Dropman12

I suggest to fing some facts before ranting. Atago was weak, thats true, but it had nothing to do with heal. Back in times it had abysmal rudder shift time and huge citadels, so once you were targeted by enemy you were basicaly doomed. Heal or not. Even today heal has not much to do with performance of Atago, its her awesome concealement, mobility and firepower what makes her so strong. Which basicaly goes for every cruiser - heal doesnt change much for cruisers. Your bane are BBs and their long range guns. If any BBs salvo hit your broadside, you are gone regardless..heal or not.

Hey man, what about leaving personal tone away? Cause it can easily happen you can be wrong. The more, you cant see further as well. What you describe (rng, mm) are factors that goes for that one game, but every single player has to deal with them. And in the end its all about how he himself deal with it. You can say rng lost you game, you cannot say rng prevent you from reaching higher rank. In longer term, its all about you, and how good players are you. Or do you think R1 is full of great players becouse they just had luck for MM/rng/whatelse?

1) First, vast majority want to play as team. Problem is that eveybody has his own idea of teamplay. What is good push for me can be suicide yolo for you. Did you ever changed your plan to help another, even if you thought its stupid one? I doubt so. But you expect it for others. 2) Second is purely nonsence. Team is sum of players, not vice versa. In ranked where there are much less players - it even more easy to influence battle. As already mentioned, why is R1 composed of players with much higher winrate than average joe? You think they had luck for teams? Its simple logic - if you are pro, and rest are bad players, you either lead your team to win, or dont lose star (cause they are bad, you are not, so how would they gather more xp, right?). And so on till you reach your limits. Bad teams happens, but in longer term its irelevant. In longer terms its all about time and sklil you have. 3) Dont whine. There are few game modes, which you can freely play. Is ranked frustrated for you? Dont play it. You want more teamplay? Make own team, play against other team. Want random fun? Play random. Or find another game. Life is not long enough to lose time with something that frustrate you, especially when talking about video games...and honestly, noone need another whiner in game.

Wait a second - there is any relation between citadel and torpedoes? I always thought citadel position is useless against torps, which act like huge HE bomb. Usually you are lucky to hit anywhere with torp, but sometimes with Scharn I can chose specific part of ship, so I wonder where to aim...

Against If every team has 10 potatoes and 2 ices, you know two good players are on your team. Once you become ice, you will have only one in team. The better you are, worse team you wil get to compensate it. And if the teams are equal (based on skill) it generaly means 50/50. Which generally means 50% winrate for everybody, regardless of what they do. Just because some players cant stand losing?

So better you are, worse team you have and harder game for you...so I have no reason to play better, team will be balanced anyway.

I wonder as well, considering the fact that difference between win and loss is cca 500 free XP...

Sorry, english is not my native, so I have troubles with understnding you. What does mean "far too loosely" when talking about carrying? You can hardly say good player dont influence battle. And smaller the team, the bigger influence he has. Second, what i said is that having bad team does not influence your overall progres in long term. If other players are so bad in compare to the player (which is obviously case of every single forum member), that player will progress regardless. Not in that game, but in longer term for sure yes.

And everybody will cooperate, and everybody will be kind to you, and everybody will thank for game, and so on. Now back to reality, in every game you have 24 players with 24 ideas how to play the game. You have your own, I have mine. You cannot force everybody to play like you think is correct or fun for you. They do whats fun for them. Suprisingly... And no, it is enjoyable to streamroll the enemy. I love crushing enemy without mercy. So who is wong here?

I'd be more carefull when speaking about stupidity. You will receive 0 credits and XP but will also receive credits, camos and free XP for missions. So you either wasn't able to do even 30k dmg, or you didnt see what did you earned. Its incredibly easy to farm huge earnings. Just saying, when you takling about stupidity...

Which is kinda stupid. Last game I also made 250k + dmg just by spaming torps and constantly changing direction (seriously, you cannot be shot by catapult if you know WASD hack). Not rocket science...Only thind that suprised me was that Zikasa can dodge torp sometimes, that torps can do flooding even to transylvania and that transylvania do not have repairs. or cant use them...

So play them, influence game, profit. Simple. Another logical flaw, as if its only about time, you should progress. Even bot should progres. Obviously its not the case. But what did you expect? To reach R1 in two days? Really? The better players you face, more looses for you and harder progres. Thats pure logic, not game problem. You need sklil and time to do it, thats the point. Another point you miss is that ranked is not meant to R1 for everyone. In fact only few players make it, rest will miss time or sklil. If you cant stand random factor, play chess. Your skil will be rewarded. Or go out, enjoy sun and fresh air and play only when you have fun with it. Kinda pointless to be frustrated with video game.

This is rant topic, not constructive debate

And where is problem? NC player play own game, beat Bism at range. So he deserve to win, he have one more star. From what you described camping BBs will hardly reach higher rank, which is fine to me.

So everybody else suck, and you have to suffer...nice. There is just one logical flaw in whole this whining. When teams are smaller, impact of one players is bigger. Aka you have higher chance to influence battle than in random if you are good. So you either help team to win, or just dont lose star, cause incompetent useless bunch of people can hardly earn more xp than you. Inevitably you reach rank, where you are among equals. Or reach R1. Its just question of time. Or (which is very very unlikely) you are not that good and you are in fact among equals and just frustrated because it dont go how you want.

So you expect wrong. Play team battles. Random is based on random teams, simple. When you cant bear the fact there is gap in skill between you and average player, its not reason to change random battle.

This. I've never done so many devastation strikes like in past few weeks. All I can see is they rush in straight line, pop up smoke and think they are invincible. It sometimes looks like they have no rudder...

Looks like crying about moron team never gets old. Like ranting abour RNG and MM. Point is - what do you expect when hitting RANDOM battle button? Perfectly chosen and balanced teams with equal chances to win based on their real performance with choosen ship? Sorry to say, but random team means random players, including bad players. If you cant stand it, dont play random. Its not the only one game mode...

Maneuverability is the most important sklil for cruiser in general. Especially for Pepsi, which doesnt have concealement. So you go for rudder shift upgrade for sure. Rest is about your personal preference. When speaking of skills - first one is up to you, it is usually choice between BFT and BS. None of them is crucial for you. Second is more important, people usually chose Expert marksman for better turret roatation. Im personaly fan of Incomming fire alert, as you usually cannot be aware of every single ship which can hurt you (especially considering you have ship which can be seen from moon and has reputation of one huge floating citadel). It saved my butt countless times. Third one is choice between torp vigilance (which is nice if you want to hunt DDs,) or superintendant - not much use for pepsi, but really handy in higher tiers, where you get acces to radar and heal (aka it depends if you want to sell pepsi and move captain or not after grind)). 4th sklil is either AFT or demolishon expert. I'd go for demo expert for sure - fire is your main weapon against BBS, no reason to not abuse it. And yes, Concealement expert is a must on almost every single cruiser (there are very few exceptios). Pepsi is not resilient ship. No cruiser is. You dodge shells, not bounce them. You want to angle not to bounce, but to lower your profile. With exception of AP firing criuser, dont thik of armour. Pepsi can dodge really easy (good rudder, great turn circle), but you have to know when you are fired and be always ready for dodge. Use WASD hack all the time, dodge like madman, spam shells and you can do fine. Sail in strainght line and you are done in few seconds.

I dont want to troll, but honestly - lot of misery comes from playstyle. So far I didnt faced RN cruiser who would try to stay at acceptable distance and use its agility. Or used concealement to dictate combat. Vast majority just rush, smoke and then get suprised by yolo cruiser. My last game in Koning - 2 RN cruisers at 12 km decided to charge me. Which resulted in lot of xp for me. I suprisingly turned away and deleted them at the moment they showed their side. I mean - they could try sneaky atack, but they did opened fire at my angled bow as they saw me. Or they could keep distance and dance with me but they went into me. They chose simply the most stupid option. The game before it other RN skipper wanted to suprise my BB by jumping from behind island and torp me. Which is good idea in general, as he was behind island and 4 km away from me, but he had to know he is already spotted, so its not that much of suprise. Or he could just look and find that all my guns are pointed at edge of that island, waiting for him. So that ended in one devastating strike. 30 sec later his teammate did exactly the same, rusulting in my second devasting strike (needless to say it all ended by tears in chat). What I wanted to say is I can see a lot of people playing RN cruiser because of their historical knowledge, all in all RN has great tradition. But this is game, and RN cruisers are subject to game rules, nothing more. And criusers in general are the most difficult ships to play in these days. Even op Atago is often deleted after single mistake. So as I can see frustration comes when expectation comes into reality.

First, Aoba has hydro for sure. Second, the biggest problem is not the ship itself, but ships you meet. Aoba can (and will) face some very deadly oponents - german BB, premium cruisers, skilled DDs. T8 is place where lot of people have their gems so games have are much more difficult. Thus, gameplay change must be done. Despite what people say, you are not frontliner, not cruiser/destroyer hunter. In theory you can fight them easily (and when situation allow you, you should hunt them), but in reality it means to be close to enemy BBs. Which means fast death. T7 and T8 BBs are far more deadlier than their T5 T6 counterparts. So there are some basic rules for every decent CA captain: 1) dont go alone - unless you know for sure what are you doing. otherwise alone cruiser is dead cruiser. DDs just run away, BBs will delete you, CA is fair fight. 2) stay at range - at T5 fights are wild and at close range, but higher tier means lot of 15+ km shots. Means your fire is much less accurate, but at distance you are able dodge shells. Enemy BBs will have trouble fighting you if you can maintain distance, dodge shels and spam HE at once. 3) dont go in straight line - this is something I see in every game, especially after introducing RN. They focus on target, sail in straight line and are deleted by one BB salvo. And cry about useless RN cruiser. What you have to do is constantly change you speed and direction. Its called WASD hack and its difference between newbie and skilled skipper. Basic point of this is that you never know if there are torpedoes going your way or 410 shels flying towards you. So act like it is happening all the time and you wouldn't be suprised. Sorry if you know all this, but from I can see in games this in far from common knowledge.

I've read topic, but I still dont understand what is the problem with Indi? I play mostly IJN where I'm spaming HE and dodging shells all day long. Indi can do same, but at longer distance with sharper turns. I cant imagine how BB can be threat when you dance with it at 17 km...most Pepsi users told me the problem was mainly with her abysmal concealement, you generally cannot open fire first. This is not the case, Indi is better in most aspects so Im little confused...I need US trainer and I like CAs, so Indi looks like solid choice....and AFAIk bugged armour was corected. Am I missing anything? Or is it just by poor state of US cruisers, or people are spoiled by much stronger premiums like Atago? Cause all I can read is how poor the ship is...

This is not how it works. Unfortunatelly WG is not master of explaining game mechanismus (and not only WG). There are few factors that counts. Every ship has some natural fire resistence, the higher tier the better. Than there is skill, module and flag which can reduce or increase chance. But does not work like you described, for exact formula check wiki. In general server counts all factors about fire chance, than all factors about fire resistence than compare it. Just dont expect anything like fire imunity. Fire is main way how cruisers and destroyers deal with BBs, so there is no intention to prevent it. When speaking of skil - its not useless, its just far beyond people expectation, plus there are generally better sklil in most cases.

Plus it should be noted that Bismarck just fits in curent ranked enviroment because of size of maps. I doubt people would call Bismarck OP if we fight on ocean in ranked.....smaller the map, the better for Bismarck. And vice versa.

I went with my Myoko today to face UK oposition...T7 ambushed me, took 10k away from me...I responded by 7k HE salvo, angled and that was literary end of fight - all I needed to do is to turn sonar on and stay angled. His T5 comrade was citadeled by my HE, also not able to do any harm to me. So yes, its too early to judge them, but it is more than clear that they need special playstyle. Playing them like other CLs result in easy XP for any competent CA captain. Stying angled and out of range of their torps means staying safe. In response, your 203 guns need few salvos...