Originally created by cheeky1467 with help and major editing from elp Reprinted with permission Latest Season PR8

This mini guide is intended to provide the most complete information for new players to select their research focus although older players may learn something new too We list the advantages and disadvantages of focusing on each season to help you make an informed decision Alternatively you may follow the overall recommendation directly See ECGC s Research Guide for other aspects of research The advice in our mini guide overrides the Research Focus section We also strongly recommend analyzing all Combat Data Packs and recommend implementing the PR Catch up Min Maxing section on that guide into your gameplay

Select PR DR 7 or PR DR 8 as your Research Focus Season 7 s gold ships and gear are stronger while Season 8 has more flexible rainbows and provides the best long term value One of Season 7 s rainbow ships has great reliance on Sovetsky Soyuz so if you will not be able to obtain and max Soyuz within the next 5 or so months then Season 8 may provide better value

PR DR 1 3 Are you drunk There is no reason to focus on these seasons PR DR 4 4 of 5 ships are still strong and decently relevant before endgame Most of the gear are good and some have BiS usages Fast to complete the season Ship focus is redundant and expensive because there is coining Gear focus is redundant because all the gear can be crafted in the Gear Lab albeit some of it is expensive All the ships have been powercrept to some degree and half of the good gear have as well The season has catch up and coining for all ships letting you complete the season quickly But the season is retired Because all the ships can be coined and all the gear can be crafted in the Gear Lab there s no need to focus on PR4 In the long term you re kind of just wasting time if you do PR4 research focus Past that fatal flaw Season 4 has solid gear and ships especially if you re new The 4 ships other than Marco Polo are very useful before endgame and Aegir can still tank in endgame From the gear Tenrai and Saiun are still relevant in endgame with Tenrai being used for campaign and heavy bosses and Saiun being a converging TB for any boss BF 109G is very good for new players and Aegir gun is the earliest good accessible CB gun PR DR 5 Plymouth is a strong DR ship and still a relevant entity Some other ships are decently relevant before endgame Plymouth gun is the best CL gun and Harbin Gun is a good DD gun Fast to complete the season Ship focus is somewhat redundant and expensive because there is coining for PRs The season is expected to be retired soon in January February 2026 Other than Plymouth the ships aren t standouts The other gear are mid Somewhat high tech point requirements The season has catch up and PR ship coining letting you complete the season quickly This combined with the upcoming retirement of the season means that focusing Season 5 now is a waste of time The main and only real reason to focus on PR5 is for Plymouth and her gun but she s gonna be coinable soon Brest is somewhat redundant in 2025 with how many other CB and non CB tanks there are Harbin Chkalov and Rupprecht have either been powercrept or have many alternatives As for gear besides Plymouth gun the rest of the gear isn t too much to write home about PR DR 6 3 of 5 ships approach the top of the meta The season has catch up making it a little faster to complete Hindenburg gun is one of the best CA guns and Flandre gun is great against medium and heavy bosses Hindenburg and especially Kearsarge are somewhat niche The other gear are mid Has high tech point requirements While better than 4 and 5 because of longer term value Season 6 is the last season you really want to focus on out of 6 7 and 8 Hindenburg and Kearsarge while situationally good are somewhat niche in their use cases Hindenburg can and usually should be replaced by a good buff debuffer and Kearsarge strongly prefers to fight light armor bosses with Yorktown II Among the PR ships Shimanto who is extremely relevant in campaign can be nearly finished just by doing catch up And Flandre and Felix are solid but not that remarkable The Hindenburg gun is the best CA gun against mobs and medium bosses It also ties or closely trails Drake gun against heavy bosses meaning that light armor bosses are Hindenburg gun s only weakness Flandre gun is one of the great gold 20s AP BB guns good against medium and heavy bosses Besides Felix gun as a budget CL gun the rest of the gear is bad PR DR 7 Nahkimov is among the strongest ships in the game currently Napoli is the tankiest vanguard ship in the game currently not that useful though Bayard is quite good before endgame Most of the gear are decent and some have BiS usages Nakhimov strongly prefers to be paired with Soyuz Halford is bad and Daisen is mid Has high tech point requirements and no catch up You want to focus on Season 7 mainly for Nahkimov and La 9s which really dominate against medium armor The caveat however is that Nahkimov really needs Soyuz to stand on top Napoli is the tankiest vanguard in the game currently but she s lacking damage and utility diminishing her competitiveness for current endgame content Bayard will be useful as a vanguard ship who can do everything albeit not as well as rainbow ships Still as a new player maxing all three of these ships to Dev 30 gives you a very strong roster The La 9 is the highest damage airplane against medium armor and the highest damage fighter against heavy It does 43% more damage against medium armor than the second best which is BF 109G La 9 also beats the next best fighter against heavy FW 190 A 6 by 52% damage You will want several copies of La 9 The VIT 2 Mode Change is also really nice to have as a timing option but with Saiun Ju 87d and Ryuusei as the timing sidegrades it s not absolutely necessary to have PR DR 8 Mecklenburg is one of the best BBs in the game Gouden Leeuw is a really strong campaign ship The Mecklenburg gun is very meta against medium and heavy bosses Best long term value The gold PR ships are all worse than Bayard and Daisen in Season 7 The gold gear is also really mediocre Has high tech point requirements and no catch up Season 8 has the best long term value to focus on because it will be the latest of the current seasons to get various catch up mechanics Starting focus on the newest season lets you do hard work for this season and easy work when you return to an earlier season If you start with the second newest season then you would end up doing hard work for both seasons Mecklenburg is one of the strongest BBs in the game currently particularly for heavy armor and she isn t as reliant on Bismarck Zwei in the way that Nahkimov is reliant on Soyuz Gouden Leeuw will be very useful in campaign if you re lacking ships like Guam and Laffey 2 but if you already have a lot of the good AA ships for later campaign stages her value drops by a decent bit For new players Gouden is great to use everywhere because she is less reliant on having rainbow gear than Napoli The gold ships and gear are noticeably worse overall compared to previous seasons Although the Mecklenburg gun is only 7% more damage per salvo than the Champagne gun against medium armor and 15% more against heavy armor the faster reload is very beneficial in META Showdown But it is a smaller upgrade compared to the Champagne gun than the La 9 is to the BF 109G Mecklenburg gun is now the best 20 second BB gun against heavy and second best after Rafaello s limited SAP gun against medium Like the La 9 you will want a few copies of it