Verblonde

First question: is that 113 (at time of writing) battle count real, or are you a reroll? If it's the former, then your issue is most likely that you're heading up the tiers a bit too fast - spending a little more time in the lower tiers allows you to acquire the necessary skill-set, and also get good enough captains. From Tier 5 onwards - as you've discovered - you get into the +2 MM bracket, where things start to get harder, and you'll be at a significant disadvantage if you don't have (at least) a ten point captain and the experience to get the most out of him. This applies to pretty much all ship classes too; not just CVs. I'm not a CV meister, so the only pointers I can usefully offer are from the target's point of view (plus my own rather incompetent fumbling around with the CVs that I do have): Learn as much as you can about the ships you're likely to encounter; this will enable you to identify potential AA weak-spots and exploit them. Learn the game mechanics in detail, as that will help a lot - how to dodge flak, what slingshotting is (I *think* it still works, right?), all that stuff. Spot - in terms of actually winning, one of the nastiest things you can do is keep the enemy (DDs especially) spotted as much as possible, and for as long as possible. As a DD main, this is the largest threat that the majority of CVs pose to me. The only down-side is that damage is what gets rewarded in the game, rather than spotting. You're more likely to win if you take out the opposing DDs; although we're harder to hit, the benefits of sinking DDs are many (and you don't need to do as many hps of damage to get a decent return on the battle - % damage is what matters, not absolute damage). DDs are also good targets as, with a few exceptions, they tend to have poor AA. So, that's short-term stuff: spot and attack things with poor AA. Longer-term, your aim is to study and practice, with a view to becoming like one of the hyper-skilled CV drivers who turn up on here - these folk can strike and kill pretty much any target they choose.

Besides what others have said, the wiki isn't a bad place to look for information on the various ships: https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/World_of_Warships I would suggest not getting too hung up on specific ships, at least not silver ones; some of the more desirable T10s require you to grind through some relatively underwhelming lower tier ships, and conversely there are less spectacular T10s where the 'journey' is more fun than the destination. Besides which, 'best' is extraordinarily subjective... I would agree with the sentiment that you should play as many classes as possible though; this more diverse experience will help you find whatever 'best' turns out to be for you, as well as making you a better player as it gives a more solid understanding of what everything can/can't do, and what they're trying to do to you and how to thwart them. It's worth mentioning T4 CVs too: at the moment, there are a lot of them, and they make life miserable for T3 ships especially (and aren't much fun for T4-5 either) - it's worth not judging a line on the basis of how well it copes against the T4 CV plague; many become a lot more fun when you've got through the low tier CV 'wall'...

Agree that it's very pretty; can you imagine the uproar though, if the bonuses were significantly better than a standard cammo for a T10 semi-premium? I'm not sure what WG are up to here though; it must have been quite a lot of work to produce this cammo, and it only works on one ship (and one that comparatively few people will ever have)...

As I'm sure you comprehended fully, most of the skill with CVs involves target selection, flak dodging and stuff like that. Positioning isn't entirely idiot-proof either; if a CV gets closer and cocks up his positioning, some rotten bugger will torp/otherwise explode him. If CVs were as easy to master as many of the folk on here suggest, we'd all be El2azar et al. if we were interested - the fact that we clearly aren't is indicative that there is a lot of skill involved in CVs; it's just a different skill-set to that needed for the 'standard' classes. All of which doesn't mean I've forgiven WG for buggering up my favourite class (or elements of it, at least) i.e. DDs.

I would give a qualified 'no' to that question, but the Ikeas are certainly the best (Halland has been glorious in Clans, albeit against low league opposition); US is pretty decent (including US designs in the PA tree, although they miss DefAA), and Groz is a monster, for example. I have no idea if the plan-DD balance can actually be fixed, or if WG even care about this, but there are some useful fixes that could be applied - the first - IMO, of course - is removing the 'detected' warning for planes; that alone would make life less hideous for a (semi-competent) sneakier DD....

I was understating for (only slightly) comic effect. That said, I do find how much of a problem a CV is does vary drastically depending on the skill level of the CV driver in question. A skilled driver will basically ruin your entire game, whereas more typical players (especially at the moment) can sometimes be - at least - mitigated, although it often does call for ditching old favourite ships (IJN torp boats being particularly hard-hit)....

Whilst I hope it's obvious from my other posts that I think there is a lot wrong with CV-ship interactions at the moment, I do think you're being slightly unfair. To be effective as a CV (as opposed to the muppets you regularly see propping up the end-game results table), you do need to at least vaguely put yourself in harms way, to avoid excessive flight times; there is a *lot* of skill involved in being good with CVs too - things like avoiding flak, slingshots etc., not to mention the more cerebral stuff like positioning, proper target selection and so on. It's a different skill-set to regular ships, but it's still a skill set none the less (which I haven't really acquired yet). That's not to say that CVs aren't a nuisance, but *typical* (i.e. not the forum unicums et al.) CV players usually 'only' influence the game through excess spotting, rather than by doing actual damage, because they haven't gained the necessary skills.

Ultimately, because the game is still fun, and the various faults are more than outweighed by the positives. Ask me again after SSs are introduced though. Plus, the ships are very pretty, and I like driving about in an approximation of historical ships. What does annoy me is WG's apparent contempt for their customers, and frequent utter incompetence when it comes to matters related to customer service...

As others have said, we get the post-refit armament on Gneisenau in game; you might find this short Wikipedia article of interest (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrått_Fort) - one of the turrets from before the refit is still extant...

Very true, and I don't really object to things being gated such that only a small proportion of the players can get them (I've been playing WOT for even longer than I've been playing WOWS, so I'm fully familiar with the notion), by - for instance - being very good at the game, playing in clans etc. However, I think it gets shady when you can simply spend money to skip whatever the 'gate' is - that smacks of taking advantage of people with poor impulse control (via free xp conversion, selling dragon flags etc.), or at least it does when the price is so ludicrous. To be clear, I don't have any problem with WG making money (go look in my port/garages and you won't find a shortage of premiums), but it should most certainly be ethical.

This. A reasonable price range for a free xp DD (IMO) would be 750K-1,000K, on the basis that after blowing said free xp you might have a couple of options: a fully researched tree, but with no extra bonuses or cammo *or* a T10 premium only, but you do get a cammo/improved economy (but only one ship)...

As others have said, you need to only have the relevant ships researched - allegedly. That said, I'm not doing anything in the way of selling things until we see the final final final patch-notes, as I trust WG to not change things/otherwise mess it up about as far as I could comfortably spit a rat...

Nope! I'm a DD main, so I ought to be a sucker for something like this, but 2 million free xp...?! I'm sure everyone knows this already, but you can get Shimakaze, say, or Gearing for (according to WOWS Fitting Tool) 685,140, and 711,290 xp, respectively (which includes any of the lower tier ships you fancy too, of course) - there is no way that this thing is 2.811793 times better than a Gearing (and any/all her predecessors in the tree)...

Submarines update on the Dev Blog: https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/15 (Lots of verbiage to the effect of "they're coming, whether you like it or not" - Actual quote: " And with your help, we plan to see this through and, in the end, diversify naval battles with a completely fleshed-out new class.")

FTFY

You put it far more poetically than me! I do have one fear though: one of these days, WG may actually produce a stupidly priced free xp ship that is actually attractive enough to warrant the price - that day, I'm boned... No danger of that yet though.

2 million free xp, you say? Not a chance - a f4rt has a greater chance of surviving a hurricane, in fact... Smaland had the merits of a) being real, and b) doing something a bit different (radar); this thing doesn't even have that going for it.

Right there is why she's my favourite! (That video never gets old BTW)

They are sisters, so they should be pretty similar. Hydro versus torps does make for very distinct playstyles, although I'm a long way from being a BB meister, plus Bismarck has - I think - somewhat better AA, not that this makes an enormous difference. Besides the torps (as a DD main, I feel peculiar without at least some torpage), Tirpitz has the premium economy, so she gets a lot more use - for me anyway - than the Bismarck does. I would be cautious listening to me though; besides being even worse than usual with BBs, I've got my KM ones from T7 onwards built for 'fun' (i.e. semi-manly), rather than optimally...

Whilst I sincerely wish for 'not never, no way, no how' vis-a-vis introducing SSs to the main game modes, I think we'll be very lucky to keep them out for more than a couple of patches after introduction...

If it's your first BB line, then probably not; if you've already played one or two of the more 'vanilla' lines (US or IJN), then they're rather fun. I found the KM BBs to be most fun in PvE, but then I'm a DD main, so BBs feel a bit weird and unnatural to me...

Fairly recently - on my alt account. You can barely get away with it with lots of prior experience (from my main account, in my case), but I can imagine the experience must be a colossal turn-off for entirely new players, or even newcomers to the class....

It depends rather on the sorts of things you like, and what would be a useful captain trainer (I haven't looked at which ships you already have either). That said (speaking as a sub-par player, and DD main): DD: Cossack and Loyang, the latter (or maybe Kidd) if you expect to face lots of planes. Cossack is perhaps my favourite T8, but you are in trouble if a CV takes an interest in you. Get Harekaze too, if it ever comes back. Cruisers: Atago, and maybe Eugen; I find the heal and useful torps (with firing angles that don't broadcast that you're about to fire to the next solar system) on the former to make it one of the few cruisers I actually like at T8. BBs: MA is great fun (but generally wants a specialist captain for maximum giggles), but I might go with Tirpitz; quite apart from anything else, a lot of opponents will assume you're a hopeless newbie and underestimate you. Being very hard to citadel is helpful too. CVs: I'm really not qualified here, but GZ is an absolute hoot in Coop - mortal combat with secondaries is glorious (although it would be colossally stupid against real people, of course).

As far as I know, you can't 'un-reset' - might be worth trying customer support though? The aim behind the 'reset' option is allegedly to get us to play more mid-tiers, in return for points that can be spent on stuff like LUs, premium ships, and so on (have a look in the relevant section of the Armory [sic] for more on rewards); I say 'allegedly', as a lot of folk suspect that the real aim is to get us to spend money on xp conversion etc... Although opinion is divided, my personal view is that it can be a worthwhile exercise, but it's only time efficient if you do it when there is at least a x2 bonus in place; it's also a good idea to pick lines that are a) fun and b) require less xp to complete (so, DDs are often picked for that reason - the 'cheapest' line is - I think - the IJN 'dakka' DDs).

Excellent form - many thanks, OP!