Panocek

This is puzzle for WG to solve, to create potentially interesting ships without being (blantantly) overpowered. Perfect examples - Atlanta, Scharnhorst, DoY, Graf Spee. And last time I've checked WG set up bar for T9 Freemiums quite damn high. Missouri, being just Iowa with radar, Musashi which lols at T9 BB competition, Kron outlasting cruisers and making holes in Yamatos, Alaska being surprisingly allrounder while having American Piercing, AA and radar. Azuma you could consider "balanced" compared to silver ships, which makes her somewhat lacking to the Freemium competition.

At this point in time, ship without gimmick or otherwise some BS stats ends like Azuma - why bother. Keep in mind she is a premium, even a Free Exp one. And boringly balanced without *something* to hold on doesn't quite cut it, otherwise you would have Prinz Eugens running around every battle.

She also have worse camo than most "regular" cruisers, no gimmicks, no dps edge nor wall of skill options while getting extra roasted and being extra clumsy in return. Alaska provides American Piercing, decent AA, radar and have hidden citadel. Kron have extra punchy guns, radar and lol hp pool. Missouri on all three in though

Funny, because excel says Enterprise between you and 5 other owners is on average balans post rework and waiting for sales You can thank game economy literally encouraging shooting the smallest ones

Assuming it wasn't perfect bow on, American Piercing should go through 60mm waterline belt+150mm bulkhead behind, plausible knowing 203mm short range performance and it hit just the right spot. Maybe Gneis was turning? With some roll it could expose citadel as well.

You will have to deal with them, as they will stay that way up to and including Zao. Exception being Atago Takao class, as she have one launcher per side facing forward, which is as boon as its a curse, as with IJN cruisers kiting is one of the skills worth mastering

And she's a beast in T6 Ops

Including ones still in torp tubes.

Considering HVAR spread, I'll take TiTs any day. Bonus points for not having obscene arming distance and being actually viable against all targets.

Since fixing of Catapult Fighters despawning bug, is it intended for them to be THE best CV counter as of now? They are guaranteed plane kill, which doesn't mix well with newly UK carriers and their tiny squadrons with borderline obscene restoring times, outrunning them isn't an option either.

So I've bit the bullet and Free Exped from Furious to Implantable mostly to make use of that permacamo, which looks nice I admit... what a waste of exp, credits, port slot and time. Rockets, meh. TBs are hilariously bad, bombs are ineffective except select few big and squishy targets. And the worst - Catapult fighters, which you can't hope for bugging them out, you can't even try to outrun and they ignore "extra tanky" so random potato with Direction Control wipes 2/3 or in best case scenario, half of your squadron because he was "skilled" enough to click Y. And to top it off, THE longest replenishment timers

Lexi TiTs are much more accurate though.

You won't be stealth torping anyone with 2TB squadron, but if you go full boost in, you close in that 6km distance in actually very short time, so main TB target - battleships, battlecruisers and clumsier cruisers are pretty much guaranteed to hit if caught from the broadside. Rockets and bombs benefit less from camo, as they get spotted at 8km or so.

To show grandkids? "back in 2017 I've farmed for Missouri with these New Year 2017 camos, those were good times, also I've got Graf Spee in the event as well"

Its TiTs

After spending some more time in training rooms working with AP bombers, only conclusion I can come up is (Haku) bombs have very high penetration (around 300mm?) which is not affected by plane speed (ie faster dive = more oomph) but are affected by trajectory of the drop (early drops are closer to vertical, the later you drop the more horizontal it gets), very short fuse and fuse sensitivity between 57mm and 70mm I have no idea*. Which means: -defeats whole theory of late bomb drops to avoid overpens on cruisers, unless they have too thin citadel roof to arm the fuse and even then no matter how late drop is, it will overpen anyway, unless you hit vertical main belt or bulkheads -You can citadel battleships that can be cit'd at pretty much any time as I was able to consistently citadel Yamato (200mm cit roof) and Wursts at very late drops with less than 2s -Republique and Conqueror must have some sort of bomb deck arming bombs before they reach their underwater citadels, while Montana's bomb deck is too close to citadel, unless you drop late, then there is risk of bomb not reaching citadel before bang *AP bomb ignores BB main deck (32-57mm in thickness) but arms just fine on Minotaur central citadel deck of 38mm as well Hindenburgs 45mm, unless they have hidden bomb deck thick enough to arm the fuse above citadels. I've also consistently scored citadels on Aoba/Myoko/Mogami 35mm cit roof. Curiously enough, I couldn't get any cits on Omaha's 37mm citadel roof, so... working as intended? TL;DR - throw bombs at the red ones, preferably cruisers, Yamatos, Wursts and maybe Montanas and hope for the best

For IJN you want to max out concealment to get 6.1km detection on TBs. It doesn't sound much, but it enables you to outspot 152mm armed AA cruisers like Minotaur and Wooster without being fired upon, unless spotted by something else. That kind of concealment, coupled with IJN TB speed lets you to carry out blitz torpedo runs which unless someone anticipate you, are quite tough to dodge. But when doing so, have exit strategy so you don't waltz in into AA blob. Basic modus operandi: -find preferably singled out target, if not so singled out, find exit strategy to minimize AA exposure on your way out -start at 8-7km away from target broadside, full boost and as soon as you are 6km away (or first flak shows up) start actual attack run, drop ordnance, enter attack mode again and gtfo WSADing your way out. -repeat ad nauseam Keep in mind, planes when in "ready to drop" mode (green crosshair) gain 30% dmg reduction because WG logic, which you want to abuse the hell out when attacking and when disengaging with TBs and Rockets to minimize losses. Doesn't work with DBs though AP bombs are unfortunately practice, practice, practice. Spending some time in training room against bots isn't bad idea Some replays of mine, as food for eyes (and thought) https://replayswows.com/replay/44714 https://replayswows.com/replay/45791 https://forum.worldofwarships.eu/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=163069 Two are in Shokaku, but gameplay is the same, really. And keep in mind, IJN are kinda shoehorned into capital ship killer, so you struggling with killing important ships ie DDs is normal. That is why Midwaymasterrace, because she have two toolsets to deal with DDs, three against battleships and at least two when it comes to cruisers, depending how good they are at paying attention Haku of mine, skill and upgrade wise

Thing is, not so long ago stock planes got massive hp buffs, so with upgrades you gain speed and squadron size, hp not so much. And PTS when everyone potato around with half baked ships and captains is not quite representative compared to live, where most people have at least some skills and upgrades in place

Deck penetration doesn't exist in this game unless shell overmatch deck plating OR you're at 20km+ distances, where shells can actually stop ricocheting.

Which is exactly the same tale as with IJN - farming BB dmg doesn't necessarily win games. And tbh, if I'm shoehorned into TBs to do any meaningful damage to capital ships, I'd prefer IJN because, well, better torps, better TB and more of them to throw at the red ones. So what was the UK CV point again?

Random writeup of thoughts AA changed towards denying strikes than shooting down planes Flak changes: -deals much less damage -inflicts "panic" effect on hit planes, temporarily increasing dispersion -flak is large caliber AA (dual purpose guns) feature only, overlapping with short/mid range* with minimal distance of 1km (to be adjusted) -flak amount/rate of fire is tied to amount and rof of DP guns while effectiveness is tied to caliber, with exception being IJN DD 127mm guns, to compensate for their lacking reload. For example - Fletcher spits out relatively constant stream of flak, making attack runs on her tricky, while Iowa blasts 10 flak bursts every 6s, giving window to drop ordnance with some degree of precision AA dps is overall reduced, but it also increases dispersion of attacking planes, in return attack aircraft gets accuracy bonus against targets with AA severely destroyed or disabled. AA enabled and dps plinking, brings dispersion to +-current levels, any flak on top of that increases dispersion temporarily. Catapult/summon fighters instead instadeleting squadron, inflicts full dispersion penalty while dealing some damage. In return, they can be outrun by attack squadrons running on full boost to wait for timer and/or bait them towards friendly AA. In catapult fighters case, they are reduced to one-two planes with appropriate durability buff, depending if ship have one, two or more catapults to launch them. *WG intention of not overlapping AA was to create different situation than "the closer you are, the more damage you take". Which already failed HARD, as only case where AA dps diminishes the closer you get is, ironically enough, Atlanta. @MrConway just a thing to add for "user feedback" part of weekly report, so guys in St. Petersburg have something to put into shredder

And here I thought Tirpitz is best for learning, after all german steel stronk da?

This bug is around for quite some time, if you weren't so high up the sky all the time you might have notice it earlier

Then WG wired/is about to wire 3min softcap for CVs