Verblonde

My pleasure! It's worth mentioning that the effect snowballs too: each 19 pointer that you gain speeds up the next one, and so on. This is why I tend to suggest that if someone is going to only get one or two premium ships it's sensible to get ones that match with their respective silver line ships; the 'weird build' premiums can be great fun, but are not usually an effective use of your spend if you don't have at least a few 'matching' ones already. A real example from my account: I have several premiums that match the US silver DD line (including both Kidd and Sims from this discussion); I used these to get the captain who ended up on Gearing to 19 points; when the Ovenchicken unique captain turned up, with his magic SE, I got him to 19 points and used him to replace my existing 19 pointer (he actually took over Gearing at about 16 points for most battles to maximise captain xp earned when I didn't absolutely need a 19 pointer); the old 19 pointer then got transferred to MA (a 'weird build' premium, at least until Georgia got released) with a free re-spec courtesy of clans or something; I'm now generating elite xp from both my various US DDs that Ovenchicken fits in (so Gearing and all the premiums) and whenever I play MA, which is being funnelled into whichever captains I need to advance next. Unless you have all the time in the world, and/or don't get bored, it's always worth having at least half an eye on things you can do to maximise the return on your playing time; the whole 19 point captain thing is one of the more effective ways of doing that.

I got the T6 mission from a bought crate (yes, I'm an idiot!) - the permaflage bought for tokens is really rather lovely; I'll probably buy more of the permaflages as I get more tokens as I'm a bit of a bimbo who likes pretties...

For this, you want whichever one you can consistently do the most damage with, as that is the key driver for rewards. That might add some weight to getting one of the T8s, as competitive modes (Clans, especially) seem to be T8 more often than T7 and can be absurdly good earners. BTW suggest you join a clan - besides being able to access Clan Battles (when they're at tiers that you have ships at), most established clans will have a base that gives economic bonuses to boost your earnings and/or reduce costs. Clans can also enable the earning of steel which can unlock a number of higher tier premiums with excellent earning potential (if you earn enough of it, which requires being quite good, which I'm not!).

It depends a lot on what you want to do with the thing: Kidd: excellent (for a DD) AA, and the heal makes it very resilient; good trainer for your US DD captains; the loss of half your torps (compared to Benson etc) means you are reliant on team-mates shooting things you spot. Sims: glorious in Dynamo Op if it ever returns; good trainer for your US DD captains; torps slow, but rather more helpful since the range was buffed; DefAA allows you to stand against CVs better than most DDs; my main gripe is concealment - it's a bit flaky in this regard (can't fit concealment mod). Loyang: IMO the best of the three, mainly due to basically being C-Hull Benson with (cruiser) hydro - and an extra torp option (Benson torps, or faster 'YOLO' ones with a shorter range - I normally take the YOLO ones); the smoke/hydro combination can be extremely effective when enemy radar has gone (if there is any), although more people these days are effective at countering it; AA is 'good enough' although smoke/hydro set-up precludes DefAA (you can mount DefAA, but it sits in the same slot as hydro, so probably not a good idea). That all assumes you have a good (or good enough) captain for all of them - at the tiers we're talking about, you basically need a *minimum* of ten points, and ideally rather more. Although my feeling is that Loyang is probably the best of the three (despite the increase in radar frequency these days), you'll almost certainly get better performance out of the Americans if you don't have a ten point PA captain (due to the loss of CE). My overall suggestion would be to buy either of the US ones (Kidd is good for T8 competitive; Sims *perhaps* has an edge for randoms, given the tendency of random players to not shoot things that you spot) and use it - in conjunction with your silver ships - to get at least one captain to 19 points, by cycling the captain between the two to maximise daily first win bonuses. After that, all captain xp earned by that captain goes into the elite xp pot, which can be used for any other captain, so (if you want) it would enable you to get a captain up to the minimum level needed for Loyang, or whatever other premium you like that happens to come along (for future purchase via whatever currency).

If you want to focus on getting coal, take 'more resources' containers whenever you get a container (plus you also get some for doing the daily missions)...

Head to the Armory (sic) - left hand side of the port screen, about a quarter of the way down - and click on the ships section; there's a filter to show only coal ships. Also, don't forget you get - I think - one voucher every six months that lops 25% off the price of a single coal/steel ship; according to my game, the next voucher is issued on 26th December.

Bear in mind there are several worthwhile premiums available for coal/free xp i.e. don't require real money.

BTW in previous years' Halloween events there has been the possibility to win CV permacammo, although I recall the drop rate being quite low - I think I have the US and IJN ones (they're both for T8), although the latter is a bit lacking in aesthetic merit...

Are you running premium account? If not, it might be worth considering (at least if/when you can play reliably often), as that's a simple way to boost earnings - or reduce losses - on all ships. Besides that, and besides the excellent advice already given, if you aren't a meister with CVs, I would suggest playing ships from other classes, especially premiums if you can get them (via missions, or coal etc.) - I suck in CVs and tend to find that most of my income comes from other ships (the only mode I make decent silver on with CVs is usually some of the Ops). So, in a way my other classes effectively fund things like CVs where the economy (for me, at least) isn't terribly positive.

Most important: it must be fun, although fun can be covered off by various different combinations of attributes, and may well vary with game mode e.g. many of the IJN torp boats are in trouble against CVs. Key attributes: whatever combination of guns/stealth/torps/other works best for your preferred play style; that said, it can be valuable to play a range of DDs as that is likely to improve your overall play. Personally, I usually like generalists (especially the US) for randoms, as they can cope with more or less anything that comes their way, but often pick other things for other modes e.g. any mode without CVs might provide an excuse to give my IJN DDs a run-out. Fun DDs: very much varies with personal taste. I like hybrids in the current meta, although last time I looked my most played DD of all time was Asashio (which I rarely use now with the CV population spike). If you like the US ones, Fletcher (and sisters) is glorious, Sims is pretty worthwhile, and Loyang (although PA, it's really Benson) can be a hoot. The T7 IJN 'dakka' DD is great fun, especially if you take TRB over smoke (you can do something similar with Kagero too) - walls of skill, provided you've got the hang of the spotting mechanics.

First tip: early on at least, I would suggest playing all the classes (maybe excepting CVs), to get a handle on what they are each about, and what they're trying to do to you; this will help you counter them in whatever ships you find are your favourites. Second: don't rush up the tiers; take your time and acquire the necessary skills (and - perhaps as important - decent captains) to compete against established players. That said, a lot of the cruiser lines don't really start displaying their full 'personalities' until mid tiers, and a lot of missions need at least T5 ships to complete (when you get into the +2 MM bracket). I mention this as cruisers aren't the easiest ships to play (not tough like BBs, and not sneaky like DDs), so it can take a bit of patience to get the hang of them. To answer the specific question, I might suggest almost anything apart from the RN cruisers (they're noted as being the least friendly for newer players); ships tend to be fairly inexpensive to research and buy until around T6 or so, so you may as well play several lines. Perhaps start with IJN and US though, as they're the 'original' ones and a good starting point...

More 'Black Friday' ships, amongst other things: https://medium.com/@devblogwows/st-black-friday-sansonettis-personalizations-and-skills-regia-marina-emblems-ab4feee55ece

You could try deleting the cookies relating to the WOT site - that ought to do the trick... Edit: to log out of the WOT forum, click on your login name (top right), and a drop-down thing should appear - the log out option is bottom right.

I feel this is rather key: if one has all the time in the world, and are only playing for fun - i.e. to win - then spotting is a perfectly sensible thing to be doing (I do it pretty much reflexively, but that may be force of habit from WOT, where you do get rewarded for spotting). That said, if you're short of time and/or have missions to do, then spotting is less viable (except incidentally). I do wonder if 'typical' DD players might make more of an effort to do what we on here all know they should be doing if they were significantly rewarded for things besides damage.

The T7 IJN 'dakka line' DD, with TRB build is hilarious for this sort of thing, BTW.

If you're dying quickly in DD games, you may well be doing it wrong (says he who often dies too early too): although it's fun to charge the enemy with a view to beating him to death with his own shoes, you aren't helping your team much by doing so. If you can stay alive longer, you have a greater chance of being able to help win the vision battle, bag late caps, finish off wounded ships, and so on; generally, the team which loses all its DDs early will probably lose the game. That's not to say that you should hide on the periphery of the battle spamming torps, but rather that you should chose your moments to break stealth carefully - it is often the case that more valuable (to your team) play doesn't necessarily involve your doing damage the whole time. Very aggressive DD play can be a hoot, but often will harm your team in PvP modes. As others have said, Coop can be glorious for this sort of thing (take mostly basic consumables as that reduces the cost in silver), so perhaps use that to get your 'fix', and try and play more conservatively in PvP (and Ops).

That'll be why I said "after the US line", although I could have emphasised that point a bit more.

I wouldn't be surprised if we see most as a tech tree (or branch, a la the US split), plus one higher tier premium: WG are running out of new content - witness submarines and more paper ships - so if they want to look like the game isn't stagnating, they need to introduce at least a few new trees now and again...

I can vaguely speak to this, as I mainly play DDs. BTW bear in mind that the whole CV/AA thing is still in a state of flux, so some/all of this may well change at some point. First, nimble isn't usually enough on its own, unless the CV attacking you is inexperienced, although it doesn't hurt. If under air attack, you basically have to rely on your own defences, or run for the cover of some of your (hopefully supporting) bigger mates. The consistently best AA DD line is the US one, and they get DefAA (on some hulls) from - I think - T5; they're an excellent DD line full-stop, as they're classic generalists i.e. decent at everything, if not actively good (most other lines will tend to have trade-offs of some sort). A nice thing about the US DDs is that they often more than one 'top/semi-top' hull, where one is better at AA (DefAA), and the other is better at surface to surface dakka e.g. Mahan at T7, has the B and C hulls; pick the latter if you want to defend against planes, and pick the former for maximised surface to surface performance (the most obvious difference is that B hull gets an extra turret, and C gets DefAA. I've kept both options, and pick one based on which mode I'm playing.). In the current meta (i.e. no shortage of planes), after the US line, I might look at the Germans - they're pretty decent generalists as well, with acceptable AA, and (from T6, I think) they get the smoke/hydro combo that can be so useful when dealing with cap contesting, smoked up DDs etc. (beware radar though). The PA DDs hold their own in terms of AA, from T8 anyway, as they're basically US designs with DWT and the option of radar (although you lose smoke to get it, which is quite a big trade-off). The IJN 'dakka' line shouldn't be discounted either, although the grid through the weak AA torp line to get there can be frustrating if MM doesn't bless you with CV-free games. Some of the Russians are decent too, although the only widely used 'AA monster' is the T10 Groz. If you get to a point where you feel the urge to spend money on (or you win/earn) premiums, both the US and KM DD lines have excellent captain trainers available (several, in the US case), which is also a consideration. PA gets Loyang only, which is very good, but T8; the IJN dakka line doesn't really have a premium at the moment (I use Harekaze, but that's no longer available, unfortunately). Obviously, you need at least a 10-point captain to do well with DDs in the +2 MM bracket (or a lot more skill than I'll ever have), and your initial build should be the 'standard' DD one; after that, there is a lot to be said for BFT when you hit 13 points, as that increases the rate of fire for your guns (except the 'big' main guns on one two - I forgot one - of the silver KM DDs, and Z-39) and improves AA (+10% continuous damage). I'm embarrassed to say that I don't know if AR does anything to AA these days (does anyone else know?), but that's a viable alternative when you hit 12 points. Besides the inherent ship abilities, and captains, you can also add AA mods to your ships (don't forget: AA Mod 1 adds flak clouds, and is worthless if your ship doesn't produce any to start with), if you wish, although this often only really matters at higher tiers and you have to gimp your surface to surface performance. FWIW I tend to pick my ships builds based on what I most commonly do with them, and change my picks for different modes based on builds (so as to avoid wasting doubloons on lots of rebuilds) e.g. at T7, my Mahan is largely built for surface to surface and so mainly lives in CV-free modes/Coop, whilst Sims is built for AA and gets used in modes where there are likely to be planes. BTW sector reinforcement makes a difference for DDs to (although I *think* with the current state of play you shouldn't use it in conjunction with DefAA - can anyone confirm that?) - I'd suggest mapping it to a key (or spare mouse button) that's easier to reach than the default. The crucial thing to be aware of though is that whilst this stuff works against typical players, you'll sometimes meet one of the CV Gods (several of whom frequent the forums), and then you're boned pretty much regardless. Sometimes RNG will hate you too. Skill also makes a difference too, knowing how to position when under air attack, remembering to switch off AA (if your range is longer than your spotting distance), when to hide and when to open fire, and so on. So, this stuff usually works, right up to the point where it doesn't...!

Many thanks everyone!

Not necessarily, depending on which ships you play: the reason same tier or lower ships struggle against the T4 CVs is that the former generally have (historically semi-accurate) pre-war AA equipment - very few RL people at the time realised what a 'game-changer' aircraft would turn out to be. From T5 (ish) and up, you start to get access to meaningful AA defences (mirroring the RL realisation of what aircraft could do), although how meaningful varies a lot across classes and nations e.g. Americans are usually very good; IJN are often awful (to the extent I've largely stopped playing most IJN torp DDs), and so on. Obviously, a T8 CV is a serious threat to most T6 ships; ditto T10 to T8, but the higher tiers have a better balance between CV power and AA defences (IMO). The extent to which people agree/disagree with this view will probably vary with their view on CVs in the game in general; I think CVs add a bit of variety, so I can live with occasional games where they tear me a new one (and, because I flatter myself I'm reasonable at mitigating them), but that view is clearly not universal...!

My feeling is that WOWS should adopt some variation on the WOT 'assisted damage' system - as remarked by others, if you need rewards (xp and silver mainly for missions etc.), damage is always the way to go and that is counter to what your team need you to be doing if you're a DD.

Click on the 'picture box' top left...

Never, ever sell a premium - as a bare minimum, it prevents you getting it again via containers etc.

Many thanks everyone!