VC381

Apart from the Saipan matchup, won't the patch weaken dogfighting expert because you won't be able to meet a CV two tiers higher?

Yes, sometimes RNG will troll you but it averages out over several salvos. The trick to not be affected by it is don't expect max damage every salvo, and don't put yourself in a position where you NEED a citadel NOW. Give yourself space and time to shoot as much as you can and the damage will roll in. Thing with slow BBs is if something is going wrong for you, it's not because you made a mistake... It's because you made a mistake 5 minutes ago. Being in the right place at the right time with a BB is a fine balance, something you develop a "feel" for not something that can really be taught, each battle is different! US BB captains have practiced this positioning "art" since Tier 3 and while the Fuso is faster than US BBs it's a shock stepping down from the speed of the Myogi and Kongo.

I always felt Nagato has good dispersion without the main gun accuracy module. AA is fairly mediocre and not worth buffing. So my choice would be secondary module. Nagato is one of those ships where a full secondary build is very viable. With the +20% range from that module, and another +20% range from AFT and +5% range from the flag you have 7.6km secondary range, it's very nice!

This is a double-edged sword, because it means you are also spending more time exposed to have guns on target and more time tunnel-visioned on aiming. I agree that there might be a benefit to adjusting aim, but I still prefer double-click fire and forget.

As far as I'm concerned the sequential fire accuracy thing is a myth, and if you believe it you will find "evidence" for it just as you will find "evidence" that it's opposite if you believe that instead. Really it doesn't matter. RNG is RNG and the human mind will find always patterns where there are none. Do what feels right for you. As for Fuso, sweet spot range is ~15km, search for broadside cruisers and delete them, it's what it does best. It's not really for dueling other BBs although it can put serious hurt even on higher tier ones when they are distracted. Also "angling" isn't pointing your bow at the enemy and leaving it there. Fuso turrets have decent aiming angles, you can get 5 turrets on target while only showing a little bit of side, all 6 with a tiny bit more. What you need to learn is how to always be turning, one way then the other, timing so when your guns are ready they are all on target, but when the enemy fires back you are angled into him. THIS is where firing all at once helps, since you only need a tiny snapshot to fire all guns, then have a clear 30 seconds to concentrate on position and angle. To be honest, I ended up getting decent damage stats in the Fuso but it was never really my style either. I recently got the New Mexico and it does the "hey I have 12 guns I will delete you" thing much better. The Fuso isn't faster by enough to make it worth the other trade-offs.

Meh, exaggeration. I'm a mediocre CV player at best and the other day in my Hiryu I got higher base score than my team's Taiho. It's really not as bad as people seem to think, it feels like I'm constantly in T9 games and I'm still getting 50k-ish damage on average. The preferential MM is going to be awesome!

I find AA really weird. Yesterday I lost 5 out of 6 T9 fighters from my Saipan that were camped over a lone Hatsuharu. Next game I sent my crappy T6 TBs from my Hiryu at an Iowa and enough lived to the drop to net me 4 hits. I think there's too much RNG in it. But I still believe that it's possible, although painful, to do well in CVs even if up-tiered.

This isn't a complaint as much as an observation, but isn't WG being pretty hypocritical here? I mean, they flat out refuse have the genuine Japanese Navy flag, despite the fact it's still flown on their ships today, in case it's symbolism offends some people. And then they pick for a new premium a ship whose name is more than a little inflammatory given recent events... Anyway the ship looks bad, didn't need a review to know that. But if there are happy collectors who want it I don't mind it being there.

I'm guessing you got a Kirov? AP on any cruiser, at that tier most people sail broadside anyway. Experiment a bit with what angles it stops working at, but generally start AP then switch only if necessary. Also AP on broadside BBs if they get a bit closer, try under 10km and see how that goes but if they shoot back at that range you're instant coral reef. Rest of the line is very similar although from T6 to T8 you trade shell size for RoF. Still, Shchors is Cleveland level spam but with flat arcs to 16km... German cruiser guns from T5 onwards also behave similar, again smaller caliber (on T5 and 6) but better RoF. Moving up from Cleveland, US 203s don't quite have the flat arcs but do have very satisfying tight grouping and what sometimes feels like a citadel magnet.

I'm largely with Thor on this one, starting a new line can be fun clubbing for a bit but gets boring fast. Bogatyr and South Carolina are hilarious outliers in my damage stats but I didn't keep either. The lowest tier thing I own is Ishizuchi, because it's the only thing in game that looks and feels like a WWI BC, and it's not a complete club-machine so there's still some fun and challenge in playing it. But, glad to know you're having fun the speed puts me off the St. Louis, and aboomination is right the Bogatyr seems to do the same thing but mostly better. Piritskenyer can you explain to me what's so good about the damned Kuma? IJN CAs were the first line I played... and that was the first ship I skipped with Free XP. OK I was a noob at the time but I have no positive memories about it at all...

OK cool, count me in for the Farenholt. You want me to set my Benson to stock?

Hey, I might be able to bring Farenholt to the party, any update on the time?

I'm with Praxics on this one. Given what we've seen in how they handled the Germans it is firstly very unlikely that the RN line will be mixed, so no BCs anyway, and if Hood was there she would get the fictional refit treatment. For me then the only acceptable way to have Hood the way we know and want her is as a premium.

Free XP past Zuiho... Even if you are good enough to do way more damage than him the matchup is still no fun at all, especially on smaller maps where you have nowhere to run.

Am I the only person that hates Fault Line with a passion in every mode? My problem with it is that going into the middle is suicide for non-DDs but the island ring really prevents meaningful fire support. So you're relying on your DD winning the middle alone, praying your team don't decide to "flank" i.e. completely leave the battle space while faced with irreversible decisions where both options are bad, either "can't get in a position to shoot" or "will get shot to pieces if I go there".

So what's going to be after Tassaforanga? I guess we're limited in many ways by what ships are available so we don't have to stray too far with one ship pretending to be another. But I would like more Guadalcanal stuff since we now basically have all the ships (Furutaka C-hull and Indianapolis posing as Northampton and Portland classes). Savo Island maybe? The other thing I would LOVE is a what-if 1920s Pacific war. T5 to T7 BBs stock hulls with time-appropriate (lower tier) CLs and DDs. It's not re-enactment but it came up in another thread and strikes me as well within the scope of what we're doing here.

You are confusing two things here. Fire control and gunnery are the technology and art of shooting on target. As we have it in game, ALL of that falls under your (the player's) ability to point the mouse in the right place. Dispersion, after a point, has basically nothing to do with fire control (beyond basics of actually making sure all turrets aim at the same point). Dispersion is due the variation in where a shell might land based on the quality of the gun itself, the powder, shell etc. It is also to do with how the shell is disturbed when it leaves the gun (e.g. other guns firing nearby) and how easily the shell is disturbed in flight (wind etc.). If you cement a gun to the ground and fire it over and over again, the shots won't all land in the same place even if the gun never moves. From that point of view, the RN guns and especially the famous 15"/42 were among the most accurate naval guns of the time. US weapons, particularly early high velocity types like the 14"/50 on New Mexico, had notoriously bad dispersion historically. Some of these issues were eventually solved, but WG is probably taking a pessimistic approach for balance. So even if a gun ended up having decent dispersion due to later modifications, in game it might have bad dispersion because it was initially known as in inaccurate gun. Not sure about the Germans, allegedly their weapons were very accurate but they are also high velocity weapons with light shells. These types were typically prone to poor dispersion so even if the German ones weren't, WG might be taking a stereotypical approach. Also, bear in mind high velocity guns have a flatter trajectory. What this means in practice is small variations in angle result in very wide variations in where the shell actually lands, so it does make sense in concept that their dispersion is worse. But they are more "accurate" in the sense that they will reach the target sooner and be more likely to hit the side of the target, whereas a shell coming down at a steep angle is more likely to miss narrowly.

That looks pretty awesome but also mostly full, although I could do Farenholt. Having said that I'm quite busy on the dates for that so I don't want to commit and then not be able to make it. I'll be watching this area though, if the plan is more Guadalcanal stuff I can do most of the cruisers from either side.

If this idea is still alive I want to sign up

Not a bad idea, I support this. I would also like SA extended to planes so they get an icon when they are spotted, and their spotting distance on the map like ships have.

They also have worse rudder shift, worse turning circle and usually lose a big chunk of their firepower if they want to angle. A Myoko that wants to angle enough to not eat citadels from a Pensacola will be down to 4 gun barrels on target, 40% of its theoretical max firepower, and that's not even counting that they can't track and shoot at full rudder and the DPS you lose by weaving and dodging. A Pensacola can much more easily weave back and forth and get all 10 guns on said Myoko without exposing too much. Myoko will get better damage stats in a normal game, because HE spam on BBs when not focused, torpedo hits etc. But Pensacola will beat it in a 1v1.

I think a few people are misunderstanding the intention. This isn't about BBs having a worse stock grind than other classes. It's about not being able to enjoy the ships in a certain historical context as represented by their stock hulls. Yeah as far as game progression goes stock should be worse and that's fine, but stock hulls for BBs represent a completely different era of naval warfare and are thematically out of place with their own later hulls and every other class at the same tier. No other class shares this issue to the same extent. At worst for some cruisers and destroyers the difference between stock and top hulls is about a decade of technological development. For most BBs tiers 4 to 7 it's more like 20 years at least. So it's not about wanting buffs or easier stock grinds, it's about wanting to play these ships with the look and feel of WWI, with everything else matching the time frame and on a level playing field.

I also long for a WWI game mode or some kind of MM rating that's separate from Tier so that BBs can be played stock in a way that is fair and makes thematic sense. But, I'll try to be realistic that it will never happen. To be honest CVs aren't around often enough to be a huge problem but everything else changes, range, penetration, HP pool. I think if we want that we just have to play the premiums they give us with lower tiers than their upgraded cousins and preferential MM. Ishizuchi gives me most of the WWI battlecruiser kicks I need for now, plus low tier premiums are cheap as chips and club like crazy in semi-competent hands. It's not ideal, partly because low tier games tend to descend into boring clusterf***s, but it's something.

To also be annoying, you're quoting penetration values at ranges that are irrelevant in game. Nelson may have been built in the 1920s and look very modern and revolutionary but her construction was only allowed because the RN didn't have an equivalent to the newest foreign builds still allowed under the Washington treaty (Colorado and Nagato). It's debatable whether she is significantly stronger than either of these. From a design generation point of view, that's where she fits.

The raw damage numbers don't tell the whole story. Theoretical alpha damage means nothing if your shots bounce as soon as the enemy thinks about turning. The power of the US 8" AP comes from penetrating at angles no other cruiser shell will, and the fact the guns just feel incredibly accurate (tight pattern). So it might look like less damage on paper, a Pensacola will reliably get multiple citadels per salvo on targets that a York or a Myoko would be lucky to get one, or possibly just a load of bounces. That brings me to the real "problem" with these ships. They're excellent at hunting and duelling other cruisers. But that's not what the game expects them to do. It's not that they're bad ships, but others are better at the game meta role cruisers are expected to play.