February update: fortes fortuna adiuvat

January 27, 2022

Maintenance times:

Xbox: 02:00 – 05:00 AM Central / 07:00 – 10:00 AM UTC, January 31
PlayStation: 02:00 – 05:00 AM Central / 07:00 – 10:00 AM UTC, January 31

Update size:

Xbox One (S,X) ~3,300 MB
Xbox Series S/X ~3,300 MB
PS4 ~3,300 MB
PS5 ~3,300 MB

Captains, the first update of 2022 is around the corner! A solid batch of new content, including ships of all sorts and colors, awaits you—let's check it out!

“Imagine reading those long texts though, ugh!”... If that’s what you're thinking, a fresh hot portion of TLDR is coming right up:

Italian battleships arrive in Early Access with a new shell type to show off
Azur Lane returns for wave III of the collaboration
German BB Brandenburg of Tier VII representing the Kriegsmarine awaits at the end of the campaign
Cross-platform Divisions & friend list, plus three n-e-w maps!
Duel Ranked: Five seasons of 1v1 fights
The first aircraft carrier rolls into the Bureau alongside HMS Minotaur
Permanent cost decrease for some Tier VI Premium ships
Lunar New Year celebrations bring some fascinating content
...and that’s not even everything!

Before proceeding, let's redeem 6VQN3EPSVH at https://wowslegends.com/code-redeemer to get 6x Regia Marina camouflages and 1x Common crate.

Italian Battleships in Early Access

Are you brave? Because Early Access Italian battleships are only for courageous captains! You can get any of the four listed below in dedicated Italian Battleship regular and big crates (the guarantee system is active for the big ones—a ship drops at least once per every 20 containers). Tier IV Premium battleship Giulio Cesare is also available in the big crates to further expand your forces. Tier VII Vittorio Veneto is arriving in the next update to mark the branch moving to the tech tree.

Tier III Dante Alighieri
Tier IV Conte di Cavour
Tier V Andrea Doria
Tier VI Francesco Caracciolo

The new line brings a new mechanic: Semi-AP shells for secondary battery guns. These new shells deal high damage when penetrating armor and no damage in case of ricochets or no penetration. SAP shells do not cause fires or splash damage, and due to detonation on contact, they’re unlikely to score citadel hits.

If you're looking into further expanding your Regia Marina range of ships, don’t miss a discount on Italian Premiums during the first week of the update. There’s, of course, some icing on the cake—all-new cruiser Gorizia, while BB Roma is coming back, too! She will be obtainable for 750,000 Global XP.

We'll take a closer look at these mammoths in a special blog post in the coming days.

Azur Lane Returns With Wave III

The wait is over—reinforcements are here! The new update brings the third wave of our collaboration with Azur Lane, available from February 7. This time, the content batch includes six Commanders with unique voiceovers, three ships and the same number of skins, plus a couple of all-new flags. The Commanders are available both standalone and through special crates. The Commander range includes:

Eagle Union/U.S. Montpelier
Sakura Empire/Japan Azuma, Shoukaku and Yukikaze
Northern Parliament/Soviet Union Avrora
Sardegna Empire/Italy Littorio

The ships and skins are connected to the same characters. The ships arrive with the likes of Cleveland-class Montpelier, Yukikaze, and Avrora, while the skins are presented by Azuma, Shoukaku, and Littorio. The Littorio skin goes with Roma, which is going to be available in the Store for 750,000 Global XP.

Importantly, two ships are different from their prototypes. Montpelier turns quicker but shoots slower than Cleveland; AL Yukikaze differs quite a bit by betting on her main guns—they traverse and reload faster, while her torpedoes have increased range but are slower and easier to spot.

All things Avrora are available through a dedicated free bundle that includes the ship with the Northern Parliament flag and a special mission that offers the Commander herself as a reward.

We’ll cover the newest part of collaboration in detail in an upcoming blog post.

Azur Lane and its characters are trademarks of Yostar, Manjuu & Yongshi. ©2017 Manjuu Co., Ltd. & Yongshi Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved. ©2017 Yostar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ©Wargaming.net. All Rights Reserved.

Pride of Prussia Campaign

The headliner of our latest campaign, German Tier VII Premium battleship Brandenburg, is close to the Bismarck class but has more guns, coming in with a total of twelve pieces of 12 inches (305 mm). She also has more secondary turrets—that’s a lot of firepower!

With 100 milestones over 5 weeks and the catch-up mechanic enabled, here’s what you can get:

Rewards you can get without the Admiralty Backing:

50x Common Boosters
15x Type 1 camouflages
15x Type 2 camouflages
15x Type 3 camouflages
6x Regia Marina camouflages
235,000 Commander XP
600,000 credits
5,250 Global XP
11x Promotion Orders
1x Insignia
1x Commendation
7 days of Premium Account
5x Italian Battleship crates
1x Italian Battleship Big crate
1x German Commander crate
1x patch background
1x patch symbol

Value of the rewards without the Admiralty Backing: 15,730 doubloons

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

50x Rare Boosters
25x Type 1 camouflages
25x Type 2 camouflages
25x Type 3 camouflages
15x Regia Marina camouflages
160,000 Commander XP
2,400,000 credits
19,500 Global XP
29x Promotion Orders
3x Insignias
3x Commendations
750 doubloons
9x Italian Battleship crates
4x Italian Battleship Big crates
German Tier VII battleship Brandenburg

Total value of the rewards with the Admiralty Backing: 69,935 doubloons

Cross-Platform Divisions and Friend List

You no longer need to persuade your friend which console is superior just because you want them to play with you—we’re introducing cross-platform divisions, and, of course, friend lists. Those are going to work exactly the same way as they currently do but just make your friends from the “other side” eligible to add so you can play together! Please note that this feature does not cover mobile devices while that version of the game is in the testing phase. Keep an eye on our blog to stay tuned!

Dueling in Ranked

1v1. No carriers. Five seasons with the ship tiers ascending each season, from III to VII. Great prizes, including Steel. That’s all—get out there and prove you're the best duelist! Importantly, the ship type matching will allow for any combinations, so you can absolutely get matched in a cruiser against a battleship or a destroyer! You can either try to maximize your ship's built-in proficiency and make sure you're always on top with a disadvantaged type, or go for a balanced survival build that might have some answers for all comers. Expect detailed information to be revealed down the line in a blog post that will include a breakdown of the prizes.

Double Bureau Reshuffle

Mighty HMS Minotaur powered us through the holiday update, and it’s now time to take her rightful place among the Bureau Projects. If you already own the cruiser from the Theseus' Bane campaign, your final Project reward will be delivered in the form of 50,000,000 credits. That’s a mighty haul if we ever saw one!

However, it’s not the only new Project in our research center. Bid your warmest welcome to the first Bureau aircraft carrier! Humongous Tier VII Kaga was an essential part of the marquee Kidō Butai battle group of the Japanese Navy. With her bigger squadrons, she’s certainly worth a try if you want to fill the skies with aircraft!

Please note: Both the Holiday Bureau and Dragon Fleet Projects are getting deprecated as soon as the new update hits. Make sure to start researching them if you want to keep them!

Lunar New Year Celebrations

The Year of the Tiger is here, and to honor the noble symbol of the turning calendar, we’re introducing two themed skins—Courage for Loyang and Fury for Huanghe. And yes, Huanghe is a new Pan-Asian ship! You will find more details about the all-new Premium cruiser in the next section.

Dragon, of course, respects the Tiger, and he sends Yellow and Blue Dragons as a sign of his appreciation (a little in advance, but still—a small sign of good intentions goes a long way!). These two ships will be available until the end of the update.

What else? You probably need something to use the skin with, so it’s time to prepare for Loyang arriving for GXP! She will be available for 750,000 Global XP until March 7, but she’s going to leave the Store with the arrival of the next update.

New Ships of the Update

Huanghe

Huanghe is a Pan-Asian Tier V Premium cruiser with Smoke Generator, Torpedo Reload Booster, and couple of other consumables to choose from. For now, she represents the only option to try out a higher Tier Pan-Asian cruiser. With 6.6-inch (152 mm) guns and deepwater torpedoes, as well as a wide choice of consumables, including Smoke Generator, Sonar, Torpedo Reload Booster, and Defensive AA Fire (the last three occupy the same slot), the ship is truly flexible—don’t overlook her!

Gorizia

An Italian Tier VI heavy cruiser of the Zara class, Gorizia boasts pretty good armor. Due to the Washington Treaty limitations, she lacks torpedo armament but has access to Exhaust Smoke Generator or Defensive AA fire, Sonar, and Catapult Fighter, which makes her a very versatile counter-cruiser or, to a lesser extent, an anti-air pick.

Both ships will be available on their own or as part of XXL bundles.

Hearts, Gold, & Silver Ninja Contest

Special bonuses for the first win of the update playing each ship from Tier IV to Legendary Tier will arrive in form of Hearts. Celebrate Valentine's Day by showing your affection to Legends! The following bonuses are going to be active from February 14 through 21:

Tier IV ships: 2x Regia Marina camos
Tier V ships: 1,000 Global XP
Tier VI ships: 1x Italian Battleship crate
Tier VII ships: 1x Promotion Order
Legendary ships: 1x Winter Big crate

Additionally, we have permanently set the cost of all existing and upcoming Tier VI Premium ships to 12,500 doubloons, thus decreasing it from the cost of 15,000 doubloons that was in place for some earlier released ships. The compensation for acquiring a duplicate was set to 18,750,000 credits. The following ships currently available in the Store were subject to that change:

USA

Atlanta

Boise

Kidd

Japan

Ashitaka

Germany

Scharnhorst

France

Le Terrible

Charlemagne

One more thing to keep the eye on is the Silver Ninja contest, starting February 7! Send us your best screenshots from this update for a chance to win a ship of your choice from a selected list and a boatload of credits, with patches and a special flag for all participants! We will select five winners with your help—one overall winner and one winner for each ship type category (four categories in total). Follow us on our socials to stay tuned!

Maps

Three new maps were added for VI, VII and Legendary Tier battles—Islands of Ice, Shatter, and Warrior's Path. The Islands of Ice map uses a new—and beautiful—weather preset called Northern Lights.

Moreover, Domination scenarios with a different map border were added for Greece and Hotspot, both for AI and Standard battles.

Balance Changes

U.S.A.

★ Worcester

The legendary light American cruiser was often dismissed for her performance because it didn't feel up to par with what Cleveland could achieve at Tier VII. As her popularity has continued to wane, we thought we might just try doing something dramatic. Let's see if we have overdone it!

Main battery reload time decreased from 6 to 4.6 s.
Fire-setting chances for HE shells increased from 10 to 12%.
HE shell penetration increased from 25 to 30 mm*.
Turning circle radius decreased from 750 to 740 m.
Radar reload time decreased from 180 to 120 s.
Shell grouping increased by 2.5%.

*These represent raw penetration values, which must be greater than the armor you’re hitting by 1 mm to penetrate. This means that Worcester is now able to effectively penetrate 29 mm of armor with her HE shells.

★ Alaska

The large American cruiser was getting up there in performance, and the decision to dial her back was made quite some time ago. We’ve seen even more of a bump in performance during the last three seasons of Arena. We attribute this mostly to Alaska's accuracy, which, as you can see, is the target of the current nerf.

Main battery shell dispersion circle increased to about 12% on average. This is less dramatic than it looks, with the biggest accuracy hit coming at shorter distances.
AP shell armor piercing decreased by 5%.
Shell grouping increased by 2.5%.

Germany

Tier VI Yorck

German Tier VI cruiser was always the victim of (we feel) misunderstanding and having very popular sisters in Nürnberg and Hipper. We’ve already made attempts to make her more of a universal soldier, and here, we’re giving another nudge to her AP arsenal in the hope of making her a good choice for a few more captains.

Main battery reload time decreased from 12 to 10 s.
AP shell maximum damage increased from 5,500 to 6,000.

Soviet Union

★ Stalingrad

When Stalingrad arrived, she started setting damage records that thankfully didn’t get too high up there in average numbers, which is a good indicator considering the caliber of players that currently have her. That said, we're ready to try and see if those damage spikes can be tempered with a bit of a cut to her AP alpha damage, as well as give more of a fighting chance to any cruisers that face her by making fires more of a nuisance for the Soviet juggernaut.

AP shell maximum damage decreased from 8,500 to 8,000.
Fire duration increased from 30 to 45 s.

One more change for the highest Tier: Legendary ships were added to more daily and weekly missions.

Aircraft carriers

Increased delay after attack for all dive bombers by 1 sec and decreased attack cooldown for dive bombers by 1 sec, so players have more time to observe the results of their bombing run. The cooldown for the attack itself remains the same.

Bug fixes

Maximum speed marker for Exhaust Smoke Generator no longer shows speeds higher than maximum
Some Grade 1 permanent camouflages failed to display the "obtained" marker in the Store after players had purchased and improved them to higher grades
Gadjah Mada's turrets now correctly rotate 360 degrees
Rare cases of the ship HP bar remaining in the bottom-left corner of the screen after losing the ship and moving to free camera
The "Guises" and "Show Commander's bio" buttons have been swapped in the menu for consistency.

Mobile Version Improvements and Bug Fixes

Added target cycling on tap. This means that if you have multiple targets in the same vicinity, tapping on the same target multiple times will cycle the target focus between the available targets
Made the player's ship icon a little smaller on the Tactical map
Fixed a bug that caused the ship telegraph to be reset to neutral whenever players changed the control preset in battle
Fixed a bug that caused the "Rank upgrade available!" banner not to disappear from Commander portraits even if there were not enough resources
Fixed a bug that caused the scroll bar in the Tech Tree on iPhone XR to hide behind the "notch" if it was on the right
Fixed a bug that caused the (hold) Binocular View to disable the ship movement buttons
Fixed a bug that sometimes caused the game to start with a black screen on iPads
Changed main combat camera, so that player's ship occupies a little less space
Aim correction when the reticle is focused on a ship is a little slower/finer now
Finger snapping to move the camera quickly works in a more linear fashion now
HUD elements are a little smaller to obstruct the view less
Drag circles (instead of buttons) control preset is now the default one, to assess the usability by new players
Ship marker hitbox is a little bigger now, so setting focus on them is easier.