Verblonde

My feeling is that if AFT is a good pick regardless of the AA aspect (so, for German/MA secondaries, Atlanta, Russian gunboat DDs etc.), then keep it, otherwise there are far more useful things to do with the four points. As a DD main though, BFT has become almost universal on everything that I'm actively playing (so, not IJN torp boats etc.)...!

On the bright side, we have several days of free respecs at the moment - have a mess about with as many promising combinations as you can, and see what works for you.

That's a really good idea; by extension, you could also add a captain's skill that does the flooding equivalent to the fire protection one (reduces number of flooding points by one) - call it a catchier variant on 'masterful use of compartmentalisation', or something like that. (or you could just add it to the existing skill)

That's not abuse, that's understanding the game mechanics, and playing accordingly. It's the same as setting someone on fire, then torping them (or setting them on fire) whilst DCP is on cooldown - it's basic technique. I imagine, with 31.2K+ battles, you'll have made use of those mechanics abundantly yourself, no?

It's not just you - my body memory still automatically twitches towards the DCP when I get flooded. For a DD main, there are worse things, I suppose - not because of the flooding, but rather because of the speed drop from floods.

I have to admit to being less keen on Acasta, mainly due to the lack of a stealth torp window, although that's mainly a l2p issue on my part - I'm rubbish with most things with short-ranged torps!

Does anyone happen to know if any of the stats sites can plot flooding damage, ideally versus time?

T7+ I agree, but I don't care enough about Icarus to get all excitable about it! Perhaps @Seiranko might be keener if there was an anime skin/captain for it?

I imagine there's a good chance that snowflakes etc. will return next Christmas...?

(emphasis added) In most DDs that's absolutely true, but the Brits shine in relatively close quarters; they have a more-or-less unique set of characteristics (fair play to WG for that, incidentally), and the specifics of the Brit hydro work well with them. As you go on to say, KM DDs (and Loyang) are more of the 'classic' hydro DD model, but they play very differently; I would suggest there is space in the game for both, although I would also warn newbies away from the Brits, as they're much harder to play... I find Icarus hard work, and would much rather play T-61 (big surprise), or Gallant, but that doesn't make Icarus bad - it's just harder to play.

I would disagree with this: with the hydro on, Brit DDs are functionally immune to torps; that's extremely valuable when trying to take caps, or chase down someone hiding in smoke; it's especially valuable (as @invicta2012 says) in close quarters, as it allows you to concentrate on the knife fight, rather than worry excessively about being torped from longer range (plus, in the furball itself, you know the moment your opponent fires torps). Also, don't forget, you now detect ships at 3 km, rather than 2 km, if you don't have LOS. The other nice thing is that the RN hydro runs for ages - three minutes - that's a long time to not have to worry about torps (even more, if you have the relevant coal mod fitted at higher tiers)! Whilst I've mainly been playing T7-9 RN DDs (although the T6 was useful in Sprint), I wouldn't drop hydro for speed boost on any of RN DDs that can take it.

Depends rather on which DD; whatever the wiki recommends is generally a good starting point. Broadly-speaking, if the thing is nimble already, take acceleration. That said, I personally don't go in for smoke camping much (as others have said, it's asking for trouble; a standard DD tactic is to torp smoke clouds, for a start), but rather use my smoke more to screen allies and/or break contact; because of that, where the decision is marginal, I tend to err more towards rudder shift.

My view is that it isn't sufficiently useful to spend three points on (at least on all the DDs that I have); you're generally nimble enough to avoid most torps, unless you get island ambushed, or similar. It might be worth putting on a DD for (say) one point, but not for three. You're better off with things like BFT, or SI, after you've taken the initial 'standard' ten points...

The only reason to do so is if you *really* like the aesthetic; I'm a little surprised they don't come with (marginally?) better bonuses, to encourage people to spend the extra. That said, it might annoy people, as (if you don't like the aesthetic) you'd be forced to have your ship looking all 'spacey' if you wanted the extra bonus...

I would disagree: they're only in Clan Battles with these rentals, where they have the rest of their team to provide guidance; that's far better than them dropping alone into randoms, where there is nothing to mitigate them being a liability to their team. It's also entirely up the individual clan if they want to allow rentals or not; if your clan forbids the use of rentals, then they have no down-side for you (and, in fact, give your clan an advantage as a result).

As others have said, it was in the news item covering Clan Battles; as to pop-ups, you get a very obvious red 'new stuff' icon over your name when you log into the game, and you have unread news items. You don't have to be an obsessive forumite to find this stuff; you just need to read the news stories from port when you log into the game...

@sgtmarple - you'll probably find you get more helpful advice (and you will get it) if your posts are more along the lines of "x happened, and I don't understand; can someone please help/explain?", rather than (effectively) "I got sunk because I haven't learned/understood the game/mechanics/other, and I demand WG change the game". Your original post is a good example of the latter oeuvre, and I'm frankly slightly surprised how gentle everyone is being! Normally, there would be a lot more laughing and pointing! 274 random battles (at time of writing) is *very* inexperienced; this isn't a bad thing, as it means you have a lot of interesting games ahead of you, as you discover new stuff. It does mean, however, that there are an awful lot of aspects of the game that you don't understand yet; by and large, the game mostly works reasonably well - if you're getting your posterior handed to you frequently, there is almost certainly simply something you haven't understood yet. Some tips: Play a lot more in ships of no more than T4 (protected MM's upper limit); play all classes, so you learn what they can/cannot do. Start advancing up the tiers after that - T5 and up, you get +2 MM, which will make your life much harder (plus, you'll meet far more experienced opponents). Take the time to earn more experienced captains; when you get into the +2 MM bracket, you probably want at least ten pointers (see next point if you have no idea what that means). Familiarise yourself with the wiki (http://wiki.wargaming.net/en/World_of_Warships); it contains lots of useful information, but it is enormous - read only the bits you need (you don't need to worry about Yamato when playing T4s, for example). Game mechanics, and captains are two areas to focus on initially. Watch iChase's Captains Academy series (via: https://www.youtube.com/user/ichasegaming). Make sure you have the alternative interface enabled; that'll make your life easier (and make sure your minimap is large). Join a clan, preferably a teaching one - running divisions with competent players who can give you feedback will speed up your development (there are also economic bonuses to being in a clan, if their base is developed). Don't rush up the tiers too quickly - the 'point' of the game is not to get to T10 as quickly as possible. If you have any ships that are too high tier already, play them in coop - it's a much more forgiving environment. Keep asking for advice; if you resist the urge to be a Richard (see first point at the top of this post), you will get a lot of helpful feedback from people - this is a surprisingly friendly community, provided one isn't an 4rse.

He would do if he was upfront and said words to the effect of "b0llocks, it's a laugh, innit?" - sub-optimal builds that are fun have a long and solemn history in the game, if only just to see what happens. There isn't anything wrong with trying stuff, and just messing about with weird builds because you enjoy them (although it's perhaps a bit anti-social to use them extensively where they're a detriment to your team). The reason that the term 'facepalm' rather applies here is that there appears to be an attempt to justify the specific build as actively a good idea (as opposed to just fun), when good CV players (not to mention DD drivers who it's intended to counter) universally say it isn't. Of course, this assumes that this isn't just masterful trolling, in which case rather a lot of us have been taken in, hook, line, sinker, rod, and copy of Angling Times...

The thought occurs that we should probably not entirely discourage this sort of thinking: the more people out there trying to engage in mortal secondary combat with their CVs, the more hilarious the game becomes (possibly with the exception of those occasions where they're on your side)...?

I hope you didn't actually sell them? If you did, strongly suggest requesting them back (you can do it via ticket) - never sell a premium; they can get more interesting as you get better, they may get buffs, and (at the very least) they stop you getting premiums you don't want in Xmas boxes! The whole torp thing, and friendly fire takes a bit of getting used to; it really is a case of your torps - your responsibility, I'm afraid. Broadly-speaking, it's rarely a good idea to torp from the second line (about the only common exception is if you're on voice comms with someone, and can coordinate where they and your torps are heading); you can also never rely on in-game chat - quite apart from anything else, people often have it switched off. Basically, if you torp your own side, it's always your fault. Always better to break off a torp attack than to blap your own side; with practice though, you'll get better at positioning yourself such that this isn't often a problem. BTW it's considered good form to always apologise if you torp your own side... Ignore anyone whinging about kill-stealing - there's no such thing; every gun that's removed from the game helps your team. There are certainly circumstances where a team could distribute their fire more efficiently, but that's basically impossible to coordinate without voice comms e.g. If you have a two ship division with both of you in range of two enemies, one mortally wounded and the other not, the ship in your division with the smaller alpha wants to finish off the wounded foe (assuming it *will* kill it), whereas the big alpha ship will want to knock a huge chunk off the undamaged foe (basically, avoiding 'spare' damage not being wasted). BTW unless you do something horribly egregious such that you get a 'coop only' penalty, you don't have to necessarily drop down to T1 coops - on occasions where I mess up, I usually duck into coop at mid tiers, where I can make progress on missions whilst burning off the pink, or just stay in randoms and make *really* sure I don't hit any more friendlies...

I probably ought to mention that I bagged quite a lot of the xp needed for the T9 when I was going up the tree playing this in Ranked, although the smoke/hydro combo still works quite well in randoms (assuming the opposition is 'average')...

Obviously! Edit: As and when we get subs in the game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Aeneas_(P427)

I've been making extensive use of the AA, but since I only just got mine (last weekend, I think), my initial impressions are very preliminary! It does look like the approach I've been taking to planes with other things still works with Z-52 as well...

Being sweet, naive + impressionable, I have no idea what you mean...

You're being far too kind - I'm pretty sure that was blind luck!