VC381

Absolutely, I'm a huge fan of the US and RN cruiser lines and the upcoming CL split looks like a great new spin on existing US with some elements of RN style. Really interesting new ships. I'm just acutely aware a lot of players don't share that opinion of those lines, so I'm expecting salt and backlash in some form. As for dazzle camo, yes it's cool but doesn't make a lot of sense on what looks to be a correct in-game model for a 1942 Helena. We're already likely to have tons of dazzle, historical or not, at the higher tiers. Measure 21 may be boring but damn if those deep blue ships don't look menacing. Also there is the splotchy Measure 12 (modified) that could be a good source of premium camo for the mid tier ships.

@Lotara_Sarrin it is a question of attitude. You're asking for advice but actively arguing against the suggestions using a few anecdotes. It's not statistically possible for your teams to be always bad and the enemy not. There's frustration and confirmation bias in what you write. The quirk of teamplay is that if your team isn't doing what you expect, even if you're doing the "right" thing, you're wrong for thinking there's something you can do alone to carry. There's no point saying X tactic doesn't work because of the team. If the tactic is good and you keep doing it, it will work more often than not. Adapt the tactic to each game, play smart don't try too hard, don't blame the team, and if you do your best you will win more over time.

Absolutely would be, shame we won't see it because WG cares less about historical accuracy than pandering to players who think one colour is "boring" and won't buy premium camo unless it's an 8-year olds idea of awesome.

Hey, I'm allowed to be a bit emotional too sometimes it's hard work trying to be the voice of reason in countless other exaggerated whine threads. I guess what I'm trying to say is, Shinonome ruined the other T6 IJN DDs for me. IMO it's a much better implementation of how I want the Fubuki class to "feel" in game than the silver Fubuki, so the latter left a bad taste for me. Could be I wasn't playing it well enough, could be just playstyle mismatch, but my experience was that the small difference in torp setup was the proverbial last straw on the camel's back between those two ship's.

Remember there are 11 strangers on your team and 12 on the enemy, so by probability alone (and assuming you yourself are competent) the enemy team is more likely to potato than yours. It's a question of attitude. Stop focusing on what your team is doing and do your best. If sometimes that requires swallowing your pride and being a camping lemming that can work too, if the enemy overextends and you're there to take advantage. Don't try to carry it results in frustration and bad plays. Play your ship well and win rate will come in the long term. Even the best divisions cant carry every game between them, it's actually quite hard for 1 person out of 24 to be the decider. In my experience one of the best things you can do to "enable" your team is to draw fire. Sounds dumb but if you can take it and live that means your fellow potato is alive and doing damage, and feeling less threatened, so more likely to push. Take a fast BB or a heavy cruiser, flank, poke some people, dodge and kite and watch the enemy team tunnel vision on you and fail while your team takes advantage. Risky but rewarding. Kongo is the best low tier ship to try this trick in. Also short of CV play the best way to hunt DDs is to take a cruiser. That needs practice too but nobody said this would be easy.

Thing is, these ships will be short ranged with slow arcs and no smoke. So while their DPM is monstrous in theory they will be hard to play for the same reasons US cruisers are currently. I'm hugely looking forward to them but I think some of the people speculating OP are going to try them out and come back crying the opposite.

Every T6 DD except Aigle has faster torps than Fubuki/Hatsuharu by at least 3 knots, some 6 or more. OK some of them are cripplingly short ranged which makes them worse overall, but as you say if you pick the right targets you don't need range. Difference of experience I suppose but I find speed to be the most important stat on a torpedo, if you actually care about aiming it deliberately. With Fubu/Hatsu I felt I was just dumping torps into a void and occasionally getting hits out of sheer dumb luck or enemy stupidity. Even the slight speed bump at T7 makes a huge difference. Shira/Aka are way more fun to torp with than the previous two. As I said Shinonome's combination of 63kt/8km is about perfect for T6. Gaede is the best as @Panocek said, with a slightly faster 65kt/8km.

I found T6 IJN torps borderline unusable. The stock ones have no range. The upgraded ones are waaaayyyy too slow. And I don't even mean reaction time, it's just if you're actually torping at 8-10km even the most potato player will usually find some reason to turn before your torps are anywhere near him and whoops, salvo wasted. IMO the only actually enjoyable IJN DD at T6 is Shinonome.

Although Martel is the only T8 cruiser I haven't played, looking at the stats it seems she's power-creeped the tier quite a bit. Baltimore coming down isn't going to help. While I'm personally OK with Hipper I do have to wonder, given how widely disliked she is, if there are buffs incoming.

Since they made them available for use I've been using spare ARP captains in various mid tier IJN ships I've kept or re-bought. Recently though when I play e.g. Fuso with Hiei as the captain I get regular Japanese voiceover (sound settings to "National", ARP enabled in filters). I didn't have time to test with them in an actual ARP ship, but I thought the voiceover was tied to the captain, not the ship, no? Is this a bug?

Well, I don't mind on one hand because I don't play the ARP ships that much so I just get normal voices in IJN ships. On the other hand, I tend to use Hiei (I have at least 3) and Kongo because their voices are... mmmm... let's just say not squeaky ;)

As I said, don't really know how to explain why I like Hipper/Eugen. In the same way you say you feel handcuffed for me it just comes together. Just a difference of playstyle and expectation. I do use both rudder shift modules to help with the agility.

The thing about Hipper's DPM is it relies on armour penetration (the HE as well) and to an extent target selection. It's not a cruiser you are meant to spam a single target with. The strength of the guns is that between the fast turret traverse and excellent muzzle velocity you have a large effective threat radius around you. You can switch targets when other cruisers would take too long to do so and hit reliably for good damage at ranges impractical for most. I think the dislike comes from a different expectation of what a cruiser should do. It's not a ship that holds your hand and shows you how to play it, or that you can fall back on a lazy safe playstyle. It's an opportunist that relies on versatility and reacting to change and it's constant work, but it is effective.

Yeah, IJN AP is a bit unreliable in the penetration department though and as @AnotherDuck said you can pre-load your AP only for the target to turn slightly and that's your shot wasted. Besides the HE is god tier so less incentive to switch. Don't get me wrong I do use AP on IJN CAs and get the odd devastating strike on a cruiser but it requires setup and a bit of luck. Of all the ships to not switch ammo on, they're the most understandable case. Now if you're USN and don't care if they angle, or German and can quickly train turrets on another unsuspecting target, then AP is really worth it and the switch is low risk.

Thanks, I saw some of the older bug reports but they weren't recent so I thought it was already fixed. Happy to wait. National at the moment works to give all other ships in the battle radio responses in their language, which I like, I assume they would keep that with "+".

What you say makes sense but everything about the way CVs is balanced is really "all or nothing". Either you catch someone you can strike and delete them, or you can't strike at all. Either you win the air war and spot for free or you lose it and can't spot at all. Either you strafe or they strafe and one way or another one of you now holds all the cards. I've always advocated for example having more squadrons and/or more planes in each but with less HP and less bomb/torpedo damage per plane. So you can go do your strike, lose some planes, get a few hits anyway, get some damage that isn't so devastating the target cries for a week, do it again more frequently. Everything just needs normalizing a bit in my opinion.

Because cruisers are difficult to play and don't hold your hand and perscribe the playstyle to you. That means people prefer to whine on the forums about how cruisers are obsolete instead of actually learning to play them. It's OK though, DDs don't really hard-counter BBs these days. What it does mean for you as a BB player is that you need to find those few cruisers on your team, push with them and back them up if you expect them to do their bit for you.

Actually that's one reason I like Algerie. She's surprisingly similar to Eugen in playstyle.

Thanks, you seem to as well good to see Eugen get some love, her and Hipper are really under-appreciated. For me it's a ship that just "clicks", I wouldn't be able to explain what to do to someone who doesn't like it, I just do and it works!

Shchors is a good ship, but it can be a bit binary. Either sit at long range and eventually farm tons of damage but have no game impact, or try something aggressive and get deleted. If you find the balance between those though, you're on to a winner. I don't have hugely fond memories of it but it's pretty high in my stats of T7 cruisers so I must have been doing something right. Think I even got a couple of Krakens in it which is not bad in 18 games.

I think generally getting a bit more cruiser experience will help with your issues. Algerie can be played a bit more aggressive after some practice, but for now stick to medium ranges (12-15km) and focus on improving your aim. The guns are hard hitting but slow firing, you rely as much on direct HE damage as fires. Try to be on the side your team is on and flank instead of kiting, use the amazing turret traverse to switch targets often and aim for whoever is making themselves easier to hit, or whoever your team is already focusing to bring them down quicker. As for BBs firing at you, take captain skills Priority Target or Incoming Fire Alert. Cruiser play means learning to dodge, and Algerie is quite good at this. Use speed boost when under fire to make their aim harder and plan your turns when you see the shots in the air. You can troll a lot of BBs if you get good at this.

I would advise against sticking your fingers in too many pies especially if you level the captain slowly because you might be left with half a build missing something you need and many hours grinding away from the captain points. You can make yourself a no-fly zone but given CV population at the moment this is situational at best, wasted points in most games. My personal opinion is that Vigilance isn't a useful skill. Sometimes in NC you can push quite hard but the ship is agile and with practice you can "feel" when torps are incoming, you don't need to spend 3 points to help you there. AR is fantastic. Actually I have same build as you and took AR at 12 points, now I have 14 deciding what to spend those 2 on. On Amagi I run a survivability build with High Alert and Jack of all Trades. The cool down on damage control is insane, you can basically alternate DCP and Repair and live through a lot. I think if you're going to spend 4 points on survivability that combo is more flexible and useful than Fire Prevention.

The battlecruiser magazine explosions at Jutland had little or nothing to do with the design of their armour. This was a myth spread at the time as an easy answer and to an extent cover up, and has been debunked. Tiger is noted as having taken direct hits to the main belt which failed to penetrate. There are no recorded direct citadel penetrations on the Lion class at either Dogger Bank or Jutland. There is some argument that turret protection could have been better, but the German battlecruisers at Jutland got nearly all their turrets disabled between them as well so they weren't really superior in this regard. The only differences that resulted in detonations on the British side were a combination of volatile cordite chemistry and poorly designed/implemented safety protocols. And yes, battleship design went through iterations and multiple proposals but the purpose of these was to investigate options. They would deliberately vary the % displacement allocated to propulsion, artillery, protection etc. to balance the ships at different points and compare. My point is only that the designs eventually chosen for construction in the 1930s seemed to lean towards the higher speed and heavier armament end of the design proposal spectrum. There was nothing stopping people building 23 knot BBs with 12x 16" guns and very wide immunity zones from those guns on 35k tons. They chose not to. They chose speed at the cost of a narrower IZ. That's an extension of battlecruiser design.

As you say, by WWII immunity zones got pretty narrow. This is implicitly accepting that range is part of a BBs protection, which is the same idea the British designed their battlecruisers to. The armour was not an afterthought, it was designed to be as thick as it needed to be given the expected engagement parameters of the ships. The Lion class was a pretty balanced design, their 9" belts sufficient to keep out German 28cm and 30.5cm shells at expected combat ranges, as shown by the beatings Lion and Tiger took at Jutland. Of course all designs consider elements of protection, it's just where the balance point falls. How wide does an immunity zone need to be to consider a ship balanced? It doesn't seem like arguments were made in the 1930s for widening immunity zones at the expense of firepower.

Good analysis but I take issue with peddling the "accepted wisdom" that battlecruisers were fundamentally flawed. If anything they were just ahead of their time and are vindicated in spirit by all the BB designs of the 1930s, and to an extent by carriers as well. Let me explain. One of the reasons the Invincible design turned out the way it did was due to the RN testing their new 12" guns Dreadnought would use. They worked out the guns could not penetrate 6" of armour belt beyond about 15,000 yards. If you're building an all big gun ship that can fire all its guns that far and is fast enough to stay that far, it's actually perfectly logical to not use more than the minimum required armour and dedicate weight savings to speed. Of course, it was a bit arrogant and short-sighted to assume other nations (or technological progress in general) would not produce better guns and shells, but the underlying principle is sound. It's exactly the same line of thinking as the "immunity zone" concept that dominated battleship design a couple of decades later. The early battlecruisers were not wrong, they were just rapidly left behind by the arms race that nobody could really have predicted. By the 1920s and '30s it was accepted that it was impossible to armour a battleship fully against its own guns so the protection was designed for a certain range band. Note that no 1930s BB is slower than 27 knots, and several are considerably faster. Speed, firepower and gun range put armour in the back seat, just as it did with battlecruisers. Except that technology had now reached a point where it was possible to balance the design a bit better so it was not so obviously min-maxed. Nevertheless, BB armour schemes were invalidated by developments in shell technology and unexpected battle conditions during the war, just as they were in WWI. In many ways the traditional BB died in WWI and WWII fast BBs are the descendents of the design legacy of Battlecruisers. The reason I mention carriers is because they are the battlecruiser concept taken to the logical extreme. Replace guns with planes and focus on delivering the longest ranged, most powerful first strike possible so that you don't need any armour at all. Even before the carrier decisively bested the battleship, armour was already dead. Naval warfare was about being in the right place at the right time (speed) and striking first decisively (firepower). Fisher was visionary with his battlecruisers but technology and doctrine could not quite achieve his vision in his time.