asalonen

I did some testing in training room against a buddy sailing around in a New York. Big, slow target, also with the AA off, and it was quite easy to get 4+ citadels with one squadron (three approaches). Definitely a good choice if you can reasonably expect that kind of accuracy. In an actual gaming situation it's just much more difficult... Must keep practicing. After all, I'm playing the Hosho to move up when I feel ready. Also, sometimes you are in a situation where you just have to delete the BB with close to 20k HP left, or otherwise the game is lost. With the dive bombers, at least you still have a chance?

My experience is essentially that with a squadron of torpedo bombers I can quite often get all three home if I'm attacking a battleship. That's something like 10k to 12k damage. Against tier 5's it becomes very difficult due to the stronger AA. If you're lucky, you also get flooding on top of that. The maximum possible damage with the dive bomber squadron is six citadels, which amounts up to 18k (non-repairable) damage. However, at least for me that's pretty theoretical? If I'm lucky I get one or two. Then if we talk about cruisers they're more difficult to hit with torps. But then again with the AP bombs you're more likely to over penetrate or just miss the citadel. Thus my question: Are the dive bombers really better for any particular target?

I bought the Grasse just after the release of 0.8.0, and my experience has been that the AA does jack *hit. Since I didn't play it before 0.8.0, I can't compare before and after. I've been running BFT and AA Mod 1 since the first battle, and usually the signal as well, and I'm averaging 1.65 planes shot down over 20 battles. Every game has had one or two carriers. More often than not the defensive AA fails to down anything. The dude is my Terrible skipper so he's not getting AFT or Manual AA (which feels worthless anyway right now), no matter how much he wants it.

Well, you actually can argue that this exactly is realistic. My understanding is that WW2 flak shells had timed fuzes, so the shell would detonate a set time after firing the gun. The volume of fire was low, so they didn't dream of direct hits, but instead hoped that shells would detonate close enough for the shrapnel to damage the plane. So in effect the flak would be creating a barrage at a given distance/altitude. If the attacker made it through he was clear from it, but then soon started getting incoming lead from low-caliber AA. The timed fuzes could be adjusted, but if you have a plane incoming at 400 km/h, it will get 1 km closer in about 10 seconds. I doubt they even tried reacting to that, but instead hoped that the low-caliber pew-pews could down the plane that got through the barrage. The allies did experiment with proximity fuzes, but I don't think they saw widespread use during the war. Of course this is really more a gameplay question, specifically for the 0.8.0 CV players. When you attack, you need to sneak your way through the flak barrage first, and then swiftly drop whatever you're carrying on the target. The gameplay has to be challenging but rewarding. Before 0.8.0 we didn't have this kind of layered AA because it wasn't needed. The planes didn't have human pilots who could get frustrated, rage quit and uninstall. You just needed to add some AA that in total had the desired punch for the ship. This seems like a balancing problem, and not an overly complex one. The auras must have sensible relative strengths and distances. Probably Atlanta was poorly tested, and will get fixed in the coming versions. After all it's a premium ship with the strong AA as a main selling point, so I doubt WG intentionally shafted it. TL;DR: Working as intended, but undoubtedly poorly balanced for some ships in the current version.

I was just about to start another thread, but I guess this one is close enough: Does anybody feel that the Manual Fire Control for AA Armament skill is still worth 4 points? I never used it in many ships, but some ships like the Kongo benefited hugely from it, in effect transforming it to a very formidable AA platform in its tier. Now... I'm really not convinced. It's a zero-sum game unless you're really adept at switching the focus. And even if you do it spot on, I'm still not convinced that the 50 % increased DPS is worth 4 points. About the sector focus in general, changing the key binding from O to Space helps a lot, since then it's always at hand with the thumb of your WASD hand. But in chaotic situations I just intentionally forget about it and concentrate on more important stuff.

First impressions after about 20 games in NA, after it was released there first, and then another 10 in EU. Every single match had two or three CV's per team. Most of the CV players couldn't get *hit done, but I'm sure the majority of them are still trying to get accustomed to the gameplay. I presume most of them never played the in public test, and don't necessarily know even the basic tricks. Meanwhile, some CV skippers seemed to performed strongly and carried the team, so they definitely have potential. My division mate seemed to be having a good time in his Hosho and Ranger. I haven't tried CV's yet (but definitely will), so I can't say how dead-boring they might be to play. Compared to the old TX CV click fest I've witnessed on Youtube, I guess people saying this might be on to something. That being said, the way many people play BB's seems dead-boring to me... Most importantly: The games I played were not bad! Different for sure, simply because there were so many planes around. Also, DD's seem to be suffering playing like they are accustomed to playing. If this means staying closer to your team for air cover, and vice versa the rest of the team giving DD's good close support when contesting caps, not sure if this is a great tragedy? In any case it's just not the world of *hit I hear people raving about. It's OK as it is, and it can be made better and more balanced.

Nothing to do with the rework I think. I played about 20 games in NA (released a day earlier there) and another 10 in EU, and every single match had two or three CV's per side. Most players were always smart enough to huddle together when a lot of planes are around.

Le Terrible can be many things, but it sure as hell isn't boring. It is exactly the ship that I take out when I want to enjoy some life on the edge. Also, it offers a kind of gameplay unlike anything else in the game, which is really something. Just don't spec the skipper like you would with a Russian gunboat, since it's not the most effective way to play it. You can argue that it's not strong. According to server stats it can be strong, but it has a harsh skill floor.

For something that's really fun and there's no equivalent in the silver ships: Dunkerque. You have to grind all the way to Richelieu to get anything that plays like it. When top-tier Dunkerque is very strong, and when bottom-tier it's still relevant. Nelson is somewhat similar due to its gun layout, but it's a lot slower, has non-existent AA and the zombie heal. It's more of a trollish one-trick pony. I also really dig Le Terrible, but I know that most people think it's exactly what the name implies. It's very unique, and very challenging. Also I'm sure it's depressing without a 19-point skipper.

Like with Dunkerque and Jean Bart, Richelieu's secondary layout is also very impractical with most guns in the back. With the main battery all forward, it's very difficult to use the secondaries with any real effect unless you're really caught with your pants down. Just checked my stats: With Dunkerque, Richelieu and Jean Bart combined, I have a total of 339 randoms. I always had BFT and AFT in these (mainly for AA), and I have exactly 11 secondary kills. These three are really don't have any potential for an effective secondary build. Alsace and République are a very different story -- they both absolutely rock with a secondary build! Alsace has massive fire volume, but it needs IFHE to deal damage, so it's very skill-intensive. République does fine without IFHE, but for a secondary build you kind of want the unique upgrade to get both good main battery and secondary battery reload times.

I hope this doesn't sound like being an old, grumpy fart, but I miss the Good Old Days when the Bismarck was introduced in the game. I believe I was still in a Fuso, working my way up. Tried to get somewhat close to a cap, to support our DD's, with two red Bismarcks standing guard on the other side. Coming within 10 km they opened up with the secondaries, and the rain of steel was *ucking imposing and scary.

Well, that was just fixed in 0.7.11. It's no longer harsh like it used to be, since tier 8's are no longer up-tiered most of the time. As far match making goes, tier 8 is now good. It's all about the changed meta and the increased distances. Radar and HE spam keep the teams apart, and good brawls are quite rare. They're more common in mid-tiers.

I've got good results in the Prinz Eitel, and the sample size is getting reasonably good. My measure of "good results" is comparing against my own results in other tier 6's, which are below. I'm getting very similar win rate, average frags and average damage to Dunkerque, a ship that I'm very comfortable in. The playing style is obviously completely different -- With the Dunk it's the usual bow-on tanking, and often full reverse spamming HE. With Prinz Eitel I'm getting about a third of my kills with secondaries and generally play as close as I'm comfortable with. I try to actively engage the DD's whenever feasible. The secondaries often don't finish them off, but the range and volume make them reconsider whatever they were up to. When tier 5/6 CV's are around I try to bait them to attack me, since the AA is very good with a secondary/AA build, even without Manual AA. It's a good ship, with a very mediocre main battery. People get too obsessed with the single thing it sucks at. It has a lot going for it, and it's fun to play. (Kindly do not remind me of the stats in Fuso. It was my first tier 6 back in the day, and I had absolutely no clue how to play)

MechWarrior Online is exactly 12 versus 12 and it has skill based matchmaking. I haven't played it, but a division buddy does on a regular basis; As I understood it has five skill brackets, and each match is limited across three brackets. So about 60 % of the queue is eligible for a game what comes to skill -- the idea is just to keep the opposite ends of the player base in different games. It has a smaller player base than WoWs and queuing times are generally longer. I don't see any real reason why the above system couldn't be implemented in WoWs, and why it wouldn't improve the game experience for most players. It could be fine-tuned to work just fine. There are no technical obstacles that are any more difficult to solve than the game balancing problems the developers are working on. ...which leads to the fact that clearly Wargaming does not believe that it would be good for business. Can't change that, but I'm not convinced that this is really the case.

I really feel that Manual Secondaries are wasted here. The dispersion buff is not that significant below tier 7, and in the smaller maps and shorter ranges of the mid-tier games, it's more often beneficial to have secondaries firing on both sides. In any case, the skill is definitely not worth 4 points here. I took Concealment Expert instead -- it helps keeping you alive a bit longer when you're up-tiered. Depending on what 0.8.0 turns out to be, possibly Manual AA will become a viable choice. But other than Manual Secondaries, definitely a secondary build all the way. Otherwise you're not playing to the ship's strengths, and you really miss out on the fun. The build also gives you very strong AA in the tier.

I was about the say exactly this. I'm not sure why specifically manual secondaries have been nerfed for Tiers below 7? Testing showed that high-point secondary builds would be too strong in an environment with generally low-point skippers? High-point DD builds are also lethal in low tiers. Likewise, some cruisers like the Bogatyr become ridiculously strong once you have EM, BFT, DE and AFT. The accuracy and range of the HE spam is outrageous in its tier. That being said, the fact that veterans can play against newcomers is the real problem. Veterans having all the nifty captain skills is really just a detail -- most of the skills, in most ships, don't make THAT much of a difference. Player skill and experience is everything. As I understand the protected matchmaking of tiers 1 to 4, it works when queuing times permit it. Possibly it could be stricter, meaning making the potential seal clubbers just wait longer in the queue, and possibly ending up in matches with less than the full lineup. That should be enough of a discouragement, and it's not like anybody would leave the game because of that? I do the occasional tier 3/4 seal clubbing myself, because I can. It's one of those guilty pleasures in life, and can be relaxing. However, I wouldn't riot if the guys in charge just make it stop.

Anybody else neglected everything else in life to get Prinz Eitel Friedrich and finish both the campaign and the combat mission? You're almost done, and they tell you that there was no hurry after all. @MrConway We're getting a special reward if we get all that done by the original deadline, right? Otherwise will uninstall, I swear!!1

Regarding player names, there are some very common suffixes in player names that I've really wondered about. Very common are "sniper" and "fighter", like (imaginary examples) Pavel1993_sniper or Mehmet_5000_fighter. This may be observation bias, but my gut feeling is that the "snipers" generally can't hit *hit. Likewise, the "fighters" are usually the worst cowards. I never understood this.

@Aotearassummed it up very well in the third reply. Somebody's frustrated and they let it show. Possibly it's just about the game, or possibly he or she is having a bad day because the pet parrot died. Can't tell, don't really care, and definitely wouldn't overthink it. I sometimes do it if I'm in a *hit mood, or if the match really sucked donkey balls. However, I do keep it to the green channel. The white channel is strictly for smack talk and compliments.

This is a crude simplification, but there's a lot of truth to it: T6 has three kinds of players: the good, the bad, and the learning. T10 only has the good and the bad. By now, a lot of players have made their way to T10. It has more players than any of the lower tiers -- some actual number here in an earlier topic. The average guy in T10 is somewhat better. Some are hopelessly bad, and are either beyond help or don't even want any. You can only avoid their company by not playing randoms.

The Krohnblyat is one of those ships... if one is good, then three is obviously better. It actually might hold true here. The short duration of the radar isn't much of an issue if you're syncing their use over Teamspeak. Then if you're also blessed with being top tier, the reds are likely to have tough time.

Just half an hour ago, took three Kronshtadts to a battle with @jss78 and @lliuhto. In the red team were @Saiyko, @GarrusBrutus and @El2aZeR, blessed with exactly zero cruisers with a radar.

After 14 randoms and a few ranked, I'm very fond of the ship. For a tier 6 battleship, she has great speed, great maneuverability, great secondaries and very good AA. She seems pretty tanky as well, or at least the citadel is well protected. I imagine I could complain about the lack of punch of the main battery, but I don't expect everything in one ship. She's a terrific close range brawler, and the typical ranges of the mid-tier games suit her well. You'll want the same captain skills for the AA anyhow, so there's no trade-off in the build. Now, if you do end up against tier 8's you're unusually *ucked. With Dunker you can still do her thing (full reverse and shoot HE), or with Warspite or Fuso your AP is still relevant. Prinz Eitel up-tiers very poorly, but that's really my only issue with the ship. When playing against tiers 5 to 7 she feels strong, and seems to deliver.

I've generally skipped the stock configurations, possibly excluding meaningless upgrades such as gun fire control systems on ships that have ample range anyhow. If I don't have the necessary free XP, I convert elite ship XP with doubloons. I feel that life is too short for grinding a better hull on a ship that's clearly sub-par in its tier as stock. I'll rather just give up, bend over, and pay to skip. It's not like it's going to become an expensive hobby no matter how you play it. I skipped for example Shiratsuyu entirely, but only because I just decided that I wanted Akizuki -- now and not next week. It had nothing to do with Shira being bad. In fact, I never felt that any of the tech-tree ships were terrible. It's more about what comes next being so attractive. Many ships are boring in the sense that they are just the preceding ship on steroids. Big Fred comes to mind... Of course Kurfürst is also just Big Fred on steroids, but at least it has the maximum dosage. In fact, when I think about it, the only tier 9 silver ship that I've kept playing after getting the tier 10 is Alsace.

Didn't think I'd be able to pull this one off. A friendly, pink Iowa started his game with a 20k salvo to the side of my Tirpitz. I let him know what I thought about him not only as a player, but as a human being in general. Some observations about his extended family were included in the rant. Lessons learned: ...not sure exactly.