Verblonde

Wasn't Kutuzov taken off sale for being OP (admittedly, before the smoke nerf)? That said, there aren't too many newbies (beside people like me who got them in Xmas crates etc) with those as a result - shouldn't that result in a bit of a positive pressure on the thing's WR? One also wonders what the Loyang WR might look like if idiots like me were removed from the figures...!

Isn't Scharnhorst a T7 (so not eligible)?

OP: FWIW if you have the slightest tendency towards being a collector (defined as keeping almost any silver ship ever), you will always need more captains, almost regardless of where you are in the grind... That said, i wouldn't get too upset if you don't manage to bag this one - there will be others along in the future (plus, you can bag one or two from Operations, although they recently got a lot harder).

Harekaze and Graf Spee? Yup! Perhaps I should have said 'extra captains'...

Never said otherwise! However, it's certainly possible to be over-enthusiastic, like it is with almost anything. Round here, it does rather seem that a lot of folk exist at extreme ends of the 'anime spectrum' i.e. either hate it, or love it - my original point was that I'm neither (although a couple of Japanese cartoons are in my all-time top ten animations list), hence I *did* only buy the HSF captains for their points...!

Sense 5 of the latter was the usage I was going for: An addict or fanatic. To me, aficionado is more suggestive of an informed/cultured appreciation of something...

Dunno - I just meant it in the sense of 'excessively enthusiastic'...

Both. I'm not an anime fiend, but it doesn't annoy me excessively, so I picked up a couple of the HSF captains the last time they were available; I'll probably bag a couple of the current set as well (once I've worked out which I'm likely to need soon). This is where I come a cropper - I haven't been playing long enough (or enough with single captains) to get any nineteens yet; I think my highest is 14 or 15 points, from memory. Once I get a few nineteens, I imagine things'll get much easier. Re: 2 - I suck, so need all the help I can get (even in Lo Yang etc); that extra sliver of stealth, with CE, has saved my [edited]numerous times...

For me, it comes down to time, and how much of it I have spare (usually, not enough): I'll cheerfully(ish) pay a tenner to eliminate having to grind a captain up to the ten point level. That's especially true for a ship where stealth is a significant consideration.

Absolutely - the more interesting stuff in the game, the better!

I have to admit I was trying to filter out most of the chat gibberish, as soon as it became apparent that much of our team didn't seem terribly keen on shooting at the opposing side. When a game starts heading in that direction, I tend to just try and stay alive, and maybe land a few shots of my own before the inevitable calamity! Still, the cat and mouse on our flank was quite fun, even if I did end up getting horribly exploded by the better player.

You're too kind; alas, I didn't do more damage - that Bismark knew his business in terms of dodging torps... Well played, sir!

Isn't it the very toppest league, after you reach Rank 1?

Although, as a potato, it would probably kick me in the teeth, I agree with this general sentiment. I might make it top 4-5, or maybe 6 of the winning team though...

OP: if you haven't already found this stuff: There's a little cogwheel icon top right of your mini-map: if you hold ctrl and click it, you'll get the option to display things like air detection range, and AA gun range on your mini-map - you may find this helps. If you press and hold H in game, your ship's essential stats pop up - if your longest AA range is smaller than your AA detection range, you may as well leave AA switched on; if the reverse is true, you *may* want to switch it off (mainly if you're a DD). If you're running DefAA (US DDs especially), activating that automatically turns your AA guns back on with a single click/key-press. If you reactivate your AA guns, don't forget to switch them off again after they're no longer needed (I'm prone to forgetting). Besides that, what others have already said.

Good show, OP - excellent form!

As an addendum, the thought occurs that people may be less prepared to put up with the frustration, now that the mode is no longer shiny + new; in the past, they might have been willing to just keep grinding - perhaps no longer, at least not to the same degree...?

From my perspective, it's a mixture of factors. Fundamentally, I'm just not good enough though! To get from 15 to 10 (my current situation) realistically requires far too many wins in a row, and I'm not good enough to carry if my team-mates are even worse than I am. Oh well, I'll just have to git gud for next season...

One suggestion apropos narrow/wide spread torps that I was given on here and I've found useful occasionally: if you're reasonably confident of a target's course, you can fire two spreads of torps - the first narrow, exactly where you think the target will be when they arrive; the second, wide, ditto. The idea is that the target will react when it detects the first lot, and an increase/decrease in speed (or a turn) may take it into the path of at least one of the wide spread. It's obviously better to get all your torps on target, but this method is helpful if even one hit will do some good... Edit: another occasion where wide might be sensible (another suggestion from here) is where you fire two wide spreads in the same direction, slightly offsetting them so that the torps in the second spread are in the gaps between the first spread. This covers a similar overall arc to two narrow spreads fired adjacent to each other; the difference is that with the two narrow spreads, the torps are roughly in one line, whilst with the two wide spreads, they are two lines one behind the other. This won't work much of the time (too easy for a good player to dodge), but as an occasional thing, it can be worth a try. Something else I've been told, that seems to be useful: if you think an opponent is any good, try not to use the same methodology all the time when trying to zap them with torps - the good players tend to remember what you tried the last time, and will be expecting it if you try it again soon after...

I think I played that - I seem to remember a lot of US subs? Gato class etc? That was a great game... (another old git) Edit: I think it was Silent Service II?

I'm another who thinks that adding subs would bugger up gameplay. You'd probably be looking at something along the following lines: Smaller than DD, with very low hp total. Very slow under water (and pretty slow on the surface, by the standards we're used to). Forward firing torps mostly (smallish arc), with a couple of rearward firing tubes in some cases (again, narrow arc). Single (weak) gun that only fires on the surface (well, duh!). Counters would be depth charges (you'd have to more or less drive right over the thing), hydro (which would need to become more widespread), and ramming. I can't imagine why anyone would want to play subs within the current gameplay layout - too slow, boring, and not able to do much for 90% of the battle; they would also make the game more annoying for everyone else, who would have to waste time messing about sinking the things. So, all kinds of 'nope'...

No idea what you wrote either - skiving between spreadsheets! You get a +1 for a splendid avatar picture though - ermine, if I'm not mistaken?

The whole 'is Asashio the work of Satan or not' thing has been done to death elsewhere; on the subject of turning all the IJN DD torps into BB-only monsters - hells, no! I agree - it would make them largely unplayable, with the *possible* exceptions of the gunboats (both existing and proposed). I'd be very surprised if WG implemented Asashio torps for all IJN DDs though - the BB player freakout would be visible from distant galaxies, and cost them too much money (why buy another premium BB ever again?)! I don't have a problem with Asashio (well, I would say that), but only as an isolated oddball, not as a template for lots of future ships...

Fair play - 100% WR, even over only a (baker's) dozen battles, is still pretty impressive/unlikely...

OP: as another WOT -> WOWS transfer, I would suggest avoiding trying to play WOWS as a soggy version of WOT - despite them both being from WG, and having some similarities in terms of the 'garage' screen, and general approach to tech trees, and advancement etc, they are (as I suspect you're already discovering) almost completely different. I still play both, and don't think either is better than the other (sorry!); they both have strong points, and weak points, but understanding one is not the same as understanding the other; you'll probably find you'll suck at one if you start playing it immediately after a session with the other too, as the way they play isn't even similar. Short version: you are basically back to square one (more or less), although you probably have a better handle on leading targets than the average WOWS newbie, assuming you've played one or other of the derps in WOT (KV-2, Shermans with 105 mm howitzer etc - anything with a slow shell, basically), plus you should already have the basic idea behind angling (side-scraping etc, but usually with less terrain to hide behind). In terms of concrete steps you can take: rather than demanding the game be changed (it won't be), adapt to it, and you'll enjoy its nuances/differences; the learning curve is steep, even if you're already good at WOT. Read the wiki, end-to-end; play coop mode (although understand what works there won't necessarily work against real people), especially if you have stock ships; play as many classes/nations as possible (except CVs) - the potential variety is enormous. Rather than demanding changes, I also suggest asking questions on here: there are loads of very helpful folk here (and the odd person who could be described as, erm, less so), who are willing to answer all manner of questions...