A general and incomplete guide for the novice to improve their win rate and damage amount per game.

[Subtle_Octavian]

This is a general and incomplete guide, but it's aimed at the 40% win rate player who wants to improve. If you find you die too fast, or do too little damage, have no game impact,  are always in the wrong place on the map (no action) all the time, or can't seem to make big numbers when you get good opportunities, this guide can help you.

It's roughly based on little white mouse's guide to improving win rate, still a highly rated read.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160806062617/http://forum.worldofwarships.com/index.php?/topic/75077-how-to-control-your-win-rate/

These are the basic points most people will fail at, and have poor results. Improving them, in order of importance can increase your win rate substantially. You can expect to rise from 40% win rate to at least 55% just by following these basics.

Let's start:

1. Positioning

2. Mini map awareness

3. Good aiming

4. Impactful play

5. Correct usage of spotting and consumables

6. Correct timing of capture points by being aware of time and points

7. Using concealment, but also dropping concealment to make an enemy feel threatened.

 

Let's examine them in order:

1. Positioning

Destroyer:

As a destroyer, you want to be positioning to catch the enemy destroyer. This means instead of pushing into the cap, you stay at the edge of their detection ideally at an island to detect them and farm them. You run aground (the fastest way to stop without the long slow and speed up penalty) and back into a cap, to be able to run away. I would never advise you go bow in into a cap, ever. Your goal in a radar rich enemy lineup is to trigger radars so they waste them. Touch the cap while reversing, then run ideally behind cover. You spot destroyers early game so team can chip them down, in many cases without firing so you keep your stealth. Your stealth is a currency you use to buy wins with.

You use radio location to send torpedoes in front of unspotted ships, to outright kill them or to make them slow down, making them easy targets to shoot. If you are a gunboat destroyer, you prioritize killing destroyers or making their hp so low they become ineffective. Your priority is weak, low hp ships, and ships with no heal. Certain destroyers excel at shooting from range to chip down enemies while being hard to hit. Learn to manage stealth and abuse the battleship's long reload to farm them. Attack after they fire, and go dark before their guns are on you. Avoid their secondary ranges (memorize the secondary ranges of the nations). Never try to yolo any ship from behind, unless they are bow into an island. (they can easily dodge). Remember that under 3km most destroyers can easily citadel light cruisers. French destroyers have a saturation mechanic that allows you to do attacks other nations cannot survive.

If someone takes torpedoes and damage controls, announce in chat that they have blown their dcp, and to burn them down. This can turn a two torp healed flood into a kill.

Cruiser:

As a cruiser you are looking to assist the destroyers early game, then mid game try to burn down weak battleships. Manage early game detection, as every battleship will be looking to kill a cruiser at the start of the game. That focus always changes to other battleships, as ape likes to fight ape. If someone takes a torpedo, you announce it in char, and you start fires on them after they dcp. You should have your head on a permanent swivel to target people who blow DCP. You save your hp and push mid and late game. Some cruisers have more battleship type of roles, or more direct damage roles like dm/salem. Some are damage sponges with poor dpm and are only mildly annoying until end game when battleships have low hp, and then they become very deadly. Being hard to kill has a value all it's own. Conserve hp and try to stay hard to hit until late mid game and then use your range and position to attack distracted ships and finish them off. There's a lot more to this but that is the general plan.

Battleship:

Battleships, you stay mid or near the cap to support. You only fire at good targets, and you go dark so people lose focus on you. For brawling ships, you try to conserve hp for mid and late game, push and crush almost dead ships. For long range ships, you try to get the broadside of a flank, and farm them. For DOT ships like thunderer, you juggle fires while managing hp, and try not to kite so far away you become useless in end game. There's a lot to battleship, more than I can mention here. Memorizing overmatch is critical, as is where to aim on other battleships. Not getting too close to an island where you can be yolo rushed is important. 

I would highly recommend you watch some unicum players streams and previous plays. Damage record replays are not a good learning tool. Turn the sound off, and watch how they position early game, as that is the most important thing. After that watch when they choose to disengage, as this improves your survivability and sustain. Study the critical kills they make, and how  / when they push to the win in late game. Bring your win rate up substantially blindly mimicing the positioning of better players. Know when to fight, when to cut and run, how to use going dark to win.

Surface ships:

Learn the skill of kiting. Kiting can be used to finish off weak enemies who insist on yoloing in after you. Some ships are assured death to push into if they are kiting. Be wary of detecting a ship and seeing that it is already turned away, especially some specific light cruisers. They seek to kill you by exploiting your aggression, dcp timer, lack of cover, detection range, and mispositioning. Knowing what to not attack is as important as knowing what to attack. You might sink them, but it will be a pyrrhic victory.

2. Mini map awareness, map awareness.

You should be looking at the mini map every 2 seconds to look for opportunity, risk, empty capture points or gaps to exploit. You will notice most super unicum players head to specific spots, that offer advantages. You should learn them as well. Bad players always "chase the carrot" meaning they always go full speed to a buff or a cap, and you can kill them with predictive torps, or ambushing from cover. Most will have their guns aimed forward, completely unprepared from a side attack. It is possible to aim using only the minimap and hit ships you cannot directly see in the game. There is a lot of depth to the mini map and what it can do for you, and grows in importance and power the better you get.

3. Good aiming

This is incredibly important. If you find you are always under or over leading, you need to play a lot of coop to get the aiming down. This is very important on low gun count ships like incomparable, and on lofty shell ships like Worcester, etc. If you master lofty shell aiming, you can make even range mod cruisers work. Aiming is absolutely critical to your impact. Knowing where to aim on each ship is also important. Aiming at the water to arm a shell to kill a light cruiser, vs getting only over penetrations. This is highly skill dependent, and requires knowledge of all the armor layouts and shell characteristics. There is no easy solution but memorization, and intuition based on repeat play.

As a destroyer, you need to learn to lead more when an enemy is coming out of a turn, as they will accelerate. This is the most common "whiff" a destroyer makes, they blindly trust the white aiming chevron. When they have hydro, drop staggered torpedoes so they slow down into the second set. If they have no hydro, notice if they have been straight lining the whole game or not. Straight liners are the easiest to kill. Learn to aim where ships want to go, not where the white chevron says to aim. If a ship is fleeing, and there is one gap, aim for the gap. Psychology of the target plays a lot to where you aim. Learning how to layer your drops so the dodge is hard is critical. Dropping all three sets in the same white chevron will stack them up, and leave predictable gaps! Stagger your drops. 

As a submarine, aim ahead of an enemy so the torpedoes turn into them when you ping. Aim for the bow, so even if they dcp, the torpedoes will still catch the back of the ship. The worst place to aim is the stern of a ship, unless they are running directly away.

Battleships can stagger their shots to hit maneuverable ships by aiming at the water line, one low, one high. They will generally turn in or away when you shoot, and staggering throws them off. This works for speed juking, one shot ahead, then stagger them backwards  to counter the speed juke.

This is just a general guide.

4. Impactful play

Are you spending all game camping a rock and radaring? You are useless. Are you a battleship that is too close to an island to shoot? You are useless. Are you a destroyer stuck behind a rock in cap the whole game? You are useless. The real impactful play is to get where the enemy cannot angle to you, and to farm them. The absolute worst kind of play is to get stuck bow in, the entire game, backing up. If you limit your ability to do damage to near zero, you contribute near zero.

5. Correct usage of spotting and consumables

Bad usage:

Using your radar too early when the enemy is behind an island. Using smoke and then sitting in it, blinding your team. Using hydro far too late or far too soon. Panic smoking that blinds your team. Burning through all of your consumables early in the game. Smoking (at all) while unspotted early game, as it tells people what cap you are at, what ship you are in and where you are heading. Shooting early game (blindly) towards enemy spawn. Good players will see the incoming shells and can recognize the caliber and arc, telling them what ship you are in, and where you are. 

Good usage:

Managing your heals by going dark to recover fire damage. A bad player merely mashes heal and repair without timing or consideration for spotting. Try to heal in darkness, to get the full heal. Try to repair only at your spotting limit, so you repair and go dark at the same time. It's far better to heal all the fire damage then to just get 2 more fires in 10 seconds while healing and lose most of your hp capacity. 

Using smoke to conceal high impact ships like colbert, atlanta, etc and then spot for them to win games. Taking focus off battleships "STOP SHOOTING GO DARK I SMOKE NOW" can save your battleships and win games. Using smoke to help unicum players will win games.  Spotting from behind enemy lines in a dd wins games, especially late game. When the enemy can no longer go dark and heal, they will be burned down. If you do this, NEVER TARGET a ship when behind enemy lines, as it tells them someone has direct line of sight. Untarget and avoid directly aiming at a ship to avoid auto target. Just spot, and torpedo where the enemy wants to go. You don't need to lock on to do this.  

6. Correct timing of capture points by being aware of time and points

If the enemy is winning, but intent on chasing your Thunderer to the j line, let them. March up all the caps and take them, then take a flank and slow them. By the time they notice, and turn around they will not only show broadside to your ships, they will most likely never be able to capture again in time. Avoid them and simply re-capture once they are on the next cap. Denying the points to the enemy in late game wins games, and even if your entire team dies, if you have all three caps and time is low, you can just run for a corner and win the game by not dying. Basically, when there is 9 minutes left, you should be flipping caps and using whatever you have to stop them from returning easily. In standard battle, trying to capture the enemy base takes too long, and someone will typically get back in time. Only useful to buy some time by breaking up an enemy push to your base.

Entering into a cap at the very edge to stop the clock (points) and let your team win is crucial DD play. 

7. Using concealment, but also dropping concealment to make an enemy feel threatened.

High threat ships when spotted can completely stop a push. If I see my flank faltering, and I am in an asashio, shooting to be spotted while getting behind cover lets them know you are there, while minimizing risk. Its often enough to stop a push cold. Same for submarines. Simply pinging at range so people know there is a sub there is enough to make half of the ships leave for another cap. 

Pushing down a flank in a battleship or cruiser in a losing game and crushing people / rushing the carrier will get at least half the fleet to recall. Sometimes this desperate tactic can outright win the game, especially if you actually kill the carrier. This also applies to some high threat destroyers. I am sure you can remember this; your team is winning and you are suddenly aware of a very high threat behind you. Most pushes will slow, reverse, split or even stop. This can buy enough time for your ships to go dark and repair and turn the tide of a losing battle. 

 

If anyone has parts to amend to this, post them here and I will add them in.

Edited December 27, 2023 by Subtle_Octavian

[HogHammer]

Here is the original guide you referenced by @LittleWhiteMouse

Nice overview @Subtle_Octavian, by the way!

[I_cant_Swim_]

I’ve played some 500- odd games in random, almost all at tier V, and learnt a lot from div partners who were far better than I. But i wish i had assimilated all the knowledge shared here first. Still, never too late to learn, as Tier VI is next.

@Subtle_Octavian thanks for a great post, well worth a feature spot.

[BOBTHEBALL]

Very very good, an awesome read which gave plenty of good points.

[meatgrindr]

Great resource, especially for new players, but seasoned as well.  should get the thumbtack stating as much.  I am an average player at best, and with my game counts, don't really expect my numbers to increase at a fast rate, but valuable info nonetheless.  thanks OP.

[Itwastuesday]

Cool. I'll just say stop lemminging, stop island voyeurism and stop chasing 2 ships with your 8 ship lemming formation. Stop quarter speeding start of match with destroyer and especially stop trying to squeeze your battleship in thw same square as another friendly battleship.

[clammboy]

Wow that was a great read and very helpful really well done. Thanks for taking the time and effort to post that @Subtle_Octavian

[Guest]

thanks @Subtle_Octavian very interesting read

can i just point out that  i cant understand why players are obsessed with win rate . i dont care about win rate  im only playing for the enjoyment  / making new friends  and  getting away from  a day of gripe and grime . 

i can get salty at times  but thats because im getting carried away in the moment , who doesnt 

so win rate for me  means nothing . i either have a good battle  or im swimming with the crustations at the bottom 

[Subtle_Octavian]

6 hours ago, Gaelic_knight said:

thanks @Subtle_Octavian very interesting read

can i just point out that  i cant understand why players are obsessed with win rate . i dont care about win rate  im only playing for the enjoyment  / making new friends  and  getting away from  a day of gripe and grime . 

i can get salty at times  but thats because im getting carried away in the moment , who doesnt 

so win rate for me  means nothing . i either have a good battle  or im swimming with the crustations at the bottom 

You can blame the complete lack of any real prestige / tiering. All you can go by is PR and WR.

It's a competitive game, so you need to gauge skill somehow.

Even the most basic PVP game has laddering but WG for some reason takes an opposite approach. 

As a result you wind up with the gaming equivalent of an 8 year old vs Usain bolt in some games.

Edited December 29, 2023 by Subtle_Octavian

[Snargfargle]

51 minutes ago, Subtle_Octavian said:

Even the most basic PVP game has laddering but WG for some reason takes an opposite approach. 

As a result you wind up with the gaming equivalent of an 8 year old vs Usain bolt in some games.

The problem with games that have ranks is that many players spend more time trying to game the system to increase rank rather than just playing the game. You even see this to an extent in WOWS where some players have topped the leaderboards in "OP" ships then just sat on their laurels, knowing that nobody can come close once the ship had been nerfed. It's pretty easy for a moderately decent player to game the system by re-rolling to a new account too. I did this several years ago as an experiment, abandoning the account soon after.