Verblonde

This. I an ideal world, to learn/train, you'd really need the ability for the trainer to piggyback on the student's account/feed and be using voice comms in real time, so as to have a dialogue about best courses of action and so on; essentially the dual-control 'learner driver car' equivalent. You'd ideally want a sequence along the following lines: Teacher plays a game and tells the student what he's doing and why (we effectively have this stage already with YouTube). Next, the student plays, but the teacher tells them what to do. Third stage is for the student to play, and tell the teacher what they're doing and why. Repeat stages as many times as necessary and with as much or as little feedback as needed. The closest you can get to that in the game's current form is to watch YouTube videos first, and then follow that up with divisioning with an experienced player and using voice comms (and hope that the experienced player is good enough to keep track of what two ships are doing at once). If you can screen-share, which requires both teacher/pupil be trustworthy, you could get pretty close to the ideal, if using voice comms...

Doh! I must have looked at the wrong ship in my port... Aluminium saucepans, I tell you...

Obviously, I can't speak for anyone else, but for me personally (and speaking as a sometimes trainer in RL): I prefer to learn from people I know, and more than that, I prefer even more to read (grumpy old git and all that); I don't really go in for the whole online only social life thing and only use videos as a semi-last resort (although I'm getting better at the last bit). A very me-specific thing is that a lot of the time I'm free to play is at very antisocial hours (time-zones). I prefer to do stuff myself, wherever possible. Real Life work for me often involves having to be a Smiley Happy People Person (at least when not buried in spreadsheets/databases etc.) and sometimes trainer/motivator, so doing the same thing for a game risks turning it into work. The big one is time though: I have limited time available to play, and actually playing (even if badly) is generally more fun than more formal learning. So, I am trying to learn (and do succeed), but I need to do it at my own pace, and in my own way (and - importantly - not waste anyone else's time)... No idea how much, if any, of that applies to others though.

9 km isn't disastrous (a lot of the US cruisers only get that e.g. Cleveland/Montpelier, and Wichita, and others) - speaking as a target, a practiced player can do a lot with that. 30 secs duration is plenty, if deployed judiciously (it's the same run-time that the equivalent US ships get); it's also rather better than the 12 km Russians get - my Chapy only gets 24 secs, and that's with a coal mod.

Depends rather on several factors, including player skill, team/division-mates and game mode. Mainly from the perspective of a perennial target (DD driver): Smoke is easier to play in general, especially solo, in randoms. Radar has the merit of being an unpleasant surprise the first time you switch it on - many players probably don't even know you have the option of mounting it, it's so rarely used. You do paint a huge target on you the first time you fire it up though, if the opposition is remotely competent, so your team needs to take full advantage of the panic caused amongst DDs for that first use. If you have good division mates (in ships with smoke) who you can rely on, then take radar - it's very powerful, and your division mates can conceal you when smoke is called for. Radar is a good pick for Clans, especially - you can rely on your team to take full advantage of what your radar lights up, whereas that's far less likely in randoms. So, my view fwiw is that the 'default' should probably be smoke, but radar can be very worthwhile if you can rely on at least some of your team to take advantage of it (or if you're good enough to do so yourself and survive without the concealment advantage of smoke).

I suspect that the middle case folk do care about performance (or at least some of them do), but simply aren't good enough - for whatever reason - to get into the purple stats arena, and it's human nature to try and lay blame elsewhere, as that's often easier. This is crucial; many of the middle-case folk may well be doing this too (I try to), but it takes effort, and it isn't always easy to separate the 'what happened' from the 'why', and also separate the why that comes from others' actions versus your own. For example, I'm a DD main (as I'll have bored people about before), and my biggest fault - I think - was (sometimes still is) consistently dying too early; although I can usually find plenty of new and exciting ways to mess up, a common one was/is being radared. The 'easy' explanation is that those idiots in the BBs didn't sink that obvious Donskoi, say (and conclude it's not my fault and head for the forum for a therapeutic rant); what takes a bit more mental discipline/effort is the understanding that, yes, the BBs should have sunk the Donskoi rather than farming their opposite numbers, *but* I should have seen that coming, and played accordingly, so what got me killed was my failure in the context of likely behaviour by my team in a random battle. The easy way is to blame the other bugger; the harder way is to look inwards, and people are prone to taking the easy way.

Entirely guessing here: When a player first starts out, they'll be generally clueless (low-mid forties WR?); at this stage, everything is a bit confusing and they probably haven't entirely worked out what each ship is supposed to be doing, elements of situational awareness and so on. At this point, what the other members of your team are doing is the least of your worries. A unicum meister sort of player will probably be so good and experienced that they're capable of the hard carry, and/or maybe play in divisions with friends such that they (as a group) can win games more or less regardless of what everyone else is doing. These sort of people will perhaps view the typical players found in randoms as more or less semi-sentient bits of terrain i.e. only indirectly relevant to their results. In which case, why complain - it's would be like getting irate with limpets? We then get the mediocre to almost good players (I would count myself at the weaker end of this category fwiw); at this standard, you may well know enough to not be a liability to your team, but you aren't capable of the heavy lifting needed to carry hard. There is a good chance you know what each ship should be doing as well. These factors combined mean that you regularly face the frustration of seeing team-mates commit stupids, whilst not being good enough to cancel that player's mis-play out. As an added factor, you may still remember when you were less good, so your newer relative higher standard of play perhaps risks you falling into the trap of thinking you're better than you actually are. If you're in the third category, there is perhaps a greater temptation to start getting noisily upset about incompetents, especially when combined with a very human lack of self-awareness. Of course, it is also easier to remember when you lost due to a silly on your side, than to remember when you won because the opposition had a brain fart (you might not even notice the latter)... Also, to be sporting, it's worth noting that a realistic assessment of how good one actually is does rather call for quite a bit of time rummaging in statistics, as opposed to actually playing.

Excellent form! Bear in mind though that what works in Coop will often get you killed horribly in randoms (especially with something like MA), so you'll still need to acquire some PvP-specific skills to do well with MA against real people. BTW with regards to the captain, the general consensus seems to be that 'tank' is the optimal build (if you want to win), which gels nicely with what the US silver line calls for; for maximum fun, something more manly is often chosen, but you need to be really good to make that sort of build work against real people. I would start with a conservative captain build, and then perhaps develop something a bit more fun further down the line.

She's an excellent ship, even if BBs give you cooties. Bear in mind that you are still very inexperienced in the game though; at time of writing your highest tier BB is Warspite at T6, and your highest tier silver ship is T3 (that you've played in randoms). I don't write this to try and make you feel bad, but rather to suggest you manage your expectations: I'm guessing you don't have a good captain to put in MA yet ('good' meaning at least ten points, assuming a tank build; more is better), and you've obviously not played PvP against T8-10 yet. Yes, with MA, you do now have quite a powerful ship (I've seen it suggested that she's even a bit OP), but then so does everyone else in the same tier range. You're most likely going to get your donkey handed to you when you play against real people; don't feel bad - to fight and survive against T8-10 opposition (especially the higher tiers), you generally need quite a lot of experience and a good captain. Some suggestions: Play MA in Coop for the time being; you should still earn some vaguely worthwhile rewards. Play all the silver classes (CVs perhaps optional) up to - say - T6, to get the hang of how all the classes work, how they interact, and what they're trying to do; once you've got that nailed, head higher up the tiers. Join a clan, preferably one that's happy to teach - you'll learn faster (and get a bunch of economic rewards if their base is reasonably developed). Concentrate of getting some decent captains; you really want *at least* 10 pointers when you get into the +2 MM bracket. If you're really impatient, perhaps skip T3, and maybe T4 (in DDs, cruisers, and BBs); if CVs didn't exist, these tiers would be great for learning, but as things are at the moment, you want T5 to have any chance of not being food for CVs. As you obtain and/or encounter new ships, look them up in the wiki (https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/World_of_Warships); it'll help you work out particular threats, and priority targets etc. TL;DR - don't be disappointed/surprised if merely buying MA doesn't turn you into an instant 65% WR colossus; take the time to practice and learn, and eventually it'll be you handing out the kickings.

Horribly slow here for a while too; someone must have spent the forum hamster food budget on a modest session at Madame Olga's Esteemed House of Vodka & Negotiable Affection...

I note with mild interest that the prize for the latest competition is a $1,000 'tattoo voucher': https://worldofwarships.eu/en/news/general-news/national-tattoo-day/ In B4 some random twelve-year old wins, followed by their parents going entirely ape- when they use said voucher. (At time of writing the article doesn't include any age restrictions etc.)

I would say that this is a spectacularly ill-advised idea on things like IJN torp boats - a full AA build will have essentially zero effect at most tiers, and you'll have to throw away an awful lot of surface-to-surface DPM to get it.

@AirSupremacy - FWIW I wasn't commenting on the relative merits of CVs and how dangerous their damage is, but rather on the value of AA builds versus more surface-to-surface orientated ones. Hence, if you're trying to avoid damage from a CV, the assertion that AA builds are largely ineffective; also, that certain elements may be effective if your aim is simply to shoot down planes (fighters or otherwise), mainly for the rewards rather than as a damage avoidance measure.

Of interest for the Ops players: https://worldofwarships.eu/en/news/general-news/compensation-july-2020/

I may be wrong, but my recollection is that fighters knock down other planes on a one-to-one basis; if I'm not having another 'aluminium saucepans' moment, the skill should add one plane to each fighter consumable charge's potential kill tally. Can anyone who actually knows what they're talking about confirm, or otherwise?

Whilst I hesitate to descend into this particular pit of crazy, I think you may have misunderstood the argument being made (or - possibly - I have): AA effectiveness isn't really being assessed in terms of pure numbers of planes shot down (bear in mind you get a ribbon for every fighter you kill, as well), but rather in terms of whether or not AA stops your surface ship being significantly damaged/sunk. As others have remarked, AA knocks off planes from the 'back end' of a strike first, so an enormous amount of damage needs to be done to avoid at least the initial strike getting through (you basically have to wipe out the lot). So, in that context: Is it worth putting AA modules on ships? Generally, no, if your aim is to avoid damage (for the reasons we all, I hope, understand); however, if your aim is to simply kill planes (and so get better rewards, and *maybe* contribute to deplaning a less competent player) then there *may* be a case here and there, but most would take the view in the majority of cases that what you lose by not mounting a surface-to-surface option is more significant than what you gain from taking the AA module - mainly because you don't get CVs every game. Is it worth taking AA captain skills? For pure AA, I would define this as an 'absolutely not' (for either rationale from the last point); none of them do enough to warrant the point expenditure compared to other available skills. If there is a good surface-to-surface argument, then yes e.g. BFT is a no-brainer on many gun/hybrid DDs, and AFT is useful where you want extra reach on small guns/secondaries; the AA boost is just a happy coincidence. So, if your aim is to entirely avoid being damaged by CVs, then AA doesn't work (by most rational definitions); however, if your aim is to do some damage to planes and/or improve your earnings for a battle, then AA does work *but* it's debatable whether it works enough to justify losing the surface-to-surface boost that results from mounting modules, and it absolutely doesn't work enough to warrant picking captain skills *only* for AA. The environment you are playing in matters too: in randoms, most players are not very good, so you have a much better chance of tearing chunks off CV strikes (you'll even get some flak hits) for the rewards; in more high end competitive modes, the CV players will often be a *lot* better, so flak becomes largely irrelevant at the very least and any reward-boosting effect reduced.

Needless to say, I didn't follow any of the links, or do much due diligence...

I believe everyone here gets something like this before they even leave the maternity ward...

As a frothing DD enthusiast, I really wanted to like Z-35; I fear she needs some significant changes before she's remotely compelling as a 'primary' (i.e. one you play lots, rather than something for occasional variety) premium though - as I said earlier, unless I'm missing something important, Loyang does a very similar job rather better, and for less money (28.99 UKP for Z-35, versus 23.36 for Loyang, at time of writing - 19% less for Loyang, although that's without any xp boost).

So, a reasonable conclusion might be: Vaguely fun for an experienced DD player that has too many ships already and wants some variety. For anyone else, especially newbies, AVOID. ? It's a pity really - I understand she's a real ship and everything...

I think I'm heading in this sort of direction (although will await more reviews); I suspect she'll be something I won't be upset about if she falls out of an Xmas box...

I'd forgotten about the captain thing - I got quite a lot out of Bagration by running a 19 pointer in her. That might change my calculus slightly vi-a-vis Z-35...

I'm not sure I see the point of Z-35; am I missing something? Assuming the wiki is right: Same base concealment (7.92 km) as the tech tree Z-23, which gives 6.2 km with the usual concealment build. Torp range (obviously) 6 km, and they aren't even blazingly fast (64 kts). RN smoke is nice, and you do get the hydro.. Why not just buy Loyang though? 5.8 km concealment, 68 kt torps (6.7 km range), and you still get smoke/hydro (and Loyang costs less)...

I'd rate them (based on the one I got for MRE) as 'very nice to have', but I didn't get maximum use from them as I was often playing things and doing missions which didn't call for extra xp earning. I assume the motivation for making them time limited, rather than number of battles, as that it might increase the likelihood of people spending doubloons to convert such xp...

I have to admit, I didn't even try and (barely) bagged that one on my second go with GZ. Probably my only two PvP CV games so far this year; I fairly rapidly remembered why....!