Verblonde

Slightly wandering off-topic, but this is part of what makes Cossack fun for me - on the one hand you can be a sneaky bastich, and fire torps from stealth if you want to, whilst on the other, to really make a nuisance of yourself you have to open fire with the splendid dakka, at which point everyone and their Mum knows where you are. Harakaze (which share's Kagero's sneakiness) is fun for similar reasons. I suppose (to return to topic), if you're going to have a 'get your DD shot at' mission, there are far worse things to do it in than Cossack, as she has a lot more control over being seen and going dark than a lot of DDs...

I'm playing both PC and Blitz versions of WOWS; although there are similarities, they are very different games, and I agree with the sentiment that the PC version is superior (very much so). If your PC is a bit on the slow side, turn the the graphics to minimum, and that should help (when you install, I think the game will try and set your settings to whatever it thinks is optimal for your system); unless you're a graphics freak, even at lower settings, the game is pretty enough. PC WOWS is more complex though, and ships play differently to their counterparts in Blitz (although not *that* differently), and have a wider range of consumables to make use of, so you'll have to do a bit of ship re-learning.

Another thing that may not be obvious, and isn't game-play related, yet rather useful to know: with collections (such as the current hockey one), only use duplicates to buy missing things when you'll complete the collection by doing so. Taking the current one as an example: it has three sections, each with four things in them, so twelve things to collect in total. The first time you get a thing for the collection you have a 100% chance of it being useful, by definition; the second one has an 11 in 12 chance of being useful (and a 1 in 12 chance of being a duplicate), and so on. Say you've got to the point of having nine things collected, and ten duplicates; in the current collection, those ten dups will buy you two of the missing three things. If you don't spend the dups yet, you have a 3 in 12 chance of subsequent things dropped from crates being useful, whereas spending the ten dups right away will reduce that chance to 1 in 12. The only exception to this 'rule' might be when each stage of the collection yields something very useful, that you can't wait for (for example, the anniversary ones yield permanent cammos that save you quite a bit of doubloons); one still needs to weigh the usefulness of the reward against the reduced probability of getting something useful in future drops. Also regarding collections: when you have more than one available where elements can drop from regular crates (like the hockey one), you need the collect toggle for that collection to be enabled, and you can only have one collection enabled in this way at once.

FWIW I got a (duplicate) thing for the hockey collection in the sole crate I had time to bag last night - more resources, although that shouldn't matter - so, it looks like it's still going on, although not at a massively high drop-rate.

<blub! splutter! ptooey!>

That strikes me as a good thing - it would add more variety to the game, which is usually a positive (anything that avoids the cookie-cutter builds you see in WOT). Perhaps a way to implement such a thing would be via a module, and put that module in a slot that that would normally have a positive effect on the main guns - if you're going to buff one thing, you need to balance it with a nerf to something else. Alternatively/as well, there is always the option of the LU approach: a module that buffs one thing, and nerfs another at the same time?

+1. Good idea. It's possible they'll need one, depending on how the proposed CE changes work out...?

+1 From what I read, Terrible doesn't sound hugely appealing (and that's from a DD obsessive)...

Both are valid, in my view - whilst a DD can't tank damage in the traditional sense (sit there and get pounded), you can still take the heat off your team-mates by getting the enemy to shoot at you, whilst using your ability to dodge (which the RN DDs are very good at) to avoid taking excessive damage. This mission is a good reminder for people about this aspect of DD play - we get spotting missions quite frequently, so that reminder is perhaps less necessary? I wouldn't approve of 'potential damage' missions being the default for DDs, but now and again is fine (also, I assume the Cossack ones are optional, if your aim is to just get the Guineas)...

I bought rather fewer of these things than I might normally - these containers 'feel' rather over-priced compared to more usual ones, not to mention distinctly lacking in the rewards department. That said, I did get the Chapy mission on my tenth and final bought container (zilch in the freebies), which cheered me up somewhat, as I rather fancied her and am only on the T6 in the grind.

A pleasure! Ping me if you happen to see me in-game - I'd be happy to division, and provide a glorious demonstration of how not to do it...!

Short answer: nope! One of the reasons I like WOWS is the number *edited*is infinitely lower; that's not to say that there aren't a few of them in game, but there are certainly far fewer than in WOT.

It was before my time, but in the early days of the game (I think) you could essentially hide in smoke, and fire whatever gun you liked and not get seen. There may have been some smoke behaviour changes too, but I'm not sure - can anyone with more experience of this era shed any light? I believe smoke got changed a bit since the starting state, although I'm not sure I'm right about this. More recently, smoke was changed such that gunfire causes your visibility to bloom, in proportion to the size of the gun being fired (I think); this meant that, for example, you could no longer park a Yamato in someone else's smoke-screen and send 18" gifts downrange with impunity (from a spotting standpoint). The present mechanics are a lot more sensible, but they were a nerf to anyone firing from smoke, with a couple of premiums impacted to the extent that WG offered a doubloon refund when the changes went live. BTW that Notser guide that @BrusilovX posted is pretty good, and looks to be entirely current...

Insufficient sacrificing of virgins to the wrathful volcano gods?

It's this sort of thing where higher tier experience probably helps a lot - even messing around at T5, I'm semi-habit formed to at least be a bit cautious to start with - with all the radars about higher up, it's almost become reflex...

This is breathtakingly poor form; I hope everyone reported the blighter? Has the sort of people playing changed drastically since the weekend? Whilst I was playing (Saturday evening/night - so night/horribly early European time), I only had a couple of games where people played passively, and in at least one case, a gentle reminder in chat that this wasn't randoms seemed to improve things; most of the time, everyone was getting stuck in, and playing interestingly...

Ouch! Much sympathy.

I suspect this will drop off significantly with time, due to most of the experienced folk ranking out quickly, and so being removed from the pool of available players....? Even a klutz like me can rank out in less than a day's play...

As an aside, I keep reading the title of this thread as 'Daring carp' - this brings to mind heroic fish, leaping over obstacles, and braving all manner of danger (possibly with the MI soundtrack playing in the background)... Just thought I'd share.

The poor thing has the misfortune to not be Shiratsuyu, alas...

I haven't seen a single unified guide, as far as I recall - @DFens_666 has it right; they vary a lot through the tree. There are a few consistent themes: They almost all have good guns - plenty of dakka, but the rainbow firing arcs take a bit of getting used to (although once you have worked them out, it opens up a lot of other classes/nations). They mostly have middling stealth - worse than IJN, but better than Russians. They mostly have good manoeuvrability and speed, although the T10 is clumsier than the lower tiers. They get the excellent US smoke - lots of it, and long-lasting. Until you start encountering radar, this can be *really* useful, both to hide what you're up to, but also to cloak allies. Basically, they're usually 'middle ground' hybrids, between the extremes of sneaky IJN torp boats, and thunderingly visible Russian gunboats. US torps are roughly split, between low and high tiers: lower tiers are short-ranged ambush weapons that can't be fired from stealth; T7 and above start to get longer-ranged torps that can be fired from stealth (but start off very slow - you're already familiar with Sims' swimming mines). BTW if you like the ambush torps, you can keep using them further up the tree, but I find them unhelpful most of the time (the exception being Loyang, which is essentially a Benson - actually *the* Benson, if we're being specific). I'm biased (DD main), but I feel the US DD line has perhaps the highest density of 'keepers' of almost any line in the game - I think I've held on to T4, and T7-10; quite a lot of people like T6 too, but I have several better premium DDs at T6, so got rid of that one too (T5 gets T5 MM, and I have Gremy/Kami, so obviously got rid of that one too). None are real stinkers though. Perhaps more entertainment than educational (and also a bit out of date since the smoke nerfs, not to mention captain skill changes):

Didn't know about this - thanks! Even a balanced version would be nice to have in the game - something else to do with NdJ's captain...

It took me 29 battles to rank out (slightly to my surprise, I must admit), and I'm a pretty poor player; in that context, I don't feel the relatively poor rewards are inappropriate. What I would suggest WG tweak for later seasons: rather than being locked out after you get to Rank 1 for the first time, use the FL (from WOT) model, and let people cycle through three times, with new sets of rewards for each cycle.

I see them both in the online version of the shop (it doesn't say anything about the grind mission though, so that may well have ended - does anyone know?)...

Ludicrously easy, if you have the patience - it's a single xp grind. Boise isn't bad - good alpha, and the heal is excellent. She loses dakka compared to Helena (?), and doesn't have radar, unlike Atlanta and Sharkbait (oo ha ha).