tocqueville8

You're playing Thunderer in Ranked?!?

Not the best opposition, but you can't argue with the box office! Made it to YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mEM6sKig_8

1st game today Made it to YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7uUODsc8qg

Georgia is 5 knots faster and has a 15% speed boost: she feels very different.

A Tier 10 Georgia. Same guns, but triple turrets. Same maneuverability, more hp.

If it's any help, Napoli doesn't play much like a cruiser. I mean...you can get high damage numbers (well over 250k) playing her like a tankier Zao, permafiring BBs and occasionally slapping cruisers with AP. You take the reload, or maybe range module. When I was considering getting her, I saw replays of strong players doing something like that. But to me the selling point is the brawling package: decent guns (they citadel many BBs up close) + good armor + awesome secondaries (60k dmg in one game is fairly common) + smoke + decent torps. Something between a Schlieffen and a Paolo Emilio, and unlike any other cruiser. As you have the tools to disengage (the concealment is also excellent), a failed push won't entirely compromise your game, and you can come back later to try again: that makes Napoli games often very memorable, as you get the chance to make more decisions than in a brawler BB. She's a good pick in Ranked, as well.

Kinda my fault, really: I should've secured the kill on the Salem instead of the FdG, which our CV was torping anyway. That might've bought us some time...

Yamato and Thunderer are still less accurate than (nearly?) any cruiser and DD in the game. Again they have to be, or they'd be ridiculously OP, but that's how balance works. I'm not complaining, at all: I'm saying accuracy isn't the selling point of BBs in an absolute sense, over the other classes, only in a relative sense of some BBs over others. Likewise, BBs have typically slow reload, though there are some that shoot faster than some cruisers. There is some overlap, but the two populations are mostly apart. Besides, saying "not all of them are inconsistent" is missing the point: the person I replied to claimed "BBs are pampered" because they "were handed radar, hydro, smoke and speed boost", when many got none of that and none, I believe, got more than one... I think it's fair to summarize it by saying that BBs have generally great HP, slow reload, mediocre accuracy but huge alpha, and mediocre utility as well. Once again, I'm not complaining BBs are weak or anything. I'm saying I think they're fine and balanced compared to the other classes.

Rammed the pesky sub and got Flesh Wound + Kraken to finish the game. Only 2.1k xp, but lots of style points A brutish win with messy positioning by my team, a nice Double Strike (depth charges + Dev Strike on a cruiser), and 4.5M potential damage to bring it home. Again, only 2.1k xp, but it was satisfying to see the Monty deliver

Far from a superunicum, but whenever I get frustrated I go play Ranked, preferably in the Colbert with a "jackass DPM build"

For one, those are very common at high tiers. For another, you're only considering high tiers to show BBvBB overmatch is rare, but you include the argument "other ships have limited heals", when all cruisers do at Tier 9+. Pick one: you can't have both. Again, which is it? Are they accurate or inaccurate? Let me clear that for you: BBs have the worst accuracy in the game. Again, they have to, or they'd be too strong. The alpha is balanced by the poor accuracy, and BBs are notoriously inconsistent, sometimes frustrating. There are only a couple of premium radar BBs. Only 2 tech-tree lines have hydro, only 1 has a smoke and only 1 the speedboost. They're not buffs to BBs: they're national flavors and the line is balanced around them. It's like saying DDs are strong because "they handed hydro to the German main line them". They're also, by far, the easiest targets to find and the easiest to strike. Not really an option if you're crossfired by another BB: every time you change heading, you're gonna get paddled. You may be doing a bit better in BBs than in the other classes: But I'm doing about the same: Because of their bad concealment and bad agility, BBs have the most delicate balance between being too aggressive and too passive. They might be easy to do alright in, but they're still hard to do well in. Overall, I find this conversation surreal. You appear to be thinking that you're explaining the game...to someone with 3 times as many battles as you, 25 times as many at Tier 10

As I said, I'm very happy with the Sherman, at least in Randoms: high average damage, satisfying guns, and if you take a range upgrade you should be able to farm anything, including superships, from relative safety. Same deal with Ragnar, but radar and the extra plating make her better against DDs and a bit worse against everything else, I reckon (don't have her yet), so she's a very strong pick in Ranked. If you feel they're too similar, maybe get Napoli & Ragnar.

The strength of BBs is entirely situational: in many cases, they get overmatched by AP, melted by HE or both they typically have worse concealment than anyone else they have much worse rudder than cruisers bad rudder and concealment, at times, conspire to make it hard to avoid torps without showing broadside to someone else they have worse accuracy than cruisers they have worse turret traverse than cruisers/DDs lots of other ships get heals at high tiers I'm not saying BBs are weak or anything, but the idea that they're "pampered" seems little more than a meme to me. They have plenty of weaknesses and they often need to run away from enemies. 1v1 fights are rare for most of the game, and even then, with good play on both sides, several ship types will outtrade BBs hp-percentage-wise. Do you seriously think that I go in a straight line for many minutes long? Or that I don't understand the spotting/concealment system? Or that I let myself get farmed?

While Napoli is a lot of fun, she's a brawler that can have a tough time "setting up" the fight in Randoms, and she still requires a lot of finesse in Ranked, which is infested by Schlieffens and Stalingrads. Frankly, I'm having a great time with the F. Sherman: it's pretty easy to do 100k+ dmg in Randoms (I don't think I'd recommend her for Ranked) it's pretty easy to activate Halsey's talent (Confederate award), which gives even better DPM it's a fun ship to play, even when you lose: just like with the Colbert, the pew pew pew is addictive I'm surprised by the choice of Bourgogne, in relation to T11: because of her 32 mm plating, Annapolis and Condé melt her with HE, Hannover and Satsuma overmatch her with AP.

I think this is the largest WR difference between 2 (super)CVs that I've ever seen. And I think it's unhealthy.

Honestly, I don't think BBs are pampered: they get farmed by gunboats, cruisers and CVs, deleted by torps if they're distracted, and they have a harder time disengaging than anyone else. Subs, on the other hand, basically can't get deleted (unless they're rammed, but why would they? they can dodge in 3D....) and disengage at will...

That's my problem with subs, as well: they're balanced around the idea that people who play them are incompetent, do they have to be veeeeery forgiving. The other day, in the Austin, I got Dev Struck by a Shikishima *through the nose", but you can't sink a sub if you teabag him with 10 depth charges...

So what if my teammates are at the back, what do I do then? In any case, there's a difference between being passive and being at the back, just like there's a difference between pushing and yoloing.

So, in other words, there's a lot of room between being too passive and too aggressive, and ultimately that's what skill in this game is about. That's perfectly reasonable imho. But the OP is still wrong about subs and CVs: the issue there is that there's no payoff in pushing them, most of the time. You can't push the CV from across the map early on, only in the late game and only if your team is winning anyway (so she has nowhere to run) or she made a mistake. And subs? Forget about it, they'll just submerge and teleport away. TL;DR: playing passively/defensively against BBs, CAs and DDs is a strategy, and a good one if you're ahead on points/caps. There are two reasons: 1) it's more fail-safe to stay stern-in than nose-in 2) both torps and guns are more effective when kiting, as their speed adds to that of the target Meanwhile, playing passively against CVs and subs is usually a necessity. It's not a choice, it's forced. Unless they blunder, the way to deal with them is to first sink everyone else in the way, and *then* go after them. And even then, they might just escape, so you actually win on points/caps instead.

1) I'd like to be able to reach high tiers as quickly as possible, thank you. 2) Tier 10 is your second-most played, and let's just say you're struggling. You're talking the talk, but not walking the walk.

A laptop. Why?

Why don't you ask him to see his data?

To be fair, the division MM looks a bit dumb. Division-wise, you have 2v1, which is reasonable if there are 3 divs in the queue. But players-wise, you have 6v2 in a division, where it could've easily been 5v3. I don't think it's a big deal (it doesn't matter how many people are in a div, it matters how good they are), but it still seem like lazy coding...

Soon enough, you'll be able to do that in a Chung Mu or a Yueyang, too... ...and they'll be deepwater torps... ...and you're not going to have to give up your smoke.