Verblonde

As someone else said earlier, this is probably just a balls-up - the (now published) article says the thing is available on the 26th, when we all know it went on sale in the shop yesterday. Despite my cynicism, I suspect a button being triggered a day early, rather than diabolical evil on WG's part...

@MrHappydiamond From my point of view (not a very good player), most of the time, Kidd plays like a typical higher(ish) tier US DD, only with gimped torps, and a heal to make up for it. I say 'most of the time' as when you're in a game with aircraft, you can wreak havoc if you happen to get a CV driver that doesn't know about Kidd (sadly, from your perspective, most of them do). With regard to how to improve in her, my suggestion (besides watching the videos posted above) would be to refine your skills a bit at slightly lower tiers first - maybe with the T6-7 regular tree US DDs (plus, I see you have Sims, which is also useful for this). Your aim is to get good with the US guns, particularly with regard to their arcs, which make hitting distant targets a challenge, but do allow you to abuse hard cover (islands etc.). The main advantage of this sort of approach is that it reduces the hideousness of the opposition a bit (far fewer radars for a start - in Kidd you'll see them almost every battle), which provides you with a better opportunity to practice shooting etc. without getting instantly deleted with your first mis-step. Focus very much on using the guns (and associated behaviours, mainly smoke use, dodging etc. - as soon as you fire you, obviously, get spotted from miles away), as those are your key weapon with Kidd. Kidd's torps are useful, but you only have one set (and no single fire, unlike Haida/Cossack), and they take forever to reload, so you only get to use them occasionally - hence the need to focus on good use of your guns (and getting away with it after your visibility blooms, so you can do it again afterwards). Kidd does use many skills you develop on regular US DDs, but she also arguably requires them to be at a higher pitch than something like Benson might (because of her weird focus on guns especially) - hence the suggestion to apply polish to said skills at lower tiers. If you don't have one already, a good captain helps a lot when getting the most out of Kidd (the hockey guy from the current collection would be useful for this - magic SE!); if you haven't got at least a 10-pointer, I'd suggest focusing on getting one pronto. In terms of skills, I'd go with a typical DD build: PM (or PT), LS, SE, and CE - the latter being essential. After that, the extra dakka of BFT is good (plus it buffs your already absurd AA), SI (extra heal), AR, and whichever 1-point skill you didn't pick. Precise order you pick the post-CE skills up in will vary with player preference. There will some arguments here (notably, should you take SI before SE - Superintendent gives you an extra charge of heal, whilst SE gives you more hp and makes each use of heal more effective)... Take premium heal consumable at least - faster cool-down, and gives you an extra charge; this will help a bit if you're getting hit a lot (but don't forget that a lot of damage doesn't fully heal, so focus on trying not to get hit as much as practical). Kidd's main 'thing' is arguably her ability to heal, so you want to do everything to maximise its effectiveness (hence SE and SI too), and she's a premium - you can afford premium consumables.

I note that, at least at time of writing, there still isn't a "yay, Terrible is released, please buy it - it's rather splendid!" news story on the site (unless I'm blind - always a possibility). It's almost like WG are embarrassed to release the thing, and are hoping no-one will notice it...?

Thanks for the review @__Helmut_Kohl__ - good show that chap! I think I'm going to leave this one alone (I don't get on terribly well with Aigle as well), although I won't be vexed if I get her in a Christmas crate or similar...

The offer's useful if you'd be playing anyway, and still have a use for doubloons; I tick both boxes, so it works for me - I can see it being rather 'meh' for more established and/or occasional players though.

I've bought mine; I'll be logging in most days over the next several weeks anyway, so might as well bag a few extra doubloons (they're still of use to me)...

I completed the Great 8 collection last night and now have the filthy capitalist running-dog version of Ovechkin, and was wondering what to do with him. The Russian and dual-nation ones are (I think) fairly obviously suitable for the Russian gunboat DDs, as you can make use of both of the souped-up skills, but the US one is a little less obvious, although I may be being thick. Where would the US version be ideally placed? My instinct is some DD or other, and not use the WD40 skill, but is there a light cruiser (or something else) that I've missed that can usefully employ both EM and SE?

Thanks for the suggestions everyone - I think I'll stick him in Kidd/Sims for the moment, to get a few more points on him, then do a re-set in advance of the new carriers next time we get a freebie reset...

BBs will give you cooties...

Ooooo, that's an interesting idea - I hadn't thought of that. Thank you!

I think they both do (the Russian one certainly does), although you need to activate them - the on/off toggle is on the captain skills page, on the left, if anyone hasn't found it yet.

It would. I should emphasise that I have absolutely no information that this is what has happened though! I've been playing WOT a lot longer than WOWS, and the former has given reasons in the past to not always expect the best from WG. To be fair, WOWS (the EU version anyway) has been doing quite a bit to help reduce my tendencies towards cynicism, admittedly with the occasional wobble along the way...

I wonder if the lack of reviews may be due to WG releasing her a day earlier than is usual (I'm not going mental - today *is* Thursday, right?)? Edit: or the cynic in me wonders if reviewers are under an NDA until tomorrow, to give a day of sales before (possibly) poor reviews are released?

Cossack has the RN DD smoke, so it's pretty weak (not many puffs and disperses quickly), but you do get lots of charges; this rather precludes the shooting from smoke approach that the IJN gunboats are good at, but is helpful for breaking line of sight at critical moments (plus, you can get a few seconds of dakka from concealment). She's also pretty slow (in terms of sheer straight-line speed), but does get a speed-booster, and loses very little speed in a turn; she's a lot more nimble than basic stats suggest she should be. If you're trying to dodge incoming fire, there are far worse ships to do it in, provided you haven't got yourself completely isolated with nothing to hide behind. I'm nowhere near an expert, but the sort of play profile I'm working with at the moment is something along the following lines: start off probing, trying to find the enemy, making full use of stealth and keeping guns quiet (basic stealthy DD stuff); aim to be in the vicinity of a cap relatively early, and maybe even try and bag it if there is an easy route to a nearby island; when the first enemies show themselves, shoot torps if a sensible target is in range, whilst getting out of sight (pop smoke if spotted). Once the initial probing is done, and battle is joined properly, I'll then try and make use of the guns at closer ranges (the arcs make longer range pot-shots harder), often with hydro on, to protect against the inevitable torps; you're mainly trying to bag enemy DDs, and the occasional CL that does something silly, as well as lob torps (singles) at anything that does something daft. All this usually happens at relatively close quarters, with much dashing behind islands, and smoke use to break contact, whilst making full use of her ludicrous turning abilities. If you want an exciting DD, for knife fights, Cossack is glorious, although I should say I often mess up and get sunk - embarrassingly early in proceedings! The crucial decision with Cossack seems to be when to transition from 'sneaky' to 'deranged wolverine' mode (you won't do much damage in the former, whilst the latter can get you sunk very quickly if you mess up), and back again.

No smoke isn't an automatic 'hells, no' (Kagero with TRB build is fun, but that has stealth), but I'm deeply wary of this one too...

I'm *definitely* going to wait to see some definitive numbers, and reviews - the WiP stuff I've read didn't sound very promising...

This is always going to be a difficult issue for companies to navigate; on the one hand, WOWS (and this forum) are WG's platform, so they can do what they like - 'freedom of speech' doesn't apply here - whilst on the other, too much interference and censorship gets on people's nerves, and it has to done with a careful touch to avoid the appearance of inconsistency (I got a week's ban on the NA WOT site for using an asterisked version of the f-word, whilst little action appears to be taken against hate speech). The best we can hope for, I think, is fairly close to what we have now - most people self-police, and the moderators (eventually) slap down the more egregious offenders. I don't think WG can make everyone happy: those of us who want a civilised place to play and discuss things will always be annoyed by the juveniles who find amusement in online abuse whilst they wait for their knackers to drop, and the "grow a thicker skin" crowd will be continually irritated that they can't abuse whoever they want in whatever manner they want - objectively, some spot in the middle is probably about right.

My feeling is that it's okay, and (as it only impacts one ship, or two from tomorrow, I imagine) won't have an enormous impact on gameplay, unless a significant number of idiots mis-read it and think it applies to all RN DDs. If WG want to do missions like this that apply to a wider spectrum of ships in future though and not mess up gameplay, I think some sort of tutorial would be in order, outlining which ships work with this sort of approach (most Russian DDs, the RN DDs, US DDs when playing as gunboats, and a few oddballs, plus anything I've forgotten), and which don't (anything where being spotted means you messed up and/or are in trouble, and anything too tubby to dodge effectively). This illustrates one reason I'm very keen on DDs - the variation within the class is enormous; whilst Harugumo is clearly a gunboat DD, she bears very little resemblance in terms of play style to, say, Khaba, and/or Daring, both of which are also clearly gunboats. This variation keeps the class interesting to play for much longer than might otherwise be the case.

I do generally condemn battering people online, but I don't feel this is an example of it - the poster in question appears to be trying to politely add weight to his views on the basis that he is an extremely experienced DD driver, presumably, for those who don't already know that. This sort of thing is relevant to class-related discussions (if you looks at my stats in BBs, for example, you'll see that I'm hopeless - this is why my opinions on how to play BBs should be largely ignored much of the time!), but notoriously difficult to do without causing offence. I agree with your concern about muppets thinking that the correct way to do this mission is to simply drive their Cossack straight at the enemy (besides being antisocial, it's patently inefficient and unnecessary); if the aim of this type of mission is to try and draw players' attention to a particular type of play, it might be worthwhile for WG to add some sort of pop-up to the mission descriptions? In this case, it might be a short explanation of what dodge tanking is, why you might want/have to do it, and when not to do it.

Gaaaaaaah - sausage fingers! It's still too early in the morning here...!

I may be misreading, but I thought his post was a rather good precis of key aspects of DD play, the differences between gunboats and torpboats (and by extension, those in between), in terms of how they play, and the impact their relative stealth ratings and primary armaments have on the relevance of dodge tanking to the respective types...

I might make the observation that, just because a mission calls for doge tanking in a specific RN DD, it doesn't mean that everyone with the relevant ship will be able to do it properly...! I'm finding the Cossack to be quite interesting/fun to play (although I'm still a long way from being any good in her): most of the existing gunboats tend to have lousy concealment, so you (more or less) superglue the fire button down, and zoom around pounding people from a distance, whereas Cossack is almost as stealthy as the IJN torp boats (and has a few usable torps too), so calls for a more varied approach, and generates an interesting contrast between sneaking about and all hell breaking lose the moment you open up with the dakka...

I don't think it's a problem to do it occasionally for DDs, but if it becomes a staple, then I'd start whinging. Ideally, WG would be encouraging the more hopeless BBs to do the job! Presumably, in this specific case, it's just been picked to try and sell a few more Cossacks (and Terrible this week?), whilst not giving them the same mission over and over.

This is true; what I mean by 'drawing fire' is deliberately exposing yourself for short periods - by dashing between islands, say, rather than trying to encourage enemy fire whilst in open water with few escape options. That you can do at closer ranges, where the rest of your tool-kit comes into play. In an ideal world, DDs wouldn't have to do this, but (apart from a few noble exceptions - many of them on here) the bulk of BB players currently are very wary of tanking, so someone has to step in. Although it's only for one ship, the Cossack mission under discussion might be an attempt by WG to work with the game as it is, rather than how it should be...?

I must confess to being a bit puzzled by the belief that only BBs should get 'tank' missions (defined as something requiring lots of potential damage, as opposed to clocking up lots of non-penetrating hits, say); in the current meta, about the only BBs that aren't skulking in the back are the few brawlers. In that context (i.e. most BBs avoid tanking, based on my observation), why not have DDs drawing fire - they're perhaps the class best suited to do so (that isn't BBs), as they're the hardest to hit? Since DDs can't focus as much on capping currently (due to radar) as we might like, why not try and keep your cruisers (especially) alive for longer?