Depends on what you want to do and your playing style.

Carriers and/or cruisers, go USA. Battleships and destroyers, go with IJN.

In the Beta, there are no IJN carriers or US Battleships.
If you like going fast and doing close-in attacks, IJN destroyers have the advantage. They are more stealthy than US DDGs and the Japanese Long Lance torpedoes have longer range. They are durable as paper though. Rely on speed, stealth and smoke to not get hit.
US DDGs can take a few more hits and have better guns but get spotted further out and have shorter range torpedoes.

US line has some beastly cruisers that do a LOT of DPM. Smaller guns than a BB, but they have more of them and they reload fast. Many of them also carry torpedoes. I've been chewed up in my BBs by US cruisers while waiting forever for my guns to reload. Cruisers also do anti-air better than any other ships.

ETA: I went with the Japanese line. I like the stark difference in playing styles between fast DDGs and massive BBs.

Also helps to aim near the waterline, especially up close, for those citadel hits.

The game *REALLY* needs a last man standing mode. 90% of the people are playing to have fun naval battles. The remaining 10% are there to cap. So a few people make the battles end too quick. Every round is turning into this.

Minor problem.  The front keeps falling off of my ship.

Been playing for a couple hours now. This easily blows World of Tanks out of the water. Much better gameplay in my opinion.

Anyone been able to break 50% win rate?   Or do I just suck?   Can't tell you how many teams are just completely stupid and yolo and hope to sink a carrier.  Its not like speed grinding in beta actually helps.  Why not play to win????

In a battle right now with ichase. (check out his WoWS youtube vids if you haven't already) Hope he's not livestreaming this one, I got wet early on.

I'm having a WoT night. 11 rounds and only one win. The one round we won, I got my Isokaze DDG one-shotted in the first 45 sec by a Kongo at the maximum range of his guns, with my rudder hard over in a full speed turn. Not a shot fired from my weapons. That was my X1.5 daily bonus round.

Other fun facts from those 11 rounds:

• shot a carrier over 35 times with HE and within 4km while chasing after him with my Isokaze, not one single deck fire. Not one single torpedo hit. *rage*


• First good round tonight with my Kongo and part way in, my dog starts going insane while outside on his run. Wife calls for help getting him inside. I come back to find my Kongo ran aground and a Cruiser had me down to 10%. (was over 90% when I got up)  The dog had spotted a possum in the yard and wanted to kill it, so did I. *rage*


• 3 rounds in a row I got killed by friendly torpedoes. *rage*

Is there a command to keep fighters in a holding pattern over valuable assets? Would be nice to have if you know one of your guys is about to enter the fray and needs some air coverage.

When your going max speed with a did and do a full turn you bleed ALOT of speed like that scene in Independence day when smiths wing man tried to turn and got shot I'm tired me go lay down

Yes. Select your air group, then click on the ship you want covered. They'll orbit above it. Heck, torpedo and dive bombers will even attack hostile ships that get close, if you do that.

Both.

This one was fun though.

I wish I could screenshot. I'm on a Mac and don't have a "print screen" button, and I don't use Windows enough to know of an alternative off the top of my head.

Anyone have an idea of some software I could download that would let me print screen like that? Maybe I'll just install Camtasia or FRAPS and go that route.

How do you screen shot on PC? I see a Prt Sc button but it does not do anything? (Sorry for change in topic guys)

ETA: NVM figured it out

My ships do not have 'Commanders'. At what level do you see this, I am level 3.

EDU-MA-CATE me

After 3 days of playing ... torpedoes need to be re-adjusted.  

"Oh, your a battleship?  Well here's three flights of torpedo planes dropping on you, from two directions, and 3 DDs sending 6 each.   Enjoy the game."

TRG

Level 5

 

Click on your name (I think) in the top left corner, and you will see something about levels.  For each new level, you get bonus credits, and at 5, you get Commanders.

Lol that's pretty much the truth. I don't remember which map, but I was in a Chester cruiser and there was I think a St. Louis beside me going through a semi tight area between islands. Both of us ended up getting sunk because the other teams destroyers sent a wall of torpedoes.

Maybe they need to be limited ammo weapons?  At least on destroyers.  I know the Fletcher class didn't have any reloads.  For carriers though, they do need to be powerful.  That was historically the carrier's weapon of choice against armored surface targets.  



 

Tanks

Interesting game last night

I was running the Atlanta and at game start I went over and provided cover for our carrier. Just stayed about 3 km out between her and where the enemy would appear. This also gave me the advantage of being maybe 12km from cap.

Early on an enemy DD and badly damaged cruiser slipped through. I told the carrier to start evading and running while I engaged. I destroyed the DD pretty quickly with HE and easily dodged the torps he sent my way. 7 guns firing forward, 3 salvos and he was done. The enemy cruiser got a few hits on the CV before I took him out with AP. I was sure their carrier would send planes to ours so closed the distance to provide AA but nothing appeared.

While all of this was going on the extreme north was being guarded by a single DD when up popped an enemy DD, cruiser and two battleships. He managed to get a good torp hit on one battleship before being sunk. This fleet then headed for cap with me being the only one in position to do anything. To maximize my survival I had to kind of hook down then come up bow first to present a small target to the enemy while having 7 guns forward. Meanwhile the first person sunk (he YOLOed) was screaming in chat for me to do something, quit running away, and so on. Why is it the idiots who die first are the ones screaming at everyone else at how much they suck?

I hit cap with it at 70% captured. I had a friendly BB, 2 DDs and a cruiser who turned and headed my way to help but I knew I would be sunk before then so it was maximum damage time. I dodged the torps from the DD and cruiser while launching fish at the badly damaged BB. Lo and behold one fish hit dropping him to around 500 hp left. I sunk the destroyer with 3 salvos switched to AP and sunk the battleship. Just before I died I launch all four torps at the other BB around 7 km away and holy shit! all four hit! About this time the cavalry arrived and took out the other two ships.

Best game so far tactics wise and we did win that game.

I have started running with a BB group as an American cruiser and can just tear up incoming aircraft if I can stay around 2 km off them. As a carrier I have started putting my fighters on cap over BBs while having my torps circle an island looking for clusters of enemy to launch torps into. On occasion I can get two or even three ships with torp hits.

Nice job.  I bet the heartrate was up a little on that one.

It's not invisible under 2km unless there is an obstruction to line of sight (or smoke).

My Minekaze can be spotted at 5.9km, but usually by the time you spot me, my torps are 1km from your side

Good work!  Love it when a plan comes together and the good game play pays off.

Sounds like a lot of my games the last few days with one exception...we don't win.   I've had several games where despite the best efforts of myself and maybe one or two other players that are trying to win, we still can't overcome the strong desire of the rest of the team to not win.  I won't say they are throwing games or intentionally losing...rather they just aren't playing to win.  They are playing to sink a ship or two that may or may not even be strategically important based on the rest of the flow of the game.  

I lost one this morning 960-1000 in domination mode.  The kicker was at one point we had all 3 bases captured and got up to 960 - 600 with a 6 ship to 3 advantage.  

I was in my Omaha and trying to keep B and C capture areas clear so we could keep the +8 points ticking up from those two caps.  Unfortunately a DD and Cleveland had captured C before I could get there, and pushed into B so I engaged.  Killed the DD with HE and missed all but one of his torpedoes.  I quickly repaired and had about 50% health left.  I then got in a fist fight with the Cleveland who was about 75% HP.  Clearly he was going to win but I was trying to at least stall him as long as I could.  We still had A and B captured so as long as we didn't lose those, we were looking ok.

Mean while we had a few DD's of our own and a couple cruisers who were trying to chase down their carrier.  I was calling for help in chat to send at least 1 DD back to be able to defend the bases so we could lock up the win.  I got a "Chill out dude, we're gonna win" reply.

So....still battling the losing fight with the Cleveland but hoping I've bought us enough time.  There was still about 7 minutes left in the game which was enough time for them to still capture and win.  Our carrier is now pushing towards A cap and I'm hoping he sits down in it to secure it.  Still thinking we are Ok at this point and fire my last salvo and torpedos at the Cleveland and get him down under 1000hp before I get killed by his return fire.

We lost another ship and were at a 4-2 advantage on boats so go backwards in points, but are still about 200points ahead on the capture.  Now that I'm dead the Cleveland captures B cap and they are now closing the gap in capture point as they have 2 of 3 captured.  I get more and more animated in chat that a DD needs to come back to finish off the Cleveland to ensure the win.  Another "relax dude, look at the score" reply as they keep trying to kill the carrier.  Which I can't understand how they haven't done it yet...  Score is 960 to probably 700 something.

Cleveland steams towards A cap and our carrier for some reason tries to go hide, thus leaving the A cap wide open.  Cleveland sails in and pauses our capture points.  Our points now freeze at 960 as we no longer are in control of any bases.  We still have a chance if we can kill their remaining ships.  Cleveland starts in on our carrier and rather than the carrier pushing back into A cap, he now tries to out run him.  Our cap points still at 960.  DD's are still not able to kill the enemy carrier.  Clock keeps ticking, and guess what, they win 1000-960.   I was LIVID!!!


Seriously...why do people have no desire to win in this game?  I get it...its beta testing so some guys are just out to see what different ships can do.  But still, why not try to win????  I'm really concerned that the game could flop if there isn't an improvement in pub play.   While I'm sure clans and platoons will do fine fighting a common strategy, I really think that the general "pub game" experience is going to be so demoralizing that people aren't going to want to play.


What I mean is that we are starting to see some strategies at play.  Wolf pack DD's picking off straggler BB's or Cruisers.   CV's working together with 3 squads of fighters attacking a divided squad of torpedo planes.  CV's working together launching 3 or 4 squads of torpedo planes against a single ship.  Even with good AA and fighter cover, some are bound to get through.  If you are lucky enough to be on that team you'll have a lot of fun and likely win.  If you are unlucky (like I've been as of late) and are actually trying to win, your efforts are in vein as the rest of your team keeps eating the lead paint off the walls in the ship, with a side order of asbestos from the pipes, finished with some port hole window licking.

I know Wargaming can't don much to drive team work in pub matches, but there has to be some way to discourage the selfish individual play.   Rant off.

They are by no means OP.  People are too stupid to pay attention to map awareness, just like in WoT.  

DDs get shredded by secondaries, much less primary batteries.  A good DD driver uses smoke and islands to mask their approach, and THAT is exactly like it was in real life.

And no, torps are also not OP.  They are terrible weapons of war that do exactly what they are meant to do...blow shit up.

I'm at 55%.  But I'm also prior USN with plenty of strat training....

I would literally be at close to 60% if you could get fucking pubbies to listen.

I got into a match with him last night as well.

Failed to keep my head on a swivel and got nuked by torps.

That's skill on the part of the DD player.  If you try and go into tight areas without any type of recon/eyes, expect to be torpedoed.  That's definitely how shit did/would go down in actual combat.

Cruisers are support ships for the bigger ships FIRST and FOREMOST.  They need to work in conjunction with other DDs to take out DDs, otherwise you're getting spotted and torped long before you "SEE" the DD.

I was at 57% until today. I lost a few in a row and now at 53%.

Is this the percentage of time you are banned?

This isn't tanks........yet.

Torps are not that great to be honest don't let that DD close in on you and if you see TP or a DD lining you up turn into them, or directly away. At best you'll avoid them at worst take 1-2 hits.

Just spitballing here, I think the following would be awesome features to have in the future:

Have a team deathmatch game mode where all enemies must be eliminated.

If they want to get crazy, add unarmed Higgans boats and have a game mode where they try to reach an island. After a landing craft lands on an island, that player can then control a shore battery or a single flight of land based aircraft. Friendly units cover the island capture. If the shore battery or air strip takes enough damage, the player dies and another player can then cap it. Game would end if all enemies are destroyed or whoever has the higher score after a given time.

Have a game mode filter so players can choose to only join specified game types. If all you want to do is sink ships, filter out all the base cap modes.

Probably already being considered but how about Submarines? When fully submerged, they can only be detected by destroyers that get within 2km. Periscopes above water can have a small, easy to miss wake but only a destroyer within 2km can make them show up with an icon. On the surface, a sub would be detected like a DDG and could use it's deck gun but torps only fire at 0* or 180*. Subs could also press T for silent mode for 1 min which gimps speed and makes it undetectable when fully submerged. Give it a 2 min recharge.

DDGs given anti-submarine abilities. Auto detect submarged subs within 2km, can detect at 4km with special :sonar" ability. (press T or something to activate) It lasts for 30 sec and takes 3:00 to recharge. Can also select depth charges. Change depth setting in same way you change torpedo spread.

If you're in a BB and you're within torpedo range of 3 DDs, the strength of the torpedoes is not the problem.

Torpedoes dropped from planes also do significantly less damage than those launched by a DD. I just upgraded to the Fuso, but my Kongo could take 4 or 5 plane-dropped torpedoes and shrug it off. I've take 3 from a DD, hit "repair" and "repair party", and was back to full HP before the fight was over.

Also, BBs don't seem to hit their prime until the Kongo. The Kawachi doesn't have the range to play like a BB, and the Myogi isn't even a battleship at all, but a battlecruiser. They are nimble but lack the armor to slug it out.

There is a button in port to buy ammo, but it isn't implemented yet. I suspect torpedoes will be limited quantity once released.

Me and 1 other DD in a tiers 7-6 respectively YOLO'd at a BB I launched all 3 torp tubes on him then tried to get away but died 10 of my torps hit him the DD behind me hit with 5 it took 15 torp hits to freaking sink him. So torps are not the problem.

WG has said repeatedly that submarines will not be added.

That said, I definitely see a game mechanic where they would fit - they'd just have to be gimped enough with their submerged speed to basically be stationary, and have to come up for air every sixty seconds or so.

Come to think of it - a mine layer would also be awesome...

Not sure what is up with the teams today but the only game I have won is when I carry the entire team.
Not too bad for over 200K after taxes and 2164 w/o prem and w/o 1.5x



 

There will be no subs. Subs destroyed that other naval game...

Never mind the technical issues involved subs are very powerful - you think there is wailing in WoT about arty or the beginnings of it in WoWs about torps?

To be accurate the only thing that can hunt subs will be DDs. A DD rigged for sub hunting cannot be rigged for surface combat or vice versa due to the nature of the activity for this time period. A sub hunting DD is toast when another ship confronts it. Virtually all sub hunting was done on the fringes with a massive DD ring - subs are very deliberate. Pre-WW II ships would have to rely on visual spotting of the periscope and a cross your fingers attempt to hit using depth charges.

We would have to model thermoclines, ASDIC/sonar, special aircraft with escort carriers, and a whole host of other things.

It is just a nightmare to do correctly, balance, and so on. People would lose their fricking minds!

You didn't even use your guns, and the Nicholas has pretty good guns!

That's some mean ass ambush style play right there  

I wish.  


I'm okay with that.  IJN DDs are basically submarines anyway...hard to spot, poor main gun, primarily a hit and run with torpedoes playstyle.

Had one in a game today that didn't appear to anyone until he was 1.1km from me in a DD and he was launching torps at me. That really needs some working on.

Aw shit, he WAS livestreaming it. lol

Yeah, I'm the first guy dead. 1-shotted by a Kongo from 12km away. At least I got the first kill before I died.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_TRTmwdBNg

That's why you stick near smaller ships that can protect you against aircraft and/or DDs.

In Warships, infinitely more so than Tanks, combined-arms cooperation is huge.

Sounds like I just suck and need to work on getting a lot better at carrying.  

BTW, WOWs Space edition looks pretty cool!

Damn right.... bout time...

try ocean drift - pacman at sea LOL!