GulvkluderGuld

Those battleships in question in fact included several Colorados which - you might note - have the best shell trajectories out of all USN BBs. It also has the same sigma as the T8-T10 untill WG decided to buff NC. As I pointed out, BBs have since gotten better at aiming. Second, NC citadel was NOT buffed (it already sat quite low) which doesnt mean it can turn around without getting deleted. I havnt been playing my Iowa much lately (dont like BBs) so I cannot speak with authority on this, but I doubt it is harder to citadel than NC.

Its a tricky balance. Back in the early days of the game, I kited BBs to death 1v1 from max range with my Cleveland. BBs got better at aiming, but I would say BB need the ability to recloack and withdraw. Otherwise BB will refuse to push in, since it will be a death sentence when all the CAs run like cowards, leaving BB to die. Which means they need decent concealment of 13-15 kms imo. Unless BB outspot CAs, I dont see how CAs get forced into high alpha territory. As long as CAs outspot BB by about 1 km, they should have a chance to evade before getting detected. Some CAs concealments may have to be tweaked slightly to achieve this. I do think Iowa and NC needs superior concealment (for BB) due to how easily they get rekt for showing sides. The same can not be said for GK and possibly Yamato with its lol-pen guns.

Pretty much this - Perth is interesting.. But I just bought Kutuzov and Harekaze during summer sales, so I dont want to spend more money on this game atm. Also WG said they are not fond of CAs IFHE smokespamming. Nah, I have to pass. Only ever buying if they sold Nikolai again

Hmm ok. Was a while back and I could be somewhat wrong about the range - it was long range undetected HE spam and from behind islands. That kind of thing.

I guess this would be fine. Thx for providing stats above. Looking forward to my Missouri, only 100k xp to go! Does seem a bit odd for CAs to have a spotting disadvantage, but then I see Flamu in his Hindenburg burning BBs down from 19 km without any chance to fight back. That feels a bit stupid too tbh. BBs need an option to disengage from that BS, but that is wandering a bit too far off-topic.

You know what is OP at tier 7? Fiji is. And it is silver. I do 20-30k more avg damage in my Fiji compared to Belfast. BUFF UP-FAST PLOX! Need moar tools, like torps and heal to feel competitive. It isnt proper P2W if silver ships get heal when premiums dont On a serious note: Love the Fiji so much more than I ever did Belfast. Used it a bit last ranked season, but only when I lost stars...

Moskva? Its pretty much the only one I know of, but I dont know about Hinden and the new Frenchie. Considering Moskva is more or less a BB in its own right (range and partly armor) I isn't really any big deal as long as we talk 13ish km detection range for bb. Old Pensacola was an issue, but that has been fixed.

Voted yes as I think BBs need the stealth to relocate. Any worse stealth and dds will spot them all from caps 1-2 mins into the game. Am a bit worried about the Conqueror with 10-11 km (?) concealment, but I dont really know much else about it. Radar was removed, so probably it is ok. As others have said, it is more a matter of 5 bbs being too many to play against in any CA. There will always be one with a shot at your broadside and always one ready too shoot. Put a hard cap of 3 bb in the MM and use the surplus to make 12 v 12 BB games. If WG was really evil they would make it 11 vs 11 and add one CV each side My Khabarovsk would like to thank all the oblivious Bismarcks lately without whom so many free witherer and High caliber achievements would not have been possible!

I'm only at the fiji but i have several t10 ships, and i love the RN line. The biggest downside is angling pretty much reduces their dmg to nothing. Broadside targets should take massive dmg though. What do you do at the start of the game? At the start of the game rush islands in the center (preferably on one side or the other so you can put island between you and all bb when you ground) using concealment and then proceed to delete dds in the nearby caps. Doesnt matter so much if you are spotted in random battles as bbs aim terribly and at the start of the game are far away (15+ km). Juggle speed and rudder if you get spotted 1-2 km from island, if longer pop smoke and bail. you only get reliably citpenned in ranked games above R10 - in fiji. I heard edinbourg is less agile. Why go to such details? because early positioning matters a lot in these ships. Generally behind the island just outside caps. Otherwise you dont make use of your greatest strengths, concealment and dd killer potential - with a heal to compensate for the dmg you take on the way in. Of course some maps requires more careful positioning, and you dont want to roadblock any lemmingtrains alone lol. But once in position near a cap, RN cas are at their strongest: Near undislodgeable and almost guarantees the cap will stay on green hands, as red dds cant go near for fear of getting 2-shotted. And if RN CA can force the enemy to come to them, they are at their strongest. RN CA work best in defensive positions and picking moments to ambush broadside targets. Avoid Bb if you can, when they go bow in you cant touch them untill suicide range. Solution if you cannot avoid them: Use terrain to force them to come inside 3-5 km to push past you, then leave smoke to torp them at the 3 km mark where they detect you anyway. They cant outturn your torps if you play it tight. Should net you 2-3 torp hits and gun dmg at that range is 8-10k / volley on his broadside. I killed lots of Sharnhorsts and even Gneisenaus stupid enough to rush my smoke - sometimes 2-3 after the other in the same games! I found 10 km to be about right, preferably a bit closer, 8 km, using handy islands and torp threat to not get rushed and killed between smokes. The 4-5k dmg you push out every 7,5s and threat of having close range torp oneshot potential mostly dissuades anyone from getting closer.

This had me laughing! Thumbs up man, I'm pretty much stuck grinding that abomination = it has been collecting rust in port the last many months. Peashooters. If one could only dream.

Personally I dont see any reason you can't rank out. Anyone hitting R4 can do it. Time is another matter though. Lets do a bit of calculation to put it into perspective: You did R10--> R5 = 3 stars per rank, 5 ranks = 15 stars. Plus R5--> R4 = 4 stars. That is 19 stars total. R4 --> R1 = 4 stars per rank, 3 ranks = 15 stars. As you can see there is quite a way to go :)

Most caps had some nearby hard-cover. The Leander need that between itself and BB guns. Ring and especially Riposte were the best maps for this tactic. Neighbours can work too. New dawn could work too (but with Leander outside the cap). Fault line was almost impossible. Strait too. Have the DD deploy the initial smoke for leander, then bail and spot (best is an IJN dd or possibly anshan). Leander can then use own smoke after and has room initially to adjust position for the best escape route and hard cover vs incoming torps. Resmoking the leander (3rd smoke) is only necessary if the other cap hasn't yet been secured. You have to work that out in advance though and it takes some trust. If leander smoke first, sometimes the dd can enter the smoke and resmoke before it ends. Peek and reset is usually the goal and stay healthy on hp. Though if it is possible to block the cap from behind hard cover (Ring) without risking much, it is preferable. Splitting this fashion one or two dozen games made me realize a few things 1. Communication is key. Most teams are comfortable working towards a common plan. It mostly worked even when nobody else talked. Might be because: 2a. Having directions = a specific task to perform means (other) players will usually perform it instead of taking huge risks to make plays. 2b. The individual skill level (aim, torpedobeat, angling etc) of most players in the R2-R5 bracket are about evenly good, especially when performing a specific, limited and often defensive task. 3.Succes thus comes not from individual outplays, but from organisation and from causing confusion on the red team. 4. Most of the time it earned a 2-3 min solo-cap point lead for the friendly team. Sometimes the red team even lost ships. I know many will protest here and claim potatoes will wreck any such tactics. To that I can say: Execution was rarely as suggested in chat, but it was usually close enough to gain a significant advantage.

Basically did this too, every game in R2-R5, explained in chat. With winrate in the 60-70% area :) Smoked leander + dd to resmoke basically denies the cap forever. The only hard games are when opponent does that same. That takes some intelligent initialt BB splits.

Do you refer to the gun placement here? Gearing can go after dds bow in and still use 2x2 guns while dodging like a boss? Tbh I do play my gearing cautiously much like other USN dds, but this is mostly due to things like radar and RN cas lurking around caps. Mostly that means staying with the fleet / around caps and sometimes flank-torping caps. Gearing lose 1v1 vs Khaba and maybe Z-46 if he has the gimmicky hydro.

Gearing has the best torpedoes in the game. Dont agree it is a downgrade. It takes more dmg due to being fat, but in return it gets the twin double turrets USSR style in the front along with the best torps in the game. 15 km range in this radar meta means you can safely really wreck smoke camping blobs of ships hard enough to change the game with a single volley. Nobody expects the torps with that range. Have both Gearing and Khaba and love them both, they are completely different ships. Khaba torps are very rarely useful, but the guns....the guns!

1) The current ranked season sees almost exclusively Ryujos. Why? Because 3/1/1 has the best AA at the tier. Also the 1/2/2 strike Ryujo has far higher dmg potential than strike Indy. Conclusion: Both Ryujo decks outperform their USN counterpart at their selected rolo. To add insult to injury, they retain some strike or aa potential at the same time. This is basically the root cause of CV imbalance CVs above tier 5 and was compensated at tier 9-10 when Essex and Midway got that 2nd TB squad. 2) Have to say I agree overspecialisation of USN CVs is the root issue at hand here. Also the Bogue is good for farming Clear skys. Period. Where I disagree is that I found the Bogue more noob friendly (but a grind in hell). Killing fighters is very noob friendly as the task is simple an intuitive. Remember noobs have trouble enough with controls and learning the game, so leading bogue fighters on a goose chase around the map is far above their expected skill level. A testimony to this statement is the amount of salty threads on the forum about "op bogue".

If Riot games can produce a competitive environment without P2W, so can WG. Ofc that would require a them to stop drinking vodka and breaking their own game Bought mine, spent 20 odd games playing it in ranked untill i could get my 10th point and with it CE. Totally worth it, and I actually finished top of my team most games even without CE. Never made it to 14 points and RPF and tbh I did fine without. Missed it maybe 1 in 10 games. Most seasoned dd players usually have a pretty good idea about where dds might lurk. The important thing isnt RPF, it is keeping hard cover between the enemy bigger ships and one self while hunting. Also since my teams always contested both caps, we usually spotted all the red dds at the start (and more often than not killed one).

The same argument could be made inversely for T6+ where IJN CVs completely wrecks USN. Both need fixing, but as Elazer writes - that'd be sensible, and WG dont like doing sensible things.

Congratulations! I did the same and can say I'm looking forward to the Flint too! This season it took me 203 games, sligthly more than the 180-190ish last season. The meta seemed like throwback to the good old early seasons with a twist of extra BBs thrown in. Usually at least 3-4. Has to say I liked it a lot more than the horrible Belfast / radar meta of T7. I tend to play gunboats for the same reason you point out above - Ognevoi, Kiev, Blyskawica and Benson has been my go-to picks in previous seasons. This season I first tried a mix of: - Farragut (good smoke is about all this one has to offer, but little carry-potential: Very bad gun-arcs, concealment and especially important in this meta: The torp department sucked) - Leander (pretty damned awesome, see below) - Warspite (OP guns, accurate and dont care about bowtanking. Downside: Huuuge superstructure, seems to take massive pen damage if someone just looks wrongly at it) - Ryujo (AA deck = stressful boredom if that is a thing) That got me to R7 and there I got stuck for 20ish odd games. Then I caved in and bought the Anshan. I knew the playstyle of independent gunboats (funboats?) from previous seasons so progress was rapid. (have to admit: I almost never used the guns except on other dds) Most satisfying experience: Get into a gunfight with a shino who killed 2 dds on my team by permaspotting them for their CA. Force his smoke out, then catch him as he leaves it, turn away, throw suckertorps, turn back in for the kill....just in time to detect him as he runs face-first into my torps My conlusions this season: 1. The Shinonome has the most OP guns for any so-called "torp boat" () out there. Nearly killed my Anshan with SE in straight-up fights every time (2-3k left). 2. DDs is the easiest class to carry in, but you can carry in other smoke ships than dds. Leander this season, Fiji/Belfast in last, Kutuzov i imagine at t8. A "surprise" leander on the off-cap could and often did completely wreck the enemy team and resulted in easy victory, even in R1-R5 by; 1) dd kill 2) actually taking the cap! 3) hydro-spotting their entire team (on Ring) 3. Organizing the team at the start was the most effective way for me to win in the Premiere league. Strategy? - I'll tell if you meet me on the team next season!

This.

Bogue and Ryujo are fairly good bets for lower tiers, but T8+? Dont see how without having someone feed you planes!

To be fair USN T8 and T9 cruisers have been the worst performing ships (not just CAs) since game launch. That had nothing to do with BBs and leaving them like that for so long jut proves WG has no clue. They did the same with 1) CVs 2) IJN dds 3) now BB. Also you've neglected to mention that Belfast mostly counters the counter to BBs, namely DDs (BBs can just smoke-snipe it easy with spotter plane). Then there is the stealthfire nerf and Oh! lets not forget the biggest of them all - Wallhack (TM) making DD flanks suicidal and thus keeping BB flanks safe from torps. (enemy dds or cas can point their own dd/cv in exactly the right direction). Sure IFHE and AP bombs and the german HE buffs were aimed at BB, but meanwhile, BBs have learned to aim and (in high tiers) have the sigma to actually hit dds. Also while they added IFHE, Fire prevention got buffed significantly too. Same with KM secondary range and secdary perk introduction (although again, that is FUN) The end result of all that is at net buff to BBs and nerf to dds (which was maybe deserved, despite radar, hydro etc which i'm totally in favour of). Why do you think dds refuse to cap? Its because getting spotted means losing at least 50% hp to BB shells - if you are lucky. If unlucky there is a radar boat or RN CA around and you will die. The Khaba remains insanely strong, gearing and fletcher isnt bad, but there is no way in hell those ships can counter BBs with all the tools they have available to counter the dds back.

They already had that on the KM dds. And Bismarck. Basically the hydro ship could permaspot an entire cap which had...negative impact on the game What needs to be done is WG not hit the BB with the IJN dd nerfbat. Just give AP divebombs to all CVs, boost dmg to Tirpitz levels and increase DB HP by 200% and make the invulnerable to fighter interception (fighters cant interact with them, thus taking the wild imbalance of CV skill out of the equation). Basically BB have to camp near CAs now or get deleted. And if their CA die they get deleted. If that doesn't solve it: We cant increase torpedo detection, so instead lets add a 10s delay from the BB captain presses the "fire" button untill his guns fire (its only fair his ship is so big it takes time for orders to be passed). Then increase reload by 50% after 2 mins of max rate fire (the poor crews get tired) Profit .

Well said. My final ranked game this season was a very special dd game. The only ranked dd game I ever had where I did 0 dmg. In an Anshan! Good luck to you all =)

Usually ranked is about finding a ship that suits you. I play all 4 classes in randoms, but have a general preference for gunboats and dd (my 2 Tier X ships are the Khabarovsk and the Gearing) This season I started playing 3 ships: Warspite, Leander and Farragut. That got me to around rank 7, but in contrast to earlier seasons I was rarely top of the losing team. I couldnt make the Farragut with its mortars work, and when I tried warspite our dds inevitably went of on a wild expedition where I couldnt support them and died. Then I bit the bullet and bought the Anshan and Io and behold: Top of my team almost every game and I breezed right up to Rank 4 next day. Suddenly I was sinking leanders and dds camping smoke with the 8 km torps, gunning down dd, resetting caps and easily making my escape due to its speed. It''s not that I had bad performances in the other 3 ships, but my games were more consistent in the Anshan. Usually there are ships that suit your playstyle better than others. For me it was the Anshan