Verblonde

More from the Dev Blog (Paupers' consumables for the chop):

This! The last T7 Ranked was a sprint, as I recall - I'm rather looking forward to giving this version a lash. Time to give Haida a run-out, I think... Edit: thinking about it, Skane (is that the T7?) might be worth a look too, with the heal and everything.

Just saw this in the latest Dev Blog post - yay! No CVs, so I think I may actually give this season a go...

New Dev Blog, including early access to Russian cruisers: https://medium.com/@devblogwows/st-soviet-cruisers-event-16th-season-of-ranked-battles-and-other-news-6ffddc63963f

Bl00dy he11s! People seriously go to this much trouble to win a *game*? Gordon Bennett - they must be truly spectacularly insufficiently priapic...!

Well, we have about another month or so of Ikea DDs (full release next patch), which probably takes us to the middle of May. After that, it's the Russian cruiser split, presumably spread over two more patches, so call it the middle of July. So, the earliest that you'll see the KM CVs is mid-July, and I wouldn't be surprised if we get some sort of summer event too (Eagles v Sharks was mid July for instance), which may well push them back by at least a patch. It wouldn't surprise me if WG were targeting mid Sep, say, for the initial limited release, assuming they follow the existing blue print for a new ship line. Of course, Coronavirus and however that impacts WG's cash-flow, and available staff/resources, may well throw a 'normal' schedule out of whack somewhat...

Absolute nonsense - I fear your tin foil hat may be on too tight...? All sensible folk know that it's really the wrath of the volcano gods!!

First, read what everyone else has said about probabilities and whatnot. Second, some pointers: Don't rush up the tiers; you still have a low battle count, and the bulk of your battles are in BBs and cruisers, with most of those being IJN and US. This isn't a bad thing at all, but it would be helpful to try and add some more DDs into the mix; this will help you gain a better understanding of what DDs are up to, and help you counter them (the torps appearing from nowhere thing - most torps are dodged long before the target even knows they're there - WASD is your friend here). Join a clan, and ideally one which is happy to teach. Besides speeding up the rate you learn stuff, you'll probably get some economic bonuses too. Check what sort of level of captain you have on your ships; when you get into the +2 MM bracket (so T5 and above), you really want at least a 10 pointer as a rule of thumb. In the case of your fire issues, your first four point skill/perk wants to be FP (https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Commander#Fire_Prevention); as you'll see, it reduces your chance of catching fire, and it also reduces your locations to catch fire by one. This latter part doesn't sound that impressive until you realise a couple of things i.e. the two middle locations get combined into one big one; most players will tend to shoot you centre mass - these two factors mean that you'll often only have one fire burning. Basically, with a BB especially, you are going to get set on fire repeatedly anyway, if you're doing your job right (so, getting involved and not skulking around the borders); your aim is to build your ship and captain to mitigate the probabilities, speed up extinguishing, and manage your DCP properly so that someone who's paying attention doesn't set you on fire, to make you trigger DCP, followed by piling on flood/fire damage whilst you're on cooldown. You're also going to have lots of people like me (DD main) looking out for BBs that sail in a straight line at a constant speed; we love these sorts of BBs as they allow us to land lots of torps hits, giving us a warm glow inside (not to mention much better rewards) - your job here is to make us work for it. As you'll see when you play some DDs, torps are generally rather hard to reliably land hits with; apart from the Ikea line, they usually do quite a lot of damage when they hit, but this is balanced by the difficulty of landing those hits, especially at range. When you're driving your BBs around, alter your speed frequently, and your course - your aim is to not be where the torp aiming indicator said you'd be when the torps arrive. Also, don't do it predictably; DD drivers are also looking for players who consistently turn a certain way, or alter speed etc. predictably, again because they're easier to hit. A couple more things to try and concentrate on: learn how the spotting mechanics work (LOS, smoke, hydro/radar, third party spotting etc.), so you can make life as hard as possible for the opposition. Also, focus on maximising your situational awareness (if your minimap isn't big already, make it so, and keep a close eye on it); try and keep track of where everyone is, on both sides, and try and learn to predict where any unspotted ships might be (make sure you have 'last known location' enabled), so you can either ambush them, or arrange to be elsewhere.

As I recall, Blitz is a different developer to 'classic' WOWS, hence a lot of the differences. I'd urge caution vis-a-vis Blitz though: they recently(ish) changed something about the game such that it wouldn't run on older devices any more; this in and of itself is fine (tech does move on, after all). What isn't fine is that they gave no warning that this change was happening, and were actively selling premium content to people right up to and including the day before, knowing that they wouldn't be able to use it after the change. That's pretty shabby.

This will be an interesting test of WG's new 'no transparency' policy; we won't get any numbers on these things really (assuming WG's utterances are to be taken literally) until they are about to be released. I can see a couple of ways this might go: We do what WG would like us to do i.e. not declare that the sky is falling and wait patiently until just before release, when we'll find out the full extent of the horror/awesomeness of the new ships. We extrapolate from WG's recent actions and behaviour, and assume the worst, with the less temperate amongst us declaring noisily and frequently that the game is doomed and no-one should start playing - just the sort of PR that WG needs...! I wonder which general direction things will go...?

Question for the history buffs: is any aspect of the KM CVs even remotely historical? I can find reference to *a* Weser being a Hipper conversion, but that's about it (besides GZ, of course)...

This appears to be the relevant Dev Blog: https://medium.com/@devblogwows/st-german-aircraft-carriers-z-35-7ef09ef5deb7

It does, and there isn't really - that's why I found that Op so helpful for practicing: the buggers in the convoy don't shoot back...! Edit: confirm - the Op in question is Aegis.

I'm not a great player, but I've been doing the following to try and improve matters: Play CVs in Ops, especially the one with the big convoy (Aegis, maybe?) - the convoy escorts don't shoot at your planes and drive in straight lines for basic practice. Move onto bots that do try to dodge after that, and then finally real people. When I've dropped torps, I immediately turn my camera angle so that I can see where they've gone, and which hit/missed etc. Be mindful of varying torp speeds and TA (or not) - it's a good idea to stick to one CV and configuration for a while to get the performance characteristics down pat. Practice assessing how fast a ship is going based on what the smoke from the funnels is doing, and how fast you can see them moving. Someone once advised me to aim further in front of ships than you think you need; when first trying to get the hang of aiming torps, this is surprisingly helpful advice. I still stink in CVs, but slightly less than I did, and some of that is due to the above. Better CV players will be able to provide better spiritual guidance though...

Thanks, OP! I'm getting 'invalid code' for the later ones at the moment. BTW if anyone is having trouble with copy-paste, an alternative route is to paste the codes into a text reader (like Notepad), and then recopy them from there...

Well she looks vaguely fun for Coop, and possibly randoms (with a healthy dose of git gud, which I lack), but I think I'll add Mainz to my 'wait for Xmas gamble boxes' list for the moment as I already have more premiums than I realistically have time to play...

I did a couple of times (well, actually free xp, but it's functionally the same in the context), before I had any 19 point captains - at the time, I had more money than I had time to grind. I suspect these bundles are of most use to newbies as at that stage in one's playing career, every captain point matters; I suspect that most of us on here have a somewhat different view for ourselves, due to generally having no shortage of decent captains...

I tend to agree that there should be some sort of 'try before you buy' thing in the game for premium ships; each rental would need to be reasonably long and include all battle modes that would normally be eligible to give people a realistic picture of the ship in question. You (and WG!) would probably need some sort of protections (for want of a better word) built in though: Some sort of charge, refunded when you buy the ship would discourage people from taking the pi$$. Some mechanic like the upcoming one for WOT apropos the - formerly tech tree - 'special' vehicles (can't recall the proper name) where you can't rent (in this case; buy in WOT) a given tier unless you've already reached it with a regular silver ship, to mitigate the issue with flooding the game with players in unsuitable ships (I say 'rent' for this element as I can't see WG ever making it harder for anyone to buy premium ships).

Gods, I hope not - if this effect is real (I've started to think it is), it's very welcome after so long...

You have hidden stats, so how would we know? Personally, I think I suck (most would agree, and because I don't hide my stats they have evidence to support that); however, after - what - three years of playing, I do know enough to be able to cope with being uptiered...! Sadly, I fear you're beyond hope; if I'm wrong, please do ask sensible questions and you'll see how helpful the forum inhabitants can be, but in the meantime I'm out.

I regularly run out of +1s, so I'd like to see either a significant increase of those available, or just make it infinite....

As someone said earlier, there are several good reasons for the current MM, including keeping queue times manageable (a plus for players), and encouraging progression (a plus for WG, as people can often be persuaded to pay for it). Being uptiered can also provide an interesting challenge for those who've bothered to learn how the game works, and has the merit of providing opportunities for much greater rewards. Speaking as someone who originally migrated from WOT, things could also be a *lot* worse - in WOWS pretty much everything can do something useful against everything else; it just requires a bit of an understanding of game mechanics. Why trolling? Because your posts were asking for it - to the extent that my initial reaction was, indeed, "troll!"...

You entirely deserved it; however, if you search my content, I'm rarely not helpful (and the same is true of most of the regulars in this thread), when a sensible question is asked. Up to you how you go from here - take the opportunity to learn, or carry on having a hissy fit that isn't going to achieve anything (apart from giving people a bit of a laugh)...

I'm avoiding getting too excitable until we see what the event actually is (and what the rewards are); the pessimist in me is expecting massive anticlimax, I have to admit.

BTW OP, as tempting as it is to keep taking the pi$$, you may find you get more from the forum if, rather than demanding things be fixed which a) won't be and b) don't need to be, you simply ask questions rather than what you're currently doing. In this case, the question is "I'm getting my posterior handed to me when uptiered; can anyone offer some tips vis-a-vis avoiding this?" If you ask sensible questions and are reasonably courteous, you'll get lots of help; if you aren't, well...