Hirohito

The thing with Småland is that she has some strong tools to take those fights. The 30% speed boost allows for manipulating speed to the extent that you are gonna see a lot of full misses from heavier ships at range, especially when you are competent at juking the follow-up shots once they adjust the aim. Then you also get a rather potent heal (for a DD) on top of it, making the effective health pool quite large in the end. Småland is about isolating fights as much as possible, as in a straight-up gun fight she murders most DDs rather quickly, then getting out safely before the enemy team catches on to what just happened. If you can both take a good position using cover to isolate the fight, as well as juke the firing angles that they do have on you, you can get away with a lot of nonsense near the caps. Heck, even if you face a unicum div on the other side of the cap, you can still have a comparatively strong influence on the caps even if you don't open up on the red DD, compared to other DD hunters. Mostly due to the ability to radar the cap (while staying dark), and having good torp options even against something like a Soviet radar position, while retaining the option to open up if any further opportunity arises.

I don't think the "cruisers are dead" crowd are referring to the meta in coop games, to be honest.

Daring or Småland. These boats don't really rely on teammates that much (good in this case), and more importantly, can swing the caps back into our control to get points ticking despite the potato salad on our side. If we still lose the game, I'll probably be fuming and bringing out Langley the next game to shred me some potatoes and get my revenge on the WG playerbase. T4 CVs are my "I'm in a bad mood" boats.

Got no idea how you'd fix some of it, especially the more intangible plays. Had a Gearing laying a smoke carpet in cap for my Småland yesterday (after he solo capped it) and leaving it to spot for me, which I promptly used to creep up to to a GK, dump 8 torps into him while he died from my double fire and flood, followed by punishing a Zao that tried to hunt the Gearing. The poor Gearing ended up at 4th place, where he absolutely didn't belong, while I similarly finished on top as I could just farm stuff out completely. I have no idea how you'd reward such a play, even when it gave us a strong advantage and tilted the game to a win. Had we lost that game, he would surely be way worse off. That being said, WG could surely tweak spotting XP, I'd be very happy with an increase to that. I bet the Gearing would too, as he was the only reason I could farm that kind of ridiculous damage (120k or so in 2 mins).

The thing with Jutland and DD hunting (which goes for most other RN DDs to be fair) is not necessarily monstrous dpm to win them the fights, but the sum of the parts. RN DDs have decent dpm, good'ish concealment to get close to the action undetected, the combination of hydro and overall good maneuverability giving confidence when pushing closer to the action, heals (from T9) to give an effectively higher health pool, and short smokes to disengage at will when the trade starts going in the wrong direction. The way I personally play them is by seeking out enemy DDs, trying to get the jump on them and dumping as many shots as I can into them, all the time judging whether or not the trade is good for me. If it is, I keep dumping shots until he's either dead or disengaged. If the trade starts to turn from good to bad, I smoke up and disengage, only to repeat the process later. The whole reason this playstyle works, is confidence. The confidence comes from the fact that I know that I have most or all of the tools at hand to pull off such moves and get away with it relatively unharmed compared to the other guy, or minimize losses that would leave a different DD crippled. A Fletcher for instance might on paper have more raw dpm, but you can't really play a Fletcher as aggressively as you can a Jutland. You have slightly better concealment which, while minor, is still handy when trying to get the jump on someone or disengaging, and this adds to the confidence of getting close to begin with. Add in the combination of Hydro, better maneuverability (and even the overlooked part, 360 degree guns), and thats another layer adding confidence to pushing very up close that a Fletcher should think twice about (he might eat torps, not be able to dodge said torps as well, and his guns might be rotated the wrong way if he indeed has to dodge). Add in the trump card (RN short smokes and the heal), and you got a really big toolkit to take fights at will for as long as you see fit A Fletcher can only do that a couple of times every game due to few smokes and long cooldowns (and no heals to mitigate parts of the damage), and this really detracts from a Fletcher's ability to confidently seek out the same situation a Jutland could. Now I did use Fletcher in this example, but the same general principles also apply to Kitakaze's. You have a smaller margin of error here once he starts shooting back, but overall a Kitakaze should imo be more afraid of a (good) Jutland than the other way around, and in general should be very careful around areas that a Jutland is sharking. A Kitakaze has ok concealment, but should be very wary of random torps and is equally limited by a low number of smokes to stay repeatedly up front. As for Östergötland, that boat should just stay the hell away from a Jutland that intends to fight it. So many things can go wrong for an Östergötland if he happens to misjudge the situation and open fire, as if someone else hardspots him once he opens fire, the Jutland can free farm him from the safety of the smoke and leave him crippled for the rest of the match. Had it happen to me before when I grinded the EU line and picked a fight with a RN DD (a second unspotted DD or cruiser was nearby with direct line of sight), and the result wasn't pretty.

I didnt mean that literally. :-)

I wasnt gonna go into this part specifically, but I agree. Often an early fire or busted engine causes the DD to DCP early, which can cause another and much more serious permanent engine/turret bust or permafire as he tries to kite out. Can be quite significant against something like a (granted, bad) Shima trying to disengage, especially considering how it helps supporting cruisers to fire on him as well.

But they do overpen, at least from my own testing in training rooms, recent knife fights and watching good youtubers use AP. Not always of course, but enough to often significantly shorten the gaps between the ammo choice dpm.

I understand that, so my testing should be taken with a grain of salt of course. I cant remember all the outcomes, but for Shima I remember getting a lot of overpens on relatively flat broadside at about the range of 4-6 kms, which was rather surprising. Had a "live" encounter with a Gearing yesterday that also saw overpens on about every 1/4th to 1/3rd of the shells when duking it out at about 5kms. He was slightly angled as well which should see a reduction in overpens compared to a flat broadside. Even in the videos on youtube (like Kuro) I often hear about the advantages of AP, but when I see the actual hits they score they very often consist of something like like 1-2 overpens, 3 hits and 1 ricochet, and frequently they dont always manage to switch to HE in time when they suddenly angle, causing at least 1 sub-par volley with several ricochets (which is my experience as well, in an actual knife fight). All in all I just have very mixed personal feelings about always sticking to AP, especially when Daring/Jutland HE is so potent already. If others have different experiences, of course, more power to them.

Not necessarily disputing your experience, but I cant tell from your screenshot where the damage difference was done. The low HE damage could have been from shatters on cruiser/BB plating for all I know. My training room tests so far have shown that some DDs eat consistent overpens, which were enough to make me primarily use HE against them (with some exceptions). Against other targets (esp cruisers) I like to use AP a lot.

Soviet long duration radar is just magnitudes better compared to the competition, so it was Chapayev for me. Even if you do play careful around it, you get zoned from a big portion of the map, so the radar already had it's effect on you. And if stuck with ~10km torps, have fun trying to dislodge him with HE (if you can even reach that far) or spotting (relying on halfway competent team mates in randoms).

Not true. Tested for this in a training room, and some DDs take almost all overpens, while some take partial overpens. The first case warrants use of HE exclusively, in the second case HE often shows to have close to the same dpm of AP. Personally I mostly just stick to HE except against boats like Gearing, Khaba and Emilio, and it has been working out great for me so far.

I personally tend to stick to HE in most cases. The problem with AP is that, while good, only select DDs will take consistent full pens and not a majority of overpens (like Shima usually does, especially at close ranges). Even against those that tend to take a majority of full pens (like Gearing), some overpens may cause the actual AP dpm to fall close to the HE dpm, and when the dpm numbers are roughly equal, I personally prefer the consistency from HE. And if you're late in switching to HE (when he starts angling) you might even throw away a full salvo for ricochets. Not saying AP is bad, but it's not as superior as some make it out to be either and takes a rather experienced captain to get (often) a rather minor boost out of. The most consistent use of AP for me has so far been cruisers, especially CLs where you can citadel them good at closer ranges, whereas the HE would shatter.

I have a nearly 70% WR in ranked and I dont always come near the top. Playing for the win always, and when doing that my "number in the list" is completely irrelevant. If you think that whether or not you came close to the top is relevant to your actual performance in regards to the win, I suggest you have a much closer look at what matters in a typical game. Usually the farming BBs finish strong points-wise on the score screen, but they are often not actually pulling the weight for the win. The few times I play BB for instance, I help playing for the win by strongholding a position very close to the critical map areas near the cap, which can often score me very low XP wise compared to the BBs that hang back with dead eye to farm bigger numbers.

Most of the RN specific advice goes for most DDs really. That being said, you probably know by now that they are excellent cap contesters. Great short range dpm, deadly single launch torpedoes against heavier ships trying to push you/sit stationary, and hydro to keep you safe. A tip that works for all RN DDs is for when you intend to farm a heavier ship (typically BB): Save your smoke and don't open up on him until he fires his guns. As soon as he does fire his guns, immediately smoke up and commence farming him. Due to BB's terrible smoke firing penalty, you will hardspot him through that smoke and get a guaranteed opportunity to free farm him for 20 seconds (the BB's gun bloom timer). Weaker RN DD players will often blow the smoke early when engaging a lone BB, thereby often denying their team vision and losing a damage farming opportunity for themselves. And if he keeps firing while you sit in that smoke, good for you, you get to farm even more. RN DDs are generally excellent at harassing any kind of ship with their smokes, so utilize them wisely. You have many smokes available, so try using them to be that annoying pest that always seems show up at the worst times to get chip damage in.

That is a problem, yes. The issue is not about "who gets that nice fire damage to pad his stats", but what is effective for the team as a whole. Cruisers and DDs rely on fire damage to a large extent when pressuring a BB, because (especially for DDs and low calibre cruisers), they lack the HE pen damage to pressure an enemy BB. When a BB fires HE to light up multiple fires on a BB, that BB has just taken fires away that could have been set by a cruiser and DD. This is a problem, because if the BB had shot AP instead, the result would now be that the target BB would take combined damage of BB AP and the pressure from fires set by cruisers and DDs, adding up to a whole lot more combined outgoing damage. Whereas when a BB sets multiple fires, the cruisers and DDs might not be able to put out much damage at all and often might as well just focus a different target, which can lead the target BB to slip away to heal up instead of getting sunk. This is not about "who gets to shoot HE for nice fire damage", but playing intelligently to allow for as much team dpm as possible. BBs firing HE might do good damage themselves, but they do so on behalf of smaller calibre ships who suddenly lack viable options to add pressure on a target that needs to die.

A trick you can use on the Lightning btw is to try to pick a fight with the enemy DD, and bait him to open up with returning fire while making sure (through the minimap) that another friendly ship has line of sight and is within the enemy DD's gun range. If yes, you can fire on him until he hopefully returns fire and then smoke up, letting you free farm him while another team mate hardspots him. Works surprisingly well once you get the hang of it.

Check out Destroyer Kuroshiokai's channel on Youtube. It has an enormous amount of content for about every DD there is, and is generally the best place to learn both general and specific DD things.

First of all, try to isolate your problems in steps here. 1. Are you fighting a pure 1v1, with no incoming fire from other ships on either side? If yes, then its a technical matter to solve - you say you already try to juke with throttle and directions (well done), so what remains is aiming and assessing if you can win the fight to begin with. Aiming is quite straight forward, at knife fight ranges you should try to have a hit rate of about 40% or better. Also when aiming, try to hit the unsaturated parts of the ship. You can identify the saturated vs unsaturated parts of the ship by looking if an area (say, the bow) is greyed/blurred out. If it is, the area is saturated and will take less damage, whereas an unsaturated area (looks like normal) will take full pen damage. Also look at what you are fighting. Remember that a Lightning is good at fighting in short ranges, but not longer ranges (7kms and out, approximately), as your shell flight time becomes worse and worse. If you fight something like a Russian DD as a RN DD, you generally have superior dpm in shorter ranges (generally), but once the target kites out to about 7kms or more, the Russian DD will generally land a lot more shells while your poor shell flight time will have you miss a lot, causing you to eventually lose the trade as the distances become greater and greater. As for French DDs, there is no way you win the dpm trade if he has reload booster active, so try to disengage with a smoke if he pops it. Otherwise you are generally fine, as long as you engage at a short distance (you really don't want to be picking long range fights as a RN DD). 2. Are you fighting with support on either side? This gets more tricky, as you need to evaluate what support you have vs the enemy. The easiest step is through simple arithmetic, count the numbers on each side before you engage the enemy DD - if you have more ships, you have a better chance of coming out on top. However its not that simple always - your side may for instance have 6 ships vs a total of 4 on the defending side, but their ships are much closer to their DD than your ships are. That's usually a poor engagement, as you will almost certainly take a lot more damage than their DD. Also you need to check for what support either of you have. If your support consists of BBs loaded with AP at longer ranges and the enemy DD has high dpm light cruisers in good positions (Minotaur, Smolensk, Worcester etc.), you are facing an extremely dangerous support as their dpm can tear you a new one pretty quickly. 3. Have you planned out the engagement beforehand? This is important, as you cannot count on winning the battle outright and take it from there. Even if you know that you are facing a low dpm ship like an IJN DD and have superior support, you need to plan out the engagement. If you sense that you can kill the enemy DD fast and his support can't really react fast enough, go for it. But don't bank on it, and be happy to break contact if you get a good trade, before things go south. For this you need good awareness. If you engage in an area where you have island cover from the enemy ships (apart from the DD you are about to engage), you are a lot safer in taking a prolonged fight before you need to break contact. However, you might have to engage in a more open area, and then you really need to plan how you are to get out of that position, once you have a good trade bagged. Plan your exit strategy, preferably kiting away from the enemy ships while exposing little profile (you dont wanna be sailing broadside when trying to get away), and try to use island cover to break line of sight on the way out. Fortunately you play a Lightning, and you have a really good tool for the job - your short smokes. Don't be afraid to blow that smoke and get out of the area once you have a solid trade on your hands. Overall, learn to sense when you get a good trade and when to break contact. If you traded say 20% of your hp for 40% of his, but you sense that you are about to get hit from a lot of supporting fire, don't hesitate to break off the engagement. A typical mistake is to see that you are getting an early good trade (20% vs 40%), and then get overconfident, keep shooting away at their DD, and suddenly taking a bunch of damage where you ended up losing 70% for 50% of the enemy's health. Those are almost never the trades you want to take, especially early on.

Not arguing against that, but it might be the problem he faces when he struggles to connect at range, even if he seems to aim well. I sure found her a pain to play, so much that I figured I'd just drop the IJN BB line. There's something really infuriating about leading correctly, seeing a tight shell grouping fly, and just create a massive splash party around the enemy ship.

That's only half of the problem though. Even if you can aim, her god awful vertical dispersion can still rob you of several connecting hits, especially at range where she supposedly excels.

I had the same problem with Nagato. People were saying she was very accurate compared to Fuso, yet I still failed to connect a lot of shots. The problem with Nagato is that she has absolutely terrible vertical dispersion, meaning that a lot of shots will fall short or far of the enemy ship, even if your aim is on point and the shells (seem) tight. It's a bit of the same problem that (supposedly) accurate Yamato faces. While her dispersion is advertised as good, charts that map the ellipse (including both horizontal and vertical dispersion) show that she has more of a square area of shell groupings (=worse dispersion) even than supposedly more inaccurate BBs. Great horizontal dispersion only gets you so far when the vertical spread is that large.

Doesn't necessarily have to be so complicated, but say your clan runs a 3 DD setup with Neustra, Mogador and Black, its usually wise the to send the Black off to the contested cap and let the Neustra/Mogador work in tandem on more open spaces where you need dpm. Different maps call for different calls of course, but Sleeping Giant (A cap) and Hotspot (C cap) are two extreme examples of maps/caps where you'd definitely want to send the Black and not one of the other two, if running such a setup.

I wouldn't say that's as clear cut, as it depends heavily on how the clan plays and what his role is intending to fill. Say on Sleeping Giant for example. A Black is great dominating the A cap due to radar, rainbow arcs and being generally maneuverable, allowing it it to push confidently into A or zoning out another DD that tries to sneak in. While in the cap, she can somewhat lend supporting fire out of it while having strong short range dpm (the shell time doesnt really matter then), and her sea mines are less of an issue to torp with when the ranges become very short (as they often are in that enclosed space). If the clan intends to push down hard from B into C cap however, the map space is very open, and a Neustrashimy is generally more comfy there, having a slight concealment advantage, ability to support fire on long ranges due to the flat shell arcs, and good torps when the opportunity opens up. If she gets supported by a friendly DD in the open space down the 8-10 lines, she can outspot anything but a Yugumo and (unlike a Yugumo) tank a lot of fire when/if she does get spotted. A Neustra wouldn't be a good pick to dominate the A cap though, as she's clumsy and has vastly inferior dpm at close ranges. Similarly a Black would be a somewhat poor pick for an open pushing flank, since while she can zone out an enemy DD pretty well, she has terrible torps to make use of any torp angles she gains, and lends terrible supporting fire in case something fast like an enemy Mogador shows up.

Agree, the radar is the strongest consumable of the two individually. Though to be fair, I find a Black much less of a threat than a Småland/Orkan wielding it, as those boats have good/great speed and a heal to help them take a beating, something the Black doesn't. So as long as you never smoke up in front of a Black (unless you know for sure that radar is down), you can usually trade pretty well against it. While I loathe Black in a Jutland (when consumes are in sync), I'll happily trade away when he only has radar available, as I've got the dpm and (especially) heals to back it up, unlike the Black. And by god, are Black torps a waste of processing power when you spot them early with hydro. Still tho, Black is a royal pain in the a** to play against when he's competent. Even if you are perfectly positioned when you spot him (stern in, ready to accelerate out), he can easily farm you for 20%.