World of Warships: Update 0.11.4 Content and Datamining - Azur Lane Collaboration, new ASW planes, U.S.S. Black and more.

Ladies. Gentlemen. My weebs. Today is a good day. Not just because we are getting the 5th collaboration with Azur Lane but also because with the 3rd anniversary of Arknights, Mudrock is getting a new skin. Anyway, let’s talk about World of Warships.

Update 0.11.4. is bringing us the early access for the new French battlecruisers, the return of the USS Black, a new collaboration with Azur Lane and a lot more.

French Battlecruisers Early Access

For this early access, we will get a special set of combat missions with which we can collect tokens. By completing all these combat missions, you will get access to the tier VIII cruiser Cherbourg.

Obviously, if we get tokens to grind for, we also get stuff to buy with these tokens in the Armory. Special permanent camouflages “Liberation” will be available in the Armory for Cherbourg, Brest, and Marseille. The tier VII premium cruiser Toulon will also get her own “Enlightenment” permanent event camouflage but it shouldn’t be available with the tokens.

While they absolutely nailed the aesthetic for Toulon with a perfect balance of colors between the white and blue as well as gentle usage of red and gold, I can’t say the same for the “Liberation” camouflages. The darker shade of blue is just covering too many parts of the ship and doesn’t blend nearly as well with the white of the superstructure. It is honestly a shame.

The port of Marseille is also getting a relooking.

New Collaboration with Azur Lane

The Azur Lane collaboration has returned and World of Warships is once again fully embracing its status as a Gacha game. This time, we are getting six fully voiced new commanders, two standalone ships, three permanent camouflages and a few extra goodies.

The Commanders

Bismarck, Germany
Formidable, United kingdom
Zara, Italy
New Jersey, U.S.A.
Saint-Louis, France
Chapayev, U.S.S.R.

The Standalone Premium Ships

Japanese Tier IX Premium Cruiser AL Azuma

Soviet Tier III Premium Cruiser AL Aurora

The Permanent Camouflages

“New Jersey” permanent camouflage for the U.S. Tier IX Battleship Iowa

“Formidable” permanent camouflage for the British tier VIII Premium Aircraft Carrier Indomitable

“Shokaku” permanent camouflage for the Japanese tier VIII Aircraft Carrier Shokaku

I’m genuinely surprised that we didn’t get a standalone ship for New Jersey. Considering the price of tier IX premiums, Wargaming would have made themselves balls of gold if you allow me to use that expression. Alternatively, they feared the backlash from people being upset about having to sell a kidney to get their favorite waifu in World of Warships.

Now comes the ugly part though…

That’s right, loot boxes!

The Azur Lane Premium container contents have been updated:

6x Azur Lane — Siren expendable camouflages;
One of the following Commanders: Dunkerque, Jean Bart, Saint Louis, Prinz Eugen, Roon, Admiral Hipper, Bismarck, Littorio, Zara, Shōkaku, Yukikaze, Azuma, Yat Sen, Sovetskaya Rossiya, Avrora, Chapayev, Belfast, Nelson, Hood, Neptune, Formidable, Baltimore, Enterprise, Cleveland, Montpelier, or New Jersey with 10 skill points;
12x special signals of the same type (Basilisk, Wyvern, Hydra, Dragon, Red Dragon, Leviathan, Scylla, or Ouroboros).

You are reading this right, all 26 commanders of the collab are now in the premium loot boxes of the collaboration. If you are wondering, it’s 3.8% chances for each of them. I’m praying really hard that Wargaming will give us the various commanders separately as otherwise… Lord, I already see people preparing their torches and pitchforks.

Azur Lane – Siren consumable camouflage

Bonuses outside of the classic combat ones:

Commander XP: +50%
XP: +100%

As for the Azur Lane side of the collaboration, we don’t know what it will be yet but I suppose that they will announce it with the upcoming stream on Monday.

Arms Race in Random and Co-op Battles

After having appeared several times on the live server as either a format for Ranked Battles or as a separate battle type (most recently in 0.10.10), Arms Race is by now a familiar game mode for many players. The statistics and player feedback gathered throughout each of these past iterations have served to help Wargaming continually refine this game mode. As a result, Arms Race will be resurfacing for the Public Test of Update 0.11.4 as one of the possible game modes in both Random and Co-op battles.

It will be available for ships of tier IX, X, and Superships on the following eight maps: Northern Waters, Sleeping Giant, Loop, Warrior’s Path, Mountain Range, Land of fire, Islands of Ice, and Hotspot.

The matchmaker settings for Arms Race will be similar to the existing ones for Random and Co-op battles, respectively. With the addition of the Arms Race mode, the Epicenter mode will be disabled in both Random and Co-op battles.

Wargaming will decide of the fate of this game mode on the Live servers based on the feedback and statistics they will get after the Public Test of Update 0.11.4.

Ranked Battles Season 7

A new Ranked battles season will run from May 18th to July 12th. It will last for 2 updates and will be divided into 4 Sprints, each lasting 2 weeks.

In Season 7, battles in all leagues will take place in a 6 vs. 6 format on Tier VIII and IX ships. The leagues will differ in the rules for saving a star:

Bronze league — the stars are retained by the first two places by experience on a battle’s losing team;
In Silver — only the first place;
In Gold — stars cannot be saved upon defeat.

The number of stars required to reach Rank 1 will be revised so that the number of battles required to reach it, on average, does not change.

Clan Battles Season 17: Caiman

The season will run from May 25 to July 11 on Tier X ships and superships in a 7 vs. 7 format. The season will be the first to allow superships in clan battles with up to two of them per team.

Restrictions:

No more than one battleship
No aircraft carrier
Petropavlovsk and Kléber are banned
No more than two superships

Maps:

Sea of Fortune
Tears of the Desert
Mountain Range
Neighbors
Warrior’s Path
Loop
Greece

Of course, they managed to pick some of the worst possible maps for clan battles with Mountain Range, Neighbors and Greece…

Submarine Updates

With the release of Update 0.11.4, the following changes to submarines will take effect:

The ability to launch conventional torpedoes at maximum depth has been disabled.

Since Update 0.11.2, conventional torpedoes can no longer be aimed vertically, making them extremely ineffective when launched deep below the surface.

We disabled the increased depletion rate of a submarine’s dive capacity when detected by the enemy.
- The relevant Commander skills and Upgrade have also changed: instead of adding a modifier to the increased dive capacity loss rate, they will modify the battery regeneration rate.

As the increased dive capacity depletion rate when spotted was already negligible and had little effect on gameplay, we decided to remove the feature altogether.

Now, when a sonar ping is emitted by an undetected submarine, a visual effect will display within several kilometers vicinity of the submarine itself, but the sonar ping itself will no longer be visible as it moves across the map.

The problem is that, while on paper, the change might be good, in action, it’s absolutely terrible. On maps with big waves, the highlight is hard to spot and on top of that, it barely lasts one or two seconds. Overall, it’s literally a buff to submarines right now.

Minimap changes

Wargaming added new highly requested by players adjustable settings for the minimap:

“Highlight exact position on map” — when double-clicking on the minimap, the exact point that was clicked will be highlighted to other players on your team, instead of the square surrounding the point.
“Report position of objects” — double clicking objects on the map (ships, key areas, forts, and buff areas) will result in a team-wide report highlighting that object, similar to how the hotkeys F3 and F5 are used.

The minimap settings have been divided into 2 sections in the interface:

Circle settings
Other settings

This is definitely an absolutely great change, especially for clan battles or competitive gameplay as a whole.

New Anti-Submarine Warfare Planes and Depth Charges Models

Wargaming finally gave a proper plane and depth charge model to the different major nations having access to ASW airstrikes and since I was really bored, I had a closer look at them.

U.S.A

United Kingdom

Japan

Germany

U.S.S.R.

France

Italy

Return of U.S.S. Black Event

It is happening guys. U.S.S. Black, the tier IX U.S. Premium destroyer is coming back. There will be a special campaign happening in Update 0.11.4 through which you will obtain an American commander with 12 skill points.

From 10th of June to 1st of July, you will be able to earn and exchange tokens for sequential bundles which contain historical Commanders, a patch, a flag, and a permanent camouflage for the tier IX Premium destroyer Black. To unlock all the bundles, you will need to have 24 000 tokens, which can be purchased with doubloons at a rate of 1:1. You can also earn up to 2 500 tokens during the course of the portal campaign, which itself is enough to purchase bundles with the patch, themed expendable camouflages, signals, and more. At the end of the chain of sequential bundles, the U.S.S. Black itself will be available to purchase for 19 300 doubloons.

Immediately following the end of the portal campaign, U.S.S. Black will be made available in the Armory in exchange for Coal. The exact cost will be about the same as that of Neustrashimy. It will be possible to apply the Ships Armory coupon, which will incidentally be refreshed in June. Thus, in you will be able to purchase her either with Doubloons or with Coal.

U.S.S. Black commemorative flag

Long story short, unless you really don’t know what to do with your doubloons and are somehow unable to wait an additional month for the ship, you are better off waiting for the ship to become available for coal.