rnat

For the current season only t6 ships are eligible. No further restrictions. Unless you get to Rk1, from then on Ranked is t8 only, again no further restrictions. Pretty sure all that was in the announcement though. As for why exactly wg choose t6, that is left up to speculation (unless there's an official statement i'm unaware of). But I'm pretty sure they were aware of the criticism against t7 ranked because of the belfast/(saipan?)/atlanta/flint.

Oh, noes WG has a marketing department! ^^ I don't really see a problem with that, since Gallant probably won't be well-suited for the operation. I just hope they'll make this a good one, since it sounds pretty interesting/exiting in my book.

As with pretty much all (especially US-) cruisers a lot of it comes down to positioning and map-awareness.

Because that is obviously where we get our most brilliant ideas from. ​ ​Mind you, i have the lingering suspicion that the amount of potatos in dds is higher than in cas or cvs (less than in bbs though) ​The reason is that in bbs and dds it's easier to have time to effect the battle than in most cruisers (Belfast ect, looking at you) or cvs. ​If your opponent in a cv is massively better than you (and not us-strike) you often get shut down hard (little exp, no fun), ​while cruisers are simply to squishy to not get nuked if you don't at least pay a little attention to positioning, the enemy team ect. ​Bbs have the HP, armour and heal to reliably have some time to make their guns work, even if they position/play badly, ​while dds have the smoke and concealment granting them quite some staying power if they want it. ​Ofc, that prolly means they'll loose if they don't play to the objectives and just stealth-torp or shoot from smoke, ​but they get some dmg, thus exp and can feel useful/impactful even if they aren't nessacarily. ​ ​Then again, this might just be confirmation bias, since playing to the objectives is inherently risky, so it's more likely to see a good dd-player dying/being crippled prematurely so he/she/it/cookiemonster is for most intents and purposes out of the fight. ​Also i'm human, so you all know from where i pulled that "brilliant observation"

I think new players aren't really a thorn in anybodies side. Sure, you might grumble about a misplay that costs your team, but nobody's perfect. ​Especially folks who are willing to learn, can never have enough of that sort. Salutations ​What annoys at least me personally is ppl who either should know better (even if only by sheer volume of games played) or refuse to listen to good advice. ​ You haven't mastered armor angling at t5 ? no problem. You are still shooting only HE in the Nagato with over 100 games in it ? Sod off! ​Not knowing manual drops at t6 is okay, they don't really advertise that, despite how essential it is. Still auto-dropping in a Midway ? Are you kidding me ? ​Leaving a flank with half the enemy team to 2 poor sods, despite them pinging and begging for help for 10 minutes ? (actually i can't really make sense of that, a map and chat aren't that complicated) ​ ​At some point i think you should be able to expect a human to figure out the patterns of what works well and what does not. ​I just can't imagine it's fun to be consistently outplayed by the average joe, or not hitting anything from 20km or getting focused to death within 2 minutes, so i don't really believe in the "just for fun" argument, at least not in that context. (That said it took me over 2k games to get any good, so i should probably shut up ^^)

Not to forget the not unusual view of the enemy team within 10km of a cap you're trying to get while half your team is still doing the pre-battle engines inspection and the other half having to turning tail because 2:1 isn't very good for their health either. Makes me wonder why some dds like to preserve their initial smoke.

6.6 gave us Operations ​6.4 the French cruisers ​6.3 the big concealment rework, strafing out and ruined t4-5cvs ​This ones has some audiovisuals, a new map and the next ranked. Can't ask for something big every patch mate. ​ ​Also dunno if you can use the same name, but registration works the same as for live (see link) ​For me it's worth it for testing the highter tier ships in the lines and possibly gaining some acclimatization-advantage.

You've got to admit though, applying to omni needs a lot of confidence and/or drunken courage ^^ ​*bump*

You need a seperate account (with the same e-mail adress) and launcher for pts. ​They used to write that into the PTS-announcement, if my memory serves correctly, no idea why it's not there this time. ​Just go here for a how to get started: https://worldofwarships.asia/en/content/pt-guide/

I think Aegis is a bit too easy now. Imo they could add the 3 bbs back in. Kind of happy though about nerfing the last spawn, those atagos were a bit much. Then again it's kind of hard to please both the coop and pvp-crowd, since both prolly have very distinct levels of skill and expectations.

As i wrote. Your captain is on the Furutaka and he is not in retraining. (which is just the process of changing specialization) Thus he is specialized on the Furutaka. Captains can only be used on ships they are specialized on and premiums. Trust me. It is not explicitly written there (as i explained above) but he is specialized on the Furry taco. [edit]: Thx, hope it was helpful.

No. It is impossible to have a non-specialized captain on a non-premium ship. Every captain on a non-premium (if he's not in retraining) is specialized on that ship. The only way to have a captain without specialization is if they were recruited on/credited with a premium ship in the first place and only been used on premium ships ever since. The specialization of your Furutaka captain isn't shown on your Furutaka because it's a given that he's specialized on that ship. Same for every other silver ship. It is shown on a premium ship on the other hand to avoid the confusion of having to always check what ship that captain is originally from if you want to put him back. E.g. if you had an Atago and a Yubari and one of them held your Furutaka- and one your Aoba-captain and you forgot which is which. So for example: Furutaka -> Atago -> Furutaka: no change in Specialization, so no retraining On the other hand: Furutaka -> Atago -> Aoba: retraining from Furutaka to Aoba Last Point: Have you coinsidered just paying the 200k credits or taking the free option ? If your captain doesn't have too many points you typically only need a few battles to retrain him, no need to dish out the dubloons for only that much.

If you have a well-coordinated team with the proper dps and a good cv use a forward defense. (Assuming you get the Lex to spawn) Ideally you can mop up the main-wave on the side where you rescued the Lexington before the rest of the wave can clear the islands and interfere too much while the cv kills/cripples the izumo and then just deal with the rest.

I would disagree here. I think you've got the situation a bit backwards. Since keeping a dd spotted is often way more valuable than what little dmg you could output during that period, it often makes more sense to use dive-bombers for spotting, leaving your fighters at full strength, since those are your primary planes. Secondly (to the last and the next point) as an AS-cv pumping out your max. possible amount of dmg isn't your main priority. And since it takes a lot of time to rotate your bombers anyway it doesn't hurt too much to keep them back for a while and wait for a good opportunity to use them, whereas an ijn-cv will usually be the one sacrificing fighters to get a proper strike in, understandably prioritizing his possibly substantial dmg-output over preventing what little you can do. Basically it's easier for you to be patient than for an ijn cv, who needs to get his torpedo strikes in and take more risks with his planes to spot for reasonable amounts of time than you do. Which still means the ijn cv has the potentially massively bigger impact, but i think that doesn't really need any elaboration.

That was basically my argument (cf last post by VC381), though in nowhere near as much detail as your elaboration. ​If that wasn't clear please excuse my poor communication skills. [edited: clarification]

Make that 2 runs, but sure, no way AS can compete dmg-wise. You've got to make what limited dmg you can output count and compensate for the rest with spotting (and ranting about your team being useless. ) And i admit, that i might be overestimating AS's denial-abilities, since i tend to face Kagas and Rangers more often than Saipans or Hiryus. ​Then again, turning that argument around if an ijn cv or saipan isn't completely incompetent, he can run enought interference to out-dmg a 111 (excluding indep) or 013 and deny most of their spotting. ​[edited: inserted ', Forum thought i was swearing]

This. The (AS) Ranger is nice for support and to frustrate other cvs/dds, but you just can't argue it's competitive in any configuration. Even concerning air-dominance Hiryus and Saipans can outplay you if they are sufficiently good. Not easy if you're competent but possible. (Can't really comment on the Lex, didn't play us-cvs for a long time because of the loadouts) Have to admid though, it's a nice feeling to force dmg-con on a bb and then set a triple fire. Somehow more satisfying that on a ijn cv. Because reasons. Full agreement with your other point as well. Pls WG, make the RN-CVs the next line. I'll even send cookies. ^^

Gonna out myself as a complete scrub here: I play my Ranger 202. I just found it way too easy to mostly shut down most us-strike cvs and outperform 111s in my hiryu/shokaku to believe i would fare better. Admittedly the alpha is garbage and the dps is lackluster at best, but since 312s and 301s are quite rare you have almost guaranteed air dominance. ​It's rare to pull of good-dmg games but you can pretty reliably land in the 50k region while crippling the other cv and most dds. ​Then again, i'm crap so your mileage may vary. (and obviouly does ^^) ​[edited: formatting+typos]

And that's the problem. For strike to be viable you need to be able to relatively consistently outplay the enemy carrier. You might want to wait a while until you're confident in your abilities before giving it a try, since it could be frustrating to learn to play strike, as messing up usually means loosing most/all of the involved planes. (Or, like me, take the cowards way out and take 202 on the Ranger and Lex. Not enought alpha to hard-carry but consistently decent dmg and spotting/sight denial for your team.) To the original question: Don't take Demo expert. you have at least 120% Fire-chance on your bombs (cf http://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Aerial_Combat#Dive_Bombers), so going for an extra 3% is a waste. Also i'd advise against expert rear gunner. Does nothing at all against strafes, imo it's mostly useful to deal with floatplane-fighters (if lacking other options to do so), so it might be a matter of taste. And dogfighting expert is usefull at any tier, more for the extra ammunition than anything else, especially at high tiers where it's pretty sparse. The dmg-bonus only really comes into play at t7 (especially there) or lower and on stock-ships.

For a more detailed coverage consider these: 30min coverage of the essentials+example (i think from before strafing out was an option though): Nearly everything, anything and the kitchen sink (weekend course): http://forum.worldofwarships.eu/index.php?/topic/79134-fara-carrier-guide/

They are only horrible when compared to higher tier bbs though. ​At their tier they are still a massive threat if played correctly. ​cf. eg Flamu here: ​Then again you already mentioned that bad dispersion and speed are your main no-gos, so they'd probably be on your shitlist anyways.

It's pretty incomparable. ​Sure, cruisers and dds will always have more accurate guns, but from the mid-tiers on bbs can pretty reliably deal heavy dmg to anthing within their effective range (except for well played higher-tiered bbs) and often nuke ppl that give you broadside. ​Note: effective range, not range. us-bbs up to the colorado and km-bbs in general like to be played relatively close to the enemy and sitting at max-range is usually ill-advised in any bb. You'll have to be content with a top speed well below 30kts (except for the kongo) until t7-8 though. ​ ​Concerning the cruisers it's mostly a matter of taste imo. If you find a line that's fun for you just stick to it. ​Usually you get a feeling for the lines at t5-6, though 1) there are some odd-balls in some lines and 2) the playstyle usually shifts a bit at t7+. ​​DDs on the other hand are pretty consistent (though us-dds become very good torpedo-boats at t9+) ​If you have to pick though try ijn cruisers. Quite consistent from t5 on up and not too demanding if you know your basics. ​And maybe stay away from the brits at first. They are very much their own cup of tea and need a different playstyle than other cruisers. ​ ​Last thing: if you want to test individual ships/lines without grinding them open a PTS-account (maybe not current iteration though). You can research several t10s within a day there. ​ ​[edited: typos]

How ? Aren't all scenarios besides Newport locked until at least the 25th ?

I have to admit i was neither precise nor correct there. You can't go where the Bogue doesn't want you to, maybe not a big change from before, but previously you had a chance to gain some local air-superiority. Sure you can get strikes in, either somewhere else (or) if you're prepared to sacrifice your fighters. (tbh i guess i was just frustrated of having no direct counter.) ​My main points still stand: 1) You loose most of your alpha. 2 torpedos are 1/2-1/3 of what you should expect with a decent manual drop.2) Dot-stacks aren't reliable if you need both torpedo-squads to reliably hit and the bombers auto-drop. ​I.e. a good result is now more dependent on what your opponent is doing than your actions (within reasonable limits ofc) ​Sure, you can get consistent "average" games, but you have a very low carry potential if your opponent is attentive. ​Imo there is little fun to be had in that. Nor is there in getting strafed to pieces and badly out-dpsd when you reach t6 and have no clue how to properly drop or strafe. ​Or, as you allude to when you meet them in your t5 and don't even have the option. (luckily most t6 cvs don't know how to strafe either, so hurray for that i guess?)

The auto-drop is so far out that setting a cross-drop is the only thing that more or less reliably gets you get ANY hits with your torpedos. ​So, yeah it may be more "relaxing" but in turn you loose most of your alpha, dot-stacks become less reliable ​and you can't do jack against a 110 or 201 bogue, where previously you could at least strafe them when they were distracted or wipe a squad if the opponents fighters were out of position. ​And let's be honest here, some may find it relaxing but it takes away most of the micro and challange and leaves.. not much.