World of Warships [Wargaming.net]

[Psyco Diver]

I managed to get a new YouTuber to feature my recent 7 kill NC game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3phIBZI130

He seems pretty new to WOWS and it looks like he is having the same glitching issues I had when I tried to convert the file to video, I thought it was my computer being a potatoe but a couple patches back I noticed the replays haven't been running that well so its good to know it may not be my computer

[Renegade334]

I have also had a couple iffy replay files lately; my most recent in date was a winning match in my Des Moines (2nd on the scoreboard) where the turret crosshairs just refused to move around (they remain or either side of the chevron at the very center of the UI, not showing the turrets' rotation) and the ribbons and DMG counter stayed AWOL. A pity, really.

As for Roma...I dunno whether I could handle the wonky dispersion without starting to reconsider all of my life choices. Some players affirm that you just have to aim your guns lower than usual (a little bit below the waterline) to properly counterweigh Roma's shenanigans, but I like a ship whose firepower and accuracy remain consistent at all distances. *throws dirty look at Friedrich der Große* If I have 40 Euros to spare, I'd rather invest it into two T10 perma-camos...and anyway, I'm not spending another kopek on games right now.

ION:
- Got Baltimore and Mogami back.
- Now farming credits to afford the North Carolina (buyback) and Neptune (new ship).
- Might retake the Myoko or Aoba, dunno. Or maybe the Leander.


Pet peeve of the moment: who in the nine hells at Wargaming decided it was okay to the leave the non-human enemy ships in the new training room without an AI? Bring back the "active" option that was already present in the mod, FFS.

[Psyco Diver]

Well it took me a little less than a month to grind 350k Free XP to reach 375k and finally buy the Nelson. The first 200k I did with the free 7 days Premium time WG gave out and stacking all my special flags. After that I did the last 150k on regular account and stacking regular flags, camo, and first day win bonuses. It's pretty amazing how much of a effect premium time and stacking XP flags with Free XP flags really made a huge difference

[Psyco Diver]

I like the Nelson, I like her allot but I just can't get her into a workable position like I can with USN Standards (she plays allot like them to me) which means I can't get those guns singing. I will say this is the first ship in a long time that I have enjoyed playing, I will easily rank her up there with the Colorado or Clemson as my new Go-To fun ship I think

That said I utterly hate my Guilio Caesar, its not that it is a bad ship but I can't get nothing but bad teams. Its gotten so bad to the point I just want it gone but WG won't refund my gold back at this point. I'll just tuck her away till the Italian BB line comes around because she just disgusts me

[Renegade334]

The recent handful of premiums released by WG noticeably had something funky about them; if it's not bad MM (in your case; since I don't have the GC I can't tell myself), it's bad dispersion/accuracy. And I can't help but feel like WG is grasping at straws now, on how they're designing new ships/lines, as if they'd run out of distinct national flavors and are haphazardly strapping flaws and qualities together in the desperate and misguided hope of birthing something unique and interesting.


Anyway, I just repurchased the North Carolina and that latest buyback concludes my port repopulation spree, in which I worked like a madman to generate a total of 45.52M credits (KGV, Fuso, Cleveland, Mogami, Baltimore and NC) in roughly a week. Their hull and mod upgrades can wait, I'm not in a hurry. However, I can now concentrate on getting new ships, in this case a spanking new T9 HMS Neptune. Still 7.2M credits to go, fight-o~! Can't help but smile (huge DPM and good AP values) and cringe (another huge citadel inside a fragile-as-hell body) at the same time, while reading the reviews and player opinions about this British vessel.


Aside from that, I'm getting used to the Missouri again (I'm too used to my trusty and oh-so-nimbler Alabama). There are days where I do really well in it (almost had a kraken in it the previous day), but there are times where RNG really screws me over, like a surprise grenade in the mailbox. Like "I just shot your full broadside at less than 10km, a little above the waterline and right under the smokestack, so...why am I not seeing citadel ribbons and why do I only see 1,360HP DMG? The F---, RNJesus?"

And I'm surprised: I had TWO matches in the Yamato where I not only got top spot, but my team actually sailed with me as a coordinated combat group, shooting at targets I designated. Usually, my assigned teammates just give me a very wide berth and practically ignore me (and my calls for assistance or attention) for the entirety of the match.

[Psyco Diver]

Free captain respec this weekend

[Renegade334]

I have been a bit under the weather for the past couple of days, so I have played only sporadically, when I wasn't feeling too woozy and could focus my mind well enough. I just completed one French personal assignment and got the Bretagne for free; I envy those who managed to get the Lyon and Richelieu PAs, I kinda had my fill of slow, lumbering superdreadnoughts lately. ION, I bought the Bismarck back. Who knows, maybe I'll get the Bayern back, too, and grind my way to the Gneisenau, which I never got in the first place (my Bis being a shortcut ship from last year's event).

I have been hitting a few hurdles lately, in regards to home networking.

TL;DR…

 

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[Psyco Diver]

I'm taking a break from the game right now till the after the French BBs drop, I usually love missions like the ones for the French but I just can't bring myself to bother with them

That sucks about the wifi issue, I'm currently hitting a wall with my computer, I built it around 8-9 years ago as a budget gaming PC but she is showing her she. I'm planning on building a new one but looks like graphics cards are hard to get and expensive even for older units

[Renegade334]

Well, out of annoyance, I whipped out my mothballed wifi repeater, a Linksys RE4100W, and set it up partway between the router and my room. While my ping seems to fluctuate a tad more (31-38ms ping) than when on a direct connection (stable 35ms), I now no longer seem to have those lagspikes. I'll have to monitor this over a longer stretch of time, though. I nevertheless remain somewhat annoyed I must rely on an electronic middleman that must be kept on most of the time. Well, it's either that, the relatively painless way, or I go Bob the Builder on my own house (and I'd have to pass the very long Ethernet cable through the bathroom, to boot), which I'd hate to do. Truth be told, I'd love to get an Asus wifi card like the PCE-AC68, but that thing is prohibitively expensive for me.

And I'll use this post to reaffirm my uttermost hatred of RN BBs and what they've (now permanently) done to the WOWS meta. Why didn't WG make them like the RN cruisers - AP only? For crying out loud, my Scharnhorst had been set on fire this evening more than I could ever count; I couldn't even have a jaded laugh at myself... ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)

EDIT: yeah, cryptocurrencies really screwed us gamers this time. I know it's immature, churlish, for me to wish misfortune on people who are merely trying to eke out a living in this complicated world, but sometimes I wish Bitcoin, Ethereum and what-have-you-next would just crash once and for all and leave the rest of us plebeians alone, yet in peace. :-/ Due to the Bitcoin hoopla, it looks like 2018 will be a VERY bad year to build a custom PC. GPUs and RAM are particularly expensive right now.

EDIT bis: didn't realize it, but I have now hoarded enough FXP to make the jump to the Großer Kurfürst. I know I'm hoarding those points for the Nelson, but now that I'm aware of this little mathematical shortcut, the demon of opportunity is tempting me again. *tries to escape*

EDIT ter: got my Shinonome. Funny, I thought I'd have to do some grueling task to get it, but it was only "play 1 battle with a T8-10 ship". XD

[Renegade334]

I don't know how the French missions are going for you folks but as for me, I'm ready to tear my hair off and weave a Persian carpet out of all the clumps accumulating on the floor.

- Get torp hits? Had to re-learn how to DD, but in the end, no biggie.
- Get citadels? Just had to break out my Missouri and I was good to go.
- Get kills? My Scharnhorst scoffs at you.
...
...
...
- Get victories? ............uuuh, lemme call you back, I might have a problem here.

Honestly, I'm going through a spate of defeats that's starting to drive a wooden stake through my heart here. 8/15 victories secured for now, but bloody hell I'm really having bad luck nowadays.

OTOH, the KGV seems to be a weird ship. I've had some strangely bad matches in it (this BB seems to lose big portions of health even when bow-tanking, maybe because of its huge superstructures), but this week-end I had a kraken in it, and yesterday I almost had a second tentacle action achievement. It's like I'm dealing with a ship that has bipolar disorder or something.

[Pen3]

You can get the victories in Co-op mode.

[Renegade334]

French Progression is only Random or Ranked. I'm on Part 3: get 10 kills and 15 victories.

[Psyco Diver]

Finished the Aoba tonight, got her done in 26 games, pretty quick but I was power grinding Free XP when I first got her so running all the XP flags and camos while using Premium time really sped things up. What can I say about her other than she is a good all around ship with frustrating gun range. This ship could really use just 1 more kilometer in range. Torpedo angles suck because is guaranteed death if someone sees you, coming from the USN cruiser line the AA is trash on her, BUT she feels comfortable. Not hard to play but hard to excel in

[Renegade334]

Well, this weekend was a nice opportunity to stock up on FXP, though I now am very low on flags, thanks to that signals lottery event.

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Wifi now seems stable; I was afraid my RE4100W (N600 Pro) repeater would lead to a degradation in signal quality (redundant traffic), but things have been fantastically swell so far.

[Renegade334]

Well, I completed the Gold of France campaign after three days of exclusively grinding the Richelieu (and a bit of my too-often-eschewed Algérie). And at this point, I'm just about sick of this T8 French BB, and getting ready to fork my hard-gained FXP for an Alsace instead...though TBH I'm really reticent to do it and will probably keep it while I focus on other grind ships.

About the T8 Richelieu:

TL;DR…

Remarks about this super-sized Dunkerque

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Would I recommend? Yes, even though, personally, this kind of BB does not really fit my tastes.

I didn't really like the bow-tanking playstyle of this ship, but relished its firestarting capabilities. I'll be honest, I'm pondering whether to sell this ship (and get the more conservative AB-X T9 Alsace) or keep it as a collector's item, because it has such unique traits. It also makes me reconsider whether or not I should keep hoarding the FXP for the Nelson, since I might not like its ABC turret setup, either.

EDIT: *sigh* The Isoroku Yamamoto collection only gives me duplicates now...that is, if it even deigns giving me items at all...

[Psyco Diver]

Sounds like she plays like the Dunkerque, kind of a love it or hate it design. I really wish they brought the more heading armored Stratsberg into the game but that would have made the Dunkerque obsolete

[Renegade334]

You mean the Strasbourg? The Richelieu is essentially an upscaled Dunkerque, so it's no surprise their respective player experiences would almost be carbon copies of one another.

Those eight guns are excellent and as far as I'm concerned, they're the highlight of this ship. The Richelieu's mobility, on the other hand, almost had me breaking out in hives at times. I actually used the engine boost consumable more in order to get out of dodge ASAP (incoming torpedoes or to get out of a broadside position before the enemy could lob truckloads of shells at me) rather than to get from point A to point B in record time and flank the enemy.

[Renegade334]

Update log: Dr Akatsuki Or How I Stopped Worrying About Torpedo Range and Learned To Love the Destroyer:


1. Eventually used my FXP to get a full Hull Bs and graduate to the [Tier VII] Akatsuki. I was originally gunning for an Alsace (those twelve guns would be a dream despite not being sixteen-inchers), but I'll save that for later. My need for a good DD, dictated by some campaign and other event missions, made me go for the Akatsuki instead, stat.

2. The Akatsuki is fast becoming one of my favorite, go-to ships. It's sooo good finally having a destroyer that can launch torps from a significant distance without getting detected while turning around (lookin' at you, Minekaze), consequently foiling the entire maneuver as the target inevitably amscrays away from the torp sheaf's trajectory.

3. Completed the Nicholas grind and got the Farragut. I was a bit skeptical about those ships given their ridiculously short torp range and eventually learned to near-exclusively gunboat, cap points when possible and just spot for the team; alas, many of the maps I encountered lacked the proper landscaping to provide torp ambush opportunities and so I've had few instances where I was able to make proper fish drops (the only notable exceptions being the occasional DD vs DD knife fights within a cap zone). The 6.4km torp upgrade will be nice, but alas, it seems I'll have to wait for the Mahan to get a standoff range (9.2km) that will play nicer with my more cautious approach.

4. Yes, it's surprising, but after unlocking the Shinonome (from the Honorable Service campaign) and the Akatsuki, I've started to appreciate DD gameplay much more than ever before. OTOH, I don't think I'll ever warm up to CV gameplay, but at least I'm diversifying my skillset now.

5. I actually didn't play to expressly unlock it (given my aforementioned lack of interest in DDs), but I got my [Tier VI] marathon-Aigle today. Haven't played it yet, but I noticed I had some trouble dealing mass damage to these wily little buggers (not as many component disables as I hoped, too, even with HE), so it'll be nice to have one of these on MY side now.

EDIT: nabbed a Hatsuharu for myself and got rid of the Minekaze.

[Spectacular_Insanity]

I'm getting back into this game after a long hiatus and I'm working my way up the German DD line. I've worked my way up to the Ernst Gaede thus far. I'm more used to the Japanese DD lines via Akizuki and Harekaze (the gunships of the IJN DDs), but I'm beginning to appreciate the jack-of-all-trades features the German DDs offer. And since I heard they only get better as you get to the Z-23 and upwards, I'm really looking forward to the later-tier ships.

Out of curiosity, has anyone played the French BBs yet? If so, what are your impressions? Looking at stats alone, the ships seem all over the place in terms of the tier-to-tier progression. Also, the T10 has crap dispersion and sigma rating considering that it only has 8 guns versus 12 or 16 like some of the lower French BB tiers.

[Renegade334]

French tech line progression seems to follow a [good ship]-->[bad ship]-->[good ship]-->[bad ship]---etc pattern, especially towards the end.

Normandie (IIRC, I might be mixing it up with the Bretagne) annoyed me a lot due to its bad turret traverse; it's comparable to a British superdreadnought like the Iron Duke.

Lyon, on the other hand, is a monster due to its sixteen guns and is easily able to delete broadsided cruisers in one go; it's also a bit more agile than its predecessor and you'll definitely love it for its ability to give the enemy instant heart attacks.

Richelieu is an upscaled Dunkerque and the AB turret configuration will either make you hate it or love it. The eight forward guns have a powerful wallop (you can average 11-12K DMG on broadsided German battleships - and that's if you fire AP: HE will start fires left and right), but the lack of a back turret can make turning around and repositioning a bit tricky. Additionally, its poor acceleration sometimes gave me some trouble when under attack by DDs and torpedo planes. Its AA stock is garbage, but once fully upgraded, enemy planes will start dropping like flies. Oh, and on the last hull you lose the spotter plane in exchange for extra AA (worth it, though).

Alsace is a Richelieu with an aft turret, giving you twelve guns (as opposed to the standard nine at T9) to smack some sense into the enemy while negating some of the Richelieu's downsides and gameplay restrictions. It's practically the best BB (or so it is claimed) in the French line, excepting of course the Lyon. Downsides include: losing 5km of main gun range compared to the Richelieu and being unable to overmatch bow-tanking T9 heavy cruisers.

The République only has eight guns, but they reload far faster than any other ultra-large-caliber artillery in the game. Also, the République looks like it'll replace the Groβer Kurfürst as the king of secondaries, almost by an order of magnitude.


I'm currently grinding the Richelieu (though the Gold of France event almost made me sick of that all-forward-guns ship) and working my way up to Alsace. 70K or thereabouts to go.


EDIT (one day later): FINALLY. Unlocked the Alsace...though I now have to generate 12.5M credits (I splurged a lot on new ships lately) before I can actually own it. I will let my Richelieu rot in port, it's given me enough ulcers and aneurysms (I've had so many torpedoes launched at me today I'm practically ready to exclusively play cruisers and destroyers instead of big BBs, for a couple weeks, starting now) and I spent more XP-boosting camos than I'd have liked (thankfully, I still have many of these French camos with the credit boost).