Verblonde

Ranked Sprint is supposed to be frustrating (although not to the degree that full Ranked is), but not impossible. FWIW, I'm a mediocre player at best, and ranked out in 20 battles this time (although it usually takes me longer). Some tips that may, or may not, be of use: Pick the ship(s) that you do best in (in randoms); every time there's one of these events, you'll see lots of discussion about the optimal ships to pick in the context of the meta - if you have, and are good in, one such ship, great, but don't worry overly. Picking something you know well, and normally can perform well with usually trumps all other considerations. Have realistic expectations: if you'll forgive me, you currently have three (?) T8 ships, and two of those have a respectable battle count ('respectable' meaning enough to have got the hang of their characteristics/foibles etc.), both of which are BBs. This is not about stat shaming, but rather suggesting that with this experience set, you aren't likely to waltz to rank one; I might suggest using this season as an opportunity to benchmark where you are, and what you need to focus on for next time. Get to as a high a rank as you can whilst it remains fun to play. Play in a division, if possible, and ideally one where you can use voice comms - being in a coordinated division usually improves your chances of a win. If you're struggling a bit, you want to take every advantage you can get. Try and play the same ship for several games in a row (all but two of my battles were in the same ship FWIW); in general, not hopping between ships is a good way to maximise your chances of doing well, as repeated play increases your fluency with that ship. You'll be aware of the whole 'saving a star' thing (where the best loser doesn't lose a star)? I'd suggest not actively playing to save a star; this can result in passive farming, which can often increase the chances of a loss; just play the best that you can, and - hopefully - the results will come. Only play as long as your frustration levels remain tolerably low; when you're starting to tear your hair out, you're more likely to mis-play, further increasing the likelihood of a loss. Focus on your own play; only worry about what your team-mates are doing insofar as it impacts the most optimal things for you to be doing - the "it's all my team-mates' fault" mind-set isn't terribly helpful as it encourages fatalism, rather than trying to do something about improving yourself. That's for this season. In the period between now and the next competitive event, I would suggest diversifying the ship types you play at all tiers you're active at - this will give you a better understanding of what everything can/can't do, and what they're trying to do to you specifically. This should increase your chances of success next time.

It wouldn't surprise me (they've always maintained that only a small overall proportion of players participate). If WG want an easy short-term fix, they could just go with odd-tier Clans for a bit, while they try and work out something to make CVs work with other ships in small map battles...?

Aye - I'll probably get her the first chance I get. No idea if she's any good, but she is a DD...

I'm quietly hoping for HMS Incorrigible at some point - a DD, naturally...

I wouldn't disagree, but we do have a bit of a paucity of coal DDs at the moment...

As far as I can tell, Black has basically the same earning potential as other T9 premiums (she is a premium, rather than a semi-premium); *however* she often functions best working cooperatively with others, which doesn't always lend itself to doing the big damage numbers that tend to drive good rewards. The torps are nasty, if you can get hits, but because of their notorious (low) speed that can be quite challenging - they are good for area denial though. Your best bet for getting worthwhile rewards is to engage DDs in mortal combat (ideally with smoke/radar, if they can't see through the former) with guns, which generally requires you to be pretty close to your foe. If your primary aim is to earn a lot of silver, there are easier premium choices, IMO. Black is great fun though.

That's very true - I tend to view the two consumables as having distinct roles, which only sometimes overlap (such as when needing to flee from something, yet still keep it spotted). I still maintain Black is worth having, although much of her utility is in competitive (or Randoms, if you're in a division), as she's such a good 'teamplay' boat. Full disclosure though: I don't play mine that frequently though, as I usually play randoms solo, and for that - you're right - there are several rather better choices...

I feel that's a little harsh - unless I've forgotten something, all the other radar DDs lose smoke; Black doesn't. The torps are, erm, weird, but the she's still a decent gunboat - very worthwhile for T9 competitive modes when they show up... All strictly IMO, of course.

It's Newport time again is it? I hadn't noticed. Oh well, no Ops for me for a week then...

I'll be interested to see what, if anything, comes of all this. I suspect for my clan it's a bit moot: one might struggle to distinguish between a boycott, and our usual 'struggling to get enough people together at the same time'...! FWIW I wouldn't be upset if it did result in CVs being ditched for this mode - I'm very much of the view that CVs shouldn't be in small map modes (in their current form).

Asashio might not be an entirely daft choice at the moment, given the massive spike in BB numbers in the queue (plus, 16 km torps - assuming TA - gives you a shout at hitting the CV if it does something silly)? I didn't take mine out because a) they have lousy AA, even by DD standards and b) For me, having torps that hit anything is a bit more useful than being able to annihilate gormless BBs/CVs, but nothing else. I don't think the presence of an Asashio should be an instant -1, but it does require that the team (and the Asashio driver) know to adjust their play style to make the most of her...

I do have a bit of sympathy with WG's probable dilemma here; I imagine it's something along the following lines, if we believe that AP bombs are over-performing: AP bombs on silver carriers get nerfed, as do those on premium CVs (as is proposed): we're seeing exactly what happens on this thread - big row breaks out vis-a-vis nerfing premiums, with potential for said premiums becoming less desirable purchases. AP bombs on silver carriers get nerfed, but the premiums are left alone: I suspect the amount of whinging apropos Enterprise especially would grow exponentially (it's already probably OP in the right hands, now it has more lethal AP bombs than the silver alternatives), with added toccata and fugue on the theme of bait for Xmas boxes at the relevant time. Do nothing, and have CVs (which are whinged about a lot anyway) continue to wreak unmitigated havoc with their AP bombs (plus, presumably, have the upcoming KM CVs look rather undesirable, unless they get the same sort of overly effective AP bombs). On the face of it, WG are damned if they do, and damned if they don't. The thought does occur that WG might have avoided some of this kerfuffle if they'd bothered to develop a bit of trust with 'the community' - at the moment, many of us trust WG about as far as we could comfortably spit a rat, so there is a tendency to assume the worst when WG try and pull stunts like this; if we all believed (and had evidence to support that belief) that WG generally took actions that genuinely were in the best interests of the game, rather than merely their bank balance, they would probably get an easier ride than they do presently.

I thought we all already knew the answer to this: WG *can* do whatever they like to premium ships (premiums are just pay-to-access content, essentially), including nerfing them. However, they (very sensibly) have a 'no nerfs' policy (apart from global changes) on premium ships as, if nerfs were a reasonably probable event, sales would drop (how dramatically is open to discussion). It's in WG's interests to avoid nerfing premiums from a cost base perspective too: people often raise the spectre of a cycle of 'release OP premium, nerf it, then release next OP premium and repeat'; to do this requires lots of content creation expenditure, whereas carrying on selling the old ones, plus periodic new releases requires much less labour spend etc. I do wonder if WG are - with this CV nerf - seeing how close to the 'global change' wind they can sail without annoying their customers enough to have an impact on sales (presumably, they'll argue that it is a global nerf as all CVs are having their damage reduced)? If the idea takes root that premiums have a reasonable chance of being nerfed, we get a similar situation to that with permaflages i.e. it is unwise to spend unless you *know* you're going to get your money's worth in less time than the lead time for nerfs would be...

Besides my being even more worserer in the other classes, I would estimate you don't get a CV maybe in the 20-30% range, and given the preponderance of BBs, the havoc you can wreak makes up for the a lot of the pain of the CV games...

Not even remotely surprising: a) much of what makes CVs such a nuisance tends not to drive epic rewards (i.e. spotting) and b) as I mentioned earlier, there is no shortage of poor CV players, regardless of which ship they're in. Happily, I can stop worrying about this stuff for the moment, having ranked out earlier today - 20 battles, apparently, and all but two in Orkan (the other two being Kidd, and Oland).

Kind of - you'll note the wording includes 'average' quite prominently i.e. each ship has been individually adjusted. You could argue that this was necessary to give neat damage numbers though... I'm not getting my knickers in a twist, I just thought it was interesting.

To repeat earlier folk, the problem with CVs in Ranked/Sprint/anything with a small map isn't the damage - it's the spotting.

That's interesting - unless I'm missing something, that's an actual honest-to-goodness premium nerf (rather than global change)...? Presumably, WG will argue that the aiming reticle thing cancels it out?

Yes - I just looked... (Like with ships, it gives you the option to convert if you have enough coal + steel combined)

I was vaguely wondering about picking up Marceau (well, it *is* a DD after all); if Pommern has been nerfed to the point of not being of much interest, is there anything else incoming that might be of more interest, as far as people know?

....eminently sensible a lot of the time! Far too many CV players don't have the first idea which targets they need to spot, and which to target, and who to support, and when. In all fairness, much of the time this is very much in my interests though: quite a few of my recent triumphant games have been as a direct result of the opposing CV being a blithering imbecile (I'm a DD main)... Oh yes, before I forget: As It Is Written - (Oops!)

Basically. Despite the CVs, the mode does provide something different - it's just (IMO) not as good as it is when CVs aren't present. I play it for a bit of variety, but I do have pretty much every T8 DD in the game, so always have the most viable available (it's not like I'm stuck playing Terrible, or something like that).

This is true, but I do think there are a few modes where their impact is sufficiently disproportional to warrant their exclusion. The current Ranked Sprint is just such a mode, for the simple reason that the maps are too small - the fast-moving spotting capabilities of any CV effectively eliminate a large proportion of ships from the 'viable' list for the bulk of players; it also makes 'clever' manouevring largely futile as - in a CV game - everyone knows pretty much exactly where everyone else is. On bigger maps, CVs are (relatively) fine - IMO - but not on the tiny ones...

I've played maybe half a dozen games so far; not as many CVs as I'd feared, but still plenty (and usually in games where I picked DDs with less than stellar AA, of course!). So, far I've been tending to pick things with heals: Kidd, Orkan, and Oland; first and third have good enough AA to deter many CVs, and Orkan's radar can be quite unpleasant for the enemy DDs...

ST T7 KM premium cruiser, via Daily Bounce: https://thedailybounce.net/world-of-warships/supertest-german-premium-tier-vii-cruiser-munchen/