Verblonde

It's going to be interesting to play the T7 thing - no CVs (and much less radar), so stealth matters again, and no need to keep an eye on AA either. I think I'll probably start off with Haida and Z-39, and see how it goes. I have to say, the odd blast with TRB Shiratsuyu might be a giggle for some variety though...

Boring answer: because they're ten-pointers for silver, which most players have access to plenty of. Incidentally, having them specialised for their respective T10s is arguably better than the usual approach of specialising for the T1; this way, you may not have to spend doubloons/captain xp to retrain them for something more useful. Ideally, though, WG should give us a variant on the WOT mechanic i.e. when you recruit an interesting crew member, you select exactly what you want him initially specialised for (with future changes costing the same as usual)...

I just said 'knickers' and bought Hill: she's quite fun, although objectively totally unnecessary if you have other US premium DDs. The main reason being that a single blast in Coop each day gets you some fuel tokens (albeit not many), and if I complete the grind some doubloons at the end. I quite fancy Benham, but am resigned to buying a few tokens to get her, as the entire grind is excessive.

As a big DD enthusiast, I (predictably) have a few nominations - in no particular order: Kidd: the heal is really nice to have, and you're getting a Fletcher at T8 (kind of), although the single torp launcher requires you to play more of a support role much of the time. The AA is, of course, pretty decent so you'll hold up well against CVs much of the time. T-61 and/or Z-39: similar beasts, in my view, with the rather glorious smoke/hydro combination that makes Loyang so good. Besides that, they're decent hybrids and have good enough AA to fend off at least some CV attacks. Z-39 gets access to concealment mod too, although they're both not the sneakiest ships around (not disastrous though). Be mindful that Z-39 has Big Guns (for a DD), so you won't get the BFT bonus on them. Loyang: not exactly new, but the smoke/ridiculous hydro is still very potent (unless you face someone who practiced a lot in competitive modes against them); in other respects, she's C-hull Benson, so an excellent all-rounder. You have two torp options too - the usual 9.2 km American efforts, or the 6.7 km YOLO option - faster, more damage, but a lot riskier to use. AA is reasonable for a DD. Groz: one of my favourite ships in the game of any type. The combination of good dakka, usable torps, heal, and a positively naughty turn of speed make her great fun to play. Good AA, combined with DefAA can really make a lot of CVs regret their decisions. Gearing: holds up against CVs, decent guns, and the 16 km reach of her torps makes her a lot more comfortable to play in a heavy CV/radar environment; lacks a heal, alas, but she'd be OP if she had one. Sims: kind of a T7 Gearing, if built with an eye to AA; the recent torp buff made her fish a lot more usable. If I were to suggest one nation to play, I would probably go with the US (the same as earlier posters), as they have a nice combination of guns and torps (stealth torp window from T7 onwards), and respectable AA for DDs (you get DefAA from T5, although not on all hulls, and have to give up a turret in some cases); they aren't the stealthiest of ships, but with all the CVs around lately, who cares? American smoke is pretty much god-tier too, so you can make yourself useful screening your allies (and hiding from enemies, until they fire up the radar). One other nice aspect of the US line is that pretty much the same captain skills work for all the ships, so there isn't much need for weird builds anywhere (although you can get a bit frisky with Gearing, depending on whether you want to focus on dakka or torps). Besides the US, the KM line is worthwhile, as you get the smoke/hydro combination at the business end of the tree, as well as tolerable AA. They tend to be reasonably robust, albeit at the cost of some stealth. The PA DDs are quite interesting and varied (although most certainly not as a first line): DWT, and the radar option from T8 make them unlike other trees. The 'US' ships have okay AA too, but bear in mind that the T10 has been over-nerfed (although see recent ST announcement), so you don't have much of an 'end-tree' target to go for. You'll note that my list doesn't include Harekaze: this isn't because she isn't good (she's excellent), but rather because she's no longer available. I've also avoided anything that doesn't do well in the face of CVs (as much as any DD can - you are going to get scragged by any serious CV player). I'm assuming at least some focus on AA, both in terms of modules and captain skills. Before the rework, I would have focused a lot more on stealthier designs, but the prevalence of CVs has rendered that aspect moot much of the time; a lot of the better options now are those that are less stealthy, as they were balanced around being easier to spot, so they've lost less with all the planes about. All very much IMO, of course, and I'm not even within waving distance of being a good player...

I tried it for a bit, but found the AA module was more useful with all the CVs running around, plus the increase in torp reload time hurt; it's quite possible that a) I didn't give it long enough, and b) I'm not skilled enough to get the most out of it, of course. My feeling is that it would be worthwhile taking for non-CV modes, and if you want to place a much greater emphasis on the guns, rather than as an all-rounder.

In case anyone hasn't seen, Yoshino will be in the next patch (Thursday?): https://worldofwarships.eu/en/news/game-updates/update-085-rogue-wave/ I only draw people's attention to this as the Armoury ship voucher renews in the next few hours, and this news might alter what people want to do with their voucher...

There's quite a lot to be said for keeping hold of most ships from around T6-7 and up (unless you utterly hate them and/or are in *dire* need of resources) - you start losing an awful lot of silver when you sell them, like several million silver at the higher tiers. Besides the silver loss, T6+ can be useful for a range of events (especially if you're practiced in them, which you will be if you've unlocked the next tier up), Ops, and missions.

FWIW my feeling is that you can manage with pretty flaky captains a lot of the time until you get into the +2 MM bracket i.e. T5 and above; that's also the point where 10-point captains start to become important, mainly due to CE (on sneakier ships anyway, now that it's a flat 10% bonus). Unless it's a solid keeper (Clemson, for example), I wouldn't worry too much about maintaining good captains on anything below T5, unless you feel a powerful urge to seal-club. A crucial question is how many ships do you intend keeping? I have a nasty tendency to keep most of my ships, so have a need for more decent captains; there are a number of things you can do if you're in this situation: The easiest is to just buy ten-pointers whenever they become available e.g. via the Armoury - the 'Soggy Mad Max' ones at the moment are worth a look, for example, and have the merit of being available for silver. This can get expensive though, especially if using doubloons. The ideal is to accumulate elite captain xp, and use it to bump up a lesser captain to a more respectable level; this, of course, requires that you have at least one 19-pointer already. Getting your first 19-pointer will take a while, but once you're there, the second will be faster, and so on. Don't forget about Ops: the scenarios generally don't *need* a monstrous captain, so can be a good source of captain training, provided the ship you want to use is suitable i.e. often (but not always) a BB or cruiser, and (at the moment) T6 or T7. Taking this route can get a 3 pointer to something more useful fairly quickly, or add a bit of polish to a better captain. It's worth noting that it helps if you're already reasonably comfortable with whatever the Op in question is: a decent performance will maximise the returns on your time. It can be worthwhile, if resources permit, to have at least one premium ship available for lines that you're actively grinding; besides helping speed up captain development (as you can run any silver ship's captain in a premium without retraining or penalty), it can save you doubloons as it enables you to use the silver option for retraining to the next ship in a silver line and fill in the captain xp gap without playing with a gimped captain (as you would in the silver ship until the 'missing' xp is earned). Some examples: With the German BB line, you can do useful captain training with things like PEF, Scharn, and Tirpitz; the former two are also Op compatible at the moment as well; Graf Spee also works as a reasonable BB trainer too. The American DD line has something like half a dozen premiums available by various routes (although DDs are often less ideal for Ops, unless you're very good in them), as do other nations' BBs and cruisers. The other reason this sort of thing is nice is that it enables you to maximise use of daily first win bonuses; for example I have a 19 pointer in my Gearing - besides the bonus for that ship, I can cycle him through Sims, Kidd, Monaghan, Black, and now Hill (and soon Benham) - that's a lot of potential bonus xp. Final note on the subject of gaining captain xp: whenever there's an event like the current Rogue Wave thing that gives you 19 point rental captains, play it as much as you can stand (especially if you don't have a lot of experienced captains yourself) as every game will generate elite xp for you, that can be applied to any existing sub-19 point captain.

The only snag with the PA DDs is that you have to give up the smoke to get radar; how useful it is varies a lot, and depends a bit on favoured play-style...

I picked Yoshino this morning; until I suck a lot less in cruisers, it'll be staying in PvE, but a quick lash in Coop earlier was quite fun...

Presumably, there are advantages to Steam too though...? Being serious, it's pi$$-poor to have this level of difference between offers, depending on whether you're using Steam or not - c'mon WG, time to sort it out, before you really annoy people.

This is very true - I'm using my 17 or 18 pointer from Bismarck in mine. Incidentally, an approach I've been taking on my alt account if I have a sub-par captain on some T7s is to play Narai repeatedly, to get them up to at least 10 points - the Op is less punishing if your captain has fewer points than ideal (and you can usually earn a lot more xp than via Coop). Once you're at a more respectable level, randoms will be more comfortable.

Ah, old age is starting to erode my memory... I wouldn't object to that at all; steel is nice, but I always felt a bit bad for basically being able to buy my way to a Black, when previous players had to earn theirs by being good at the game. (assuming WG don't just go larger with the paid missions for steel thing this time around)

Sorry - it wasn't my intent! More that I don't know much about this 4chan that the Young People are talking about...!

One very minor consideration for anyone of a more tuberous persuasion (me, for example): if snowflakes happen again, a T10 premium will get you more steel than a T9 will, assuming I'm remembering what happened last winter correctly. Eh? I was referencing Shakespeare...

Many thanks - I'll have a look anon...

Speaking of, does the preliminary assessment from the community that she's rather like a T10 Atago still hold? Might be rather tempted, if so...

For the second round (across both accounts), I think I bought seven premium crates, and for one account used all my tokens to get the freebies - zero ships for both. It does rather feel that the drop-rate was heavily pruned back for this batch of crates; if so, I wonder if this is representative of future editions?

I only played to R10, and that took me single figures games - don't remember how many exactly. The presence of CVs didn't change anything for me as such, although (as a DD main) it did limit the ship options I would choose rather significantly - to only those with good AA (and a suitable captain to boost it further). That though is pretty much the same as randoms for me. I agree with the sentiment that it was the rentals that had a greater impact on the gameplay (not all of them were negative, but a lot were even worse than I am, and that takes some doing). I'm not philosophically opposed to the idea of rentals, but I would like WG to ensure that they are split equally (by class) across both teams. That said, the reason I played so little wasn't CVs, or rentals, but rather that when you get into the zone with no irreversible ranks, the whole exercise gets so frustrating that I feel very little inclination to waste time on it that I could be doing something more fun with...

I perhaps should have mentioned that there is some personal bias in my original view - I really don't like passive BB play, and the better BBs tend to lend themselves more in that direction. If one digs that kind of thing, Ashitaka (with Kobayashi camo option) is a fantastic earner though...

Scharn is always a good choice: she's an excellent trainer for the T7-8(+) KM BBs, is a great deal of fun to play, and is perfect for the Narai Op that's running at the moment (quite apart from anything else, you can kind-of fulfill the cruiser role if/when your team goes Full Potato). For premiums in general, I would suggest thinking about a couple of things: They need to be fun to play; to get good value from the money spent, you want something that you won't get bored with easily. Besides being fun, it's useful if it's something you can play well - you'll get better rewards in something you're more effective in. It helps if they can use a captain from a silver ship, to speed up his advancement (or generate elite xp when he gets to 19 points), and take maximum advantage of the daily win bonuses. If they're good for one or more of the Ops, that's good too - they can be excellent earners in between random battles (if waiting for the Op cool-down). Is there a specific game mode you'd like to use them in? Upcoming T8 Clans being a case in point, or the T7 Sprints. Get them on sale if you can - premium ships are generally over-priced (some of the recent ones especially so); if you can save some money, do so. Read reviews (preferably more than one) - LWM is a good place to start - and ask for opinions on here (you'll get a wide range, and can assess which players align most closely with your play style and preferences). In terms of tier, there is a lot to be said for going with something that is of a tier that you're most comfortable with - you'll do better, and so get better rewards. Naturally, some of the above are entirely contradictory - premiums rarely fulfill everything you would like them to (which is partly why I have too many of the things).

It'll be nice to have a change; also the lack of CVs will allow dusting off of some ships that I'd avoided using lately and/or some 'less AA' rebuilds - all sounds quite good to me. I'll probably focus on DDs, and sneaky ones especially (in general) - with the CVs gone, we get our spotting role back again, which perhaps lends itself to ships with better concealment. Tentative list: Cossack (I don't have a 19 pointer for Lightning, although it might be a good opportunity to boost the latter) - nice balance between sneakiness and firepower, with nothing 'wasted' on AA; with a hydro mod especially, your 'immunity' to torps is ludicrous. Yeah - the smoke... Loyang, although it rather depends a bit on how many people playing have her figured out now - last time we had T8 'competitive', quite a lot of people had got rather good at dealing with the smoke/hydro thing. She's still basically a Benson (*the* Benson, even) though, which is always a solid pick. Harekaze - although the hp are horrible, the rest of the package should be highly effective; I slightly prefer her to Kagero because the guns-torps balance suits me better, plus I have a 19 point captain to put in her. Kidd - slightly less convinced about this one; although the guns are good, and the heal is very nice to have, quite a lot of her 'power' is in AA (which is useless in this context), plus she isn't hugely sneaky... I'll probably end up playing some other stuff too (so long as it isn't blatantly unsuitable) - it'll be nice to have single tier MM for T8s, combined with no CVs to mess things up for you.

I'm afraid I'm another "hells, no!" to adding subs to PvP (see everything @T0byJug wrote); however, I do think they're pretty worthwhile for PvE events - the Halloween thing was rather fun, albeit with an even more tangential relationship to reality than the regular game.

So, next week (with the new voucher, and possibly without), I'll be able to get either Jean Bart or Georgia - which would people say is more fun? I'm not too worried about being an all-conquering death-dealing avatar of Kali (with my lack of competence, I have to keep my goals realistic!), but rather having maximum fun, whilst avoiding being a complete liability to my team. My impression is that Jean Bart is pretty serviceable, with excellent AA, and requiring good management of the reload booster to maximise effectiveness; meanwhile, Georgia has 'ooge guns, but not many of them, and rather splendid secondaries. How close is that to people's actual experience of them?

Many thanks for the sensible advice; much appreciated!