VC381

And why exactly are we balancing a ship around people who are crying for rightly being punished for not knowing what they're doing? Is Montana OP too then? And Hindenburg that can also quite easily do this?

What MM woes? Top tier most of the time against masses of fresh cruiser players grinding new lines? Oh no, better not load AP in case I get reported for cheating. Earnings are similar to other T7 premiums for me. As I said, T7 premiums are good but they don't print credits like T8/9.

How is this a crap-storm? Moskva has better HE DPM and is now tankier bow-on. Why would you pick a Stalingrad in that position instead for CW?

To be honest, not sure about it's overall performance but Alsace is an absolute nightmare for cruisers. Reacts too fast to dodge easily, too many shells too accurately to rely on RNG to save you and then fires again before you can get away. This was necessary IMO, although personally I would have gone for a turret traverse nerf.

It's only a T7 premium, the money is decent but not mind-blowing. It has the range and decent enough HE to just farm safe damage if earning is all you care about. Of course, you can also farm tons of damage with the AP but that requires a bit more work with positioning.

Actually, other games that have this are mainly MOBAs, where the Champions themselves are the content even though the game is the same. As they release more champions, older ones get cheaper. Same here, the ships themselves are the content, the gameplay is largely the same. So why not let people have a bit more easier when there is way more to have instead of arbitrarily saying that dedicating X amount of time to the game will only net you a small and ever-decreasing % of the content the longer the game is around.

To be honest, I'm just as interested (if not more interested) by the Izumo/Yamato news. I have Izumo bought but not played (dreading slightly) and was not looking forward to Yamato because of that ridiculous turret traverse. Now thought... Yamamoto might finally have a flagship!

Interesting news! So full Amagi salvo a tier lower? That's actually quite the buff, this could be very good indeed!

Kronshtadt can already use AP to punish broadsides better than at least half the BBs at T9/10. If Stalingrad has better dispersion than Kronshtadt, even if not to the ridiculous cruiser levels, with that muzzle velocity it's going to be a killer. So the ship is a bit more "standard". So what? It's still a pretty unique huge cruiser with semi-BB guns and it looks great. I don't know if I'll ever be able to get one, but I would not be unhappy with her in this form.

And that's with a lucky weekend and being carried by div mates! If we had done this thread last week you would have had a field day with how much worse I got!

@Sargento_YO what the hell happened to your Hakuryu stats?! Show us on this model aircraft carrier where the big nasty Midway touched you... https://wows-numbers.com/player/535215739,VC381/

That's a bit like someone who played Pensacola 2 years ago saying the new one at T6 is crap without trying.

That is not the Kii to making a good premium Seriously though, I looked at buying Kii as well to replace Amagi after moving to Izumo and also didn't bother. Every review says the accuracy is bad and that's not a sacrifice I'm willing to make for the other gimmicks. IJN BBs are basically defined by their guns and the fact they are the most accurate at medium to long range. For an IJN premium BB we need a largely vanilla ship with awesome guns. I play IJN BBs because I want to nail enemy ships to the seabed at 16-17km. That's why I keep Amagi instead of buying one of her possible premium versions.

Well, I consider Ashitaka awesome purely for existing, because she is a gorgeous ship and I'm a big fan of classic battlecruisers, but I didn't buy her. I wanted to for a long time, I really enjoy Mutsu, but reading up about her, it seems to me WG really missed the mark and Ashitaka would not be as fun to play as I expect. That's a shame for me and I wouldn't normally ask for buffs for a ship just because I didn't like her style. But very few people seem to think she's passable in game. And if even the people that would buy her primarily for her looks and design not any OP playstyle are shying away because she doesn't look fun... then yeah the ship needs buffs. As for what kind, well, Ashitaka is a battlecruiser, so the focus shouldn't be on survivability, it should be on firepower and handling. Obviously her guns class her as a BB but she should have some cruiser characteristics. In game this means good handling so she can perform the reactive cruiser role, flanking, taking out targets of opportunity. Mainly, I would buff accuracy, rudder shift and turret traverse to make her more comfortable and reliable. If you look at other battlecruisers e.g. Hood and upcoming Prinz Eitel Friedrich, they share this theme of excellent gun handling to be able to react fast. The poor shells are fine for balance if they are accurate enough to deliberately aim for upper belts where you can penetrate, or noses you can overmatch.

It's actually impressive how fast you can rattle through this when you're really trying. I bought some prem and flags to hard-grind some T10s for CW and ended up doing stages 2 and 3 of this campaign in just over a week only repeating 1-star missions. I'm burned out now though so no rush with stage 4.

@MoveZig sounds like you're trying to over-optimise. You don't get any achievement for using all your consumables. Don't over-think it, heal when you think you need to. Of course you can afford to wait longer than other BBs and bait, but ultimately it's just practice. You can't predict the kind of damage you're going to take, the only information you need is "is the grey bar fairly big to make it worth using a heal" and "is there enough green bar for me to be safe if I don't". If the answer to the second is "no" you press T regardless of other factors.

I don't see any reason to use the 8km. Especially in CW, stealth torp for denial is absolutely fantastic. 8km is suicide range, and TBH if you're that close the 12km torps will hit anyway (and hit harder) you don't need the extra speed from the F3s.

I have not seen a single Henri in CW yet, I assumed it was useless but may watch out now. Doesn't the lack of stealth limit positioning options?

Since when? This season we're running double Zao most of the time (I'm usually one of them) and the stealth+speed+DPM+torps combo is a critical part of the team composition. I've got a lot of use out of the 12km torps, as have the other Zao players in Clan. I've seen very few teams without a Zao. It is unique in its ability to flank/kite and it seems to me you want at least one as it's universal and fits basically any comp. How is it weak in your opinion?

So I'm someone that generally likes ships and I want to try a bit of everything. I'm quite quick to work out if I like something or not, but I'm also quick to get bored of things or ignore/skip things I don't like. It took me 3000 total games before I played 200 games in a single ship. I worked out my average games per ship was 29 which didn't sound like much, so that got me wondering if I'm weird like that or if others also prefer spreading to specialising. So how easily are you distracted? Fill in your numbers in your reply: Games played: 3725 Games in most played ship: 248 Ships played: 129 Average games per ship: 29

Yup. Normandie given a completely nonsensical speed upgrade (even a full rebuild of a ship like that would only have bumped her up to 23-25 knots at most) because "12x 340mm guns too weak at T6 so they had to give her something". Despite the fact that's the standard broadside at T6 and Normadie massively power creeps both New Mexico and Fuso.

DM itself hasn't changed for a long time, the existance of new ships doesn't magically "outdate" the builds just because they are a bit older. I think Flamu's build is pretty solid. Depending on how much you care about AA, you might not need AFT so that's 4 points to spend on something else. JoaT is very nice to shorten radar CD (I'm using this for CW). I know most people don't use EM but the turrets are quite slow, so I like that too. My final build will be: PT EM SI CE DE AR JoaT PM EL

Aha, interesting spread. Seems I'm fairly average, not sure if I should be reassured by that... Hmm... yes, there are some quite consistent lines so I guess it's not so much a search for a completely different style, but it still shows an impatience to progress for its own sake, and wide interest even in things that are only slightly different. And you won't forgive me a bit of clickbait? A level of dedication I can't say I can even identify with, but one I salute nevertheless

I think this is a general problem, highlighted by the recent flood of ships to the shop. I'm pretty sure in the 2.5 years I've been playing premium ship costs have gone up 30% (though this might be partly an exchange rate issue). And at the same time the number of premiums has exploded, as has the number of lines to play normally. So while I don't have a problem in principle with blowing £30 on a ship, I'm increasingly reluctant to do it because a) I don't just want one ship and b) I have so many other ships I know I won't play it enough to get the return I feel makes it worth it. It's an overwhelming and expensive choice for newbie and veteran alike, I think if that's their plan they need a global premium cost reduction alongside the growing selection.

Yeah, just something to remember and practice I guess. Still, an odd and sudden shift at the end of a very consistent line.