HaachamaShipping

I'm having fun. If I don't have fun, I blame that on other things than me being countered by some CV. I did state "successful" more because people would otherwhise just tell me that just cause I enjoy failing others wouldn't. In my experience, you can have good games in DDs, just don't expect to have free reign. Obviously, the rare incredibly competent CV will kill you after having murdered half your team, but at that point, whether you were a DD or a BB, really not much of a difference.

I think if CVs are a ship that fits into Ranked without having excessive influence, then there shouldn't be an issue with rental CVs.

Same here. I find Yukikaze great fun, even with CVs around. Is it easy? No. Is it possible to still be successful? Certainly.

Most CVs are about the same squad size though. Saipan and Kaga are special cases, but all others at T8 usually are 3x3 or 4x2 setups (exception Enterprise rockets), so 8 or 9 planes. Implacable doesn't have noticeably smaller squads than Lexington or Shokaku for example, thus the plane hp is significant.

Even if the CB season comes to an end (making Cagliostro-chan very happy), [POI--] goes on and we keep recruiting. We are happy with both our Clan Battle performance and with the overall growth of our vivid community. Now, to hope CVs stay out of CB, so Cagliostro-chan doesn't have to study Hakuryu gameplay or go and explicitly recruit CV players. (Though we are not discriminating against people who play CV. Feel free to apply.) Link to our Discord in opening post, if anyone wants to hang out with us. Applications please via Discord to either [Poi], maroon or Kasumi.

Imo, best first nation would be US, because they have the easiest planes with reasonable usefulness. Then you go IJN if you want to up your game and meme on cruisers with AP bombs, or RN if you feel like doubling down on being flying cancer by carpet bombing things, which is sometimes more to piss people off than being really effective.

Yes, unless you just want to die by rushing in. Most of the match these ships spend at range. Hindenburg has 30 mm plating, Roon has 27 mm plating. There is a massive difference and if someone can aim for you at 15 km, they sure will hit you at 10 km or less. So, yeah, that claim is straight up nonsense. Thus you disagree with those who kinda can make these ships work? If Moskva is not up for the role, Stalingrad is not up for it either. There's literally nothing that the Stalingrad does that the Moskva doesn't do but the Hindenburg does. Like, if you want a ship that can rush in, Stalingrad certainly is not the ship for that kinda play.

Main tip for Roon, basically play it like a Hipper with better dpm. It is a long range support ship, spam HE, try to dodge shells at range. Your armour does crap all vs 16 inch, but you might at least avoid getting citpenned. Once opportunities to brawl cruisers or lone 38 cm gun BBs arrive, use those. If someone managed to make Hipper work, this is the next step. Hindenburg finally will add actually worthwhile armour. No. A Hindenburg does not replace Stalingrad. It has exactly none of the qualities of the Stalingrad. The silver counterpart to Stalingrad is (obviously) Moskva, which in certain situations even outperforms Stalingrad. But yes, you put a Stalingrad into the lineup for several reasons, which are 12 km radar highly resistant to direct HE damage can fire devastating AP salvos even at range Hindenburg with no radar, 30 mm plating that gets HE penned by anything and melts to HE spam (even with a 5th repair party) and the most anaemic AP shell of any T10 CA in all characteristics except damage potential is not what can replace Stalingrad. Stalingrad can AP cit a Yamato like a BB, Hindenburg will have to HE spam the hell out of it most of the time. If Hindenburg is played, it usually is as a replacement for Henri, where it provides the 50 mm pen, but is otherwise just a worse ship due to the stark difference in Henri mobility vs Hindenburg mobility. If you have neither Stalingrad nor Moskva, go for a different approach. But usually, Hindenburg is not part of that. Roon in AR Ranked is an absolute waste, but so are any open water kiters. Ibuki and Saint Louis are the same. In that mode, you basically need a radar on your cruiser to matter. Even radar Nep is more worthwhile than any of the non-radar cruisers, if you know how not to die. I played that, before switching to FdG when I had enough steel for Stalingrad and could no longer be bothered.

Ibuki isn't that bad. For T9, I'd say it's worse in survivability than Roon and Buffalo, better than Donskoi, Neptune and Seattle. It gets 25 mm plating, but a 30 mm deck at least to avoid getting citpenned all the time like Mogami and its concealment and maneuverability are actually good (unlike Donskoi and it even beats Neptune and Seattle). Not comparing to Alaska or Kronshtadt, as those two are basically in a league of their own for cruiser survivability, but a case can be made about the Ibuki's armour vis-a-vis the Azuma.

For my thoughts on Monarch, I refer to this.

I think the reason people say they get more out of Zao is because there exist two kinds of ships with 50 mm armour, the vast majority that burns for 60s and the two that burn for 30s. Given the majority of ships you can deal pretty effectively with by just burning down, this leaves two ships where Hindenburg is better and a ton of ships where the 32 mm or less armour makes Zao just way more consistent. Too bad the pen is the worst of any 203 mm gun. Though, at least the shell speed is comparable to Zao and some ships you can kill in one good salvo instead of two. Overall though, Hindenburg compared to Henri or Moskva lack the harsh pen at range and compared to Zao lacks the concealment to get more easily into situations where the aP can be applied. Turtleback armour means you eat fewer citadels. "almost impossible" is overselling this feature quite a bit and Yamato, as well as USN cruisers at these ranges will crap on your ship way too hard. German cruiser turtleback basically means that you might not instantly die, in close range, but emphasis on might, you still can die. Hindenburg is not necessarily suited for more offensive than defensive play really. It's versatile in that it does nothing well in any consistent fashion except pen 50 mm plating. But for true offensive power, the Hindenburg lacks in speed. If the Hindenburg is just used as additional firepower behind a tank that gets shot instead, a good few other cruisers do a better job. If the ship is required to tank for itself, Moskva obviously does a better job, while Hindenburg at least can pull it off vs the majority of BBs. The issue with Hindenburg offensive play comes down to crap speed and concealment though, so unlike a Zao, you cannot get as easily into good positions without being seen and unlike Henri nowhere as fast. And unlike with Henri, a Zao kiting you has the luxury that it can vanish at almost any time, as it outruns you. No cruiser at T10 outruns a Henri on speedboost. If Hindenburg can be claimed to be more offensive, then only in comparison with the Zao, which is pretty garbage at rushing, due to getting overmatched, getting its small hp pool reduced fast and having bad torp angles, while Hindenburg has no issues in any of these three areas, but you'd still use the ship more often in a defensive stand-off manner, because of the basic ways the game work. If you kite an enemy, you are in a stronger position than if you rush and it's likely your best bet at actually winning a fight vs another cruiser at any sort of range, without throwing away all your hp. Compared to Henri, Hindenburg is better vs stuff like Montana in rushing them, but for 1v1ing something like Stalingrad, Henri is better most of the time, because Stalingrad cannot outrun you, it cannot turn in front of you even at range (while Hindenburg at some point will run into actual issues penning the belt) and it is way faster when it closes in. Played Hindenburg again the last few days. Overall, the ship is okish for randoms, but I find it exceptionally unexciting, given you basically play can opener, trying to kill what others have a hard time with. Wouldn't take this into Ranked or CB over an Henri or Zao though.

Frankly, yes, it is bad. That's why you use HE most of the time and AP when you find targets where it has a hard time failing. From your list of targets, broadside Fuso, Yorck and Belfast would be a yes, The NM and Gascogne only at close range. In most of these instances you also don't fire AP to get cits, but just because the pen damage is higher. If you want somewhat decent AP performance, wait for T8, where you get Monarch which is pretty much a repeat of the KGV, just with 32 mm plating instead of 25, a bit more AA and 3x3 381 mm guns that still reload like the 356s. Those will have pen marginally worse than Bismarck's.

And Anshan doesn't get Silkworm missiles.

You do know you already can get this by just playing current Conqueror with 457 mm guns? This is absolutely nothing new and is mostly regarded as inferior compared to lower fire chance but more barrels on 419 Conqueror.

And tried to divert from it by adding a pointless question. Though, to actually answer your question: Just for ops, Helena is at best as effective as Fiji. Issue is: Bots are dumb, good players are not. Usually, few bots will just go bow-in and good players won't just keep shooting bow-in folks for no damage. In terms of damage output, Fiji has improved AP and as long as it can make the AP count, it has better output than Helena with HE. Helena has better AP dpm, but not the means to continue spamming AP. Two of Helenas consumables (defAA+fighter plane) are absolutely worthless for ops. As long as you get your positioning game right, the major challenge for most cruisers is sustain in the onslaught, where Fiji just hands-down wins. Narai and UF are most of all slugging through multiple waves of enemies and Fiji just has the better tools for that. Even if you mess up, Fiji can make some limited comeback, Helena cannot. Fiji has 3 torps per side, which are incredibly useful when you need to deal with heavy targets. As someone who once had to solo-kill Missouri in Narai, I really would've appreciated getting goddamn torps and a repair party. Within a div, Helena can shine, when others draw the fire and Helena can most of all just bring its dpm, if I don't cue up into ops as a div though, Fiji all the way. For randoms, personally I prefer Helena.

Whatever is stupid enough to fly into Sims' 4 puffs will fly into 3 Akatsuki buffs. And whatever flyes into these buffs consistently will just die anyway. defAA just means you need to collect a few less of them, but it's CV skill that matters, making the difference between the Enterprise that just rockets your Cleveland right through defAA and all at the start of the match with minimal loses or the Enterprise that loses 24 planes to your non-defAA cruiser and doesn't even land a proper shot.

And that might be the case, but you made the claim Helena had more hp, which is a misrepresentation of facts. I also can't go and claim that the Republique has more hp than Conqueror, despite Conqueror having an absolute meme repair party. Sure, Republique might still be a better ship, but it's because of other factors, not the one fact I just misrepresented.

Sims can meme on stupid CVs, but so can an Akatsuki. Cue good CV and you're just as dead as in most other DDs.

Money. They don't need to use their own product, they need to sell it.

Is a different argument. Regardless of which one is better, a fair comparison can never claim that Helena has more effective hp and has to mention Fiji repair party. Not to mention a few other differences that weren't mentioned.

Kaga has no AP bombers.

If you cannot accept getting AP bombed to crap in Izmail, then why would you want to get to later ships? So you can enjoy seeing your hp vanish from AP bomb cits in Sinop, Vladivostok, Sovietsky Soyuz and Kreml? This characteristic will persist to T10. Accept it or play something else.

Fiji has a repair party, Helena doesn't. Effectively, Fiji has a much larger hp pool than Helena.

Just dodge. Nah, jokes aside, best bet is fighter plane, but realistically, pray to RNG that none hit the cit. Alternatively, play something that has barely any citadel reachable for AP bombers.

Another lucky day in the Yukikaze... Got complimented 4 times for this. No regrets buying this ship. Also rebought Colorado, because it was a fun time when I grinded through the ship and KC Colorado came out. Not as amazing, but I still take it.