tocqueville8

Saw @HMS_Kilinowski, @BLUB__BLUB, @MacArthur92 on Trident. @BLUB__BLUB's Ise detonated ("I thought CV can't detonate", hilarity ensues...), and somehow my Oklahoma came 1st on the team. The losing team, naturally.

The Viribus is just...rare. I mean, who's going to buy her? Austrians? Hungarians? Italians like myself, because she was sunk (sort of) by Italians? Also, she got terrible reviews (LWM rated her "GARBAGE", for one). She's not a Research Bureau or a Steel ship, which are only available to people who have at least some experience, and she's not a retired, OP premium like the GC. Anyone can pick up a VU today, for dubs, just like the Texas. Maybe her playerbase is different, but other than the reviews (and people's feelings about AA, which are all over the place tbh), there's no inherent reason why her stats should be skewed one way or the other. All I'm saying is: for me she performs just as well, if not better, than the T5 competition, and looking at the guns, concealment and dispersed armor scheme, it's not surprising. Her role, imho, is to support the team and abuse concealment to ambush cruisers and blap (relatively speaking) broadside BBs, which are plentiful in her MM bracket (mid-hull turrets encourage it, I suppose). She's very usable. Cheers.

Slow speed and lack of AA clearly mean she has to play as a support ship and she's not good at all in endgames, I'm not denying that. But at mid-range, you have 12 guns with reasonable rotation, the usual overmatch for the tier, and 1.8 sigma. It's a very consistent setup against cruisers, many of which you easily outspot, as well. Dev Strikes are common. For what it's worth, her average WR on the EU server is over 53%, and we're not talking about a reward ship that will only go to experienced players. Clearly, some of her traits are offputting, but the stats seem to suggest she's balanced, if not slightly overperforming. If she were dropped at T4, with this armor scheme, she would by a complete bully.

Other than the Kongo and that OP monstruosity that is the Giulio Cesare, most T5 BBs aren't much faster, but they do have much worse concealment. Contrary to your "2 brain cells" statement, it's precisely when people use concealment and angling correctly that the VU shines, due to her armor and having 6 guns at the front (Texas, Iron Duke, NY, Konig, Kongo, Pyotr, Bretagne...they all have 4). She's very hard to damage when nose-in, even for a Nelson: the icebreaker and the turrets will even shatter British 16'' HE. I'm not saying she counters the Nelson, or any other T7 BB, but she's not as helpless as most of her peers. As for the Dunkerque, only about 1/3 of the VU's bow can be penned with 340 mm HE, but all of the Dunk's bow can be penned by 305 mm HE. Considering the tier difference, that's a good trade. She also has better rudder and turning circle than other T5 BBs, so I just don't get the statement about her not being able to turn. Regarding CVs, her air spotting range, with Concealment Expert, is 6.1, while for the Texas it's 7.7 So yes, if the CV focuses you (which she should) you're going to have a hard time, otherwise the chances of you being spotted incidentally are much lower than usual.

Granted, she's not as sleek as an Iowa, so sometimes you won't be able to angle perfectly, but the armor values are there. If you don't get greedy trying to use the rear turrets (bad firing angles), and instead you just go nose-in once you're inside concealment radius, you should be able to charge T5 BBs while taking little damage in the process (barring crossfires, ofc).

Aim AP at the bow: the VU will autobounce most of the NY's, while the NY will always get overmatched. Likewise with HE and shatters: there's only a small strip of upper bow where the VU is vulnerable, while the NY is mostly 19 mm plating.

Well, not a whole lot of people would buy a T5 Austro-Hungarian ship, to be honest. I might've, but I got mine from a Supercontainer. That accounts for her rarity. Spec a Texas for concealment and she's going to be spotted at 14 km, which on some T5-6 maps pretty much means "all the time". Spec a VU for concealment, and she's going to be spotted at 10.9 km, which is worlds apart. Huh? The VU has a 110-150 mm icebreaker, a 280 mm lower belt, a 180 mm upper belt/casemate, and even a 25 mm deck. She's tankier than most, if not all T5 BBs. Her icebreaker allows her to bow-tank a Nelson or a Sinop much better than a Nelson, a QE or a Dunkerque can, for instance. She can bow-tank and overmatch the Texas, while the reverse is not true. These are my stats in T5 BBs: Other than the Cavour, which I tried with a strong captain because she was an early access ship, the Viribus is barely 2nd by WR and 1st by damage. She's pretty strong, in my experience.

I accidentally clicked on the session stats and they made me wonder: - 8 games (mostly BBs and DDs) - almost 500k from the main battery - 114k from torps - 33 fires for 97k damage - 5 floodings for...wait for it...842 damage And it wasn't just this session, it's typical: I'm lucky if I get a few thousand damage from floodings in general, since they can only realistically be farmed with a CV. Also: - 209 Arsonist medals - ONE Liquidator medal Is the only point of this mechanic to make you use a damage control charge so that someone can permafire you, which is actually reliable? At the moment, this thing looks...vestigial, a relic of what the game supposedly was like in the past. I dunno...they might as well make it so that floodings don't cause any damage, but the speed penalty can't be repaired, or something...

I think it's only partially people paying attention to Priority Target, and a lot of it is simply the fact that torps take a long time to reach a target beyond the DD concealment range, and in the meantime the target has all sorts of unrelated reasons to turn in, turn out, slow down, run aground, or get sunk by someone else... Basically: 1) if the target knows you're sniping him (you've launched torps and missed before, or you've been spotted recently in the area, or he's just paying attention to the minimap), take some turns into account and aim short 2A) if the target has no idea you're there, and sailing in a straight line, strategically, makes sense for him (he's otherwise free to push that flank, let's say), go for the indicator, or even a bit ahead if the target was accelerating. I often miss out on Dev Strikes because I assume the target will slow down for some reason, but many simply don't, because they have no other reason to. 2B) if the target has no idea you're there, but in his place you wouldn't be sailing in a straight line (he's under air attack, he has to wiggle to dodge incoming BB shells, he has to sail around an island, he has to turn away to survive or turn in to stay relevant in the game...anything), try to predict their move and aim there. In short, either the target makes a good move, and you get torpedo hits, or you get nothing but the target makes a bad move, which is better than nothing. 3) Unless maybe you have 3 launchers, don't stagger your drops: the 2nd one is easier to dodge once you've turned in to avoid the 1st one. Most people will attempt to dodge, even if it makes no difference: it's just an instinct. 4) Sometimes it looks like the target is sailing away and you won't hit it. However, if it's the only target available, drop torps on the assumption that he will slow down/turn in or whatever would allow you to hit. If he keeps sailing away, ah well, your torps will reload by the time you get another target, but there's a chance you'll get some hits right now.

Frankly, I'd rate torps over radar for cruisers. I'm crap in these brawling modes, but I've been doing alright (by my standards) in the Zara: - AP will give you citadels on other cruisers. On one occasion I charged a Nelson and got citadels on her from point-blank: I was in the Gorizia, but the guns are the same. - SAP can sink a DD in 2 volleys, from close range - the spotter is occasionally useful - the smoke is occasionally useful, for a Paolo-Emilio-in-slow-motion charge - the torps are very useful: you can cripple a BB, then maybe finish her with a ram if it's only the 2 of them and you're ahead on points; you can use them for self-defense against a DD charge; just the threat they pose is an asset.

Expect the usual suspects: Belfast, Indianapolis, Atlanta, ready to radar you from behind a smokescreen. There are lots of Haidas sailing around, but honestly, with most teams playing so close to each other, it's harder than usual for them to do their thing with smoke+hydro.

I gave it a SIX PROS: - aesthetically, the game is very pleasing - huge variety of ships and playstyles - good enough variety of modes, and I'm including the different tier brackets, which kind of feel like different modes - not much pay-to-win, to tbh: some T7 premiums are OP for Ranked/Brawls, but many of the best ships at all tiers are free - plenty of premium ships can be had for free resources (coal, steel, free xp, Research Bureau if one is really into it) - lots of mechanics, so skill will always be relevant CONS: - too many premiums to keep track of, and many are unhistorical and/or unispiring - some lines are just nonsensical: German CVs? 1 premium would've been enough. But now Soviet CVs? Come on... - matchmaking can be hugely unbalanced, especially with triple unicum divs around, especially if they're testing new ships, which I don't think should be done on the live server (see Dutch airstrike debacle). I'm fine with all sorts of shenanigans in Clan Battles and such, but Randoms should be a bit more...random, I feel. - captain skill reworks have made lots of older "literature" (reviews, guides, etc.) obsolete, which is a burden for new players in particular - the February rework made it much harder to farm free cpt xp: I had maybe 2 maxed-out captains on each nation, months later I still only have 3 in total. It's a slog, and I play a lot... - I honestly don't like the threat of subs hanging over our heads for months on end: we already have sneaky stealthy ninja-type ships, and they're called DDs. - secondary nerf: whyyyyy?!? - 2xCV games at T3-4 are just cruel - some technical issues: massive desynch problems when playing DDs about 6 months ago, now the torpedo aiming bug... - something about rigged Santa Crates (Makarov debacle), though honestly I didn't buy anything. It's just a whiff of predatory gambling, that's all... It looks like the CONS outweight the PROS, but it's just because it's easier to praise the (still good, imho) foundations of the game than to delve into what doesn't work.

Good guns, great concealment, and strong bow-armor.

They'll put Def AA on her, so her DPS can go from 10 to 15 or whatever

Dazzle is trash for sure on open water gunboats that stay spotted all the time and on torpedoboats that ideally want to stay *unspotted* all the time. But on a DD that goes for skirmishes (Emilio can smoke up and disengage, LU Kleber is just very fast...) and the occasional yolo charge, maybe the 15 seconds are enough. 20% extra dispersion is no joke, imho. I wouldn't consider it on a Mogador or a Gearing, but it looks pretty much tailored to the torpedo ambush playstyle, so I was wondering if anyone has actually tried it on one of these short-range torpedo strikers.

The 10.5 torps on the Gearing hit 6% harder than the 16.5 km. They also reload 13s faster (base). Speed is the same, detection is the same. I mean...the reload is nice, but it's not *that* much better: it doesn't open up a more aggressive playstyle imho, and I just don't see how it can justify losing the ability to strike many second/third-line targets, especially those Soviet radar cruisers... Overall, they seem like a relic of the pre-buff era.

What ship(s) are you playing? I've found Mogador to be probably the most effective one I tried in Silver.

I honestly don't care about that: premiums have been nerfed by global reworks (IFHE, secondaries...) anyway, from what I gather.

1) There's no way to "farm" the detonation flag, other than getting shot at. But going out of your way to get shot at means getting embarassingly low xp and credits, which is simply worse, economy-wise, than buying the damn things. 2) Since flags for achievements have been removed, I've found myself increasingly playing for the win, but *then* pretty much throwing the ship away, as I am less interested in having a *great* game for no extra reward. I've noticed fewer Confederate awards, in particular: I used to go after those flags for the cpt xp, arguably the game's most important resource, but now I would often rather start a new game earlier. Honestly, they could've just added some missions and reduced the number of flags to 5 per achievement, explaining that most decent players could rely entirely on their battle performance to always have flags on, which kind of defeated their purpose. Plus, people were always able to get flags from containers, if they so chose.

Follow green DD to island, tell him to spot for you, you'll cover him, etc. Start turning away. Blap red DD, smoke up. Kiting mode: you can speed and rudder-dodge a lot, don't get greedy to use all your turrets. Drop torps everywhere, no friendly fire to be concerned about. Your SAP is actually a bit more like AP than HE: angling and crossfires matter, so keep an eye on the minimap. Keep your smokes for when you really need them, and remember your huge smoke firing penalty. Take Gun Feeder (esp. with Sansonetti) and ideally RPF as well, since you lack vision consumables. If it still doesn't work, it's just bad luck.

I reckon the main reason it's so easy to pen Yoshinos is that many of them are showing their citadel to launch torps. Making them slightly less overmatchable isn't going to change that player behavior.

"Deaf porn unicorns" sounds like a great name for a band!

Actually, today Random teams were so bad for me (or I for them) that I switched to Ranked and it felt like paradise It probably helped that in Randoms I was trying to make the Vermont and Colbert work (they don't ), while in Ranked I played nothing but the Mogabote

Anshan has slow-a** turrets that require you to take both the module and the skill to be serviceable, imho. That can screw up your build a bit, as Pan Asian DDs from T7 onward don't have that problem. The Aigle can be very powerful if you play her as a second-line DD and someone's spotting for you. Don't have the Gallant, so I can't comment.

If that's the case I'd bear the extra cost and get the Neustrashimy, which doesn't require a specialized playstyle and can afford you some mistakes thanks to concealment + heal. I also like my Salem a lot. Yoshino is more attractive now that they've removed friendly fire (torps), but you can get a similar experience (long-range roaming cruiser) with any Zao, Azuma, Venezia and even Conqueror.