HaachamaShipping

Thing is, camping BBs are an issue for their team, because they are meant to move forward and support their team, driving away the enemy team in the process, thus helping to secure the objective, because most cruisers cannot stay around a BB in medium range and survive. This change would indeed fix that issue (maybe), but it would also screw over cruisers, who would then be robbed off their ability to put some distance between themselves and the BBs and a cruiser intelligently kiting the enemy was hardly ever a problem before, especially for lines like the Russians or French. In the "ideal" world, such cruisers would be able to fall back, behind their friendly BBs and support the BBs with their dpm, or go and help where there is less threat of instant deletion and they are able to be significant. This change thus would fix one issue, but create another. To be against BBs camping ineffectively at the back and to be against cruisers getting pitted against BBs at medium to close range without room to effectively maneuver is not mutually exclusive, as long as one acknowledges that roaming cruisers were not the issue.

I don't have the Akizuki, but plan to use my Harekaze captain for the ship. Yes, the ship has less torpedoes than the Kagero if specced for guns (it actually even has less if specced for torps), but I feel like it is quite manageable. The one torepedo skill there is for the ship is TAE (with 10 km torpedoes, I'd not take TA) and with it, the torpedoes reload in 101 seconds instead of 112. The torpedoes are not exactly bad, certainly something a Benson would envy you for, but they still are T7 torpedoes and I find that the 11 seconds extra reload don't make or break this ship. The guns, while fewer, still are one of the highest dpm on T8, so investing in them is not a real waste, if you capitalise on the investment. In this regard, the Harekaze is a pretty good hybrid DD and offers quite some versatility as to whether to use the still good torpedoes or the still good guns, as both are still good enough and the real balancing factor is the worst hp pool on T8. I personally prefer the gun reload over torpedo reload though, not just for interchangeability with Akizuki, but also because run-ins with DDs are kind of more time critical than the typical stand-off range torpedo attempt on a BB. With a gun spec, I'd say, don't expect to farm torpedo damage on BBs too much. It still is quite common to get a good salvo on BBs, but a gun build also allows to pick fights with DDs with the concealment and secure caps more comfortably and as an added bonus, it buffs the AA to more reliably kill spotter planes (or T6 planes, if MM throws a Ryuujou/Independence against T8s again). You can also just go and try do gun damage against BBs with your 3/4 Akizuki gun power, it still is nothing to cough at and while, as I said before, I don't own an Akizuki, I dare speculate that the Harekaze has a greater potential to force damecon by getting a torpedo hit that causes flooding, thus being more able to get fires, if necessary. I never played Harekaze beyond Rank 10 and for randoms/Ranks 10+ it really can get by without RPF, imo. I'm not sure how necessary RPF becomes, but the gun buffs while not necessary sure make it feel more comfortable in randoms.

The example was to show that even a low chance of hitting something beats the utter inability to do the same. If you want to talk about killing BBs meanwhile, BBs are the main torpedo target of any DD that can stealth torp and a Kagero is not exactly unsuited for making the life of BBs hard. It just is not as foolproof and a bit less of a threat because it cannot simply second line torp spam, so less gifted players tend to get themselves killed fast.

I actually hope she might be available as captain in a later phase of the AL collab. Still better than me. Very fun ship though. Can't wait to actually get a captain with 14 or 18 points.

Dunno. I'm pretty sure you played more DDs than I did, but usually, I don't bother repairing a dead engine (or rudder) unless I've managed to slip out of harms way or I'm in need of making sharp maneuvers like dodging torpedoes, where the acceleration/deceleration is necessary. Otherwise, a broken engine is not something to repair immediately as long as you get fired on, because it might get knocked out again and I rather have repair for when I get set on fire.

The ship has 5.4 km concealment. You can get closer and smoke up there. It's not like that window between firing range and detection range was ever an issue on the Kagero. What is an issue with these guns is that if you fire the guns, they have pretty bad sustained damage and you'll likely do paltry amounts of damage compared to any other DD. Not to mention, the lower gun range on IJN torpedo boats is not always a drawback. I havent researched or bought a range upgrade since Isokaze (and I wouldn't buy it on the Isokaze again), because frankly, the IJN guns are not a great offensive weapon for sustained fire. If I have to use them in a sustained fashion, I likely am being chased, then the range doesn't matter. If I need to land a fire on a ship that I hit with a torpedo, I just go a bit closer, the DD has the concealment. What the reduced range does great however, is that if you actually go for a few shots and there is no smoke around, or you killed a low-health ship opportunistically, the detection range bloom is quite a bit more manageable. Even on a hybrid like the Harekaze, where the guns are pretty good, I appreciate the 9.4 km range, which allow for quickly falling off the radar again after killing an enemy DD, as often noone else is that close. It's why the first iteration of Asashio that was a Kagero with Shinonome guns and 10.9 km range was so utterly silly, because why would you want guns that not only are terrible in killing things but also give a far greater detectability penalty if you ever fire them. It feels like some holdover from times when stealthfiring was actually a thing.

Yeah, but every other DD at T8 has an easier time getting more than 1 kill or doing damage to more than one ship. Being the person that can kill 1 ship and then just be an extra set of eyes is pretty much minimal investment and puts way more emphasis on the rest of the team being good and going the rest of the way than on you being able to carry for players who might be worse if necessary. And getting at least one kill (or the equivalent in effective damage) in Ranked isn't exactly hard, if you know what you are doing. Just, any other DD plays properly even afterwards. If you complain about Shima being not good enough, why do you claim the Asashio is a good ship? My point is, if Shima does not perform for you, then either the ship is unsuited for the game mode (in which case, try to get a different ship), the ship is not suited to your playstyle (get another ship or adapt your playstyle) or you simply are not good with the ship (in which case, one has to work on ones skills). And even if it is not 2 or 3, the first option still doesn't excuse Asashio. Just because other bad ships might exist (not saying Shima is bad) does not mean that this ship is excused for being beyond terrible. Also because few other ships are as toxic as this floating piece of junk. The guns are the same as the Kagero guns. And I know the Kagero guns. I shot at DDs and cruisers with them before. Typically as a distraction, as some silly support or because it was an act of desperation. These guns have dpm so terrible, if you get a kill with them, it isn't really up to your great skills, it's just because the enemy was dumb enough to get killed or they had so few hp any DD could have killed them. Also, if I got a cent for every time someone brings up "But it has guns and they are decent. I killed x with them"...

Hard to understand the translation. Hard to read the white text.

Asashio cannot play Clan Battles. And if you can't make Shimakaze work in competitive, then it might be a good sign to evaluate the choice of ship and prepare a ship that better suits you for next season or adapt the playstyle to be more useful, whichever conclusion you might arrive at. If you get thrown into a match where there only is one BB per side and you take out the single enemy BB, then yes, you took out one enemy. In such matchups though, BBs matter far less, because the fewer BBs there are, the more freedom cruisers have and the more they can dominate. So, that single BB kill isn't that groundbreaking, given BBs inherently are the class with least utility only bringing damage and durability to the table. If the BB is lower tier, then you actually didn't even trade well, though in general it is questionable whether that single BB kill makes up for your team being down half a DD from the start. As a top tier DD, you also can cope with being worse than most other DDs in the matchup and the enemy likely has a less limited boat with more fighting power. Matchmaker goes by tier and class, not by nation. On-topic part of this: The DDs were generally designed like pretty much all ship classes to be outclassing enemy DDs in all categories, thus getting 6 guns and more torpedo tubes with better torpedoes. They were to act in a decisive battle torpedoing the enemy fleet from stand-off ranges, but not just BBs, but all ships. I'd say, arguing the Asashio is an expression of IJN naval doctrine flies in the face of the doctrine that all ships would need to be able to do their best and make up for their limited numbers.

Yeah, one more hit would've sufficed. Was pretty frustrating.

Good players know when to smoke and when to spot. If you smoke despite being the one vital to provide vision you messed up, because then you basically can't even see anything you would shoot at and are prone to getting some other DD launch a volley of surprise torpedoes at you. Good way to die. And you already can just provide spotting and see the damage counter go up. I started this topic and I play about as much DD as I play BB and I already wrote in the first post, this ship doesn't terrorise me as a BB, it just ruins my game experiences as a DD. Not by killing me, but because of factors I described at length before in this thread. Both don't get crap done. The real question though is not just, which of them do you want on your team. It's also, which of them do you want on the enemy team? I mean, both are a waste of a DD. But with the Benson, an idiot Benson is hardly a threat to most people. An idiot Asashio is a potential threat until it is dead or potatoes so hard that it becomes obvious they are too dumb. I for my part would prefer if gameplay and results were more skill-based and players encouraged to actually learn the game, not farm meaningless damage, not realise how meaningless it was and what they should have done, because for once they got those 6-digit numbers and didn't die within 5 minutes. Also, the IJN DDs following the Fubuki design were planned to not just be torpedoin BBs. They were designed in general as all-round ships that could hit larger ships than themselves with torpedoes, not just BBs. And most of their WWII victims were cruisers and not BBs. No, that is not how skill ceiling is defined. Pretty much.

If you want to talk about competent gunboat DD vs competent Asashio, competent gunboat does not just sit in smokes. If you want to talk about incompetent gunboat vs incompetent Asashio, the incompetent Asashio would likely torp from second line and not spot at all. Worst case it tries to torp that smoke. So, yeah...

Should be people lacking either Concealment Mod or without CE, so in either case it's 6 km detection on Kagero/Asashio. Typically, if an Asashio has that kind of concealment, you can expect people to either be bad enough that 2 million credits became an issue or they never played IJN DDs enough to get 10 pts. More CVs means just more AA investment on cruisers, not more cruisers. Apart from the fact that CVs, being skill based as they are, often are played by people who can't do much with them except feed plane kills to the enemy and be a burden for their team. The one thing that keeps carriers somewhat acceptable to ones consciousness is that the CV is mirrored and to get anything decent done, a CV player has to have far more skill than an Asashio player needs to get kills on BBs. The thing is, typically BBs are not found at caps, DDs however are there. If your DD feasts on BBs, often less great players never touch a cap and in general they don't feel inclined to cap. Good players meanwhile lack the tools to be as effective at caping. Anti-DD DDs meanwhile have every incentive to go for the cap, shoot whatever enemy DD is there, cap in the process and thus actually play the objective, even if the mode is not Standard Battle. Gunboat DDs, being able to kill other DDs efficiently are also better at not only providing the team spotting, but denying the enemy spotting, when they kill the DDs. Insofar, yes, they are more team-oriented.

If all ships were highly specialised in a rock-paper-scissors way, then Asashio would fit, yes. But that is indeed not how this game currently works and it likely is not what this game is going to become, because that would require far more efficient teamwork and you cannot expect such currently. Likely also not in the future unless some miracle changes the player base. And stating "Well it's only crap because the game is not made to promote this kind of ship" does not make Asashio any better. And you can feel free to think the game has to change. I also have gripes with the current state of the game, but that does not make me hype broken crap that not only isn't fixing what is broken, it makes it even worse and to a degree makes gameplay even worse.

If the enemy is a team of morons, you'd be able to win in any ship. Thing is, you are betting on MM to give you a bunch of incompetents and BBs. Meanwhile any other DD has greater versatility in dealing with the situation of MM is not as kind. That's maybe ok in randoms, but it is an utterly dumb stance for Ranked, which is why it should not be there. And statistically, if you are a very good player, you have a higher chance to do well in a Loyang or a Kidd or a Harekaze than in an Asashio, which is why Asashio in Ranked is typically not played by superunicums that actually want to get through Ranked efficiently. Frankly, the only thing that I'd take away if I was better with asashio in WR than with any other DD is that I should actually get better at DDs. We saw Kitakami in action. She got taken out for a reason. The rest of this paragraph makes no sense. I'm not too sure this game needs a whole lot of overly specialised ships in the wake of Asashio. As long as the amount of teamplay you can expect in randoms is on the level it is now, this kind of ship is flawed and if there actually was intelligent play, Asashio also wouldn't be the ship of choice still, as it's so very limited.

Met @WolfGewehr in their Moskva. Was playing around in Kagero with a clan mate. Was a pretty nice match, though our T10s shot HE at broadside cruisers and I almost lost it.

I typically don't use these flags until I absolutely need to, because it'd just be frustration. What I use them four is mostly then for retraining on ships, to get it done in one or two matches and for when I need to get vital skills to be competitive, like getting 14 pt captain on an Akizuki. Similarly, got a Wyvern flag package a while ago (extra credits), which I save up to use for when there is free premium time, as one can grind credits best there. I would not use these flags at low tiers. The base rewards are too low. Also, when using them, combine them with appropriate camouflages, as the effects stack and commander exp is based on base exp, so a +100% exp/+100% commander exp cammo actually provides has like 3 times the commander exp. If you also use the flags for when you really need them for grinding, you might feel less pressured, as you are now not feeling the "waste" as much. In general, don't feel too pressured with the flag on.

Yeah, thanks, but no.

Sure, keep on dreaming, if you think high-tier BBs make SS as a class reasonable.

I found the whole rework kind of unnecessary and confusing. And poorly communicated. Shouldn't have been too hard to ask Dasha to explain the players where to tick what box to get their flags, camos and consumerables for credits or doubloons.

That was April fools and it was just a graphics rework, with two new weather effects. Not a whole new class.

It's a great design. I like the old-timey feeling it has to it. And Matsukazes top hat. Is it worse than lightbulb?

No.

Well, a crappy ship in WoWS is nothing new and while some ships might need a buff, you wouldn't consider it silly someone took out a certain ship. And not every ship needs to be good at everything, but it needs to be very decent at multiple things (as a generalist, for example high-tier Germans and USN), or good at one thing and passable at others (as a specialist, for example Russians and IJN). It does not need to be utterly ridiculous at one thing and hot garbage at almost everything else. However, in regards to Asashio, as laid out in my first post already, the ship isn't just lackluster from its own individual perspective. If it was just lackluster, well, then it'd be another crappy boat that you meet here and there, like, say, a Huanghe. But: The ship is so heavily specialised in one area that its very presence has an effect on how the match has to be approached. This is similar almost to a carrier, just that carriers get mirror matchmaking and carriers are among the most skill-based ships, so that if you notice the enemy carrier is garbage and gets shut down, you pretty much can just continue as usual. If the enemy Asashio is unaccounted for and you do not know what it is doing (it could be afk for all intents and purposes), it still cannot be ignored. It thus has far greater potential to ruin the experience for all others in the match. The ship in its very design caters to the unskilled and to the selfish, which is questionable whether it should be encouraged. And sure, it can teamplay, it benefits from teamplay, but it is far less capable of doing the job your team wants from a DD and encourages not doing that job. The ship is a premium. Noone in the world forces you to play it. If you play an utterly crap tech tree ship, it may be excused, as you might want to grind past it to a better ship (I don't know a tech tree ship though that is as limited as Asashio). Here, you pretty much bought this ship for the ship itself and there is no excuse for bringing it to a match. And if an Asashio in randoms clears out all the enemy BBs and wins, sure, nice, but if you bring this ship to Ranked, it's just unfair to your team, because it does not fit in there and you basically are just betting on the MM instead of actually seriously trying to be competitive in skill-based play. Blatantly underpowered ships like for example Mikasa are at least at a tier where competitive play is hardly a thing and they also are rare and when they appear, they just kind of suck for their team, but that's it. Blatantly OP ships like Payfast are a bit more problematic, but at the very least, Belfast becomes OP in the hands of people who know how to abuse her consumerables, while people who potato tend to dies fast in their squishy cruiser. Belfast also is limited in where it can strike and as a DD, the one class getting countered the hardest by that ship, if you know where the Belfast is, you can act pretty freely, if you don't know, you just need to play carefully and consider options to bail. Still, Belfast was pulled for a reason. Asashio meanwhile is just a terrible design that is likely going to continue being a salt mine in so many regards, because the ship is flawed on so many levels and many of these flaws will make WG call it "balanced" and thus worth keeping in the game.

As long as it is spottable and killable with depth charges, it's going to die up there. If a submarine can just disengage at will and be untouchable, then it is just breaking game design. And if you want to redesign the entire game around this one new class, then I might suggest to you, that maybe you try a different game?