HaachamaShipping

People likely won't slap IFHE on their 203 mm cruisers just for that. They don't for USN BBs, they won't for the new ones. At best you can argue people will do on Charles Martel, to prepare for Henri, but the other heavy cruisers likely rather appreciate the fire chance, especially Atago/Takao.

I got... Please, excuse me, while I throw up my lunch in the corner. Also, leave it to WG that if I choose versatility I get this...

Apart from the Hipper and Eugen, they all have the same HE pen tresholds and can pen 32 mm, but struggle with reinforced plating. All of them do 1/3 damage on a pen. Thus, HE dpm very much is a stat that can be compared, unless you want to tell me where (with IFHE) your shells in a Mogami or Chapayev pen, whereas they fail to pen with Cleveland. The only time Cleveland gets "bested" is when you compare vs 50 mm plating vs Hipper/Eugen and even then you get likely more done with superstructure/extremities pens and fires than they get done with dpm and fires. The only exception to this is Edinburgh with Brit AP only. But even then Edinburgh doesn't outdpm Cleveland except in very narrow circumstances that basically are penning slightly angled plating at medium to short range. Also, Cleveland has best fires per minute as well, so with or without fire prevention, Cleveland simply has the highest damage output of any T8 cruiser, on paper and in practice.

Since catapult fighter launches a whole group one after the other, it should be clear that WG doesn't care whether it looks ridiculous or not...

That is true (apart from it being 105.9 rounds per minute on Helena vs 110.8 on Cleveland), but still no reason to state the Cleveland can't throw out dpm. Because Cleveland still is the highest dpm cruiser at T8 by a wide margin. It doesn't throw much more shells out, but it throws out a little bit more and still way more than any other cruiser at its tier. Dismissing it is like dismissing the Kitakaze dpm for being just the reload mod ontop of the Akizuki.

A shadow of its former 7.2 km max. But hey, it still is likely the best AA with its way over 1k dps.

Yeah, Nep has better long-range. Mino is all about the mid range.

Nothing too drastic. Depends on the effort they go into. I 'd guess a gift regardless of what ship you set and a statistic on how many people set which ship.

Edit: Nvm.

Uhm, what? Cleveland dpm is insane.

Izumo certainly isn't Gneisenau. But neither is FdG. Only ship that plays like it a bit is maybe Tirpitz, but nothing beyond it, truely until they might release some T9 German premium "cruiser" based on O-class design or so. Frankly, German BBs were the first line I got to T9 and I had fun in all of them till FdG. FdG was a piece of trash. Kurfürst that came after it, when I got it felt a bit too much like a brawling meme. It's good at what it does, but feels a bit too much locked into that for my tastes. I actually rebought FdG after recent buffs from the creds I got from CV rework (having all those 6th slot mods...) and frankly, the FdG basically offers most of what you want from GK, but in a more compact (thus less unmaneuverable) platform. Just for the fun of playing them, I thus have to say, I basically value Gneisenau most in line and every subsequent ship a little bit less now (just alone because every subsequent ship gets a little bit less favoured by the meta, crapping on slow T5s, T6s and partially T7s in a T7 ship with torps is different from being in a T10 match where you have no speed advantage, no torps and just a lot of hp and short reload). Izumo meanwhile basically teaches you how to play Yamato. Yamato has many of the same traits, just a more vulnerable citadel and slower but bigger shells that are a slight bit more accurate. Both are not very maneuverable, both have to consider when they can fire 9 guns and when to stick to 6, both have 57 mm deck that imo is the best deck at T9 and 10 (at T9, FdG goes up to 80, but beyond 51 it makes little difference and Izumo gets less superstructure. FdG and GK still do have good decks though). So, if you really aim for Yamato, Izumo is your best teacher (or Musashi, if you got her). And I can tell you, Izumo and Yamato, while being easier to citadel and not having good IFHE secondaries (for non-IFHE, these secondaries are actually not bad though, just not worth speccing into much over other things), their gunnery is far more satisfying than that of any German I had. But that's what you'd expect from IJN BBs.

Is it just me, or is the most devastating IJN CV weapon the AP DB? at least on Ryuujou, I find the torp is pretty blergh, as landing enough to get a proper flood that sticks is hard and even if it would, it's getting nerfed soon. Not to mention that likely you lost a ton of torp bombers in that attack and need time to restock. And rocket planes lack effective fire setting capability to exploit much. AP bombs meanwhile, when they hit properly, seem to do ok damage and significant damage, given its often cits. Not that I see the great damage farming potential of this ship anyway. Or the supposed fun...

Come on, no fighting ya two. No reason to act like this. Let's be nice to each other. If only it was true...

155 mm turrets are broader, afaik.

A claim about "every old ship" is disproven when there are exceptions, not when there are still applicable cases. Because then it isn't "every old ship", but "some old ships".

The issue is that the things that made VU so powerful are values WG could tinker around with, like the silly concealment, Krupp value on shells, armour plating strength, while the values that make the ship crap at T5 are far harder to change, like 20 knots speed, 1910s-style AA designed around shooting down scouting baloons and the small size causing small amount of hp, because the strengths are mostly fictional values, the weaknesses are historical. The whole historic configuration of VU screams T4, yet WG deemed it necessary to give the ship whatever crap and force it into T5, wherer it now obviously sucks, because while concealment and armour hold up vs T5, they don't hold up vs T6 and T7 when you got no hp and no speed. When you are slower than a Colorado, it's easy to just close the distance, as it's unlikely that you left the area since you were last spotted a short while ago when you fired (unless you intent to never do anything). Giulio at least had some speed to shift position.

That 25 mm range nerf hit hard... Before that, they did have pretty much crap at range, but got somewhat ok at 3.1 km (or a bit further if specced into it). Now they are just good when targets go right over them or if they fly into the few Flak bursts. Kii is likely the only IJN BB now that has actual midrange AA, as it's the sole IJN BB with 40 mm Chi-Type Bofors (otherwise only found on Hakuryu, Ibuki, Zao, Kitakaze and Harugumo, which means most other IJN ships share the garbage AA).

Just do what you always did when a CV was around. Hug some AA ships. Done.

No opinion on Bogue. I don't use her. I got enough Eagle CVs with Enterprise and Yorktown. I heard the Bogue has high aSW later, but Chaser works too. Not a fan of Bogue design much. Leander isn't better than Belfast. Belfast will still throw out more damage and survive longer. Just at a much higher cost. and if Belfast ever gets a retrofit she'd likely wipe the floor with Leander the way Sandy and Warspite outclass others when retrofitted. But the point of the comparison is to show that Leander has a very strong statline for a normal rarity ship when retrofitted and that the rarity shouldn't fool anyone into thinking the ship is bad. She really mostly just beats Belfast in terms of AA and anti-surface smoke-screen, but her role otherwise is a buffer, while Belfast is an HE dpm machine. For that reason, it's also not wrong to use them together to increase the chance of smoke screen (they don't stack though) and because Leander then basically buffs Belfast.

Leander is not absolutely necessary. She's just good. The main reason Leander is appreciated is because she is common drop in maps where she drops and brings a decent balance of performance and cost that makes her a good unit among any fleet till they get better units. Obviously, in PvP, where cost is nothing, noone cares about a cruiser like Leander if you got better ships. But in your case, Leander basically outclasses Glowworm, Pringles and Indy, in terms of overall utility (e.g. Pringles beats her in tanking, but Leander is better for everything else). But in terms of performance, Leander is solid and if you compare her to for example Belfast, Leander (Retrofit) has at max level: about 400 less hp (3.1k vs 3.5k) 10% less gun efficiency (135% instead of 150%), but slightly higher firepower (177 vs 156) Almost 10% more torp efficiency (165% instead of 155%), but slightly worse torp stat (271 vs 301) Much better AA (130% efficiency vs 100%, 284 AA stat vs 257) Miniscule differences in reload and evasion a situationally better smokescreen skill (30% chance every 15s, 40% eva boost vs 20% every 20s, 35% boost, though Belfast applies also vs airstrikes) replaces the HE self-buff with a frontline-wide firepower buff for all cruisers (stacks with Queens Orders too) costs 8 oil, not 11 All this in a ship that drops readily and has a rather cheap retrofit (13 T1 BP, 18 T2 BP, no T3 BP). Also, supercute with a most charming smile. So, unsurprisingly folks who don't just roll decent SSRs and are looking for good economic performance (or even those who roll SSRs and still want to stay economic) get Leander and she frequently features as one of the best retrofits in the game for people to pursue. Leander is still one of my best cruisers and has not let me down. tfw you are casual in both.

Then realise they get outclassed by other ships... My backline basically is QE, Hood, Unicorn. Lusty if my frontline doesn't have enough plane shredding power with its gold Bofors and gold octuple pom-pom. And that's basically all the RN backline I need till Monarch release or Warspite retrofit. It's a common drop. And I won't say more on my feelings about someone not having a Leander.

DDs also barely take fires and flooding, so if you lose all your hp to normal pens, you can likely print out 60% of your ship with repairs, then if you lose that you can repair 36% of your hp, after that 22%, then 13%. This basically limits you to 118% with 3 repairs (in case the ship is like Grozovoi and has only 1 charge base) or 131% if you actually get 2 charges base. Yes, theoretically, you could get more from burning a lot, but realistically, you hardly lose anything to fires and it's far harder to minmax your repair party usage to always use it when you could get the most out of it. Given how much it repairs, you likely already are wasting repair potential on the second charge and definitely will be wasting it on the third.

Your PvP fleet has like no synergy at all. I'd argue, get a concept. Though I guess you lack much in terms of skills that would allow for much. Your PvE fleets have no synergy either. I'd frankly swap California with PoW though. PoW should be in a fleet with 5 Eagle Union ships and Cali doesn't care. You should maybe train ships that provide more to the fleet than a great statline (some of your choices don't even do that though) and can help with skills, with cheap options being ships like Fortune and (I might sound repetitive) Leander. Exchange your two lolis DDs that sortie with Belfap with Leander and another light cruiser (Edinburgh? Ajax? Achilles? Suffolk retrofit if you have nothing else?) and you already got at least some synergy in the first line from Leander's cruiser buff and a good frontline for RN fleet if you ever use QE. In Fleet 2, if you put PoW there, replace Prinz with Menneapolis, to keep it Eagle Union. That's basically it for the start, these aren't really fleets that are the best, but certainly above what you are fielding. Likely for more minmaxing shens you'd need stuff like three foxes or whatever. I'm no expert there.

Yes, plenty of times. When you miscalculate and send too weak ships into battle.

At what point will you realise that this ship should be balanced for T4, not T5? And why is it getting nerfed again at T5? It has 12 305 mm guns, yes, but König has 10 and also gets 1.8 sigma and faster reload. König is otherwise faster, also well-armoured, has way more hp and actual AA, as well as secondaries. If it weren't for the silly armour and concealment, VU would even be balanced vs Kaiser and both are values you folks could easily have adjusted by reducing the thickness of certain plating and toning down the concealment. But now the ship basically gets to suck at T5 with its T3 hp pool and T3 speed, as well as guns that hardly cut it. I mean, sure, if you can go bow in and don't get hit in the upper bow, the armour helps, but hurr-durr, if you ever go against a BB that manages to flank you and just pens your side or starts load HE. Iron duke and such can just crap on your ship and T6 is impervous to your shells while having typically little issue of penning you if you aren't at autobounce angle. And when you get hit, not just is your hp pool utterly terrible, you even nerfed the repair party to 40%? And sure, you can repair cits to 33%, but what can citadel VU? AP shells? No. AP bombs? Only a major issue because it now sits at a tier where aircraft are much more powerful and the AA is utter trash (and for the love of god don't pull a PEF and try pretend this ship got an interwar refit). Torps? It has one of the best turning radii in the tier (due to being basically T3 in size) and either eats no torps or in case you get torp rushed and shot point blank, a Gneisenau basically will just delete you if you get hit by 3 out of 3 (2 out of 3 leaves you just almost dead), because the torp protection is terrible and hp pool is crap. Repair party doesn't work on dead ships. Come on, I know you folks are just the front to the community, but why take a ship that mostly just need a concealment nerf, then retier it to a tier it does not belong to and nerf it further into the ground? Can you blame us for questioning the people in charge of balancing when we get announcements like these?