VC381

I don't see the problem, it's only your perception that Belfast needs to be played with an HE spec captain that's holding you back. The ship is plenty strong without a dedicated captain using either ammo type. That's probably why it was designed a bit OP, so it could train for the others without being at a disadvantage.

Well, having seen the RN line, with what looks like no real ships above T7, I would definitely say free XP the Missouri and just play the RN line slowly and actually enjoy the mid-tier ships.

It depends a bit on how you define OP. Both Kutuzov and Atago have some unique advantages and actually some disadvantages compared to their silver counterparts. So they are not "strictly" better (all things exactly the same or better) but the silver tree ship advantages are small and/or situational. With Kutuzov specifically, what makes her so strong and fun is that she has the choice to be played more aggressive, because she has the tools to survive (obviously smoke but also decent agility as someone else said). This means you can have a better game impact that Chapayev, although Chapa has the same guns and can farm the same damage, you're forced to play much more passive and the radar isn't useful because that's basically suicide range. So Kutuzov feels OP because she has more relevant carry tools and is much more flexible and comfortable to play. But actually OP, considering what a range of strong ships exist at T8 in all classes? Hmm... jury's still out!

It's true damage is not directly related to win rate, but to just blame it on the team is also wrong. The thing with damage is it depends a lot on WHEN you do it, WHO you do it to and what is the RESULT of that damage plus your other actions. In total that forms part of your game impact, which drives win rate. Usually ships that can do a lot of damage have some other downsides that reduce their total impact.

Are you saying it's not a particularly good game or that he cherry-picked one that's too good? You only need about 80k damage depending on team composition for high caliber, so I would say this is a pretty good game. Having said that, I took Fuso out and found the firepower lacking after playing nothing but Warspite and Mutsu so far. Maybe in a cruiser-heavy game she would be better but those are rare.

See this is the thing. I'm sure the ship works with a generic cruiser or destroyer captain, but given it isn't strong anyway, you probably want the most bang for your buck you can get. That not only requires a dedicated captain (which I don't mind as premiums go), but an 18 or 19 point dedicated captain just to get the right mix of 4th row skills, a mix that is at best sub-optimal on anything else.

If you say you play other ships the same way I don't know, but I had the same issue with Russian cruisers. Huge damage from long range fire spam and kiting but close to zero game impact, as your targets munch your team in the time it takes your damage to build up and you can't threaten or hold a position at all. Now, I haven't played high tier French cruisers but if they are the long range HE spammers that most people claim they are I would think the situation is the same. High damage, low impact gameplay. Atago at least forces you to get a bit closer and that aggression makes people react to you more.

Ugh, the temptation been considering getting this for a while now, just waiting for a good sale. Still not sure. My main issue is lack of a decent captain for it, would need to spend doubloons to re-train but then something else in my US line would be missing a captain... Not sure it's worth it for a gimmicky ship although I do think I would enjoy it.

Are AP bombs already available for the normal US CVs not just Enterprise? Anyway the answer is use whatever setup you like just don't hunt DDs. Go delete BBs and let the rest of your team win while the enemy has no big gun cover.

If you can't get along with the ship after you fully upgrade, take a break and try something else. You don't need to aim to stick to one line and play it to T10, getting to T5-6 in a couple of different lines doesn't take that long and you'll have a broader experience to then pick something you like. If that doesn't exist at higher tiers there's nothing wrong with staying at the mid tiers until you're bored.

Since we're doing this stat thing anyway and people who claim Eugen is good are being called out because their stats don't reflect it... I'll just go ahead and show you it's a matter of playstyle and preference, and not everyone who likes the Eugen actually does better in other ships.

The looks are a huge part of course and I completely agree with you. But for me the ship is also about ergonomics and comfort. Usually with any ship you need to think about strengths and weaknesses and work to use one while avoiding the other. There is usually something about it that becomes frustrating if you end up in the wrong situation or makes it very hard for you to play a certain way. For me at least, Prinz Eugen has none of that, it's a ship I can just play and it adapts, does what I need without me thinking too hard, but still being fun at the same time.

And the fact she's drop-dead gorgeous... Anyway, the ship feels like a battlecruiser to me and that's great from my point of view. She also has very good turret traverse and decent rudder shift, which make her feel comfortable and responsive. I generally dislike slow BB play but I play the ships that to me look and feel most awesome. So for me a BB that looks great and hits like a freight train but has game play style and comfort more like a cruiser is ideal. Same reason I like Hood.

They have excellent reload for their size, the smaller guns that fire faster lack the penetration (now even with HE since recent buffs). They also have amazing arcs which makes aiming easier, makes them effective out to max range and gives your targets less time to react. The DPM can turn out weaker if you're just spamming one target that knows you're there and responds accordingly, but the versatility and reliability of the guns comes from how fast you can change target and the very large area you can effectively threaten to quickly punish someone else at the slightest opportunity. It's not a DPM ship, it's an opportunistic alpha ship and it adds up to a fairly scary package in my experience. Also, can we get some facts and numbers on the AP having bad angle penetration or is it all anecdotes? Because I thought only US cruisers had special treatment for bounce angles. In my experience Atago AP feels like firing cotton wool compared to Eugen and is far more situational.

Here we go... "Stats prove this, ranked proves that". Stats only prove that most average players can't do well with a ship, and most people don't buy a ship just for competitive play. Tournament play has a forced meta that requires certain ship strengths anyway. None of that means the ship can't be great fun to play in regular games if you enjoy that playstyle.

Prinz Eugen is just about the most balanced and versatile cruiser in the game. Close range, long range, AP, HE, tools to deal with every other class, you name it, and all without being OP. Which of course just means everyone assumes it's boring and useless, such is the fate of jacks-of-all-trades. And that's a shame because she's a very fun and supremely comfortable ship and a solid performer. Plus she looks gorgeous. I got one ages ago because I had no interest in any German cruisers T6+ except the Hipper class, don't care about its use as a trainer, just wanted to play it for its own sake and I don't regret it one bit. But that's just me, she suits my playstyle. As others have said, there's basically nothing bad about her and nothing that will annoy or frustrate you while playing her. On the other hand, she probably has the best set of 203mm guns in the game, and they are very rewarding to use.

Guns feel great to me. Few citadels but usually amazing groups of regular penetrations, 15k salvos on BBs and cruisers not uncommon. Try aiming a little bit higher maybe on the enemy BBs and you'll see what I mean.

No, but could be a fun little fire-starter.

The Tone was designed for scouting and I don't think she carried bombers. But the Ise was meant to launch a squadron of D4Y dive-bombers, although these didn't have floats and would need to find somewhere else to land (an actual carrier or a land base). Since we already have some ridiculously unrealistic floatplane fighters, WG could stretch the truth with a bomber squadron if they so chose. Another scout implementation could be to have them fly out on a vector then come back. You could decide the direction but not the distance and there would be no loiter, so you couldn't perma-spot with it but could quickly get a "snapshot" of a flank.

Good to have this confirmed (again, I know this topic came up before). As I said, I agree with this approach and I am willing to wait and hope they come up with something good. Are you passing suggestions on to the devs? There have been plenty of good ideas for implementing the aviation speciality of this ship, in this thread and many others in the past.

Also would love to have this ship (and other hybrids) but am happy to wait for WG to come up with something unique than just throw it in as a regular cruiser. I think you don't need to use the CV view though or allow direct control of the squadrons. My idea for implementing this ship was always to just have more plane consumables but each one just press and forget (like current fighter, spotter). Maybe the fighter can have more in a squadron, a new "scout" can have no guns but orbit further from the ship for better view, and a bomber squadron that just goes and does an auto-drop on your currently marked target (e.g. use the selected target for secondary guns). I don't think that would be OP, and if it is she can just be tiered higher so she is weak as a cruiser compared to the "pure" ones at her tier.

I think the fact you know how to make yourself a difficult target and do well in them doesn't change the fact the overall perception is that they are easy targets. Which is largely true in my experience, big ships with poor armour, decidedly mediocre agility. Obviously I don't tunnel vision on them and look for better targets closer by if they are actually at max range, and definitely don't keep taking shots once it's obvious I missed. But if it looks like their captain isn't on the ball you can usually predict a turn and delete them with some reliability. Reducing the enemy team's firepower in the most efficient way possible is always a big consideration in target selection.

Pensacola stock has bad rudder shift, you need the second hull. Also, the better turret traverse only comes with the gun upgrade, after that you don't need the turret traverse module. Never judge a ship stock.

Omaha: Turning circle: 600m Rudder shift: 5.7s - no access to rudder shift module Cleveland: Turning circle: 660m Rudder shift: 7.2s - with rudder shift module 5.8s Pensacola: Turning circle: 620m Rudder shift: 7s - with rudder shift module 5.6s So unless you aren't using the rudder shift module (there really is no reason not to), they all basically have the same rudder shift. Omaha is most agile but not by far, Pensacola turning circle is only slightly bigger. So yeah, it's fair enough to have your own perception but the numbers don't lie. Turret turn time is 24s for Omaha, 33s for Cleveland and 30s for Pensacola (all base fully upgraded ship, no Expert Marksman). Expert Marksman is mandatory but with it the turrets on Pensacola are reasonably fast for a heavy cruiser (not 45s like Myoko!). With Pensacola you can keep guns on target at a full rudder turn. With Cleveland you can't. The guns themselves, well Pensacola is not really supposed to be 2km from a DD, and Cleveland would also have been dead instantly in that scenario (even worse turret traverse). But if you load AP with Pensacola and aim at enemy cruisers, magic happens. The USN 203mm guns have better ricochet angles than the rest and very good penetration, when firing at other cruisers you are almost as good as a BB considering you are much more accurate and fire twice as fast. That's really the "trick" that makes the ship great, but if you don't use it like that you won't notice. I'm happy for you to not like the ship, we all have our own playstyles, but please don't go around calling things useless based on just your own perception. BTW did you try RN cruisers? I have a feeling you might like those, from T6 upwards.

I also *clicked* with Furutaka and Pensacola as I went up those lines and enjoyed Pensacola much more than Cleveland first time. But I've since gone back and found Cleveland very fun and strong as well. That may be though because I like getting close, where the arcs don't matter. But RN cruisers have more or less the same arcs all the way up to T10 and that works fine. I think a combination of stealth and agility would make a ship like that work, albeit in a binary "spotted early you're useless but close you're OP" kind of way. As for more CAs instead, sure the County class would be really cool, but I think in the current game meta CL IFHE DPM + firespam is actually more effective against BBs. CAs usually lean towards hunting other cruisers as their main task, which BBs already do well enough, so from an overall class balance point of view they might not produce the expected results.