Verblonde

*Maybe*, but T4 and lower - T5s get +2 MM, and really rather need access to at least ten-pointers. The obvious down-side for WG would be that they would stop selling 10 point captains to newbies as they couldn't use them any more...

FWIW the mission seems to activate if you buy a ship too - I seem to have the missions in game, after buying the Yukikaze bundle only (no containers)... Edit:

There are several 'resources only' clans, I understand, if you just want the economic bonuses; also, at least some of the more casual clans are quite relaxed about how often you show up. It's generally mainly the clans who take things more seriously who'll insist on minimum amounts of participation etc.

Do I remember something about MM being tweaked to wait a bit to avoid games with hapless T8s all on their own against a horde of diabolical T10s? It could be something along those lines...?

Thanks for keeping track of this, mighty weebs! I think I may venture a few quid on Yukikaze (if the price on the EU server isn't entirely ridiculous)...

Apart from them being a bit more powerful, this isn't strictly necessary - the elite xp you earn with any 19 pointer can be used for any captain of any nation. I'd suggest just focusing on ships/nations you play a lot.

Translation: "I am a colossal masochist and, since social distancing prevents visits to/from Madam Whiplash, I better find something else to do"...?

Apparently not.

As others have said, you're basically Doomed; that said: Make the most of the non-CV games; if one assumes that one's actions only matter in 'edge' case games, then endeavour to make any without CVs those edges that go in your favour. Play a lot more conservatively than you normally might, and treat a friendly AA blob as a sort of safe(ish) island to make raids from. If your concealment is good enough, try and hide from the planes (this only works for a short time). Stop playing at around R10; your chances of getting tonked increase if the CV player knows his business, and there seem to be more competent CVs as you go up the ranks. Ideally play things with heals; it helps if you can grow back bits that get shot off early in the battle. Sorry that isn't hugely helpful. BTW I got to R10 (all but one game in Orkan - no smoke, but with a heal) and then called it a day. As repeated ad nauseum elsewhere, CVs have no place in small map modes (in their current form).

First, you *are* still a new(ish) player - at time of writing, you have 321 random battles under your belt. This isn't a bad thing; it's just a thing. So, bear in mind you still have a lot of learning to do, and you're also vulnerable to small data sets, so don't get too hung up on stats, although they can be useful for assessing how you're progressing (this isn't a bad site for keeping an eye on them with: https://wows-numbers.com). You've already taken the first crucial step to improving (which the bulk of players, I fear, never manage): you've found the forum and started asking questions. There are usually plenty of folk around who are happy to help; it's worth having a look at people's stats though, as that may inform how relevant their advice is to you e.g. if you look at mine, you'll see I'm not very good in general (48% overall WR), tend to suck less than I used to, play a very wide range of ships (but none of them more than 300 times, and most only in double figures), and am emphatically a DD main. Apply similar logic to others and weight their viewpoints accordingly. Some things to think about: Join a clan (I always say this), preferably one with people happy to teach, and use voice comms. This should help with the learning curve (plus, you'll probably get some useful economic bonuses). Advance up the tiers at a measured pace, and linger at T5-6, to really polish your skill-set (I used to say T4 for this bit, as that's the last +1 MM tier, but the CV plague but the mockers on that), and accumulate several 'good enough' captains. Read up on the various ships you'll find at each tier level (wiki: https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/World_of_Warships), and try and play as wide a range of types as possible - even if you favour one class, it'll be easier to deal with the others if you've played them a bit. Make sure you understand the various game mechanics (wiki again), and especially how vision/spotting works. This, in conjunction with developing good situational awareness, is key to doing better - you'll have a better sense of when to charge, and when discretion is the better part of valour. Learning to shoot straight can take a while; fwiw my feeling is that DDs and rapid-fire cruisers are good to practice in (against bots initially); start with things with forgiving ballistics, and branch out from there. Rapid firing things give you feedback on how you're doing much faster, plus many of them have better dispersion characteristics, so it's easier to tell if you missed because you aimed wrong, or if RNG decided to pi$$ in your chips. Bear in mind that low tier BBs would struggle to hit the side of a barn from the inside - whilst never good, their accuracy gets a lot less dreadful at higher tier. Sort of related: have a look at the armour viewer; it'll help you identify where things like citadels tend to be - if you can hit the enemy citadel, your damage done will go up dramatically. Check you have the full interface displayed, specifically the bit that gives shell flight time to target; as a spectacularly rough guide: for BBs, the deflection for a crossing target wants to be the shell flight time; double it for cruisers, and treble (or more) for DDs. Naturally, there are plenty of outliers, as well as sneaky folk who know this and drive at odd/varying speeds as a result.

DDs are hard to play well - they're the classic 'high risk - high reward' class in the game. At time of writing, your highest tier ship (in randoms) is T3; at that sort of level, most DD players are still struggling to master the basics - this isn't unique to DDs, but they're generally fast enough to get into trouble much faster than the other classes. The other thing to bear in mind is CVs - against the T4 CV plague, most (all?) T3/T4 DDs are largely helpless, possibly unless in the hands of a very experienced player and if the CV player is not a seal-clubber.

(With maybe some repetition of others) Don't die. This sounds obvious, but it bears repeating several times; if you follow the urge to cap too closely, it will often get you killed (and generally, ignore people telling you to in chat - much of the time, they're idiots). Capping is essential at the right moment, but that importance is trumped by the need to not die. DDs' influence usually grows as the game progresses, hence why Don't Die is so important. This is not to say that you should only spam torps from maximum range, but exercise caution, especially when there is radar around (that goes double when you don't know where they all are). As others have said, learn which ships have radar (and approximate ranges), rather than asking; people will assume 'idiot' if you ask. Notable exception is when a new radar line initially comes out e.g. the recent Russian cruiser split. If you go up the tiers at a sensible pace, you should have plenty of time to learn which things have what. If you want a very rough (and frankly inaccurate, but inaccurate in a safe direction) guide: Russians get 12 km radar; assume 10 km for everyone else; Russians are usually shorter duration than everyone else. Start with that, and then layer in the exceptions (especially the ones that @rnat mentions). Others have covered off how spotting works, but I would add that it's a good idea to enable as many of the range circles on your mini-map as you can handle (hopefully, you already know about the mini-map from WOT, and know to make it as big as your screen can usefully handle); besides stopping you from doing stuff like firing Tirpitz torps at targets 10 km away, some of those circles provide a useful reference for how far away stuff is in relation to your ship e.g. 10 km IJN torps coincide with the range of a lot of US radars, and the T9+ 12 km ones do the same for Russian radar. This is helpful as it's not just about remembering stuff about opposing ships, but remembering and understanding the implications fast enough to matter.

@rnat has covered most stuff off splendidly. A couple of additional things to think about, perhaps: For the standard daily containers (the ones you get for earning xp), the most useful is generally felt to be 'more resources' as that guarantees you at least 400 coal, which is useful for almost everyone. Join a clan: if they have a reasonably developed base, it'll grant you some useful economic bonuses; this includes a bonus to coal earned from containers.

I would add Kagero to the list as well (possibly unless you have Harekaze/Yukikaze, or - maybe - Asashio); although the AA is dreadful, she has best-in-class concealment and the torps are pretty worthwhile. Which reminds me: one or other of the two IJN DD lines are worth keeping a decent captain for every ship from T5 upwards, if you have the slightest interest in the RB. When you get to the point of having enough silver T10s (five, maybe?) to be able to start resetting lines, the IJN DDs are a good pick - if you enjoy them - as they need the lowest amount of xp to get to T10 (dakka line is cheapest, followed by torps IIRC). It's more of a long-term thing, and many folk won't touch the RB with a ten-foot barge pole, but still...

I'm not a cruiser meister, but I do like Atago (to the extent of having her three times - there's one born every minute etc.); fwiw my view on this specifically: Cruiser captains (well, to T8 at least, as that's where I am) are - not surprisingly - a perfect match, with the exception of the T8 herself, if you run the smaller guns. DD captains are 'good enough', especially high pointers, but slightly sub-optimal in the 10 point region (the 'standard' 10 point DD build has at least two skills where you might argue that Atago wants other things first). BB captains are probably 'okay' (again, I'm only at T8), but again at around the 10 point mark, you'll probably have at least a few skills where there are better choices. CV captains - don't even go there. If Atago were the only IJN premium you had, then she'll probably be a lot less unsuitable for 'other class' captains then many nations' ships, but still. Obviously, the better a player is, the less crucial captain skills would be in this situation. As to the second bit, you're right - it's sensible to take an overview of which skills are going to be called for at higher tiers (as well as any ships on the way that are outliers) and plan ahead a bit. Luckily, the 'core' build for any given class/nation is usually fairly consistent, so you'll usually get to quite a high tier before you face too many harder choices. For example, pretty much every DD will spend its first points like this: There are one or two ships where cases can be made for a bit of variance (and the PT versus PM discussion still comes up now and again), but you won't go too far wrong with this. The other classes all have something equivalent. I wouldn't have a dedicated captain just for Atago; rather use her to either train your best silver captain from the IJN cruiser line, or when that captain gets to 19 points use them in Atago to generate elite xp. BTW if you dig IJN cruisers, keep an eye out for any repetition of the ARP or Dragon ship events - the various premium Myokos are very helpful for hoovering up more daily first win bonuses...

Speaking as a target, I feel her biggest problem is the radar duration: it's far too short for any mode where you don't have a coordinated team. I met rather a lot of these things, and the only real problem the radar presents is that the enemy now knows where you are on the map; most of the time, the duration isn't enough for anyone other the Tallinn herself to get more than one hasty salvo off. Not complaining, you understand, but just making an observation.

Got to R10 last night, earned my flag, and have called it a day for this season. All but one game in Orkan; the 'one' game being Oland, when I pressed the wrong button...! It looks like that took 16 battles FWIW, with a 58.33% WR - rather lower than I managed in the recent sprint.

It used to be some of the T1s, until everything got given HE only, which took the fun out of it. So, now: Tier 2: Smith especially (the torps are hilarious), but also Tachibana; honourable mention to Mikasa of course! Tier 3: Vampire is sheer magnificence. Various: any of the KM DDs with forward-pointing torp tubes, for maximum jousting goodness!

Most premium ships don't need (or want) a specialised captain. FWIW my approach is as follows: In general, every captain is assigned to a silver ship, although in odd cases, the build may be 'good enough' for that silver ship and optimised for a premium (for example, my Fubuki captain is 'really' my Asashio, and Yudachi, captain, but he's 'good enough' for the T6 silver). To maximise captain/elite xp earning, I'll cycle through both the silver ship concerned, plus any compatible premiums I have available, to make maximum use of daily first win bonuses. As a corollary of this, early on at least, avoid buying premiums that do best with a weird captain build (although there aren't that many, really), and generally avoid 'no silver line' premiums until you have plenty of elite xp to get their captains to a respectable level (notably things like Haida, NdJ etc.).

How many commanders do you *need*? One for every silver ship that you want to play, and - IMO - one of at least ten points for every silver ship you want to play from T5 and above. Until you have 19 point captains in abundance, it's sensible to never pass up the opportunity the acquire any 10 point (or more) captain that comes along; this goes double/treble (at least) if they're free. I suggest not focusing too much on T10 - there's a lot more to the game than just the top tier ships! You do want a good captain for each T10 that you actively play, but you'll also want to hold on to some of the better lower tier ships too; quite apart from anything else, quite a few events/missions call for ships that aren't T10 (or are of nations/types that you don't have yet), and you'll want a good captain for any such ships too. Be mindful that captains can only be assigned to one silver ship at once, and that builds tend to vary dramatically between classes. For example, the Littorio that you mention is a BB (gosh, really?!), so its captain will want to have BB skills, obviously. The silver Italians at the moment are all cruisers, where a BB-spec captain will be sub-optimal, so you'll need extra Italian captains for each silver ship (plus, possibly an extra one for the cruiser premiums if you get one of the original two, as they get HE which suggest a different build to the SAP-armed silver line)... It's worth maintaining several ships for Ops (so, T6 and T7 - at the moment); if you're trying to maximise rewards, a good captain for each is worthwhile (plus don't forget, because of the cooldown after each game, you'll probably want several options. My personal bias is to maintain absolutely every ship I can get my hands on from about T5 and up (for snowflakes, if nothing else, plus a pathological aversion to 'sameness'); that said, if you aren't a collector, I would try and maintain at least one ship of every class (more is better), across all nations, from T6 to T10 - that won't cover you for all eventualities ('do x damage in a French DD' isn't very helpful if the DD you picked is IJN, say), but you should be covered for the bulk of missions and events. It's helpful to have diversity in terms of effective weapons too; for example, Italian cruisers are splendid for some stuff, but 'start fires' missions, not so much; 'get torp hits in a T8+ cruiser' missions in US ships may present a bit of a challenge, and so on. I'm thinking about the following when I say this (but missions and snowflakes tend to cover everything from T5 upwards): Tier 6: Ops mainly, but we've had clans and ranked at this level too. Tier 7: Narai, but - again - clans/ranked. Tier 8: clans/ranked. Tier 9: clans/ranked. Tier 10: clans/ranked, plus plenty of events as WG want us to all to grind to T10!

Besides what everyone else has said: IMO, you need at least ten points on any T5+ ship (apart from Coop mode) as that's the point where +2 MM kicks in and you need every advantage you can get. The exact approach to take will depend quite a bit on how long you've been playing for (do you have any/many 19 point captains), and if you spend money on the game (moving a captain between silver ships without using any elite/free xp costs 500 doubloons). If you're f2p, elite xp is very valuable, and you should make as much effort to play special events where you get 19 point captains as possible (as mentioned above); you'll probably also want to focus your efforts (at least initially) on relatively few captains. The key aim, in the longer term, is to get your first 19 point captain (ideally on a silver ship you play a lot, and even more ideally for a line where you have at least one premium ship available); this 19 pointer then generates elite xp that can be used on any other captain. Your first 19 pointer is a good place to focus xp-boosting flags and cammo, so as to maximise his impact. Once you have your first 19 pointer, the second is faster to get, and the effect snowballs from there. There are a number of possible approaches to take vis-a-vis captains, as you make your way up a tree; the usual approach is to move your captains up as you go, so you have the best available captain on the ship that you're most actively playing. Some people 'leapfrog' a pair (or more) of good captains; it's also sensible to leave at least a 10 pointer on any keepers. The exact approach that's optimal for any given player will be largely dictated by the resource they have available though. Although some people are noisily opposed to the idea, it looks like the Research Bureau is here to stay; it's worth having this in the back of your mind when thinking about captains - if/when you regrind a line, you'll need captains for each silver ship. What WG would presumably like people to do is an exact repeat of the initial grind, as that often involves spending doubloons (=money). A better approach is to identify which line you intend regrinding, and make sure you have an acceptable captain for each ship you won't free-xp (for me that means T5+, but YMMV); when you reset the line, all the captains go into reserve, and you don't have to waste resources moving them between ships. If you aren't massively impatient, it is very worthwhile to avoid regrinding multiple lines, and just do the one where you have the good captains repeatedly; for example, my usual regrind line is the IJN torp DDs, and I think I have 19 point captains now for every ship from T6-T9, after repeating the exercise several times - this makes subsequent regrinds much less painful. Think/plan ahead! When you're in the lower reaches of a line, take the time to look through all the ships up to T10 and look for similarities in necessary captain skills, and identify any outliers that may call for a non-standard build. Resetting captain skills can be really expensive (more so for a high pointer, as cost scales with number of points assigned), so you want to avoid doing so as much as possible. If you're going to take a captain up the tiers with you, it's helpful if you avoid getting to the high tiers and realising you made a pig's ear of the skill picks. So, as much as possible, it's sensible to focus on a 'core' build first, that will work on everything, and expand out to the more peripheral skills when they become more important (at higher tiers). Ask questions on here and look at Ship Comrade (http://shipcomrade.com/captcalc) *before* you assign captain points; the captain skills section for each ship in the wiki is also worth having a look at too. There is often no 100% consensus on the best build for a given ship, but you'll be able to avoid too many of the classic pitfalls (SE on BBs, for example, or FP on a DD - that kind of thing). Keep a close eye out for free captain resets; lately, WG seems to have had an attack of the 'stingy w4nkers' (points for spotting that reference), so these are rather rarer than they used to be, but they still do happen. When one happens, make use of it - you'll potentially save a lot of doubloons. Earlier in the thread someone mentioned dismissing badly mis-specced captains; this is inordinately unwise - if you do badly mess up a captain, just plonk him in reserve and wait for the next respec; anything 10 points or higher is far too valuable to simply throw away. Avoid weird/speciality captain builds as much as possible until you have xp to spare. For example, MA is most fun with a secondary build, but none of the main silver line ships are remotely optimal using such a build; so, the thing to do here is use a standard 'tank' captain from the silver line on MA (which is actually optimal anyway, if a bit less fun) initially, and then worry about building a special 'manly' captain for MA much later, when you have 19 pointers coming out of your ears. Hopefully, some of that may be vaguely of use....

I have a similar aim, only going for R10, where you get the first discount on servicing flag...

Eesh! I really hope this gets fixed - I was rather looking forward to the upcoming KM premium until I read this...

Appears to have expired now, alas...