VC381

Took AP out for an Essex game. A 20k drop on a Freddy and 8k on a Missouri. Not bad I think, didn't get a whole lot else done that game thanks to a Mino but we won anyway. Gonna keep it for now.

I like little quirks like this. Not as impressive, but I got CQE in Atago more than once while retraining a secondary build BB captain. I've toyed with the idea of secondary builds on some cruisers just to troll. Cleveland was a candidate. Also, you can get dreadnought on DDs with Survivability Expert without heals since the achievement uses the base HP.

This happens especially on the Neighbours map and particularly when looking East (although to an extent at all angles). The lack of contrast with the sky and the glare make incoming shells basically invisible. I know different light conditions are realistic and I'm ok with that but in this game some classes rely a lot on dodging and seeing the tracers is an important game mechanic. On this map I've eaten huge damage even when I knew I was being shot at and concentrating on dodging. Is it just me? Any graphics settings I can tweak to improve this?

Kaga (and Hiryu) are exceptions. I've recently re-bought the latter and though I want the former I can't justify the spend. Kaga is actually an excellent example of how I wish all CVs in the game were implemented (Enterprise too). Basically drop some T7s and 8s down 1 tier, maybe 2, so we get iconic big ships with lots of squads earlier, balance by having weaker individual planes and the ships in early variants (less AA), remove time-travelling CVLs and CVEs and fill the gaps with important classes we're currently missing. Like Akagi. Damnit WG why you pick Kaga? If it was Akagi that would have been Apologies for thread derail

It also depends on the reasons you play and what you get out of the game. For me the connection to the real ships is important and the way WG decided to implement CV progression annoys me and makes low and mid tiers pointless for me. Most of the historical big fleet carrier designs are T8+. Also while my micro isn't great I find the low squadron count and small reserves of lower tier ships doesn't satisfy the feeling of air power I want to be getting from a CV. I guess T7 is a sweet spot for MM, but the higher CVs are all powerful in their own right and fun with a bit of practice.

So is the AP drop circle smaller and less RNG dependent?

For me dodging seems to increase the probability of stern hits and even underwater hits or near misses near the stern with BB HE break the rudder. I've had this on all ships, even otherwise well armoured CAs like Atago and Indianapolis. Usually though I just instantly repair and disengage, but if I take a last unlucky hit before being unspotted that's guaranteed fire damage

I haven't played Nagato for a while but aside from being a bit forgotten due to new line releases I don't see why she wouldn't be among the top T7 BBs. If I remember correctly she had the greatest and most accurate firepower at the tier and that hasn't changed. She's decently fast and her armour bounces 14" with ease so doesn't matter if it's New Mexico firing 12 or Lyon firing 16 it's all bouncing off anyway, while the opposite is devastating. I think people have just forgotten or think vanilla = bad. There's always an "omg OP" bandwagon with new ships. But there's very little P2W at T7, with BBs there is none. The player matters more than the ship anyway, people complaining about individual ships are just confessing their lack of understanding.

At least it's not just me then It doesn't happen often enough for me to be desperate to mod it out. But it's good to know it's quite consistent because then I can use it against others. If it was something like e.g. those on low graphics settings see fine that would annoy me more.

Ok I see your point about the lower tier TBs and the fact the more balanced loadout limits damage potential. It seems if I do well supporting the initial cap contest my team wins too fast for me to do much damage, but if my team is losing the enemy grouping and AA is formidable. I'm also wondering if I should take AP DBs. Spotting plus TBs are usually enough to get rid of a pesky DD, I just feel like I need more alpha not DoT.

So I've been doing better in my Essex, although as I said I'm running into complete noobs on the other side. I feel I'm slowly getting back into practice with CVs generally, hopefully I can hold my own next time I meet a worthy opponent. I still have a problem though and that's damage. Even in games where I completely faceroll the enemy CV, strafe everything he has in the air and can bomb at my leisure, I'm not doing much. For comparison, Lex and Sho both 90k average damage. Essex... 50k. What am I doing wrong?

So I've been focusing on IJN DDs recently and although I'm having fun in both T7s my WR is <50% so I guess I'm not doing as well in them as I thought. Anyway Maass is the only mid tier DD I seem to have solidly good results in. Been playing Soviet DDs (Gnevny and Kiev) to see if I can remember if I liked that style before I spend credits on Minsk, but my results aren't great there either. to be honest I remembered we're getting HMS Cossack at some point. That looks like a must have!

Yeah, I get that feeling as well. Problem is, BB HE wipes out cruiser rudders with alarming regularity. Usually a BB firing HE at you is something to laugh at until you get wiped out by the rest of his team because you're stuck sailing in a circle exactly where you don't want to be. Even the ships with so-called frustrating dispersion will rack up way more damage with AP in the long term with correct positioning and patience. It's how averages work. Switching to HE doesn't magically make you get more hits and fires are just as RNG as citadels. What would you rather, a hit every once in a while that does 10k damage or a hit every once in a while that does 2k and maybe another 5k that can be healed? I know we've all had games where we felt the dispersion was against us. Last time I had a game like that I raged and swore all the way to 100k damage. As I said, aim well and the averages work out in your favour with BB AP. Eh... what? Richelieu has jumped to my No.1 most feared T8 BB, maybe most feared T8 ship overall, while playing any class. I got 30k wiped off my health bar in one go when I underestimated one of these and turned in the wrong place in my North Carolina.

Trouble is, I wouldn't mind a new line if I cared about the ships in it, but the French BBs at T6 and 7 are hideous abominations and I have no interest in playing them just to grind Richelieu. I would sooner grind the Free XP and skip the line to T8.

I haven't played any of these ships but from playing against them and just generally at T8 I've found Richelieu to be a very dangerous opponent. When I've seen one in game it was not uncommon for it to carry quite well. My NC couldn't shift it bow on, cruisers and DDs I learned very quickly how dangerous its speed is for you, guns feel very solid on the receiving end. I want one, just too lazy to grind another line.

My first couple of games with Essex I got wrecked and didn't know what hit me. Over the weekend I had a few Essex games where my opposition didn't even strafe. Nothing so sad as a Taiho with no planes and no damage at 10 minutes into the game. When I was training my captain in Saipan I never had a mirror match. Few games in Hiryu all I saw were Rangers that didn't know manual attack. Seems nobody plays Saipan and I think you're fretting too much about Unicums at high tier. Essex is probably easier than Lex because you have parity in fighter squads. Play at the weekend maybe if you want easier (read: braindead) opposition.

Yes, but the way naval warfare revolved around the carrier was something nobody could have foreseen. If hypothetically naval warfare had stayed all gun, intermediate designs in small numbers have a place as "shock squadrons". Although the Alaskas were designed as a response to the rumoured B-65 that never came about, the Iowas would have been better to intercept those rather than giving them a fair fight with a similar ship. But the existance of a group of Alaskas would have made IJN high command think twice about how they used their 8" heavy cruisers, as these could end up outclassed at a moments notice and unable to get away. You don't want to give the enemy a fair fight, you want to concentrate and take out weaker groups in an almost rock-paper-scissors sort of way. With a navy the size of the USN I think their construction made sense to the extent that any large gun armed warship made sense. Also remember that general improvements in material technology made smaller guns and thinner armour proportionally more effective. Alaska would have given most pre-1930s BBs a run for their money if it came to it. I wasn't saying there was a "failure" to the design. They were no doubt powerful ships although as usual with these things they were a bit over-hyped by the allies. I was just saying the Germans were getting surprisingly little cruiser for their tonnage given others achieved similar on less displacement, or better on similar displacement.

Why not heal and smoke and SAP only as with the CLs? I wouldn't mind those bounce angles on 8" AP

The funny thing about that quote is the truth was actually closer to the first half than the second. As built, Mogami was not massively in breach of the treaty but popped welds and sprang a leak from firing a broadside. It was only after strengthening and adding external bulges that they were over the limit, but I guess they weren't seaworthy before that! Even so, Myoko, Takao and Mogami classes in final WWII fit have more or less the same displacement (14,000t full load) across the board. Yeah, I wouldn't mind refitted London being there but there are other cases where I get frustrated with the way different hulls represent the ship. I don't want to feel like I'm being made to choose between playing the ship I want in terms of looks and gameplay competitiveness. There are still a couple of ships kicking around where I would like to play the A-hull for aesthetics but I'm not willing to gimp my HP and rudder shift.

Yeah, sorry I did know that but phrased it wrong. What I meant was nearly every ship in game actually has hugely buffed turret traverse compared to historical (otherwise nearly all BBs would have 90s for 180deg turn), except for the ships that WG wants to "balance" because they would be too strong if they were actually responsive. From a game point of view I much prefer responsiveness to raw power, hence I'm not a huge fan of Myoko, but that's another topic. I think the issue is also that German shipbuilding in the 1930s had lost a decade of experience and were basically picking up WWI practices and desperately trying to update them. Hipper is huge because the turtleback armour scheme is outdated and heavier than it needs to be for the protection offered, plus it's forced to cover a very long citadel because the machinery spaces are bigger than they need to be for the amount of power, and they're heavier than state of the art from other nations. Even the hull is probably too heavy due to not using the most up to date structural design and construction techniques. Basically if you asked someone in 1920 to design a cruiser with 4x2 8" guns and decent armour they would come up with Hipper, while the nations that had actually practiced designing and building those ships for a decade were able to really refine and squeeze the same capability into a smaller hull. Of course, you can phrase it the other way as you have and say the nations that stuck to the limit (and even some that didn't e.g. Japan) were sacrificing structural strength, stability, longevity, crew comfort etc. Japan and Italy were in treaty to start with. Myoko as built looks nothing like her WWII fit, it's really the 1930s refits that pushed the Myoko class well over the 10k. And they were very clever about trying to reduce weight, undulating hulls as you say, or compact machinery with 2 shafts for the Zara class. Basically at least they tried. The Germans look like they didn't even bother, just gave up on optimisation and made the ship bigger until they could get what they wanted. They probably assumed everyone else was cheating the treaty because they didn't believe it was possible to make a ship like that on 10,000t. That's why the Baltimore is historically a much better cruiser than Hipper even though it actually displaces less. The Americans had huge experience in optimisation of design so when they were let loose without limits they squeezed in lots of capability per ton. You could also extend and say the ultimate form of the "unlimited" heavy cruiser is actually Alaska.

Ooh some love for the Minsk! Interesting! I do have a couple of spare Russian captains kicking around, I might give her a go at some point! @RAMJB the reason you don't think T7 DDs are stealthy is because you haven't played Shiratsuyu 5.8km, outspotted only by Kagero and Yugumo and even then only barely.

I would say a refit that adds little to no combat capability while causing structural issues that put the ship in drydock for 4 months on 2 separate occasions to be a failure. Also, most if not all of the counties got their AA upgraded to twin 4". I don't disagree with you London would be a good T7 candidate. The point I'm making is there's nothing special about that refit that warrants it being there more so than any other group of the class, as a separate ship a tier higher or a C hull or whatever. That and while I like the square bridge look on Fiji it looks hideous on London, the Counties deserve to be there in full 3-funnel glory! The speculation on higher tier projects I'm with you and Trainspite on.

To be honest, the Kent-London-Norfolk progression won't make sense in game anyway. They all started with no armoured belts at all (have fun with an A-hull that gets citadelled by CL HE). The Kents got 4.5" armour belts , the Londons 3.5 or 4 and the Norfolks... nothing. So if the top hull is WWII fit, the Kent group would actually be the best to bring into game despite being the oldest. And London is billed as this mythical modernisation but in reality the refit was considered an expensive failure and only slightly improved accommodation and fire control (so little or no game impact, maybe a tiny bit more range or better dispersion but not a tier difference). They're good ships but the way their stats transfer into game puts them in the T6-7 power level.

Yes. Or just number keys where 1, 2 and 3 are HE/AP/torps as usual and 4 and 5 are plane squadrons, with view locked to own ship for 123 and top down for 45...

I would be completely up for this but only if they implement the aviation properly with a true hybrid interface and ability to seamlessly switch between controlling planes to scout an area or even bomb something and controlling own ship to fire guns/torps.