Verblonde

FWIW I *think* WOT Ranked only allows standard silver tanks (my M60 that I got for bonds was certainly not eligible for the last edition). I wouldn't object to an 'available now only' rule for WOWS Ranked, whatever the tier (much as I like playing Smaland)... See above, but that's easy for me to say - I suck in Belfast; I seem to be about the only player who's a liability playing her...!

This is a very good point; why not go with: Bronze = T8, Silver = T9, and Gold = T10? For me, the key thing is variety (hence my not being that keen on endless T10); I have all of the 'notorious' T7 premiums, but it's not like there aren't other things to do with them...

I can't see your stats, so can't offer informed advice; I'm also spectacularly biased in favour of DDs. With that said: 'DD-hunter' DDs can be ludicrously profitable, if you know what you're doing e.g. Cossack is excellent, as are Lo Yang and Kidd. Orkan is worthwhile too, but you really need your 'smokeless DD' kung fu to be properly developed. To rack up the earnings, you do need to get good at hunting and killing opposing DDs; this can be lots of fun, but is also high risk. Not all DDs are good at hunting their own kind e.g. Asashio is a monster against BBs, but pretty hopeless against smaller targets; she can be a great earner, but you need to consistently get Dev Strikes against BBs for this to be the case. Furthermore, there are - broadly speaking - two major types of DDs: sneaky bar-stewards, and 'stealth is for wimps'; they both play very differently, and it's worth playing silver analogues to work out where you prefer to play, on the spectrum between the extremes, before you spend any money.

+1 to this. For a start, the engine boost is extremely helpful - in Coop (particularly), speed is essential for maximising returns per battle. I'm another convert from WOT; I've found (for me, anyway) that the sorts of ships I like in WOWS tend not to bear much resemblance to the AFVs I get on with in WOT. For example, I tend to play a lot of heavies in WOT, yet find BBs really rather tedious in boats; my 'main' in WOWS (against real people anyway) is DDs by quite a large margin. BTW as a general point that may or may not be relevant: newer premiums can (in theory - only one has so far, that I can think of) be directly nerfed, whereas older ones can't. In practical terms, it doesn't make much difference, but it's perhaps worth being aware of.

To get a sense of comparative profitability, have a look at this: If you aren't already familiar, it's worth reading the 'economy' section of the Wiki: https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Economy The crucial point is that the key driver of income is *relative* damage, rather than absolute damage i.e. you're interested in the percentage of an opponent's hp that you remove, not the absolute number of hp (at least as far as silver earnings are concerned). So, 1,000 hp of damage done to a DD will be rewarded more than doing exactly the same damage to something tubby like a BB. So, in terms of credit income, perhaps think along the following lines: First, are you running premium account? If not, that's probably the single most effective thing you can spend money on in the game (in terms of earnings). After that, for maximum silver income, you want something that you can reliably do lots of relative damage with, and - possibly - inform your pick based on the comparative profitability graphic above. You also want something that is fun to play; if you buy a premium for silver grinding, you want something you can thrash the nuts off, and not get bored with. Importantly, don't forget that you can get a bunch of ludicrously profitable (and fun) ships for free via things like Coal (and Steel/RP if you have access to them), plus occasional missions. If you haven't used them yet, don't forget about the coupons in the Armory [sic]; they lop a quarter off the doubloon/coal/steel price of one ship; they get renewed every six months (I think).

T7 brawls are 2v2 (I couldn't remember what the news story said)? In the past, small teams have tended to mitigate against DDs somewhat... I'll probably start off with Z-39 (and maybe Haida, although only one torp launcher isn't great in a - probably - BB-heavy environment), and if that doesn't work, probably reach for Scharn, or maybe Prinz Heinrich (I'd prefer the former, as I have a better captain available, and the economy is better).

I'll be quite glad to see tiers other than X in the next season of Ranked: As a bare minimum, it'll mean no superships in the hands of people who don't have any other eligible ships; over the weekend, I lost count of the games I was in where one side or the other was knackered by such folk. It provides variety, after an extended period thrashing the nuts off T10. Possibly delusionally, I'd hope that lower tiers might increase the chances of more players vaguely knowing what they're doing in whatever ship they play. Of course, there are down-sides, many of them relating to old lags in things like Belfast and so on; my feeling is that this may be an over-stated problem though, as the bulk of these players should rank out fairly quickly (or stop playing, having bagged the rewards).

Given the timelines involved in the currencies under discussions, you can probably knock off the RN DD line before you need to make any sort of decision on what to get next (plus +1 to @Hirohito's point about being plenty good enough in DDs already). Of course, Stalin is for Steel and Vampire II is for RP, so...

Not sure about wisdom, but of those three, I'd pick Vampire II in a heartbeat: She's a very capable DD in competent hands: sneakier Daring, without the heal, and minus a torp launcher, but she gets creeping smoke, and 'full' hydro (with coal mods, their run time is pretty much in synch). Very effective DD-killer, but slightly less good against fatties due to the lack of alpha, although single-fire torps make up for that to a degree (if you can use them). The only down-side, really, is that lack of a corresponding silver line to take a decent captain from. The other two, although good (especially Ragnar, although I'm still getting to grips with her), are a bit specialist, in that neither is much good against fatties (due to no torps), unless you have more time than a sensible opponent will give you. The case for Druid/Ragnar is a lot stronger if you already have loads of more conventional high tier DDs already - if only to provide some variety. Since we're talking about 'hard to earn' resources here (steel/RP), I would also +1 the idea of playing the RN DD line up to Daring (and take your time with Jutland - her sneakiness is closer to that of Vampire II); worst case scenario, you've then got one of the best DDs in the game at the moment (three if you're sensible and keep both Lightning, and Jutland too), and - if you don't like her - you haven't had to spend valuable resources. BTW Forrest Sherman is imminent too; perhaps hold off spending resources until we see what the final version of her is like?

I assumed everyone already knew I was horribly lacking in self-control (except when WG do something *particularly* egregious)? The main reason I wrote that last post was to draw attention to the fact that - I guess - for most people, the latest crates are probably not the most cost effective thing one can do *if* one ever spends money on WG.

To be fair, they are marginally better: as premiums, the economy is a bit better, and - probably more usefully - you can obviously run any captain you like in them. If you like Narai, and doing it in Myoko, then the odd spare helps avoid the cooldown. Full disclosure: I may not be the most unbiased, and willpower-equipped person to be talking about this though:

It depends rather on how you define worth; if you're after something specific, then they probably aren't worth it. If you're not after something specific, then you might want to look at the probabilities, and cross-reference them with the sorts of things you actually want: Things to perhaps think about (all very much IMO, of course): First is the small print; a couple of key parts: So, *on average* you should get a ship drop once per twenty crates bought (I assume everyone understands that 'on average' is not the same thing as 'if you buy twenty crates you *will* get a ship'). At time of writing, I see twenty crates cost 35.06 UKP (bought as a bundle); so you could view this as 'a' premium ship costs about 35 quid, on average. The least expensive ship I see (logged in) in the shop is the special offer Huanghe at 7.01 UKP, and the most expensive is Irian at 33.21; the least expensive T8 is Lo Yang at 23.36. So, if *all* you're interested in is ships, it's cheaper to buy them directly from the shop (or via the Armory [sic], especially if you use a coupon). If the the 'other stuff' has value to you (most likely, the doubloons and premium time, and perhaps the high end Asian cammo), and you have the low tier ships already, then *maybe* the crates might be worth it (if you buy enough of them). If you have none of the ships yet, then - on average - they are absolutely not worth it. Do also note the 'mercy rule' in the small print: it applies to ships *or* permaflage i.e. if you open twenty crates you will get *one of* a ship or a permaflage - crucially, it isn't guaranteed to be a ship. As to the permaflages, they're pretty in some cases, but all are absolutely not necessary - all the premium ships (obviously) come with a more prosaic permaflage with the same bonuses as the pretty ones. In terms of what I did myself: I didn't buy any crates on my main account (EU) as I have all the premiums already, and the 'rest' is of limited value to me (the best I can hope for from 20 crates is two gold drops, on average - 1,500 gold for 35 quid, versus 2,500 for less than 7 in the shop?!). I did buy some crates on my NA account, but only because I had all the low tier premiums already, none of the T8s, and almost everything else I could get from said crates is useful on that account.

Did they ever do the design work etc. for them? I haven't been around long enough to remember the original release of Southern, and Eastern (I'm pretty sure I paid for mine)... Edit: I didn't actually look at the bundles (due to having them already, and viewing them as non-essential for my NA account); they're a bit lame: it's a bunch of bloat, and only a six-point captain?

I wouldn't object to the idea in the least, although I'm coming at this rather from an "I'm alright, Jack" perspective, having no shortage of IJN premium cruisers (plus a couple of PA ones too, come to that), and several 21 point captains - making the impact on me personally negligible either way. Following the Friesland model would make sense (and perhaps give WG a bit of motivation - effectively another two more premiums to sell to completists, with very little work involved).

FWIW I play regularly on both NA and EU servers, and my impression is that the players on the NA server are worse, or at least certainly more passive (they're also - I feel - more keen on CVs). Some notes though: I play mostly DDs in 'proper' game modes, so that colours my impressions and expectations. The NA players - on average - are noticeably more passive/prone to hiding than the EU seem to be. For obvious reasons, I tend to play on EU at more antisocial hours than I do on the NA server; so, it could just be that I see more 'average' players (as opposed to 'enthusiasts', for want of a better expression) on the latter. Although by no means universal, there seems to be a better connection on the EU between the 'points of the spear' and their support, compared to the US. I'm not very good, so tend not to be able to hard-carry like many on here can; as a result, I'm perhaps over-sensitive to having to play 'army of one'... I don't know if/how this coincides with the impressions of competent multi-server players?

From memory, you can get T5, 6, and 7 for free, just by playing. T5 is the reward for the second set of PA missions. T7 is the reward for the fourth set. T6 can be got for reward tokens got from doing missions and suchlike. Can't recall what you can get in the way of permaflage for free - apologies.

I might suggest looking again at Vampire II: she really is very good, as well as being fun. The only real snag is that there's no silver line to pinch a captain from (unless you already have one kicking around on Perth, say)... If you actually don't like DDs full-stop, please feel free to ignore.

I believe it does (mainly based on pratting about with BBs that have it); the NA thread also includes mention of tests done with Gallant and Cossack - they both have improved acceleration with speed boost active...

You've got one: Groz.

As far as I know, MM only worries about general ship classes; as such Kearsage - for example - is 'just another BB' as far as MM is concerned, and so on with hybrids, Dutch cruisers and so on...

If only it worked like that in practice! You can just as easily get reported by an opponent for performing especially well against them (happily/sadly, depending on your point of view, this rarely happens to me)... If you do something socially reprehensible, like play submarines, you may well also get reported on general principles.

Excellent form - thanks guys!

Surely it's easier to just start a new account, if all you're worried about is WR...? Mind you, if you're OCD about stats *and* want to keep your premium/no longer available ships...

Dev Blog (Supercarriers concepts, and Hornet gets Doolittle bombers!): https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/267

A Daring B (or Halland B) would be most satisfactory, provided they behaved as 'special' ships...