Aotearas

Just Atlanta things: Not the most impressive damage score, but a good chunk of that is from destroyers (I got all four of the Red lolis) and the rest is cruisers. No battleships were harmed in the making of this battle report (poor sods need all the help they can get). Also, all teh moneyz. In related news, my Cleveland captain has finally reached 18 points and with that I completed the holy trifecta of US CL skills (Concealment Expert, Advanced Firing Training and Inertia Fuze High Explosives). Guess which captain will be used on my Atlanta from now on

Ahh, good times. That Blyskawica though ... oh boy that was just all the killsecuring stars and planets aligning perfectly. For a little context: @FlutterRage was pushing in his Missouri when the enemy Blyskawica attempted to make a yolorun on him. Me in my Udaloi was crossing behind Flutter's Missouri to get a shot and assist Flutter (rather not lose a toptier BB to a potentionally successfull yolotorp rush after all). I get a firing angle without risking friendly fire, let loose on the Blys just as Flutter's Missouri roars a volley of AP towards the poor Blys ... Then the universe aligned himself in the shape of a brilliant, cosmic middlefinger directed at Flutter! I'm still looking at the Blys through my gunnery scope when I see Flutter's AP volley smash towards the Blys. The dispersion, nonexistant ... the grouping, might aswell been fused into one giant super AP shell. The Blys doesn't simply sink as much as she gets literally nuked off the ocean, Bikini Atoll style. Like, damn son! ... only for me to notice that I've got ~7k damage pop up from the now scrapped Blys. As it turns out, one of my HE shells hits just a fraction before Flutter's AP salvo would've assuredly obliberate the Blys ... and it detonated the DD. EPIC KILL STEAL!!! Some say if you log into the Scrub TS server, you can still faintly hear Flutter's unbelieving "wut?".

Well, people do accuse us forumites of being a selfcongratulatory circlejerk, so it's only natural our epeen would inflate each time we meet another. It's just the laws of attraction.

Oh boy ... @lameoll and @FlutterRage are my witnesses, I dethroned The Morten for today.

Huh, don't think he reported me, at least I didn't lose any karma today (maybe he did but someone else complimented me in the same game, though I somehow doubt that was the case since I didn't exactly had much opportunity to really do anything other than being pretty fireworks). Anyway, we took the whole thing as flattery. Even having a short fuze still means we were annoying so that's a job well done for our team if we kept him and his Scharnhorst buddy in check. On a tangent, my division mates had originally lobbied for a cheeky triple Belfast division (I just like my Atlanta though). I can only imagine how annoying that might've been for him

I love this ship. It's fun to play, it works well kiting, it works well pushing, is reasonably tanky, has good AA, torpedoes and turtleback make it a potent brawler and it packs a mean wallop if anyone dares show this ship a broadside. Among all cruisers I've played so far, I'd say the Hindenburg edges out the competition in sheer flexibility and reliability. The whole package is simply rock-solid!

Met @Flamu and @WizzDCast as the former was testing the Abruzzi. The cheek at the start of the game was fun, but from what I heard from other clanmates who watch his streams later he got pretty salty about our division composition. Game itself was remarkably unspectacular ... the usual issue when you're playing the Atlanta and everything on your side of the map is constantly retreating/kiting.

Oh look, it happened a-FUCKlN-gain.

Imaginations of an overeager engineer drawled on a blueprint. The H-44 was about as likely to ever be built as the P. 1000.

Afaik it was only the subpar performance on the 25mm guns (poor gun training, poor compatibility for powered mounts and subpar rate of fire) that was a big issue with IJN AAA. But the Type 98 100mm/65 DPs were quite formidable in their AAA role if I'm not mistaken.

When you're bottom tier, every BB on the enemy team can overmatch you and all allied BBs on your flank that can actually tank keep running away from an enemy push threatening our base: Time to fasten the seatbelts and play speedbump ... Nelson makes for good speedbumping. First priority, deal with the enemy DD on our flank to allow my divisionmate in his Maass to do his own work with the enemy forces unopposed. @TomBombardil scouted out the Blys and with a generous application of Overconfidence™ I managed to scratch that worry off our list. Second priority, gently discourage the enemy radar cruisers from countering my division mate in his DD. Went a bit less successful than expected. The discouragement worked flawlessly, but between all those broadsides I was a bit disappointed at the lack of citadel hits. Particularily when that Ibuki had decided to reverse in order to get off a cheeky HE volley, getting only two penetrations on a target that couldn't be much more cooperative was distinctly underwhelming. The n00bprotection was strong with this guy! Third priority, deal with the immediate threat to our base cap. Had to hold out my chin to get an angle on that Baltimore as it desperately tried to fuse with the island at our base's edge and got sunk keeping our base clear, but that Baltimore was denied an otherwise secure spot inside our cap. After having successfully blunted the enemy push, Tom went about grinding the remainder Reds down. Oh, and @FlutterRage was there too. Naturally the enemy had little appreciation for the speedbumper ... everyone congratulated the DD, no mention about the BB that had his back (doubly so considering the only back our other BBs on this flank showed were theirs to the enemy as they were busy running away, letting the bottom tier battleshoe do all the tanking). Hmph ... At least Tom could appreciate my help, if only he wasn't rubbing it in how stable his game is working compared to mine freezing ingame at the most inopportune moments.

Met @EsaTuunanen in his Grim Reaper today. I got a bit surprised seeing the enemy team actually making an early push into B along with most of their BBs, typically it's rather save as they all move towards A cap so I got caught pants down with my Cleveland quickly becoming the punching ball for half the enemy team. Still took their Anshan with me though and despite dying early I someone still outscored a third of the team (though I know exactly how I outscored that maxrange camping Fusou on our team ...).

Nine 19-point captains, that's how. Also, I'm a compulsive hoarder. I blame role-playing games for that.

What about shipguys?

HAH!!!

Oh look, it happened again. And once again I died because of it.

Well, afaik Arkansas isn't exactly English but taken from the (then) native Sioux langauge (and then pronounced french, for raisins).

I'd prefer if WG were to improve MM so there's no such ship discrepancies and instead both teams get an equal ship match-up (both teams get a mix of stealth and less stealthy DDs, those who can contest caps well and those who can't for example, ... not one team getting the Z-52s and Gearings and the other gets the Shimakazes and Khabarovsks). Also some maps could get a workover to provide some ships with prominent gameplay roles (such as kiting cruisers (IJN, KM and MN with their damage focus) vs cap supports (USN, RN and VMF with their Radar or smoke). Spawns could also use some work so you don't put ships that do well on one side of the map on the other, forcing them into bad terrain or have them traverse the entire map before they get into favourable spots (which at the point may not be favourable anymore depending on how the enemy moved ...). At least that's the optimal way I believe WG should think like, but we're talking WG here ... so perhaps they will simply charge a couple thousand doubloons each time you want to select your favourite game mode.

No. The gamemode is as much part of the game balancing as the ships themselves. Some ships work better for one gamemode, but not as good on another. Take russian DDs for example. Their typically poor concealment puts them at a serious disadvantage in Domination mode where stealth is paramount for contesting and capturing. Superiour maingun firepower doesn't mean much when a stealthier DD can force you out of the caps due to the threat of his allies munching you for breakfast as the other DD spots you. However in Standard mode, those same russian DDs can flex their muscles and help grind down enemy forces without being railroaded by gameplay design into play roles they aren't suited for (anyone who owns a Khabarovsk probably knows how people still demand you go capture flags "because you're a DD"). The same also applies for other cruisers and to a lesser extent also battleships (why would anyone play a dpm ship like the Zao or HIV in domination mode, or a Des Moines/Moskva in Standard battle when their radar suits them so much better for Domination?). Allowing players to select a preferred game mode could easily be exploited for gameplay advantages (or conversely, eliminating potential disadvantages). Less maliciously connotated consequences would be the MM draw pool for less prominent modes (Epicenter for example is still young and has solid potential, yet I'd suspect a lot of people that had the atrocious tier VIII-X+Epicenter+Tears of the Desert combination would simply ragequit that mode entirely, effectively killing it off and I could relate ... contrasting that I think the tier VI-VIII+Epicenter+Trident is one of the most enjoyable combinations however, which just proves that matching maps with modes is more important than just the mode itself) and the ensuing MM possibly making the experience worse for those who actually enjoyed the mode. The introduction of possible new game modes would also suffer if not enough people bother to try them out to generate enough data to work out kinks. Would WG need to enforce players into playing the mode until X amount of matches have been played on a new mode, or would a new game mode be dead on arrival because players simply have a bad first impression and immediately select to not play that mode again? Though I can absolutely get behind the sentiment that the game mode (and map) rotation could use some serious work. I've had streaks of several games of one game mode or map and it gets boring fast. Frustrating even if you want to play a particular ship but the game throws you one unsuitable mode/map combination after another when RNG decided today won't be your day. I believe the worst streak I had was seven Standard battles in a row, all on Two Brothers. In short: Mode and map rotation should get improved, perhaps even actively factoring in the kind of ship you queue up with (though I suppose that'd be a true nightmare to code with divisions ...) to reduce bad match-ups and even out the overall gameplay experience and MM could DEFINATELY improve a whole lot in regards to balancing different ships and their gameplay strengths/weaknesses within the same ship class instead of just tiers and nation distribution (don't know if MM considers other factors, though I'd guess not from what I see). Modes should also be closely matched to work with the maps (Epicenter on Tears of the Desert is just horrible, particularily for hightier games!) to improve the playability for all classes (right now the aforementioned mode/map combination is just a BB camp fiesta). But allowing players to select the game mode isn't the way to do it.

Easy enough for germans: "Wurster". Still going to pronounce it: "Warchester", simply because it sounds better.

Roon can be tough to play if you're too used to BB gameplay (or aggressive cruiser gameplay). Think of it like Königsberg/Nürnberg 2.0 ... in fact playing either of those ships for a couple matches is probably the best way to get the right thinking back. Play conservatively in the Roon. Even if you wanted, the ship isn't good at pushing against adversity since it has two thirds of its firepower in the back. Instead play it like a flanker. In the earlier stages of a match you stay to the outskirts of the battle and pepper targets from range with your great ballistics until the enemy ranks are thin enough that you can get closer without having to watch out for multiple attack angles. Once the enemy cohesion is breaking up, you can push along the flanks and punish broadsides with your AP as ships are forced to watch their angles against other players on your team rather than the other way around. If your flank is the one losing, just keep on kiting. The Roon is incredibly tanky against cruisers (more so kiting than pushing thanks to the rearward facing firepower) and up close even trollish to BBs (though I don't recommend charging any BBs, Hindenburg can do it since it has 2x4 torps per side, but Roon only has one quadruple set, not enough to alphastrike any somewhat healthy BB). It's a bit clumsy at manouvering though (and it won't get any better with the Hindenburg), so evasion tanking is best done at sufficient range (15km+).

@Reaper_JackGBR I haz a Hindenburg naow. U wantz pley wif me again? I miz u. Cum bak. We can pley wif @MortenTardo, maek our own show und stuff. Come on bro, we needz yo halp to rescue ze Prinzess!!! Think of the kittens!!!

So important you had to move it twice?