tocqueville8

Emergency Repair Specialist (1 point) is a waste imho. Being able to heal 2.5 seconds earlier might save your skin a couple of times, but it's really a minimal improvement, even worse than the November Foxtrot signals. I'd rather go for Preventative Maintenance, especially on a ship with fairly squishy turrets and is often under torpedo attack (rudder/steering damage), or, if the idea is a secondary build, for Pyrotechnician, as it buffs the fire chance on the 105s by 20%.

If it's not a good tactic, what's the problem exactly? I mean...a Yamato with spotter plane and maybe the Range Mod can snipe people across the map, but that doesn't make her too strong to be fun to play against.

1) What's the use of seeing the torps from far away if they home in on you? It's even more trollish that way! 2) At T10 subs have 12-14 km torpedo range. BB ASW planes have 11 km. CVs have no ASW planes (a patent absurdity). DDs have no ASW planes (why? it's not like they're launched from a catapult...). Cruisers ASW planes have 6 km range. If you know there's a submerged sub at 12 km from you, there is NO WAY to damage it. Planes won't reach it, a DD would have to go all the way there and dump depth charges on him, probably while pinged/outspotted. And IF the DD manages to engage the sub with gunfire, the sub can just dive and become invulnerable again, while the DD is going to stay spotted for another 20 seconds. Diving is free (essentially), smokescreens are not.

No offense, but with only 1.5% of your games being in CVs your statement that "AA is useless on most ships" sounds more like a regurgitated meme from Flamu & Co. than a sound personal opinion. If we're not talking about tier 3 or some lines with truly horrible AA (IJN torpedoboats, at least up to the Kagero...), the AA does a decent job, as long as you turn to minimize the damage. Sure, a Normandie against a Lexington sailed by a unicum is going to be miserable, but a Nevsky against an average CV player will just wreck face. And there's no way a competent Halland captain is going to be "rather easily taken down".

If the CV is sailing ALL ACROSS THE MAP TO DAMAGE YOU it means her damage output is pathetic. Meanwhile, a decent sub captain can screw your whole flank by pinging away and dropping torps every 40s or so... Someone slows down to camp from behind an island (as one should, often)? Double ping...BOOM, Dev Strike!

I'd much rather have CVs: 1) they can be sniped by BBs (depending on tier, therefore deck armor; BB gun range, angling and spotting) 2) they're big and obvious, so once you gain map control and run them down, they're easy, trivial in fact, to dispatch. I sank a full-hp Midway in two salvoes the other day in the Colombo: a Yamato might've taken only one... 3) their own planes lead you to them, and RPF works as expected 4) your own CV can, in theory, finish them off on demand, if you managed to chunk them a bit 5) if they overextend or don't run away fast enough, they're screwed 6) plane damage gives decent xp: running down a CV in the late game, even if you don't sink her, often means turning a barely decent performance into a good one, xp-wise 7) contrary to the idea that "CVs make people camp more", I'm more aggressive if I get advanced warning of which DDs and cruisers (radar cruisers in particular) are on my cap. Donskoi? Ok, gotta be careful (as I would've been with no CV). Ibuki? I'll contest. Meanwhile subs: A) can't be sniped in any way: ASW planes have pathetic range, especially on cruisers (which is nonsense: they're not even *launched by* the ship...) B) have awesome concealment, they can submerge at will and disappear, denying you a well-deserved kill. RPF doesn't work on them while they're submerged; C) at close range, they might shotgun you with torps, or emerge and go for a ram on your DD D) if they overextend, they can just dive and scurry away E) they totally make people camp more, as they can direct homing, 80+ knots torps from beyond ASW plane range F) you get NOTHING from dodging their torps: no xp, not even a ribbon...nothing! G) don't even spot particularly well, at least not those I'm seeing: "submerge, press W, go for the middle cap, have an awkward standoff with my red counterpart..."

As you can see, the horizontal dispersion formula is basically the same for, say, the V. Veneto, the GK and the République. The vertical dispersion is also similar: 147 m for the Veneto at 18.1 km, 150 for the GK at 19, 157 for the Rép at 19.9. Stock values. The difference, aside from Aiming Systems Mod 1, which you can take on all three, is the sigma: that's what makes the République a sniper, the Veneto a mediocre shotgun and the GK, surprisingly, a decent long-range platform, if one so chooses to play her. At least, accuracy-wise. Then there's penetration values...

That's not what I meant. If they *sink* near a ship, and the pressure makes them detonate, won't they also damage the keel/hull of the ship? Maybe not as much as a torpedo, but they should do *some* damage, I reckon...

Except cruiser airstrikes have pathetic range, so that's only for BBs

I think they're just confused. But, correct me if I'm wrong, shouldn't depth charges actually damage surface? They did in real life, right?

Not only that, but the ASW planes have some pathetic ranges on cruisers. Let's compare: - Balao and U-2501 have 12 and 14 km range on the torps - T10 BBs have 11 km ASW planes (somewhat manageable) - T10 cruisers have 6 km ASW planes The feeling when the Colbert, a post-WW2 AA cruiser, lacks any radar and has less utility against submarines than the Yamato...

Yeah it is annoying...

The GK has about the same dispersion as French or Italian BBs, but a better sigma than many of them: 1.8 compared to 1.6 on V. Veneto and Alsace, for instance. So of course she's a decent sniper (penetration allowing), at least if one takes Aiming Systems Mod 1. It's those French and Italian BBs I was referring to.

A nice win in the Hayate, embittered by some truly awful teammates in chat. I start by strolling to the East cap. Red team has a YOBOY div, so I try to be cautious. As I clear the island, I get hydroed: I suspect the Z-52 is there, but instead it's the YOBOY Gouden Leeuw, who's already set up camp and is going to bomb my BBs to the Stone Age. Gotta do something! I take some hits from the République to the North, but I'm already outside of hydro range, so I smoke up and start farming him. As I later confirmed, he's a purple player, so he gets priority. He moves in, so I see if I can squeeze some more dmg out of my smoke, maybe on the BBs to the North. The "friendly" Colombo comes in with the exhaust smoke, so I can't see anything. I ask for a spotter (plane), but no: Fair enough, I guess. Also, we're being torped from the West: it's clearly the enemy Shima, who was to my North earlier on, but then slipped through the cap and is now going to B, all the while still unspotted. Ofc I go after him, but along the way I stop to finish the YOBOY in the Dutch cruiser: Naturally, this doesn't sit well with my Colombo... I keep chasing the Shima, sinking the enemy sub along the way (while saving our own). I then suggest our 3 BBs still on the Eastern flank work up the courage to go brawl the enemy Colombo (the other YOBOY). Perish the thought! No time to persuade them, gotta save A (while the Colombo suggest I go hide in the map corner, for some reason... ) I get the kill, but still not good enough for our late Mr. Leeuw As I run away from A (the Wooster is after me, and he can stealth-radar me through the cyclone...), I drop predictive torps on the enemy Halland, who just capped B and is presumably after me (or rather, running from the Stalingrad). Wouldn't you know it... Ta-daaa! Honestly, though: what is wrong with these people?!? Our Colombo wasn't even one of those clueless 43% WR admirals: we're talking about a near-unicum, who should understand what other decent players are doing. But noooo, can't have that!

With AP, at close range, it's kind of easy. At low tiers, you can even citadel some carriers with DD-caliber HE: they have some exposed bits with very thin armor.

BB-cruiser clusters, or lemming trains, but you should also focus stationary cruisers (Soviet and USN heavies, as well as Dutch), and occasionally attempt to snipe the cv.

That's how I play the Asashio, tbf. Good concealment and decent guns mean she's a great screen, while at the same time she can torp 2nd and 3rd line BBs (and even carriers) from safety. But I don't know, 2.5 km concealment on the torps means giving up on the idea of getting Dev Strikes on DDs, which is part of the appeal of the Shima.

Imho Yugumo is better than Kagero, tier-for-tier: 1) some matches are going to have no carrier at all (everyone's going to be T9), so forgoing the smoke is going to be a bit less risky 2) when there is as carrier, the Yugumo has decent AA to shoot down at least *some* planes 3) the Yugumo has decent turret traverse 4) 12 km torps are just better against radar cruisers The Shima has a very dangerous torpedo salvo, but 12 km range isn't too good at T10: because she struggles to kill enemy DDs, she often needs to stay back for a bit, but that means she has a hard time landing torps on second-line targets, unlike the Halland and the Gearing.

The only BBs that were "laser accurate" with Dead Eye were very accurate in the first place. But at least those 1.5 sigma shotguns were less trolly. I didn't play BBs differently while Dead Eye was a thing: I simply enjoyed getting consistent hits from a bit further away: I aim well, I should get that citadel, not an overpen and a pen which for some reason does overpen damage as well.

Yeah removing Dead Eye AND killing secondaries was the definition of "mixed signals"

I've tried it and it's alright. In fact, I'm more skeptical about the value of the reload/dispersion buff than about the survivability of a non-FP BB. I'd only recommend it on a ship with a good heal to begin with (British BBs or the Montana sub-branch), together with Emergency Repair Expert. Unless you overextend and get focused, 4-5 heals (actually 440-550% of a base heal for that ship) should give you all the room you need to tank multiple fires, to the point where only torps and citadels are the issue. Often times, you don't get to use all the heals in a normal game, so you might as well let AR kick in a bit earlier by letting a couple of fires burn. Or rather, you still repair a double fire, but if they permafire you at least you get something out of it. I've also tried it on Italian BBs, as they shatter a lot of HE and have an easier time disengaging with the smoke. Cheers

But that's not how I play BBs. I already get as close as I safely can, meaning I'll get shot at, but not focused at, and I should be able to dmgcon, heal up, go dark if necessary. Dead Eye simply made me more effective if that distance was a bit above my detection range, which was often the case as long as there were many enemies still alive. I'm not convinced. Bad players still camp waaaaay at the back with Dead Eye gone, while decent players used to push when the skill was available, if that was the best course of action. If February was worse in terms of camping, it was probably because of all the Thunderers...

Imho Thunderers kept people from pushing more than Dead Eye did. Around the same time they introduced Dead Eye, WG announced they were going to withdraw the Thunderer, so everyone rushed to get her and in February-March we often saw games with 2-3 Thunderers per team. That meant 12k and a guaranteed fire, often two, every 24 seconds. They're also stealthy and have very good rudder, so there's limited counterplay against them. I haven't exactly seen a lot more pushing since Dead Eye was removed, in part because they also nerfed secondaries, in part because...well...pushing is just stupid sometimes, and when it's not, some players are just too afraid to die in a game with pixel boats. Personally, I don't recall ever thinking "I want to use Dead Eye, so I need to stay at least this range from that guy": when you gotta push you gotta push, but Dead Eye meant the opening phases of my BB games were more satisfying. Also, Dead Eye didn't matter much if your target knew what he was doing, used his WASD, etc., but it meant RNG didn't troll you when you "deserved" a citadel hit. In my experience some ships, like the Alsace or Italian BBs, pretty much need Dead Eye to avoid being frustrating.

But that doesn't make much sense: in coop subs can just launch torps and then easily ping the bows of those bots. They should be doing better than DDs, which have to get closer to use their launchers.

Regrinding USN cruisers, this is what I had to pull... After I saved our Hosho from the V-170, she pushed, on 50% hp, into the enemy Moltke on 5%. Of course, she didn't land a single drop