World of Warships: Goodbye, Pretty Ms. Penny

After grinding up the American cruiser line, I finally unlocked the New Orleans today, and have officially caught back up to my progress from the closed beta test. It took ages, as I rarely get much time for WoWs now days, but it certainly was satisfying. From memory the New Orleans was a great ship, and felt like a massive improvement over the Pensacola, which, as a new player at the time, was a pretty damn disappointing ship. Since then, I've been right up the 'merican cruiser line in the game's open form, and I have gained new appreciation for many of the ships I originally found disappointing, the Pensacola being the biggest of those reversals.

The Pensacola class cruiser is one of the more hated, or at least unappreciated ships in the game, and with good reason. Any player upgrading from the Cleveland class at tier 6 finds themselves faced with a ship that seems less armoured, has ludicrously vulnerable citadels, and much slower firing guns. The Pensacola feels like an honest to goodness downgrade from its predecessor. However, as I said in my review of the Pensacola, the ship is actually pretty great when you learn its quirks and make it work for you. Seeing it as a downgrade from the Cleveland is a pretty dim view once you start putting the Pensacola in its element, and start hunting other cruisers. The 8 inch guns it packs can sink an enemy cruiser of equal or lower tier in about 3-4 citadel hits, and the performance of these guns is generally better than that of its contemporaries. While your armour makes it imperative that you shimmy and shake like a sneaky snake in order to stay alive, the Pretty Ms. Penny makes a mess out of pretty much any cruiser it finds. Similarly, it is a great DD hunter, even though it lacks the Cleveland's rapid fire. The 8 inchers will smash apart a DD in one or two volleys, making head on charges at DDs a super viable tactic. Only really battleships seem to be the Ms. P's real nemesis, as they are virtually guaranteed to citadel you if they land a shell in your postcode. Even putting your ship into a fully angled position seems to do nothing to save your sweet little citadel. My experience of the Penny is that of the ultimate glass cannon. Some matches I would absolutely wreck face, scoring dozens of hits, with plenty of citadels, all while dodging the lion's share of return fire. Other times, I would cop a single battleship salvo in the opening seconds of a match, and go the bottom without firing a single shot. Awareness, and patience is the key to the Penny, and daring when the time is right.

My final match in this ship was one of the most satisfying I've ever had, and I managed to bring down 3 cruisers, and a DD in about a minute before finally being sunk. Screaming, "Fight me IRL," and charging in to claim my three victims with a total of 4 salvos (each with multiple citadel hits), I actually didn't mind dying. I've now sold the ship, seeing that as a fitting tribute, and now I'm on my way towards rediscovering the magic of the New Orleans. Hopefully it is still the ship I remember, and doesn't end up getting outshone by my new appreciation for the USS Pensacola. 

World of Warships: I'm back, and also, Russian DDs

It's been a while since I've done a WoWs post, and to be frank, I've not been playing for ages. I originally said to myself that I'd resume playing once the British were in the game, so I could take my Warspite captain, and put him to work in the new ships. Since Wargaming has continued updating the game without any sign on the horizon of a British line (I'm hoping that they release the whole fleet on WoWS anniversary), I decided to come back and check out the state of the game, as well as try my flipper at a bit of Soviet DD action.

The game has had a few cool updates. I noticed that BBs felt a bit more dangerous than last time I ventured into the game, and can see from the patch notes that a few buffs were finally made to their dispersion. The skill-trees have been revamped, and the retraining system has also been redesigned, reflecting a need for the captains to actually fight to gain their skills back. At its heart, WoWs is still good old WoWs, complete with everything that made the game great, and just a few less of the things that made it a pain in the ass. A persistently annoying issue that I noticed straight away was the rarity of aircraft carriers in higher tier matches, making my Pensacola's AA build risky to take, since about half of the games I loaded into had no carriers. This problem is still a fundamental one, where you can't force players to play carriers just to make the game fun for others.

Having enjoyed my time in the Gremyashchy, the tier 5 Russian DD, I figured I should transfer my captain to the Russian DD line, starting at tier 2. Low tier games are still fun, more so than World of Tanks in my opinion. I already knew going in that the Russian low tier ships had a shitty reputation, suffering the atrocious 3km torpedo range. Coming from an American DD background, I was already pretty comfortable with close range combat, and death-defying torpedo runs. The Storozhevoi looks like a submarine that surfaced and forgot how to dive again. It is narrow, sleek, and has a super sad armament of 3 DD guns, with two located at the rear rather than the front. These guns aren't even superfiring, meaning that if the enemy is in your rear quarter (you know, where the guns are concentrated) that you can't fire both at once. This means that the Storozhevoi ends up frequently only able to fire one gun at its foes, making it look less like a warship, and more like a kid spitting peas across the classroom. I make a big deal of these shitty guns because the torpedoes are so close range that you'll want to rely on your guns a lot more, and that is supposed to be the Russian way. On this ship, you really do need to learn proper ambush tactics, and get in to use those torpedoes. In that department, Russian torpedoes have stunningly short ranges, but this is complimented by the high speed, and evasive nature of the tiny Russian ships. Also, the other flavour of these ships is that they launch a lot of torpedoes, and have super fast loading tubes. Once you can initiate a favourable ambush, you can start wreaking absolute havoc, since torpedoes launched at those kinds of ranges basically can't miss. It is an even more suicidal tactic than American torpedo strikes (bet you never thought you'd be longing for that 5km range), but it does lead to a fast and furious lifestyle. In Russian DDs, you live fast, die young, and leave a lot of beautiful flaming wrecks. As this line progresses, the Russian guns start to get really good, but I feel this early ship is meant to force you to get used to this style of torpedo play.

I still recommend that new players steer clear of DDs as a rule, and you need a pretty advanced skillset and understanding of concealment to make these ships work, but I would probably recommend them to newbies over the Japanese line, who become a massive hazard to friendly ships. Stick to American cruisers if you really want a friendly learning tree. It's good to be back on the high seas.

World of Warships, Cleveland Revisited

A while back I posted about the American tier 6 cruiser in WoWs, and I think I said what basically everyone already knew about it, that the ship is outstanding, and a real high-point for the tech tree. As I've now played about 50+ games in her, and unlocked the Pensacola at tier 7, I felt it was time to do a quick revisit on the Cleveland and see if there was anything I wanted to say with hindsight before moving on.To begin, the Cleveland is still a rocking boat full of excellence. Many of you will have heard rumours that you hear about the Pensacola being a pretty sad follow up from such a fantastic vessel as the Cleveland are pretty accurate. The stock Pensacola is a genuine disapointment after the Cleveland, although, it's eventual configuration is pretty awesome, and we'll chat about that next time.

The Cleveland performs brilliantly, though, not as brilliantly as I remember from the closed beta version of the game. The original Cleveland was pretty much broken. It had a super high rate of fire with its multitude of 6 inch guns, it was fairly tough, and it was a fast, high-impact anti-aircraft ship. Nothing about that has really changed, though, with the benefit of a few dozen games, I have started to notice some of the blemishes. Something that will start to get on your nerves fairly quickly is the slow shell velocity of the Cleveland's guns. The shells of the Cleveland exit the barrels of your guns, and then seems to take the most relaxed and scenic possible route to the target. At ranges of over 7km, the shells start taking a very high, lobbing arc, which makes it more difficult to predict the fall of your shots. Over 10km, you will find that if you enemy makes even minor course corrections during the flight of your shells, you'll basically miss with at leas half your shots. Most players also like to say that the Cleveland's under par gun calibre (the tier 5 Japanese cruiser has 8 inch guns) completely make up for their lower calibre with superior rate of fire, and decent chance to set fires. This is definitely the case, and I will miss that rate of fire as I play the Pensacola, but one thing I won't miss is the 6 inch gun's tendency to bounce AP rounds off of the hulls of Omahas and Kumas. I cannot begin to tell you how annoying it is to watch an AP round ricochet from the hull of a tier 4 cruiser, simply because it has taken on the slightest angle to your fire. By comparison, the Pensacola's guns will consistently punch holes through the armour of tier 7 and 8 cruisers, except when the most extreme angle is presented.

Another oddity of the Cleveland for me was that I found myself actively not taking the AA defense barrage ability. I don't know if it was sheer dumb luck, but in 4/5ths of my Cleveland games the teams just didn't have carriers. Not sure it this was just an eccentricity of tier 6, or the nature of the SEA server, but I could not seem to buy my way into a game with aircraft, and so I found myself using the hydro acoustic search option instead, since destroyers were at least guaranteed to be on the enemy team. The catapult fighter that replaced the spotter aircraft from the closed game kind of unnecessarily doubles your AA countermeasures, so I ended up changing the AA barrage to acoustic sweep. It seemed sacrilege to remove the AA barrage from a Cleveland, but you can't replace the fighter, and you might as well be more flexible. If carriers had simply been more common, I would probably have stuck with the dedicated AA role, so on your server, it may be a different story.

Wrapping up, the Cleveland is still a totally badass ship, and you will feel a touch of joy when you get it, and sadness when you get to the Pensacola. I have found cracks in the makeup of the Cleveland, and am starting to appreciate the Pensacola more and more as I play it. However, I still can't recommend the Cleveland enough. If you are looking for that first tech tree to farm out while learning the game, make the the US cruiser line. No torpedoes to screw up your team with, and simple, good clean HE spamming fun. She's still got it.

World of Warships: Sweet South Carolina

After my long absence from writing about WoWs (it was exam time), I've decided to return by priming all you young captains for your career in battleships! Up until this point, you've probably noticed that I favour cruisers as the ship of choice for new players, and implore newbies to stay away from destroyers until they've come to understand the game a little beyond the basics. I still stand by that, and encourage you all to unlock a Cleveland class cruiser before you touch anything else in the game, but I know that many of you come to WoWs specifically to get your hands on a battleship all of your own. The appeal is simple enough, when most people think of warships the term battleship is typically what comes to mind. They are a romantic concept, the biggest and best, the most expensive, the pride of a nation; and that kind of thinking pervaded the era of battleships as much as it appeals to the modern mind. While battleships are kind of a pointless concept now, we still like to imagine them somehow being resurrected and plying the seas once again. Thus we seek to live out that grand fantasy here in WoWs, and there are three main paths to take, currently. You can captain a Japanese, or American BB and grind up to tier 10, or you can jump into one of the premium BBs that are available for purchase. I've already warned against the dangers of jumping straight to tier 8 in the Tirpitz, and I'm still going through the motions of mastering the Warspite, so lets talk more about your low tier options.

For me, I chose to start out with the American BB, the tier 3 South Carolina. Compared with the Kawachi, the Japanese counterpart, the SC probably seems like a bit of a lightweight. Sure it has the classic BB configuration, with fore and aft super-firing turrets, but it has fewer guns overall, with only 4 turrets packing x2 12 inch guns, compared with the Kawachi's 6x2. Of course, the big difference here is that the SC can actually put all on target at once. That superfiring configuration was actually a world first on the SC, so you can thank it for setting that fashion trend. Comparatively, the Kawachi's 6 turrets are spread out in the style of the early dreadnoughts, with a fore and aft turret mounted centreline, while the other 4 turrets are mounted in the sides of the hull. The advantage for the Kawachi is that it can shift from one side to the other and still be able to fire, but it can still never bring all guns to bear at once. The SC not only has the ability to bring all of its guns onto a single target, but it can do it at longer range. What is really strange about these two ships is that they seem to reverse the roles of the American and Japanese BBs. As the tech trees go along, the Japanese emphasize faster, less maneuverable ships, with longer range guns, and strong deck armour. The Americans will go on to emphasize maneuverability over speed (much to the chagrin of destroyer captains), and shorter range but better performing guns. So as indicators of how the two lines perform, these two ships are a bit of a false start.

The SC is a sweet southern belle once you get used to her quirks. As with the Kawachi, she's a typical dreadnought era ship, other than her super-firing fashion statement that would set the world on fire (literally). The 12 inch (305mm) guns only reach out to 11-11.8km, which is longer than the guns on the Kawachi, but will seem utterly pathetic compared to the ranges that BBs will get up to. The tier 5 Kongo, which the SC can actually encounter in battle, can reach out to a staggering 21km. However, her 12 inchers are pretty nice guns, with a good rate of fire, which will teach young BB captains to get their aim in, without punishing them too much for missing. Her maneuverability isn't as good as the Kawachi, but it's still good enough to jink the occasional torpedo salvo. I found that I was never getting struck by more than 1 torpedo when playing this, and can't say whether it is due to the SC's agility, or the low tier DDs captains' lack of skill. The relatively short range of its guns mean that the SC has to get uncomfortably close to its enemies, and exposes one of its more annoying weaknesses, a lack of decent secondary armament. The SC has a huge battery of 76mm secondary guns, but these have a pathetically short range, and the enemy must be suicidally  close to activate them. The Kawachi, meanwhile, can punish little ships that violate its personal space bubble with a terrifying array of 152mm, and 128mm secondaries.

What the SC probably does best is that it teaches its captain patience. The key to being a good BB captain is to think strategically rather than tactically. BBs move slowly, react slowly, and aim and fire slowly. If you find yourself in a situation where the enemy takes you by surprise, you know you've failed. A good BB captain simply never lets themself get caught out, and always positions themself where they can avoid having to make rapid changes of strategy. The good BB captain keeps one eye on the map at all times, and is always planning their next move long before it happens. What makes the SC an excellent ship is its less punishing nature. Its guns are a little longer range than average, meaning it doesn't get caught out of range as often. Its maneuverability is good enough to avoid being king hit with torpedoes. Most importantly, though, its guns rotate and fire quickly enough for a new player to get his aim in, and avoid the humiliation of firing a completely ineffective salvo, and then sitting on his arse for a minute waiting to reload.

Take the SC for the sweet belle that she is. Take her out, and treat her nicely, and you'll find that she's as kind as she is classic. Much as I said with the Chester, don't squander your time at the lower tiers with dreams of tier 10 monsters. Your time at this tier should be spent perfecting your basics, such as marskmanship and maneuvers. The game gets so complicated later on that you'll find yourself missing that sweet Southern belle.

World of Warship: The Lion of the Sea

I know I haven't really said much about battleships in WoWs yet, but I felt like the Tirpitz was a big enough problem that I should address it. For those that are new here (and this blog is mostly aimed at you guys), the Tirpitz is a tier 8 German battleship, based on the Bismark class of BB. It's a premium ship, so you can only access it using real money, which sucks for those who don't want to spend money, but is great for those that don't want to sink time into the game, grinding for the top tier ships. This blog will be a basic introduction into BBs, but also a caution for you new players about why you should save your money, and start out at tier one like everyone else. There are a lot of great ways to spend a little green in this game to improve the experience, and a few really bad ones. The Tirpitz is what I'd call one of the worst.

Why so bad? Well, the problem really isn't with the ship, but with you as the new player. Back in my earlier WoWs blogs, I strongly suggested that new players get started in cruisers over other ship classes. The reasons still stand: cruisers are flexible, tactically forgiving when you make mistakes, and still super enjoyable, especially when they are breaking destroyers over their knee. I also practically threw myself on the mercy of new players, begging them not to use ships armed with torpedoes, at least until they learned how the bastards worked, and stopped randomly firing them off at nothing. I didn't really weigh in much on battleships, mostly because BBs are a little too complicated for the average newby, but not such a hazard to their own team that new players should avoid them entirely. Frankly, BBs are a bit of a boring ship compared to others. For new players, BBs kind of speak for themselves when it comes to why you should avoid them. Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed the shit out of the ones that I've played, and had a few monster games, but they're frankly a total bore compared to some of the games I've had in cruisers and DDs. As for the Tirpitz, it is a bit of a complicated ship, and it only fights at high tiers, where gameplay gets pretty advanced, and teamwork becomes essential, particularly for BBs. Add to that the fact that the Tirpitz is especially complicated, and has torpedoes (holy shit, run, a new player with torpedo launchers!), and you've got a ship that won't be very interesting to play, will risk a lot of friendly fire, and is actually exceptionally vulnerable when not played exactly right at top tier.

And yet, the Tirpitz has become a popular ship. Swarms of new players, spurred on by YouTube videos, and promises of how fun the game is, have bought the Tirpitz on mass, and are so bloody awful at the game that the Tirpitz has now earned a reputation as a terrible ship. These ships, despite actually being quite competitive, have terrible win ratings, and have led to the high tier community declaring that, "the team with the most Tirpitz is the one most likely to lose." Again, non of this is the fault of the ship, but those who are captaining them. New players, especially ones that are fresh off other games where acting independently is encouraged, are the worst people to captain BBs in high tiers. The Tirpitz in particular has stats that support it best when it acts as part of a fleet. Its anti-aircraft rating is a bit low for its tier, which means that it either needs dedicated AA support from cruisers and carriers, or it needs to stick very close together with other BBs. So peeling off from the pack, and lone-wolfing like an MLG pro is basically the worst thing imaginable for this ship. This problem of new players, acting alone, and completely not understanding their expensive ship has also earned the Tirpitz names like, "The Derpitz", or most appropriately, "The Löwe of the Sea". The Löwe (Lion) was a high tier premium tank from World of Tanks, and it had a near identical reputation. It was a paid vehicle that gave a new player, with literally no games under their belt, the ability to jump straight into top tier matches, and pretty much fuck their team's chances of victory. The mere sight of Löwes on a WoT team indicated the presence of players that simply could not be trusted to fight effectively, let alone know the button that makes the tank go forward (it's W, for you Löwe drivers out there). And the same pretty justified thinking applies to the sight of Tirpitz in WoWs.

If you are a seasoned player, or a new one, know this: the Tirpitz is a damn fine ship when it is captained well. Its strengths are its high volume of fire, its excellent armour, and good mobility. The AA isn't up to much scratch, so stick with your friends, and its torpedoes should be left in their tupes until you've actually mastered difficult concepts, such as firing them at the enemy instead of your friends. It is a ship that rewards advanced tactics, and patient strategic plays over brisk, impulsive ones. When fighting enemy BBs, you'll fire faster, meaning that you can test your accuracy, and not feel so cheated by missed shots. It relies above all else on understanding the place of BBs in a fleet, which is why next time, I'll be weighing in a little on how to get started in BBs and what you need to know as a new player.

I'd beg new players not to get this ship, but to be completely frank, they are doing the high-tier carrier and DD players a great service by steaming away from their fleets and acting as great big damage pinatas. I think high-level carrier masters, like iChaseGaming, would probably feel very sad if new players didn't dump money on the game just to be slaughtered by the dozen at the end of an air-dropped torpedo. If you want to spend some good money at the high-tiers, I'd suggest you get your butt into the Atago, or maybe the Atlanta. Those ships are far more flexible, and forgiving to new players. For those of you who can't say no to those beautiful battleship guns, wear them proudly, but don't be surprised when your team automatically assumes the worst of you, and learn your craft so you can prove them wrong.

Geek Control 2 Major Tim, World of Warships: Cleveland Class Cruiser, the popular chick of the seas

So the other day I teased an image of the Cleveland class cruiser, and while I've had barely any time to play it, I can say that it is like riding a bike, and getting behind the rudder felt just as good as it did in the closed beta version of WoWs. The Cleveland is one of those ships that needs little introduction to anyone even remotely familiar with WoWs. Famous commentators, such as Jingles, QB, iChaseGaming etc, have all given this thing sparkling reviews and praised it as the messiah with a keel. In a lot of respects the Cleveland is one of the poster-girls for the game, and is kind of like that one popular girl that everyone knew a story about, and all the popular guys bragged about. As a former fat kid with no social skills, I find myself wanting to find something negative to say about the Cleveland, especially since it never used to speak to me, or even make eye contact... wait, uh...

No matter how hard I tried, though, I really couldn't find much fault in returning to this thing after a few months of separation. The meta of the game has changed a bit since the closed beta test, but the Cleveland really hasn't changed much at all. For those who have never heard of it, and are perhaps following this blog to get an introduction to the game, the Cleveland class American cruiser, unlocked at tier 6, is a ship that stands out from the crowd because of its outstanding armament, its superb anti-aircraft capabilities, and the fact that it is the first of the truly high-tech feeling ships in the American cruiser line. Something about the way that the Cleveland looks, or perhaps its all turreted armament (the t5 Omaha still had some of its guns in casemate barbettes, which is so WW1), make the Cleveland just feel more modern than its predecessors. Its Japanese counterpart, the Aoba, is an excellent ship, but somehow just doesn't earn the same appreciation that the Cleveland does. Topping it all off is the fact that the tier 7 cruiser, the Pensacola class cruiser, feels less competitive for its tier, and sometimes gets beaten up by the Cleveland, makes the Cleveland leave a better impression on the player. Hell, I actually felt like the Pensacola was a downgrade when I first captained it (more on that later).

Why? Well, the Cleveland seems to gain much of its love from one fact, which is that its guns are smaller than it contemporaries. Oh, I'm not kidding, in fact its guns are smaller than the Furutaka, the tier 5 Japanese cruiser. So what the hell is going on, how can smaller guns be better? It gets a lot of them, and they fire bloody fast. As a cruiser, the Cleveland typically takes up a supporting role rather than a primary one, and they also specialize in mauling destroyers by saturating the seas with fire rather than taking precision shots. For cruisers, having fewer guns of a bigger calibre is a double-edged sword, as it means less shots per minute. Cruiser guns, even the big ones, are typically used to splam out high-explosive rounds, cause fires, and immobilize destroyers. The only real use for a cruiser's armour piercing rounds is in fighting other cruisers, where they can reliably penetrate armour (which they can't do to battleships), and not overpenetrate the paper armour of destroyers. Hence, many cruiser captains will favour volume of fire over slower, harder-hitting guns. Like the St Louis at tier 3, the Cleveland is an artillery machinegun, capable of hosing the ocean with fire.

So it's a HE spamming hussy then? Well, I'd love to call it a noob ship, a one trick pony, or the bandwagon boat, but that would be a little uncharitable. The Cleveland actually rocks at a lot of other stuff, too. The Cleveland is a mobile ship, with acceptable armour for a cruiser. It has the option of either the acoustic search ability, or the anti-aircraft defensive fire ability, and can also launch a float-plane fighter to beef its considerable anti-aircraft armament. This makes the Cleveland pretty damn flexible, since it can double-down on AA abilities and become the premier AA escort of its tier, or it can use the float-plane and the acoustic search ability to become a flexible destroyer-hunter and still be the terror of the skies.

In the beta test I burned as much free experience as I could to rush it to the Cleveland, and so I've been trying to rediscover what I'd missed in the Omaha in my recent playthrough. As my previous blog suggested, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it and the Phoenix before it. In trying to find a fault in the Cleveland that I could harp on, and deflate its hype, I really couldn't find much. The ship is the first of what we'll call the "true" American cruisers, in that it totally shirks the use of torpedoes in favour of an all-gun armament. And while its guns are no pea-shooters, they certainly don't pack the headshot punch of the Aoba's, or the Pensacola's for that matter. In a cruiser gunfight, the Cleveland can feel a little like it's a cruiser squaring off against a battleship, since its AP shells have limited effect, and the enemy cruiser can score a much more potent citadel penetration. Even with that put aside, the Cleveland will often trounce its contemporaries through sheer volume of fire, and its lack of torpedoes becomes moot when it performs its proper role as a fleet escort and AA platform.

Tactics? I know this is the point where I am supposed to espouse a miracle tactic that makes you a god in the Cleveland, but honestly, it is one of the purest examples of a gunline/fleet escort cruiser. Most of the decisions you'll need to make in this ship are strategic as opposed to tactical. Always be wherever AA and anti-destroyer capabilities are needed the most. The tactics I've covered in previous cruiser blogs still stand, and I would say that they are more important than ever. In the Omaha and Phoenix you could peel away from the supporting role a lot more, and act as a roided up destroyer. Here, without torpedoes, an with a full cruiser hull, your job is simple: be ubiquitous. You stop the aircraft and destroyers from coming anywhere near your battleships and carriers. You offer your gunfire to your big brothers in the battleships. Never be the first ship targeted, always redeploy to save the lives of your fellows, and never be complacent. Don't lone wolf, unless there is a destroyer that needs to be nailed before it reaches your fleet.

The Cleveland is no hussy. It's a society girl, for sure, but it is a classy girl none the less. Sinatra would sing about how she is never late for the theatre, and how she earned being the object of desire, but never let it change her inside. I'm glad to have my baby back, and won't let her go to no server wipe. Who loves you, baby?

Geek Control 2 Major Tim, World of Warships: Slack Day

Today I had a lovely day off from writing and instead spent some quality time with people that mattered to me. I'm writing because you all matter to me too, so here's a screencap from a few seconds ago. My latest game in the Omaha hasn't finished, and I sunk a few ships, so something tells me that this screencap will soon be out of date :P

Geek Control 2 Major Tim, World of Warships: Destroyers, The Mother in Laws of the Sea!

A short while back, I started this series of WoWs blogs to try and encourage better behaviour, and good game play habits among low tier players. One of my first points that I made was that new players should avoid torpedo-armed ships, and admittedly, on the day that I started the blog, I had just been team-killed about six times in a row by friendly torpedoes. I'm not kidding you when I say that it was a single gaming session that pushed me over the edge, and with the exception of the matches I survived, and one instance where I yolo'd into the enemy team and died, every single death that day was friendly fire. I specifically warned new players that they should avoid playing destroyers until they'd matured a little as WoWs players and come to understand the basics by playing safer ships, like the American cruisers. However, the torpedo problem wasn't just the fault of destroyers. In fact, I'd say it was just as common to see friendly cruisers sending off a salvo of torpedoes at ranges that match their gunnery range (10-14km), which is well beyond any effective torpedo range. These low tier cruiser players were arguably the worst offenders, since they were usually stationed behind friendly destroyers, who were up front doing their jobs as scouts and hunters. In fact, the final act of that day of team-killings that I mentioned was not a friendly destroyer sinking me, but a friendly Japanese cruiser. I'd been keeping my eye on the guy the whole match, as he'd been thoughtlessly derping out torpedoes from the moment the enemy was sighted 24km away. It was genuinely hard to tell if he was intentionally trying to fuck with his own team, or if he was simply that clueless as to how the weapons worked. The game was one of the best I'd ever played, with my Wicks class destroyer bagging 5 enemy kills (only 5, no MLG here), and pus
hing our team into the enemy capture zone. At that point we should have had it in the bag. As the first ship to enter the cap circle, I had the majority of our capture points, and so I ducked and weaved, and focused on not getting hit by enemy gun fire (which would reset the capture). Our enemies had ships in our capture zone, who were beating down on an "away from keyboard" (afk) battleship on our team. We had the victory at hand, and I would gain a massive bonus to experience earned, as it would be my first victory for the day in that ship. At that point, a salvo of friendly torpedoes detonated my ship. It was our friend in the cruiser, who was sitting completely still behind me, making an easy target of himself, and blind firing torpedoes at enemy ships that were well beyond his torpedo range. He quite literally snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, since all my capture points were lost, and then he proceeded to sit still and let himself get hit, losing his points in the process. Why am I telling you all of this? Because I want you to understand not only why I do what I do with these blogs, but also why it is that I am finally going to start telling you about how to not suck at playing destroyers.

I've given DDs a bad rap so far. Sure, low tier players should be banned from playing them until they've at least played a thousand games, but they aren't always to blame for a team's shitty performance. I've played games where our battleships have sat with their thumbs squarely up their asses, and blown the whole match through inactivity. I've seen cruisers completely abandon any kind of supporting role, and sail straight into the enemy fleet, before exploding in a dazzling fireball. I've seen carrier drivers drop anchor in the first second of the match and sit there even when their defenses collapse and the DDs close in with stiffies in hand. So, why do I discourage new players from DDs? The honest answer is that DDs require the most experienced captains in order to perform well, and they bear the biggest margin for error of any ship class. If you screw up in a battleship, you've got a lot of hitpoints to play with, and repair party abilities to recover. If you screw up in a cruiser, you can always improvise. DDs have to play in a pretty specific way, or they risk immediate death, or worse, they have a high chance of hurting their own team.

The biggest reason that I promote cruisers as a new player's first port of call is because they are a bit hard to screw up. As fairly versatile ships, especially in the early game, cruisers can adapt to changing circumstances. If a DD screws up, they have about 3 seconds to decide on how to fix it, and being such role-specific ships, DDs cannot simply adapt and change tactics, they must withdraw and reset the circumstances to suit them. If any of that sounds complicated, stick to cruisers.

DD gameplay can be summarized thus:

• DDs are scouts and hunters, they can always detect their opponents before they are detected in response.This means that they can always choose the terms of the engagement. It is there choice when to reveal themselves, and when to stay silent. For new players, staying silent is pretty much unthinkable. Remember, you are often providing a better service to your team by merely spotting the enemy than fighting, so keep calm and hush.
• DDs are ambush predators. They choose the exact moment of attack, and must time it to cause the maximum damage with the minimum amount of reply. They excel at killing battleships because they do so much damage in such a short amount of time that the battleship won't have time to put their repairs into effect. 
• DDs are fragile. DDs cannot stay alive long while they are spotted. Enemy ships, particularly cruisers and other DDs, will prioritize a DD for fire. While they are fast, small targets, it only takes a few lucky hits, or one well focused hit to bring them down. Not being spotted, or breaking line of sight is the DDs first priority. 
• DDs can support. While the enemy is distracted, the DD can offer gunfire and torpedo spreads in order to distract and confuse the enemy. Setting fires with HE rounds will make the enemy use their repair abilities at inopportune times, and putting wide torpedo spreads in the water will make enemies maneuver and pull their guns off target. This is adds an extra dimension to DDs that broadens their gameplay options, though they should never prioritize it, and should break contact immediately if the enemy shifts attention to the DD.
• DDs have the greatest initiative of any ship (the ability to act instantly and decisively), which is a quality built from their speed and stealth. You should always consider it your duty to react to calls for help in your fleet, but also your duty to exploit openings in the enemy lines.

They stalk you from the shadows, noting your every move. They always join in thrashing you when they have someone else to hide behind, and fade the moment things are looking bleak. They wait until the perfect moment to torpedo you and your lady, ruining your day. The destroyers are truly, mother-in-laws of the sea. But I've always been a charmer when it comes to the mature ones, so how about we discuss ways of getting you and DDs working together.

Your first decision in the game is to choose between Japanese, American, and the soon to be released Soviet DDs. More will come, but let's look at what we have to play with. The main choice currently is American or Japanese, and I mostly play the American DDs. For the longest time, people always thought that the Japanese DDs were overpowered, and put the American ships to shame. This was, as usual, due to superior torpedoes on the Japanese ships. This combined with superior stealth characteristics makes most players feel superior when playing Japanese DDs. As I said in my torpedo blog, there is a sense of impunity when you play the Japanese DDs. They are universally able to fire from stealth, launching at ranges beyond their detectability range. This allows Japanese DD captains to strike without ever risking so much as a scratch to their paintwork. Comparatively, American ships typically have to cross no less than 2km detected before they can launch their own. This makes launching torps from an American boat a little less like sniping from the bushes, and more like attacking a bunker with a grenade. This is the reason that most new players chose the Japanese line, and why they generally contribute very little to their team, and score very poorly.

Japanese destroyers are excellent when used correctly. In my torpedo discussion I said that having super long range on your torpedoes is nice, but also kind of pointless. Since torpedoes have travel time, and your enemy can't be trusted to maintain a straight course, firing torpedoes at those super long ranges is rarely a successful proposition. I recommend that you always try to fire them from as close as possible without being spotted, as it increases your likelyhood of a hit. Fortunately, the Japanese torpedoes are good in almost every respect, with high travel speed, making the likelyhood of connecting even better. The real advantage of the super long range torpedoes, especially the ridiculous high tier ones (which can strike out to 20km) is that if you aim them into a corridor, or a position where they can hit multiple ships, they can be very good at disrupting an enemy fleet's formation. Most of the really good gameplay I've seen from high tier Japanese DDs involves missing the primary target, but hitting secondaries that were within the huge range. The good stealth characteristics mean that Japanese DDs can really maximize their potential as scouts and ambushers. The Japanes DDs are the purest examples of torpedo boats, since their other armament is only useful in limited contexts. They really are ninjas, since they strike from the shadows, poison their enemies (flooding and fire), and always fade when detected. Japanese DDs are not gunboats, and are significantly less effective in their supporting roles, which is why the American DD line attracted me more.

American DDs are closer to a gunboat style of gameplay. Where they beat the Japanese hands down is in their gunnery, and toughness. Japanese DDs are handicapped by slow turret traverse times, and overall inferior guns. The Americans make me think a lot of Popeye, and I sometimes hear that tune play in my head when I spot a Japanese DD and proceed to unleash a beat down that goes something like this: first impact, "What the hell was that?", second impact, "How did this guy even see me?", third impact, "I'm almost dead!", forth impact, "fuck, fuck, fuck, please don't kill me". I've made so many Japanese DDs pop smoke and flee like a startled kitten that I actually wonder how the Japanese DDs ever got such a nasty reputation in the first place. However, the American DDs do deserve their reputation for having shitty torpedoes. Their torps have ranges of 5-7km for most of the game, with 5.5 being pretty average. With detectability ranges around 7km, they can pretty much never get a stealth kill without using terrain, or ship/captain upgrades. This general opinion on the American torps is probably about to change. The Russian DDs are scheduled to be implemented into the game shortly, and their torps are looking to have even shorter ranges (3km). This is likely to re-orient the meta of the game, and people will likely start to see that such short ranges are the norm, and that the Japanese are the exception to that norm. Meanwhile, the American DDs will continue to be just plain more versatile than the Japanese equivalents. American DDs can get such a superior performance from their guns that it means they can take on a cruiser-like role, and offer gunfire support, as long as they aren't the main target. Similarly, the American DDs eventually receive the option of using the AA defensive fire ability, which allows them to either take up an even more effective support role, or make them an unstoppable nightmare as a carrier hunter.

Your choice between the two will be more about what you value as a player. Do you like that sniping, loner style of play? As long as you appreciate the need for fire discipline and discretion in the face of danger, then maybe Japanese DDs are for you. If you like versatility, and a more knife-fighting gunboat style of play, with moments of screeching terror as you plough towards the enemy, torpedoes at the ready, then American style may be your thing.

I'm hoping by this point you've come to understand that captaining DDs is a dangerous life, and that they reward understanding of the game mechanics more than they reward twitch reflexes. Your key takeaways from this should be that you really do need to understand the game's concealment mechanics, its torpedo mechanics, and the idiosyncrasies of the different ships before you can expect to play DDs with any degree of success. They are by far the hardest ships to do well in, and hopefully you've taken my advice and earned your stripes elsewhere before attempting to go balls in on this particular lifestyle. Like mother-in-laws, you'll never win in destroyers until you've come to truly understand them. Learn their ways, master them, and sooner or later your wife will crash through the front door of your house in her car, and be furious that she didn't kill you... of course, she missed because you were upstairs with your DD, scoring like a champ... I think I got muddled on that analogy, but now you know why I like DDs, and why I warn you so vehemently to learn before you take one to your bed... port... uh, TORPEDOES AWAY! Yay :D

Geek Control 2 Major Tim, World of Warships: Bloody Omaha

Continuing on my quest to get new players safely tucked in to the American cruiser line in WoWs, I've come half way up the tech tree to the tier 5 ship, the Omaha. In my last post, some of you might remember that I made a great big apology to the t4 cruiser, the Phoenix. That was a ship that I pretty much skipped during the closed beta test of WoWs, mainly because it just looked like a crappier version of the Omaha. After learning the Phoenix's slaloming technique, I revised that view, and accepted the ship for the cool piece of floating excellence that it was. I did then go on to say that tier for tier I felt it was better than the Omaha, and having played a week's worth of games in the Omaha, I can say that I still felt the Phoenix was more fun (it's a ship you go friggin skiing in), I have finally settled in to appreciating the Omaha for the excellent ship that it is, too.

As previously discussed, the Omaha is the evolution of the Phoenix class of light scout cruiser that was theorized at the end of The First World War, and developed into the Omaha before The Second. It modernized the WW1 design ethos, and in particular it did away with its original intended purpose, that of a reconnaissance ship, and destroyer leader. It still functioned as a scout, but launched float planes to do its real recce work, and took over more of a fleet screening role. In WoWs, this role comes to life in game, and if you want to get the most out of this ship, you'll avoid treating it like a roided-up destroyer, and start to teach yourself the mid to late game cruiser role that you've been building toward since our first cruiser blog; you'll become a badass support ship; all-rounder; and guardian of truth, justice, and delicate capital ship buttocks.

The Omaha suffers a distinct loss of maneuverability from its predecessor, which it trades off for the ability to launch float fighters, and replaces some of its free-standing guns with turrets. The decline in maneuverability was a real kick in the balls, and for players that prefer a more independent gameplay style, and ability to hunt the enemy free of friendly fleets, this will mark a step down in enjoyment from the Phoenix. However, if you adjust yourself to a slightly more relaxed game style, and focus your mind on a supporting role, you'll very quickly see why this ship is utterly excellent.

The Omaha has good concealment for a cruiser, decent speed, and a good armament for its tier. Standard cruiser behavior applies when playing this bad boy: fall into a position to support your battleships in the battle line, stick close behind your destroyers to cover them during a brawl with other DDs, or stick close to your carrier and keep that tubby boy alive. Supporting may sound like a bit of a pacifist way to play, but remember, this is not a "hold back and heal" type of support, it's the "let some bigger or faster dude take the brunt, while you shoot" kind of deal. Whenever engaging ships of the same size or larger, consider holding fire until they've engaged someone bigger than you on your team. If you are alone (don't be, you are best when supporting), you should start looking for ways to increase your suitability, like angling prow towards the enemy, making a b-line for the nearest cover, or just pulling back past your detectability range and holding fire. Again, you say, why the hell would I want to play a ship that doesn't get stuck in? Well, remember this, it will still always fall to you to prioritize giving enemy destroyers the savage beating that they so richly deserve (filthy hun weasels, fighting their dirty underhanded war), all while making life easier for your own destroyers (Splendid fellows, brave heroes, risking life and limb for Blighty!). 

What the Omaha suffers for most is probably a bit of mediocrity. It's good at killing destroyers, but what cruiser isn't? It can offer better air cover than average ships of its tier, again cruiser standard. And it can fit just about any role if it needs to... yeah. Throughout the American cruiser line you'll find ships like the St Louis, which is famously beefy and vicious, the Phoenix which is sleek and punishing to those that underestimate it, and then there is the tier 6 Cleveland class cruiser, which people install the game in the first place to try out. During the closed beta, I skipped the Phoenix, and played the bare minimum number of games I could in the Omaha in order to get to that tier 6 golden boy, and with good reason. Replaying the Omaha, and giving it a proper go has taught me that simply being good for your tier and not shining like some of the other ships in the line up isn't necessarily a bad thing. As a new player, you might find that the Omaha, a lot like the Chester, is one of those ships you don't remember with overt fondness, or play your best games in, but it is certainly the ship that made you play better. After the Phoenix's unique style, I feel like the Omaha reigned me in a little. It reminded me what a cruiser was really all about, and I was surprised at how well I played when I adjusted to the style of gameplay that I would have to master for the rest of the line. 

What you should look forward to in this ship is it's simplicity, stability, and focused cruiser style. In my ongoing efforts to teach newer players better habits, and older players an appreciation for the methods of learning, I'd put the Omaha as a critical step on that path. Undoubtedly some of you will ignore it in your frenzy to hit t6, but don't be in too much of a rush. The lessons learned here will help you graduate to a better understanding of the game. 

Oh, and it has torpedoes... I swear if you fire these things at enemies over 5km away, and hit me in the back, I'm going to fucking murder you in your sleep and ##(*&$Y(#*&%TY()*YT@!!

Transmission ends...

Geek Control 2 Major Tim: World of Warship, Hooked on Stereo-Phoenix

After last week's posts, I was contemplating a discussion of low tier American destroyers, or maybe talking a little about how to get started in battleships. In the end I figured it was best to round out the low tier cruiser discussion with one of my favourites, the Phoenix. This is a ship that I distinctly remember ignoring, free xp'ing, and only playing a few matches in during the closed beta version of World of Warships. Now that the game is in open access, the experience and credit values for progressing up the tech tree are much greater, and I decided to spend a great deal more time on each ship to help master the game. I was not looking forward to returning to the Phoenix, largely because I thought it was just an un-upgraded Omaha. Having now played both ships extensively, I can now comprehensively conclude that the Phoenix is, and I quote myself here: "hella fuck'n balls out awesome". In reference to my earlier opinion of the ship, it has truly risen from the ashes.

For those that have never looked, the Phoenix class cruiser is one of the "paper designs" of WoWs. Like it's sister game, World of Tanks, World of Warships puts vehicles into the game that never actually existed, alongside the historically accurate ones. This is one of Wargaming's (the parent company for WoWs) little quirks that they love to bring to their trilogy of two. Paper designs fill gaps in the historically accurate tech trees, and also serve as cool oddities, giving us an insight into how these non-existant vessels might have theoretically performed against real contemporaries. Think Freddy Vs. Jason Vs. Mad Jack Churchill. The Phoenix existed in paper, and was intended to be a light scout cruiser, the kind of ship that would fill the gap between destroyer and cruiser. They would lead destroyer hunting packs, acting kind of like an alpha DD, and also provide long range scouting to larger ships in the fleet. The Phoenix was never built, instead the design was reworked, and reworked until it was only just barely recognizable. The addition of a built up rear superstructure, additional anti-submarine warfare systems, and most-notably, two turrets mounting twin 6-inch guns, completely reorganized the Phoenix into practically a different ship. The result was the renamed Omaha class light cruiser (in WoWs at T5), which performed a similar role, but mostly dropped the pretenses of being a destroyer lead, or scout, and became fleet screening vessels.

Like me, you've probably looked at the T4 Phoenix, and the T5 Omaha and thought, something along these lines, "Dafuq is the point of this? It's clearly just an outright inferior Omaha, so what you're saying is that I need to grind through a crap Omaha just to get be able to grind out the Omaha." It probably also doesn't help that so many people hear such great things about the St Louis at T3, and the Cleveland at T6, both of which are outstanding gun cruisers, and purer examples of the American cruiser philosophy. All of this belies a simple point, for its tier, the Phoenix is a better ship than the Omaha, and the battles it will face will suit it to a t.

The Phoenix is a pure scout cruiser. It's advantages are its blistering speed and agility. Players of some of the low tier Japanese cruisers will know this play style: juking enemy shells and torpedoes, evading unfavourable engagements with enemy battleships and cruisers, and putting a truly legendary hurt on any destroyer unfortunate enough to be caught in a straight fight. The difference at first glance between the Phoenix and Omaha seems to just be the addition of turret mounted guns, but the Omaha, as a bulked up Phoenix loses a lot of the maneuverability of the Phoenix in the upgrade. The Phoenix can shift direction on a dime, rivaling some destroyers for DDR footwork. Combined with the ship's narrow hull, the Phoenix is nigh-impervious to torpedoes, since it can slip between even a tight spread, and pretty much ignore wide spreads as long as it is either closing or opening the distance with the enemy.

The big problem that new players (like me in the closed-beta) have with the Phoenix is the gun layout. A lot like the St Louis, the Phoenix mounts the majority of its guns in either side of the hull. Without any centreline turrets, the Phoenix appears to never be able to bring the majority of its firepower to bear. This is a similar problem to the St Louis, but most people never notice this issue. The St Louis has more guns per hull, and typically can rely on its toughness to present the broadside and commence the smackdown. Conversely, the Phoenix cannot rely on its armour or health to trade broadsides with anything but destroyers, however, the Phoenix simply doesn't need to.

The two tactics that save the Phoenix, and actually put it above and beyond the St Louis are supporting fire tactics, and my personal favourite, the "slalom shoot". Everything I've said about cruisers up until this point holds true. If you are up against enemies that are tougher than you, wait in the wings until they are firing at someone tougher than you. Battleships and armoured cruisers exist to take a beating, and unless you are facing destroyers, you are probably fighting enemies that are tougher than you. Unless you are without choice, hold your fire until you confirm your enemies guns are facing someone else, or they are simply unable to respond. Holding your fire can be difficult as a new player. It goes against most of your instincts, but believe me, if you draw fire in this game, the enemy will tunnel-vision on you until one of you is dead. Even if they have a better target, the target that they shoot at first is usually the one they will focus on until death. Once your enemy is distracted, start giving broadsides, or better yet, begin the slalom.

Slalom shooting is one of my favourite tactics for low tier ships with off-centre gun mounts. Offering your broadside to the enemy is a good way to fire all of your guns, but it places you in the single most vulnerable position you can put yourself in. If the enemy can see your ship in profile, it is the biggest target to hit, and your armour is the flattest that it will be. Turning your ship to a steeper angle will make it a narrower target, it will make them have to correct for your heading, and it will make your armour more steeply angled, increasing the chances of ricocheting AP shells. As such, you can angle yourself towards the enemy, presenting your full array of guns on one side of the ship. From this safer position, fire your volley. Now shift the ship's rudder so you turn to present the other side of the ship, and its freshly loaded guns. Fire these, and shift back to the original side. You are essentially fishtailing the ship toward the enemy, and in the Phoenix you can do this so quickly that you'll have fired, switched sides, fired, and switched back by the time the original guns have reloaded. This tactic wrecks face. It turns your seemingly minimal broadsides into machineguns of doom. It feels a lot like muskets firing volleys by rank, and it seems to have basically the same effect. Combine this with the Phoenix's superior gun range, and you'll be able to beat up St Louis's beyond their response range. With this slalom tactic, I've killed enemy destroyers within less than 3 seconds. Volley, turn, volley, boom. And all that while constantly closing the distance, thus increasing accuracy, reducing their chance to escape, and bringing me closer to torpedo range.

Oh yeah, and the Phoenix has torpedoes, too. It and the Omaha are the only two ships in the American cruiser line (other than the premium Atlanta) to pack torpedoes, and while they are pretty crap ones, they are still just the ticket for delivering the fear of Santa to enemy battleships that see a scout cruiser and get cocky.

As I said at the beginning, it is easy to overlook the Phoenix as merely the under-gunned prototype for the Omaha. However, as the Omaha geared up with guns, planes, and got its butt implants, it kind of lost sight of what it was originally supposed to be. When we talk about the Omaha, we'll cover what it does well, but shimmying, shaking, and putting the hurt on destroyers just isn't among those things, at least not like it is one tier down. It's amazing what a inversion I felt playing the Phoenix again. Where I had sneered at it, and skipped to the Omaha, I now find myself regretting the "upgrade". Tier for tier, it just feels like the Phoenix is better at what it does. Don't use free experience to skip this one, and don't get disheartened by its initial performance. Master this one, and I might just permit you to play a destroyer... one day. This is a ship that does not belong as a footnote to the Omaha, it should soar on the winds forever.

Geek Control 2 Major Tim: World of Warships, and Toolbag Torpedo says, "U mad bro?"

Okay, so I think it's time we had the torpedo discussion. In my blogs leading up until this point, I've been pretty much laying a lot of the blame for bad gameplay in WoWs on the misuse and misunderstanding of torpedoes. In all of my "how to not n00b" discussions, the first thing I've usually said is that you should set a course that avoids torpedo-armed ships, at least until you've earned your stripes. I've even likened torps to a drug habit, because you've seen all of the cool kids doing it (youtubers/twitch streamers), and they seem like the greatest thing in the game. In complete truth, torps are one of the most fun things in the game, and give the player a finger of god that can strike down the toughest of enemies with nought  but a click a button. It feels a lot like a power-gamer's wet dream, on a similar level to sniping, or having the huge critical damage of a WoW rouge. The biggest, tankiest enemies, the pride of their fleet, the cream of the crop, and you can pop them with a single pin prick. For gamers that seek instant gratification, or that feeling of ultimate power with impunity to reply, the torpedo armed destroyers of WoWs seem like the perfect ship class.

I stand by my earlier statements. Torpedoes, and especially destroyers require a great deal of mastery to use effectively. For new players coming to WoWs, jumping into a torpedo-armed ship, especially a DD, and recklessly firing off torpedoes at distant silhouettes is not only fruitless to your game, but it is a great way to get yourself banned quickly. Unlike a lot of team-based multiplayer games, WoWs doesn't dick around when it comes to friendly fire. Since torpedoes swim slowly through the water, unlike gunfire that arcs high through the air, you will always be at risk of clipping one of your friendly ships if you don't check that the line of fire is clear. While the occasional accident or near presidential assassination is inevitable, looking at you USS William D. Porter, instances of teamkilling via torpedoes is disproportionate to others in WoWs. And while WoWs doesn't pull punches when it comes to team damage, it also offers little to no mercy to teamkillers (accident or otherwise) when it comes to banning them from the game.

The problem boils down to two things: people not knowing the maximum range of their torpedoes, and people not checking their line of fire. It's kind of funny, but I've encountered players close to the top tiers of the game that don't realize torps actually have a maximum range. Torps in WoWs frequently cap out at 5km ranges, and only the most extreme examples of top tier DDs can claim to exceed 20km. You can actually check this range at any point by selecting the torpedoes as your main weapon, and then holding down the alt key. Holding alt will cause ranges to appear over enemy ships, as well as putting a range indicator over your cursor. If the numbers on your range indicator are red, then you are aiming at a point beyond your weapon range. You can also look this up in your port view by selecting your ship, and clicking the torpedo armament listed on the right-hand panel. This is also a good chance to check out your ship's concealment rating, which will tell you the distance at which you'll be spotted. If the torp range is longer, you'll be able to launch them without ever being detected. Launching your torps at a target that is beyond maximum range is usually not a good idea. Typically this will mean they will stop at max range and achieve nothing, but as an advanced tactic (not for new players to attempt), if you fire them at an enemy that is closing distance with you, then they might just sail into range while the torpedoes are in motion; a great tactic for beating a retreat from a cruiser. Note also that the aiming lead-indicator that the game provides you with is only giving you the enemy's predicted position based on their current course. They can easily screw up your shot if they turn or change speed. Another useful tip here is to base your aim on your enemy's maneuverability, and whether or not you've been spotted yet. If they are fat and slow like a battleship, you haven't been detected, and they are firing at another target, you can pretty much expect your torps to hit if you fire them right where the aim indicator says. If they are maneuverable, you've been detected, or they aren't firing at anything else, you can expect them to take action to dodge your shots. In these cases, I recommend firing behind where the aim indicator says, as their maneuvers will slow them down, causing the aim indicator to overlead them. Finally, fire narrow spreads at long range. Torps are fired in fanning formations, so if you fire a wide spread, it will widen out significantly at the outer range limits, making it harder to land hits.

The second major problem that I mentioned was that most players simply don't clear their line of fire before loosing their torps. This is more a problem of situational awareness than anything, and the simple solution is to stop focusing all your attention on your enemies. A lot of gamers are used to games where you focus only on yourself and the position of your most immediate enemy. WoWs is a fleet action game. There is no deathmatch mode here, and the potential for friendly fire makes good teamwork and situational awareness critical to success. DDs are the king ship class when it comes to situational awareness, as they need to be constantly considering their position, the position of all enemies, as well as their own friendlies. I will do a full post on this someday, but for now, just remember that knowing your friendies' location is super important as a DD, because you always want your enemies distracted, before you make an attack run. Spotted DDs that have nothing to distract the enemy, are dead DDs. This in mind, you should have no excuse for blapping one of your friends in the back with your torps, since you should know exactly where they are at all times. As usual, I'll offer you a quick metric for this. If a friendly ship is closer to the enemy than you, don't fire your torpedoes. As a DD you should be closer to the enemy than your team. You should be stalking them from just outside your detection range. You should be constantly observing and waiting for your opportunity to strike. And when the enemy least expects it, and your friends are clear of the path of destruction, you should take the initiative and crush them mercilessly. This is why I call the destroyer class of ships the mother-in-laws of the sea!

A final word on this one is that you should always favour torpedoes with the highest possible speed over torps with the longer ranges. As a few prominent youtubers have pointed out (love you Jangles), fast torps are always the most likely to hit. Firing your torps at shorter ranges and higher speeds gives your opponents the least time to react and attempt to maneuver. The legendary long range of Japanese torpedoes in WoWs is actually pretty detrimental to the player's efficiency. It encourages players to sit as far as possible from the enemy plinking like a coward from the back of their fleet, endangering friendlies in the process. It encourages the opposite behaviour to what a DD should be adopting, and quite frankly reduces your efficiency. The longer the distance to the target, the more likely it is that they will change course with no knowledge of your approaching attack. These long range weapons do have a place and purpose in the game, but that's a story for another time.

Try not to get me killed, and guarantee your team's defeat by randomly firing off those scumbag death cigars without first considering: range, line of fire, chance of actually hitting. I still forbid you as a new player from going down this road until you've learned the necessary skills, but I'm not your real dad (no matter how disappointing your mother and I are with you), so take what I've said here and put it into practice.

Good luck, and fair seas.

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

Geek Control 2 Major Tim: World of Warships, Tier 2 Cruiser... Chester... I don't even know 'er!

In continuing with my previous topic, I'd like to suggest that new WoWS players consider the option of going down the 'Murican cruiser line as their first grind. As previously mentioned, I have a strong love for good gameplay, and am constantly driven to mind-bending rage when I see new players captaining complex ships, and fucking up the whole affair, both for themselves, and other friendly players. What I love about the American cruiser line is that the ships are by no means overpowered (well, the St Louis, Cleavland, and Des Moines are, but hush, I don't want them nerfed), they are definitely a lot less confusing for young captains to master, and a lot more forgiving when they make mistakes.

After wallowing around in your Erie at tier one, you'll only be able to progress to the Chester before you can unlock anything else. At that point you will be able to unlock the Samson by going sideways into the destroyer line, but I've already warned you about that :D If the Erie was where you got your degree in warships, then think of the Chester as the place that you earn your masters'. Everything I said about the tier one ships last time applies equally here. The Chester is a fast and maneuverable ship, without having the break-neck formula one performance of DDs (destroyers). They are tough enough to take a few hits and keep kicking, thus being more forgiving to players that expose themselves to a thrashing. They are still low enough tier that they get to sit out most of the more complicated stuff in the game, like air warfare. And all round, the Chester has simple gameplay mechanics that follow on from what you've already learned. Even when you've ground out the full upgrade suit on the Chester, consider keeping it and playing it a few times a day just to make sure you are nailing down those basics of gameplay, and not rushing towards more complicated ships.

The Chester is a little lightly armed in its stock incarnation, which means that it should avoid too much direct combat. Start teaching yourself to use islands and bigger ships to distract the enemy, and only engage once you can avoid return fire. You might also want to experiment with different ammo at this point. You'll mostly find that AP shells are your friend at this point, since they will do the most damage as long as they penetrate. When you find your AP (armour piercing) shells doing little to no damage, it means that they are ricocheting from the enemy's armour. At this point switching to HE (High Explosive) ammo will guarantee you more damage, and start setting fires. In battles where you start to see battleships and destroyers, you should start loading the HE early, since AP usually won't harm a BB, and HE is more effective at disabling and pinning down DDs. When engaging cruisers, however, you should try using your AP, especially at long ranges, and when your enemy exposes their broadside. You may find that you start scoring citadel hits on your opponent, which are kind of like the "headshots" of this game. This is what I mean about using this tier as your masters' degree. Now is the best time to master your maneuvers, gunnery, and learn to work with your team (or at least use them to your advantage, even if they ignore you). As you finish upgrading the Chester, you'll find that it can punish other cruisers, and frankly put a savage beat down on enemy DDs. Encountering higher tier cruisers, such as the fearsome St Louis and Kuma classes, as well as encountering any BB should teach you the importance of holding back, and joining the fray once the enemy is distracted. Even the lowest tier ship can still kick ass if it is given a chance to avoid damage, and unleash with guns.

The final things to practice at this point are how to focus your guns, and how to dodge torpedoes. The Chester, like many low tier ships, mounts some of its main guns in the sides of the ship, rather than in centreline turrets. This means that inevitably the ship cannot bring all guns to bear at once. For many ships this is just a fact of life, but for fast turning, fast shifting ships like the Chester, it means you can turn and fire your portside guns (or starboard), and then quickly shift your ass to expose your opposite battery. This is what I call the slalom shoot. It's far more pronounced on later ships, such as the Phoenix at tier four. The other option is to start sailing in a circle, giving your guns a chance to spin and fire. I call this one the Cantabrian Circle Jerk... because you go around shooting in every direction, or just Cantabrian Circle for those playing with the language filters on. The other thing to round out your captaining skills is torpedo dodging. This is a skill that really does rely first and foremost on situational awareness. You need to learn as soon as possible to pull your view out from the zoomed gunsight view in between shots. Knowing where you are, where your enemy is, and where the likely torpedoes are coming from is the difference between a snarling veteran seadog, and a n00b raging on the forums about the OP torpedoes. As a DD captain that frequently has his torpedoes dodged be even semi-competent players, I can say without a doubt that it is not difficult to ruin a DD captain's game with even the simplest maneuvers. Do your best to keep one eye on the mini map, and zoom out every 3-5 seconds. Track the DDs on the map, or guess at their most likely locations. If you even suspect that one is within 10km of you, start maneuvering. Speed up, slow down, and make rapid rudder shifts to throw off potential torpedo salvos. At this point the DD captain will likely charge you, and reveal himself to your guns.

Hopefully with these skills in mind, and a whole bunch of practice, not rushing the next tier, you will become a vastly superior player in no time, and be worthy of your captaincy. Next we might talk about the St Louis, or maybe a little more on the complicated mechanics that you will need to learn, such as torpedoes and stealth, and maybe then you will have my permission to sail that glorious class of gunboat, the destroyer >:)

Geek Control 2 Major Tim: World of Warships, avoiding n00bitude in the early game

Following up on my previous post, I'd like to talk a little about things you can do as a new player in WoWS to avoid being a bad player. There are certainly a lot of people out there trying to teach new players about some of the do's of the game, so here are a few don't's that might just save you from justified abuse in game, or even a flat out ban.

As previously mentioned, you should not be too hasty to get away from your starting ship. The full explanation for that is in my last post, but the real reason you will want to avoid getting off to too quick of a start in this game is that certain ship classes have complex gameplay mechanics, and worse, can be unforgiving when you make a mistake. Sticking with the tier one starter ship for a while will give you a chance to experiment with the controls and basic gun mechanics while you figure things out, as well as giving you an arena to screw up in that will be pretty forgiving.

If you want to advance, and lets face it, who doesn't, you should probably try out the American cruiser line. The American cruisers aren't inherently easier than other ships, but they capitalize on the things you learned in the first tier ship, such as basic maneuvers, gunnery, and teamwork. What they don't have is torpedo armament (except for the tier 4 and 5 ships), fragile health, and poor maneuverability. These are the three things that get people killed the most, after lack of teamwork.

You should avoid playing destroyers as your first tech tree to grind out, as they are fragile, rely on torpedoes, and also rely on stealth mechanics. Without doing a little reading, or watching some expertly delivered tutorial videos, these ships can be an absolute dead end for new players to captain. Torpedoes, as I have said before, are difficult weapons to master, and can become a bigger habit to your own team than to your enemies if mishandled. The single most common mistake I see new players making in the game is spamming torpedoes at the enemy fleet without knowing their range. Torpedoes typically have a much shorter range than most guns, and have a slow travel time (faster than a ship travels, but slower than a shell). This means that if you fire torpedoes at a ship 10km away, and your torpedoes only have a 5km range, you've wasted your time, and any friendly ships nearby will be in danger. Make no mistake, if a friendly gets killed by your torpedoes, it will be your fault. Friendly players have enough things to pay attention to without worrying about their allies blowing them up from behind, so the line, "you should have been paying more attention" is pretty weak. DD's also rely heavily on sharp maneuvers and stealth to stay alive. The number of DD captains I see ploughing into islands and being obliterated while they are stuck on a beach really does emphasize the point that new players need to spend more time in slower ships, doing their maneuvers far from land. Finally, stealth mechanics are complex, and will not save you until you learn them properly. Most new players will captain their DD, firing blind shots into mountain sides out of sheer lack of attention span, which immediately reveals them at longer ranges. In short, don't play a rogue if you like walking in the sun.

Battleships are also a ship that newbies should take to slowly. While the potential for screwing up is smaller indeed, these ships still have major problems that make them unfriendly to new players. Notably, battleships require very large areas to turn their ships around. They also are slow to shift their rudders from side to side, meaning that all maneuvers require advanced planning in order to pull off effectively. These are not ships that respond well to a captain suddenly changing their mind about direction, or being caught by surprise. A good BB captain must always plan their maneuvers and even their gun rotations, as well as having an excellent all round perception, and feel for the pace of the battle. When circumstances develop, a BB captain must react before things get out of hand, and make no decisions after the moment has passed. In other words, new players need not apply. Also, new players are likely to get overly excited by the prospect of a BB's excellent armour and huge health pool. This leads them to bite off more than they can chew, and get dead at the tip of a torpedo volley. The most common mistake of BB captains? Sitting still and firing from a distance instead of staying mobile. The number of battles I've seen lost because the friendly BB's just sat their and did not react to the battle boils my blood. The other most famous mistake is when BB captains plot a perfectly straight course and switch to gunsight view, never switching back. The Mighty Jingles comments endlessly on this one, joking at how many BB captains sail straight into easily avoidable torpedoes, when even the slightest course correction would save them.

Don't captain a carrier without watching a video first... That is all.

Hopefully this gave new WoWS players some thoughts on how to not suck at the game. Really, I do want to help, and to see the overall quality of the gameplay improve. Next time I'll talk a little about the low tier American cruisers, and give you an idea of what to expect. I won't warn you off the Japanese cruisers, as they are damn good fun to play, but just remember that they always carry torpedoes, and until you learn how to use them, you definitely shouldn't touch such weapons.

Happy sailing.

Geek Control 2 Major Tim: World of Warships for Newbies

World of Warships recently went live, and the game has been flooded with new players, all looking to get themselves hooked on the fast-paced, explosion-laden naval combat. The game is free to play, meaning that there is little to no restriction on who can play, but this also comes with the problem that frequents most F2P games, which is its vulnerability to being swamped with casual players, and botters looking to grind their way up the ladder without actually playing. The quality of play is certainly not as high as it was during the closed beta, and with so many new players looking to joining up, I thought now might be a time to give some tips to new players, starting with an introduction to the most newby friendly ship lines, and a few ideas on how to get good at the game fast.

To begin with, your first ship will be a dinky little cruiser with no real specialty, and no real character. While you may want to get away from it as fast as possible, you should instead consider spending a few hours plugging away in it. The ship has no complicated gameplay mechanics associated with it, except for basic manoeuvring and gunnery. It is a good ship to get used to sailing in, since it has tight turning, fast rudder shift, and won't get you killed every time you make a mistake in plotting out your course. Similarly, the starter ships have no torpedoes, meaning you won't become a hazard to your own team as you figure out how to use the damn things. The guns are simple, and will get you used to the idea of ranging and rotating your guns for maximum effect. I'd also practice your aim at these tiers, figuring out how the AP and HE ammo system works. Go out and read up on it quickly, so as to avoid spamming one round or the other, without ever understanding what you are achieving. The final benefit of these low tier ships is that they won't likely encounter most of the other ship classes in the game. For the most part, your starting ships won't encounter carriers, or particularly powerful destroyers, and the kind of ships that will make you confused and unsure how to respond. You might even discover the value of teamwork at this tier, or at least learn how to exploit your enemies' distractions in order to punish them.

After your first tier, I recommend jumping in to American cruisers as your first ship line to grind. American cruisers mostly don't use torpedoes, and will focus instead on gunnery and manoeuvers to achieve victory. Spending some time grinding out this cruiser line will mould you into a much better player than you would be if you decided to try out destroyers, or battleships, both of which are more complicated to play. Remember that cruisers are support ships, and while they can be dangerous alone, they are even more dangerous when supporting bigger, tougher ships, like battleships. In my next blog, I think I'll explain a little more about early American cruisers, but also give some more reasons why you should hold off before going nuts with torpedoes. For now, I'd just recommend you watch some training videos, and stick with the advice I've listed here.

Happy sailing