Panocek

Tier 7 Frenchster lacks ballistics to somewhat consistently hit things past 10km, let alone at 13km+ Błyskawica and other "bad concealment" DDs of tier 7 are damned anyway - if WG were to add Concealment upgrade to tier 7 (and other tiers) it would somewhat fix concealment gap against tier 8, but the same gap between British gang of tier 7 would remain just as large as it is now - Jervis, Gadjah Mada and Haida have very similar shell damage output to Błyskawica, but they have vastly superior concealment and in two cases, considerably heavier torpedo payload. Haida with Concealment upgrade would hit 5.1 detection Buffing concealment of Błyskawica might help her, but that would merely shift to "Mahan/Maass/Sims/[insert other destroyer] concealment buff when"

No. WG learned from their mistake and you can't stockpile on discounted consumables or upgrades, unless you mount them on all available ships and then demount them.

Either removing concealment upgrade from the game or giving it to all tiers would be a solution. But then, how else WG would... incentivise... players to not sit in mid tiers and dare to say it, have fun there?

T7 in general need fixing of concealment, adding heal to Błyska merely will let her be farmed bit more.

Not really. Those are basically one time baits, the next best you're likely to get will be 30% coupon off select premium store offers.

Personally I'd move "tier 5" requirement to tier 6, as T5 have rocky matchmaking at best of days, while tier 6 also can play PvE Operations. Also at T6 there are much more "fun" ships to be found, compared to tier 5. Quick picks would be: IJN Fuso - gold standard of tier 6 BB. 12gun broadside makes up for questionable accuracy, 21km range lets you reach out and touch someone across the map, armor isn't thick, but when angled can richochet a lot of stuff sent your way. At the same time, wonky turret placement denies you simply sitting bow on, so decisions when to angle and when to bring all firepower to bear will have to be made IJN Aoba - decent heavy cruiser with considerable torpedo payload USN Pensacola - overall best tier 6 CA, hard to argue with 10gun broadside mounted on very nimble hull. RU Budyonny - high speed, long range and good ballistics light cruiser KMS Nurnberg - fast reload, high damage AP and high pen HE. Fragile though KMS Bayern tough brick with 380mm guns, thus can overmatch other battleships of same tier. Accuracy leaves something to be desired though HMS Leander - first good light cruiser in UK line, still not the easiest to play, but rewarding well when selecting right targets HMS Queen Elizabeth - accurate-ish 380mm guns on rather glass hull MN Normandie - similar to Fuso as 12gun shotgun, trading bit of AP performance and survivability for speed. Pan-Asian Fushun - good allrounder destroyer - okay torpedo payload, although of deepwater kind (can't hit destroyers), decent artillery and very useful smokes with quick reload, handy against carriers or to not be pinned to single location with normal smoke.

Imagine battleships having actual counter in this game

Second 10 build and got Shinano alongside Suzutsuki

Indianapolis is as bog standard US heavy cruiser as she can be, which means full compatibility with US CA captain skills and gameplay. Marblehead and Texas are highly lackluster, so I'd steer away from them. Monaghan is quirky one, but can work as US DD trainer, so is Sims. In general, WG maneuvered game into position where if you want "good" premium ship, you basically need to go big (and buy tier 8-9) or not at all, as midtiers suffer from notorious uptiers or 2x CV games. Midtiers being uptiered isn't helped by artificial game mechanics which makes them... in less than enviable spot, like BBs being constantly overmatched, DDs outspotted simply because they can't mount Camo upgrade or light cruisers incapable of dealing direct HE damage to tier 8+ battleships. Only if you're short on them and have credits to spare. I've found daily containers with signals, coupled with daily missions as well rewards from permanent Campaigns can stock up you with basic signals.

Planes are already limited, as there are only so many planes that can be recovered within 20 minutes.

Well, "modern players" simply got conditioned to basically work their asses off under pretense of having fun. When was the last time you were playing not grindy game simply for fun?

Graf Zeppelin was close or actually displaced Taiho in terms of torpedo protection. But, Taiho would have no qualms to flex her torpedo belts, regardless if asked to do so Kashino, yeah. Top heavy indeed. After all, single Yamato turret was heavier than entire modern destroyer

Preview of new beach/pool l2d skins at the very least raises an eyebrow...

One might argue, surface ships that don't throw their hulls mindlessly tend to be mostly healthy in later parts of the game.

At 3km Baltimore can mangle Yamato citadel, so "yamato armor weak" as well?

So Nagato is tanuki too, as she materialized her tails in latest skin?

Petro armor is everything but weak. 180mm outer belt, 120mm inner around magazines and 40mm over machinery. Riga have 140mm outer and 90/40 inner plates, but citadel is quite higher. "weak" against battleship grade munitions. But normie cruisers might have rather hard time going through that.

Yes and no. Great majority of Petro hull thats sticks above water (which isn't much to begin with) is 50mm plating only, so any DD capable of pressing "2" or Minotaur will have field day with such broadside. Stalin, just like Moskva, have very high citadel with 150-180mm armor, so it can stop CL and weaker CA shells. But anything that will go through will cause significant emotional event

Petro is somewhat discount Stalingrad though, having only concealment and low citadel as advantages. And certainly one can start screeching "bussian rias" when you find yourself like 6km away from one and it start punching turrets out with disturbing frequency. Which will be only more common after "turret hits deal ship damage" change arrives

At shorter distances I've found Tallin/Petro guns to be mostly on point, past 15km they seems to rapidly gain vertical dispersion, which sends shells everywhere

Roon at least have high HE pen, making her actually quite consistent HE farmer. And then her AP when applied correctly can oof.

AFAIK entire sub branch have semi improved ricochet angles, but they are just that - partially improved so you can't really tell if they work whatsoever.

Or was WG attempt to move "meta" from 20km HE wankfest.

But... but... flolololo said (s)tallinn is of balans AP pen is good by normal cruiser standards, competing with Italian 203 AP, but to pierce 300mm plating (somewhat common on T8-9 BBs) you perfect broadside and be at 10km or closer. Having CL kind of protection doesn't make it any easier to get closer though, at least Riga and Petro fix that with 35/50mm platings Petro AP can pierce 400mm plating at broadside up to 12-13km, above that or with even modicum of angling it start failing. Lower tier BBs are pushovers at any range though. 360 turrets are comfortable as well, even with their slow traverse. Entire sub branch is basically designed to operate within radar range and pummel any and all available broadsides and/or knock turrets off the ships, while being hilariously crippled against destroyers despite stealth radar capacity. Long range HE shelling is absolute worst thing you can do with them.

If we would go with maximum possible range for secondaries, then US and IJN ones would be rather handicapped, as ye olde 5"/38 couldn't lob shells past 16km or so. 127mm/40 found on most IJN battleships/cruisers had below 15km range as well. 5"/54, found on Montana and Midway had 23km range though. Still, would be interesting to see secondaries with 14-16km range. Doesn't have to be particularly effective, but certainly would be more fun with more dakka.