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Greetings Captains,
Welcome to the second week of the New Player Captain's Log! For those of you who aren't sure what this is or what it might do, feel free to check out the introductory post here.
Without further ado, let’s proceed with Week 2!
Accomplishments
Here’s a list of personal milestones that I hit during the week:
1. Hit the 200 battles mark, and thus left protected matchmaking
2. Participated in my first Operation (more on that below)
3. Grinded the US Cruiser Line to Omaha (only halted due to credits)
4. Obtained the Ranger (so long, Langley!)
Focus Points of the Week
After talking to a number of you in last week’s thread, I made a few changes in focus that I think were beneficial to my learning experience. Here’s a few things I accomplished:
1. Focused on Cruisers more (they were absent from last week’s Log and are a general blindspot in my experience so far).
2. Stayed mainly in Tier IV while I finished out my protected matchmaking games as opposed to exploring later tiers like I had been doing before.
3. Despite it being reported to me that it was exceptionally difficult, I tried out Defense of Naval Station Newport as my first operation.
Cruisers - Randoms
After Cruisers were noticeably neglected last week, I made a point to make them my main focus this week. The primary reason I was drawn away from cruisers initially was that I perceived them to be middling on everything. Generally speaking, they have less speed/maneuverability than DD and less survivability than BBs, so my understanding was that I would be wiped out quickly when using them.
So did I have any success when actually playing them? Ehh…yes and no.
I found that I fared decently well while focusing on Tier IV (surprising literally no one, as I was still in protected matchmaking) but even moving one tier up to Tier V, I was having a bit more trouble. I’m unsure if this is a result of my current skill cap, the fact that I am using the Omaha (which isn’t the best ship, from my understanding), or both.
Ships I used: Phoenix, Omaha, Perth Observations: Similar to how I felt about the Nicholas in the DDs section last week, I found that the Phoenix and the Omaha (especially the Omaha) felt really floaty, which required a lot of adjustment on my part in order to land hits. I’ve since discovered that this is a trait that exists throughout the US line, so this may result in me turning my focus to a German line next. I didn’t get too hands-on with the Perth yet, but I did enjoy the little bit of time I spent with her thus far.
Things I need to be more cognizant of:
1. Location, location, location - I am struggling mightily on where to best position myself in order to deal effective damage while not getting blapped immediately.
2. Enemy focus - The general idea I have is to focus on DDs when possible, but I find that makes me overextend myself and then I get targeted by the nearest BB while also being focused by the DD. I need to find the right balance here.
Lower Tier Play - Protected Matchmaking
Last week, a great point was brought to my attention: Why am I playing at Tier VIII when I am still in protected matchmaking? I brought up the idea that I was gaining knowledge of how different lines begin to distinguish themselves at higher tiers while also getting caught up in a grind for credits, which I was running low on. Interestingly (and shockingly, at least to me) enough, sticking to Tier IV helped me with both of these issues!
While I do think it was important for me to experiment with some later tier stuff to get a better handle on things such as build optimization and consumables, ultimately it was doing more harm than good to my overall development. This week, I stuck to the lower tiers and I found that my overall enjoyment was higher! I dealt more damage, had more wins, and was able to focus on my strategy a bit more without the fear of being outplayed all the time. As a result of this, I farmed credits a lot more efficiently as well. Shoutout to @ArIskandir for the suggestion!
Operations - Defense of Naval Station Newport
I thought about calling this section “Baby’s first Operation” or “Konception just tries his best” but I’ll just keep it direct.
As many of you pointed out, Newport is definitely challenging, especially coming from someone who has never done an operation before. Admittedly, I was very lucky to get to run through it with @Ahskance, @Maredraco, @Legionnare, and @SaltySeaGuy among others while on Discord. I do have to admit that I didn’t contribute as much as I would have liked. I believe I got less than 30k damage with no kills, so it was a rather pitiful showing.
However, I truly loved this experience. First, I personally get a lot of enjoyment out of challenging PvE experiences. I love working together with other players in sight of a unified goal. Second, I love that there are multiple levels of achievable success in Operations. Sure, it’s enough to just survive. But I particularly like the fact that if you succeed with flying colors, you are rewarded even more for doing so. I think I might try to make it a regular thing to team up with my fellow WG fam to conquer the weekly Operation. If I do so, I think it would be really cool to provide the replay here along with the Log to see how we worked as a team.
Ship used: Perth Results: 28k Damage, no kills, 4-Star completion (lost a battery in the literal last seconds of the game, sigh). Observations: Off the bat, I can see why Cruisers could be very useful in Ops. Damage output is fast and furious, and you can extend yourself a little further considering you can always go back and heal. As I develop my Cruiser skills, I may continue to focus on them in this setting. Perth seems like a solid choice, but I will probably try out a few others as well.
Things I need to be more cognizant of:
1. Don’t be shy (but be a little shy) - I was just too timid on my first go, I think. I never dropped below half health, but I was too worried about dying and not contributing that I…didn’t contribute. Next time, I want to extend a little further out and see if I can get a couple of devastating strikes. Not too far though!
2. Shake what Papa WG gave me - I’m not fully confident that I launched a single torp in my first game. While Cruisers do have a bit of range, that isn’t necessarily their bread and butter. I feel like I need to position myself better so that I can lay down some torps and make a real difference.
I think that about covers it this week! See you next week for some more New Player musings. Fair winds and following seas!