VC381

Your Fiji setup is basically the bread and butter and will work on everything, Cleveland included. For Cleveland though you have the option of building an AA monster so you can grab the AA range module in slot 2. Cruisers are generally much more accurate than BBs so the aiming system is not essential, but usually everything else in that slot is trash so you get it anyway. Although Cleveland also can work with the turret traverse module there as her fully upgraded guns are a bit sluggish and the rate of fire compromise is minor. But that's just playstyle preference, unlock everything on the ship first and see if you feel like you need it. For higher up, basically the same stuff in all those slots is pretty standard. It's just the choices in the new slots at T8 and T9 that get really interesting.

Teeechnically... Only Baltimore and DM have Superheavy AP. But Pensacola and NO still get the US special bounce angles which makes it so strong. You went concealment module then?

Yup, speed varying is key to dodging. But I'm not sure the game handles power settings and deceleration accurately, which means going reverse is unnecessary. I think (haven't tested) that you get full deceleration as long as you're on a setting less than your current speed. So down to half is usually enough for a handbrake dodge and it means you have less delay going back up to full. Plus there is less fingerwork to it. With a fast enough rudder (5s is the magic number for me) you can play a bit of dodging mind games. Try flashing a bit more broadside as you expect the enemy is about to fire before turning hard away (with a slow if you like). Most people will either assume you're an idiot or overestimate your first turn and underestimate how fast you can reverse it. They will widen their lead and fire just as they realise too late you're not turning where they expected. It works with multiple enemies as long as they're all in a fairly narrow arc. NO is not a super horrible stock grind although the rudder shift from B hull is pretty crucial. Other than that, the RoF is the best thing about the upgrades but stock has better turret traverse so it makes your life easier in other ways.

I think it could work and it would mean some interesting light cruisers can be higher tier with tricks to help them (smoke, good stealth etc.) while some heavy cruisers can be lower tier without being OP if the class is supposed to be balanced like that. And it would mean more ships in game generally and examples of each type at all tiers for an interesting experience But this can only really work for nations that built lots of ships to fill both CA and CL lines. It wouldn't be worth it if >50% was obscure project drawings. Plus we kind of already have a difference. Some nations have mostly light cruiser lines, some heavy, I don't think they need to add e.g. different map symbols for CL/CA. So basically it would just be nice if they added more lines and balanced them differently if they are light or heavy. I think the real test of this concept will be if/when they split the US cruisers.

If I leave the sunshine and rainbows for a bit and put on my critical hat, I do have a couple of suggestions that could improve cruiser role identity and survivability. Cruisers should "cruise" (it's in the name). What this means is they are the ships which would be deployed to deal with objectives that were important but either too dangerous for BBs or too far away for slow BBs to reach. This can be done in game with map and cap design. We basically need layouts that force BBs to commit without being able to easily return or cover the rest, which then can be done by cruisers. Some maps are already very good for this, some aren't. The point is to create a definite objective "job" for cruisers that BBs would be unwilling or unable to contribute to, leaving the cruisers to decide that outcome before returning. Battleships should be fighting battleships. Cruisers and battleships fought side by side in a number of surface engagements, but no captain that valued his life and career focused fire on the smaller ships first. The reduction in bow plate was in my opinion the best change that never happened. BBs have the biggest guns so they should have both the incentive and, crucially, effective ability to use them on the targets hardest to sink. Worse stealth for BBs would also be a step in the right direction (people will mindlessly shoot what they can see). Less "no sell" in bow tanking another better one (people don't shoot what they know they can't damage damage). Maybe some "partial penetration" mechanic so that damage is less binary, or a stacking accuracy buff for staying on the same target multiple shots in a row. Either way, something to keep BBs occupied with each-other and reduce the *twitch* "ooh cruiser, shoot that" reaction that is rather illogical.

All valid points, but still a playstyle choice. The reason I like rudder shift is because to fully use stealth you need to not shoot. As soon as you shoot, you need a plan B for your survival. Rudder shift allows you to not sacrifice damage output for defense, and also means you can attract attention while being able to deal with it, potentially dodging a salvo that otherwise would have obliterated a team-mate if you were not spotted. There is absolutely a time and place for stealth, and as I said I haven't played Hindenburg so I don't know how that trade-off would work in her. But for e.g. NO, 10km detection is plenty and pushing for 9km is IMO a diminishing returns that's not worth as much as that sweet 4s rudder of "can't touch this!"

I don't actively seek twitch shooters, although I guess it helps I used to play a lot of League of Legends. My interest in this game comes purely from interest in the ships at the time. I understand it can't be super realistic but if we accept its distance/time compressed anyway then to me it's really jarring when some things are unrealistically fast but others are not. This is why rudder shift gets me. Turret traverse is my other pet hate. I'll take getting called an outlier with the same pride you take Sub_Octavian's comment I know it, I'm just hoping through all the mass of people complaining a positive voice and some unorthodox opinion will eventually benefit someone. And I think we do agree, if not explicitly. As I said, I'm happy to jump in a big awesome baby-boat just because it looks cool and has history. I do that and chill, play sub-optimally and gawk at my muzzle flashes when I should be angling and still do well. So yeah, they are easy-mode. But then I watch what some others do in theirs and I can't fathom how they can fail so hard, so I don't know about raising the skill floor when you don't even know how many basement levels down it really is! I wouldn't argue against it, just cautiously observe.

This is why Pensacola, New Orleans and Fiji will always have a place in my port. I play DM dynamically as well, reckless to the point of stupidity as that is, and I'm happy with the results there too.

Asking for a change to the autobounce mechanics so that cruisers can reliably bounce incoming BB shells is still asking for an indirect buff to cruiser "armour" in the twisted way the game defines that concept. The fact BBs are firing AP at everything is at least realistic (yes I know not everything needs to be). Also mikelight, you have decent stats in your DM so whatever negative experience you have with her armour can't be impacting you that much. Or is your selective memory that badly filtered? This is what I mean about good players making exaggerated complaints. It doesn't come across very well. @mtm I slightly resent the fact you consider dodging to not involve skill. You don't want a twitch-based shooter, I agree. I would love for the game to look and feel more realistic and be tactical, but for me standing still and tanking shots on the bow is a) boring and b) infuriatingly unrealistic and immersion breaking. That's why I play the way I do, sped up twitch play is at least mobile and dynamic and is the lesser evil for me as far as extracting a truly naval combat experience from this game goes. And I must be winning the "RNG mini-game" because I always find agility relevant and useful with actually very little left to chance. There's plenty of tactics and positioning involved too, especially working around the stealth trade-off. I don't agree that higher tier cruisers are better in terms of overall survivability than lower, but that's because my playstyle puts agility as the No.1 survivability tool and all cruisers lose some of that at higher tiers. Case in point: I've been playing high tier US cruisers to farm that Yamamoto campaign citadel mission and I remembered I am equally comfortable being in a T10 game with my NO that handles like a Ferrari as my Baltimore and DM that have the armour and health. In fact if I've made a bad move and my Priority Target counter hits "oh crap" in the latter I would often wish I was in the former. But I'm happy to agree to disagree as it's clear to me this comes down to a playstyle choice. I have little interest in grinding out a Hindenburg, but I don't doubt her combination of abilities make her fine. Thing is, I'm a very happy and I would (modestly) argue somewhat successful cruiser player. And I'm not the one complaining, so I must be doing something right, right?

You don't get rewarded for angling? Wut?! Yes you do, you mitigate a significant portion of potential AP damage by angling. Sure you might still get citadelled but only one instead of four and high tier cruiser HP pool+heal can deal with that. Cruiser armour is not meant to stand up to BB caliber AP. Making ridiculously unrealistic angling mechanics to force BBs to switch ammo is a terrible idea. It's bad enough BBs can bow tank each-other, we don't need all cruisers doing the same. The concealment thing I can agree with. The only other thing I would buff on some high tier cruisers is their agility. After all that should be a cruiser's real "armour", not the front end of the ship. But most are fine and the new rudder shift module has already mostly done that. As for a cruiser's role, this is what I mean about people not being comfortable with the multi-role class. People are so negative, they only think "why bother playing X to do Y when Z does Y better". And they want to be told how to play, for the ship to have an obvious "correct" playstyle so they don't have to think too hard. A cruiser's role is what you want to make it and what the situation and opportunity calls for. You can be passive or aggressive, hunt any other class, as long as you stay aware of when you can do what, and that you can't just do the same thing every time. Sure some BBs are getting some traditionally cruiser "toys" but no BB gets several at once and they simply don't have the versatility. Cruisers are still the handy-man that will do anything in a pinch. You can affect the game, it's just up to you how you do it.

Molotov can do the fire spam too, more accurately in fact. And yes her turning circle is large but her rudder is quick and with a speed flag she's pushing 38 knots. Fantastic for kiting and watching people's shells fall harmlessly in your wake, or reacting to a sneaky cap attempt and ending the hapless DD. I think the above have been a bit down on advocating her for the guns only while making her sound effective but boring to play. I personally find the ability to charge around really fun, and the comfort of her turret traverse and aiming angles makes for easy target changing. It's basically like doing drive-bys in a Ferrari with a sniper rifle. And she has the Italian design heritage making her one of the best looking cruisers in game.

Sure, make people want to play cruisers for earnings and you'll just get even more whine from people who wouldn't play them normally complaining about how many buffs they need. The thing is cruisers get earnings for the same things other classes do. A BB won't earn anything by camping and a DD won't earn much from sitting in smoke spamming BBs and not contesting cap, so why should a cruiser suddenly earn lots for doing a combination of those things (long-range HE spam). And please don't use the tired old excuse that that's all cruisers are good for.

The most exciting part of this news? The model for the RN T7... bring on that N-class!!!

I think for the last bit, as long as you're a good player what you do or don't do well in is more of a playstyle preference than any reflection on the strength or otherwise of the ship or class you're playing. As for the Tirpitz example, I would argue that those kind of people don't need to be punished by the economy because they really aren't a big threat to anyone playing like that anyway. I'm happy to leave them to flock to their easy mode, they might consider their results good but most wouldn't. The BB over-population is a bit frustrating at times but only really at T8+. Below that I don't really feel it's an issue, partly because I don't agree that's where they are most broken (based on strength of individual ships), and actually because over the last week or so most of my games in the T5-7 bracket have had only 3 or 4 BBs per team and a few times as few as 1 (although that might have been skewed by weekly missions). My point I guess is that, sure people will flock to what's easy but if they're dumb it doesn't really matter since they'll do badly anyway and you can take advantage of that. Making cruisers more noob-friendly will just rotate them in as FotM.

Except that's also an exaggeration. As the number of BBaby-BBingo worthy whine threads shows, there are plenty of single cell amoebas that can't do anything in battleships and think cruisers are OP. And battleships being the less skill reliant class cuts both ways. Since they are (usually) sluggish, predictable and somewhat RNG dependent, they soft-limit what a truly high skilled player can achieve in them. And I don't think cruisers are especially harder to play than DDs or CVs, just those two have more obviously prescribed roles and playstyles, while the jack of all trades is something it seems most people conceptually struggle with.

Wow, much rage. All the 150mm-155mm armed cruisers were perfectly fine before IFHE came along, so if you just don't take it you're left with the same old ships. Unfortunately IFHE is currently a no-brainer on most of these ships because it's a decent buff to alpha without a really noticeable downside. Now it actually forces a choice. Heaven forbid you can't have everything!

In short, no, I don't feel the same and I'm really struggling to understand why you do. I can completely understand inexperienced or plain bad players whining about cruisers, because they are hard to play. But no offense, I don't see how someone with your level of skill and experience in cruisers can come up with exaggerated absolutist crap like "cruisers are dead". Cruisers are my main class as well and at no point in any of the ships I play regularly do I feel weak or that the game somehow persecutes the class. As I said, I can accept cruisers are harder to play, I jump in a BB when I just want to chill too. But I still find cruisers to be the most fun and rewarding class, and I feel that if I play my cruiser well I have the same ability to impact the game as any other ship. Sorry, I don't mean to pick on you specifically. You started this thread but it's not just you. There are super unicum cruiser mains who still spout the same arguments and it just baffles me.

The +2 MM is nowhere near as bad for T6 as for T5, especially with the Molotov railguns that will citadel all cruisers in your MM spread. Omaha clones are fun but not overly strong and shafted much harder by seeing even T6, never mind T7. Molotov is a great ship though. Fast, responsive, amazing guns, job done!

I don't want to do a chipmunk on this issue, but weirder things have happened. We'll have to wait and see, which may be a while.

I've played Myoko and while I don't dislike it, I prefer Pensacola. Myoko is sluggish and has horrible turret traverse and firing angles. It's a strong ship for sure but it can be frustrating to play sometimes. Pensacola is a joy to sail, responsive like she can read your mind, and now stealthier too!

You are perfectly entitled to have your opinion and not like a ship even if everyone else says she's very good, but you can't base you complaint on observations that aren't true. Kongo is a very accurate ship, dispersion is not one of her weaknesses if you practice aiming her guns. As for how to play, that's basically been covered. You are 30% faster than the next fastest BB at your tier, and 50% faster than the slowest. Especially since Konig and New York can't hit an iceberg past 12km, you have the ability to be at a cap the enemy BBs can't properly shoot at. You're meant to flank. Who do you think wins the side cap when the cruisers and DDs from one team (who left their slow BBs behind to snipe) run into the enemy cruisers+DDs with a Kongo leading their charge? No brainer. You need to plan your moves around the big turning circle, but you also need to stretch your legs and cover the map, react where you're needed. You're the cavalry! Kongo is pretty much the only T5 ship I would willingly take into T7 games for that reason alone.

I know a lot of people struggle when they reach Pensacola but to put it bluntly the issue isn't with the ship, at least not in her current post-buff state. I would rate her top 3 of the Tier 7 cruiser pack. She has the potential to be hilariously OP at T6, but unfortunately that also means people will hit her sooner and hate her even more. I actually like the proposed tree in Blitz in principle although I worry slightly that some of the US cruisers will lose what (for me) makes them so fun. Currently they have some of the best ergonomics of any ship, and this is what will probably be nerfed if/when they get down-tiered. Pensacola just wouldn't be Pensacola anymore with bad rudder shift for example. Still, it makes sense to try to fit a real ship at T6 in preparation for the tree split, and just generally to give us more classes without resorting to premiums. Plus we now have precedent for a "pocket battleship" as a CA at T6 (Graf Spee), which is basically what Pensacola would end up being at that tier. Guess we wait and see. Also Cleveland may not be T8, because then where do you put Brooklyn? Cleveland is kind of balanced at the moment so she wouldn't be OP at T7, but Brooklyn would be, and is the better T8 candidate despite having less AA.

Yeah, been very tempted to get TA but I use this captain on Shinonome and it would cripple that ship (because her torps basically already have a "free TA" and are 8km). Also if I plan to move this captain it will cripple my ability to use F3s on later ships. Anyway speaking of Shinonome, that ship is fantastic but neither Fubuki or Akatsuki live up to it for me despite being sister-ships. I guess it must be the torps. I've also been considering getting EM to get more flexibility to wiggle and shoot, and maybe SE instead of SI as I seem to never use all consumables on this ship but the extra HP would be great! The problem with the torps is not their spotting distance, but the fact most people turn for other reasons or just randomly in the time it takes them to get to target. Getting closer seems to be a fine line given the size of the ship and poor launch angles. A few times I tried more aggressive torping and before I knew it I was getting spotted and unable to get away fast enough before losing lots of HP.

I'm struggling a little with this ship. It's gorgeous, I really want to like it, and on the surface the torpedo power is phenomenal and the gun alpha is great (even if the DPS isn't), but I can't seem to put it into practice. I'm not a great DD player overall but I do enjoy them and at least I have a >50% WR is most other DDs Main issues I'm having: I generally play fairly aggressive but I'm struggling to contest caps with the detection range. Should I be more passive and ignore people screaming at me to "do my job"? I can handle other DDs with the alpha on the guns plus using range to get the advantage from the arcs, but this usually requires someone else to spot the DD and/or for them not to have backup. Am I not supposed to 1v1? What's the best way to deal with enemy DDs? can't really get torp hits except by pure luck. They're too slow for long range and the ship itself doesn't like to be close. What's the optimum target selection or general firing strategy?

For reference https://forum.worldofwarships.com/topic/86956-wargaming-what-on-earth-is-this-izumo/ She looks really good in this first artwork, the beauty didn't really carry into the game model though.