HaachamaShipping

I mean, I can see why someone might consider some subpar ships with interesting playstyle fun. I own a Dunkerque. But I'm not going to ever try sell that thing to others. I might argue that it has some strengths (speed, rudder shift) and fun moments (blasting a Scharnhorst and outmaneuvering their torps), but noone who wants a decent ship should buy this. There are objectively better things to buy in this game and outside of it. Wouldn't Massachusetts mostly throw you into T10 games again?

As it is capitalised Random Battles, it would be referring to the battle type, not to just random battles. Thus you shouldn't see them in Ranked, CB, Co-op, Twilight Battles...

If I can get an enemy DD killed by the 5th minute of the game in my gunboat DD, I take it over having to hunt leftovers by the 15th. Fact is, by the time you go DD hunting, most matches are decided, while gunboat DDs contribute their part in deciding the match. The only reason a well-played Harekaze would lose hp earlier than a well-played Asashio is because it can act more aggressively and get an earlier opportunity to do its job in killing important enemies or take a cap.

Well, then I'll buy her for birthday. Or whenever it comes out. My income is so far quite secure and else I'll sell a kidney.

Would also consider it beneficial to Yuugumo and Akatsuki, as Yuugumo already gets the reload of Shimakaze and Akatsuki gets Shinonome's armament with 7.5 sec reload instead of the horrendous 9 or 10 secs Shinonome has.

Nelson can carry games. It just can't go all-in like Gneisenau. But it also doesn't have to. It plays more like the traditional BB, like Nagato and Colorado, in that you engage enemies at range and blap folks with your big guns. Unlike the other two, Nelson lacks raw pen, but gets insane HE (though AP pen is perfectly workable against cruisers and broadside BBs). There's a reason Nelson's WR is next to Scharnhorst, which is very similar to Gneisenau.

Well, I know what I'll get for myself for Christmas: Raifu is laifu.

Bots also shoot at centre of mass, so it's easy as all hell to angle and bait their shots on bow or belt, unless they overmatch. They won't try farm your superstructure or launch torps on anything but the indicator. Then again, with some players you wish they'd at least be this capable.

If they at least would do that. But not even...

They'll be send away, living a happy life on a farm upstate.

Not going to argue that Nelson isn't strong, but I'd take stats with a grain of salt. By this data, Nagato is kind of in the dumps, though it's hard to argue that it is a weak ship or that it needs buffs.

Ever heard of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau? BBs at T7 with actual armour? Like, apart from upper bow (not a huge area) and stern, even in a T9 match they'd be among the best protected? 50 mm deck armour to make IFHE spam trivial (Honestly, unless bow-on or max range, I'd often rather shoot AP at them)? Or how about Hood, which if you angle is just a giant floating brick? As soon as the superstructure is depleted of hp, good luck trying to kill this thing with its 51 mm deck.

Question then is, if there is about 1 competitive skill build for a ship... why keep skills? It should at least be diverse enough to give true alternative, not just be the litmus test for whether someone has at least a basic idea based on whether they took the proper skills or run SE on a BB or no LS on a DD.

If you want more viable captain builds, introduce more captain skills that might actually be useful. You might notice, we have for example not a simple skill that adresses rudder shift or acceleration. Or buff some of the skills that fell out of favour, such as vigilance, by maybe, adding 5% torp damage reduction ontop. I'd argue that the skill system overall could need some reworking in certain areas to make some skills more useful, add maybe some skills that could be seen as useful and rebalance stuff that currently is must have because there are no better alternatives. And truely, look at BBs for example. How many viable builds are there? About three (Tank, Secondary, AA), one of which will likely be gutted by CV rework and one which is utterly dependent on the base stats. Post-CV rework, how many competitive builds are there for an NC? Just to adress CE, making it a 1 or 2 pt skill does nothing to change it as a must have skill, except make it actually more of one. It'd then replace AR as the first must-have skill for cruisers and would be the 5th skill point for DDs, as well as being the 16th point on any secondary BB which now can afford it (before investing into BoS or SI for the 19th). If you want to make this any more flexible, you failed, could as well make it free by that point.

If I had gotten an Atago B, I'd rather trade it for an Atago. Tropical or Combat camo are just more beautiful.

It's roughly one BB AP citadel at T7-8 if you get citpenned by a Scharnhorst, I guess. For T4, adding 4,000 hp is half a citadel not even from a 305 mm BB. T10 gets 10k, which would equal a BB citpen from a Myogi, most BBs do more. Yamato I think is 14-15k per citadel. Not that I would give it more hp, it already would be a retardedly powerfull skill, given that at high tiers you get stupid amounts of hp out of it (102k hp Conkek? 53k hp Minotaur? 50.8k hp Zao? That's 25% more hp and coupled with SI for extra repair party is an insane amount). If this skill was to come live, I'd argue it'd be better than FP and the 14th skill point on any cruiser after CE (and if CE gets gutted, it'd be the 10th). Honestly, I don't see it as a good idea, because it basically extents the current situation, where SE is a very solid skill for DDs that often is a must have if you don't have special skill needs (IFHE?) to all classes. Makes it hardly better than the current situation of CE.

Gneisenau secondaries are no joke. A 12 gun broadside of fast-firing 12.8 cm guns at T7 is phenomenal. Kurfürst only gets 10 of these on a broadside (+4 slower-firing 15 cm guns) at T10 and Gneisenau does not need IFHE to make them pen other BBs. Tier for tier, the best secondaries in the game. Range is 8 km, which is quite workable, especially on a torp-armed BB. With proper secondary spec, these things shred DDs and cruisers trying to rush you. Believe me, I got my 14th skill point and Manual Fire Control for Secondaries when the British DDs came out and boy, there were a lot of those 6-7 km torp boats trying to rush my ship with its 8 km secondaries. Against ships with less than 38 cm guns, show front. Against ships with more, try to bait on angled belt. If you mess up, yes, this ship dies fast. You don't even need BBs to citpen it from the side. I once double citadelled it with a HSF Graf Spee. But properly angled, Nelson can get millions of potential damage and laughs as it farms dreadnought and fireproof with its unnerfed Conqueror heal. Though if you run into a Musashi, you're just dead.

I agree with most, but SI indeed has too many good alternatives, imo. There's only very few ships where I'd count SI as a must have, which would be cases like Grozovoi or T9/10 cruisers. But other than that... I for example don't run SI on most German BBs, instead opting for BoS and a secondary build, while on DDs, I typically find it of equal value to BFT/TAE (based on what kind of DD it is) and DE (for gunboats), so it's fine. SE seems to me much more of a must have on DDs than SI for example. Incidently... SE is pretty much a crap skill for most others, which makes it qualify more than SI for getting removed, because you either need it or you don't and if you need it, it's almost a no-brainer.

Noone calls for a copy, but as it is now, the Azuma fills no other niche the Stalingrad doesn't fill better, except as an oversized AA boat. I'm pretty sure few here want a carbon copy of the Stalingrad, but until the ship receives other capabilities of equal value, it's just not competitive. Torps were one thing I bet many people expected, as was proper HE damage, which could have been two things to make up for the typical lack of radar on IJN cruisers and for not having insane Stalingrad AP.

I don't see the appeal over pretty much any other T7 cruiser. Repair party or not, Duca degli Abruzzi has terrible damage output and with IFHE ends up at 4% fire chance, with Demo expert and all flags on 7%, whereas other 152 mm cruisers are between 9 and 12%. And the HE damage itself is unimpressive, compared to Shchors or Helena in the light cruiser department. AP somehow is worse than on Aosta and at 10 km will struggle to actually citpen a cruiser. The only thing Abruzzi got over a Shchors is the repair party (and those 12 km water mines), while I'm not even sure the repair party could make the ship tankier than Helena, because at least Helena's citadel is small. Over Fiji, Abruzzi has HE and a few knots speed, otherwise, Fiji is better in every way, from maneuverability, to AA, to AP damage output and AP pen angles, torp armament, smoke...

I'd actually caution against that. I'm owner of a Kii with Kobayashi camo and yes, it does make good earnings when played properly and I like my Kii, but there's two things to be kept in mind: Roma, Kii and Ashitaka are good ships, but all three are less forgiving than most other ships of their type at their tier if you misplay. Ashitaka is a glass cannon, Kii is an Amagi with more versatility but worse guns, worse torp belt and worse citadel protection (funnily enough, it has better main belt), while Roma has a very easy to hit citadel if you don't properly angle the ship. Thus, these are hardly beginner-friendly ships. Nor are they universally-liked for good reason, as Roma is known for its underwhelming accuracy and extreme penetration (not unlike T6 Dunkerque) making her overpen often, while Kii has torps but is not a brawler and has AA, but often will not see a CV, leaving it as potentially a weaker Amagi. Kobayashi camo costs a lot. I'd never recommend a T8 premium BB AND a camo to a person with no proper idea of BB play, given they basically may end up paying 60-80 Euro for a final product they may not like playing (especially with T8 MM, which was announced to be fixed, but till it is fixed, it pays off to be sceptical). Also, Kobayashi camos are not always being sold. Several things: Right Mouse button is free camera. It allows you to pan the camera around without readjusting the aim on your armament. Use it to look around, to avoid your turrets rotating to where they are useless. Also, try to get a plan for where you want to go and where you want to turn, so your guns are aimed properly when the time comes. For example, when you rounded that corner, your rear turret was out of position due to first having been turned in the wrong direction, then being turned as you looked behind your ship. You can enter max zoom on binocular view with shift. It's an easier way than scrolling about. I used scrolling too for the longest of times, till people told me it pisses them off on replays and so I tried to develop a habit of using shift. More than not tilting off people, it saves you time, which can be valuable. Talking about time, you seem to not take too much time to look at what your target is doing. It would be good to work on that, especially on a ship with slow shells like the NC. If you know your shells and can guess your targets movement, you won't have to deal with situations where the target then enters a turn or moves too fast/slow and you miss completely. There were like 3-4 instances of that I remember, where it was pretty obvious that these are going to miss. So, take a couple seconds, look if your target is moving straight ahead or starting a turn, are they likely to turn, how fast are they, then press the button and shoot. Target priority: That Gneisenau 17 km away is not a threat to you or your team. It can be safely ignored, it won't do anything major anytime soon. Shooting at it might need some damage, but nothing influential. Shooting those two light cruisers 12 km away meanwhile would potentially remove a ship or two and that Dallas actually could have started shooting you and put you on fire. Similarly, around minute 7, there's a Jervis 8-9 km away. Yes, it's small, but it's dangerous and you cannot just ignore it. It's a far greater threat than the Gneisenau. Try to angle properly. Which means, don't give your flat broadside (at the start that Bismarck could've gotten some nasty shots), but you don't need to go completely nose-in (at an angle, you can use 9 guns, instead of 6). And don't shoot angled BB belt. If battleships angle against you, shoot their superstructure, or their bow/stern/potentially their overmatchable deck. You can use half speed or quarter speed too. For example when moving away from enemies, if you aren't really being pursued and have no reason to run fast, quarter speed is perfectly fine to keep a distance, not increase it and remove yourself from the battlefield. There was absolutely no reason to charge the Gneisenau. Had that Gneisenau had half a brain, you'd be dead. Killing it was a decent move later, but you could have done so without getting so close you had to dodge 2 sets of (badly aimed) torpedoes. NC is very accurate, you can land shots from 10 km away easily on a Gneisenau. No need to be all up in their face where the Gneisenau actually is strong. Similarly, there was no reason to rush into the entire remaining enemy team at the end. Just turn around, kite them, remove them one by one. Best bet, instead of going 5-6 vs 1, which is unwinable. I say, don't buy a high tier premium BB. These things cost tons of money and put you more often against people who will outplay you. Learn the basics, learn the different lines, see what you are good with, what not, then decide what premium BB to buy, if you still want one, when you can tell what certain stats mean and how certain ships play like.

I mean... is this any worse than Christmas containers? Except for, you know, the ships being of questionable value. Like, personally, even if I had an interest in Massachusetts or Tirpitz, I'd rather not buy BF containers, given that likely I end up with 20 camos and if I'd actually get a ship, I might end up with a goddamn Atago B (I prefer my Atago with normal camo and options for historical camos, thank you) or an Asashio B (which would mean I'd have spent money on that crap).

Wouldn't have noticed, but you were in Iowa on Haven. You died around the western cap, getting focused down, while a good part of the team was camping your base and at least one DD died early in the other cap, running into our DD and my Edinburgh. If that helps.

In exchange your launchers have the traverse speed of BB turrets.

So, standard T10 hydro, with the standard option of hydro or defAA (and frankly, with a ship this large and no incentive to get close, I'd opt for defAA).