Sander93

So what's the deal with this ship? Guns? AA? Secondaries? Manoeuvrability? Armor? What will make her stand out among the other tier 8 titans?

​I actually run an AA setup and I went into the middle to create a 7,6km umbrella for my DDs and BBs there. None of those 45 planes were directed at me, they were all targeting friendly ships. I just sailed some circles around in the middle (one of those lucky matches without any return fire) setting fires to battleships and killing Fletcher with radar. After farming about 160k damage I popped radar to hunt down the Shimakaze in the middle and accidentally caught the Minotaur off-guard with his broadside showing to me (his smoke is visible on the right). Needless to say he got deleted quite quickly. Ended with over 200k damage.

​Not that I care about plunging fire in any way nor that I'm an expert on game mechanics but aren't you forgetting ship listing here, when the enemy ship turns away from the one who fires? In those cases the incoming shells will hit the angled deck at angles closer to 90 degrees.

How to make my cruisers OP: Des Moines: smaller citadel area and/or better hull armor to stop overmatches, and a smaller turning circle. Slightly better dispersion/sigma on the guns. Zao: faster turret speed and Atago torpedo arcs. Hindenburg: superheavy shells or RN normalization and USN HE shells That said I'm actually quite serious about DM citadel buff. The ROF buff last patch won't help her catch up to the other cruisers.

Dat base XP

​Thanks!

​Well in that case I don't see many reasons to buy this one when I have NC in port already. If it gets its citadel corrected in 0.6.3 along with Iowa and Montana buff I might consider buying it.

​According to statistics the Des Moines is a stagering 15-20k behind on average damage (top 5% players) while also having the worst survival and kill/death ratio. So considering 'game balance' the Des Moines is underpowered and an 8% ROF increase is not going to do anything about that.

Worth every penny though. North Cal is a fantastic ship now if you only played it at release before (like I did).

Well that's a whole other discussion. However Des Moines' citadel is much more vulnerable compared to the other tier 10 cruisers, despite being the one that has to engage in close-to-medium combat.

Des Moines buff isn't all that noticable. What she really needs is a citadel buff, so she doesn't lose half her HP every second BB salvo.

I think Bismarck is a good all-round ship that happens to fit the current meta a bit better but is not OP. Getting a lot of secondaries damage is the fault of stupid enemies who can't count to 10.6. My personal statistics are flawed. Bismarck's WR is higher because I played it in divisions more and NC's stats are lower because I played half those battles at game release before it got buffed and before torpedo spam got nerfed. I'm currently doing better in the NC than I did in Bismarck. I love meeting Bismarcks in my North Cal. Once Wargaming manages to fix CV population the Bismarck's stats will straighten as with full secondary builds the AA isn't all that good against dedicated airstrikes.

Well think positive, they could've included a requirement to do 10.000 damage to a CV as well.

​I've never had any trouble with long range shots in my Iowa, for me it's the unexpected 10-15km shots that always deal massive damage because the citadel hitbox is so huge. While other ships at this range would take about 10-20k damage the Iowa usually takes 15-30k. For someone like me who likes to take on enemies up close and personal this will be a huge improvement.

Oh look Bismarck OP topic number #31931293

​Or the train sails on towards the enemy spawn instead of contesting the caps.

I think the effectiveness of lemmings trains is not black-and-white but rather comes down to a range of different factors and coincidence. Sometimes there is this one enemy BB or cruiser sailing away that attracts attention for too long, or it simply takes too long for the train to get rolling (losing on points while having more ships left). Or the blob just happens to engage too many targets at once instead of focussing fire. Then there's also the chance of some enemies being in exactly the right spot, like I had in the Fletcher a few days ago. I was in a position I could constantly torp the enemy blob and it was just impossible to miss. I crippled 6-8 ships on my own. Long story short I think lemmings trains are just as good of a tactic as any, but as with any tactics or strategy it comes down to luck and coincidence in order to be effective or not. I remember in WoT we had the same discussion. We usually tried to (hopelessly) convince the team what to do and fill up the gaps ourselves, while others started to roll with the lemmings trains and help the bobs push through. In my experience both methods had about an equal chance of success and failure.

I do wonder how they consider cutting the number of citadel hits (at least) in half will 'not increase their overall efficiency dramatically', but I'll happily take some buffs for my favorite ship.

​Except the Kurrywurst can't even hit an island reliably.

​How can I play the game how I want to (winning matches) when some bobs on my team are camping at the map border?

I'm using the reload module (turret rotation compensated by Seagull's special skill) now combined with adrenaline rush which is absolutely hilarious. Had a 264k damage game yesterday. Nobody expects a battleship to reload in 21-24 seconds.

​Indeed, Des Moines' biggest problem is that she takes citadel hits from BBs incredibly easily which is also the main reason I can't stand to play her anymore after digging up the Hindenburg.

This potato team went straight for defeat despite me doing roughly 150k damage already, getting both their dds killed and saving our 4000hp-Amagi by smoking him up so he could repair. Turned it around at the last moments in which I managed a devastating strike on one Amagi and finished off the other while recapping the middle.

My weekend was pretty good mainly due to the fact that I didn't play that much.

​Uhm with the GK you should be close enough for that pretty much all the time.