tenacious_torps

Easily explained: the attraction is in knowing you won't end up in the first line of battle when you arrive so you can farm damage while others take the shells. To people who believe winning or loosing battles is entirely random this appears valid.

Yup, WG in their wisdom have screwed up capping for DDs so much, that they now feel the need to force DDs back into it by making all other options even less viable: enter RDF. The only way I see to stop them is to drop the class altogether, with the possible exception of Russian DDs. WG reacting to a drastic change in stats is much more likely than to common sense or player feedback.

What's your take on it? Obviously WG are trying to get players to play all classes, but is it a good idea? On the basis of the games I've had today, I'd say quite clearly no. CVs have too much impact on a match to encourage players who absolutely suck at it to die through some games to advance a mission to the next stage. I also think it's a problem specifically with CVs since there are no transferable skills from other classes, which makes them unique in a sadly not at all good way. I'm not one of the people who think the game would be better off without any CVs whatsoever though. I'd just think WG should stop trying to shove a not particularly attractive (to most players) class down players' throats. It doesn't solve anything and leads to even more balance problems.

Use mouse-wheel to zoom out?

Too easily exploited. But I think certain premium ships should get MM penalties. Talking Nicolai, Gremy, Fujin levels of OP-ness here.

Skills are somewhat transferable between classes, with CVs the one exception. If you know how to aim, you know how to aim. You might still suck at aiming torps, but there are gunboat DDs. For the most glaringly obvious example. Of course I don't think that there's some black magic around that'll but the worst CV players on my team always. It's just a risk I'd rather avoid, when the likelihood for a CV player to be really, really bad at it is so significantly increased and I lack AA. Btw, it's not exactly sealclubbing in the mighty Zucchini. She's not a Nicolai. Among other things though, she's the only IJN premium BB, so what other ship to use for retraining captains? If I'd own an Atago I might go there, but then again the Atago with a high point captain is borderline OP, much more so then the Ishizuchi, a high point captain is more or less needed to get something out of her, given the terrible concealment and range. Then, of course, she turns out a very competitive ship. But OP? Certainly not, you need to know how to make her work and she's still situational even then. I can make her work for me, sure, but it's work indeed. I can't though, when I end up with two CV noobs and even one good CV player on the other team, since he will know how much AA I have - barely more than an Arkansas, who has none - and focus me every time. Which forces me to sail in the middle of a pack of BBs, who all outrange me significantly, so I'll be lucky if I even get into range for somebody to shoot at. Thanks, but I'll opt out of that for the time being. It's not whining btw, I just wanted to give some example to an otherwise pretty abstract discussion. As for promoting CVs: I don't even think they should. One of the thing that's so broken about the class is how clearly CV players are either very good or very bad. Seems a lot more polarized than other classes. This makes them so hard to balance. And when you can't properly balance something, you shouldn't promote it.

Always wanted to ask this: does the module apply to all speed changes, do you slow down quicker too? That would make it certainly more interesting.

True enough, she is situational and reliant on terrain, so on some maps you're just sooo screwed. It's when I switch into low tier DD mindset and go full yolo. Not that I'd sink much with those torps, but if I get the timing right I can at least buy my team some tactical advantage by breaking up a formation (most people have no idea how shite the torps really are and can be made to turn broadside or something) and maybe take out a destroyer in smoke or so before I'm sunk. Plus at least it's over quickly... Moving on...

Nobody complained about the difficulty. What I don't like is four CV matches and you get the two CVs who haven't touched the class since the last ill-thought-out mission. Likelihood seems significantly increased and those matches are no fun at all. Actually I think the problem gets less worse in higher tiers, since there's just so much more AA on average. Won't touch my Ishizuchi till this is over, that much is certain. And the gods have mercy on whoever takes out an Arkansas right now. Oth I have a captain to retrain that will fit the Atlanta, so there's some bright side too...

Reload on Marblehead torps is ridiculous though. They suck, no doubt about that, but the suck at a spectacular rate. Also Marblehead has more guns and they get US AP, which makes her significantly stronger short range. It's hard to get her into a position to make that count, again no doubt about that. Marble gets catapult fighter, Murmansk spotter - which fits the general setup of the ships. I'd argue that there's more utility in the fighter, while the spotter synergizes better with the Murmansk as she's about range anyway. I own both and play them regularly. I also played them regularly when changed MM and the bulge of German BB grind coincided at tier 5. So I really do think I can give an informed opinion here and my verdict is that the Marble is actually stronger than the Murmansk atm. Given that you're two tiers down nearly all the time you have to rely on ambush tactics a lot more in both ships and here the Marble is simply better. My winrate in the Marblehead is consistently 5% above Murmansk with ~250 games on both.

Obviously not. But do you think it's a good idea to motivate players to play a class they otherwise wouldn't - and by all appearances aren't any good at - for the overall benefit of the game?

Very good point. I could actually live with these missions, if the CV part was co-op. I'll add this as a separate question to the poll. Anybody who wants to vote on that too but has already voted on the first question will have to delete his initial vote.

Better?

The question here is not one of balanced or not - in halfway capable hands the Belfast should be renamed HMS Roflstomp, no doubt about that - but one of consistency. A game mechanic needs to have predictable behavior and that needs to be linear - as in zone of works, zone of doesn't work. What we have now with RN smoke is, that there's a window right in the middle of the appropriate speed to drop smoke, where the behavior suddenly changes. And then changes back again. This is an obvious bug, no sane person would ever design it that way. Given how the RN cruisers were changed shortly before release - just as the German DDs, so we're actually looking at a serious flaw in WG's handling of their workflow - I can easily see how this one slipped in. It appears WG are under some internal pressure to keep up a certain speed of introducing new lines and features, that is detrimental to the quality of new introductions, proper testing procedures and also prevents proper attention to bug-fixing. Not good at all, C- at best.

I'm having a terrible day. Thx for making me feel slightly better about myself.

They have, if multiple cruisers focus down a single BB. Which usually happens due to over-extending (probably not the main issue) or towards the end of games, when the campers are rounded up by the ships that survived to no small parts due to camping BBs being ineffective and allowing their escorts to get slaughtered. Working as intended, but WG seem entirely unsure what their intentions were, so that's not saying much.

Yup, this force-feeding by making middle tiers not rewarding/unpleasant is one of the things that makes one feel at times like participating in some sort of badly designed social engineering experiment more than in a game. WG should try to do better. A lot. Especially when it comes to making the top tiers an enticing experience that people will naturally flock to. The setup as is is actually counter-productive: since people are pushed into tiers they'd not have chosen just by their abilities and skill level the quality of play isn't exactly improving that much. More like not at all, the risk averse attitude produced by a lot of people feeling slightly uncomfortable and a punishing economy prevents a lot of plays from ever being made. Result: stagnant, campy matches. +2 MM also contributes here, since half of the ships involved objectively can't even attempt to do something decisive or at least not until numbers have dwindled down considerably. A downwards spiral, high tier matches don't have much going for them, so the need for WG to push people there to make their economy work increases. Tier 7 has become the new sweet spot mm-wise, so of course that needed to be excluded from the most rewarding campaign missions. Way to go to make your product look as appetizing as possible, yes? WG, you have issues. Combined with the wide-spread disgruntlement over abysmal communication and customer relations: you have serious issues.

HNY, ladies and gents! I'd like to collect a bit of data on your feelings about the upcoming skilltree revamp to give WG something to chew on before this develops into the next crapstorm. If you feel like there's an option missing, let me know. If you think other things would have been more important, tell me what and why below.

The reason for the popularity of CE builds on BBs is that BBs too can effectively invisifire. In the one sense that matters to BBs, they can stay within firing range, yet find windows to maneuver without risk of exposing broadside. A DD always shows broadside in the sense that DDs are always at risk of loosing significant HP no matter how angled. Not being seen while firing is therefor the DD version of angling. The counter to both is in teamplay and positioning. By nerfing invisifire WG are effectively saying that they've given up on that. And there, ladies and gents, go any ambitions on their part of ever turning WOWS successfully into an e-sport.

Should be level 4 and compete with Radio.

Ishizuchi for me has the best winrate of all tier 4 BBs, Marblehead actually outperforms Murmansk in current Meta due to having to rely more on ambush than range anyway when constantly uptiered, Atlanta is my best tier 7 cruiser (although the recent addition of a Belfast is likely going to change that...). Don't own a Tirpitz though, but I have a suspicion what a BB with torps would do for me. So.... hm... Maybe I just have a thing for ships that are a bit special, but I'd certainly not call any of those ships UP. The only prem ship that absolutely stinks by all accounts I've ever heard is the Krasny Krim (or however that' spelled). If prem ships were like silver ships you'd expect a lot more in that category, since there's no shortage of silver ships more in the general category of chores you need to work through. Obviously that's ridiculous for ships people are supposed to cough up for and so is therefor your argument. Premium ships behave in no way similar to silver ships. That's the reason most of us own some.

And you can't call that ships anyway.

You'd be missed. Discover your inner child, put on some diapers, jump in a Gneisenau and torp them anyway?