[2022] 2/22/22 - New Player Captain’s Log: Down and Derby

Greetings Captains,

Welcome to this week’s edition 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 6!

Accomplishments
Here’s a list of personal milestones that I hit during the week:

1. Participated in Aegis and achieved a 4 star completion
2. Played several rounds of Dirigible Derby
3. Made significant progress towards Tier IX (still rolling with BBs)
4. Unlocked the Moskva in my first (!) Firepower Premium Container

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. Since I used a few ships that I did not have experience with, I took them into training rooms to get more familiar with their specialties.
2. When getting in position (regardless of mode/game type) I have been reversing stern in as opposed to going bow in and then hoping to turn. It’s saved me a bit of damage in some situations.

BBs - Randoms (Tier 8)
With North Carolina still in my mind, I had another week of Tier VIII BB play, much to my enjoyment. This week, with more strategic placement and retreat in mind, I found that my survivability stayed about the same, but my damage output certainly increased, with me getting over 100k a few times, which is quite a lot for me!

Ships I used: North Carolina Observations: I found that I was just more useful in general this week, which made me very happy. My positioning seems to be slowly improving, as I found myself in some great positions to do some heavy damage on Cruisers/DD’s that were trying to be sneaky. I also found that even when going down, the trades were getting closer to being what I hoped to see. I am doing more damage, soaking up more damage for my teammates, and landing more shots. Plenty of improvement to go, but I like what I am seeing!

Things I need to be more cognizant of:
1. Double Teams - There are plenty of situations where I am being targeted by multiple people. While I am retreating in hopes to go dark, I need to put more thought into how I am angling in hopes that I can reduce the damage I take while trying to get into a more advantageous situation.

Operations - Aegis
Aegis was (almost) a complete success!

To me, this seemed like a very boiler-plate type of scenario. Blast some bad guys, save some good guys, and get everyone to safety. I found it simple enough, but there was a sneaky little twist for one of the objectives: Destroy 3 Enemy Battleships. We did well enough that we took care of anything close, but one of the BBs was out of the way, and we ended up completing the Scenario without killing one of them. Still a great time!

Ship used: Repulse Results: 65k Damage, 1 kill, 4-Star completion Observations: I probably played it a little too safe overall. I stayed with the herd mainly, which means I was not using the Repulse to her maximum efficiency. However, it did allow us to focus on more immediate threats and still complete the mission, even if we did miss a star. Perhaps if I took a more sturdy BB in there I would feel a bit better about spreading out and taking care of those pesky BBs.

Things I need to be more cognizant of:
1. Playing to my strengths - Right now I find that I am most effective at a distance, so I need to come with a ship/specialization that fits my skill set. I think this should be an easy enough fix!

Dirigible Derby
As soon as Dirigible Derby was announced, I knew that I would be psyched to play it! The problem was that at the time it went live, the only Tier X ship I had available to use was the Jinan, which has a skill floor way beyond where I am at currently (see past editions for my Cruiser woes). Luckily enough for me, I got a Firepower container and happened to land a Moskva in my first go! It’s still a Cruiser, but it’s a gunboat with a simple set of skills that I had at least a bit of success with.

Ship used: Jinan, Moskva Observations: I just think Dirigible Derby is a blast. It’s a unique take on the “Push the Payload” game type that allows for all kinds of comfortability in play. I will say that since this was my first experience with Tier X play, I was not NEARLY as successful/useful as I would like to be, especially in my first few matches with the Jinan. I hope this game type returns after I have some more experience under my belt, because I am sure that will only increase the fun.

Things I need to be more cognizant of:
1. Positioning - This is a tough one to address regularly, as maps and Dirigible patterns are different each round. However, I need to develop a more watchful eye on where I will be most useful as the round develops (for me, it won’t be in the circle, lol).

I think that about covers it this week! See you next week for some more New Player musings. Fair winds and following seas!

Consistency is indeed key! Hopefully I am taking steps towards getting there.
I wasn't sure if Priority Target was a useful skill to use or not. I hadn't heard many people talk about it, but it is good to know that there are uses for it.
I did get the sense that BBs might not be the best for some operations, while it is really good for others. The problem is that I am just so comfortable with the survivability that BBs bring that I have been afraid to branch out. I need to start developing skills elsewhere.
Also, thank you!

Hearing you say this really resonates. I am going to be putting this on builds going forward until I am more confident in my own skills. Thank you for this suggestion!