tocqueville8

1) The game feels great: ship models, scenery, sound design... 2) Playing in divisions and reading the forums 3) Lots of game modes: Key Battles last time (not sure this time...), Operations, Ranked...plus mid-tier Randoms feel like a different universe than T9-10: more carefree and just a lot easier, but not so much that you don't feel like you've earned it 4) Lots of powerful/quirky/gimmicky ships, especially freemiums. Strong ones like the JB are rewarding, but weird ones like the Colbert are hilarious. 5) Lots of memories from great games. I must've uploaded a couple of hundred replays on https://replayswows.com/, and I have 120 on YouTube at this moment. I'd been taking endgame screenshots of my nicer matches ever since I was derping around in the Charleston, Izyaslav and Wyoming, but after this match I began putting them on the website, and having a stunner became even more satisfying

I'm kind of okay with the homing, though it would make more sense only at T8-10, or only on German subs (a "national flavor", like SAP on Italian ships...). Also, I would prefer it a torpedo SPREAD could be steered towards the target, but what we get is pinpoint convergence of all torps, like single-fire British DD torps, except with the homing as well I'm not okay with: 1) the insane reload of both torps and pings 2) the fact you need to blow a Dmg Con to remove the homing 3) the fact that it penalizes cruisers, together with the homing switching off much closer for them 4) the fact that while BBs can summon seaplanes with depth charges, many other ships cannot, and those who can have shorter range on them. Imho DDs as well as ALL CAs should be able to call airstrikes, and with good range (about the same as BBs) and better reload than now. I'd be okay with worse feedback about the pinging direction, in exchange. 5) the fact that torps ignore torpedo protection (so I read), which is just petty 6) the absurd speed of subs, which makes it hard to chase them and drop depth charges properly

I needed 900 xp for the Naval Battles stars, and the baguette didn't let me down! Notice a 100% kill on the U-2501, but let me tell you one thing: the approach to drop depth charges reminded me of how the late, great Norm MacDonald described his sex life, "trying to find a lady and convince her to let me lie down on top of her"

Rare picture of a Kearsarge digesting her meal

Looks like a Montana that's swallowed a Hermes...

It's honestly hard to say. I mean, the game awards an xp bonus for securing kills, so there's less in that 2k base xp than meets the eye. For instance, I'm quite happy with how I snapshotted the enemy Black (as he Dev Stuck our Schultz...), but most of the xp I got there was from the kill, not the damage (a mere 1.5k). I also got 3 BB kills (Soyuz, one of the FdGs and Alsace) with 71k dmg in total, which is basically the hp of only 1 of them. The enemy de Witt who won the game for them got 2.2k xp with only 2 kills: maybe he didn't do quite as much as I, but he wasn't as far as the xp would suggest. That's all I'm saying. Cheers

Huh? No, I was just trying to figure out what happened, I didn't even mention my WR. I was very quiet in chat. Someone called the Alsace a "noob", but not only he did well in terms of xp, his mistake was much smaller than I thought, as he was 1 second away from capping when he was reset. Arguably it wasn't even a mistake: for all he knew the cap was secured and he was coming to A to help, he couldn't have known that I needed no help. My satisfaction was certainly not "overshadowed" by beating a long-standing personal record in a memorable game: my only complaint was I would've gotten twice the xp (and free xp, cpt xp...) with a win.

In retrospect, the decisive mistake is apparent: the Alsace thought she was done capping B and came to A to help me (which was unnecessary, as the enemy FdG misplayed completely), but she was reset by the de Witt at the last moment, just as she was leaving the cap At that time, we were ahead on points and tied A-C, so simply blocking B and surviving would've been enough.

Does an increase in detectability matter when you're smoked up most of the relevant time and all your enemies are bots?

Other than the hp, the Musashi doesn't have any particular advantage against T7s, compared to other T9s. Standard plating of T7s is 26 mm, and you only need 15''/380 mm guns to overmatch that. The problem is she dumps on T8s and T9s, the way only the Yamato was supposed to do. As someone who's got 3.5M xp on the Jean Bart, I hate the Musashi with passion

Indeed it does. It can go nose-in next to some island cover, radar DDs for a bit, punish any hint of broadside (improved bounce angles), and tank better than many BBs thanks to the absurd deck plating, small superstructure and super low silhouette. Very annoying ship to deal with.

Co-op and scenarios? I'd go for damage only: Eventually Superintendent and Survivability Expert (3rd row, last two from the left).

9 kills, new personal best (beat my pre-nerf Hosho, which I used to farm flags and lose my immortal soul...) The summary: - MM says 5 DDs per team, only 1 CA (not too happy about that...) - flanking game around the A cap - we lose our DD early (the Schultz doesn't count), so I pushed alone into a Yugumo and the enemy Schultz: they didn't observe social distancing, getting repeatedly caught between the islands, and MBRB saw to that - once free in the enemy spawn, I sniped BBs for a bit (they were going North, one of those pinwheel games...), secured more kills (Kraken at 75k dmg: I felt like an impostor...), then started thinking about the caps, while my teammates were dying in the North - I defended A, our last remaining cap, against a cocky FdG and the enemy Tashkent: MBRB on the first, who also screened me from any torps, and then I pushed the Soviet boat, who pulled a Notser at the wrong moment Still, they had B and C, and I couldn't get a shot at the de Witt. Maybe I misplayed, but I was low and I guess a bit scared of the carpet bombers... And f**k me if I didn't have all the special flags on! Replay if anyone's interested:

Fair enough, I was just pointing out the mistake. The Shima clearly has 50% more torps to begin with. It's worth remembering that if one builds the Hayate fully for torps, there's a 2:1 resonance between their reload (117 s) and that of the TRB consumable (240 s), so one can alternate 10-torps and 20-torps launches every 2 minutes, in theory.

Hayate has the exact same 153 second stock torpedo reload as the Shima (12 km torps).

This matters very little: these ships are unfun to play against because of their insane armor scheme, and taking their DPM down by 4% isn't going to change anything. I was going to get her anyway just to mess around, but with 5.9 concealment instead of 6.1 she's even better! If only they could so something about the turret angles... Glad to read that, for all those who got this ship and found her mediocre. I might also get her in the future, to give Sansonetti another platform. Long overdue for a buff, imho.

The price tag is higher on the V2: almost 3 full line reset with the 2x bonus each time, even more otherwise. That's about 2M FXP at a minimum, plus tens of millions of credits. With the Hayate, you only need a port slot.

@Europizza convinced me to get the Hayate, and I don't regret it: - Shima torps, if fewer of them - great gun handling, reload, damage and fire chance - option to go full guns, full torps (less consistent, more meme-y) or something in between - you probably have good captains already for either option (or alternative builds from your other IJN captains), while you might not have a good Commonwealth captain - no gimmick, which might mean you won't get in trouble trying to use your gimmick too soon I'll get the V2 eventually, but smoke farming can be done in the Daring, and smoke+hydro traps are already a thing with Z-46, Z-52 and Friesland/Groeningen. In terms of uniqueness, I chose Druid over V2, and again I'm not disappointed: as long as she has targets and spotting, that thing can wreck face

Every Ragnar I've come across so far has been a pain in the butt to deal with. The guns are powerful and accurate, and I understand she's got some extra armor plating... The Plymouth can wreck half a team, with some spotting, as long as she's not directly pushed. She's an excellent ship if things are stationary around a cap, but she's weak in the open and can't kite for c**p (slow, terrible turret angles, no HE). She's all about positioning and consumable usage, and a very good ship in a division.

Uh, that's embarassing: my 'c' key was malfunctioning, so I thought it simpler to copy it once and then use ctrl+v every time. It's back to normal now. I didn't even realize it could be a problem, sorry When I'm in a radar cruiser I either have good AA (Nevsky, Baltimore...), so I'll be happy if the CV goes for me instead of my teammates, or I have a smoke and need spotting to farm (Plymouth). Either way, it's fine. It's not really about the ambush, more like "oh, their Donskoi is on the other flank: they must have the Charles over here, so I can be more aggressive". There's no way to "figure it out" until they're spotted: unless divisions give a clue, it's random. But with more information I can make up my mind better. Likewise with enemy lemming trains: I'm often the BB that flanks when the rest huddle in the spawn or stays middle when they all funnel behind a cap. I try to "plug the hole" in our formation. I think it's the right thing to do to be a good teammate. But because it might lead me to get cut off, I prefer if there's early warning of what the enemy team is doing. I mean...I'm also better than the average opponent at figuring things out for myself, say by identifying the DD from the number of incoming torpedoes. What I don't want are bad surprises, or the opposite, to waste time being overcautious. If I trust my playstyle, my "algorithm", I'd rather have accurate information to feed it, otherwise it's "garbage in, garbage out".

My point is that if you screw up your aim with the Yamato you don't lose any ability to shoot again, other than in the sense that the strategic situation might get worse, which is equally true of a carrier that's expected to do some damage to help the team, but instead misdrops. But in the Yamato, if you screw up you still have all your turrets, while in a carrier if you screw up (flak, fighters, some nasty Def AA...) you also lose planes. Sure, they respawn, but not that quickly. It's not a complaint, just an observation. Not necessarily, no. I mean...in the very opening of a match it's very hard to hit a DD at long range (the first time the enemy carrier spots your spawn), and after battle lines are drawn, and after a few kills have been scored, there's often *some* room to move forward without getting shot at right away. Trap, T10 match, middle spawn, Halland. I sink my direct opponent and push through (it's wide open, as it's often the case). Do I have a problem if the CV knows where I am, wants to waste some planes on me? No, let her. Better me than most of my teammates. Just an example I remember. In many DDs, I prefer when there's a CV in the game, as she'll 1) spare some nasty surprises with radar, 2) hopefully defend the base so I don't have to fall all the way back from a flank to do it, 3) spot ships, which will get shot at my teammates, shoot back at them, therefore staying spotted so I can farm them a bit.

I think it depends on your second answer. If I'm in a surface combatant, I might be up against all sort CV captains, some great, some terrible, most average. The question, from my point of view, is whether maneuvering/managing consumables well improves my chances enough to make a difference in the match. What I'm saying, I suppose, is that the strength of the enemy CV is a parameter (somewhere on the spectrum, but average on average), but my strength, on my side of the interaction, is a variable, which may or may not be average. It's your second answer I disagree with. In my experience, against most CV captains, it *does* matter how diligent I am at maneuvering: if I do my best, I'm mostly fine, if I'm sloppy I pay for it. In other words, I have agency over it. This is mirrored when I'm playing CV (as a not-quite-unicum, I suppose...): I can land 4 torps or 1 at most, depending on what the target is doing. Granted, I can't account for the damage they take as they expose broadside, or the strategic advantage of making them turn away from caps... Because of this (I may be powerless against a superunicum CV, but I'll do better or worse against most of them depending on how much effort I'm going to put into it), I'm not sure I can agree with the first answer, either. Anyway, cheers and thanks for the chat

Well, sure. I guess everyone who's not a superunicum is someone who does something stupid, more or less often. But we can't just talk about that 0.1% (or whatever it is) of the playerbase. Pretty much. The only real difference is going to be in DCP and heal management but that is generally offset by CV damage potential and whether the CV player can exploit it or not. And given in a realistic situation other ships will be engaging as well the difference is going to be marginal. It takes you just as many torpedo drops to sink a stationary/straightlining BB, with a Kaga, than to sink one who's actively turning? Meaning you guarantee all torps are going to connect every time on someone who's maneuvering? Are you sure it doesn't take, let's say, 50 or 100% longer, even with no difference in Dmgcon usage?

So a potato Massa will die just as quickly as a unicum Massa, to the same CV captain in the same CV? It's one thing to guarantee a kill given arbitrary time and an arbitrary-sized map, with respawing planes but only so many heals on the BB. It's another thing to guarantee a kill given the constraints of the game.

It's not "for free", the cost-benefit ratio is different. In a BB, if you have a bad salvo you lose an opportunity to do damage, and yes, that might cost you some hp in the future, but it doesn't directly jeopardize your next salvo. In a carrier, if you take the wrong approach and fly over a ship with good AA unnecessarily, or you run into flank, or you run into fighters, you lose an opportunity to deal damage (which might put you in trouble in the long run), but you also lose planes for your next strike. If you screw up, you can't try again later with the same strenght, as most CVs don't carry 2 full squadrons of any type. Once again, your statements are way too general. Plenty of times, in DDs, I've ambushed planes with my AA to shoot down 5-10 of them while taking no damage in return. Pan EU DDs, but also Marceau, Gearing, etc. That's one-sided, but in my favor. And I'll happily take 1 torpedo or a couple of bombs (not AP citadels, of course...) in my BB, if it means shooting down 7 planes over 2 unsuccessful passes. It's not one-sided either way, but it's a good trade for me. And again, I've gotten plenty of payback on CVs in games that were not rolfstomps. We can't use expressions like "pretty much the only realistic chance..." when it's not true.