Verblonde

Thanks for the feedback everyone - very much appreciated!

I do too. When the title-specific stuff came along, I had about a year's regular premium in place - it all got converted to the title specific stuff. I've got a few months before I have to decide, but I'm pretty sure I won't be buying both premium types...

I'll give it a try - many thanks! I did that a couple of days ago with the regular launcher version, after getting several crashes with the current patch (the game had generally been pretty stable prior to that)...

As was said earlier, better to just leave it in your port and wait until your skill-set becomes a more suitable match; you never know when ships like this will come in handy (for example, Balti was quite effective in the last T8 Clans season, in the right hands). As a general policy, it's a good idea not to sell too many (ideally, any) higher tier ships: as you know, when you sell something, you only get half the silver back that you initially paid for it (ditto, I believe, on upgrades, if you don't use doubloons to demount them); this silver loss can start impacting your economy quite severely over time, especially if you're F2P. The trick is to acquire any and all port slots that you can, as this is usually the key limiting factor that impacts whether or not to sell a ship (you can always grind more silver)...

BTW @kiteohatto it might be a good idea to join a clan: if you choose wisely, you'll find some people who can provide you with spiritual guidance vis-a-vis how to cruiser, plus (assuming their base is reasonably developed) you'll get a bunch of useful economic bonuses to boot. Playing in a division (especially if you have voice comms) is an excellent way to learn to play betterer fasterer. Sadly, I can't offer specific help on cruisers, as my capabilities with that class are approximately equivalent to my ability to do quantum physics while tightrope walking, naked, across Niagara Falls...

FWIW I've now completed the last directive (yesterday) and spending the tokens on a mixture of Genova (well, the doubloons anyway - I think I got them after about 11 tries) via the bundles, and standard Italian boxes, I've had zero missions from the freebies...

The latest post on the facebook Devblog: "ST, changes to Sansonetti and test ships Italian unique historical commander Luigi Sansonetti: - The "Scorched by Fury" talent is changed. It will be triggered upon obtaining the Confederate achievement rather than High Caliber, and will increase the reload speed by 15% rather than 5%. The trigger for the talent was changed because the High Caliber achievement was easier to get in Ranked Battles than in Random Battles (due to smaller size of teams in Ranked Battles). The Improved reload speed brings Sansonetti in balance with other unique commanders. German cruiser Mainz, Tier VIII: - Increased the armor thickness of main battery turrets: - - frontal armor plate from 30 to 80 mm; - - upper armor plate from 20 to 35 mm; - - side armor plates from 20 to 32 mm; - Air resistance coefficient was decreased for armor piercing and high explosive shells from 0.3307 to 0.29; - Krupp value for armor piercing shells was increased from 1852 to 2300. The armor of this cruiser's turrets will become the same as that of Nürnberg. This will noticeably improve the survivability of her main caliber turrets. The changes to Mainz's shells will increase their flight speed (making shooting maneuvering targets easier), and will increase penetration of armor piercing shells. Italian cruiser Gorizia, Tier VII: - Reload time of Exhaust Smoke Generator is lowered from 240 (180) to 210 (140) s; - Parameters of Hydroacoustic Search are changed: - - Action time increased from 100 to 120 s; - - Torpedo detection range increased from 3.5 to 4 km; - - Ship detection range increased from 5 to 6 km. Changes to consumables will make Gorizia more interesting to play and will highlight her main difference to the researchable Italian cruisers - Hydroacoustic search, compensating the lack of torpedoes. British cruiser Bedford, tier VIII: Main battery reload time increased from 11 to 12 s. British cruiser Drake, tier IX: Main battery reload time increased from 14 to 15 s. British cruiser Goliath, tier X: Main battery reload time increased from 15 to 17 s. These changes are made as part of the initial balancing phase of the ships. Please note that the information in the Development Blog is preliminary and subject to change."

WG (standard) premium basically does what premium account always has - extra xp and silver. The title-specific premium (there's both WOT and WOWS versions) gives you larger bonuses, I think, but (clearly) only works on one title.

No change needed - it's not like it happens a lot. FWIW I currently show 41 over 3,556 random battles played (2,513 of those with DDs) - that's an incidence rate of 1.15% overall. There are far more significant things to worry about.

My guess would be because people have worked out that trying to snipe the enemy CV isn't the best use of your time (at least early game) - I don't play CVs much, but getting my CV attacked used to be a glorious way of getting lots of plane kills (and so rewards); CV AA and fighter consumables could often make this sort of thing very costly for the attacking CV. As others have alluded to though, air superiority isn't a CV's job since the reework...

It should be, you're right. Sadly, there are quite a few people who didn't get the memo. It could be worse though - WOT is an order of magnitude worse in this respect. That said, you are possibly making yourself more vulnerable to getting yelled at if you're at T8 already after (at time of writing) 552 battles; I emphasise that it's still not right, but you'll probably have a quieter life if you drop back a couple of tiers and polish your skill-set a bit. People tend to get stroppier when they encounter people they view as liabilities to their team due to their advancing beyond their skill-set (it could be worse though - at least you didn't buy a T9 premium or similar!). It might also be worthwhile playing the other classes as well: this will give you a better handle on what they can/can't do, and how to scrag them with your CVs. For example, you're showing only 4 battles in DDs; one of a CV's key roles is knocking off the enemy DDs (which will also reward you better, as rewards scale with proportional damage, not absolute damage) - play DDs and you'll understand how a CV will kill you (a mixture of spotting you and rockets, usually), and as you get the hang of counter play, you'll also gain insights into how to counter that counter play in turn with your CVs. BTW if you're another victim of the flaky 'how to' aspect of the game, have a look at the wiki (if you haven't already): https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/World_of_Warships Also, when you're judging where best to deploy fighters, it helps to know which DDs can do what (it's usually DDs that need cover) e.g. mid-high tier US DDs have pretty good AA - by DD standards - so they need a lot less protecting than, say, most IJN torp DDs. Don't forget that your fighters can also spot, so dropping one on an enemy DD that's trying to cap, say, can often be helpful to your team (assuming the DD doesn't have good AA, and your team has a useful amount of firepower able to fire at it - fighters are very vulnerable to AA, so often won't last long over the ship you're trying to spot), and/or can be used to illuminate the target while your attack aircraft turn around and make their run (DDs are often sufficiently sneaky that you'll often only spot them after you needed to commit to the attack).

The advantage of running into @El2aZeR (playing Enterprise) when driving your Kagero is you know you are Doomed from the start; this is actually quite relaxing...

This is one of the 'decision moments' - assuming you have flak, do you unload while the planes are within the relevant aura (so confirming your position), or do you hold fire and force him to get a hard lock on you, by which point he'll be inside flak range. How I respond personally will vary depending on a whole range of variables - is the CV a potato, what is our tier differential, am I already spotted, realistically how much damage will I do (has the CV shown already he can dodge), do I have actively good AA or not, what course are the planes on (will I get more than half a second of flak effectiveness), and so on.

You're quite right, of course. It's just that blowing up planes is fun and provides a bit of variety...! I actually tend to view radar ships as a greater threat than planes most of the time. The most effective way for me to get better results overall would be to simply suck less though, but that is proving more of a long-term project!

Quite. Massively, although mainly because of the change in spotting dynamics; equally though, my approach changes a lot depending on how many radars are present, which types of (and how many) DDs I'm facing, and so on.

You're absolutely right; I only take the extra bursts to increase the probability of a typical player blundering into one of them (on certain ships with a relatively low number of base flak clouds).

I don't really change builds very often (hence my moving away from AA builds is slower than it might be otherwise, to avoid wasting doubloons), but this is what I mean about CV population - high population increases the likelihood of an AA build being worth it, whereas such builds almost certainly aren't with a lower CV population.

I don't really like the aesthetic, but free's free. If WG wanted to make boring old farts like me happy, they'd give the option of swapping the 'theme' cammo for a standard permaflage; still, as stated elsewhere, we don't have to use them. I'll probably stick mine on something I don't really like that much, and so don't play very frequently...

If one is going to deliberately engage enemy planes, it's crucial to have a mountain or similar between you and the opposing fleet; it's also helpful to shred the initial enemy flight, if possible - if you give a typical player a nasty shock initially, they'll often leave you to get on with it. Obviously, a good player will come back and tear you a new one (or do so with the initial attack), but there are relatively few of them about. Your second point relates back to what I said much earlier: when CVs are rare, you are better off focusing almost entirely on surface-to-surface; when they're more common, you can make a case for loading up a bit for AA (with suitable DDs), provided you're comfortable with the associated gimping effect of, say, losing Aiming Systems Mod 1 to gain the extra two flak bursts.

Against an average player, it depends a bit on the DD and the situation; a lot of the US DDs can lay a nasty ambush, if you get the positioning right and (especially) unload DefAA at the right moment. The crucial thing is to avoid the opposing ships having LOS to you, as they'll be what kills you when the planes spot you. Alternating this sort of thing with the more usual approach of staying dark complicates matters for the CV; also, there will be times when you want the CV to be chasing you, rather than going after your team (perhaps taking the heat off an IJN torp boat for example). My feeling is that choosing the right moment to flag your position (or not) by firing up AA can help manipulate the opposition into doing something that might well be ill-advised. For emphasis: most of this is laughably ineffective against a good CV player, but not so against typical CV players.

I think for DDs, there is a case for the +2 flak bursts module - whilst it makes no difference for a competent player, the extra bursts make it much harder for a typical player to avoid being hit. I would imagine you're entirely correct for anything where the default number of bursts is already respectable. I tend to build with an eye to the typical opposition that I'll face, rather than to deal with the (much rarer) serious players...

You both make a very valid point, and I do think that there is still work to be done vis-a-vis the relative usefulness of the various AA/not-AA builds and skills. That said, before the recent dip in CV numbers (and possibly after), there is/was some value in building with at least an eye to AA. The following is from the perspective of DDs only; I know essentially nothing about this stuff for cruisers and BBs: Recall that most CV players are not El2aZeR - a typical CV player will usually do something during a game to make at least some level of enhanced AA arguably worthwhile; the key question is will there be a CV in your games to fight. Against typical players, an extra couple of flak bursts, and a 15% AA damage bonus can make a measurable difference. If you're a muppet (so, me), shooting at planes can significantly improve the rewards you get from a battle; enhanced AA should improve that further (assuming average CV players, you'll also be helping your team by either having the planes chase you and not them, or by shooting them down) - so there can be an economic argument in favour of some AA building as well. In terms of captain skills, the only one I usually take is BFT as that is helping your surface-to-surface dakka, even when not facing CVs; my feeling on this area is that AA things should be viewed as a bonus, rather than the reason to take the skill alone. I don't see any value in Massive AA Fire, especially not for four points...! Needless to say, I don't bother with anything for AA (except sometimes BFT) on anything where the AA is lousy to begin with; DDs with better AA are - I feel - sometimes worth a bit of AA focus. That said, I have so many ships that I can afford to build some up for AA and others for surface-to-surface e.g. my Benham, Black, and Gearing are all built entirely for surface action, whilst Fletcher is still partly set up for AA. I must admit to an element of Devil's advocate here though: given that CV numbers seem likely to stay low for the foreseeable future, I'm slowly starting to move more and more builds towards surface-to-surface as and when I need to change them e.g. my Gearing was switched to its current surface build for Clans (it did have a couple of AA modules on before) and I doubt I'll change it back after the season, unless we get a big spike in CV numbers (why waste the doubloons?).

These two statements are somewhat contradictory, surely? If you have the Last Stand skill (which you 100% always should on a DD), then you never end up entirely dead in the water, or merrily continuing on whatever course you were on before being hit. Technically, LS doesn't prevent rudder/engine damage, but it does allow them to continue to function, albeit with somewhat reduced capabilities. BTW technically, a damaged engine should stop you moving (eventually), whereas a damaged rudder is what makes you drive round in circles (if you were already turning when hit); it doesn't really make any practical difference to the matter in hand for a LS-equipped DD, but it can be important on other ships.

I'm slightly conflicted about this: on the one hand, I'm regrinding the IJN torp DD line at the moment, so the relative scarcity of CVs makes my life a lot easier there. This general principle applies to any DD with poor AA. On the other, what I (and others) said a year ago still holds - if you have very few CVs running around, it reduces the variety in the game: with no threat from CVs, most ships have one sensible build, whereas a consistent CV presence makes for more than one viable build for a lot of ships which makes the game more interesting.

The latter point is undoubtedly true (I've given the line a try myself - T5 premium, T5 & T6 silver; plus, I had both existing premiums for comparison); my concern would revolve around the phrase 'a try'. It was mentioned earlier that the Italian cruisers are harder to play 'cold' due to the SAP rounds, which non-PTS players were unfamiliar with; whilst one is getting the hang of these rounds, one may as well be using harsh language against armoured targets, for all the good it will do - one needs to invest time to learn how to get the most from these things (I'm still at the 'testing in Coop' stage myself). The risk, I would suggest, is that people are notoriously short of patience and could easily be semi-permanently turned off the lines before they learn to use SAP, and switch back to 'regular' choices; this would give you a small/potentially weird data set. (I assume that balancing ships based on players' first half dozen or so battles is viewed as unsatisfactory)