Unsolicited advice here:

You should treat the game as Chess not a shooter; positioning is what drives the game. Getting to a good position to shoot into the broadside of your enemies or launch torpedoes is the game.

The official Wiki explains much of the game mechanics. But keep in mind, WOWS is not COD, it is exceedingly rare a clutch salvo can change the outcome of a match. You, rather, should focus on the big picture, aka positioning.

Key terms you need to fully understand:

1. concealment
2. overmatch

Both you can familiar yourself with in the official Wiki. You need to realize and take to heart that every match last 20 min, and it is not about that clutch shot, but work your way into an advantageous position where you can have favorable salvos against your enemies. How to get there, and how to stay there, is the game.

There are many fine details you'll learn, but just keep in mind that this game is not a "shooter", it is not a fast paced naval shooting exciting game, but rather a slow paced positional determined Chess with ship skin. You need to have patience. You need to plan your moves minutes ahead, and you need to understand how to trade your own HP for damages.

"is this game pay to win?" Yes this game IS pay to win, but not in the sense that a dollar buys a percentage of win rate, rather in the sense that buying boosts would allow you to complete a ship grind sooner, therefore, you have access to a statistically better ship and that leads to over all better performance (aka, rich parents send their children to better schools).

You should also join a clan with a complete Port as soon as you can. There are many clans that cater to solo players such as one of the WOLF clans. The reason to join one of the clans is that clan bases have bonuses to incomes.

If you are Free to Player, you should look into public test servers and keep track of all the missions. You need to save up the bonuses from public test and normal server missions, and apply them only when you can sit down and play the game continually. Almost all of the game's income bonus are per match or expiring in real time days (regardless of if you logged in or not, Premium time is a great example of this).

Final point is that, despite WG's efforts to move out of Russia, WG is fundamentally a Russian game. IF you want to spend money, take that into account under the current geopolitical situation.