Verblonde

Which Kami the player has is indicative too: the 'R' seems to be exclusively an indication of an experienced player, whilst the vanilla one isn't as much - I have the latter, for example, and I suck...!

Oh yeah, another +1 for Sims - you want a decent captain in her (10-pointer; 13 pointer is nice) though: you have a nice balance of dakka (BFT with your second 3-point skill is useful), and torps - 9.2 km range; horribly slow, but can be launched from stealth. She's glorious in the Dynamo Op (I currently have the AA module on mine for that, but will have to pay doubloons if I want to change it) too - heroic silver earning potential - if it comes around again. With the DefAA consumable, you can give planes a nasty shock with her too (although most CV players know about her now).

I'm not terribly surprised - a full (and appropriate) module build is so fundamental, it probably wouldn't occur to most established players that anyone would even think about not doing it! Texas is pretty good - she's a fairly typical 'standard' BB, but with superior AA defences for her tier; she's actually worth paying money for (if you like BBs). You can really make any CVs you meet massively regret their life choices, especially with a decent captain in her. BTW something we haven't really suggested yet: division up with some established players, and join a clan - that'll help you find people who are happy to teach/advise you (plus, keep asking questions on here - provided you aren't taking the pi$$, lots of people will be happy to help).

@black_falcon120: first question - are you trolling? If not, please continue reading. 1) First, and most importantly - you absolutely *must* fit modules etc. to all your ships (for advice on builds i.e. what to put on what: http://wiki.wargaming.net/en/World_of_Warships ) The wiki will also give you some indication as to what each ship is for e.g. Bismark (and Tirpitz) are absolutely not snipers, and so on. 2) If you can't afford the silver to buy/mount the relevant modules, play more at lower tiers (against real people) to generate the silver - you simply have to be patient (or buy premium account etc.). 3) Without the modules you are a liability to your team-mates; deliberately gimping yourself is simply unethical, so don't do it. With that out of the way, some thoughts on your original question: As others have said, until you get better (and/or can afford to mount a full module build), I would suggest avoiding T8 premiums - you will regularly face T10 opponents, most of them with a decent captain (read up on captain skills etc. if you haven't already), and *all* of them fully built out with modules etc. I would suggest spending your money on several T6-7 premiums (if you have a one-shot voucher, perhaps look at those you can get from the tech tree, and buy the relevant doubloons in one hit); I would also suggest they be whatever class you do best with (and actually like playing) - the best earners are those you don't suck in, and actively want to play multiple times. e.g. I use my DDs a lot, as that's the class I suck least with, and I hardly play (say) my Alabama as I'm really not good at BBs. Read/watch multiple reviews (LWM - linked to from the wiki is a good start), to try and avoid buying too many turkeys (see previous point about needing things you want to play). Oh yes, take WG's marketing blurb with an enormous bucket of salt - they will try and persuade you that every premium is awesome, when this is not entirely the case.

I've posted this elsewhere: one potentially useful idea would be to allow players to cycle through the ranks several times; this was done with the recent(ish) Frontline mode in WOT, and worked rather well. You got different rewards for each run through - could be used to address the complaints about the relatively smaller rewards in this season of ranked (although, given it's only T5, I don't object to them at all personally).

Despite being horribly short of sleep, I managed to rank out yesterday evening - hadn't realised that means I can't now division with friends now though, which is a bit of a bugger. Infinitely more fun than the usual ranked meta - much fewer people trying to camp (although still a few, and we usually lost with them on our side), and a lot more positive play. I actually enjoyed ranked for a change! I like this new model; the only thing I would change is to perhaps take a leaf out of the Frontline mode in WOT i.e. allow people to cycle through the ranks three times, with new rewards each time (and a different badge at the end of each run through)... It'd probably be fun with T6 too - maybe next time?

I'm seeing them too. I think the site may have had a brain fart earlier today though: I couldn't paste images into posts either for a few minutes (back to normal now though)...

Cue: toccata and fugue on the theme of 'naming and shaming'...?

I don't see how - DDs are the only class where the impact of CE is unchanged; everything else becomes more visible, assuming ships' visibility values don't get tweaked at the same time...?

I don't object to this change at all, but I would say that, as I mainly play DDs! I imagine the more emotional BB players are going to have a meltdown though...

They aren't on sale yet, but were announced at the bottom of the article outlining the Halloween Ops: https://worldofwarships.eu/en/news/game-updates/halloween-scary-battles/

I've (stupidly?) bought six G8 crates, mainly to start the collection off (plus, the flags are useful); the Halloween ones look thoroughly uninspiring though, so they're a 'no' for me. My overall impression of crates is that they're generally getting less worthwhile (in value for money terms) over time, although with occasional positive 'blips' like last year's Xmas crates. The key thing that turns me off is not getting doubloons for stuff that you already have, but silver instead...

FWIW I have done on Cossack and Haida (both have similar defensive sonar); it's rather nice to be able to have hydro running for an entire engagement, and you aren't losing much by not having the standard slot 2 options (assuming your captain has LS)...

For the purposes of comparison, I'm seeing the following prices: 15 point Ovechkin: 38.50 GBP Tirpitz (T8 premium BB): 38.45 GBP I fear the WG price-setters may have been excessively taking advantage of the recent changes to the law in Canada...?

@bigbramble - here you go (from the link earlier):

The horribly expensive captain is dual-nation (so, works on US and Russian ships); there is a (presumably small) chance to win him in the crates. I think you can get the single nation ones via the mission chain, and by completing the collection (can't remember which one gets you which)... Edit: the single nation ones are 'only' ten-pointers though.

Had one go last night, and got very lucky with my team-mates - they all seemed to know what they were doing. I was the only DD; the others were split fairly evenly between cruisers and BBs, with the latter doing an excellent job against the catapults. Five star win straight off. Don't think I'll play the mode again though (unless lent on by division-mates) - you can't do the RN Ops missions, as it's only T3 (I can't believe WG have been *this* dumb)...

Ouch! 15-points or not, that's ridiculous (10 pointers usually seem to come in around a tenner)...

Ah, sorry - apologies!

I don't believe that's true; check out Wikipedia (noted source of 'reliable' information): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_battlecruisers_of_the_Royal_Navy Looks like a full tree of real ships is (more-or less) doable, and certainly with no more paper designs than, say, the US BBs...?

For me, it'll all depend on how the re-work plays out: at the moment, I don't really play carriers (despite owning several) as I'm pretty awful in them, and causing your team to lose isn't much fun - if the re-work makes the class playable for ordinary players, I'd love to get my hands on RN CVs... I'm not entirely pessimistic though: when WG re-worked arty in WOT, they ended up improving it (in my opinion), although the changes for that class were less drastic than those that appear to be in the pipeline for CVs.

I imagine there will be a premium shop update for tomorrow morning...?

+1 - all kinds of this. Since it encourages sensible(ish) purchasing, I'll be surprised if WG do it though! BTW thumbs up to @Nautical_Metaphor for doing the hard work - much appreciated.

Yes. For example (from the article the OP links to):

@Klopirat - many thanks!