Panocek

DFAA flak improvement is needed to make flak actually effective, as even on "best case scenario" - Smolensk with AFT, so highest flak damage outside of DFAA itself is still not capable of killing enemy squadron that just doesn't take any evasive action. Planes would be damaged and dps would probably pick them off, but odds are, playload still would be delivered Manual AA used to be "meme tier worthy" when you could stealth snipe. Nowadays, its semi usable on ships with weakest of anti air... Which you wouldn't be speccing for it anyway. On ships with decent AA its an actual nerf

None were lost to the flak, just dps stacked from half a team worth of Minotaurs. And even then, payload was successfully delivered. Precisely why WG released her and premium twin during first CB season with carriers, to "provide solution for a problem". And then solution proved to be bit too effective, as not loo long after WG announced nerf to "anti air ambushes"

You can always play OG Gnevny, which had turret traverse buffed some time ago... you're saying you can't stealth torp with that one? Then just use captain skills and upgrades to improve torpedo range like you do with slow turrets in Anshan... oh wait

And then you have rather basic logic of "this ship seems to run full AA build and is actually inflicting plane casualties, lets ignore him and go for easier targets", thus "full AA build" becomes somewhat useless.

Most skills and upgrades, besides Concealment, Priority Target and Last Stand give you illusion of improvement. BFT on DD improving reload - yes, you can see the improvement. But you will have hard time noticing it in practice unless you bump into identical DD without the skill. And then odds are, RNG in dispersion and/or mistakes in aiming will easily counter your reload advantage. Faster torpedo reload - irrelevant if you can't get yourself into optimal torpedo firing position. Additional consumable? Useful in long, drawn out games. In usual random landslide, you can't make use it them even if you would want to Stacking ALL the dps bonuses will still not prevent you from taking damage from planes, main culprit why CVs aren't fun to play against

Yes and no. If server does "flak check" at 3.55km, then you will get flak within 3.5km due to speed prediction. Same way you can get flak outside of normal AA range... or behind an island where LoS doesn't follow

Main line, ending with Khabarovsk is "gunboat" line, trading concealment and torps for speed and high velocity guns and you get first glimpse of such gameplay at tier 5 and then from tier 7 onwards. Second mini branch uses the same guns, but in usually smaller quantity, have lots of consumables (heal, engine boost, DFAA, smoke) but is all over the place gameplay wise - Ognevoi is bit of a torpedoboat simply because how undergunned she is. Udaloi is very similar yet different to Tashkent - equally bad concealment, same guns and number of them, but trades some hp and speed for bit better torpedoes. Grozovoi is evolution of Udaloi, but with much better concealment, so she can contest caps and don't feel completely outspotted.

As good as Russian 130mm can be, given she is Russian Gnevny class sold to China. And compared to OG Gnevny in Russian tech tree, she trades turret traverse, amendable with skills and upgrade for Pan Asian smoke and longer ranged torps of deepwater flavor. And you can't extend torpedo range no matter how hard you try. Keep in mind she is first and last ship in the line with "good ballistics", as next ships are of UK and US origin with... not quite as potent ballistics. Old review, but still kinda relevant-ish

Given there is no gold pot at the end of grind rainbow, I guess you can try out midtier French and Russians for yourself, though "good ballistics" you will witness only on Ruskies, as midtier French have US kind of mortars. Pan Asian Fushun and her premium twin, Anshan available for coal can be fun hybrid - 4 Russian 130mm guns, 8km torps, decent speed, concealment and in case of Fushun, multiple fast reloading smokes. Fushun does have "deepwater" torps, so you won't be landing hits on torpedoes though.

If you want "good ballistics" on DD guns, you're limited to Russian and tier 8+ French destroyers, both are limited in concealment and options against CV. For gun oriented destroyers with torps as usable backup - UK would be your best bet. German destroyers are purposefully kept mediocre to "balance" their smoke + long-ish range hydro combination. HE was buffed in penetration recently, thus 128mm guns can damage up to and including 32mm plating, somewhat common on battleships, while AP packs quite a wallop, should you get occasions to use one. European destroyers are torpedo oriented, not because they have good torps, but you're hilariously crippled in gun range and have no smoke to put guns to action outside of few situations around islands. From tier 7 they also aren't exactly fast, coupled with no smoke means your options of disengaging from bigger party than anticipated are limited.

I wouldn't consider UK 113mm guns on Jutland and Daring to have "nice shells speed" and sure as hell it doesn't apply to midtier 120mm guns. Rate of fire you have only on Daring, as Jutland was repeatedly hit with nerf stick and her base reload is identical to tier 8 Lightning. Daring herself was hit few times with nerfbat as well, so her theoretical HE DPM is on par with Gearing. Daring (and Jutland) wins on utility - acceleration, smokes, hydro, heal, single launch torps, improved AP ricochet angles, 360 traverse on all turrets, Gearing wins on having 21mm HE pen and better torps in all aspects besides single launch. That said, slow-ish reload of 4.5s on Lightning and Jutland (3.6s in full gunboat spec for the latter) doesn't mean they lack damage output, especially as you can (ab)use your flexible smokes during DD engagements, while Brits in general have rather high fire chance per shell, so can set fire or two.

Shell caliber is relevant only for overmatch and HE pen, not related to AP penetration as Comrade Petropavlovsk shows. Besides, "tanky supercruiser with fatter guns" you already have and its called Georgia

Sounds like config file, "preferences.xml" got Read Only attribute. You can check for it, if its enabled or delete/rename file, start game again so it will be recreated, set settings again and it should stick

Majority of playerbase want to shoot ships, not get shot by ships and WG simply follows where money is.

BB AP overpens can now consistently twoshot DD turrets. In Georgia/Shikishima case, even installing Main Armaments Mod 1 doesn't help, as damage still exceeds 3000hp on the turret.

That would be the quickest event up to date?

Unless you buff penetration to Champagne/Slava levels, small penetration buffs won't help them, as ALL BB guns except those two can't pierce angled 400mm main belt at range, including 457mm BiasKanon on Kremlin.

When you have broadsides to shoot at, smaller guns can work just fine. When you don't have... load skill rounds known as HE?

With broadsides available, even 220mm guns on Petro get more than job done. When you don't have broadsides present, things get complicated Even if you ignore "smart cruiser", odds are it will not ignore you, especially if its second half of the game and amount of ships to shoot at is going down. Also "move away" for Minnie is bit And yes, I'm simply in awe how fun package Georgia is with all the gimmicks on board - overmatch, reload, accuracy, shell damage, heal, engine boost and secondaries, especially compared to Missouri

RNG have impact on plates you can hit. Overmatch, when it can occur, is guaranteed. And discussion is indeed pointless, because Georgia, BB with accurate, fast reloading and overmatching guns exist at T9.

Plate that also tend to be relatively small relative to the ship. And then typical BB accuracy does't quite allow you to pick places where you want to land your shells. You can aim there, but RNGesus might have different ideas. Which can be infuriating when in meanwhile Hindenburg is casually dismantling your "stronk battlebote" with "weak" German HE.

With current state of the game - carriers being broken as intended and proliferation of "railguns" at higher tiers that can easily hit high speed destroyers at range, you can safely skip Russian and French DDs. Russian main destroyer line loses a lot for supposed title of "gunboats" yet their gun damage output is still behind faster reloading US or UK equivalents, which almost universally also have better concealment and torps. Russian 130mm guns (as well long barreled French 139mm found on tier 8+) have ballistics to hit things even at max range though. Still, by bringing RU or FR gunboat to the battle, you're not bringing firepower to the team, you're removing one destroyer from your team lineup. Which means one less ship to contest caps or spot stuff.

Both are held in check by artificial ricochet angles and equally artificial overmatch mechanic. When it comes to perforating BB grade armor, most 406mm guns are just fine, unless dealing with 400mm plating at considerable distance and/or when angled. You know, kind of plating you'd use to defeat 406mm guns in first place And USN SHS 406mm shells have their "superheavy" gimmick modeled into above average shell damage.

Fries also completely lacks torps and is severely handicapped in concealment department. Yes, you can use smoke+hydro combo, but its not universal solution for every case.

Because 30mm plating is oh so rare on tier 10 cruisers and capacity to "angle" isn't that brain demanding to begin with. Throw in fact most hightier ships can easily keep all turrets on target and still retain their hulls well within ricochet angle and you have situation, where 406mm guns "simply doesn't cut it"