Verblonde

Although I'm entirely bloody awful in CVs, she's certainly my favourite T6 - good for Ops, and the extra torp plane comes in very handy...

As others have said, spotting and providing smoke screens for your allies are key jobs (the bigger you can make your smoke screen - by running at full speed etc. - the better, as most torp boat drivers will fire torps into smoke on general principles). In terms of actually blowing up the enemy, you're essentially an ambush predator (the pattern is set by Clemson, and lasts until you can stealth torp); try and operate amongst islands - you can (metaphorically) leap out on enemy BBs etc. and torp them from so close that they don't have time to dodge. Your guns are pretty fearsome against other DDs too; you just need to learn to be able to hit consistently, and that usually means being close as well. Don't try and cap too early, unless the opposition have lemminged and left a cap unattended - you can always re-take a cap later, but only if you aren't smoking boots. I tend to base my aggressiveness on caps on to what I extent I suspect my team-mates know what they're doing e.g. if you suspect your BBs are going to hide at the back and shoot at other BBs (rather than the cruisers they should be shooting initially), then be a lot more cautious. watch your mini-map like a hawk, to see where your allies are, and what they're doing.

Completed D4 a couple of days ago; I could get D5 done as well, but the rewards are poor, so I'm enjoying not grinding for a bit - there is no reason to do D5, unless you can make serious inroads to one (or both) of the subsequent Directives, which I'm too fed up with grinding to do. (Didn't buy Gorizia either.)

With the utmost respect, I suggest that you *really* need to learn the game a bit more before telling people what to do - the urge to help is very laudable, but 113 battles is very, very few. Give it a few months though, and I have no doubt you'll have more than enough knowledge/experience to be providing excellent spiritual guidance to people...

I would suggest playing all the key nations: US/IJN to start with - they're pretty much the 'default' nations and don't have too much weirdness (mainly because they were the first in the game). Then something that introduces a bit of eccentricity: maybe KM or French. The Brits are great, but are a really bad idea for an early line in any class: the BBs teach you bad habits (HE spamming, mainly), the cruisers are rather hard (fragile, AP only, and require good smoke knowledge), and the DDs require a bit of skill to use well (they're generally sneaky, but need to use guns to do consistent damage, which blows your stealth). After that, pretty much whatever you like the smell of. Some essential resources: The wiki: https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/World_of_Warships iChase's Captain's Academy: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoRQa0D7yVpc05KETkgPsyZHIRZd980cO Some resources (including iChase) need to be approached with a bit of caution vis-a-vis CVs/AA - the reework changed everything, but there are still a few videos floating around from the old RTS days. Also, after the reework, aspects of CVs/AA changed drastically several times too - look for current stuff. Join a clan, and ideally make it a teaching one - that'll speed up your learning dramatically (doubly so if you have voice comms). Finally don't rush up the tiers (as others have said) - Do ships get more powerful as you move towards T10? Yup! Will you win more if you get one of these more powerful ships 'early'? Not a chance! Yes, you'll be driving a scarier ship but a) your opponents will have just the same level of ship as you do and b) they will have a lot more experience and (probably) far more developed captains, which give a significant edge.

You're not alone! I have to say, I rather feel WG have messed up the design a bit with the Directives - leaving aside all the shady aspects that we're so annoyed about. I assume the main point of the whole PR grind was to keep server numbers up over the traditionally quiet winter holiday period; assuming that WG hadn't made a pig's ear of the communication of all this stuff: Directives 1-3 were reasonably compelling, if you wanted the free T7 premium; they were also semi-doable for a lot of players. so, that bit is at least semi-sensible. Directive 4 was okay, in that it gave several useful rewards (slots and permaflage), and - depending on timelines - pushed most people who complete it past the bulk of the better rewards in the dockyard (once you've got the containers the quality of rewards tails off drastically, until you hit the coal/steel/PR herself towards/at the end). Directive 5 gives you free xp and a basic santa crate; in my case, it won't push me past any of the remaining good rewards, but rather just gives me more dragon signals. This is the real problem Directive, in terms of motivating people to play more. Directive 6 gives you decent amounts of coal, but you have to get past 5 to even think about it, so that's a no for me. Directive 7 gives steel, but see 6. Unless WG actually want player numbers to drop in the later phase of the thing, Directive 5 provides a rather solid block - poor rewards for the Directive itself, and weak benefits for even trying to get it done in time to matter (assuming earlier progress was vaguely similar to mine). So, when I finished Directive 4, I breathed a huge sigh of relief and called it a day for this year - more than a week before the end of the period where - apparently - WG are trying to motivate us to play...

When Yudachi was released, I avoided it because everyone on here said it - to use the technical term - blew goats. I (of course) then got it from a gambling crate over Xmas. Somewhat to my surprise, I actually rather like her - slightly better concealment than the silver equivalent (6.1 versus 6.4), and with a TA captain, the torps are fairly usable (12 km range is plenty)... Naturally, a lot of players (I suspect) won't have a TA captain to put in her, and she also suffers from the nasty affliction of being neither of Haida (if you have captain points to burn) or Z-39. so, I wouldn't disagree with putting her on the 'avoid' list for most players.

Hence the bit that followed about hard-capping the T4 CVs...

Regret? None, surprisingly - at the very least, even the clunkers can provide a laugh in Coop (and snowflakes etc. at suitable times). It also helps that most of the less good premiums I have generally came out of crates/missions, so were either free or cheap or resulted in getting doubloons back etc. Also, if you have a lot of higher point captains available, quite a few clunkers get a lot less bad. Finally, it helps that I'm nowhere near being a unicum, so the difference in performance between good and bad premiums is perhaps less pronounced; for a better player, the weaker premiums may well be more painful to play... If I were advising a player with zero premium ships what to avoid however, there are quite a few though - some examples: Anything with a 'speciality' captain; unless you have a lot of captain/free xp available, things where you can't train the captain on anything else should be avoided. Haida - say - is glorious, but imagine trying to play her with a 3 point captain. Anything of a class that you're rubbish in, or hate playing - to get the most from a premium, you need to be vaguely competent with it, and be actively keen to play it. Anything that needs a high point captain before you have a suitable one available e.g. a CL that needs both CE and IFHE won't be great until you have at least a 14 point captain to put in it. Most things from the 'standard issue' list of flaky premiums e.g. Kriskpy Kreme, VU, and so on; you can pick those up later, if you're keen, but they shouldn't be 'first' premiums, unless they're free.

Sadly, that's true at the moment, although it does provide what could be described as a solid learning curve. In my tuberous way, I can just about get away with it at T4 (1-2 CVs seems more usual at the times I play, which helps though), so it is possible for a sub-average player; I would think it was in WG's interests to hard cap the T4 CVs though - queue times be damned - if they want to keep new players.

Short answer: as others have said, you've only played (at time of writing) 297 battles, of which only 138 were in randoms. There's your problem right there. Obviously, that isn't terribly helpful; you'll forgive people tending to be a trifle blunt though - this sort of thing happens with new players quite frequently i.e. toccata and fugue on the theme of "I don't understand the game yet, but it needs fixing/changing because I keep dying!". So, you may find some/all of the following helpful: It sounds like you're getting royally bushwhacked; there are a number of potential remedies, including working on your situational awareness (which takes experience), watching the mini-map (make it big, if you haven't already), learning not to over-extend (experience again), and studying the detail of how vision mechanics work (the wiki is your friend here, as it is for much else: https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/World_of_Warships). Make sure you know how to aim, and have your interface set up properly; iChase's Captain's Academy series is very good (and for much else besides on the 'how to' front, but beware of out-of-date stuff concerning CVs/AA): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoRQa0D7yVpc05KETkgPsyZHIRZd980cO As others have said, play more ships of all classes (you're already playing the three main classes - keep doing that), but at lower tier i.e. T4 max; this will give you more game time where you aren't being vapourised too quickly. Why T4? That's the highest tier where you only face +1 MM, and it's less crucial to have good captains (which, unless you've spent a ton of money, you won't have yet after sub-300 games); T5 and above really needs captains with *at least* 10 points (even 14 for some ships) - your opponents will have such captains much of the time, which puts you at a severe disadvantage if you don't. On that subject, make sure you're au fait with which captain skills go with which ships, and in which order (ask on here, or the wiki provides approximate guidance). Returning to the mini-map, it's often helpful to have some/all of the optional distance indicators showing (hold down ctrl and click the cogwheels above the map corner) e.g. spotting distance from the air, AA auras etc. etc. When playing DDs that have longer AA range than their air spotting distance, leave the AA off when you don't need it (P-key is the toggle). Join a clan and play in divisions; there are several pluses to this: you're harder to kill playing in concert with others, if it's a clan that's happy to teach you'll learn faster, plus you get a bunch of useful economic bonuses (xp, coal, silver etc.). Having voice comms makes division play (and getting feedback) much easier. That's just a few things to start off with; needless to say there is a lot more to be said when you start getting into the detail. If I had to pick just one thing to focus on it would be vision mechanics and how to work with them (and by extension, when to fire guns, when to stay dark, and so on). As others have said, don't rush up the tiers; yes, higher tier ships are more powerful, but that doesn't help much if the opposition team has similar ships (and, in this case, better captains and more experience). Whilst it's certainly worthwhile to get higher tier ships (access to missions, clans and ranked battles, and so on), it is more worthwhile to pace yourself. Keep asking questions here - so long as you avoid the aforementioned toccata and fugue, you'll get lots of helpful advice (and often different perspectives)...

The 'textbook' newcomer answer for cruisers is IJN (currently, mainly CAs, with a balance of guns and torps), and US (currently the line splits into CL and CA branches - the former has more dakka, but often needs an IFHE captain, whereas the latter have slower firing - but bigger - guns, and the line culminates in the DM which is highly thought of. No torps though.), followed by some of the more 'eccentric' lines, such as KM, RN and so on. The 'how to BB' lines are (again) US and IJN - as the original pair of BB lines, they're fairly free of gimmicks and weirdness; they'll illustrate the basics of BB play (engage at medium range, tank damage, angling, positioning - all that sort of thing). After that, the KM BBs are a giggle, especially if you like a more manly (suicidal?) play style, and the French are worthwhile too. RN BBs are quite handy, but get used to using AP first, as they tend to tempt you to be an HE spammer...

That sounds like focus fire (or you got yourself isolated); as in WOT, it's sensible to remove 'guns' from the game as quickly as possible, so focusing a target that you can obliterate quickly is a good approach. The trick is to avoid being that target; ways to do this include sticking with other ships (unless they're BBs hiding at the back) for mutual support, and keeping a close eye on the mini-map (make it big, if you haven't already), and focusing on developing situational awareness. As an example, if you're playing a BB (say), your job includes things like blapping cruisers (especially radars), and tanking for your team, amongst other things. If you're too far back, you won't hit anything *and* opponents won't be able to fire at you (being fired at - in moderation - is a good thing, because you're soaking up damage that is often healable, and isn't being taken by your fragile allies). Too far forward, and you've seen what happens. Keep an eye on your allies - ideally, you want a screen of at least one DD ahead of you to spot (and or planes doing the same), and probably cruisers around you - position yourself accordingly. The DD should be able to detect most incoming threats (which will display on the mini-map), the cruisers are good at zapping DDs, so protecting you from your counter, whilst you try and absorb enemy fire, and shred the enemy cruisers first - no enemy cruisers and your DDs get a free reign and so on. There's obviously a lot more to it than that, as you know, and each ship will have different priorities and dangers, depending on class and tier. The crucial thing is to play the game that's in front of you; say you want to head up the right flank, and everyone else has gone left and middle - don't keep heading up the flank you wanted (you'll get isolated/sunk), but position yourself where you can take maximum advantage of what your allies are doing (and they get the benefit of whatever you're doing) instead. There are very few occasions where an 'army of one' will work; better to be part of a group, then you can do to others what you mention was done to you.

I'm another vote for MA, although it depends a bit on what captains you have available, and which modes you want to play the thing in.

For me, the tangible difference is the premium bonuses (especially with the Shinonome's 'National' cammo), although the extra turret on Shin doesn't hurt. I have 19 point captains available for both; with TA, the Fubuki actually plays a lot like Shin overall, and the (often inaccurate) 'summary' stats are more or less the same, with Fubuki theoretically being very marginally better. (The 19 point Fubuki captain is not me being mental, but rather that my Asashio - and now Yudachi - captain works best on that silver DD, so that's where he's assigned in the regular tree)

Hello all, [SM0KE] are looking to recruit some new members, particularly with a view to consistently taking part in Clan Battles; you don't need to be an amazing player, but it would be nice if you're keen. English is the primary language spoken by the clan, although we do have quite a few German speakers too; geographically, we currently have members across three continents, but we do play according to the EU clock. We're a pretty friendly clan, and mainly communicate via Discord (you'll do a *lot* better if you have it too), both during and outside the game. We don't have an extensive manifesto, but do tend to follow the teachings of Bill & Ted i.e. "be excellent to each other"! Our base is mostly complete, so you'll get some reasonably worthwhile economic bonuses too. We'd best suit nice people in the beginner to mid-fifties percent WR range (we aren't stats snobs), especially those happy to learn and/or teach, according to abilities. If you're looking to improve, we're not a bad place to be; if you don't care at all about getting better, then probably look at a 'pure bonuses' clan rather than [SM0KE]. As mentioned, we try and take part in the various forms of Clans, so it would be nice if you have at least one T8, so as to unlock rentals (although at least one 'proper' ship of the relevant tier would be better - currently T10). If this sounds like you, please drop me a DM, and we can go from there...

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If you mainly play solo, you should still play randoms - quite apart from anything else, the rewards are so much better. Yes, divisions are more powerful in randoms than a bunch of solo players, but each side gets the same number of divisions (although competence may vary!). Whilst it's true that you'll often have idiots in your battles, they overall even out between red and green; also, bear in mind that the number of battles you can personally influence is (until reaching 'unicum') small - just do what you can and play to the best of your abilities; sometimes you'll be bug and sometimes windshield - try and be sanguine about this stuff. The crucial difference between Coop and Random modes is that the former is pretty YOLO, whilst the latter requires a more considered approach, at least usually. You need to tailor your approach to the mode you're playing. Re: clan. Suggest having a rummage in the recruitment section on this forum; also, bear in mind that your first clan isn't 'forever' - you can leave again whenever you want, although there is a cooling off period before you can join another. Some clans worry about stats - you may want to unhide yours before some will accept you (unless you know personally one of the recruiters).

The unhelpful general answer is 'it depends'. Firstly, if a commander in the armory [sic] doesn't have the red/gold stripe bottom right of his portrait, he's a standard captain (only with ten points to start with); these captains can be used (with retraining where needed) on any ship, with any (sensible) build without you missing out, but without any 'extras'. In terms of cost, 1,500 doubloons is in the same ballpark as 'normal' 10 point captains when they're put up for sale for money (whether they're actually worth that money to you will depend largely on how many 19 pointers you have, most likely). Commanders with the stripe are the 'special' ones (unique commanders) and have some sort of ability that distinguishes them from the standard captains. As an example, this is one of the Dunkirk twins (no points assigned yet, as he's waiting for either a high tier CL or BB; he's displayed in Belfast, hence some of the skills are crossed out for being ineffective): Any skill that appears the same as on a regular captain *is* the same as that found on a regular captain e.g. everything on the first row. Anything with a little 'plus' sign top left of the skill icon is an improved version e.g. EM on the above (a complete list of who gets what is here: https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Unique_Commanders) - in this case, big guns will turn 1 degree/sec faster than normal, versus 0.7 for the normal version. These improved skills have to be selected, and paid for with captain points, as per usual. So, for a start, improved abilities only make a difference if they are selected in your captain's build (the above example won't make any difference to anything, as no skills are selected yet). The other aspect governing whether a 'magic' captain makes a difference or not relates to the usefulness of their improved skills for the ship they're on: e.g. looking again at the Dunkirks, EM will probably be useful on a BB but not useful on a CL/DD/CV; JoAT will be of use (to a greater or lesser degree) on almost anything; SSE is really a cruiser skill for the Brits (DD smoke is generally too short-lived), especially if you division a lot. So, if you put a Dunkirk on a DD or CV, the positive difference will be marginal (one special skill made use of, maybe), whereas you'll probably see a more positive difference on a CL or BB (two skills, maybe, apiece). Bear in mind though, that the initial ten points may not necessarily use all of the upgraded skills on the first pass; you'll often need more points to be using the maximum number of upgraded skills e.g. if you put a Dunkirk in a BB, you'd be mental to pick more than one of the upgraded skills on your initial pass, as that would preclude a four-point skill. So, are the magic captains worth having? Absolutely, but only if placed in sensible ships that match up with as many of their upgraded skills as possible (and the German one is a bit flaky - Vigilance is not the most widely used skill). Also, bear in mind that the improvements are generally relatively small in most cases (to avoid being OP), so a magic captain isn't an 'I win' button - thankfully! BTW some of the magic captains get visual modifications (tracers, flags etc.) and skills that activate when certain conditions are met; most of the captains in the armory don't get this stuff (except Lutjens, and he's horribly expensive - coal). To get those captains, you *usually* have to complete a campaign/collection/mission chain. The same general principles apply to them as apply to the more more prosaic 'uniques'. Again, these captains are included in the list linked to above.

That's a pity - if one is angry with WG for the whole PR thing, then one should direct one's anger towards them, not towards players who took advantage of WG's actions. That said, I think some gentle mickey-taking (especially early on, when you *had* to pay for the thing, and most PRs appeared to be driven by the, erm, less experienced) is to be expected...

Bigger ships, not much - just hope you aren't too set on fire etc. Smaller, more nimble ships depend rather on who you're facing: if you get unlucky, and get a decent CV player, you're basically boned regardless; against more average-poor players (so, the majority), you have some options. If a rocket (especially) plane is bearing down on you, turn into him, so he may over-shoot; against either type, hard zig-zags can evade at least some of the drops (again, it helps if you're heading towards each other). If you have flak, use it - it probably won't do much good, unless you get someone who drives straight into the puffs, but it's harder to aim if dodging flak. If your AA is remotely serviceable, use it (although remember to keep it off when you want to be dark) - you may do enough damage to encourage the CV to try his luck elsewhere, and you might boost your earnings a bit in the process. For emphasis though: good CVs laugh at this sort of stuff - it'll only work (to a greater/lesser extent) against the typical players you meet in randoms.

Just ran into @El2aZeR (Lexington), whilst getting my Black horribly radared and sunk - I should have bravely run away... Happily, some heroic carrying more than made up for my mess-up, so our team didn't come second. Sadly, I was out of +1s, else several of our side would have got them.

I think it *might* be: the initial introduction of the reeworked CVs made a lot of DDs non-viable; that impact is perhaps lessened if the bulk of CV players don't know what they're doing. I've been re-grinding the IJN torp DD line (for RB), and it's been a much less miserable experience to play these ships now that most CVs you encounter don't seem to know what they're doing. Obviously, that's a rather DD-centric view, but still...

I can dig that; I must admit, part of my interest stemmed from the Fury in the marketing image (which, obviously, she doesn't get).

FWIW I'm very appreciative of the low-down on this thing; as a Brit (albeit a geographically inconvenienced one), I'm always tempted when a new RN thing comes along, so I'm grateful for people helping me avoid making a mistake and buying her. Probably means I'll get her in a gamble crate next Christmas, but still...