December Update: Dragon's Breath

November 25, 2021

Maintenance times:

Xbox: 2:00 – 5:00 AM Central / 7:00 – 10:00 AM UTC, November 29th
PlayStation: 2:00 – 5:00 AM Central / 7:00 – 10:00 AM UTC, November 29th

Update size:

Xbox One (S,X) ~1700 MB
Xbox Series S/X ~1700 MB
PS4 ~1500 MB
PS5 ~1500 MB

Shorter updates—this one runs for 3 weeks like the previous one—do not mean less content! Let’s dive straight into the holiday preparations and find out what’s waiting for you under the tree! Let's start with this: F8DYFSHZJ6.

This update features the deepwater torpedo mechanic, presented in the new Pan-Asian destroyer lineup, offering you an interesting trade-off. Here are some basics:

- Deepwater torpedoes can only hit deeper draft ships, namely anything BUT destroyers. So in many cases you'll be able to literally shoot through your teammates or enemies to hit the ships behind the frontline.

- Deepwater torpedoes on average deal more immediate damage and have slightly better flooding capabilities.

- While you will have better chances against bigger ships, enemy destroyers are a bit of a different kind of threat and will often require support from your teammates to deal with.

Read on to find out more and watch the video demonstration of deep water torpedoes!

The Origin of Wisdom Campaign Continues

There’s still plenty of time to add two Premiums to your arsenal: French Tier IV destroyer Siroco at milestone 40 and German Tier VII cruiser Mainz at milestone 120—both are available if you have the Admiralty Backing. Even if you decide to start now, you still have time to catch up to the action, but you must complete the missions from the previous weeks.

With big 5.1-inch (130 mm) guns and decent torpedoes, along with the Main Battery Reload Booster consumable, Siroco is as flexible as it gets!

Between her rapid-firing guns, improved Sonar, armor as good as a heavy cruiser's one, and 4x4 torpedo launchers, she's capable of punching way above her weight!

Here’s the full list of items you can get while blasting through the campaign:

Rewards you can get without the Admiralty Backing:

70x Common boosters
21x Type 1 camouflages
21x Type 2 camouflages
21x Type 3 camouflages
270,000 Commander XP
200,000 credits
2,000 Global XP
16x Promotion Orders
1x Insignia
1x Personal Commendation
7 days of Premium account
2x Fall Big crates
1x French Commander crate
1x German Commander crate
1x patch background
1x patch Symbol

Value of the rewards without the Admiralty Backing: 18,278 doubloons

Additional rewards you can get with the Admiralty Backing (2,500 doubloons):

60x Rare boosters
45x Epic boosters
35x Type 1 camouflages
35x Type 2 camouflages
35x Type 3 camouflages
170,000 Commander XP
1,300,000 credits
13,000 Global XP
24x Promotion Orders
4x Insignias
3x Personal Commendations
750 doubloons
6x Fall Big crates
French Tier IV destroyer Siroco
German Tier VII cruiser Mainz

Total value of the rewards with the Admiralty Backing: 80,165 doubloons

Pan-Asian Navy Arrives in Full Force

A brand-new branch of Pan-Asian destroyers, starting with Tier I Shi An—being effectively American cruiser Chester (cruisers are a standard starting point for destroyer lines)—and peaking with Tier VII Hsienyang, is arriving along with two new Commanders, Sa Zhenbing and Deng Shichang, to helm the ships!

Their Base Traits and unique skills look as follows:

Sa Zhenbing

Base Trait: Tin Opener

Increase your destroyer's AP shell ricochet angle by up to 8°.

This means that you can deal damage with these shells for longer when enemy ships take up angled positions.

4th row skill: Knuckle Duster

Increase damage to enemy ship engines and rudders by up to 40%; reduce detectability of your torpedoes by up to 100m at the expense of reduced damage (up to 10%).

Deng Shichang

Base Trait: Quantum of Solace

Increase torpedo damage and destroyer concealment (by up to 3% for both).

4th row skill: Knuckle Duster

Increase damage to enemy ship engines and rudders by up to 40%; reduce detectability of your torpedoes by up to 100m at the expense of reduced damage (up to 10%).

The new line brings a new mechanic: deepwater torpedoes that can only hit ships with deeper drafts—everything other than destroyers. They can inflict heavy damage and are great at flooding any hulls they can hit—a fact that offsets the ship-type limitations. What is also interesting about the line is that Tier VI Gadjah Mada and Tier VII Hsienyang can take a 180 (OK, 90!) degree turn in playstyle and trade in their Smoke Generators for Radars, making spotting on demand way easier.

Research this branch now—it will come in handy for the upcoming Dragon Fleet Bureau Project.

Doubled Down Bureau Kicks Off the Holiday Preparations

Two Bureaus are better than one! You’ll discover the truth of that in this Update, which will present you with a choice! You can go for Legendary Tier USN BB Montana within the Project of the same name—this massive battleship offers 4x3 gun configuration and a very solid torpedo protection that is perfect for competing at the highest tier. Or, if you're looking to enhance your personnel—a haul of Commander Progression items is scattered in the Dragon Fleet Project, which can be boosted by the all-new Pan-Asian navy branch. Just a reminder: with active Premium Account, you can run through two Projects simultaneously. Also note that none of the Projects are time-limited, but Dragon Fleet may be deprecated in the future, so just make sure to start it!

A Milestone of a Ranked Season Awaits

It’s already Season 20! Rejoice in the most competitive atmosphere you can imagine during the holidays, from December 9 through 13, and prepare to fight for prizes playing Tier V ships.

For this milestone season, we decided to implement a twist: for the first time, aircraft carriers are available, so if you’re a master aviator, it’s your time to shine. Check our upcoming dedicated blog post next week for the full details.

Snow Camos

To bring a bit more of the seasonal flavor, three new Snow permanent camouflages are landing in this update. You can obtain them for Alaska, Lightning, and Gneisenau in the Store.

New Ships of the Update

Strasbourg, a French Tier VI Premium battleship of the Dunkerque class, was considered to be an effective antidote against German raiders. Her strengths are centered mostly around a speedy main battery reload (including the corresponding consumable) and traverse, as well as an all-bow turret configuration that offers interesting playstyle layers.

On top of that, Japanese Tier VII battleship Kii, with her torpedoes and impressive health pool, is coming back to the Store for 750,000 Global XP.

New things are sometimes just old things that have been forgotten, and while the following content has definitely not been forgotten, it's still back! Prepare for a resounding comeback of ships, Commanders, and themed in-game items from: