Update: May 2020

May 14, 2020

May welcomes you, Legends! And we welcome our first-ever Tier VII Premium destroyer in the Sword of the Pacific campaign! May also sees the completion of the Soviet fleet, featuring the deadly Vladivostok, as well as the return of the Legendary-tier ships and various quality-of-life and cosmetic improvements. Read on for the full breakdown!

Server maintenance will take place on May 18, after which the Update will be pushed to consoles.

Maintenance times:

Xbox: 2:00 – 5:00 AM Central / 7:00 – 10:00 AM UTC
PS4: 2:00 – 5:00 AM Central / 7:00 – 10:00 AM UTC

Update size:

Xbox ~ 2400 MB
PS4 ~ 2400 MB

Sword of the Pacific

The new campaign brings back the 5-week format and paves the way toward a fierce Japanese torpedo-slinging destroyer—Yūdachi. Massive torpedo surprise attacks are the name of the game for this predator—taking full advantage of her ability to simultaneously use Smoke Generator and Torpedo Reload Booster will certainly help you reap some serious havoc. But measure your attacks well, as ~~these torpedoes are not the fastest kind, and~~ her artillery is best used for defense and support.

Sword of the Pacific comprises 90 levels of progression, with each week staggered behind the next. This means that, much like the "To Tame the Dreadnought" campaign you can miss a week or two if you’re ready to compensate with more intense progression later on. Also note: the Shakedown Trials element of the campaign missions can only be completed in Standard Battles.

We’ll publish the mission breakdown once the Update goes live. Meanwhile, here’s the reward breakdown:

Without Admiralty Backing:

20x common boosters
10x rare boosters
3x Type 4 camouflages
4,000 Global XP
235,000 Commander XP
150,000 credits
1x Insignia
10x Promotion Orders
1x Commendation
16x generic crates
1x Big Crate
10 days of Premium Account
250 doubloons
1x Patch background
1x Patch Symbol
Japanese Commander Raizo Tanaka

Value of the rewards without Admiralty Backing: 16,970 doubloons

With Admiralty Backing

35x rare boosters
35x epic boosters
16x Type 4 camouflages
16,500 Global XP
125,000 Commander XP
975,000 credits
3x Insignias
26x Promotion Orders
2x Commendations
750 doubloons
12x generic crates
3x Big Crate
1x Japanese Commander crate
Tier VII Japanese Destroyer Yūdachi

Total value of the rewards with Admiralty Backing: 69,650 doubloons

Voenno-Morskoy Flot (Soviet fleet)

The entire armada of red machinery is now available for players to research, so whether you like longer-range, fire-breathing cruisers; quick artillery-focused destroyers; or bow-on, assault-flanking battleships, you can now unlock any and all of them!

Bureau

The Bureau is going to be the new home for additional rewards and a place to realize the long-term goals of World of Warships: Legends. It also opens the door to bringing the Legendary-tier ships into the game. These ships won’t be the only new feature to be brought into the game via the Bureau, but we feel that this is a good start, and we hope that you’ll be pleased with the fresh gameplay they offer.

The default Bureau unit is a “Project.” A Project comprises a series of Segments, each representing a research milestone. Projects are most likely to culminate in bringing a new ship to your Port, with a specific focus on Legendary-tier ships. However, there will also be lower-tier ships and perhaps special upgrades in future, or even something different altogether.

To start a Project, you need simply to choose one, after which it will appear in your Active Projects tab. Once your Project is active, you can start managing its Segments. Segments consist of multiple Stages.

The Segments of a Research Project have Research Points allocated to them by default, but at a very slow rate. To boost progress, there are some options at your disposal: by adding Patrons—one or more of your Commanders—to the Project Segment, and by assigning one or more of your ships to the Segment. Moreover, completing particular battle challenges can affect the project Segment in a positive way. There will also be a doubloon option (“Breakthrough”) to speed up Segment completion.

Once a Segment is complete, you’ll receive a reward for it and will be able to move on to the next Segment. After you’re done with all Segments, the Project is complete, and you’ll get the final reward.

We would like to point out that some Projects will be available for extended lengths of time, while others will be available on a temporary basis.

Important details:

To unlock the Legendary ship Projects you will need to complete the introductory Project first. This takes about a week on average.
After the intro Project has been completed by a significant number of players, we might need to collect a bit of data before unlocking the next Projects.
While you’ll be able to start researching the Legendary ships in this Update, it won’t be possible to complete that research before the next one rolls out.
While these Projects cannot be instantly completed by spending doubloons, you can use them to speed up progress by about 40%
A Legendary ship with all boosters, without daily trials, should take on average 2–3 months to obtain. Adding trials to that can take off as much as 2 weeks off, while spending doubloons on Breakthroughs can further shorten such a project to just over a month.
Before boosting progress with doubloons, make sure that you have an understanding of what you’re paying for!
None of the three Legendary ship projects are time-gated, but there will be time-gated Projects in the future.
Patrons will only become available in the next Update.
Premium Account allows you to research two Projects simultaneously.

Legendary Ships and the Matchmaker

While these ships aren’t going to set sail just yet, we want you to be prepared, so here are some of the facts about them:

The first batch of ships includes Yamato, Großer Kurfürst, and Alaska.
- Großer Kurfürst is the ultimate German battleship design, featuring great horizontal armor and torpedo protection, an extremely heavy broadside salvo of 406 mm shells, and the Sonar consumable.
- Alaska is an oversized, yet fast USN cruiser armed with 305 mm guns. She has a respectable HP pool, good concealment, and quite accurate guns, not to mention the Surveillance Radar consumable.
- Yamato needs no introduction, as she's the largest battleship ever built with the highest gun caliber available—460 mm. However, Yamato is scheduled to receive some changes to her January iteration. We’ll list those in the next patchnote.
These ships can only be matched with other Legendary-tier ships and Tier VII ships.
The difference between teams cannot be more than one Legendary ship.
There can be up to 18 Legendary-tier ships in a single battle.

To better accommodate for the introduction of the new warships, several Tier VII ships have received some balance changes:

Mogami:
- Rudder-shift time lowered by 10% for both hulls.
- Repair Party cooldown time reduced (from 80 s to 60 s) and her HP now restores 20% faster.
Atago:
- An extra module providing faster torpedoes with a range of 8 km is available as a replacement for the base module.
- Repair Party cooldown time reduced (from 80 s to 60 s) and her HP now restores 20% faster.
Baltimore:
- Rudder-shift time lowered by 10% for both hulls.
- Bow and aft plating increased from 25 mm to 27 mm to prevent being overmatched by shells of calibers up to 381 mm. This will allow the ship to bounce those shells from some angles.
- Repair Party cooldown time reduced (from 80 s to 60 s) and her HP now restores 20% faster.
Edinburgh:
- Rudder-shift time lowered by 10% for both hulls.
- Repair Party cooldown time reduced (from 80 s to 60 s).
Chapayev:
- Rudder-shift time lowered by 10% for both hulls.
- Repair Party cooldown time reduced (from 80 s to 60 s) and her HP now restores 20% faster.
Mikhail Kutuzov:
- The ship now has the same Repair Party as Chapayev.
Prinz Eugen:
- Rudder-shift time lowered by 10%.
- Repair Party cooldown time reduced (from 80 s to 60 s) and her HP now restores 20% faster.
Admiral Hipper:
- Rudder-shift time lowered by 10% for both hulls.
- Repair Party cooldown time reduced (from 80 s to 60 s) and her HP now restores 20% faster.
Charles Martel:
- A non-buffed Repair Party is now available instead of Catapult Fighter.
- Rudder-shift time lowered by 10% for both hulls.
Fletcher:
- Her shells have had their air-drag coefficient reduced, making their trajectory a bit flatter and the overall shooting experience more comfortable.
- Main battery reload time lowered from 3.34 s to 3 s.
Vanguard:
- This battleship now has a variant of the Main Battery Reload Booster that’s analogous to Jean Bart's. However, it only holds one charge unless otherwise enhanced by Commander skills.

As you can see, the top-tier cruisers are receiving the most benefits. This is because we're expecting these to be the most heavily impacted once Legendary ships rise in numbers, and considering two out of three are battleships. At the same time, Soviet cruiser Chapayev is very likely to be dialed back in the next Update.

New maps

To prepare for the new ships and spice things up a little, we're introducing three new maps that will accommodate Tier VI, VII, and Legendary-tier battles:

Greece

Crash Zone

Northern Waters

These maps will provide some fresh-looking landscapes and decent cover. They will also encourage you to work on some new tactics.

Miscellaneous

Ship fires have had new effects implemented.
The ship carousel texts have been slightly improved.
Commander tabs are now separated by nation for ease of navigation.
Various control improvements:
- More sensitive rudder (deadzone reduced).
- More sensitive observer camera controls.
- Added vertical movement to the torpedo camera.
Any leftover Rubles will be exchanged for credits at the rate of 7,500 credits : 1 Ruble.
If you still have any Imperials, there’s a small Soviet container available for 45 Imperials.
Any leftover Soviet containers can bring you Soviet ships—either destroyers (March Update) or battleships (April Update). If you already have any of the ships that drop, you’ll get compensation for them in the form of credits.