VC381

LS gives you the freedom to not repair engine damage. Countless times I let engine damage stay and took two fires in the next salvo or bomb hit, which I was then able to repair because I didn't waste the repair on the engine. Maybe some really good DD players can manage without it but for us casuals it IS mandatory.

Indeed, a nice civil discussion we ended up here about people's preferences. Nagato's mast had 7 legs, one straight up the middle and six around the side. The middle leg had an elevator for the fighting top, how Star Trek is that? As far as bridge aesthetics go, I want to add that for me it's important to be able to imagine where I might be standing if I was actually commanding these ships (as we are all pretending to, shame the game doesn't have a "bridge view" ). I look for a well defined enclosed pilot house and an open bridge or compass platform. I agree the Derfflinger class is graceful in general, but I prefer Lutzow with her obvious admiral's bridge while Derfflinger herself looks like she's missing something. For me the RN are the masters of bridge design across all time periods. Also, I would buy a Haruna premium, but only if she was T6 with appropriate soft stat buffs. The simple reason is that I have all the ARP Kongo variants so I don't need another, and T5 gameplay and maps suck quite a bit.

The Hiryu (and later Shokaku) squadron setup is manageable because you usually use them in pairs (the bombers anyway). You get into a "grouping" routine then it basically plays like 1/1/1 or 2/1/1 depending on what you do with your fighters. Shift+select is your friend.

I would take LS first and AR later. In fact, I would only take one T3 skill and have 3 T2 skills on the gunboats that need EM.

It must be under 19 but it also has to be over 15 or you only get 1 puff. Basically: 20+ one puff 15-19 and slowing, 2 puffs, stopped in cover 9-15 one puff, too fast to stop in it <9 one puff, you are still in it Also, going to reverse is irrelevant. Full stop and full reverse create the same deceleration from any forward speed, reverse only kicks in after you've actually stopped.

Depends, you can still farm tons of damage in a clearly lost match if you're still alive...

Or your team just collapses and you're stranded at uncomfortable range to enemies, but at least you're fast!

It requires a very specific slow-down sequence to work properly, pop it just as you pass 19 knots while slowing down in a straight line. That makes the second puff reliable. The +20% radius is still welcome.

After some issues getting it to activate, smoke screen expert is pretty good. You get a nice big "safe zone" and as an added bonus it's more useable on the fly if you just need to deny vision down a certain gap or point your stern at something and hide your escape with no intention of sitting in it. ATM my 14 point RN captain on Leander has: 1 - PT 2 - EM, SSE & AR 3 - SI 4 - CE

I was just thinking that. I wonder how much you'll gain by putting yourself at more risk but still being able to cycle strikes while baiting cruisers to shoot at you instead of your team-mates. After all, HP is a resource and only the last point counts... It might not be worth it but even after taking CE you'll eventually have 5 more points spare and the AA skills don't seem that appealing.

BTW, 9.1km detectability on Shokaku is very fun. I spent a game literally formation shadowing a NC. I dipped into detection a few times and he obliged by deleting the offending cruiser, approaching DDs were perma-spotted. The enemy Shokaku tried a snipe, I laughed. He later tried to ram me (don't ask, the game got very stupid). Anyway, that was fun and a couple of other games I stayed nice and close to the action, I really felt the difference with cycle times. I didn't need to think, it was constant, on-demand air support, and this wasn't even in division.

CVs require some dedication and I think you are unlikely to enjoy yourself at T6 and T7 unless you have a strong external reason to play them e.g. you really like the ships or are willing to grind for the higher tiers at all costs. T8 is actually, IMO, a pretty good place for CVs, but it's still hard work. If you're just interested for the sake of casually trying something new, I would advise against.

Interesting, I came to the opposite conclusion I haven't taken it so far on "safe" ships because it's not certain to trigger. The idea of having it as a consolation bonus when things have gone a bit wrong is interesting but ultimately makes the skill too situational for my liking. I prefer to take it when I know I'm going to use it, so precisely those brawler ships (RN and US cruisers especially) where I'm practically planning to lose HP. RN ships in particular make great use of it because the heal gives you an extra bit of control over how much you want better reload vs. more HP. I also agree that it would work very well in adiition to BFT rather than instead of it. I'm toying with DD builds without SI to test this out (IJN gunboats). I'm not sure if dropping LS is a good idea yet..

I think I might be one of those, do I need to see a doctor? To be honest I find both aesthetics pleasing for different reasons. WWI dreadnoughts tend to look very lean which makes them appear more aggressive, but the huge towers (both new build and refitted) are more imposing and convey a certain sense of pride.

I can see how she could be strong but she needs very careful handling and quite a specific playstyle a.k.a. not noob friendly, like, at all! I'm struggling a bit, with the torps especially, since I can't seem to get any hits. Getting close is very risky if there is basically any other DD around, because even if you can fight back just being spotted makes you a shell magnet and you can't dodge. But the 10km torp spam is a yawn fest on top of being very ineffective. I'm still working on that Shinonome. I think the +50% gun power (goes for Akatsuki as well) should make for a more comfortable hybrid. You have no torp options either as the stock ones are suicide range. 8km sounds like a sweet spot, I don't want to get TA on it because I think the other ships up the line don't need it (and it would prevent me using the captain in Shinonome).

Just tried this skill out and I can't get it to work. I was well practiced at getting the second puff and stopping in it without this skill, but as soon as I learned it, I have not had a single time where I got two puffs from my smoke screen. Has anyone worked out the speeds you need to start it at so that it works properly? Thanks!

I tried that and it didn't work. Actually, I take back what I said, I just played a game where I managed 3 times in a row to deploy it while passing 18 knots slowing down. So the old method does work, maybe it's more glitchy or I was just unlucky before. Also, by your logic, if it's distance from centre, radius shouldn't matter.

You take that back right now, sir! To be honest, I think this ship isn't meant for players looking for optimum stats, it's for collectors who love the look and feel. As I said in the "stock hulls" thread, this is an acceptable solution for having dreadnoughts in their "classic" look when the game clearly isn't balanced around that and having them in the main tree just causes stock grind frustration. I'm not a big BB player and recently I've been finding BB play increasingly boring, but I still like my Warspite and would probably get this and take it out occasionally because the ships ARE awesome, just their game implementation leaves a bit to be desired.

Haven't played Shokaku much since I got AS but I felt no downsides. The DBs felt stronger, more got to target and damage/fires were even more reliable. Fighters now feel strong enough to be left to chase a US bomber group if necessary. Then again, I play differently to you and don't scout as much, so for simply overwhelming the enemy CV with fighters and pushing more damage with DBs, AS is a must-have.

I agree that peoples perception of dispersion can mean opposite opinions on the same ship. To be hones without playing hundreds of games in a ship you won't get statistically meaningful observations. If it hits and you like it, good for you.

This speed range works 99% of the time, but without the new skill. The new smoke screen expert skill (+20% smoke bubble radius) completely messes this up, doesn't work anymore. We need a new speed range for how it works with that skill, might test a bit more today.

Because WG make up plating thickness numbers for bow/stern to balance the ships. Nothing real about it, just tiers.

Why do these forums always bring out the worst in people? In a nutshell, rainbow arcs but tight grouping, decent HE, great AP. Range is mediocre but you can hit at max range.

I'm not under NDA and I can say I saw Hateshinaku in battle with her I was tracking his shells after I sank, dispersion seemed OK, not the "wild inaccuracy" we were promised as balance but that might change if it turns out she's too strong. Although a few times he got some square hits but did little damage, penetration seemed poor but we knew that as well.

Fisher's ideal was for BCs to completely replace BBs. Actually, the very light armour on the Invincible class was designed to withstand 12" BB shells, based on the RNs own experiments that shell penetration would be useless if the fight was at long range. And it was true, RN 12" guns as fitted to Dreadnought, Invincible etc. could not go through even 6" of armoured belt at ranges about 15km and greater. Basically if you take that as fact, and build your ships around fighting at long range only (the entire point of the "all big gun" idea) then it makes no sense to sacrifice speed for overkill armour. Instead you can dictate the parameters of the engagement (range, positioning etc.) which is more crucial to winning. The idea that battlecruisers were just cruiser hunters is something history has stuck on. Nobody would have built ships so big and expensive for that job, a ship half the size with 10" guns would have been done fine. The BB size guns were there so they could hurt BBs, they were intended as "fast battleships" from day 1 and would have worked in theory, assuming RN armour penetration caclulations were correct. The problem was technology was moving so fast ships were revolutionary when designed and obsolete when launched. Other nations actually had slightly better shells (bit of RN arrogance there, our shells are crap so surely nobody can do better) and the rest is history. To be honest, the battlecruisers have been judged incredibly harshly on the back on ONE SINGLE battle, where the events had multiple complex causes that have been over-simplified. There were safety concerns, cordite quality, issues with aiming. The whole "oh the armour was too thin" thing was basically a giant cover-up by the admirals at the time so the blame didn't fall on them for everything from inadequate training to poor ship handling on the day. The concept of the fast battleship, born out of the battlecruiser, and fighting at very long range was embraced by everyone after WWI. The Iowa class would probably have been classified battlecruisers if they served in the RN. The idea of having only just as much armour as you need while maximising speed and firepower makes perfect sense, operational tempo, initiative and offense are the most important factors in any military victory. In short, BCs make perfect sense in principle.