LittleWhiteMouse

No, it's really not. There are no obviously stated odds, for one. You're assuming there are when there isn't. That's why getting Wargaming to actually disclose odds is big freakin' deal. Your leap of logic thinking that it's obvious is one of personal bias. YOU think it's obvious ergo, you think it's obvious to everyone. You can't think like that and it's wrong to project that onto other people. You're again seeing malice in any deviation from what you consider to be normal. As I stated previously, what you consider normal isn't necessarily so. That's your bias. And please don't take bias as a bad thing -- we all have them and recognizing how they shape our perceptions and influence our decisions and values is important for self-growth. You can compensate for them by acknowledging them but I don't think anyone ever gets rid of them. Malice implies intent to do evil. You don't get to argue that, that's literally the definition of malice. The intent to tweaking loot box odds does not have to be malicious. Pick your poison: To make things more fun and exciting! (some people love to gamble!) To make specific drops more exclusive. (limiting the number of Missouris so that it doesn't clog the matchmaker the way direct sales might) To make more money. (gotta hit those targets so I can feed my kids) To screw with people. (gentlemen, to evil!) To make more people participate. (increase retention). etc... It's typical when making decisions like this for businesses to do a risk analysis, weigh Pros and Cons, etc. So odds are there are many boxes ticked. They may not have considered the potential harm if they (like you appear to be) are fine with loot-box gambling so long as things appear "fair".

Again, you're swinging to the dramatic. I'm not implying malice at all. I don't think they give the player experience much thought in the first place. Malice would imply they are out to get us. That level of energy and intent isn't necessary. Adjusting percentage points on a spreadsheet doesn't have to be predicated by "this will screw those meddlesome players! Muahahaha!" The truth is probably far closer to: "Using this methodology of loot box gambling mechanics will allow us to make X% more profit than if we sold her directly, allowing us to close Q3 with the following projected gains."

Good morning from Canuckistan, Crysantos. Thank you for all of your hard work and patience during all of this. It doesn't get said enough: what you're doing is appreciated.

No, they're not and it's naive to think so There are 41 prizes. The odds are not 1 in 41. Without any funny business of weighting it per account, calendar date, etc, I can do the following: Missouri: One prize, 0.4% chance of dropping. Pacific Tokens, Dragon & Hydra: Eight prizes, 19.92% chance of dropping. Pacific Tokens, Wyvern & Basilisk: Eight prizes, 19.92% chance of dropping. Pacific Tokens, Red Dragon & Scylla: Eight prizes, 19.92% chance of dropping. Pacific Tokens, Ouroboros and Leviathan: Eight prizes, 19.92% chance of dropping. Pacific Tokens & Stars 'n' Stripes: Eight prizes, 19.92% chance of dropping. That's still 41 prizes. But your odds of getting Missouri early have gone waaaaaaay down despite Mo still being 1 prize in 41. This is the nature of how the draw system is designed in World of Warships. Such hidden variables could be concealed. It doesn't need to be anywhere near so dramatic, though. Instead of the odds being roughly 2.439% chance per prize, drop Mo's to 2% and increase the others to 2.45% . Mathematically, the average consumer needs to buy by another box or two. With the number of 3,000 Missouri's sold, an extra two loot boxes is another 9M doubloons sold (roughly $45,000 CND) for Wargaming's coffers. It's very doubtful any crowd-sourced data could ever identify something as subtle as that, but it's an easy way to pad the numbers. Unless the odds are disclosed, we as consumers have NO idea what the odds are and you can easily (EASILY!) fall into logic traps of simply dividing 100% by 41.

He's been misquoting and spinning his own narrative from the word go. Removed* He's the sort to take something you've said and run it to the extreme. For example, you're not allowed quitting the CC program without ALSO quitting the game in his head. He doesn't think one is justified without also doing the other. And if you went that far, he'd move the goal post and probably say you're not allowed talking about it or saying anything bad about Wargaming. He has a very narrow, black and white, highly-dramatized view of the world. He doesn't allow for nuance or complex emotions in other people, reducing them to two-dimensional caricatures. Look at how he latched onto my criticism of loot boxes, where the odds are not published and we must assume that they're not fair (Wargaming has a track record of short-lists, conditions based on account inventory and weighted prizes, after all). He thinks this is an accusation of a "scam". It's not. It's simply part and parcel of loot box gambling when you don't have the odds disclosed. The Missouri prizes could be weighted by player, by region, by account history, by date or simply have the odds per prize drop skewed. Any of these methods would completely skew the results of any attempt to crowd-source data, never mind the inherent biases of crowd source data when it comes to collecting drop rate odds (such sample groups will always heavily bias towards "I got it early" and generally be lacking in those who make a few pulls and then stop). Proving that the odds are actually 1:41 is incredibly difficult, let alone any other pet theory anyone has and it would require an enormous and concerted effort from different community groups in order to achieve. With that avenue unavailable, the only recourse is to exercise extreme caution with loot boxes. Players should assume that the odds may be tampered with until Wargaming is willing to put it in writing what the actual odds are. Hearing "trust me, they're fair," from a Community Manager does not put Wargaming in as much legal jeopardy as published odds. They can always point towards Miss Communications and say that the employee was confused if their words weren't correct. But no, nothing nuanced allowed. Such criticism must be simplified down to "Mouse calls it a scam", distorting complexity to fit an overly dramatic narrative. They'd make a good Angry YouTuber. But watch, he'll backpedal and defend Wargaming again and try and put other words in my mouth without evidence. I have to wonder what his end-goal is? Is it to simplify the world into bad people and good? Is it to justify his hobby-decisions to himself? I have met more than a few people in my time in the industry that couldn't reconcile something they liked with being bad or toxic. If they liked something, it had to be good. If they disliked something, it was because it was obviously bad. Anyone that didn't align with their views was obviously wrong and potentially bad too in extreme cases. Anyway, I'm tapping out here. Ping me if you need me.

Deceit #1: Wargaming told us Missouri was removed because of her in-battle performance. The truth was it was because of her credit earning. Deceit #2: Wargaming told us that for her return, Missouri would be sold directly for doubloons. The truth was that it was loot box gambling only. Deceit #3: Wargaming told us that for existing users, her 10.6 economy would be preserved with the 10.7 mission. The truth was that it was not. Deceit #4: Wargaming told us that it would be "too complicated" to add her to Armory for direct purchase. They add ships to the Armory all of the time; that's what it was specifically designed to do was facilitate and accelerate the adding and removal of ships -- they simply didn't want to undermine their loot box sales. I'm not embellishing. I'm also not interested in entertaining someone who wants to be confrontational.

Based on the data I collected, the 30% mission will mean that the 10.7 Missouri will earn more stock and will usually earn more for those that go all out with all signals, camos and flags than she did back in 10.6. That addresses existing users. Am I happy that they nerfed Mo? Of course not. That was a stupid decision and Wargaming was told as much when it was first announced. They had plenty of other options, better options than the course they took. Those suggestions were thrown at Wargaming and all rebuffed. Wargaming wanted their sweet-sweet loot-box gambling money and was willing to stack deceit upon deceit upon deceit in order to make it happen.

There's always going to be opportunists and self-promoters who are good at taking advantage of a calamity. When no drama is present, the really good ones will invent some. I have no influence on said people, however, and attempting to engage them to make them stop will only exacerbate the issue. As for fixing matters, there's a lot Wargaming could do. Some people are already lost -- Wargaming can do nothing to win them back. That relationship is poisoned and irreparable. Some of us are not. I'm not hopeful that Wargaming will reconcile. Frankly, given the amount of time they've faffed about it's increasingly foolish to hope they will. However, I promised Mademoisail to be patient, so patient I am being. Until then, I will answer questions when prompted and correct matters when I see my position misrepresented.

I appreciate that you don't like the discord this is causing. There's nothing pleasant about it. However, what Wargaming did (and is still doing) isn't something that should be swept under the rug. They have hurt people. They are continuing to hurt people. Making other players aware of this is important, unpleasant though it is. If it prompts someone to caution who might have otherwise stumbled into a bad situation, then it's worthwhile. I ask for your patience. Please be patient with us and don't blame the victims for speaking out.

If the odds are fair (and they're probably not), then 63,000 loot boxes at 1,500 doubloons a pop. In Canadian dollaridoos, that's $476,280. Had people been able to buy her directly, they would have only made $294,840 -- a difference of $181,440 in Canuckistani money.

Bingo. When I look at an apology like this, I look at what it costs them; what are they risking? Let's go through the points, shall we? Loot Box Gambling & Drop Rates: Wargaming promises to offer an alternative method to acquiring new ships that would otherwise only appear in loot boxes. Also, they will disclose loot box odds no later than by the end of 2022 (probably sooner). Kay, let's start with how scummy loot boxes are in the first place. Gambling mechanics are addictive. Ironically, Wargaming seems unaware that they themselves have become addicted to them and will go to great lengths to justify their continued inclusion. Bragging about how they, as a company, are following the laws here is stupid. It's the bare minimum of what's acceptable. It's like bragging that you don't murder orphans. You don't deserve congratulations for that. A lot of us long-time players liked World of Warships because they used to be better than other companies when it came to their monetization. Now they don't have the courage to lead the way and they've been eyeballing the orphans lately with a crazy look in their eyes. But let's look at this further. Specifically this promise only deals with new ships. By extension, this means that when Agincourt goes back on sale in the new year (according to @Ev1n on the WGNA forums), this promise doesn't preclude them from selling it only in loot boxes for a second time. It's no longer new, after all. But let's give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they're not going to be that evil. Again, nothing stops them from putting Puerto Rico or Benham levels of time gating and grind ahead of you being able to buy the ship you want instead of being forced to gamble through their loot box system. Time gating and putting obstacles in front of direct purchases in lieu of loot-box gambling is so bloody anti-consumer, it's disgusting. Finally, let's touch base on disclosing odds. I don't buy this for a second. Regionally, the necessary laws could be crowd sourced and looked up over the course of a week; MAX two weeks. Then filling out the forms to conform for said region takes a couple of days. Give it another week for legal to rubber stamp it and another week to insert it comfortably into the publication schedule. All of this could be done before the next big Loot Box Gamblathon, which will be Hallowe'en. But Wargaming doesn't want to have to do that. The Hallowe'en loot boxes will already be programmed (probably not with odds that are easy to disclose as there will be short-lists aplenty). Similarly, the next major release will be rolling out by November at the latest and you can bet there's early access loot-box gambling built into that promotion too. And let's not forget the Black Friday loot-box gambling which also comes out at the tail end of November. And finally there's the Christmas and New Year's loot box gambles to look forward to (what will this year's Makarov be, I wonder? Oklahoma perhaps?). That's four loot-box events in the next four months. If they're not trying to protect their projected earnings here, they're at least dodging the work load needed to properly communicate the odds on the short term. I mean, I could get this done, compliant to Canadian law in week (and probably less!). A few phone calls, some dollaridoos to pay for a lawyer's time and bam, quick forum post and we're done. They have 500 employees worldwide, as they so boasted. You're telling me they can't get it done in a month? It's a non-priority. And before they say "we have other commitments" that's entirely my point -- Wargaming isn't making this apology the priority it should be. And because they're not, it says volumes about how little any of it matters. Missouri's Credit Earning: Wargaming promises to address her credit earning discrepancy for owners that her before patch 10.7. Tweaking a value form 20% to 30% is dirt simple. Refunding lost credits? That's a bit more involved. I will give Wargaming credit (get it?) for this. This will be mildly annoying if it's not fully automated. Of course, I'm still kinda boggled that they didn't just plug the old credit formula and the new credit formula into a program, run a few million iterations of previous battle results and look at the possible discrepancies. That's what I would have done. Sometimes I wonder what they do with all of the data and spreadsheets they revere so much. This kinda points towards neglect; like of trying to pull a fast one on the community and being caught in the lie. Lord knows they couldn't give the Community Contributors a straight answer about this before the patch went live. I did try and squeeze one out of them. Now look at where we are. This is probably the most annoying thing WG has to deal with out of everything in this apology-letter. That's a pretty low bar. Summer Sale: When Wargaming breaks consumer protection laws, they promise to provide refunds when asked. Yeah, this just circles back to "not murdering orphans". Please stop asking for congratulations for not murdering orphans. This is really the bare minimum of what we expect of you and you've already got blood on your hands. You didn't mistranslate, you metaphorically stabbed a small child to death. It was in violation of consumer protection laws in different parts of the world. It might have been in Canada too, but I'm not a lawyer. PEGI Rating: Wargaming promises to voluntarily increase their PEGI rating from 7 to 12. This is a win. Of course, it's also a distraction. Ask yourself why players were insisting on this. It wasn't "for the children"; it was because loot box gambling is abhorrent for all ages (particularly Veterans) and this is one of the few methods the community had to get Wargaming to address it on the short term. A higher PEGI rating makes it more difficult for Wargaming to advertise their game, which in term hurts their bottom line. Am I glad they upped their rating? Sure. Does it address the core issue? Hells to the no. Similarly, it doesn't significantly hurt Wargaming so it's hard to see much value here. Providing Reactions to Feedback: Wargaming promises to be more prompt in updating previously released ships or explaining why they're not being adjusted. We've heard this before. Nothing is actually being promised here as it can't be measured. I'm going to skip the aircraft carrier and new game mode sections as they similarly do not promise anything. There's nothing risked here by Wargaming. Maps, Huron, West Virginia '44: Wargaming promises to add these sometime within 2022 and/or 2023." Cool. We can measure these promises and judge if they are broken or not. I'll speak to Huron specifically because I can. This is a low-effort C&P job of HMCS Haida, for those who are not aware. Haida's 3D geometry and camouflage can be literally cloned, that's how low the bar is here. I admit this was a bit of a trap I laid for Wargaming just to see how far their commitment to improving matters between us was. I gave them the chose between Huron and Athabaskan II and of course, they went for the low hanging fruit as I thought they would. Had they actually bothered to talk with us about the whys of each ship, we would have told them why Athabaskan II was the preferred choice but they were in such a bloody hurry to settle things, they didn't care how we felt or what we wanted. Their priority was to make us pick a submarine or an aircraft carrier, after all. We'll see if they try and impress us by going with Huron's post-war refit and swap her 120mm/45 guns for 102/45s (HMS Black Swan's guns) instead. That would at least show some effort on their part. So they picked the lowest-risk option here. It's not valuable at all. Chobittsu and I have washed our hands of it in light of Wargaming's mishandling of West Virginia '44, their continued toxic behaviour and their refusal to address our Yukon concerns. Given what I saw of Yukon's development, Huron could be in game as early as February 2022 if they made her an immediate priority, but I suspect that like Yukon, they will release her for Canada Day 2022 (on or around July 1st). On the whole, these are just business-as-usual for Wargaming. Zero risk. Changing course on the development order of premium ships in the pipeline isn't that big of a deal. If it were a tech-tree line? That's moving mountains. But premium ship releases get reshuffled all of the time (Oh, the things I know and have seen, Wargaming). I find it funny that they're pointing to a new map as a big deal. I mean, I know their map-makers have been busy greasing the wheels to shoe-horn submarines into the game. They've literally remade most (if not all) of the maps in the game to accommodate them. If any of you are under any illusions that submarines aren't going to be forced on us regardless of feedback, abandon that illusion now. But with that work done, they can go back to what they normally do; adding a map or three a year. Operations: Some of the old operations will be re-added to the game in 2022. I'm not optimistic here. They don't tell us how many operations, just 'some'. Is one "some"? I suspect that Wargaming is looking for a way to discreetly sabotage their return to get out of having to restore more operations. They have always been disdainful not only of operations but those who enjoy them. What's more, they've been actively lying to the community and the Community Contributors (maybe both) about restoring operations for at least a year. This is so low-risk for Wargaming and it could easily be used to further sabotage future operation development. Communications: ??? They don't actually promise anything deliverable here. Like, they could present anything -- anything at all -- and claim that they're living up to their word. This isn't measurable. It certainly doesn't have them risk anything. It's not worth the digital ink used to write it. What's funny to me about all of this is what low-risk stuff they're not willing to do. THAT to me speaks volumes. Famously, adding Sackville's camo was very low risk and they said no to that repeatedly even though that (mostly) solves the Yukon-question. Wargaming doesn't appear sorry to me. Yukon's "HMCS Sackville" camouflage, by Chobittsu.

They changed the number of games needed to post here a couple of years back. I have enough to post on my private EU-account, but not this one. I'd rather keep my private account private (it's so nice not being constantly focus-fired) so I still need to do a bunch more games to have full access to the forums.

I received a private apology from the Wargaming employee who belittled me the week of August 13th, but then they had already apologised the night of the incident, so extra apologies don't mean anything. I got the impression they were being thrown under the bus and I hope they weren't dealt with too harshly given that the issue is symptomatic of the toxic culture within Wargaming itself. Sub_Octavian extended an apology in private as well, though his was an empty one as he did not (and does not) understand where he and his company went wrong. Mademoisail, one of the WGNA Community Managers, has been in regular contact with me and she's been nothing but kind. Shonai has also been patient and kind and I reached out to him to publicly apologizing for being a snarky little whiner to Wargaming's first non-apology. This said, the amount of contact I have had with Wargaming is the exception rather than the rule. Few of the ex-CCs have been approached by Wargaming in any capacity, let alone been issued an apology in private from what I've been told (I may be mistaken, we have our own Discord channel but it's not like we're updating each other minute by minute, act by act). What's more, there's been no public moves by Wargaming to correct matters. Frankly, we're not expecting Wargaming to talk to us anymore or do anything positive to correct matters. The bar to correct this issue in its infancy was so low, Wargaming could have tripped over it. It's been three weeks. If they were going to make any positive changes, they would have by now. Their apathy in correcting course says everything. For those of us who have been around as long as many of us have, this message by Wargaming is more of the same. The last apology and promise to do better that Wargaming gave me lasted a mere six weeks and had holes in it from day one. How long do you think this apology and these promises will be good for?

The following is aimed at new(ish) players looking to find a little more information about various ships from events, for premium currency or for real-world cash. The goal is to allow players to make an educated decision before parting with their time and money and to find premium vessels that suit their chosen style of play, whether that is competitive, cooperative, or simply for fun. The idea here is to elaborate on information not commonly available through reading statistics and provide some (heavily) biased anecdotal evidence to encourage or dissuade you from making your purchase. The usual disclaimers apply: everyone knows the Matchmaker clearly loves me because I spend money so that's why I occasionally get really good games, not because I have any particular skills of note. Without further ado: Workhorse. Quick Summary: An almost-stock Fubuki-class Destroyer but with three, slow firing turrets instead of two. Her torpedo armament has an 8.0km range. Patch & Date Written: 0.5.15, December 1st, 2016 Closest in-Game Contemporary: Fubuki,Tier 6 Japanese Destroyer Degree of Similarity: Clone / Sister-Ship / Related Class/ Similar Role / Unique The Shinonome is the sixth ship of the Fubuki-class. Veterans of the IJN line will recognize her three-turret layout as being that of the A & B Hull Variants when the ship was a tier 8 destroyer. Her torpedoes are much more powerful due to their longer range over the stock Fubuki. Otherwise, she's very similar to her tier 6 stock-counterpart with only small differences here and there. PROs Armed with six 127mm rifles -- yay, old-school Fubuki is back! (Or is it!?) Guns have a flat arc with a high velocity shell that makes aiming up to maximum range a simple feat. Armed with three triple torpedo launchers which allows for all sorts of tactical options when it comes to torpedo runs. Good individual torpedoes with 14,600 alpha strike, an 8.0km range and 63 knot top speed. CONs Short reach on her main battery of 9.0km and very poor gun handling with a 6'/s rotation. Slow rate of fire (6.67rpm) with the new shell damage, resulting in only modest to poor DPM. Large turning circle for a destroyer at 640m and only a modest top speed of 35.0 knots. Almost no AA power. The Shinonome is a reward ship, joining the ranks of vessels like the Flint, Kamikaze R and Emden. With patch 0.5.15, any player can earn her by completing a series of missions through the campaign system. Overall, the campaign difficulty is quite low, with only two real hurdles to overcome. First, the missions require a tier 8 to 10 vessel. Second, completing the campaign takes a lot of time. Players can, if they so choose, simply repeat the same missions over and over at each stage. This lets them cherry pick the easiest missions, though this is where a lot of the time requirement comes in. Alternatively, they can attempt more challenging missions to speed up the process, but these may take multiple attempts to achieve. So acquiring the Shinonome becomes a question of inevitability rather than outright difficulty. The timing of the Shinonome's arrival is quite fortuitous as it overlaps the revamp of the IJN Destroyer tech tree. For players without any form of premium vessel, the Shinonome would arm them with a premium trainer ideally suited to helping them redistribute their Captains to the new vessels they would be adding to their ports. But would she be any good as a training ship? Could she perform? Did Wargaming give away a beautiful gem of a ship like the Kamikaze R or is the Shinonome more forgettable? Leading the way. IJN Destroyers make good scouts with their low surface detection range compared to the other ships they face. Sadly, they're rather undergunned for dealing with any enemy destroyers they encounter. The Shinonome is no different, despite having six guns to the usual four of IJN tin cans at her tier. The real struggle that most DDs encounter is in the opening minutes of match where so many of their number are culled early. Options There are no surprises to be found here. Consumables: Damage Control Party Smoke Generator Engine Boost Module Upgrades: Four slots, standard destroyer options.Premium Camouflage: Tier 6+ Standard. This provides 50% bonus experience gains, 3% reduction in surface detection and 4% reduction in enemy accuracy. Firepower Primary Battery: Six 127m rifles in 3x2 turrets. One on the prow, two on the stern in a superfiring configuration. Torpedoes: Nine tubes in 3x3 launchers mounted dorsally. Let me be a little different with this review and start with her torpedoes. As a Fubuki-class destroyer, the Shinonome comes with a very heavy torpedo armament that's guaranteed to make Battleship players poop themselves with rage and terror. She comes with three triple launchers, all mounted dorsally with good fields of fire. These tubes reload in a minute and twelve seconds each, making it very easy to keep a constant cycle of fish in the water. Sounds all pretty nice so far, doesn't it? Well, read on. The Shinonome uses the stock torpedoes found on the Hatsuharu and Fubuki. These do 14,600 damage each with a 63 knot speed and 1.6km detection range. These aren't as hard hitting as the upgraded tier 6 torpedoes found on the IJN ships which cap out at 16,267 damage, but they are faster. But what makes these fish memorable is their range. Unlike the stock torpedoes on the Fubuki and Hatsuharu which are limited to 6.0km, the Shinonome's fish reach out to a very serviceable 8.0km without any reduction in speed or damage for the upgrade. So short of missing out on a bit of alpha strike, you can perceive the Shinonome as having a nice compromise between the faster stock fish and the longer ranged upgraded torpedoes they eventually unlock. They even match well against the Anshan's, being faster, hitting marginally harder and reloading more quickly. I've found them to be a quite comfortable fit. The real danger of these torpedoes is just how many she can fire at a time. The Fubuki-class can dump two launchers worth and hold her third in reserve. Firing only these six still gives her parity with every other destroyer at her tier short of the Farragut. The flexibility of being able to hold back her third launcher is incredibly powerful. It opens up all sorts of opportunities to catch unwary ships with a blindside of fish when they think themselves safe for having avoided two full spreads already. Without going into length, a complacent enemy might commit to a turn to avoid the first salvos only to be struck by the third. Or they may assume that all of the fish have been launched only to be caught out by a surprise point blank ambush with the last launcher. The only real downside is that the Fubuki can make her torpedoes better than the Shinonome through the use of the Captain Skill Torpedo Acceleration. This would change the 10km, 59 knot Fubuki torpedoes into 8km, 64 knots torpedoes with their more powerful warhead. While the Shinonome would still enjoy a faster rearm process for her fish, it's hard to argue that these stealthier, faster and harder hitting Fubuki torpedoes aren't an improvement. Still, I am very pleased with the Shinonome's torpedo armament. It's quite powerful and unique. The Shinonome may seem like a fun throwback when it comes to her guns, at least for veterans of the IJN line. Players of the original Fubuki will recognize the weapon layout as that of the class before 0.5.15 if you used the A or B-Hull rather than the anti-aircraft C-Hull variant. I was more elated to see this than perhaps I should have been. Not only was her gun layout preserved but so too was her rate of fire. To say that her gun performance is rather lackluster is a bit of an understatement. * includes the use of the Advanced Fire Training Captain Skill where necessary. Gun performance values for tier 6 Destroyers. This lower rate of fire is combined with the nerfed shell performance from 0.5.15 which reduced HE damage per shell from 2,100 to 1,800. Her base fire chance is also reflective of the new shells at 7% per hit as opposed to 9%. While this does put her ahead of the Hatsuharu and Fubuki in terms of raw DPM and Fires per Minute (FPM), she lags considerably behind the Ognevoi, Anshan and the Farragut. In addition, she doesn't have that much of a lead on the IJN Destroyers. I was personally hoping to see the Shinonome with a Hatsuharu or at least a Fubuki's rate of fire. But being stuck at 6.67rpm instead of 7.5rpm or 8rpm is a big disappointment. This is compounded by the stereotypical poor gun handling of the mid tier IJN Destroyers. The guns take 30s to rotate 180' so you can forget brawling. The final nail in the coffin for me in regards to her guns is the 9.0km range. Their only saving grace comes from the good ballistics of her shells. Like all IJN 127mm Destroyers, her guns are very high velocity with very flat trajectories. This makes accuracy not much of a problem and it's more than sufficient to slap a prospecting hunter in the face. They can also be used sufficiently to finish off wounded prey if you're still in the vicinity after dumping your awesome fish. The Shinonome encounters a Hatsuharu inside a squall. Her primary battery allows her to battle from a position of superiority against other same-tier IJN Destroyers. Rivals: Hatsuharu The Hatsuharu doesn't come off looking to good in comparison to the Shinonome. Her torpedo armament is worse. She might have better rate of fire, but with only a 20% increase in reload speed compared to the 33% increase in available guns on the Shinonome, the Hatusharu falls well behind in that regard. Well, at least she has better range than the Shinonome. Sort of. That 300m is hardly decisive. About the only place where the Hatsuharu is hands down superior to the Shinonome is in regards to her agility and concealment. The Hatusharu is faster and she handles better. She's also got a 300m stealth advantage over the premium ship. Both of these traits are nice but when it comes to outright performance, I've got to give the laurels to the Shinonome in this comparison. Maneuverability Top Speed: 35.0 knotsTurning Radius: 640mRudder Shift: 3.2s The Shinonome nearly clones the Fubuki when it comes to her agility. This puts her on the slow side for a tier 6 destroyers, with a largish (but not unprecedented) turning circle and a rudder shift that lags behind the lead of her class by 0.7s. So while not terrible, the Shinonome doesn't have good handling either. She can and will out turn her sluggish turret traverse and you will find yourself tempted to touch the rudder to correct your aim or to speed up bringing your guns to bear. I find this to be largely a mistake as it can lead to all sorts of navigational problems, including often fatal beachings. DurabilityHit Points: 12,900 Bow & Deck Armour: Minimum of 12mm The Shinonome has less armour than the Fubuki, believe it or not. A few millimeters of missing armour plate aren't going to make a whole lot of difference, though. Any gun in the game can penetrate your bows with HE shells, so it's not like you'll enjoy any form of immunity to any kind of attack short of bouncing 152mm AP shells tossed into your face at point blank range. Her hit point pool is decent, though a far cry from the 15,500hp found on the Ognevoi or the 14,400 of the Anshan. Still this is on par with the Fubuki and it's higher than that found on any other USN or IJN destroyer at tier 6. This isn't really enough to make trading DPM with her main armament feasible, but it can provide a buffer to make picking on a damaged ship more worth risking. Rivals: Ognevoi & Anshan These ships are faster than you, tougher than you, with better DPM. These ships from the Soviet Block have the muscle to bully you off of objectives and drive you away from making attack runs on their big friends. They're anything but stealthy, however. And while their guns look more impressive, they're not that much better at slinging high explosive shells than you are. Properly equipped (with boosted hit points) and with the advantage of getting the first volley, you might be able to out trade these ships with your Shinonome. But beware if they switch over to armour piercing shells. They'll pull away on damage. Still, the only real contender for the Shinonome is the Premium Anshan, which preservers the gunship qualities of the Ognevoi but adds a potential 8km torpedo armament. This pales compared to the three triple launchers of the Shinonome, though. You can also console yourself that the Anshan has similarly poor gun handling, so neither one of you is going to want to adjust your heading while trading blows. Like a sick game of chicken, the first one to make a mistake or to veer away loses. Aware that she would be horribly outgunned and outclassed by the Akizuki, the Shinonome makes use of an island to keep out of line of sight of the fearsome IJN gunship. Pick your battles! Concealment and Camouflage Surface Detection Range: 7.0km Air Detection Range: 3.8km Minimum Surface Detection Range: 6.11km Concealment Penalty while Firing: +3.81km (vs 9.0km gun range) With her large hit point pool, it's perhaps not surprising that the Shinonome is a big boat. Her 7.0km surface detection range, while not so troublesome when the Fubuki was tier 8, is a little more problematic at tier 6. Thankfully she goes up against the likes of the Ognevoi (7.7km), Farragut (7.6km) and Anshan (7.2km). She really begins to hurt when up-tiered (as all sub tier 8 destroyers do) which face enemy tin cans that have access to Concealment Modification 1 which provides them with an immediate detection advantage. Still, her 7.0km is serviceable. Right out of the box with her premium camouflage, she has a 6.8km surface detection range, giving you a very comfortable 1.2km concealment window from which to deploy your torpedoes against larger ships. Fully upgraded, you can get the Shinonome's surface detection range down to 6.1km. This does open up a tiny opportunity to stealth fire from open water if her Captain takes Advanced Fire Training. Don't think that this will redeem her gunnery, however, as it's only a 900m window. Anti-Aircraft DefenseAA Battery Calibers: 12.7mmAA Umbrella Ranges: 1.2kmAA DPS per Aura: 4 Hahaha! No. Turn this travesty off and leave it off. You've got more hopes of Wargaming implementing mid-air collisions than getting the Shinonome to shoot something down. Rivals: Farragut The Farragut contrasts the Shinonome greatly. Faster, more agile, with nimble guns that unleash a blistering rate of fire -- out of all of the tier 6 Destroyers the Shinonome might encounter, the Farragut is her worst nightmare. Armed with up to five 127mm rifles which cycle once every four seconds, she can stack the hurt in a hurry and disable weapons and systems under her incessant volley. With a pair of quadruple torpedo launchers with a 6.4km range, you have to be wary of where and when you turn when a Farragut engages. You're not going to out trade a Farragut. In a straight line, you're not going to outrun her either. Your best bet is to point your stern into their faces and run, firing back with your four rifles. If she wants to keep up, the Farragut will have to go bow on and only be able to reply with two. But no Farragut should be fool enough to fall for that trick for long. Disengage when you see a full health Farragut prowling near you. You've got a very small stealth advantage over her. Use it and look for greener pastures. After encountering a Lo Yang inside of 6km, the Shinonome blows smoke and heads out to open sea after dumping fish. Overall Impressions Skill Floor: Simple / Casual / Challenging / Difficult Skill Ceiling: Low / Moderate / High / Extreme As an IJN Destroyer, the Shinonome is a pretty forgiving boat. While she struggles with her guns, it's just hard to argue the point that being able to spit out nine torpedoes from three launchers doesn't facilitate hitting targets and doing damage. I would say that the baseline difficulty for the Shinonome is higher than that of the Fubuki. Her extra guns are nice but not enough to provide a solid deterrent to would be aggressors. 10km torpedoes are easier to use than 8km torpedoes, if only from a survivability perspective. Efficacy remains up for debate. It's this same torpedo armament which in the hands of an expert player become a real nightmare. Three triple launchers provides a whole measure of control that's all too dangerous in the right hands. Combined with stealth and agility, a Shinonome, like a Fubuki, that's left unchecked into the later stages of a match can quickly spell the end for an unwary team that has lost their vision. Mouse's Summary: The Shinonome looks less impressive than she is. It's easy to get caught up on how she's not-quite a Fubuki. Her gun armament will disappoint many who are expecting great things from it. She's no gunship. Overall, she's a good workhorse premium, with no flash or pizazz. I was initially disappointed in the Shinonome. While I was working on trying to figure out a way to summarize her for people that asked me what she was like, I found it easiest to compare her to what people knew. She's a stock Fubuki, with three turrets instead of two. She reloads more slowly. She has 8km torpedoes instead of 6km. That really doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement. In fact, it sounds downright lackluster. But that's undermining just how good the Fubuki is at tier 6 and how the Shinonome, as a Fubuki herself, does just fine as a result. I am delighted that they included this ship as a reward vessel accessible to anyone with a tier 8+ ship and time to grind out the Campaign Missions. This will give players who don't normally have access to premium content, and who might be newer and have missed out on previous promotions, a chance to grab a trainer and credit earning ship to assist them in playing World of Warships. The Shinonome will work well for anyone that's looking to help retrain their Captains, especially with the changes to the IJN Destroyer line. The only unfortunate part is that the time needed to complete the campaign may make their own acquisition of the Shinonome so delayed as to be moot for this purpose. Oh well, she'll be ready the next time she's needed. The Shinonome is a workhorse. Like the Kamikaze-class before her when the Minekaze still reigned king, she does not look that impressive compared to her non-premium counterpart. Don't let that fool you. You don't drive the Shinonome to be fancy or to be noticed. She's there to get the job done, and she's got all of the right tools to assist you in doing so from start to finish. Rivals: Fubuki The Fubuki outclasses the Shinonome in everything but main battery firepower. But let's be thorough and go over the specific differences compared to the upgraded ship. In parenthesis, the Fubuki will be first, Shinonome second. The Fubuki is better armoured (16mm bow vs 12mm) The Shinonome has a larger main battery (4 guns vs 6) The Fubuki reloads faster (8s vs 9s) The Fubuki is longer ranged (10.0km vs 9.0km) The Fubuki has better torpedoes (16,267 damage, 59 knots, 10km range, 1.5km detection vs 14,600 damage, 63 knots, 8km range, 1.6km detection) The Fubuki has better AA DPS (19 vs 4) The Fubuki has better Rudder Shift Time (2.5s vs 3.2s) The Fubuki is an excellent destroyer at tier 6 -- arguably one of the most powerful destroyers at her tier and certainly in contention for being one of the most powerful destroyers tier for tier in the game (provided we pointedly ignore the Gremyashchy). That the Shinonome compares so closely to this strong destroyer really speaks well for this premium ship. The Fubuki and Shinonome. The Fubuki has the busier camouflage scheme between the two of them. Visually, they are quite similar though still distinct. The Shinonome is easily identified not only the number of turrets but by their style, which are slender and boxy. Would I Recommend? The Shinonome is a free ship (for now). The only way to acquire her is to put in time to the Campaign and unlock her through the step by step process of completing Missions. Time is precious, and it's ultimately up to the individual how to spend their precious hobby hours. With this in mind, here are my recommendations: For Random Battle Grinding: Yes, she's worth it. As I said earlier, she a stable, reliable work horse. The Shinonome is perfect for helping grind out your IJN Destroyer Captains and she's no slouch for your cruiser Captains either. She synergizes well with most of the Captain Skills you could want for either the gunship or torpedo boat line for the destroyers. Do keep in mind that as a tier 6, she will be facing against higher tiered opponents more often than not. It will be rare that you're not facing off against tier 7 opponents at the very least. Make use of her concealment, sneak those caps where you can and put fish into their big stuff to gradually accumulate the experience and credits you need. Stay away from anything with radar. For Competitive Gaming: It's harder to recommend her here. The Fubuki is better. Still, she can be pressed into performing if needs be. Like I said, it's hard to argue with the merits of three triple launchers. Personally, she wouldn't be the destroyer I would reach for. For Collectors: The end of the historic Shinonome is a mystery. Even the whereabouts of her remains haven't yet been confirmed. Like the Arizona, she didn't have a wartime career and is more famous for the events surrounding her sinking than in any action in which she participated. For Fun Factor: For Captains who love their IJN Destroyers, the Shinonome is a good fit. She doesn't have any gimmicks to make her stand out. But if you like Fubuki-style game play and wish you could make a few more credits and experience while enjoying that style, then the Shinonome is a great investment. She will not convince someone who does not like Destroyer game play, particularly Japanese destroyer game play, to change their colours however. Outfitting your Shinonome Recommended Modules There shouldn't be any surprises in this section. For your first slot, I strongly recommend Magazine Modification 1 for all destroyers. This turns detonations from an uncommon (but jarring) occurrence to a statistical outlier. You will take gun hits in your destroyers and they can and will result in the complete annihilation of your vessel with some frequency (as much as 1 game in 20). This will reduce this down to almost 1 game in 67 at most. If you feel like living dangerously, or if you intend to always equip Juliet Charlie signals, then Main Battery Modification 1 isn't a bad choice. Just don't complain when someone asplodes your boat. For your second slot, it's a no brainer. Aiming Systems Modification 1 is best. The third slot options are still pretty terrible. Take whichever one you like. I usually go with Propulsion Modification 1 in the vain hopes that my engine might bust less often. It doesn't seem to be working. Finally, for your fourth option, Propulsion Modification 2 is handy, particularly if you find yourself accelerating and decelerating to take advantage of smoke. For aggressive players that like to ninja caps, this is definitely the best option. Steering Gears Modification 2 isn't bad, but this only nets you a 0.64s gain on your rudder shift which is hardly noticeable. Recommended Consumables The Shinonome isn't too pricey when it comes to maintaining her consumables. Due to her decent stealth window, you can eschew the use of a premium Damage Control Party if you wish. The 60s reset timer on the standard version is normally sufficient for a vessel that doesn't intend to use her guns that often. The same can't be said for your Smoke Generator. Don't skimp out on that and spend the 22,500 credits to increase the number of charges you get and to reduce the reset timer from four minutes down to two minutes and forty seconds. I wouldn't bother with a premium Engine Boost consumable. Its use is highly situational. You can just hold onto it until you really need it. Recommended Captain Skills With the way the IJN Destroyer tree has branched, it's not uncommon to see some skill choices that seem less optimal for select destroyer types. The Akizuki has very specific demands, for example. To this end, they may not mesh up perfectly with the Shinonome. Here's the skills I recommend for her optimal performance. For your first skill, Basic Fire Training is best. This will bump up her anemic reload rate from 9s to 8.1s. Next, grab Last Stand to keep your engine and steering gears operational after taking damage. Torpedo Armament Expertise is very powerful on the Shinonome, reducing her reload from 72s per launcher down to 65.7s and should probably be acquired on a subsequent pass through the list. Lastly, Expert Marksman is alright, but it won't suddenly make the guns amazing. I would skip it personally. At tier three, Superintendent is probably the best choice. This will give you an extra (and welcome) charge of your Smoke Generator and Engine Boost consumables. At tier four, you have three reasonable choices. Advanced Fire Training seems like the optimal choice, increasing your gun range from a pathetic 9.0km to 10.8km which is much more versatile. Alternatively you can reach for Demolition Expert to nudge the fire chance of this ship from 7% to 10% per shell which is respectable. However, I feel that Survivability Expert is probably best for the Shinonome, bumping her hit points up to 15,300. And finally, at the last tier, Concealment Expert remains too good of a choice to pass up for Destroyers.

Please be aware that all of the statistics and performance discussed in this post reflect the version of the ship as she appeared during the testing period. These are subject to change before release. The following is aimed at new(ish) players looking to find a little more information about various ships from events, for premium currency or for real-world cash. The goal is to allow players to make an educated decision before parting with their time and money and to find premium vessels that suit their chosen style of play, whether that is competitive, cooperative, or simply for fun. The idea here is to elaborate on information not commonly available through reading statistics and provide some (heavily) biased anecdotal evidence to encourage or dissuade you from making your purchase. The usual disclaimers apply: everyone knows the Matchmaker clearly loves me because I spend money so that's why I occasionally get really good games, not because I have any particular skills of note. Without further ado: The Facilitating Squid. Quick Summary: A shorter ranged, sneakier Leander-class Cruiser with HE shells and a weird smoke generator consumable. Patch & Date Written: 0.5.13.1, November 2nd & 3rd, 2016 Closest in-Game Contemporary: Leander,Tier 6 British Cruiser Degree of Similarity: Clone / Sister-Ship / Related Class/ Similar Role / Unique The HMAS Perth was a modified version of the Leander-class cruiser. The primary difference was an improved propulsion system. In game, this is easy to see with the different funnel layout with the Perth having two to the Leander's one. Here's a quick summary on how the two ships vary: Hull: The Perth has an improved armour scheme but less overall hit points. Weapons: Perth has access to HE shells. While she has AP, her fuse timers and arming thresholds are nowhere near as forgiving as those found on British cruisers. Her ricochet angles are less generous. The Perth is also shorter ranged. AA Guns: Perth has a mid-war AA armament and lacks 40mm Bofors or Vickers pom-poms. She's quite vulnerable to aircraft attack. Agility: Perth has slightly faster rudder handling. Stealth: Perth is marginally stealthier with a 200m surface detection range advantage over the Leander. Fun Stuff: Perth's smoke generator is unique. PROs: Though she's based on a British cruiser, she has access to HE shells. She has a powerful torpedo armament, capable of doing nearly 62,000 damage per salvo. Torpedoes may fire individually. The Perth is wonderfully agile with a small turning circle of 640m and decent rudder shift time of 7.6s. Very wiggly. She has good concealment, starting with a 9.8km surface detection range with her camouflage. The Perth uses the British spotter aircraft consumable. This lasts for a full three minutes per charge as opposed to just 100s. Her Smoke Generator is active for 90s, generating smoke the entire time. This allows her to lay more smoke clouds than any other ship currently in the game. While the individual clouds don't last very long, this thing poops out smoke for days and allows her to remain mobile while staying concealed. CONs: She cannot be used to train British Captains. The HMAS Perth is the first of the Commonwealth ships which count as a separate nation. She's very squishy, with a small hit point total and insufficient armour to provide any kind of protection from large caliber (203mm+) shells from heavy cruisers or battleships, which can overmatch her bows and deck plating with their AP shells. The Perth does not have access to the special British AP shells. She uses normal fuses and detonators, making her AP perform more akin to standard cruiser guns. These are the same weapons as found on the HMS Belfast. Her HE performance is modest at best with only a 9% chance to start a fire per shell. Short ranged main battery at 12.8km. This makes engaging certain ship types exceedingly dangerous especially at close range. She is incapable of firing her main battery from concealment in open water, even when fully upgraded for stealth. She must make use of her consumables or terrain to be able to attack without being spotted. Her turret rotation speed is on the slow side at 7' per second. The Perth has a poor AA compliment and does not get access to Defensive Fire. Welcome to another Premium Ship Review -- the ever evolving series where the format subtly shifts and guest authors abound. Once again, Lert and NoZoupForYou join me in looking at this newest helping from the dry-docks of the Wargaming devs, the HMAS Perth. Lert will be providing his views in a versus series while Zoup summarizes the Pros and Cons above. Both gentleman offer their recommendations below too so you know you've got a more diverse set of opinions when basing your own decisions on whether to make your purchase. On with the show! The Lertbox Hello and welcome to yet another Lertbox portion in a LittleWhiteMouse review. I've long since given up trying to figure out why she keeps letting me do this, but here we are. Today we'll be talking about the HMAS Perth, a modified British Leander class light cruiser, sailing under the Australian flag. In this game, she's a premium ship for the newly introduced Commonwealth nationality. I will be writing a few short opinion pieces about how Perth compares to Cleveland, Molotov, Nurnberg and Belfast, which I believe to be a decent cross-section of direct competitors. Mouse has already written about how she compares to Leander herself. The Perth shares much in common with the Leander-class, at least superficially. But the manner in which you use her guns and smoke will largely define this new premium vessel. Options, Upgrades & Consumables The Perth doesn't have a lot of options, but she does have an interesting consumable. Her Smoke Generator is unique. It has an enormous up-time, continuing to create new smoke clouds for an astounding 90s. To put this in perspective, this is three times longer than the previous front runner, the American tier 10 Gearing-class Destroyer (30s) and four and a half times longer than standard destroyer smoke generators (20s). The downside to this smoke is that it each cloud she creates only lasts for a mere 10 seconds. This precludes anyone else from trying to park in her smoke while still allowing the Perth to use her consumable offensively. She can do this by cutting her speed down to 1/4 and walking slowly, generating new smoke as she moves. In this manner, she remains unseen for up to 100s which is consistent with most smoke screens. Thus the Perth has a very unique manner in which her consumable is used, allowing her to keep partially mobile. Very fun. In addition, she has access to the British Spotter Aircraft consumable. For any other nation, the normal duration for this consumable is 100s. The Perth's spotter aircraft lasts for 180s -- a full three minutes, just like those of the UK tech tree. Note that between her spotter aircraft (which allows her to fire from concealment in open water) and her smoke generator, the Perth can cycle offensive actions against enemy ships without being spotted. Proper management of these consumables is key to keep out of harm's way. Consumables: Damage Control Party Hydroacoustic Search Spotter Aircraft or Catapult Fighter Smoke Generator Module Upgrades: Four slots, standard cruiser options.Premium Camouflage: Tier 6+ Standard. This provides 50% bonus experience gains, 3% reduction in surface detection and 4% reduction in enemy accuracy. Firepower Primary Battery: Eight 152mm rifles in 4x2 turrets mounted in an A-B-X-Y superfiring configuration. Primary Battery Fields of Fire (AB & XY): Front: 294', 290' Rear: 294', 288' Secondary Battery: Eight 102mm rifles in 4x2 turrets amidships by the rear funnel. Torpedoes: Eight tubes in 2x4 launchers, one to each side. The Perth is armed with the same 152mm rifles -- and more importantly, the same ammunition as the HMS Belfast. While her gun handling is identical to that of the Leander with a 7' turret rotation speed, it's this difference in ammunition that's quite telling. The Perth does not have access to the "improved" armour piercing shells of the Royal Navy. She has a standard fuse-time, ricochet angles and detonator threshold rather than the more sensitive, deep-biting and fast-exploding shells found on the British Cruisers. You will see a lot of over-penetrations against lightly armoured targets with your AP shells in the Perth and ricochets when they strike at oblique angles. You're forced to make dynamic ammunition choices in the Perth depending on your targets. Like the Belfast, the Perth's HE shells are considered modest at best. While they're superior to the HE shells found on the 150mm rifles of the Nurnberg, they're far and away inferior to the six-inch shells found on the American Cleveland, Japanese Mogami, or the Soviet Budyonny, Shchors, Chapayev & Mikhail Kutuzov cruisers. The real downside to these shells is their low chance of setting fires for a cruiser-caliber shell at 9% per hit. Combined with a smaller number of rifles, the Perth isn't an ideal firebug. DPM values for tier 6 cruisers. The Perth isn't last! But she doesn't have the alpha strike capabilities of the other low-DPM cruisers. Where the Perth's main armament really hurts is their range. She comes with a 12.8km maximum reach which is downright punitive at tier 6. This creates a lot of problems for the ship and greatly reduces her survival chances when facing large capital ships. She has a reliance on two of her consumables to safely engage dangerous opponents: her Smoke Generator and her Spotter Aircraft. With her spotter, her range increases to a more manageable 15.36km. This will allow her to stealth-fire at targets from open water from ranges starting at 14.4km and as low as 13.4km with a 15pt Captain using Concealment Expert. But it's her smoke from which most of her damage can be safely inflicted. It does require a player to keep an eye on its active period and plan an extraction vector before the smoke wears off. Using these two properly can largely mitigate her range deficiency, but each can be countered and leave the Perth dead in the water. While her guns are on the lower scale of muzzle velocities, their short range ensures she's not penalized by very long lead times. Like the Belfast, her AP shells can penetrate up to 118mm of armour at 10km so pick your ammunition types accordingly based on what you're facing. Like the Leander, whatever perceived disparities of the Perth's main battery are propped up by her torpedo armament. The Perth has the same upgraded armament of the Leander with two quadruple launchers off each side, mounted just behind the rear funnel. Like British cruisers, the Perth may fire in a salvo or launch her torpedoes individually. With an 8.0km range and 61 knot top speed, these are wonderfully hard hitting fish at over 15,000 damage per. The only downside to them is their range is a little lacking. Making use of her torpedoes necessitates getting in "danger close" to the enemy. This increases the skill threshold needed to do well in the Perth, maybe beyond the level at which many players will be comfortable. The Perth sits inside a cap circle in the early minutes of a match, smoke deployed and steaming ahead at 1/4 speed. Her guns are hammering the approaching Red Team, lobbing high explosive shells onto the bows of Battleships and cruisers. The Perth can often find herself as a front runner -- taking position of caps and strategic locations to put early pressure on the enemy. Just make sure you have an escape plan in mind before engaging. Your smoke will only last so long. Rivals: vs Cleveland Cleveland boasts more hit-points, a higher RPM, better DPM, more range, a better armor scheme and a better hidden citadel. On the surface, Perth is really the underdog here, and that's how you should approach this theoretical duel. You're not entirely without options, though. Your float plane gives you a nice boost to your range, your smoke is very tactical and can give you an edge and your torpedoes force the Cleveland to stay at range. Both ships boast a similar top speed and agility but Cleveland has four additional guns with roughly the same ROF, and a better fire chance on her HE shells. You're not going to win a direct gunnery duel, but you can use your smoke to conceal yourself, while having your floatplane up to keep eyes on the Cleveland. If she starts getting too close, dissuade her with torpedoes, all the while keeping your fire up. A duel between a Cleveland and a Perth is not an easy fight for the Commonwealth ship, nor is it a foregone conclusion in the Cleveland's favor. Maneuverability Top Speed: 32.5 knotsTurning Radius: 640mRudder Shift: 7.6s She handles like a dream. Once you drop Steering Gears Modification 2 onto the Perth, her rudder shift time drops down to 6.1s. This gives her a destroyer-quality handling making her feel very responsive. She definitely a light cruiser when it comes to her agility -- nice and wiggly. It's easy to reverse course and throw off the aim of ships that are expecting you to move predictably. She also dances to torpedo beats like a champ. Speed wise, it's a bit more mixed. While not terrible, there's nothing impressive about her 32.5 knot top speed. However, unlike other cruisers, I found myself quite often sailing at 1/4 engine power to take full advantage of her smoke generators. Out in the open water, though, her 32.5 knot speed is nice but she's running up against fleet footed ships such as the Scharnhorst-class. While you can be more reactionary with her great handling, don't let yourself get run down by aggressive opponents. Rivals: vs Molotov Molotov has more powerful guns, higher range and a higher top speed, but is decidedly less agile and has a slightly weaker armor profile than Perth. Also, the Russian's torpedoes are short range self-defense ones, not even on the same level as the Australian's exploding fish. Plus, the Molotov does not get smoke, and is visible from much further. Approaching a Molotov requires patience and luck. Your AP will wreck a Molotov from the side, but be aware that she'll do the same to you if given half a chance. Fortunately, Molotov's 180mm AP is not quite big enough to overmatch your bow armor, so neither ship can lolpen the other. I am tempted to say 'Approach the Molotov', but with the Russian ship's far superior speed this is easier said than done. The best way to engage a Molotov is to approach using stealth, then use your torpedoes to funnel him into showing you his broadside, and smacking home a salvo or two of AP. Use your smoke to disengage the now wounded Russian or finish him off in a slugging match. While he has the bigger guns, you have the better agility and both ships have similar DPM so a slugging match tends to go to whoever manages to wound the other first. And as far as that is concerned, Perth holds some pretty strong aces with its concealment, torpedoes and smoke. DurabilityHit Points: 27,100 Citadel Protection: Up to 100mmBow & Deck Armour: Minimum of 13mm (immunity up to 180mm AP shells) There's no way really to sugar coat this: The Perth is really lacking in survability and protection. She's on the low side for her hit point totals for a tier 6 cruiser -- she sits just above the Nurnberg in second last place. But it's really her armour values which let her down. The Perth has 13mm of bow and deck armour. This is sufficient to protect her from Light Cruiser caliber AP fire. Shells up to (and including) 180mm will bounce when she angles but anything larger will easily overmatch her. While she does boast an impressive 100mm belt armour, it's a significant challenge to find ways to put this to work for you. Expect to take frequent module damage and to lose weapon mounts. In short: don't expect the armour of the Perth to hold up under fire. Her citadel, while on the smallish side, has a section that sticks up just over the water's surface which runs from beneath her first funnel to the aft superstructure. While this would be difficult to hammer at close ranges, shells with a slight arc (such as those from a Battleship shooting at 12km out) will easily slam home. This vulnerability becomes especially pronounced due to the short range of the Perth's weapon systems. Like the USS Atlanta, she has to get very close to deal damage -- close enough to be inside the optimal firing ranges of Battleship and Heavy Cruiser caliber guns. It's imperative, therefore, to make good use of her concealment values in conjunction with her consumables and agility to avoid damage. The Perth plays a dangerous game with a New York-class Battleship. Using the island, she approached within 4.0km of the American and crept out using smoke at 1/4 speed to unleash a point blank assault using high explosive shells and individually launched torpedoes. The fish of the Perth can deliver monstrous alpha-strikes, ideal for putting down unwary ships that get too close. Concealment & Camouflage Surface Detection Range: 10.1km Air Detection Range: 6.9km Minimum Surface Detection Range: 8.62km Concealment Penalty while Firing: +4.56km (vs 12.8km gun range) I'm of two minds about the Perth's concealment rating. It's so good, yet at the same time, it's not quite good enough. Right out of the box, the Perth has a 9.8km surface detection range with her premium camouflage. I rubbed my hands with glee when I saw this value and prepared myself to write a "Perth is overpowered" review (that changed when I saw her weapon ranges). The Perth is forever doomed to have a stealth rating that's on the cusp of excellence. She's sneaky enough to navigate from point A to B without being spotted, but she's not sneaky enough to engage enemy targets with her weapon systems without giving her position away. Perhaps I shouldn't be too critical. Ships like the Molotov would give up their left propeller shaft for this kind of stealth, but this lack of range really hurts the Perth and makes her challenging to play -- at least until you factor in her consumables. The gimmick of the Perth is her smoke generator, which is the complete opposite of the one found on the Belfast. The Belfast suffers from performance issues when it comes to her smoke, being able to (at best) create two clouds before her generators give up the ghost. These clouds will last for 103s, so it gives this higher tier British cruiser plenty of time to park her butt and pew pew to her heart's content. However, they're not going to provide significant cover for friendlies, nor are they going to be of much use in trying to escape. The Perth, by contrast, can create a maximum thirty-one clouds of smoke when moving at full speed with a signal flag to improve her engine performance. Individually, these clouds only last for 10s which makes them useless for parking inside. The Perth must keep moving while laying down smoke. So too must any friendly ship looking to take advantage of this. The values work out to the following: Forward Speeds 10 clouds @ 1/4 speed (8.1 knots). Maximum of 2 clouds active -- usually just 1. 18 clouds @ 1/2 speed (16.3 knots). Maximum of 3 clouds active -- usually just 2. 30 clouds @ 3/4 speed (24.3 knots). Maximum of 4 clouds active -- usually just 3. 30 clouds @ 4/4 speed (32.6 knots). Maximum of 4 clouds active -- usually just 3. 31 clouds @ 4/4 speed + signal (34.1 knots). Maximum of 4 clouds active -- usually just 3. The Perth herself cannot make more than 1/4 speed and remain hidden within her smoke. Any ships wishing to enjoy concealment with her have to be right up on her stern. Being more than a ship length back will mean that they may end up being detected intermittently as one cloud dissipates around them as each new cloud is laid down. It's possible for the Perth to provide smoke cover for larger ships by matching their speed as best she can and dropping smoke immediately in front while following their path. This will preclude her from taking advantage of her smoke herself if this requires her to move over 12.5 knots, but it's a tactic worth keeping in mind. Still, I would not expect most of her allies to appreciate the nuances of her smoke and I can foresee the Perth's smoke generator causing friendlies some grief as they try to take advantage of it only to have it disappear around them. Players of the Perth will need to communicate directly, "Make 1/4 speed and follow me close while I lay smoke" to ensure that their team gets the most out of their consumables. I must say I was disappointed to see that her premium camouflage was of the standard type found on tier 6+ ships. While I am hoping that this will be changed before release (and fed such information back to Wargaming), I am not holding my breath. The HMAS Perth counts as a Commonwealth ship and not a British ship, she's useless as a Captain Trainer. To this end, I would have preferred to see some additional effect found on the Perth's camouflage, such as the Anshan's bonus free-experience modifier or even a Captain Training bonus such as the one found on the German Prinz Eugen. Moving at full speed while deploying smoke, the Perth is able to provide concealment for this Gneisenau as she opens fire without the German Battleship having to slow down. Unlike destroyers, she can maintain this level of concealment for over a minute and a half. This can be up to four and a half times longer than normal smoke. This is much easier for a Battleship to remain within than trying to stop suddenly to take advantage of a cloud dropped in her path. With this setup, the Perth can still provide vision for the Gneisenau against enemy Battleships at range without worrying about being seen herself so long as she keeps her guns silent, while protecting her allied BB from return fire. Rivals: vs Nurnberg The German tier 6 cruiser is a DPM monster firing very fast shells with a very flat arc. She has a vicious set of torpedoes reaching only two km less than Perth's. In a straight-up duel, she'll pummel Perth and take home the win. She's about as fast as the Commonwealth ship too, and not that much less agile. Plus, she has a far better range on her guns. The only benefits you have is better concealment, longer range torpedoes, smoke and better agility. So how to fight a Nurnberg in a Perth? Use destroyer tactics. Use concealment. Use islands. Ambush her with your torpedoes. Use your hydroacoustic search to warn you of return torpedo fire. Harass her when she's distracted, then pop smoke sneak off into stealth when she turns her guns on you. Use your longer range torpedoes to funnel her, try to force her to make a mistake. Anti-Aircraft DefenseAA Battery Calibers: 102mm, 20mm, 12.7mmAA Umbrella Ranges: 5.0km, 2.0km, 1.2kmAA DPS per Aura: 38 / 7 / 11 Access to Defensive Fire: Not available. There's not a lot of good news here, but let's start with what's available. The Perth has the same dual-purpose 102mm rifles found on the other mid-to-high tier British cruisers. These have some rather nice teeth, being both long ranged (5.0km) and doing a fair amount of DPS per mount (9.5dps). These lack some of the hitting power found on other dual-purpose turrets, such as the American 127mm (15.17dps) or the German 128mm (12.36dps), but they'll do -- especially for a mid tier ship. Where the Perth is let down is the lack of decent medium-caliber AA guns to back this up. Most of the British cruisers will follow up on these 102mm rifles with 40mm Bofors which are a splendid anti-aircraft weapon. But the Perth does not get access to this or even the Vickers 2pdr pom-poms. So while the Perth can deal a good initial slap to enemy aircraft as they wander into range, her umbrella doesn't appreciably increase in damage the closer you get. Overall, this leaves her dangerously vulnerable to enemy aircraft -- particularly dive bombers. She's nimble enough to make attacks by torpedo planes difficult but there's little defense against well aimed dive bombers, especially from ships like the Saipan. Seeing eight Skyraiders angling against you is truly a frightening prospect in the Perth. Keep a wary eye to the skies. You don't have access to Defensive Fire to break up attacks. You're not likely to have a Float Plane Fighter to assist you. If you're caught out by yourself, you deserve what's coming. Rivals: The Belfast Notice how I didn't say 'versus' here, because a Perth versus a Belfast would not be a fair fight. However, many people will compare the two, as both are 'British' premiums, and both are light cruisers. Besides, they're only one tier apart. So on the surface of it they should be comparable, right? Here it's the consumables that define each ship's playstyle and role. Both are 'support ships', yes. But where Belfast is an exemplary destroyer hunter, Perth is less so. She doesn't have radar, limiting her use in that role. Her short gun range is balanced out by the long duration on her scout plane and her hydroacoustic is useful, but she simply doesn't have the tools to counter smoke that Belfast has. Where Belfast is more a ship that pushes aggressively in front of her team and spearheads the advance, Perth is best served escorting larger ships and lending her fire to theirs, giving concealment where necessary. The Perth's worst nightmare: Skyraider Dive Bombers from the USS Saipan. Struck by three bombs, she burns from bow to stern. The Perth has very little in the way of AA defense and enemy carriers should take full advantage of this. Overall Impressions Skill Floor: Simple/ Casual / Challenging / Difficult Skill Ceiling: Low/ Moderate / High / Extreme The HMAS Perth reminds me oh-so much of a French auto-loader from World of Tanks. For those not familiar, these vehicles have, instead of a steady rate of fire, an ammunition drum that allows them to dispense an enormous amount of damage in short order. They then have to suffer through a very long reload timer as the magazine gets replaced. During this time period, they are defenseless. Many players die in this interim, managing only to dispense the 4 to 6 rounds in their first drum before burning up in a greasy fireball. The Perth has a similar affliction. I'm convinced any player will be able to make decent use of her up to and including the duration of her active smoke generator. What will separate the successful players from the non-successful will be how they play the Perth during this cool down period when they have no smoke and the enemies want them dead. If they have over extended and didn't plan an extraction path, they'll be stuck with the 10,000 to 30,000 damage they managed while their smoke was up and then get sent back to port. Maybe they'll get a flag capture in. Maybe they'll take out an enemy destroyer or get lucky with their first drop of torpedoes. But it won't be consistent. For those that plan ahead, the sky becomes the limit. This is the real trick with this vessel. She has a rather high skill ceiling. She can be used to support friendlies so long as you're daring and sociable. Her torpedoes give her the chance to do some frightening damage against enemy capital ships and she's a very real threat to enemy destroyers. As the teams thin out, the Perth becomes more viable, especially if she's still got her consumables handy. Her stealth rating provides all sorts of advantages, allowing her to ninja caps and support friendlies without being spotted in return. Her smoke can allow her to dictate who gets seen and when. Finally there are her ammunition choices. Earning Witherer medals isn't beyond the scope of the Perth with clever use and combinations of her single-fire torpedoes and high explosive shells. The Lertbox Perth is an escort ship. Not a ship to fight others in a straight gun fight in. She doesn't have the super AP that Leander gets, she doesn't have the radar and volume of fire that Belfast gets, she doesn't have the raw DPM that Nurnberg gets or the alpha smash and speed that Molotov gets. What she does have are solid but unremarkable guns, solid but unremarkable speed, solid but unremarkable torpedoes and a very interesting smoke screen. If you're okay with letting other people have the limelight and supporting your team from the shadows, there are worse alternatives than Perth. But she's not a good ship for glory-hounds, and her carrying potential is limited. She's not a bad ship, just not a very remarkable one with big shiny features. Mouse's Summary: The Perth is a squid. She squirts all of the ink. She's a challenging ship to use to influence the game. While she can remain hidden, her offensive power is a bit lacking outside of her beautiful torpedoes barring recklessness on the part of the enemy. As a support ship, she can selflessly use her smoke to cover larger ships without them having to slow down for well over a minute. Coordinating with team mates is key. This can be quite powerful when used correctly but may be outside the scope of pick up matches in Random Battle games. The Perth is super squishy against anything outside of enemy destroyers and some light cruisers. You're not going to win duels if you trade blows. Let's get to the meat of the matter: The Perth is going to be a difficult ship to love -- which is weird, because I liked the Leander when I played her. While delighted to see the British Commonwealth represented in the game (and hoping this means the HMAS Australia and HMCS Haida are on the horizon) I am very frustrated to see that British Captains cannot be trained on this vessel. I held my breath and hoped to see some further motivator applied to her camouflage to make the Perth an immediate must-have such as bonus credit earning or experience gains -- you know, something to buff her appeal. There wasn't anything during testing. When I asked my contacts at Wargaming, they didn't believe that there would be any immediate alternative camouflages when she was released. So take that into consideration. Game play in the Perth didn't enamour me early on either. On the surface, the Perth doesn't have a lot of teeth. She only has the eight guns and that mediocre AP and HE fire from the Belfast. Well, maybe that's not fair: I do love her torpedoes. While they don't have the range or hitting power of the IJN, they are something nice and I really missed having those when I played the Belfast. Success in the Perth comes down to proper management of your consumables. Assuming you're using premium consumables (and you'll want to use premium consumables), you've got 1 minute and 40 seconds of concealment from smoke with a 2 minutes and 40 seconds of down time while it resets. Use this time to open up the range and then activate your spotter aircraft. This will provide you with 3 minutes to continue dropping shots on target. Wiggle your tush to dodge any return fire if you can't get out to stealth range. Once this cools off, you'll be once again ready to use smoke for another minute and 40 seconds worth of killing. Your plane will be back online in 4 minutes. So you'll want to yo-yo between medium-close to medium-long range to take advantage of your consumables and keep your weapon systems active while avoiding reprisals. It's kind of a fun dance to do when you're doing it right. But misstep and everything goes to poop. The Perth isn't like the HMS Belfast where you're absolutely dominant against one particular class. She's not as good of a destroyer hunter, though she is capable enough in the right hands. She's certainly got sufficient DPM to put the hurt on any underage ship that lets her within 7km. But like the Belfast, the Perth really begins to struggle when facing other light cruisers or heavier ships. Then it becomes absolutely necessary to properly cycle smoke, especially if you can't get off an ambush with your fish. Where she really shines is when you can coordinate with one of your team mates, preferably in another cruiser and let them make use of your smoke while you do the same. A simple message like, "My smoke's ready. Slow to 1/4 and keep within 0.5km of my stern," is usually enough to allow another player to take full advantage. Teamwork is OP in World of Warships after all. So what's all this mean? Is the Perth a bad ship? Well, no. She can perform. She can support. You're just going to have to work harder at it than say, the Molotov or Belfast. She's not going to be an easy ship to recommend though. One of the neat side effects of the Perth's smoke is that it ships begin sailing in close formation to take advantage of it. This ends up looking really cool. Here, the Perth leads a Fiji-class cruiser as they engage enemy Battleships without being spotted in return. Would I Recommend? The Perth is a difficult ship to recommend because it's pretty unforgiving. I maintain that anyone should be able to do some damage, maybe even sink a ship on occasion in her so long as they use their smoke consumable properly. She's going to frustrate a lot of opponents who don't anticipate her continuing to move when her smoke is laid down instead of puffing a couple of clouds and parking stationary within it. How players manage the transition between smoke clouds with largely determine their success rate. Those who like the Leander will probably enjoy the different take on the same class that is the Perth. I had a great time testing this ship. For Random Battle Grinding: Mouse: Eh, no. First and foremost, the Perth cannot be used as a trainer short of her own dedicated Captain. There are no other Commonwealth ships. In addition, she's premium consumable-hungry. I can't stress enough the importance of taking at least two, maybe even all four slots as premium versions, so this will eat into her credit earning potential. So for credit earning and captain training, she gets two strikes. When it comes to earning experience or completing missions, my feelings are mixed. My damage totals usually sat between 40,000 and 90,000 in the Perth. I only managed a single 2000+ base experience game, with most sitting between 1,100 and 1,300 on a win. This often wasn't enough to top the team roster on the results screen. To be fair, I did win far more than I lost. Still, I would pass on her specifically for those interested in finding a ship to grind for experience, training, credits, signals or mission rewards. Lert: No. There are other ships out there with better characteristics for grinding. She can't train British captains, her credit earning potential is on par with other tier 6 ships and she doesn't earn more XP than them either. Zoup: For me, I can't imagine myself using this ship too often in battles. In many ways, its quite similar to the Atlanta. Sadly, its not a lower tiered version of the Atlanta because it lacks the fire-starting capabilities of the Atlanta, along with the rate of fire. I enjoy the Atlanta despite its shortcomings and lack of range. The lack of range for the Perth hinders it significantly, in my opinion and at Tier 6, the Molotov offers a much better premium option than the Perth. For Competitive Gaming: Mouse: Let me be honest: there are better ships for this. She doesn't have great hitting power short of taking advantage of the bumbling incompetence of your enemies. And while the Perth can be used as a support vessel, it's of a very limited fashion. She'll be forever vulnerable to dive bombers and she's super squishy. Her smoke, while amazing, kind of makes her a one-trick pony. You have to risk a lot to get the Perth to perform and any competitive team will punish you for the slightest misstep.Lert: I would say no. Her mediocre speed, low gun range and lack of primary firepower hold her back in a way that a decent set of torpedoes and interesting smoke can't really balance out. Zoup: I could possibly see the Perth being used in competitive gaming as a high risk high reward ship for capturing points. It's torpedoes have the range to provide denial of swaths of sea and if DDs wander to close, it will give them a bad day. The problem is once its spotted, if any large ships focus fire, the Perth won't last long. Highly skilled players will likely make use of the Perth in ranked, but I doubt it will be a go-to ship. For Collectors: Mouse: Hells yeah. Commonwealth represent! Lert: It's the first Commonwealth ship in the game, and worth nabbing for that reason alone. Time wil tell what other Commonwealth ships will eventually make it into the game. She's also a storied ship, having fought at Java Sea and survived, only to be torpedoed and sunk at Sunda Strait. Zoup: I think the ship is collectable. It's the first Aussie ship in the game and has a very noted history to it. With that, it meets the criteria for a collector ship. There is a market for it. More so than some of the previous premiums, like the Lo Yang. Though popular, I doubt the Lo Yang was purchased for its service history. So yes, I think the Perth will be collected. For Fun Factor: Mouse: I really had a lot of fun in this ship. I think it was because it prompted some of my team mates to work in close support with one another to make use of her wonky smoke. But that stayed with me. There was also the fun of using torpedoes and fires to really put the hurt on enemies. Yeah, it was a blast. Of course, I do like the Atlanta, so take this recommendation with a grain of salt. If you enjoyed the Leander? The Perth will suit you. If you didn't? Best to steer clear. Lert: Maybe? She's a support ship, not a glory-hound. She does a thankless job, and is adequate at it. If this is something that appeals to you, then yes. Perth won't let you down. Zoup: Meh. It's not great, but it's not bad. It can be fun, but it's not always fun. It's nice having a lot of smoke, and you can shred ships that get too close. However, it works both ways, and ships will shred you as well. Like I mentioned earlier, this is a risk and reward ship. You have to be deliberate. If you are playing too deliberate, you aren't having as much fun as you could be. The Leander with the Perth off her rear port quarter. These two ships share many similar characteristics but the differences in their ammunition is the most telling. They work very well in support of one another, shortening the window in which they have no cover from smoke. Outfitting your Perth Recommended Modules The Perth has four module upgrade slots. Given her poor AA values, there's not much point in trying to prop it up. This leaves a single, optimal build for the Perth. For your first slot, Main Armaments Modification 1 is your best choice. From experience, I can say that she loses weapon mounts frequently. I had my torpedo tubes destroyed several times and my guns temporarily knocked out regularly. Alternatively, if you're horrified by the possibility of being detonated, Magazine Modification 1 will help you considerably. I was not detonated in my test games with the Perth but you never know... For the second slot, Aiming Systems Modification 1 provides its usual benefits. This is less useful on a cruiser than a Battleship, however. A good alternative is Main Battery Modification 2. This accelerates her turret rotation by almost a full degree per second at the cost of her reload speed. As the Perth will be throwing herself about often in order to dodge fire, this can help keep guns on target. For your third slot, as ever, Damage Control System Modification 1 is the only really vaguely decent one. Hint-hint, Wargaming. For the fourth slot, take Steering Gears Modification 2. This will improve your rudder shift time from 7.6s down to 6.1s. As the Perth is rarely (if ever) stationary, this depreciates the value of Propulsion Modification 2 so I would avoid it. Recommended Consumables The Perth can be a very premium-consumable hungry vessel. The merits of taking a premium Damage Control Party are pretty self evident. You don't have a lot of hit points to spare and even a single fire can eat away at far too much of that precious health (especially if there are dive bombers hunting you). Taking a premium version of her Smoke Generator is also a pretty obvious move. This increases the charges from 2 to 3. More importantly, this reduces the reset timer from 4 minutes down to 2 minutes and 40 seconds, which is huge. Of the other two consumables, it's a little more open ended. To keep the Perth's guns singing at range, it may be worthwhile upgrading her Spotter Aircraft to reduce the reset timer from a punitive 6 minutes down to 4. This will allow you to easily use it three times within a match as opposed to just twice. On most other ships I couldn't recommend this with a straight face, but on the Perth? It's quite valuable. I would avoid taking a Float Plane Fighter of any description. You'll need the extra range well over the small boost to AA defense the fighter might provide. Lastly, there's Hydroacoustic Search. This is a very situational consumable so you can probably afford just the standard version if you find your credit costs are running high. The premium version reduces the reset timer from 3 minutes down to 2 minutes. Recommended Captain Skills The choices for the Perth's Captain Skills are fairly straightforward. As she's the only ship within her own nationality (go, Commonwealth!), you don't have to worry about these skills pairing up nicely for an alternate vessel. From the first tier, it's actually difficult to recommend Basic Fire Training because of her poor AA values. Still, this does provide a little bit of help and it's certainly the strongest choice at this tier. This will provide a boost to her secondaries too and the Perth does end up in sub 5km fights often enough. From the second tier, both Expert Marksman and Last Stand have a lot of value. The latter is obvious enough -- your engine and steering gears are almost as vulnerable in the Perth as they would be in a destroyer. The former provides a 10% boost to your turret rotation speed, changing a 180' rotation from 25.7s down to 23.4s. This really helps given how much you'll be throwing the ship about. If you've taken Main Battery Modification 2, this will combine to reduce her turret rotation to 20.6s for a 180' turn or 8.74' per second. From tier three, grab Superintendent right away. This provides an extra charge of your Smoke Generator. Note that you should keep an eye on your play style before taking this skill. If you're using the premium consumable already and not running out on your matches, then there's no point on taking this. Alternatively, Vigilance is a great skill for helping spot torpedoes early. At tier four, Demolition Expert is wonderful. This will increase your chances to start fires from 9% to 12% per shell. Beauty! And finally, at tier 5, Concealment Expert is the most valuable. This will reduce your surface detection range from 9.8km down to 8.6km. Keep in mind this will not allow you to stealth fire either your torpedoes or your main battery from open water. Alternatively, Jack of All Trades is interesting because it reduces the reset timer on your Smoke Generator, from 2 minutes and 40s with premium to 2 minutes and 16 seconds. For more articles in this series, please visit: LittleWhiteMouse's Mega Ship Review Guide (NA Forums Link) A special thank you to NikoPower for providing access to the Perth, PigeonofWar for answering my questions and to Lert and Zoup for their contributions to the article. Also, a big thanks for the support offered by KJar, Argh_My_Liver, EroSun, MagisterAurelius and "Large Handsome Dog" (you know who you are). They helped keep me sane while trucking through the writing process. Lastly, a very special thanks to AfroSquirrel for that one game we ended up together in testing that was super fun to play.

Poopin' rainbows. Quick Summary: A fragile anti-aircraft cruiser with radar and armed with sixteen 127mm rifles and short-ranged torpedoes. Patch and Date Written: 0.6.1. February 3rd, 2017 Cost: 9,000 doubloons. Closest in-Game Contemporary Flint, Tier 7 USN Cruiser Degree of Similarity: Clone / Sister-Ship / Related Class / Similar Role / Unique Flint is an Oakland-subclass of the Atlanta-class cruiser, so it stands to reason that the two ships would be very similar. Flint has an upgraded medium-range anti-aircraft suite. She loses out on the two wing turrets found on Atlanta giving her a maximum of a twelve-gun broadside. Flint's superiority is very firmly set by her torpedoes which have a reach out to 9.2km. Lastly, the two ships trade out their third consumable, with Flint having a USN Smoke Generator instead of Atlanta's Radar. PROs Armed with sixteen, rapid fire 127mm rifles in eight turrets dispensing up to168 rounds per minute from a fourteen gun broadside. Turret traverse is blinding-quick at 25º per second. Able to fire over intervening terrain quite easily. Her main battery customizes incredibly with the 0.6.0 Captain Skills. Her torpedoes are very fast and very hard hitting for a cruiser of her tier. Powerful anti-aircraft armament, with unlimited charges of her Defensive Fire consumable. With a full AA-upgrade build, she has some of the best AA-power in the game, tier for tier. She has access to the USN Radar consumable. CONs Tiny hit point pool of 27,500hp. Her machine-spaces citadel sits over the waterline and has a maximum of 89mm of protection. Her bows are overmatched by 203mm guns or larger. Her turrets get temporarily disabled easily. Painfully short ranged at 11.1km stock. Very poor ballistics, with shells being launched into low orbit even at modest ranges. Poor penetration values on her AP and HE shells. She struggles to do damage to tier 8+ Battleships. Torpedoes are pathetically short ranged at 4.5km. Large surface detection range of 11.0km. My last review of Atlanta was over a year ago and there have been some rather significant changes to the game in that time. Atlanta has been graced by some better fortunes, including one direct buff and many smaller, indirect buffs caused by differences in new mechanics and systems. This time last year, she was an overspecialized oddity, unable to perform in the manner players wanted and expected her to perform. She remained a favourite to eccentrics and experts and downright punitive to novice players. Atlanta's fame (or infamy) has waned considerably over the year. She is no longer commonly available, having been removed as a permanent fixture from the online store. She is also gone from the in-game tech-tree where she could be bought with doubloons. Though far from rare, it is likely that as the game matures she may become a more uncommon sight. This said, her game play style has been diluted somewhat by the inclusion of USS Flint, an Oakland-subclass of the Atlanta-class cruiser. Flint shares many characteristics with Atlanta but with the benefits of better torpedoes and a smoke generator -- two fixes for the Atlanta-class many fans of her were clamouring for. We received different fixes for Atlanta instead of questionable effectiveness. This does raise the question if Atlanta is now worth purchasing for those who do not have her, especially given her limited availability. Hopefully this review will address said concerns. Atlanta subscribes to the original Wargaming design for premium vessels in World of Warships, where candidates were to be selected from ships that didn't fit in the tech tree. These "weird" vessels included ships like Kitakami and Tone. Options Atlanta's Defensive Fire is special. Unlike other ships, she has unlimited charges of this consumable. Its other characteristics, including reset timer, duration and intensity remain the same. Atlanta is also one of the few tier 7 ships with Radar. This has an 8.49km range, 25s duration and two or three minute reset timer depending if you took the premium version or not. Consumables: Damage Control Party Defensive Fire or Hydroacoustic Search Radar Module Upgrades: Four slots, standard USN Cruiser options.Premium Camouflage: Tier 6+ Standard. This provides 50% bonus experience gains, 3% reduction in surface detection and 4% reduction in enemy accuracy Firepower Main Battery: Sixteen 127mm rifles in 8x2 turrets with an A-B-C-P-Q-X-Y-Z arrangement. A-B-C and X-Y-Z are superfiring, with all three turrets capable of shooting unobstructed directly forward or aft respectively. P and Q are wing turrets mounted just ahead of X-turret and behind the torpedo launchers. This gives the ship a fourteen gun broadside. Torpedo Armament: Eight tubes between 2x4 launchers. One is mounted to each side of the ship behind the rear funnel. Let's start with Atlanta's torpedoes; they are terrible. While individually hard hitting at 16,663 damage per and fast at 65 knots they are pathetically short ranged at 4.5km. This limits their utility to ambush scenarios and acts of desperation. In order to properly make use of Atlanta's torpedoes, your opponent has to have made a serious mistake. In such scenarios, a broadside of all four fish will be catastrophic and your opponent deserves the punishment these can dish out for being so horribly out of position. In close range brawls with enemy cruisers, a broadside of her AP shells is often more reliably devastating than her torpedoes. That's really all that needs to be said about these weapons. Main Battery Atlanta has arguably the most entertaining main battery armament in the game. There are few guns as interesting as the USN 127mm/38 rifles in World of Warships. They are not without their controversies either. With 0.6.0 they received a significant buff in regards to how they interact with select Captain Skills and the variety of builds centered around improving these weapons is diverse. But let's start with looking at their raw performance before we worry about how we can modify them. Common Captain Skills taken by Atlanta players to buff their Main Battery. Few ships benefit so greatly from Captain Skills as the Atlanta. From left to right: Basic Fire Training, Advanced Fire Training, Demolition Expert, Inertia Fuse for HE Shells, Adrenaline Rush and Expert Marksman. Not all of these skills should be considered optimal or even necessary. The 127mm/38 rifles found on Atlanta are similar to, but not an exact match to the weapons found on the USN Destroyers. They fire the same shells, with the same relative range, ballistic qualities, alpha strike, penetration values and fire chance to her line's destroyers. However, Atlanta doesn't enjoy the same rate of fire found on vessels like Mahan, Farragut or Sims. Farragut, at tier 6, fires 15 rounds per minute -- a value matched by Mahan at tier 7. Sims gets this volume of fire as high as 18.2 rounds per minute while Atlanta has to make do with 12. For those wondering, this isn't historical and has been reduced for balance reasons. Atlanta may appear to have the equivalent broadside to three USN Destroyers combined, once you factor in her reload time, this works out closer to two. And this brings us to our first two Captain Skills. Rate of Fire Atlanta reloads every 5s giving her fourteen gun broadside a potential rate of fire of 168 rounds per minute. There are two ways to increase this. As a destroyer-caliber weapon, Atlanta enjoys full benefits of Basic Fire Training which drops her reload down to 4.5s and increases her rate of fire up to just over 186rpm. As if that weren't enough, you can also take Adrenaline Rush which increases her rate of fire as your ship takes damage. At half health, this drops Atlanta's reload by another half second, increasing it to 210rpm. Let's look at some real-world examples. Assuming penetrating hits from her HE shells (594 damage per), a full 14 gun volley (8,316 damage per) yields the following. Against saturated areas, the damage will be half this. At 168rpm: 99,792 damage. At 186rpm: 110,494 damage. At 210rpm: 124,740 damage. This is contingent on being able to land hits with that level of accuracy and penetrate vulnerable areas. Like all guns, Atlanta's rifles are exceedingly dangerous up close. Landing with ten or more shells per volley is easy enough inside of 7km ranges. However, even veteran Atlanta players only land between 29% and 35% of their hits overall which much of the accuracy disparity coming from her poor ballistic qualities at range. Range and Ballistics One of Atlanta's biggest weaknesses is her lack of reach relative to her surface detection. Stock, Atlanta's guns can theoretically hit targets up to 11.1km away while she's detected from the surface from 11.0km. This 100m buffer for such a fragile ship forces her to be placed in harms way anytime she pulls the trigger. Taking the skill, Advanced Fire Training extends her reach up to 13.3km. Between camouflage and skills, it's possible to get her surface detection down to 9.4km. In theory, this opens the tiniest of stealth fire windows (less than 100m) but in all practical sense, Atlanta cannot engage targets and stay hidden without the use of cover. This is further compounded by the appalling ballistic qualities of her shells. At her maximum range, her shells are taking a full second per kilometer of distance traveled. This leads to horrible lead times. Depending on game resolution, some players may be prevented from using the maximum zoom when ranging their shells as their targets will be well off screen. This can make targeting specific sections of ships very difficult This is a necessary skill when facing off against heavily armored targets which her HE shells can struggle to damage.Penetration and Fire Atlanta has one of the lowest average damage per game values of any tier 7 cruiser. Stock, Atlanta's high explosive shells can penetrate a maximum of 20mm of armour. Aside from destroyers and some light cruisers, her shells just don't have the penetration power to directly affect vessels short of their superstructures. So while her guns may murder a destroyer with some alacrity, when facing against cruisers and battleships, Atlanta was often on her back foot. Atlanta's AP shells can be truly monstrous when properly applied. However, their penetration values due to their low muzzle velocity and poor ballistics arcs prevents them from being used efficiently outside of 7km ranges. Inside this distance, Atlanta is more than capable of blowing out the citadel of heavy cruisers or hammering the upper hull or extremities of a Battleship with her AP shells and wracking up enormous damage totals quickly. It's not uncommon for Atlanta to deliver seven to ten citadel hits against a broadside cruiser inside of knife fighting range. This can deal a whopping 29,400 AP damage if you can land 14 out of 14 shells as citadel hits. For this reason, Atlanta's torpedoes are often forgotten in the heat of a brawl as her AP can be more than sufficient to put down an enemy cruiser. Outside of this range or against even slightly angled targets, her AP performance becomes quite anemic. For this reason, the ship has often lived and died by her high explosive shells. In the past, this forced Atlanta Captains to rely on the fire potential of her weapons to inflict damage against larger capital ships. As a flamethrower, she was quite good at this in theory but in practice, this was never sufficient. Her individual shells have a poor base fire chance at 5% per hit. Demolition Expert can nudge this number up to 7%. However, this plugs into a larger formula: [Fire Resistance Coefficient x ( 1 - [Damage Control Modification 1 - [Fire Prevention ) x ( [Projectile Base Fire Chance + [Demolition Expert + [signals - [inertial Fuse for HE Shells) = Fire Chance Fire Resistance Coefficients vary, from 0.8668 for a stock tier 5 to 0.5671 for a fully upgraded tier 9 vessel. This makes the chances of stacking fires much easier against lower tiered targets than higher tiered, which is ironic given that Atlanta can often deal more damage directly to lower tiered targets than needing fires to prop up her damage totals. Here are some real world examples: Atlanta with Demolition Expert facing an upgraded Kongo with Damage Control Modification 1 (0.8335) x [1-(0.05) - (0) x [(0.05) + (0.02) + (0) - (0) = 5.54% per shell Atlanta with Demolition Expert facing an upgraded Iowa with Damage Control Modification 1 and Fire Prevention (0.5671) x [1-(0.05) - (0.1) x [(0.05) + (0.02) + (0) - (0) = 3.37% per shell Combine this with Basic Fire Training on the Atlanta (186rpm) and a 30% accuracy and you're looking at 3.1 fires per minute against the Kongo and 1.9 fires per minute against the Iowa. Based on these numbers, an Atlanta should be able to easily stack a fire or two past Kongo's Damage Control Party and disengage. Against an Iowa or similar tier 9 Battleship, it's questionable whether any fires will stick at all if the target Captain manages their consumable properly. Dueling with either Battleship for longer than a minute greatly increases the changes of reprisals from the now-annoyed battleship from which Atlanta is unlikely to survive, so it's important to stack fires in a limited time frame and disappear. Without the ability to do damage quickly to larger targets and her own poor survivability when such ships elect to shoot back, it's perhaps no wonder that Atlanta's average damage has been so low. There is a ray of sunshine, however. Inertial Fuse for HE Shells All light cruisers have benefited massively from this skill and it has been a real game changer. For Atlanta, this increases her HE penetration from 20mm to 27mm allowing her to now damage the extremities of tier 6 and 7 battleships and all cruisers within her matchmaking spread. With this skill, now Atlanta can drop those theoretical 8,314 damage, 14 penetrating hit HE volleys against most of her opponents. Only tier 8+ Battleships retain an immunity to her shells with the exception of their superstructures. This skill isn't without its trade-offs, however. It's an expensive investment for one, requiring the sacrifice of one or more beneficial Captain Skills. In addition, it damages her already poor base fire chance by a whole 3%. It's this latter trade off which can really hurt as her (in)effectiveness against tier 8+ Battleships plummets even further. Let's look at our Iowa example again. Atlanta with Demolition Expert and Inertial Fuse for HE Shells facing an upgraded Iowa with Damage Control Modification 1 and Fire Prevention (0.5671) x [1-(0.05) - (0.1) x [(0.05) + (0.02) + (0) - (0.03) = 1.92% per shell And if you can no longer afford Demolition Expert: Atlanta with Inertial Fuse for HE Shells facing an upgraded Iowa with Damage Control Modification 1 and Fire Prevention (0.5671) x [1-(0.05) - (0.1) x [(0.05) + (0) + (0) - (0.03) = 0.96% per shell Once again, assuming Atlanta is using Basic Fire Training and attaining 30% accuracy, this works out to 1.1 fires per minute with Demolition Expert and 0.5 fires per minute without. So it becomes a question of a trade off. Inertial Fuse for HE Shells greatly increases Atlanta's lethality against same tier or lower tiered battleships but worsens her performance against those found at tiers 8 and 9. Conclusions: Few ships have their performance defined so significantly by Captain Skills as Atlanta. With her torpedoes being a mere afterthought, how a player customizes and elects to use Atlanta's main batteries will largely define their level of success with this ship. There is no build that is optimal against all targets and some that are superfluous or even damaging to Atlanta's damage output depending on the ship type engaged. A player must decide well in advance what kinds of ships she wishes to specialize against and build her Atlanta accordingly. One of Atlanta's more infamous traits is the awful shell flight times. At maximum range (13.3km) it's possible to begin firing a fourth volley volley before the first has hit the target. This makes lead times downright punitive and adjusting fire difficult. Maneuverability Top Speed: 32.5 knots Turning Radius: 610m Rudder Shift Time: 8.4s Atlanta's top speed of 32.5 knots isn't particularly exciting. It's sufficient for her task as an escort cruiser, but she doesn't have the speed necessary to challenge evasive destroyers. Perhaps more pressingly, she is also lacking in sufficient speed to outrun fast Battleships that may seek to engage her, such as Bismarck, Tirpitz, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau or Iowa and she has no chance of outpacing Soviet and Japanese cruisers. So while not slow or inflexible, some care needs to be taken when planning Atlanta's course lest she find herself out of position or over extended. This is a problem common to all USN Cruisers. Ship rotation times from starting at maximum speed and rudder hard over. Each ship was run through the course five times (except Flint and Atlanta which were run for ten to confirm their similarities) and the average taken. Deceleration is the time taken for a ship to reach it's lowest speed in a turn. The two most important factors for determining ship rotation speed is the radius of her turn combined with the average speed while turning. Smaller turning circles and higher average speed will result in faster rotation rates. The tier 7 and tier 8 American cruisers are all very similar to one another in their performance, but Atlanta and her sister, Flint, are hands down the most agile of all of the mid tier USN Cruisers with between a 0.5s and 1.0s advantage in turning 90º. Atlanta's handling is almost identical to other vessels found in the American cruiser line. This similarity between mid-tier USN Cruisers makes for easy skill transference from one ship to the next. If you can torpedo beat in a New Orleans, you'll find Atlanta answer similarly to her rudder. Atlanta's turrets have no difficulties tracking targets, even with her rudder hard over. They traverse at a rate of 25º per second compared to the 6.3º per second she turns at full speed, allowing Atlanta to quickly acquire targets and engage new threats from one side of the ship to the other even while under heavy maneuvers. This makes the Captain Skill, Expert Marksman, much less valuable for Atlanta than on other USN Cruisers. Atlanta is rather agile and can be a real bothersome target for destroyers. Durability Hit Points: 27,500 Citadel Protection: 89mm of belt armour Min Bow & Deck Armour: 13mm Torpedo Damage Reduction: None. Over the last year, Atlanta has enjoyed a considerable buff to her turret durability. Patch 5.5 from April 26th, 2016, all small caliber weapons had their hit points increased as much as 2.6 times what they had been. Prior to this, Atlanta's turrets had 1,500 hit points each while she now enjoys 4,000 hit points per. Previously, it was a rare occurrence for Atlanta to survive a battle without losing some of her main battery. Now it's rather uncommon for Atlanta to permanently lose any of her weapons. However, much of what was previously said about Atlanta's durability still holds true. Atlanta is one of the worst protected cruisers in the game, making her truly a glass cannon. She has a pittance when it comes to her hit point total. Her armour layout is laughable with 89mm of belt armour. Her large citadel has a section that sits above the surface running beneath the twin superstructures, from the bridge to the wing turrets. Her bow has only 13mm worth of protection, making it possible to overmatch it with 180mm guns found on the Kirov, Molotov and Dmitri Donskoi, never mind the larger caliber guns found on heavy cruisers and battleships. There are few HE shells not capable of landing penetrating damage on Atlanta, no matter where they strike her. In short, an exposed Atlanta is very likely to become a dead Atlanta. It's imperative to make use of her concealment and agility to stay alive. Hug islands and use them to block incoming fire. Concealment & Camouflage Surface Detection Range: 11.0 km Air Detection Range: 6.4 km Minimum Surface Detection Range: 9.4km Concealment Penalty while Firing: +3.8km (vs 11.1km gun range) For such a fragile and short ranged vessel, Atlanta is shackled with an enormous surface detection range. She is utterly incapable of engaging enemy targets with her torpedoes without giving her position away. It's only when either her main battery range or her concealment is upgraded that she can ambush surface targets with her guns. Even with a full investment into concealment and range modifiers, Atlanta cannot stealth-fire from open water and remains dependent upon friendly smoke or island cover to stay concealed. At best, Atlanta can get her surface detection range down to 9.4km which is still punitive for a ship of her size and range. She's unable to sneak up on destroyers and, unlike HMS Belfast, her surface detection range exceeds that of her radar, giving destroyers time enough to begin evading before Atlanta can light them up with her consumable. It is worth mentioning that Atlanta, with her radar consumable, can make better use of borrowed smoke clouds than some other ships. When divisioned with smoke-laying vessels, Atlanta can help provide eyes for herself and allies while remaining obscured within the smoke clouds. Though her radar has a very short duration, this can tip the balance in some engagements to let this fragile vessel exploit concealment mechanics within the game to her advantage and decide the local fight. Anti-Aircraft DefenseAA Battery Calibers: 127mm / 28mm / 20mmAA Umbrella Ranges: 5.0km / 3.1km / 2.0kmAA DPS per Aura: 121 / 27 / 29 Atlanta used to have the best anti-aircraft armament at tier 7 without contest She has been partially eclipsed by her sister ship, Flint, which has a modernized suite of weapons which replaces Atlanta's 28mm 'Chicago Piano' mounts with the famous (and more reliable and powerful) 40mm Bofors. This gives Flint a better punch at medium to close range while Atlanta dominates at a distance. When combined with Captain Skills and module upgrades, Atlanta competes very well with her sister. The image below breaks down how Atlanta's anti-aircraft power can be modified. * Bonuses are multiplicative, not additive. Note that all DPS values are approximate with some weird rounding occurring (which is why the tool-tip in port is weird when you begin stacking bonuses). This table can be used to calculate partial bonus stacks. For example, a 127mm mount (121dps) with Basic Fire Training (x1.2) Priority Target (x1.1) and Defensive Fire (x3) bonuses would generate an average of 479dps. The maximum output of Atlanta in an optimal situation would be a combined total of 1,215dps. Fully specialized and in an optimal situation, Atlanta puts out 1054 / 118 / 42 dps (a combined total of 1,215 dps) at ranges of 7.2km / 5.0km / 2.9km. Flint manages a combined total of 793 / 392 / 62 dps (a total of 1,247dps) at the same range intervals. No other ships at her tier come close to Atlanta as her sister-ship. With Atlanta's anti-aircraft firepower focused on her 127mm rifles and their 7.2km range, she makes a much better anti-aircraft escort over Flint and bests just about any other cruiser in the game, tier for tier. Atlanta's anti-aircraft advantages do not stop with just raw damage. Her aerial detection range is only 6.4km. If she keeps gun silent and switches off her AA guns, she can ambush incoming aircraft squadrons by sailing into their path to intercept them. By keeping her AA guns silent up until they're all in range, she gives the CV player no warning of her presence and can devastate a concentrated attack wave before the CV player can react. In addition, her and her sister Flint are the only ships in the game with unlimited charges of their Defensive Fire consumable. Specialized in this role, Atlanta becomes a 7.2km no-fly zone which any CV player is fool to test, no matter what their tier. But don't kid yourself. Without this specialization, without Defensive Fire specifically, you're only going to damage attack craft waves, not rout them. Any carrier wishing to delete you will be more than capable of doing so. In her element and unconcerned. Overall ImpressionsSkill Floor: Simple / Casual / Challenging / DifficultSkill Ceiling: Low / Moderate / High / Extreme Atlanta is not a friendly ship for beginners. Her weapons are too short ranged with a very temperamental damage output. Her surface detection range is too large and she has no easy-escape tools. She is far too fragile to account for any mistakes. While it's terribly fun to hold down your left mouse button and poop out rainbows of 127mm high explosive rounds, the efficacy of doing so is highly suspect at best. You can't deal damage quickly with Atlanta unless you get in close and without proper forethought, that will simply get you killed before accomplishing anything of note. The influence a well played Atlanta can have on a game is telling, but it depends entirely upon her Captain / Consumable / Module build. She's a good support ship, however the decision on how to support your team will largely dictate the spheres of influence you can perform. When Atlanta is caught out of position (which, let's admit, occurs almost continually in this ship), her ability to affect the outcome of the match falls away to nothing. Mouse's Summary: One of the oldest premiums in the game. She's also one of the most unforgiving ships in the game. The recent buffs were nice... sort of. I wanted Atlanta to get what Flint has. Despite all of her troubles, Atlanta is a riot to play. What a difference a year makes. Here's the long list of changes that occurred directly or indirectly to Atlanta between February 2016 and 2017. Her main battery durability was buffed, increasing her hit points 2.6 times. She no longer loses her turrets constantly (HOORAY!). The Situational Awareness skill was given out for free. Her AP shell normalization was changed from 8º to 10º. This means that if her shells strike at a 10º angle to the flat broadside of a ship, her shells will treat it as 0º and calculate as if they had struck flush. She received Radar. The new Matchmaker system places her at top tier very frequently. The Captain Skill changes have benefited Atlanta greatly, with easier access to quality of life improving skills like Concealment Expert and the introduction of Inertial Fuse for HE Shells. In addition, many players can't easily afford fire-mitigation skills like they used to. Atlanta has seen both feast and famine. During Closed Beta, when AP shells were dominant, she was as powerful as she has ever been. The changes to AP and HE shells nerfed her considerably, but she still had a lot of functionality with asymmetrical carrier Matchmaking and how common carriers were during Open Beta. There was almost always need for an AA escort and Atlanta filled that role nicely. Once deployment symmetry became a thing when the game was released in September of 2015, Atlanta's popularity began to severely wane. Now in 2017, it's the increase in smoke generators, specifically those of the British Cruisers, that have breathed new life into USS Atlanta. She has a purpose now -- an ability that's always welcome when there's an enemy that needs digging out. It's sad to say, but she gets more use out of that than she does her Defensive Fire consumable. Inertia Fuse for HE Shells has restored some of the bite Atlanta once enjoyed back in Closed Beta. While her upgraded HE shells don't have quite the same ubiquity as AP did back in the day, the average damage that Atlanta is dealing out has been on the rise in the last six months. Looking at a two-week snapshot of her performance ranks her 6th overall for damage output among tier 7 cruisers. It's still not a good performance, but it's definitely better than has been for the last year. Atlanta isn't back to her glory days from Closed Beta. Would I Recommend? Atlanta is a weird ship. She's not something you invest in because you think she's good. You do it because you want something unique. While it is possible to earn an equivalent through Ranked Battles in the form of USS Flint, Atlanta's analogue is likely to be out of reach for much of the player base. For Random Battle Grinding Atlanta isn't going to make it easy on you to earn rewards like High Caliber, Confederate or Kraken Unleashed. While she or any premium will earn a fair amount of experience and credits, Atlanta is difficult to make perform to make such numbers consistent. There are definitely better investments. So no. For Competitive Gaming No. There are much better ships to bring in a competitive environment than Atlanta. She's too fragile and if caught out of position, she has no get-out-of-jail cards to play. For Collectors Yes. They saw lots of action early in WWII and enjoyed success and tragedy (Google the Sullivan brothers and have tissues handy). For Fun Factor Very yes on toast. Her guns are hilarious. Staying near islands is imperative for the longevity of your Atlanta. Use it to set up attacks and cover your escape. Atlanta is not an easy ship to play. She's not like the British Cruisers or premiums like Mikhail Kutuzov or Flint where you can pop an easy smoke consumable and trump any attempts to engage you. Outfitting Atlanta Atlanta can be one of the most complicated premium ships to equip in the game presently. It's important to decide on a role for your Atlanta first. From there you may select Captain Skills and equip consumables which best support the role that you've decided upon. Modules: All of my builds for Atlanta include the same module choices. Main Armaments Modification 1, AA Guns Modification 2, Damage Control Modification 1, Steering Gears Modification 2. There's some pretty simple reasons for this. In slot 1, you can take Magazine Modification 1 if you're really paranoid about detonations. If you're intending to take Atlanta into a competitive environment, this choice should be moot as you should be using Juliet Charlie signals instead to mitigate detonations. Personally, detonations don't bother me. Atlanta does pop a little bit more than other cruisers, so keep that in mind. In slot 2, you may be wondering about the viability of Aiming Systems Modification 1. Skip it. At maximum range, and by that I mean 13.3km from Advanced Fire Training, ASM1 provides an eight meter dispersion reduction. Yep. That's it. Eight whole meters. It's 6.9m at 11.1km. Whoo. Exciting! Take the AA mod. You'll get more use out of it. All of the choices in slot 3 are terrible for the Atlanta. Take what you want. In slot 4, Propulsion Modification 2 is also a fair choice. However, Steering Gears Modification 2 will shave almost half a second off of a 90º turn going at full speed. Core Skills: Despite the 0.6.0 Captain Skill overhaul making several builds viable, there remain some skills that are optimal for Atlanta. They re included in all of the builds below. Your tier 1 skill for Atlanta should be Priority Target. Knowing when you're targeted and when you're not will save your ship and allow you to pull off some rather audacious feats. None of the other tier 1 skills is as useful. At tier 3, Basic Fire Training is the second essential. This increases your main battery rate of fire by 10% and your AA dps by 20%. Few ships gain so much as Atlanta from this skill. Bombardment Build This build focuses upon doing damage to larger ships -- specifically cruisers and tier 6 and 7 battleships. The idea is to keep her guns singing as often as possible and to use intervening terrain to keep safe. Because you're expected to be shooting almost non-stop, stealth abilities are less of priority. This build, grace of taking skills which improve her gunnery, also makes a passable anti-aircraft cruiser but this isn't our focus. Consumables: Damage Control Party II, Defensive Fire II, Surveillance Radar II Captain Skills: http://shipcomrade.com/captcalc/1000000000000011000010100010100019 This build is all about maximizing the performance of your guns against these targets. Basic Fire Training and Adrenaline Rush increase your rate of fire. Inertia Fuse for HE Shells allows you to land damaging hits against the plethora of 25mm armoured sections found on ships of your chosen targets. Demolition Expert helps mitigate some of the lost fire-potential. Variant: Swap Inertia Fuse for HE Shells for Concealment Expert. This changes the build from doing direct damage to relying on fire damage to affect your targets. This will generally result in increased survivability but you'll pay for it with lower damage totals. Destroyer Hunter The idea here is to sneak up as close as possible to destroyers and annihilate them at close range. She's built for stealth. This ship is rather vanilla when it comes to the performance of her weapons against larger targets, but such is the price you pay for being a specialized hunter. Keep your anti-aircraft guns disabled until you absolutely need them. Consumables: Damage Control Party II, Hydroacoustic Search II, Surveillance Radar II Captain Skills: http://shipcomrade.com/captcalc/1000000000000011000011000000001119 The first thing that should stand out is that this will keep your Atlanta shorter ranged than other builds. This will also impair her anti-aircraft power somewhat. Radio Location is used to assist with finding the little blighters. Concealment Expert is used to reduce the range at which you're spotted to give destroyers less time to react. In addition, you will have to go gun silent to evade return fire from larger capital ships. Superintendent provides an additional charge of your Radar and Hydroacoustic Search consumables. You'll use Radio Location to home in on the destroyers until you're spotted. If haven't uncovered the destroyer within 20 seconds of being lit, activate your Radar to light the destroyer and be ready to evade any return fire. Last Stand is there to help keep you alive when your rudder gets shot out as you try to evade. The destroyers will shoot back and they always seem to hit your rudder and set you repeatedly on fire. The last thing you want to be doing is spinning in circles. Anti-Aircraft Escort As the name suggests, this build focuses on protecting friendly ships from air attack. This is hardly an optimal build in the current Random Battle meta -- carriers are not as commonplace as they once were. However, few can argue against Atlanta's efficiency as an AA-platform with this build. Consumables: Damage Control Party II, Defensive Fire II, Surveillance Radar II Captain Skills: http://shipcomrade.com/captcalc/1100000001000000000010000000110119 Everything pushes towards increasing Atlanta's AA range and DPS. Basic Fire Training and Manual Fire Control for AA Armament boost your DPS directly while Advanced Fire Training provides the range. Concealment Expert provides some survivability while also helping prevent you from being spotted early by surface ships. This can allow you to better intercept an inbound bomber stream and ambush them. Jack of All Trades is used to reduce the reset timer of your Defensive Fire consumable so that it will always be ready when the next attack wave comes in.

The following is a review of USS Kidd, a ship kindly provided to me by Wargaming. This is the release version of the vessel and these stats are current as of November 9th, 2017. With historical ties to the vessels Essex, Alabama, Arizona and Black which also appear in World of Warships. Quick Summary: A Fletcher-class lolibote that sacrifices one quintuple torpedo launcher and manoeuvrability for improved speed, anti-aircraft firepower and a Repair Party consumable. Cost: The equivalent of 9,100 doubloons Patch and Date Written: Patch 0.6.12.1 to 0.6.13.0, October 28th to November 9th, 2017. Closest in-Game Contemporary Fletcher, Tier 9 American Destroyer Degree of Similarity: Clone / Sister-Ship / Related Class / Similar Role / Unique There are many small differences between the two ships. The most telling are their speed, consumables, torpedo armament and anti-aircraft firepower. Kidd is faster than Fletcher but she doesn't handle as well. She has only a single quintuple torpedo launcher and she's stuck with Fletcher's stock torpedoes. Her anti-aircraft is improved with additional 40mm Bofors and 20mm Oerlikons. As a tier VIII ship, she has less hit points than Fletcher but she compensates for this with a Repair Party consumable. There are other minor differences too, such as Kidd having slightly worse concealment by air. PROs Comes with a Repair Party consumable. Armed with five rapid-fire 127mm rifles with amazing turret traverse speeds of 34º/s. Excellent AA power for a destroyer, including access to Defensive Fire. Good top speed of 38.0knots. She's very stealthy with a 5.80km surface detection range with a full concealment build. Combined features make her an excellent forward scout. CONs The shell flight time on her 127mm/38 guns is horrible. She has only a single torpedo launcher. The torpedoes are the same fish found on Benson (the stock torpedoes for Fletcher -- boo-urns). The reload on this torpedo launcher is longer than HMCS Haida's development time (Summer 2018, maybe?) Emphasis on "for a destroyer" in regards to the excellent AA power thing. They require a deep investment in skills to make them a credible threat and then only with her Defensive Fire consumable active. Large turning circle for a destroyer at 620m. She's not doing a lot of damage on her own with her current build, making her more reliant on support-damage to be profitable. I'm always excited to see new tier VIII premiums. They feel, I dunno, more legitimate than other premiums. It's a silly sentiment, but they truly are the flagship vessels in a given line. People look to them not only for grinding out experience to train Captains, but also to earn credits to help maintain their fleet. Tie in the added bonus of the competitive meta surrounding tier VIII in Ranked Battles and tournaments and it's hard not to get excited. Seeing the United States Navy finally get some tier VIII premium love in 2017 with Alabama and Enterprise has certainly been a highlight for me. I couldn't be happier to see USS Kidd join the fleet. At least, that was my initial sentiment until I played her. For those unaware, she had a rather troubled and delayed development cycle and for a while, it was anyone's guess whether she'd actually make it into the game or not. The ship we received looks normal enough on paper, but her looks can be deceiving. What we've received is a highly specialized vessel with a very distinct role at which she excels. Getting the most out of this vessel is a real challenge. Truth be told, USS Kidd reminds me a lot of USS Sims in terms of game play. Options Well, there's one fun little surprise here with Kidd's Repair Party, but the rest is to be expected. Her Damage Control Party is standard for a destroyer. Kidd is an American lolibote. Right out of the gates, she has access to the improved Smoke Generator for that nation. This improves not only the smoke cloud's duration (124 seconds vs 89 seconds at tier VIII), but also the emission time of the smoke (28 seconds vs 20 seconds at tier VIII). In short, it allows USN destroyers to lay more smoke which lasts longer. In practical terms, Kidd can generate up to 10 individual smoke clouds maximum. This comes with the standard two charges by default. Now let's talk about the exciting bit: Kidd's Repair Party is a standard version of this consumable. Kidd queues up 100% of fire, flooding, ramming and overpenetration damage. She queues up 50% of everything else. It's nice not to have to worry about citadel hits. Each charge heals up the standard 14% of the ship's maximum HP (2,338 damage in Kidd's case) over 28 seconds. This comes with two charges by default. Finally, Kidd must choose between the Engine Boost consumable or a Defensive Fire consumable. I say this is a "choice" but it's not. Take Defensive Fire. The destroyer version of Defensive Fire has a reduced active period of 30 seconds compared to the 40 seconds of a cruiser version while sharing the same 180/120 second reset timer. However, the DPS gain from the destroyer consumable has increased from x3 to x4 with patch 0.6.13. Either one of these consumables comes with two charges by default. Make sure you load up on as many premium consumables as you can afford. Kidd is an expensive ship to run. Consumables: Damage Control Party Smoke Generator Repair Party Engine Boost or Defensive Fire Module Upgrades: Five slots, standard destroyer upgrades Premium Camouflage: Type 10. This provides 50% bonus experience gains, 3% reduction in surface detection and 4% reduction in enemy accuracy. This is the gorgeous Measure-22 paint scheme which you will also see on other American premiums like Missouri, Alabama and Massachussetts. We're going to build Kidd to emphasize her AA power. In her first slot, take Magazine Modification 1. She's a destroyer with a Repair Party. Your cause of death to detonations just went up because you can take more hits than other destroyers. In your second slot, take AA Guns Modification 2. This will bump up your AA range handsomely and better allow you to assist allies when they come under aircraft attack. In your third slot, take Propulsion Modification 1 to help keep your engines intact. It will help a little and speed is life. In your fourth slot, take Propulsion Modification 2. You may find yourself parking in smoke on occasion and this will give you a nice jump start. And finally, take Concealment System Modification 1 to make yourself sneakier. Special Upgrades! There are three Special Upgrades worth considering. If you don't have access to these, don't worry about it. They are rare. You can win them from Super Containers or from Ranked Battles and other events. Smoke Generator Modification 1 would replace AA Guns Modification 2 in the second slot. This increases the smoke generation time for Kidd from 28 seconds to 36 seconds but reduces the individual cloud duration to 118 seconds. This isn't a very strong choice. If you wanted to throw away Kidd's anti-aircraft firepower advantages and reduce your spotting-experience gains, go nuts, but it's a loser move. Next up in the Special Upgrades you won't be using but technically are compatible with Kidd is Engine Boost Modifiaction 1. This competes with Propulsion Modification 1. You won't take this because you'll have Defensive Fire and not Engine Boost on this premium like a smart person. And finally, also competing with Propulsion Modification 1 is Defensive Fire Modification 1. Now this seems like a no brainer -- it increases the active time of Kidd's Defensive Fire from 30 seconds to 36 seconds. The only reason I would imagine that someone wouldn't want to stick this on Kidd would be the rarity of the consumable and the demand to put it on other ships before giving it to a destroyer. Firepower Primary Battery: Five 127mm/38 rifles in an A-B-P-X-Y superfiring configuration. Torpedo Armament: Five tubes in a 1x5 launcher behind the funnels facing forward. Kidd's firepower sucks. USN 127mm/38 Mark 30s, we meet again. The last time we crossed swords with these weapons on a premium ship was with USS Sims at tier VII. These are the same guns found on Fletcher, Black and Benson, so veterans of the American destroyer line should immediately be familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of these guns. They mirror these other ships identically with their excellent rate of fire, the wicked fast gun traverse, the horrible muzzle velocity and the oh-so infamous shell flight time. Penetration and fire chance are all on par too. The detection in smoke while firing is different, however, with Sims having a 2.8km detection while everyone else has a 2.7km. Don't ask me why. It's not even a contest. The shell flight time for the USN 127mm/38s is terrible. We're probably going to have to wait for the Royal Navy destroyers before we see Kidd's shell flight time compare favourably to anything. This is compensated for by some of the highest HE DPM among the high tier destroyers. The lesson here is that Kidd can potentially do a lot of damage with her guns -- but only so long as you can overcome the challenges of her weak penetration and horrible ballistics. In theory, these guns are ideal for short range knife fights with enemy destroyers where they can throw out a wall of rapid fire shells and pummel their opponents into submission. The reality is that outside of 8km, it becomes very difficult to lead other lolibotes properly -- especially if you're working with a 1920 x 1080 screen resolution (or smaller) and you have a habit of firing from maximum zoom. Kidd needs to seize enemy destroyers by the belt buckle, keep close to them and hammer shells home lest she embarrassingly gets outgunned by a Yugumo. Once ranges increase beyond this comfort zone, it's better to go gun silent, dodge and disengage; especially if they run away to tattle on you to bigger boats. The stranger-danger presented by grown-up ships is quite palpable given that you cannot rely on Kidd's torpedoes. The USN 127mm/38s really struggle at tiers VIII+ to put out the damage on larger vessels. Their anemic fire chance, horrible ballistics and poor penetration values all compound to a muddy mess. Kidd's HE penetration sits at 21mm which can be boosted to 27mm with Inertial Fuse for HE Shells at the expense of her chance to set fires. This is already quite low on a per-shell basis, though the recent changes to the skill have softened this blow somewhat. This improvement to penetration will allow Kidd to damage the extremities of all battleships at tiers VI and VII, along with those of most cruisers up to tier X with the exception of the American and German cruisers at tiers VIII+. Without this boost, she's reliant upon setting fires and peppering superstructures to do the lion's share of her damage. Damage saturation mechanics, the reduced fire damage on cruisers and the increased prevalence of fire resistance skills and upgrades among battleships only makes it harder on Kidd to be relevant with her guns alone. If this sounds bleak, it's because it is. Kidd is reliant on landing a high volume of hits to start fires. The numbers presented here are very generously assuming 100% accuracy which is a pipe dream. In addition, high tier ships will reduce these numbers further, cutting them almost in half. Starting two fires per minute with Kidd is an ambitious goal. Start praying to RNGesus. There's a grim methodology to engaging enemy capital ships with Kidd's guns. Choose a target. Struggle to hit said target. Laugh as you suddenly light two fires in quick succession. Rage as your target uses their Damage Control Party and you're unable to light a subsequent blaze for the next two minutes. Hoover up a pittance in shell damage as you quickly oversaturated their superstructure. Slowly lose your sanity as that ship heals up all of the damage you did and then some. Question the meaning of life, the prevalence of the battleship meta and why oh why didn't you heed Mouse's colourful graphs and charts!? Their colours warned you! THEY WARNED YOU IT WOULD BE LIKE THIS! Kidd's guns may not be terribly effective against larger ships when you get down to it, but at least they're fun to use. The sheer volume of fire they put out is meme worthy (plus it's fun to say "pew!" every time they fire). They're decent enough against close range targets but because of the prevalence of Surveillance Radar and Hydroacoustic Search, it's dangerous to get that close, so pick your battles carefully. Still, they'll shred other destroyers, so that's something at least. Kidd needs more 'pedos. They took five of her 'pedos away to give her more AA power. You only have a single torpedo launcher on USS Kidd. Yes, this sucks. No, you don't get Fletcher's upgraded Mark 16 torpedoes with their awesome range and hitting power. No, they didn't improve Kidd's torpedo soft-stats to compensate. These are the exact same torpedoes as on the stock-Fletcher or upgraded Benson. They have decent range and modest damage totals, but they're slow as all get out and their reload time is downright punitive. So not only do you have your torpedo armament halved, you're also waiting just as long to fire them off as Benson does. If you're hoping to make torpedo soup with USS Kidd, your broth is going to taste pretty thin. Getting the most out of this horrible helping of fish requires a lot more skill than just dropping the pip onto the torpedo lead indicator and hoping for the best. You can't saturate an area or hedge your bets with a second launcher. Picking the right target at the right moment and anticipating how they're going to move in the 60 some odd seconds it will take for your torpedoes to reach their maximum range is a real challenge, even for veteran commanders. Landing even a couple of hits really helps pad the terrible damage numbers that USS Kidd puts out. The threat of Kidd's torpedoes is often worth more than the actual damage they put out. Your opponents are inclined to be more cautious if they believe you're able to dump a salvo into them when they're most vulnerable. Their imaginations will often envision far more devastation than Kidd can actually conjure, so sometimes it's worth holding onto your fish just for this bully-factor. Summary: Kidd's firepower is terrible. Same ol' USN 127mm/38s we know and love (and hate). Kidd's 'pedos suck -- and not always in the sexy way. USN 127mm/38 gunnery in a nutshell: First, pick a target. Next, setup outside of radar range. Step three: deploy smoke. And finally, step four: put four salvos into the air before your first shells connect. DurabilityHit Points: 16,700Maximum Protection: 19 to 20mm Well, this is shaping up to be a pretty negative review so far, innit? Thankfully, it gets better from here on out. Kidd comes with a healthy chunk of hit points -- 1,300hp more than Benson and 2,100hp more than Loyang. This still pales compared to the tier VIII thunderchunckers Akizuki and Z-23 which have a 3,700hp and 2,800hp advantage respectively over Kidd, but at least she can say that she's not at the bottom of the pile here. Taking Survivability Expert can prop this number up further, bumping Kidd up another 2,800hp which would make her competitive against some of the tier IX and X destroyers as well. However, she's not as reliant upon this skill as other destroyers and the points are better spent elsewhere. Kidd joins Khabarovsk with a fun dose of Russian-bias in the form of a Repair Party consumable. Each charge can heal back 2,338 hit points (this does not change if you take Survivability Expert). She begins the game with two charges that can be boosted up to four with a premium version of the consumable combined with the Superintendent commander's skill. Without a citadel, Kidd can always heal back a minimum of 50% of damage done to her which ensures you get the maximum use out of each charge. I tell myself that this is the reason that Kidd gives up a second torpedo-launcher. It's not the real reason, but it certainly has improved my attitude towards this ship. Kidd's Repair Party is a real boon. She effectively has up to 30,722hp if fully optimized for maximum toughness (Superintendent, Survivability Expert, premium Repair Party used four times, India Delta signal), allowing her to take an absolute beating, survive and later return to the fight hungry for more. This gives her endurance and longevity that Benson, Fletcher and Black could only dream of having. So while it may take forever to do any appreciable damage with Kidd's terrible weapon load-out, her improved survivability all but guarantees she's got the time to do it. The only thing you need fear is taking massive alpha strikes or sustained burst damage. Watch out for Surveillance Radar equipped vessels and practice dancing to those torpedo-beats. The John McClane of destroyers. Kidd rarely comes out of a match without looking like she was thrown through a plate glass window. Manoeuvrability Top Speed: 38.0knotsTurning Radius: 620mRudder Shift: 3.9s Maximum Turn Rate: 7.9º per second. As far as destroyer agility goes, Kidd is decidedly average and is best compared to the Soviet destroyer Ognevoi in terms of her speed and handling. For a Fletcher-class destroyer, she's much faster than either Fletcher or Black but this comes at the cost of her turning circle which is 60m wider. Overall, this gives her power and speed enough to run down any Japanese torpedo destroyer within her Matchmaking spread and enough wiggle in her tush to dance to torpedo beats and dodge incoming shellfire. However, she won't feel as nimble as either of her sister-ships. For those who intend to play Kidd aggressively, I cannot stress enough how important the Vigilance skill on your commanders will be. High alpha strikes are the bane of this ship and there's few things worse than being blindsided by a wall of skill you didn't anticipate and being sent back to the port early. Pertinent agility statistics for Kidd's contemporaries (click to enlarge). She's decidedly average, with her high top speed compensating for her larger turning circle compared to Fletcher and Black. If you want to try out Kidd's handling for yourself before making a purchase, play around with the tier VIII Soviet destroyer, Ognevoi. The two are very similar in their overall handling characteristics with the biggest difference between them being their rudder-shift-time. Anti-Aircraft Defense AA Battery Calibers: 127mm / 40mm / 20mmAA Umbrella Ranges: 5.0km / 3.5km / 2.0kmAA DPS per Aura: 53.5 / 65.7 / 36.6 In exchange for losing a quintuple torpedo mount, Kidd gains 21dps over Fletcher. Most of this DPS advantage doesn't come from the 40mm quad Bofor nests that replaced her torpedoes, but rather from the upgrade of her 20mm Oerlikon from single to twin-gun mounts. Her anti-aircraft firepower is good for a destroyer, but terrible overall if you merely to rely on her raw damage numbers alone. Kidd has less AA firepower than Tirpitz and no one would ever claim that Tirpitz has good AA firepower at tier VIII. It's only with a heavy investment in AA skills that her DPS truly becomes something to concern enemy carriers. So your choice to keep your lolibote safe from white-van driving CVs is to have them stay close to grownup ships like Kii and North Carolina or activate their 'emergency whistle'. Note that this whistle got extra loud in 0.6.13, multiplying your 40mm and 127mm DPS by four instead of just three. This is reflected in the animated gif above which turns Kidd into a pocket North Carolina temporarily in terms of AA power. The game changer is her access to the destroyer version of Defensive Fire. While some other tier VIII destroyers also get access to this consumable, only Kidd has the numbers to make it truly effective beyond a disruption effect. Like them, she must exchange her Engine Boost consumable to gain access to this but it's well worth the trade. Under the effects of this consumable, she becomes a credible threat to enemy aircraft and she may even be able to drive off fighters sent to perma-spot her. Let's be clear: Her anti-aircraft firepower under Defensive Fire will maul attack craft waves from tier VI and even some tier VII carriers but it cannot be relied upon the prevent a strike altogether. This may be enough to make a carrier look for a less thorny target, but against veteran CVs, it's simply going to delay their attack while they wait on your 30s consumable to run out of steam. Destroyers are too valuable a target to leave unmolested. It's possible, albeit very expensive to deep specialize Kidd into anti-aircraft firepower to try and make her more formidable against aircraft. Realistically, however, it's unlikely for Kidd to have this kind of specialization in the face of more survival based skill choices. Still, Kidd can survive better than any other destroyer under the eye of an enemy carrier. This gives her a little more autonomy than other scouting destroyers and it also allows her to play the supporting role in disrupting attacks against her allies if you're so inclined. More importantly, this gives Kidd the ability to extend beyond the cover of your team mates to better play out the role of a scout. Now you know what to do when an enemy CV offers you free candy. White van, white plane -- same difference. I DON'T KNOW THIS PLANE! THIS PLANE IS NOT MY MOM! HELP! HELP! STRANGER DANGER! STRANGER DANGER! Concealment & Camouflage Base Surface Detection Range: 7.38km Air Detection Range: 4.11 km Minimum Surface Detection Range: 5.80km Main Battery Firing Range: 12.1km Detection Range when Firing from Smoke: 2.7km Surface Detection Rank within Tier: Tied for 5th with Benson & Loyang, sitting behind the Kagero-sisters. Surface Detection Rank within Matchmaking: Tied for 6th out of 36 places. This graph shows the advantage in surface detection Kidd enjoys over her contemporaries. All of the numbers are assuming the destroyers in question are fully rigged for stealth with all of the applicable options available to them (Concealment Expert, Concealment Camouflage, Concealment System Modification 1). Thus, the disparity in these numbers may be even greater to Kidd's advantage in select cases. For those that are math inclined, you can use this to estimate how much of a reaction time you have to steer away from enemy ships in order to preserve stealth and remain undetected. For example, if you stumble across a Mahan running perpendicular while you sail towards it at 38 knots, you have approximately 11 seconds to adjust course. However, if the same were to occur with a Z-23 heading towards you with both of you at full speed, this reaction time drops to a little over 2 seconds. There are very few destroyers that are more stealthy than USS Kidd. Kagero, Harekaze and Yugumo exceed her stealth rating. Benson, Loyang, Fletcher & Black match her. Hatsuharu and Shiratsuyu are close enough to make little difference. Against any other opponent she enjoys a minimum of a 140m surface detection advantage. When she's top tier, her advantage is almost comical. Between her speed and concealment, she can easily dictate engagement distances or simply keep enemies spotted. And herein lies Kidd's greatest strength. More than any other destroyer in the game, she is almost an ideal scout. Kidd is well suited to spotting targets for your allies to kill. She's tough, she's fast, she has excellent smoke and she has one of the best surface detection ranges within her matchmaking spread. And, it's a damn good thing too -- outside of a knife fight with another destroyer, she sucks at dealing her own damage. The only other traits you could ask for would be some punchier guns or some form of detection consumable like Hydroacoustic Search. Still, she's very well equipped for this task. This makes Kidd a real threat on cap circles. She may not be the immediate terror like Black, but she is dogged. Her presence around one of these control points is a real obstacle for the enemy team. Spotting Economy I had the pleasure of speaking to Boyarsky regarding the economy surrounding destroyer spotting mechanics. While I will compile a more complete article later, I thought it worth sharing with USS Kidd, given how dependent she can be upon the rewards earned from providing vision for her team. There are two types of spotting (as if it wasn't complicated enough). The first is simple and easy to understand. There is a reward for the first ship to detect an enemy that has not been seen before. This is a flat value. The second type of spotting is where you facilitate damage done to the enemy team. What it is: A destroyer can receive substantial rewards by scouting ahead of the allied fleet and keeping enemy ships detected to facilitate gunnery and torpedo attack for allies that would not otherwise be able to see them. How it works: An ally shoots at a target that the destroyer can see. The ally must not be able to see the target themselves. The destroyer earns a bonus percentage of the rewards that ally receives for damaging that target. Reward amount: The destroyer receives approximately 45% of the experience and credits for applicable damage done to targets they spot. Other ships may earn an award too, but they do not earn nearly as much as destroyers. Multiple spotters: If multiple friendly ships are providing vision upon a target and an ally who cannot see the target fires, the rewards are divided by the number of allies present. So if two destroyers an an aircraft carrier providing vision, the reward for the destroyers would be divided by three. Errata: Note that the destroyer only receives the reward if, when the attack was launched, the ally could not see the target and the destroyer could -- not when it strikes the target. This applies to all shell and torpedo attacks. These rewards scale as you would normally expect. In other words, you will earn more rewards for assisting a lower tiered ship to do 10,000 damage to a destroyer two tiers higher than you would for helping a higher tiered ship do 10,000 damage to a battleship that's two tiers lower than itself. The big complication for earning these rewards comes from the spotting mechanics themselves. If your allies can see the target without your help, then you earn nothing. Given the recent changes to smoke, this pretty much means you're not going to earn much of anything at all sitting between two groups of warships shooting at each other in open water. The bloom of their surface detection every time they pull the trigger is going to make them visible to one another. Similarly, the presence of aircraft carriers will also eat into your earnings as their planes put eyes on targets you're spotting. Spotting is a high risk venture and it does not always pay well. A keen understanding of vision mechanics and how ships interact with smoke is paramount to increasing your earnings One of the tricks to earning more spotting damage is to use your Smoke Generator to hide your allies. At full speed, lay a long 10-cloud fog bank between your friendly ships and the enemies but don't hide in it yourself. Then position yourself between your smoke and the enemy team. The concealment bonus provided by smoke will reduce the surface detection of both sides -- protecting your allies but also blinding them to the enemy team save for the data relayed by your spotting. In this manner, you help keep your team safe AND you collect a handsome reward for the damage you helped inflict. How to Avoid Pedo-Bears You can't. Far too many people told me that Kidd was too sexy. We have a real epidemic in our community, I swear. Your first ten points should be distributed like this: Start with Priority Target. Take Last Stand. Next grab Superintendent. This will give you an additional charge of smoke, heals and emergency whistle. And finally, take Concealment Expert. This should be considered the absolute minimum to take to do well with Kidd. From here, there are high value skills and players should mix and match based on their preferred play style. Demolition Expert and Inertial Fuse for HE Shells may seem like gimme skills for dealing more direct damage with Kidd. Tag on Adrenaline Rush and you are good to go for pew pews. For those who are super-salty about the stranger-danger presented by enemy carriers, Basic Fire Training and Advanced Fire Training pair nicely to give you some good punch against incoming planes and also let you help out beleaguered allies. Just beware of your increased spotting range from AFT when you fire your main battery. If you are more concerned with personal defense than helping others, swap Advanced Fire Training for Manual Fire Control for AA Guns. The survivability skills Vigilance and Survivability Expert make Kidd harder to kill. Not much harder, mind you, but you're less likely to get obliterated by a high alpha strike. I tried out a lot of different commander builds when testing Kidd. I did everything from loaning an anti-aircraft specialized Atlanta-captain to failing horribly with a 3pt newfish. If I had a dedicated Kidd 19pt commander dropped on my lap, I would take the initial 10pts skills listed above plus Vigilance, Demolition Expert and Survivability Expert. You'll note the lack of any anti-aircraft firepower skills and a reliance on fires to deal damage to larger vessels. "Fire Alarm..." In case you're wondering, the Legendary Captain, Steven Seagal, doesn't really add anything useful when he commands a destroyer. His skill bonuses apply to Expert Loader and Expert Marksman skills -- neither of which are of particular use on a ship that already has ridiculously fast reload times and turret rotation rates. However, if you want to phone it in the same way he narrated his dialogue, feel free to use him here. Kidd's bread and butter: Trading fire with other destroyers and outlasting them between her Smoke Generator and Repair Party. She didn't choose the scout-life. The scout-life chose her. Overall Impressions Skill Floor: Simple / Casual / Challenging / Difficult Kidd struggles to do damage. Her improved survivability traits are locked behind proper consumable management and having a commander with not only enough skill points, but the correct setup as well. And even then, her play style is going to be utterly alien to many players. NOT shooting? NOT firing torpedoes? Wut!? Skill Ceiling: Low / Moderate / High / Extreme Kidd is all about surviving some of the most dangerous encounters in World of Warships -- namely, dominating cap circles early on in a match. She's got almost all of the proper tools to do it short of some form of Hydroacoustic Search or Surveillance Radar. Correctly managed, Kidd can survive for a very long time, making life miserable for the Reds. With such limited firepower, you're really going to have to milk every advantage to get the most out of this ship but she'll reward you handsomely for it. Mouse's Summary: "Tough" really defines Kidd. She's tough in that she can take a lot of punishment. But she's also a tough ship with which to do damage. In this regard, she's also tough to love. Poor child. She's totally going to become a delinquent when she grows up. Like USS Sims before her, she's going to be doomed to mediocrity in Randoms. A lot of people will pick her up, wonder why all of the CCs were enthusiastic about her and let her collect dust in their ports if they bothered to pick her up at all. Then someone's going to rockstar with her in Ranked or some other competitive mode and everyone and their mother will suddenly want one. I'm disappointed to see Repair Party used to balance yet another premium. Healing potion proliferation feels like an arms race waiting to happen. Remember, you didn't trade your torpedoes for more AA power -- you traded them for her Repair Party. All of the banes she suffers from her poor torpedoes should be made up for with the advantages her Repair Party provides. Really focus on outlasting your opponents. Take a few extra risks that other destroyers wouldn't dare and hold onto your fish for the best target possible. Scouting feels super rewarding. It's hard to pull off, but it pays well if you can manage it. Few ships have made me feel as categorically stupid as USS Kidd did during play testing. I got myself delorted in the opening minutes of a match more often in this destroyer than I have in any of the others I've tested this year. It's only when I smartened up and exerted a little more caution that things (mostly) got better. Vigilance helped too. Let this be a lesson -- be aggressive; just don't be stupid. So let's get to the meat of the matter: Is Kidd a good ship? My answer is: Yes, absolutely. She just totally sucks at doing damage and killing things. This does not preclude her from winning games. In fact, she's quite good at doing that so long as you don't trip over your own ego and pull a few stupids trying to pad your damage numbers instead of focusing on winning. The toolkit with which they've equipped her makes her an absolute beast when it comes to helping your team win matches. The manner in which she helps dominate spotting and cap control will secure you many wins. The trouble is that spotting is feast or famine. If there's aircraft carriers present or the enemy team roster is composed primarily of battleships, you're not going to earn many rewards for sitting gun silent. Under the correct conditions, you can earn a lot of rewards for providing vision. At others, you might struggle to scrimp out competitive gains compared to other tier VIII American premiums like Alabama or Enterprise. Economy concerns aside, Kidd does win matches. She's just not doing it with her own firepower most of the time. To this end, if grinding for credits and experience is your goal, I would have to give Kidd a solid pass. However, if your goal is simply to win -- such as in Ranked Battles where the quality of the win doesn't matter, just the win itself -- then Kidd is an amazing ship. Kidd is a premium with a purpose. If you don't espouse this purpose, you're going to really struggle to find satisfaction with what she can do. Would I Recommend? Let me apply a filter to my recommendations here. I must stress the skill floor to play Kidd well. If you're a novice destroyer player, you'll have a hard time with Kidd. Just because she gets a nod from me as being good at X does not mean that you'll be good with Kidd at X. This is not an easy ship to play. PVE Battles How well does the ship maintain profitability in Co-Op modes and how does she fare against bots? Very no. While she can turn a profit with a 47,250 repair cost and less than 10,000 on ammunition costs for a long game, Kidd struggles to do damage quickly. And let's face it -- that's really what you want in Co-Op battles; that knockout punch. Kidd does't have that. She licks things to death. It's slimy. It's awkward. It's not very fast. It's kinda hot, really, but not terribly effective or fun. Random Battle Grinding:This includes training captains, collecting free experience, earning credits and collecting signal flags from achievements. Do you like a challenge? Do you have enough patience to stomach hoping the lottery will hand you a team that can capitalize on the opportunities you'll create? Do you like working super hard so that other people get all of the rewards? Then go nuts. Otherwise? Stay clear. This is a support ship. For Competitive Gaming:Competitive Gaming includes Ranked Battles and other skill-based tournaments. This also includes stat-padding. Very yes. Really, this is the primary reason you'll want Kidd. A tier VIII destroyer with Repair Party and Defensive Fire? She'd have to be a steaming turd in all other aspects to not to kindle people's interests in this vessel for Ranked Battles. Be aware that her role is to provide vision and cover, brawl with enemy destroyers and above all else: Survive. For Collectors:If you enjoy ship history or possessing rare ships, this section is for you. Museum ship? Check. Tons of history? Check. Awesome looking boat? Check. We are good to go. For Fun Factor: Bottom line: Is the ship fun to play? I really enjoyed playing her, but she wasn't like ... Okhotnik fun. The enjoyment I got out of Kidd was learning how to rise up to a challenge. So it's probably safe to say that you have to be all kinds of weird to find this ship fun. What's the Final Verdict?How would the ship rate on an Angry YouTuber scale of Garbage - Meh - Gud - Overpowered? GARBAGE - Grossly uncompetitive and badly in need of buffs.Mehbote - Average ship. Has strengths and weaknesses. Doesn't need buffs to be viable, but certainly not advantageous.Gudbote - A strong ship that has obvious competitive strengths and unique features that make it very appealing.OVERPOWERED - A ship with very clear advantages over all of its competitors and unbalancing the game with its inclusion.

The Tier 8 German Battleship Bismarck "Legendary" Quick Summary: A specialized brawling Battleship that's near impossible to citadel at close ranges. Her strengths include great secondaries, a high top speed, good durability and the German hydroacoustic search consumable. Patch & Date Written: 0.5.10.1. August 25th to August 27th, 2016. Premium Ship Shortcuts Closest Premium Ship: TirpitzDegree of Similarity: Clone / Sister-Ship / Related Class/ Similar Role / Unique Well, who didn't see this one coming? The Tirpitz is the obvious closest analogue to the Bismarck, what with being her sister ship. Still if you're looking to skip the grind with purchasing a premium ship rather than researching your way to the Bismarck you're going to miss out. Though they are sisters, their game play is different in a few places. PROs: Excellent citadel protection with her turtleback armour, making her functionally immune to citadel hits. Bow armour of 32mm and deck armour of 50mm allows her to easily tank when prow on towards enemies at medium to close range against guns up to 420mm. Large hit point pool at 69,200hp. Fast reload time on her 380mm rifles with with a 5' per second turret rotation which provides good gun handling. Good range of 21.2km which can be extended with a spotter aircraft. Excellent secondary armament with massive 7.0km base range. Well balanced anti-aircraft complement. Good top speed of 31.0 knots. Has the Hydroacoustic Search consumable. Enormous carry potential -- incredibly forgiving. CONs: Armour isn't overall as thick as some advertise, leading to many normal penetrations unless properly angled. Poor anti-torpedo defense with only a 22% base damage reduction. German Battleship dispersion on main batteries can feel punitive at times. Small main battery with only eight 380mm rifles. Poor HE performance with 4,400 alpha strike. Awful handling, with a 16.0s rudder shift time and 850m turning circle. Enormous surface detection range of 16.4km and aerial detection range of 14.7km. Rough stock-grind until you unlock her Hull Upgrade. Rest easy, fans of the Bismarck. Her legacy is safe in this game. The Bismarck is for World of Warships what the Pz.Kpwf. VI Tiger is for World of Tanks. She is the stuff of legends and surrounded by so much hype and misinformation to make it difficult to separate fact and reality. Sensationalized documentaries often describe her as the single greatest threat that the British Royal Navy ever faced in the Second World War. This leads to some very high expectation (and trepidation) in regards to her inclusion in World of Warships. The Zoup Can For those adverse to reading and who enjoy the soothing tones of a Virginian gentleman, NoZoupForYou has offered to collaborate. He reads out the summary of this article along with the list of Pros and Cons for the Bismarck. One of our North American Community Contributors, Zoup does his own reviews which you should check out. Personally, I'm a big fan of his "Real Warship Genius" series. Options The headliner for the Bismarck's options is the inclusion of the German Hydroacoustic Search. This is identical to that found on the German Cruisers of the same tier with their extended range. This makes closing in to brawling ranges a lot more comfortable. Harrowing panic situations when enemy DDs or smoke-launching cruisers are harassing you become almost laughable. This pairs well with her heavy secondary armament which can quickly doom lightly armoured ships caught out by your consumable. Consumables: Four slots Damage Control Party Repair Party Choice between Spotter Aircraft and Float Plane Fighter Hydroacoustic Search Module Upgrades: Five slots, standard German options.Camouflage: The Bismarck has the option of purchasing premium camouflage for 3,000 doubloons. This provides -3% to your surface detection range, increases enemy dispersion by 4%, provides a 50% bonus to experience gains and reduces your repair costs by 5%. Firepower Primary Battery: 380mm guns in 4x2 turrets in an A-B-X-Y arrangement.Secondary Battery: 105mm guns in 8x2 turrets, 150mm guns in 6x2 turrets. At first glance, the Bismarck looks under gunned compared to the other tier 8 Battleships. And you wouldn't be remiss in thinking so. Her eight 380mm rifles pale compare to the nine 406mm found on the North Carolina or the ten 410mm guns found on the Amagi. She compensates for this by having the same reload time as the Gneisenau -- a mere 26s per volley. This helps pad her DPM numbers somewhat but she's still trailing the leaders in terms of potential damage output. The 380mm caliber guns first introduced at tier 6 with the Bayern are starting to feel a bit long in the tooth by tier 8, even with the improved performance over their WWI predecessor. With their accelerated reload and reasonable alpha strike, they can be quite the nightmare for unwary cruisers. There's enough punch in each AP shell to take the fight out of anything smaller than a Battleship. But you're not going to find the single, overwhelming blows found on the North Carolina's 406mm shells. Fights with other BBs can take a while. Her HE shells also are downright terrible, but that's nothing new for German ships. Another point of contention is the wide spacing of her guns. This tends to exaggerate the wonky dispersion RNG occasionally throws your way. Still, with a 5' per second turret rotation, the gunnery on the Bismarck is pretty comfortable -- comfortable enough that you'll likely forgive her being a bit lacking on alpha strike and DPM. Where the Bismarck really shines is with her secondary armament. She not only has a lot of guns (14 per side) but their range is incredible at 7km. With the right upgrades, skills and signals, you can get her range up to 10.58km which is insane at her tier. Many a Bismarck captain has decided to specialize their ship around these guns and few are disappointed. This makes a 10-skill Captain almost a must to maximize the Bismarck. My only area of contention with the Bismarck's secondaries is that they appear to have a bit of a blind-spot directly ahead of the ship. The good handling and fast reload on her main battery combined with her fearsome secondaries makes the Bismarck a real monster in a brawl. Her firepower traits make her very forgiving to play. A missed salvo with the Bismarck doesn't hurt as much as you can reload and readjust sooner than other Battleships. Her secondaries passively stack damage and can wrack up impressive totals without much input from the player. Summary: Main armament is very comfortable to use, with good turret rotation and a faster reload. Heavy secondary gun battery with excellent range for her tier. Ship is somewhat lacking in alpha strike and DPM potential. Gun accuracy can feel a bit off at times with the wide gun spacing on her turrets. Secondaries have a blind spot directly forward of the ship. From left to right, the Bismarck (tier 8), Bayern (tier 6) and Gneisenau (tier 7). Each use 380mm guns with comparable hitting power, though only the Gneisenau and Bismarck use the same type. The Bayern uses a WWI era 380mm rifle with different characteristics for its reload and shell. Compared to the Tier 7 Gneisenau The Bismarck feels like a linear upgrade to the Gneisenau. You do lose a couple of nice features though. You're upgrading from 6 guns to 8. They're the same weapons as you've used before, you're just getting more of them. Your secondary guns change from being powerful to godly, with an enormous reach. You do lose your torpedoes. Your armour improves overall, with excellent bow armour though you lose some along your waterline. The Bismarck will feel much tougher against most opponents. Your AA power improves but not enough to feel like a big step up from the Gneisenau. The Bismarck will feel tankier than the Gneisenau. You can take more hits and you no longer have to fear 380mm or 410mm guns if you angle properly at the right range. You'll be delighted to have the Hydracoustic Search module -- enough that you'll really miss it if you go back to playing lower tiered German Battleships. The loss of your torpedoes will be felt, but the secondaries from the Bismarck almost make up for it. Maneuverability Top Speed: 31.0 knots.Turning Radius: 850mRudder Shift: 16.0s The Bismarck is one of the fastest Battleships in the game at present. Only a handful of enemy capital ships can outrun her. This gives the Bismarck a tremendous amount of flexibility, especially when top tier. She can dictate the ranges at which combats will occur and force enemy Battleships to play on her terms. It's only when facing the higher tiered German Battleships and the Iowa that she needs to be wary. Largely, you'll want to hold off on using her speed in the early portions of the game until you can best isolate the opening you want to exploit. The downside to all of that speed is that the Bismarck doesn't turn very well. Stock, her rudder shift is an absolute nightmare and it only gets marginally better with her hull upgrade. The good news is that she'll never out turn her turrets. However, that's small consolation when enemy destroyers send a swarm of torpedoes at your broadside. Durability Hit Points: 69,200Citadel Protection: Up to 315mm + turtlebackBow Armour: 32mm (immunity to 410mm rifles)Torpedo Damage Reduction: 22% Tier for tier, you're going to struggle to find a Battleship as well protected as the Bismarck at medium to close ranges. And there's the key -- getting her in close. Bow on, she can deflect the 283mm to 420mm rifles found at tiers 7 through 10 with ease, having only to worry about the shells striking her turret faces or barbettes. Properly angled at this engagement range, she can repulse any guns she faces, bouncing even the fearsome main battery of the Yamato. Against the IJN flagship, you'll need to angle 20' to 30' and bait shots against your belt armour as her 460mm guns can still over match your bow. She is also functionally immune to citadel hits against her broadside at ranges up to (and including) 16km. One of the few ways to land citadel hits is to strike her while she's sailing directly towards or away and slam shells down the length of her ship or through her deck armour. This is much easier said than done and the Bismarck can largely ignore the threat of citadel damage. This immunity comes from the layer of her turtleback armour -- angled armour plates behind the belt designed to deflect shells up and away from the machines spaces and magazine. As good as this all sounds, the Bismarck isn't impervious to damage. Far from it. While citadel hits are difficult (nay, nigh impossible) to land on her, this doesn't mean you can sail around exposing your broadside. Her belt armour is only 315mm. And while the turtleback internal armour will protect your vitals, you will still take a lot of damage from penetrating hits. If you expose her broadside, do not be surprised to take in excess of 20,000 damage from a rival Battleship smacking you upside the head with full penetrating salvos. It's critical to keep your Bismarck angled and to use your rudder and speed to avoid incoming fire. One "interesting" (read: overpowered) consequence of the difficulty of dealing citadel damage to the Bismarck is that her main hull can be over saturated. This reduces the damage of AP hits from 0.33x maximum damage down to 0.165x maximum damage, greatly increasing the amount of punishment needed to put her down. Once all of the localized hit points of this section are reduced, it's possible for the Bismarck to take full on penetrating salvos for zero-effective damage. Enemies must switch their fire to the bow, stern or superstructure to finish off the Bismarck in these cases. You're rarely ever going to encounter a situation where the Bismarck is taking zero-damage penetrating hits to a section of her hull, but damage saturation is commonplace. Be aware you may need to shift your fire when facing her if your damaging hits aren't quite up to muster. Another benefit to this immunity to citadel damage is that this greatly increases the efficiency of her Repair Party consumable. Only 10% of the damage done to the citadel of a Battleship may be recovered, while 50% of penetrating hits may be restored. It's easier to get more use out of your Repair Party in the Bismarck as you don't have to worry about being "cheated" out of 40% of a heal from a citadel hit. Her larger base hit point pool also means she recovers more hit points per charge than a North Carolina or Amagi. The Bismarck doesn't have everything her own way. She is very vulnerable to torpedo hits, reducing the incoming damage from those waterborne warheads by 22% before modules, and only against hits that strike her bulges amidships. Coupled with her large turning circle, she needs to be wary of destroyers and their main armament. This said, with her Hydracoustic Search consumable, she can give herself a big head start on getting out of the way of incoming strikes. Summary: Very large hit point pool & functionally immune to citadel hits except from torpedoes. Repair Party synergizes well with citadel immunity and large hit point pool. Good armour that can be actively angled to foil or minimize damage -- best suited at medium to close range. Still vulnerable to penetrating hits which can be quite commonplace if not angled properly, especially at range. Very vulnerable to torpedoes. Into the Maelstrom. The Bismarck is tough enough to forgive many a mistake -- such as finding yourself over extended and facing the teeth of the enemy fleet. If this happens, turn around and get out. Unlike other Battleships, you have little to fear from citadel damage and the sooner you can mitigate the harm being done, the better. Find cover, begin regenerating health and go at them again. The Stock Grind: The Bismarck is one of those ships you're going to want to have some free experience saved up to take the sting off of playing her stock. It's only the one module, her hull, that needs addressing immediately. Without it, your AA power is bad but most distressingly, your bad rudder shift time is downright awful at 22.4s. The first module you'll want to upgrade is her hull. I cannot recommend strongly enough that you use any saved free experience to accelerate this. At 52,000xp, it is expensive but worthwhile. It provides the following: 4,700 extra HP, a 6.4s improvement to your rudder shift time and it overhauls your AA armament from 203dps to 374dps. The rudder shift time alone will make this feel worthwhile. Everything else is a bonus. With her stock engine, the Bismarck makes 28.5 knots which isn't bad. This will allow you to keep pace with the flow of battle though you may struggle to close into brawling ranges until you get this upgraded to her 31.0 knot top speed. Without her rangefinder upgrade, the Bismarck has a reach of 19.3km. On some of the larger maps you'll find yourself, this may feel a bit lackluster. You can prop this up through the use of her spotter aircraft for small windows of opportunity. With her final upgrade, her range increases to 21.2km. Concealment & Camouflage Surface Detection Range: 16.4kmAir Detection Range: 14.7kmMinimum Surface Detection Range: 12.31kmConcealment Penalty while Firing: +11.40km The Bismarck is a large Battleship with a surface detection range to match. You can invest heavily in trying to camouflage her but this will largely be an exercise in futility. A heavy investment may pay dividends in late-stage matches where there are no aircraft present. This will allow you to "sneak" to almost within extended secondary gun-battery range on open water. Anti-Aircraft DefenseAA Battery Calibers: 105mm, 37mm, 20mmAA Umbrella Ranges: 4.5km, 3.5km, 2.0kmAA DPS per Aura: 133 / 103 / 138 The Bismarck may feel like a small step backwards from the Gneisenau in terms of AA defense. Where the Germans enjoyed overall anti-aircraft superiority at tier 7, they are very much put in their place by the arrival of the North Carolina and her modernized AA batteries. It's not that the Bismarck's AA power is bad. It's very well balanced between her three umbrellas, almost evenly splitting into thirds at each step. The only real unfortunate change from the Gneisenau to the Bismarck is the loss of the 5.2km range from the Gneisenau's dual purpose 128mm rifles. The Bismarck is armed with 105s instead which go back to the Bayern's maximum range of 4.5km. This is a marked downgrade and should be treated as such. Though the overall values of the Bismarck's aircraft damage per second have gone up, this loss of range should be as keenly felt as a significant dip in DPS. This does mean that tier for tier, the Gneisenau has better AA power than the Bismarck. It also reduces the standing of the Bismarck's AA power from "good" to "average", sitting just over the Amagi but several steps behind the aforementioned laurels of the North Carolina. Functionally, when facing same tier or higher enemy carriers, you can expect the Bismarck's AA to bloody incoming attack planes but not see them off. You're also going to be the preferred prey of torpedo bombers if they're given the choice between you and an American Battleship. Thanks to the Tirpitz's reputation as a poor AA boat, many CVs may be more inclined to try their luck against your hide. It's important to stay with the fleet and to not isolate yourself when there's an enemy carrier on the team. Your AA power isn't bad, it's just not enough to keep you safe if you're caught out alone. You will bloody their noses, but that's small recompense when aircraft are easy to replace. Your hit points are less so. The Bismarck warily eyes fifteen dive bombers passing 4km away. These planes had no interest in the German Battleship and were on their way back to their ship. The Bismarck's flak only managed to shoot down one of them. She has decent AA power, but not enough to give a tier 10 carrier pause. Overall Impressions Skill Floor: Simple / Casual / Challenging / Difficult The Bismarck is one of the most forgiving Battleships in the game. She has good armour, good speed, good gun handling, good reload times and AA power. She will reward a Captain playing her over cautiously from the second line and she'll be equally as forgiving to a Captain that pushes a little too aggressively, keeping her alive long enough to repeatedly pull the trigger. Neither Captain will be helping their team very much, but the Bismarck Captain will feel like they contributed. Skill Ceiling: Low / Moderate / High / Extreme The meta for the Bismarck is a game of patience. You're excellent up close but you cannot risk over exposing yourself early on. Her game play, at it's most complicated, is looking for an opening where you can close in to within 8km of an enemy and put your tremendous secondary gun batteries and your excellent armour to work. Otherwise, she can sit back and snipe with the rest of the fleet without too much of a depreciation of her combat abilities. Her carry potential is enormous and you don't have to be unicum to exercise it. Mouse's Summary: Her main battery isn't her strong point nor is it a liability. Her secondaries are excellent -- the best for her tier. Ridiculous potential durability, making her one of the tankiest Battleships in game when played well. She has the speed, flexibility and firepower to help decide matches. As a veteran of World of Tanks from 2013, I am still a little gun-shy regarding German vehicles in Wargaming's IP. I keep expecting them to have larger-than-necessary drawbacks, or to be significantly up-tiered from what they were designed to face. You can well imagine what a pleasant surprise the Bismarck has been for me. Short of her handling like a fat cow, she really does not have much in the way of serious weaknesses. And these balancing measures are, if we're completely honest, insufficient from keeping her from being an overpowered monster. There, I said. I'm in for it now. The Bismarck is overpowered. I can't take it back. She is, hands down, the most forgiving Battleship I've played -- and I own the Imperator Nikolai I. This doesn't make her more powerful than the Russian Behemoth, tier for tier. She's not firing at poor baby seals with twelve laser-accurate rifles after all. But she does have enough going for her that I seriously question if she can evade the nerf hammer for long. A lot, if not all of it, has to do with her durability. It would be enough of a bonus if she simply had her functional immunity to citadel damage short of torpedo strikes, but it goes beyond that. She has good overall armour which lets her face-tank against anything short of a Yamato. She's got a bucket load of hit points which, when combined with "only" taking penetrations, allows her Repair Party to work that much more efficiently. Unlike the Imperator Nikolai I, she's got reasonable AA power too. Oh, and she's got secondaries for days. Anything that gets within 8km of a Bismarck needs to start living in fear of watching their HP hemorrhage between small-caliber shells and resulting fires. I'm very tempted to crown the Bismarck as THE ship to grind for in the German line. As nice as the improvements are on the Friedrich der Grosse, the Bismarck can see tier 6 Battleships. And you haven't seen disgusting levels of puppy kicking until you've seen a Bismarck wade into the ranks of several tier 6 vessels at point blank range and come out with several kills and most of her hit points intact. It's downright obscene. It's even more disgusting when you see her pull the same stunt against tier 7 ships. With careful play, she can also pull it off against tier 8s. It seems silly to call the Bismarck overpowered and not raise the same flag over-top of the Tirpitz, her premium sister-ship. There are differences between the two craft and I think they're telling. Between 2km extra range on her secondaries, her better AA power and her hydroacoustic search, I feel that the Bismarck is more forgiving than her sister ship. The Bismarck has eyes (and guns) trained against all threats. Her player doesn't need to actively participate to dissuade a destroyer from slipping within 10km or to handle incoming aircraft as much as they would at the helm of the Tirpitz. The only thing that's going to keep her in line are those eight 380mm rifles. She might dodge immediate nerfs if her damage totals aren't through the roof. She may even escape player attention because of it (players are so enamoured with high damage totals). But damage doesn't tell everything. The Bismarck, when played with even a modest bit of skill, will really make the enemy team work at trying to sink her. Seriously, get out there and enjoy. The Bismarck-class and Admiral-Hipper-class together once again. These make good division mates and look awesome too. Stay tuned for a review of the Prinz Eugen! Compared to the Tier 9 Friedrich der Grosse: When you unlock the Friedrich, you're essentially getting a bigger, fatter Bismarck. A lot of the upgrades are simply mediocre. Her AA bumps up, primarily with her 37mm mid-range auto cannons but this still keeps her a far cry from comparing to the USN Battleships. Her secondaries are identical to those of the Bismarck, but at a tier higher. She's not as fast. She's got even worse handling. And she even loses out somewhat on the Bismarck's range if that can be believed. All of these lackluster "improvements" pave the way for a single gain: You upgrade to fast-firing 406mm rifles or the incredibly punchy 420mm guns. This gives you the choice of keeping to the rapid-fire gun play that you were accustomed to through the Gneisenau and Bismarck or trading up for the apocalyptic smash of Montana-equivalent shells on a longer reload. Sadly, the Friedrich only has the eight guns between four turrets like her predecessor. So even as the German Battleships finally reach gun caliber parity with their contemporaries, they continue to trail on DPM. Still, the Friedrich der Grosse preserves the vaunted durability of the Bismarck class. You just need to play her a little more carefully. Outfitting the Bismarck Recommended Modules The big decision you need to make with the Bismarck is whether or not you want to heavily invest in her secondary armaments or not. Like the Gneisenau, you're going to feel spoiled for choice. For your first slot, I'm going to do the rare thing and recommend two different options. Main Armament Modification 1 should be your default option. However, for those of you raising a fuss about being detonated, Magazine Modification 1 will keep you safe from those rare torpedo-inspired explosions that make your face turn purple with the rage. The mod will reduce the likelihood of those occurring from an approximate 1 in 100 scenario to 1 in 300. For your second slot, you need to decide if you want to focus on her primary battery or secondary battery. Aiming Systems Modification 1 is definitely the better choice, providing a modest boost for both systems. This will nudge her secondary range up to 7.35km. However, you can go full hog and grab Secondary Battery Modification 2 which will up her range to 8.4km. The third slot options are still terrible. Take Damage Control System Modification 1. It will help reduce flooding and fires and give you a 2% boost to your damage reduction against torpedoes. At your fourth slot, you've again got a choice to make (yay, no obvious min-maxing!). The decision rests between trying to improve her sluggish handling with Steering Gears Modification 2, or reducing the impact of fire and flooding damage with Damage Control System Modification 2. The former will reduce her upgraded rudder shift time from 16.0s to 12.8s. This is arguably the best choice. However, with as much high explosive fire as the Bismarck will take, it's hard to discount the merits of reducing fire damage and taking the burden off her Damage Control Party. For your final slot, you have the choice between reducing her detection range by 10% with Concealment System Modification 1 and boosting her minimum acquisition ranges for torpedoes and enemy ships with Target Acquisition System Modification 1. With her Hydroacoustic Search, the latter is of less value IMO, making the Concealment mod more attractive. Recommended Consumables Like most Battleships, the Bismarck should equip a premium version of her Damage Control Party. This will reduce the reset timer from an appalling 120s down to an almost manageable 80s. It's up to player choice if you wish to also follow suit with a premium version of your Repair Party. Along with reducing the cool down, this will provide an additional charge which can be very useful for this front line brawler. You have your choice of using either a Spotter Aircraft or a Float Plane Fighter in your next slot. Float Plane fighters are perilously short-lived in higher tiered matches with the massive, overlapping AA umbrellas. To this end, I tend to prefer the Spotter Aircraft for it's early-game utility to help snipe when ranges are still wide open. Still, the Fighter isn't without its merits, particularly in end game scenarios where there aren't many ships left. This can help spot enemies and incoming torpedoes, reducing the burden on your Hydroacoustic Search. Recommended Captain Skills The Bismarck's skill choices will be pretty standard for a high tier German Battleship. From the first tier, Basic Fire Training and Basics of Survivability are both valuable, with the former being more optimal as it boosts your secondary batteries and your AA power. I would strongly recommend grabbing both. From the second tier, Expert Marksman is your best choice. This will increase your turret rotation from 5' per second to 5.7' per second -- a 14% increase. At the third tier, you have three choices depending on how you want to specialize your ship. Vigilance will give you increased time to react to enemy torpedoes. Note that this does stack with Hydroacoustic Search and can be invaluable this way. High Alert helps ease the burden on your often overtaxed Damage Control Party, reducing it's reset timer by 12s / 8s. Lastly, Superintendent will provide an extra charge for all of your consumables -- very handy for both your Hydroacoustic Search and Repair Party. At tier 4, Advanced Fire Training is the most valuable choice. This boosts both your AA and secondary battery range. When coupled with your second module, this will boost your secondary range to 8.82km / 10.08km depending on your choice. At tier 5, I strongly recommend Manual Fire Control for Secondary Armament. This concludes the closer look at the Bismarck. A special thanks to Lert for being my division-buddy and helping gather screenshots and game play. Stay tuned every Friday on ShipComrade.com for a new review of a tech-tree ship. You can request the next non-premium ship I look at.

While steps have been taken to ensure accuracy, Okhotnik was a work in progress at the time of testing. Please be aware that all of the statistics and performance discussed here are subject to change before release. HMS TOG II* eat your heart out. Quick Summary: A Viking long-ship. A TOG II* in World of Warships form. A fish story. A destroyer that's happy to see you. A meme waiting to happen. Patch & Date Written: 0.6.1 - February 16th, 2017 Cost: Undisclosed at the time of publication. Closest in-Game Contemporary Izyaslav, Tier 4 Russian DestroyerDegree of Similarity: Clone / Sister-Ship / Related Class / Similar Role / Unique Okhotnik feels like something that would be concocted if someone was trying to describe the Izyaslav in a fish story. She's an exaggeration of the tier 4 Russian destroyer in almost every dimension (particularly length) while still keeping close enough to the source material. She really should be a cruiser, but she's not. PROs Armed with seven (!) 130mm rifles, delivering a massive alpha strike potential per volley. All guns can rotate 360º, allowing for easier re-engagement of targets from one side to the other. Also armed with twelve (!) dorsally mounted (!!) torpedo tubes divided between four launchers. Fast reload time on her torpedoes of 47s per launcher. Her torpedoes provide some of the shortest reaction-time for her opponents with a mere 1.0km detection range. This gives targets about 6s to respond. Good concealment values for a ship of her length, with a 6.5km surface detection range while stock. She looks absolutely hilarious. CONs Short ranged main battery with a reach of 9.2km Horrible turret traverse of 5.5º per second. Receives the 2.0km Soviet-destroyer stealth-tax to her surface detection range when she fires her main battery for a total penalty of +5.9km. Her torpedoes are short ranged with restricted forward fire angles. Pathetic AA armament and a big target for enemy aircraft -- because she's long. Enormous turning circle of 730m and slow rotation speed of 6º per second. Because long ship is long. Heavy reliance on a significant number of Captain Skills to make the ship competitive and enjoyable. Okhotnik makes me think of what would happen if you asked a small group of six year old children to design a destroyer and they each tried to one-up each other. “My destroyer is going to have four guns and six torpedoes.” “Yes, but MY destroyer is going to have FIVE guns and EIGHT torpedoes!” By the time you get to the kid that designs Clemson, with her twelve torpedoes and six rifles, you know things are getting a bit out of hand. The Okhotnik is the next abomination to be conceived and you should probably stop the exercise there before someone reinvents the Kitakami. This thing looks ridiculous. As a weapon system, Okhotnik looks as subtle as stuffing a brick into a sweat sock and swinging it around your head. It's cumbersome, awkward and things get horribly stretched out. It's also absolutely devastating when it lands a blow. I normally reserve all accusatory judgments to the end of the article but I'll say this right from the start: Provided you've got a highly-experienced Captain at the helm with the right skills, you're going to love playing this thing. Okhotnik is hilarious looking and a riot to play. She can be an overpowered little monster in her current iteration and there's only a few checks in place to give her the illusion of balance. Lert's joining me to show you how she compares directly to her competitors while I go over the nitty-gritty to explain how she can be used and abused. The Lertbox Mmh? ... I'm up. I'm awake, promise. zzzz .... What? Oh. Right. Okhotnik. Okhotnik has a very distinct (and low) silhouette. This latter trait plays very much to her advantage, making her difficult to shoot. Options No surprises here. Okhotnik uses the same three-tone camouflage scheme found on Imperator Nikolai I and Aurora. Consumables: Damage Control Party Smoke Generator Engine Boost Module Upgrades: Three slots, standard destroyer options.Premium Camouflage: Tier 2 to 5 Standard. This provides 30% bonus experience gains, 3% reduction in surface detection and 4% reduction in enemy accuracy. As with most ships, you'll want to splurge on premium versions of consumables on an “as you can afford” basis. I strongly recommend taking a premium version of Okhotnik's Smoke Generator and Damage Control Party. A premium Engine Boost consumable is also nice to have, but it's not necessary. For her module choices, it's the same picks you'll take for most destroyers. For your first slot, Magazine Modification 1 is your best choice. Your guns are fragile, though, so if being detonated doesn't bother you, then taking Main Armaments Modification 1 is a reasonable alternative. In your second slot, you have a choice. Aiming Systems Modification 1 is best. This reduces your maximum dispersion by 7m at 11km... which isn't a lot, but it is preferable to assist with your torpedo traverse. Alternatively, you can take Main Battery Modification 2 to increase your turret traverse but this comes at a minor loss to DPM. And for your third slot, take whatever because they're all terrible. Firepower Primary Battery: Seven 130mm rifles, two on the bow and five on the stern. None of these guns are superfiring. Torpedo Armament: Twelve tubes in 4x3 launchers Okhotnik naval rifles are the 130mm/55 B-7 and she gets a lot of them. This gun was first introduced to us last year with Krasny Krym, the modernized version of Svietlana. These are also found on Podvoisky, the new tier 5 Destroyer supplanting the Gnevny-class. They differ somewhat from the 130mm B-13s that are found on the higher tier Soviet destroyers. They have a slightly lower muzzle velocity and a worse penetrating shell. These do the same 2,500 AP and 1,900 HE damage with an 8% fire chance. Okhotnik is very short ranged for a tier 5 destroyer at 9.2km, which helps keep her power level in check. Okhotnik trades away DPM for alpha strike. A single broadside of all seven rifles lands for 4,389 HE damage when they penetrate an unsaturated target. This is one third of a tier 5 destroyer's health pool and amounts to a larger alpha strike per volley than the tier 7 Blyskawica. Landing hits like this made most of my opponents get all squirrely for some reason. They often elected to disengage rather than press any DPM advantage they had over me. Of course, missing with one volley is more tragic in Okhotnik than other destroyers and poor gunnery will punish you especially hard. Make those shots count or reap the consequences. Some of the negative traits of Okhotnik's guns will be very familiar to veterans of the Russian and Soviet Destroyer line. First of all, she has the same 2.0km “stealth tax” when firing her guns. Instead of receiving a nominal 3.9km surface detection penalty (gun calibre x 0.3km), Okhotnik gains 5.9km of surface detection range when shooting. This precludes her from ever being able to fire from stealth short of lobbing shells from smoke or behind an island. She also shares the horrible gun traverse rate of the Gnevny-class. It takes her almost 33s to traverse her guns 180º which is downright appalling. However, you might not notice it as much given Okhotnik's handling, but more on that later. The good news is that Okhotnik compensates for this by having a 360º rotation on all of her guns. Okhotnik has next to no deck clutter. What's more, her guns aren't mounted in partially or fully enclosed turrets. Heck, they don't even have gun shields. So while her guns may not be mounted in a superfiring configuration, it's surprising how many you can bring to bear. All seven rifles can be aimed at targets 30º off her bow to either side. More surprising is that gun #2 can fire through gun #1. Yeah. Weird. This gives you two rifles that can shoot directly forward but only one gun can shoot directly astern. As you'll often be tacking towards or away from your targets at an angle, you'll often only need to adjust your heading by a little to bring all of your guns to bear. Torpedoes Okhotnik's torpedoes are almost as hilarious as her gun mounts. She has four triple launchers, mounted dorsally. She can dump a broadside of 12 torpedoes at a target at once. This is a feat that isn't matched until the Shimakaze at tier 10. These “walls of skill” are an absolute nightmare for enemies to try to avoid and it's not uncommon to see players freeze in the face of the approaching doom. The only thing that keeps this balanced is the horrible performance of the torpedoes. Okhotnik's fish are unique currently. They have a 13,667 maximum damage listing which isn't bad for a tier 5 destroyer (especially not one that can spit out twelve of the little blighters). They're very quick too, traveling at 62 knots with a 1.0km surface detection range, giving opponents a mere 6.1s worth of reaction time when their death approaches. Worse, these things can be veritably spammed with their 47s reload per launcher. With their respectable damage output, Okhotnik can keep tubes in reserve, launching only what's needed and keeping others on hand for a follow up target. The only thing gives these things a modicum of balance (and only just) is their short range of 4.5km. Her torpedoes are one of the most unbalanced features about Okhotnik, and if she were any faster they would be horribly overpowered. With the ability to get the ship's surface detection range down to 5.7km with Concealment Expert, Okhotnik can sprint the last 1.2km she needs to dump her fish against a chosen target in as little as 13 seconds against a ship running a perpendicular course. This isn't a lot of time to react to the ambush. The only fly in the ointment here is that Okhotnik doesn't have very good forward torpedo arcs as her first three launchers are sandwiched in between the fore and after superstructure and funnels so it will require her to manoeuvre to swing out her weapons. Expect to see a lot of spectacular suicide torpedo runs and close-range island ambushes in this boat paying big dividends. Rivals: Gremyashchy Lert: Gremyashchy is faster and has more range. She has better torpedoes, turns better and can fire from stealth in open water. She'll be spotted before Okhotnik is though, and if you catch a Gremy with its pants down you can smash him in the face with superior alpha strike, giving you the edge in the DPM fight that follows. Be wary of Gremy's torpedoes, which have twice the range of yours. Always be wary of potential torps and maneuver accordingly, you don't have the agility to dodge torpedoes you didn't expect. If Gremyashchy comes within 4km, flood the ocean with metal fishes, though a smart Gremy driver will avoid this situation. Try to control the engagement, difficult as it seems versus a ship that is faster and turns better than you. Keep the pressure on him, and you might come out of this engagement still floating. It's very important to get that first strike in though, and your superior stealth helps in this regard. Even then, it's an uphill battle and a savvy Gremyashchy driver will use his speed and agility to try and dictate the fight. Okhotnik is good, but it doesn't challenge Gremy's crown of best Russian destroyer at tier 5. Wall of skill deployed. Manoeuvrability Top Speed: 34.5 knots Turning Radius: 730m Rudder Shift Time: 3.2s So here's where the bad news lies, and it's all in one trait, really. Okhotnik has a lower-than-average top speed and decent rudder shift. But where she really hurts is her turning radius, which is comparable to that of a Battleship. This is to be expected given her length. It takes Okhotnik just over 15 seconds to make a 90º turn and almost a minute to rotate 360º, slowing down to 28.9 knots with her rudder hard over. For comparison, a Farragut can make the same 90º turn in 11 seconds and the full rotation in 43. Okhotnik just doesn't answer her rudder quickly. This makes her rather vulnerable to enemy torpedoes as you can well imagine. Torpedo bombers are a particular weakness of Okhotnik's, as she has a rather large surface detection range for a destroyer while simultaneously having pathetic AA power (more on that later). The length of her hull only exacerbates the problem of avoiding these waterborne warheads. Still, even with this sluggish handling, she's still capable of out turning her even more sluggish turret traverse (6º ship turn, 5.5º turret traverse). Thankfully, her 360º turret rotation more than makes up for this. Okhotnik's lack of agility also makes dodging incoming fire a little more challenging. However, her low profile does maker her a difficult target to land reliable hits against, especially at range. Durability Hit Points: 12,700 Maximum Protection: 16mm Min Bow & Deck Armour: 10mm Okhotnik has a slightly-more-than-average hit points total for a tier 5 destroyer, but nothing to get too excited about. Her exposed main battery mounts have only 6mm of armour protection but they can absorb just as much damage as the weapons on other DDs. Still, expect HE splashes from large caliber guns to disable and destroy these vulnerable weapons regularly. With the length of her hull, it's important to keep incoming AP shell penetration mechanics in mind. Shots that strike her broadside are likely to over penetrate while those that travel the length of the ship are more likely to result in full penetration damage. Be careful on your approaches against Battleships. This makes the Captain Skill, Priority Target, worth it's weight in gold. Pay attention to what ships are shooting at you and with what ammunition types to best protect yourself. Rivals: Nicholas Lert: The American fighting lady has a hit point advantage, superior gun DPM, better range, better speed and is more agile. Her torpedo armament is arguably weaker than yours by volume and damage output, though not by range. This theoretical duel will depend greatly on who gets the initiative. Although she's faster, Nicholas has slightly worse detection than you, giving you a small advantage here. Make sure your first salvo hits, and hits hard. This will give you an advantage that you need to press. If Nicholas makes a mistake and comes close enough, perhaps to try and launch her torpedoes, make sure you close the gap and get your wall of skill in the water to crush her. Your volume of fish will mean no escape if the Nicholas makes the mistake of coming within 4km. Still, this is an uphill battle that depends greatly on who takes the initiative. Concealment & Camouflage Surface Detection Range: 6.5km Air Detection Range: 4.3km Minimum Surface Detection Range: 5.7km Concealment Penalty while Firing: +5.9km (vs 9.2km gun range) I dunno what they were thinking here. Okhotnik is an enormous destroyer, yet she has better concealment values than Gremyashchy, Gnevny, Podvoisky, Nicholas and T-22. Her enormity is in one dimension only, however, and that may explain why she gets such a generous surface detection range. Okhotnik sits very low in the water, with her raised forward bow section lower than that of the Kamikaze-class and her bridge being much lower still. Within her Matchmaking spread, from tiers 4 through 7, only the IJN Destroyers Isokaze, Minekaze, Kamikaze, Mutsuki and the tier 4 German V-170 have a better surface detection range. Short of being sniffed out by aircraft or tripping over one of these ships, Okhotnik is going to see her opponents before being detected in turn. This is good news for the Russian Destroyer given the short range of her weapon systems. She is utterly incapable of firing either her torpedoes or her guns without being detected by her enemies. Every time you pull the trigger, you're putting your ship in harm's way. One of the few balancing measures for Okhotnik shows up here with her very large detection range from the air. She's spotted 4.3km out, which is closer to the range you would expect for a destroyer-leader like the Tenryu or Yubari. Okhotnik moored alongside a reference-Minekaze. You can very clearly see the difference in length and height between the two images. Anti-Aircraft DefenseAA Battery Calibers: 76.2mm / 7.62mmAA Umbrella Ranges: 3.0km / 1.0kmAA DPS per Aura: 3 / 7 Ha-ha, who are you kidding? Okhotnik is dangerously vulnerable to aircraft and should be made a priority target by any CV that spots her on the team line up. Her long keel and horrible turning radius makes her a juicy target for torpedo planes though she is rather slender, making her a harder target for dive bombers. This is one of the few destroyers where you can safely keep her AA turned on at all times as their range is actually shorter than her aerial detection range. Rivals: Minekaze Lert: She's stealthier than you, faster than you, more agile than you and can fire torpedoes from outside her detection range. In Minekaze's ideal hypothetical scenario, you'll never see him coming and the first notice you have of him being near is the Sixth Sense warning icon appearing on the screen. Expect torpedoes in the water, and turn towards where you suspect he is. The concealment difference between the two is only 100 meters base, so if you guessed right, you'll be able to spot him once you make your turn. Smack him upside the head with a devastating volley and hope he doesn't just turn and run, in which case you'll never catch him. Any Minekaze driver worth his salt knows he'll never win a gunnery duel with a Russian gunboat, and will not engage in one if he has any say. Skills to Beat Sneaker wearing Hedgehogs Okhotnik has a real dependence on Captain Skills to make her an enjoyable and effective destroyer. Arguably, most destroyers manage this level of competitiveness with 10 skill points -- when they unlock Concealment Expert. This makes Okhotnik very much a late bloomer. Whether a player considers her powerful will largely depend on the skills available to their Captain. While there's always some mutability in skill choice between players, the five skills below should be considered “must haves” for Okhotnik. As a trainer for your Soviet Captains, this dependence on certain skills can make Okhotnik ill suited to performing optimally with skills that run contrary to this recommended build.Priority Target (tier one) Okhotnik cannot engage enemies without being seen herself, short of abusing island and smoke cover. These forms of concealment will not always be readily available, so it's important to know when it's safe to pull the trigger and when you should go gun-silent to preserve your hit points. Due to Okhotnik's middling speed and manoeuvrability, dodging fire isn't as viable as dropping off the radar and disappearing. Knowing when you can continue pulling the trigger safely and when you should probably disengage will help keep this ship in the game. This can also allow you to know when it's safer to attempt a point blank torpedo drop.Expert Marksman (tier two) During play-testing, Okhotnik was shackled with the same awful turret traverse with which Gremyashchy was originally introduced. This 5.5º per second rotation didn't feel as limiting for this destroyer though. The reason was simple enough -- unlike Gremyashchy, Okhotnik could only turn the ship itself at 6º per second. So while she could out turn her turrets, it wasn't to such a dramatic degree as the original Soviet Premium Destroyer. So Okhotnik's turret traverse doesn't feel as punitive as Gremyashchy's did while the ship is under manoeuvres. However, Okhotnik struggles to use her rudder to help bring her guns to bear on a new target. To this end, Expert Marksman is a very important skill to help her re-engage targets quickly. Without this skill, Okhotnik is still playable though switching sides with her guns takes a very long time (as much as 33 seconds). This said, having a 360º rotation on her turrets will help some, at least with tracking a new target. Thus, this should be the last skill you pick up.Last Stand (tier two) You're a destroyer, and one that cannot stealth-fire at targets. It's safe to assume your steering and rudder will be knocked out regularly. Take this one on your first pass through the skill list.Concealment Expert (tier four) Take this as your first tier four skill. This may seem like a no-brainer. There are very few destroyers in the game where Concealment Expert doesn't provide a tremendous bonus to their effectiveness. Okhotnik isn't special this way by any means, but it's worth paying special attention why she gains from this skill. With camouflage, this drops her surface detection range from 6.3km to 5.7km. This does not allow Okhotnik to torpedo without being detected or to fire from stealth in open water, even with Advanced Fire Training . With this in mind, some players may be outright dismissive of the necessity of this skill, but it shouldn't be skipped over. With Concealment Expert, Okhotnik gains the ability to spot other gunships before she herself is detected. Provided her turrets are properly aligned, this all but guarantees her to get off the first volley of shells. As Okhotnik focuses on alpha strike and not DPM with her guns, this can mean the difference between clinching an engagement with that first strike or being on the back foot every time she meets another destroyer. Finally, when things do go south (and they will), it provides an additional 600m distance buffer to allow you to drop back into stealth when you silence your guns.Advanced Fire Training (tier four) One of Okhotnik's biggest flaws is the short range of her main battery. Her 9.2km stock range may seem like a nuisance at first, but it works considerably to the detriment of the ship when it comes to engaging capital ships. Advanced Fire Training opens Okhotnik's range up to 11km and the importance of this range increase cannot be understated. Her guns, with their good ballistic qualities, are still very accurate to this range. Okhotnik shares a low surface profile, similar to the German V-170. With almost no deck structures, hitting Okhotnik with main battery fire is a challenge. The more range you can open up between yourself and your targets, the safer Okhotnik becomes. While you can never remove the threat of return fire in Okhotnik, you can make it so annoying to shoot her that opponents elect to fire somewhere else. So if you intend to use Okhotnik to abuse larger ships, this skill is almost a must. This should be acquired as soon as you have Concealment Expert.Final Note on Captain Skills If you've done the math, you'll note that with taking only a single tier 3 skill, this adds up to 16pt Captain. The only real variety and choice for Okhotnik comes in with her tier 3 skills and there are a lot of good options there. I personally prefer taking Basic Fire Training as my primary skill at tier 3 and Demolition Expert as a follow up. Decent alternative skills include Survivability Expert and Superintendent. I firmly believe that a 14pt Captain is really needed to enjoy this ship, though 16pts is ideal. When combined with the inflexibility of skill choices, her uses as a Soviet training ship are much more limited. Recommended Build: http://shipcomrade.com/captcalc/1000000000100001000010100000100119 Skills should be taken in this order: Priority Target Last Stand Basic Fire Training (or tier 3 skill of choice) Concealment Expert Advanced Fire Training Demolition Expert (or tier 3 skill of choice) Expert Marksman Inertial Fuse for HE Shells Okhotnik doesn't need to take the tier 4 skill, Inertial Fuse for HE Shells. Her 130mm rifles are capable of penetration up to 21mm of armour without it. When she's top tier, short of the belt armour and turrets of larger warships, there are very few sections of any ships she cannot damage directly. If you can scrounge the points for it, this will give her the ability to extend this ability to penetrate all targets just about everywhere up through tier 6 and 7 battleships and some of the IJN and German Cruisers at tiers 6+. The only problem with taking this skill is finding the points necessary to afford it. The easiest place to acquire them would be to drop a tier 3 and a tier 2 skill to shoe horn this into your build. Alternatively, you could drop Concealment Expert, but this would prevent you from being able to effectively engage enemy destroyers.Alternative IFHE Bombardment: Build One: http://shipcomrade.com/captcalc/1100000000000001000000100010100119 Build Two: http://shipcomrade.com/captcalc/1000000000100001000010100010100019 Aircraft carriers should make taking this destroyer out a priority. However, they need to switch up the tools they use to do so. Torpedo bombers are very effective against this clumsy ship. Overall Impressions Skill Floor: Simple / Casual / Challenging / Difficult Skill Ceiling: Low / Moderate / High / Extreme As far as destroyers go, Okhotnik is pretty forgiving but only with the right Captain Skill choices. Properly set up, she can hide from anything she can't outfight and barring tripping over a Belfast or Atlanta, she can outfight anything from which she can't hide. She's always going to be detected when you engage enemy targets, so there's no fussy stealth-firing calculations to make. You can blindly rush unwary capital ships and make their lives miserable with a suicide torp-wall of doom and they're equally effective at deterring enemy destroyers from knife fighting. About the only bad trait about her for inexperienced or novice players is her horrible handling but don't let that stop you. But again, that's contingent on having the right skills to optimize this destroyer's strengths. Without the right setup, novice players may find this ship frustrating. For veterans and skilled players, Okhotnik is going to be a little monster. The damage this ship can put out demands a lot of respect and her base concealment rating allows players to control the engagement. Her ability to deliver sudden and massive alpha strikes with her torpedoes and guns will put many inexperienced opponents on their back foot right from the word go and allow Okhotnik to bully with ease. The Lertbox - Final Words Okhotnik struggles against same tier opponents in theoretical 1v1s. If you only read my three comparisons you might get the idea that she sucks. However, that's only if the opponent presses their advantage and pursues the engagement. Plus, Okhotnik is unrivaled in delivering apocalyptic devastating ambushes versus battleships - in a training room I was able to reliably one-shot (stationary and unarmed) Grosser Kurfuersts with her torpedo broadsides. Versus other destroyers, she relies on smashing alpha strike from a situation of stealth. She relies on dissuading gunship destroyers from engaging her by biting their face off, without warning. Once so hit, the enemy destroyer driver may panic and try to disengage or smoke up, at which point you've got them. Against cooler heads though, you're on the defensive. Against destroyer drivers who aren't intimidated by your first salvo you've got your work cut out. Without the ROF to pummel them down or speed to disengage, you're facing an uphill battle. I just don't think she's as OP as Mouse says. Time will tell though. Mouse's Summary: Longship is long. It should come with Vikings. She doesn't handle very well, but that didn't bother me. Her torpeedus are amazing. She's the perfect ship to dig out an enemy destroyers and cruisers hiding in smoke. Why is she so stealthy!? As far as Soviet-bias goes, Okhotnik isn't too bad -- she's only a little overpowered (like that's a good thing). Her performance is gated behind a combination of skills so not every Okhotnik is going to be awesome. She isn't unbalanced in the same manner as the Belfast. Her strengths are more well-rounded, with good guns, good torpedoes and good concealment without any gimmicks. This makes her strong without being dominating in a single arena. A lot of focus will be put on her torpedoes as THE defining feature of what makes her so advantageous, but this would be a mistake. If her torpedoes had more range, then certainly, I could agree with that sentiment, but it's the combination of traits rather than any one single element that makes her overpowered. She has great stealth but she can't stealth fire. She has a great torpedo armament, but good luck getting those off against tier 7 ships. Her guns are hard hitting, but they're not going to let you knife fight an American destroyer that wants to fight back. You're not fast enough to get away from an Atlanta or Belfast that's running you down with radar. Okhotnik dances the fine line between risk and reward. Aggressive players will love her. Cautious players might not. Okhotnik up-tiers rather well, having little trouble facing off against tier 6 opponents as well as she might against tier 5. It's only when the tier 7s appear, with higher velocity guns and ships like Belfast, Fiji and Atlanta, that she begins to feel a bit long in the tooth. Battleships also get faster and the maps are less claustrophobic making for fewer ambush-opportunities at close range. It's a testament that Okhotnik is at least a little more balanced than Gremyashchy which scarcely notices when she's up-tiered. Okhotnik's strengths really lie with her concealment / alpha strike ability. With this, I could engage even tier 7 Kiev-class destroyers and remain confident of winning. It's not hard to land 6 or 7 shots when the engagement range begins at 6km and this initial 3,000 to 4,000 hammer blow into their hit points sets the tone for a winning battle. A second volley could often be delivered before the Kiev could bring all of her guns on target. It's no wonder most of them would try to smoke up and reset the engagement at this stage. It was often wise to blow my own smoke at the same time and back off if the Kiev had spotters in the area keeping me lit. If not, there was no harm in dropping a wall of skill into their smoke screen. Easy money. I had a lot of fun playing Okhotnik; she surprised me. I admit, I took one look at this derpy boat and thought I'd hate it but she won me over. Once I dropped my Gremyashchy Captain into her, she took me for a ride and I was grinning the whole time. Changes from Play Test Okhotnik changed somewhat from the play test sessions I enjoyed to her release on live. Two were minor and one was rather significant. All of these changes have been considered and folded into the review already, so you don't need to back track and re-evaluate what was written. Okhotnik's turret rotation was buffed from 5º per second to 5.5º per second. Okhotnik's guns used to traverse with the same sluggish handling as Gremyashchy. A large number of the Soviet Destroyers got a gun traverse buff with 0.6.2 and Okhotnik was no exception. Originally only Okhotnik's two forward turrets could rotate 360º. This is a minor change, really. Now all five rear turrets can also rotate in a full circle. Combined with the minor turret traverse buff, this is a nice quality of life change but again not too significant. Fire angles of the aft guns (except for the last one) is limited to +/- 30º off the ship axis. Now this one is a kicker and represents a more significant (but not terribly damaging) nerf. Okhotnik's five rear guns used to be able to engage targets 20º off the forward or rear arcs of the ship. Okhotnik already has a small profile and being able to aggressively angle her towards or away from a foe while firing five (rearward) or seven (forward) guns was pretty huge. She doesn't have enough armour to auto-ricochet anything but a select few destroyer-caliber AP shells, but it did make her a much smaller target to bulls-eye. The individual fire angles for the rear guns began as little as 16º off the bow (#7). Okhotnik belongs up front in an aggressive stance. Use her excellent concealment values to spot for your team and screen them from attack. Would I Recommend? Players are spoiled for choice where Russian premiums are concerned. Okhotnik competes directly with Leningrad (and for old, crusty veterans, Gremyashchy) for primacy among the Soviet Destroyers. She's not as powerful as Gremyashchy, that's for sure, but she will be less expensive than Leningrad which may immediately appeal to some consumers. Overall, I think Leningrad is the better boat for most of the reasons you'd buy a premium, but Okhotnik is definitely more fun (and stupid looking). For Random Battle GrindingThis includes training captains, collecting free experience, earning credits and collecting signal flags from achievements. Mouse: Well, maybe. She can do very well in random battles, earning you credits and medals galore. I found it an easy feat to get three or four kills per match, which made unleashing the Kraken not too much of a stretch. The problem is that she's reliant upon having a Captain with the right skill combination to truly play efficiently. This precludes her use as a comfortable trainer for all but the last few skill points (and you're completely out of luck if your skill choices don't gel with Okhotnik's needs) which sort of undermines the purpose of a premium ship. So your mileage will definitely vary. For me? I'd take her to farm achievements and Kraken medals. Lert: Maybe. She doesn't really need premium consumables to shine, but tier 5 is in a bad MM spot right now, and tier 5 premiums are not really the greatest captain trainers or credit earners. Tier 6 is where you really want to be for that, minimum. Plus, she relies on a set of advanced captain skills to really shine, which makes her less ideal as a captain trainer. For Competitive GamingCompetitive Gaming includes Ranked Battles and other skill-based tournaments. This also includes stat-padding. Mouse: Her concealment value alone will make her a good choice for competitive environments, especially combined with her ability to deliver high alpha, opportunistic strikes with her guns. The only major downside is her lack of agility which makes her torpedo bait. She cannot compete with Gremyashchy (what can?) but for people looking to pad their win rates, Okhotnik is a good ship.Lert: No. Too slow, too vulnerable to torpedo strikes, not agile enough. The only things she really has going for her is her stealth and initial alpha, which isn't enough in a competitive environment. For CollectorsIf you enjoy ship history or possessing rare ships, this section is for you. Mouse: Ha! No. Okhotnik was never built in steel.Lert: This is a paper ship with no actual history behind her. She looks amazing though. If you're looking for historically significant ships, look elsewhere. For Fun FactorBottom line: Is the ship fun to play? Mouse: Very yes. She's a party boat.Lert: Yes. Alpha strike is fun. Driving odd ducks is fun. Ships with interesting playstyles are fun. Crushing battleships as they round the headland is fun. Okhotnik is fun.

USS Black is still a work in progress. Please be aware that all of the statistics and performance discussed here are subject to change before release. Hell and fire was spawned to be released. Quick Summary: A reward-version of the Fletcher-class Destroyer with Radar. Cost: Black is not for sale and can only be earned by achieving Rank One in five seasons of Ranked Battles. Patch & Date Written: 0.6.1, February 11th, 2017. Closest in-Game Contemporary: Fletcher, Tier 9 American DestroyerDegree of Similarity: Clone / Sister-Ship / Related Class / Similar Role / Unique USS Black is a Fletcher-class destroyer but, like most premium ships, she has a few changes to make her stand apart from her sister ships. The changes summarize to the following: Black has access to the USN Radar consumable as an option in her third consumable slot. Her deck armour is 19mm instead of 13mm. The torpedoes she launches are slower, longer ranged and harder hitting than Fletcher's with a faster reload. Black swaps out the two twin-gun 40mm Bofors mounts behind her #2 turret for a pair of twin-gun 20mm Oerlikons instead. She's slower than Fletcher by 1.5 knots. She turns slightly better than Fletcher. PROs Armed with five, rapid fire 127mm rifles. She can fire up to ten 13.7km range torpedoes, doing 21,600 damage each and a with reasonable 96s reload per launcher. Decent anti-aircraft armament for a destroyer, including the option to take Defensive Fire. Excellent handling, including a small 560m turning circle, a 3.0s rudder shift time and 34º per second turret traverse. Good concealment values, dropping down to 5.8km with proper specialization and providing a huge stealth-firing window. USS Black can combine smoke and radar, making her the ultimate spotting & support ship. CONs Her 17,100 hit points are on the low side for a tier 9 destroyer. Horrible gun ballistics which makes gunnery of any target outside of 10km punitive. Her torpedoes are the slowest ship-launched fish in the game at 43 knots, taking a full two minutes to reach maximum range. On the slow side for a higher tier destroyer with a maximum speed of 35 knots. Her consumable "options" aren't really optional. If you take anything other than Radar in her 3rd slot, you're a fool. Doesn't appear to have Missouri's massive credit-earning potential. Here it is. This is the second reward ship for Ranked Battles, requiring primacy in five seasons to unlock her. Even in her preview state, Black has caused a lot of fuss. This seems to be a trend with these reward vessels. This is not likely to ever be a common ship. While it can be argued that over time, more players will have reached rank one in five seasons, the natural attrition of the player base will also see some of these veterans hang up their cap and stop playing. Flint isn't commonplace. Black promises to be even more rare. That doesn't undermine the dangers to the meta that an unbalanced ship can present. Still, the alarm that has met Black's preview statistics has been considerable. While not quite an Alabama Drama Llama in scale, the sky is once again (or is it still?) falling in certain community groups. I stress that what we're seeing presently is nothing more than a preview of the ship and not her final form. Things can change. Hopefully this thorough look into USS Black's current build will provide enough insight to see where changes may or may not be needed. Black shares the same camouflage scheme as USS Flint, the first premium reward ship for Ranked Battles. #GetBoat Options Black has the same options as the Fletcher-class but with the added bonus of getting access to Radar in her third consumable slot. You have to swap out Engine Boost for this. Her Radar is identical to that found on Baltimore and Missouri, with a 9.45km acquisition range for 35 seconds. I firmly believe that Wargaming made a misstep with Black's consumables. Swapping her Engine Boost for Radar is a non-decision with radar being optimal in the majority of situations. A more balanced option would have been to make players of USS Black choose between a Smoke Generator and Radar. Thinking this would balance her is, of course, contingent on believing that a destroyer having radar is acceptable at all. We'll see if this consumable combination survives testing. Consumables: Damage Control Party Smoke Generator Engine Boost or Defensive Fire or Radar Module Upgrades: Six slots, standard USN Destroyer options.Premium Camouflage: Can I call this tier 9+ standard? It provides the same bonus as the Missouri: A 3% concealment bonus, a 4% increase to enemy gunnery dispersion and a 100% bonus to experience gains. Firepower Primary Battery: Five 127mm rifles in single turrets in a superfiring A-B-P-X-Y arrangement. P turret is forward facing behind the torpedo launchers. Torpedo Armament: Ten 533mm tubes in 2x5 launchers mounted before and behind the rear funnel. Black is armed with five 127mm/38 Mark 30 naval rifles. These are the same guns first seen on the Benson-class destroyers at tier 8 without any significant improvement in performance. This staple of the USN Destroyer line is known for its tremendous rate of fire and excellent gun handling but also its famously poor ballistic qualities that lead to a very high shell arc over range. So while Black can potentially dish out monstrous levels of damage, landing those hits is considerably more of a challenge than the 130mm of Soviet Destroyers, for example. These weapons are very much par for the course for American destroyers and offer nothing in the way of surprises for veterans of the American destroyer line. By tier 8, destroyer caliber guns begin to lose the arms race versus the armour values found on capital ships. Even upgraded with Inertial Fuse for HE Shells, her rounds cannot penetrate tier 8+ Battleships anywhere except their superstructure. Her 127mm guns can only penetrate 21mm of armour without the skill while being able to best up to 27mm of armour with it. This value is important -- it's sufficient to damage the bows and sterns of all cruisers and select deck areas on most of these ships. But it's as a destroyer hunter where these guns excel, provided you can close the range. Their very fast turret traverse rate of nearly 34º per second allows the ship to be thrown into evasive maneuvers while maintaining her gun lock on target. This makes her a very real threat to any rival torpedo or gunship. Like USS Sims before it, Black has what the community has often referred to as "naval mine" torpedoes. Their speed is downright laughable at 43 knots (115.1 meters per second under the game's compressed distances). It takes these torpedoes almost a full two minutes to reach the end of their impressive 13.7km range. With a 96s reload, this allows you to put a second salvo in the water before the first is little more than 3/4s done their first run. The good news is that they have a very short surface detection range of 0.9km. However, given their slow speed, her targets have approximately 7.8s worth of reaction time which is fairly standard. Their real weakness is if they're picked up early. They're so slow that some ships can turn away and even outrun the darned things. Black's torpedoes are, at best, area denial weapons. While possible to ambush someone at point blank range and make their life miserable (and short), more often they're used as a fire and forget series of water-mines, helping push the Reds away from a given area. During testing, there was a bug present where Black's torpedoes weren't doing anywhere close to the right amount of damage. Though listed as capping out at 21,600, their damage was all over the map and never where it should have been. Several of the testers and I took USS Black out into training rooms and slammed fish into various bots, ensuring we got midship strikes with single torpedoes. Strikes against ships without anti-torpedo defenses never got higher than 12,804 damage. Hits to the Yamato's torpedo bulges did 8,368. Yet hits to a Mogami (A-Hull) did 13,093 while hits against the upgraded (C-Hull) did 12,397 damage. This is despite the torpedo bulges for these three respective ships reducing damage by 55%, 13% and 18% respectively. The math doesn't add up. Bug reports were filled out. Did I mention this ship was still very much a work in progress? Black's torpedoes will be a heck of a lot more fun to use when they work properly. Maneuverability Top Speed: 35.0 knots Turning Radius: 560m Rudder Shift Time: 3.0s The Fletcher-class, and by extension USS Black, has great agility. With a tiny turning circle and excellent rudder shift time, Black appears equally well set up to dodge fire as Fletcher. However, it should be noted that she's 1.5 knots slower than her sister ship. But there's more to this ship than that. Black bleeds speed faster than Fletcher does in a turn while maintaining a comparable maximum speed with her rudder hard over. It takes Fletcher approximately 20.4s to drop down to 30.6 knots in a turn while Black will drop to 30.3 knots in roughly 12.9s. This makes the Fletcher "skid" more through the first leg of the turn while Black's hull bites in. Thus, Black has a quarter of a second's advantage in progressing through a 90º turn at top speed and almost two-thirds of a second for full a 360º turn. Though Black has the same rudder shift time and turning radius of Fletcher, Black is slightly more agile in a turn despite their similar stat profile. Who'd have thought? Durability Hit Points: 17,100 Min Bow & Deck Armour: 19mm One of the strange differences between Black and Fletcher is Black's deck armour. It's 19mm on Black versus the 13mm found on Fletcher. This isn't a significant change but it has two highly situational benefits. First, it provides some protection against high explosive shells smaller than 120mm in diameter. HE Shells of this size, without a buff from the tier 4 Captain Skill, Inertial Fuse for HE Shells will simply shatter on impact for no damage. However, this caliber of gun isn't too commonplace within Black's matchmaking spread, being limited to the main battery of the Akizuki and the secondaries off of Russian and German Cruisers (yeah, like those are worth fussing over) and some of secondaries off of German Battleships (okay, THOSE are worth fussing about). Second, 19mm armour provides some defense against AP shells. Anything smaller than the 283mm off the Schanrhorst is unable to overmatch Black's armour. If (for whatever reason) a heavy cruiser decided to shoot AP shells, this creates a chance for the shells to ricochet off her deck if they come in at too shallow an angle. Yes, I know. Neither benefit is going to come into play very often. Overall, Black's hit points are on the low side for a Destroyer -- well behind the German Z-46 and the Soviet Destroyers (including the new ones which are also works in progress). It's only against the Yugumo that she has any advantage. Thus, engaging enemy destroyers isn't without risk -- Black simply doesn't have the big hit point totals to trade fire effectively, especially if she begins to struggle to land hits. This Akizuki didn't have the Inertial Fuse for HE Shells skill on her Captain. Short of hitting Black's superstructure, she couldn't hurt her with her HE. Had she been shooting a Fletcher, it's possible some of the splashes against her upper hull might have struck the deck and penetrated, but that's very unlikely given their flat trajectory at this close range. Concealment and Camouflage Surface Detection Range: 7.4kmAir Detection Range: 4.0kmMinimum Surface Detection Range: 5.8kmConcealment Penalty while Main Battery Fire: +3.81km (vs 12.9km gun range) Black has excellent concealment values for a tier 9 destroyer, bested only by the Yugumo. When fully kitted out for stealth, she weighs in with a 5.8km surface detection range and just over 9.6km when firing her guns in open water. Without boosting her range with Advanced Fire Training, this gives the ship a 3.3km stealth-firing window with her main battery. It's not unreasonable to see why there's very little need to extend the range of Black's guns, especially given the punitive ballistics at targets more than 10km away. More importantly is how this rather small surface detection range allows Black to shadow enemy ships and keep them spotted. There is no ship currently in the game that is as adept at spotting as Black. By keeping her guns silent, she can creep along, trailing enemy vessels from a safe distance. Should they try and blow smoke, she can make use of her Radar consumable which has a 9.45km range to continue to provide eyes on a beleaguered target. The only answer to such sneaky spotting tactics is to hope that a friendly ship can spot Black and put an end to her shenanigans, usually in the form of aircraft or an enemy vessel also equipped with radar, like a Soviet Cruiser. Black's worth is often measured by how well she can support her team. Black gives you some very powerful tools for controlling vision, with an American Smoke Generator, which provides 127s worth of cover to team mates while at the same time lighting up the enemy. In this way, under ideal circumstances your team can see the enemy and the enemy won't see yours. Black can continue to contribute by dropping her fish without losing her concealment values. Where her torpedoes are concerned, Black has an enormous stealth firing window when specialized for concealment. This is an obscene 7.9km. However, it should be noted that it will take Black's torpedoes 52 seconds to reach a target that's a mere 6km out. That's a long time for a ship not to make any course adjustments, so it's best not to use the lead indicator on the torpedoes and instead go for more of an area-denial approach to hedge your bets. Anti-Aircraft Defense AA Gun Battery Calibers: 127mm / 40mm / 20mm AA Umbrella Ranges: 5.0km / 3.5km / 2.0km AA DPS per Aura: 54 / 34 / 37 It's possible (though admittedly a bit of a waste with Black) to turn this ship into a passable AA escort. It's unlikely that this ship will ever be without some form of buff to its AA firepower, as Captain Skills aimed at improving her firepower will also affect her AA suite. This provides Black with an approximate DPS value per Aura of 64 / 41 / 45 which is rather respectable, especially for a destroyer. However, this isn't going to dissuade tier 9 and 10 air-groups from loitering in your vicinity. It's only with a heavy investment in skills and (for some reason) taking Defensive Fire that Black can make her anti-aircraft armament into a very real threat to enemy attack planes. As this would require you to drop Surveillance Radar, it's really not worth it. Black's AA firepower is enough to dent attack plane squadrons. But like most destroyers, you'll want to keep your AA turned off most of the time. Overall Impressions Skill Floor: Simple / Casual / Challenging / Difficult Skill Ceiling: Low / Moderate / High / Extreme Playing destroyers in general isn't easy. However, Black is a little more forgiving than most. The Fletcher-class is already one of the better destroyers at tier 9 (and arguably, in the game as a whole). Black provides a set of training wheels in the form of her radar consumable to make life just that little bit easier for an inexperienced player. In the hands of a veteran, the combination of Black's consumables, concealment rating, agility and torpedo armament make her an enormous threat to the enemy team. For players who enjoy the support role, I can think of few ships as exciting as the (arguably overpowered) potential that Black provides. With the monopoly on radar for a ship with such a small surface detection range, Black will inspire many rage-threads in the future, I have little doubt. This ship lives to use and abuse spotting mechanics and strip any pretense of vision control from the enemy in local engagements. Mouse's Summary: Black is a Fletcher-class destroyer with Radar. If you didn't know it already, the Fletcher-class is hella-good in World of Warships. And now it has radar. The most rewarding use of this ship is through the control of vision in an engagement. Spot the enemy and protect your own team with smoke. The torpedo bug annoyed me to no end. Black is still very much a work in progress. Be aware this is a preview, people, not a review. So, this is a rather late preview. It's not a lack of effort, but moreover from a change in preview policies from Wargaming itself. Community Contributors should be getting earlier access to ships. What's more, we should also be providing our content much earlier within development cycle. But this in turn presents a problem: Ships early in their development cycle aren't necessarily well balanced and are likely to undergo a change or two before release. This should explain why I'm saying, over and over, this is a preview. This is why you'll see "Work in Progress" (WiP) watermarks on videos produced by my fellow contributors. It's also why there was a bit of concern about articles like these going into extensive depth about the current statistics of a ship rather than simply a broad overview. My own release was delayed until I got the specific okay to go into the minutia of this upcoming release. Playing USS Black was a real treat for me. First, it's a Fletcher-class and I have a real soft spot for the Fletcher. When I was little, my father had an old DOS-box he liked to keep running long past obsolescence which had a game "Wolfpack" on it. This pit Type VII, IX and XXI U-Boats against American Fletcher-class destroyers. It had a hot-seat PVP mode. My father would always play the Germans and I would get to take my turn as the Fletchers trying to defend my poor freighters and tankers from his predation. This mostly involved me chasing after his pillenwerfer and blowing the snot out of them with copious amounts of depth charges and hedgehog mortars. My father loved lording his gaming superiority over his then eight-year old daughter... USS Black brings back the warm fuzzies of those memories. Instead of chasing down U-Boats, I instead get to chase down enemy ships trying to hide in smoke while screening my own forces. It's a very rewarding style of play and it's such a shame that it's limited currently only to the Black. With that said, it's not without its dangers to the meta of game play. If Wargaming were to make such a combination more commonplace (either through many USS Blacks becoming available within the community or through the addition of Radar to a destroyer-line), combat in and around capture points would certainly chance towards the more passive. The only thing worse about being the first ship spotted is being the only ship spotted and focused by the entire enemy team. I personally think that combining radar AND smoke one a low surface-detection ship is the wrong way to go. I hope to see USS Black have to choose between the two. But who knows? We'll see how her development continues. In Closing As a final reminder, take what you've read in this preview with a pinch of salt. There's plenty to discuss, maybe even a few elements to be concerned about but I would hold off on brandishing torches and pitchforks if you object too strongly about something you see in USS Black. Similarly, don't get too excited or married to the idea of a particular combination of stats if you think this ship is a must-have. Things will change.

While steps have been taken to ensure accuracy, Alabama was a work in progress at the time of testing. Please be aware that all of the statistics and performance discussed here are subject to change before release. Average and good at it. Quick Summary: A Fast-Battleship with good handling and speed, excellent firepower and anti-aircraft protection. She suffers from a very large citadel placed high over the waterline. Cost: Undisclosed at the time of publishing. Probably about the same as a Tirpitz. Patch & Date Written: 0.6.2, March 10th, 2017 Closest in-Game Contemporary North Carolina, Tier 8 American BattleshipDegree of Similarity: Clone / Sister-Ship / Related Class / Similar Role / Unique Alabama feels like a weird amalgamation of the Colorado's ability to turn, North Carolina's guns and Iowa's 0.6.2 fragility. This combines to make a North Carolina that's both more agile and more fragile than you might otherwise be accustomed. PROs: Massive anti-torpedo bulges which provide 49% damage reduction -- the 2nd best value in the game. Powerful, long range guns with a 21.1km reach and good vertical dispersion. Responsive turret rotation at 4.5º per second. Excellent levels of anti-aircraft firepower. Good top speed of 27.5 knots. Small 710m turning circle and fastest turning rate of any of the mid to high tier USN Battleships. Excellent credit earning potential. CONs: Her citadel sits very high over the waterline, extending from beneath the full length of the #1 turret to the #3 turret. Her armour isn't quite as good as advertised. Improper angling will lead to many penetrating and citadel hits. Bow is easily overmatched by Yamato's 460mm rifles. Her aft transverse bulkhead protecting her lower citadel is only 16mm thick. Low muzzle velocity and long shell flight times over range. Finally, the American tech tree has access to a tier 8 premium. On top of that, she's a tier 8 Battleship. Better still, its USS Alabama, a famous museum ship and American icon. The hype is real and if I'm terribly honest, I was dreading having to review this ship. With such high expectations centered around this ship, especially after the debacle in December of 2016 with the announcement that she would be limited to Supertesters only, I feared she couldn't possibly live up to the hype. Well, I needn't have worried. There have been a few pessimistic reviews penned already and the word is out that Alabama is far from perfect. With that, I breathed a sigh of relief knowing I wouldn't be the messenger that risked being shot for delivering such glum tidings as Alabama not being the embodiment of Pax Americana superiority. But, like all things on the internet, people tend to focus on a single issue and blow it ridiculously out of proportion. Let Lert and I show you why you shouldn't believe everything you've heard about the tarnish on Alabama's reputation... The Lertbox Alabama. A Lertbox I've been both looking forward to and dreading to write. Looking forward because I like battleships and I've been wanting to sink my teeth into this one for as long as I've known she was coming. Dreading because after all the Alabama Drama on the forum, people will not accept anything less than an excellent warship as the USN's first Tier 8 premie. It's a good thing than that Alabama is exactly that. For this Lertbox I will be comparing her to Amagi, Bismarck and North Carolina, the three tech tree battleship peers she will be meeting in battle. A southern belle. Options There's nothing out of the ordinary here. Alabama uses the same improved USN Battleship Damage Control Party as other American Dreadnoughts. This has a 20s active period and a 120s/80s reset timer. Consumables: Damage Control Party Repair Party Spotter Aircraft / Catapult Fighter Module Upgrades: Five slots, standard USN Battleship options. Premium Camouflage: Tier 6+ Standard. This provides 50% bonus experience gains, 3% reduction in surface detection and 4% reduction in enemy accuracy. This is the gorgeous measure-22 camouflage. Alabama has a little more variety when it comes to what modules you'll select for her, and this is largely dependent on how much you want to emphasize her AA firepower. For your first slot, Main Armaments Modification 1 may seem like the default choice. However, Auxiliary Armaments Modification 1 is also practical for AA-specialized ships. This will help keep your 20mm, 40mm and 127mm mounts operable, especially when you take a lot of HE fire. For your second slot, if you're going AA spec'd, take AA Guns Modification 2 to bump up their range. Consider this ideal for this ship. Alternatively, take Artillery Plotting Room Modification 1 to bump up your range from 21.1km to 24.5km. For your third slot, grab Damage Control System Modification 1. This will increase your already amazing torpedo damage reduction from 49% to 50%. In slot number four, I prefer Damage Control System Modification 2 to help mitigate fire damage. You can take Steering Gears Modification 2 if you prefer. This will drop your rudder shift time to 12.3s. And finally, in slot 5, take Concealment Modification 1. This will cut your surface detection range down to 14.1km with your camouflage. Firepower Primary Battery: Nine 406mm/45 rifles in 3x3 turrets in an A-B-X configuration. B is stationed in a super firing position over top of A. These have a stock range of 21.1km. Secondary Battery: Twenty 127mm dual purpose rifles in 10x2 turrets along the sides of the ship. There's a comforting familiarity to Alabama's guns. They're reliable, hard hitting and accurate. They are, however, plagued by the usual American gunnery weaknesses. They have a low muzzle velocity and Alabama has no way of reducing the enormous linear dispersion common to all USN Dreadnoughts. Right off the bat, she has comparable dispersion than any of the other high tier American Battleships, with a 1.9 sigma rating. Only Colorado and North Carolina, with a 2.0 value a tier lower, has less vertical dispersion. This helps prevent her shells from overshooting, removing some of the RNG influence of Battleship gunnery. Now, with this said, it would be a mistake to call her guns accurate. Short of the German Battleships, no other ships in the game have as terrible a dispersion value as USN Battleships. This only gets mitigated at tiers 9 and higher, when they can equip Artillery Plotting Room Modification 2. Sadly, (and I was really hoping for this), Alabama does not get access to this module. What Alabama does have is excellent damage potential on her shells. At 13,100 alpha strike, this gives a 500hp advantage over the Amagi's 410mm AP shells and 1,500hp more than the 380mm guns of the Tirpitz and Bismarck. This lets Alabama trade very favourably, especially with two-thirds of her weapons mounted on her bow, letting her angle aggressively and help mitigate return fire. Penetration values for Alabama's 406mm rifles For penetration, she sits well ahead of the German 380mm guns and just behind the 410mm of the Japanese, with better preservation of penetration characteristics at longer range over her IJN counterparts. Her effective penetration values are more than enough to demolish the citadel of just about any cruiser she faces within her engagement range. Inside of 15km, Battleship belt armour is of no-consequence though at these extreme ranges, ricochet is likely. This is in part due to the slow flight time of the USN 406mm shells. With armour piercing, it takes in excess of 10 seconds for Alabama's guns to reach 16km. They're a full second slower to 18km than the IJN 410mm shells and 1.6s slower than the 380mm guns off the Tirpitz and Bismarck. Thus, while it's sometimes frustrating to land hits with Alabama's guns,when she does land her shots, they strike harder than anything from Japan or Germany and they're more than capable of penetrating the targets she does face. Special mention needs to be made in regards to Alabama's gun handling. Her guns traverse a half degree per second faster than North Carolina's at a rate of 4.5º per second. Even in a hard over turn at top speed, Alabama will never out turn her turrets. If you put Mister Seagal on board with Expert Marksman, you can get this rotation speed up to 5.5º per second which is just wonderful. Alabama's secondaries are ... well, they're nothing to write home about. They can't stand up to the awesome batteries of the Bismarck and they're certainly not going to frighten away anything that gets close. Their modest range of 5.0km combined with their 5% chance to start fires per shell definitely hold them back from being anything worth specializing into. Brawling is something you generally want to avoid when sailing Alabama anyway, so at least her armament isn't working at cross purposes with itself. Summary: She has better accuracy than most mid-tier USN Battleships. Only Iowa, Missouri or Montana specialized for reduced shell dispersion are superior. Alabama is less accurate than IJN Battleships but more than German Battleships. Excellent gun handling characteristics, but poor shell ballistics. It's easy to get guns on target but harder to get the shells there. When you do land hits, the good penetration values and high shell damage will make it easy to rack up big damage totals. Her secondaries are meh. Rivals: North Carolina Lert: These ships are so near to each other in performance that it comes down to which one is driven by the better player. The differences between them are for the most part minor. Alabama turns better, North Carolina has better gun range. Alabama has a better close range AA umbrella, North Carolina a better mid-range one. Where the comparison falls apart though is in their citadels. North Carolina's is at the water line, Alabama's extends a deck above. With competent drivers behind the wheels, it's a wash between the two. The differences aren't enough to sway the battle either way. Until you start showing broadsides. Then driving a North Carolina or an Alabama is the difference between taking heavy damage or catastrophic damage. Between these two it comes down to player skill and the circumstances of them meeting rather than differences between the ships. Until you start having to turn. Alabama pursues HMS Fiji around the headland of an island and executes her at point blank range with six of her 406mm rifles. Manoeuvrability Top Speed: 27.5 knotsTurning Radius: 710mRudder Shift: 15.3s Alabama stands out as the most manoeuvrable of the high tier American Battleships. While she doesn't keep the small turning circle of the Standard Type battleships (Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona), when compared to Iowa and Montana, she stands miles apart. It's quite surprising that this agility doesn't come at the cost of speed -- Alabama keeps pace with North Carolina and can turn inside her. At range, this ability gives an extra level of protection that is (unfortunately), sorely needed. When it comes to dodging, Alabama is very well equipped. She not only has the best rudder shift time of the high tier American Battleships, but she progresses through her turn far more quickly than even the 640m turning circle of the Colorado. In fact, she has a faster turning time than most of the tier 6 Battleships as well, being bested only by Dunkerque, Warspite and Bayern. She is the most agile of the mid to high tier American Battleships, bar none, and something to celebrate. Her top speed of 27.5 knots is decent, but sadly outstripped by the Bismarck-class and Amagi-class Battleships which can make dictating engagement ranges difficult. Once she's up tiered to face tier 9 ships, this lack of speed only magnifies. Alabama must use her good concealment values to help her disengage and redeploy as needed. Data drawn from running these ships at maximum speed and then placing the rudder hard over and timing their turn. Alabama is the most agile of any of the American Battleships. Pay close attention to how little benefit Steering Gears Modification 2 actually provides. Durability Hit Points: 63,300Maximum Protection: 32mm anti-torpedo bulge + 310mm belt armour Min Bow & Deck Armour: 32mmTorpedo Damage Reduction: 49% Let's start with what's fun and remarkable about Alabama. She has the best torpedo damage reduction in the American tech tree. Alabama is surpassed only by the Yamato for the highest torpedo damage reduction currently in the game. Air dropped torpedoes feel especially anemic, striking for as little as 5000 damage along her armored belt. For as much work as carriers are going to have to do to land hits with their fish against this battleship, her anti-torpedo bulge will quickly teach them to look elsewhere. Sadly, that's about where the good news for Alabama ends as far as her armoured protection goes. Alabama suffers from all the same durability problems that the Iowa-class has had in World of Warships. Her citadel sits well over the surface of the water. This enormous vulnerability runs from just in front of her #1 turret all the way to her #3 turret. Short of her anti-torpedo bulge, there's no further protection beyond her belt armour to keep it safe. At 310mm, this is hardly adequate to repel the kind of firepower that's thrown at her. Alabama doesn't have any other tricks going for her. She has no turtleback, no armour sloping, no layering to keep her machine spaces and magazines safe. She's a painfully easy target to citadel and it will happen a lot to the unwary. I know this is a deal breaker for many, so let me emphasize this again: Alabama has awful citadel protection and she takes citadel hits regularly. You can see the problems readily in the armor viewer. Even her transverse bulkheads are poor. Her upper bulkheads are 287mm from the waterline on up. Beneath that, her forward bulkhead is a mere 156mm. The roof is 154mm. Her rear may as well be an open door at 16mm. Her fragility is further compounded by a tendency to take frequent penetrating hits from AP shells, even when angled. I suspect this is largely caused by shells striking the 32mm hull above the main armoured belt, where the funny contours might prevent auto-ricochet angles when your approach isn't sufficiently acute. In summary, while Alabama has some great anti-torpedo defense, she's a fragile warship. Use her great handling and concealment values to keep her safe. Rivals: Amagi Lert: You're slower, but not by much. Amagi also has better penetration at close and mid range, plus more accurate guns, more DPM through volume of fire and better gun handling. Alabama out-ranges her Japanese counterpart though, and that is an advantage you should take whenever you get the chance. It's a free salvo of damage the Fighting Geisha is unable to answer, unless she has a plane in the sky. While at range make your agility count, you're the most agile battleship in tier by far, making you a difficult target to reliably land solid hits on even for a ship with such comfortable gunnery as Amagi has. Both ships are very tanky against each other's AP fire when bow in, but here the turret layout of Alabama gives her an advantage, Amagi can only bring four barrels a-fore, Alabama six. In order to make her volume of fire advantage count, Amagi has to show a lot more broadside than she should, allowing you a large juicy target for your Mark 8 Superheavy shells. Fighting an Amagi in an Alabama is the same as fighting one in a North Carolina, except you want to show your side even less. Like all high tier American Battleships, Alabama has no business brawling. She can do it, but it puts her at such a tremendous disadvantage. Concealment & Camouflage Surface Detection Range: 16.2km Air Detection Range: 12.1 km Minimum Surface Detection Range: 12.2km Concealment Penalty while Firing: +12.2km (vs 21.1km gun range) Alabama shares the same surface detection range as Missouri, but with the added bonus of being harder to see from the air. This doesn't quite measure up to the North Carolina, which enjoys a 500m advantage over her, but she does hide better than every other tier 8 Battleship. With a full concealment build, she can become downright stealthy with a 12.2km surface detection range and limiting her visibility from the air to a mere 9.4km. With Alabama's large, exposed citadel, she must exploit this to the utmost to keep herself safe. Alabama is a glass cannon. She is best played using her speed to move out to the flanks and catching the Reds in a cross fire. When the enemies turn their attention her way, she can cease-fire and drop back into concealment and redeploy. By playing up to this strength, she can strike from an advantageous position and let her guns go to work. Anti-Aircraft DefenseAA Battery Calibers: 127mm / 40mm / 20mmAA Umbrella Ranges: 5.0km / 3.5km / 2.0kmAA DPS per Aura: 151 / 191 / 187 She enjoys all the comforts the later USN Battleships when it comes to anti-aircraft firepower. Her air defense starts with the same battery of twenty 127mm dual purpose secondaries found on North Carolina, Iowa and Missouri. They provide a long reach and excellent alpha damage in five second pulses. When we filter down to her close-range batteries, they differ somewhat from her big sisters. While Alabama has the lowest AA power of the high tier American Battleships, it would be foolish to label it as anything other than excellent. Alabama's reach and firepower stands head and shoulders above her closest competitor, the Bismarck, with a full 117dps more than the German behemoth. She shreds enemy aircraft squadrons with alarming levels of ease and is a real asset when it comes to fleet defense from attack craft squadrons. This can (and should) be exemplified even more with modules and Captain Skills to increase their range and lethality. Properly specialized and manually targeting incoming squadrons, Alabama can get her average DPS up to well over 900, with almost half of that at a 7.2km range. Alabama's tighter turning circle and her anti-torpedo defense must not be forgotten. Against torpedo aircraft, no other Battleship is as well protected as Alabama. Enemy carriers will quickly learn to look elsewhere to farm damage. Throughout play testing, I was regularly shooting down in excess of 20 aircraft per game when carriers were present. This greatly increases the experience gains Alabama can earn. The average DPS of the high tier American Battleships and a comparison of tier 8 Battleship AA levels, divided by weapon ranges. Rivals: Bismarck Lert: She's tougher than you. You hit harder than her. She'll want to close in. You'll want to fight at range. Fortunately your turret angles are generous enough to keep all your barrels on your teutonic adversary without showing too much side. Try to keep her at range. Lure salvos into your armor belt while still inviting auto-bounces. This is a situation where Bismarck's 15" guns are simply not up to the task. Meanwhile your 16" super-heavies will nibble off more hit-points than you're losing. Unfortunately 'keep at range' is easier said than done as Bismarck is faster than you. In inevitable close range engagements it's imperative you use your superior agility to avoid showing a broadside, as even Bismarck's 15" guns can rip your citadel asunder. Try to keep a higher than 45 degree angle to the German warship, inviting those bounces off your armored belt, and retaliate with your own massive guns. You fire the biggest, baddest AP shells in tier, and while your opponent is difficult to citadel, a salvo of Mark 8 406mm shells into her side will still tear off bleeding chunks of hit-points through normal pens. Roll Tide! As an American Battleship, there are a few different skill builds that are viable for Alabama. They summarize generally to three main types, emphasizing particular strengths. Anti-Aircraft Firepower Concealment Survivability All of these builds will begin with taking Priority Target. This is, in my opinion, the strongest of the tier 1 skill for Alabama. It will let you know when you've got the attention of the Red team and when it's time to start putting that agility and concealment to work. For the Anti-Aircraft Firepower and Concealment build, your skill choice will be almost identical until tier 4. For the former, make sure you take modules that help boost your AA firepower. To this end, taking AA Guns Modification 2 in your second upgrade slot is key. I would also strongly recommend adding Auxillary Armaments Modification 1 to your first slot to help the survivability of your AA mounts. For the Concealment build, you can take whichever modules you want, except for Concealment Modification 1 which is mandatory. At tier 2, you have the choice between Adrenaline Rush and Expert Marksman for your second skill. Alabama is less dependent on buffs to her turret rotation, making Expert Marksman less of a necessity. But if you're using the Steven Seagal Captain, the bonus it provides makes it absolutely worthwhile. At tier 3, Basic Fire Training will increase your AA firepower by 20%. At tier 4, the Anti-Aircraft Firepower build should take Advanced Fire Training to further increase your guns reach up to 7.2km for your 127mm/38s. Next, they should take Manual Fire Control for AA Armament. This will maximize your AA firepower. For the Concealment build, take Concealment Expert instead at tier 4 and follow it up with Advanced Fire Training to add some reach to your AA guns. You'll have 5 skill points remaining at this stage. Spend them where you wish. Good skills to consider are: High Alert, Superintendent, Basics of Survivability and Vigilance. Concealment Expert for the AA build and Manual Fire Control for AA Armament for the Concealment build aren't bad choices either. If you're using the Steven Seagal Captain, then Expert Loader is also worth considering. Skip it otherwise. Sample Concealment & AA Builds Having your Cake and Eating it Too (Steven Seagal, Concealment & AA Hybrid) AA Build Concealment Build (No fires to increase detection) The Survivability build differs somewhat from these other two and there are many variations to consider. Make sure you take Damage Control Party Modification 1 & 2 in slots three and four of your modules. At Tier 2, take High Alert as your second skill to reduce the time on your Damage Control Party. At tier 3, you'll want Basics of Survivability. This will cut the duration of fires down to 43s. Basic Fire Training will get your AA firepower up to very impressive levels. Survivability builds greatly benefit from doubling up on skills. Jack of All Trades reduces the reset timers on your Repair Party and Damage Control Party. Superintendent gives you an extra charge of your Repair Party. Vigilance helps spot incoming torpedoes. Basic and Advanced Fire Training gives Alabama the necessary teeth to keep safe from aircraft. These skills are optimal. Concealment Expert will help keep you safe from harm. Finally, Fire Prevention helps reduce the chance of fires being set while also reducing the maximum number of blazes that can be set from four to three. Here are some sample variations of the Survivability Build: Fire Prevention and AA Power All of the Tier 3 Skills Consumables Buff Brave but foolish. Overall Impressions Skill Floor: Simple / Casual / Challenging / Difficult Skill Ceiling: Low / Moderate / High / Extreme When patch 0.6.3 comes around, Alabama will be a bit of a dinosaur. Montana and Iowa will get their high-water citadels lowered and Alabama will be a relic of times gone by. For this reason, Alabama is a difficult ship to recommend for novice players. Her high citadel is going to punish recklessness. Once you're out of position, your game is going to end very quickly. As a result, Alabama will encourage novice players to avoid combat and snipe at very long-range. This will greatly reduce her efficacy. The only good news, really, is that whatever hits she does land can rack up some impressive damage totals. In the hands of more experienced players, the sky is really the limit. Like North Carolina, Alabama can dish out ridiculous amounts of punishment while supporting her team with impressive anti-aircraft firepower. Where North Carolina relies on pure stealth, Alabama provides agility to help mitigate damage. Her fragility will hold her back from ever truly dominating in some situations. The Lertbox Keep enemy battleship shells away from your flat, unangled side. As long as you can do that, Alabama will reward you. New players and players unused to USN battleships will struggle with Alabama. People who love North Carolina and Iowa will be able to make her sing and dance. She has a wonderful combination of agility and firepower with sufficient speed to move around the battlefield. Plus, she has that late war USN AA suite that we all love. Yeah ok so she's soft in the side, but I'll forgive her this foible. Alabama may not be newb friendly. But she's good. She's damn good. Mouse's Summary: Alabama is defined by five characteristics. Hard hitting guns, excellent AA power, great torpedo defense, good agility and that damned citadel height. Scoring enormous damage totals in this ship isn't hard. Getting yourself sunk because you made a stupid mistake isn't hard either. Alabama can't seem to help being a drama llama, now can she? When Wargaming originally announced she would be a reward ship for her Supertesters, the resulting poop storm was downright biblical. The early reviews from certain parties have blown new life into the turd tornadoes twirling around this ship. I'm not surprised. With the level of hype surrounding her, Alabama had to be perfect. Only small flaws would have been permissible. When I was doing my first pass for this review, only one glaring flaw stood out, and that's her citadel. This is the flaw upon which everyone has similarly latched on. For many players, it's a deal breaker. No matter what strengths the ship had, with a vulnerable citadel, some players just cannot warm up to her. And do you know what? That's a perfectly legitimate sentiment to have. I empathize completely with this revulsion and I know why some players will wash their hands of her right from the word go. Alabama isn't a battleship with training wheels. I also think that it's a completely reasonable flaw for the ship to have from a balance point of view. Lower her citadel and Alabama becomes a very, very powerful ship. She's already almost as agile as Bayern, with North Carolina's great guns and AA firepower combined with Yamato's torpedo defense. And people want her buffed!? Look, she's going to torpedo beat between fish, swat down planes, dodge long-range fire and drop diesel trains on the heads of anything she catches broadside. She needs a weakness somewhere. I'm exaggerating, but only a little. Lowering her citadel wouldn't make her immune to damage to her machine spaces, of course. It's not like she would suddenly gain German Battleship levels of durability. However, it would make her hands down better than North Carolina -- no question at all in my mind. She's more accurate, harder to hit, just as punchy and harder to damage with fish. If that's the ship you needed to have to make Alabama an instant-buy, well, so be it. But be honest with yourself when you're writing off Alabama for that one (admittedly quite glaring) weakness. I had some phenomenal games in Alabama. I don't see that changing going forward. However, she doesn't have the optimal strengths of Bismarck. She's not the be-all, end-all tier 8 premium some players needed her to be. Alabama is delightfully average in many ways, with a great balance of features that made her a real treat. She just has that one weakness and I've always loved a challenge. Would I Recommend? Alabama competes with two other American premium battleships that bracket her tier: Arizona at tier 6 and Missouri at tier 9. Missouri is a troublesome ship for some players to afford, locked behind the wall of 750,000 free experience, while Arizona is an easier purchase but suffers due to the Matchmaker which often puts tier 6 at the middle or bottom tier. Truthfully, Missouri is the better ship to grab, especially after 0.6.3 when her citadel gets lowered. This doesn't make Alabama bad, but she cannot challenge Missouri for primacy. For Random Battle Grinding:This includes training captains, collecting free experience, earning credits and collecting signal flags from achievements. Mouse: Alabama is an excellent credit earner, but she doesn't hold a candle compared to Missouri. If Missouri isn't available, then Alabama holds her own quite nicely, making around 350,000 credits before premium for a 2,000 base experience game. With her great AA power, shooting down even a handful of planes can greatly increase the amount of experience gained in a match, letting Alabama top the experience charts much more often than she might otherwise. Lert: Yeah. She's a tier 8 premium, and a very good one at that. Wear that Zulu flag and watch the credits roll in. Wear a dragon flag and a Zulu Hotel on watch that captain fast-track through training. In earning potential she's every bit a match for Tirpitz, Atago and Kutuzov, and second only to Missouri. For Competitive Gaming:Competitive Gaming includes Ranked Battles and other skill-based tournaments. This also includes stat-padding. Mouse: Alabama will always suffer her citadel poorly in competitive environments. Using her speed and agility combined with her AA power, she's a good asset to the team. However, if she's ever caught out, she's a ready target for the enemy team. She is the less optimal choice when compared to ships like Bismarck or North Carolina. Lert: At first I was going to answer a tentative 'yes' here, seeing how comfortably she plays and how she compares to North Carolina. But honestly? You're likely still better off with a Bismarck. You'll give up firepower and agility for sheer brutish toughness, flexibility and secondaries. For Collectors:If you enjoy ship history or possessing rare ships, this section is for you. Mouse: It's the Lucky A. Yes. What's wrong with you? Lert: Yes. While Alabama herself didn't do much of note during her service she still exists as a museum ship. Plus, she's the only South Dakota class currently in the game. For Fun Factor:Bottom line: Is the ship fun to play? Mouse: Very yes. I enjoyed my time very much sailing her... so much so that I'm giving North Carolina a bit of the stink eye. Alabama has good agility, great gun handling, punchy guns and who doesn't like making enemy carriers cry? Lert: Yes. Alabama is a comfortable and enjoyable ship to drive. Until you overestimate your turn and end up losing 2/3 of your health to some well placed battleship AP into your overexposed citadel. If you're the kind of person who can suck it up when that happens and admit it was your own mistake to show so much side, Alabama is a fun and rewarding ship to play.

Please be aware that all of the statistics and performance discussed in this post reflect the version of the ship as she appeared during the testing period. These are subject to change before release. Like, poi. Whatever. Quick Summary: A very slow IJN destroyer with guns that contrast good handling, shell flight time and range with poor DPM. For an IJN destroyer, her torpedo armament remains as powerful as ever but with the added bonus of having a consumable which can prompt a lightning quick reload. Patch and Date Written: 0.5.14.1. November 23rd, 2016. Gameplay Example: http://wowreplays.com/Replay/22775 Premium Ship Shortcut Closest Premium Ship: The tier 5, IJN Kamikaze-class Destroyers (Kamikaze, Fujin, & Kamikaze R) Degree of Similarity: Clone / Sister-Ship / Related Class / Similar Role / Unique While related, the Kamikaze-class really is something of a dinosaur when you compare her to the new IJN destroyers. So you'll find them to appear quite odd by comparison with very short ranges on their guns with individually hard hitting shells for their caliber. The Kamikaze is a pure torpedo ship with guns as a mere afterthought. What they do share with the Shiratsuyu is good torpedoes with decent concealment values on the ship itself. But really, they're kind of night and day different when it comes to the ins and outs of their play style. The Shiratsuyu, even with her low DPM, can fake performing some gunship duties, including the ability to stealth fire at range. Also, the Kamikaze-class isn't as slow as a one-legged wiener dog dragging a cinderblock. So there's that. PROs She has a decent gun range of 11.0km with high velocity shells and a flat gun arc. This can be improved with Advanced Fire Training to 13.2km. Her torpedo armament is very powerful, with eight Type 90 torpedoes with a 10km range, 17,233 alpha strike and 62 knot speed. Reasonable agility with a 590m turning circle and 3.1s rudder shift time. The Shiratsuyu has a 6.7km surface detection range which is one of the best at her tier. Combined with her gun range, this leads to many stealth-firing opportunities with the correct skill set up. Her Torpedo Reload Booster rearms her torpedoes in 5 seconds. Yes, really. Premium camouflage is available for purchase to increase experience gains. Poi. CONs Low hit point total for a tier 7 Destroyer. The Shiratsuyu has the lowest gun DPM for a destroyer of her tier. Her turret traverse is painfully slow at a mere 6' per second. Gun performance is trapped behind acquiring a well trained Captain to enjoy it fully. It takes 101s for her torpedoes to rearm normally -- which feels downright punitive at times. She is very slow. Like, painfully slow. Her maximum speed is 34.0 knots and she bleeds speed like no one's business in a turn, often dropping below 30 knots. Many ships, including some cruisers and Battleships can and will overtake you if you're not careful. As nice as her camouflage is, she will often face tier 8+ destroyers with similar or better camo ratings thanks to their 5th module slot. Poi? The Yudachi of Kancolle fame is a Shiratsuyu-class. Fans rejoice! The Shiratsuyu surprised me. For the IJN Destroyer relaunch, I had wanted to do a comparison between the Old Fubuki (at tier 8) and the new Fubuki (at tier 6) as this was one of my favourite destroyers in the IJN line. I figured the changes might be pretty dramatic and, if nothing else, would provide a good deal of conversation between those who loved and those who were frustrated with Japanese Destroyers. But it wasn't meant to be. I was instead given the four new Destroyers to play with initially. These included the Akatsuki, Yugumo, Akizuki and Shiratsuyu. So this put me at a bit of a loss. I decided instead to try and do a comparison between the old tier 7 Hatsuharu and the two new ships coming in to replace her. The Akatsuki was alright, but I quickly fell in love with the Shiratsuyu -- like to the point of finding myself wasting a lot of potential writing time because I was playing her over and over for funsies instead. Ironically, I would be given the tier 6 Fubuki so I could have gone back and done my original idea but the Shiratsuyu had her claws in me at this point and I couldn't put her down. If that's not a ringing endorsement, I dunno what is. In an effort to not look like a total slacker, I put together this full review at the eleventh hour to at least explain why you're not getting that Fubuki draft. NoZoupForYou puts together a nice summary of the differences between the three tier 7 ships. You can see it here. Options Unlike the Hatsuharu, the Shiratsuyu gets access to the Torpedo Reload Booster without having to swap out her Smoke Generator. This consumable is different from versions we've seen previously. On the Hatsuharu, this accelerates your reload to 30s from whatever state it was currently. On the Shiratsuyu, this is accomplished in a mere five seconds. Yes, really. Five seconds. This allows the Shiratsuyu to temporarily go Super Sayian and transform into a Shimakaze for a brief moment and dump as many as sixteen torpedoes at surprised enemies. Enjoy! Consumables: Four slots Damage Control Party Smoke Generator Engine Boost Torpedo Reload Booster Module Upgrades: Four slots, IJN destroyer standard options.Camouflage: The Shiratsuyu, like the Hatsuharu, has access to premium camouflage. You can purchase it for 2,000 doubloons. This provides the standard 3% camouflage bonus, 4% disruption bonus, a 5% reduction in repair costs and a 50% increase to experience earning for the ship. Firepower Primary Battery: Five 127mm guns in three turrets. One bow mount, one stern mount. The second is a forward facing stern mount, back to back with the #3 gun with a single rifle.Torpedo Launchers: Eight Type 90 torpedoes in 2x4 launchers. I think the Shiratsuyu is supposed to be a gunship, but don't quote me on that. You can understand my confusion when you begin plugging the numbers and taking a look at how the IJN guns have changed. Their 127mm gun mounts were previously known for having individually hard hitting HE shells with a good chance to start fires but crippled by a low rate of fire, slow traverse and very short range. Now they're ... well, they're different. Are they better? Umm, well maybe-sorta? The changes work out to the following: Shell damage reduced from 2,100 to 1,800 Fire chance reduced from 9% per shell to 7% Turret Rotation: Reduced from 7' per second to 6' per second. Rate of Fire: Increased from 6.67rpm to 8rpm. Stock Range: 11.0km When you compare the Shiratsuyu to the old Hatsuharu-class, this is a definite improvement. But let's keep things in perspective. The Hatsuharu has suffered considerably at the hands of power creep and measuring the Shiratsuyu up against her isn't really fair. The old IJN Destroyer is a four-gun warship with a 9.3km range and nine second reload. She's more of a victim than a gunship. So let's look at the Shiratsuyu when drawing her up alongside her contemporaries at tier 7. Thankfully, there's a lot of ships to look at now so we can get a pretty good idea of her standing. Ship Name Armament Range (Stock / AFT) Reload Damage (AP/HE) DPM (AP/HE) Fire Chance FPM* Stealth Window** Mahan (B-Hull) 5x 127mm 11.7km to 14.0km 4.0s 2,100 / 1,800 157,500 / 135,000 5% 3.75 3.3km Sims 4x 127mm 12.9km to 15.5km 3.3s 2,100 / 1,800 152,727 / 130,909 5% 3.63 5.1km Kiev 6x 130mm 12.3km to 14.8km 5.0s 2,500 / 1,600 180,000 / 115,200 8% 5.76 1.2km Leningrad 5x 130mm 11.6km to 13.9km 5.0s 2,500 / 1,600 150,000 / 96,000 8% 4.80 1.6km Blyskawica 7x 120mm 12.0km to 14.4km 6.5s 2,200 / 1,700 142,154 / 109,846 8% 5.17 4.1km Old Hatsuharu 4x 127mm 9.3km to 11.2km 9.0s 2,200 / 2,100 58,667 / 56,000 9% 2.40 1.5km Akatsuki 6x 127mm 10.1km to 12.1km 7.5s 2,200 / 1,800 105,600 / 86,400 7% 3.36 1.8km Shiratsuyu 5x 127mm 11.0km to 13.2km 7.5s 2,200 / 1,800 88,000 / 72,000 7% 2.80 3.5km *FPM = Fires Per Minute with 100% shell accuracy. Note based on fire calculations in game, the actual value is dependent upon the target selected. This number reflects only the upper maximum. ** This is the concealment window from which these ships can fire from open water without being detected. The distance listed here is the difference between the ship's maximum range and their surface detection range when firing their guns. This assumes the ship is equipped with concealment camouflage and the captain is using Advanced Fire Training and Concealment Expert skills. Two things immediately stand out when you look at the Shiratsuyu in this manner. First, her DPM is appalling and she has a very low chance of setting fires with her guns. These are not guns that are going to stand out and rake up huge amounts of damage. But there's another factor which becomes apparent -- she can potentially have one of the largest stealth-firing windows of all the tier 7 destroyers. So while her guns might not hit hard individually, you can use them quite safely at range without worrying overmuch about being detected. When you combine this with the 915m/s shell velocity and flat firing arcs, even at range, the Shiratsuyu's gunnery is very comfortable. This can make them the ideal tool for finishing off low health targets that may have survived a mauling at the hands of your torpedoes. Please note that this only really comes into play if you elect to specialize the ship in this manner. Right out of the box, her guns aren't going to be anything spectacular. But lemme stress the comfort level these guns inspire. Those ballistic arcs make it possible to engage targets at range in a manner you couldn't dream of doing with a USN destroyer with any real effectiveness. At a range of 12km, the lead time on your HE shells is a mere 8.7s while USN ships are tacking at near (or over) 1s per km at those ranges. This can allow you to outgun a comparable USN destroyer provided you can keep them at arm's reach (which is easier said than done). In addition, the fire arcs of her turrets are nice -- especially her #2 turret with its single gun. Though mounted on the stern, it faces forward allowing it to more quickly address targets from one side of your ship to the other. This helps compensate for the slow turret traverse speeds. So while her guns aren't good, they're not bad either. She's no gunship, that's for sure. But enemy ships had better respect the fire she can put out. Torpedoes Let's get to the meat of the matter. The Shiratsuyu has a pair of quadruple launchers mounted dorsally. Stock, she starts with the Type 8, Mk2 torpedo with a 59 knot top speed, 10km range and 16,267 alpha strike for fish with a reload timer of 94s. This is then upgraded to the Type 90 torpedo which provides a 3 knot boost to speed and a bump up in alpha strike to 17,233. This comes at the cost of a further 7s tacked onto your reload. The Type 90 is the same torpedo that's presently equipped on the Old Hatsuharu. So IJN players that have spent time in the current tier 7 ship will find this armament to be quite comfortable, if it were not for that awful reload timer. You can see why this matters when you measure her up against the other torpedo ships. Mahan (quadruple launchers): 87s reload Leningrad (quadruple launchers): 92s reload Blyskawica (triple launchers): 70s reload Old Hatsuharu (triple launchers): 82s reload Akatsuki (triple launchers): 76s reload Shiratsusyu (quadruple launchers): 101s reload So while her individual salvos are devastating, the Shiratsuyu really falls behind in the ability to continually spam fish. The Akatsuki, also at tier 7, is a much better boat when it comes to delivering a constant stream of torpedoes onto targets. But that's where the Shiratsuyu's Torpedo Reload Booster comes into play. This consumable is insane. When activated, it reloads the Shiratsuyu's torpedoes in five seconds which opens up all sorts of fun game play opportunities. In effect, enemy ships must always treat the Shiratsuyu like her tubes are already reloaded. To do otherwise is to invite disaster because they effectively can be at the touch of a button. Alternatively, the Shiratsuyu can use this consumable as a form of area denial, putting sixteen fish in the water in very short order across a wider spread. I scored a couple of double-kills this way early on in a match, tossing a torpedo wall into the Red team as they approached a cap circle. Summary: Very low DPM on her guns. Her gunnery has the potential to be fun and effective, but it requires a well trained Captain to unlock Torpedo reloads are very long and feel punitive at times Her Torpedo Reload Booster is insane and makes for some very fun moments (for you -- not for the enemy) Double Kill. With her Torpedo Reload Booster, the Shiratsuyu can temporarily transform into the equivalent of a Shimakaze. This allows her to saturate an area with torpedoes and net some easy damage. Out of sixteen torpedoes launched in this double salvo, five hit. This sunk a Sims and Nurnberg. A fifth struck an unidentified third ship. Torpedo soup, anyone? Maneuverability Top Speed: 34.0 knotsTurning Radius: 590mRudder Shift: 3.1s How can something that travels at over thirty knots ever be called 'slow'? The Shiratsuyu's top speed of 34.0 knots is downright painful. While adequate, if annoying, at tier 4 with the Isokaze, by tier 7 this is a severe handicap. This is probably the greatest flaw of the ship. It makes her dangerously vulnerable and potentially inflexible. It's a good thing she's a stealthy ship because otherwise this would likely have crippled her as a destroyer otherwise. Let's put this into perspective: All IJN Heavy Cruisers are faster than the Shiratsuyu. Most of the Soviet Cruisers are as well. When the Shiratsuyu goes evasive, her speed drops down as low as 28 knots in a turn. This creates the awful question when being pursued: Is it better to try and dodge incoming fire or risk being blown out of the water by trying to get out of detection range by driving flat out in a straight line? This introduces a whole new level of pants-soiling terror when you see a tier 8 Bismarck gaining on your Destroyer while you try and run away. This lack of speed makes it very difficult (if downright impossible) to dictate engagement ranges against an alert enemy. In play testing, it was only the Shiratsuyu's Torpedo Reload Booster that kept me alive when a determined opponent wanted to close with me. As this consumable becomes better known, the Shiratsuyu will lose this trump card. I lived in fear when facing ships like the Belfast and Bismarck inside of 10km ranges. Success with this ship, like with slow ships of other classes, will be largely determined by choosing your avenues of approach and lines of retreat well in advance. Durability Hit Points: 12,800Maximum Armour: 16mm side plating, 15mm of deck plating. While an improvement over the 12,100hp of the Hatsuharu, the Shiratsuyu's hit points are still very much on the low side for a tier 7 destroyer. With the changeover, she will be tied with the Kiev as having the lowest hit point totals at her tier. Otherwise, there's nothing out of the ordinary to report here. I'm not trying to sail in formation with this tier 6 Leander. My Shiratsuyu simply wasn't fast enough to outpace this friendly British cruiser to any appreciable degree. She doesn't make a very good scout as she often struggles to outpace the bigger ships following behind. Concealment & Camouflage Surface Detection Range: 6.7kmAir Detection Range: 3.5kmMinimum Surface Detection Range: 5.85kmConcealment Penalty while Firing: +3.81km (vs max potential range of 11.0km to 13.2km) Great news, everyone! The Shiratsuyu is the stealthiest destroyer at tier 7. This is on par with the Old Hatsuharu's concealment rating which should immediate raise a couple of caution flags. The first thing to note is that the Shiratsuyu needs every single meter of concealment she can get. Her low top speed is going to lead to a lot of close calls when it comes to being spotted on the surface by enemy ships. Your life will often be on the line as you scramble to try and escape from enemies trying to run you down. It pays to keep hydrophone and radar ranges in mind too and upon which ships they will be found. These detection tools are becoming increasingly common and on shorter reset timers. More than any other destroyer at tier 7, the Shiratsuyu is dangerously vulnerable to these consumables. The second cautionary note is that while the Shiratsuyu has the best concealment at tier 7, this doesn't make her the stealthiest ship out there by a long shot. A fully upgraded, tier 8 Benson will have just as good concealment as you do. Lower tiered IJN Destroyers can be even more sneaky and you can find yourself unfortunately lit up by a Fujin or Minekaze if you're not careful. What is interesting about the Shiratsuyu is her stealth-gunship capabilities. While her guns are lackluster, she does present an excellent platform from which to shoot at enemies undetected -- provided her Captain has been specialized with the proper skills, such as Concealment Expert coupled with Advanced Fire Training. Outside of the premium Sims and Blyskawica, the Shiratsuyu will have the largest stealth firing window at tier 7 at a very comfortable 3.5km. This sort of makes up for her slow speed which can make this distance shrink faster than you might like. I enjoyed considerable success using and abusing this window of opportunity to take out low-health ships with a few volleys of her 127mm rifles without fear of reprisal. It's always fun to see several ships run away from a stealth-firing destroyer. Anti-Aircraft DefenseAA Battery Calibers: 25mmAA Umbrella Ranges: 3.1kmAA DPS per Aura: 59 The 127mm rifles of the Shiratsuyu are not dual purpose. Compared to the Old Hatsuharu, this is a step down in terms of AA defense, both in range and the damage output. The medium range of her AA batteries doesn't compare well to her aerial detection range of 3.5km. Acquiring either Advanced Fire Training or Concealment Expert will address this disparity but as with most destroyers, it's usually best to just keep your AA guns disabled. When under air attack, retreat to the protective umbrellas of your battleships and cruisers. You won't be shooting down anything quickly in the Shiratsuyu. I found this to be a particular pain when ships I had just sunk had a float-plane still circling their corpse, keeping me lit. I could never shoot them down fast enough. While the Shiratsuyu does have better AA power than the Akatsuki, it's still nowhere near sufficient to dissuade enemy air attack. Cuddle bigger ships when the planes start coming in. Overall Impressions Skill Floor: Simple/ Casual / Challenging / Difficult Skill Ceiling: Low / Moderate / High / Extreme On the surface, the Shiratsuyu is pretty forgiving. Let's face it, having the ability to derp sixteen torpedoes out while not being detected against mid tier opponents is going to yield some pretty spectacular results on occasion. This will be enough for many players to espouse the Shiratsuyu's charms and cry out Poi in pleasure. Getting her to perform beyond that will take a little bit extra, especially if her low top speed isn't properly respected. Still, with her good surface detection range, her low speed isn't crippling, it's simply not good -- taking a small measure of her carry potential away from her. Still, it's hard not to see that she'll be considered a very powerful and very annoying ship to play against. Her stealth fire abilities, her heavy torpedoes and her fans will all drive opponents up the wall and make neutralizing this ship a high priority goal for the enemy. Mouse's Summary: Effectiveness of this destroyer jumps tremendously with Concealment Expert. I cannot stress enough how disgustingly powerful Torpedo Reload Booster is. This may diminish as it becomes more well known, but man... the amount of abuse and the number of trick shots I could perform with this was absolutely revolting. Dump 8 fish at a Battleship, watch them turn to avoid and then put another 8 into them. As low as her gun DPM is, when properly upgraded, it's almost passable. By using range and the good shell ballistics, you can outfight some USN Destroyers. At the very least, her gunnery is comfortable to use, even with the slow turret traverse. God, is she slow. Poi. I seriously wonder for how long the Shiratsuyu will be a fun ship for me. I don't want to say that my enjoyment of the Shiratsuyu was entirely based around the use of her quick torpedo reload, but that certain was part of it. I suppose that really, she's just a very comfortable ride. Her guns are fun to use. Her torpedoes hit like trucks. She's stealthy enough. I can almost forgive her speed. Put that all together and she's a fun ride. I think a lot of my confidence with this ship comes from her decent concealment rating. I had a 15pt Captain I could use with her and this let me drop her surface detection range down beneath 6km. This made her rather forgiving though I quickly learned to give most ships a 10km berth. As a replacement for the Hatsuharu, while she may not be everything anyone could ever want, she's certainly my preferred ship when compared to the Akatsuki. This second tier 7 ship is as big as a house to pay for her heavier torpedo and gun armament. Generally speaking, the Akatsuki is much less forgiving, while the Shiratsuyu is an IJN destroyer with training wheels. The big question is if she'll be overpowered? At present, she definitely is. No one knows what she can do and being able to dump sixteen 10km fish out when no one is expecting it is the stuff of nightmares. As people become more experienced with facing her, this gimmick will lose some of its teeth. Some, but not all. I still think it will remain quite powerful. However, for as dangerous as this ability is, the liability of her 34.0 knot speed will also begin to show too. I don't think her low top speed will be a crippling flaw. In truth, it only becomes an exploitable weakness in specific situations -- normally when the Shiratsuyu has over extended. Just about any ship that over-extends is a dead ship, so that doesn't really say much though. The difference with the Shiratsuyu is that she won't be able to successfully disengage as readily as some other destroyers can. This is definitely a ship to keep an eye on when the line gets released. I, for one, will be racing towards reacquiring her on my personal account. I do love some fun IJN Destroyer game play and the Shiratsuyu presses all of the right buttons for me. Let the Poi spam commence. Smoke guns and fish -- the Shiratsuyu can do it all. For an IJN destroyers, she's rather well rounded. Outfitting the Shiratsuyu Kitting out the Shiratsuyu will be a little different form what you might be used to with IJN Destroyers. Time will tell if this becomes a more common build with the "gunship" destroyers in the future. Only time will tell, I suppose. Recommended Modules The Shiratsuyu has four module slots. I recommend the following: For your first slot, take Magazine Modification 1. I've happily divorced myself from taking any other upgrades in this first slot for my destroyers. Detonations become very few and far between without the need to attach a signal to the mast. And let's be honest -- if you're taking enough fire to knock out one of your weapons, you're pretty close to dead anyway. For the second slot, Aiming Systems Modification 1 is the best choice. For slot number three, take any of the upgrade you want. They're all terrible! I personally went with Propulsion Modification 1 to try and reduce the number of engine critical hits. Really, Damage Control System Modification 1 is probably the best but the gains are really, really marginal here. For the last slot, take Propulsion Modification 2. Your rudder shift time is already excellent. The gains from trying to improve it aren't significant enough to bother. The propulsion mod will give more pep to your engine when you're starting up from a dead stop which can save your life. Recommended Consumables Consumables can get pretty expensive on the Shiratsuyu if you're not careful. She has four consumable slots and each one that you gussy up to the premium version will take a 22,500 credit bite out of your earnings. If you have a poor game, this can push you over towards seeing a net loss in credits earned. As much as I love my premium Damage Control Parties, I am beginning to think it may not be necessary on my IJN Destroyers. The damage sources I take are very intermittent. That said, when things go bad, they go bad in a hurry and a shorter reset timer could mean the difference between an early trip back to the port or not. Your mileage will certainly vary. For your Smoke Generator, don't skimp out. Get the premium version to reduce the reset timer and to give you an extra charge. With your slow top speed, you're going to be reaching for this often. I don't normally go for a premium version of the Engine Boost consumable. Maybe it could be considered worthwhile here. This will jump your speed up over 36 knots for a short period of time, but that's not really worth 22,500 credits to me. Yeah, pass on spending coin on this one. As for your Torpedo Reload Booster, get the premium version. The standard version has a SIX MINUTE reset timer. The premium version has a four minute reset. For signals, taking Sierra Mike (+5% to ship speed) is very handy as this will nudge up your speed to 35.7 knots. While still not great, at least you can keep up with all of the cruisers on your team... unless they also take this signal. There's nothing so embarrassing as having a cruiser overtake you at the start of a match. Sigh! Recommended Captain Skills There's an overhaul of the Captain Skill tree coming, but until that time, here's the skills I recommend for the Shiratsuyu. As ever, Basic Fire Training should be the first (and only) skill you grab from the first tier. At tier 2, there are three great skills to pick up. First, take Last Stand. Destroyers lose their engines and steering gears if you look at them funny. Torpedo Armament Expertise is also very worthwhile. This will reduce your reload time from 101s down to 91s. Finally, Expert Marksman is nice to have but should be considered a tertiary skill and the last one you pick up for your ship after grabbing all of the other skills. Next, grab Superintendent at tier 3. You can and will go through all of your consumable charges in this ship regularly. At tier 4, Advanced Fire Training seems like the best choice. This increases your main battery range up to 13.2km. Alternatively, Demolition Expert is also a great selection. While this will shorten your maximum potential stealth firing window down to 1.3km, it does provide a healthy boost to your chances to start fires. Finally, Concealment Expert is essential for success in this ship. Grab it as soon as you can. This will help mitigate the flaw of her low top speed, improve her gunnery and make launching torpedoes that much easier.

The scenario I dread for most Battleships is having this thing charging you from stealth. I've had a pretty good success rate of picking an isolated battleship in open water and hitting engine boost and sailing straight towards it. They see me at 5,7km and if they do not immediately drop everything and turn away, I'm within torpedo range inside of 15 to 20s and dropping fish. Smoke goes out and I steer away. At most I take one volley from their main battery. They will die. I then wait for my consumables to reset and then repeat. This sort of suicide drop should not work (and would not work if there was any coordination on the enemy team) but at low to mid tiers, you can get lucky repeatedly. Combine this with the ability to make any destroyer you meet poop themselves when that first slap of seven rifles hits them and yeah, Okhotnik has all sorts of potential for abuse.

No I won't. Not the way this poor slug turns. To put it in perspective, Blyskawica -- a destroyer not particularly known for its agility, can haul herself over to a 90º turn in 12.0s. I wouldn't want to be caught blind by a broadside of torps in Blyskawica. It takes Okhotnik another 3s to manage the same feat (15s total). If you don't have your eyes on the sky, even a auto drop can catch you.

NoZoupForYou continues his Week in Warship History series.