VC381

Because you would end up with awesome things like Brooklyn. Basically Cleveland +25% firepower, probably other soft stat buffs too as she would be a higher tier. It would be an awesome brawling cruiser. And at T10 you have potentially Worcester which is basically "Des Moines and Minotaur had a baby". It would be great, I would play the line for sure. In that sense the OP has a good point. However the complaints about Pensacola are just pure troll. Been a while since I've seen one this bad, especially as the two things he singles out as "useless" (agility and guns) are the two things that even most people who hate the ship still concede as being her strongest points.

Completely up to player choice. For Fuso I guess you don't really have that luxury, which is why I said CE is a waste to improve something that's so bad anyway. But Warspite can get her concealment under 12km, which is better than most of the cruisers at that tier (without CE) and if they get CE, they usually don't have more than about 1km on you. That is downright dirty, and very effective for getting into aggressive position, surprising people, dis-engaging and re-engaging on your terms.

To direct damage perhaps, but nothing can hold a candle to its regen. It has easily the best game-long staying power of any BB at that tier.

Expert loader is a waste since firing HE with BBs is pointless. A good salvo of AP on a DD and those overpens still add up to half his HP, and 14 seconds is still too long to wait for a switch and too much time spent not firing. But if it suits you then go with it, guess it's only one skill point wasted. What I would recommend for you last 5 points is stuff like High Alert, Jack of All Trades, Basics of Survivability and/or maybe Priority target. Some combination of the first three help you tank much better and the last one helps you know when you're focused and need to try to work out where to angle from or run to an island. Since Fuso is spotted from the moon there is absolutely no point trying to buff its concealment, but it's very nice to know when people you can't see are targeting you or when you're being ignored. My pick would be PT, HA & JoaT for 5 points.

Yes, it's purely a reflection of active locks on you. Also, now that more people have started using it and relying on it, I've noticed (and started using) a little trick where I manually de-select targets unless I'm literally about to shoot, and again after shot. So many people now sail in straight lines more because they think no number count means they're safe and don't react to it quickly saying 1 then 0 again, when in fact they have an accurate salvo on the way. So be aware of that if you use this skill. Actually, you might find "Incoming Fire Alert" a bit to the right on the first row might help with that. I don't actually use it so I can't guarantee it works that way, but supposedly it tells you when shells are incoming. I don't know if it also relies on active target information or just shells inbound to your general area. Could someone confirm that one for me and the OP?

Cleveland: 24-3= 21Shinonome : 16Mutsu : 20Fusō : 24Warspite : 15+1= 16Molotov : 9Budyonny : 8Duca d'Aosta : 13

Cleveland: 26-3= 23 great ship but not deserving this over-inflated top scoreShinonome : 18Mutsu : 20Fusō : 23Warspite : 14+1= 15Molotov : 11Budyonny : 11 Duca d'Aosta : 16

To be honest, there is so much variation within each ship type of what you can or should be doing that this is a completely pointless question. The answer depends almost completely on battle situation and own ship, even down to captain setup and playstyle, not generic to a whole class.

It depends on how much you care about playing the whole British line. If you just can't stand low tiers or only want to play specific ships and don't have grind time, sure Free XP British BBs. But if you're planning to play all of them anyway, why waste it when you can just play the line in order?

Cleveland: 25 Shinonome : 17Mutsu : 20Fusō : 21Warspite : 13+1= 14Molotov : 11Budyonny : 11 Duca d'Aosta : 16Perth: 14-3= 11 it makes no sense to me that this is still around on such a high score when Leander is already gone.

Or the number of stock ships I've seen. Bayerns in particular stick out like a sore thumb, and it makes me assume there are many more that aren't as easy to spot.

Cleveland: 25Shinonome : 19Mutsu : 23Ryūjō (1/2/2) : 4-3= 1 fugly little thing and I feel like thinning the packFusō : 20Warspite : 12+1= 13 just noticed how badly this is doing. Totally undeserved, it's an awesome ship. Re-discovered my respect for her in ranked recently as well, this deserves to stay in the vote much longerMolotov :10Budyonny : 11 Duca d'Aosta : 16Perth: 14

Right, must have got confused with something else. In that case Mutsu can't overmatch Tirpitz but still can put a lot of hurt on. As for the right decision, I lean the other way. Playing ranked at T6 with lots of Warspite, Bayern and the odd Mutsu, I have to say BB play is far more interesting when bow tanking is suicide.

I agree that IJN doctrine should filter into the game as IJN cruisers having a "torpedo flavour". But realistic long-lances would be crazy OP in game. Also, their famous range was not their best asset. RL analysis of IJN torpedo performance showed that they were more successful in knife fights than in long range spams and it was their speed and warhead size that made them really deadly. Which we do have in game. Tier for tier, IJN cruisers tend to have faster and higher damage torpedoes than their counterparts. And where they don't, they have more of them! So the flavour is there. I don't agree with buffing range because that should and would come with a speed nerf, and that makes the torps less effective. "Area denial" torping is a super boring and ineffective playstyle and isn't engaging for anyone, firing or receiving end. A speed or damage buff might actually work better if an arc buff is out of the question. Anyway there are enough ways to set up the arcs for decent spreads and they do lend themselves to the way the ships play overall. I actually regularly get frustrated with Atago's "unique arcs" and find them more of a hindrance than an asset. A reload buff as a nod to the fact they carried spares when basically no other nation did would also work. But I'm also not convinced the ships overall need buffs. Sure some of the new lines have fun toys but the IJN cruisers always were, and still are, very balanced and powerful all-rounders at basically every tier.

That's what Shinonome is for!

Haven't climbed that high yet but I'm finding T6 very balanced and with decent variety. T7 last time was absolutely horrible. T6 seems to have the biggest variety of usable ships and the best balance between premium and silver ships. It feels pretty fun to me so far, I like it! T8 could be OK as well, but I doubt they'll change it.

Didn't German BBs have their bow plate nerfed a couple of patches ago so that they could be overmatched by 16"?

Gonna stick my neck out and say, well done on the refit modelling. We know you need to throw modern AA and fire control on them and they do look a bit randomly "tacked on", but the fact these are small details and the overall original look is preserved (especially for Orion) shows you listened to the feedback on German BBs. Thank you and good job!

But the QE class all got their two funnels merged into one and the ones that got a full propulsion refit got newer boilers and a single small funnel anyway. If anything doesn't make sense about the funnel on Iron Duke it's the position. If they merged them, they would have put it further back to reduce smoke interference with the bride. There's plenty of space, it doesn't need to be hugging the mast...

Tripitz has an armour scheme that loves to eat normal pens especially from lower caliber guns. A Fuso or a New Mexico will pile up hits and completely trash a Tirpitz that makes a small mistake and is caught out a bit broadside or is cocky and turns to bring all guns (and/or torps) to bear. My first game in a stock New Mexico I used an island to sneak up on a Bismarck that was probably thinking "what can this puny stock T6 do to me" right up until I wiped a third of his HP in one salvo. Mutsu can of course hilariously overmatch Bis/Tirp regardless of angle, and can return the torp favour on Tirp. Come to think of it, all the T6 BBs can wreck a Tirpitz and are no more vulnerable to it in return than they are to a Bayern. All Tirpitz has is speed and the torp and secondary gimmicks. On topic, Mutsu is very fun. I would go as far as to call her a battlecruiser compared to her peers. Fast, very punchy, responsive and comfortable gun handling. Good all-round package, if a bit fragile. And of course, absolutely gorgeous!

Nope. Cry if you face an AS Lex, other than that, the other two have low HP planes and the IJN low ammo as well. If you need to you can force a strike even with fighters on you, if lucky your mass bomber blob will actually shoot down most of the fighters if he's dumb enough to just click-select. Strafes you can try to dodge and IJN can basically only strafe twice before they need to re-arm fighters.

They could have done a lot more to it. In context, it makes a lot of sense. She was an old coal-burning BB, if she survived to serve in WWII, even if nothing else was modified, she would have received new engines that would use oil and give the same power much more efficiently, and a single funnel would be the result. I am actually elated they didn't do something more ridiculous with her. And Orion is basically as-built except for some extra AA guns and new rangefinders. Again, much, much better than what they did to Kaiser.

Strike Lex is great fun, go for that for a bit and see what you think.

Cleveland: 24 Shinonome : 22Mutsu : 22+1= 23Ryūjō (1/2/2) : 10Fusō : 19 Graf Spee : 6-3= 3Warspite : 12Molotov : 9Budyonny : 11 Duca d'Aosta : 15Perth: 14

Not sure about higher ranks but BBs carry very hard to get you out of the lower ones, especially if the game is BB-heavy. I seem to be performing slightly better in Warspite but I prefer playing Mutsu. Not sure if the small sample size just means I've been getting worse teams in my Mutsu games, or if I get a bit too carried away using the speed and going places I shouldn't. Either way, I've now racked up 3 torpedo kills with Mutsu (2 direct one by flooding) which is pretty hilarious. Nobody expects those torps!