conductiv

in my experience they are not because they have all weaknesses, and so doing have to cover all bases. while a specialist often has a strength and a weakness it attempts to cover. IJN cruisers in this game are the most jack-of-all trades class, but they are rarely if ever called OP. the ones called OP, are generally specializing in something and do that insanely well (invisible DD, super DPM cruiser, 1-shot-kill BB with a ton of armor and a boatload of AA) I was thinking about RTS and various other games I played over time, the "medium" class isn't that often picked by newer players and often called redundant. people often call it a more expensive "X" that has no "Y" in FPS style games, and in RTS medium often has the disadvantage of having no armor relative to the heavier vehicles and no spammability due to its cost and insignificant firepower increase relative to the lighter classes. hence I asked what game or game types you base your claim that medium/jack of all trades classes generally require less skill I did not say you used them as a representative...you specifically called it OP, I said everyone else uses them as the example to beat. this is probably the reason

usually jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none classes are not the easiest to learn in any game, what game are you referring to that you consider this to be easy? like you said its tedious that every example given about the power of a cruiser its either the des moins or the cleveland, those 2 are hardly representative for the class...and everyone does it, its not like every 203mm cruiser has a 10 RoF and every 152mm comes with 12 guns and 8 RoF.

can he..., if 2 equal BB's hammer it out with each other, 1 using AP and being skilled the other using HE and being a nublet..the AP one will citadel sink the HE spammer. if both are extremely skilled, the battle would last longer but AP would still come out on top. HE and fire damage only really beats AP when hitting the citadel is impossible, a cruiser beating a battleship with HE spam only really works if the battleship is unable to hit the cruiser for an extended period of time. as no matter the level of the fire..it takes a long time to whittle down a BB. if the skill is in the dodging and gunnery, a HE spammer that relies on fire will have to dodge frequently to make its slow damage progression count even though he doesn't have to aim as much. while a AP user will have to make its aim count to spike-damage-kill any HE spammer he meets, bonus points if he also dodges a little as to not tunnel vision and catch every single shot

recalculation will only change the steepness of the graph and the 95% line will be broken in 1-2 salvo line pretty fast when applied to BB level HE shells, the calculation isn't particularity hard and I did the equations well ahead of patch 0.3.1. hence I have already noted that the fire chance was way off pre-patch and that fire was practically useless (as early as a week after I entered the beta). people claiming they first double lit a BB before using AP on it where lying, there was just no practical way to use HE ammo on any target save a CV and even then the effect was questionable. the equipment is assumed to have a additive function, mainly because a multiplicative function would render it completely useless, having a 25% fire chance shell drop to 20% is "worth" a 150K piece of equipment or a tier 5 perk (-7% here so it would be 25>18%..but I take it you get it). going from 25 to 24% most certainly is not. this means that the -5% fire chance equipment is extremely effective against low fire chance HE spammers. this could be tested reliably if we had a training room. the hull not catching fire is current experience, without a training room its a very hard to get exact numbers on hit locations but with the current HE spam you can at least test some aspects without screwing over your team like I had to do pre-patch. but again..in actual combat conditions it is hard to ensure shells hit ONLY the deck or ONLY the hull. on a side note...it is currently very hard to get a 0-damage-hit with HE, and its even weirder that a 0-dmg-hit would cause fire. we currently has 5 damage types that apply to ships consisting of 3 main ammo systems and 2 carrier effects. AP can only cause fire with a penetrating hit to the engine section HE can cause fire on hit (deck and superstructure..to be proven later on) torpedo's can cause flooding -HE had the problem that it didn't apply/hardly applied its carrier effect and did not deal sufficient damage on any target, at the moment of patch 0.3.1 it dealt too much impact damage and the fire chance was debugged. 0.3.1.1. seems to have reduced the impact damage somewhat -currently torpedo's suffer from being insanely easy to dodge and hence abysmal hit rates (<10%) on any reason able engagement range (7-8KM) -AP suffers from the armor patch, dealing significantly less damage to angled or well armored targets. but maintains it old power when aimed properly this is the baseline, any damage effect should work roughly as well when used at the appropriate target current balance focus should be on HE and torpedo's -if HE damage is dropped its status effect application should remain high, the other way around is also an option. if the carrier effect application remains high its stacking can be removed, its % damage per tick altered, or its duration changed -torpedo's need something to increase hit-rate, +speed or higher camo for itself..or reduced agility for most large ships in the game. at the moment the very low hit rate makes any problem with the carrier effect invisible

I don't give a rats [edited]about the class that uses HE and if that class is a hard counter to something or whatnot..I care about the ammo's usefulness. if HE has to both penetrate and have a % chance to catch fire..you will not use it to create fires as the ratio will be way too low and people just clicky it away again. if he deals crap for damage on all but the targets that are dead in 1 or 2 shots anyway..people won't use it. is it really that hard to get? the only thing I missed was the flat -5% from the damage control (the equipment almost everyone uses) on all graphs. on top of that even the current fire chance only applies if the target his is not the hull (aka it has to hit deck or superstructure with direct or plunging fire) ...the Atlanta should have a terrible time trying to light stuff on fire at the moment the rest are just details (step wise from the reload progression etc as the vollies don't form a fluid arc like that), because your graphs do apply on ships like the cleveland. (but then again...its a OP-land for ages already...)

wot is a terrible example for ammo usefulness...tank HE is useless on all targets in the game, for most guns even panic resetting a guy you cannot penetrate with AP is best done by hitting the track for no damage then trying to hit it with HE as HE tends to get completely absorbed...and I'm talking about the one occurrence where a tank would actually use HE.. HE as a ammo in woT is only useful on derp cannons and only if you can't afford HEAT or can't aim for a target smaller then "tank size" with the gun (in case of SPGs...or in case you felt like trolling and deliberately handicap yourself) if HE was as useful in this game as it was in wot..it was doomed. AP is useful on all targets, it can and still will kill DDs in 1 volly if you hit the right spot, it has no problems with cruisers and BB AP can destroy other BB's, cruisers, aircraft carriers and DDs. the only piont where cruiser and DD AP are terrible at is dealing with battleship armor...and only the battleship as it can rip through heavy cruisers as well. the peak of AP effectiveness is on any target that it can hit the citadel in, on targets where it can't do that ...basically only well armored targets...it will still do decent damage when punching through a few layers of armor but it will indeed be less effective. this does not mean HE is not OP at the moment, but think about it you can take on unarmored targets with a few vollies of AP and deal decent damage to all other targets with it. why the hell would you use HE if you can only "possibly" kill a DD faster with it, or light a light cruiser on fire in 2 vollies while you can practically kill it with AP in the same number of shots...for the 2 CV's hiding in the back corner of the map that can be killed faster with AP just to stop its ..by the time you reach him all dead...planes from taking off? I'll answer that for you...you won't..you would just spam AP all day at everything. as its the same situation as it was prior to the patch with HE being utterly useless. fire is only useful on targets that don't instantly die, and those happen to be ...well.... armored ones. HE ammo is OP at the moment, no question about that. but making the ammo only useful against lightly armored targets because it would be unable to light armored targets on fire on top of having less damage per shot compared to its competition on the same target would just kill it. the problem you are talking about is how skills relate to battleships, that is a different problem entirely. (on a side note heavy US cruisers do have the self repair ability now) I havn't re-checked the skill tree to be honest post patch so I can't really say anything about captain skill changes at the moment..I might get back to that later.

maybe, but the ammo has to remain useful...if the ammo would only be useful on classes that can be 1 shot with AP already, there would be no use for it. even more so if the fire chance would only apply on a penetrating HE hit (as the most common combat ships are well armored..the ammo has to remain useful against armored targets) this is from a balance perspective..reality can be suspended for now.

base 203mm AP damage went up after the patch, but its still very location based. where HE works wonders on the superstructure...AP doesn't, AP will deal pathetic damage there (the magic 470 might well be a superstructure penetration) where HE works well on the deck, AP can skimp off on close range for no damage, or punch through at long range for good or massive damage so its a gamble target on the hull, the bow and stern will still deal meh damage (assume any hull after the last turret or before the first turret are implied here)..a few hunderd per hit and penetration penetrate the hull center and the damage will be good, AP's will hit for around 1500 dmg/shell there (battleships have heavy armor here) penetrate the hull center and the citadel armor and your AP shell will max its damage to around 5K per shot (battleships have heavy armor here) anywhere on the hull HE will inflict a few hundred pionts of impact damage, it is unlikely to penetrate and it has a reduced fire chance in that area

well it has nothing to do with battleships anymore, as we are moving from "what a huge number of BBs in a game" to "how do we make this game more fun for classes other then BB without equaling the ship-killing ability of every class" one of the things that popped up what someones suggestion to remove the AA panic effect from cruisers because it was too specific for "anti-CV" but what alternative would there be for the "too specific" defensive fire ability from cruisers?

whoo stop right there...did we just have someone complain that the fire chances are not high enough?! first to answer your question, fire chances are lower when you hit the hull, and the enemy BB can have the damage control equipment (that reduces fire chance by 5%) and if he has a high skill captain, he can use fire prevention as well (an additional -7% fire chance). in order to start fires hit the superstructure or deck (basically anything above the hull) and hope the enemy captain doesn't have the fire prevention skill. also don't expect to burn down a BB at a amazing rate, while your shells will do about 700 dmg when you hit the superstructure, the fire (level 1) will only deal a few hunderd damage per tick...you will have to start multiple fires in quick succession to get massive fire damage on the target. the first fire will likely be insta doused, and getting a triple fire going requires roughly 30 shells with the 12% fire chance (and the assumption that they have the damage control equipment) okay...pre-patch, you needed 40+ hits on average to get a fire...it was bugged and fire of HE shells was practically useless. now we have people complain about HE fires on these forums non-stop. some suggesting stuff like "maximum fire damage tresholds" or "adding additional fire dousing options".

I do like it that HE has finally become a viable ammo, and fire is no longer insanely rare and if finally applied... just "clickied" away. kudo's to WG for that. downside is that its overbuffed, it leads to insane amounts of whine and people wanting to nerf it right back into oblivion. -fire, as a status effect was next to irrelevant before the patch, it had to be applied more frequently to matter the old 1:40 or so rate required players to shoot at a target for minutes on end with lower damage shells only to see the fire being instantly put out. and even if it wasn't..a level 1 fire did such pathetic damage it was out healed by the self heal. and even if that wasn't available..its max damage was like 10-12% of the targets HP, annoying...but not really a dealbreaker. currently fire pops up in a 1:10 rate, this is roughly 1 time every 2 salvo's of a CA. the rate is higher for the BB and lower for the DD..but all should notice a significant increase in the number of fires generated. this in turn also increases the number of multi-level fires that pop up. a level 3 fire deals 30-40% of the targets HP in damage and is a very significant debuff, the higher frequency also ensures that the damage control team is more often used and on cooldown when the status effect comes around again (if it wasn't fire would still be irrelevant). While a nuicance for players catching repeat HE fire, lowering the fire chance or giving more insta-fire-dousing tools without requiring some sacrifice from the player would just render the entire mechanic useless. -HE damage, increasing the HE DPM was a ..in my opinion.. bad move, I would happily sacrifice DPM for the fire status effect and module damage (if the module damage was somewhat reliable when targetted) but having both a good DPM + the status effect boost threatens to push penetrating AP off its pedestal. making HE the spam ammo of choice. edit: HE damage should be different between targets they penetrate and fail to penetrate of coarse. HE should remain to be a effective ammunition on targets where it is supposed to be effective. this however, should not cause it to deal as much impact damage to battleships and heavy cruisers as it does now. looking back on the previous feedback I have given to WG, they have fixed almost all downsides of the ammo, however I should have noted that the non-penetrating damage should have stayed as-is and the penetrating damage should have gone up (HE on flimsy targets that would be over-penetrated by AP.... mainly destroyers)

torps come in spreads, having a stacking flood will make for massive DoT damage applied in a very short time frame on top of the massive torp damage spike. flood is about twice as strong as a level 1 fire, people complain like no other about level 3 fires...image the whine when level 3 floods start to decimate 2.5K health per second.

I know too little about fire on ships to make a assessment on how effective it should be to mimic reality, I do however like the fire DoT ingame and how it has been made significantly more frequent then before. the double wammy of both improved impact damage and the de-bugged fire chance proves to be too effective though from a game balance perspective. personally I would focus HE on its module damage and fire status effect rather then impact damage. if both AP and HE just deal damage and have no worthwhile secondary effects, the strongest ammo will just be spammed non-stop.

I don't know if WG will ever set more hardcaps in the game, and people do indeed flock to the classes that get the most damage and kills in the game. any class that does not conform to this meta will generally be deemed weak. looking at the flagship game, lights only really caught on when the combat lights came out..the ones that did damage. when arty got hit and its damage dealing effectiveness dropped the community dropped it like a stone in favor of other classes. capability and skill in the game is measured mainly by a artificial WN scale that bases itself mainly on average damage per game relative to the average damage done in the vehicle...and hence the sport was born to cram as much as possible damage out of a vehicle that is generally not intended to do so. this game is not yet WoT, it does have notably weaker classes at the moment intended to support the capital ships. and these ships are notably less popular. if the less popular classes are buffed, you get the arcade game you dislike...if they don't get a system that pays off for the support they give, they will take the backseat.

please......now you also claim you need half your firepower..and once again you make a claim I said something was easy. I did say you have to make a fair comparison, don't handicap the BB you are trying to defend by attributing its always unlucky with accuracy or RNG and have the other side "always be lucky" you are making it sound like your BB can't hit a moving target in the citadel while the enemy just autohits you non stop. on piont, a mid tier cruiser needs 15 seconds to reload and needs some time to turn for the zigzag to bring its guns to bear (or only shoot with half of them, its a cruiser..not a chaingun) on 15KM (a range only mid tiers can reach, as the OP-land maxes out at 14 and I know the OP-land and des moins are keen examples due to their high RoF and relatively high fire chance) will hit about 25% of its shots (thats 3-4 hits) it will need around 40 to get the triple fire going and will have to land those 40 within 30 seconds.. a lone cruiser will be unable to triple fire a BB that still has its repair crew ability unless the BB is at piont blank range, has exceptional luck with the RNG, uses the pyromania perk or meets the BB out there that has no damage control mod installed. tooltip, when ingame in the port check the artillery tab of the ship selected, then hover over the main guns, it will show the fire chance stats and reload for the HE shells

you are a exceptional player in DDs I give you that, but...your overall hit rate with torps is 10% and the only well performing DD (as in wins matches a lot) you seem to have is the minekaze. this does lead me to believe the "no real threat" is a bit of a exaggeration. (relative to my torp hit rates of late..10% is awesome and my performance in IJN DDs isn't exactly stellar either.)

give or take numbers 5% at RoF 15-20 12% at rof 6-8,5 15-16% at RoF 4-5...with 10 being the des moins 30-36% at RoF 2 depending on tier the fire chance is increased to compensate for the lower rate of fire, and relativated by the increased shell caliber if every shell had a ignition chance of 5%, the high RoF guns would be a definite advantage there on top of that..equipment would grant right-out immunity to fire from everyone not using pyromania for 150-250000 credits

easy at 15KM...no...but I didn't say the distance was 15KM. and even then while he can hit you, at 15KM range he too is unlikely to hit full salvo's and get the required number of hits within the fire reset time to get the triple fire. if he does, you are just as likely to get 1 or 2 well placed hits that hit the citadel and do 10K or more damage.....zig-zag or no. its a bit unfair to claim the cruiser auto-hits full broadsides to get a quadruple fire going at 15KM while you are helplessly flailing around overpenning the superstructure.

you are a little too found of that argument, so lets look at it from the other perspective keep in mind the 1K+ every tick (2 seconds) is ONLY on a high tier battleship with a level 3 fire...getting a level 3 fire requires 30 or so shots on average (for a 203mm armed cruiser without pyromania on a enemy BB with only the damage control mod)...40 if he douses the first one right off the bat. and even then it won't kill the BB because it is all light damage and will be repaired by its self repair function. compare this to a single BB volly that can outright kill a equal tier CA..its not that harsh for BBs when facing cruisers. in the time it takes for the ship to burn down, it can kill the cruiser a few times over..so you have to dodge those shots..3-4 good hits and the cruiser is sunk. if the maximum fire value would be lower then flooding, a more serious side effect would be required...fire has to remain relevant and not to be shrugged off. currently its only real danger for 75% of the ships seems to be the high fire stack, and while I have no problem removing the stack the DoT has to remain relevant.

from a perspective of cruisers and destroyers AP still wrecks cruisers, a few citadel hits and down they go...if you can't penetrate the hull using HE is best. when using DD's its still the question if your gun is strong enough and the angle is right to blast a couple 120-127mm AP shells in the citadel to deal a surprising amount of damage very fast. pitty IJN DDs have such insanely poor guns that no matter the selected ammo..it all feels bad HE used to engage BB's mostly, the impact damage is identical or higher then the AP impact damage and the % of max HP fire DoT deals high amounts of absolute damage. BB removal is best done with torpedo's though...4 good torp hits and its dead or dying, so using the guns only if torping is not an option. I'm unsure whether or not to use HE on DD's, the module damage is nice and can absolutely cripple them and you can crit them reliably, but the damage is meh even on a center mass hit...on the other hand a good AP volly 1-hits the little buggers, a bad one deals pathetic damage with no side effects. CV..well the old ignite and switch to AP is still preferred, you can also be lazy and spam it with HE. engaging CV's is often a luxury.

making fire non-stackable is something that I feel should be workable, vogels suggestion (post 19 in this thread) isn't half bad either (having a weaker external fire and a as-is internal fire if the shells penetrate armor) if it becomes non-stackable though, it should be slightly more powerful then a single fire is now. this should also be combined with a reduction of (non-penetrating) HE base damage. as even though I agree that level 3 fires are very powerful, I still feel the major gripe of HE spam effectiveness is the base damage.

on average it seems that most people are most successful in their BB's (most damage and kills) and hence tend to stay in them. While I love the CA's flexibility, it comes at the downside of being fragile and not fast enough to avoid. and while the DD is fast and stealth with loads of avoiding potential..its weak health and high reliance on torpedo's makes it a rather hit-and-miss class. CV's are a special case...they are limited in the matchmaker and play a separate very micromanagement intensive minigame that does not guarantee a good outcome..even if it where popular..it would never flood the game, only choke the MM. don't underestimate the AA BB's carry, most are far from defenseless...their main weakness against planes is their relatively sluggish maneuverability.

well I see this more as a "HE shells are OP" kinda thread...and the debate is mostly about whether its the fire chance (and fire stacking) or the raw damage per shot.

no flooding doesn't seem to stack...my wording was poor there flooding does ~1-1,4% damage per tick...while fire ~0,5-0,7%, but fire can stack up to about 2% per tick. (guesswork) it seems fires last shorter after the patch..from ~45 seconds to ~30...but with the increased application that's a moot point for better details WG should add a training room, its hard to get exact numbers out of a game....before people just didn't care...now fire actually matters and people go berserk with HE spam. I still feel its not the fire status effect but the high HE damage per shot that's a major culprit in favor of the HE spam.

most people gravitate towards the easy classes, so a lot of BB's should not be uncommon, even with the current increase in HE viability..cruisers and DD's still die incredibly fast. 400K damage is astounding....so I don't really see the problem....