HaachamaShipping

Have fun with it. Cheers.

You still can and will meet T8 non-CVs. Ever tried to touch an NC with your Zuihou/Indy planes? You basically can spot for the first part of the match and try to find isolated T6 and T7 ships (or DDs that don't have defAA, though even a decently specced Akizuki/Harekaze can shred your T6 planes) and kill them, as even Amagi has enough AA to make you pay a very high price for basically torping one of the best torp belts there is. And then you get reported because "CV, y u no reset the Cleve, Monarch and Myoko that are capping base. Useless CV!" Legit happened to me. I eventually made one attack run with full four squads and fighter on them, because what else to do, obviously lost them all so fast, not even a single one made it home.

Seconded. If you ever wanted a hybrid play style on an IJN DD, still with somewhat unique flavour, the Harekaze is basically a dream come true. It basically has like 80% of the torpedo power of a Kagero (it uses Kagero stock torps for 17k instead of 20k damage, 10 seconds more reload as if they were the top torps and they are a few knots slower), but still a good set compared to something like Benson or Loyang and it has 75% of Akizuki's firepower, which makes it one of the best in regards to dpm in the tier (third place in HE dpm, second place in AP dpm, if an enemy DD shows broadside, even against something like a Fletcher it is possible to win or trade your ship with AP). Unlike a Loyang it has no special tools and unlike a Kidd, it has not got the staying power (most fragile DD at the tier), but it can pick its fights, thanks to the concealment and can do nasty things when it seizes the opportunity to ambush low health DDs or join in on unfair fights, while still being a rather capable torp boat. If the Loyang was previously in this thread likened to a surgeon's knife and the Kidd to a blunt tool, the Harekaze is basically a swiss army knife, having no real specialisation, but likely a tool for most jobs. As I said before, of the four T8 premium DDs, apart from Asashio pretty much all three are strong ships that can look after themselves pretty well and in Harekaze certainly, even uptiered it is lots of fun.

At the point where you are adjusting for range as well as traverse, what exactly is last known position for? You are basically just guesstimating anyway and the minimap at that point is useless. That was always the case when blindfiring into smokes. The thing though is, even if dispersion means there might be lucky stray shots, if locked onto the target it would still be more likely to devastate them. yes, you get the occasional citadel or even devstrike from firing into smoke, but such you already got now and you get it far less than if you were firing at locked on targets. Which means, it actually is less effective to fire at non-locked on targets than on locked-on targets and the new indicator does nothing to change dispersion and make that any better or worse.

Dunno, even without, it fares decently well. And some cruisers you can citadel even from 13 km away if you hit (e.g. Shchors...). If you want to buff the Yorck, I'd rather go for a 25 mm bow, just to make it a mini-Hipper and more different from Algerie.

It likely can be turned off (if it isn't by default) and it will only be your own.

Yes. Congratulations. Frankly, I'd consider this decent damage at T6 or even T7, depending on what you damage and how ambitious you are.

Graf spee is already at tier 6 though. And even there it is basically a weirdo boat that manages to be okish and balanced. at T7, what would this ship even get to not be utter crap? I think Yorck is pretty ok for T7.

It allows you to know where on the minimap you are currently aiming, yes. If someone was last spotted in a location and did not move, it can lead to devastating results. It can be useful in Cyclones. Other than that, it is not going to replace aiming by enemy tracer, nor does it even complement that sort of aiming.

That entirely depends on the extent of the movement and the amount of time that passed, but for the sake of argument, let's say a RN cruiser was spotted, smoked up, we have a last known position and a circle on the minimap. If you fire as the cruiser smokes up, don't bother looking at the circle, the RN deceleration is so bad, with some aim you can wreck them anyway, so we assume that cruiser smoked up from standstill or at least had the time to come to a standstill before anyone took the time to shoot. Even at 1/4 speed or reverse, the cruiser likely moved a significant distance inside its smoke already and unless you're some Fuso even unlocked you shouldn't have the dispersion to touch it. After half a minute (one full BB reload) that cruiser could be anywhere in that cloud. Any person with a brain wouldn't waste a shot on last known position, but go by tracer and there the minimap is useless, as the tracer is not visible there. Now we are back where we were before. DDs smoking up are even harder to hit if they move, due to smaller target and not being as bad at decelerating. Basically, the only thing you can punish hard now are ship that stopped, smoked up, and remained at the very spot they were last spotted, instead of keeping a constant movement. Which anyone should do anyway, because if you just move 300 m and camp there, any BB player with decent smoke firing skills might devstrike your cruiser and you make it needlessly easy to comb the sector of your cloud you are hiding in with torps.

Pretty much sums up the GZ. It's what you get for how silly the rest of the ship is and the ability to easily delete ships with your DB squad. GZ is nice when your opponent is potato and is likely easier then than managing something like Shokaku, but as soon as you run into competent people, it falls behind. It's retarded design, but well, WG seems to think such ships should have a place in this game. *cough* Asashio *cough* If the GZ was to get an actually proper set of planes, it would need a review of the whole ship, because obviously it cannot be neglected that apart from the insane striking power of the DB squad, the carrier itself has lulzy secondaries and hydro and all. Which is maybe rarely useful, but certainly not free (ask DoY what the price of hydro is, lol). But GZ basically is now a gimmicky meme CV and likely will always remain that way.

Will it though? If you look at random battles, I'd expect most folks to not even know what to do with a spotter plane or how to effectively blindfire into a smoke. Too many people out there aren't even able to make proper ammunition choices or angle and you expect them to notice that circle on the minimap that is on the smallest setting?

For training room evidence, there's a video linked in this thread to show the difference. For actual gameplay evidence, I tested the build in Space battles, which was likely the best environment you could have for this, as you get a free 19 pt captain and Kurfürst and the only other BB is a reskinned Republique, coated in 32 mm armour all over. Engagements typically were me sitting angled, bouncing shells, watching the secondaries feast on the Republique/Paris, until they either ran off or they died. The fire chance on the Germans isn't great to begin with, unlike the French, Germans rely on doing direct damage. Which is why some might think French secondaries are better, because if you don't spec into the Germans only the 15 cm guns do damage (on the French, without IFHE, none do damage).

If the unseen ship moves just a slight bit, you are basically back to aiming at the tracer, as any blind shots at last known position on mininmap will just miss.

Bismarck/Tirpitz: You melt DDs. Absolutely not worth it though. Against T7- DDs, you don't even need it. If DD armour chances go through, you get this for free. Larger ships don't care much, as on BBs, you only do added damage on superstructure hits. GK: Helps against bow tankers. Yes, fire chance goes down, but you really shouldn't care about that when they start taking apart battleships in raw damage. You actually get a better deal out of this than the CLs, because the 128s only lose 1% fire chance, not 3% and it is a massive improvement to secondary damage. Obviously though, it's a Kurfürst, you may want survivability skills. Gneisenau: Against T7 and below, you don't need it to feel like a mini-Kurfürst. It does give you however the ability to penetrate the 32 mm plating of T8 or the extensive 32 mm plating on some T7s like Nelson. IFHE secondaries are a giant meme spec though and basically, the sole reason I'm doing it at T7 is because it's a tier where you really can still pull this off and most folks only have like 10 pt captains anyway, so with an 18 pt captain, you aren't worse off and the 3 pt skill can be SI or BoS for your survivability needs.

Maybe some more people will now learn to move inside their smoke and not just sit still, but well... Really, it won't revolutionise smoke play. Before, sitting still just meant you had faith in the enemy being crap at blindfiring smokes based on tracer and that noone would torp you. It's a gamble. Now you basically just gamble on them being able to use their minimap... which actually might still be too taxing for a lot of them, so, yeah... not much will change.

Typically, IFHE secondaries are a 18 pt build, where these two skills are taken anyway. The question thus is not, what benefits the ship more, but, are the secondaries worth whatever you give up for them. Which typically is another 4 pt skill or 3 pt skill. Which would typically be survivability boosts like CE, FP, BoS, SI or Vigilance. For some it might be, for Bismarck though, it really isn't. Typically it's for the 128s to pen bow-tankers.

Well, given you seemed to say you did not like the performance of either of the other two, I found it necessary to respond, before any readers of this thread get the wrong idea of the Asashio being anywhere near the other two. Kidd and Loyang are basically among the best T8 DDs, Asashio is likely among the worst if not the worst. And not talking average stats, but the potential in capable hands and consistency in achieving good results, which in the Asashio already ends at the stage of MM RNG. It's the sole T8 premium DD that isn't worth the money, in contrast to the other three, which are all highly capable ships I wouldn't mind buying sooner or later (depending on finances, etc). And I haven't followed the development much, but I do hope the Cossack joins the other three and not the meme boat.

Sadly, the Kronshtadt is more of a BB than the Gneisenau is a DD. And at T9, you kind of play Gneisenau like an oversized cruiser, because that's where the hp and armour are. And the torp range. It's basically a Prinz Eugen on steroids, I guess. Though even Eugen gets 27 mm bow (and the Hipper flat out has better bow armour than the Gneisenau).

Would never sell Bismarck. Though I'm more weeaboo and hardly a wehraboo, I mostly grinded German BBs, because they were continuously fun and comfortable. Couldn't give more of a damn about it being THE Bismarck, but the ship is pretty fun to play still. Good armour, secondaries tier for tier are worse than Gneisenau, but you still can have fun with them (well, they got worse damage, but way better range) and concealment isn't cripplingly bad. Hydro also adds a lot. Bismarck is pretty ok, getting a bad rep from all the folks who can't play the ship, and likely more versatile than Gneisenau, which mostly is an okish roaming BB for the occasional brawling memes. And then you get into T9 and spawn next to a Kronshtadt that has similar effective armour, 20k more hp and more useful guns. But they say it's a cruiser...

Well, if you don't want to go to T10, but want those secondaries... Gneisenau has the 128 mm guns. And they practically do the same the Kurfürst ones do, just with less range. I actually rebought the ship and started training a new commander, which sadly is not even 14 points yet, but is going to be secondary specced. And even without Manual secondaries, within the 8 km of secondary range, these things go to work. Thing is, at T7, bow plating is 25 mm, not 32 mm and a lot of ships have 25 mm parts, so even without IFHE, these guns can do obscene amounts of damage. I had games where I had over 20k in raw damage from secondaries alone, brawling two ships (sounds not like much, but one has to keep in mind, this is T7, without Manual secondaries and the ships died eventually due to getting overmatched by main battery and getting torped, so that cuts the encounters short). Likely going to take IFHE, just to watch those Nelsons and Lyons get ripped apart. Also, less campy meta at T7.

I likely went a bit too far into detail on the Asashio, but it annoys me to no end to see people trying to argue that the ship is anywhere near the same league as Kidd or Loyang. Like the folks who call the GZ OP, despite being worse than the other CVs. And due to their crippling overspecialisation, people who get better results in those than with their normal ships feel like they somehow are actually good at this game.

I have neither, but having faced both and heard from others, they are both great ships and very decent. As others said, Kidd is more dangerous in the open, Loyang dominates caps. Personally, I'd likely opt for the Kidd, because outside the smoke/hydro combo Loyang loses quite a bit of its strength (being basically a worse Benson), but that doesn't mean it is any bad (still respectable fire power and while torps are slow and not much damage, still a decent utility). Have fun at the Croation beaches. I was there years ago, it's quite beautiful. Apart from beer, would recommend the liquor too though. Not up for sale, but even if it was, I'd say Kidd/Loyang any day. Loyang and Kidd are actually competitive ships in Randoms and Ranked with a high skill ceiling and strengths that are versatile. Neither has a glaring weakness or hard counter that is able to just crap on them. Meanwhile Asashio is just a derp boat that is basically a Kagero for people who find it too hard to torp anything with normal torps, so they give up the utility of being able to harm DDs or cruisers ("can't hit them anyway, duh") to be able to get more of a chance to hit BBs (despite straightlining BBs getting deleted by Kagero as well, while dodging BBs get deleted by neither). And I guess those who cannot be bothered to play Pan-Asia for the better torpedoes. The likely only thing the Asashio does better than a Kagero is to throw area denial torpedoes in random directions and hitting something maybe half a minute to a minute later. Heck, even the TRB is just there for the stupid, because in a regular IJN DD, it not only allows to spread torps out to account for potential evasive maneuvers, but it also allows to just flood an area with torps to make it harder for DDs or cruisers to dodge. On the Asashio, it's meanwhile just there to punish the occasional BB blob, but otherwise for people that cannot predict and have to flood the area against BBs, the most easily hitable class in the entire game.

If you get radared in the window of 400 metres between radar range and detection range and aren't headed towards the Worcester, just run off. Worcester isn't even a fast cruiser, nor are the shells fast. Pretty much any DD with speed boost can get out of there, dodging the shells that come in taking a bit of damage, but hardly getting deleted. Having a plan for how to get out is smart play. If you watch their play, they don't just camp uselessly doing nothing at all, but they do keep in mind how to get out of their position should it become too dangerous. And frankly, the moron camping the map border and doing nothing at all till late game is actually less of an issue than the moron rushing in and getting deleted without getting anything done, because they had no exit plan. The former at least isn't gifting the enemy team points and taking them from his own team. Don't understand me wrong, both are terrible, but yoloing is no less useless than camping the map border, which is why CCs tell you to keep an exit plan.

I know, OP has much to learn, but... I don't know about that Dallas. I'd not rush a smoke cloud for proximity spot in a DD, I'd certainly not do it in a cruiser against a torpedo-armed ship. Either wait out the duration or use hydro... At that point, the Dallas practically is just asking to eat a faceful of torps. This makes me sad.