invicta2012

I like Acasta a lot, but she has the lowest average damage and third lowest average XP of all Tier V DDs. Even Jianwei does more average damage. So presumably the playerbase would prefer the same design a Tier lower.

It is, sort of. The three key factors in skill (in ascending order) are: Potential, Execution, Knowledge. All of those are modified by random factors. So you can pick a perfect spot for your lawn (potential), prepare the site properly (execution), sow the correct seed type (knowledge) and still fail because of the weather, hungry starlings or next door's cat and their capacious bladder. So it is with WoWs.

Nah, but WoWs is rather like a game of Jenga. You can be ask skilful as you wish, but the tower can come falling down because of what other people do or because of external forces (gravity, in Jenga, random MM, in WoWs). It's not, but then it's also the home of ships which can essentially disregard the armour of any opponent (hello Yamato), the Tier with the stealthiest destroyers, most radar ships, most powerful CVs; the Tier with the most tools where people can punish hardest. And that's not skilful play, btw: that's mastering strategies and milking people who don't know about those strategies or how to counter them. That breeds the type of player you get in every elite PvP game layer - usually found to be screaming loudly whenever the game meta changes because they are helpless until someone comes up with a set of instructions for them to follow. For skilful play you're usually looking at Tiers VIII and IX where players have to deal with top tier opponents and strategies in underpowered ships, which means improvising and adapting.

Well, she's sort of Tier 4.5, a bit Acasta-ish, and as Acasta is the worst performing DD at Tier V I would rather Admiralen drop a Tier and shine rather than be a roadblock. Goteborg at V is light on weapons but she has speed - give her fast gun traverse/reload and those centreline guns could be a handful. Lots of fun DD designs to work with for the Pan-Europeans - I might try and get the Spanish Churucca class in at VI, as they're rather like the RN DD leaders with larger displacement and five main guns.

Gosh, no. I enjoy the freer game play at VI and VII far more than the camp fest at Tier VIII and above. Well, they'll get there. We have two BB, two Cruisers and an upcoming DD (assuming they haven't forgotten it) so the RM is on the map in a pretty substantial way. T VII Bolzano next, maybe? She's not a Tier III. Rather more like Karlsruhe but with much better fire control, dispersion and gun range - all pretty punchy stuff on small low tier maps. She outranges St Louis by 6km, at least, and is eight knots faster. Nah. She is just fine at Tier VI. Very similar to La Gal, with a little more speed/acceleration and much better AA traded for 2 fewer guns. The thing is... a Pan-European line looks fun. Witte De Withe - Admiralen Class (IV) - Dutch standard DD based on RN designs, roughly equivalent to Wakeful Malmo - Goteborg Class (V) - Swedish "Standard" DD - lightly gunned (3x120mm guns) but small, stealthy and fast (40 knots +) or Hydra - Greek DD (V) - Italian design, more guns (but slower firing), decent speed (but a bit slower) Vasilissa Olga - Greek DD (VI) - RN H Class Hull, Z39 German guns, Italian torpedoes or Regele Ferdinand - Romanian DD (VI) - Mid Size DD leader: Blyska guns in an Aigle type centre line arrangement with Italian torpedoes Split - Yugoslavian DD (VII) - Fletcher esque DD but with larger calibre, slower firing guns or Gerard Callenburgh - Dutch DD (VII) - T61 with a floatplane... hilarity ensues. Oland - Swedish DD (VIII) - Ognevoi style DD with powerful AA. 2x2 guns, but with a 3 second reload. Ostergotland - Swedish DD (IX) - 1950s reduced DD design, same 20 RPM guns as Oland, strong AA armament, 1 x 6(!!) torp launcher. Roger De Lauria - Spanish DD (X) - 1950s Gearing with 3 x 2 5 inch guns and 2 x 3 US torps on a Spanish hull or Friesland - Dutch DD (X) - no torps, but will you care with 45 RPM DP main guns?

Given they invented the best AA guns the Swedish should probably be given free reign to use them. Make those carriers weep!

Difficult to see how the Dutch, Polish and Swedish navies are misfits. The first two navies were heavily involved in WW2 and the latter two's cruiser designs were the last gun cruisers in existence. I am very much into the Italian designs too but their trees come to a shuddering halt at Tier VIII and there are quite a lot of compromised treaty designs - real glass cannon stuff. Java had 10 1920s era 6" guns (2 x 1 fore and aft, 3 x 1 on each beam) which is way OTT for Tier III and probably for IV, given that an equivalent Tier IV like the Danae class have six all in and an armour scheme which Java would simply ignore. These old single gun designs were outdated in reality because of fire control issues but in WoWs they give you the opportunity to always have guns on the target... can be quite powerful. RoF is probably what keeps her at Tier IV - 12 seconds. De Ruyter is probably a Tier V, in truth, but I don't see her lack of torps being too much of a problem given her build and gun armament - she's more of a Kirov style distance gun cruiser than anything else (and she did have a spotter, which would extend her range even further). And who tries to use torps on a Kirov? A Java (IV) / De Ruyter (V) / Tre Kronor (VI) / Eendracht (VII) / De Zeven Provincien (VIII) line is quite attractive for a Pan-European line because the ships have continuity of design and all carry Bofors guns of the same calibre with similar characteristics.

Pan European Cruisers and DDs has always sounded viable to me. Tre Kronor, btw, looks like Konigsberg - must be the turret layout - so that's a Tier V for sure - and De Ruyter very much like Nurnberg, so that's Tier VI. Java and Tromp would make decent Premiums at V and VI. As far as Tiers VII and VIII of the Cruiser line go, aren't there enough designs of the Eendracht/De Zeven Provincien to go around? The original version has a Pensacola-like arrangement of 10 main guns (2x2, 2x3), the 1950s version eight (4x2) but much better AA and radar, etc. A mid-point between the Soviet and US cruiser playstyles looks likely, which would be fun.

Sometimes there can be an amusing clash of missions. I was doing the "75 hits with your secondary battery" task from Fly!Strike!Whinge! and took a Normandie into co-op. There were three Icaruses (Icarii?) in a division zooming around sinking everything before I could get to it, so I had to jam my ship sideways between two islands in the path of an oncoming QE to keep them back and get things done. The salt flowed freely. I found Random missions much more productive for completing both FSW and the Exeter marathons, to be honest, as well as much more fun. I wish they'd extend the missions to Ops, too: sailing around going pew pew pew and sinking things is the point, there, no-one will complain.....

+ Aigle and Huang He. Torp booster on the HH, lots of smoke. She works well on Killer Whale, too.

I always think the team needs a DD in Newport, especially for the final phase with those onrushing battleships. Icarus's single fire torps come in very handy then, you can engage multiple targets in the final melee. Aigle is best though: smoke up, let the first wave of cruisers get close and then AP them into oblivion. Three salvos brought eight citadels and two kills...

Yes we can. And we do. (And sometimes we win, too!). So there.

Isn't Phra Ruang HMS Radiant, one of the last surviving British WW1 destroyers? And in any case, the whole PA line is quite fun. But +1 to Pan European ships. De Zeven Provincien would be fun...

II - Mikasa. But isn't she the only Tier II? III - South Carolina. Because she was fun when I had Steven Seagal as a captain IV - none V - Bretagne VI - Dunkerque VII - KGV VIII - North Carolina IX - Musashi or Iowa

Definitely time for a Jervis or Lightning in randoms. If you can get a decent angle on a BB then 6 guns per salvo will mount up the hits fast. I find it easier with DDs than with the chubster Fiji, to be honest.

Point of order! Black Swan is a Sloop-of-War, not a Corvette. Tier VII Guns, Tier V AA, Tier II speed.

Jervis... I've just done 300 in two games. Cossack would be good, though.

I - Black Swan II - Novik III - Caledon IV - Duguay- Trouin V - Krasny Krym VI - Huang He VII - Yorck VIII - Charles Martel IX - Saint Louis X - Henri IV

180! I suppose this counts as a fighting defeat. More fun than spamming Fiji in Co-op, though (this was a random game where I was high tier, we lost by 10 points due to team of sheepy BBs huddling together for safety and running into a load of Shira torps late in the game).

They could accompany it with the Countdown music. Although it would end with a Boom, not a Bong!

RTS gameplay was finicky and success depended on mastering manual drop and strafe skills. Action CV gameplay is boring and involves annoying people who can't make you go away. Neither is a positive contribution to the game.

I don't think she needs it. As a close range brawler, Blyska is a monster. She has more guns than Haida, more torps than Cossack, and tremendous speed. The problem is getting her into melee range, but when she gets there, she owns the cap.

I would have given them £££ for Dreadnought by now. If it's not in the Armoury in the next update I will be cross. It's just a port Queen ship, ffs, take my money...

You've stolen my HE shells, you swine. 47% fire chance on my Nelson, precisely 0 (zero) fires in the last two games. it's as if Nelson's fire chance is dependent on the number of Nelsons in the game....

It's not optimal, I agree, but you can always just torp the AI ships and then move on to the next. I find myself getting Battleship angst with these missions - I want to brawl, get in close and shoot things with RN HE and secondaries, but QE and Warspite are slow and Tiers VII+ so cautious it rarely happens in Random games.