HaachamaShipping

Maybe it wants you to play more CV?

You can like it. Doesn't make it good. Except VU isn't really great either. That's up to you. Fun ship =/= good ship though.

The issue here is, at what range can Odin citadel a BB and which BB cannot citadel other BBs at those ranges? Also, for what damage. A Moskva can citadel BBs, all a metter of range, but it sure is not the same as BB guns. Odin's guns are one of the least threatening, because their effective range for destructive punishment is the worst. At ranges where NC or even Monarch might take half your hp off in cits, Odin may not, just due to lacking pen. While for those others it's just a matter of hitting, for Odin it's a non-matter. Effectively giving Odin the smallest effective zoning among T8 BBs, and within that zone, you can still survive, because against angled ships that don't get torped, Odin isn't a great threat. An angled Mainz can be a problem to Odin and Odin cannot just rush it to torp it to kingdom come, because the more nimble cruiser has double the amount of torps to wreck the less nimble BB. Any other BB would just demolish angled Mainz with AP. Tirpitz is brutal because against DDs at close range it has secs, against cruisers it has secs and main battery, against BBs it has the main battery, citadel protection, hp pool and torps. Odin against DDs has poorer secondaries, against cruisers has poorer secondaries and cannot deal with most angled cruisers well and against BBs it has torps, but if it cannot make torps work, it has to hope that even with turtleback it doesn't eat a shitton of pens that end it due to its low hp pool. And as LWM said, if you want to brawl, you got to preserve your hp pool well to have enough to still do it later. Others are more forgiving. Thing is, cruisers are among the easiest targets for Odin, but that does not mean Odin isn't the easiest enemy for most T8 cruisers (Edinburgh is the exception). And against cruisers, Odin has almost nothing over other BBs, except the close range armament, which is very questionable, because cruisers have torps and even a healthy Chapayev could become an actual torp threat to an Odin, as others might devastate it with AP cits, but Odin can't, unless Chapa broadsides. Doesn't mean cruisers are not the preferred enemy, given against BBs, Odin at range has to fire HE half the time and against DDs that aren't absolute morons Odin isn't much better than most other BBs. As they are, they are trash, plain and simple. crap performance at range, mediocre dpm, crap overmatch, crap HE performance. 305s aren't bad, if they are suited for the ship and have good characteristics. Getting a nerfed version of the worst 305s to ever be introduced at high tiers doesn't make Odin impressive. 3s off reload and either supercruiser dispersion or 5k more hp and we approach something acceptable. And no, as is, Odin is just plain garbage. It just isn't utterly useless. Yes. LWM does not call the Odin a good ship, she calls it a ship that might be fun alternative to Tirpitz, while not beng better than Tirpitz. Also, most of the things I tell you are basically in the review, when LWM calls the guns trash tier and the survivability basically T8 VU, both certainly not praise.

I mean, I played enough Yoshino to know there are enough oblivious folks around. I just would not want to play it. If I want meme torps, I rather play Yukikaze.

See, it's silly imo to call one the torp line and the other the gunboat line. Hatsuharu and Shiratsuyu aren't gunboats. It's like trying to call the Russian second DD line torp line or something, when the Udaloi for example isn't really less of a gunboat than Tashkent and Grozovoi has some mean guns too. I'd thus use the term alt line. And Akatsuki is definitely more of a gunboat than the Shiratsuyu, as well as my preferred choice among the two, given it might not be as stealthy, but it is better in literally every other way. More torp output over time than Shiratsuyu with TRB, doesn't give up smoke to get that, faster, healthier, better gun dpm to actually pose somewhat of a gun threat to other DDs. And what good is it to be stealthy for T7 when in any Ranked you get to deal with Haida anyway, in any uptier you run into all kinds of crap like Kidd or Fletcher at 5.8? At that point I rather play my Akatsuki like a pseudo-Russian, take the spotted indicator as a healthy warning to gtfo with the better speed to not have to deal with dpm boats at ranges that absolutely don't favour me. (And Yuudachi is just a nope to me.)

Most live in the European part. Especially the ethnic Russians.

Yeah, I put my Shirakami Fubuki on the Akatsuki. Would agree that it is a keeper if you just accept the 6.4 km conceal as a hint that when uptiered you are support DD and torp spam enemies.

Technically she's Russian.

Imo, Molotov is solid. Fast cruiser with good damage farming potential. Best enjoyed if you can accept T6 MM. Downsides are that Molotov has poor armour and poor AA. Welcome to T6 cruisers, most have poor armour, most will get absolutely obliterated by BBs and AA wise, AA doesn't matter anywhere as much since rework, especially not at T6. You could be Dallas or Huanghe and the CVs will be a pain. The main advantage I see in Molotov is that it needs no IFHE to pen 30 mm of plating. Thus, against T5-7, you can pen most BBs without needing to gimp fire chance. Against T8s, you pen cruisers and only set fires to BBs. Imo, this makes up for the long reload compared to other cruisers. Also, the ship has pretty solid AP. You can do quite nice with it, especially when top tier. It's not the most insane ship, but for a T6, I consider it good enough and worth playing.

Well, originally I had planned to buy and play AL ships. Now I got free time on my hands...

What @RavenWolf1 said. You get slots, just like ships come with port slots. Though reserve slots shouldn't be as much of an issue, as commanders on ships don't count and most commanders typically don't sit in reserve.

Indeed, it was a sad day when WG announced they'd stop working on a rebalancing of OP prems. Of course, many complained, a good few mostly about the compensation offered, but frankly, given how WG offered the same reimbursement scheme for CVs, why not follow through with it? And even as an owner of ships like Giulio and Enterprise, it'd be a nice experience if I could play stuff like T8 Ranked with whatever ship I want and not have to always consider playing Enterprise to not just get utterly decimated by an enemy that has an advantage and only might lose if they are far less skilled. Also as I said in the first collab, introducing a reworked AL Belfast that is balanced and different might offer something interesting and new while giving players without Belfast a way to get the ship. Because ships like Belfast, Enterprise, Missouri and Kuznetsov aren't just interesting because they are OP prems, but because they are iconic, having a rich history and /or being preserved still as museum ships. This would kill two birds with one stone, at least offering a new version to players, if you are unwilling to rebalance existing prems, while as a premium purchase it undoubtedly is nowhere as sad as just reskinned Roma. Because I love Littorio, I like Roma in WoWS, but rebuying a T8 premium and not even getting any compensation like with B versions seems just not worth it. And while I do acknowledge that WG is in a bit of a pinch with these premiums, this still doesn't mean that for the only character bundle with all new characters that isn't absolute RNG box, I have to pay for a camo that I will never be able to use even if I wanted to buy Belfast. And you might agree that the vague promise of "We might revisit the ship again at some undefined point" is not exactly a great basis to justify a camo purchase. See, I have been willing to buy bundles with all characters in the past and I bought bundles like the Haifuri one that contained camo for Harekaze, a ship I could buy. It shouldn't be too much to ask that at the very minimum you bundle the big whale stuff in ways that don't contain absolute deadweight. Like, slap 50 Siren camos ontop instead. Or well... how about just the characters and leave the camos for those who want to buy camos?

I'm utterly saddened by this and really think I'm gonna sit this one out, because as much as I was looking forward to it and usually just buy a bundle, this time there's just no fitting deal. Congrats WG, you managed to come up with a bunch of crappy deals that seem almost unpalatable. Random boxes are crap. I'm not gonna buy boxes. Even if they mostly contain new captains, the inability to choose commanders makes this a bad deal for casuals who only want to buy their "waifu" (or at least a character they like) or want to get something for factions that weren't yet covered. Littorio as first Italian collab captain. But nothing guarantees that in 12 boxes I'd not get 5 Azumas and 7 Shokeks, which is utterly useless to me for example. The addition of Azuma to the pool of lootbox captains is also weird. It's like you want an option so even those who just buy one box because any commander would be a new commander otherwise to be able to draw something they might already have. Character bundles are utterly ridiculous, unless we talking about First Wave. First Wave seems ok, having all these characters, no extra crap that bloats the price to obscene proportions. For anyone who hasn't yet gotten those, it's a nice deal. Too bad for those that have. Second Wave includes a Hipper camo. Why a camo? I don't know. It doesn't include all second wave camos, just Hipper. Why Hipper? I mean, ideally, it would include none of that crap, but even then, getting a permacamo for a crappy T8 cruiser is eh. But hey, if you like T8 Hipper, good for you. Third Wave is however the bundle that is just straight up silly. All the new camos bundled in. Anyone just wanting captains has to pick those or the boxes. But even for people like me, who own the premium ships that are still available, there's a drawback: It includes a Belfast camo. Given I don't intent to whale for Belfast at Christmas and hand you a few hundred Euro more to get the ship to use the camo on it, just because WG couldn't figure out how to make a balanced Belfast (and abandoned all efforts to balance such OP ships, blaming the community for it), I basically pay extra for a useless camo that just is in my inventory without use. All in One has obviously the same issue. Camos overall seem ok. Atago looks nice. Too bad they cost as much as T10 permacamos and offer nothing. If this had an effect like Kobayashi camos or was the typical price of T6-8 permacamo, ok, but at this pricing? Really? Then we get to the ships... Honestly, what to say, except, it's very disappointing. I'm not gonna complain about the Armada bundle, for those who have no ship, this is the most cost-efficient way to get all. No, my issue is with how the ships are designed. Already last wave, collab ships seemed a bit weird, but ended up ok. This time, they are straight up a no to me and I'm not sure I could recommend it to others. AL Yukikaze is frankly the best AL collab ship to buy. Without a doubt. Anyone who wants to go weeb collab ship, this is the best option, because no, the ship isn't insanely good, it is not Harekaze, but Yukikaze at least is a novel concept. Personally also what I hoped Asashio would be instead of the DWT silliness, but hey. F3 torps are meme, Yukikaze is meme, but it can be a fun ship and for F3 memes, using a T8 instead of the usual T9 or T10 is great. When MM gives you T6s, F3 torpedos are downright unfair, as they go 70 knots and aren't crap in damage like the Pan-EU ones. Sadly, this is the only AL collab ship that really seems straight up worth it regardless of what ships one owns. AL Montpelier is basically premium Cleveland. I own it, because last time I bought the bundle, as it didn't give me crap that was downright without value. And it is ok. Cleveland is strong, Montpelier is strong. But it isn't really any different an experience and basically gets carried by the fact of how strong Cleve is. By itself, forgettable ship. AL Littorio started testing strong, ended up as a Roma clone. Test version was kinda silly and I guess WG could not get a better concept before release date approached. So they opted for what worked. Now, I own a Roma, it's an ok ship, but do I need another Roma? AL Littorio is iffy, because it's what a Tirpitz B is to a Tirpitz. If you don't own one, cool, you can get one with some extra fancy camo. But if you own a Tirpitz, why buy Tirpitz B? T8s are expensive. AL Littorio is not cheaper like B ships. And unlike with B ships, you get nothing for owning Roma already. I said Roma is solid, but not to the point where I'd see many Roma owners buy a second Roma. And obviously, like B ships, selling us the same ship twice, just repainted feels insulting to our intelligence. AL Sovietskaya Rossiya... just no. Just goddamn no. This ship is just an insult. Yukikaze was different to Kagero, but in an interesting way. Montpelier is a slight difference from Cleveland. Littorio is a straight up clone of Roma. Sovietskaya Rossiya though is just a trashed Sovietsky Soyuz. It's like it's there to one-up the Montpelier. Instead of just being the copy of a free ship, it's a worse version. It is an A-hull Soyuz with B-hull rudder (I guess so it isn't utterly unplayable) and instead of Russian accuracy, it gets FdG's accuracy and some of the slowest turret traverse at the tier. Why? Who knows. It is hard to argue that the FdG accuracy is so much better than Soyuz' that you had to make the rest of the ship worse. Even with sigma improvement, horizontal dispersion on the S. Rossiya only beats S. Soyuz at around 17 km and there's only 2.4 km more till the ship hits its max range. So, at closer ranges, S. Soyuz is straight up better, at a tiny window S.Rossiya has slightly better dispersion (by 10 m and only horizontally, vertical dispersion Soyuz beats Rossiya at any range). This ship is different, but just for the worse. And not the way of "worse" that Yukikaze is that just gets worse grades because 8 km torps have less versatility, but just worse. S.Rossiya is poor obviously worse than its tech tree counterpart, has no redeeming features and all the ways it differs in are just there to make it a more frustrating and boring experience. Want to sit at 19 km to get the most out of an accuracy advantage over Soyuz? Go get an Izumo. Not premium enough? Wait for Baijie. They offer accuracy, and range, have reinforced deck, have better turret traverse (well, Izumo does) and at 19 km, noone cares about needing super fast damecon, most people won't shoot you. IJN dispersion at that range also beats USN dispersion. Not that it's an incredibly great playstyle, but if you wanted something better, why get S.Rossiya? It's advantages over Soyuz literally only come into play at that small range window. And to top it off, this is a T9 BB, priced like one (+extra for the captain). And that's the paying side of the event. F2P is basically another Nelson and the collection and port if you weren't around for second wave. Anyone who isn't new can basically ignore this altogether if they are F2P. Was it too much to create something actually interesting? Even ignoring all the other questionable stuff around, this is pretty low effort content, mixed with no effort to promote it much before, give anything to free players and unattractive to paying players. Sure, some might buy it anyway, but it really shouldn't have been too hard to offer something where I don't have to feel disgusted with myself if I ever buy anything. And obviously, like always, AL side of collab put in a lot more effort, but well, WG seems to not care.

Awwwww yissss, give me my 5th or so Nelson.

I mean, as shown, I can cherry pick stats of a T10 Smolensk and show how the Krasny Krim is better in those. Doesn't mean much. As an example, Odin isn't even the most fragile T8 BB, Champagne is. But Champagne instead gets insane guns to make up for it. In terms of main guns, you could also take a T9 Jean Bart and argue how it gets outcompeted by a T6 WV, ignoring things like accuracy, reload and hull survivability. Odin's a piece of trash, but meaningless because incomplete comparisons don't make a point for that. Comparing it to other BBs, while taking into account all advantages and disadvantages would allow a proper evaluation. And more than just 10k more hp, the Odin needs its guns fixed to either get 20s reload or much improved accuracy, to allow it to actually have some sort of strength in its main guns, be it reliability or dpm, but atm, it hasn't really got either.

While Odin is quite sad, this comparison leaves out a good few vital things (armour, torps, hydro?). Reminds one of this:

Dunno. As a cruiser, Odin is one of the least threatening enemies I can face in terms of T8 BB. A BB that actually bounces off and cannot really HE spam cannot even compare to most T8 BB in that regard. As a BB, Odin stops being threatening at range, when its pen falls off. Sure, it might still deal some damage, but so does any other BB. Rather eat a few pens from Odin than an outright cit from others and if lower tier, you can still angle. Try angling some Nagato against an NC. As a DD, Odin isn't some radar ship, so, don't care.

SAP Littorio was kinda silly, but they could have given it something different. Heck, give it 33s reload and more range or something would already make it more interesting. However, at least, if you have no Roma, Littorio is a solid ship. Sovietskaya Rossiya is different in that it pretty much is straight up worse.

I mean, for Rossiya, the ship only gets more accurate than Soyuz at range, which she doesn't have, unless she sacrifices the dpm. In which case, why not play a different T9 BB?

You could also just play Monarch for that...

Some parts are barely readable in light theme. Also, 41% increased XP ratio for Hindenburg? Wut?

Presence of CV means picking DD is a gamble. I hate great games in Kiev, usually when there was no CV. I also had two games getting matched vs Enterprise and you can guess how fun that was. CV as a class meanwhile to many people is just unappealing, so many won't play those even if they are the strongest option. Heck, I myself stopped playing CV after a few games for how boring it got. And if you only got BB and cruisers as options, BB is just a more solid, less painful option. But hey, they are a dying class I heard.

Enterprise camo at least isn't bundled with the captains. If it wasn't for Belfast camo, Third Wave bundle would actually make some sense, giving all new captains (and two camos that still may be unnecessary, but at least people can actually buy those ships).

If Sovietskaya Rossiya is supposed to be balanced and not just trash, then I don't know. I mean, the guns have 1.8 sigma, USN dispersion. So, the most average of accuracy settings. Worst reload, worst range, turret traverse is only beaten by the Musashi. So, the guns are at worst poor, at best they are average. The hull though is straight up worse than the Sovietsky Soyuz with less hp and AA. Which raises the question: Are Soyuz guns considered terrible by WG to make it sensible that Rossiya has to get a worse hull to go with these guns? Or is the Soyuz just OP? Or is this thing just crap?

On the topic of camoflages, it's nice to bundle commanders with camoflages. Because while Third Wave certainly would have been a worthwhile investment otherwise, having to pay for a Belfast camo without owning a Belfast and no chance to get one short of being extremely lucky and/or extremely whale is a bit irritating. WG, while it's nice that there is a Belfast camo, could you please acknowledge that your own botched balancing job has made it virtually impossible for the average player to get this ship and thus worthless to buy a bundle including such a camo?