Verblonde

As to capping, it's clearly very important, but timing matters a lot: as others have mentioned, you can get deaded very quickly if you cap too soon (these days, if relevant, I always ask people to focus the radar ships, if they have a chance - not that it does much good), whilst you lose if you leave it too late. Although not reliable, you can sometimes lure the enemy into a location of your choosing, by deliberately starting to cap early, so broadcasting your rough position indirectly (and then, hopefully, doing something horrible to whoever motors in to get you). The danger with admonishing people that they *must* do x, or y, is that they'll try and do it regardless of the tactical situation...

I'm not sure why WOWS doesn't more or less wholesale knock off the spotting xp rewards etc from WOT - it seems to work pretty well there (no CV equivalents, I suppose, but apart from that)... Spotting rewards should apply equally to whichever ship does the spotting, of course...

I think it varies with class/tier; I see DDs as having a matrix of aims and capabilities, and the main role of each one is determined by the detail of that matrix. For example, the 'classic' DD role is spot/cap, but that ignores the fact that at least some of them have pretty potent weapons that are at risk of being wasted if the perceived ship's role is too limited. Some examples: my (filthy) Asashio is utterly wasted if you aren't trying to sink BBs with those torps, as well as making full use of stealth to spot and cap; Feltcher is wasted if it isn't trying to tear said Asashio a new one with those glorious guns (so protecting friendly BBs), and it has torps to make all sorts of enemies seriously regret their life choices; Khaba is especially notable for being a non-standard DD (it's basically a naughty cruiser). Also, where you are in terms of relative tier also plays a role in determining what you should be doing - a T8 against T6s will behave very differently to a T8 against T10s (although that's hardly unique to DDs). I feel there is danger in prescribing an *exact* role to a ship purely on grounds of class (to switch games, anyone want to try and play as a classic medium tank in a Matilda?); more sensible to equip players with a range of desirable activities, and hope they have the knowledge and map awareness to pick sensible ones. The rewards from the game should be tailored to reflect this though i.e. more rewards for spotting/capping.

I disagree with the notion that a BB's primary target should always be the enemy BBs; I would suggest it should be a lot more nuanced than that, depending on team make-up. For example, if you have a couple of stealthy torp DDs on your side, they can wreak havoc with the enemy BBs (not to mention doing their spotting and capping things), but only if the cruisers (radar ones especially) are kept at bay (ideally, sunk). I would argue that, early game, a BB should take every reasonable opportunity to blap cruisers, rather than BBs. That, of course, assumes the BBs in question haven't run for the map borders (from where they'll struggle to hit much that's smaller than a BB).

Nah - I paid actual money for her! I'm a filthy kinky piece of trash... (She's actually rather good fun to play, and a really good credit earner - Daddy needs a new Gearing)

Hello again, @Nautical_Metaphor! Oh well, at least I managed to bag the Musashi...

The whole 'you can repeat missions' thing is one of the top three most useful things I learned from the forum...

@Semej - bear in mind you're very new to the game (fewer than 100 battles at time of writing); I only mention this as it means that very small data sets will have a disproportionate impact on your experience (a mere five battles will be a whole twentieth of your total battle count, and more than that of your random battle count). As others have said, being in a clan means nothing (*I'm* in a clan, and I suck!); what you really need to fear is the occasional seal-clubber who's dropped down to T3-4 for some relaxation - they're the real threat, and you should be safe from them for a little longer as very new players get a protected pool of match-making with similarly new players (I think - it may not work when server numbers are low). Skill-based MM isn't really practical; every so often WG explain why, plus a quick search of this forum will throw up several threads doing the same job. Basically, we're stuck with what we have vis-a-vis player skill and MM. To return to my original point, over time, you'll be on each side of such match-ups roughly equally (some times you're the bug, sometimes you're the windscreen); when you're very new though, the weirder MM will loom larger in your perception. Most of the time, and when you get a bit better, you'll *usually* find that the mis-match of skill levels is (overall) at least tolerable. The most useful thing you can do in the meantime is get to a decent standard of play as quickly as you can - this will rapidly mitigate at least some of the scarier players on the opposite side. So, do the usual stuff - read the wiki (http://wiki.wargaming.net/en/World_of_Warships), both the mechanics sections, and ships; watch YouTube videos (maybe start with iChase's captains academy: https://www.youtube.com/user/ichasegaming); stay at lower tiers (no higher than 4 - higher and you lose protected MM); try and make friends with people (join a clan, preferably one with a focus on teaching, at this stage) - someone kindly offered to play with you earlier; take them up on it. Finally, locate the 'newcomers' section of this forum, and keep asking questions (questions, not "x is broken - the game needs changing", as that will just get you laughed at). We were all new once, and most people on this forum are happy to help, but sometimes are a little short on sympathy for people with very low battle counts who profess to know everything...

It's not just you: I did almost the same thing, only I skipped the T9 entirely! My (not very) good excuse was that I needed a T10 for CW, and I rather enjoyed the pre-buff Groz as a rental a season or so ago; as you say, the T9 looks thoroughly uninspiring... I'll probably force myself to go back and try the thing at some point, but not until I've run out of other more promising things to play (currently Feltcher, for example).

You're probably right - I was overcome by a moment of delusional optimism. <slaps self around back of head> Much better now...

Got to 15 in a handful of battles (I finished last season at 14); haven't played much since - I'm not really good enough for T10 Ranked, and the mode is spectacularly frustrating. I don't know what the solution to the problem with Ranked is, but my (very) ill-informed suggestion would be to at least look at a way of gaining/losing ranks that was based on in-game performance, rather than simple wins and losses; as it stands, the best that a god-level performance can give a player if their team-mates are all me-level players (say) is to not lose a star - my view is that a pi$$-poor performance should always contribute to you losing a rank, and a great one should always contribute to gaining a rank (regardless of whether you win or lose). Whilst I understand the ideal of cooperative endeavour, let's be realistic - it simply doesn't happen enough in Ranked to be the basis of gaining/losing ranks.

For me, far too soon to tell. I do know that something needed doing though: at the moment, CV play is a sub-par RTS game, with very strong disincentives to play if you aren't already unicum standard with CVs. Even if, overall, the rework results in something that's no better or worse than what we have currently, at least everyone will be starting from the same place, so (initially, anyway) in theory the hideous imbalance between experienced CV players and everyone else will be removed...

I don't disapprove of almost forcing people to watch the videos, especially when (like the OP, if that's your only account) they only have a couple of hundred battles. WOWS isn't like a typical shooter that you can just pick up and play; you will get your a$$ handed to you repeatedly if you don't take the time to learn the mechanics properly...

Everything in Blitz does (I think)... <epic tantrum in manner of my niece when she was two>

That's what I do almost exclusively now myself too (my original note was almost a year ago now!)...

The consumables aren't really directly comparable (not all DDs get smoke for example); everything gets DC and RP (at least, so far, but I have nothing above T6 yet - I only really dabble with Blitz when I'm away from my home PC). They've also given Sirius Smoke Generator I, and Air Defence Alert II (the latter is essentially like DefAA)...

I had a crash just like that last night (might well have lost the game I was in at the time), and one more about a week ago. It may be something in the current version - the game is usually pretty stable for me.

Difficult to pick just one. I have a soft-spot for the pre-dreadnought era cruisers, with the ramming bows and lots of funnels - kind of a fun steampunk look to some of them. One can't argue with the pretties of things like Hood, GC, and Shinyhorse etc. - who doesn't love a nice clipper bow? Has anyone mentioned the Tribal class yet (so, Haida at the moment) - they're very pretty...

Truly spectacular torpedo beats by @Ze_Reckless a few moments ago!

I'm not holding my breath, I must admit. This here illustrates (IMO) one of the bigger problems WG face - no bugger trusts them, with pretty good reason, if you've been around for a while (in WOT to start with, in my case) - they've dropped far too many proverbial bollocks. Oh well, we may be pleasantly surprised; I do think WG have been better lately (well, on WOWS they have, not sure about WOT), and they may take the opportunity to rebuild some of that lost trust. Just call me Walter Mitty...

I love the torps on Smith - rapid-fire(ish) singles are great fun. I gave mine a run-out the other week whilst introducing someone new to the game...

I'm not going to get my knickers in a twist over this - life's far too short. If WG wanted to make a sack-load of cash however, it would have been sensible to open it to everyone; I suspect rather a lot of us would have said "f*ckit!" and bought something (if worried about too much 'cost', even though pixels are essentially free once created, put a cap on the thing). What I definitely would have done is reminded everyone else that there is (apparently) something fun coming later in the month for us!

Whilst I'll probably have to hand back my UK passport for saying this, the Hood one doesn't horrify me utterly...

Most of them! The exceptions tend to be anything I particularly hated and/or where an equivalent premium is significantly better/more fun than the silver version e.g. I ditched Omaha, for Marblehead... I do have a few that I kept 'just in case' ('mothballs'?), but they don't have captains in them, because I needed said captains in next tier up ships.

I bagged the MarbleheadL - I quite like the original, and it's an extra daily xp bonus for training captains (when I force myself to try and learn to suck slightly less in cruisers)... Grabbed the DDs too - slightly reduced port slots and all that.