Which play style do people want to see more Aggressive or passive ?

[HogHammer]

On "most ships" there are what I would say are "standard" captain skills for the first 10 points.  From there, your own play style and battle scenario may dictate your preferences.  I find some of the build guides available and player suggestions valuable for this decision process, but at the end of the day, you have to pick what skills are best for you.  Most of these builds offered are what I would say are "common tread" builds, as they are pretty much the same.  It is usually one or two choices in skills that really rely on personal preference.  In other words, do your homework and test out a few builds to see what fits your play style best.

[Andrewbassg]

1 hour ago, OldSchoolGaming_Youtube said:

RPF

[Wolfswetpaws]

1 hour ago, OldSchoolGaming_Youtube said:

Hydro is pretty meaningless for stationary bow tanking cruisers with all the supersonic torps in the game at the moment, hell even if a stationary Kleber had 6 km hydro I dont think he could accelerate quickly enough to dodge Halland/Jeager torps.

And Radar is only useful to spot DDs during 20-ish seconds every 2-3-ish minutes. During the rest of the 2-3 minutes a Jeager can sit 6 km away from you and blast you're broadside, but if you have RPF and youre fighting an enemy cruisers 10 km away from you and RPF is pointing another way it is time to react.

For me the biggest "broken/OP/Unbalanced" thing in this game which most often decides matches is information .... Information is Key! Hence the reason why CV planespotting. radars thru islands, hydro, black magic sub hydro and ordinary information updating on the minimap is so key to win. And for me RPF, in combination with information on the minimap is a huge part of that.

I dont use RPF on every ship, but for those very effective att killing stuff I do. And for me Petro with its tankyness and hydro and his 12.4 km conceal and 12 km radar fits in that category. I rather kill 1 or 2 DDs in a game then get 10-15% more DPM. 

I also use RPF on all my fragile boats that doesn't wanna end up in knife fights like Kamikaze, Asashio, Yugumo and Shima. If I had Jeager I would definitely invest in RPF for him as well. RPF + Minimap makes it so you can be in right place at the right time and also avoid things trying to kill you.

But thats just me. 

That may be.  🙂 
Though, I do recall the time when I stealth-torped a Dutch cruiser (that was island-hugging for too long) while sailing my Agano.
12 km torpedo range and 11.1 km detection radius.  I barely could do it.  But the "camper" sat there too long and got dev-struck.  
 

 

[OldSchoolGaming_Youtube]

1 hour ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

That may be.  🙂 
Though, I do recall the time when I stealth-torped a Dutch cruiser (that was island-hugging for too long) while sailing my Agano.
12 km torpedo range and 11.1 km detection radius.  I barely could do it.  But the "camper" sat there too long and got dev-struck.  
 

 

Yes, the time when you could sit stationary bow tanking in a cruiser or BB is actually way gone. For that to be viable you pretty much need to have a perfect game with no CVs or Subs ..... or new "Support CVs" .... or new Leg Mod Golden Lion ..... or Jeager ... and those games are rare.

[BOBTHEBALL]

9 hours ago, OldSchoolGaming_Youtube said:

Hydro is pretty meaningless for stationary bow tanking cruisers with all the supersonic torps in the game at the moment, hell even if a stationary Kleber had 6 km hydro I dont think he could accelerate quickly enough to dodge Halland/Jeager torps

If you're in that position to begin with I'll just say maybe improve your positioning. Petro shouldn't be sitting somewhere letting a DD torp it for free, next time position better. RPF is not the worst choice as the final 4p on Petro but there's a much better one called TGG. You do you though,

[Wolfswetpaws]

6 hours ago, OldSchoolGaming_Youtube said:

Yes, the time when you could sit stationary bow tanking in a cruiser or BB is actually way gone. For that to be viable you pretty much need to have a perfect game with no CVs or Subs ..... or new "Support CVs" .... or new Leg Mod Golden Lion ..... or Jeager ... and those games are rare.

 

38 minutes ago, BOBTHEBALL said:

If you're in that position to begin with I'll just say maybe improve your positioning. Petro shouldn't be sitting somewhere letting a DD torp it for free, next time position better. RPF is not the worst choice as the final 4p on Petro but there's a much better one called TGG. You do you though,

For what it is worth, I do feel there is merit in having the RDF skill.
Of course, having both RDF and Top-Grade-Gunner probably won't hurt.
Though I wonder about which sorts of builds (lighthouse or stealth, for example) would be the best framework for Top-Grade-Gunner?
How many points would need to be invested for a complete skill-build?  Compared with how many points a player has available on a given Commander?  🤔
Would the choices be influenced by the specific ship in question?  And so on, and so on ...  🙂 

[BOBTHEBALL]

21 minutes ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

 

For what it is worth, I do feel there is merit in having the RDF skill. 

There is yeah, it's just not as prominent as with other ships.

[OldSchoolGaming_Youtube]

20 hours ago, BOBTHEBALL said:

If you're in that position to begin with I'll just say maybe improve your positioning. Petro shouldn't be sitting somewhere letting a DD torp it for free, next time position better. RPF is not the worst choice as the final 4p on Petro but there's a much better one called TGG. You do you though,

"That position", bow tanking near a cap so you can use you're radar, is pretty much how most Petro players play the ship, at least the first half of the game.

So not sure how to improve it? Spamming HE from 10 line? Petro with its almost concealment range radar, tankyness, icebreaker, hydro and decent AA, ability to support DDs and Subs in the cap with radar and Airplane ASWs, is pretty much build for that position. Staying further back than that youre radar and ASW become pretty useless for support, you're DD/Subs die and then you lose. 

So, for me its a worthy choice to go with RPF. But we can agree to disagree on this.

Edited January 16 by OldSchoolGaming_Youtube

[ArIskandir]

21 hours ago, BOBTHEBALL said:

RPF is not the worst choice as the final 4p on Petro but there's a much better one called TGG.

Honestly I always value more intel and expanded functionality than fractional DPM enhancements. Personally I didn't use RPF on Petro but TGG is imo very little for a 4pt investment.

I know there's this school of thought among many good players where DPM is king, but for me the difference is not all that relevant when compared to upgrades that let you expand your intel gathering and functionality, it is the same guessing where's your enemy than knowing where's your enemy. Certainty lets you control the engagement to a higher degree, and very often the advantage of having the initiative (aquiring your target faster and getting the first shot) more than overcomes a 1 or 2 seconds reload advantage. 

The RNG dispersion values are so significant that the practical effect of a fractional 10% reload is undistiguishable from just having good or bad RNG.  

Edited January 16 by ArIskandir

[Ensign Cthulhu]

39 minutes ago, ArIskandir said:

Honestly I always value more intel and expanded functionality than fractional DPM enhancements.

This is why, generally speaking, my cruiser and destroyer captains tend to take RPF at their 14th point and firepower enhancements afterwards. There are some exceptions, but they are either deliberate choices to go all-in on firepower for co-op or ones that I inadvertently missed in the recent reskill (e.g. my Felix Schultz captain, who will likely be taking his RPF at point 18 instead). 

There are advocates of NOT taking RPF because it can be used against you to triangulate or deduce your position, but having tried that, I found it didn't work for me.

[Kynami]

RPF is one of those skills where it gets stronger when more than one person has it. And using it against people is easier when you only have to worry about one instance of it swapping around your team. In both cases its massively more useful to a division or full clan where pings and voice comms can state when its on somebody else and at which angles your own copies of RPF are pointing.

Yes just having your own copy can be somewhat informative, but if your RPF is the only one on the flank and a division is paying attention they'll know to a fair degree where you are. Contrast this to both a destroyer and a radar cruiser having it working in tandem and being able to fairly accurately know when to spring a radar trap. And indeed outside of mods people on vanilla clients won't know if they are being located by more than one copy of RPF.

As for my personal thoughts on TGG? Its important for lighthouse builds because they aim to burn people down by always having buffs up that are reliant on having people within their detection range. For everyone else its more of a personal preference choice.

[Wolfswetpaws]

3 hours ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

This is why, generally speaking, my cruiser and destroyer captains tend to take RPF at their 14th point and firepower enhancements afterwards. There are some exceptions, but they are either deliberate choices to go all-in on firepower for co-op or ones that I inadvertently missed in the recent reskill (e.g. my Felix Schultz captain, who will likely be taking his RPF at point 18 instead). 

There are advocates of NOT taking RPF because it can be used against you to triangulate or deduce your position, but having tried that, I found it didn't work for me.

Using the opponent's RDF against them involves using two or more allied ships.
As the one which is "Located" reports their (located) status to the team, the players then maneuver and when another member of the team is "Located" it provides a clue about where the RDF user might be.  
If properly done with enough ships, they can get a pretty good idea of the approximate position of the opponent RDF user.

Granted, I've only seen this discussed in old forum topics and demonstrated on perhaps one or two youtube videos (which I cannot remember off of the top of my head, at the moment).
Anyway, as said in the movie The Ghost and the Darkness, "I believe the theory is sound".
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116409/