Guide
Your first twenty battles: a beginner’s guide to World of Warships
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The game does not explain itself especially well. This is a plan for the first few evenings that gets the important habits in early, before bad ones set. It assumes nothing except that you have installed the game.
Battles 1 to 5: co-operative, low tier, no pressure
Play co-operative battles, against bots, in a tier III or IV ship. You are learning three things and nothing else:
- How your ship turns. Every ship has a turning circle and a rudder shift time. Turn hard in an empty corner of the map until you know how long it takes to change heading.
- How long shells take to arrive. At ten kilometres it is several seconds. You aim where the target will be, not where it is.
- Where the minimap is. Enlarge it. Look at it between salvoes. It is the difference between knowing the battle and guessing at it.
Battles 6 to 10: aiming and ammunition
Still co-operative. Now add the two decisions you make constantly for the rest of your time in the game.
- Ammunition. Armour piercing against a ship showing its side, or against thin-skinned cruisers and destroyers. High explosive against a ship angled toward you, against heavy armour you cannot penetrate, and when you want fires.
- Lead. Use the dynamic crosshair. Hold your fire until you have a stable bearing rather than firing the moment the guns are loaded.
Battles 11 to 15: position
Move to random battles, but keep the tier low. Your only job this session is not to die early. Concretely:
- Pick a flank in the first thirty seconds and go there. Sailing down the middle of the map, uncommitted, helps nobody.
- Stay within supporting distance of at least one friendly ship.
- Keep your bow toward the largest guns pointed at you.
- When your health drops below about a third, withdraw and heal if you can. A living ship contributes; a dead one does not.
Battles 16 to 20: the score
Now start watching the points total at the top of the screen. Ask yourself, once a minute, a single question: is my team winning on points?
- If you are ahead, you do not need to attack. Trade carefully, stay alive, let the clock work for you.
- If you are behind, someone has to take a capture area, and waiting for someone else to do it is how teams lose with ships still afloat.
This single habit will win you more battles than any amount of improved aim.
What to spend, and when
Nothing, for the first few weeks. Play to tier V or VI, decide whether you actually enjoy the game, and only then consider whether a premium account is worth it to you. If you do decide to spend, prefer a known purchase — a specific ship, or a period of premium account — over randomised containers, where the contents are not guaranteed.
Set a limit first. Progression games are built to make spending feel like the obvious way out of a grind. Decide your monthly ceiling before you make a first purchase, not after.
Settings worth changing on day one
- Enlarge the minimap and turn on the ship name and last-known-position markers.
- Enable the alternative battle interface — usually the Alt key — which shows exact health values instead of bars.
- Turn on the dynamic crosshair if it is not already on.
- Set your graphics to something that holds a steady frame rate. Shell lead is far harder to judge when the frame rate is uneven.
Ready for battle one?
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