tocqueville8

Only +1/-1 matchmaking, to me, means that if you're T7 and division with a T8 you'll be bottom tier and he'll be top tier, period. The two of you might end up: - in a T7-8 match, in which case bad for you and good for him - in an otherwise T8-only match in which you're worse than everybody else (barring other "fail divs"), but only by 1 tier. You won't end up in an otherwise T7-only match (that would give your T8 buddy an unjust advantage over all the other players), nor in a T8-9 match.

I mean...I respect that opinion, and I know lots of players share it, but I'm just not convinced. What makes the game exciting, for me, is playing a competitive ship in a competitive match, meaning a reasonably close one, where every minute of my performance matters more, for good or bad. With heavily unbalanced teams being as common as they are, sometimes even as top tier I'll struggle to halt the enemy, likewise as bottom tier I might struggle to have any impact when my team has an easy win. Cheers.

I'd be happier with only +1/-1 MM. I also think it would be less frustrating for newer players, who are more likely to be "victims" in the current system.

In general, I think the game should only allow +1/-1 matchmaking, if compatible with queueing times. Therefore, T9-10 faildivs don't bother me, as the difference is fairly small and often superseded by player ability. But an Omaha going up against a Richelieu is just stupid, and even an Aoba should be spared that, imho.

Smolensk? She's a strong ship, but so are Petro, DM, Smaland, Venezia, Daring, etc. Meanwhile, the GC will dunk on some poor Omaha while Kamikazes abuse a Bretagne or a Konig.

First 3 games in the Haida (anniversary coupon, along with the Perth). Only a 10 point captain, but the ship shows potential. I'm not sure whether to go for RPF, SI, or actually buff the torps, which come really useful in close quarters.

At least the Smolensk is played at a tier full of strong ships. What really grinds my gears are Kamikaze/Giulio Cesare divisions, which feel much more common than, let's say, Mino+Wooster divisions at T10. Maybe it's because I have neither...

I'm not even complaining about the matchmaking, just... Our Venezia left the flank, went middle, went North, tried to cap the enemy spawn. Like, right away: that was his plan. Like those Isokazes going all the way around the Solomon Islands to assassinate some poor Langley. Our left flank (pardon the pun) got obliterated without a single kill to show for it. I was going to upvote the Colombo for making it past the 10 minute mark, but honestly...

Can I ask you how they're distributed? Have you ever gotten one in a cruiser?

Imho karma is just as much about your attitude in chat as it is about your performance: - afk/terrible performance will lose you karma - great performance will either increase it or decrease it, depending on who's voting and how grateful/salty/magnanimous they are - smoking up friendlies, spotting, getting First Blood, radaring at the right time will all increase your karma more than they decrease it - being jovial in chat will increase your karma, from both teams - showing some leadership in chat ("I'll flank", "defend C, we're coming to help", "I'll find the DD, shoot him when I spot it", etc.) will give you karma, but talking and pinging too much will decrease it - playing CV will mostly lose you karma: enemies will downvote you if you win, friendlies will downvote you if you lose, even when your performance was just irreprochable.

I tried it in Co-op yesterday and was well-impressed by the AP accuracy. I tried it in Randoms just now, 2 games: 1) A bottom-tier defeat with 50k dmg (about 11k to DDs), 1149 base xp. I felt kind of hopeless, to be honest. 2) A mid-tier victory with 121k dmg (5k to DDs, 44k from torps, 11k from floodings), 1962 base xp. It felt very comfortable, but then again I had plenty of targets, plenty of support, and only a far-away torpedo Monaghan to worry about. I was using a 17 point captain with standard DD build + AR + AFT. I think I understand what they were going for with this new line, but the Z-31 at least needs a couple of buffs to be...okayish: 1) the torps trade speed for range, and that's perfectly fine by me, but why the slow-[edited] reload? It should be 90s like on the Maass, imho. 2) An extra smoke wouldn't be too much to ask for, I think. Clearly these things depend a lot on their AP to contribute to the team, but 3 points for Superintendent are too many when it only affects 1 consumable. She should either start with 4 smokes or have a heal to make the SI investment more worthwile. Cheers :)

Except she's not that fast and bleeds speed horribly when you barely touch the rudder. Even with the speedboost, she's actually pretty sluggish. I used to run a full secondary build on her, but since the rework I've barely touched her.

Sure. My point is that "situational" perks should either be grouped to make them more affordable, or only put in competition with other situational perks, since anything else would be overpriced for its utility... As things stand, I'd only run an AA build on BBs between T4 and T6, since they're far more likely to see double-CV games. I'm thinking Orion, New Mexico, Queen Elizabeth...

You mean to grind credits? How would playing a premium accelerate research? Also, how did you only do 15k average in the Dunkerque? 1 CV game, zero damage? 3k average damage in the Montecuccoli?!? Forget premiums, you're not leading your targets!

I've given my opinion on the actual captain skills we have, but I just wanted to say that to me the entire premise is faulty. Right now AA, secondaries, survivability and main gun performance are all in competition for modules and skills. The result is that people go for: 1) survivability (with some options, e.g. in module slot #4) and main guns: "tank build" 2) occasionally survivability and secondaries (that's what a "secondary build" is, especially now that there's no BFT to also buff the AA) 3) occasionally survivability, some secondaries and some main guns, like a GK running Aimin Systems Mod 1, or a Georgia with Aiming Systems Mod 2): "hybrid build" Running survivability + AA is generally pointless, as CVs aren't as common as the other classes and they might never go for you in the entire match anyway, especially if you die early or you're top tier and they'd rather pick on someone with worse AA. In my opinion, the structure of the skills and modules should be changed: - either by grouping together AA and secondaries (the two "situational builds"), making them overall more attractive: we would have 1) survivability perks, 2) main gun perks, 3) AA and secondary perks - or by splitting things 2x2 in a survivability vs main guns and AA vs secondaries way, so that you could pick 1) survivability and secondaries, 2) survivability and AA, 3) main guns and secondaries, 4) main guns and AA, basically.

I would never pay 3 points to get better alpha at the expense of reload. DPM is too important, especially in the middle and late-game. In general, I hate skills that have trade-offs: I'd pick anything else as long as it's a straight-up buff. That's fine, I'm just saying it's more about absorbing more damage than about negating it. With accuracy mod + Dead Eye even an inaccurate BB becomes somwhat accurate, and fires can last very little with a proper build (which is so good almost everyone takes it, so you don't see much of a difference between BBs), but the pathetic plating of many BBs is pretty much the only aspect you can do nothing about, unlike AA, secondaries, etc. That module does very little: HE spam will break your secondaries and AA anyway. It's not bugged, just very ineffective. I run it on many high tier BBs, but a couple of Thunderer/Conqueror/Bourgogne salvoes are enough to put me down to 50% AA anyway. I don't think the main thing was Dead Eye, I think it was the huge nerf to secondary accuracy. But that's just me.

If one could use coal/steel to get a doubloon coupon, one would then buy the doubloon item, which still requires money. WG would lose money or make more of it, depending on whether this encourages more purchases or just makes the same ones less profitable. At least, that's what I get from the OP. EDIT: there are plenty of things on which I'm spending coal (camos, special upgrades and of course ships), but this is not a bad idea imho.

Imho the BB skills we have are fine in terms of what area they improve (their "quality"), but most are just overpriced for how much they do it (their "quantity"): - Manual Secondaries should give better accuracy - IFHE should only affect the secondaries, and the fire chance penalty should be smaller - Vigilance should be merged with Torpedo Protection, for 3 points - Super-Heavy AP shells should just give 10% more damage with no penalty, like BFT used to do for Destroyers - both Consumables Specialist and Consumables Enhancement (1 and 2 points) should affect *all* consumables, and Emergency Repair Specialist (3%? give me a break...) should disappear (put something about rudder or acceleration in its place) - at least one AA skill should also buff the survivability of AA guns, which at high tiers is laughable - the major exception is Dead Eye, which, as you propose, should've been a (smaller) flat accuracy buff, with no condition that encourages camping Does this sound like a BB buff? Yes, but it's not really: most of these skills are rarely taken right now, so we're talking about diversifying builds, not enhancing BBs in general. As for your other points, there will never be a true "tank build": being able to absorb more damage (via heals, reduced fire duration or better agility, meaning rudder, to dodge shells altogether) is more like a "sponge build" tbh. As long as no skill improves the armor plating of BBs like the Nagato, many of them are going to be overmatch pinatas.

Because...it's a game? IJN gunboats are probably going to be my next regrind, but I didn't mind resetting other lines that I enjoyed: Montana, Des Moines, Hakuryu, Zao, Republique, Yueyang...and yes, Yamato.

The thing is, for the same amount of tokens I could get over 50 more camos (and some flags), which is probably a better deal since they'd help me with *any* grind.

The reasons you stated were kind of redundant ("disengage" and "take a breather and reassess the situation/reload your consumables": to me the former is basically a shorthand for the latter), but also I don't find the idea of offensive/bold smokes very convincing. This isn't the Emilio, where you can airfoil your way to nuking a cluster of enemies. Your accuracy, reload and pen are still the same, and you don't have hydro of radar to get really close and guarantee a perfect shot (your spotter will get shot down if you get close enough). As far as bold plays go, I'd take the JB (speed boost + reload boost) any day, despite the crappy armor plating. Or something with hydro, torps and serious secondaries.

The Caracciolo is indeed fine, since overmatch at T7 is common, but not ubiquitous. The Veneto is going to get a buff because she needs one, which is my point. More importantly, SAP doesn't substitute overmatch, in fact it makes the issue even worse. In any other line, when faced with a well-angled BB, you can simply switch to HE and do at least some damage. Bonus points if you coordinate with teammates to permafire her. But if you only have SAP, well, you'll bounce SAP instead of bouncing AP, with no other option to do reliable damage: afaik SAP can't even incapacitate main turrets, which is an incidental benefit of firing AP at the superstructure. SAP isn't even more effective than AP against DDs (ok, it does like 4% more damage, but come on...), and it's mostly unable to hit citadels, so you should probably load AP in case you get a good target of opportunity. I know what the smoke is for, I just don't think it's very useful on BBs with this firing penalty. Since it takes the place of better reload/accuracy/range (historically range, as I understand), it needs to be good. Imho it's not good enough. I'm not trying to "make everything offensive", but something has to be: Italian BBs have good armor, decent speed, a smoke to disengage, good torpedo protection...but small-ish guns with bad reload and bad dispersion (and bad secondaries). They might be fine at T9 and T10, but the Vittorio Veneto, which in a way is supposed to be the most prestigious (like Iowa, Yamato and Bismarck, she's the biggest BB in her navy that was actually built) only has defensive tools, and is rather weak on the offense.

I'd be okay with these "false positives" (according to the previous standard), but there are also "false negatives": you do over 50% of dmg in a few seconds AND get the kill, but no achievement.

That's what I'm thinking. But is there any benefit in actually getting the Z-31? Will it have all modules researched, so that the grind to T8 is sped up? If not, what's the point?

If you can overmatch, AP on the nose. Otherwise, AP on the superstructure, but if they have big turrets (Kremlin, let's say) it's often better to go for HE on the superstructure, then the nose, to cause 2 permafires. .