World of Warships

[Dd714]

If they had a singleplayer mode with maybe a campaign feature (fight the WW2 war in the Pacific, start with the Battle of Midway) I would be interested. But I just don't have any interest in multiplayer anymore.
For that matter - how do you refight the Battle of Midway where all the combat was via aircraft launched fighter bombers?

[roadrat]

Originally Posted by Dd714

If they had a singleplayer mode with maybe a campaign feature (fight the WW2 war in the Pacific, start with the Battle of Midway) I would be interested. But I just don't have any interest in multiplayer anymore.
For that matter - how do you refight the Battle of Midway where all the combat was via aircraft launched fighter bombers?

It does have some campaign missions when you get up to level 7 or 8, Nothing truly historical in nature though.

The game does have carriers and there aircraft can be quite devastating, As I found out.

[JimRom]

I've dipped in and out of all three of the "World of..." games, Warships, Tanks, and Warplanes. They're all enjoyable, and I haven't had to spend a dime on any of them. While they aren't my typical types of game (I'm more into shooters and massively multiplayer genres), they do tend to fill in the gaps when I'm bored with my current favorite or when the current crop of games is poorly designed (Battlefield 1, I am pointing at you).

The good news is that Wargaming studio's flagship title World of Tanks, at least, is also available on XBox and Android platforms. Hopefully, Warplanes and Warships follow suit soon. Using a controller vs. keyboard for World of Warplanes is almost a necessity if you really want to be an ace pilot.

I had to delete Warships from my computer to make space for other games, but with a new 1tb secondary hard drive to fill up I may just go ahead and reinstall it.

[Phil P]

I've played WOWS a decent amount. It's the best of the World of ... Series by far. Planes went downhill and never really came back. Tanks has too many annoying things about it that still haven't been fixed, I get angry playing tanks. Some things that make Warships better are:

1. Tier difference isn't as make or break. You can still rock being bottom tier because you can always do damage
2. The ships are more balanced. From my observation, there really isn't a ship that just sucks. Every single one is pretty decent. Tanks has a lot of vehicles that are purposely terrible.
3. Carriers actually make the game better instead of arty, which kind of ruins a game.
4. Graphics are much better
5. They improve the game at a pretty decent pace
6. Less shots from no where. Although you can't always shoot back at the person shooting you, you can see when the situation is being set up for a smoke and shoot and you can counter it with radar or shooting torpedoes into the smoke.

For some reason, I'm pretty good at Warships while I'm average at best at Tanks. There is quite a bit of strategy involved, from planning out where to start off to what angle to attack at in a firefight to what target to prioritise. It's less reflex and more map watching and planning the next move.

My favorite lines are the US Cruiser line (The tier X Des Moines is sooooo fun!!!) and the RN Cruiser line. My favorite premium is the Atlanta. Generally, I like cruisers the best German battleships are the most annoying enemies to play against because you can't rush torp them or reliably citadel them. You just have to deck shoot them and light them on fire till they die.

My biggest complaint is that the high tiers have 10 battleships every game, which forces games to be played at a far distance / playing defensive.

[Yac]

Des Moines is amazing. I only got to her,my 2nd tier x ship in the game (after the currywurst ) but it is so strong it's almost stupid. I think it's the first cruiser I put the propulsion mod in, instead of the rudder shift one.
Anyway, rushing in first, to cover one or even 2 caps with your radar and hide behind an island until the enemy appears, then tanking them bow on, lighting fires and getting almost no damage in return (unless there's a yamato) and healing those lucky shots that did get through...It's super effective and helping your dd's and proper use of radar help you win games, so it's great for both doing damage and winning.

German Battleships <3
Apart from the currywurst (Großer Kurfürst) I have the Tirpitz, Scharnhorst and .. Konig Albert. It's the first line I went for, I got to my first tier 8, the Bismarck, the moment last year's Bismarck campaign started. It's a great line full of very tough ships.. with broken optics. Hitting anything farther away than 8-10km reliably is not something you can do, which is frustrating after playing USN BB's like the North Carolina that can snipe at 20+ km and deal multiple citadels...
But when you get close! And the secondaries .. for a while I ran with a purely secondary build on my captain, including that +3% fire chance skill whatever it's called, 10+ fires pet game was normal.
Then I swapped some skills around, decided against manual secondaries, went for a more tanky build, also swapped the secondary boost module for that aiming upgrade. Now my Tirpitz/GK only have ~10km secondaries range and they don't hit that often, but the range loss is not that big a deal, now they can shoot at every target in range, not just the one selected, the whole ship is more accurate and more tanky, with fire prevention and superintentent .. and they're super tough.

I mainly play battleships and cruisers, as far as the best premium.. well, I don't have the Atlanta unfortunately, though she seems super fun. Right now the "best" is imo, and also according to the wows reddit and official forums, the most overpowered ship tier for tier - Gulio Cesare. 10 guns, amazing accuracy, fast and nimble. If it wasn't for the mediocre hp pool, this really could outgun most tier 7 battleships, and it does.

And I have to disagree with you on one thing: there are some ships that simply suck. Not many, not nearly as many as there are awful tanks in WoT, but 2 come to mind, one premium - Marblehead (i have it, but got it from a reddit code, didn't spend a penny on it - I'm sure I'd regret it) and ..Yorck, the tier 7 German cruiser. Nürnberg at tier 6 was great - stealthy, nimble, able to kite away very effectively, great rate of fire. It was an amazing little ship that grew up to be .. well, something worse, really. Yorck in comparison feels like a floating citadel, is slow and turns like a tanker, the guns are ok but have a long reload. It's outspotted by everything and I simply can't be forced to take it out of port. Maybe once I'm done with the french cruisers (halfway through tier 8 atm) but by then, we'll have French battleships and the US cruiser line split.. so it will probably happen, if at all, in a year

[Phil P]

The thing about the DM is that its most fun and arguably most effective playing up front. Sometimes this works out great where you can provide AA and radar support with a steady stream of gun fire, but sometimes you get spotted and you are the closest cruiser and you just get shredded while your team stays way back. As long as your side has forward momentum the DM can roll. If your trying to retreat and shoot and dodge shots, other cruisers are much better. I love the AP shells on American cruisers and the slow velocity doesn't bother me much. I run propulsion mod on every one of them I can because positioning

Interesting about German battleships. I've only played to tier V. Like you said, they are real tanks and half the time when I see them, I debate shooting at them at all because you just can't do much damage, even if they bite back less hard. And the torpedo rush doesn't work either cause of the secondaries and a lot of them carry torpedoes as well... I just kind of hope my battleships target the German BBs

I have the North Carolina and it is really fun because the guns are so good! It's like a really heavy Baltimore. I didn't care for the line up to it though, except for the New Mexico. They were all soso. I don't like the Japanese battleships much, except for the Fuso.

Funny you mention the Yorck and Marblehead. I really liked and did well in the Yorck because it has pretty good armor when angled and it can wiggle so good. The HE worked well at distances and the AP could shred if you were close. It was a bit weird though because the beginning of the game you have to stay pretty far back but then you rush in real close for the 1v1 fights near the middle to end of the game. The later German cruisers just stay back more because they are fatter. The Marblehead is an Omaha clone I think and I loved the Omaha because of how many guns you could fire going head on. As long as you aren't sideways to an opponent, it has pretty good damage output.

That's crazy about the Gulio, seeing it's a tier V!

I can't get the hang of French cruisers because they play opposite of US Cruisers, the ones I learned on. I don't care for the Russian Cruisers much because I like to get closer in rather than sit back and snipe.

[Yac]

I've found DM to be surprisingly resilient, especially if you use a premium heal and superintendent on the captain. And if you bow tank ? I've held up to 6 ships, half of them BB's shooting at me and only getting bounces and overpens, for over 5 minutes. A Yamato can dev strike you, but so far for me that's only a theory I have yet to test
Get an island to give you hard cover from the bulk of enemy forces, bow to the rest and unless someone yolo's or some japanese dd sends a wall of skill (a gazillion torps) your way, they won't be able to dig you out. This is a ship that really rewards careful, skillful play.
NC is wonderful, I'm actually considering not selling it .. but I probably will anyway, working on multiple ship lines at a time, the credits are tight even with multiple premiums.. anyway, I'm only 15k or so xp from the Iowa. I don't think there's a single thing really bad about the guns - again, slow ap is manageable, but the dispersion, alpha and range are amazing. I love being able to cover multiple caps at once.
Too bad I won't be able to get the mighty mo, but you can't have it all, I guess.And I completely agree - previous USN BBs were.. well, maybe not weak, they all had at least good firepower, but were so painfully slow.. half of the time where you got where you were going, the party was already over. Impossible to disengage or chase anything that has it's engine intact. This made them very situational - similar to those WOT tank destroyers and whatnot, that could maybe do 20 km/h going downhill.. If the enemy is nice enough to parade in front of your guns, you can do well. If they're not that nice.. you're screwed.
Having said that, I enjoy USS Texas - got it in a santa crate (as well as 8 or so other premiums.. from 20 crates ) and while it is visibly weaker than the Gulio, it's still fun to play. I hope to visit the ship one day, the last remaining warship of its era.
Yorck... well, maybe I'll learn, eventually. Actually, I just checked and it seems I have a 62.5% wr so it's not that bad Omaha was ok, but Marblehead is worse in I think every single thing, by a bit. Not much, but enough to make me detest using it..

French cruisers are.. interesting. I can't say I'm very good with them, and that speed boost, while nice, is not a game winning gimmick like for example radar can be on USN ships, but they have hard hitting and very accurate guns. Generally they're not bad, but nothing really stands out about them.
I'm looking forward to the new French BB's. Dunquerque is great (unless it's bottom tier, can't do much against t8 bb ap or he spam) and at least on paper, the rest seem like fun to play ships. 4 guns per turret ? Yes please!

Russian cruisers.. now that's a nightmare, for me at least. I got to .. tier 4. And can't force myself to play Svietlana.. it's so bad Russian premiums on t he other hand ? Apart from the Kutuzov which is op and I'm glad it's no longer being sold (I got mine.. in a santa crate ), the Molotov is one of the most fun ships I've played. It will lose half hp when hit by anything, and has a turning circle worse than all tier 6 battleships But! It has tier 9 guns. On a tier 6. Very fast shells, very accurate, you can punish broadside cruisers like no other cruiser on this tier, and if a bb shows you the side, you can own them too.

[Phil P]

Premium heals plus the speed up the heal flag plus superintendent really do make a normal ship into a pretty resilient beast! If I could buy premium heals in bulk I would. The bow tank on the DM seems to work well against cruisers, but I've been penned right through the front by most tier IX-X BBs. It might take them a couple salvos, but one of them will land well and half your health is gone. You can only take off 1/4 of their health in this time in a 1v1 fight. The other issue with the DM is if you have your good spot by the island, but your team behind you turns back, it's a hard situation to get out of because turning out shows your broadside and backing up doens't work to well. It's a weird ship cause 1v1 it's great against anything besides battleships. If there's battleships in your route, you want to go with the big group so you don't get stuck trying to retreat from your island.

I agree NC is really well rounded, but it looks like now the Iowa does everything better, so I'd probably sell mine when I get the Iowa. It has better armor and HP for it's tier than the Iowa, but the Iowa looks better for aggressive play, which is more up my alley. It used to have a crappy citadel but they fixed that.

I'm definitely getting the French Battleships! Up to tier V looks soso but after that, fast reloads, front facing guns, and good secondaries!!! I love the Dunquerque and I'm assuming these will be somewhat similar.

The thing about french cruisers is that you have to sit back for a while firing at long range before you can move up. The engine boost really makes them harder to hit, but like you said, it doesn't really benefit the team much. I always end up in trouble with them because the speed is so good I end up on the front of the fight, but they aren't meant to fight up front. I always liked shooting Molotovs because it seemed most people were more noobish who played it and they would just shoot HE at me while I tore them to pieces with AP. Next premium ship I would get would be the Molotov or Graf Spree though.

The ships I want are:

Roon and maybe Hindenburg a while later
Gneisenau (fast, dinky guns and armor!). I may get the bismarck but I really didn't like the Grobe or Kurfurst on the public test because they were too fat and it hurts me to get shot at all game even if the ship can take it.
Fletcher, obviously. Currently have the Benson
Iowa, but I don't think I'll get the Montana
US light cruisers when they come!!!
Minotaur!!! I love this whole line and that ship is probably one of the most fun ships I've ever played on the test server!
French BBs

Lines I don't need
Anything past the tier V japanese dds
German DDs past the tier IV (sound fun, but I would rather go up the Pan Asian or other DD line)
Carriers
British BBs (I don't know if a HE BB line sounds that much fun)
Anything past the Mogami
Anything past the Emil Bertin
I could have skipped the RU cruisers, but I got up the the Schors, which is decent
Japanese BBs (again I got them because they were the only option at first, but I could have skipped them)
Khabarovsk or Udaloi, I'll just stop at the Tashkent and Ognevoi which is fun enough. I got the Tashkent and Ognevoi for free when the did the split. I'm glad I got those, but wouldn't go up the line now.