 19 points needs 300K xp, from memory! Play in divisions (ideally with voice comms) with experienced players, who are happy to provide feedback/teach; you'll find you'll learn a lot faster if someone can point out some more obvious good/bad aspects of your play. Also, stay in the game after getting blown up and watch what other players do (although be aware that many will be an object lesson in what not to do), with a view to learning from them. Join a clan; besides often being a source of division mates and opening up access to some game modes that solo players can't get at, you'll get some useful economic bonuses (assuming their base has been developed to a reasonable degree). Finally, keep asking questions on here; there are usually plenty of folk around who'll be happy to help.

Presumably, this is the reason:

Oh, that - I just thought it might be vaguely interesting to a few people (and save them the trouble of having to work it out themselves). Off at a tangent, I do find myself slightly tempted by the (entirely unnecessary) 'Hawaiian Shirt' cammo for Atlanta..!

I fear you may not have read some of my earlier comments on the subject; for example: I was merely commenting on the financial value, or not, of the 'guaranteed premium ship' boxes (Tier 8, specifically); it should be pretty clear from my earlier comments that I don't view the event under discussion as a 'sale' (at least not as I understand the term).

Depends on which ship you actually get - GZ isn't bad, whereas some of the DDs cost less in the shop than the tokens would...!

Incidentally, if one avoids the gambling boxes, one can just buy tokens and swap them for a guaranteed premium ship box (still gambling, but you know you'll certainly get a ship). I haven't done the maths for all permutations, but thinking about the T8 one: The daily token bundles (two of them) cost 8.74 UKP and net you 60 tokens. Assuming the same is true for the next couple of days as well, you need three days' worth to get one T8 container i.e. 26.22 UKP. Looking in the online store, a T8 premium currently costs in the range of 23.36 (Loyang)-39.40 (GZ); the containers also include a ten point captain (5 UKP-ish?) What you already have will inform the comparative value of buying tokens. In my case, the only T8 premiums on the drop list that I don't have are Champagne, Cheshire, and Ochakov; I can get the latter for 8,745 doubloons (with a coupon), which is around 25 UKP; there is also the risk that I might get Cheshire if I got the box instead...! (The horror, the horror!)

You already have the really valuable reward (Enterprise) though - the rest you can pick up any old time (and - I think - use a 25% coupon on to boot)?

As I understand it (and I could easily be wrong), the chance to get a ship is consistent, as long as you don't have all of them already. If you roll a ship, you won't get a duplicate Enterprise - in this case - but rather one of the other options. However, if you have all the ships already, you won't get a duplicate ship, but rather one of the (less valuable) 'not a ship' rewards. Edit: it's worth emphasising though that we really don't know, as WG don't publish details of odds or mechanics.