CardShark

That's the problem with it. It has no means to decide its own fate. If the ennemy makes no mistake by avoiding to cruise too close or flying planes over your head, you spend the match being a punching ball for everything with superior guns at range, with no opportunity to retaliate consistently.

If cruisers are expected to be the support swiss knife of a team, then they should be able to perform both anti-air and anti-destroyer role at the same time without having to choose between both. Because let's be honest, Defensive AA fire is so mandatory the second you get a cruiser with dual purpose guns nobody uses Hydracoustic Search any more.

Which makes for an incredibly ungratifying gameplay in random battles. Might be fun down the line when you have your role within a whole fleet, though. And if its specific role is anti-air/anti-DD, the least they could do is to allow it to perform both roles instead of having to choose between defensive AA fire and hydroacoustic search.

I don't disagree that the Cleveland might have been too powerful. If it performed above 10km like it does right know under that range, it certainly was. However i'm not convinced with the way the balance was made. It makes your success entirely dependent on factors you can't control: cohesion on your team offering you a chance to actualy support their actions, map (good luck having any remotely offensive impact on Ocean), presence or not of carriers deciding or not to send planes remotely near to your position and the ship(s) you escort, mistakes made by the ennemy which gets way too close, instead of your own actual talent and decisions. Battles happen when you actualy barely contribute in any meaningful way, let alone make a major difference in an engagement. It might be a stellar ship down the road when we will have clan-wars equivalent when you will have fleetmates that you will know and trust to do their job and bringing pain to the "big" ennemies while you focus entirely on AA/anti-DD defense, and a support/defense-dedicated cruiser will most certainly have its place, but right now it seems to me extremely frustrating as we have nowhere near the level of teamplay, nor the actual in-game opportunities to do so, required for this ship to be useful in its current form and gratifying to play. Admitely i don't have an Aoba, but with its better guns at range, inferior AA defense but torpedo armament, it seems to be a much better rounded cruiser at that tier. And since we don't know what our next random battle will turn out to be, well rounded, versatile cruisers are what we need right now to enjoy the game.

I kinda like my Cleveland, despite the fact that it is still very stock-ish yet. However, with the game encouraging long range engagements, it is extremely difficult to play efficiently at the most extreme range due to the long travel time of shells. The slightest maneuver from your opponents and your shells land football fields away. All of this encourages HE spamming, at that point the fires are quite likely to make much more damage than your hits. I would in a heartbeat trade the rof bonus of the upgraded turrets for a flight speed bonus. It would make it more viable at long range while removing a bit of its absolute power at closer range.

Thanks. Pretty much what i felt. At least I am not missing anything obvious. Being less reckless would be agood start. If I can't get them, at least offering them less opportunities to torp me would help.

While poorly played destroyers (the kind that shoot too soon, launch their smoke too soon) are barely more than a nuisance when you have the opportunity to pepper them from far away, how do you guys deal with the nicely played ones, the ones that manage to get right under your noze and that you just can not see, or way too little time to adjust a good salvo? More so when they work in pair and you find yourself avoiding a torp salvo only to find yourself right in the path of his buddy's one. To me the very good one are in a very sweet spot, where, contrary to every other ship ingame that open themselves to retaliation as soon as they want to engage you, a destroyer (then again, a properly played one, and i realize how difficult it can be) can keep striking and filling the sea with torps in impunity as long as he doesn't make mistakes. So, what do? Running in will get me dead. Slaloming is only delaying this fate until he gets a good bet at my next move. Same for staying where i am Spraying torps on my own to throw off their course and pray for a lucky hit is a loosing battle, they have more torps, more maneuverability and see me from kilometers away. Keeping range will prevent me from spotting and having any chance for remotely accurate canon fire Getting the hell away will get the battleships around dead (but at least i'm not dead and can fight something else so i am seriously starting to consider that option). Ignoring the ones in open water and only try to engage the ones in confined spaces. But that still leaves some free to do as they please. How to I murder the slippery little buggers when they're properly played?