Exocet6951

53% WR, highest damage despite having the smallest guns and the least amount, highest survivibility despite on paper being the least maneuverable and least protected against torpedoes and having a "huge weakspot" (lulz), and having the most main battery accuracy despite being on paper the least accurate, and having average plane kills almost on par with the NC despite having "weak AA" (lulz). Perfect balance comrade. Spend your money on the Bismarck and move along.

See the problem is just that, the Bismarck performs better, the Gneisenau performs better, and the only reason the FdG and Currywurst don't dominate is that the DD population is joyfully spamming the Gearing, Fletcher and more recently the Yugumo, rubbing their hands at the guaranteed 5 BB per match, low CV population type MM and "please oh god please don't kill me, I'll be in the back sniping" cruiser meta. That's because ultimately, they're all very similar. Fast, long ships with unbelievably reliable and foolproof armor, armored decks making them resistant to HE, and enough AA to make them unattractive targets. The Bismarck may be the worst offender, but they're all in the same boat.

Fine, let's look at warship.today then Over the last 2 weeks, the Bismarck has had 172k game played, the same amount as both the Amagi and NC put together. In those matches, it manages to reach 53%, a full 1.3% higher than the already overperforming Amagi. It also manages to end up top damage, despite having less firepower and less powerful guns, it gets a full 150xp more more match (which is a good 10% more, very telling too), and manages to survive as often. And that's with EVERY PLAYER. Should I go into more details ?

You pulled 10 players, a statistical joke, he pulled the top 5 or 10% of ALL players on the server with public stats. And with that, German BBs past tier6 outperform the others in damage, WR, main gun accuracy, survival and kills. In short, a German BB in the hands of a random player is better than than an equivalent tier BB of another nation, and in the hands of a good player, it's better by over 5%. The large, "unmaneuverable" ships with poor torpedo protection, "poor AA", "poor firepower" and a large superstructure that brawl in range of cruisers, DDs and BBs survive longer and do more damage than more cautious ships with more and larger guns like the Amagi or the Iowa. Obviously a sign of 100% balance.

This. SO many complaints in the chat when a tier7 is face with tier9s, but not a peep when the same player uses his same Nagato to steamroll a bunch of New Yorks, Furus and Gvenys.

They just need to protect tier5 more is all. You can bump tier3 to -1/+2, but bump tier5 to -1/+1 The jump in power between those two tiers is generally HUGE. Kongo to Fuso? lol Emerald to Leander Omaha to Cleveland Nicholas to Farragut Mutsuki to Fubuki Konig to Bayern I could go on and on, but a tier6 in a tier8 battle fares much better than a tier5 in a tier7 battle. A New Mexico can at least badly damage a Bismarck, or fend off an Atago, but put an Omaha against a Mahan or a Kiev, and the Omaha is probably going to die.

That first statement isn't mutually exclusive with mine. However, getting caught 10km away from a Bismarck/Gneisenau/etc... is your fault on an open map, but when they go 30 knots and there is hard cover on the map, you can get caught out at 11-14km. And if you do, you'll be in the danger zone by the time you turn tail and run. And while secondaries aren't as dangerous for cruisers (although fire aren't exactly a laughing matter on cruisers without a repair kit), it's deadly for DDs. A single misjudged firing of the main gun that gets you spotted because there's a DD close enough to spot you, and you're losing a third of your HP. Having secondaries with that amount of range is just stupid. While it was still acceptable on IJN ships after the 155mm secondaries started firing AP, it just isn't on the usual German suspects. Don't get me wrong though, 20km sniper hero BBs are annoying, idiotic and problematic for the game too, just in a different way. Those don't cause an entire class interaction jumble, they just make the game boring for DD and BBs, unplayable for CVs because those heroes tend to clump together, and make the game an awful dice roll roulettes for CAs. German BBs just force DDs to play more out of caps and CAs to move even further away from caps that if they want to live. The entire concept is flawed. Too many advantages that outweigh completely generally just a single weakness per ship. As for the Currywurst and FdG, hydro was a stupid choice. They could have gone for more torpedo protection. They could have considered that tier7+, the trade-off for being stronger against CAs and BBs was being weaker against DDs, instead they made them stronger against everything. And the worst part is that with all the vocal support from wehraboos, having a calm discussion about what needs nerfing (because 2-7% more WR and 5-15k average damage with them since their release, and per 2 week slices indicates that they aren that's just a fact) is off the table. I really wish WG could have released Russian BBs using the same concept as German BBs first, just to see people's reaction. The Russian bias and statistics pointing would have been EPIC. None of those "but it's only been 6 months, give it longer to balance out!" arguments.

So, your solution is to further increase the problem, rather than realign the class interactions ? You put a ship that can brawl on a cap point because it's basically the easy mode version of easy mode class, and you get cruisers and DDs even FURTHER from caps. Blue line snipers, now includes CAs and DDs. I'm not saying remove hydro from German BBs, I'm saying that the entire BB class should be reworked to better fit in. ... And for German BBs to be nerfed, because one actual weakness compensated by 5 or 6 strongpoints is just ridiculous.

And force CAs to stay even further back for fear of 10km secondaries of doom. So, let's recap. BBs go into brawling (supposedly) with hydro and the equivalent of a Cleveland strapped to each side, forcing DDs to play more carefully (one spot = instant punishment with secondary that don't need time to aim, only traverse), and forcing CAs to stay back because lol damage aura. And because they also have decent AA that you can upgrade without removing too much of the secondaries' strength and range, CVs prefer going after DDs instead. How amazing is it that you have one type of ship in one class of ship completely overshadowing all three other classes in game, infringing on the gameplay of cruisers all while being less weak to their counter classes, and people still defend them with ferocity. I dare WG to pump out a premium Russian BB with the same type of gameplay as the Bismarck just to see the reaction of wehraboos.

[loads a tier6 match, 10 BBs, over 50% German, outnumbering cruisers] Nope, still the same here.

Just last night, I surprised a pair of poor Kamikazes trying to seal club at 4km hiding in smoke. Smoke disappeared, and coming right through the disssipating smoke like the mother****ing Black Pearl in Pirates of the Caribean, I blast one from full hp to 0 with point blank HE, all 8 shells hitting. Turn around, dodge all the torpedoes from the panicking Kamikaze, my secondaries peppering him, then giving him the ol' butthole full of HE trick and make him go bye bye. Right after that, quick switch to AP to wreck the Nurnberg thinking of getting in on the torpedo action in a single salvo. An aggressiv Dunkek who knows when to use what shells and when is the biggest troll ingame. Those HE shells are just magnitudes more powerful than what you'd expect from them. As for the AA, it turns from bad to passable. I don't have AFT yet, so the range is still only average, but I know full well that the only thing I'm doing is preventing stock tier 5 CVs from dropping on me. An elite tier6 CV with a CV that's at least marginally competent won't lose more than 3 planes during the entire strike. Maybe 4-5 if it's an IJN CV with bad luck on the RNG rolls. The Dunkek's real problem is that while most ships at that tier have comparably good or even better long range AA , they follow up with a number of 20mm guns which have the benefit of killing planes after they're dropped, and chew away at the reserves, it only has a limited number of 13mm machineguns as close range. The Dunkek doesn't really have that, so there isn't that psychological smack on the nose with a rolled up newspaper which says "no, bad CV, don't do that again". It's arguably much more balanced, gameplay wise.

Well that and the fact that it takes time doing all of that. Kudos to the STs, they deserve some recompense.

Not sure why people are so eager to become one in the first place. I would have a shot at becoming one, I think, but I don't want to apply as it's not just screwing around with free ships at my heart's content. I think that's the first type of people they'll weed out.

It's obviously a picture taken from very far away, and that balloon is the size of a zeppelin. No but seriously that is a neat idea, but does it have its role? It would just be a permanent " **** you torpedoes" spotting mechanism that just sticks over the ship at all times.

Depends on if he presses the "filter by xp" button once or twice

Oh boy, historically selective realism plea! Better have all USN ships have access to a long range radar, giving them unparallel accuracy. Better have the Bismarck's rudder collapse on itself after a single hit. Better have planes utterly **** on with inpunity everything smaller than a large cluster of ships coordinating their fire. Also, if you must know, 16" super heavy AP is nerfed compared to IRL, or else it would just be plunging itself through the decks of ships with ease, whereas right now it's basically on par/worse than the IJN 410mm gun.

People complaining about getting Ocean's Soul camo SC, meanwhile I'm here opening my 50th TLY with 5 pointless flags in it. WG pls.

I honestly have no idea what this ship is. It's not a bad ship, not by a long shot, but I think it and WG are confused as to what it is, so just made her mediocre to good in every aspect. The result is surpringly good, albeit confusing. You just never know if you're supposed to be playing the way that you are at any given time. I often find myself in a situation where I have to ask myself if I should pursue the spotted enemy DD, trading shots 1v1, or retreat. Similarily I usually find enemies with the same confused and unsure attitude towards my hatsu showing up. Some dedicated gunboats run away from me, while torpedo boats decide that they're a match, gun-wise, and press the attack.

We're looking at a branch with the typical slow ships with potato guns from tier3 to 5, then either a branch that either keeps 380mm guns from tier7 or 8 all the way to tier10, each tier tacking on an extra quad turret reaching a total of 16 guns, or one slightly more reasonable branch that eculminates with a ship sporting 9 450mm guns. Personally I'm hoping for the former. 16 (undersized) guns on a ship with the size, armor and speed of an Iowa sounds hilarious. Though I suspect it won't be approved, because how the hell do you make that sort of ship not obliterate cruisers?

Doh' That's what I get for skipping out on coffee this morning.

It's still better than the NM, Fuso, Dunkerque and Warspite, what more do you need?

Damage control never really seems worth it when there's the rudder module on the line.

Wow really? With 4x2 105mm AA ? Get manual AA, and that thing gets 200 AA at 4.5km. Even if you don't have manual AA, that's still probably the best battleship AA at tier6. Hell, it would be as good as the Cleveland if that thing didn't have defensive fire.

Oh boy, sounds like a surprise "what camo lol? You never had a camo" situation.