tocqueville8

You can make a similar argument about your Ryujo vs Shokaku stats: neither the latter nor the Bismarck are bad ships, but you might just be a bit inexperienced for Tier 8. The Bismarck is alright: her gunnery is so-so, but she has pretty good speed, concealment, turret traverse, deck armor and arguably AA. If you know how to set up the fight, those secondaries can make the difference. The hydro is also a big plus.

They're all the same bang for your buck, effectively. Therefore, I'd go for the blue bonuses, as you're certain to use them fairly soon, while the grey and green ones are going to come in anyway, but they're lower priority. Which kind? You clearly don't need credits. You clearly don't need ship XP, having most T10s. You don't really need FXP, having most FXP ships as well as most T10s and most RB ships By elimination, go for cpt XP, as that's always useful.

You really should repair earlier: that delay gave me anxiety

Imho there's far more counterplay against CVs than subs. Sure, dumb subs are free kills, and there's a lot of those, but some ships have pathetically short ASW planes (see Ohio and Jean Bart), or just depth charges that are almost impossible to deliver (see heavy cruisers like Venezia and Hindenburg). Dodging airplane ordnance (at least part of it) is difficult and might lead you to expose your broadside, but it works reasonably well if you can focus on it, maybe in a late-game 1v1 against the CV. Meanwhile, homing torps can be almost impossible to dodge, depending on your current direction and DmgCon usage. And they do a lot more damage than a few rockets or an HE bomb. They also come in non-stop, while planes take a while (if they don't, it means you're very close to the CV, which is often an easy kill). You also get nothing for avoiding a sub's attacks, while shooting down a bunch of planes, however ineffective at preventing further attacks, at least contributes to your xp and credits. It's just my opinion, but I don't find CVs more infuriating than getting overmatched for a weird citadel or playing a DD with 10 km torps against a cruiser with 12 km radar. Subs, on the other hand, can ruin my game for nothing, and they can be absurdly hard to kill even if you know perfectly well where they are.

That's only if you're a mega-whale. Iwami is a freemium: she can be bought with coal (or steel, if one has no better use for it), so absolutely for free. I'll do that myself in a few days, without spending a penny. Same with Tulsa, Marco Polo, Pommern and other Tier 9 premiums, while Agir and Groningen can be had for free xp. There are some recent exceptions (Dalian, Giuseppe Verdi...), but for the most part it's at most at Tier 8 that premiums are available for doubloons only. Granted, they're still expensive (around 40 Euros' worth of dubs), but you get a 25% coupon every 6 months, plus some cashback coupons (on your anniversary of joining the game, as well as around Christmas), plus some doubloons if you play Ranked. In the end, you can get yourself a few Tier 7-8 premiums each year at a reasonable price, if you do everything right.

Is that Keegan-Michael Key parodying Michael Jordan?

Cruising for bruising, on the way to the Gibraltar

I didn't "cash in the camos", and I most certainly didn't "open my wallet". I've given my arguments as to why I prefer the new system, and they pretty much apply to anyone. So far, if we are indeed getting fewer/lower bonuses, I've yet to see someone actually prove it, but at the same time I'm positive the bonuses are easier to use, as there's no more conflict between free XP and ship XP (useless on premiums and elite ships), nor between disposable camos and permacamos, nor between different dragon flags.

There are several ways in which this rework most definitely favors the player, and so far I haven't heard a single strong argument against it: a general distrust of WG simply isn't an argument.

But the video makes no serious attempt at quantifying the changes. It doesn't go into: whether the conversion between camos+flags and bonuses was fair what we're getting now instead of the economic part of disposable camos (from a typical event, from Ranked, from a campaign...) whether the blue boosters are a good enough replacement for the dragon flags: he just forgets about the weekly missions, among other things Where's the data? Where's the math? Where's the model of what bonuses a typical user (he's entitled to give his own definition of "typical" and go from there, or to present 2-3 different scenarios) gets now compared to what he used to get? This guy didn't do his homework. He has a thesis, and that's fine, but instead of proving it he spouts clichés like "WG doesn't do anything for QoL, just monetization", like we're supposed to believe his half-witted syllogism: "WG is scammy, this rework is made by WG, ergo this rework is scammy". Sorry, not good enough.

Then how come he was "always running around with dragon flags"? Where was he getting all that stuff, for free, that he can't get it now?

There were plenty of inconveniences with the old system: if I wanted to grind free xp and cpt xp on a premium ship, or a tech-tree ship with élite status, I would have to waste ship xp bonuses, too special flags had to be mounted all together for the maximum result, but I often got 5, 19, 25, 50 of one kind at once, while I was out of the other kinds if I wanted to use the economic bonuses from disposable camos on premium ships, or tech-tree ships where I had a permacamo, I had to waste a use of the permacamo.

Define "enough to make a difference". The fact remains that some blue boosters are available for free every week, just like dragon flags previously. Maybe more can be found in super containers or Ranked rewards, I'm not sure. In any case, I don't feel entitled to large quantities of +800% bonuses for free: they were rare before and they're supposed to be rare now.

He had me until the point where he said there's no way to get the blue boosters without spending money. At the very least, they come in the weekly containers, instead of the old dragon flags. That's not "spot on": it's ignorant.

PT on all cruisers, except maybe the smoke ones: Jinan, Plymouth, etc. Also on some BBs, if I feel I don't need the extra heal: Iowa, Roma... IFA on all cruisers, as well as some DDs, if I have a leftover point, e.g. on the Forrest Sherman. Consistency is important: if I didn't take the skill on a given captain, and forgot about it, I might get lulled into a sense of false security and eat a bunch of citadels

A bit weird to call a flame war an "achievement", but in any case you should hide the nametag better: it's perfectly obvious who that guy is...

Finished the IJN CA regrind in style... ...and got myself a Siegfried. Now I'm only missing the Gibraltar

Stop it. Just stop it. If a better MM were on sale, it'd go like cupcakes. Yet it's never been advertised. Why? Because. It's. Not. On. Saaaaaaaaaaale!!!

But today the second patty is free: the permanent economic bonuses are baked into the steel ship, so you don't need them in the camo. Other than the Flint's, those camos were always purely cosmetic.

I don't understand what your point is.

Isn't that because the clan/ranked token camos were only for steel ships, which came with their own permacamo, while the "made of steel" permacamo can be applied to tech-tree ships, as well?

Imho there's less reason than ever to get her, between the introduction of the Schlieffen and the recent buffs to the Vermont. She's a beast at mid range, but the slow shells are difficult to work with in the camping, long range meta we often see at Tier 10. Still a good ship, with very high highs, but less consistent than the praise suggests, imho.

Not more: just as many. If you're left 1v1, it's guaranteed to activate. If you're left 2v2, and at least 1 enemy is in range, it's guaranteed to activate. Let's say you're left 4v4, you have a teammate alive on the other flank and you're 3v4 over here. If someone is spotting at least 2 of those 4, the skill is active. The speed buff is especially useful in late games, and the accuracy buff can be decisive in AP-focused cruisers, like Petro, Agir, Brest...

Vampire II is. She's the most versatile by far, while both Druid and Emilio are situational, and will simply not work in some games. Then again, it's what makes them fun Variety, I think. Slava and Ohio also have a different price. Ditto for Colbert and Gibraltar. Sidegrade: - no heal - fewer torps - hard to have a good captain ready = different smokes = different hydro + better concealment + better DPM + speed boost + better torpedo range, damage and reload Credit saving. You only need to play the ships once, to collect all the RB points stacked on them. You can use free xp to research the line again and again, which will accumulate points, and only buy and play each ship once for the payoff. Without free xp, you have no choice but to buy the ships each time and play them for the xp. But if you have it, you can use it to progress and delay getting the RB points until you have enough accumulated for the next RB ship. Mind you, in order to get 5-6k extra RB points you need another regrind to Tier 9 or 10, as 6k of the 10.2k points come from the Tier 10 ship.

My experience is as follows: it's nice that I can grind credits and cpt xp without committing ship xp and free xp bonuses, as well. Previously, it would be wasteful to use full sets of dragon flags on preemiums; now I can just use what makes the most sense, and there's no inconvenience. it's nice that I don't have to "play Tetris" with the various kinds of dragon flags: previously, there was a conflict between wanting to use full sets, as the xp and free xp bonuses multiplied each other, and often receiving 19, 25, 50 flags of a single kind at once, so that I would have a lot of one kind and almost none of another. I don't like the devaluation of the camouflage-item: granted, some of them were ugly, but the combination of appearance and perks gave each of them a "feel". The boosters do the job better, but they have less "personality". I like that we can buy permacamos for 200 dubs, if only for the aesthetic. Some of them look very nice and to tell the truth I wanted them much more for the appearance than for the bonuses, so I bought half a dozen already: it's a guilty pleasure, but also a reasonable use of the Ranked rewards.