invicta2012

Here's the thing. Running a Premium account will bring you more credits and XP than buying a single ship, so do that first. If you want a premium ship and you like destroyers then I would suggest T-61, Aigle or Anshan. T-61 is just very good, Aigle is strong and can be played in Operations, Anshan is cheap and fun, and has "normal" torpedoes rather than DWTs. Haida is good but there is the captain issue to deal with. Lo Yang is good but better to master the hydro DD style with T-61 first at a kinder Tier. Cossack is a brilliant gun boat and very stealthy but it's Tier VIII - World of Radar - and very vulnerable to CVs. Kidd is better for that Tier but still a bit of a leap. For cruisers, don't over look Exeter if you like fun, good economy and cheapness. Boise is good if you want American cruisers with more survivability. Huang He is not as bad as everyone thinks it is - if you imagine a Leander/Perth hybrid with lazer beams for guns, that's pretty close. You may find jumping into Tier VIII with a cruiser the worst decision of all, as they tend to vaporise quickly when spotted. Wichita, Atago and Eugen are good if you really must (but don't). Perth is fun but not so much better than Leander.... For BBs, Scharnhorst, Hood and Dunkerque are my premium favourites. I don't like slow lumbering things like the Americans or odd ducks which can't seem to hit anything like the Japanese ones. The playerbase will probably tell you that Massachusetts is great but it does one particular thing and you will need a dedicated captain and time to use it. Tirpitz is also extremely solid and recently buffed, but be prepared for Derpitz jokes. I also think it looks evil, which is why I don't have one. :) Overall there are lots of Premium Ships which are interesting but which don't do anything spectacular and lots of silver ships at this tier which are keepers - Furutaka, Kongo, Fubuki, Myoko, Mogami, Benson, North Carolina, Izmail, Sinop, Kiev, Icarus, Leander, Devonshire, Fiji, KGV, Lightning, Lyon, Le Fanta, Hsein Yang, Zara are all completely worth grinding out, and spending doubloons on permacamos for them is very worth it.

Despite playing this game for years, I've never worked out how to join the Public test server. It seemed to involve downloading another client and re-registering. Or something. And the Submarine article doesn't really help. Any ideas?

Hello @Frijasdottir - I think we were in the same game last night, I noticed the name. You were in Warspite and doing just fine. Even Co-op is in a weird place at the minute. WG must be delighted with the new players but new players also means a lot of people learning on the job (and not doing it well) and not understanding the way the community works. So you can't rely on players supporting you in game, or even engaging the red ships when they should, or understanding not to shoot torpedoes from the second line, or not to give broadside, or.... any of that sort of thing. And they are really trigger happy with the report function (although some are also handing out lots of compliments, which is nice). In terms of cruisers - plan your escape. The thing to realise is that the co-op bots know where the closest ship is, and they are just waiting for the order to fire - that'll be when you get detected. It's really easy to get focused, and if you're in a cruiser and you have to turn away, that's when you'll take citadel hits. But the bots are also predictable. So you know they will yolo, and they tend to follow the same routes on each map. Plan accordingly. Approach at an angle, turn away early if you have to, and vary your speed as much as your course.

Did it? I saw comments saying it had accidentally been buffed. Well, there are ships with half-decent AA at Tier IV/V - WG has been introducing them - but the main problem is that with the even numbered CV system, the Tier IV has to be made a bit too good for the MM in order to encourage people to play it for a larger than usual number of games (it needs 68,000 XP to unlock a tier VI CV, and that's a lot of games...) If they slotted Zuiho, Bogue and perhaps Eagle or Glorious in at Tier V, cheaply obtained to make the IV-V progression quicker, we wouldn't have quite so much sealclubbing going on.

If it's anything like Roma, it has rage inducing gun characteristics. Had it on rental during the recent offer and it put me right off. Can't stand shotgun BBs.

No. That penalty was introduced to stop divisions setting up cap traps (or at least to make them less effective), so that the ship doing the spotting had to start firing first, or the spotting itself was of less value.

IIRC the main complaint about radar is that it isn't matched by the MM, and that "chain radar" gives a much more substantial window of visibility to which ever side has it. No doubt we shall see this resurface with the new Soviet cruisers bringing lots more radar to the table. No obvious solution, though, as it's a consumable, and the MM doesn't take those into account.

I am told that Catapult Fighters (i.e. the ones on non-CV ships) are quite effective, so it's worth using those if you have them. Overall, though, AA doesn't really kick until Tier V - lower tier players have been allocated as food for Tier IV CVs in order to make the rework look like a success. There's no other reason for it, plenty of the ships at lower Tiers served in WW2 and were refitted with reasonable AA, it's just about making it seem fun to nuke things with Hosho.

I've just had a thought. Why not bring back our old pal Giunio Bruto at Tier VI/VII, with SAP and/or Exhaust Smoke? It occurs to me (having been playing Italian ships today) that these are decent methods for making small calibre BBs viable at higher tiers - and rather better than giving it to Impero, which couldn't hit a Friesian's backside with a mandolin, regardless of what its firing?

Overpenetrations, mystery bounces, HE spam. The problem with battleships is that the expectation is that your shells are devastating, and yet the higher Tier you go, the more they seem to bounce and ping off things randomly. And yet those nasty little HE cruisers burn battleships down in seconds. So, get some of their action and fire HE. (It is a mistake. But I can't blame people for thinking that way).

Fair enough. Haven't got to Skane, yet - although I need to for the Wallander memes. It's going to take a while to get through the VI, not accumulating much XP due to a lack of finishing power.

Range is a problem, for sure, but I would disagree about speed. Vasteras with a Sierra Mike flag does 39.9 knots, which is quicker than most - 43 knots with speed boost running.

Why would anyone pay £30 for a battleship which - according to reviews - isn't as good as the Sinop? It seems to be neither interesting nor effective. I'd be pleased to know if anyone has it and enjoys it, because I've never even seen one.

The fact is, it surprises a leading CC. As he says "I couldn't do that in a Battleship". So perhaps the ship is a little over tuned. (For what it's worth, I don't believe in "Soviet Bias". But WG's ability to send these things out for testing without even a glance from the balancing department is funny).

Certainly did. It's at Tier V. Oh, and who let the World of Tanks people in????

People will report CV players simply for playing CVs, and they will probably use the "Misbehaviour In Chat" report as this will probably result in something happening (a chat ban) rather than a player just having low karma. This is mean and stupid, of course, but if you think you are being targeted, just don't post any chat messages, as it seems likely that the auto system looks to see if you did before deciding on a ban.

Bear in mind that there are Tier VII ships like Gorizia with 6k hydro that lasts for two minutes. Not sure that sitting around in smoke with a 25 second radar is the "I win" button it once was, if the opposition is organised.

You're going in the wrong direction. Anticipate other DDs and be ready to kite. Most Tier VI DDs only have four guns and need to show a broadside to get them into play. Vasteras has six and when kiting at an angle, it can use all of them. You're also much faster than most of them, which makes for a good scout/skirmisher.

Aww, poor lad. I thought this was about Petropavlovsk.

Back in the day when I played Ranked I know I enjoyed Mahan and Leningrad at Tier VII (the latter being a fabulous little ship I bought to play in Ranked and had forgotten about. Took her out last night and had great fun). Sinop was the BB of choice and I suspect it still is. Fiji is an obvious choice for cruisers, but I'd give Zara or Gorizia a go in a division - whacking DDs is important and they are both very, very good at it (especially Gorizia with an RPF build).

I wasn't planning to. I'm waiting for Orkan, really, and in the meantime I'm going to ignore this and carry on playing Vasteras, which I am enjoying. But they should think about dropping the campaign requirements to European Tier VIIs, it makes sense to encourage people to play the line over others, surely, as the reward is a European captain?

I'm not spending £55 on a Friesland. Why is it double the price of a Tier VIII Destroyer? I could invest 250,000 Free XP in an Oland for a moderate boost, but this whole Euro event has got on my nerves and they're getting nothing extra. Irritating Random bundles for everything, Blyskawica forgotten - it gave no bonuses for the Euro directives, and you can't even use it for the campaign, which is just dumb. So no, not well done to WG for this campaign. Gating the Unique 10pt Polish Commander behind a long campaign with silly co-op requirements and thoughtlessly excluding the use of the most relevant ship is not good at all.

Well done WG. Such an inclusive and fun event. I look forward to playing the 300 co-op games it will take to unlock the Final Task of Phase 1.

I was looking at that, and, seeing as you were sailing a Massachusetts, expecting to see 1000 secondary hits. But that's actually rather impressive. One kill for every seven main battery shells (and one citadel for every 4.5) is good marksmanship, esp. in a ship with rather wonky dispersion. Well played.