tocqueville8

No. Outnumbered looks at what's visible inside your firing range, TGG at your standard surface concealment (regardless of fire, cyclone...). Say you're in the Carnot, late game, 2v2 ships remaining. If you can shoot either enemy, automatically you're guaranteed to have Outnumbered active. But you might have to get a lot closer to use TGG.

Fearless Brawler is the one I use the most, though it's more of a nerfed BFT, really. Top Grade Gunner is very useful on the Napoli and I think a reasonable pick on mid-tier cruisers, if you've got a dedicated captain: without a heal, you free some points from Superintendent. Plus everything's more derpy and brawly Furious, Outnumbered and Dazzle are dubious, and hardly worth 4 points. Close Combat? I've never even tried it. Brisk? At least it's cheap, but I understand it only increases your top speed, so "meh"... Swift in Silence is not only situational, but arguably a straight downgrade with its reload nerf. Overall, these new skills are a failure

Dazzle is one of those skills that I'd totally try if there were a free cpt respec: I think in a knife-fight it might be as good as Fearless Brawler, or Survivability Expert. I almost tried it on Haida & Vampire 2, as they can keep resetting it by going at half speed in the smoke, or something like that. I'm using it on the Incomparable and I can see it making sense on Montana and Conqueror: when you have improved heals, longer fires aren't a big issue, but the extra alpha is welcome. I've tried it on Carnot and Cherbourg, and it triggers very often in the late game, with fewer ships and often scattered all over the place. It's helped me to more than one Dev Strike. Not a "core" skill, but situationally good, like TGG or SE

The 10% extra duration skill does.

The entire Goliath line can equip Def AA. Dido has Def AA in a separate slot: she cannot not have it.. Dunkirk also has an improved "Enhanced Consumables" for DDs and cruisers: for what it's worth, you get that extra 2.5% duration to hydro, radar, smoke deployment time, speedboost (say, on the Gallant).

Yes and yes.

My thoughts, as well. Still, to your point: 32% fire chance per bomb becomes about 21% against Tier 8 cruisers. But here's the thing: while you might hit the same section of your target 5 times and still not get a fire (not too likely, but statistically possible), you can't get two fires on the same section at the same time (simply impossible: the game's mechanic prevents it). So your effective fire chance is going to be lower, because of this saturation effect. Most of the times, whether with rockets or HE bombs, you'll only hit 2-3 sections of your target. And if any of the rockets/bombs light a fire on that particular section, all the other rockets/bombs that hit the same area have effectively zero fire chance, until the fire or the DmgCon Party immunity window run out.

What are you using? Implacable bombers?

No. Yes. No. Dunno.

That's not how it works. You don't take the base fire chance of rockets (say, 11%) and reduce it by 10% (Fire Prevention), to 1%. You do take the base fire chance of rockets (say, 11%) and multiply it by 90% (Fire Prevention takes away 10% of the fire chance, not 10% fire chance points), then by another 60% or so (hull fire resistance coefficient: it's 100% for Tier 3 BBs, 50% for Tier 10s, to give you an idea), and what you get is: 11% * 90% * 60% = 6% fire chance per rocket Fire flags and the DmgCon Mod 1 module also change this a bit, but the basic point stands. I suggest you read this: https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Fire

It also says you should "stay in the open water" and "away from islands" because "an opponent with good concealment can sneak close and launch torpedoes". I mean...that's true sometimes, but terrible advice at other times. Island cover is essential to BB play on many occasions, and if you turn away and invite the DD to yolo you should sink him basically for free. If my DD dies and I'm left with no screen, the last place I want my BB to be is in the open with a torpedoboat stalking her. Also, no mention of crossfires. And yes, the idea of ripple fire for testing how much lead to give might've sound clever and "historical", but it's complete nonsense when you're past a few dozen battles. It could be a reasonable guide for Tier 3-5 BBs, but it shows the Warspite, Richelieu, Yamato and Montana

I'm not proposing that, in the middle of the battle, a warning pops up saying Attention, player WhatsYourName! The situation you're in right now is called 'kiting'. And you're in luck: the Conqueror is good at kiting! Of course, it's the player's job to recognize these situations, although this might have the side effect of making some people more interested in researching these terms, reading a guide or two... What I'm saying is that it could be helpful for people undecided about "which premium Tier 8 BB", or "which tech-tree cruiser line" to go for, etc.

I think you need to trim it down a bit: 18-19 metrics are just a tad too many. Let's try for BBs: torpedoboat defense: hydro (more duration than range), torpedo protection, static cross-section (hull length and beam), dynamic cross section (rudder time and turning circle: how easy it is to present the smallest target to the torps), speed (to reposition or run away from the torps). Secondaries, turret traverse and alpha are useful, if the DD is spotted nearby, but not essential for survival. yolo defense: hydro/radar, beam, frontal alpha (usually), possibly MBRB, maybe torpedo defense (a lot of torps are likely to hit the bow, though) punishing broadsides at range: vertical dispersion, turret traverse, shell flight time, flat ballistics, penetration, impact angle, alpha consistency against angled targets: great HE & fire chance or AP overmatch; horizontal dispersion, DPM sustain: fast dmgcon, fast heal, improved heal, smokescreen, deck and bow armor brawling: secondaries, overmatch, firing angles, citadel protection, smokescreen, DPM, "sustain" (see above) jousting: torps, hydro, turret traverse, turning radius, alpha strike kiting: speed, concealment, a good % of guns at the back (or at least turning through the back), rearward firing angles, turret traverse (to switch side, let's say if you get close to the map border), the "consistency against angled targets (see above); maybe long-range torps (rare) pushing: speed, overmatch, AA, % of guns at the front, "sustain" (see above), "torpedoboat defense" (see above) early game: speed, concealment, "punishing broadsides at range", AA (enough to make the CV focus someone else), "torpedoboat defense" (if you find yourself on the weak flank) middle game: "yolo defense", "kiting", "brawling", "sustain" late game: "consistency against angled targets", "brawling", "jousting", "pushing", AA (fewer targets for the CV), speed and concealment This is just an attempt, but I think it makes some sense. Again, most things are at least partially useful all the time, but I would weight their impact differently depending on the situation. For instance, you will find broadsides in the middle game, but often at closer ranges than in the opening, so most BBs should do alright against them.

I explicitly wrote "broadsides"... Satsuma obviously gets extra points against nose-in targets, as does every BB with an overmatch advantage in her MM spread. I don't see what's wrong with dividing the question in two parts, as it's two different situations that might arise.

All good points. I'd argue that AP weapons are easier to use against ships that are often semi-stationary (Stalingrad, Baltimore, Kremlin...), while HE ordnance is more consistent against maneuvering targets.

A few suggestions for aggregate ratings: - long-range survivability (can the deck be overmatched by most BBs she'll face? How big is her citadel?) - short-range survivability (does she have good secondaries, potentially?), especially useful at low-mid tiers - repositioning (speed and concealment): Langley bad, let's just say

I don't see the point of being so cynical when someone makes a creative suggestion. The OP is right: different lines or premiums in the same class play very differently, i.e. they give their best in different tactical and strategic situations, and it could be useful to try to represent that somehow. Something between WG's "Resistance 100, Torpedoes 17" useless ratings and some reviewers' hyper-detailed (and very well-written) analyses. I offered some suggestions above regarding cruisers: for instance, Ibuki, Riga, Plymouth, Carnot and Napoli excel at different things, but those things are in-game tasks that are a consequence of their hard stats (armor scheme, concealment, etc.)

But what about the OP's point that different ships in the same class have different roles/capabilities, and that it might be helpful to represent/rate them?

No offense, but that's incredibly simplistic, and it doesn't do justice to the OP's idea. You might as well say that all ships come down to "do damage, take damage, contest caps (directly or indirectly), try to win". DDs don't "basically come down to cap and scout": many Soviet and French DDs are more about harassing/farming large targets in open water (or behind islands, but then they won't absorb potential damage...) the Z-52 line, as well as Vampire 2 and a few others, can pull the smoke+hydro trap USN and Pan Asian DDs are good at laying smoke for the team/division, others much less so smokeless DDs have a hard time capping early, no matter how good their AA is some DDs have a massive torpedo armament, which is better against clusters of large ships; some have fast-reloading torps, which are better against other DDs to help contesting caps; some are fast and have fast torps with good angles, which is better for rushing. These are distinct capabilities, for different scenarios.

Can't say I agree with this. The community is full of ship reviews, guides, questions about which coal ship to get here or on Reddit, etc. I don't know about "the majority of players", but a lot of players certainly have curiosity. But when you look at reviews, you find data like "250k AP DPM" or "2.0 sigma", which are important to experienced, knowledgeable players, but might be hard to read for the more casual ones. And they still don't give a complete picture: you need to know the penetration curve, the horizontal dispersion, the vertical dispersion (unpublished, right?), the impact angle, the flight time curve... Take Ohio and Slava: the former has much better AP DPM and slightly better sigma, but if you need to punish a fleeting broadside at 19 km, what would you pick? Slava, no doubt. She's still not perfect because the turrets turn slowly, but she's just much more consistent. One could read a whole write-up comparing the AP DPM, or the alpha strike, of all Tier 10 BBs, and look at 4 different graphs, but in the end some players are going to want a rating: how good is this BB at slapping broadsides at range?

This is actually a very good idea. My go-to sources for ship reviews are LWM, especially for older premiums, and Yuzorah's articles on The Daily Bounce. While they both give us excellent write-ups, I suspect a lot of the information they put out there is just not going to help most players make a decision, and what would is more on the line of what the ship can do rather than important, but fairly obscure numbers like the shell weight or AA sector damage frequency. Those things have to be in the review for reference, so that you can compare them with the numbers of other ships, but you still have to imagine what they mean for the ship in action. The "pros and cons" lists are useful, because they give you the standout points of the ship relative to her peers, but you've still got to read the whole thing to figure out what they mean in practice. I mean...that's the point: making readers go through the whole article. It's fine. But I also think there could be a visual summary of what the ship is good at. For instance: some cruisers are good at kiting (HE, accuracy, agility, rearward firing angles, maybe long-range torps...) some are good at area denial (small frontal profile, good bow and deck armor, good AP, AA, high hp pool...) some are good at cap support (radar, hydro, smoke, concealment, burst damage, turret traverse, maybe torps...) some are good at flanking/pushing (speed, agility, powerful AP, good AA, maybe hydro, but little need for radar or smoke) some are good at brawling (close-range armor, torpedo broadside, AP penetration, turret traverse, secondaries, a vision consumable...) These are just some of the possible "roles", off the top of my head. Also, some of these situations are more likely to occur in the early game (area denial, cap support...), while others (pushing, brawling if you're not a yoloer) come later, so there's also a matter of early/late-game strength. As I understand, this is the problem of going from hard data to soft data.

Our Vermont was still full hp at the end But he later explained to me that the alternative was to died to focus fire in the first 30 seconds, so take it or leave it. Also, "this is how you play Vermont these days". How did he know? Well, he's very experienced: it was his...second game in the ship! Oh, and one of their Baltimores sailed in the open from the middle all the way into the A cap (Okinawa), and rested behind the island. I was spotting him all the way for the Vermont, Venezia, etc. Nothing happened. A complete clown show

He's looking at the cost of having them fully upgraded, and he's right.

You mean the Tier 9 is more expensive, right? I'm looking at the Lion right now: 15.9M credits for the A hull + 2.5M (guns) + 5.1M (B hull) + 2.6M (fire control) + 1.5M (engine) = 26.1M The Conqueror is 20.6M Even if you just take the B hull, the Tier 9 is more expensive. That is without filling the module slots.

Fighters might shoot down some planes if the CV goes for a second pass, or has very slow planes. Otherwise, they're just for spotting. CV-deployed fighters are a bit better: there's more of them, they can be dropped in front of the ship the CV wants to protect, and the enemy planes typically can't just go straight through them to attack their target. They have to go around and waste time, possibly while being under AA attack. The OP was in the Napoli, so he had no choice. The point of fighters on the Napoli is not to shoot down planes: it's to provide spotting as you brawl and dumpster your target with those SAP secondaries while smoked up. Spotter planes wander farther away, so they'd be more likely to be shot down by your target's AA. You might not want to hear this, but you actually did okay: you kept the CV busy for several minutes, shot down a fair amount of planes (maybe it would've mattered if the game had been longer, maybe not...), and you were still able to land some decent damage. I've had games where the CV focused me early, I did less than 10k damage and shot down far fewer planes.