Verblonde

Very true, but it's a bit too 'made up' for some tastes, perhaps?

Randoms: 1,852 Most played: Harekaze, Asashio, and Loyang (167, 103, and 67, respectively) Ships played: 143 Average games per ship: 12.95 Hmmmm, I appear to be a bit of an airhead (as well as whatever glaring character flaws are exposed by 103 games in Asashio)...

I'm at the stage of mostly getting duplicates too now; that said, I'm not too worried about not completing the collection - the ability to change camo schemes is rather limited; unlike the IJN equivalent, it doesn't work on permanent camo, rather reducing its usefulness to me. That's unless I've missed a patch somewhere...?

It's something glorious like that. I think the earlier argument was that the points you spend on TA could be spent on something that has a more beneficial effect, given that the unmodified torps are pretty fierce already. For me (a potato), the extra speed and reduced reaction time are worth it, but that may well not be the case if/when I suck less to a sufficient degree to need them less...

I imagine you're absolutely right; most likely, I'll change my set-up when I suck a bit less...! At the moment, I need all the help I can get.

There may be an element of wishful thinking in some quarters? As long as Asashio is in the shop, it could be argued that it reduces WG's motivation to gives us a 'proper' T8 premium IJN DD?

I might advance a cautious disagreement on the first part, but I do have a specialised captain for my Asashio; given how vulnerable you are to most things once you're spotted, the extra torp speed further increases your chances of a hit (now that everyone knows what the ship can do, torps spammed from 20 km don't often hit, unlike in the very early days of release), and reduces the time delay before you know what impact your initial torps have had prior to launching the second set (assuming TRB use). For a potato, your key job is (in my view) to do as much damage to enemy BBs is quickly as you can, so taking their guns out of the game as early as possible (and before you get blapped yourself), and hopefully giving your side's BBs and cruisers as clear a run as possible. Before the radar frenzy, I would have said you should be trying to cap too, with that glorious stealth, but trying that now tends to get you exploded. Obviously, you should be trying to keep as much stuff in sight as possible too, but if you want to influence the game (and aren't that good, so likely to die before the end game i.e. me) you have to tear some major chunks out of the enemy BBs as soon as possible. Overall, what (sort of) works for me is pulses of offensive action aimed at enemy BBs, interspersed with periods of conventional spotting (and capping, if no threatening radar) whilst the TRB cools down. Both parts are necessary, and a bit incompatible with each other; you can spend (marginally) more time doing the 'eating your greens' DD stuff, with TA selected.

It might be a giggle to take out one's gunboat DDs if there are...?

Something to be said for Asashio: if you have any French (extra credits) camo lying around, you can make a lot of silver very quickly (if the enemy BBs cooperate)...

How on earth do you get such a low xp count? Even at my most dreadful (which is, frankly, pretty dreadful), I don't think I've got close to that...?

Magnificence! I salute you!

As others have said, lower tier Ops could be great fun - dreadnoughts, and the hilarious multi-gun cruisers around T2-4. With regard to PvP campaigns at those tiers, I tend to agree with the sentiment that it would attract too many seal-clubbers; I suppose you could mitigate it by making only players with fewer than x battles only eligible, and everyone with more not? At what point does one become unfairly experienced at those sorts of tier? 250-500 battles, perhaps?

I'm still trying to get my tuberous head around how to most effectively play Haida, but she's already great fun. I love the absurdity of getting multiple secondary hits with a DD! One thing that is giving me a bit of trouble is judging when to start using creeping smoke - given that many (most?) battles seem to involve most of one's team-mates applying the Brave Sir Robin Stratagem, the moment one plays the smoke card, whatever you're trying to shoot at is lost sight of (your hydro is very short-ranged, after all). Haida does seem to work particularly well in cooperation with another ship. One other minor plus: after playing with Haida, the last couple of games with Perth have been a bit less dreadful than usual...

I suppose one must (grudgingly) give WG points for referencing the Art Deco eagles on the Chrysler building...?

Many thanks!

Probably a stupid question - I'm relatively new: does this addition essentially enable you to (roughly) know where on the map your shells will land, and adjust aim accordingly? That could be *really* useful against a lesser-to-average player...?

Excellent form - many thanks!

I feel @Riselotte may be being a *little* harsh on Asashio, but I would absolutely agree that both Kidd and Loyang are far better choices if you want to play a rounded DD, and not something very specialised. (Yes, I know I have more games in Asashio than Kidd and Loyang combined, but I'm a bad person and like nuking BBs now and again)

A somewhat tuberous perspective: I have both, and like both, but they are very different. Loyang is glorious in Ranked, although its impact has lessened a bit lately, as everyone knows about her now. That said, the combination of fierce hydro and creeping smoke is still very powerful, especially if you're running the 'magic hydro' upgrade. Radar is another 'but' with Loyang - there's lots of it about at the moment, and it largely renders your key weapons a bit moot whilst it's active. You also have two torp choices, which is nice. Kidd is pretty good, and her survivability is ridiculous for a DD - I got my first ever Dreadnought thingy playing Kidd (in Ranked)! As (I think) the reviews tend to say, Kidd does rather depend on your team's ability to capitalise on things that you spot etc, as her reduced torps etc. lower her potential raw damage output on her own. As others have said, the insane AA is magnificent if you happen to run into a CV, but that doesn't happen very often. I'm still trying to adjust to the big spike in T10 ships that you seem to get at the moment playing T8 (presumably, due to people grinding the new heroic upgrades, or whatever they're called); I suspect that Loyang may be slightly better in this context, but better players may well disagree (Kidd's healing potion is really nice, provided the damage you take is healable)...

I'd be surprised if cruiser levels stay as high as they are longer-term, but it seems likely that they may settle back to a higher level than the previous 'only one or two per team' that we used to see..?

BTW I'm not sure that cruisers having a bit of a 'moment' is necessarily a Bad Thing - until recently, I got the impression almost no-one was playing them, which was widely viewed as a Bad Thing...?

I wonder if there is anything in the notion of tweaking the xp/silver rewards gained for damage in some way, such that they increase as range to target decreases? Not sure how the formula would work, and it would need to be capped, as well as not being a ridiculous increase, but that might discourage hiding at the back and lobbing shells at extreme range...? I gather the Russian server is keen on brawling, so they might go for it...

You're probably right - I need all the help I can get though...!

If you haven't already, suggest applying the hydro upgrade (via the arsenal, if you don't have one spare) - gives you a lot of hydro run-time, which makes the lobbing-torps-into-smoke counter easier to avoid...

Whilst one has to tip one's hat to the cave rescue folk (speaking as a recovering potholer, they are amongst the gnarliest people under the known sky), this really should be in the 'off-topic' section. Presumably, a mod will be along presently to move it...