Panocek

Well, Russian silver ships are mostly balanced besides battleships. Its Russian premiums are are balans And WG doesn't nerf premiums... directly. I mean they can and will pull out "global change" card eventually, but won't be anytime soon, as that was spent on UK battleboats and DoY.

No. She does have outlandishly good turn radius (760m, better than Des Moines) for a cruiser about as long as Moskva, while her top speed of over 38kts means she executes turns very fast

Extra pen on Mikoyan guns is absolute overkill on cruisers. 30mm base HE pen is nice, but so does have Kirov, which will turn premium soon. Improved ricochet angles might be nice. But will they be nice enough to compensate for one turret less, especially as Kirov have epic rear turret firing arc?

Because she was handed for free during 2017 Christmas You haven't expected a gud bote for free, have you?

Which ship would be more fun to play is question only you can answer. Go watch/read all the reviews, youtube clips and carry on with your own judgment.

*cough* French destroyers *cough* sea mines on Black and *cough* Sims

You don't need IFHE to damage superstructures. And then 26mm pen achieved with IFHE is inadequate to damage T8 cruisers due to 27mm deck/upper hulls, leaving you only bow/stern to pew pew at... as long as they aren't US/Ger CA.

If WoWsft is any correct... Its Stalingrad that have NC/Amagi penetration. Kronshtadt is in line with German 380mm, Petropavlowsk start lagging behind Ger 380mm past 10km, but not much. Riga have 35mm deck and upper hull, which is conveniently enough to stop most non IFHE boosted HE besides German 1/4 CL/CA and large cruisers including Russian 220mm (37mm pen) as well ricochet all AP (except upcoming Shikishima/Yashima/510mm guns). Both Riga and Azuma have tall, exposed citadel, but Riga have layered armor (140mm outer belt and 90/40mm citadel bulkhead), which may or may not prevent citadel damage against short fused AP or cause citadel overpen due to very narrow citadel in Riga. Riga also have 40mm icebreaker, which noticeably reduces chances of bow on citadel hits. Azuma have 8k more hp and 3% better torpedo belt. Riga, due to, technically, not being large cruiser doesn't have full time fire duration. Riga have better concealment by 300m and can stealth radar (11.6km detection, 12km radar). Both handle like a bricks (920m turn radius, 13.9s vs 11.5s rudder shift). Azuma have 1km better gun range and much more potent HE damage/penetration. Riga AP penetration is mostly in line with Moskva, that is can score citadel hits on any cruiser at any range, only on most armored cruisers that are angled and 15km+ you might encounter shatters. HE seems lackluster though (same as Moskva, but with 15s reload) 220mm AP have lesser fuse arming threshold of 37mm compared to non Stalingrad 305/310mm guns and their 51/52mm fuse, but on perfect broadsides these shells still can overpen unarmored ship sections. Azuma have better than average CB dispersion, Riga, like silver RU CA line have, supposedly, dispersion pattern that makes them noticeably inaccurate at longer ranges. How much truth there is to that, remains to be seen. Basically, Riga is AP focused, with some team utility due to radar. Like Moskva, well positioned should be able to withstand quite the abuse, but, depending how layered armor will pan out, on broadsides she might go straight to gulag. Basically "mini" Moskva at tier 9

Kronshtadt, to my understanding, have AP penetration in line with 380mm guns, noticeably better than Alaska/Azuma (and therefore PR/Yoshino), but also have BB dispersion pattern, making application of that BB grade penetration... frustrating at times. And then you need broadside present for abuse due to no overmatch nor improved ricochet angles. 59mm pen only allows you to pen 57mm deck on Izumo/Yamato class. And then Drake does have like KGV tier bad firing arcs I think?

First, I'd say Alaska is too strong for her tier, having both radar utility, improved AP and survivability from 27mm plating and underwater citadel. Azuma/Yoshino are, pretty much purpose build long range HE slingers - good long range accuracy (by CB standards), potent HE and exposed citadel, punishing any ideas of taking the initiative. And then Yoshino is flat out superior - range, reload, 30mm plating and hefty torpedo payload, either for 20km memes or close and personal encounters

People usually go with competitive approach and want "best". And most people are either lazy or unable to spend substantial amount of time/resources to verify themselves whether X is good, thus "tier lists" or youtubers/influencers are a thing. The same reason you get guides for cookie cutter builds in RPGs, while "custom" builds are rare

Well, Vicky is not that great compared to other gold CVs. And then from Lusty trio, Lusty herself have even worse strike potential, but makes up with (late game) utility of two fighters and vanguard defensive shield.

I've went with what we have in game or is about to hit the game in nearest future

Snippet from recent Q&A https://old.reddit.com/r/WorldOfWarships/comments/gk3ugw/developer_qa_on_discord_part_3/ TL;DR working as intended, removed only due to being too popular.

Or remove citadel from Smolensk and other DD gun armed light cruisers "for balancing reasons" Kebabovsk with three quad 130, 42kts and 6.1km detection when Actually, WG tampered with Kildin class guided missile destroyers in the past. So maybe that?

Rockets have absolutely atrocious accuracy, so you can consider yourself lucky if you land more than 8 rockets (out of 36/42) and they actually do damage instead being soaked by modules. Throw long preparation time, thus its nigh impossible to attack unspotted DD that is going for head on, only 27mm which makes them ineffective against T10 cruisers and you have... mediocre tool entirely balanced around RNG accuracy and fires. Bombs have the same issue of struggling hitting a continent, let alone an warship. 41mm HE pen is nice against UK/US/FR battleships, but fall very flat against IJN/RU/Ger, which also happen to be the most common, reducing them to firestarting and occasional superstructure hit. Which results, again, in tool that lives and dies by RNGesus hands. Torpedoes are only thing that can be considered good about Audacious and even there she faces stiff competition from other carriers.

Think of the glorious CB lineup Kremlin Slava Stalingrad Moskva Petropavlowsk Al. Nevsky Smolensk Grozovoi Khabarovsk

One might say planes are spotted by air search radar instead good ol standard issue, mark, 1, eyeball. Given planes get no concealment bonus from cyclone/storm, unlike ships

Usual rules of replacement you might remember from WoT or US cruiser/RU DD split no longer apply. And last word is/was "you only need researched Moskva to get her in Coal version. Owning her will NOT give you free Al. Nevsky cruiser, while not selling her will deprive you of about 9mil credits. That said, I'd wait for official patchlog to happen before doing any moves.

In World of Tanks you have engine horsepower stat present. But whole stat can and is often "adjusted" for "gameplay reasons" via invisible from player perspective "ground resistance", so tank with underpowered engine can keep up with the rest or to trim down "excessive" acceleration when needed while giving pretense of realism. Also -Russians -transparency pick one

This is part where you familiarize yourself with word "arcade" and "gameplay reasons"

As in?

Yes. And main purpose of such tweak would be to deny sector sniping, because if you forget to disable AA and disable it just as it starts firing, you still get spotted on minimap with last location for CV to work with. But, if its based on dps ticking off, then again, you might be able to snipe planes without triggering dps to reveal you. Because, WG in their infinite wisdom went with "AA guns start unloaded", which, during first half of 2019 year caused interesting results on ships with less than stellar AA, like squadron being able to skip whole AA aura before guns fired, taking no damage. WG AFAIK is still stuck with "AA guns start unloaded" but set rate of fire at fixed 2/7th of a second (or was it 3/7th?) and adjusted damage to keep dps in expected values.

That much is known since changelog appeared. Question is, what is considered "AA guns cease firing"? Dps? If so, quick enough on and off should apply sector damage without activating dps, thus spoiling whole endeavor.

In theory, sector damage spike and dps are unrelated. So, on paper, if you're fast enough you might be able to deliver damage spike before dps ticks in