VC381

Hmm... this is tempting but I already have the Atago (and love it). Worth having both?

I know a lot of people sing its praises but I'm still finding the guns lackluster. I now switch to HE if I'm firing at any US battleship or at a Nagato, AP is a waste of time on those. I appreciate all the tips of course but I'm taking a break from the ship because it just got too frustrating.

... I feel I have to say this. When I queue for a game, I get in within 5 seconds 90% of the time, within 15 seconds 9% of the time, and maybe if I'm unlucky 1% of the time I need to wait 30 seconds. I can only assume that everything which is bad about the MM boils down to this, the fact it simply doesn't have enough time to work! I have to assume this is a deliberate decision by WG to aim for crazy short queue times at the expense of everything else and it's actually a bit insulting. Do they really think we are all so stupid/impatient/short attention span that we will ragequit the game if we don't get battles the instant we click "to battle"? With 20,000 people online, think how many battles end each minute, therefore how many players are added to the pool. Wouldn't we all happily pay a small penalty in queue time (1 minute really isn't that long) for properly balanced games?

Yes, funny how the game meta twists real life advantages into either "meh" or outright disadvantages. Still, that little bit of extra armour should give you some breathing room to angle a bit less and still be protected? I've been thinking actually, the laziest ship in game is the Ibuki given she's functionally a Mogami clone, both IRL and in game. The only other ship "progression" that makes that little sense is the Dresden > Kolberg setup but at least those are low tier so you can grind past them quickly (if you wish, I had fun in both). But Ibuki? It's not that Mogami is bad (I don't have it but I'm sure it isn't) but at that tier you expect a new/better ship for your hours of progress not the same thing with a different name. The thing that bugs me based on what you said is that cruiser progression basically stagnates from Tier 7 to 9. At the same time, Battleship progress over those tiers jumps in leaps and bounds (think Iowa vs. Colorado). Big shift in balance between the two types. Then the Tier 10 cruisers seem to be a quantum leap. The power curves just aren't very consistent.

Well, I'm convinced. I finally scraped my 4th win in the Fuso, and it was on a game where I did 7k damage and basically didn't do anything. Two games before that I had 70k+ damage and lost both. Having said that, I think I've got used to the aiming and positioning enough to get decent damage (my average damage has crept up to approximately my ship HP, which I believe is considered "OK"?) but I'm still not really enjoying the ship.

Baltimore in theory should be significantly better than the treaty cruisers, I guess that doesn't translate into the game.

Excellent idea. She is the counterpart design to the Amagi so almost certainly would land at Tier 8. Amagi's armor is nothing to write home about either, it's more than Lex but not by much. It might be a bit too weak at Tier 8 but it would be hugely OP at tier 7 so not much you can do with it. Also premium ships are specific ships so wouldn't use class names. There were 6 of these planned so no shortage of names, my choices would be Constellation or Constitution.

Fine, I got a bit cocky about my Kongo exploits but I wasn't refering to my damage. I meant that when I play it, I feel like I can put myself somewhere useful and even if I don't get great damage I feel the flank I rush down tends to go in my teams favor just because enemy cruisers freak out that there's a Kongo leading the charge and crossing their T and start running, while if you're tanking them and occasionally deleting one, your cruisers are more confident and left alone to deal their damage more easily. Basically what I meant is, doing that feels awesome! I'm not getting the same feeling when playing the Fuso even if my damage is better. BTW two games just now, first one I killed an enemy Fuso and a Colorado (not 100 to 0 but ~50k total damage), mostly because I was too far down one flank before I realised there were no cruisers there but I thought I may as well. I look up to find I am last man standing, with salvos from another Colorado and a Nagato crashing down, and a torp wall from a Minekaze... Second game I took 90% of a Furutaka's health off in one salvo (he actually accused me of aim botting, I take pride in that) then sank an Omaha... before finding myself alone on my half (strait map) and ganged up on by two carriers and a Warspite. More losses to my Fuso record...

Well, sounds like I'm trying to do the right thing some of the time, sometime not. I'm definitely not sniping, I gave up on that tactic back with the Myogi. Quite the opposite, whenever I feel I'm not doing enough damage I just close the range further, so I end up in a lot of close (I guess too close) fights. I guess I'm also fighting battleships too much instead of cruisers, which is strange because I always made cruiser killing my priority in the Kongo. Again I just feel the ship isn't fast enough or agile enough to get into, and stay in, that sweet spot range especially against cruisers, so you're basically relying on them being stupid and coming to you (the detection range doesn't help). That and battleships are just playing so passive these days I get no support. I realise this is my fault if I rush ahead, but again the Kongo can get away with pushing/rushing with a couple of cruisers helping, the Fuso it seems can't. Anyway thanks for the tips, I'll keep trying, because I do eventually want the Nagato and Amagi, see if I can get used to it.

Yeah, there is of course on element of learning to play better as I go up the tiers but it's not just the NCs when I get up-tiered. Basically the only BB I can reliably citadel is a Kongo or another Fuso, everything else bounces or at least leaves me at the mercy of the RNG despite the 12 shells. I feel if both me and my opponent are angling and trading shots I'm going to lose that duel. I'm also used to doing some stupid things in my Kongo and getting away with it because of the speed, I've not actually played a "slow" BB (and I realise Fuso is faster than the US ones but still) so I'm a bit lost as to where on the map I should be going and how to deal with the fact I can't be somewhere else at short notice.

Oh yeah, I forget the healing is a special thing. To be honest I struggle to understand how WG can justify spreading all those classes (Myoko, Takao, Mogami, Ibuki) across three whole tiers. I mean, they're great ships I'm glad they're in game, but really there is not a whole lot of difference between them (RL performance wise).

Now that I realise the Furutaka was added to the tree and there used to be a gap at Tier 5, it makes even less sense that they didn't use the Agano there. I mean, the Furutaka and Aoba are half-sisters, the only reason WG can justify them being different tiers is by having Furutaka "as built" and Aoba in fully upgraded WWII spec.

I don't see how 15km range is so bad. The Atago "only" has 15.7km and to be honest I usually don't fire outside of ~12km. All the IJN heavy cruisers do 36 knots and have excellent concealment values, you can close on anything you like without being seen and vanish again if things go wrong. I don't feel the need to use very long range fire. That turret traverse though... WTF. I mean, why?! Are the triple 155mm turrets really heavier than the twin 200mm? I'm actually enjoying the Karlsruhe and am doing surprisingly well in it considering everyone goes on about how crap it is.

I don't find the turret layout particularly wonky, I can't think of a much better way to get 10 guns onto a ship if you're hell-bent on sticking to twin turrets only. I find that the good arcs + fast rudder response allow you to get all guns on target without exposing citadel too much. Mogami's layout is slightly better (don't have that yet), but I still assume the No.2 turret can't fire directly ahead? Actually I'm kind of excited about the Mogami to play her in "flamethrower" setup. I know it got nerfed by the captain skill changes but if I play Myoko and Atago it would just feel too similar to play Mogami with the 8" configuration as well.

Well, I should say I'm not really interested in playing DD, I know I said I like the ninja thing but the "sneak, torp, hide, die as soon as you're spotted" style sounds too extreme for me. Aside from that I am looking forward to the other things you mentioned (maybe except the Tier 10s, would take me forever to get there). I got the Fuso and used free XP to get it out of stock, but I'm not yet sold on it being so amazing. I get nice damage numbers (about 80k which is quite a lot for me) but at the same time it doesn't feel as satisfying or decisive as the Kongo. It's not fast enough to hunt cruisers or rush a flank and fold the enemy force, so I'm finding myself just trading blows at medium range with other BBs. I angle and weave but so do they and I almost never get citadels, so the fights end up long and slow and I take a lot of damage as well. It's not bad but it will take some getting used to I think. On another note, I saw the St Louis only does 22 knots and ran a mile. Actually I skipped all the way to Omaha and that IS a fun ship!! I die a lot but I also get good damage, the rudder response and rate of fire are excellent. If Cleveland is more of the same but with more/better guns and firing arcs I'm looking forward to this!

If you can show me where to buy one...

Well, I use the steering gear mod on my Atago making my rudder shift ~6s. But even with that mod a Hipper shift would be around 9s (11s base shift upgraded hull), a Pensacola would be something like 5.5s. Maybe I'm worrying about it too much. I think you're right that I probably shouldn't just skip ships with free XP, or at least not until I've worked out that I dislike them. It's just tempting because low tier play doesn't really appeal to me. I like many of the ships but the battles are usually a huge clusterf***, I feel that at higher tiers I can expect some degree of competence and teamwork and more fun/closer battles (wishful thinking!). I also want to play certain ships because I just like those ships (I'm a big naval history geek) so I'm trying to balance that with whether my expectations of them would fit my playstyle given the way they are in game. From that thread though I see good points about the Pensacola turning up. I kind of wish we had a Northampton or Portland, those are really beautiful ships, but that's off-topic I think I'll put my Karlsruhe aside for a bit and next time I'm bored I'll free XP the Chester and see what I can make of the St Lois. At the very least, since the US tree seems easy mode to Tier 6, I won't feel like I'm wasting my time or frying my nerves trying to grind a Pensacola (which is more than I can say for the Furutaka, might skip that one when I feel next like advancing IJN cruisers).

The thing that worries me most about the German cruisers is their long rudder shift times (especially Hipper), I think I like the sound of them apart from that. I am also somewhat tempted by the Pensacola despite everyone saying it's a bad ship. Seems to have good damage, turns well. OK it's made of paper but it's not the only thing that's badly armored and I'm trying to work out what makes it so bad. As I said US is one thing I haven't even started but I'm leaning towards that line at the moment based on what people are saying.

Thanks! Well, I was never planning to give up the IJN BBs, I want to keep the Kongo and in the meantime get the Amagi, I'm sure I will enjoy the Fuso and Nagato in between. I was mainly wondering which cruiser line I should go for. You raise an interesting point with the Cleveland, I overlooked it but it could be interesting and sitting at Tier 6 not that hard to get to. Or maybe I should get it before they split the US line into CL/CA and "upgrade" it to tier 8 or something.

I haven't played my Atago a lot and I admit I am slightly out of my depth since I bought it to skip the grind, but I still feel this can't just be me. I had a game where I had about 40 shell hits, where I did 20k damage. That means I was doing less than 500 damage per shell on average. This against other Tier 7 and 8 cruisers. Then another game, I was fighting a Cleveland, 10km range, he was perfectly broadside on, no effort to dodge. I hit him square in the middle of the ship, 6 hits one salvo... 3k damage... 8 hits next salvo! Wow!... yeah... 2k total damage... seriously?! Again, I'm willing to accept this is somehow my fault for being a noob, as long as someone explains it well because to me it seems like either the shells are made of wet paper or the RNG seriously hates me.

I've been thinking about this problem because it might be preventing a lot of potentially interesting ships (armored cruisers, pre-dreadnoughts) from being viable in the game. The basic problem is that these ships relied on all of their guns for their firepower, but in game they would be split by main and secondary. Now the main guns would be impressive in size but few in number and have very poor rate of fire. The secondaries would potentially be devastating but in game secondaries are heavily nerfed in terms of range and accuracy and are AI controlled. Example of this problem is Mikasa (I don't own it but from what I read it suffers exactly the issues I will describe). Really something like an armored cruiser might have a pair of 8" or 9" guns and a dozen or more 6" guns. So it should have the firepower of a St Louis plus every 30 seconds or so it would also fire a pair of bigger guns. Except with the current main/secondary split, the player would have a very unsatisfactory experience trying to hit things with a par of slow reloading guns while the AI controlled his secondaries in a way that makes them far less effective than they should be. Basically the game would turn a ship that should eat a light cruiser for breakfast into a useless heap of junk with "only 2 guns" that would be hugely out-DPMed by technically weaker ships. The most obvious solution would be for the game to allow the player to switch control and fire the secondaries manually while the main battery is reloading. This I believe is very unlikely (and also unnecessary, see below). I doubt WG would make such a fundamental change to their game mechanic and it opens a can of worms as to whether other ships (hello IJN BBs) should or should not have the same privilege. The second solution would be to make their secondaries stronger, or rather to nerf them less, relatively to other ships, so the overall power of the ships is balanced. This would also combo very well with those new Captain skills. Unfortunately this would leave a very unsatisfying player experience (you would still only be manually controlling two guns) and basically have AI+RNG playing the game for you. The it's either too easy/boring if the AI is too good, or too hard if it sucks. Balance nightmare. Now my proposal, and it's actually very simple. Have all different gun sizes available to fire with the same mouse button. So turrets 1+2 would be your big guns and turrets 3, 4, 5 etc. your small guns. Exactly same as now but your guns aren't the same size. It's then up to the player to decide how to use the firepower. The advantage would be having bigger guns (though only a few of them) but the disadvantage would be that if you salvo-fire at long range your shots from different gun types won't land together (different flight times). At really long range only your big guns would be ready to fire, as the others would be out of range. So you could learn to fire 1+2, change aim, fire the rest (several times due to shorter reload), change aim fire 1+2 when ready etc. etc. It adds a big element of player skill to what might be a hard to balance ship otherwise. What do you think? Can mixed caliber ships be implemented in a balanced and satisfactory way? Should they? Do you like my proposed solution?

That's why I said, to do this only for ships that really need it (those that were by design using multiple calibers as their "main" battery) not for all battleships. Yeah, actually I like this idea. They could be on '3' but as a sort of consumable, aim at target ship, press 3, big guns aim and fire, 40 sec cooldown or whatever. IRL their reload times were pretty long anyway. You also hit the nail on the head, it's ships like Minotaur that I would really like to see in game and play.

Absolutely my thoughts as well. In fairness when I asked I kid of asked wrong, since I was also asking if we could have a "view from the bridge" in game and that kind of took over my topic more than the exploring the ship in port part. So I'll try not to derail yours because I'm curious about answers as well Oh, one thing you can do, if you click on the right on where your main armament stats are, it will zoom in on your guns and go from one to another.

I asked about this a couple of weeks ago the answer was basically no I think someone said there is a way to mess with the camera in port but they didn't give any details.

You can't judge their tier only based on how they perform against other ships of the same type. The danger with up-tiering something like a Deutschland so that it doesn't club cruisers is that it will be free food for BBs, where it won't have the speed or agility of an equivalent cruiser to dodge shots nor the armor of an equivalent battleship. It would be a dedicated cruiser killer, and a very good one, no doubt about it, but that alone is not justification for putting somewhere where other factors would make it very weak overall.