Verblonde

Although they lack DefAA, I've found the Germans to be okay since the rework - they've always been a bit tubby, so getting spotted a lot has less of an impact, and their AA isn't disastrous either. Plus, with hydro, you can pop smoke to escape planes, and not be entirely blind (emergencies only, of course). If one feels a powerful urge to play DDs since the rework, you can do a lot worse. FWIW I generally have mine tooled up with AA upgrades (where available), and BFT captains - you're dead (of course) if a competent CV takes a serious interest in you, but a potato CV can be kept at bay, at least some of the time (that's mainly playing T8-10 KM DDs)... US DDs are better in the current meta (yay, DefAA), but KM aren't a bad second choice.

Won't happen - WG are all-in on the rework now. Given that, whatever solution is found realistically needs to be within the rework framework. FWIW I would have preferred it if they'd fixed the RTS gameplay, but it is what it is...

Doubtful - the sort of DD that's stupid enough to get scragged by a CV's secondaries is more likely to get nailed by another ship on the enemy team long before he gets anywhere near the CV (assuming the CV hasn't done something really silly). As a result, even if a secondary CV build is viable in certain circumstances, those circumstances will only happen rarely (as the idiot DDs will mostly get sunk before they get near the CV, and even a muppet like me has little to fear from a CV with boosted secondaries), so it makes far more sense to build your CV/captain in such a way that's useful every game, not just once in a blue moon. Of course, an idiot build might be fun in coop, where it doesn't matter if you're a liability - I might even give it a go if I ever get GZ, just for a laugh! I have similarly silly builds on several of my BBs for similar reasons...

@El2aZeR - perhaps I should have extended that point, to describe exactly what behaviours I have faith in them to produce? Specifically, a tendency to cheerfully feed their planes to my AA exactly in sequence with my DefAA coming off cooldown, and/or staying in whichever AA aura is the strongest, and so on...

You're right, of course; happily, I tend to find that the bulk of CV players are (currently) not-entirely-decent - the majority will lose plenty of planes to your AA (until HE takes it out), and if you present a difficult target early on, they'll often just leave you alone after that. Obviously, a good CV player will go through you faster than ripe fruit through a short grandmother, but there aren't too many of them - so far, at least. I have faith in the average standard of play in randoms! That said, if/when CVs come to Clans/Ranked, that may well present an entirely different scenario... Edit: in randoms, I'm consistently surprised how few CV drivers can even hit me, even with rockets, and even at higher tiers - at least when I haven't gone and parked on an island (or something else similarly dim).

I do tend to find the latter part often doesn't happen - in randoms anyway - given the enthusiasm for camping that seems to prevail amongst much of the player-base, I usually find myself relying mainly on my own AA for defence against planes. Of course, there are noble exceptions, and if you get one of them, then you can play as a 'proper' DD much sooner.

It would make good commercial sense to have at least one CV-free mode available at all times; I personally don't hate the rework, but whilst it's made some DDs better to play (relatively-speaking) e.g. most of the Americans, it's also knackered plenty of others e.g. IJN torp boats. If you happen to have mainly DDs that are in the 'knackered' category, I would imagine you'd be sorely vexed at the moment; to avoid losing customers, it would be sensible of WG to provide a means to play such impacted DDs in a way that isn't messed up by excessive CV interference...

You're still at a noticeable disadvantage. The simplest solution might be to just rip-off the solution used in WOT: when something has clown cammo on it, they just give it the same (or near as dammit) values as if it had standard cammo applied. Just pick the 'normal' cammo that a typical premium gets, and adjust the detection values etc. for the Dragon/ARP ships to match - you could probably get an intern to knock that off in an afternoon, no? No significant changes required - just a few numbers?

The game has certainly changed dramatically for DDs since the rework; at the moment though, I don't think we're completely Doomed (for the reasons previously mentioned) - US (or US-derived, so some PA), KM, IJN dakka, and some Russians are all still viable, simply because they can shoot down planes, making perma-spotting them too costly (assuming they have the sense to keep hard cover between them and the enemy fleet). Anything with poor AA is not in a particularly good place, unless you luck out and get a CV-free game. It's this latter point that still concerns me: it's not that you can't play (and have fun with) any DD at the moment, but rather that around half have been knackered (in PvP anyway), and remain so. I'm not sure what the solution is; perhaps some sort of 'cr4p AA DD'-specific consumable, that behaves similarly to DefAA might do it - make it possible, but expensive, to perma-spot the ships in question, but leave their AA range still painfully short, so they can still get attacked by planes? The basic 'feel' of (especially) IJN torp boats has always been a vulnerability to planes; at the moment, I just think the balance is too much in favour of the planes as the DD can't do a thing about them - some sort of short-term boost to AA, and with a limited number of uses (so, consumable) might be a viable solution. I wouldn't favour a flat-out AA buff, as that would feel even more incongruous on traditionally poor AA ships..?

A current project for me is working on just that - following some advice last week, I gave cruisers a bit of a lash over the weekend; it went less disastrously than I expected! Give it a few months, and I may even reach a point where I'm not a complete liability...!

This potato's approach (assuming average levels of CV competence): Don't be playing an IJN torp boat (*maybe* excepting Harekaze); ideally be playing US DD. Obviously have AA off, except when actively in use. Head for the islands near the caps (e.g. the big one mostly at F8, if attacking from the south), but don't go into the caps yet. Don't be so close to the islands that planes pop into view right on top of you, and keep the islands between you and the enemy fleet. Unload DefAA on any planes that get into your middle AA aura (making *really* sure that enemy ships don't have LOS to you). In between being attacked by planes, break cover to spot, and maybe cap; have escape route for when radar goes off, or planes come back. Ideally, between plane attacks, move to another island, so they have to find you all over again. Basically, I tend to find myself initially spending my time trying to keep islands between me and as much of the enemy fleet as possible, whilst engaging planes, and small numbers of enemy ships (one at a time, ideally), with spotting between bursts of other activity. I'm sure the unicums will have better/more effective approaches than that, but this kind of thing (that doesn't always work for me - PBKAC errors, usually) seems to work such that my WR hasn't got much worse since the rework...

This, right here, is the crux of the issue: assuming you face CV drivers who are capable of finding their bottoms with both hands and a map, DDs' stealth advantage is largely gone now (in CV games). The DDs that work most consistently now are those that are less reliant on stealth; unless you get lucky and get a potato CV, pure 'sneaky' DDs are basically Doomed. The non-stealthy ones tend to be less Doomed, but only because they mostly have decent AA, and aren't balanced around being able to hide effectively. For example, I've found Sims to be substantially more comfortable (or rather, less uncomfortable than many) since the rework, and it isn't solely because the torps now get some extra reach; in the past, she suffered because she could be spotted from the moon (by DD standards) - now, you'll be spotted pretty much regardless, so it all comes down to the rest of her characteristics, and they're all pretty decent...

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I do rather covet Salem, but not because it's good (the majority opinion does seem to be 'naff Des Memes', with a few disenters); I'd like her entirely because she's the Cosplay Graf Spee! I'll probably never be any good in these high tier cruisers, so I may as well get the ones that I like for other reasons...

Much as one hates to interrupt a good bout of handbags: DDs as a class are (IMO) not dead since the rework; however, those with lousy AA specifically are (anyone suggesting you hide under the AA umbrella of your bigger mates doesn't understand DD play, and what they're supposed to be doing - you're not meant to be a cr4p cruiser). It's still perfectly possible to have fun in DDs, even against two CVs, but you have to pick the right DDs. A lot of the methodology is similar to dealing with radars (e.g. keep islands between you and most of the enemy guns, and so on), only with CVs you get to fight back, at least until your AA gets knocked out - in contrast, there's nothing much you can do about a Chapy, say, radaring you from behind an island 10 km away. Load up with DefAA, BFT, and perhaps some judicious AA modules, and rake in the rewards for the AA missions; once the enemy planes have been whittled down a bit (both by you, and the rest of your team), you can go back to doing more conventional DD things. Sure, you'll sometimes meet a competent CV player who'll take you to the cleaners, but that's the same as being outclassed by a better player in just about any ship - it happens (quite frequently, in my case). To be fair, even the poor AA DDs can get lucky - not every CV you meet is going to be @El2aZeR!

Is "all of them!" an acceptable answer? Edit: a slightly more sensible answer would be one of each major type (a la Atlanta/Flint).

I'm still hoping for a Dido of some description...

This is worth emphasising for any newer players who happen to be passing: if you don't have any 19-pointers yet, a few decent games with some suitable signals (I am remembering correctly that you can put signals on the space ships?) will have a significant positive impact on xp available to boost your existing captains' training...

I have to say, the decent quality of available beer here came as a pleasant surprise when I first arrived... (Now, if only Timothy Taylor's could be persuaded to set up shop here)

BTW if anyone uses the online version of The Artist Formerly Known As The Arsenal, the url has changed to: https://armory.worldofwarships.eu/en/

It could be a filter thing? Either that, or WG have been visited by Mister C*ck-Up. Again...

Don't you get a couple of specific 'space' ships added to your port? Last time, if you selected the relevant battle mode, the display automatically displayed only eligible ships. Edit: the relevant blurb is here: https://worldofwarships.eu/en/news/general-news/intergalactic-games/

I should emphasise that I wasn't saying the prices are reasonable, just that they're consistent...!

About eleven pints, assuming last year's London average price...?

I'm seeing 56.19 UKP - see below right - that seems roughly in line with the other T9s that have been sold for cash...?

This is a very good point; if you've been playing WOT extensively, you're conditioned that fire = death. That said, it took me less time than it might have to adapt to WOWS in that regard (I believe) precisely *because* I'm so worried about fires in WOT: pretty much every AFV I have in WOT is equipped with premium fire extinguishers (partly because of the reduced fire chance that results), so I've never acquired the body-memory reflex of hitting the fire extinguisher button the very moment my tank gets set on fire, so not having to spend time losing it once I started with WOWS.