Special commanders: worth the 175k coal ?

[anonym_FDOLXpxOfXXq]

Hi there, another coal thread for all bad kids at christmas.

With quite a bit of coal and no ship looking particularly appealing at the time, I was considering the 175k commanders.

Taking advantage of the only good part of the skill rework, I thought maybe they could be worth it if used on a bunch of premium ships.

Any feedback on these commanders on the different ship classes (I don't play CV myself but others may be interested) ?

Thanks,

 

Auboyneau (FR): good for DDs maybe ?

Talents: rewards caps, potential damage and dev strikes.  Skills: SE+

 

Cunningham (UK): seems rather biased towards CVs ?

Talents: rewards kills, floodings, witherer.  Skills: aircraft armor and consumables

 

Kuznetzov (RU): looks interesting for aggressive, risky gameplay ?

Talents:  rewards low HP, first blood. Skills: consumables

 

Lutjens (GER): sec BB and/or DDs ?

Talents: rewards spotting and hits. Skills: GtG+, PM+, plane boost

 

Swirski (PE): grinded this one. Fewer ship opportunities, seems kinda expensive for just AR+ ?

Talents:  AA and torps. Skills: AR at least is always useful...

[Panocek]

Bigger question, how many premium ships you have in each nation to make use of unique captains the most? You can put Kuznetzov on Kremlin and have one hell of a soviet experience, but playing Kremlin will get old sooner or later. So having flotilla of biaswagons you could put Kuznetzov on only helps in the long run.

[Gvozdika]

Kuznetsov is a definite buy simply due to strong final heal/dcp. In terms of utility - it will nearly always be useful in whatever match you are in, whatever ship you have, etc. Aside from CVs you can use him with anything - I tend to pop him in either the Kremlin or Stalingrad.

 

The same cannot necessarily be said of the other commanders - which generally require you to play a certain way or use a certain type of ship in order to trigger their talents. Great if you find yourself in a given situation where you happen to meet the requirements but not always the case.

 

e.g. Cunningham needs to get two kills or set A LOT of fires - he can work with British BBs but you don't want to be HE spamming all game just to trigger his talent. Playing CVs is I suppose another avenue but do you REALLY want to sink 175k coal on a commander just to play a CV?

 

Depends what sort of ships you like playing and how you play them really. I have Yamamoto, Cunningham, Kuznetsov, Swerski but aside from the Russian I don't tend to use their specific skills regularly to win games I otherwise wouldn't have. I think I've only got the Kraken with Yamamoto 2-3 times in the past few years I've had him (admittedly I swing him between the Musashi/Yamato/Shikishima).!?

 

 

[FatherTorque]

The only skills i find useful are gun feeder on Halsey and Sansonetti, secondary battery loader on Lutjens and emergency reserve on Yamamoto. All the others are not worth of my time and coal as they're mostly hard to activate.

[Leo_Apollo11]

Hi all,

 

54 minutes ago, AmiralPotato said:

Hi there, another coal thread for all bad kids at christmas.

With quite a bit of coal and no ship looking particularly appealing at the time, I was considering the 175k commanders.

Taking advantage of the only good part of the skill rework, I thought maybe they could be worth it if used on a bunch of premium ships.

Any feedback on these commanders on the different ship classes (I don't play CV myself but others may be interested) ?

Thanks,

 

Auboyneau (FR): good for DDs maybe ?

Talents: rewards caps, potential damage and dev strikes.  Skills: SE+

 

Cunningham (UK): seems rather biased towards CVs ?

Talents: rewards kills, floodings, witherer.  Skills: aircraft armor and consumables

 

Kuznetzov (RU): looks interesting for aggressive, risky gameplay ?

Talents:  rewards low HP, first blood. Skills: consumables

 

Lutjens (GER): sec BB and/or DDs ?

Talents: rewards spotting and hits. Skills: GtG+, PM+, plane boost

 

Swirski (PE): grinded this one. Fewer ship opportunities, seems kinda expensive for just AR+ ?

Talents:  AA and torps. Skills: AR at least is always useful...

 

Much bigger problem for many is the 2.5M+ "Elite Captian XP" cost of bringing those captains to 21-points when they start to "shine"...

 

 

Leo "Apollo11"

[MrWastee]

imo only if u got the coal to spare after getting ships. so, 4 me, it's: ships>commanders.... otherwise, for randoms: yes. for any competetive: hell no lol! mostly, as far as i'm aware of atm, the skills of 35k coal/dubloon captns are better for competetive. also i think they got 2 improved skills, while legendaries only come with one?

 

2cts

 

btw.... SPECIAL commanders: 35k coal/dubs..... LEGENDARY commanders: 175k coal or collection/campaign rewards. conclusion: specials, yes. legendaries, only as cherry on top 4 free so to say.

[Mad_Dog_Dante]

I got myself two for coal and never regretted buying them. I got others through grinds back in the days. Unless there are ships you really want, and don't play comp but random only, I'd say they are great to have for lines on which you have multiple premium ships. Due to the capt rework you can slot and build for all classes now, and swapping special captains on various premium ships is what I mostly did ever since. You dont need 21 pnts for good builds 4 random modes, most helpful builds are around 14-19 points anyway.

 

If you have few ships, get ships. if you have plenty and no urge for a specific one, captains are nice enough to fork over coal. Especially when you play a lot, since coal is easy to get.

[Ocsimano18]

I would not spend coal on commanders. They are good, I have a couple of them, but I can extract more fun out of a new ship than out of a special commander.

[batch1]

I paid coal for the Russian and German commander as I have lots of premium ships I can use them on. If you can’t share them around many ships I would say don’t buy. 
 

I’m happy with them but won’t be paying for any more.

[BLUB__BLUB]

14 minutes ago, MrWastee said:

for any competetive: hell no lol!

Some people tend to forget: special skills do not work in Clan Battles.

I suppose they also do not work in other competitive modes.

 

And yes ships first, and "cycle" the commander as much as possible across premiums/freemiums.. 

 

[Captain_Hook_]

Even it cost 175 k coal, its completely free and some of them had special capabilities.

[MrWastee]

23 minutes ago, BLUB__BLUB said:

Some people tend to forget: special skills do not work in Clan Battles.

I suppose they also do not work in other competitive modes.

 

And yes ships first, and "cycle" the commander as much as possible across premiums/freemiums.. 

 

funny ngh, thinking about, i'm actually sure legendary perks work in ranked. not in cb's though

[Gorthuba]

As others have said, ships first and then commanders. I myself have more or less gotten the ships that I want, such as Salem and Marceau, while I don't really care for Yoshino. So right now I'm saving up for Lutjens in order to put him on the Schlieffen, since he buffs secondaries and that line is all about that. Though the one commander that you really want, if any, is Kuznetzov due to his DCP & heal that can save you in many situations. I personally play a lot of British ships too and have Cunningham to run him on my Daring + Plymouth + Thunderer. He's not top tier, but good enough. I get an extra consumable from him in most games, occasionally extra speed, and more rarily the reload buff - though the reload buff is easy to get in a Conqueror, Thunderer or Goliath.

[MementoMori_6030]

Commanders are not tied to tiers and modes, so I prefer them over ships when it comes to coal spending.

Whenever WG are wrecking tiers and modes with new dumb, unwanted and unfinished content, I can shift my commanders to more enjoyable realms.

[tocqueville8]

They're all useful, but since you only have 6 T9-10 freemiums, I'd go for ships first.

Maybe a T9 one, since you appear to be struggling a bit at T10, for whatever reason.

 

Otherwise, I'd go for Lutjens, as you have several German BBs with good secondaries, plus the T-61, which is an excellent mid-tier DD, and the Graf Spee, which is...also there.

[Faceoff]

Only time seen usefull is in a setup YT match to gain World Record for different ships, Id rather get new ships than the captains.

[Nibenay78]

Some of them certainly have skills/abilities that are better than others. I have all except the british one, which I find completely lacking really.

[Hades_warrior]

Only Kuznetsov is a good commander on that list, and makes that grind somehow worthy.

But in general? No, you should save your 175k Coal and buy some ship from Armory.

[Trench4nt]

Vor 3 Stunden, AmiralPotato sagte:

Hi there, another coal thread for all bad kids at christmas.

With quite a bit of coal and no ship looking particularly appealing at the time, I was considering the 175k commanders.

Taking advantage of the only good part of the skill rework, I thought maybe they could be worth it if used on a bunch of premium ships.

Any feedback on these commanders on the different ship classes (I don't play CV myself but others may be interested) ?

Thanks,

 

Auboyneau (FR): good for DDs maybe ?

Talents: rewards caps, potential damage and dev strikes.  Skills: SE+

 

He is made for Kléber and Marceau (more HP + all talents.)

French CL/CA and BBs rather benefit from the Honoré brothers.

 

 

Zitat

Cunningham (UK): seems rather biased towards CVs ?

Talents: rewards kills, floodings, witherer.  Skills: aircraft armor and consumables

 

He is heavy biased towards Conqueror and Thunderer (and Goliath). CV is also useful. He could save you the superintendent skill on Daring and Mino but nothing else. Use him only of you want to spam HE or love planes.

 

Zitat

Kuznetzov (RU): looks interesting for aggressive, risky gameplay ?

Talents:  rewards low HP, first blood. Skills: consumables

 

Useful on all CAs and BBs, but not on CLs. DDs might be possible due to the first blood talent, but on tech tree line definitely not worth it because the "will to victory" talent is so much better for CAs and BBs.

 

Zitat

Lutjens (GER): sec BB and/or DDs ?

Talents: rewards spotting and hits. Skills: GtG+, PM+, plane boost

 

Lutjens is good on Hindenburg or Schlieffen. He is a Swiss knife for all German premiums since his talents gives every class good advantages (even subs!)

 

Zitat

Swirski (PE): grinded this one. Fewer ship opportunities, seems kinda expensive for just AR+ ?

Talents:  AA and torps. Skills: AR at least is always useful...

 

Swirski is made for Halland and for Halland only. If you want to use him on gunboats you face "opportunity costs" in terms of training an additional torpedo deck.

The improved AR is useful for torpedo reload but not for artillery cause on Friesland and Smalland, you already have the highest shooting frequency, so the effect is not really measurable. It might be better on Ragnar but then you throwing away your torpedo talent cause you obviously would not build for torps. And you do not want to spend 175k coal for an infinitesimal small increase in reload and a small buff to the AA (because CVs loves to attack you).

 

 

You missed Luigi Sansonetti (IT):

Talents: Rapid Fire, Far reach, concealt reserve

 

Like Lütjens, you want to have Sansonetti on all your Italian ships (even on the the DD line). The far reach talent maybe is the strongest one as it gives you range on which all Italian ships lacking

"Confederate" can be rather achieved on Venezia than on Colombo (personal experience), hence I have Luigi trained on Venezia. Unfortunately you do not get 100 main battery hits with Colombo or Napoli that early to benefit from the extended smoke time.

 

 

You should get this captains in the following order

 

1. Kuznetzov - due it its effectiveness

2. Lutjens - alrounder and... man the 15% sec increase is just fun.

3. Sansonetti if you want to play Italian cruisers, Auboyneau for French DDs, Cunningham for Brittish BBs,

 

and 4. Swirski for

 

With respect to 3./4., if you do not like these lines, have a look at Honorés (CA/CL, BB) and Dunkirks (DDs, Mino) and the Russian ones (DDs).

The German ones are not that useful.

 

 

[Wulf_Ace]

2 hours ago, BLUB__BLUB said:

Some people tend to forget: special skills do not work in Clan Battles.

I suppose they also do not work in other competitive modes.

 

And yes ships first, and "cycle" the commander as much as possible across premiums/freemiums.. 

 

you suppose, you could check b3fore blaping.

they work in ranked, they only dont work in clan battles.

[anonym_FDOLXpxOfXXq]

2 hours ago, tocqueville8 said:

They're all useful, but since you only have 6 T9-10 freemiums, I'd go for ships first.

Maybe a T9 one, since you appear to be struggling a bit at T10, for whatever reason.

Not so much 'struggling' as 'utterly horrid' at it, I tend to avoid T10 like plague :D

I tend to have too many ships already compared to what I enjoy playing, and I don't think I would like z44 or kearsarge, carnot and tulsa as well.

 

From the number of premium ships, the russian and german are probably the ones that would see the most use, although I am already cycling the ships through ovechkin / znamensky and jutland. Could be interesting to have one sec build (lutjens) and one standard build (jutland) for ze germans.

 

33 minutes ago, Trench4nt said:

You missed Luigi Sansonetti (IT):

Talents: Rapid Fire, Far reach, concealt reserve

 

Indeed, thanks. This one I'd have to gamble through containers for the collection -_-

Hmm, 6k per crate, missing 7 out of 16 items. This could be expensive. I like the italian cruisers but not the BBs, and only have Aosta as premium though.

 

3 hours ago, MrWastee said:

imo only if u got the coal to spare after getting ships. so, 4 me, it's: ships>commanders.... otherwise, for randoms: yes. for any competetive: hell no lol! mostly, as far as i'm aware of atm, the skills of 35k coal/dubloon captns are better for competetive. also i think they got 2 improved skills, while legendaries only come with one?

 

2cts

 

btw.... SPECIAL commanders: 35k coal/dubs..... LEGENDARY commanders: 175k coal or collection/campaign rewards. conclusion: specials, yes. legendaries, only as cherry on top 4 free so to say. 

 

True. I already have most of the campaigns / 35k ones.

 

[tocqueville8]

Just now, AmiralPotato said:

I tend to have too many ships already compared to what I enjoy playing, and I don't think I would like z44 or kearsarge, carnot and tulsa as well.

 

Z-44 feels decent...if a bit boring.

 

Carnot is fast and somewhat tanky: I might get it next, though the Kearsarge is also tempting.

[Nibenay78]

1 hour ago, Hades_warrior said:

Only Kuznetsov is a good commander on that list, and makes that grind somehow worthy.

But in general? No, you should save your 175k Coal and buy some ship from Armory.

I look at it this way - if the commanders have skills that enhance something on my favorite ships (preferably more than just 1 within that nation), I get to play my most enjoyable ships with some cherry on top.

 

I'm mostly disappointed that Cunningham's enhancements completely sucks coupled with Minotaur. In some cases I also feel they have just chosen some most crap skill and "enchance" them in order to make people pick them..

 

 

[cracktrackflak]

One thing thats put me off buying a coal commander (Kuznetsov) is that the price isn't just the 175k coal - its also the grind and/or capt XP cost to go from 10 points to something useful, e.g. 19-21 points.

 

Overall, a(nother) coal premium ship and XP investment in existing captains seems a better option.

[Leo_Apollo11]

Hi all,

 

34 minutes ago, cracktrackflak said:

One thing thats put me off buying a coal commander (Kuznetsov) is that the price isn't just the 175k coal - its also the grind and/or capt XP cost to go from 10 points to something useful, e.g. 19-21 points.

 

I posted the price above = 2.5M+ "Elite Captain XP" ...

 

 

Leo "Apollo11"