Midway67

I see a potential advantage in that as well: once people get so used to shooting at Le Terrible that they learn to fire well ahead of the ship, this will cause for more misses when they then fire at regular, normal speed destroyers ;-) This way, Le Terrible will positively contribute to a higher survival-rate of Kagero's, Cossacks, Kievs and Bensons the world over! Fraternité!!

Indeed @Yedwy , there is probably a lot of truth in that. Often you can learn the most from mistakes (either your own, or those already made by others). Another reason why I would (still) like to try out Le Terrible. Just to see if I can, somehow, make her work (and preferably without becoming a liability to my team). FWIW, just an observation, saw Le Terrible in two different battles yesterday, both times on my own team. Both times, they were among the first ships being sunk. And both times, they did not sink any enemies. In one case, it was the player's first battle with Le Terrible, yet he appeared to have been sunk by enemy cruisers which were, as far as I could judge, between 12 and 15km away from him.... Will be keeping an eye out each time I see a 'Le Terrible' the coming days. Also FWIW, don't know if this is some sort of sign, but noticed at https://wows-numbers.com/ship/3762173776,Le-Terrible/ that the win-rate dropped from 53% a few days ago to now 51%. Of course this can still fluctuate, with only barely 2,200 battles having so far been played with her, yet the trend is starting to become visible (wonder where she'll end up over the next weeks though). The individualist in me whispers "Get her, try her, make her work". Yet the team-player in me is screaming "No way, she's dangerous, this could be real madness, better hold off!".....

@Desteban Got it, thanks! :-) Still think it shows courage to take on first a Grozovoi and then a Zao with her! Bearing in mind that she also has such powerful torps, using those as well would maybe give that added edge in a knife-fight (if only to form a distraction with that already; then again, Grozo has torps too of course, which can be put to good use up close with their 65-66 knot speed, something a lot of people tend to forget when engaging a Russian DD up close!)... Regarding IFHE, I would definitely not put this on a ship with such a high fire-chance to begin with. Yet after a while, you might want to just try it to see what it does (can always go back then). As for the French tree, I've had a lot of fun already with ships like Dunkerque, Aigle (which I still see as a very good tier 6 DD, as long as you remember that she is not the most maneuverable in her class...), Emile Bertin (and yes, even Friant!), Charles Martel and as said, Richelieu, so for me it is affordable to move a Captain from a BB to Le Terrible -- would simply mean moving another 7-point French Captain from my reserve to Richelieu and then working that guy back up to >10 points. A BB can work well with a lesser-skilled Captain, for a DD I would not want to risk that anymore (unless absolutely unavoidable). Will try to go and see how much longer I can hold my breath towards not (yet) buying Le Terrible, haha! She sounds worthwhile already simply for the fact that she offers a new concept, gameplay-wise. Have fun with her, and good luck! P.S. Small note, Richelieu is the regular tech-tree Tier 8 French BB, not a premium (that would be Gascogne, which has a different turret-lay-out). Yet still, premium or not, I'd consider moving that Captain over anyways, just to see how that would work out @Le Terrible (which was, btw, already a warship in the French Navy hundreds of years ago) ---> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Le_Terrible and is, nowadays, also a nuclear submarine ---> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_submarine_Le_Terrible_(S619) (to bring up a topic which is hot this week: submarines!)

@Desteban: interesting, this makes me even more curious to see how she handles. And makes it even harder to wait a bit more to see how she performs, before adding her to my fleet as well. Wow, taking on a Grozovoi with a Tier 8 DD, impressive! That guy must have gotten goose-bumps, thinking he could take you on so easily, 2 tiers below him, and then getting bitten like that :-) I'm sure he'll remember that for his next Le Terrible-encounter! Such a high fire-chance clearly makes it less desirable to equip her with IFHE though. Read somewhere that a 14- or 16-point Captain would be best for her, I have one on my Richelieu but am reluctant to assign that one to another ship, because I am having a ball with this superb BB... What would you recommend? P.S. Stupid question maybe, but how do you get this "@" sign in there with a blue background to address another person here?

Why? It takes courage to sail a ship in an unconventional configuration like this. Guts! Thinking outside of the box can lead to unexpected -- and sometimes even sensational -- results!! Give it a try. Above all, give a concept like this a chance! Thank you for this positive and -- for me -- valuable feedback! I was inclined to go for her, having had a lot of fun with the Russian destroyers previously (except for Tashkent, that is). Exactly what is the range of her main battery? Somehow, it seems that this info is missing at http://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Le_Terrible , where no info at all is given on the main guns (must've been a lay-out error, as they seem to have skipped the main armament specs altogether there)... According to https://wows-numbers.com/ship/3762173776,Le-Terrible/ it is 12.3 km but I take it you can up this with the Advanced Firing Training Captain's skill, which would then take the range to 14.76km. Is that correct? Because close to 15km seems like a wonderful range for a tier 8 destroyer with a 5 second reload time (and then on top of that, the Main Battery Reload Booster module + consumables)... Adding this all up sounds to me like Le Terrible has a tremendous amount of potential all-round :o) Just a matter of developing your skills to optimize her performance (and hoping for luck with Matchmaking) .... (... and making sure you don't over-extend too often)

... which is why I for one particularly love ships like Izumo, Richelieu, Nelson, and Dunkerque! Forward-facing main guns. No need to angle (or at least not a lot, in most cases), to bring all heavy guns to bear. You still retain some of this advantage in the event that you need to run away. Then, as with conventional gun lay-outs, you can at least still point all your heavy artillery backwards, still without needing to angle a whole lot. It seems more than a few enemies somehow do not seem to expect this from a "running" forward-gun BB, to then still have all or most of its guns blasting away backwards!

Sounds like a French Kiev... can be fun! And challenging, to see if you can succeed with such a set-up as well. Will be interesting to see how she fares against ships like Cossack, Kiev, and Benson...

Thanks for this info! Looking forward to soon also being able to play against clans from other servers i.e. regions, wonder what they are like.

Reaching back to this (nice!) new US light cruiser line, I've taken a moment to compare the win-rates for Tiers 6 u/i 10 (CA verus CL). Important to add here first is that of course the total number of battles is still very much lower for the CL's compared to the CA's. Format: first CA (Heavy Cruiser), then CL (Light Cruiser) T6: Pensacola 49.70% versus Dallas 53.17% T7: New Orleans 49.43% versus Helena 52.95% (and premium: Indianapolis 50.04%, Boise 53.66%, Nueve de Julio 53.56%, Altanta 49.52%) T8: Baltimore 50.71% versus Cleveland 50.92% ---> these are actually the only ones really close to eachother! T9: Buffalo 49.34% versus Seattle 52.43% T10: Des Moines 49.73% and Salem 48.27% versus Worcester 52.63% (source: wows-numbers data) Notice how in 4 out of 5 cases, the CL actually ends up with a 2 to 3% higher win-rate, so far! It will be interesting to see how this develops in future, as I don't see any other country + ship type combination which features so many ships as these US cruisers! On the whole, for Tiers 1 thru 10, there are even 23 US cruisers in the game (unless I miscounted). And then we have Charleston, Wichita and Alaska on the horizon... which will take the total up to 26! Of course these are just the numbers, and there is so much more to a ship than that! However, I found it worthwhile to examine these results and see how different they often are. Looking at the ones mentioned above, my personal favourites are definitely Cleveland, Helena and Seattle, so far. With the pair of Tier 6 cruisers, I feel a lot less affinity....

Yeah, they have faster boats Btw, looks like we're going to have to find some EU nightbirds willing to stay up late, if we want to combat NA clans....

That's one way to do it :-) However... not every DD right? I mean, if there's a Cossack there, I'm doing a 180 in full swing!!!

I fully agree. Let's hang on to that bright thought! From my side, I am first going to wait with patience to see how all of these plans will unfold, on the whole, in practice. It's always so easy to shoot things down beforehand, perhaps smarter to give it a good chance first and then evaluate once we can see -- and experience -- everything. Then, still, it can always be changed and developed onwards. In this sense, I do remain optimistic.

Hmmm I can see divisions with 3 Atlanta's, 3 Cleveland's, 3 North Carolina's and 3 Alabama's already! Which will in turn have its effect on matchmaking...

@Mr_Tayto, thank you for this useful info, good to know! Wow, impressive.... topping tier X games with a tier 8 DD, that's got to be skill and not just luck 8-) Do you know if that smart-looking dark-green British premium camo can also be purchased in the game client, if you get only the basic Cossack package? @Adm_Ballsey, I got Lightning yesterday (grinded her by using Jervis, on which I had meanwhile accumulated 135K XP). She is still stock now, but I like her feel, indeed as Mr_Tayto says, basically a Jervis-de-Luxe. Surprised myself by getting an enemy Jutland in one of my first encounters with her!

That's a nice way to see it, I feel the same. Based on these factors, I also clearly see Jervis as a keeper. At this point, even though I haven't been out to see very often with her yet, I don't think I will be keeping Acasta in the long run. My first challenge is to get her to a higher win-rate (than loss-rate haha!). As for Icarus, I'm doubtful as well, yet this DD does feel more 'empowering' to me, as you say. Perhaps I've just been unlucky with these two so far, I cannot yet tell for sure. Lightning & I have not yet been introduced to eachother ;-) yet from what I'm seeing in the game, she would definitely appear to be a solid 'yes' as well. More so even than Cossack, perhaps, which I've seen getting itself into trouble on many occassions (which could of course have been Captain-induced...).

To add Akagi, beside Kaga? What would be the biggest difference, seeing that they were both Akagi-class CV's... One was 10 metres longer than the other, Kaga had 72+18 planes (total 90) versus Akagi 66+25 (total 91)... Originally, during in-game testing, was Kaga not known as Akagi?

That's a positive way to look at it! +1, like! :-) Even though I must add that I am never for one moment bored at any point in a battle.....

Speaking of Jervis... will there be a special permanent "British" camo (like the new second camo on HMS Gallant) on all of the new (regular tree) RN DD's? Or is this a style which will remain unique to only the premium DD's? I kind of like that deep green, would be cool to see that on RN BB's and cruisers as well :o) In the shop, I see that this premium "British camo" is now also available on HMS Cossack. Does anyone here know if that camo is also sold separately? E.g. if you buy only the basic ship itself, can you then purchase that premium camo later on? Fully agree! Jervis is a keeper for sure, for me as well.

My take on this: I really like both Königsberg (with the fully rotating aft guns) and Emile Bertin (with good torpedoes, now 57 knots with 6 km range, nerfed from the longer range they had before). Kirov has remarkably good guns, yet is extremely fragile (even more so than Furutaka, even though the latter's buff has made her noticeably more sturdy). That makes Kirov a somewhat scary experience, where you constantly have to be on the edge of your seat to avoid getting blasted out of the water. One ship I have not seen mentioned here yet is the Krasny Krim alias "Crispy Creme", which takes special handling and care, yet in various ways can also be seen as a good Tier 5 cruiser! (even though some people deny that). She is a good fire-setter and DD-hunter, and even though, as with most Russian cruisers the torpedoes have a limited range of only 5km (buffed from 4.5km previously), they are 65 knots fast and have a 70 second reload (compare that to Furutaka's 94 seconds)... According to figures at wows-numbers.com, her win-rate on the EU-server is above that of not only Kirov, but also Omaha, Furutaka and Emerald (even though the latter have millions of battles each). Also according to wows-numbers.com, Krasny Krym is used the least, in terms of total number of battles, of all the tier V cruisers: @EU, 68,395 battles (compared to e.g. 7,980,070 for Königsberg and 7,726,480 for Omaha). It would be interesting to see how her average win-rate would develop, when more people would start sailing her :o) My own win-rate with Krasny Krim is not something to write home about (yet), but I experience her as a fun ship and will certainly challenge myself to improve on that in future. For instance at the upcoming tier-5-'mini'-ranked alias 'Ranked Sprint'!

Interesting to hear. Now with the upgrade, is your detection indeed down to 5.5 km? That's really quite stealthy for a tier 8 destroyer! (*) Is the special British permanent camouflage also available as separate purchase, once you have the (basic package) Cossack? (I don't mean the regular premium camo, but the one that comes separately, e.g. with the larger bundles) And what does that British camo look like on her? Thanks for letting me know! (*) Based on WoWs-wikipedia data, I've done a quick comparison. Cossack actually stars as the very best in this! Detection values (in brackets: with 10% reduction) of the other Tier 8 DD's, from low to high: Cossack 6.10 (5.49 -- strange, wiki says she has 6.97? Or should we take Concealment Expert Captain's skill into account for this, additionally?) Haida 6.49 (5.84) Asashio 6.84 (6.16) HSF Harekaze 6.84 (6.16) Kagero 6.84 (6.16) Lightning 7.02 (6.32) Benson 7.38 (6.64) Hsienyang 7.38 (6.64) Kidd 7.38 (6.64) Ognevoi 7.74 (6.97) Akizuki 7.76 (6.98) Z-23 -- 7.92 (7.13) Kiev 9.00 (8.10) Le Terrible 9.10 (8.19) (!!)

Interesting discussions, fellow shipmates :o) Would it make a difference -- to try to think in solutions -- if more irrevocable ranks would be added, particularly at the higher stages? E.g. also making rank 10 and rank 5 irrevocable... ... and then adding a minimum win-rate requirement (*) somewhere along the line, so that if your win-rate is below, say, 50%, you will only be allowed access to ranks 10 and up once you've reached that? (*) This could be a general, overall win-rate, or if ranked is going to remain at tier 10, then a tier-10-specific minimum-experience-level (e.g., say, min. 200 battles at tier 10) and/or tier 10 win-rate (e.g. min. 50%) could be put in place... That way, you'd still have a large player-base playing ranked, yet at the higher ranks, it would -- maybe -- be more fun with higher competence levels...

Seeing all of this still leaves me hoping and wishing that one day, we will get that smartly unique-looking Russian "Aquafarmer" Captain who so proudly came into view with last years' April Fool's submarine! That was such a hilarious appearance, I'd really love to add that guy to my vast Russian fleet :-) (I only wish there would be a way that before or during the battle, the enemy could see an image of your Captain somewhere -- with that guy, I'm sure it would have a profound effect!)

Good idea to try that out on the Martel, which I already find a quite strong ship! Thanks for the suggestion, I will definitely go and try this out.

The Main Battery Reload Booster Consumable seems adequate for many ships. Yet to me, for guns, higher accuracy decidely provides more advantages. On BB's like Massachusetts or Roma, for instance, which are famous for their dispersion, it would seem that a higher rate-of-fire would only lead to a higher frequency in which the target is (mostly) missed... One interesting ship for this consumable would be the French tier 10 BB, République, which has a standard main battery reload time of only 24 seconds. Which means that in effect, in a battle lasting for 20 minutes i.e. 1,200 seconds, you would be able to fire off 50 rounds. For a comparable battleship with a 30 second reload, that would be 40 rounds. Yet in practice, you do of course not fire every half minute all through the entire duration of the battle. Effectively, you end up maybe firing of 3 or 4 rounds more, at the time when the battle is at its highest intensity and when it really counts. Imagine an even higher rate-of-fire than those 24 seconds and you could really see this making a difference! As a side-note, I noticed that the other new French tier 10 BB, Bourgogne, which is now being tested, will not get the same fast reload as République, but instead 28 seconds. Also, she will (by the way things appear to be configured now) be getting a significantly lower chance of fire with her HE shells (36% fire chance, compared to République's insanely high 48%!) and a ca. 1-2 km short range (which is still far above 20km). For that ship, with these parameters will then seem more useful...

I fully agree, thanks for taking the time to write this down so clearly, these are my thoughts exactly!