Verblonde

'At irregular intervals' is the not very helpful answer. In my time with the game, I've only seen the 75 doubloons cheapness once; it's most usually 150 doubloons for reduced slots. Until the next cheapness shows up, I would suggest only buying those that are absolutely necessary (and make a mental note of how many slots you actually use, or would like to use, with time), and when the next cheapness does happen buy what you think you'll need for the next (say) three months, plus a few spares. Something to have on the radar: there *may* be another snowflake event at Christmas (last year's earned you coal and steel, depending on tier); if that happens, it's helpful to have a larger collection of ships (T5+ silver ones, plus any premiums), which is easier if you have plenty of slots. You can, of course, sell a ship once you've knocked off the snowflake, and buy another to fill the vacant slot, but that wastes a lot of silver...

To be fair, CVs have been d1cked with significantly since the initial release of the rework; opinion varies as to the merits of their current state - I happen to think they aren't ready for modes where the number of players is smaller (as it increases their relative influence or its lack). That may well change in the future, I guess...? Sympathy not required, true, but I still feel some - especially for those who get their knackers felt if the CVs aren't met with universal acclaim (imagine getting the job of sorting out CVs - eesh!)...

If you get something that's a bit harder to play, you can always use it in Coop and/or Ops whilst you learn its peculiarities (my Atlanta usually gets used in Coop for example, as I'm not good enough in it against real people; it's still fun to play though). Suggest having a think about what you want/need your prospective premium(s) for, and narrow the list down a bit from there - don't stress too much though, there aren't too many that are irredeemably awful (even KK is a giggle - she's sort of a low tier Atlanta, in some regards). Do you want it for a specific game mode? T-61 was glorious in Ranked Spring at T6 (although T-61 is pretty much always good, if you can make use of the smoke/hydro combo), for example. Do you want to grind captain xp? If so, get something that works well with your best existing captain, and (also important) is fun to play - xp grinders are no use if you don't actively want to play them. Is your aim to make a shed-load of silver? Perhaps consider something with the option of a Kobayashi camo, which'll net you a ton of silver most games. Do you only care about it being fun? Pick something that your are pretty certain you'll dig playing, and/but be prepared to give it a specialised captain. That's just a few pointers, and there are plenty of others besides; given that, here are a few premiums that I keep coming back to, and some of the reasons why: T-61: probably OP (!); works well against almost all opponents; my 19-point Z-52 captain works well in her, so useful elite captain xp grinder; great for Sprint. Z-39: almost identical reasoning to T-61; also means that I can cycle my captain through Z-52, T-61, and Z-39, making maximum use of daily first win bonuses (this approach works anywhere where you have multiple premiums which'll work with one captain from your silver lines). Sims: had poor spotting distance, so has been less hammered by CVs, especially since it has good AA (for a DD); buffed torps are nice (10.5 km); glorious in Dynamo Op (assuming it comes back, and vaguely resembles its previous version); works well with 19 point Gearing captain. Sharn: great fun; works well with captains from the regular KM BBs; excellent for T7 Ops. Boise: the heal is glorious; excellent for T7 Ops; I stink in cruisers, and she's quite forgiving! Kii: Kobayashi camo, and less abysmal AA; torps can be fun too, if your enemy has forgotten you have them. That's not to say you should rush out and buy those (you may have one or other of them already), but rather to illustrate that there are multiple different reasons to buy the various premiums, and something that is good at one thing may not automatically be good at the others (I have almost all the premium BBs, but only use most of them in coop as I'm still in the process of learning how to BB against real people, so mine are ticking the 'fun' box, but not the 'earnings' or 'captain xp' boxes, and so on...).

I have some sympathy for WG (no, c'mon, stop laughing, I'm sober - honest!): on the one hand, not including CVs in Ranked would be a de facto acknowledgment that they haven't got the rework right yet, whilst on the other including them is going to pi$$ a lot of people off (anyone whose only T10 is a Shima, for a start). Personally, I wouldn't have included them this season, or just gone with another T9 Ranked season instead (which is the same thing in effect); I don't think CVs are ready for a small team mode yet. I'll give my DDs a try, at least - not *everyone* in a CV that I encounter will be an El2aZer; at least there is a good chance that an AA build will provide returns, especially if one of the rentals is a CV (tooled up Groz against someone who doesn't know how to play T10 CVs has some potential for hilarity). There is an element of necessity too: the only T10 I have that isn't a DD is Salem, and I don't have the first idea how to play that...

Just be aware that she isn't easy mode (relatively short range, fragile, and no smoke - in many respects, she's a fat DD with a citadel), and rewards a specialist high-point captain... Great fun though.

Nice work! Isn't the consensus that his special skills make him a shoe-in for high-end IJN BBs? I have mine sitting on Musashi at the moment, waiting for me to get round to grinding Yamato (plus, he gets a run out on Kii, and other IJN premium BBs from time to time). I think I've seen people advance the view that he's good on cruisers too though...?

This, pretty much. I suck, so this isn't the view of a unicum (I wish!); things have certainly changed in the game - drastically - but we still have a game that's fun and interesting to play, but the detail has altered a lot. We should also be mindful that, for ordinary farties at least, a not insignificant chunk of DDs (any with poor AA) are about as much fun as covering one's tackle in loganberry jam and dunking it in a nest of bullet ants. So, glass half full: yay, DD play hasn't got stale, because we've had to (partially) reinvent how we do it. Glass half empty: but, muh torp botes!

As others have said, it's the rework. Whether you prefer the old or new game-play will be a matter of personal taste (I liked the old, but was rubbish at it; the new is starting to grow on me); suggest this might be a good place to start with, to help get familiar with the new arrangements: https://worldofwarships.eu/en/content/guides/vehicles-carriers/ Edit: no it isn't - looks like WG haven't updated their own site yet! This is probably of more use:

I'm abundantly aware of all that, but it's never stopped WG, and isn't any worse than the Russian BBs, or the Polish tanks (Pudel excepted) in WOT, or most of the existing BBs above T8. The Hipper conversion was at least under construction, for example...

Bugger - hadn't thought of that...!

I'm not sure about historical time-frames, but you could perhaps have chaff as a higher tier consumable? Have it work like smoke, only it blocks radar, but not visual...? Edit: I suppose it might turn up anyway, as a gimmick for the mooted 'support' CVs?

Agree - the large spotting distance on the torps has been annoying people for longer than I've been playing the game. I suspect we may be waiting a while though - the Russians still seem to have a sulk on regarding the IJN, and Tsushima...!

Given the number of Wehraboos running around, we'll almost certainly get at least a few more German premiums, (with the precedents set by Russian BBs, and Poles in WOT) if not an entire CV tree at some point... Tier 4: Jade or Elbe Tier 6: Weser Tier 8: Flugzeugträger B (the 'other' Graf Zep - give it a sensible name, and a different plane loadout to Gz) Tier 10: Europa, say, or some napkin project with navalised ME262s, or some nonsense like that. Hopefully, we're safe for the time being though; once WG have got the Russian BBs out of their system, we have French DDs, and at least three classes of Italians (hopefully) to come, not to mention Pan-Europe, and Pan-South America... Edit: obviously, some sort of TARDIS type arrangement will be needed in at least one or two cases, to fit a sensible air group in...!

This is exactly what happened to me!

This post from the NA forum might be of interest: https://forum.worldofwarships.com/topic/147475-germanys-almost-aircraft-carriers-part-3-weser/

Here's your T6 candidate, perhaps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_cruiser_Seydlitz

I got three (I think) Twitch crates last night: one was a supercontainer (containing flags, of course), but at least one of the others included some Ironium, so it appears the new contents are starting to come through...

<chuckle> I don't think they need me for that...! The ones I'm really dreading are the (historically inevitable) Russian CVs.

A bit of a wander off-topic, but I was slightly disappointed to discover recently that a lot of Stukas lacked the horns - apparently, they caused too much drag... On the subject in hand, someone on here the other day (thanks again!) drew my attention to the fact that one of the Hippers was to be converted into a CV; that might not be a bad candidate for a T6 premium carrier, and at that tier, Stukas might be suitable...?

My above line (and others elsewhere) covers off Shima, and the other IJN torp boats that have been handed the nasty end of the stick. I don't think I've touched my Shima since the rework - being a 20 km torpedo spammer doesn't really appeal.

Not completely, no, depending on things like what tier the CV is, and how good the player is. That's as it should be though - if someone like me was entirely immune to CVs in a DD, I would think that would be suggestive of a serious balance issue somewhere. Since the rework, I've been running my Gearing with two AA modules (plus my captain includes BFT); no AFT, or Man AA - I haven't gone all-in for AA, but it does gimp me slightly for surface-to-surface. I'm also a below average player (48% WR last time I looked, although it may be worse now/soon - I've been trying to learn to cruiser/BB lately, which isn't helping!). So, in that context, I find that I can stay alive quite effectively early game (provided I don't do anything especially stupid); my first contact with enemy planes can do quite a lot of damage, unless the CV driver is awake and successfully baits DefAA (or I just mess up the timing). After the initial clash, a lot depends on how the CV reacts: if the damage was a lot, he may go and try and sink easier targets for a bit, in which case my chances of doing something useful increase; alternatively, he may get cross and go all-out to sink me, in which case if he's a good CV driver, I'm dead, whilst an average CV driver will just end up feeding me planes. The crucial thing is whether I've managed to keep hard cover between me and the enemy ships; so far, I've tended to rarely be sunk by planes, but rather by the ships that see me as a result of the planes' spotting. Groz is similar, although I spent several weeks without the second AA module, running the LU instead; I recently ditched the latter (I missed the torps too much), and went back to the second AA module, but haven't played it much since. Groz, of course, has the merit of a healing potion which helps survivability... My feeling is that if a muppet like me has around a 50:50 chance of doing okay against a CV, then things are probably no too far adrift of where they should be. The problem, to me anyway, is that this is only the case with perhaps half to two-thirds of DDs at the moment...

I agree; I don't think the balance is quite right yet, particularly with regard to the poor AA DDs. My point about tooling up DDs for AA is that it is still eminently possible to play DDs currently, but to do so requires one change how one uses/builds them (and some can't be helped, which is poor). For me, the changes to captains build have been marginal since the rework; the big changes are more to do with modules (especially at higher tiers), and behaviours, especially early game, although a lot of the positioning stuff was already necessary with the expansion in radar use we've seen over the last year(ish)...

You'll be able to stuff my record in a similar ship - I tend to potate like few have potated before...

With 10K+ battles, I assume you're one of the CVs that would take me to the cleaners pretty much regardless. Thing is, players like you are fairly rare; in general, the AA DDs do fine - it would be pretty poor if they did fine regardless of opposition though. If I could just, say, tool up my Gearing with an AA build, and basically annihilate any CV that came and had a go, that would be outright broken. As it stands, I'm happy with my odds, provided I don't play like an utter potato. I don't know how much sense I'm making; this isn't about absolutes - the areas of drastic concern for the CV-DD interaction in the vast majority of cases really only cover one major tech tree branch (to me, anyway). We do have a few god-tier players (in all classes) who produce abnormal results, but that doesn't automatically make something knackered, although it may provide pointers.