Aotearas

The real problem is that the Montana was balanced for a meta that included aircraft carriers. With its monstrous AA it would be nearly immune to anything but strongarmed CV strikes, whereas a Yamato would fare less favourable. CV strikes would also migitate bow-on pushes because they'd force the ship to turn to avoid the strike, giving a Montana a better target to shoot vs Yamato. Likewise, the bow on and reverse tactic would be nearly suicide with CVs around because that's a jiucy target if there ever was one and a Yamato could not defend itself from catching several airdropped torpedoes. Montana's AA performance is supposed to be the big equalizer, but with hardly any CVs being around in higher tiers, that balancing vector simply doesn't exist and Yamato can fully exploit its own strengths. WG needs to incentivice CV play and bring the designed meta back from lifesupport.

YUSSSSSS!!!! Hatte garnicht auf dem Plan dass die Sommer Season schon anfängt. 'Shokugeki no Souma' & 'Arslan Senki' <3

Will not return, because WG is refusing to balance overpowered ships because they'd run the risk of having to refund them when some special snowflakes no longer like the ship because they can't roflstomp. WG however has no problem indirectly nerfing premium ships with global AA changes (Yubari), other same tier ships getting buffs that a premium isn't getting (Sims used to be the only t7 US DD that could stealthtorp, now the Mahan can do it even better). So yay for random WG nonsense.

Derps gonna herp. Only thing you can do is maybe chill out on some other game for a while just to get the frustration out of your system and try again later. There are decent players around, you'll find them sooner or later and sometimes they will even be on your team.

Interestingly enough, my stats on the Umikaze are atrocious ... and I hate the Kolberg and Kawachi with a passion.

Not sure if serious or very well concealed sarcasm ... In case of doubt, answer in favour for the former: Personally, I don't own the Iowa (yet, 90k XP to go ... plus however long it'll take me to scrounge up enough credits, with me constantly spending my credits on other ships that I'm simultanously grinding), but looking at the stats it should play more or less the same as the North Carolina. Map knowledge is obviously a thing that will come with time and I personally struggle with that myself, though I typically hold to the maxime of "closest there is and the least amount of hiding places for cruisers and DDs" when I play BBs. As for where to shoot high tier ships, same as with other ships all the time beforehand. Angled or not? Gun arcs is the least of your problems, especially if you do the math with the aim scope: lead indicator is seconds of lead to a BB sized target moving at 20 knots, so of shell travel time is 10 seconds to an Iowa at full speed (~30 knots), aim for the 15 mark on the scope and let loose. Only trouble is people who pay attention and manouver to evade, when the slower than average shell velocity simply gives them more time to change course. High tier meta seems to be the same as before, just slightly more campy. The not being scared to play the ship is probably the biggest issue. I myself have a huge issue like that with the Amagi: that ship simply isn't working with me (plus I have incredibly bad luck whenever I take her out, crap MM, crap teams, bad RNG, blahblah), to the point where I stopped grinding her and went for the US BB line instead ... currently in love with the North Carolina (always hoping to get CVs in the game, because 99 AA rating with AFT and Manual AA control MUAHAHAHAHA).

Me in Ryuujou in a tier VI division, we get put into an overwhelmingly t8 match ... my CV was stock btw. Ended up killing three ships, placed third on the team ... still lost Karma. Not entirely sure by whom, but my best guess would be the Mutsuki who wanted me to scout out the remaining Mahan, the flight path to which was blocked by a squadron of Independence fighters and a Mikhail Kutuzov, so OBVIOUSLY I didn't go there directly and wanted to vector my planes to circumvent certain death, wasn't quick enough, Mutsuki died and we lost on points shortly thereafter. Either that or the enemy Sims that I torpdropped as he was trying to chase me got a bit salty ... what I'm saying is: job done well, instant Karma loss. Good thing I care about pretty numbers, because a couple lost karma points are nothing compared to the ever rising damage numbers . Math is such a beautifully simple thing

No negatives?

Poor player performance is not a viable vector to balance surpreme ship performance, no matter what statistics may tell. Gremy is superiour to the Gnevny in almost every aspect. Same as the MK is superiour to the Chapayev in many ways. Just because a good bunch of players who bought and play her can't exploit the strengths doiesn't mean the ships should just get a free pass for having better performance values.

Kamikaze Rawr and New Dork may not be as widespread as most others.

Combat tonnage?

One BB, not four.

Nanami Tokou aus Brynhildr in the Darkness?

Show me one cruiser who can kill four BBs on its own and I'll show you one good and four bad players. I can't even recall the last time I got killed by fire damage ... in ANY class, least of all BBs who can simply repair most of the fire damage you've taken.

Without a replay I can't say for certain, but this reads like you've been broadside and he wasn't. His armour blocked/bounced most of your shots and yours, well, didn't. Colorado armour is quite formidable around its citadel area, especially when angled. If it was properly angled against your guns (depends on the range), it's quite likely your shots completely bounced off the armour and the only penetrations you got were at the much weaker armoured non-citadel parts of the ship resulting in two overpenetrations (all or nothing armour scheme) -> ~2600 damage as you said. Meanwhile, if you fired with all three turrets and overturned (or otherwise simply showed your broadside), the Colorado's 406mm guns have plenty enough penetration to get past most of your armour and can deal massive damage (even without a citadel penetration a good volley from a Colorado can easily do 16k+ damage just with normal penetrations and much more at closer ranges where more shells hits (say if 6 out of his 8 hit you just for normal penetrations, that's still ~24k damage ... much more with citadel penetrations!).

Lust, auch bekannt unter dem Alias Solaris, aus Full Metal Alchemist.

Actually, you totally can start a sentence with "And" ... or "But" or virtually any other coordinating conjunctions. There is zero grammatical rule that doesn't allow it. Same with ending a sentence with propositions which is another thing people mistakingly think is grammatically incorrect. #TheMoreYouKnow And I could just the same point out that you might want to work on your interpunctuation if you intend to seat yourself on the high horse of superiour understanding regarding linguistics, just something to think about.

Oh oh, pick me, pick me! I HAZ PWETTY NUMBERZ!!! In other news, a sack of rice toppled over in China. Government officials name Leprechauns hired by WG officials as primary culprits and have issued an arrest warrent and staked claim to any pots of gold unearthed by investigations.

Nevermind the whole political discussion (I have little interest in it bar the hilarity that ensues in its wake), but ... How on earth do you manage your tax return?

Both the Shchors and the North Carolina treated me nicely today. Especially the Shchors made my day. That one game with 18 fires set had me laughing like a deranged pyromaniac setting fire to a fireworks warehouse on new year's eve (ihlihl can attest!) The better result was however this one (still not bad with 11 fires, ehehe), von_chom also had a pretty good game in his Pensacola: And here the North Carolina game. Enemy Iowa thought it would be a great idea to try and tango with me at knife fighting range, except he had to turn broadside and I didn't ... cue Devastating Strike on a higher tier battleship, always sweet:

Yup! Jingles isn't exactly an authority on advanced tactics. Basic stuff, aye - but anything that goes beyond using WASD and correct ammounition choice are things he tends to get wrong frequently (also being stuck on outdated mechanics like say the detectability debuff when using the engine boost on DDs, which was patched out long ago). Any ship with solid bow (and preferably deck and conning tower) armour can tank a ridiculously number of AP shells when angled aggressively (depending on your ship's armour layout, you actually want to soften up the angle a bit, because internal armour layouts can be counterintuitive sometimes). Ships that also happen to bear most of their firepower up front are excellent in slowly but steadily steamrolling bow-on (North Carolina, Iowa, Izumo and Yamato are notoriously good at it) and just the same stopping and reversing is at times the smarter decision than turning around, especially if one or two BBs are just waiting and salivating at the thought of shooting into your juicy broadside as you turn. The biggest factor to making this work is of course to make sure no one else can exploit the fact that you are slow (and thus also slow to change course). A CV will gladly accept a willing victim that isn't moving much, as are DDs, plus any cruiser who can shoot your broadside with AP. If you can rule out those threats, tanking and pushing bow-on (or retreating in reverse) is a very, very solid tactic.

ihlihl and me ran into procastrinatingstudent. Sadly wasn't much of a fight thanks to his team's overall performance.

Yeah, no. Lucky coincidence for an otherwise unremarkably performing ship doesn't constitute "evil" by any measure. My original impression of the ship is still decidedly in the "mediocre" category, fully upgraded and modules equipped; doubly so if compared directly with the Kongou.

Ein 21 Backpfeiffen Salut bitte.

If you bracketed the player base according to skill gates, matches would keep being a lively bout. That is of course assuming those brackets would be populated enough so people with above or below average skills actually find matches ... Like I said, ultimately a skillbased matchmaking is systematically impossible.