HaachamaShipping

Hood is one of the T7 BBs that uptiers best though, due to the combination of sturdy armour and good speed. I'd say only Sinop and the Germans uptier anywhere as well, while ships like Colorado, Ashitaka and Nelson can uptier quite poorly given T9 BBs will just reduce them in very few salvos to nothing and two of these have piss-poor speed for T9 matches. as for being a good torpedo target, Mahan torps actually give you less reaction time than Fletchers, so if you can avoid getting torped by that, you can avoid getting torped by Fletchers.

Because it's too visible and a Leningrad does the job better, if you just want that kinda gameplay. at least now the Blysca is on more equal footing instead of being blatantly worse. It'll still have issues if it doesn't pick fights carefully, but it can take them more confidently now or others have to be more careful picking on you.

Can't wait for work to end to play Ark Royal then...

I mean, Blysca will likely never be a stealthy boat and what WG are doing is to make it better at the thing the Blysca is good at to specialise and differentiate. Not every ship has to be a stealthy cap contester.

I assume armour profile is light plating everywhere except citadel?

Accuracy is good. It's one of the most accurate T6 BB. Just unlike Warspite and QE no overmatch and terrible pen. But it isn't rare getting devstrikes on ships like Pensacola or Ranger at range after failing to pen some Texas or getting 3-4 out of 8 shells to hit a DD.

GZ can, because it has the fastest planes. Outrunning fighters is one of the few actual strengths of the GZ and it's a feature, not a bug. and it needs no fixing, because GZ is already in a terrible enough spot.

If anything former. Even in the most basic sense I manage to make it work against T8, even when half-asleep. Don't listen to the critics, Ark is fine and if you don't believe me, ask the Akizuki that got wrecked the day before yesterday (T8 DD, IRL designed for AA vs T4 planes...) or the Vauquelin from yesterday that lost 2/3 of its hp before I had to focus another target. If you get thrown into T8, just pick on targets where you have the most impact, but even in case you have to kill some NC, it isn't impossible. Just not very rewarding to lose a bunch of planes to damage a ship with good repair and damecon vs murdering the crap out of DDs, cruisers and lower tier BBs.

Damage-wise, Huanghe actually is not necessarily "ok". Average damage-wise, the ship lags behind other premiums at T6 quite a bit. Her entire performance rests on picking the right targets and trying to use this limited dpm the most effective way possible. Creeping smoke helps there. Also, what about Königsberg?

Kaga is the better CV, Ark Royal is the better pick though, because cheaper, so if you find it not to your liking, you invested less easier matchmaking - enough ships you meet barely have any AA easier to use - while Kaga isn't some extremely high skill floor CV, Ark Royal certainly is the easiest premium CV to use there is. Overall, I'd recommend first playing tech tree CVs though and to keep in mind that premium CVs typically have slightly different playstyles. There's planty things to keep in mind when playing Kaga or Ark Royal to actzually get decent results in them.

I'd compare to Furutaka and there, the question arises, why play a Yahagi over Furutaka? Sure, the Yahagi has slightly better HE dpm, better torp armament, better concealment, better range and better speed, but none of that is as reliable as the Furutaka's 25 mm plating, 48 mm deck, ability to AP overmatch other T5s and good torp angles. Huang He has a creeping smoke that is a way better survivability asset than speed boost. Even so, the greatest shortcoming of Huang He, which is the reason that she often receives such poor remarks is the absolutely poor dpm. Torps on most IJN cruisers are a decent asset, because you can launch them while kiting and get some synergy with guns, when you hit one and get a flood.Yahagi has terrible launch angles though, so you need to launch prior to turning or use them in other situations. Also, it's hard to argue about torp armament trade-offs, given Furutaka, Myoko, Mogami anf Zao are quite great cruisers, while Aoba and Ibuki are at least solid. premium Atago and Yoshino also work well, Azuma has no torps.

Muppets who die to long range typically die to the flak buffs, not to the dps, because even 179 dps on its own is nothing. Also, plane kills is not just a result of who has AA, but also of who gets targetted. e.g. I doubt this is because of the god-like AA the ship has, is it?

Hosho is a short grind indeed, because it's OP af and the "nerf" is hardly one, which is why people point that out. Just, the presence of OP Hosho and the fact you basically run into 4-6 CVs every T3-5 game is the reason people are concerned because if you grind for example Russian cruisers, have fun playing your no-AA ships against torp bombers and AP DBs, where one good hit eradicates a good part of your hp forever and a good Hosho has no issues landing the hits. This is not a state of affairs conductive to player retention at low tiers, where new players start.

Kaga torps aren't that great. Ryuujou torps are better. Kaga's greatness comes from throwing 4 torps at once, double what you usually get with IJN and only outdone by Saipan with 4 better torps per drop.

If it wasn't for Sinop, Colorado and Nagato would be pretty fine balance-wise. I don't see the point of Cali though, which basically just has 50% more guns of inferior caliber. Unlike at T6, where the NM at least has good penetration compared to big gun BBs /except WV), the Cali cannot hope to beat the Colorado in penetration and its accuracy is pretty poor. At best, you get a ship that can try blap cruisers with surprise attacks due to good stealth. But if this is what you are going for, why not get a DoY? Less pen, but you don't need insane pen to kill cruisers, improved ricochet angles, similarly good concealment, more hp, more speed, a hydro, a much better repair party, better HE when inevitably you run into a BB that angles. Or KGV to get better reload and not spend money.

Stalingrad and Colbert are gated behind a hard grind, thus distribution is biased towards good players. Smolensk, Salem and Yoshino are a softer grind, thus open to more potatoes. tech tree is open to anyone, so naturally you can expect worst stats. Given Smolensk is in same category as Yoshino and Salem, its stats certainly are not, so, the question remains, why is a ship that is easier accessible closer to Stalingrad and Colbert in stats (though the more you filter for better players, the wider the margin grows by which Smolensk outdamages anything else. Is certainly food for thought.

HE spam isn't connected to tier, so even a T7 KGV with AP would've been possible.

Blysca gets a buff. Finally.

Bismarck and Richelieu have no improved AP ricochet and work fine. Both also aren't more accurate than Monarch and Richelieu has 32 mm plating everywhere without Monarch's good belt armour and the heal.

Well, there is still Monarch at T8 with 32 mm plating and guns that have somewhat tier appropriate penetration values.

Accuracy is fine and at T6 she's competitive, at T8 she would not be. Even with T8 25 mm plating instead of 19 mm and cruiser accuracy, all it'd mean is it more often faces high dpm cruisers that take it apart, while it cannot overmatch them. At T6, safe for T8 matches, Graf spee does not have this issue as much and against T5 BBs it even can overmatch those. And armour wasn't nerfed, the belt is still there. Just there's more than just belt armour that can be shot at.

PEF AA: Long range: 5 explosions, 179 dps up to 5.2 km Mid-range: 39 dps, up to 3.5 km (combined 218 dps) Short range: 81 dps, up to 2 km (combined 299 dps) Warspite AA: Long range: 2 explosions, 53 dps, up to 5.8 km Mid-range: 165 dps, up to 2.5 km (combined 218 dps) short range: 116 dps, up to 2 km (combined 334 dps) The PEF for its tier has only "good" AA in that it's loaded onto long-range, but the amount of firepower it has still is not going to shred meaningful amounts of planes and CVs will drop your ship. And if it's just about killing planes that come for your ship, Warspite manages to even beat the PEF at close range and thus also at killing planes on the way out, while at the same time taking less damage, due to not eating AP cits like PEF does and more likely dodging torps. The comparison to the likes of QE, Bayern and New Mexico makes PEF still the best at long-range, but Bayern isn't too far behind for long-range (140 dps), the NM is short-ranged, but has far more within that short range and the QE is just a better AA platform that not just projects 119 dps out to 5.8 km, but also reaches well over 400 dps in close range. None of the T6 BBs is going to stop a decent T6 CV though. Also, pressing O deals damage based on squadron hp, so that damage is independent of what ship it is. In general, as a T6 CV, QE has my biggest respect and this is from today's results... 7 slow T4 planes lost in exchange for 34k damage. Now imagine a CV with T6 planes or T8 planes.

Wait. Does noone else play her?

There, played my 30th game. Still don't know where I am on the list of Ark Royal players, given it refuses to load for me, but likely not very high. I'm not a some kinda CV unicum.

Sandy.