invicta2012

Well, that's a bit deep. I don't normally like PvP games because they lack depth, they turn into noobs vs experts, where playing the meta is the rule - pick the optimum class, get the optimum gear for competitive play. Don't have that? Prepare to get farmed, noob. WoWs has less of that. You still get it in competitive play and at higher tiers, but people tend to see an obvious meta as evidence of bad balancing. So when the game is well balanced it's good, it's accessible, it's fun, much more so than other PvP games. And it means there is more to play, and I can pick whatever Tier, whatever, ship class, line or nation I like and have fun, so it's difficult to get bored. Obviously I love the setting and the history. But the main thing I like is when WG puts out a ship which gives me an arcade simulcra of "what it is I think x ship should be like"*. This isn't just me, I'm sure. People come here to get the Yamato and hear the crump of those big guns, to play the Scharnhorst or Tirpitz and pilot the fast, feared Atlantic raider (and torpedo things, must do that). They want Japanese destroyers to have powerful torpedoes, British ones to be valiant but underpowered, French ships to be quirky and have all the guns at the front like the Dunkerque. It needs to feel authentic and match those expectations, and not just be a bag of stats and mechanics. One of the main reasons I didn't like CVs was that they didn't feel like that. Having been a ship and plane geek as a kid I wanted US carriers to give me the right feel for the planes of the time - Wildcats and Devastators, Avengers and Dauntlesses.... and they didn't. It was just game mechanics. Ditto Japanese and British CVs. It was a bit of a shock to be looking at the plane loadouts, thinking "What the F is that???". The only one that does it for me is Ark Royal, with it's half-cocked load out of Swordfish (which WG only added under duress). So I don't care for them, and I don't play them. But they do still keep on churning out interesting ship lines with the right feel - the European DDs, Italian cruisers, may not be the bestest of the best but they have a style, a continuity, and they match my expectations. So'll stay and play as long as that happens. It's more difficult with paper ships, though - I don't have expectations of what Sovetsky Soyuz should be like, so I judge it on stats. It makes them a harder sell, too, and I'm less tolerant of the game being bent to fit them in. So the Soviet Cruiser split and German CVs? No great appeal. * This is the thing about subs. Players have a strong vision of sub combat and what it could be - the stealth, the tension, the triumph and satisfaction of landing a salvo, the 100% Das Boot experience - but I think we're going to get arcade pew pew pew and playerbase farming, and that won't interest me at all.

This is pretty much where I am. Of course I enjoy the game setting, the ships, the history, but the gameplay experience is becoming dull. The games I play long-term are those ones which offer me a choice of experience and game mode within the core gameplay. WG don't seem to care much about that any more: mothballing Operations, making silly sci-fi events and, worst of all, cluttering up the main game play mode with unwelcome and compulsory additions like new CVs and, most probably, submarines. It's almost as if the game development is being planned by people who are much more bored with the game than most of the players seem to be. They always want their new toys to be the bestest, so there's never proper counterplay or balance at the time of launch, it always has to be wrung out of them through complaints, and every time we go through this cycle I can feel my enthusiasm draining away. So I am still here, still playing what I enjoy, but finding there is less and less of that available.

I was going to say that I wasn't aware of her work.... and then I realised you were talking about this: https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Zarya_Svobody Is that the Sovetsky Soyuz clone?

What, Kronshtadt? It's a mime. That's why it's called the Marceau....

Dallas is fine, but lacks the overall utility of other Tier VI cruisers. Helena used to be brilliant but WG's IFHE rework catered to the BBbabies* and now she's no better than a destroyer against many Tier VIII+ BBs, so enjoyment increasingly depends on MM. * and may have been part of a sinister conspiracy to get people to buy Tier VIII Premium Cruisers, as they magically get the ability to pen more armour than their Tier VII sisters, despite mostly having the same guns. Expect to see USS Columbia (Cleveland with a Boise type heal) soon, and no sign whatsoever of a German Tier VII CL (although I'd really like one).

I don't think anyone was saying that, tbh. The point is that it is easy to skip up to Tier IV having learnt nothing about the game mechanics and then to be presented with challenges with require people to know about AA, spotting, tactics, instead of sailing around going pew pew pew, which is all that needs doing at early Tiers. It's all part of the problem with WG not giving enough layers to the game; they can't protect new players, satisfy casual players and fans of historic ships when it's all crammed into Tiers IV-V-VI.

This is the classic "I don't see the problem and until I do no-one else can, either" argument. And you may be a very good player and be able to cope with CVs but that's not all that important, it's about where newer or less skilled players find themselves faced with more variables and things to deal with than they can manage. That used to be up around Tier VIII, with powerful CVs, radar ships, BBs which are stealthy, accurate, and perfectly capable of punishing mistakes... it shouldn't be at Tier IV, just because WG wants to push CVs.

A fun ship, though. Probably not that much better than Trento but it's not always about how the ship performs, it's about how people see it. BBs don't go after Duca so much because she can dodge, set fires, send out those nasty slow torps..... and she seems like a pain to chase. Trento, no fires, and everyone (who isn't a DD) is confident they can just charge her down. (I would definitely keep Zara and Gorizia over Abruzzi, though. I do like those two.)

So does Gascogne. If you imagine a fast Graf Spee with nasty guns, that's close. I enjoyed that one (but I like French BBs).

I tried these out recently. Gascogne and Lenin were the best of the BBs. Bayard was alright if you are short of an HE spamming cruiser.

Here you go. Unsinkable Sam. And if you look carefully, you can see him running along the deck and hiding among the pom-poms....

To be serious in response, even if it was Average Damage in the last month in that class of ship, you would still be introducing unwelcome elements to the MM such as statpadding - anyone with a GC, Belfast, etc could maintain a high average damage while being awful at other ships - and you would be penalising players who like to play a variety of ships while over-rewarding those who specialise in one thing (and who probably have 19pt captains, perma camo, etc).

Average damage in what? All ships? A class? A ship? A Tier? This Month? Last week?

That'll probably be the Smolensk and a Soviet Radar cruiser behind an island, then.

Well... you pick spotter and increase your range. I think WG is trying to add more utility to US cruisers, because with all these Soviet Radar ships coming with excellent gunnery, they may not be the cruisers of choice for that role. It works on Wichita/Cleveland, anyhow. Perhaps someone might like a Seattle spotter build? It shouldn't, and if it does, that just shows how stuffed up AA is. Taking DFAA and a C hull should give you confidence against CVs with a moderate impact to offensive capability. I bet it doesn't, though. I'm not sure that a ship which already has 20,000 HP - a perfectly serviceable HP pool for a Tier IV Cruiser, it's as much as Danae or Karlsruhe - and a teeny tiny citadel actually needs this. But what do I know.

Depends on the DD and the scenario. You can play Guepard, Aigle or Blyska like light cruisers, the British ones have torpedoes you can use against multiple targets... and of course you have smoke, hydro to work with. Really the best ship for an Operation is one the player likes and can play aggressively.

Historically accurate, the RN took one set of torps off most DDs to add some extra AA guns, and the 4 inch was what they had in stock. Haida has a twin mount of 4in AA guns in place of a main turret and you can get kills with that (it's a twin mount, fires every 2.7s with BFT and does the same amount of damage as a KM destroyer's main battery) but Orkan's secondaries look like a little bonus more than anything else.

It's a bit blue. But then what do I know? My Ark has a cat on the side of it.

Oh yes - and I had forgotten about the speedy EU torpedoes - but I suppose I meant that I have several sister DDs already, like Haida/Cossack and Lo Yang/Benson, and they're all "a bit different but still good", so I'm v hopeful that Orkan is just as much fun as Lightning. But she is going to have to wait until I have May's budget to spend!

The Leander has improved Royal Navy AP which is very strong against the types of cruiser you get in Ops, and it's potent against BBs too, if you shoot the right places. She fires two salvos to London's one, and is smaller, accelerates faster, and - crucially - she has much better gun bloom detection than London. London will get spotted 6.8k away when firing in smoke, Leander 4.6k. You can let onrushing ships come on to you, stop firing at 5k, stay undetected, then light the enemy up with hydro, stick torpedoes into them at point blank range and sail away giggling.

She's not particularly memorable. Tier V guns, short range torpedoes, and her smoke is a noob trap - her gun bloom often means she's caught flat footed, static and detected. Much better if you treat it like Devonshire and stay mobile.... but then you may as well play Devonshire.

It's going to have to wait until next month. But I'm still keen. Took my Lightning out for a spin this morning and it's still a *splendid* ship, no reason why Orkan should be different.

True enough. How many ships have gone straight to the Armory for Doubloons, though? Easy to see why there was confusion, and it could have been cleared up - saw enough people saying "oh, I'll use my coupon to buy it". Maybe WG should read the forums.

There is no slot to use the coupon. Which I can understand, 10700 doubloons is is the price of a Tier VIII DD in the cash shop and there's no reason why a new ship should be discounted. Was that made clear anywhere, though?

What Surrey should look like (this is the Vickers prototype design that became the Spanish Canarias class heavy cruiser, built as the same time as the original commission of Surrey). Imagine from Norman Friedman's book on British cruisers.