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Nelson gets her extremities overmatched like any T7 BB. Even Gneisenau and Scharnhorst can get overmatched at the bow, but at least they have some reinforced lower bow (70 mm). What's noteworthy with Nelson is that it has an above-water citadel and when the bow gets overmatched, shells easily pen that citadel. The bow also is massive, so it's not even hard to bowcit a Nelson. Like Dunkerque, Nelson thus has to watch out, as it cannot just bow tank all BBs and has to bait shots on the angled belt. And though I got a CQE today in Nelson, the secondaries are an afterthought on that thing. Maybe the other Brits have worse, but else, even Colorado has more useful secondaries. Hood is a floading brick that only gets overmatched in superstructure and the very ends of the ship, if you angle it properly. It also has overmatch guns but with low pen. Dunkerque is a ship that is the squishiest at T6, gets crapped on by T8 BBs mercilessly and its guns don't overmatch even same tier BB, but when they don't bounce off, they have the second best pen of T6 (after West Virginia, which took the top spot this year). Nelson is likely much more like Dunk than the Hood. Has to look out for same overmatch ships, crap armour scheme, eats IFHE damage all the time. Nelson just is slower, has bigger guns and a lolheal. Nelson at T9 would only work if it got its extremities adjusted to the 32 mm plating and then it'd be like the crossbreed of a Lion and the old Izumo. But I take a Gneisenau into a T9 battle before I take a Nelson, given how easily Nelson can die, especially against Musashi that just ignores Nelson's armour altogether. Yes, angle does matter, because a New York cannot overmatch 25 mm bow plating, so bow-in, you basically can tank NY AP for ages. With the right MM, Nelson is one of the best ships to just get insane potential damage numbers and easy dreadnought and fireproof. Depends on the mistake. Eat torps and you won't repair that. Same with cits. Get burned and you hardly have to care.

Gneisenau and Scharnhorst are two different kinds of beasts though. Scharnhorst has the volume of fire and better accuracy, but Gneisenau can actually overmatch cruisers. If you give broadside, Scharnhorst (and PEF) are way worse enemies than Gneisenau, but as a T7 cruiser, Gneisenau can basically wreck you from any angle, unless you are a Myoko with 32 mm deck armour. For citpens on PEF, aim between first and last turret and aim low. Sadly, I can't reproduce it in the training room for you, but something like USN BBs from T5 to T8 which you can meet, with decent pen and more arcing shells have little issue, as the shell has to penetrate the belt, then travel on slightly downward to hit the citadel. Last directive certainly wasn't made hard for those who already own PEF and where PEF acts as a grind vessel for four nations at the same time (thus 4 million in PEF are already 4 of 6 nations taken care of). It's much harder on anyone who wants to get the ship for free.

Well, 3/4 can be kept firing that way. Which still is a good amount of firepower. Sadly, after tanking a few AP salvos like that, I lost a good bit of my secondary firepower on that side. The survivability on those mounts is pretty lackluster. (Also, that SE is because I used a Harekaze captain.)

First off, disclaimer: This is mainly throwing out some stuff I tested last night out of my own interest and I know, secondary builds are not exactly optimal to begin with. Also, this may seem like a good bit of rambling, but I thought if I run tests, might as well post results. I mostly wondered, with recent changes to secondaries from AP to HE, how much more viable did this make certain secondary builds. In Ranked Sprint S1&2, I ran an Iron Duke with sec range mod and AFT, to get derpy 6.8 km secondaries that were actually quite effective, when people rushed me on those small maps and Iron Duke back then had the best secondaries of T5 (König had mostly AP), with all those 152 mm casemate-mounted guns that have some silly 12% fire chance. Allowed for setting fires even when you load the decent AP shells and the investment seemed not too crippling (4 captain points for IFHE and not getting -7% to dispersion, but I never found Iron Duke desperately wanting for accuracy). Another ship that I recently got that has decent secondaries would be the Prinz Eitel Friedrich, though I didn't bother going for full secondaries, as I went AA and so I only got 6 km range. And at T6, I'm sceptical about the impact of secondaries at anything but suicidal ranges. Because frankly, the ship can get close and try brawling, but I'd certainly not get close just to get the secondaries off. Or well, more on that in a bit. What really interested me, was whether one can get any decent returns from secondary specced IJN BBs. Most are sadly hurting in the range department and only Izumo, Musashi and Yamato have ranges that are decent, while Nagato might be borderline, having decent range for a T7. (Mikasa is the odd case, because the secondaries overall are not great, but watching T2s get shredded for rushing you is the main gameplay reason to buy the thing.) Then, sadly, most of the ship are questionable in brawls, as IJN is among the easiest BBs to citadels as a whole and most rather invest into making Yamato an absolute tank and accurate main battery, rather than investing into a secondary armament that isn't even on par with FdG. Musashi has too few secondaries to be worth it really and Izumo concentrates secondaries in the rear. To be fair though, when specced for it, Izumo and Yamato can shred DDs that get close quite efficiently, as they basically employ Shimakaze guns with decent ballistics, decent HE alpha and while reload is not great, you get two Shimas per side. And 40% of a Mogami. Nagato seems mostly unworthwhile, as you share a tier with two torp-armed BBs and Nagato has a lot of hp, but otherwise isn't anywhere as tanky as you'd want a dedicated secondary platform to be. But 7.5 km range on T7 is actually not bad, with top BBs at the tier in this regard have 8 km. It also has a decent number of guns. Now, the two ships where I was most interested in trying to test for a secondary build were the T8 IJN BBs. Amagi, because it gets a turtleback and Kii, because it actually gets an Akizuki (with improved alpha damage) per side and torps. There also will be a rework in AA mechanics, freeing up skill points on Kii, as for example Manual AA gets nerfed, as does AA range mod. The main issues though I saw with IJN secondaries were: 7.5 km range. Frankly, at T8, that's not great. For Kii, with the torps in play, might be more worthwhile, but overall, it seems more of a fun thing when top tier vs T6s or when there's a DD rushing you. Main secondary guns are 14 cm. These guns don't look that bad, given they have an okish rate of fire, IJN-grade enhanced HE alpha and decent fire chance, but the 14 cm caliber means you can't even take IFHE to pen 32 mm plating. Without, they pen 22 mm. This means with IFHE, these guns can pen hulls of up to T9 cruisers, without they are restricted to DDs and lighter cruisers like Helena or the RN line. On Kii at least, the 10 mm guns turn into some mean dpm vs anything that isn't reinforced plating. To a degree, I wondered whether the change to HE really made the 14 cm guns "better", given 14 cm AP at those ranges might struggle less when making a broadside pass than the HE. But at least they got fire chance. It also dampened my hopes that we'd ever see a proper IJN ship with secondary focus like Massachusetts, as the 14 cm guns pretty much were employed on every IJN BB from the Ise-class onward and only stopped being used on the BB designs leading to Yamato. Which means that Any of the classes still missing (Ise, Tosa, Nr. 13) would feature these guns and would need fantasy refits to feature any of the three IJN secondary guns that actually look useful: the 10 cm/65 Type 98 DP guns (with 1/4 caliber HE pen), the 12.7 cm Type 89 A1 Mod 3 (Shimakaze guns) and the 15.5 cm/60 3rd Year Type (Mogami guns, which have slow RoF, but without IFHE can still pen 25 mm at least and with IFHE pen 32). That thought made me sad. Anyway, this made me curious and actually test how these 14 cm guns perform. So, as I don't own Nagato or Amagi, I took out the only ship I had with 14 cm and 12.7 cm secondaries, which was Mutsu for some secondary action in the training room. Mutsu, interestingly has the largest number of 14 cm guns of any IJN BB at 20. Mutsu with full secondary range build gets only 6 km range, but what I wanted to test was not the range or accuracy (so ignore the shell hit ratios), but rather the effectiveness of the shells that do strike in how much damage they dealt and what kind of damage they dealt (direct damage vs fire). Also, I took as test objects: North Carolina: A typical ship you see at T8, one that Amagi could brawl and not be at a disadvantage and it has a mixture of 32 mm and reinforced deck plating. Montana: T8 gets matched vs T10s. See how that fire resistance works out. Cleveland: Normal 25 mm cruiser. Not that I expect anything to be different against 27 or 30 mm cruiser plating. Benson: 19 mm plating bog standard DD. Yuugumo: Two Yuugumos, just for fun, because DDs actually die fast. Results were... interesting: Summery of observed results: the ballistics on the DP guns is bad. On the 14 cm guns it's pretty good though. They fly somewhat straight, but at 6 km land on superstructure often. Superstructure pens do mount up to not bad damage totals. While I'd certainly not recommend thinking you could just secondary farm a Montana in reasonable time (that was like 10 minutes sitting there and waiting for it to die), a 1:2 ratio of direct damage vs fire damage was unexpected. On the downside, that's about 164 damage on average per shell that struck Montana. On NC it's 185 on average. On Cleveland it is similarly pitiful. so, you do wait a good bit of time. DDs get absolutely shredded though. They can set a lot of fires. Now, to see how this works out with a ship that has more direct damage, I tried the same with Prinz Eitel Friedrich, just to observe what it does. Theoretically, these results should actually be comparable to a Bismarck, as both feature around the same number of secondary guns per side of the same calibers. Observations: Please disregard Main battery stuff. I just didn't feel like sitting there and waiting the whole duration for that Montana to die. The damage ratio between direct damage and fires did not increase on BBs, but on Cleveland. Given I did try move around the bow for a bit to avoid striking the 38 mm deck too much, this is unexpected. My two main explanations would be that the shell damage is crap on Germans and the 10.5 cm guns that fire rapidly start a lot of fires meanwhile. Note that the number of fires is pretty comparable to Mutsu, even though I deleted half the Montana with main battery. Damage per shell hit is piss poor. 47 on the Montana. Mostly because most hits are 10.5 cm guns that don't even pen superstructure. I'd disregard the number. Vs DDs, unsurprisngly, the PEF took a bit more time, as the Mutsu just has more and meaner guns for that. Shell hit numbers here too get inflated by the 10.5 cm guns though and for one Yuugumo because saturation set in, so I moved a bit. I seem to have forgotten the Benson. Personally, while it took quite long to sit through this and it isn't the most scientific testing method, I find the results interesting, as it showed that the 14 cm guns are not completely useless. They are definitely not worth a lot, but their ability to shred DDs that rush or to set fires could be quite nice. Sadly, with 7.5 km range at T8, at such ranges you likely aren't hoping just for fires but want the target to die fast. Proper secondary ships with 11+ km range, especially tanky Germans have far less issue trying to engage in a bit of a stand-off and using the secondary fire to harass ships. I cannot foresee that to be the case with Amagi or Kii. Not often. On the other hand, if these secondaries would have the range necessary, they could act like French as decent firestarters. I'd expect a bit of a drop-off in ballistics, but still better than a good few other secondary guns. They also reload in 8 seconds stock, which isn't too terrible (7.5 seconds on German 15 cm, 8 seconds on the French 152 mm guns at T10, 12s at T8). Provided there's a respectable number of them (Kii for example got gutted in that regard, which meant secondary-wise it was worse off prior to the 10 cm buff), they could be decent harassment guns. Obviously, they are not the showstoppers that you find on Gneisenau, Kurfürst or Massachusetts when up against lower tiers. With Manual Secondaries, they could be against DDs, maybe. Here the main issue I would foresee is that Mutsu at least had 10 of these per side against stationary bots. Having 7 per side vs a moving player is a different story. Even with Manual Secondaries, it could be questionable and it raises the question, is this ever worth 8 points. One thing about 7.5 km max range, after all, is that even with only AFT, the hit rate is decent and 4 points in AFT are easily justified when I just use one captain for Amagi and Kii. I might test the whole thing with IFHE (Just slap Mogami captain on Mutsu and Kii). But an 18 point secondary spec is already painful on a Kurfürst. Putting this on an IJN BB with its concealment value and 32 mm plating is likely not that much fun, only to get 7.5 km out of it. Honestly, I wish there was an IJN ship that had actually worthwhile secondaries past T2, but it seems to not be the case. And I kind of want to get Amagi again, but while the ship is certainly good, I own my Kii and I sold Amagi because it basically is the same experience of mid-range 10 gun action. Just a bit better in gunnery and less AA. And no torps. Does anyone have any experience with those secondaries in randoms?

You said you were going to kill me. I'm disappoint...

Most cruisers of T8 and above are beyond 10,000 tons and would thus be battlecruisers too? Also, differentiation between cruiser types was not in the Washington Naval Treaty, but the first London one.

Disclaimer on top. Alright. Tested with IFHE, just to see what it does. On the 14 cm guns, the results are pretty decent against cruisers and mid-tier BBs, but on the Kii... The ship actually would make a superb secondary platform if it had decent range. It has great angles on its 10 cm guns that can fire forward with all guns while still being angled enough to autobounce. And the dpm is no joke with IFHE.

I guess we are back to the glorious days of AA blob or die?

Everything USN BB T8 and up gets overmatchable citadel deck in the centre part of the ship. Pretty much all that matters, as it means this line is the next least protected after IJN above water cits. If you can punch through the belt, at any range, you can get citadels without much effort.

It's an actual ship that steamed on the seas and took part in the war in the Pacific. It'll likely not come with weeb stuff, but given how meme-worthy the ship is and that there exists a collab with Azur Lane at the very least, I'd not rule out some pricey bundle with weeb camo and captain like we got in the Mountain Mama WV bundle with camo and Dusty Rodes captain... and that horn. Please, WG. Do it!

Colorado is a good ship and I recommend you don't skip it. Ship only does 21 knots, but after New Mexico you should be used to that and you finally get guns that are somewhat accurate and benefit from significant overmatch. It'll help when moving on to NC as the NC basically is even more accurate, with even slower shells. Ship gets faster at least. But there really is little reason to skip Colorado. It got Fletcher torpedoes.

Yes, let's give people who do well blatantly OP ships, because that's the best way to make the game enjoyable. And as their performance miraculously improves, they get ever more insane ships. New players can go see how they can beat that uphill struggle as they get crap all for impact in terrible ships and are supposed to do well in them to get anywhere. This is one of the silliest ideas I saw this week.

I hope with "stealth is on the higher side" you mean "visibility is on the higher side", as the only thing at T8 more visible than Amagi is Kii. It's not cripplingly bad, but I'd consider "stealth is on the higher side" a bit ambiguous wording.

That was sorted out basically with release. PEF never received any buffs since she entered shop, she performs just as usual. Unless you got thrown against good higher tier players, even PEF could do more than 25k on first day. So, I'd say either MM issues or you just got better at the ship.

At best you'll get Hibiki as Verniy RU premium DD.

No, Shiratsuyu-class ship Yuudachi is fond of adding "poi". Shiratsuyu herself is just proud to point out that she's the lead ship, thus earning the nickname ichiban. But for poi it is Yuudachi and thus you got a first wave of poi spam when we got Shiratsuyu, to which class she belongs, but with Yuudachi herself announced... oh poi...

LWM, who mapped out shots stated Warspite has better dispersion pattern overall, but was still positive about PEF dispersion. Warspite does have 38 cm guns though for its 8 guns.

Amagi is more frontline than Nagato. Armour-wise, the belt is weak, but like Kronshtadt, angled it doesn't matter. What does matter is that you are 32 mm everywhere, so you can enjoy autobounce against most ships if you angle and at close range you actually got turtleback that makes you hard to citadel. That is not to say Amagi is a brawler. It isn't. But it does a way better job at it than most IJN BBs and also better than NC. Armour-wise, it's surprising how much Amagi can bounce, though if you forget about angling it hurts and if you get hit by HE, you're just going to bleed hp like with Nagato. Gunnery-wise, I found it a mixed bag. Amagi gets one more gun turret, but loses in sigma. Overall, the damage output is better though. Just don't expect Nagato's stellar accuracy. Playstyle-wise, Amagi is just a solid ship that is best used as a mobile platform with a heavy broadside. Kind of like Kongou, though tbf, 30 knots at T8 is nothing special these days.It's a good ship. Might rebuy her at some point, when I have credits to spare (bought modules and grinding lines now with the bonuses), as I want to test out what of the more unorthodox things might work out. Doubt much.

Ah, bot planes... Just wait till they get their first kills and I guess we'll be back at where we were when people wished for Bastion to get abolished, because noone wants to just get murdered by bots.

Did anyone ever tell you to structure your posts better? Like, give them a logical structure, that makes it understandable what is being said? Anyway, when I say kiting, I mean turning around prior to to dangerous torpedo range (5 km at the very most, ideally 6 km) and steaming away, while the Hipper is within 6-8 km of you. Ctrl+LMB to set Hipper as secondary target, then wait. Also works against anything else that has torps. The key is, a cruiser cannot harm you much, compared to the punishment those secondaries dish out. Of the BBs, only Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Tirpitz you don't want to brawl at close ranges, because they are the most dangerous with torps (Mutsu and Kii are to be kept in mind though). Here, a chased ship can just launch torps backwards for the chasing ship to steam into, a chasing ship cannot do the reverse, because the torps would run out. Mogami got citpenned at range, rest was all at some point in secondary range and I don't care that one of them is a Roon.

Even if it has somewhat tighter vertical dispersion, at the very best you can argue that these guns are about equal in usefulness compared to those on a Myogi, with the exception of having one more turret. Having one more turret is a decent excuse when moving up one tier, but certainly not when moving up two tiers and out of a protected MM tier. PEF's guns are about the worst on T6 among BBs and no amount of vertical dispersion is going to fix that. Similarly, the armour scheme is pretty much the second worst after Dunkerque. To me, PEF basically is a ship that relies on decent gameplay and the opponent being a moron to do well. It has guns that punish idiots who broadside (though the punishment typically stays within limits, especially at closer ranges) and can tank those who aim for the angled belt, not for the massive bow. Admittedly, there's no scarcity of those incompetents in Random battles. But the moment this ship gets matched against people who have a clue, it gets shut down and that's barely enjoyable. At least to me.

You sound like you expect people to actually play winning strategies. Yet I'm pretty sure at 8k+ battles, this should not be your first season of Ranked...

Don't forget, it's Arms Race now. Because Domination wasn't complicated enough.

Also Kronshtadt, Stalingrad and Azuma, as 305 and 310 divided by 6 results in 51 and 52 mm HE pen respectively. Graf Spee should, as it divides by 4 and has 28 cm guns. And needless to say, any German cruiser from T7 to T9. Hindenburg is not the first German CA in the line.

Reminds me of that player immortalised by Jingles in his feature of Flambass in Ranked. That YY torping a Z. Not to even talk about how sad it is when you see an Asashio torp things that aren't a BB. They paid money for that, you know. Like, real monesy, just to fail...