tocqueville8

This is clearly a bug, something they hadn't thought of. I mean, the 1 credit thing is just a token, the cost is the 1M free xp. The difference with other premiums is that, as far as I recall, you don't get a new port slot when you research a free xp ship: you buy the ship just like a tech tree ship. But making them cost 1 credit is just a convention. It would be equally symbolic if it was 9 credits (1 for each tier) or 0 credits. And it's just absurd that a supercontainer be worth 1 credit, or 9, or zero. Clearly, the compensation should be 1M free xp, or the dubs equivalent or something like that.

That makes no sense. I can see why the Pommern would want to turn to B->C to go brawl, but Kitakaze and Friesland had more space around A, and both enemy radars were on C, as well...

^^This With special signals and a good camo, you can earn 20k free xp on a decent win. With a good camo and a Papa Papa signal, right now (+200% first win bonus during the holidays) you can get 2-5k free xp without special signals. You won't get enough for the Alaska in a week, but 300-400k free xp are doable, if you play a few games every day.

You don't need a Musashi to lolpen a Strasbourg, any gun above 15'' (380mm) will do that.

From worst to best: Salem (coal) - I knew what I was getting into with the consumables, but I still ended up liking her less than expected. Yeah, she can bowtank some ships and heal a lot of damage, but I just don't have the guts for charging Alsaces and such. Emden - Nice little ship, but I just don't play T2 very often. Paolo Emilio (RB) - I didn't have a captain, so basically I haven't played her yet. I probably should hurry before the rework... Friesland (Free XP) - US smokes are often wasted with all those Petros and Stalingrads running around (or rather, going Titanic on all those icebergs in the middle of the map...). The lack of torps and heals makes her worse than the tech tree line, imho. Bad concealment, no speed boost... Shikishima (steel) - Too early to say. It's hilarious when you citadel cruisers for 40% of their hp, but sometimes the guns troll you hard. I haven't tried her with a secondary build yet. Okhotnik - Lots of fun if you use terrain right, otherwise a bit frustrating. With DE she's just insane. Duke of York (coal) - Nothing special, but a lot more versatile than the KGV. Much better than some people made her out to be. Exeter - Very versatile and lucky as well, for me: somehow I've won 20/21 games in her so far... Odin - Broke my T8 dmg record on the 1st game. Carried me through the last few ranks this summer. Haven't played her much since, preferring the Bismarck. Texas - Solid performer, despite the AA nerfs. Asashio B - Only 10 games so far, but they've been a blast. Alaska (Free XP) - Versatile, pleasant. Not a great damage dealer, but a good ship to carry. Excellent pick for Ranked sprint. Azuma (Free XP) - Much better than according to the reviews. Wonderful gunnery, great ship to farm all sorts of flags. Smaland (Free XP) - Worth every Papa Papa and Ouroboros signal I spent during the grind. Insane anti-DD potential with RPF. Nice range to harass BBs from behind island cover, as well. Georgia (coal) - Harder than the JB, but very addictive thanks to all the gimmicks. Hood - Insane armor and pleasant handling, she put me around the top of the EU leaderboard. Jean Bart (coal) - My first premium above T7, already 3M xp on her. As soon as I got her, I broke my dmg record several times in a row. I love how she rewards kinky positions, situational awareness, ambushes and so on. Great in Ranked sprint. Also, from other sources: Oklahoma (campaign) - Embarassing. Slow even for a USN T5 BB, bad dispersion, horrible reload. Shinonome (campaign) - Compared to Fubuki, 2km less in torpedo range. What's the point, then? Tachibana (dockyard) - Only a couple of games, but very pleasant. Mikoyan (event?) - Railguns, perfect for citadelling those Furutakas and Hawkins. London (event) - Pretty disgusting when you use your smokescreens right. I had a 170k dmg game at one point... Kaga (rental) - 14 games, 2 krakens: 'nuff said. Viribus Unitis (Supercontainer) - Wonderful little thing. Great concealment, 6 guns at the front, icebreaker bow. No AA, but CVs don't seem interested...

Spotting shouldn't just give good xp, it should give ship-type-dependent xp: spotting a DD and letting the team do 10k to her should be rewarded better than 10k spotting on a BB. Potential damage taken should also be rewarded, somehow.

You'd have to train a whole new captain for the Thunderer, so I'd say no. You have 2 very good captains (I assume the build is sensible on both) for Georgia and Pommern, so I'd pick one of those. I love my Georgia, but she requires much more finesse than the Pommern: she can take huge damage at range if she shows broadside and drive-bys are often deadly to her, if the enemy knows what he's doing. Conversely, the Pommern has a turtleback and torps, so she loves jousting. The Georgia is better against cruisers, as she can overmatch their 30mm plating and sort of run them down (or run away from them), while the Pommern is more of a pure brawler, as she has hydro as well. The Georgia is also a good trainer for a generic USN BB captain, with a survivability build. Honestly, I'd just get the Georgia and play the GK in Ranked.

Not a hint of a ship so far, nor premium time. The 10k Free XP drop has been common for me and quite disappointing, but I like the 50 x Papa Papa ones, as combined with the +200% first win bonus and some decent camo, they've allowed me to earn about 2k Free XP per game, without the need for special signals. But yeah, 4 camos is bad.

Maybe I'm biased, but I think the Italians are very good if you don't ask too much of them. They lack utility (radar, hydro...), but they can blap DDs and BBs with SAP and easily citadel cruisers with those accurate AP shells. Sansonetti with Expert Loader (and the perks for extra range and reload) is a great captain for the line. The concealment is bad, and until the Venezia (reinforced lower belt) the ships are fairly squishy, but they're also maneuverable and they can smoke up to make otherwise dangerous turns. Just be mindful of your smoke firing penalty. As for the USN, the T9s are just bland. The Buffalo has an uncomfortable turret arrangement and, unlike the Baltimore, she can't stealth-radar. The Seattle is nothing special. Indeed, they're almost the only ships in the line (aside from the Dallas) that were never actually built. Des Moines and Worcester are worth the grind though, imho, and Baltimore and Cleveland are nice as well, if you want to stop there.

I have neither the Z-46 nor the Z-44, nor the Benham, sadly. The Z-44 is probably not very good, but her torpedo reload can get down to 65s before Adrenaline Rush, which is pretty spammy, like a T9 Fubuki or something... Apparently the OP has a s**t-ton of premium ships, so I guess he doesn't care that much about getting the strongest one, rather one with a more unique playstyle.

I don't have the Yoshino, so I can't comment. However, I have the Azuma, I like her, and I think some reviews don't do her justice. Yes, her armor is worse than the Yoshino's, and she doesn't get those trollish torps, but she has a much faster-reloading heal and she sees easier matchmaking, so maybe you can find her an acceptable surrogate, if you have the necessary Free XP. Frankly, I'd save the coal for a special captain or one of the expensive T9 DDs (Z-44 & Neustrashimy).

They could add these, imho: - "Radar, please" - "Hydro, please" - "Do you want a smokescreen?" (i.e. "if I lay a smokescreen here, will you actually use it like a clever person or will you drive straight through it, see half of the enemy fleet, turn away and get deleted?")

Unless you often spend coal on camos/modules/signals, I'd save the coupon for steel ships, as coal is easier to obtain. Imho you should consider your captain situation: if you're into farming free cpt xp, it makes more sense to pick a ship you already have an 18-19 point captain for. On the other hand, if you have a lot of free cpt xp to spare and you're looking for more gameplay variety, you might pick something different altogether. To give you an idea, I could've gone for Ohio, Slava or something else from the Research Bureau, but I picked the Yolo Emilio because she seemed more unique, even though it meant starting a captain from scratch. The Ohio was kinda similar to the Georgia; the Slava to the Iowa, I guess. The Shikishima has a few tricks up her sleeve (better secondaries, AA and rudder) the Yammy doesn't have, but even though the DPM is similar, with fewer guns she can feel more frustrating, as well. Since she allows some variety in her build, she's probably less likely to disappoint you after the rework, compared with ships that basically only have one way of playing them. Cheers.

It's not radar per se, it's the lack of balance with the teams. As I said, there were 4 DDs per side, so radar was crucial: the game was a blowout. I did my job spotting, contesting caps and torping away, and I didn't get sunk after all, but it's kinda hard doing anything when you're pushed by a Black followed by a Stalingrad (or Petro, I forgot) and a Missouri.

They can go by your muzzle flashes, or just guess, but the tiny circle on the minimap helps as well, especially with the vertical aiming. Shooting a target you don't see, or one you see but on which you don't have target lock (the 'X' key), will make your dispersion worse, but with a lot of shells you can still get some hits, and sometimes that's all you need. The same thing can be done in cyclone: the other day, in the Ibuki, I set 2-3 fires on targets I was too far away from, but which my teammates could see. I used that minimap trick. It didn't really help us winning the game, but it was pretty funny, and something I'd never tried before. Still, even if you aim really well (it takes some practice) you're still only about 10-20% as effective as you would be with regular spotting.

Maybe if there were T5 Operations or something, but imho she's too slow for Co-op: all the damage will go to ships than can rush the bots more quickly.

Welp, my cover is blown! What "facts"? Look, I'm trying to help other players. It is much, much easier for the CV to damage DDs that keep their AA on at all times, BBs that sail in straight lines with no reason to do so other than that they've simply given up on evading plane attacks, and so on. That's like complaining that smoke doesn't hide you from radar, or that you can't show broadside to a BB with impunity. Now, there are plenty of great players that complain about CVs and have reasonable suggestions about them, but there's also plenty of inexperienced players who are told you can't do a thing about CVs, so they don't even bother, then they die, then they complain. Meanwhile, the last game I was in had 4 DDs per side, 4 radars on the enemy team, 0 radars on ours. Despite being in a TRB Yugumo, I would've much preferred playing against a CV, but with a decent radar balance. EDIT: the next game I was in had CVs (a Midway on each side), and radars were 2v2. It was much more enjoyable.

Well, that's a torpedoboat build, so I imagine the idea is to use RPF to *avoid* other DDs, and maybe to guess-torp them. With only AR to help you, no BFT, no gun reload module, your gun DPM is going to be about 20% worse than that of many of your counterparts, and you have no heal, either. Frankly, I took the torpedo reload module on several high tier DDs, initially, but I later switched to guns as those duels are often more decisive for the overall game than 10s off the torpedo reload. You can usually afford to wait a few more seconds to launch torps, and oftentimes you only get a second window of opportunity a few minutes later (say, your targets turn away and you have to go some distance to find new ones). By then, the torps are often going to be fully recharged anyway. But when you need guns, you NEED them. In addition, the torpedo reload module makes incapacitations a lot more common, and that will reset your reload timer, which over a few games effectively works out to a reload penalty. And that's not to mention the higher risk of torpedo tubes blowing up for good. Basically, it's a side-grade. I'd go for guns, as the turret traverse penalty is negligible on USN DDs, so that feels more like an upgrade. Or you might try the AA module: better continuous damage and 2 more flak bursts as well, during Def AA. It can be pretty nasty, if the CV doesn't expect it, and she might decide to go for someone else, at least for a while.

As a matter of fact, I didn't play CVs before the rework, I only saw replays on Jingles's channel. Still, it seemed polite to me to assume that in the CV thread people with lots of battles would know what the famed rework was about, that's all. There are indeed and I respect that opinion. I just said mine is different.

Uhm...yeah, I assumed we're all familiar with that fact. I dunno, I just don't find them more annoying than half a dozen other things about this game.

Yeah I'd also like to know (just unlocked her, grinding for credits rn...) The torps are inviting, but what wins games is usually surviving/winning the first knife-fight (BFT + gun reload module, and RPF also helps). In addition, without DE the fire chance on this line is abysmal, so even if you land torps it's not that easy to permafire the enemy BBs after they repair. I dunno, it feels like this line is showing its age a bit...

So far 60% WR in the Haku, so I'm not sure I'd qualify as one of these "morons" you speak of, but long games with lots of AA ships (Smaland, Smolensk, Thunderer...) often see me with half-strength squadrons by the 15min mark, especially if I push closer to help the team.

That's nice to hear: from this thread I was under the impression that AA was useless, or that clustering together didn't help. In any case, a good CV skipper will often find isolated targets even with all enemies still present on the map, so I wouldn't say the combat effectiveness necessarily increases by much. And as I mentioned, enemies are more likely to pay attention to the CV when there are fewer threats from surface ships. On the other hand, you can never carry more than a full squadron, so you certainly don't gain combat performance there, while all other classes can shoot/launch torps faster with AR.

Kind of a petty thing to say. I haven't been playing this game since its beginnings, but there were CVs back then already.

Everybody can "chart a course quickly", but it's harder to dodge shells that way. Maneuvering manually is not a chore, it's an advantage. And yes, good CV players will maneuver a lot, park behind islands (but not nose-in: that'd make it much easier for the enemy to overrun you), go with the team, etc. If you think the team is strong on one flank and you park behind an island close to the cap instead of dropping anchor 10km behind, you'll increase your DPM by 20-30%. Higher risk, higher reward. Never mind when your Haku gets attacked by a MvR and you need to keep angling against those rockets... Or when a DD rushes your Parseval and you have to manage planes, secondaries and rudder... The thing with the "dead hand" squadron is clearly not why people object to CVs.