Ducky's Destroyer Captain skills review.

[Ducky_shot]

I had someone ask me a couple months ago if I would go through captain's skills again. I will start off with Destroyer skills. There has been a few changes since the last time I reviewed them in 2022. So here we go with Ducky_shot's DD skills guide 3.0

I am still going to keep the same 3 point system:
Green: Good, pretty much universally useful
Orange: Situational or not so good
Red: Bad, if not useless on the majority of ships

1 Point Skills:

Spoiler

	Grease the Gears	1	Faster turret rotation to help turrets keep up with maneuvers.	+15% main battery turrets traverse speed.

This is not a skill I typically take on anything but DD's with the most glacial of turret traverse (ie: Russian DD's). I typically put this as a mostly useless skill before. But I have started to consider it more lately with more DD's. I like playing Japanese torp boats and I love using their guns. Having quicker turret traverse means I am able to come to full combat effectiveness quicker after making a full turn. It allows me to start travelling towards the enemy quicker after those turns as I typically don't go seeking a fight unless I am fully ready for it. It's not in my top choices, but its in the running for getting used a lot more than before. I also find myself using it a lot more now that Consumables Specialist is so good, I'm left with 1 point that I need to stick somewhere and this is typically where it's going.

	Liquidator	1	Increased chance to cause flooding on a torpedo strike.	+30% chance (multiplicative) of causing flooding.

It does what it says, but flooding just isn't what it used to be (we're talking like 6 years since flooding has been dangerous) and flood chance on most DD torps is high enough that you don't feel like you need to run this to get floods.

	Consumables Specialist	1	Shorter cooldown time of certain consumables.	−7.5% cooldown time of all Consumables except: Damage Control Party Repair Party

This is a skill that has gotten a monstrous buff the last year or 2. Now added to the list of consumables from before are smoke, hydro, engine boost and radar. This skill has gone from being borderline useless to my 2nd favorite 1 point skill and a mainstay in any DD that is consumable oriented. There are obviously DD's that aren't as consumable oriented, so your mileage will vary there.

	Gun Feeder	1	Accelerates shell-type switching of main battery guns.	−40% to the ship's minimum shell-type switching time.

Yeah it does what its supposed to, but this is not an effective skill for destroyers. Your gun arcs and shell size on most destroyers mean that switching shells at all but point blank range is useless. If you are finding yourself in a situation where you need to reload AP a lot faster because of a nice juicy citadel, you either got really surprised at close range and are likely dead anyways, or are super clueless and didn't reload when you should have when you decided to jump out from an island to surprise an enemy cruiser that was broadside. Nothing will help you in the first case and the second one can be rectified by proper preparation, there is no need for this skill.

	Incoming Fire Alert	1	Provides a warning of long-range main battery fire.	Receive a warning of a salvo fired at your ship from a distance of more than 4.5 km.

I put this as a mostly useless skill for destroyers. I don't use I on anything but I definitely don't begrudge anyone using it on cruisers and battleships. However, in a destroyer that has better maneuverability than other ships, the situations you would find this useful in, you can usually mitigate by constant evasive maneuvers if your perception isn't great to the point where you feel like you need to use this skill. Slow down, speed up, turn and juke. Also, PT is a better skill for this, enemy ships have to be looking at you in order to shoot at you and PT gives a better indication of when to panic, imo.

	Preventive Maintenance	1	Reduces the risk of main turrets, torpedo tubes, steering gears, and engine becoming incapacitated.	−30% to the risk of incapacitation of modules. +15% to the HP of secondary and AA guns.

This is the best skill at 1 point. DD's have piles of modules tucked into a small area and you are constantly losing them when they are hit. over the course of a battle you are looking at a lot of saved modules. Plus it also helps your AA (LOL that's a pretty good joke).

Here's how I rank the 1 point skills in order:

2 Point Skills

Spoiler

	Demolition Expert	2	A better chance of causing fires on ships.	+1% chance of main and secondary HE shells causing a fire. +15% to the underwater explosion radius of main and secondary battery shells when attacking submarines.

It works as advertised but I’d rather stick my points into more dakka than a slight increase for more fires that is RNG and DCP cool down dependent, but if I’m left with 2 points I’d consider it on high ROF ships.

	Swift Fish	2	Faster torpedoes.	+5% torpedo speed. +5% aerial torpedo speed.	More speed means less reaction time.

I’m typically not left with 2 points on a torp DD that I can spend on this skill, but it’s definitely useful.

	Consumables Enhancements	2	Longer action time of certain consumables.	+10% action time of: Smoke Generator Hydroacoustic Search Engine Boost Surveillance Radar.

I love this skill. Doesn’t matter much what DD you are taking as it's great for anything with hydro, smoke or radar. One of the best skills in this commander tree

	Extra-Heavy Ammunition	2	More damage from armor-piercing penetrations and from ASW depth charges.	+7.5% main battery AP shell damage. +10% to damage inflicted by depth charges.

I would only take it AP focused DD's, such as the Elbing line or something like Druid. I am a very strong proponent of using AP shells in DD’s when possible but even I don’t find myself able to use AP enough to justify taking this skill.

	Priority Target	2	The detection indicator displays the number of opponents that are currently aiming at your ship.	The detection indicator will show the number of enemies targeting you with main battery.

On any DD I plan on open water gunboating I like to take this on. Unlike IFA, this gives me a hint before anyone fires at me and lets me know how much attention I should be paying to the enemy ships.

	Last Stand	2	When the engine or steering gears are incapacitated, they continue to operate (but with a penalty).	The ship remains able to move and maneuver - slowly - while the engine or steering gears are incapacitated.

Not being able to move is very hazardous to your health. There is very few niche builds that I would consider not taking this skill on and that is only long range try-hard, leaderboarding gunboats, but we are talking extreme skill for those builds.

Here is how I rank the 2 point skills:

3 Point Skills

Spoiler

	Main Battery and AA Specialist	3	Improved firepower.	−5% main battery reload time. +10% continuous AA damage.

For a gunboat based DD, I love to be able to take this and Adrenaline Rush. I definitely don’t take it for it’s AA values.

	Fill the Tubes	3	Put more metal fish in the water.	−10% torpedo tubes reload time.

For anything torp based, this is pretty much the first skill I take after the base build I take on every DD

	Adrenaline Rush	3	Increases reload speed of all armament as the ship's health decreases.	For each 1% HP lost: −0.2% reload time of all armaments +0.2% AA continuous damage.

Typically going to be more useful than Main Battery Specialist midway through the battle. One of my first picks after my base build build for gunboat dd’s

	Inertia Fuse for HE Shells	3	Increases the armor penetration of high explosive (HE) main and secondary shells, while decreasing their chance of setting the enemy ship on fire.	+25% armor penetration of HE shells. Base fire chance reduced by half.

Still very based on what ship it is and what tier of battle you are going into. Because it’s so random and hurts your fire chance, I’d rather sink my points into something that is a guarantee in every battle.

	Superintendent	3	Increases capacity of consumables.	+1 charge to all consumables mounted on a ship.

Extra smoke, radar, hydro and repairs are awesome on ships with those consumables. Just about every one of those skills can prolong my life in battle and make this a super essential skill.

	Survivability Expert	3	Increases the size of the ship's Health Pool.	+350 ship HP for each ship tier.

More HP for the enemy to chew through before making you completely useless for the rest of the battle (beyond flaming your team mates) is super handy.

Here's how I rank the 3 point skills:

4 Point Skills

Spoiler

	Main Battery and AA Expert	4	Even more firepower.	+20% main battery range. +15% flak damage.

Works well in DD’s you want to farm from range in. I don’t typically use it but in a few cases, but if I had the points I would.

	Swift in Silence	4	So long as the ship remains undetected, the speed bonus is activated.	+5% main battery reload time. While undetected: +8% ship speed.

I don’t think this is a good skill for randoms. It is useful for some situations in competitive play, though. I just don’t like the tradeoff with reload. In fact, I just hate tradeoff skills. I also dislike conditional skills. I especially hate conditional tradeoff skills.

	Radio Location	4	Shows the direction to the nearest enemy ship, detected or not.	In battle, an azimuth range arc appears. The enemy is alerted that a bearing has been taken.

I don’t like this skill in randoms, it’s too expensive for me. However, it’s pretty typical for a competitive build. I don't like that it gives info to the enemy team when I am using it, it can really mess up some good ambushes if a player is paying attention. I also think in randoms that the players that it helps me with are playing their ship in such a reckless or useless manner that I don't have to worry about them.

	Fearless Brawler	4	When the ship is detected, the main battery reload bonus is activated.	+1 flak burst per salvo. When activated: -10% main battery reload time.

They took away the concealment penalty from this skill making it worthwhile on more destroyers. This is pretty much a must have on any open water gunboat build. Not a good choice otherwise

	Concealment Expert	4	Reduces detectability range.	−10% detectability range of the ship.

This should be your first pick on pretty much every DD build out there. Concealment is key. THis is the best skill on the tree and what everyone should be striving to get a 10 point captain for.

	Dazzle	4	When an undetected ship is spotted, reduces the accuracy of hostile fire directed at it, and kicks up the speed.	When activated, for 15 seconds: +20% dispersion of enemy shells. +8% ship speed.

I think this is a mostly useless skill and way too expensive anyways for something that might see limited use.

And here's the ranking:

 

So that sums up my thoughts on DD captain skills. As far as builds for specific ships, there are much more exhaustive guides out there to peruse. But here is a couple guideline builds since you are here already:

General Builds:

Spoiler

Torp boat. This is what I would use on things like Halland, Shima, Somers, etc that I just want to spot and torp mostly:

 

Gun Boat. This is a pure gunboat build I would use for open water gunboats like Udaloi, Kleber, where smoke isn't a big concern for me. If range is an issue, I can just repurpose CE for it as it's not likely I would be using concealment for anything.

 

Consumable build. This is a build I use for consumable focused DD's such as Smaland, Ragnar, Daring, Cossack, Friesland, etc.

 

So those are pretty much my standard builds for randoms, there might be a variation or 2 for a couple destroyers. Honestly don't know if I have played something like Khab in the past year which could be built a couple ways.

So then we come to competitive builds. I abhor RPF/RL in randoms as I don't get much usefulness out of them. But in competitive play such as KOTS or CB, it is necessary for team strats and reactions. (I don't consider ranked competitive anymore, they absolutely gutted it last year with the current format) Also consumables are king in comp play and DD's are typically brought for their utility, not their DPM.

 

I like the DD skill tree for the most part, there are few useless skills on it and it provides enough variation and good skills that leave you wishing you could take a few more skills and giving you hard choices in a few spots, except for the 4 point skills: It is filled with so much garbage, I typically only take CE and don't touch it at all after that.

Edited May 10 by Ducky_shot

[BOBTHEBALL]

14 hours ago, Ducky_shot said:

I had someone ask me a couple months ago if I would go through captain's skills again. I will start off with Destroyer skills. There has been a few changes since the last time I reviewed them in 2022. So here we go with Ducky_shot's DD skills guide 3.0

I am still going to keep the same 3 point system:
Green: Good, pretty much universally useful
Orange: Situational or not so good
Red: Bad, if not useless on the majority of ships

1 Point Skills:

  Reveal hidden contents

	Grease the Gears	1	Faster turret rotation to help turrets keep up with maneuvers.	+15% main battery turrets traverse speed.

This is not a skill I typically take on anything but DD's with the most glacial of turret traverse (ie: Russian DD's). I typically put this as a mostly useless skill before. But I have started to consider it more lately with more DD's. I like playing Japanese torp boats and I love using their guns. Having quicker turret traverse means I am able to come to full combat effectiveness quicker after making a full turn. It allows me to start travelling towards the enemy quicker after those turns as I typically don't go seeking a fight unless I am fully ready for it. It's not in my top choices, but its in the running for getting used a lot more than before. I also find myself using it a lot more now that Consumables Specialist is so good, I'm left with 1 point that I need to stick somewhere and this is typically where it's going.

	Liquidator	1	Increased chance to cause flooding on a torpedo strike.	+30% chance (multiplicative) of causing flooding.

It does what it says, but flooding just isn't what it used to be (we're talking like 6 years since flooding has been dangerous) and flood chance on most DD torps is high enough that you don't feel like you need to run this to get floods.

	Consumables Specialist	1	Shorter cooldown time of certain consumables.	−7.5% cooldown time of all Consumables except: Damage Control Party Repair Party

This is a skill that has gotten a monstrous buff the last year or 2. Now added to the list of consumables from before are smoke, hydro, engine boost and radar. This skill has gone from being borderline useless to my 2nd favorite 1 point skill and a mainstay in any DD that is consumable oriented. There are obviously DD's that aren't as consumable oriented, so your mileage will vary there.

	Gun Feeder	1	Accelerates shell-type switching of main battery guns.	−40% to the ship's minimum shell-type switching time.

Yeah it does what its supposed to, but this is not an effective skill for destroyers. Your gun arcs and shell size on most destroyers mean that switching shells at all but point blank range is useless. If you are finding yourself in a situation where you need to reload AP a lot faster because of a nice juicy citadel, you either got really surprised at close range and are likely dead anyways, or are super clueless and didn't reload when you should have when you decided to jump out from an island to surprise an enemy cruiser that was broadside. Nothing will help you in the first case and the second one can be rectified by proper preparation, there is no need for this skill.

	Incoming Fire Alert	1	Provides a warning of long-range main battery fire.	Receive a warning of a salvo fired at your ship from a distance of more than 4.5 km.

I put this as a mostly useless skill for destroyers. I don't use I on anything but I definitely don't begrudge anyone using it on cruisers and battleships. However, in a destroyer that has better maneuverability than other ships, the situations you would find this useful in, you can usually mitigate by constant evasive maneuvers if your perception isn't great to the point where you feel like you need to use this skill. Slow down, speed up, turn and juke. Also, PT is a better skill for this, enemy ships have to be looking at you in order to shoot at you and PT gives a better indication of when to panic, imo.

	Preventive Maintenance	1	Reduces the risk of main turrets, torpedo tubes, steering gears, and engine becoming incapacitated.	−30% to the risk of incapacitation of modules. +15% to the HP of secondary and AA guns.

This is the best skill at 1 point. DD's have piles of modules tucked into a small area and you are constantly losing them when they are hit. over the course of a battle you are looking at a lot of saved modules. Plus it also helps your AA (LOL that's a pretty good joke).

Here's how I rank the 1 point skills in order:

2 Point Skills

  Reveal hidden contents

	Demolition Expert	2	A better chance of causing fires on ships.	+1% chance of main and secondary HE shells causing a fire. +15% to the underwater explosion radius of main and secondary battery shells when attacking submarines.

It works as advertised but I’d rather stick my points into more dakka than a slight increase for more fires that is RNG and DCP cool down dependent, but if I’m left with 2 points I’d consider it on high ROF ships.

	Swift Fish	2	Faster torpedoes.	+5% torpedo speed. +5% aerial torpedo speed.	More speed means less reaction time.

I’m typically not left with 2 points on a torp DD that I can spend on this skill, but it’s definitely useful.

	Consumables Enhancements	2	Longer action time of certain consumables.	+10% action time of: Smoke Generator Hydroacoustic Search Engine Boost Surveillance Radar.

I love this skill. Doesn’t matter much what DD you are taking as it's great for anything with hydro, smoke or radar. One of the best skills in this commander tree

	Extra-Heavy Ammunition	2	More damage from armor-piercing penetrations and from ASW depth charges.	+7.5% main battery AP shell damage. +10% to damage inflicted by depth charges.

I would only take it AP focused DD's, such as the Elbing line or something like Druid. I am a very strong proponent of using AP shells in DD’s when possible but even I don’t find myself able to use AP enough to justify taking this skill.

	Priority Target	2	The detection indicator displays the number of opponents that are currently aiming at your ship.	The detection indicator will show the number of enemies targeting you with main battery.

On any DD I plan on open water gunboating I like to take this on. Unlike IFA, this gives me a hint before anyone fires at me and lets me know how much attention I should be paying to the enemy ships.

	Last Stand	2	When the engine or steering gears are incapacitated, they continue to operate (but with a penalty).	The ship remains able to move and maneuver - slowly - while the engine or steering gears are incapacitated.

Not being able to move is very hazardous to your health. There is very few niche builds that I would consider not taking this skill on and that is only long range try-hard, leaderboarding gunboats, but we are talking extreme skill for those builds.

Here is how I rank the 2 point skills:

3 Point Skills

  Reveal hidden contents

	Main Battery and AA Specialist	3	Improved firepower.	−5% main battery reload time. +10% continuous AA damage.

For a gunboat based DD, I love to be able to take this and Adrenaline Rush. I definitely don’t take it for it’s AA values.

	Fill the Tubes	3	Put more metal fish in the water.	−10% torpedo tubes reload time.

For anything torp based, this is pretty much the first skill I take after the base build I take on every DD

	Adrenaline Rush	3	Increases reload speed of all armament as the ship's health decreases.	For each 1% HP lost: −0.2% reload time of all armaments +0.2% AA continuous damage.

Typically going to be more useful than Main Battery Specialist midway through the battle. One of my first picks after my base build build for gunboat dd’s

	Inertia Fuse for HE Shells	3	Increases the armor penetration of high explosive (HE) main and secondary shells, while decreasing their chance of setting the enemy ship on fire.	+25% armor penetration of HE shells. Base fire chance reduced by half.

Still very based on what ship it is and what tier of battle you are going into. Because it’s so random and hurts your fire chance, I’d rather sink my points into something that is a guarantee in every battle.

	Superintendent	3	Increases capacity of consumables.	+1 charge to all consumables mounted on a ship.

Extra smoke, radar, hydro and repairs are awesome on ships with those consumables. Just about every one of those skills can prolong my life in battle and make this a super essential skill.

	Survivability Expert	3	Increases the size of the ship's Health Pool.	+350 ship HP for each ship tier.

More HP for the enemy to chew through before making you completely useless for the rest of the battle (beyond flaming your team mates) is super handy.

Here's how I rank the 3 point skills:

4 Point Skills

  Reveal hidden contents

	Main Battery and AA Expert	4	Even more firepower.	+20% main battery range. +15% flak damage.

Works well in DD’s you want to farm from range in. I don’t typically use it but in a few cases, but if I had the points I would.

	Swift in Silence	4	So long as the ship remains undetected, the speed bonus is activated.	+5% main battery reload time. While undetected: +8% ship speed.

I don’t think this is a good skill for randoms. It is useful for some situations in competitive play, though. I just don’t like the tradeoff with reload. In fact, I just hate tradeoff skills. I also dislike conditional skills. I especially hate conditional tradeoff skills.

	Radio Location	4	Shows the direction to the nearest enemy ship, detected or not.	In battle, an azimuth range arc appears. The enemy is alerted that a bearing has been taken.

I don’t like this skill in randoms, it’s too expensive for me. However, it’s pretty typical for a competitive build. I don't like that it gives info to the enemy team when I am using it, it can really mess up some good ambushes if a player is paying attention. I also think in randoms that the players that it helps me with are playing their ship in such a reckless or useless manner that I don't have to worry about them.

	Fearless Brawler	4	When the ship is detected, the main battery reload bonus is activated.	+1 flak burst per salvo. When activated: -10% main battery reload time.

They took away the concealment penalty from this skill making it worthwhile on more destroyers. This is pretty much a must have on any open water gunboat build. Not a good choice otherwise

	Concealment Expert	4	Reduces detectability range.	−10% detectability range of the ship.

This should be your first pick on pretty much every DD build out there. Concealment is key. THis is the best skill on the tree and what everyone should be striving to get a 10 point captain for.

	Dazzle	4	When an undetected ship is spotted, reduces the accuracy of hostile fire directed at it, and kicks up the speed.	When activated, for 15 seconds: +20% dispersion of enemy shells. +8% ship speed.

I think this is a mostly useless skill and way too expensive anyways for something that might see limited use.

And here's the ranking:

 

So that sums up my thoughts on DD captain skills. As far as builds for specific ships, there are much more exhaustive guides out there to peruse. But here is a couple guideline builds since you are here already:

General Builds:

  Reveal hidden contents

Torp boat. This is what I would use on things like Halland, Shima, Somers, etc that I just want to spot and torp mostly:

 

Gun Boat. This is a pure gunboat build I would use for open water gunboats like Udaloi, Kleber, where smoke isn't a big concern for me. If range is an issue, I can just repurpose CE for it as it's not likely I would be using concealment for anything.

 

Consumable build. This is a build I use for consumable focused DD's such as Smaland, Ragnar, Daring, Cossack, Friesland, etc.

 

So those are pretty much my standard builds for randoms, there might be a variation or 2 for a couple destroyers. Honestly don't know if I have played something like Khab in the past year which could be built a couple ways.

So then we come to competitive builds. I abhor RPF/RL in randoms as I don't get much usefulness out of them. But in competitive play such as KOTS or CB, it is necessary for team strats and reactions. (I don't consider ranked competitive anymore, they absolutely gutted it last year with the current format) Also consumables are king in comp play and DD's are typically brought for their utility, not their DPM.

 

I like the DD skill tree for the most part, there are few useless skills on it and it provides enough variation and good skills that leave you wishing you could take a few more skills and giving you hard choices in a few spots, except for the 4 point skills: It is filled with so much garbage, I typically only take CE and don't touch it at all after that.

Very nice read, however some captain builds look a bit sussy imho.

 

[RX160S_Byarlant_Custom]

Good post! But I will add my own thoughts as well

16 hours ago, Ducky_shot said:

 

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	Grease the Gears	1	Faster turret rotation to help turrets keep up with maneuvers.	+15% main battery turrets traverse speed.

This is not a skill I typically take on anything but DD's with the most glacial of turret traverse (ie: Russian DD's). I typically put this as a mostly useless skill before. But I have started to consider it more lately with more DD's. I like playing Japanese torp boats and I love using their guns. Having quicker turret traverse means I am able to come to full combat effectiveness quicker after making a full turn. It allows me to start travelling towards the enemy quicker after those turns as I typically don't go seeking a fight unless I am fully ready for it. It's not in my top choices, but its in the running for getting used a lot more than before. I also find myself using it a lot more now that Consumables Specialist is so good, I'm left with 1 point that I need to stick somewhere and this is typically where it's going.

I partially agree with your assessment here. For GtG, this is a largely quality-of-life skill which you can live without unless you seriously find IJN DD or Kleber with reload mod traverse unbearable (imo, it is not required on DD with 18s traverse like Kiev etc), and is usually a filler skill which your leftover points go to, so I guess it is useful but not quite by its own merit. 
 

 

16 hours ago, Ducky_shot said:

 

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	Consumables Enhancements	2	Longer action time of certain consumables.	+10% action time of: Smoke Generator Hydroacoustic Search Engine Boost Surveillance Radar.

 

I love this skill. Doesn’t matter much what DD you are taking as it's great for anything with hydro, smoke or radar. One of the best skills in this commander tree

	Priority Target	2	The detection indicator displays the number of opponents that are currently aiming at your ship.	The detection indicator will show the number of enemies targeting you with main battery.

On any DD I plan on open water gunboating I like to take this on. Unlike IFA, this gives me a hint before anyone fires at me and lets me know how much attention I should be paying to the enemy ships.

I usually do not take the former except on certain consumable oriented DDs - in some cases it is actually detrimental because it indirectly increases cooldown time especially if the consumable is "whiffed" or rendered useless by counterplay. And I definitely do not agree that it is one of the best skills, since most DDs' playstyles do not revolve around getting more consumable action time and the gain is, in my opinion, rather marginal at most unless it is being used for British DD hydro or certain radars.

PT I find to be not very useful especially for run-and-gun boats or even DDs in general - as a DD you can be largely expected to be fired upon by most cruisers or even BBs if spotted and timing, not numbers, are more essential for successful dodging. This skill can be done without if you have good situational awareness and can read the minimap to assess which enemies are likely to shoot you (with IFA as a bonus). 

 

16 hours ago, Ducky_shot said:

 

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	Adrenaline Rush	3	Increases reload speed of all armament as the ship's health decreases.	For each 1% HP lost: −0.2% reload time of all armaments +0.2% AA continuous damage.

 

 

Typically going to be more useful than Main Battery Specialist midway through the battle. One of my first picks after my base build build for gunboat dd’s

	Inertia Fuse for HE Shells	3	Increases the armor penetration of high explosive (HE) main and secondary shells, while decreasing their chance of setting the enemy ship on fire.	+25% armor penetration of HE shells. Base fire chance reduced by half.

Still very based on what ship it is and what tier of battle you are going into. Because it’s so random and hurts your fire chance, I’d rather sink my points into something that is a guarantee in every battle.

	Superintendent	3	Increases capacity of consumables.	+1 charge to all consumables mounted on a ship.

Extra smoke, radar, hydro and repairs are awesome on ships with those consumables. Just about every one of those skills can prolong my life in battle and make this a super essential skill.

 

Generally disagree with this. 

AR is a must-have on any ship in the game, it is a staple of every build in the game, not just gunboat DDs. For this reason the basic DD build in the game is not 10 points but 13. Every DD, and even every ship, should be taking this skill, it's like having your cake and eating it too.
 

IFHE is never a mandatory take on any DD, the closest would be Akizuki where penning 32mm benefits greatly at T8 or Z-42 for similar reasons. However I find that dealing direct damage allows for more reliability in damaging enemies as one can use both direct damage and fires. In the case of Harugumo line, I would recommend it because I value a smaller heal coefficient from the damage I deal (making it more meaningful), and also because their rate of fire offsets their already low fire chance and penalty. For a vast majority of other DDs, this is an iffy or steer-clear skill. Could be red, will vouch for yellow, but seriously mostly ignored for most conventional builds.

SI should be yellow imo, tends to be most useful on ships with heals, which is not the majority of DDs, and also those with short-duration, short cooldown (or absolutely essential) consumables such as Gdansk. For other DDs with more conventional smokes or speed boosts this skill becomes much less useful as most DDs do not get the chance to use all 3 smokes in one game and taking SI for an extra engine boost is a bit wasted. 

17 hours ago, Ducky_shot said:

 

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	Main Battery and AA Expert	4	Even more firepower.	+20% main battery range. +15% flak damage.

Works well in DD’s you want to farm from range in. I don’t typically use it but in a few cases, but if I had the points I would

 

 

This should be yellow imo. While this skill is a must-have for most, if not all, gunboats with good ballistics (as range is absolutely essential for farming influence and conserving HP). For any other DD, not sure why you would take this. 

 

17 hours ago, Ducky_shot said:

General Builds

  Hide contents

Torp boat. This is what I would use on things like Halland, Shima, Somers, etc that I just want to spot and torp mostly:

 

Gun Boat. This is a pure gunboat build I would use for open water gunboats like Udaloi, Kleber, where smoke isn't a big concern for me. If range is an issue, I can just repurpose CE for it as it's not likely I would be using concealment for anything.

 

Consumable build. This is a build I use for consumable focused DD's such as Smaland, Ragnar, Daring, Cossack, Friesland, etc.

 

So those are pretty much my standard builds for randoms, there might be a variation or 2 for a couple destroyers. Honestly don't know if I have played something like Khab in the past year which could be built a couple ways.

So then we come to competitive builds. I abhor RPF/RL in randoms as I don't get much usefulness out of them. But in competitive play such as KOTS or CB, it is necessary for team strats and reactions. (I don't consider ranked competitive anymore, they absolutely gutted it last year with the current format) Also consumables are king in comp play and DD's are typically brought for their utility, not their DPM.

 

I like the DD skill tree for the most part, there are few useless skills on it and it provides enough variation and good skills that leave you wishing you could take a few more skills and giving you hard choices in a few spots, except for the 4 point skills: It is filled with so much garbage, I typically only take CE and don't touch it at all after that.

Torpedo focus DDs mostly don't take SI, except for Halland or maybe Yueyang. Some may find themselves going for RPF instead, or even BFT especially those with good self-defense such as Gearing. RPF is actually rather useful on torpedoboats that may lack speed and pressure against enemy DDs, 

The openwater gunboats will find themselves taking AFT instead of PT and DE, because if not they would need to play closer or sacrifice reload mod for range mod. Some, such as Khabarovsk or Delny can also forgo CE entirely for a farming build. I don't find that PT and DE are useful enough for someone to sink 4 points into them as is. 

Also I would almost always be picking AR as the 5th skill, and comp skills tend to differ based on the team comp and player preference. 

 

However I did agree with most of the points made, I am just nitpicking here because I like to complain for the sake of it, great read and just wanted to share my own thoughts.

[BOBTHEBALL]

19 minutes ago, RX160S_Byarlant_Custom said:

Good post! But I will add my own thoughts as well

I partially agree with your assessment here. For GtG, this is a largely quality-of-life skill which you can live without unless you seriously find IJN DD or Kleber with reload mod traverse unbearable (imo, it is not required on DD with 18s traverse like Kiev etc), and is usually a filler skill which your leftover points go to, so I guess it is useful but not quite by its own merit. 
 

 

I usually do not take the former except on certain consumable oriented DDs - in some cases it is actually detrimental because it indirectly increases cooldown time especially if the consumable is "whiffed" or rendered useless by counterplay. And I definitely do not agree that it is one of the best skills, since most DDs' playstyles do not revolve around getting more consumable action time and the gain is, in my opinion, rather marginal at most unless it is being used for British DD hydro or certain radars.

PT I find to be not very useful especially for run-and-gun boats or even DDs in general - as a DD you can be largely expected to be fired upon by most cruisers or even BBs if spotted and timing, not numbers, are more essential for successful dodging. This skill can be done without if you have good situational awareness and can read the minimap to assess which enemies are likely to shoot you (with IFA as a bonus). 

 

Generally disagree with this. 

AR is a must-have on any ship in the game, it is a staple of every build in the game, not just gunboat DDs. For this reason the basic DD build in the game is not 10 points but 13. Every DD, and even every ship, should be taking this skill, it's like having your cake and eating it too.
 

IFHE is never a mandatory take on any DD, the closest would be Akizuki where penning 32mm benefits greatly at T8 or Z-42 for similar reasons. However I find that dealing direct damage allows for more reliability in damaging enemies as one can use both direct damage and fires. In the case of Harugumo line, I would recommend it because I value a smaller heal coefficient from the damage I deal (making it more meaningful), and also because their rate of fire offsets their already low fire chance and penalty. For a vast majority of other DDs, this is an iffy or steer-clear skill. Could be red, will vouch for yellow, but seriously mostly ignored for most conventional builds.

SI should be yellow imo, tends to be most useful on ships with heals, which is not the majority of DDs, and also those with short-duration, short cooldown (or absolutely essential) consumables such as Gdansk. For other DDs with more conventional smokes or speed boosts this skill becomes much less useful as most DDs do not get the chance to use all 3 smokes in one game and taking SI for an extra engine boost is a bit wasted. 

This should be yellow imo. While this skill is a must-have for most, if not all, gunboats with good ballistics (as range is absolutely essential for farming influence and conserving HP). For any other DD, not sure why you would take this. 

 

Torpedo focus DDs mostly don't take SI, except for Halland or maybe Yueyang. Some may find themselves going for RPF instead, or even BFT especially those with good self-defense such as Gearing. RPF is actually rather useful on torpedoboats that may lack speed and pressure against enemy DDs, 

The openwater gunboats will find themselves taking AFT instead of PT and DE, because if not they would need to play closer or sacrifice reload mod for range mod. Some, such as Khabarovsk or Delny can also forgo CE entirely for a farming build. I don't find that PT and DE are useful enough for someone to sink 4 points into them as is. 

Also I would almost always be picking AR as the 5th skill, and comp skills tend to differ based on the team comp and player preference. 

 

However I did agree with most of the points made, I am just nitpicking here because I like to complain for the sake of it, great read and just wanted to share my own thoughts.

You speak the truth young one, you make your Uncle proud ong.

[Project45_Opytny]

19 minutes ago, RX160S_Byarlant_Custom said:

IFHE is never a mandatory take on any DD, the closest would be Akizuki where penning 32mm benefits greatly at T8 or Z-42 for similar reasons. However I find that dealing direct damage allows for more reliability in damaging enemies as one can use both direct damage and fires. In the case of Harugumo line, I would recommend it because I value a smaller heal coefficient from the damage I deal (making it more meaningful), and also because their rate of fire offsets their already low fire chance and penalty. For a vast majority of other DDs, this is an iffy or steer-clear skill. Could be red, will vouch for yellow, but seriously mostly ignored for most conventional builds.

There are even arguments that even for Akizuki,  Kitakaze and Z-42, IFHE is only a very favorable skill that is still not must have.

Besides that there are only a few very niche and not universally accepted builds. Like IFHE on mid-tier Soviet gunboats (able to directly damage mid tier BB and cruisers), Fenyang (gives much more reliability against enemy destroyers) and "IFHE Farragut/Mahan" (dedicated to "protected MM" environment like Ranked).

[Wolfswetpaws]

The original post makes good food for thought.

So, here are some of my thoughts.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Adrenaline Rush.
Often touted as a "must have" skill.  Personally, I disagree.
But, I'll lay-out the math and let everyone decide for themselves.

At 100% HP, this skill provides zero benefit for the cost of 3 skill points.
When one's hull is at 50% HP, the skill provides a 10% improvement in reload times (and AA continuous damage).
When one's hull only has 1 HP remaining (or as close to 100% sunk as possible without actually getting sunk) the corresponding improvement in reload times (and AA continuous damage) is as close to 20% as possible.

I think much will depend upon the original reload timer of the armament(s) in question.
Also, a person's play-style may affect how useful this skill is.  A player that remains undetected most of the time and isn't getting their hull shot to pieces probably won't get much benefit from this skill most of the time.  But a player that takes Survivability Expert and Grease the Gears and other skills intended for brawling and being detected may gain the most benefit from Adrenaline Rush.
When skill points are scarce, I typically prefer Superintendent over Adrenaline Rush.  But, perhaps that's "just me"?

---------------------------------------------------------------
Incoming Fire Alert and Priority Target.
Both are a waste of skill points, in my opinion.
I feel that a player who has cultivated good situational awareness can play effectively without these two skills.  
Thus, their available skill points can be spent elsewhere.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Grease the Gears
Some ships really benefit from it, because of their slow turret-traverse.  Other ships don't need this because their turrets can match or even out-turn the ship.
So, a player can decide on a case-by-case basis, I figure.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Preventive Maintenance and Last Stand
I consider these to be essential skills.
But, perhaps that's "just me"?

---------------------------------------------------------------
Survivability Expert
This skill varies in benefit according to the tier of the ship in question.
Low-tier ships won't gain much. 
High-tier ships gain enough to make this skill more cost-effective (when compared to a low-tier ship)
-----------------------------------------------------------------

I think that discussing a 21-point Captain's Skill build is very different from discussing a build with a budget of 10 or even only 6 skill points.
Some skills are "luxury" skills, nice to have but one can live without them.
Other skills though?  
Which does one choose within a limited budget?  
The answer to that question is what players are looking to learn, in my opinion.

Also affecting the situation is the ship under consideration.  
Some ships are limited to only using certain types of ammunition, for example.
So, each skill taken should be compatible with, and preferably improve, the ship's parameters and equipment.

Anyway, this is a useful discussion to have, I feel.  Thanks for creating the topic @Ducky_shot.  🙂 

[Asym]

3 hours ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

The original post makes good food for thought.

So, here are some of my thoughts.

et al...

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I think that discussing a 21-point Captain's Skill build is very different from discussing a build with a budget of 10 or even only 6 skill points.
Some skills are "luxury" skills, nice to have but one can live without them.
Other skills though?  
Which does one choose within a limited budget?  
The answer to that question is what players are looking to learn, in my opinion.

Anyway, this is a useful discussion to have, I feel.  Thanks for creating the topic @Ducky_shot.  🙂 

Well done.

I highlighted in green, the section almost all of us wish we had when we started this game !!!

If all in this thread could come to consensus, a new player would had an "optimal build" road map for the play styles this game generates.  It sure would have saved me a lot of time and effort....

How could we do this @Ducky_shot  @HogHammer  @Wolfswetpaws   ???

[Ducky_shot]

4 hours ago, RX160S_Byarlant_Custom said:

IFHE is never a mandatory take on any DD, the closest would be Akizuki where penning 32mm benefits greatly at T8 or Z-42 for similar reasons. However I find that dealing direct damage allows for more reliability in damaging enemies as one can use both direct damage and fires. In the case of Harugumo line, I would recommend it because I value a smaller heal coefficient from the damage I deal (making it more meaningful), and also because their rate of fire offsets their already low fire chance and penalty. For a vast majority of other DDs, this is an iffy or steer-clear skill. Could be red, will vouch for yellow, but seriously mostly ignored for most conventional builds.

It's yellow because you can probably find quite a few niches that it works for on a lot of DD's, but you're at the mercy of matchmaking to even see those niche uses. And because when MM swings the other way and you find yourself able to pen everything regardless but now your fire chance is halved makes it a wash. Haru line is the only obvious one to take it on.

4 hours ago, RX160S_Byarlant_Custom said:

PT I find to be not very useful especially for run-and-gun boats or even DDs in general - as a DD you can be largely expected to be fired upon by most cruisers or even BBs if spotted and timing, not numbers, are more essential for successful dodging. This skill can be done without if you have good situational awareness and can read the minimap to assess which enemies are likely to shoot you (with IFA as a bonus). 

Yeah, I'm kind of greedy when it comes to damage output, so I typically leave it off in place of other skills. It's a skill I like taking, but I find I like a lot of other skills more.

4 hours ago, RX160S_Byarlant_Custom said:

SI should be yellow imo, tends to be most useful on ships with heals, which is not the majority of DDs, and also those with short-duration, short cooldown (or absolutely essential) consumables such as Gdansk. For other DDs with more conventional smokes or speed boosts this skill becomes much less useful as most DDs do not get the chance to use all 3 smokes in one game and taking SI for an extra engine boost is a bit wasted. 

I find myself short of smokes at the end of a lot of games even with SI. It might be that your play style is different to the point of not using them as much. I play for survivability. I will use a smoke just to avoid taking damage after an encounter when I want my gun bloom gone. In that case, a smoke is as good as a heal if you avoid taking a significant chunk of damage. I typically will not take the chance of a DD engagement unless I have a smoke ready to go that I can use to escape if necessary. It's part of my strategy of having 2 escapes at all time. Also, when you know you have an extra smoke, you aren't stingy with it throughout the game for any use.

 

5 hours ago, RX160S_Byarlant_Custom said:

This should be yellow imo. While this skill is a must-have for most, if not all, gunboats with good ballistics (as range is absolutely essential for farming influence and conserving HP). For any other DD, not sure why you would take this. 

I take it on very few destroyers, but as a skill, it's good in that it does what it is supposed to do, 100% of the time on all ships. But you will notice I don't rank it very high.

5 hours ago, RX160S_Byarlant_Custom said:

Torpedo focus DDs mostly don't take SI, except for Halland or maybe Yueyang. Some may find themselves going for RPF instead, or even BFT especially those with good self-defense such as Gearing. RPF is actually rather useful on torpedoboats that may lack speed and pressure against enemy DDs, 

Yeah the general builds I debated about even including them from my original post of this a couple years ago. Builds need to so specialized for different ships, general builds are iffy. I take SI on pretty much everything, like I noted above, I equate a smoke as much as a heal. I also play my DD's on the edge and play anti-DD as much as possible, pretty much no matter what DD I am in. If I'm in a Shima line DD, I try to play anti DD, try to pick spots to ambush or isolate enemy DD's and chip in with guns. Id I can get them in a spot where they have fired at me in open water and there is spotting from someone else on my team, perfect opportunity use smoke and take 8-10k off of them. If I can get ahead of them where I can win a straight 1v1 the next time I see them, then they have to play cautiously, giving up map control. I trade consumables for advantage and therefore map control. The best form of that is getting rid of enemy DD's.

 

4 hours ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

At 100% HP, this skill provides zero benefit for the cost of 3 skill points.

That's why I strive to get to 5% as quick as possible. 😄

1 hour ago, Asym said:

Well done.

I highlighted in green, the section almost all of us wish we had when we started this game !!!

If all in this thread could come to consensus, a new player would had an "optimal build" road map for the play styles this game generates.  It sure would have saved me a lot of time and effort....

How could we do this @Ducky_shot  @HogHammer  @Wolfswetpaws   ???

There are huge compendiums contributed to by many great players and clans going into specifics for individuals lines and ships. There are even discord bots that have been built using this information. 

 

7 hours ago, BOBTHEBALL said:

Very nice read, however some captain builds look a bit sussy imho.

 

Yep, they are a few years old. I just did a glance at them and didn't change much. As they are just general builds I debated whether I should copy paste them over. There are so many nuances for different lines and such it was debatable whether to even list these general build

[Asym]

3 hours ago, Ducky_shot said:

There are huge compendiums contributed to by many great players and clans going into specifics for individuals lines and ships. There are even discord bots that have been built using this information.

Operative words:  by many.    Now, if someone were really interested and had a lot of time, a "single source" of said volumes of data, could be neatly arranged into a master index for "new, just starting players....." 

As a way of "compressing the learning curve..."   Again, had I had access to such a source starting up in this game, my first years would have less stressful and vastly more enjoyed and I would have started spending money a lot sooner !!!  It took almost 3 years before I decided to spend in this game.

Edited May 11 by Asym

[Wolfswetpaws]

20 minutes ago, Asym said:

Operative words:  by many.    Now, if someone were really interested and had a lot of time, a "single source" of said volumes of data, could be neatly arranged into a master index for "new, just starting players....." 

As a way of "compressing the learning curve..."   Again, had I had access to such a source starting up in this game, my first years would have less stressful and vastly more enjoyed and I would have started spending money a lot sooner !!!  It took almost 3 years before I decided to spend in this game.

You sound like someone who is about to enthusiastically volunteer for such a project.  😉 
So that it could be consolidated within the Training section of "DevStrike!", eh?  🙂 

[Asym]

8 minutes ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

You sound like someone who is about to enthusiastically volunteer for such a project.  😉 
So that it could be consolidated within the Training section of "DevStrike!", eh?  🙂 

No.  As much as I'd love to, no....nyet....nein....nee....non.  I really don't have the depth of this game's knowledge to properly arrange an index.

And, this forum might be a great place to start.

[Wolfswetpaws]

1 minute ago, Asym said:

No.  As much as I'd love to, no....nyet....nein....nee....non.  I really don't have the depth of this game's knowledge to properly arrange an index.

And, this forum might be a great place to start.

I think perhaps you know more than you realize.  🙂 
The decision is yours, of course.

[Asym]

18 minutes ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

I think perhaps you know more than you realize.  🙂 
The decision is yours, of course.

Ha......  I almost blew soda out of my nose !!!

My Graduate mentor said the same thing....  So, my thesis went the Asym route (not a pun either) and I ended up writing, creating something that got passed around for three months !  Three months of dozens of office visits and endless phone calls and emails....  Finally, the my University asked another University that is, one of the highest rated faculties and programs in the US, in the field of study of my thesis and asked for help....  10 hours of defending something very simple (to me) and massively "disruptive" to established theories and Corporate practices.....   It was a hoot as existing paradigms went "out the window" and.........sigh.

In the end, I was right and the cultural angst I created lingers to this day....  The other University is running a "field test" of my designs and, after several years, several Doctoral candidates have taken up what I started and are...........calling me endlessly (which, is fine !)  Here, it's a disruptive, almost destructive, business theory that eats at their (academia) souls and scares the crap out of Corporations in that field whom catch wind of the test.  

What I am doing now is shopping for a Doctoral mentor and.......that's not going very well.  What comes next is......a paradox that, if I am right, measures culture's adaptive friction... 

SO........You want "Moi" to tinker with a process???    Inconceivable.    Ah, hahahaha.....no way man.

[Wolfswetpaws]

15 hours ago, Asym said:

Ha......  I almost blew soda out of my nose !!!

My Graduate mentor said the same thing....  So, my thesis went the Asym route (not a pun either) and I ended up writing, creating something that got passed around for three months !  Three months of dozens of office visits and endless phone calls and emails....  Finally, the my University asked another University that is, one of the highest rated faculties and programs in the US, in the field of study of my thesis and asked for help....  10 hours of defending something very simple (to me) and massively "disruptive" to established theories and Corporate practices.....   It was a hoot as existing paradigms went "out the window" and.........sigh.

In the end, I was right and the cultural angst I created lingers to this day....  The other University is running a "field test" of my designs and, after several years, several Doctoral candidates have taken up what I started and are...........calling me endlessly (which, is fine !)  Here, it's a disruptive, almost destructive, business theory that eats at their (academia) souls and scares the crap out of Corporations in that field whom catch wind of the test.  

What I am doing now is shopping for a Doctoral mentor and.......that's not going very well.  What comes next is......a paradox that, if I am right, measures culture's adaptive friction... 

SO........You want "Moi" to tinker with a process???    Inconceivable.    Ah, hahahaha.....no way man.

   

Edited May 12 by Wolfswetpaws

[BOBTHEBALL]

9 hours ago, Ducky_shot said:

Yep, they are a few years old. I just did a glance at them and didn't change much. As they are just general builds I debated whether I should copy paste them over. There are so many nuances for different lines and such it was debatable whether to even list these general build

Yeah besides like a couple skills I'd say it's good, the overuse of consumable skills, PT and SI are the main issues. Still like I said before, a very good read and helpful for the newer player.

[HogHammer]

20 hours ago, Asym said:

23 hours ago, Ducky_shot said:

There are huge compendiums contributed to by many great players and clans going into specifics for individuals lines and ships. There are even discord bots that have been built using this information.

Operative words:  by many.    Now, if someone were really interested and had a lot of time, a "single source" of said volumes of data, could be neatly arranged into a master index for "new, just starting players....." 

As a way of "compressing the learning curve..."   Again, had I had access to such a source starting up in this game, my first years would have less stressful and vastly more enjoyed and I would have started spending money a lot sooner !!!  It took almost 3 years before I decided to spend in this game.

The single source of such information is one of our key goals here at DevStrike!  The one limiting factor is the manpower to do so, and the second is getting the word out to the community.

Early on, our first goal was to preserve any such information from the old forums.  The staff had a general idea of what to save, but we also asked the DevStrike! community what they thought was important to save.  LWM's reviews are ALL here (some hidden as they are a work in progress) with a dedicated section in our "Reference" section of the forum, which covers "The LittleWhiteMouse Collection," Ship Reviews (by class), Guides, and Historical Content.  Since the original date of many of these articles were published and game updates/changes, many of these pieces need re-work/additions to remain relevant.  That in itself is a rather large undertaking.

However, since our inception, we have had new contributors to these guides and reviews, which include current game information. Being familiar with the names and clans of these authors, I cannot express the staff's gratitude enough for these contributions.  Frankly, there is some REALLY good content being currently produced that benefits the community at all levels of play.  Knowing firsthand how much time, research, and effort goes into such pieces of work - all I can say is that I'm impressed with the quality.

As @Ducky_shot says, there is a large volume of information out there. The question, however, is knowing how to navigate to all the different resources. Some know how, some don't, and others don't have the time to do so. Having the resources here, in one place, either as entire articles, videos, or links, makes that task easier for those seeking such information.

The other issue is getting the word out that there is such a place for information.  If you remember, at least on the old NA forum, the last big discussion was the closing of the forum and talk of starting a new forum.  It would have been nice to provide the old forum members on NA, EU, and Asia, that such a forum was available and to sign up.  But with less than days to do so, that was a well-designed, impossible task to accomplish.  So basically, beginning with a "nuked" player base, where we are today with membership and number of page views is remarkable - more than 45,000 posts and over 3 million page views.

Getting the word out to the WoWs community has been an issue.  Early on and currently, members here help and still help via word of mouth.  You may have also noticed DevStrike! actively working with and promoting Twitch and YouTube streamers/content providers.  Doing so helps these streamers increase their followers/traffic and increases the overall awareness of DevStrike!  The bottom line is that we are all this together - to make a better gaming community not only for overall enjoyment but to enhance the level of knowledge of the player base.  (My personal feeling is that said company really missed the mark on this aspect of "free advertising" and promotion of the game)

I will add, and it may surprise a few members here, that working with WG on "certain" projects would benefit all and still have our independence.  I know there is still a lot of bad blood with certain members, be it WG in general or CMs, but at some point, we have to realize that every player, streamer, content developer, forum, and company's goal should be to make the game better for its overall success.  Neglecting any component of this does no one any good.

 

 

[Asym]

3 hours ago, HogHammer said:

The single source of such information is one of our key goals here at DevStrike!  The one limiting factor is the manpower to do so, and the second is getting the word out to the community.

Early on, our first goal was to preserve any such information from the old forums.  The staff had a general idea of what to save, but we also asked the DevStrike! community what they thought was important to save.  LWM's reviews are ALL here (some hidden as they are a work in progress) with a dedicated section in our "Reference" section of the forum, which covers "The LittleWhiteMouse Collection," Ship Reviews (by class), Guides, and Historical Content.  Since the original date of many of these articles were published and game updates/changes, many of these pieces need re-work/additions to remain relevant.  That in itself is a rather large undertaking.

However, since our inception, we have had new contributors to these guides and reviews, which include current game information. Being familiar with the names and clans of these authors, I cannot express the staff's gratitude enough for these contributions.  Frankly, there is some REALLY good content being currently produced that benefits the community at all levels of play.  Knowing firsthand how much time, research, and effort goes into such pieces of work - all I can say is that I'm impressed with the quality.

As @Ducky_shot says, there is a large volume of information out there. The question, however, is knowing how to navigate to all the different resources. Some know how, some don't, and others don't have the time to do so. Having the resources here, in one place, either as entire articles, videos, or links, makes that task easier for those seeking such information.

The other issue is getting the word out that there is such a place for information.  If you remember, at least on the old NA forum, the last big discussion was the closing of the forum and talk of starting a new forum.  It would have been nice to provide the old forum members on NA, EU, and Asia, that such a forum was available and to sign up.  But with less than days to do so, that was a well-designed, impossible task to accomplish.  So basically, beginning with a "nuked" player base, where we are today with membership and number of page views is remarkable - more than 45,000 posts and over 3 million page views.

Getting the word out to the WoWs community has been an issue.  Early on and currently, members here help and still help via word of mouth.  You may have also noticed DevStrike! actively working with and promoting Twitch and YouTube streamers/content providers.  Doing so helps these streamers increase their followers/traffic and increases the overall awareness of DevStrike!  The bottom line is that we are all this together - to make a better gaming community not only for overall enjoyment but to enhance the level of knowledge of the player base.  (My personal feeling is that said company really missed the mark on this aspect of "free advertising" and promotion of the game)

I will add, and it may surprise a few members here, that working with WG on "certain" projects would benefit all and still have our independence.  I know there is still a lot of bad blood with certain members, be it WG in general or CMs, but at some point, we have to realize that every player, streamer, content developer, forum, and company's goal should be to make the game better for its overall success.  Neglecting any component of this does no one any good.

It's good this forum is here....  But, the overall connotation is that "forums" simply don't generate Revenue and are non-value-added...  Some will disagree if a participant "learns something" but, the cost to have that happen is very large.

So, a new forum has to answer that huge question:  how it the new forum relevant?    Yes, a great place to catch up with game names you encounter everyday...  But, how is it "value added" vis-a'-vis simply watching your favorite streamer that gives free stuff away.....?  What's the draw?

That is where the value proposition is......if,  you can answer that question.... 

IMO, this new forum has to do, that which the old forum simply didn't:  enable those whom participate with non-corporate "knowledge"; a place to ask questions and receiving answers less the Corporate mantra; and, to be really, really successful:  a place to get "free stuff" without watching hundreds of hours of Twitch streams (which infers, collaborative efforts...  Which, are a lot of work.)

For me, I really don't know the technical side of this game.  Why?  Because, it really, for me, isn't "value added" to spend the time to master the intricacies required to play PVP modes with the prospect of constant losses...

I am not sure how I could help....?    Or, contribute anything "technical" because, I really don't play the game to be "technically proficient..."  I play for fun.....

What I do know doesn't apply to this game, sadly.