Road to 66

[Kevik70]

Today I have reached an important milestone on my road to getting good at internet boats. After nearly 4,500 battles I have finally reached a proper 66% Win Rate and I felt like it was an achievement worth sharing. I am not particularly bragging about how good at the game I am and I don't expect any praise for not having a life. (as some people will say) I am here however to reflect how I managed to progress from being an average player into someone who is part of one of the best clans on the server. I did not start as a super-human level unicum and the journey I took is one of struggle, learning, patience, and repeatedly bashing my head against my keyboard for various internet, ships, and totally unrelated problems. This story contains much humor (well to me anyways) so read at your own risk. 

 

So my story of getting gud began when closed beta first came out, I am pretty sure I applied day one and was lucky enough to get in that day. Now I was not particularly good when I started but I was not terrible either. I believe my play-style largely involved charging head first in with my dds and engaging in brief but deadly knife-fights with other dds. I did manage to come out alive in most of these fights (or at least made sure the other guy died too) and knife-fighting is still a skill I hold onto to this day if needed. (So come at me bro, but not in real life) I believe I managed to get to at least tier 7 on at least 3 US lines before the end with a 53% WR overall during closed beta. I was better than average but nothing special.

Spoiler

I played a few open beta games too but I sure as hell don't remember much about this time period so I'll skip it. 

 

When the game came out of beta I started just about where I left off in terms of skill and moved up the tiers to just around tier 6 when (Insert 5-6 month pause in playing around here) I finally got noticed by a clan after a particularly decent Cleveland game (first time I ever had 6 kills) Well these guys were pretty cool and had some decent players so I joined in hope of getting the chance to play with other people for the first time in ships. This was before proper clans were a thing but these guys called themselves The Art of War (TAW) at the time (Most of these players would move on to form STW and all its affiliates later on) Well I started to serious improve with some of these guys in terms of both WTR and WR and by the 1000 battle mark I went from an all blue player (some green, damn you Mahan) to and all purple player woot woot! 1400 WTR and 60% WR (totally not rounded up from 59.6%) It was about this time I got my first tier 10, the USS Gearing (I know shes a little large around the stern but if anyone insults her I'll insult your face.)

Spoiler

Of course I was not content at just that, oh no, so I kept going and improving and meeting new players, players who would later form the core of SALTY. (Yes as my sig says I am indeed a semi-proud member) About 2,600 battles in, I made a 1500 WTR and at 3,000 battles I hit 65% WR. Lots more tier 10s, 9s, and a few 8s were grinded out, some were fun, some were like putting your face in a meat grinder that was on fire, and your on fire, and the whole world was on fire. Okay that was a bit dramatic but it certainly felt like this at times. (Looking at you Mahan.) Add 2 rank 1s in rank seasons in as well, which was a major step up from my earlier rank 9 finish. 

Spoiler

Now today I finally surpassed the 66%, after 4 Taiho games and a Yorck game (all wins, while being solo too!) and the 4500 or so battles that came before it. I'm dancing on the inside because I'm sitting in a college class typing this out right now and dancing out loud would look extremely weird and embarrassing. 

Spoiler

Moral of the story is I did not start out being a Unicorn, I worked hard to improve myself. I watched others play (Jingles mainly) and learned from their mistakes, I learned from my own mistakes (many painful deaths) and I learned from playing with players that are far better then myself. So thanks to all who helped me improve and I hope was wasn't being too much of a potato along the way. 

 

Now on the road to 67% WR, .

[Lillehuntrix]

Get your kicks with WR 66%.  Very impressive!

[Kevik70]

15 minutes ago, Lillehuntrix said:

Get your kicks with WR 66%.  Very impressive!

Why thank you.