Napkin Analysis: Commander Skill Changes 0.12.10

[torino2dc]

Yesterday WG announced changes to the DD, CA, and BB commander skills slated for updated 0.12.10. Personally, I welcome any attempt to improve the current set. That said, I'm not entirely sure the consequences of these changes have been fully thought through. In this napkin analysis I will go through all the skills, and attempt to highlight some winners of the upcoming changes. I hope you enjoy.

 

Consumables Specialist (Battleships, Cruisers, Destroyers - Line 1)

Change: Removed the previous effects. Cooldown time of all consumables, except 'Damage Control Party' and 'Repair Party': -7.5% (for Unique commanders: -10%)

 

This is similar to the 'Jack of all Trades' skill that was lost during the last rework. Where it used to cost 2pts for -10% (-12.5%), it now costs half as much for three quarters (four fifths) of the effect. Pretty good deal if you ask me, especially if your last name happens to be Kuznetsov, von Jutland, Dunkirk or Cunningham. If the changes go through, the skill just went from very niche (mostly to reduce MBRB cooldown) to a go-to skill for any ship that has strong consumables. 

In terms of presence, I think the effect will be most felt in the context of team play. Some of the game's strongest consumables have very long timers (120s, 160s, 180s), which offers opponents some space to act during their downtime. With optimal cycling, these windows just got tighter. 

- Almost all radars in the game have a 120s cooldown. Add Consumables specialist to the signal and it is now a 105s cycle. 

Spoiler

Russian 12km radar + Kuznetsov (102s cycle) says hello and have fun in CBs . I hope you didn't plan on being dark much.

- The strongest DD smokes in the game (USN, Pan-Asian, Lego-Harugumo) typically had a 22-26s smoke 'gap' (between last puff evaporating and a fresh smoke being available). Consumables Specialist would knock 12s off this gap.

Spoiler

Lego Yueyang should be able to attain a 3s smoke gap (84s smoke duration on an 87s smoke cooldown).

- Italian Fuel Smokes for the big ships are often on very long timers (180s). The skill chops off 13.5s off, which, when added to the signal puts them on a 158s timer.

Spoiler

Lego Venezia pairs should be able to get a 13s smoke gap... bear that in mind for the next CV season 😉

Big winners: Any ship/div that relied on radar and/or smoke for advantage. British and Russian CLs. Anything big and Italian. 

Napkin Evaluation: The change to the skill makes it more powerful and valuable than Consumables Enhancements (shorter cooldown is generally preferable to longer runtime). WG should probably think about swapping the two.

 

Preventive Maintenance (Battleships, Destroyers - Line 1)

Change: Added the following effects:

Increases HP of AA guns : +15% (for Unique commanders: +20%)
Increases HP of secondary guns: +15% (for Unique commanders: +20%)

 

Definitely a welcome addition. Adds value to the special commanders who have buffed Preventative Maintenance (Yamamoto, Znamensky bros, Lütjens). During the announcement, chat was talking about how this is a Kremlin buff, but bear in mind that Kremlin's AA has half the normal module HP. 

The true beneficiary of this buff will be BBs that rely on secondary turrets to do a lot of their work -- the KM 105mm and 128mm dual purpose bois come to mind, the French 100mm and 127mms, as well as the USN 127mm turrets that do the heavy lifting for OH, GA, MA, WV '44. 

For DDs this skill will likely have little impact -- while PM is a standard skill for most builds, most of the AA DPS comes from the dual-purpose main battery (which is already covered by PM).

Big Wieners: Secondary / AA-build BBs. 

Napkin Evaluation: Gud change, lamented only by CV mains.

 

Super-Heavy AP Shells (Battleships - Line 3)
Change: Added the following effects:

Fire damage received: -10%
Flood damage received: -10%

If I have understood the change correctly, this means the full skill text now reads something like this: 

+7.5% Main Battery AP Shell Damage

+25% Fire Extinguishing time but -10% fire damage received per tick

+25% Flood Extinguishing time but -10% flood damage received per tick

 

There are two types of Battleships that generally benefit from this skill: snipers and super-healers. The snipers sit so far back that fire/flood damage is not much of a concern, and the super-healers just repair right through it. What is interesting about the proposed design is that WG chose not to change the fire/flood duration, which means that the negative consequences of being on fire/flooding (+2km conceal, reduced maneuverability) remain intact. 

As such, I don't know whether this buff will meaningfully change the popularity of the skill. For a modest +7.5% extra shell damage, all the worst parts of the BB experience (getting DoT'ed by Cruisers, CVs and Subs) get much worse. Furthermore, there are very few BBs with accuracy to make a per shell increase preferable over a reload buff -- it is generally better to just roll the dice more often than to change one of the sixes to a seven. 

Winner?: Incomparable, maybe St. Vincent/Conkek.

Spoiler

Any CV/Sub that gets to go after a potato ARP Yamato who believes this skill is good.

Napkin Evaluation: Still very questionable. 

 

Improved Repair Party Readiness (Battleships - Line 3)
Change: Added a new effect that can be activated:

Receive additional +1 charge of 'Repair party' for receiving 3,000,000 potential damage (once per battle):
Charges of 'Repair party': +1

 

If this change goes into the game, it would cross an interesting threshold -- allowing ships to gain consumables as part of the regular skill tree (something previously reserved for Yamamoto, Kuznetsov, and Sa Zhenbing).  

When the skill was announced on Discord, it was framed as a reward for "Smart Tanking", i.e. the deliberate and thoughtful drawing of enemy fire from one's teammates. When done well, this can win games -- especially in random battles where focus fire is harder to coordinate. I think there will be a certain section of the player base who will love this buffed skill, because it will allow them to better fulfill the archetypical 'tank' role for the team. Not everyone has hands, some people just want to be useful by being a giant brick, and that's okay too. 

What is perhaps even more interesting is how this buff opens up is new perspectives on "Adrenalin Tanking" -- i.e. using the damage taken to one's offensive advantage. Adrenalin Rush and Furious obviously synergize well with this skill. On some ships with super-heals (RN BBs, BCs) this skill could actually completely substitute Emergency Repair Expert, freeing up another point that can be put to other uses. 

Big Wieners: Russian BBs, American weaponized pig-fat standard BBs, RN super-healers. 

Spoiler

Sun Yat-Sen with Sa Zhenbing at 3m potential will have one of its 6 heals ready every 47s.  

Napkin Evaluation: Very interesting. Could shift the meta-BB builds in a new direction. 

 

Focus Fire Training (Cruisers - Line 2, Battleships - Line 3)
Change: Added the following effect:

Immediate damage when activating the priority sector: +1.5%
Changed the following effects:

Airstrike armament reload time: -10% → -15%
Aircraft preparation time: -5% → -10%

For reference, the full text would now read:

-10% aircraft preparation time
-15% Air Strike armament reload time
+1 flak burst per salvo.

In the priority AA sector:

Immediate damage when activating the priority sector: +1.5%
+25% continuous damage.

 

Focus Fire Training is WGs "Miscellaneous Grab Bag of Buffs" skill, but that doesn't mean it was bad. By bundling Anti-Air and ASW into the same skill, it broadened the number of battles in which it had useful applications. Going through the changes one by one:

• Most (if not all) ASW planes are on a 30s cooldown. Taking the skill used to make that happen 3s faster, now it will be 4.5s faster. 
• Using this skill, the Royal Dutch Air Mail will cycle anywhere from an extra 3s faster (De 7), 5s (Haarlem/Johan/Gouden), to an extra 6.5s (Van Speijk).

Spoiler

Get ready for Lego Gouden Leeuw to regale you with one of its 3 airborne gift sets every 51s...  

• Most hybrids (USN, IJN, upcoming Kommissar) have a 120s plane regen;  FFT would now shave off an extra 6s down to ~102s with skill + module. Tone fully built would go from 162s -> 151s. 
• The change to the immediate damage when activating priority sector (with skill it would go from 3.5% -> 5% instant damage) is a very welcome addition for three reasons:

1. FFT improves one of only two user-controlled Anti-Air mechanics (the other being DefAA), which gives the player more agency. 
2. FFT improves AA-damage at the beginning of the engagement cycle, when it is most important. Because the CV player essentially controls the engagement, instant damage is always more valuable than damage over time.
3. The damage is a percentage of the target HP, meaning it hits hard no matter how weak your AA numbers are. All that matters is the reach of the long range aura. For Atlanta players who wistfully remember the days of terrorizing CV players this should help rekindle some of that spirit.

Spoiler

Also Lego Wooster with AA mod. 1 will now be able to chunk 5% of an enemy squad every 6.4s in addition to regular damage and DefAA. And people say that nightmare AA builds are dead.... 

Winners: Hybrids, Swamp Germans Dutch, AA-build cruisers generally, the ghost of my old Manual-AA Atlanta specifically.  

Un-winners: Airplane factories; anyone to whom the Dutch send their presents. 

Napkin Evaluation: If these go through then NO-ONE can complain that CVs are overpowered. The tools to shut them down are right in front of you. 

 

Secondary Armament Specialist (Cruisers - Line 3)
Changes: Renamed Enhanced Torpedo Explosive Charge to Secondary Armament Specialist and added the following effect:

Secondary Battery firing range +20% 

 

First off, I welcome the change to Enhanced Torpedo Explosive Charge, because the skill was pointless and expensive. But this mutant new version of it, where WG has wed it with +20% secondary range, honestly scares me. It has the potential to turn a bunch of strong cruisers into terrifying nightmares.

"But why is it a big deal?" I hear my strawman audience-member ask me. The scary part is that there are several cruisers that are balanced around having secondaries that are just shy of their concealment range. Cruisers like Napoli, Admiral Schröder, and Marseille all have good concealment values and powerful secondary batteries. Once they trap a foe within secs range, it gets very uncomfortable very quickly, with limited options for the enemy to disengage without eating a broadside salvo. This is why all three have caused a lot of problems in competitive play. 

To these ships we will now add +20% secondary range. For context:

- Napoli would have 11km secs range on a 10.3km platform.

- Make you sAdmiral Schröder would have 12km secs range on a 10.2km platform. Have fun!

- Marseille would have a 12.5km secs range on an 11.6km concealment platform. 

So far, the implied promise between developers and players is that if a ship has strong secondaries, you should be able to see what is about to melt you. This bargain is about to be violated, and I am not sure players will be happy when they discover they are 2km deep in a Schröder pain aura with no options but to die of ten-thousand paper cuts or citadel hits. 

Winners: Napoli, Schröder, French Super-CAs, Agir + Siegfried, the three people who played secs Roon back in the day, Lütjens enjoyers, Flamu. 

Very not winners: Anything caught within face-melting range.

Napkin Evaluation: Be careful what you wish for because you might just get it. Or rather, it's about to get you. 

 

Furious (Battleships - Line 4)
Changes: Removed the following effects: 

Main battery reload time: -5%
Dispersion of shells fired by enemies attacking your ship: +5%
Added the following changes:

Improves your ship's characteristics for each active fire and/or flooding onboard your ship.
1st fire/flooding - Main battery reload time: -10%
2nd and each consecutive fire/flooding (up to 6) - Main battery reload time: -5%

 

Furious already is an oft-seen pick for BBs with strong healing options (either super-heal or fast-heals). The drawback was that you had to have 2 fires going at once to really feel like the 4pts were worth it, which is not a tenable position for many BBs to be in. Front-loading the bonus like this makes the skill more appealing to standard BB builds that can live with one but not two intentional simultaneous fires. For those ships that were already adept at handling 2+ fires, they will receive a 5% reload buff for each. 

In practice, I don't think this buff will change much. Weak players won't really be able to exploit or manage the skill; intermediate skill players are probably still better off going with max survivability; high skill players just got slightly better at farming. 

Winners: Royal Navy Battleships and Battlecruisers with super-heals, USN BBs with either fast heals (Vermont line) or big heals (Montana line); min-max damage farming BB mains; anyone who is shooting a novice attempting to make use of Furious.

Napkin Evaluation: Niche skill got more slightly mainstream, ended up strengthening ships that were already strong.

 

Dazzle (Destroyers - Line 4)
Change: Added a new bonus to the activated effect: Reduces the accuracy of hostile fire directed at your ship and increases her speed for 15 s after your ship's been detected.

Ship speed: +8%

 

I want to love dazzle. I really do. But it is too darn expensive for what it offers. A captain can only have, at most, three 4pt skills. Dazzle has to compete with Concealment, Fearless Brawler, RPF, and AFT. Worse, the better a player is at dodging and managing concealment, the more Dazzle diminishes in utility; i.e. it is most useful when the player makes a mistake. Not great design for such a costly skill.

The only scenario where I can see Dazzle being useful is for designated capping DDs in competitive. Here the player knows that they will get shot at even if they play optimally and they have no choice but to go into harm's way. Adding an 8% speed buff helps make the ship even less predictable, but only in the hands of an expert dodger.

Winners: Expert DD players who want to troll everyone even harder; Paolo Emilio yolo rushes.

Napkin Evaluation: Doesn't solve the skill's fundamental price/performance issue. 

 

AA Defense and ASW Expert (Battleships - Line 2, Cruisers - Line 4)
Changes:

Battleships    

Continuous AA damage +10% → +15%
Damage from AA shell explosions +10% → +15%

Activated effect: Improves your ship's characteristics when her AA guns are active.

Ship consumables preparation and reload time -15% → -40%

Cruisers

Continuous AA damage +20% → +25%
Damage from AA shell explosions +20% → +25%

Activated effect: Improves your ship's characteristics when her AA guns are active.

Ship consumables preparation and reload time -20% → -50%

 

Let's talk about the Battleship version first. There is a meme among veteran WoWS gaemers when someone's damage output is very slight: "bro you're actually healing him." Whelp, now Aircraft Carrier players can literally do just that, just by hovering planes within a ship's AA range. WG decided to turbo-charge what was previously a nice-to-have perk by more than doubling its effect. Oh yeah, and the extra AA damage output is nice too. 

In most cases, the consumables bonus won't make much of a difference, but it will rear its head in one particular scenario: when a CV hard focuses you. Especially for ships with mediocre AA, it is not uncommon for a CV to be able to drop three times, spending a good 30s flipping off your useless AA suite. With the bonus implemented as is, that would cut ~18s off an 80s cooldown timer. Those sorts of cooldowns can make a target surprisingly annoying to take down.

The cool part is that you don't even need good AA to benefit: you can be a Dunkerque doing donuts shooting down one plane every five years and still be a colossal waste of time until you run out of heals. Battleships with good AA and good healing will become very tough nuts to take down (looking at you, Montana/Vermont lines). For 2pts, this skill looks to provide a lot of value. 

For cruisers, captains have to invest twice the points (4pts) for not twice the benefit. This makes the skill much more niche -- not every build can afford to give up that much space for a skill that, depending on the matchmaking, might not even see any use. But for those who want force the issue by divisioning with a carrier, this should make plane farming even easier. 

Winners: Vermont-line and Montana-line, full monster AA-build cruisers. 

Very not winners: The class responsible for making all the planes in the first place...

Napkin Evaluation: Very good value on BBs, fun for niche full AA-build CLs. 

 

Conclusion

These captain skill changes have the potential to shift the power dynamic of WoWS in ways that the developer may not have anticipated. For one, Aircraft Carriers are going to get smacked in the face by a new generation of captain builds that take greater advantage of the buffed AA-skills. Where standard ship builds for cruisers and BBs used to avoid the AA-skills for their questionable return on investment, they are starting to look so good and so versatile that they may become part of the normal kit. 

While there is a good amount of schadenfreude to be had in melting our airborne tormentors, bear in mind that they are the developer's darling class -- if the CV player base is suppressed to much, get ready for a round of CV buffs to 'rectify' the situation. 

Secondly, I found myself listing the same battleships over and over again in the winners column: Royal Navy super-healers and American battleships. Conqueror/Vincent/Incomp disproportionately benefit from Super heavy AP, Furious, "Adrenalin" Repair due to their ability to soak up fires and floods. American BBs of all three tech trees (as well as the secondary focused premiums) stand to benefit from Preventative Maintenance, Focus Fire Training, AA + ASW Expert, Improved Repair, as well as Furious. 

To my understanding, none of the above mentioned BBs/BCs needed buffs. While these ships obviously can't take all of those skills simultaneously, each buffed skill can be used to push the ship in its niche to a greater degree than other battleships. I would get ready to see those ships overperform in randoms, which presents WG with the dilemma of whether to nerf (unpopular) or buff everything else (power creep). Fun times ahead.

Finally, WoWS is going to get weirder. As I hopefully demonstrated through the spoilered asides, the potential for legendary mod builds to arrive at mind-boggling configurations stands to be as absurd as it's ever been. The game is rapidly reaching the stage where even dedicated players will struggle to keep all the variations in their head. Be prepared to run into the unexpected and die to it. The only way to deal with it is with a smile and a legendarily silly build of your own. Thank you for reading ❤️ 

[HogHammer]

@torino2dc,interesting write-up...detailed....good summary...nice job.

[Ensign Cthulhu]

45 minutes ago, torino2dc said:

Immediate damage when activating the priority sector: +1.5%

My reading is that it's going to be 1.5% higher than it already is.

General comment: I'm not sure I agree absolutely with your analysis, but you've certainly laid out a whole buffet of food for thought, and I anticipate returning to it for further consideration. The crunch will come when the changes appear in the PTS for testing in their finalized form. It will be interesting to see how the observed conclusions match up with your predictions. Bookmark this post.

Edited October 3, 2023 by Ensign Cthulhu

[Asym]

40 minutes ago, HogHammer said:

@torino2dc,interesting write-up...detailed....good summary...nice job.

I agree it was a nice job....

55 minutes ago, torino2dc said:

Yesterday WG announced changes to the DD, CA, and BB commander skills slated for updated 0.12.10. Personally, I welcome any attempt to improve the current set. That said, I'm not entirely sure the consequences of these changes have been fully thought through. In this napkin analysis I will go through all the skills, and attempt to highlight some winners of the upcoming changes. I hope you enjoy.

... et al.

Conclusion

Finally, WoWS is going to get weirder

A well done narrative.  For me, where I am in the game, I'll never use any of these suggestions.........  In fact, as a PVE main, almost all of the Skill Tree is non-value-added:  literately.  Other than to degrade what we had before that is..... Taking the best of the worst choices or simply ignoring all of it sometimes....  Some call it "Playing N@ked".

So, I wonder:  How many players actually care about these changes???  I don't know but one player that at least cared what was selected?  I know, I haven't changes a single selection since they came out years ago now....  They don't affect a great many of us it seems.....

What mode do you think is affected by any of these changes;  and,  what percentage, do you think,  actually cares >? 

[Ensign Cthulhu]

19 minutes ago, Asym said:

In fact, as a PVE main, almost all of the Skill Tree is non-value-added

*facepalm*

30 minutes ago, Asym said:

Other than to degrade what we had before that is...

As a PVE main, I disagree with this. Specifically with regard to secondary armament on battleships, manual targeting went from "we won't fire at all unless you designate a target" to "we will fire at anything within range and show progressively greater attention to the target you designate", a far more tactically flexible position.

 

[I_cant_Swim_]

2 hours ago, torino2dc said:

Thank you for reading

@torino2dc Thank YOU for the analysis, mate. Very informative. If the changes are as you say, we are indeed in for some interesting times. Bring them on!

[Admiral_Karasu]

Sounds like WG ran out of regular gimmicks to add to the game...

We still don't know which (if any) of these changes make it to the live servers. I just wonder does this mean that there's going to be even less variety in terms of which skills players will pick (thereby making the captain skills redundant as a way of customizing your game play), or does it mean you will be screwed unless you play with select few ships... and which ships is that actually going to be once we get that far?

 

31 minutes ago, I_cant_Swim_ said:

@torino2dc Thank YOU for the analysis, mate. Very informative. If the changes are as you say, we are indeed in for some interesting times. Bring them on!

'Interesting times'...? oh boy...

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

As a CV main, let me point out that none of these captain skills from the enemy ships scares me at all...

...of course, I found 0.8.5 to be fine and playable against from an AA perspective...

[pepe_trueno]

will put the same i put in the other post

*Consumables Specialist:  would be better if it was -10% but overall is a nice buff for ships with lots of consumables 

*Preventive Maintenance: considering the low base health  of AA and secondary guns the gain is insignificant, wish it was something like repair a destroyed AA/secondary mount every "x" seconds

*Super-Heavy AP Shells:  The skill still increase fire duration by a lot so -10% damage taken from flood/fires per tick is a situational buff

*Improved Repair Party Readiness: the 3 million threshold is flat out ridiculous, it should be something like 25 times your ship health.

*Secondary Armament Specialist* (Cruisers - Line 3): why they pair it with a torpedo skill is beyond me also +20% range without accuracy is for the most part pointless. My take on this is that secondary builds for cruisers need to make a comeback but not this way, Either give them specific nodes or pair them with the AA nodes

*Focus Fire Training (Cruisers - Line 2, Battleships - Line 3): still a mediocre skill, as said above this would be the perfect skill for cruisers to also get secondary bonus like increase and reduction to AA continuous damage also apply to secondary guns ROF on the reinforced side at a % of its value.

*AA Defense and ASW Expert: i take this for the cooldown reduction more than anything else, for cruisers this is where i would put the +20% secondary range.

*Furious (Battleships - Line 4): not sure why WG insist on making a build out of being on fire but is better than current furious so guess is a step in the right direction. personally i rather have something like increase performance for every enemy ship targeting your ship.

 

i am surprise they didn't change close quarter combat (BB tier 4) and outnumbered (cruiser t4), those skills feel out of place.

[Asym]

6 hours ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

*facepalm*

As a PVE main, I disagree with this. Specifically with regard to secondary armament on battleships, manual targeting went from "we won't fire at all unless you designate a target" to "we will fire at anything within range and show progressively greater attention to the target you designate", a far more tactically flexible position.

 

Oh gosh mate, I've gone into COOP with NO camo, no flags/bonuses, legendary modules and nothing selected and almost never lose....  Now, selecting all of the equipment and have a good CPT makes you earn more but.........coop is that easy.

[Wolfswetpaws]

8 hours ago, Asym said:

So, I wonder:  How many players actually care about these changes???

My first thought is that the changes are solutions in search of a problem.
Also, as a Collector's Club member, it is a pain-in-the-aft every time the Captain's Skills are re-worked.
Even with a "free reset", I've got hundreds of ships and commanders that will require administrative attention.

In other words, it's a total time-suck for little, if any, perceived benefit.

So, bottom line?  
I feel the labor hours spent on these changes were a waste of time on WG/WOWs' part.  A waste of time that could've been spent more wisely.

Also, there's nothing to "sell" in this process.
There's no new shiny toys.  There's nothing to spend doubloons on.  There's no product items for a player to buy, so there's nothing for sale.
So, where is the revenue?
Seriously.  Where is the product that can be sold to keep the lights on and the servers running?

Or is this supposed to be an effort to make the existing game more appealing overall in order to attract/retain players who spend money?
If players like this then they'll stay instead of leaving the game due to burnout or dissatisfaction with some aspect of the game?

Are these changes going to increase sales of Premium account time?  Battle Pass?  Insert-name-of-product here?  

Inquiring minds want to know.
 

Edited October 4, 2023 by Wolfswetpaws

[BCGrog]

Torino - Thank You! 

I read every word. You made it really easy to understand the changes.

We should reward contributions to the forum like this with some kind of medal.

Cheers!

[I_cant_Swim_]

4 hours ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

Or is this supposed to be an effort to make the existing game more appealing overall in order to attract/retain players who spend money?

It is just this, isn't it. Leaning heavily on "retain". Perhaps mainly players with not so many ships. Overall, little to write home about, but not nothing. I see positives changes, not much, but they're there. A slightly improved AA? Yeah, I've got the odd ship's captain willing to try that. Shorter effective cool-down times for smokes etc? Might create some interesting possibilities, as described by @torino2dc above. Increased cruiser secondaries? Really don't know about that one, I have the feeling that something (else) is probably gonna give. Still, passes my initial sniff test of no perceptible damage to the game and that feels like a relief. Party while I can. Maybe the changes make it into the game proper without further watering down, even.

Captain skill reassignment is gonna be... a project in itself.

[torino2dc]

6 hours ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

In other words, it's a total time-suck for little, if any, perceived benefit.

If you view re-doing captains as a waste of time, then I'm afraid the captain skill re-re-work isn't for you. Here is who it is for: 

• Players who want to win. Doing well in random battles is an ever-evolving puzzle. Several of the less useful pieces within the player's control have now been changed. This should provide at least a year or two of evolving opinions on how to best spend the scarce resource of captain points.
• Players who want to specialize in a role. As I said above, not everyone can or wants to be good at everything. Some folks want to find a niche and be really good at that one thing. The tanking and AA-focused builds just got quite a bit stronger, and being good at a role makes people feel useful. 
• Competitive players. The Consumable Specialist change alone will affect how teams cycle smoke and radars. I could see Improved Readiness, Furious, Cruiser Secondaries, and Dazzle all become part of particular comp builds. Comp has trended towards more aggressive, decisive engagements, and these skills would tend to reinforce that style.
• Players who want something goofy. What is there to do when you've put in your 20k battles and seen most of what the game has to offer? How about Lego YY with literal chain smokes? How about Lego Wooster with a 52s radar ready every 80s? How about a Sun Yat-Sen with a heal ready every 47s? There's plenty of absurdity to go around. 

The different WoWS communities can be very insular and I have definitely been guilty of forgetting that not everyone shares my interests/objectives as a player. Hopefully the above answers why these changes are a worthwhile undertaking for the developer.

[Frostbow]

17 hours ago, torino2dc said:

For one, Aircraft Carriers are going to get smacked in the face by a new generation of captain builds that take greater advantage of the buffed AA-skills.

Yes, I wanna see them smacked. And slapped. 😄

[Asym]

7 hours ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

My first thought is that the changes are solutions in search of a problem.
Also, as a Collector's Club member, it is a pain-in-the-aft every time the Captain's Skills are re-worked.
Even with a "free reset", I've got hundreds of ships and commanders that will require administrative attention.

In other words, it's a total time-suck for little, if any, perceived benefit.

So, bottom line?  
I feel the labor hours spent on these changes were a waste of time on WG/WOWs' part.  A waste of time that could've been spent more wisely.

Also, there's nothing to "sell" in this process.
There's no new shiny toys.  There's nothing to spend doubloons on.  There's no product items for a player to buy, so there's nothing for sale.
So, where is the revenue?
Seriously.  Where is the product that can be sold to keep the lights on and the servers running?

Or is this supposed to be an effort to make the existing game more appealing overall in order to attract/retain players who spend money?
If players like this then they'll stay instead of leaving the game due to burnout or dissatisfaction with some aspect of the game?

Are these changes going to increase sales of Premium account time?  Battle Pass?  Insert-name-of-product here?  

Inquiring minds want to know.
 

Facade - a deceptive outward appearance.   Change for the sake of change that only involves maybe 15% of the population and infuriates the other 85% whom want something "real".... 

IMO, facade.  It's what happens when you simply don't have the real capital and need to do something.  I guess the endless "have to buy crates gimmick" isn't producing the values needed or, the corporation really doesn't care anymore.   A "station keeping" exercise that screams:  "let them eat cake...."

Edited October 4, 2023 by Asym

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

3 hours ago, I_cant_Swim_ said:

Increased cruiser secondaries?

Increased range without useable accuracy is practically useless unless your cruiser can take return fire for long enough for inaccurate secondaries to do something.

30 minutes ago, Frostbow said:

Yes, I wanna see them smacked. And slapped. 😄

CVs are not going to be seriously affected by these minor AA buffs.

[Nevermore135]

19 minutes ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

Increased range without useable accuracy is practically useless unless your cruiser can take return fire for long enough for inaccurate secondaries to do something.

Indeed. This will be a nice buff to Napoli, but other cruisers generally lack the base secondary dispersion to get much use out of this skill. The only other cruisers with “good” secondary dispersion are the French CBs, and while MA/German CC dispersion is good it’s not quite good enough on it’s own (to say nothing of how you don’t want to be building those ships for close-range engagements anyways).

Edited October 4, 2023 by Nevermore135

[Justin_Simpleton]

4 hours ago, I_cant_Swim_ said:

Captain skill reassignment is gonna be... a project in itself.

Yep.  It's a project I knew was coming down the line.  I've been noticing that the captains I've advanced up the class line wind up having the wrong build for tier X battles.  So, this is good news that a captain reset is on the horizon.  It would be good to know how long the free reset period is going to be.  I need to upgrade my spreadsheet.

[HogHammer]

2 minutes ago, Justin_Simpleton said:

Yep.  It's a project I knew was coming down the line.  I've been noticing that the captains I've advanced up the class line wind up having the wrong build for tier X battles.  So, this is good news that a captain reset is on the horizon.  It would be good to know how long the free reset period is going to be.  I need to upgrade my spreadsheet.

Once we get closer to the actual builds being released to the general server population, I'll make sure the links to the Google Captain builds are linked here at DevStrike.  I can see where a handful of ships may benefit/warrant several different build options for players.  It will be interesting to see what builds the folks over at Captain Builds come up with since that is their main focus/expertise.

[Verytis]

20 hours ago, torino2dc said:

Super-Heavy AP Shells (Battleships - Line 3)

-snip-

Winner?: Incomparable, maybe St. Vincent/Conkek.

Good breakdown and compilation, compared to the long discussion on the other thread. But I'll add more to this one skill.

 

Conkek wouldn't use the skill because it wants to HE spam. It also wants to heal all the pen dmg it'll take due to its weak armour.

Incomp can benefit but fires also give a significant concealment penalty, which ruins its main gimmick. It prefers being able to go dark because it actually has 1 less heal charge than other RN BBs.

St Vincent is likely the only ship going to use this.

[yss_turtleship]

2 hours ago, Justin_Simpleton said:

Yep.  It's a project I knew was coming down the line.  I've been noticing that the captains I've advanced up the class line wind up having the wrong build for tier X battles.  So, this is good news that a captain reset is on the horizon.  It would be good to know how long the free reset period is going to be.  I need to upgrade my spreadsheet.

I use @clydeplays commander spreadsheet ( https://youtu.be/vPI4b8zxdKw?si=O-SheFSDC0aa1ZIe ) to track my commanders and it's really been helpful for visualizing my planning. I don't update it daily but on a two to three week schedule. Luckily, I only have about 100 commanders to track so not as many as some of you guys.

2 hours ago, HogHammer said:

Once we get closer to the actual builds being released to the general server population, I'll make sure the links to the Google Captain builds are linked here at DevStrike.  I can see where a handful of ships may benefit/warrant several different build options for players.  It will be interesting to see what builds the folks over at Captain Builds come up with since that is their main focus/expertise.

This guide is another go-to tool in my WoWs kit. I use it along with WoWs ShipBuilder to help determine how I'm going to train my commanders. I would be lost without it.

This free commander re-spec is coming at good time for me as I do have a few I want to change but didn't want to spend any dubs or ECXP on.

 

[Pugilistic]

8 hours ago, Justin_Simpleton said:

Yep.  It's a project I knew was coming down the line.  I've been noticing that the captains I've advanced up the class line wind up having the wrong build for tier X battles.  So, this is good news that a captain reset is on the horizon.  It would be good to know how long the free reset period is going to be.  I need to upgrade my spreadsheet.

I would hope for this, but Im not holding my breath. If only a couple of skills changes make it through testing, I wouldnt be surprised if there is no free reset. 

[torino2dc]

22 hours ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

CVs are not going to be seriously affected by these minor AA buffs.

The issue isn't that the AA-skills got slightly stronger. The issue is that they have increased in value relative to other skills, meaning folks will be running them where they didn't before. 

The 2pt. skills especially are starting to look like such good value for both cruisers and BBs that they might become an autopick. After all, the cruiser 2pt skill buffs instant AA independently of base damage, and the BB 2pt skill makes them much more resilient against CV focus by cutting their cooldowns. 

Both of those qualities have such a strong price/performance ratio that they could well become the default recommended build. 

[pepe_trueno]

23 hours ago, Nevermore135 said:

Indeed. This will be a nice buff to Napoli, but other cruisers generally lack the base secondary dispersion to get much use out of this skill. The only other cruisers with “good” secondary dispersion are the French CBs, and while MA/German CC dispersion is good it’s not quite good enough on it’s own (to say nothing of how you don’t want to be building those ships for close-range engagements anyways).

french CAs would have been a decent secondary platform if they had some bow armor and better firing angles in their secondary guns

 

for the rest of cruisers +20% secondary range is pretty pointless.

 

WG would need to do a big balance pass to a lot of cruisers secondary guns to make the skill  usefull on more than a handfull of ships.

Edited October 5, 2023 by pepe_trueno