Unintentional_submarine

Coming on 25th of September.

And the Cimarron has popped up a few times as well. As a remnant of the old old escort battles that never came to be, and since in the shape of testing too. Basically, all these really weird ships are to be discounted entirely. What they do, can do or are described to do, might have nothing to do with any eventual addition to the game. Shooting at islands with super rapid fire guns... finding holes in the island models perhaps? Or better, finding invisible rocks that block shots when it should be free. Stuff like that.

If it indeed were seal clubbers, then I could certainly buy the more capping. I was talking from the average T3 player. He won't be capping much even in a Tenryu. But should it be sealclubbers, wouldn't the damage have increased bit? Hmmm... thinking about it, while writing, I might have a solution. The player that grinds Tenryu gets smacked around real hard right now, but the sealclubbers make up for that loss in their damage. And because they cap better than the grinder, the average XP goes up a fair bit.

That's actually a good question. Made me try and look up old pictures. And yes, there they are. Based on some of the pictures and the ingame models, at least some of the anchors are different from the ones in the bow. They are more in the classic bow and pole shape, while the ones with the chains are in a more modern narrow spade shape. Note that my terminology is descriptive but probably not correct. So that at least indicates that those anchors are not spares. And I can't guess as to what they were used for as there is no chain visible anywhere I have noticed. Of course it might go directly in from it's clasping point, but it seems unlikely. The rear anchor also look far to big for any transfer option (like to any of the boats on board). Now I do believe that rear anchors are indeed a thing for long anchorages. So maybe it is for that, but since such a scenario is not normal, there isn't a need for a quickly deployed anchor, and so the chain is stored below and the anchor would be manually dropped after the chain was attached? I can't say. [EDIT] Damn... ninjaed.

Yes, that would be my assumption. Relatively powerful and long ranged torpedos among badly protected battleships... the problem is just that Tenryu's damage remains rather poor. Since I have hard time seeing a Tenryu capping more with more battleships around (to shoot at her while capping), it feels like she must be hunting other cruisers and destroyers more than before. And that might not be so weird after all. The battleships see each other at T3 and shoot at each other. The cruisers can't really hurt the Nassaus very well with their guns, and torps generally miss. So Maybe Tenryu simply has more success with killing smaller ships, ignored by the battleships. Certainly the few times I have taken my Katori out, it has been Tenryus that have been my greatest annoyance. Oh sure, can kill them, but always with losses of health (yay for slow ship with high freeboard, very easily hit). Not even once did I get battleship support.

She also dies exceptionally fast. She is really a destroyer with a citadel, and we all know that at T3 players tend to be... and bit YOLO'ish with fast ships. My personal experience tells me that she doesn't cap much. Besides she faces a lot of Zone and Standard Battles and not that many Domination games ('Big Race' is so prominent at T3, and 'Islands' doesn't offer much capping opportunities for an average T3 player). That's just my perception of her. Heh... went back to January, and looked at Tenryu's stats. They were quite a bit lower, and her XP was in line with the others. So apparently she sort of thrives in the Nassau meta. For all her lack of direct power, Gneisenau is effectively a hard counter to Colorado. That might be the reason. You are likely to face a lot of battleships now that you have huge issues fighting, compared to before. Add to that the usual counters and Colorado is likely to struggle a bit at this time. Colorado lives and dies on her guns. Her armour effectively just gives her time to deal damage in a fight. She can't disengage well, so she has to do well from the beginning of a fight, in order to dictate it. If her salvos don't deliver the required damage, the enemies are emboldened rather than discouraged and then she is in massive trouble. And against Gneisenau, her guns just doesn't deliver like before.

The other ships suffer a dip if you look carefully. Kongo for instance dropped about 10% in XP and damage. I use Kongo as an example because only those that grind her play her any longer due to the ARP Kongos. So the regular players of the other lines basically get clubbed for their XP and damage. Once these lines are back to their 'normal' it should be close to a normal situation in terms of skill distribution. Also, with more battleships per battle, more XP will be generated. Their heals mean that they are on average worth more than one ship of that tier in terms of damage XP. Added to that I have some speculation. With more battleships and less cruisers and destroyers, there will be less cap, recap, re-recap and so on. When battleships fight over a cap, they don't really cap until one side has killed the other more or less. But they do generate a hell of a lot of decaps. So less XP for the DDs from caps, but more from decaps to the battleships. On average. A good DD can in this situation farm some pretty impressive XP without even killing much.

I remember the German cruisers. They looked utterly OP initially. Heck even pre-buffed Karlsruhe sat above Phoenix and Kuma for a while. The Soviet cruisers haven't fallen off to nearly the same extent. I mean Bogatyr retains a significant lead over the other T3 cruisers (Tenryu appears to have a good XP modifier or caps a lot as she has really good XP comparably), even seal-clubber extraordinaire St. Louis. And I don't want to even mention Budyonny... The main problem with the Soviet cruisers is that they weren't really that popular, leading to a trickle of players rather than the usual rush. Also leading to a slower progression of the more average playerbase. With the German battleships things should even out relatively faster. Right now they look utterly OP, and they might be, but I don't think the stats are good enough for it yet.

I'm probably going to cause some, shall we say annoyance in some, with the following. I have now followed this controversy since the beginning. I have watched the videos and watched more than a few streams featuring the Dunkerque on either side. I have, since this is an interestingly divided topic, looked at quite a few profiles to get a feeling for how she performs. It seems to me that Dunkerque performs really well with average and slightly above average players, performs quite nicely, if not greatly, with very good player, and performs comparably badly with the absolute top. That indicates to me that Dunkerque is a ship with a very high performance floor, but with a relatively low skill ceiling. So a fairly good player who knows the theory will do really well, as he can essentially get the most out of her. But once a truly great player jumps in, there is little more he can add to what the previous player did, and so will not perform to the expected level. But by now trenches appear to have been dug. It doesn't look like there is much that can realistically change the hard stances taken (other than actual changes to the ship of course). Which is a shame, as it really looks like this is a matter of perspective. From the top she looks unrewarding and from the middle she looks very rewarding.

HP is supposedly based on tonnage, but going through the cruiser lists it is pretty clear that it isn't. Prinz Eugen has a somewhat smaller HP/tonnage ratio than Hipper, Zao has a much smaller one, Atago has a better one, New Orleans has a much better one and Yorck has a massively better one. And so on and so on. Essentially HP is whatever they want it to be within certain limits of course. Prinz Eugen certainly has room to be better there. The point with the HE was to give her something there, and let her pay in another area. In this case she would be Prinz Eugen from Rheinübung, so her AA could easily be reduced more (comically enough this is Atago's sole significant weakness). I added my points not as 'only do this'. But rather as examples of what could be done to give her differences. I wouldn't remove AP. I would make the AP into a less damaging version of the AP. In all her career she barely ever used AP. With Bismarck she used base fused HE (which really is German SAP, and SAP is already used as AP in the Soviet 130mm AP)) and in all her other operations where she used her guns she used HE for bombardments purposes (bombardment HE would be nose fused). So reducing the AP damage and giving it the name of the old HE, but still functioning as AP, her single salvo potential would be reduced, but giving her better maneuverability would make her better able to use this reduced capability. And no, maneuverability stats have little to no connection to real life capabilities. The most often mentioned difference is Yamato's 680m turning circle in real life, but it isn't often mentioned that the Fletcher had a turning circle of over 1km. Can you imagine that? Fletcher, and it should be noted that she wasn't the only one (I think the Clemson was close to that too), would be close to unplayable. Fuso could effectively stop herself by going into a hard turn and keeping it (she is one of the better power retainers in the game). The Schanhorsts lost more than 50% speed in turns and apparently had unresponsive rudders (or they lacked power) as they were slow entering turns. These are just the quick and dirty of it, but really, the ships ingame are 100% given maneuverability stats based on balance. Otherwise CVs wouldn't have been nerfed as they were, from BB-like turning circles to what they have today. Yes, the modifactions wouldn't likely change her gameplay a huge amount. It doesn't with Arkansas, but there is no doubt that it makes her functionality different. You can expect different things from her compared to Wyoming. And so she sticks out as a ship in her own right. As I said, none of these points were intended to be taken singularly, but rather as options adding differences. But yes, it seems WG has decided that her camo is her thing. As PointyHairedJedi says (his commentary is worth watching), this is likely a testbed for such a setup, and paying for the second camo after buying the ship itself... I can't say that's something I can support (not only that but the actual camo is ugly... but hey it is effective for credits). Since I'm against paying for things that are essentially boring or the same, but is better for non-gameplay reasons, I obviously think that this test should fail. I don't want more of this. I want relevant choices. I know I can't always get what I want (sometimes the ships will not be to my tastes), that's fair. I don't intend to buy all ships anyway. But I want to base my choices on the quality of the ship itself. I don't want to sit there and contemplate "hmmm I would not like it, but I could retrain my captain that much faster compared to Premium X, it would be inefficient to not do it". Honestly, I think that stuff would be better for regular ships you then buy a camo for. Maybe I'm in the minority in this, and in that case I will certainly accept that. But I doubt I will ever like it, or even understand the need.

Wow... that's just bad with a topping of bad. If this is true, and I have no reason to assume otherwise at this time, then it just another mess-up. Maybe my perceptions have been sent into the realm of confirmation bias by now, but it honestly seems like every time they do something that isn't the hum-drum of the same as always, they stumble into things that are totally avoidable. Arguably the people that don't get the captain will get him one way or another, I don't doubt that, but once more special actions need to be taken in order to make it work as it should.

Damn. I had totally not considered looking at that. But now that I know it, it sticks out to a great extent. This could also explain why the German BB AP has trouble citadeling ships like Myogi, Ishizuchi and Kongo, but can citadel Wyoming and New York (discounted the citadels I have gotten from the front as the three Japanese ships have frontal armour that the American ships don't). All three of the previous have multiple layers of armour, while Americans are somewhat more limited in that department. It seems they detonate after penetrating the belt, but before they have a chance to penetrate internal protection.

Well, Prinz Eugen famously used HE in the Battle of the Denmark Strait, and I think we can agree that she did really well there. So maybe a different HE shell that is better? Prinz Eugen was also a bit bigger than the other Hippers (and was somewhat different in looks, which they have modeled btw). So a bit more of an HP difference? When Bismarck managed to knock her own radar out, Prinz Eugen handled the radar work. So maybe radar for her? Obviously radar for a German cruiser while nice, wouldn't really change much in how she would play from a Hipper. No smoke or heal. Both are stupidly good for the other two Premiums. Don't want that again. Or, reverse the HE point I made, remove her present AP and give her a less damaging SAP shell (ironically the one that was HE before), but increase her maneuverability a fair bit. Like a 30% reduction in rudder shift and 50 meters off the turning circle and/or give her outstanding energy retention in turns (slowing down a lot less from turning). This would make her an interesting and very different Hipper. She would still prefer AP, but would be forced to use HE more and would be able to avoidance tank better, letting her maneuver into better positions for good AP salvos. Maybe give her longer ranged torps? *gasp* Something like 8-9km, not 10km like the Japanese. A good candidate would be the G7ut TVIII (codenamed Steinbarsch), it was about to be fielded as the war ended. Not to worry, it wasn't some wunderwaffe, just a potentially somewhat better torpedo (better range, much faster when using max range but little else). I would be farily surprised if this torpedo doesn't make an appearance in the DD line. It's not as if most stats can't be fiddled with and made so the ship is quite different. Few stats are 'firm' (I use quotation marks because none of the stats are really firm, and could be changed in the need is great enough, just look at Kirov and her weird muzzle velocity that never happened) so there are plenty dials that can be turned. Heck, even if none of the stats feel nice to change too much, then there is always the Arkansas Beta route of giving her access to modification slots she wouldn't otherwise have. I'm pretty sure a RoF modification would change things radically. She would obviously have to pay somewhere for that. Arkansas Beta pays with no AA and having worse turret arcs (those boats... urgh!) and some minor differences. She is certainly not OP, but I feel she is at the very least a very interesting ship compared to Wyoming.

Not surprised as if they like it, they might not really notice the things they actually do different. And if they dislike it they are probably more interested in pointing out the bad stuff about it. However, given that iChase is going to revamp his Captain's Academy this month, it might be worth it to mention it to him, as there is probably a better than average chance of him doing it. In fact, I think I will drop him a line if I can remember it.

You are right that the KK isn't terribly different from the Svietlana, but he clearly knows there is a difference. He mentions it, but not directly as he obviously compares to the direct competitor, Murmansk (Murmansk's AA is better than Svietlana, KK's is better than Murmansk, Murmansk's range is better than Svietlana, KK's is better yet). Hardly a surprise. Just one minute in he calls her a Murmansk hull with Svietlana guns (Murmansk hull in the sense of the range and AA, which while not as good is certainly comparable). Also, I did in fact hear it wrong, in the PE commentary he doesn't say that KK plays differently, he says she was more exciting and has a role. That last bit I do disagree with, and should have taken better note of the actual words, especially now that the entire point seems to revolve around my mistake. Neither ship have a proper role as I see it. PE because she is exactly the same, and KK because the intended role for her (longer ranged whittling/annoyance followed by closing in on select targets) doesn't fit her very well, and she ends up doing no job well enough. PE is not different to the Admiral Hipper though. We don't need to play her to see that. The actual differences won't impact her gameplay one bit. She doesn't even have KKs differences in guns and range to work with (KK's guns are marginally better). She is the least different Premium of all so far, and not different from the least interesting ship of the tier. But let's take your example of putting her in T9. Yeah, you could do that and give her the Anshan treatment (compared to Gnevny). That could work. However uptiering at T8 is slightly more punishing than at T5, so the changes would need to be somewhat more considerable. But in the end the ship would indeed be a different sort of ship. Just tiering her up? Not even one ship has been given that treatment, and no that would not make her different. Even if we were to compare Anshan to Grem (the most comparable ship to ship uptiered scenario like you propose), there are some rather obvious differences that do in fact impact gameplay. Like faster turret traverse and much better turret angles, giving Anshan better options for maneuvering. Now it is reasonably unfair to compare these two as the Grem is bloody OP, yet even in this case there are in fact gameplay impacting differences. Not even this can PE manage to match in terms of differences. We can talk about all these things many times, but the core of the issue is, you don't believe him when he says he doesn't like Prinz Eugen because she offers nothing but Premium ship status, but rather that he doesn't like her because she isn't OP as so many other Premiums (particularly the ones of the same tier). If you don't believe the man himself, then there is little from him that could change that, as he would be inherently untrustworthy to you. But if OP-or-not is all he cares about, why does he rather enjoy the Atlanta, which he considers bad in a power comparison, and has gone to great lengths to hammer that point home. Several times in fact. As far as to point to his own stats and results repeatedly (which are really good with her) as proof that he isn't playing her wrong. He says that she is fun and enjoyable, but not powerful. He also utterly adores the Lo Yang, which is essentially just a weaker Benson with HAS. I haven't seen many call Lo Yang OP as her advantage from HAS is quite limited, and make her really good at one thing compared to Benson, and is worse at everything else. He actually stress the Lo Yang as a good Premium design (compared to Benson) in the comments when a guy says that Premiums should to be better than silver ships. I'm sure you knew that he is terribly unimpressed by Admiral Hipper, as in her being rather boring and not-good-not-bad way, since the first time he mentioned her. So since Prinz Eugen really isn't different from Admiral Hipper, is it then a stretch that he would dislike her for being an Admiral Hipper with a new model, rather than her not being better than the silver ships? He does say if you really love Admiral Hipper she is fine, and does half that for collectors saying they can get her too but recants and says that she might not be a good collector's ship either as she is so similar too Admiral Hipper.

Shere Khan is unconcerned... (for those that might not know it, Shere Khan occasionally calls Baloo, Babaloo)

Then look again. He also compares it to the terrible Krasny Krym, which is different. Different =/= better, and it pretty clearly comes across in the video. I'm actually slightly surprised that you missed that. The simple fact is that every premium so far have actually been different one way another. Even the bad'ish ones. So just because the OP ones are also different doesn't mean that different has to mean OP. That's quite the disconnect I'm afraid. The fact that Prinz Eugen offers 0 difference in gameplay is very much the issue at hand. She is the first ship to offer nothing aside from premium. She offers no advantages, and no disadvantages. That's a problem as Admiral Hipper herself is a boring ship. Her potential is huge, but is seldomly realised as her advantages (which would make her more fun to play) are not very well suited to the game's meta, and probably never will. Add a premium tag to that and you get an utterly 'meh' ship. Not directly bad, obviously, but not one that many would thoroughly enjoy. So pit that against the more enjoyable ships (I have to trust others' opinions here), that also happen to be downright better, then what does that make Prinz Eugen? A bad premium ship. If she had some special quirk that made her better one way and weaker another, she would at least have a different thing to make her interesting to play, or face. OP isn't required. If all they wanted to do was give us an Admiral Hipper with better credit and captain retraining, why not just give Admiral Hipper a special camo? Because that's exactly what they have done. They spent time making a new model, and then didn't finish the job. That's how she appears.

Got to say I love Udaloi's camo. Not that I'm going to buy it, but it does look really nice. FdG... isn't that one of the early (ingame) Tirpitz camos? I remember her having such a camo a good while ago.

The Kirov is indeed pretty much the most hard countered cruiser in the game at the moment. Or rather she was a week ago. She can barely touch the German ships with either HE or AP, but their smaller, faster loading guns have no trouble dealing with her. But this is a problem that is pretty particular to Kirov. Her guns load too slowly, her HE isn't big enough to penetrate all the various protected areas (it does hurt T6 battleships a lot more than 152mm) and her AP loses a lot of power at range. Once you get to Budyonny thing should change a great deal. It's Kirov vs German battleships that is the real issue, not German battleships as such (of course German BBs could be OP, but in this case it is a particular match-up that is bad).

Indy wasn't good last season. I suppose Flint and Atalanta would be even better this season, if it had been T7. But Bismarck merely takes Tirpitz' position of last T8 season. And even a Bismarck can't exactly evade torps from several Bensons. I mean her HAS is good when she can 'sneak' up on a DD in smoke, or if it is distracted, but if spotted, and in Ranked there is not likely to be many moments she can sneak around in. So yeah, the battle might be better for the other classes, but I don't think it will be that much better.

At present the smoke puffs a little shorter than USN DDs' and it last a bit shorter too. However it is still considerably better than the other DDs' smoke. 113 second duration vs 97 (Minotaur vs Khaba), and 25 second puffs vs 20 (same comparison). Thus not exactly Flint, but not far from it.

Yes there was. They didn't like what they saw last season, and stated that they wanted to improve the MM. But it might more have been a matter of balancing the tier and class balance... However, it isn't likely to me that they have managed to radically change the MM to be better for this season, it is simply too soon for that. But maybe they have. I guess we will find out soon enough.

That depends on how the rewards are. If there is a high loot floor, then perhaps. Essentially, until we know more about how the containers work and what they contain (hah) I think we should be guarded about the prospect, either way.

Wow, I didn't notice that. That seems terribly odd though, as her model is made (and I think it looks good).

I had hoped it would be T6 top. But T8 is still better than T7 I guess, even though we know what that will entail (6 Bensons per side).