MikhailTheMighty

Ok. If I dont convinced you by that, I dont know who could. Imao. I just tried some random Zao game to prove it with some screenshots. It turned out its POWER was over 9000!!!

I feel the need to share some about Zao, pretended to be powercreeped, which is true in a way, its still managable to have great game, even carry some. Its a ship which required just so much map-reading, and positionning because its a very situational ship that works on enemy pushing flank. You always want to be kiting on this ship and avoid as much as possible pushing because of the turrets circles. Some tips of Zao's gimmick : 1. You dont want to shot as frequently with this ship. Shooting and revealing your position is not a thing you want. You dont want to scare the enemy of torps threath. Shooting must always be to start fires or blow up the damage control of the target, never for farm as a Hindenburg. If you're in a defensive flank, you have to rely on your torps. I use to play the Zao as a "Shima" unless you can "defend" yourself. That's means you can be able to spot if there is not so high enemy DD pressure that could obviously outspot you. Building the ship as a torp-boat could be also possible (as least the 3pts captain that increase the torps damage). 2. A point must be done about the maneuver hability of the ship. I might dedicated a post about this but, sometime you dont want to be sealing at full speed, in particular when you're fighting in open water. People use to aim as you were sealing at full speed instinctively. Maintaining your speed at 1/2 of full speed could be sometime a great bait. Carefull if you're at long range though. That might not work, even get slapped. You want to, if there's a DD spotted, wait until you're in a safe place before pull the trigger. For example, wait until you're in time to reach out an island. You want to drag enemy team and so torped them to death, with a bit of shooting if you confident about your maneuver. But it have a great ruddershift. Its after all a very thoughfull ship and that why I always loved it.

Imagine. Instead of implementing airstrickes from Dutch CA, imagine if WG would pump up secondaries by adding new mecanics as, for example... using the layout of the airstrickes and add that to secondaries in order to be able to use them manually without enemies ships at range or spotted and by that, choose to open up secs on smoke-screens, or areas that you suspect DD to roam over. It would be a great mecanics that would stand up german BBs in particular, but morelikely all BBs against DD and fundamentaly make secondaries ships actually FUN! Dutch ships are all than fun. And that's sad. Wont even play them... Like, Zao is actually more relevant about "sneaky gameplay" than dutch CA.

Thats what im talking about. The vertical dispersion slight boost. But slight advantage have high impact on the game, mostly when you play ships that the point of making damage is just to touch the target, like Italian BBs with SAP mecanic. At the end of the day, you pump up your percentage of hitting the target and throw over them +20k damage per salvo mostly against BBs in this case. Which is broken as least for italian BB in particular, but sniping BBs also benefit as Yamato which rely on dispersion

Hello, I use to see player that misjudge the spotter plane consumable in the game, even though its a great mecanic that slightly increase your shell's accuracy, as well as its main purpose aid aiming over islands, or spot even though it's quite deceiving and that's why I want to dedicate this post to pool up in-game experiences and demonstrate in a practical way the perk of this consumable so much neglected. And carefull, I don't say that using the spotter will always be impactfull to have well-packed up salvo. It's a feeling. I've had some experiences in this game and this feeling used to come up to me quite often and I want to clear it out. But the consumable is in my opinion so "OP" on, for example Italian BBs, or simply ships with bad accuracy. It's really a great boost of the accuracy. And of course, it's not indicate on the consumable description. So it's you are keen to participate and share some of your gameplay with some screenshots between outcomes of salvos with / without spotter plane deployed do not hesitate and help us make this consumable great again

I'm trying to work out the Veneto, and I encounter the same issue about it and more wider the Italian BBs tech tree in general. The few ways to remotely feel being carrying with these ships, is 1. force some drive-by with smoke, by targetting strategic ships, as BBs which is possible at medium or late game when the area is clean out of DDS... which means do first some bow-tanking / or pushing slowly a flank, the ship have a good plate armour for that and I play it as a GK... You trade a hydro for a smoke. 2. I'd say his "tankiness". At least, its noticable at tier VIII. You can use your HP pool to take advantage position and ease up your team pressure and make some play, but that tactic is possible when you have teammates which are aware of the map, and know how to read it. I doubt though that Colombo is as well protected as its lower tiers ships (Veneto & Lepanto). Even though it's always unpredictable with team and matchmaking, it seems to work out i'd say decently... so far