Geek Crontrol 2 Major Tim: World of Warships, The St Louis Wolverine!

When we last left off, I was telling you how important it was to treasure your time in the early tiers. I still stand by the assertion that new players must not be too hasty to power up the tech trees, and spend a little time earning themselves the skills and experience they'll need to shine later. The American Cruiser line is in this respect, the gift that just keeps on giving. If you followed my advice and stuck with this line, you will not have touched torpedoes (they hook you with the first free taste), and you will not yet have had to worry too much about advanced game mechanics like concealment and advanced teamwork. After graduating from the Chester, you'll have the option to unlock the Samson, the tier 3 American destroyer, or go up to the tier 4 cruiser, the St Louis. Fans of The Mighty Jingles will undoubtedly have already heard of the St Louis, as it is one of his favourite ships to gush over, and with good reason. The St Louis ain't pretty, it ain't elegant, and it ain't sleek like most cruisers. As far as its stats go, the St Louis is slow, and cumbersome, but damn it, it is beefy for a cruiser, and carries the kind of firepower that would make the Expendables blush and back down in shame.

The St Louis is an odd little thing. It was classed historically as an protected cruiser, which were kind of like the per-cursors to battle-cruisers, in that they were meant to maintain the sailing characteristics of cruisers (fast, maneuverable, seaworthiness), but be able to operate independently, and outfight anything same size or smaller. That pretty much sums up the St Louis in a nutshell. In WoWs, the St Louis is a lot like Wolverine: it's smaller than the world beating/cosmic heroes (battleships in this case), but if you are on a similar level, or even slightly higher, you just shouldn't fuck with it. I've been surprised at the number of times I've encountered battleships in this thing, and just forgotten to pack my fucks to give that morning, and mauled the crap out of them. Make no mistake, a well-captained battleship should tear you a new poop deck, but at such low tiers, against inexperienced battleship captains, it's kind of funny how often they will panic at the sight of you not backing down, and bearing your rows of cannons, growling, "come at me, bub!"

Okay, so hopefully all that got you keen. I'm really trying to get you off the idea of grinding sideways from the Chester to the Samson and team killing me with your torpedoes. The continuing theme here is that you can have some of the most fun games in ships that have the least potential for inflicting disaster on your own team, rather than your enemies.

Once you unlock your St Louis, you'll find that the ship really doesn't need most of its major upgrades to perform well, unlike other ships which make you feel like going up a tier is a regression. In even its stock configuration the St Louis will have a broadside of 6 inch guns that will shock your enemies with its rapid fire spam. Fully upgraded you'll find that the ship can utterly splam anything short of a battleship in a gun duel, and it has the maneuverability and dimensions to dodge torpedoes. Destroyer captains beware; a St Louis is the worst nightmare of the DD, simply because it can shift and shimmy between your torpedo salvos, and once its gun batteries start singing, you will die by inches. The St Louis is a high volume of fire kind of ship. If fired in sequence, the first gun will be finished reloading before the last gun fires, meaning that you can chain gun an area, or put accurate salvos into key locations.

If the Chester was your masters' degree in general captaining, I recommend that you make the St Louis the ship where you start your tenure as the professor of the department of gunnery (guest lecturing in ass whipping). Now is the time to make damn sure you've researched a little on how different shell types work, and the basics of how to land critical hits on your enemies. It is truly telling when two St Louis' encounter one another, which one is the experienced captain, and which one is new. My quick tip is to remember that HE shells are your shell of choice against everything except other cruisers. Whenever you encounter BBs, DDs, or carriers (CV), you should probably rely on HE shells, at least until you've mastered their effects. If you encounter another cruiser, especially another St Louis, you should switch to AP shells, and practice scoring penetrating hits. Here you will start to learn the ricocheting, and citadel hitting mechanics in detail. You'll find that at long range your shells will plunge down through the decks of your enemies' ships, causing massive damage when you strike a critical location. You'll then notice that as you approach them, your trajectory will flatten out, and start to hit their side armour. If the enemy has their broadside to you, you'll probably go through, and with careful aim, you'll start to rack up citadel hits (aim under their smoke stacks or gun batteries). If they are coming towards you, or steering away, you'll notice shells bouncing off their hulls, like a stone skipping off a pond at a steep angle. Learn this well. As a St Louis captain, my favourite target is other St Louis's. A n00b captain will turn side on immediately, so as to maximize their broadside, and probably spam HE at you. This will cause minimum damage per hit, and start causing fires. Remain calm, you are the Wolverine, and he is a mutant-hating pussy. If you switch to AP, aim under that smoke stack, and keep your ship angled (just swan back and forth, or start circling), you'll wreck his face in seconds, and take barely a scratch. At that point, light up a stogey from his burning wreck and say something cool, like: "you had guts, bub... too bad they're on the ocean floor now."

As usual, I suggest you spend some extra time in this tier, and enjoy the St Louis for the beast that it is. From here your choices get a little less clear. The American cruiser line never stops being fun and competitive, but you'll now have the option of grinding sideways to the first American battleship, or continuing upward on the cruiser line. I know you think I'll continue my mouth foaming rant about how you must continue with cruisers, but the next ship up is the Phoenix, and that bugger has torpedoes (shakes fist). The Phoenix is a bloody fine ship, and I'll tell you some time how to master it, but right now the option is yours how you'll proceed up. The battleships are not forgiving to new players, and without a little learning, you'll soon become every DD captain's bitch. Next time I might talk a little about the Phoenix, or maybe I'll finally talk a bit about how to go from fearing and despising torpedoes to giving in to the full depths of torpedo addiction.

Good luck, and fair seas