Verblonde

11K games in the T67 - now, that's just pure filth! You'll go blind... (That said, you're doing a bit of a public service there, despite being a kinky piece of trash - good T67 play provides impetus for people to learn the basics of vision mechanics)

Don't worry about this - whilst it's nice to have lots of those shiny red ribbons at the end of the game, it's not the be-all and end-all. Recall that much of your reward from a game comes from how much damage you did to a target, as a proportion of its total; so, (I think) you'll get more reward for doing 1000 hp of damage to an 1100 total hp target, than for finishing off something with, say, only 100 hp left. Whilst it's good to remove enemy guns from the game i.e. get kills (especially if the buggers have the ability to heal e.g. UK BB 'zombie heal' especially), it can sometimes be a waste of an enormous alpha strike, if the foe is almost dead, and there is someone else to finish them off. Knowing when to do which comes with experience (it can be one of those times when the IJN DD guns are actually useful too). Short version: get kills if you can, but don't stress about it if someone else finishes a target off for you.

If you're keen on torps, it might be worth having a look at the IJN DD lines (and possibly their cruisers too, as they get rather good torps as well): they're mostly all about the torps, and being sneaky (even a lot of the 'gun' branch - one of my favourites is the T7 'gun' DD, with TRB rather than smoke). The idea with those is generally to use your superior stealth (make sure your mini map is set up to show your spotting distances) to get to within torpedo range, and then unleash a wall of skill at the enemy. Bear in mind that because BB players are notorious crybabies, the IJN torps generally have large spotting distances i.e. your target gets quite a lot of warning that they're coming, so you have to be judicious with your launches. Whilst all ships benefit from having a good captain, the sneaky IJN DDs are especially helped by having a 10 point captain at least - CE (concealment expert) is pretty much required for stealthy play; many of your opponents will have it, putting you at a disadvantage if you haven't. If you're playing sneaky, it is often a good idea to avoid firing your guns (and, if your AA guns out-range your air spotting distance, hit p to deactivate them) unless you absolutely have to, or are guaranteed a quick kill, as firing causes your visibility distance to bloom heroically. Torps don't do this, which is another point in their favour. That said, don't disregard guns altogether when playing IJN DDs - they get a lot less dreadful higher up the tiers (and especially with the gun branch), plus there are plenty of other DDs from other nations where guns are either part, or almost all of what you're about, so you hamper yourself if you don't learn to shoot. Also, don't forget how DoT effects and Damage Control intersect i.e. if you can cause flooding, say, whilst your target's DC is on cooldown, you will do a lot of damage over time, and possibly even sink him. So what? So, if you can start a few fires before someone gets torped, they may pop DC, so giving you a window to do flooding damage (although don't forget the period of immunity to DoT effects, and also remarks above about visibility bloom). Whilst I understand that BBs (in general) smell, and their mothers dress them funny, don't disregard them altogether: there are some splendidly fun ones out there for the discerning torp enthusiast. When you get the hang of middle, and then higher tiers, there are a couple of IJN BBs with torps (although they are arguably a complete liability in at least one case), plus the Shinyhorse and Tirpitz premiums are glorious (just don't get them until you know what you're doing), not to mention Gneis in the silver tree. Returning to DDs for a moment: it might be worth giving the KM line a punt - they're a good 'hybrid' line; you still have useful torps, but the guns are more important than with the bulk of the IJN ships, and they're only 'average' levels of stealthy i.e. they force you to learn new stuff, compared to the IJN ones, so increasing your versatility as a player - this is a good thing also.

Vaseline jokes aside, isn't life far too short to get excitable about this sort of thing? Cheer up: all of the (far too many) premium ships I have will almost certainly get sold for rather less money/doubloons than I paid for them at some point, if they haven't been already - the 'stuff on sale' analogy above still applies. I'll have had lots of fun playing them in the meantime though...

There are probably several factors at work (in no particular order): First, you are still very inexperienced (193 battles at time of writing, 62 of them in randoms), so you are going to make mistakes, and against real people they will often be punished. The V-170 is Tier 4, so you're still getting protected MM (+1 tier opponents at worst), but you are starting to get into the tiers where established players start to lurk; such players will often have superior captains, which will make your job harder. It looks like a number of your ships have only been played in coop mode (for example, the only US ship showing against your stats for randoms is the T3 BB - none of the earlier ones); for the really low tier ones, it doesn't matter, but I would suggest playing more battles against real people at low tiers, mainly to get used to the differences between bots and real people. Bots play more predictably than real people, for example, and they always know where you are. As a noted philosopher once wrote: "Good against remotes bots is one thing. Good against the living, that's something else." Have a look at a selection of 'how to play' videos on YouTube (iChase is often suggested as a starting point), and check that you haven't missed something (make sure your aiming sights are set up right etc.). I would also urge playing all the classes (except CVs), for several nations (IJN, US, KM, say, at least - maybe more); this will give you a better idea of how they all work, so allowing you to prevent them from doing to you (in your DD) whatever it is that keeps getting you sunk. Basically, it's all about reading/watching, learning, and practicing at this stage. Stay at low tiers (maximum of IV - protected MM) until you are winning consistently (or are about to chew your own arm off with frustration), and then start moving up the tiers. This 'apprenticeship' will stand you in good stead for the scarier tiers; if any one ship/line gets boring, switch to another, to keep things fresh. Remember: the aim of the game is not to get to T10 as quickly as possible; from a pragmatic standpoint, you probably are best served staying at T4 as long as you can stand, and then aim for around T6 - this is the point where you can qualify for most missions and whatnot (although you will start to have to face radars, which are a bugger for a DD driver), plus it's a reasonably balanced tier for the most part. Keep asking questions on here too: loads of people are happy to help newer players.

It does? Yuk! Didn't know that. Anyone who uses it: I hope your willy catches fire, and drops off, setting your trousers on fire in the process...!

Everyone else has covered off the expansion on the 'no' answer splendidly; as to the point of accumulating xp on an elited ship, if you are unable to spend doubloons on conversion, their main 'point' might be that they contribute to earning daily containers, and doing 'xp' missions. I have to admit, I quite regularly wish there was an equivalent to the WOT tick-box - I have lots of captains, and being able to accelerate their training with ship xp would be really nice. Oh well...

I'd like to see some/all of the Battle of the River Plate ships in game, some version of HMS Cavalier, and maybe even HMS Caroline (for the history).

To return to the original point though: there is nothing wrong with TX; I like TX - as others have said, it seems to be pretty well balanced, and (with perma cammo, and premium account etc.) I usually make a solid profit each game. The key thing is that variety is even better; having TX events being almost the only game in town gets wearing. I shouldn't think too many people would advocate ditching TX events entirely; I would just like a bit of variety now and again. In the specific case of Ranked, one option might be to run T6, T8, and T10 as you move up the ranks, and give old lags the option not to go to their higher rank (based on last season's performance), but start again from the bottom if they wanted to. That might be a worthwhile compromise: if you don't want to mess about at lower tiers, you don't have to, but if you fancy giving T6 a spin, you would have the option.

Easy: I've been playing as many different things as possible, with a view to understanding as many of the classes as possible, before advancing. I was kind of hoping it might result in my sucking marginally less in the process, but that part is very much still a work in progress...!

I don't know that this will be the case: this is the third (?) thing in a row that essentially required T10, so quite a few less competent players will have made sure they have a T10 by now. For example, if it wasn't for CW, and Ranked, I would probably still be strolling through T9; I'd be surprised if at least a few others aren't in a similar situation...

I use my (only two) T10s as silver grinders - with the perma cammo (and judicious flag use), they're usually very profitable - even for a complete spud like me. Presumably, WG are hoping other less capable players work this out too, and spend to get there. Sucks for the better players though: even more people like me at T10...

Might I draw this to sir's attention:

Whilst I don't mind T10-only events as such (Grozo is one of my favourite ships at any tier), I agree that it shouldn't be *all the time*. To me, this looks like a rather undignified attempt by WG to cash in, by persuading people to spend real money to rush up to T10 faster than they should... I was quietly hoping that Ranked would shift to a wider spread of tiers (6-8-10, or something), to give newer players something fun to do at middle tiers, at least at the lower ranks. Having the top league be T5 really doesn't cut it for me - most people will be fed to the back teeth with Ranked by the time they get there, I would imagine...?

Happy that they're introducing the ability to get stuff from last year's collection, for those of us too new to have completed it at the time - very sporting!

OP: I feel your pain - I've been getting Cursed MM in my T-61 so far (only 8 games so far, at time of writing though); it must be the undead cheese that got unearthed the other day... From my perspective, what took some getting used to was the meh stealth - lately, I've been playing some very sneaky DDs, and the T-61 is merely okay in that regard (assuming a CE captain); this takes a bit of adjusting to.

The only non-idiotic explanation that I can think of is to avoid annoying people who might potentially buy them, and not convert the tokens into useful stuff soon enough, and get silver instead. I think I recall that unused token get converted automatically at some point...?

No need: I play WOWS on the EU server, WOT on both the NA and EU servers, WOT Blitz on NA and EU servers, and WOWS Blitz - all of them are run off the same email address...

These are very wise words. @robijn17 you'll have already noticed that MM got nastier when you hit T5 (T4 and lower only see +1 tier ships; at T5, it changes to +2). There is a lot to be said for playing several different nations/classes up to T4, just to get a sense of how they all work; you won't get a huge sense of each nation's flavour at lower tiers, but it will help with things like refining map awareness, aiming etc. Once you've got that down, I'd suggest pushing a few lines to T5, and beyond; a slower advance up the tiers will obviously take longer, but you'll become a better player as a result. Bear in mind: the 'point' of the game is not to get to T10 as quickly as possible; whilst there are a couple of game modes that require high tier ships, there is still a huge amount to do at mid tiers, so take your time...

xvm is a plague in WOT - too many people place far too much faith in stats, and the effect on the game is detrimental. The lack of xvm (or similar) in WOWS is, in my view, a major plus for the game! As to the OP: if you run away blubbing in the face of every seal-clubber, you'll never learn a damn thing; develop some minerals, and play the game - sure, you may get a tonking the first couple of times, but so long as you learn from the experience, you'll be returning the favour in fairly short order. If you get blown up early, follow one or other of your team-mates; watch what they do, and you may learn something useful which will help you in future battles...

Only had time for a few games in mine over the weekend; it seems to be rather fun, despite my getting Cursed MM (I think I got up-tiered all but one game!). I don't know if it's confirmation bias, but it looks like it behaves pretty much like the reviews said: firepower not great, but you can put an awful lot of it out there, which mitigates that (torps especially, obviously); handling typical KM DD; stealth okay, but 'no great'. I blew some coal on a magic hydro upgrade, which is rather nice to have on there too. Either - they're both fun (based on fairly limited use so far). I would say Haida is more interesting (but then, I'm biased) - with the creeping smoke (and gloriously ridiculous secondaries), and single fire torps, she plays rather differently to most other things; the KM destroyers (to my potato eyes) seem like shinier versions of the silver ones i.e. they're fun, bit not that different to existing stuff.

Plenty of coal earned, which is splendid; no complaints here!

It strikes me that it would be in WG's interests to make the change the OP is suggesting: they would simply sell more premiums if RN and Commonwealth captains were interchangeable! I don't know how representative we forum folk are, but I've seen several people in the past express the view that they won't buy one or other of the 'oddball' premiums because they aren't of use for training captains (anything Commonwealth, 9dJ, Blysk, even the Italians to a degree etc.)

I didn't know about all this - thanks all!

I'm running it on an old(ish) iPad; I haven't checked, but if it's like the Blitz version of WOT, you should be able to run it on a PC too (although on WOT Blitz, the PC version was launched rather later than the mobile version). Your profile isn't interchangeable though i.e. you will have start again from scratch on Blitz.