Ranked boats

[Apophisos]

Not saying I'm any better than the next, but this is embarassing;

 

[Spithas]

But everyone said arms race mode was good... or so WG claimed.

[Strapps]

And I was just thinking I've only got 15k xp left to grind on my Akizuki to give me a Kitekaze to take into ranked. Nice to see I'm not alone in that thought. 

 

It's not that surprising that so many folk are playing DDs in ranked. You need a fast, sneaky ship to grab the buffs and "everyone knows" DDs are dead in randoms with the CV rework. 

[ForlornSailor]

Well that Meta changed quick. Yesterday I was still the lonely DD (and enjoyed it).

[Verblonde]

Crikey! I had time for one run-out last night (took Black), and we only had three DDs per side, I think.

 

Not hugely surprised; if reports on here are accurate, most high-tier DDs have been rendered irrelevant in Randoms - might as well play them in a CV-free environment instead...

 

When I have a bit more time, my idea is to 'triage' my T8+ DDs - those that have decent AA will get fully tooled up to maximise it, and venture out into Randoms; the rest will be mothballed or used for CV-free modes only.

[Kenliero]

I think I will take BB without any fire or tanking skills. See how it goes.

[Seinta]

So this is where all the DDs from Random went.

[Cyclops_]

Just for factual correctness.

 

Ships sail on the high seas.

 

Boats are Submarines and travel underwater.

 

Thank you.

[Kingsown04]

The arms race format for ranked is a poor decision. Genuine lack of team play that is far worse than previous seasons and a very gimmicky type of game format. Hopefully the next season will be straight domination or something along those lines this is just poor. 

The chance to avoid 2 CVs per game and they are trying to force us to return to Random with the piss poor Arms Race format.

 

What next?

[Carry_me_Daddy]

Problem is DD's are crap in Ranked because there are no caps for ten minutes and game is usually over by then anyway. So you're almost guaranteed to not retain a star as unless you hit a ton of torps you just can't do the damage necessary to keep up with larger ships. Jutland is also a nasty piece of work due to her already great starting stealth compared to every other DD at tier 9. And let's not get started on the games where every ship has radar on the enemy team and you have none...

[Verblonde]

I'm new to this Arms Race business: how much emphasis do people think should be put on bagging the buff circles (or whatever they're called)?

 

I only played one game last night, but in that game our team scattered to get the circles; I assume that's mainly why we lost. Do these boosts provide enough advantage in general to be worth abandoning more usual sensible play, and (if so) to what degree?

[ClappingLollies]

Oooh. So that is where all the DDs are hiding. To afraid of CVs huh? 

[Animalul2012]

lets hope they nerf that broken ship kitakaze and harugumo! and if they dont i demand all nerfs to khabarovsk reversed.

[lameoll]

3 hours ago, Verblonde said:

I'm new to this Arms Race business: how much emphasis do people think should be put on bagging the buff circles (or whatever they're called)?

Wel thats the annoying thing Ppl (DD's) Go out of their way to get the buffs and [edited]up their team in the process.

and Tbh i have not payed attention in anny game yet on what buffs i had I just played it like death match and tried to kill the enemy.

In domination i would actualy care about the cap But here i just  go nose in and shoot stuff.

[DarthB0B0]

Add to that the blatant star saving antics of players if they think this is a loss and boom, not a good mode

[GarrusBrutus]

On 2/1/2019 at 8:27 PM, Verblonde said:

Do these boosts provide enough advantage in general to be worth abandoning more usual sensible play, and (if so) to what degree?

No. They do not give xp, just the boost. And losing a ship, especially a DD, early game is a massive blow to a team.

But the WoWs playerbase being the WoWs playerbase do not know this secret that the longer you live the more influence you can have on a match so instead they will just yolo for these weird circles in the middle of the map.

Ive seen BBs yolo at the very start. Ive seen Ibukis trying to get a buff in the middle of the map. What these players are thinking is beyond me.

Funny part is, these players have often tens of thousands of games under their belt.

[Verblonde]

32 minutes ago, GarrusBrutus said:

What these players are thinking is beyond me.

Presumably, quite a few of them having not played this particular game mode before, and didn't ask advice on the forums first - said advice was invaluable to me, as it contributed to my least hopeless result in Ranked yet.

 

(Thanks to everyone for the advice BTW - you're all splendid!)

[___V_E_N_O_M___]

What ship class is the fastest way to rank 1, is it with DDs?

[That_Other_Nid]

19 hours ago, ___V_E_N_O_M___ said:

What ship class is the fastest way to rank 1, is it with DDs?

Well the scariest ship in ranked is Missouri.

 

Ibuki for the torps and the radar ships as usual. Everything else not really.

 

Black is surprisingly unscary, as the the torpedoes are poop and it's just a Fletcher. An actual Fletcher is probably more scary because of the better torps. 

Kita for the dakka and torps while being slow and sluggish. Z-46 is poop unless it can make use of it's hydro. Chung Mu is faster and more stealthy than Fletcher, but can't hit DDs with torps. 

Jutland is slow, but has better guns than z-46 and the long endurance Hydro can be useful.

 

This is to rank 9, below that I have no idea. 

 

 

[___V_E_N_O_M___]

I mean to say what ship type will guarantee the quickest route to rank 1

[quickr]

8 minutes ago, ___V_E_N_O_M___ said:

I mean to say what ship type will guarantee the quickest route to rank 1 

A skill _{ship type}

[Verblonde]

5 hours ago, ___V_E_N_O_M___ said:

I mean to say what ship type will guarantee the quickest route to rank 1

None guarantee it, in my view; the best to play is whichever T9 you perform the best in. Trite, but still accurate.

 

For example, I have a MO, which performs very well in Ranked overall, but it's about the last ship I would personally pick, because I suck in BBs...

[lossi_2018]

I use my bb and did very well until ten rank overcoming bad teamplay then the team surrounding u becomes the most important thing. A good team can overcome absence of buffs although getting one or two dont hurt. There's no guarantee though, I had a dozens of bad mm after the initial good run and i dont see reaching first spot anytime soon. Its tiresome winning to lose two or three in a row and all your progress along with it. You just dont know what will happen and a bad early play usually dooms the whole team.   

[eliastion]

21 hours ago, GarrusBrutus said:

Ive seen BBs yolo at the very start. Ive seen Ibukis trying to get a buff in the middle of the map. What these players are thinking is beyond me.

 

Bad players are bad. But you're also wrong about the buffs.

 

On 2/1/2019 at 8:27 PM, Verblonde said:

I'm new to this Arms Race business: how much emphasis do people think should be put on bagging the buff circles (or whatever they're called)?

 

I only played one game last night, but in that game our team scattered to get the circles; I assume that's mainly why we lost. Do these boosts provide enough advantage in general to be worth abandoning more usual sensible play, and (if so) to what degree?

Buffs are crucial. If you just play the "more usual sensible play" and ignore the buffs that don't spawn on you, you're going to lose. That being said, trading a ship for a buff is a stupid thing to do, obviously. It's hard to give a reliable formula but you'd normally expect DDs to try and collect the buffs closer to the middle, cruisers (depending on what cruisers exactly) might want to go for the ones in the back. A lot depends on the kind of the buff too. The consumable buffs are of little value, rudder buffs aren't worth taking risks. HP regen buffs can be very important - DDs usually don't have heals but they do trade hp. Slowly regaining health can mean that a DD badly damaged in the opening stages of the game might regain a lot of value near the end. Concealment is crucial especially in matches with lower saturation and better reload is always a nice thing to have.

Long story short: buffs are a precious resource that helps you win the match. All that said, your goal is winning the match in the end, so you need to dynamically assess the risks or - in case of buffs that spawn far away - how much use your team has of you elsewhere. There are matches where some faraway buffs (even good ones) remain untouched for most of the match because nobody can afford to go and collect them - the situation is just too hot elsewhere and every barrel counts.

 

8 hours ago, ___V_E_N_O_M___ said:

I mean to say what ship type will guarantee the quickest route to rank 1

The type you win with?

 

No, but more seriously: DDs (especially those with some knifefighting potential like Kitakaze, Jutland, Black, perhaps Fletcher) are good for getting and protecting buffs. Radar cruisers are good because they make a huge difference in DD fitghts, as long as not all your DDs are muppets, you can have a lot of impact. BBs deter cruisers and look scary, they are a powerful presence in the fight but I'm not convinced about their ability to really carry in this mode. I've seen them deciding battles but that was usually more due to some important cruiser making mistakes that got them blapped.

The only "ship type" I would strongly advise against is non-Radar cruisers. They can have an impact and you might feel like you're contributing, but when you're taking a cruiser with no Radar to the field, chances are that you "bring" an opponent that has the consumable in question, making the life of your DDs harder. Even when you get a good score and the match is lost due to friendly DDs failing miserably - that might well be the result of the Radar imbalance you contributed to through your ship choice.

 

Oh, and CVs. I don't recommend CVs, not very useful this season. There are literally no viable CV choices for Ranked Season 11

[Chaos_Umbra]

8 hours ago, ___V_E_N_O_M___ said:

What ship class is the fastest way to rank 1, is it with DDs?

Well I've been just playing my Jutland with a 14 point captain and so far getting to rank 7 I've only had 3 losses and only one of those I lost a star... I think that says enough