DFens_666

This. Best proof: 155 Mogami > 203 Mogami. There is no tradeoff for IFHE. The skill is bad in itself and shouldnt exist. Ships should be balanced properly, by giving them the correct HE penetration and then balance the DPM between CLs and CAs. And i think the all or nothing damage for HE is kinda bad, kinda hard to explain like that: If you dont have IFHE you can basicly only hurt the superstructure. With IFHE the damageable area expands to pretty much every part of the ship except some BBs and Moskva/Stalin. That simply means, that most CAs are screwed against CL HE. So they lose in HE DPM, but also they cant win in AP DPM, because the CL can just angle, while the CA cant. There must be a distinct difference in CL/CA armor, and currently there really isnt. You could go as far and say, CL citadels are harder to hit than their heavy brethren, if you compare Moskva vs Worcester f.e. Moskva can bowtank very long, but get his broadside and he WILL die (maybe not in one salvo if he has full HP). Getting a Broadside Worcester and its rolling the dice if you devastate him, get 1-2 cits or 1-2 overpens. How to balance that? Personaly im not sure, the closest which could work in my mind: - Make the plating really thin, that 203mm CA AP can overmatch it. - Remove the Citadel - Elevate the current Citadel belt armor, so that BBs have a chance to get penetrations when they shoot them broadside

I know they werent the smartest players around (tbf tho, the 2nd one did reverse a little bit and i guess he thought he would be save there from me ), but basicly thats the point im trying to make: People complained about smoke shooting ships. WG took their time to do something against that. in the meantime, atleast some players started to git gud and learned how to smoke shoot. Atleast i see it all the time, whether you play DD or RN/smoke CL, someone will shoot you (i do it aswell if i think its smart, its not always). If you would leave players the time, they would probably atleast try to do something about it (took them long enough to shoot into smokes, and to counter that, Smoke Cruisers would have learned to move more in their smoke aswell) But WG interfered by introducing smoke firing Debuff, which isnt THAT bad for most RN CLs (but it kinda is for Neptune tho). Well, and introducing large Caliber Cruisers which kinda screw them over, because you cant really do much against getting overmatched (especially Stalingrad which has improved pen angles, so its basicly overmatch or straight into Citadel) Also the other point im trying to make: If you encounter someone who really wants to punish the smoke Cruisers, then they have to move or angle (or both basicly). Angling means they can deal less damage, which kinda makes Smoke a little bit obsolete, doesnt it?

And do you need to detect RNCLs these days to kill them? Many players just learned how to deal with them, aka smoke shooting. And for that they dont even need the Smoke firing Debuff, its just catering to camping BBabies as they are the ones profiting from that, not the DD who is risking to get spotted or the CL which is spotted. BB is risk free and can harvest the rewards. They survive a good ~1 minute. Now take a BB which can get 1-2 CIts also per salvo, times x the more BBs you add and Cruisers AND things like Stalin/Kron which dont care about angling so they can wreck them even from Bow/aft. Yes, many people said RN CLs were OP when they were released, but players adapted and it would have been fine. With all the things which are direct counters/nerfs to them, its simply too much. Using smoke that is. Playing Radar mino is perfectly viable imo. SO is Edinburgh i suppose. Neptune however isnt because its detection is just crap compared to the others.

Already stopped playing. We usually played Missouri/Neptune Div (and as you see i got like 330+ battles in them combined). Why would i want to play this anymore? Citadel the size of a DD, plating getting overmatched by more and more ships (Henri -> Kron -> Stalin -> Alaska soon -> IJN whats his name soon), Concealment is crap, Smoke firing is crap also. I either play Seattle if i wanna play a CL, which has more potential (HE/Radar/DefAA/better citadel protection/plating), or if i want something different i go with Kron or Musashi. At this time i would rather try Radar Edinburgh than any Neptune. Could get even lucky with MM which isnt screwing you over, atleast for me it feels better than before.

Thats a damn good point! Its like having to play a certain ship in an operation because it can carry the OP better than another ship, but in order to get 5 stars with a better chance, i have to play that ship. I think its simply wrong. Also if you play DD then your Cruisers might suck, or play Cruiser and your BB/DD sucks, or god forbid you get a CV, thats usually the biggest sucker

Ye, was removed some time ago I have played US DDs till T8, IJN both/german/PA at T6, Russian T7 and almost at Lightning because of the UK DD stuff. Dunno... i guess, i never was too excited about DD play in general, alltho i can play them. But to be good, id have to play more, i think i only have like 300 battles in DDs.

First games in my Cossack (i really was against getting it because i hated the way WG handled the Guinea stuff, but when everyone around you is saying "its great, get it" couldnt resist anymore at some point) For that matter even my first games in T8+ DD Definetely not feeling as comfy playing a DD compared to Cruiser or BB Note to self: play more DDs

Its just the problem that imo we have too many radar ships in the game already, thats why it would be nice if they would equaly viable (which atleast for me, they are not anymore)

For me it just feels that Radar Mino has a greater impact these days and is arguably even easier to play than Smoke, once you get rid of the DDs. Which is far easier because of Radar. I dont play div with CVs, but maybe Smoke Mino would be more valuable like that.

Are you playing Radar or Smoke Mino?

True that... same happened to me when i at first blindly trusted WG to make the Torpline having better torps, so i went with Mutsuki Minekazes torps are better tho. Alltho the gun reload is horrendous, but 4 are still better than 2, because you might not get a favourable shot in constantly, so you have a better alphastrike chance, And even against angling/evading targets 4 are better than 2. Even the name fits better if they would be reversed... mineKAZE -> ShimaKAZE... MutsUKI -> AkizUKI

Guess i can finaly quit the game then

Balance? Shell velocity is kinda slow, i dont think we need DMs that potentially could shoot >20km (Stock Seattle however - thats pitiful range) There are many other ships who got LUs that simply suck. A DM having ~17km or so stock range, with good reload, then the LU would just be a freebie. Sounds kinda wrong imo?

WG will never concider anything like that. They want you to gain XP, but no Credits. If you can advance through the tiers, but not have Credits, you are more or less forced to spent money on the game, either by Premium acc, Premium ships or straight up buy credits.

99% of the time you can ignore that request. Because these days, a BB will be detected when he sits in the smoke and he is firing his guns. Only if he sits there doing nothing he probably wont get spotted. And a BB not shooting or tanking is a waste. That leaves 1% where it helps, when the BB is about to die and you can try to save him with your smoke. Then its ok if the BB is smart enough to be undetected for so long that he can either escape or get his heal back up. But most players dont even understand that, so they keep shooting and then your smoke is pretty much wasted. Every class has different detections when they shoot from smoke cover. DDs usually have <3km. Cruisers range from ~4,5km to 12 or even more dont even know all the values for the big Cruisers like Stalingrad f.e.) BBs are probably all like ~15 or so (well except the lower tier ones i suppose) The best advice to not torp friendlies is to not use torps when you are in the 2nd line or even further. Sure, it probably will happen, we have all been there. But you definetely want to minimize the chance. And you probably dont want to use your guns on IJN DDs most of the time. Someone else mentioned it, not sure who, that you certainly should remember that you have guns. Thats ofc true, but you dont want to shoot your guns maxrange vs a full HP BB to tell everyone "hey here i am". Always remember, when you are spotted as a DD in torprange, the enemy most likely will start to evade. So be careful if you have torps in the water to not reveal yourself unnecessarily. (ofc there are exceptions to this, but you shouldnt worry about those right now, as you have to learn other stuff first. Lets say, you can trick your opponent into evading if your torps would otherwise miss him, and maybe make him turn into them).

Guess you forgot that one time, when one did come to me complaining about you

Look who shot what at me. Akizuki did spam a hell lot more but somehow he missed everything. Ye, took them 8 minutes or so to kill me, and i was a bit afraid we would lose that since my team took their sweet [edited]time to get over to my flank where i kept them all busy basicly. The Atago was somehow weird as im not sure what he was shooting (i rarely see him shoot) but he kinda ignored me even tho i was first in line. I was pretty lucky that they got 2 fires only once, but doesnt feel too good as i was still permanently burning. It was fire went out -> right away next fire.

I really dont like that mostly Back camping sniping BBs can profit from that The DD takes a risk, the Cruiser also because he is suddenly detected and the BB somewhere behind them is mostly safe. Server stats certainly would justify a buff to survivability WG probably will take the idiot road however and NOT give it proper concealment which would be in line with Edin/Mino.

Never seen that one either, but i just felt like it after playing a couple of matches in my GK. DDs between 10,2-11,7km: You dont hit them enough, and they most of the time should be able to go stealth anyway. If they cant, its probably due to radar, and then your secondaries shouldnt matter anyway (combined firepower). One of the last games i played in it i dealt 11k with 2 AP salvoes at ~11km to a YY, which is far better than my secondaries could be. Cruisers between that range: They could go stealth (depends) or they might want to rush you (Hindi). First doesnt matter how far your secondaries shoot, and 2nd he will enter your secondaries anyway. Against Cruisers you want your mainguns to do reliable damage. BBs: lets be honest, they get tickled by that at best. If you cant get the fires, doesnt really matter, does it? There have been situations where i COULD have gotten my secondaries to shoot with the longer range secondaries, but i feel it doesnt matter. If the target is close enough, your secondaries are equally good. Unless you consider IFHE vs BBs. But all your secondaries have atleast 30mm pen -> thats just enough for Cruisers. Some of them have 36mm pen thats also enough vs BBs. The tradeoff for a bit more damage to BBs with secondaries (thats IFHE) is imo not worth it vs worse concealment and even worse mainguns.

Oh believe me, i know that feeling Gneisenau and Bismarck had somewhat useful secondaries, FDG is just a big joke which i skipped and for GK i just dumped the full secondary idea. I went a middle way with Manual Secondaries and CE + aiming system mod 1. Secondaries are still >10km which is too much for DDs, good enough for Cruisers and BBs dont care that much anyway. But my Concealment is manageable now and the guns are atleast a tiny bit more accurate because i dont use the Secondary module anymore. Its better to rely on the guns rather than your secondaries. Back when we only had IJN/US/German BBs, they felt rather strong because of their protected citadel - but they always took massive penetration damage. Now compared to French/UK BBs it feels like a joke with their immune citadels. Conqueror is somewhat the only one which eats also tons of penetration damage, while others not that much imo, atleast compared to german BBs which probably comes down to the size. And French BBs are fast as hell on top of that.

German HE is the weakest tho, except for the penetration values. F.e. Bismarck has 1160 AP overpenetration damage but only 1452 HE penetration damage... Fire chance is also rather lowish (only "beaten" by IJN HE) I dont bother shooting HE with german BBs unless there is a chance to get a permafire in (or maybe really annoying angled BB). Basicly even switching to HE for DDs is questionable as you gain so little, and if they are closing in -> Secondaries.

You want to get the 3 and 4 point captain skills aswell. Usually when you have your first 10 captain skills, you pick one of each so 1+2+3+4 = 10 points. One of the best/most valuable captain skills is Concealment Expert (4 point captain skill). A little thought about the skills you want to pick: - Jack of all trades -> you dont need that for DDs really, there are better choices. - Smoke Screen Expert -> also not really useful (sounds good, but its not that great) - Adrenaline Rush -> this is a good skill if you manage to survive long enough and take some damage in between. Im not sure if i would necessarily take it for DDs, but on the higher tiers Torpedo reload is pretty long, so basicly it would help (but so does Torpedo Armament Expertise). I think you should have enough skillpoints to take it tho if you want. - Super Intendent -> not really necessary for IJN DDs, BBs/Cruiser benefit more from that mainly because of the extra heal. - Survivability Expert -> this is something you want for DDs, as they gain the biggest % benefit out of all classes. - Torpedod Armament Expertise -> If you go with the Torpedo line (to Shimakaze) then you can/should take it. The alternative line starting with Hatsuharu doesnt need that, as they are more gun focused. PM and LS are the right skills you picked as first 2 for your DDs. Good call on those one for playing only a couple of days You could go Priority Target aswell, but a DD doesnt want to be spotted (usally), and if you are spotted, you can expect to get shot at. In short what you want to do: - Dont take any 2 point captain skill, wait till you can take a 3 pointer. - Take Survivabilty Expert or Torpedo Armament Expertise. As you are a new player, you will gain more from the first one because it helps you survive. You cant throw torps when you are dead^^ - After that take Concealment Expert.

AP is always more powerful in the right situations The problem is when everyone is spamming HE (especially BBs aswell) then HE becomes so much stronger because DCP management becomes nigh impossible. But WG can blame themselves for causing these problems. They introduced ships who got super strong HE, so average potato player adapt that because they got killed by that and they start slinging HE with their german BBs which is plain stupid most of the time.

Since noone explicitly answered that so far: No, this is ofc not true. There have been Premium ships which are controversial so to say, because they were/are probably not balanced properly (Belfast, Kutuzov, Saipan, GC...) Some of them have been permanently removed from sales due to that reason. As to BBs being too weak in general: What do you think will happen when they are played by people who are good with them? Do you think you will stand a better chance when they get buffs? Hell no... A general misconception by bad BB players also seems to be, that its nasty Cruisers/DDs that cause huge amount of damage to them - this is most of the time not true. Sure, when you move in a straight line all the time you will get torped. If you move around and alternate your speed in between, DDs will have a harder time hitting you with torps. Also a Cruiser has an easy time burning you down if you overextend and let him do it. Thats one of the things they have going for them. Basicly you want to take that away, and make them even bigger XP pinatas that they already are. You should play 2000 battles in Cruisers aswell and see how easy they can die with one BB salvo. It will happen to you - more than once.

The problem i see (which most people ignored so far) is, that smoke is simply worse these days even for not super unicum players imo. At the beginning Smoke was more of an easy way, while Radar was hard mode but with more impact. But you could have a good impact with smoke too, simply because players didnt know how to handle that. Now (or currently) however, everthing has changed. You are way better off playing Radar Mino because you can kill the rogue DDs which are running all across the map even avoiding caps and stuff. This makes life harder for Smoke users. And we got the smoke firing debuff anyway, which is problematic even if the DD is basicly suiciding for that. And players got really good at shooting in smokescreens. All these things a Radar Mino doesnt care about. - He can wreck DDs at will. And the arguement about angling in DDs is simply not true, as most average players dont do that. - You are much more aware about whats happening around you since you DONT want to be spotted unnecessarily. Initially fighting DDs can be risky, but this can be managed, because after that you are free to do what you want. Either using Islands or torps for your damage. If enemies are engaged you can even go for open water gunboating from the broadside. - Getting shot at in the open while you know what you are doing is easier than getting shot at in your smoke, as you cant influence that as much. Sure you can move around, or stop firing if someone is looking at you, but imo then we are back to the initial problem -> just go with Radar and you have more impact on the game. Edinburgh and Mino can get away with that because of their Concealment Neptune however cant. Thats why its simply worse than the other 2 and it needs a Concealment buff and a lower smoke firing debuff aswell.