Capra76

I think what they are trying to do is introduce a control valve that allows them to adjust the number of torpedoes in the game without annoying too many players, too many and they can buff the IJN gunboats and get them in the game rather than the torpedo boats, too many BB and they can simply reverse the process. For this to work however WG must find some way for players to transfer their high skill captains between ships without expecting them to pay 1,000 gold per time. My fear is this is going to be another huge nerf for DD and buff to BB at a time when BB numbers are out of control, CA might suffer as well if these new gunboats decide to target them, which they may well do.

So let me get this right, the game has a problem with the sheer number of BB in it, so WG is giving DD a savage beating with the nerf-hammer instead.

http://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Torpedoes_(WoWS) "Flooding damage reduces a ship's fighting capability by 0.66-0.12% of total HP per second, depending on ship's tier." I don't know the precise figures by tier but for a T5 I'd guess that it's about 0.4% DPS, I think I was wrong to state that it lasts 90 seconds, is is 120, so that single flood will take 48% of your health at T5 but only about 15% at T10.

Depends on the tier, flooding causes between 0.12% to 0.66% DPS, with the higher tier ships presumably suffering much less damage whereas fire causes 0.3% per fire at all tiers. Is flooding as big a risk as people make out? Even if flooding is left un-repaired for the full 90 seconds that's only 10.8% of a ship's health, 2 fires will take 36% of a ships's health in 60 seconds. Am I missing something?

This could be quite useful for my Benson captain, it would be nice to get him up to 15 points for the next season of ranked.

Ok, my bad, although all of the higher tier DD are hybrids already so the point is perhaps moot. Either way I think the important point is that they're introducing a control valve that allows them to regulate the amount of torpedo boat game play and BB numbers simultaneously. I get the nasty feeling that Mr Fletcher will shortly be meeting Mr Nerf-Hammer.

I'm just saying balance things with reload times and damage rather than numbers of torpedoes. Minekaze does fine with 6 torpedoes because she can fire every 30 seconds, if Kagero can fire 8 every 40 seconds she'll have the same number of torpedoes in the water and will be fine so long as she gets the extra range and much bigger warheads. Personally I think it would make the gameplay more interesting, rather than launch then hide for 2 minutes you go from one attack to the next.

I thought the idea was that the line splits into torpedo specialists and hybrids, with the Fubuki-Shima line the torpedo boats and Mutsuki onwards hybrids. I think what WG are trying to do is install an easy control valve for the number of torpedoes and battleships in the higher tier games, too many torpedoes and WG can adjust damage/reload times to encourage players into the hybrids, too many battleships and they can have a diet of torpedo soup until numbers return to acceptable. If this is what WG are trying to achieve I hope they introduce some kind of mechanism that makes it easy and cost free to move captains between the lines; the players aren't going to be too upset if they have to jump between the lines every time WG re-balances things if they can bring their top captains with them, if they're being asked to pay 1,000 gold every time that is going to become a problem.

What I'm suggesting is that Shima gets torpedoes that are far more damaging than Gearing and the ability to reload them twice as quickly, I want them cut down to 10 so that BB captains lose the ability to whine about unavoidable walls of torpedoes.

Quite the opposite I expect, most likely they'll re-work the torpedoes from T6 upwards to make them more potent and perhaps give a more linear increase in power across the tiers rather than the sudden spike with Shimakaze at T10. What I think I'd like to see is Shimakaze cut down to 9/10 tubes rather than 15 (fictional but maybe one broke) but them compensated with warheads 50% stronger. The torpedoes should be fairly standard across the tiers with balancing carried out purely on the basis of damage and maybe a small gain in speed/range at T6/7 ending up with something comparable to the USN Mark 16 (Fletcher upgrade) but with maybe a little bit more range and re-loads midway between Minekaze and Fletcher, i.e. about 1 minute.

I'm guessing they'll nerf the Fubuki's gun range into the ground, give her Minekaze torpedoes as stock and maybe an 8 km version as an upgrade. Goodbye my love.

Big problem I see is you're suddenly going to find a lot of experienced players with 15 point captains down at T6, Fubuki + AFT + CE is going to be a monster at T6, god help anyone who encounters one with an 18 point gunboat spec captain.

BB numbers were already at the limit of what the developers were prepared to tolerate before the KM BB were released, they may fall back over time but I doubt they will fall to an acceptable level. The RN cruisers may help but I doubt we'll see quite the same epidemic of them as we have seen from KM BB.

Selected T5 survival rates (w/e 27/8): Isokaze: 27.21% Clemson: 16.15% Izyaslav: 15.85% Myogi: 34.28% Wyoming: 32.56% Kaiser: 41.78% Yeah, T4 DD are a piece of cake to play.

How's she holding up against KM's strong secondaries?

Ok, for a start: USN cruisers, strong rapid firing light cruisers with lots of guns until tier 6, a good place for new players to learn the game, they become fairly weak heavy cruisers from T7 onwards. USN DD, T2-4 have good guns but short range torpedoes and may struggle with the glut of KM BB (strong secondary guns make kamikaze torpedo runs costly), at T5 they get low velocity rapid firing guns that can be difficult to use well so T5/6 can be hard, at T7 they begin to get useable stealth torpedoes and at T8-10 are some of the best ships in the game. IJN DD, relatively easy to play stealth torpedo-boats although it's questionable whether it's worth going beyond the undoubted high point of the line, the T5 Minekaze. T6/7 are not highly regarded ships, the T8 Fubuki can work quite well as an invisible firing gunboat, but T9/10 have been over-nerfed and are not worth playing in my opinion. All low tier battleships are terrible, from T5 onwards they become better. IJN tend to be longer range weakly armoured snipers, USN/KM are more heavily armoured close range brawlers USN/IJN aircraft carriers, #OnlyGoodSkyPlague. Just my opinion, but the best place to start is USN cruisers, play them to T6, learn the game, then start experimenting with BB and DD.

+1 as well

Probably, but then everyone else starts doing the same thing and it becomes a pain.

Ok, so far, a bit over 1/2 way through the XP grind. What worries me is the damage grind is going to be painful with the sheer number of BB about, in fact it seems odd to me that WG have introduced an event which encourages even more BB play when BB numbers are already at a game-breaking level. Would it not have made more sense to structure the event to promote cruiser play, maybe something like start 200 fires instead?

Thanks, it also helps us see where the skill tree is weak, for example with a DD build: tier 1: BFT is the only option for all, maybe a weaker version of TAE would be a possibility; tier 2: LS is vital for all, but EM and TAE are important skills for SN/IJN so maybe make LS an innate ability for all DD but limited to say 50% of speed then give the option of boosting that to maybe 80%; tier 3 is relatively well balanced, but maybe make TA a more usable skill by removing the range loss; tier 4 has good options for the gunboats but nothing for the torpedo-boats; maybe an option to increase torpedo range would be good; tier 5: CE is good for torpedo/hybrid builds but lacking for gunboats, maybe WG could offer the ability to super-charge the guns, increasing the muzzle velocity and improving the shell arc and accuracy. just a few thoughts.

I did find an enemy Kagero today who opted not to go for it, I actually asked the question in chat and a friendly one said he didn't have it either. Quick tip: if you're not running Last Stand on your Kagero, do not fire on a Fletcher under any circumstances.

I think the starting point should be identifying the possible different builds for each ship class then build a skill tree around that, for example: DD: pure gunboat(SN)/hybrid (USN)/pure torpedo-boat (IJN); CA: AA specialist/counter-DD specialist/invisible firehose; BB: Tank/long range sniper/AA/secondaries; i'm sure there are other possible builds, my point is look at what you are trying to achieve first then build a skill tree from there. It could actually be a good way to balance the game, if WG are fed up with the camping meta at high tiers then make the BB sniper build incredibly weak and the tank build incredibly strong.

Exactly, the secondary armament of most of the ships in the game is roughly on a par with a light cruiser strapped to each side, if they actually performed like a CL then the game would be unplayable.

It's just randomness, out of 48 games you've lost 10 or so more than you should have, it's unusual but it happens, the difference is that people don't start threads along the lines of "my last 50 games have been completely average" when it doesn't.

BB numbers were becoming a problem before KM BB arrived, I seriously doubt we'll see anything like this when RN CL arrive.