Panocek

Smoke is your best counter against carriers, also due to having so many of them you have many opportunities to put guns into action, if no convenient island is nearby. You can also use them to break contact. If you lack "stealth torping" then clearly you're lacking CE on captain. Not that you will "stealth torp" much with 700m margin, but it is something. Besides, torps on Brit DDs becomes powerful on tier 9 onwards, as T8 is still somewhat short in range department. Hydro is defensive with its short range and long duration, and you shouldn't actively look for opportunities to hydro someone around islands or in smokes. Still, if situation presents itself in late game and you're not far... then why not Still, entire line starts to shine from T8 onwards, so you're closer than further away.

Well, Georgia covers all the bills and given both use 457mm guns and AFAIK have the same battlecruiser dispersion, I see little reason in getting both. Georgia due to not being tier 10 also gets you extra credits and can't enter T10 only games, which I find to be extremely stale and outright boring. That said, while Georgia should work just fine with usual BB survivability oriented captain and still have improved secondaries, to get the most out of her secondaries you'd want dedicated captain.

Imagine 250mm main belt actually doing its thing Alternatively stop sprinkling her turrets

Mysore lacks one turret compared to Fiji as well. bEcAuSe 130Mm CaN't PeN 30mM

Times when tier 7 had "goldilock" matchmaking are long gone, now you will see lots of uptiers. And tier 7 ships uptier badly due to artificial gap in ship stats: battleships are overmatched by 380mm+ guns, which are common sight at tier 7 already, let alone at tier 8. Tier 8 light cruisers also get 30mm HE pen, thus you will be farmed for days by one. cruisers usually have 19mm plating, making them incapable of ricocheting 280mm+ guns, which can be an issue when facing Alaska and other Large Cruisers. Light cruisers also have artificially worsened HE pen, which can prove an issue when facing tier 8+ heavy cruisers, as HE will shatter harmlessly. destroyers suffer from lack of Concealment upgrade, present on tier 8. Thus, in any uptiered game you will have significant concealment penalty when facing higher tier DDs. Basically, game devolved into state where if you want decent premium ship, you need to spend big, or not at all. Alternatively collect Free Exp and/or Coal to get tier 9 "freemiums" like mentioned Alaska, Georgia or what else you fancy.

At least until AA damage and aerial camo change happens. The best anti air you have on carriers, both decent to good dps values and long lasting fighters giving you all battle coverage

Yea, it takes disturbing amount of highly leveled DDs to fulfill that. And while I do have Akizuki gang at 116lv, they are... somewhat undergunned against splurge of BC/BBs, while their torp stats also leave something to be desired. Still, managed to clear w11h in the end, haven't bothered with lowering danger level though.

Or you play from pool of available ships LoL style. Which may or may not conveniently not contain "meta" ships.

Tbh, it can be "fixed" by randomizing ship you get when entering such game mode, either from ships you own or those in rotation. That way you can't spam Enty+Massa party all day every day

RU heavies have traits that seem OP, but once you assemble them all into the ship, you get ship that can be called "overspecialized" at best and frustrating to play at worst. Tbh, the same story was with first branch of cruisers and destroyers ("ermagad OP railguns") but attached to rather flawed hulls. That said, RU CA gets penetration to threaten even BB grade armor, as I've experienced that the fun way, when I started scoring main belt penetrations on Pommern (300mm main belt) with Tallinn at +-9km. And with next ships onward, I can expect that to be even better. With normal heavy cruisers (and hightier RU CLs) you kinda need to abuse AP whenever possible for citadel hits/regular pens. Only Des Moines have HE damage output to match light cruisers thanks to CL grade reload, though Hindenburg can be very consistent due to increased penetration and you compensate for low-ish damage with sheer weight of broadside. And still decent reload. Concealment. You pick Concealment on 99% of the ships, with that 1% being Khabarovsk (assuming you play one in 2020) or French/Italian CA built for agility and overall open water shenanigans. With Chapa and next ships on the line, main issue is not lack of rudder shift, but terrible turn radius and you can't fix that.

Premium Akizuki class, preferably for coal or FXP because I have no interest in actually spending on one Options would be Harutsuki, possibly in her postwar Russian service as Vnezapny, rearmed with russian armament or Yoizuki, in Pan Asian tree as Fen Yang in RoC service.

"CA" line is massively overspecialized in AP shells and their extreme penetration. In return, their HE damage output leaves a lot to be desired, coupled with bit worse dispersion and very short duration radar, they are almost cripplingly ineffective against destroyers and anyone smart enough to not show you broadside. "CL" line... Chapayev is great CL and comparing Chapa to Tallinn is rather onesided comparison and not in favor of Tallinn. Donskoi I've always found to be a downgrade over Chapa, as "russian bias" 180mm guns combine worst of both CA and CL worlds - slow CA reload and not really hard hitting shells of a CL. 180mm HE also don't have improved penetration over 152mm since IFHE rework. Donskoi/Nevsky AP is nothing to be sneezed at, but HE damage output on both is far from "HE spammers" like Worcester, Smolensk or Des Moines With hightier cruisers of both lines you're kinda incentivised to position yourself in a way to flex your superior AP pen, as HE output might be lacking, which may or may not be easier said than done in your average randoms

Its not a bug, its a feature.

Imagine playing ships for fun. Whether you like the ship gameplay, looks, history or whatever else. Besides, strap up your premboat with FXP flags and you can grind Free Exp to help you getting more ships, bonus points for raising captain/collecting Elite Exp when doing so.

Just buy correct type of premium, like Lazo or Ochakov Besides, why WG would come up with multinational ships (AFAIK there is one multinational captain of weeb variety though) when they can sell you more premiums? Tankers have worse, as when you put heavy tank crew in medium tank premium, crew not only may suffer from suboptimal skill set, but also have active penalty for wrong tank type. In boats you can put DD captain in BB, skills won't be optimal but you won't get artificial accuracy/reload/handling penalty for doing so.

I wonder if having guns blazing have something to do with being spotted "Agile enough to escape incoming shells"... not russian ones, thats for sure and certainly not at distances within your gun range.

PM only reduces chance of critical damage occurring... which means it will happen anyway, especially when you need those the most I have PM on my Daring/Cossack captain... and whenever I come under fire I have both engine and rudder knocked out immediately, so might as well pick Incoming Fire Alert as one pointer, probably will be more useful actually.

And yet you've complained about "passive play", simply because "active play" is punished in this game unless you pull off that once-a-month stunt.

There is no "tanking for the team" in this game to begin with. -you go forward while teammates don't follow -> you're overextending and probably inviting thorough spanking -someone keeps shooting your angled and reasonably healthy BB instead broadside cruiser next to you -> you're not making a good job, you're witnessing an idiot in his natural habitat

Feel free to get, lets say, Des Moines and prove everyone you can consistently get good results (and I mean good, not "I've lived past 4min mark") without island cover, playing daring and all that jazz. Because, playing around islands is, most of the time, safe and consistent way of playing when you have no armor to withstand shots, no smoke as immediate gtfo option and you're still big and chunky. And without range nor ballistics to make long range open water "viable" besides "send shells there" sign

Then you discover hightier cruisers having handling of a midtier BB and people tend to actually learn with their aim, alternatively RNGesus helps them with that. Bonus points for higher shell velocities, so cruiser in question can't do any meaningful turn before shells arrive, unless you're trading shots at 20km+ What works on Omaha not necessarily carry over to Des Moines. To top it off, your Omaha random stats... doesn't confirm what you say about your "success" in her.

Given its average player we're talking about, I wonder if disabling AA by default on destroyers would be better statistical buff than spotting shenanigans Lesta is about to test

That is why word "without" starts the sentence

Because, again, BB guns were designed to make holes in BB armor. Not some puny cruisers. Besides, all or nothing armor on BBs can also print you nice amount of overpens. So, how exactly you "l2p" in increasingly bigger, clumsier cruisers against guns with better and better ballistics as well improving accuracy without island cover? Only French CAs can afford open water gameplay with their speed and long range. And maybe italians with their emergency smoke on top of similar top speed and excellent turn radius. Moskva/Petro/Stalin have some armor to withstand beating for a while, but god forbid someone taking a glimpse of your broadside.

Basically the same as Riga. without handicapped HE, long range inaccuracy and concealment.