VC381

I would not complain about a visual "buff" to Izumo. I had the fortune of unlocking her just as the news of the buff hit. Have to say she's not as bad as people make out, the guns are excellent in every way. Looks quirky but yes, very simplistic and downright odd in some ways.

I would like to throw in the concept of "strictly better" as an aid in defining OP. "Strictly better" means the same or better in every way. If a ship is better than another at some things but worse at others it is not strictly better. E.g. if there are two battleships A and B, identical in every way except A has 12x 340mm guns and B has 8x 380mm guns, then neither ships is "strictly better" than the other. If instead A has 8x 380mm and B has 10x 380mm, now B is "strictly better". Now of course, you can argue that a ship can be amazing at something that doesn't matter at all while being useless at something that really does, but in my opinion that is a meta problem not an individual ship balance problem. In other words, as long as ships have trade-offs against each other they are balanced in principle, but if the strengths of a ship are useless then there needs to be better map design, or objective design, or team/class distribution, or something else to make that ship worth it. Buffing to make all ships equally good in a stale meta is NOT a solution in my opinion. The result of that would be identical ships. I have always said variety and unique additions trump absolute balance. There will always be some ships that are never picked in serious competitive play, some ships that effortlessly stomp noobs and some ships that only work in narrow circumstances. That's all OK because they cater to different types of players. By that analysis, there are really no OP ships, maybe a very select few. Even the feared Belfast, I always considered balanced and in fact I perform significantly better in Fiji and other T7 cruisers. That doesn't make Fiji OP either, in my opinion. It just means I like that playstyle and unsurprisingly perform well at something I do naturally rather than something I have to constantly think about. Global ship stats don't mean anything, only that players at large don't know how to deal with certain ships or that the meta favours them. WoWs could learn a lot from the likes of LoL about how to subtly buff/nerf ships to create a cycling meta so that every ship can have a few months of being OP before giving way to the next. That is the only way to truly balance a game like this. As for who to balance around, my answer is Unicums because the rest don't play the game well enough to care or understand what is really balanced. At a low average skill level, individual play matters much more than ship selection. At top tier competitive play, ship selection is dictated by what fits specialised roles not necessarily raw strength, but if everyone is playing to a high level then differences in ship power come out more. If the game does not have a serious and balanced competitive scene to aspire to it is dead in the water. Casuals will generally have fun regardless of actual balance. Again, here variety is more important to satisfy multiple playstyles.

Ha ha, to be honest I would have taken AR and SI as part of my first 10 points and got DE and LS or whatever else as the last 5, not the other way around. I haven't played this specific ship but I've played enough US cruisers generally and planned my own builds for this line. Nothing to be ashamed of taking LS. Some cruisers need it. My Zao has it for example and it saved me in Clan Battles more than a few times! It seems you're leaning towards AA. I can't advise on that as basically I don't "do" AA builds, I just don't find them worth it with the small number of CVs around. But I would not skip AR for anything on a ship like this. So yeah AR/SI is a good mix for 5. For a cruiser with that many handy consumables, I would seriously consider JoaT as well (I run it on DM). If you want you can go AR/JoaT and spend the last point on PM.

Nagato is great but Ashitaka still has +25% firepower and the speed to position better to use it more effectively. I've got very good average damage in e.g. Hood, but pretty sure I haven't done this in any T7 BB:

Second game in after buff and I was really starting to disagree with that statement. Overpen... overpen... overpen. Then I got a devstrike on a BB. And High Caliber. Hmm Yeah... the firepower on Ashitaka is across the line and well into "bonkers" territory now. It was bad enough occasionally clubbing T6s with Amagi, at least the MM kept that monster uptiered most of the time. But it's seriously unfair putting those guns regularly against T5s.

Aha! That's why I didn't remember your ship, you were nowhere near me! Well, it sounded a bit more confused on my end as I was busy but kept hearing "something is spotting me" and "find that @#$% Shima" on the chat (I already told them they were dealing with a Gearing but they didn't believe me at first). Good fun all round though, nice to get a different perspective on the battle!

I don't doubt the data and indeed I have had some really wild shots. But I am increasingly convinced that sigma is far more important to perceived accuracy than dispersion parameters. I still feel Kron has more reliable AP DPM than basically anything else, BB or cruiser. You say the guns are not as universal as BB guns, but there's no shortage of willing broadside targets of either class and the penetration is more than enough.

Concealment in game is nonsense. It's just a mechanic to balance different ships and create a variety of playstyles. I think a long time ago it used to be based on how tall the main superstructure elements of the ship were, but I'm sure that's no longer the case. It's just a "flavour" now. The way I justify it is trying to include some big strategy elements into an arcade game. Obviously in real life ships that are within 15km of each-other would all be able to see everyone just fine (daytime good weather). But before that fleets would spend days covering hundreds of miles trying to find each-other. To me concealment is a way of compressing that strategy into our 20 minute games. The nations and lines that have good concealment can be thought of as those that had a reputation for being sneaky or otherwise well prepared on a strategic level IRL. It doesn't always make sense but it's just my way of rationalizing it.

I had 150k damage first game in her, 93k average over first 6... last week before the buff. Going to try her at the weekend but I have a very good feeling about this. Does she overpenetrate more now though?

You're doing what you're supposed to keep it up. Generally you want to be going for the easier target, to get more damage per shot and remove enemy guns from the game. Cruisers are squishy but high DPM threat so yes, they are your priority target. Unless there's a cruiser at max range that has shown he really knows how to dodge while an enemy BB is showing you perfect broadside. Then you punish him instead.

Erm, Tears of the Desert I was in a Zao and I forgot what ship you were in. I remember Excavatus was in a Hindenburg because I spent most of the game chasing him around the map and dodging your Shima's torps. I wouldn't say anyone sucked but you guys got a bit unlucky with having your Montana and a Moskva focus burned down very early. Your gearing was a pain in the stern the rest of the game

Same, wanted Ashitaka for a while and was really happy with the purchase even pre-buff. Waiting to see what she does with even better shells!

I'm sure Kii is a fine ship but quite frankly since they're buffing Ashitaka's guns I am genuinely happy I got her instead, and given MM and price difference I would say Ashitaka is hands down the better buy now. I know Kii guns are only "slightly" less accurate than Amagi but IJN is the only BB line that's actually defined by having the most powerful and accurate guns at medium and long range. 2nd best at T8 just doesn't cut it, best by a country mile at T7 is what it's all about. I want my IJN ships min-maxed!

This is basically what I do as well. I buy premium ships more because I care about playing a specific ship than the economic values, so I consider those a bonus and just calculate cost per time used/enjoyed compared to other entertainment. Normally I consider £1 per game a minimum, with £1 per hour (approx. 3 games) ideal. So depending on initial price and whether they were on sale that can be as little as a dozen games. Minimum for T8 is 30-40 games. For me all my premiums, except one or two I got really recently, have been "worth it" quite quickly although I admit many have not been used to ideal levels. I still like having them around though, love my variety!

I've been trying to make a point of unlocking and manually re-locking targets and I'm not convinced that has had any real impact on my accuracy. However I'm more and more convinced of the stationary target issue. Las night CB, stationary broadside DM, waterline aim, all shots a few 100m short.

Not a Random battle technically, but just had @Excavatus and @HMS_Kilinowski from DAVY against us in clans. GG guys

Is this a way of saying all those who bought Hood on the recent sale showed up in force? I had a great game in Hood last night. Loss sadly, despite 150k damage High Calibre, but most of that was tanking/kiting a Scharnhorst+Ashitaka division. I nearly took the Ashitaka out from full HP on my own in the time it took the two of them cross-firing me to finish me from under 50% HP that I started that fight on. Hood rocks

And Cleveland has 12 guns vs 6 with better reload... Also, why would I as a Cleve captain be dumb enough to take that chase? That's what I mean. Shima runs, you go dark, you don't try to hit a running target with Cleveland. Shima comes back, when he spots you he is 9.1km away and coming towards. Then that gun duel only ends one way.

I'm obviously not immune to perception bias but your comparison is too simplistic. Graf Spee is fairly short ranged and plays against people that barely know how to WASD. Iowa is stealthy so I play it ambush style, getting close for perfect shots. Kronshtadt I play medium to long range and firing all the time. So what does it mean that my hit rate is 1% lower in Kron than Iowa when in one I am spewing shells every 16 seconds at 18 km and the other I am taking calculated shots every 30s at 14km? It means absolutely nothing. In fact if Kronshtadt was less accurate than Iowa I would expect the difference to be much bigger. Anyway Kronshtadt has cruiser sigma while Iowa has lower. When you get a really good shot in Iowa all 9 shells hit the same spot and it's awesome but doesn't happen that often. A really bad shot in Kronshtadt can go all over the map and it's annoying, but most of the time it's consistently good.

If you sank a Cleveland with Shima guns only the problem was with the Cleveland captain not the ship. T8 Cleveland is fantastic, but I guess not for everyone.

How am I wrong when you basically repeated what I said? Akizuki has second best at tier concealment so you can work around the agility issue. German DDs are not the best in any stat but not the worst either, so all-round fine. Plus they have hydro as an extra strength.

Maybe some T10 DDs are bigger than a few T5 cruisers? Maybe? Of course no DD has every advantage all the time. But the ones that are easily spotted have great speed, the ones that are slow and turn badly have amazing concealment etc. There is always a mix of strengths to use as long as you take time to understand how to play each ship.

I had a game last night (T5-7 no radar) that proved to me that not only is radar not bad, it is absolutely necessary for the game to not be a complete stalemate camp-fest.. Each team DD enters cap. They spot each-other. They both stop and smoke, miss/dodge their torps. Nobody can see anything, rest of both teams immediately turn away and run because they're blind. DDs sit there. Nothing happens until both smokes run out, nobody can do anything. Pure torture pointless stalemate gameplay. If that's what you want as a DD player I'm sorry but I have very little respect for your opinion in that case. Learn to deal with radar, it's really not that hard.

Still not seeing this bad dispersion you guys are talking about...

Alabama has always somewhat tempted me. I kept North Carolina with the premium camo and I do like high tier US BBs. But although it would be great to have the same tier/playstyle as NC while earning more credits and XP on a more relevant higher point captain, I have too many ships to play and can't justify the expense to have in port "just in case" I feel like taking it out sometimes. Also, T8 BB premium costs have creeped to ridiculous levels. To highlight the issue, Alabama on -30% today costs more than what I spent to buy Tirpitz at full price 2 years ago. That's just silly IMO, so I'll stick to spending my money on other classes or lower tiers.