Verblonde

Loving the optimism; today, randoms seems to be especially awash with 'weekenders' - magnificent amounts of setting BBs on fire going on, rather than shooting targets that might actually make a difference... I must be calm..etc.

More steel would certainly be nice (at the current rate, I'll probably get Somers around 2035), but above R10, Ranked gets very much - for me anyway - into spectacularly diminishing returns territory. Getting to R10 isn't unreasonably frustrating for me, so I quit once I've got the rewards where they are justified by the effort; beyond that - nah.

I wonder what proportion of players simply drop out after getting the flag at R10, say? It's what I do, and I've read others on here expressing a similar sentiment before now...

The PA twins are excellent as DD captains, due to the boosted SE; if you want to make use of the other boosted skill, you could build him for Irian. FWIW, this is what I did with mine that's assigned to the DDs: It's perhaps worth noting that just because an enhanced captain has a particular boosted skill it doesn't mean you automatically have to take it e.g. assuming you put the US Overnchicken on a DD, you probably won't want to use the boosted EM. For a typical PA DD, you could perhaps make a case for taking the Boosted DE over SI; the reason I don't is that this captain gets used on Loyang quite a lot, and the extra consumables charges make up for not getting the boosted fire chance (YMMV of course).

Time to head for your nearest volcano, accountants in tow... (BTW bonus points for Halo Jones avatar.)

I assume that @GulvkluderGuld means that only one line has *any* gunboats in it? I use 'dakka' and 'torp' line to distinguish them mainly on the basis of the end point, rather than necessarily what happens on the way; that's just me though.

I would normally agree with you 100%, but I'll let WG off in this particular case - can you imagine the epic hissy fit that the historical purists might throw if they got weebery thrust upon them without permission...?

They're definitely a line for experienced players; a newbie DD player would get their posterior similarly handed to them in French or Ikea DDs - same principle. I was under the impression that RN CLs aren't meant to hunt BBs - you're all about scragging DDs, and other lighter cruisers. If you must shell BBs, isn't the consensus that the best you can do is shoot the superstructure, and do it from within smoke. You also get a heal too, but one that suggests not fighting BBs, as it doesn't help much against citadels. I'm not a deranged elitist, but I think it's healthy for there to be a few 'expert'/'hard mode' lines in the game, even if I'm rubbish in them personally - if you could play a thousand games and be good in everything, where would be the longer-term challenge?

The RN CLs are notoriously not newbie-friendly; if a new player *must* play RN cruisers, point them at the heavies. Far better is to start with IJN and/or Americans - they're the classic learning trees; get the hang of them first before trying one of the weird lines.

I remedied her absence from my collection this morning - enjoying her rather a lot so far...!

That worked - many thanks!

Mine fell out of a box last Xmas; once I finished swearing and got round to playing her, I found I rather like her. She isn't good, by any stretch of the imagination (especially at a tier which has Haida and Z-39 in it), but she isn't disastrous with a TA captain, and the new zoomy torps mod. So, there are *far* better premiums to buy - IMO - but she's better than a sharp kick to the happy sacks!

Isn't Akatsuki on the torp line? It's Shiratsuyu that's really good (5.8 km concealment)... I do keep the torp T7 around too, but much prefer the 'dakka' one (Yudachi too, come to that, but that's probably weird).

Not to mention Gearing, the various Feltchers, the RN DDs, a couple of the Ikeas, and so on. That'll be why I said 'many'...

Well, it's not like I'm short of spare berths, and they might come in handy for something at some point...

More or less a yes, especially given that the T7 'dakka' DD is actually a magnificent torp boat (!). That said, your first ten points will be the same, more or less regardless of line; the 'standard' build will probably be good enough up to T7; when you get to T8, start layering in the more 'dakka'-related skills then. Additional: the T7 dakka DD is a keeper, so you may as well leave a specialised captain on her. Also, think about whether you'll be regrinding the line at some stage for RB; if you will, then you want at least a 10 pointer for each ship in the line from T5 or so upwards (and move your best one up the line as you go).

I'm all manner of rubbish in her, but she is fun. Not a bad ship for forcing you to learn what to do about having essentially no armour...

Ah, you must be new here - have you been introduced to Wargaming?

If they're 'full' premiums, they are; if they're semi-premium 'event ships', then they aren't. Have a look at the following graphic (stolen from Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/WorldOfWarships/comments/d8m7ud/a_guide_on_premium_ship_credit_income_edited_for/ I think they lump the premiums and semi-premiums together; essentially, if it's T10 it's an event ship, and the rest are full premiums (I think). If you want to understand this a bit further, have a look at the Operating Cost bit of the wiki: https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Economy#Operating_Cost

There is also now a freebie 'click to participate' mission in this news story: https://worldofwarships.eu/en/news/sales-and-events/azur-lane-third-wave/

FWIW we now have the traditional 'click to participate' mission to get the freebie captain: https://worldofwarships.eu/en/news/sales-and-events/azur-lane-third-wave/

True, but then again neither are many things above around T8. In the specific case of the captain from the start of the thread, a filter will mean that all you see/hear is some normal random IJN chappie.

Reminder: you can switch the things off; if you filter out the weebery, for example, I think you just see/hear normal captains.

If one hasn't Observed The Weeb, the way the AL commanders look could be misunderstood; as others have alluded to, the ship name/tier simply refer to what the captain is supplied specialised for. Most captains are supplied with a specialisation for the relevant T1 of their nation; in the case of the AL captains, they come specialised for whichever ship is their namesake. Edit, some example ARP weebery, which shows the same thing (I haven't messed with any of their specialisations):

Incidentally, if one picks up one of the ships, it seems you get the +200% xp thing (for the next 40 days, it says in my client) - that rather adds to the attractiveness of the ships (well, for me anyway).