Tatsfield

Throughout this thread the concept proposed is that it is the job of BBs to support DDs and if necessary die in the attempt. The nature of most DD skippers is to play their own game, use their high speed and glory in the power of their inexhaustible torpedo supplies to scuttle around the battle area demanding support. I've noticed that the minute I respond that I will support and commit, I'm not likely to survive. I don't mind but when I'm in a cap and being ambushed by the enemy and call for support, I rarely see a DD racing to assist. BBs get a lot of flack and insult while DDs are everyone's heroes even when they exhibit purely selfish motives or stupidly egotistical pleasure in ignoring the rest of the team. I get the impression that while DDs are often not good team players, they get less criticism because the bad ones die young and get forgotten by the survivors while poor BB play lasts most of the game and so all BBs get tarred with the same brush as the bad ones. There are times when long range firing pays off. Sinking a CV from 20+ km using a spotter plane is actually a skill and should be applauded if it removes the enemy's air threat. Rushing to contest ground with several torpedo carrying DDs or cruisers is probably suicidal but if you don't do it you are labelled a BB pussy etc etc. I actually enjoy this game and never trade insults with juveniles as I believe courteous remonstration produces more results than blatant verbal abuse, although sadly that isn't always the case. I'm not a great player but I rarely sit my BB on the back edge and so get sunk more often than not around enemy bases. I believe too little importance is given to capping and too much to sinking enemy vessels. I also think that there is too little active cooperation between players with no perceived game plan. Battles are usually assemblies of headless turkeys and you realise this when you come up against a team that plays together with a plan. I think less BBs would sit it out at range if they were part of a plan. Sometimes it's difficult to know what to do when no one is actually doing anything concerted. No wonder some BBs sit it out at the back. Don't take this too seriously, they are just random thoughts that come to mind when reading some of the overly emotive anti BB postings.

Never understood the reasons for the old flag mounting system. If just always seemed like unnecessary extra clicking for no purpose. Currently matters to me as I am a WoW Scrooge who never pays cash for anything and am husbanding gold for a permanent cammo and have already inadvertently wasted some on an auto flag load which cost gold for flags I didn't need to fly. So now I manually mount flags before every battle and the old clicking system was driving me nuts! So now it's half the work! Yes I know it's trivial but in these lockdown days you need to have something to occupy your time in incarceration.

Under ordinary circumstances I wouldn't have this ship as I make it a policy never to buy ships for cash but it was gifted to me by a most generous player who said I needed to stop playing T8 & 9 badly and learn some basics in T6. He was right and the Arizona is my favourite ship. I play it with a 19 point skipper and a "full tank" skill set. I try to fly AA and secondary gun enhancing flags. I like the 4 x 3 gun turret layout and tend to fire 2 x 3 guns repetitively instead of firing all the guns together. I love that it comes with a permanent cammo. I don't care that it's a bit slow and I just enjoy playing it. I'll look out for you in T6 battles. You'll have to catch me early in the game as I get sunk a lot.

Arizona and New Mexico. T6 where the pace of life is slower and you have time to enjoy your game.

Didn't know the Germans had any CVs.

Never paid a penny to play. Don't care if people cheat as I'm too busy just playing my game and since I really don't care about winning, just the pleasure of playing, all the complaints about how unfair the game may be just go over my head. I like to set myself personal goals and work towards them regardless of what others may be doing. I used to like the RTS CVs but when they became fast shooter ships, I just abandoned playing them. I have one that I never use. I don't like DDs because I'm no good at them and CCs sink too easily. My statistics are poor but that doesn't stop me playing the game as I like to and so, I'm a third-rate free-loading BB player who does nothing to finance WG and quite enjoys the free facility that this game offers without doing anything to enrich anyone in any way except myself. (Well I do contribute oil to a clan but since I don't have a suitable ship for clan battles, that's about the sum total). Flame away, you can't say anything worse than I'd say about myself.

This thread started out as somewhat useless and by the time you get to the end it is completely useless and now I've contributed to the total waste of time by posting in it!

If contributors to threads on this forum spent less time making what they think are humorous critical personal remarks about others who post, there would be less garbage to sort through to pick out matters of relevant interest which is the purpose of the forum. It should be more than a virtual place to insult others from the safety of your home. Who gives a damn about the standards of a contributor's English, whatever his profession. So long as his questions are understood and the answers are reasonable, that is all that matters. I've noticed on the internet that the standard of considerate behaviour is in direct proportion to the seriousness of the subject being discussed, so I suppose you can't expect much from a bunch of guys discussing a virtual game that has little if any impact on the quality or value of the lives we lead away from the computer screen! I enjoy this game and value the knowledge that the forum can deliver, so why not declutter it by considering the value of your post before you egotistically indulge in gratuitous insult masquerading as humour. If you take issue with anything I have said, you might consider what are your motivations in posting on this forum.

To give the OP hope; I'm not a great player and am dragging around a long history of poor play. While I didn't buy my top tier ships, I did think that the object of the game was to advance up the tiers as quickly as possible. I was wrong! I arrived in T.9 and found I was running out of silver. I asked on the forum why this was happening and was informed, in the usual abrasive way, that T.9 ships cost more to run and to keep your silver in the black you need to win and win well consistently, and I certainly wasn't. The advice was to go back to lower tiers and improve skills. One saintly player sent me a free Arizona and advised me that it was a good ship to learn BB battle. I dropped back to T.6 where I can increase my credits and not go bankrupt. I also discovered the joy of playing within my capabilities and that while I wasn't upsetting my team mates by playing less well than them, I could improve my skills through repetition of principles that I had skipped in the rush to gain higher tier ships. I actually like playing T.6 and have only progressed to T.7 and T.8 in very slow steps and always with the integration of basic T.6 ships into my play routine. The upshot is that instead of rushing up the tiers with junior captains, I now progress much more slowly and concentrate on promoting my skippers to full 19s to gain extra skill capabilities which then help as I play the higher tiers. That is not to say I'm a great player, but win or lose I enjoy the game and am beginning to appreciate the skills of the better players that I encounter on my way to Davy Jones' Locker. My advice to the OP is to drop back to T.5 and stay playing there until you find you are consistently putting in good performances and then only come up one tier and stay there for the same results. And, oh yes, enjoy the game for what it is and not worry about the top tiers.

While there is a free re-spec for Commander skills, can anyone advise what they would recommend for the skills mix for 19 point commanders of US T6 and T7 BBs and would this be different for similar KM commanders? If you get this sort of thing wrong it costs gold to put it right.

I have upgraded all my 19 point skippers accordingly and set up the one 18 point to be able to conform when the last point falls into place. Previously I was concentrating on gunnery but now that I've decided to engage in more close quarter battle the new setting should help keep me afloat. Thanks.

@Verblonde: Thank you for a great response and for a lot of useful information upon which I am ging to have to concentrate. Polite, helpful and sharing knowledge. That's what a forum should provide. Well done, I am most grateful! Perhaps one or two people on this forum should take note of how it's done. @CptMinia: Very useful series of video tutorials. I'm embarassed to find out how little I had learned of the controls and graphics of this game. I had no idea who to ask and this guy provides good information without being patronising. The first episode on Mindset is something a lot of players need to take on board. I never thought I knew it all but I never realised how little I did know. Thanks for the link.

I have been playing T.VI and VII BBs for a while now as I enjoy the level of play in these tiers. However I do have T.VIII and IX BBs and today I decided I would see if I liked playing them again. I took out a T.IX - FDG in a Random battle to see how I remembered it. The main battery range is considerably greater than that of my favourite T.VIs and so I maintained a relatively safe range of 18-20+ kms and fired on targets of opportunity. I made some hits and had to relearn leading distances for higher tier enemy ships and then during the battle I started to receive very childish insults from one of my team mates using terms such as "camper", although I was in plain sight and stayed away from islands. I always feel that the use of these sort of terms is unnecessary and offensive and the individual then proceeded to track my position and demand that the rest of the team reported me for something inexplicit. I admit that for my first outing in anything bigger than a T.VII my shooting wasn't as accurate as usual but I did hit a citadel and was satisfied that my mediocre score didn't actually hamper the team which won comfortably. My question is this. Should I take the sort of response I received from this somewhat immature player as representative of the attitudes of all players in this game towards long range battle? Is it really necessary for large capital ships to dodge and weave at close quarters as if they were DDs? In T.VI I often join close quarter battle but I also get sunk a lot. So is it really some sort of sin to capitalise on powerful long range guns and try to engage the enemy from as safe a distance as can be achieved? I'll not be offended if I receive considered appraisal which is counter to my tactics but I need to know whether the 15 year old who ranted about my play does so from the safety of widely held public opinion or if he just always thinks that all ships should get as close as possible and I should ignore this sort of criticism. Is there an accepted battle style for BBs that generally improves their chances of successfully helping their team and winning battles? Why is long range gunnery not seen as a positive attribute for the BB class? I'm not opening myself to be insulted here, just to gain some understanding of gameplay style and attitude of serious players.

It's pretty sad that advice cannot be offered without the hostile barbs. What is it with people on the internet that they treat others in a way that they wouldn't dare to face to face. If the price of my seeking knowledge is to have to accept supercilious make-yourself--feel-superior jibes and hostile smileys, then it's hardly surprising that I haven't asked questions before. I enjoy playing this game but I really wanted to have others who like it as much as I do offer advice. I asked the question in this section of the forum as I hoped that people would be less judgemental and that others might benefit from a discussion on BB tactics. How much humiliation does one have to accept to get any help here? I didn't think I would have to have my shortcomings poor battle performance hung around my neck because I asked a question that I hoped would help me improve! I just wanted to hear whether there was a place for long range battle in WoW. I didn't any where say that I thought it was a war winning tactic. Shame as perhaps you might have useful advice. Being USEFUL isn't tactical advice. What you have to say is what is useful. For all I know sitting far back and shooting at the enemy might have been useful, but apparently it's not. Being successful in this game seems to be a statistic based upon destruction inflicted. It takes little account of being useful to your team mates in ways which don't destroy enemy ships. I always try to accommodate others who ask for help but find this often just gets me sunk. Believe me, if I hung around on the back line, I'd survive more battles than I do, but I enjoy getting forward. My poor results are due to my suicidal style of play but when I ask about holding back as a possible change to my play, I find that this is not approved. I intend to see if the belief that long range battle is harmful to the team is actually borne out by deliberately fighting 10 battles at the maximum range of my main guns and fighting another 10 battles where I close with the enemy as quickly as possible. If you're all correct the difference should be obvious. I'm not talking about how successful I am personally but what effect it has on the team result. I'm sure all your comments must be about the effects on the team and not out of any interest in my personal scores, which aren't a high priority for me anyway.

I was criticised when I was at long range and so my questions here are about long range battle. Whatever I did or didn't do subsequently wasn't relevant to long range battle. I asked for advice about tactics and play style, not whether I was justifiably abused. I do want to know about shooting from 18-20 km and that is what I asked. How close to cruisers and DDs should I allow my vessel to deliberately come? Once a DD gets to within 5 km of my BB, There seems little that I can do to engage with any armament that traverses fast enough or loads fast enough to assume a realistic defence against swarms of torps. Should BBs retreat when they come within the range of lesser ships especially those armed with torpedoes? Is there an optimum range where enough shells in a salvo are likely to hit while the ship is far enough away to deprive the target of a chance to fully retaliate? Is there a range at which enough shells hit and enough salvos can be fired to be likely to cause the same damage as one close range salvo? I ask these questions because while no one complains about CVs operating at extreme ranges and often hidden behind islands, any attempt to use range to a BB's advantage seems to upset non BB skippers. Why is that? I actually like the idea and the practice of trying to hit a moving target at a long range. It's like sniping and gives a sense of satisfaction if successful but I won't do it if anyone thinks that it really puts my team at a disadvantage in any way. I hope this doesn't engender hostility on the forum.

Not sure of your meaning. Is that advice or criticism? What does "tank" mean? When you say "a player" are you referring to me? If so does this method of address cloak some degree of contempt? "Once again" is really dismissive. Why be so unfriendly to a serious questioner? And "a serious questioner" is me! Explain your strategy and why you would think that conducting the opening of a battle at long range proscribes closing in later in the battle? I started this thread for discussion not dismissal! But whatever turns you on.

I'm not a newcomer, I just play like one! I have selected the 4 point commander skill option of aiming secondary guns rather than leave them fire automatically. So having done it I now have to consider two questions that I ought to have asked before I did! 1. How do I aim and fire the guns? Is it with the same sight reticule as the main armament and do I actually have to pull a trigger on therm and if so is it the same as the main armament? 2. If I am too busy to aim them, do they have any automatic fire capability? I have had my onboard robot secondary gunnery officer kill DDs that I couldn't bring to bear with main armament. Will I now lose this capability? I thought that if the skill cost 4 points it would be worth having, but now I'm worried that what it gains on the swings, it'll lose on the roundabouts.

Is that the actual ship in both ordinary and binocular view or is that the ship's icon on the map display?

Ouch. If your right I would need to reallocate the skills for my 19 pointer which is a pain. Can anyone confirm, is the operating key for aimed secondaries Ctrl or Alt? I have to give them a go before considering whether my opting for them was sensible. Does the "aimed" selection work like the "priority" anti aircraft crew selection on the O key or do you have to lock the aiming reticule on the chosen target? Oh, and I do rather get carried away with shooting longer ranges and end up with a DD or two getting close and personal without me noticing! It's a good thing that I enjoy this game, win or lose, or I'd spend most of my time crying.

Thanks. That's what I needed to know. Let's see if these 4 points spend on the commander are going to be a worthwhile investment.

Of course WG will do what they perceive will benefit their business model the best but that is hardly a topic upon which comments are of much interest to those who just play their games. I always felt that the original theme of WWI and inter-war surface ships was what attracted most people to play this game. I've seen it said that when the game extended itself to cover WWII battle styles it undermined its future. You know that it is being shaped for the 15 year old market when it includes "space ships" and horror movie vessels and worst of all the strange anime preoccupation with cartoon prepubescent girls! Not withstanding that, there would be a case for not allowing a sub into a battle unless there are other vessels present that could defend themselves and others from an otherwise unstoppable attack. I agree that the game is skewed and if subs appear and there are no anti sub vessels on the board, there won't be much fun for all the sitting ducks waiting to sink. The game will become a submarine game awarding the win to whichever side's subs can sink the opposition fastest but since apparently they can't sink each other, even the sub skippers will run out of fun and have to wait for the clock to run down before they can leave the battle. I've played this game for a couple of years, so I must have found something in it to enjoy. I abandoned CVs when the real time strategy format was dropped as I didn't enjoy their new play style but it didn't make too much difference when at the other end of a CV attack. With subs it isn't the way a sub skipper can play that worries me, it's the poor game design that exposes all other vessels to what subs will be able to do and that seems to be to sink this supposed fun factor. I am not sure that DDs would have such a boring time defending other surface ships as subs are not going to attack DDs but make for BBs and the like and that would be where DD skippers would make sub contacts. Currently DDs tend to careen around the board looking to be offensive rather than defensive. The rest of the team consoles itself that at least they provide forward spotting and make early caps but they don't often do this out of the goodness of their hearts. They are looking for torpedo targets and the rest just happens. Perhaps looking for depth charge targets would keep them near to the larger vessels who are the bait for their prey and by so doing they would inadvertently defend their team mates.

Teams will have to attempt to discipline their DD skippers not to commit suicide in the early game as most of them do now and supposedly the matchmaker won't put subs in a battle if there are no DDs available to play. But this game is played by people who like explosions and love to sink things, so it can only get silly once submarines get in the game. A lot of players like to play entirely on their own and cannot understand teamwork at all. I've seen a team with a statistically certain win achievable by staying away from the enemy and letting the clock run down on a massive points lead and they chose to combat the other team and all get sunk for no tactical reason. So telling DDs to stay with the fleet, protect the capital ships and seek and destroy attacking subs is not likely to get a 100% positive response.

The reason BBs have huge accurate long range guns is so that they can stand off and lob shells from great distances at lesser vessels which cannot reach them with their lesser calibre armament. All this reference to "camping" and "sniping" comes from FPS games where players hate getting nailed by the sniper! I'm fed up with unjustified criticism of BBs doing what they were designed to do and leaving close range engagement to the cruisers and destroyers. Why is it that the skippers of small vessels have this down on long range warfare? It's like complaining that submarines travel under the water and aircraft fly up in the sky. As a BB skipper I'll do whatever it takes to stay afloat and if the game is foolish enough to provide me with numerous unlikely islands behind which to hide, then I'll do that. I don't complain that DDs are small, fast and very manoeuvrable and difficult to hit with slow traversing big guns. That's how it is and good luck to them. I'm not interested in submarines per se and will have to live with their devious advantages if I must. But I'm not going to accuse them of some childishly phrased expression to intimate that they are in some way playing dishonourably at best or at worst indulging in some form of cheating. Let BBs play the way they want and live with it!

Cannot fault the advice that preparedness to avoid torpedoes is the only way to stay above the water surface. However, on the matter of just how many torpedoes can be in the water at a time and allowing for the fact that as accurate as the digital ship design is, the game play is very game play and not simulation. I know that in the real world torpedoes are very complicated devices that often fail, they take much longer to prepare and load than the game allows and that the number of torpedoes carried by ships and planes limits the number that a skipper would launch as he needs to conserve his supply. This is balanced by the fact that it seems that torpedo hits and damage are in reality worse that portrayed in the game and lastly the game lasts such a short time that skippers have no incentive to conserve torpedo stocks. You have to come to terms with the fact that the game designers decided that torpedoes would be used far more often than in reality and that players getb used to the fact that sometime you can almost walk across the map on the torpedoes in the water at any given time (irony!) Personally I'd like a less active game play design with longer games, larger maps and lower expectations of blazing action. In fact more simulation than game, but it is a game and I have to come terms with the fact that to make money from it WG have to appeal to the mass games market where blood and thunder are the most desired aspects of gaming. So, if you cannot develop the skills to avoid torpedoes, develop a couldn't care less attitude, enjoy the game and sink with a smile on your face and not a frown!

In reality the introduction of both carriers and submarines into naval warfare changed battle order and virtually eliminated the value of battleships, reduced the need for many cruisers and relegated destroyers to anti submarine warfare. Navies today are based around carriers and submarines. This evolution would completely destroy the raison d'etre of World of Warships and it was apparent that carrier play in the game was the most contentious aspect and I suspect that submarine play will bring the game to its knees, which in the real world would be an attainment to be striven for but in virtual gameplay is going to upset a very large number of players. WG should have stuck to the "Battle of Jutland" era model for this game and realised that the Pacific battles of WWII are far less entertaining in gameplay. And my hobby horse? Torpedoes! There are just too many in the water at any given time. They should be a much rarer and more valuable asset that player have to conserve. Submariners would consider two torpedoes more than adequate for any attack and then have to haul very large heavy lumps of metal around in confined spaces to reload tubes from a limited armoury. I'd hope that WoW submarines would be similarly constrained from launching full salvoes and reloading them and doing it again and again but I suspect that they won't and what with aicraft, DDs and submarines all launching full salvo torpedo attacks, you will be able to walk across the battle area on torpedoes without getting your feet wet!