Affeks

I think christmas is a bit early for the frenchies. WG hasnt come too far afaik and you can bet therell be 1 or 2 testing cycles which in itself takes a couple months. I think febuary 2018 at the earliest. Roma however can still be released dur7ng christmas

The modern AP shell has better pen, better muzzle velocity, better drag and slightly higher damage. The old shell has penetration comparable to Bayerns 380mm shells or Kongo/Fuso's 356mm shells. You are correct. The Old Amagi A hull had significantly worse armor, especially citadel protection. Even worse than the difference between Mutsu and Nagato

This may not be true. She has a lot of major trade offs compared to Nagato and other tier 7 BBs.

tbh the amount of ships able to effectively punish broadside BBs are too few. If Stalingrad is a Cruiser that can threaten BB broadside on an equal ground with other BBs I have no qualms.

I also play a lot of cruiser, and I know this ship will not lolpen any other cruisers, which is often the biggest killjoy since there is close to no counterplay. Also from what we know Stalingrad HE will have super slow velocity so dealing with any sort of angled target might actually be one of the biggest weaknesses Stalingrad will have, much more so than Moskva. I know from playing my Moskva that citadelling any cruiser at 20+ km is no problem at all so its not like much will change with Stalingrad, only its ability to pen BB sides really

Well with a RoF almost half of Moskva and a fraction of DM for example it shouldnt go out of control.

It will be quite different tho. Graf Spee can overmatch most cruisers it will meet (save for tier 8 cruisers) and is even capable of overmatching tier 5 BBs. Stalingrad however cant overmatch anything it meets, it will rely much more positioning due to this and the fact that is fast AND has a much weaker broadside for its tier compared to Graf Spee.

We know nothing about accuracy yet. Although we know for sure that the guns will be leagues better than Scharnhorsts 11" guns. Pen and Velocity are both much higher, pen especially being on par with BBs. I think Dispersion will be equal to that of Cruisers though, since the 12" guns of Stalingrad cant even overmatch any cruisers it meets (save for RN CLs). Scharnhorst can overmatch cruisers up to tier 7 so It has a much easier time with that. Also Stalingrad actually has weak citadel protection, more equal to a cruiser while Scharnhorst is better than most BBs. There is no Stalingrad will have BB dispersion on main guns, they might weaker than other cruisers, but the guns would be useless if they cant reliably hit enemies... especially not at that tier.

Yep I agree 100%. This takes almost no extra work from WG and serves basically only to please fans and not waste assets WG has already made. Mutsu is already very much balanced and even considered weak by some, meaning WG is not powercreeping anything with these premiums. When people complain that Ashiataka is weak it only means that we actually get balanced premiums for once. I see very little to no negatives with this practice that WG is doing. Personally I dont like WW1 designes, but I love the playstyle Mutsu uniquely offers and as such I will most likely get Ashitaka as well since it seems to be similar in that regard.

Looks like Stalingrad alright

Ill need a source for that one. Last time I saw a WG employee comment on a hybrid carrier thread they only said they have no plans as of now, but are following the threads for good ideas and proposals. You know they changed the gun characteristic for Aoba right? it has 11 sec reload while Ibuki and the rest still has 14-16 sec reload (14 sec for Myoko, 16 sec for Atago and 15 for the rest).. I suggest you check info on stuff before making a comment on it. You managed to contradict yourself in one sentence. Edit: Checked up on Navweaps and Aoba and Furutaka historically would have a 20 sec reload while the rest of the ships would have 15 sec reload. Yet in game Aoba is the one with the BY FAR faster RoF of 11 sec. You can bet WG is willing to change one gun even if it goes against all historical data especially for a premium ship. http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNJAP_8-50_3ns.php

need sauce but same anyhow

So it really only has 4 120mm mounts... well there goes speccing Manual AA to compensate for weak AA out the window. Speccing manual AA on Dunkerque and Mutsu is a good way to compensate for the weak AA since all their damage is centered around the long range mounts. Expensive for 4 points yes, but worth it if youre really frustrated with CVs Well anyways this means Ashitakas AA will be: 20 dps@4.5km 74.9 dps@3.1km Could be worse tbh

Are those single 120mm or 127mm guns? Their caliber seems to be high so maybe they're not even DPs? Anyway weird how afaik the ship was planned with 6 x 120mm guns, but we only get 4 of them here despite Ashitaka clearly having more smaller AA guns than planned...

How many times does this have to be said? Ashitaka is not an Amagi reskin! From what we know of the old A hull Amagi we know that even the base armor layout is very much different. Meaning this is a ship that has to be played very differently from Amagi. On top of that we have vastly different shell performances, Torpedo belts, AA, superstructure AND most importantly MM. This along with Mutsu will probably be one of the sister ship BBs that play the most different from their silver counterparts. If you have something to complain about, the similarity in playstyle may be the last thing worth brining up.

afaik Haruna only had 8 152mm guns after she got her 5. and 6. 127mm mounts. Wiki is a little off if I remember correctly. But yeah I really want this

Yep Mutsu proved that a Premium BB can be plenty fun despite not being OP: Hoping for the same deal with Ashitaka!!!

CVs are a myth, they are not even real

I couldnt disagree more. Placing even the exact same ship a tier lower or higher can change how its played. Now with Ashitaka more than just AA, HP and torpedobelt has changed. Tier 7 armor, weaker citadel protection, shell performance etc etc will ensure that Ashitaka has to be played differently from Amagi. Mutsu proved to me that small changes like that accompanied by a tier change ensures a different playstyle has to be adapted. Thus these kind of premiums are not boring at all. It also pleases fans that like WW1 designes more than WW2 ones, with all the fantasy refits in the game there isnt much left to please those players. And why mention GC as the only one worth mentioning? I dont see what it does other than further powercreep tier 5 tbh If all you want is all rounder BBs that have no clear weakness and is clearly better than silver counterparts then youve come to the wrong place looking at these A hull premiums.

I mean understandable as in I understand why thats frustrating for DD/Cruiser players. I too would love more high tier cruiser premiums

The part about all Free XP ships being BBs is understandable.

Speed flag is not really worth on most BBs since they bleed speed fast and takes the whole weekend to get back up to speed haha...

Insta buy. I mean people are complaining that this will be unbalanced because weak AA or bad Shell performance.. that really only makes this ship balanced and exciting to play... The reason I love Mutsu despite being vocal about how its just a tad too weak imo. Funny thing to note is that Ashitaka for some reason has better range than Amagi and Kii... It has workable RoF and turret traverse, just too bad it doesnt have torps like Mutsu :^) Last note on everyone that complains about Prem BBs atm... pretty funny that they seem to forget that we literally just had 2 prem DDs and a cruiser revealed as well...

At the same time it doesnt because Yamato is actually tanky with that 57mm deck.... Izumo has only 32 so it gets completely dunked by anything and its HP is also relatively low.... Not the case for Yamato

An accuracy buff to Dunkerque is all it needs. Though Personally i want WG to give it Spood Beest or something gimmicky so it can actually go over 30 knots