Verblonde

This is a good point and, for me anyway, is part of the reason why I've used a reduced spectrum of ships this season - premiums can run with a better captain from higher tier silver ships. At the risk of sounding like a stuck record (again), this aspect could be fixed - at least partially - by adding a way to make fully upgraded silver ships (of higher tiers) act like premiums, at least as far as captains are concerned...

I voted 'other': my personal view is that I would prefer to see variation, but I think higher tier (8+, *maybe* 7+) is better, as you have the full range of abilities/counters at those tiers. Cycling through the various suitable tiers over subsequent seasons would seem a good idea... My key objection (against my personal interests as a DD main) to T8 is that cruisers tend to suffer disproportionately due to their lack of heals, which compresses the numbers of good choices. Theoretically, T8 ought to make for greater variety (which would be good), but in practice it doesn't work that way as quite a few T8s seem to be sub-optimal (across all classes too). For example, I have almost every T8 DD in the game, but in practice I've only played 3-4 of them in the current season, and only 2 regularly.

I was wondering about her, but only if CV numbers are very low (and if they are, I'd probably still prefer Icarus/T-61)...

I suspect it'll depend a bit on how the meta shakes out, and how competent the common players are; I haven't played Monaghan (in either configuration) since the most recent changes to AA, but my initial feeling would be start with DefAA loaded, and see if it's needed (if it isn't switch it out for TRB). If it turns out that the full dakka is the way to go, I might just give Farragut a run-out - it wouldn't hurt to boost my captain for that ship a bit.

I think my 'starters for ten' will be T-61 and Icarus, but for DDs the crucial question is probably going to revolve around the prevalence (or not) of CVs. Torp build Monaghan might have some legs if there are plenty of CVs running around...? I still keep thinking in terms of smoke/hydro though, especially at lower tiers - fewer people are entirely effective against the combination than you'd find at T8+.

No compensation for me: I already fixed the relevant ships that I have. Great.

This. It's a shame really, as I thought the LMs had potential as a way to diversify T10 gameplay without having to create very much in the way of new content. WG could potentially have extended the idea to lower tiers too (perhaps after you'd got the T10 one), *if* they're serious about wanting people to play a wider range of tiers...

I was under the impression that the CV Legendary Mods were currently removed form the game, for reeeworking in the context of the reeeworked CVs?

I would suggest that this is complete <insert non-rule-breaking term for what comes out of the south end of a north-bound male cow> - lower tier perma-flage usually has a far worse set of bonuses than multiple very common single-use cammos. If WG want to reduce the average earnings per T5 game, perma-flage wouldn't be a bad way of doing it. Personally, I would like to see (and would pay for) T5 perma-flage, but only because it looks pretty; if I wanted to boost earnings, I would swap it out for one-use cammo.

<nods sagely> Wise words...

She works okay* in Narai - that's what I've been doing with mine.... *defined as 'not completely bl**dy awful' - there are rather better choices.

For once, I feel I get to tip my hat to WG for something (no, really - I'm serious): normally, we're getting cross about them trying to extract our money via dodgy gambling crates, suspect OP premiums and so on, but they seem to have done something vaguely positive this time. I refer to the 'Dazzling' perma-flage that arrived in the shop today - I feel we should encourage this sort of thing i.e. a purely cosmetic thing with zero impact on game balance. So, yay!

If anyone is interested, this article is relevant: https://worldofwarships.eu/en/news/history/camoun-and-slam/ (shots of all the in-game cammos are at the bottom)

(I grabbed Fuso and Terrible FWIW)

Not as far as I know - can anyone else confirm this one way or t'other? The Steam-WG split has been a source of some rancour amongst the non-Steam community, as the specials on Steam have been significantly better than what everyone else gets. How many games do you have on your main account? If it isn't excessive, it might be easier to just re-start through Steam.

As far as I know, Steam and 'standard' WG accounts are unable to be linked; your account is essentially either Steam or WG. Server choice is also fixed, with a few rare exceptions. You could always ask support - the worst they could do is say no.

This. Plus, it's so rare as to be largely irrelevant - I have 41 over 3,408 random battles; that's an occurrence rate of about 1.2%.

My usual approach is to play normally and see where I am after doing whatever my daily aims are; if the rewards for doing the dailies are any good then I'll finish them off via Coop/Ops, otherwise I don't bother...

Well, that sucks. Frankly, I'd much rather have the Ops modes back than submarines...

I'd be surprised if we don't get a future Pan-Europe tree, as long as the game remains extant - we know that WG are concerned about running out of new content, so it would make sense that they'd eventually start making use of the more obscure nations/ships. Another factor is selling premiums: it's regularly remarked on here that isolated premiums are generally less useful to the average player due to being no use as captain trainers - WG will probably sell more of things like Blysk etc. if they can serve as viable trainers for something else. (for similar reasons, I imagine there's a good chance that we'll eventually see silver Commonwealth ships etc.)

FWIW I'm running the same build as @MacArthur92. This is one of those times where I wish I had access to more than 19 captain points...! For T8 and below, I ditch IFHE and take either RPF (clans) or BFT + PM (randoms).

Many thanks for the heads up!

Type 59 is a single use cammo i.e. you get one battle for one ship from each one. The above is a screen-shot from Hill (T5 premium - obviously) on my alt account: the two cammos top left are 'perma-cammo' i.e. they resupply automatically if you have auto-resupply enabled. Everything else is single-use (including Type 59 - second row, far right - I have six left in this case). Generally speaking, all premium ships come with at least one perma-cammo option, whilst silver ships can have one bought for them (for doubloons) from T6 onward; you can also earn freebies some of the time via missions/events/collections etc. Perma-cammo is a lot more expensive than the single-use ones - 1,000 doubloons for a standard T6, and increasing from there. Hopefully, that helps explain where your Type 59 went...

@Panocek has covered most of what you need admirably; additionally, suggest having a look at the wiki: https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/World_of_Warships Some of the information may not be 100% current, so be wary of that, and keep asking questions on here. For premium ships, read as many reviews as you can handle (although for older ones be aware that CVs and AA have changed out of all recognition - maybe nine months ago - so older reviews will be irrelevant in those two areas) to get the best information on what you're about to buy, or spend hard-earned resources on. Little White Mouse is usually very good as a starting point (and usually linked to from the wiki). I tend to categorise premium ships roughly into two types: practical trainers and speciality. The former are ones where captains from your regular silver ships can be used on them optimally (or close to it); most of the US DD premiums would be examples. The latter are things where you ideally need a specialised captain for that ship; such things can be great fun, but are not much use for developing captains; MA would be a good example. Early on (before you're swimming in elite xp), I would suggest focusing on the former type mainly.

At time of writing, you have a single battle; one impact of this is that you haven't unlocked any of this stuff yet. All of the bits you mention (plus captains) unlock in sequence, as you build your battle count. Equipment: put it on pretty much anything and everything at lower tiers (the silver cost of the first couple of slots' equipment is peanuts); higher up, equipment increases significantly in cost, but I would still suggest mounting as much of it as possible - it increases the effectiveness of your ships significantly. The strategy for this sort of thing tends to be related to how you run your WOWS account: if you're entirely f2p (free-to-play), you have tighter constraints on how many ships you can realistically keep, and your rate of silver earning etc. If you spend money on things like port slots (only get them when they're on offer, ideally), premium time, and so on, you can be a bit more profligate. Life will be easier if you have plenty of ships, and don't have to sell as much stuff (ships etc. lose you half the silver value when sold). BTW I would suggest joining a clan (ideally one with people happy to teach if you're new to the game): if they have a reasonably developed base, you'll get economic bonuses which reduce the prices of things like ships, and increase your resource earning rate. With regard to cammo, once it's unlocked, I would suggest using it any time you face real people at the least (I personally use it in all battles, except when I mess up); the two key bonuses are a reduction in your detection radius and increased dispersion on shots fired at you - you ideally want both. With time, you'll probably end up earning quite a lot of cammo, including some with superior bonuses; if you don't have a surfeit of the latter, keep them for games where the rewards are better (randoms, not coop, and so on). As of now, premium consumables cost silver, whilst the basic ones don't (this is apparently changing in future, so everything is free premium); in coop, use as many basic ones as you can get away with, while you can be a bit more extravagant in PvP games - the crucial differences between regular and premium consumables is cooldown and getting an extra charge; the more important it is to have something available and/or extra usages available, the higher the priority of it being premium. I pretty much always run premium Damicon, regardless of mode, and the rest are case by case, with me erring towards premium.