Captain_Newman

"National +" turns on the special commander's specific audio - this turns on Jingles if you're using him, Ovechkin wil make you cringe, and that cat commander will make your ears bleed. There is an option to just make every captain sound like jingles if you just select "the mighty jingles" option.

I had to resort to using a VPN due to constant disconnects that started with the christmas patch. This trade the disconnects for the occasional ping spike. WG: not on our end. Meanwhile everything else works great.

Wukong was never going to be interesting. It's a Charles Martel that trades gun reload booster and speedboost for 12km deepwaters with torp reload booster. This trade wouldn't be worth it even if PA DWT's weren't being indirectly nerfed to oblivion with the addition of the potato protection system module. Also keep in mind that the Irian exists. As in, a ship that makes a similar trade, yet it gets 13.5km dwt's on a smokeless kutuzov platform.

I personally hate it most when it's a 3 DD division, so naturally they're the only DD's on the team, and they all go together to the same cap leaving the other flank without spotting / capping / torp screening. They usually fail on the cap they go to, as well. Though I have seen some very speshul divs, such as a french DD divisioned with a CV, etc..

Let's also not forget that Kidd and Friesland are still exceptions, not the rule. Other DD's wouldn't have shot nearly that many planes and would have been nuked. If anything, saying you need to own and only play two premium DD's only illustrates the problem better.

More for some than others, you are right there; a lot of bad players don't use the minimap, so last known location is useless to them. Options are good, I want them too! For example, I want an option not to have hidden stat players who don't understand how to use the minimap on my team. Is there a config file I could edit?

Lowest price I've ever seen was on every christmas patch except for the last one - 75% off equals 75 doubloons each. I doubt we'll see that again, since it didn't happen this christmas.

They've literally become a game developer analogue of a bad boss. You have to wait for him/her to leave the office and stop trying to micro you so you can finally get things done right. Actually, bad example. WG is worse since we can't even try to undo the damage they do the game consistently with every update.

They made some maps look nicer? If you were looking for gameplay or balance examples, I can't think of any positive changes in 2019.

I honestly hope it's on purpose.

Indirectly - they are introducing a Potato Protection System module... sorry. Torpedo Protection System. I get the names mixed up. What it does is, if you have it equipped, is that it overrides your torp stealth to a fixed value of 1.8km (and stacks with vigilance). So, the stealthier torps your boat has, the harder it gets nerfed.

Having last known location on being necessary for quality gameplay isn't a matter of opinion, it's a fact. Same goes for enlarging the mini map and keeping ship names turned on. This aids your situational awareness, nobody can keep track of 12 ships all the time and this provides a visual aid so you know where an important target / high threat was last seen, and where he was heading. Not using this will result in worse games. Same goes for stock consumables - using them will lead to worse games, which in turn give less credits and xp. If this is your way of saving credits, it's pointless and doesn't work. Unless you're a coop only player, it is highly recommended to keep using last known location as well as the other stuff mentioned above. Get used to it, and use the information it provides, you'll become a better player for it.

Shima will remain just as popular as it was before, if not more - it will be least affected by that module (torp stealth is trash to begin with, so it only really feels it if the target is packing vigilance on top of that module).

Which is tied to accuracy, vertical dispersion in particular. You hit higher than you intended and it's overpen city. There's a reason why Roma is such an overpen simulator - it has very fast shells which leads to really bad vertical dispersion. This directly results in more overpens.

That module will be real popular with the straight lining BB mains, otherwise known as your main source of damage when playing deep water torp boats. The deepwater tradeoff was always - you get a limited target selection, but the torps are really stealthy. After the module starts being used in large numbers, as I have no doubt it will be, all you will get is a limited target selection with no up side. I really don't think it's worth it.

Y'know, WG, if you find it simpler to just revert to the pre-rework scheme to save yourselves some work on updating these guides, I'd be ok with that...

Ru BB's get that magical dispersion below 12km, though I'd say she works fine up to 14. Beyond that you need some luck or it's the bounce-shatter-overpen minigame.

Yea I'm not planning on getting any of them either. Deepwaters are about to lose their main advantage and significantly lose out on their value, which leaves out the Siliwangi and Wukong. The Bajie I might have picked up if it was on offer for fxp or coal, but buying her outright for that price, or trying to get her out of lootboxes (which, unless very lucky, would likely make her even more expensive)? Just.. no.

I've opened up all of the free bundles possible so far (all directives and daily mission tokens collected). Can't really remember how many this is, someone probably knows. I got the Surrey, and I can see the Devonshire in the next bundle.

I was wondering the same thing, small miracle someone hasn't started a thread on these before now. From what I know about them... Silly Wan.. whatever. Some kind of weird Loyang / Ognevoi hybrid, as far as I understand it. Doesn't seem that special to me. Could be wrong on this. Wukong: Cool name doesn't change the fact it's a Charles Martel that trades MBRB and speed boost for 12km deepwaters with a torp reload booster. Seems like a bad trade to me. If you want a deepwater variant of an otherwise strong t8 ship, the Irian is the ship you want - you get Kutuzov guns and 13.5km deepwaters with a booster, instead. I don't particularly think the tradeoffs the Wukong makes are worthwhile. Bajie: Slightly more accurate Izumo with worse traverse and reload (32s). According to LWM, the increased sigma won't really be that noticeable in day-to-day use. I have to say, I kind of like the look of that camo, but still don't think it's worth paying for this ship since you can just get the Izumo for free. I'd be interested to hear about actual user experiences, though - I do not own any of them.

I remember having a pretty good time in the Soyuz. What are your typical engagement ranges? You want to be at mid range most of the time.

I find it annoying too. The animated icon is just there to keep baiting you. WG, I've known I could get the ship for 15k dubs for quite some time now, if I was going to I would have by now.

Correct. The long reload and slow traverse, but good alpha and accuracy of the railguns, as well as great speed was meant to tell you they're not exactly knife fighters. Turret traverse doesn't matter that much if you play them at correct engagement ranges. Okhotnik torps are short ranged at 4.5km, yes, but she gets an unholy amount of them - it's a t5 short ranged shima wall of skill. Raising their range would put this ship squaerly in the broken category. What these torps are for: making sure there's a 4.5km zone around you that's basically guaranteed torp death. This ensures that you can keep your enemy DD's at ranges you want them at. Another use is late game ambushes / yolo rushes on bb's, ofc. As such, it works. Leningrad actually gets very decent 8km torps considering it's a speedy russian gunboat. If these ships need any buffs, I'd say spruce up the AA significantly as they see a lot of double CV games in their MM spread. But this is all a bit offtopic.

When they say "it will probably be available in the future by other means", 99% of the time that means christmas lootboxes. Since she's been placed in the "rare" category of the captain's log, it's almost certain she will always be a rare lootbox drop now.