Verblonde

I would have bought Scharn for my alt, but not worth it with the bundle...

Hard to see past Black and Jutland (despite my example of the latter being Cursed); depending on how the meta shakes out, it *might* be tempting to give Benham a lash, but I suspect there'll be far too much radar for that.

Pretty much, especially when you get into the +2 MM bracket; the value of higher point captains is often underestimated. In lower tiers you can often get away with something more basic, unless you want to develop into a discerning seal-clubber, but most experienced players tend to view them as essential at higher tiers. For most ships, a sensibly built 10-pointer is usually a pretty decent start, although there are ships dotted around that need more than that to get the most out of (something that needs both CE and IFHE, for example, at least until the latter is reworked). If you're short of decent captains, there are several ways to get hold of some: Freebies include via missions, collections, coal (in the 'armory'), campaigns and so on. If you want to wield your wallet at the problem, you can also use doubloons ('armory' again), or sometimes buy extras via the shop (the current summer sale thing where you get a couple of random ship crates also includes 10-point captains for the ships you get from said crates). Early on in your playing career, developing captains can be a bit of a struggle (presumably, WG are hoping you'll spend doubloons on free xp conversion), but there are ways to make things more tolerable. Ops are a good start - your Warspite will get away with several of the T6 Ops with a flaky captain, and those Ops are a good way to get a captain more experienced in a somewhat more benign environment than randoms (being a premium, Warspite can obviously train captains from regular silver RN ships without having to retrain too). You'll tend to accumulate signals and cammo that boost captain xp earning - save these for games where you're confident you'll do reasonably well, to maximise returns (don't waste them on Coop mode). Although they can be exasperating, play as many 'special mode' battles as you can stand; by this I mean things like the recent Rogue Wave event, or the recurring Halloween thing (and so on) - events like these usually involve special ships with (crucially) specific 19-point captains. This matters as 19-pointers earn elite captain xp, which can be used to boost other captains - this elite xp can be incredibly helpful, especially when you're advancing a captain to the earlier point landmarks (10 being the notable one). Also, keep an eye out for missions that award you elite xp (the daily ones do it every so often, for example). Your key goal, which will take a while to achieve, is to get your first 19 point captain for a regular ship; after this, you aren't reliant on missions/events to get elite xp, as your 19-pointer will earn it every time you play him. Of course, your first 19-pointer makes it easier to get your second, and so on as the effect snowballs. It's helpful if your first 19 pointer will work in at least one premium you might have, as this allows you to make more use of daily first win bonuses; this principle also applies when advancing any captain (of course) only with the xp earned going to only that captain, rather being able to be applied elsewhere. An example of the last model: I have a 19-pointer on my Gearing (T10 US DD); this captain works also works splendidly on almost all the US premium DDs, so as well as the first win bonus from Gearing, I can also make use of the bonuses for something like half a dozen premium US DDs at the same time! I have too many premiums, but the principle applies even with just one (so your Warspite will help you with this as you work your way up the RN BB line). Doing this sort of thing allows you to build up quite a lot of elite xp in a reasonably short space of time (or advance a lower point captain more rapidly).

As others have said, play as many nations as you can early on (low tier ships are cheap, both in terms of xp and silver); crucially, don't rush up the tiers - if you take your time, you'll acquire the necessary skill-set (and decent captains) before you get thrown in too deep, in terms of fearsome opposition. I would also recommend playing other classes too (maybe not CVs, at least until the rework is actually finished); besides helping keep the game fresh, you'll also have a better understanding of what the other classes can/can't do, what they're trying to do, and how to counter them. For example, if you're keen on BBs, one of the greater threats to you is DDs - playing DDs will give you a much better idea of how to stop the wee buggers from blowing holes in your battleships...

Generally speaking, at T6ish you should be turning a reasonable profit overall, although if you need to buy lots of stuff quickly (ships, upgrades etc.) you'll have short-term 'cash-flow' issues almost certainly. That said, there are a number of things you can do, and behaviours you can adopt that should improve your silver situation (in no particular order): Play a reasonable number of games in ships where you can perform consistently well, especially in terms of damage - damage is a key driver of income. If you want to spend money, premium account will make your life a lot easier (and works on all ships). Unless in extremis, don't buy/sell ships - you only get half the silver back for ships, and have to spend doubloons if you want to keep the equipment for other ships (extra slots - on sale, naturally - are one of the more useful things you can obtain in the game, which reduces the need to sell stuff). Be patient - wait for cheapnesses on ships/upgrades where you don't need the things *right now*. Don't use premium consumables where you don't need to (take the time to swap them out for freebies if a different mode doesn't require them e.g. premium DefAA can be essential in randoms, but is worthless in Coop/Ops at the moment). That said, some premium consumables will help you last longer/do more damage, so pick your spots. Related to the above: some ships basically need a full premium consumable loadout and/or have lots of slots for them; perhaps play these sorts of ships less than the ones that don't; something running four premium consumables is obviously going to cost you more silver to refit than something running two. Play Ops, and learn how to do well in them, especially if you have suitable premium ships available e.g. Scharn and Ashitaka are excellent earners in the Narai Op (that's on at time of writing). I tend to favour things with heals for Ops, as you'll often survive longer (which means greater opportunity to do damage, and earn silver). Play randoms - if you don't suck completely, random battles tend to generate the most silver (or lose the least, if you're at high tiers without things like magic cammo). Chose your moments to use 'extra credits' flags and cammo - don't waste them on Coop, but rather save them for Ops and/or ships where you have the best chance of putting in a good performance. Obtain as many premium ships as practical, especially ones that are good for Ops, or you can do well in; this will also help you develop your captains, which will help you do better generally. Keep half an eye on the game mechanics and what generates greater rewards: winning is obviously good (hence trying to 'git gud' is always a useful focus), but recall that although damage is king, the sort of damage matters as well - crucially, you want to be taking high proportions of damage off enemy ships i.e. 10K damage done to a DD will net you greater rewards than the same 10K damage done to a BB. Kills get you a bonus (I think), but the big rewards come for stripping enemies of a high *proportion* of their hp. Don't forget about planes - as well as being a threat, planes are also a source of rewards (although the reward mechanics are still in flux); if a CV player gives you the opportunity to shred some planes, take it (in practical terms, this means making sure you make use of DefAA and so on). Don't play high tiers excesively unless you're in a premium (that you can do well in), and/or have permanent camouflage fitted (some of my best earners are T10 silver ships, but they all have perma-flage). That's not entirely definitive, but gives a few things to look at/be mindful of.

Wouldn't mind more PvE stuff that features submarines (on either/both sides), but don't want to see them in PvP - mainly because WG's track record on balancing 'new' classes lately is abysmal (CVs, for the avoidance of doubt). I might revise my view if they ever get CVs to be worthwhile/balanced. That said, I don't believe the players' opinions will be considered one iota - WG have clearly done a lot of work on subs already (there were 'real' subs under all that Halloween gubbins), and all the submarine articles lately are basically 'softening up' the customer base for the introduction of the class. Unless there is an NTC-level blow-up, I can't see WG changing course now, and there doesn't seem to be a unified player position on subs, either pro or con.

You're absolutely right - it would just be nice if WG gave you the choice between the event and standard options whenever you complete such an event. 'Nice' won't make them any money though, so I can't see this changing any time soon...

FWIW I don't mind these 'long grind' things going on now and again (and Benham was quite a worthwhile reward), but I do object to being effectively forced to play the special event - Rogue Wave would have been fun for a few dozen games, but the number required for efficiently getting Benham made me entirely hate it by the end. This could have been avoided by providing 'normal ship' alternatives to the credit grind that had to be done in Rogue Wave. Compared to this, the French thing looks to be rather superior, as it doesn't (at this stage) force to play something so much that I'll end up hating it. What I would suggest though is that in amongst (and probably at the same time as) the grindy stuff, you put in a few more short events for meaningful (but not excessive) rewards; at the moment, if you don't have a lot of free time, you'll look over the long grinds, realise you can't achieve them, and go off and do something else instead. I assume the goal over the summer is to keep server numbers up in the face of lots of competition from more 'outdoors' stuff - this sort of thing might help with that? Long grinds keep the 'no lifers' engaged, whilst short events might encourage those with lives and jobs to drop in to play more frequently?

If this was available, I'd take them up on it like a shot - I can't imagine I'll ever use the cammos I did win, as I *much* prefer a vaguely historical aesthetic...

I used to think more highly of it when it increased the range of your AA - it's rather a neutered version now. My feeling is that it's only worth taking if your secondaries or main battery justify it alone for anti-surface work, with the AA just a somewhat worthwhile bonus. Four captain points is far too much otherwise. IMO of course.

If you can shoot straight, AFT becomes a lot more worthwhile (especially so if you're keen on the 'superglue left mouse button down' school of gunboating); the balance of decision for you may well be rather finer than for me. I would mention that if AFT did anything useful for AA purposes, I might reconsider my build - some extra reach on Groz's AA would be nice, but it doesn't do that any more...

US is a good choice for a first DD line; the lower tiers teach you to shoot (with the 'floaty' US gun arcs) as your torps are too short range to allow you to get into the bad habit of just spamming torps from range. When you get a stealth window (at T7) you should be able to shoot well enough that the stealth torps become a valuable extra, rather than your default. US DDs also have pretty decent AA, if the CVs come back again in serious numbers. RN DDs are great fun, but I might go with them as a third or fourth line; perhaps give the KM or Russians a lash first? BTW it might be worth your joining a clan; if you're still at the 'knocking the rust off' stage, perhaps try and find one that is happy to teach. Besides the learning thing, you'll get some useful economic bonuses if they have a reasonably developed clan base.

I'm keeping all my higher tier US DD options; as others have said, Benham and the assorted variations on the theme of Fletcher play sufficiently differently to make it worthwhile to hold onto all of them.

FWIW this is the captain build I run on my Groz: I tend to find that being able to be a bit sneaky helps quite a lot; many will take AFT for the extra range - I don't because I find the gains (my aim isn't hugely good, so I miss a lot at extreme ranges) aren't enough to warrant the extra visibility when I fire. That's just me though - if you can shoot straight, AFT becomes a lot more worthwhile. I have these modules mounted at present: If the CV numbers remain low, I'll probably switch out at least one of the AA modules, if not both. Essentially my build is aimed at being as versatile as possible (not entirely torp or gun focused, but 'good enough' at both), whilst being able to give the poor-average CV player a really unpleasant shock if they get within range. I have tried running the LU, but found that the extra dakka wasn't enough to make up for the gimping of the torps, or the loss to AA firepower, *but* that was before planes got horribly nerfed (although the latter is still in flux obviously). That's not to say what I'm doing is 'right', but rather to present an alternative for consideration.

I wouldn't take either - in my opinion, stealth is too important in ranked to be messing about with excessively tubby DDs; if one is feeling the urge to go full dakka, don't mess about and reach for the Russians. That said, Hill is fun for messing about in Coop - she's a useful tool for doing the 'lots of kills' type missions (those that allow Coop, of course), and stuff like that. At my (low) skill level, Hill is functionally very similar to Nicholas, and will take any US captain, so you can free up a port slot (if you're not an obsessive collector)... For a freebie, Hill is fine; I bought mine on day one (to maximise fuel tokens), so she represents some useful doubloons instead.

I'll give it a go, although the Benham grind has made me a lot less inclined to play at the moment - far too much Rogue Wave has been required to maintain my motivation.

To be fair, Ashitaka did get buffed not that long ago, making her somewhat less awful! Mine pretty much only gets used for the Narai Op though - with the optional Kobayashi cammo, the silver rewards can be absurdly good...

Whilst not exactly crushing my enemies, seeing them driven before me, and hearing the lamentation of their women/men (delete as applicable), this cheered me up: I've been after a CQE in a DD for ages...!

This might be worth expanding on a little: There are two 'concealment' bonuses: -3% detection range, and +4% dispersion (on shells being fired at you). Pretty much all the 'good' cammos have both; this includes those that come free with premium ships. There are a couple of for-silver cammos that have one or the other; since it's laughably easy to accumulate better cammos, it's rare that you'll need to use these. The key advantage of permanent cammo (on premiums or silver ships) is that it costs nothing to renew after each battle. You also have economic bonuses on top of this, and those do vary a lot between cammos. To assess what each available cammo will do for you, go to the 'camouflage' tab in 'exterior' and hover over each one in turn, and it'll show you the bonuses. For example, this is the relevant view for Hill, with me hovering over the 'Mars' cammo: For comparison, this is the view when I hover over the standard perma-flage: You'll note that the standard cammo does reduce servicing cost by 10%. It's also worth noting that the T9 and T10 permanent cammos get rather better bonuses than those at lower tiers (partly explaining why they're so expensive!). Also, one or two premium ships do have optional permanent cammo with slightly different bonuses e.g. Prinz Eugen, and the various Kobayashi cammos.

I agree very strongly with this sentiment, especially if you don't have high point captains available yet - a T10 (say) may have better weapons etc. and never get uptiered, but you are generally no more likely to win due to your lacking experience and the opposition having the same types of ships as your side, with quite likely better captains in them, and a more experienced player. I do get the attraction of the high tier monsters - Yamato, for example, is one of the all-time iconic warships and Groz and Gearing are two of my favourite ships in the game - however, said high tier ships are a lot more fun to play when you have a better idea what you're doing, and good captains to do it with. @totolescargo if you'll forgive yet more advice: I would strongly suggest prioritising getting good captains over getting high tier ships. In general, you'll usually do a lot better in a lower tier ship with a decent captain than in a higher tier one with a poorer captain. If you're awash with free xp, I would suggest spending it on upgrades for existing ships, and never spending it on entirely new ones. This is actually not a bad way of 'throttling' your rate of progression to a sensible level: grind new ships the slow way (by playing battles), and upgrade new ones with at least the more essential upgrades via free xp. This way, you avoid too much playing of stock ships, which can be very frustrating, whilst also not flying up the tiers faster than you acquire the skill/experience to deal with it. BTW I don't think anyone has mentioned it yet: join a clan (preferably one that has people willing to teach); besides having people to division with and learn from, if a clan has a reasonably developed base, you'll get some quite nice economic bonuses (so, you'll get more silver/xp/coal etc.).

Drat - yes, I must have had a brain fart! What @Zigiran said! I've edited the previous post.

This isn't correct; you can put absolutely any captain in a premium ship, provided they're of the same nationality (plus a couple of eccentricities like the old HSF captains); it's generally sensible to put them in premiums where their skills work though e.g. a DD captain in a BB will almost certainly be sub-optimal. First port of call is this bit of the wiki: https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Commander Basically, as a captain gains more points (up to a maximum of 19), those points can be spent on various skills that enhance his capabilities and those of the ship he's in. Skills cost 1, 2, 3, or 4 points; you have to have got at least 1 point skill before you can get the first 2 pointer, and so on. Generally, you want to get your first 4 point skill as quickly as possible (i.e. at 10 points). Some captain skills are wildly more useful than others in each class of ship, and sometimes even down to the specific ship. Generally speaking, the first ten points are the most crucial when facing proper opposition, most usually because that's when you get CE (Concealment Expert) - spotting is a key aspect of the game and CE makes you harder to spot (and the bulk of your opponents will have this skill). Some players will prioritise something else for the first 4 point skill e.g. IFHE can be arguably essential for some light cruisers, or perhaps Fire Prevention for BBs. The reason this stuff is important is that it noticeably improves the performance of your ship, and evens the playing field against others with good captains. To give a specific example, using the class I know best - DDs - the first ten points: Priority Target for 1 point - you now know how many opponents are pointing their main guns at you; this allows you to make much better decisions apropos when to retreat and when to fight. Preventative Maintenance Last Stand for 2 points - DDs often get their engines/rudders shot off, which is a death sentence (if the enemy is awake); with this skill, you can keep moving and changing course, which will regularly save you. Survivability Expert for 3 points: +350 hp per tier of the ship the captain is in; the advantage of this should be obvious, and will regularly delay getting sunk significantly. Concealment Expert for 4 points: this reduces your surface detection distance by 10%; that may not sound like much, but it gives you a few moments more than your opponent to react, it can also make the difference between having a stealth torp window and not (or make an existing one more comfortable). It gets more powerful from there, and when a captain hits the maximum 19 points, all subsequent captain xp earned goes to elite xp, which can be used to speed up the advancement of any other captain. A key aim should be to get your first 19 pointer as fast as practical (number two will then be faster, and so on). WOWS can be a game of the smallest margins; judicious choice of captain skills can make the difference between winning and losing. For suggestions on captain builds for specific ships, have a look on the wiki - each ship has a table indicating the relative usefulness of each skill (although some may well disagree with the detail). Also, have a look at the captain builder on Ship Comrade - http://shipcomrade.com/captcalc If you want specific build suggestions, also suggest asking on here - people will be happy to help, but be prepared for diverging opinions!

There's already been some excellent advice given (especially the bits about LWM reviews, and not buying a higher tier premium off the bat); I might add the following: As a general 'rule', try and avoid buying anything that's of higher tier than where you've got to (in that class) with silver ships. That said, if you do go mental (there is a sale on at the moment, and 'cheap' premiums can be hard to resist), you can always play them in Coop and Operations, whilst you get the hang of them, or at least the basics. Why? Because you'll probably get your posterior handed to you if you drop into T8 having only experienced, say, T4 before now (at higher tiers, in general, the opposition gets more lethal, opposition captains will be more skilled, and mistakes are generally punished more harshly). Speaking of Ops, you can make a case that it's worth having at least one premium that works especially well in each Op; this allows you to make maximum use of these modes for farming credits and experience e.g. Scharn is magnificent in Narai, and your Dunk is pretty decent in most of the T6 Ops. It's helpful to have a premium for any regular tech tree line where you're actively developing captains; it's also helpful if those premiums don't require weird captain builds to be most effective e.g. Hill is a great low-mid tier premium for the US DD line, as it basically works with any regular DD captain; MA is not ideal as a US BB trainer, as it works a lot better with a specialised captain; Graf Spee, despite being a cruiser, is arguably a better BB captain trainer, and so on. This whole captain thing bears some repeating, as good captains make a *massive* difference to a lot of ships, especially once you're into the +2 MM bracket (so, tier 5 and above), plus almost all of your opponents will have one. A premium that you can cycle your regular silver captain through is valuable as it allows you to take maximum advantage of the daily 'first win' bonuses on two (or more, if you have more premiums) ships. Try and buy premiums that are fun (so, again, read reviews and relate them to your own preferences): you'll get most value from a premium that you actively want to play a lot - maximum captain training and silver earning - you want to avoid anything where repeat plays are too much of a chore. If you're short of good captains (which you most likely are with sub-300 battles), keep an eye out for ways to get hold of any 10-pointers that come along; some will be free, some you pay for e.g. the current Soggy Mad Max event includes a bunch of captains you can buy for silver; several of the Ops give a captain for a decent performance (usually a 4-star win), you can buy unique captains through the armoury with coal (or doubloons); you can also sometimes get premium ships bundled with a 10-pointer (but beware useless bumpf that WG are prone to add to said bundles).

I enjoyed the last Sprint, but the latest (with Epicentre) is proving rather wearing - it's as if the 'new' mode has removed a lot of people's ability to think. Don't mind things like Belfast being around (although mine is staying in port - I'm not good enough in her for serious play), provided people know to shoot at them rather than just farming meaningless damage off whichever BB they happen to set eyes on first...

Does anyone have any sense of whether the current plummet in CV numbers is likely to be long-term? I ask as I was wondering about reverting to my old 100% surface-to-surface builds on my DDs; I haven't been paying enough attention to be able to estimate if the CV threat is likely to return any time soon. At the moment, I'm running AA-heavy builds that are slightly sub-optimal when there aren't any planes to shoot at. No, I'm not going to wade through the CV Rework thread, as it's too d**n long, and I doubt the opinions I'm after will even be in there.