HaachamaShipping

Noone said that, but sure. I could have a WR in the 30s, 0 games played in either and it'd still be clear as day that the Pensacola has a more devastating broadside.

It is awful. Was there, done that. You basically can sit at A cap for most of the game and get locked there, because steaming to other caps in the open is absolute suicide. In the end we lost, but I got to radar the cap a few times, got to wreck a few DDs, be sneaky poking around the island towards B to lob shells there and I successfully torp rushed an NC. But this map, you really do not want to end up there. For Atlanta, distilled frustration.

And detectability, I guess, if we subsume hp buffs into a broader category of "survivability".

I'm not sure whether I want to see what Hindenburg will be like, after we got to know what Roon is like. No clue. Might be that because they decided to release it globally, responsibility for the whole thing got shifted too, but this is now a bit too far in the realm of speculation for me. Would I get points for guessing the ship? There are a lot of choices. You even have Chinese ships for the PA line as captains, if you were so inclined. Atago/Takao/Chokai, because not just are they incredibly popular, but it's also a premium ship that would sell well. So, picking them is only natural, if you want to bundle them with a ship. Or to bundle with a ship most people might not buy otherwise... Mikasa (but not for 18 Euro like aurora, pls). Indeed, doubt DDs will come. Tbh, I'm not too bothered by that. Not having a ship model is honestly what I expect to be a greater issue for a camo than for a ship. Because you can just as well reskin an existing ship, as said. As for permacamo, given we'll be unlikely to see some weeb skin with waifus on it, I'd go by the Siren theme of the crap camo and say a more monstrous look for a German ship, trying to capture the Metalblood (the German-inspired faction in AL) theme. And as to "all they can get out of this are camos and commanders", the Hood bundle and Aurora bundle show, they want to sell ships too. I recognise, they do not want to make an AL Hood and just bundle it with regular Hood, but that's why I'd just copy a tech tree ship for giveaway or sell a nerfed Belfast. First iteration, yeah. Helena would certainly not come out now, when tech tree Helena isn't out. It'd be however one of the best-suited ships for this, imo. But yeah, likely we'll get camos and the Hipper flag. I guess, though Harekaze did take some effort. It's however a very well-designed premium and seems to be also well-liked. On the ships they are named after? Dunno. I know I'll get Nelson and she'll be on the Nelson, once I get Nelson the ship. Also will be specced for QE and be used on Warspite and Hood. With Thea on the Germans and the rest of the HSF commanders on my IJN ships, it'll be a while before I need more anime captains. WG can try make a better offer than this bundle though.

How many direct buffs did the ship get? More than Furutaka?

It's not OP, but a nice ship. Good to see you have fun in it.

Afaik, they are permanent additions in a new gameplay mechanic to construct experimental ships or something. So, it's just a grind, not something time-gated. It's what I based my guess on. For all I would care, they could've taken an extra month and done it proper. Now, it just seems like the whole thing is a complete afterthought. Which it likely is. I would hope the collab goes on and they expand their efforts. Just, I'm pessimistic about it. I'd expect future to be Atago/Takao, Eugen, dunno what else. Atlanta? At least they'd be my picks if I had to run the collab, because they can be bundled with ships to be sold. and we know, they care about the money really. Silver ships... who knows. Leander? Though that'd be RN again. I'd say, AL Belfast with radar or smoke and an added heal. Then it's basically Fiji that dropped torps for HE and the option to get radar instead of smoke. I expect a collection with pitiful rewards. Just like they seemingly decided that Haifuri bundles were too generous, I'd expect something far less nice as the collection reward than a gimped T10 permacamo and a bunch of flags. And to be honest, I don't even know why they are doing this really. For one, there's been other events WG brought up that were far more generous, like for example the anniversary collection or the Haifuri collection, but also they haven't stopped giving away ships for free, like now the Indianapolis. And sure, Indianapolis isn't the best at T7, but it certainly is a better reward than another T3 protected cruiser or T3 DD. One thing I'd really not expect, but which would be really cool, imo, would be if they actually go and copy some tech tree ship as free premium. Whether as straight up clone like the ARP Myoko-class or as a slightly changed version, like the Duke of York, both would be fine, as long as it's not four free ships of the same type. One prime candidate I was thinking of for such, would be T7 Helena, which could be made into AL Helena or AL St. Louis (to differentiate from T3 ship of same name), mostly because from the fanart, the American cruisers seem to enjoy some popularity (without looking like kids), the Helena already seems like a keeper candidate in the line for fun factor and unlike with the handing out of free Bismarcks, cruiser floods don't last long and it's T7, so it's not like you'd see an influx of T8 potatoes in radar ships... like we see right now. I think if they don't mess around too much, even non-weeb folks would appreciate a premium version of an interesting tech tree ship and it doesn't cost WG much, given the game experience can be grinded for free already and if they were concerned about not handing out a USN cruiser captain trainer for free... they are giving away Indianapolis and might be soon that Flint is easier to get. I would think a good bit could be made out of this collab and given how much AL made out of this collab, I'm pretty sure it's not just some contract limiting WG to this half-assed job. Not if they wanted to make something larger out of it (given how this collab came to be in the first place, I bet AL staff wouldn't be against it if their representation in this game was even stronger). But yeah, I expect them to just go minimal effort and as long as they go minimal effort, I'm going minimal effort too, likely, getting Nelson from the mission and for the rest, sad, but I can't be bothered to buy an overpriced crappy camo bundle with captains in it just because WG cannot be bothered to make an actually enticing offer. I already bought a Hood in advance for this collab (and because it's a nice ship) and bought a Warspite last week, because they were reasonably priced and decent offers, but this is basically just a ripoff. I'm saddened I cannot have Hipper on Hipper, but I guess Thea will do.

Yes, and it ticks all the boxes of terrible qualities OP attributes to heavy cruisers. It is large, clumsy, easily outspotted and has armour worth almost nothing. In all of these, it's way worse than the IJN cruiser line.Yet it works.

Ever played a Shchors?

All things that exist one day will cease to. Such is the grim reality and in that light, I guess, the game is heading towards its end with every second that passes. As are we all. Memento mori...

If it works on Bismarck, it works on Tirpitz. Tirpitz basically is the same ship, with slightly better turret angles, negligibly more hp, worse AA, torps instead of hydro. And frankly, I prefer hydro to torps, but either works and as said, the fact that the torpedoes replace hydro should tell you how situational they should be and that you shouldn't try to torp rush just because you think you can.

If you use the same captain, don't use different modules on the ships. Secondary specced captain goes on secondary specced ship, because boosting Aa range without AA captain on Tirpitz with its not too great AA is a waste.

Play it like your Bismarck, but without hydro. Use your torpedoes if every now and then someone actually comes close. Don't play it different from Bismarck just because you have torpedoes. Keep in mind that you have no hydro though. You seem to do decent in Bismarck. You basically are a Bismarck. But with torps, no hydro. And basically, how often do you use hydro in Bismarck? Not very often. you also don't start smoke rushing, just because you got hydro (I hope), so don't do special crap just because you got torps.

For a cruiser? Maybe. Overall? No. Just feels crap, because you are a cruiser and you get only 6 guns and 20 second reload and if you ever think you are a BB, the next Fuso is happy to remind you that you are not and that you should be ashamed of your horrid damage output. It's not a bad ship though.

Yes, because Graf has middle ground gun behaviour inbetween cruiser and BB. Pensacola has cruiser guns.

I don't see your point. I stated, both cruisers will try to use terrain to their advantage, which could allow Pensacola to get the jump at some people. The other side then asked why Aoba would risk going near islands. Sure, Pensacola is even worse off in the open sea, but that was never the question. Neither should be out there, if they value their survival against BBs. And whether Pensacola is better or worse has no bearing at all on whether Aoba should hug an island or not. Noone argued that Pensacola has no weaknesses. But it is pretty obvious that Pensacola has one of the best salvos on her tier, beaten only by Graf Spee in how much damage she can dish out in one salvo if she catches a broadside. And an Aoba, in that one area, is not going to ever match her. It's utterly pointless to argue "Aoba is comparable in how devastating her AP salvo is because she has torpedoes!"

I mean, most ships that come out can be bought in bundles and without. It's for stuff like this, that they throw out bundles only.

Your initial claim was that Aoba is actually comparable to the Pensacola in the devastating power of its guns. This isn't true for the AP alpha of one salvo, nor is it true in sustained damage (thus dpm calculations). Aoba does like islands, because it's a cruiser. Run in the open, get blapped by BBs. Yes, you outspot BBs, but DDs outspot you and getting caught out in the open is not what any Aoba captain would want. Or sailing around 20 minutes trying to stealth torp. So, it isn't unlikely to run into enemies around islands. And yes, you can try get undetected again. You'll likely get 1-2 salvos though everytime you get detected and unless you catch that Pensacola citadel everytime, sooner or later you'll die, because you basically are wasting dpm. Your initial claim is wrong and most of the stuff afterwards is just trying to shift goalposts now. No, Aoba has some advantages over Pensacola, but it does not in the slightest match the devastating broadside.

Damn, that coffee sure wasn't strong enough yet. brb

World of necroposts these days...

Because preferential matchmaking premiums skew the matchmaker... or so WG says... Well, mostly, people seem to hate it because lower tier tanks don't always stand much of a chance against upper tier ships. But don't quote me, I don't play tanks.

I don't play AL, but I did note, unless you're ready to drop a good bit of money (and arguably... even if you are willing to), AL players get more out of this than WoWS players, given while it seems grindy, the collaboration ships are not behind some paywall. If I had to guess, WG Asia made the contact out of enthusiasm and got it set up, got it approved from above, then the enthusiasm was a bit lacking in the upper echelons of WG and what came of it we can see in the premium shop. Some half-assed cash grab that is overpriced, bloated with camo that's just sh*t and uninspired and required minimal effort from the design team. And yes, this is just the "first iteration", but even for Haifuri first, they made two ships to be sold at least. Haifuri two was a bunch of permacamos, but also a collection. This is some silly two-colour paintjob and the commanders. I don't know what the details of the contract are, but given they managed to sell Hood in a bundle, I'd just have picked a bunch of premium representatives, had bundled them with their respective ships and sold them together. Obviously not Belfast, unless they make a nerfed AL Belfast for this, but you could likely sell a good few Prinz Eugens that way, especially after the ship got buffed. Then make an ingame mission chain for the silver ship representatives and guess what, it still is minimal effort to earn money, because they already have all the models and people would likely be more willing to buy the bundle if they got a ship. Heck, I'd buy the Aurora bundle, if it didn't cost 18 Euro, where it is clear that over 50% of that price tag isn't ship or captain but the 25 Siren camos that I doubt anyone ever wanted to spend money on. And given what a mess this already is, I'm really hard-pressed to buy anything from this collab, because I fully expect there to be a second iteration, where they bundle all the crap together again, but totally forget to create a bundle only with second collab content, so that you either pay a ton to get all the captains individually or get a ton of dupes for like 100 Euro or whatever the hell they will ask for that. I mean, they couldn't even make a separate bundle for people who had bought the HSF Harekaze and HSF Graf Spee, to avoid people having to buy a second Akeno Misaki and Thea Kreuzer. I don't think they'll care to read this, but please, WG, stop make people regret having bought your products, because apart from being bloated, your bundles don't even complement each other and have silly overlap. Is it that hard to sort out your pixels that you sell us so offers make sense and aren't a slap in the face to your customers?

St. Louis, Murmansk and Cleveland mostly saw enemies with plating less than 32 mm in their weaker parts, so IFHE wasn't necessary as non-IFHE 152 mm guns can pen 25 mm plating already. Mogami had to rely on fire RNG. IFHE boosted Mogami though and helped Cleveland if it meats T8. All new USN CLs will be able to meet T8 ships and higher and while T6 can get away without, T7 should have it and on Cleveland it's about as vital as CE, if you want to hurt BBs without having to hit their superstructure and start fires.

Tanks work different than ships though.

I guess I should play more T8 cruisers to see if it's really that much suffering, cause in T8 BB and T8 DDs, I certainly don't feel it. Then again, I don't really expect a Chapayev vs T10 to be worse off than Shchors vs T9, and that was manageable...