invicta2012

Funny you should mention that. Happened to my Yorck, twice in three games.

Shan't. The point was that Tier IX is not a good place for standard cruisers, and Seattle's stats show it. A ship that people play for the destination, not for the journey.

https://wows-numbers.com/ship/4075730928,Seattle/ Worst average damage of any Tier IX cruiser in the game, third worst k/d ratio, bottom half of the table on win rate, average XP, frags. (It is quite good at shooting down planes though). This at a tier where there are several ships made of pure explodium....

It was alright at the time they launched it, but now it's a slightly underpowered Tier VIII+ light cruiser with no torpedoes in a meta of Tier IX Coal BBs with 18 inch guns and Tier IX Super Cruisers with bigger guns and more armour and Tier IX DDs which do 50 knots and have all the dakka in the world. Probably not that much fun. You'll be wanting a Smolensk, old chap. If you can't beat them, join them....

We're not disagreeing. And what you've shown was exactly my point, that WG is creating lower base XP potential ships and scenarios (free content) but increasing the returns that players can get by investing in paid/reward content like Premium, flags, etc. Not surprising, but not good.

If running lots of flags, by the looks of those stats. 2165 XP doesn't magically turn into 12.6K XP without a bit of help. Perhaps that's the road WG is going down, but it's not a good one.

Well, WG should start bending the rules. We have in-game examples of the type of DD you're talking about - Monaghan, which gives up 50% of its main battery for an enhanced AA outfit which does... very little. You're better off staying with the main guns, because flak is the only defence which can take planes down. Obviously we have the C Hull USN DDs, which give up 20% of their battery, the British designed ones which can give 25%... so you take that reduction in gun power as trade for specific anti-air effects - perhaps they should have access to a DD specific enhanced DFAA, which would debuff planes permanently (until they returned to the CV), widen attack dispersion, enlarge aiming reticles, etc. But we've been saying this for years, and WG aren't going to do any of these things, because providing counter play to their latest release isn't what they do. Shut up and get farmed is the order of the day. Which doesn't bode well for subs.

Hmm. I can think of at least two five star Narai runs yesterday in Akatsuki where there were two DDs on the team. The problem with DDs in this operation is that everyone else wants to be a DD - Scharnhorst players having to prove their manhood by torping the Missouri, especially - and then of course you miss the DPS elsewhere. Having said that, I think Skane would be the DD I would be least likely to bring. You can't kill the Missouri or the Lexington with your torps - Akatsuki does 10k more per strike, even the weakest VII (Sims) does 4k more, and you have no smoke, no heal and limited DPM. I like the Swedish DDs and their mid-tier Skirmishing style, but Skane is a bit too slow and Ognevoi for my liking. Rather like the other Tier VII odd duck Yudachi, I think Skane needs lots of flags, and a good skipper with the right skills, to be worth playing.

Well, it's a theory, I suppose.

I think it's rebalanced so that if you want to use it for economic gain you have to throw some cash - Premium time, permacamos - at it, and also some flags. WG couldn't let the old XP and Credit structure go, people were milking it hard for resources* and allowing people to have more flags on their ship would have made it absurd. It's still worth it for levelling and getting credits, just at a slower rate and with a little more investment. * It's possible to play Ops outside of the rotation, if you have a team to do it with. Imagine people farming Narai constantly for resources/XP at the old rates of return and you can see what was going on. And yes, that means more casual players suffer. Ain't it always the way?

What ships are you playing? I had a game in Surrey yesterday that went to pieces (we lost) and I still made a profit. Lose and come in the bottom three of the leaderboard and you can make a loss, for sure, but what do you expect....?

Time for class specific DFAA and Massive AA skills and a return to dispersion debuffs, especially on rockets. Make USN C Hull DDs great again!

Pleased to see the love for Yorck, I've always liked that ship, and since the AP buff it's been great. Am finding Tier VIII USN type CLs much less effective than they were, which is frustrating as they used to be great. I don't understand the logic for why Cleveland's guns hit harder than Helena's as they are the same guns and it brings the whole order of the US CL line into question - it's almost as if the original order, with Cleveland lower down, now makes more sense than the current one. Perhaps WG could trial a Tier VIII Brooklyn class? Atlanta still rules Narai, but it's hopeless against higher Tier ships, and USN DDs have also suffered for the same reasons - you are just hoping to set a fire, really. In DDs you can try and use AP but Atlanta is far too squishy to make the angles work. I don't know about Soviet cruisers and the impact on them, as I can't stand that line of ships.

I'll have one of those. And a Pola (or Bolzano) with guns that work....

As do I, sir! You don't get the twin guns until you upgrade to the C hull. Upgrading your guns takes you from 200mm/20 second reload to 203mm/15 seconds, which is well worth doing first.

Well, six guns can work - Exeter was originally a VI, and Huang He is much better than everyone thinks with only six guns. What it needs to be Tier VI is faster traverse and a nice tight grouping on a full salvo. The good thing about 203mm guns is that they work at any Tier, and can be easily tweaked with soft stats. The torpedo tubes, too, could be quirky - I think they were fixed on the ship, but if you've ever played the Yahagi the angles are so limited they may as well be fixed ones... three batches of two along each side of the ship with a Kamikaze reload would be fun. More daft Japanese torpedo cruisers pls! You may be right, but I think 155mm Moggie at T7 would be a disappointment if they reduced her HE pen and rather OP if they retained it. I would rather have Mikuma at Tier VII as a heavy torpedo cruiser - slower gun reload than Myoko but much improved torpedo angles. Then you'd have a torpedo themed line of Premiums - Yahagi, Kako, Mikuma, Atago.

Well, a lot of the newer ones are part of WG's obsession with Super Cruisers / Super Battleships and hoovering up people's Free XP stocks, and clearly they like an Azur Lane collab, so the quality hasn't been high. I would like some more cruisers, really - Furutaka's sister Kako with the single gun turrets and original torpedoes (six per side) would make a decent Tier VI, and a Mikuma would be nice...

Ah, the Furutaka. The ship that made me realise (back in 2017) that I was completely clueless. The ship is much improved since then. I, sadly, am not. My only tips would be: 1) Upgrade the guns, then the fire control, then get the B hull, then upgrade the torpedoes, then get the C hull. It's tempting to do things in a different order, but this isn't a destroyer and 10k torps can be a terrible distraction. You need to concentrate on those powerful 8 inch guns. 2) Tier V is a really good Tier to learn about the effects of different ammunition types, especially when you're fighting other cruisers. Get to know, and love, your AP shells. Every Omaha, Emerald, Exeter, Kirov is a potential citadel. Bow and stern sections of BBs, too - you can give them a good hiding. 3) Everyone will tell you that you need a 10 pt captain, and you probably don't have one. Don't panic. But make sure you have always have a camo mounted, preferably the one that buffs your concealment.

Atago and Asashio are worth your money, I think, but.... I don't have Atago because Mogami is great fun. Myoko is too... have you considered working up to these ships and getting a perma camo for them? Asashio is good because it's unique, but check that's what you want before you buy it. Otherwise I have Yudachi, Mutsu, and Yahagi and they're all a bit odd. It seems that WG can't put a sensible IJN premium out, and if you want a premium Japanese ship which functions normally it has to come from an event, in a neon pink camo with a shouty teddy bear as the Captain.

The only DDs which are as broken as CVs are the Kamikaze sisters, and even then that's only because they're at a Tier where there is no radar and very little hydro. The rest are balanced and accepted, they have proper counterplays and there are loads and loads of anti DD tools. Smoke firing was got rid of, OP DDs were nerfed very hard, the days of Minekaze being the most influential ship in a match are long gone. Playing a DD well - above Tier III anyway - is now hard work and requires knowledge and skill. So it's not a good comparison, really.

I have to agree. Which means the only place free of the darn things will be Co-op and Operations, where WG won't be able to to get the AI to work properly.

I really like Hood's secondaries. Compared to Nelson and KGV they seem to do a lot more... probably just the increased RoF, but it means they always set at least one fire and they are effective against DDs. Fat Nelse's secondaries never seem to do anything at all....

They want people to play random battles, that's been clear for a while. But to hell with that! Still makes credits and plenty of XP for levelling in a low-stress environment.

He he. Alright then. The Japanese Tier VII destroyer whose name doesn't begin with an "S".. (I really should look this up).

Fiji. You can run completely amok with it. The only think you must not do is be first spotted by the Missouri. Cruisers love Narai, overall. Nothing wrong with bringing Helena, Myoko, Algerie or Yorck... Surrey's ability to smack up DDs and break their modules will be useful. I wouldn't worry about Shchors. At all. For anything. Lyon's hilarious. Sinop is ludicrous. KGV is also good. Japanese ones bring lots of firepower. I probably wouldn't bring a USN BB, though (too slow). Gneisenau is also a third choice pick due to her derpy main guns, you may get mileage from secondaries and torpedoes. You can bring a torpedo DD but gun boats are better, overall. Vauquelin is a mini light cruiser, Jervis is handy with smoke and hydro, Akizuki has guns and torps but you rarely see it.