Verblonde

Isn't it more like 18 months? I could be being a bit bewildered though...

Assuming the customer base for WOWS is anything like WOT, we'll almost certainly get more Polish ships, and there's a good chance it'll be another silver branch like the Ikeas (with as many paper designs as necessary if WG don't have enough real ones)...

If you're struggling to remember which ship is which (I still do occasionally, especially with newer additions that I don't have yet, or things named in languages that I don't speak), the wiki isn't a bad thing to have book-marked. This is the page for all the cruisers, for example: https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Cruisers There are several worthwhile premium cruisers at T7 (says he, who rarely plays them); at the moment, unless you're already good in her, Atlanta struggles to be a high priority pick (IMO). Despite the radar, if you want fun Atlanta is a giggle, but if you want to win, pick something else! Although she can chuck out a *lot* of shells (especially with a BFT captain), they take practice to reliably hit with (due to very 'rainbow' arcs, although island camping is easier as a result), and each shell isn't that powerful - they're basically DD guns after all. The other issue is that she has a citadel, which is abundantly easy to hit if you're close enough to hit people with your own guns. Speaking as a mediocre player, I would rather play Flint than Atlanta: you lose the radar and a little dakka, but you gain smoke, and usefully ranged torps (Atlanta's are horribly short-ranged). On top of that, if I wanted to be semi-useful (as much as I can aspire to in cruisers), I would pick Boise - bigger guns, and a solid heal... Atlanta used to be glorious, especially in games with CVs, but the reework changes especially have long turned her into just a rather meh CL, at least for PvP (she's a hoot in Coop)...

I'm a DD main, so feel free to take my opinion with an enormous bucket of salt; I've got Bismarck (well, it is the Bismarck after all), but most of my games in her have been against bots. The impression I get with Bismarck (much of it from trying to sink them) is that she's pretty worthwhile if you can get into close-medium range; the hydro makes it much harder for sneaky blighters like me to torp her too. This is the root of the problem for many (including me) though - it's a lot harder to play BBs well at closer range as your positioning and situational awareness need to be top-notch. Personally, I find I do better with Tirpitz, but I suspect that's largely because she's effectively an enormously tubby DD in a lot of respects...

I've given the tanks version a prod (an old friend is very keen on WT), but found it rather frustrating. Prefer the WOT game-play, based on an admittedly short exposure, and assume the ships bit will be a similar experience.

Atlanta?! With the various recent changes to the game, my impression is that Atlanta is one of the more unfortunate casualties - the radar is nice, but short-ranged, and she's spectacularly squishy and lacks smoke. Belfast is nasty to face, mainly because most people who play her are - I suspect - experienced and know how to take full advantage of her consumables set; Atlanta I didn't worry about at all, and I was exclusively playing DDs. (Full disclosure: I stopped when I got to R10; higher levels of the competition may be somewhat different)

You aren't the only one who holds this view; that said, there is almost no chance of a 'no premiums' mode - I'm reasonably confident that WG make too much money from premium ship sales for that. Trying to be as objective as I can be (given that I played nothing but Haida this season), I don't think there are too many badly OP T7 premiums; the obvious nasty one is Belfast, and even that isn't ridiculous in the hands of typical players (I'm bloody awful in mine, for example) - it's just a bit unfortunate that the bulk of Belfast players are pretty experienced by now. For DDs, I do think the best T7s are Haida and Z-39, however you can perform similarly in Jervis and Maass (assuming an equally good captain and coal mods). Cruisers aren't really my thing, but in past seasons I've actually done less badly in Fiji than Belfast (due to torps and a heal, both of which Belfast lacks); if I were going to play cruisers, I might even take Surrey over Belfast (although that's a closer call). BBs: the best is probably Sinop as previously discussed. There are two key reasons that many people take premiums into Ranked (especially if it isn't T10 Ranked): captain and economy. The bulk of players tend to leapfrog their captains up the tiers, developing them as they go; this often means that the best available captain may not be able to be transferred to the best available ship (if it's a silver one) without incurring a cost; premiums avoid this, assuming they're for a nation/class with a corresponding silver line (down-side of Haida: no silver line to develop a good captain with). Economy: this is the key one for me; I tend to find Ranked extraordinarily frustrating, so I might as well get rewarded for suffering through it (at least until I make R10, when I usually call it a day). Premiums make rather more silver (and xp too, if they're Sims, although she's sub-optimal IMO - you can make a solid case that B-Hull Mahan is better when there aren't planes around) than equivalent silver ships do. There is an obvious corollary to that, which is also a reason why removing premiums probably wouldn't have as much impact as you might hope: the majority of the players for whom the above two plus points are especially relevant will be the more experienced ones with higher tier ships already, and experience trumps ships maybe at least 90% of the time (wild guess). The other thing to bear in mind is that *really* experienced players probably have multiple 19 point captains available, which means they can get a good captain for any ship much faster than average, again making the specific ship they play - arguably - moot. In the unlikely event that WG did decide to go premium-free with T7 (although the logic applies for all other tiers), I would just do the following: Make sure my Jervis and Maass were fully equipped (although I think my Jervis is already from a previous season) with coal mods and whatnot. Focus a few weeks' worth of elite xp on their captains to get them to, say, 15-19 points (we get plenty of notice re: parameters for events like Ranked). Maass has a slight advantage over Z-39 here in that the captain I usually use in Zed wastes three points (my 19 pointer is from the T10 and has BFT which doesn't have an effect on Z-39's guns as they're too big). Play as I am already, and probably be just as dangerous (or not) as I am in the equivalent premiums. Bear in mind I'm a 'below average' player, and extrapolate from that what actively good players would do. TL;DR an actively good player will tear you a new one more or less whatever ship they're driving, and a 39% WR player is still going to suck even if you gift them a Belfast...

Cooties?

Yup. In all fairness though, (IMO) they only start to get actively fun at T7, and they play like nothing else in the game. Stealth in the T7+ range is not spectacular, but it is 'good enough'. You need to make heavy use of engine boost - I have the coal upgrade on T8+; three minutes, versus just two, does make a difference. You can't play in the same way as you would with a more conventional DD - the focus is on DoT, rather than massive alpha with your torps. Guns are decent, but not spectacular and you really have to pick your spots - start fires, and finish off maimed targets - and always try and have an escape plan to deal with blowing your stealth. Make use of the AA, but don't do it in a way that gets you sunk by the opposition surface ships (T10 especially feasts on typical CV players). Take the zoomy torps mod; that gives you 80 kt torps at T7, without the need for TA. Most damage will come from torps/floods, so you need to maximise the chances of getting plenty of hits (it's not like the IJN torp boats where only one or two torps can dev strike most targets). You obviously lack smoke, so your best defence against being hit is being nimble, and minimising how many of the opposition can shoot at you at any given point in time. I mount the rudder mod, rather than the more traditional acceleration, as every last bit of wiggliness helps (and I almost never slow down/stop). Make sure you are well versed in managing DCP/heal; the latter especially can make you a bloody menace if the opposition fail to finish you off (I've got the majority of my Dreadnoughts in Ikeas, believe it or not). A good captain helps a lot - at least 13 points (gets you either BFT, which I take, or reduced torp reload), but more is better - AR, extra heal/engine boost, etc. There's more, but that's an outline of what makes them fun/interesting; that said, they are a spectacularly poor choice unless you've already played a lot of other DDs (and other classes too) and even then have a steep learning curve.

Presumably, that'll be because of the usual WG-standard communications - whilst I can't comment on any of the other languages, their English comms are generally pretty awful in terms of writing clear, easy to understand breakdowns of things like this. My working hypothesis is that they're written by people for whom English is not their first language (or who grew up communicating in text-speak) so the sense of what they're endeavouring to communicate sometimes doesn't come across well enough. That also assumes that the source content - presumably originated in Russian - has been effectively interpreted. I imagine that's quite hard/expensive to do - WG need someone who is extremely fluent in both languages (and the nuances of both), and such people tend to be quite rare/expensive. I'll be vaguely interested to see if there is another wave of outrage when the patch goes live - presumably, there are plenty of folk who don't follow Dev Blogs etc. as we forumites do...

DD main, so anything that makes cruisers more vulnerable ought to be right up my strasse - the more BBs I have available to torp, the better etc. In that context, perhaps surprisingly, I don't have the least problem with cruisers with smoke; although they may be occasionally annoying, the bulk of cruisers thus equipped are generally horribly unsurvivable without it. If smoke were removed from such ships, they would need something that made up for it, and that would - in all likelihood - make them more like the others, so reducing variety in the game (not a good thing). It's like being a DD in a radar game - you 'just' have to learn to play around it...

I think I might go with "has it's place" rather than it being essential: although it's nice to be able to blind fire torps a bit more easily, I find that telegraphing to whoever you're nearest to on the enemy team that you're out there can often be counter-productive...

1,000 doubloons (?), assuming you transfer him back afterwards, sounds a bit steep to me. I probably wouldn't mainly because, a) if you get unlucky with team-mates, the difference between 10 points and 19 points is arguably moot, and b) the extra rewards you'll probably get may well not be worth that much doubloon expenditure...?

Jervis is indeed excellent; it's worth sticking the coal hydro mod on her, if you're taking Ranked seriously. I prefer Haida personally: slightly longer range torps, creeping smoke, engine boost, plus premium economy, but I've used Jervis through choice in previous T7 competitive modes. It also helps that I have a 19 point captain for Haida, whereas I don't yet for Jervis.

Full torp build (so, 'zoomy torps' in slot 3), combined with full concealment (5.4 km, assuming cammo, is as good as it gets). First ten points for the captain want to be the 'standard' DD build with CE your first 4 pointer. After that, I would suggest focusing on AR, torp reload, consumables, and whatever 1 pointer you didn't pick (probably PM). Kagero's guns are better than many think, so you *could* focus more on them, but my view is that this isn't 'value for money'; Kagero's stealth is so important, you want to only use guns (and so break stealth) only when absolutely necessary e.g. in extremis, or when only a few shots will certainly finish off an already-maimed target. Initially, I would go with smoke (and possibly always do so, given the number of CVs about); that said, the TRB option is hilarious, albeit horribly risky...

Definitely. Unless one is well-practiced in the whole 'high speed, visible from Pluto' play style, almost any other T8 DD is probably a better choice (even Siliwangi!)....!

This sort of thing is inevitable for a long running game like WOWS; given enough time, anyone can fail their way to T10. If it used to happen less, then it was because insufficient time had passed (and we didn't have coal T10s either). All a competent player can realistically do is decide if the current situation is acceptable to them and continue playing, or leave.

This is very true, although Cossack turns it into an art-form!

Aye, Cossack's AA is really rather unfortunate; still, at least you get the RN smoke which does make evasion a realistic proposition some of the time...

@GrazyC2 - I believe we may have provided feedback on how to do better in the game previously? Besides that: Whilst I wouldn't tell you not to play Ranked, for this season you need to accept that with your low battle count, you're going to get hammered a lot; it would be unreasonable to expect you to be actively good this early - take this season as a learning experience, so you'll come back stronger next time. You have games in only one cruiser: NOLA, and she is very hard to do well with, especially for a less experienced player. Personally, I feel that taking cruisers into T7 Ranked is *generally* asking for trouble, but if you really must, there aren't too many that are less suitable picks than NOLA. Your BB is Sinop; although this is a notorious monster in Ranked, it still requires some BB know-how - I would suggest that 7 random battles and 9 in Ranked is probably not sufficient to acquire this know-how. This isn't about stat-shaming, but rather about having a realistic view of where you are, and what you can do right now; some pointers: Besides all the 'how to improve' stuff written elsewhere (+join a clan that can teach), set realistic goals - you are almost certainly not going to make it to R1. Perhaps target one of the less unreasonable irreversible ranks. Set intermediate goals such as trying to ensure you do your own hp in damage each game. Focus on situational awareness: Ranked is pretty good for practicing this as you have fewer ships on each side to keep track of. Read/watch tutorials on your chosen ships (suggest focusing on Sinop for this season, as she's a lot more effective than NOLA); try and put what you learn into practice. Check your captain build; other BB folk may beg to differ, but I would suggest you want a full tank build (especially if your skill level means you get pummeled a lot) and *at least* ten points. If you get sunk early - and you will often - stay in the game and watch how others play; you will probably learn quite a lot (although it may often be 'what not to do'). Jump between ships and observe what all classes are doing. Try and establish what you don't know; such a list won't help you this season, but it will tell you which areas you need to focus on/develop for next time. Also, think about future needs: for example, going all out to master a particular T7 ship (Sinop, say) will not help you if the next season isn't T7; when you're working on the 'what next', it's generally better to focus on general skills, rather than one particular ship. That said, the usual sensible policy of playing a diverse range of ships and nations (and holding onto some of the 'keepers') will help for future Ranked seasons, as it should mean your skill-set will be more developed, and you'll have a wider range of ships to choose from. If this is your first season of Ranked, it was always going to be hard work (doubly so when it's the upper end of your current tier range); all you can do is learn what you can, and carry on trying to improve with time - next time, you'll almost certainly do better, and so on.

Absolutely; based on observational evidence it is a backline sniper par excellence! Some of the cognoscente will use her to engage targets with torps at 10-12 km range too, of course...

Slightly surprised by how high on the popularity ranking Belfast is (thanks for the stats @Ocsimano18); more specifically, not that it's popular as such, but rather that there are enough active players with one to make it so (given how long it's been since it was sold en mass)...

I'll wait until I use the thing for real, but it does have one plus-point over what's in WOT: you can see which 'vehicles' (boats in our case) are eligible for each mission without clicking on anything extra - to judge from the screen-shots. The WOT missions tab is pretty poor, and I've had a couple of years (or whatever it is) to get used to the damn thing...

Nah - sorry - you can play just about every other mode in the game in a division; the point of Ranked (not Sprint) is, allegedly, to be a measure of individual skill and - as we all know - playing in a division generally improves your chances of winning. If you could play in a division, doing well would cease to be entirely about individual skill. You can debate the degree to which Ranked works in its aims, but if you want to play something similar in a division, I imagine WG would say that's what Sprints are for...

Haven't played any battles that contribute to this weekend's results yet, but it worked fine last weekend. As others have said, the screen you want is the second one: 'Team Score'. That's the easiest way to see your base xp.