Verblonde

Whilst I don't disagree with you in general, the 'getting silver for premiums you already had and then got via a mission' has been in place for quite a while. The mechanic used to coexist with some where you got doubloons, but I'm not sure if that's still being used. For example, if memory serves, the grind a while back to get London gave you doubloons if you already had her in port; the difference was probably that you had to buy London to do some of the missions in the grind. There's another slight difference with the current port thing: if anyone dumped gold to get the T8 premium on day one, I believe they get steel for doing the grind the manual way afterwards...

Presumably, it'll come with the default one, plus the 'event' one with all the bunting - whatever that's called... Alternatively, you can plonk the 'national' one on, for doubloons, if you want to bolster the rewards (plus, it looks quite pretty too).

I'm always keen to see more DDs; apart from the torp focus, how might they be differentiated from the existing KM DDs, and the IJN torp boats? In the past, I would have said good luck with that, given WG's apparent antipathy towards the Germans, but the recent relative flood of KM premiums is perhaps suggestive that the market for WOWS ships may have shifted in a slightly more Teutonic direction - perhaps we might be in luck at some point...?

With the LU/zoomy torps build, she's still one of my favourites... (Edit: I even got a Dreadnought in her!)

She does, but the lack of torps makes you vulnerable to being rushed in smoke etc.

Most forgiving is probably one of Daring or Groz: Daring is - IMO - better overall (RN smoke/defensive hydro), but Groz has the merit of being faster (a coal engine boost mod is worthwhile) and having good, for a DD, AA - enough to keep typical players at bay, but not the experts. I find Daring's single fire torps to be regularly useful too. If you have a suitable Ovenchicken in your collection, he makes an excellent Groz captain (although you don't use the super EM) - the boosted SE comes in very handy. I like the Ikea DDs a lot, especially Halland (don't have Smaland), but they are a very different play style to pretty much all the other DDs; I would suggest playing the line at least from T7 or 8, rather than just going straight for T10 - you'll get a handle on whether you like them before spending a lot of resources. BTW I wouldn't rate any of those as pure gunboats; I've built all of my captains for dakka, but my Ikeas all get the zoomy torps mod as you need to use the torps a lot to get the most from those ships. The Groz LU focuses the thing heavily towards dakka, but I found I missed the regular reload of the torps too much (but that's probably my own failing, rather than a downside to the mod), so play mine as more of a hybrid-with-good-dakka.

Besides @rnat's excellent answers: Have a look at the wiki (https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/World_of_Warships); each ship entry gives an opinion on which builds are most suitable for which ship. Take some of them with a pinch of salt though, and keep asking for views on here. The WOWS Fitting Tool might be interesting too, for assessing the impact of various builds on ships' numbers: https://wowsft.com/ Bear in mind too that the most fun build may not be the most optimal, and vice versa; also, think a bit about what you intend doing with the ship e.g. I have a completely idiotic but fun build on my Azuma, because I only ever use her in Coop (if I ever need to play something of that ilk against real people, I have Yoshino, which is built more sensibly).

All kinds of yes! It's spectacularly useful in WOT, assuming one has a reasonable selection of premiums. The present WOWS system is okay if you just want to whack the highest points captain available in a ship, but is a pain if you're looking to develop one with fewer points as he'll appear way down the list and may take some finding. Mind you I'm biased as I have far too many premiums, *lots* of captains, and regularly move the latter between the former (and whichever silver ship they're actually assigned to).

I think I saw that repeated quite recently too - maybe three months ago? I'm guessing - time seems to have gone all funny in lockdown. I tried to replicate it in a training room, but couldn't get it to work though...

British: definitely. IMO, everything from T7 and onwards is a keeper. The dakka is good, with usable (single fire) torps, and the smoke (short lifespan, but lots of them) with defensive hydro is very helpful (with a coal mod the latter seems to run forever). The AA is even vaguely tolerable too, by DD standards anyway. Concealment is generally okay, with Lightning having an almost class-leading 5.5 km with full sneaky build. Dakka IJN: yes. T7 is, oddly, one of the best torp boats in the game, but after that, they become almost the embodiment of dakka; torps are good enough - one launcher but you get TRB. They're a bit big and clumsy compared to the torp line, but I found them there or thereabouts for concealment for their tiers i.e. not great, but not a disaster. AA is a lot better than the torp line, but - again - only by DD standards. EU: opinion seems to vary quite a lot here; I like them a lot, but a significant chunk of forumites think they smell. The lack of smoke spoils them for some, but IMO the heal rather makes up for it. You do have to play a bit more carefully though, as you lack the heroic alpha of some lines - the torps are ludicrously fast (yay!), but don't do much damage; you need a lot of hits to do useful damage numbers, as well as making an effort to trigger as much DoT as you can. Guns are pretty decent, if not spectacular, but their main USP is the AA, which (by DD standards) is terrifying - we've even had a few CV drivers complaining about them! Don't get overly relaxed though: a good CV driver will still take you to the cleaners regardless, plus (as always) the real threat from planes is getting spotted. Basically, if you can handle a smokeless DD, the Ikeas are well worth a look, but avoid if you need a weed generator. I don't know if premiums are a factor, but the RN line gets Cossack, which is excellent, if laughably vulnerable to planes; Dakka IJN get the splendid Harekaze, if you can find one; EU have several premiums, all of which gel well with the silver captains - Orkan is great fun with her radar though (basically a Lightning with a few other tweaks).

Daily Bounce on the latest iteration of Paolo Emilio (T10 Freemium Italian DD): https://thedailybounce.net/world-of-warships/supertest-italian-freemium-tier-x-destroyer-paolo-emilio-2-0/ HE and SAP sounds vaguely interesting...?

Aye - they'll be back for coal at some point, apparently. Two DDs (Black and Neustrashimy), and one cruiser (Flint). I have Flint and Black: Flint is essentially Atlanta, with slightly reduced dakka, and no radar; she gains (American) smoke and more useful torps (9.2 km). Black is Feltcher, but with radar (and smoke at the same time) and the notorious 'swimming mines'. She can be glorious in competitive modes, where the radar can be really unpleasant for other DDs to deal with. I can't comment on Neustrashimy as I don't have her (but will get her when she gets released for coal). My feeling is that coal is quite hard to get for most people, so hold onto it unless you're sure you'll get good value from the purchase. Coal mods can be worthwhile things to get with coal, but only for premiums/favourite keepers generally..

At the very least, the recently removed trio of silver ships will be back at some point (vague recollection says in 6+ months), plus isn't at least one of the multiple new Germans available for coal?

I occasionally wonder if I ought to make the effort to suck less with CVs; I have an Enterprise in port and 99% of what I do with it is vapourising bots...!

My feeling is that the return on the top end coal commanders is much less than on using the coal for a high tier ship; this is due to the improvement over a regular captain being relatively marginal. The various enhanced captains are worth having, but not 'at all costs'; it's probably worth using coal to get things like one of the Doe or Dunkirk twins (35K), but not - for most people - the various 175K ones. YMMV of course.

Aye, it's planned for the next patch: (Source: https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/29)

I've ranked out in Sprint several times (but never in 'full' ranked), so in that context: I'll probably be playing DDs as they're the only class where my level of sucking is sufficiently under control to be of much use; I might try other things if the CV prevalence turns out to be intolerably high though. Which things I'll play will depend a lot on how much of an issue CVs turn out to be; I'll probably wait a day or two after the thing starts to join in though, to give the better CV players a chance to rank out/get way ahead of me. Loyang is always worth a punt at T8 (and these days I have a 19 point captain available too, which helps): smoke/hydro, tolerable dakka, and the AA is okayish. Zed is a decent silver alternative, but I have a less good captain for mine. Kidd is a worthwhile pick with CVs around (despite the missing torp launcher): basically a T8 Feltcher and she gets a heal (although that's no longer unique), not to mention the US smoke. Cossack is glorious, *but* you're all kinds of boned if a CV takes an interest, single torp launcher, but fairly fast reload, good dakka and smoke/defensive hydro; Lightning is a good alternative (less bad AA than Cossack, plus extra torp launcher, but only 8 km range on the latter). Harekaze is very good, but I prefer to take something with radar/hydro and/or a heal in general. Splendidly sneaky, and solid guns/torps. Orkan may well be worth a lash, despite the lack of smoke; the heal should come in very useful, plus - of course - she gets radar. Fast 12 km torps (only one launcher though) and similar AA to Lightning. Mighty Secondary too! Oland ought to be worthwhile if there are lots of CVs around (plus, 12 km fast torps should help in a radar-heavy environment); whether I play her or not will depend on whether I can get a good enough captain in place in time. There's often grumbling about premiums in T8 competitive modes. For DDs, there are some very solid silver options (Lightning, Oland etc.), but I usually do take premiums for the simple reason that I can usually run my best captains on them, which is often not the case for the silver ships of the relevant tier.

It's a sprint according to a note in the patch notes:

I would perhaps suggest both cruisers and BBs from both nations - as others have said, they're pretty much the definition of 'core' gameplay. @_Teob_'s point about durability is very well made though, but I might still think in terms of IJN/US as a learning tool in the first instance, simply because there is nothing weird about them - all the other lines (to a greater or lesser extent) have elements that aren't universally applicable. Low tiers are pretty quick to research, and inexpensive to buy - if it were me, I would try and play as wide a range of types and nations as possible, just to get an overview of what as many things as possible can do...

@Procrastes About the most (only) positive thing about that is that it just about got me a Naval Battles point....!

I'm more than happy to receive more free slots and (I think) I have around 70 unoccupied at the moment - there's more than 70 silver ships that I don't have, and more on the horizon...

It's quite possible that you'll be in luck at some stage; we all thought there wasn't much chance of a return and then they popped up again (late last year?). I wouldn't be surprised if they do return at some point, but I guess it'll be very unlikely to happen at the same times as another collaboration, so suggest not getting your hopes up too much until a respectable interval after the next Azure Lane and WH40K things... Harekaze is worth waiting for though.

<solemn voice in the manner of archbishop or similar> Verily, my son, thou art too old... Omnes: amen!

I haven't looked at the later phases - do they get a *lot* more horrible? I finished the first directive yesterday morning (I think); whilst I do have an extensive port (so can easily pick optimal ships to do different stages) and a bit of time on my hands, I think it would have been distinctly easy to do within the time-frame before the next one goes live with a 'normal' life. That said, these things usually get grindier in later phases (presumably, to encourage people to say ' it!' and just pay to finish), and I suspect getting the last one or two done may be a bit more of an ask for those with less time. So, it's basically "yay - free GS all round!" and cheap Tirpitz Lite for only the most enthusiastic and/or those with lots of free time. Presumably, we're into the usual " - it's summer, better try and think of something to stop people going outside in the fresh air" part of the year; we usually get something rather time-consuming to keep the server numbers up when the weather gets nicer...

+1 WG have (IMO) certainly done something right on this occasion. (Before we get too excitable, there is some small-print that says values may be adjusted in future though.)