TeaAndTorps

Often see this opinion, but I've never heard an explanation of why? Not suggesting it's not the case, but I just got GM and it's nice to be warned about the cons of the next thing in the line.

Fuso and Normandie are both ones in which I will have randomly disastrous games. Good ones too, but some where I just get nothing done. Émile and La Gal did similar thing to me too. Just finished my Mahan grind today and had trouble doing damage with that, although I did okay-ish at capping and winning games.

Re. hidden gems: I will always maintain that Aoba is a great ship, although I rarely hear people say so. Dunkerque too, but I think that's more widely appreciated.

Thanks @Ocsimano18, jolly decent of you

Hand for the Halsey grind, and my efforts towards a first 19-point commander

Got the T4 from the first lot of weekend missions. Looking forward to converting it into credits...

The thing I find amazing about Tallinn is how many people driving one (mercifully on the enemy team, so far) seem incapable of switching ammo and just load AP in all situations *cackles maniacally in bow-tanking Cleveland, of all things*

I may have to revise this in view of now having played a battle with the new rules about bots filling up low-tier MM. Furutaka. There's lots of other fun to be had on T5 – hello Giulio Cesare I actually quite enjoyed Jianwei, Iron Duke, Bretagne and am even having a good time with New York so far. But nothing to challenge Furutaka imo. It's a great shame, what's happened to low-tier battles. I really enjoyed them while I was spending a long time learning and reinforcing the basics of DD play, and now...

Shenyang, all the way. St Louis/Charleston Phoenix Clemson Mainly Shenyang though.

Imagine my genuine surprise when I scrolled back through the rest of the thread and found out that 'skill is cheating' was an actual take that had actually turned up already and my misreading was... kinda accurate

Rather off-topic but I have scrolled past this thread a few times now. Every single time I have read the title as 'ban expertise from ranked', and a little part of me just expects that to be an actual thread at some point

Since getting the Graf Spee and leaving the rest of the Dockyard event be, I've beek reminded what fun I was having in Haida before taking a break several months ago, and can see myself taking the ship out a lot more. My commander is heading towards 13 points (currently skilled PT, LS, SE, CE; the core DD stuff). I'm playing around with some ideas for commander builds and wondered what the forum thought. I definitely want SI and AR in the mix, but the remaining four points are causing me a headache. If I've done my sums right, IFHE will let me penetrate 25mm of armour but not 26+mm. Since the IFHE rework, my feeling is that this is less worthwhile. It'll allow me to pen the plating of some T8 and 9 cruisers, Pensa, NO, and Yorck(?), but that seems very situational – not least because it would have to be a situation where I could largely avoid being hit back by those ships. Ilike to focus on (in no particular order) cap-contesting, DD-hunting, and vision control. That's got me thinking that maybe RL is a better use of those points, to more effectively hunt DDs. It occurs to me I could also just rely on map_awareness.exe to find them, and rely on BFT for more effectively killing them (and take PM with the extra point). It's even occurred to me Vigilance, stacked with the long hydro action time and the fact that I generally okay between enemy destroyers and my team, might provide some team utility, but that's probably a bit situational too. Thoughts gratefully received

This is exactly the conclusion I was coming to Tbh I've been experimenting with RL on some USN DDs, and I'm less and less convinced it's worth the point cost. Very often get equally helpful input from just considering which moves make sense for the enemy DDs...

Cheers. This kinda confirms what I was thinking: I'll go for RPF first. I'll keep an eye on my consumable use too; I can see the use for BFT, and if I can manage to not run out of consumables to a problematic extent that would be the natural choice.

Fair do's on the U-2 off an aircraft carrier. Still, it seems to far outside the era of this game for my feeling. A pure support ship would be an interesting concept and more in keeping with the current feel of the game

That's v much what I was thinking. Thanks! I already run the smoke generator mod, and am planning on spending some coal in the hydro one too.

I have to say this strikes me as a dreadful idea. Maybe it makes sense as a counter to subs' acoustic torpedoes if they make it into the game, but current 'dumb' torpedoes don't need more counters than they have – especially not one to which there is no counter-play. The idea of stratospheric planes is ahistorical too. U-2s came along later and as far as I'm aware have never been ship-borne planes. Fw-200s, Sunderlands and Catalinas were very different beasts and not capable of those altitudes. From a gameplay perspective, I just don't see the need for this. Yes, players love receiving support, but there are so many ways to support your teammates already implemented that fit more comfortably with the game environment. Pure support classes are likely to be shouted at by teammates (as CVs and DDs already experience with spotting and smoke...) and so probably wouldn't be much fun to play. And yes, it is a naval game. Planes have their place, but only if launched from ships.* * Exceptions apply to operations. TL;DR it's a 'no' from me, and I don't understand the idea that 'dumb' torps need more counters than they already have.

Oooooooooh. I've always read the 2 as a Z

Tbf you could say that it works a bit, in that any plane losses do prevent a CV from getting quite as many attack runs out of a single squadron – it increases the time between each drop by forcing them to fly a new wave all the way from their ship sooner than if all planes survived. But I 100% agree this is nowhere near enough benefit to give up the surface-to-surface skills and upgrades. Anyway, thanks for descending into said pit of crazy with a level-headed response

I'm by no means a unicum and have played a grand total of 3 games in CVs, with decidedly poor results. (I just don't enjoy it, prefer the other classes). But I still come to this line of reasoning: I'm just interested to hear if you have any evidence for suggesting that these observations are incorrect, and that AA can be made effective against a competent CV captain (based on the two possible conditions I set out)? P.S. none of the above is meant as 'my AA doesn't work' – it does, to a given value of 'works', and I don't mean to say that CVs' presence is overwhelmingly negative. I'm just saying that building for AA is fairly pointless.

My thought process: 1) I do not need an AA build against players like the AvP captain who lost 9 planes to a single flak salvo from my non-AA spec Cleveland yesterday. 2) Unicums will consistently dodge flak. 3) Therefore there is little point in buffing flak: players who eat flak explosions will be devastated by it anyway, players who dodge will be fine. 4) No one can dodge DPS, so maybe this is worth buffing... 5) ... but only if my ships has good enough AA for this to translate into increased plane losses (as opposed to increased damage that doesn't actually destroy extra planes) ... 6) The number of ships that have sufficient AA for that is limited 7) The number of ships that can deliver crippling losses to a CV based mostly on DPS is even more limited Meanwhile there are lots of more useful skills competing for the 3 points I would have to spend on BFT. For it to be worthwhile for me, an AA spec would either A) have to deliver even greater increases in DPS, such that I could (in combination with judicious use of DefAA and sector reinforcement) deliver significant damage to a CV's ability to contribute over the course of the battle or B) make it much harder for competent players to dodge my flak. I have yet to see any evidence that there are builds available that meet those requirements, and prefer to continue to build with skills that are effective against surface targets – i.e. the majority of those I engage.

Yeah in fact the wiki is out of date. Might just remove that...

I don't remember if the wiki page is (should've checked, sorry!), but LWM's post was made in response to the IFHE rework

@Admiral_Oily_Discharge To answer your question about IFHE, this is a good reference guide from Little White Mouse: https://forum.worldofwarships.com/topic/213359-ifhe-all-night-long/ [Removed outdated link to wiki] You can use that to decide whether it's worthwhile on a case-by-case basis. TL;DR: Take it for 155s and 152s, but not 203s. Btw, you're missing out by skipping Furutaka. 203s on T5 are no joke

If German DDs need buffs (and I'm not far enough down that line to feel I can have a reliable opinion), then I'd much prefer for that to be done within existing parameters (ROF or DPM buff, torpedo reload buff, idk, something that is an adjustment to existing mechanics) rather than by introducing another cheesy gimmick (that also reduces the possibility for counter-play to boot). The game needs fewer such gimmicks, not more, imo.