Captain_Newman

Agreed about the stealth, the firing angles might help a little but it's stealth is the issue. It may have been sufficient back in the stealth firing days, but the game has changed a lot around her since then, and she's become a poster child for power creep.

I could get the 5th directive if I put my grinding pants on, but I can't be bothered since I decided to opt out of PR, and the rewards directive 5 offers aren't good enough themselves to make me grind them. I'm done with directives 1-4 (didn't buy Gorizia, I grinded it with directive 3). Can't be bothered to go further..

Crispy Cream is good in it's role. That role being a floating meme.

You just described every cruiser in the game in a new guy's hands. Every cruiser that gets caught out will be blapped by the well balanced stalinium ships. IJN offer that classic kiting cruiser play style that I feel is a good starting point. I mean, let's look at the alternatives.. Italian and RN cruisers aren't beginner friendly at all, neither are USN ones tbh. German ones are ok, and still jacks of all trades, problem being they're feeling the power creep and have fallen out of meta way harder than IJN, and when you get to t10, Zao has more uses overall. Thanks to their stealth, sometimes troll armor, great guns and solid torps, IJN cruisers can be forgiving. Soviet line is ok too, but a new player will likely have a tough time since from t4-9 they are extremely squishy and are spotted from the moon. French cruisers are great, but due to worse stealth will spend more time being spotted and fired upon, which is why they'll likely be a harder experience for new players. Utilizing the gun booster to it's full potential takes some experience as well. That's why I kind of see the IJN ones as fairly universal and thus a good starting point.

IJN cruisers are a very good line for new players. They'll teach you a lot about kiting, dodging, positioning, and managing your stealth. BB wise, whichever. Haven't tested german ones since the buffs, normally I'd tell you to avoid that line for starters but it might work now. I still find the french line the most fun. Soviet ones are (surprise, surprise) really strong as well, not necessarily the best for a first BB line due to the unique damage control consumable they come with.

Huanghe also gets better range and ballistics.

Never going to work, there is a very large amount of work hours attached to doing this for just one ship, let alone all tech tree ships in the game. However, doing it for coal or steel ships might work - you make an initial investment to start a build, then you can speed it up by investing more. Or simply come up with a new category of reward ships - ship blueprints. You unlock one's blueprints in some fashion, which starts the build, then invest resources into speeding up. Overall the dockyard itself has been universally liked (the visual aspect of it, not the economical one), so I'd be surprised if it didn't come back in some form of another. I just don't think it's realistic to do for tech tree ships, there's just too many of them.

Guilty of liking those too BB's in this tier usually don't know how to deal with a cruiser that's actively kiting and dodging, so after you dodge their 2nd or 3rd salvo they tend to focus on something else, leaving you to burn everything. In general, the Omaha variants get looked down on, and usually aren't taken seriously until they realize you've been burning them down all game. Again, realistically nowhere near as strong as, say, Furutaka, but they can be fun troll boats.

I know what you mean about universally hated ships you end up liking.. I have the same thing. I like Viribus Unitis - yes, it has a low health pool (awareness, positioning and angling helps there), and no AA (what can actually defend itself from a CV using AA these days? In that tier? Texas? Please. It migh shoot down a few after they've already dropped - like all post-nerf AA, it's too little, too late to actually save you). However, I can forgive a lot if the guns work, and they do indeed work on the Viribus. Nice, accurate, tight groupings, lots of cits. If a CV comes with torp bombers, well, you might be slow but you're maneuverable, so do torp beats. If it comes with rockets and bombs... just tank, comrade, I guess.. but overall, the ship works fine and can be a lot of fun if you can aim. I like the Huanghe too Sure, it's a floating citadel, what cruiser isn't at this tier.. but you also get good smoke, hydro, torps, and while the barrel count is low, the main battery guns have very nice ballistics and do decent damage for their caliber. Not really sure what people see as weak, here. Might not be for new players, but it can definitely perform very well in the right hands, it has all the tools it needs to do so. If you can make these work, it can be a nice troll boat, even when uptiered. I only played the Gascan once (crate drop), had a really nice game in it, so can't comment on it, I did like it in that one game but any ship can have a good game, I'll have to come back to her at some point. She seems to have her own flavor of the french flanking bb style, though, so we'll see how much her guns decide to troll me. Overall, the point is, I don't think you can find a single ship in the game someone's not going to like...

A CV that focuses only on rocket and he bomb spam being actually good would make the game even worse for DD's and supremely annoying for anyone else. This is the problem with specialized anti-something ships - if made actually strong, they inevitably become too strong against certain things. As far as I'm concerned Indom can stay in your ports as a pretty decoration, it would be terrible for the game in general in any other role.

You guys need to remember that he makes these videos with the entire community in mind, which is much harder than recommending ships to a specific player - and while some might have the skill to enjoy ships like, say, the Azuma, or heck, the Marblehead, that neither makes the ship strong nor easy to play for most people. There's literally nothing he can put on this list someone isn't going to disagree with, but if you start looking at it from the perspective of "what would you recommend to an average player to have fun in", the list starts making sense. I personally enjoy several ships on that list, but they aren't ships I'd necessarily recommend to the player base at large. It's much, much easier to recommend a ship to a specific player you know - "you do great in kiting cruisers, so you'll love the Azuma" sort of thing.

I remember not being overly fond of the Fubuki myself, but the Akatsuki was a massive improvement for me. YMMV... Definitely don't play her stock. Once upgraded, she may not be amazing but she does work well enough to get through the tier without too much pain.

Obviously it's meant as "only possible to get from a SC or xmas crate", not "crate and store/armory".

Ah, that makes sense, thanks for the clarification. Yea, I'm not surprised someone used to the Big E would find the Indomitable bad.

No, it's not good. Yes, it's understandable and excusable, given the amount of battles you have, you're still very new. Nobody with this amount of battles has good stats unless it's a reroll account (someone who has lots of battles makes a new account so they can have unicum stats more easily than "fixing" their original account). I suggest finding how to play videos made by good players / community contributors, this will give you an idea of what your role is in each class, and how they play. Stay away from lines that aren't friendly to new players (Italian or RN cruisers, for example). And stay away from high tiers until you start doing well in low and mid tiers, especially stay away from high tier premiums. Yes, it's possible to buy your way up, and no, it's not a good idea, neither yourself nor your team will have a good time.

I'm guessing you mean Indomitable, and not the Big E? Big E can use AP bombs to make cruisers and german BB's disappear fast, and also has access to torps, so she doesn't just rely on fires. I've never heard anyone call her crap, tbh, she's probably the strongest CV in the game, tier for tier.

You're missing the point. The entire event was designed to trick people into a sunken cost fallacy trap - as in, "oh, I'm decent at the game and have the time to play a few hours a day during the holidays, surely one prem booster will do it for me". Then they realize they need to buy two other boosters or have their initial investment wasted. If it was designed in a way that it's not possible to buy into the PR and still not receive it, you wouldn't hear nearly as many complaints. Hell, as far as I'm concerned they can make it cost 5000€, that makes the decision to not get it even easier. But be open and up front about it. What they did instead was say things "it's entirely possible to get for free, simply complete the directives", which, given past experience with directives, will make people think that getting one booster will probably make sure they get the ship as long as they have time to play over the holidays. What they failed to mention was the directives are so absurd it's practically impossible without severly compromising your health and your sanity, and the vast majority of people would need to get 3 boosters and still grind quite a lot. Yes, it's technically possible, it's also possible to tow a Jumbo Jet by pulling a chain it's tied to with your teeth. There's a reason people who do it end up on TV and in the Guiness book - because it's practically impossible for 99.99% of people. I'd even be ok with this, if they designed it in a way that if you invest, you get it for sure, and it's impossible to throw away doubloons and still not get it. That's just scummy bait and switch tactics. All of this also opens the door to outright selling t10's, something they said they'd never do, but WG says a lot of things.. Another common complaint is that the dockyard concept is just too cool to be wasted like this.

CV's aren't op because of dev strike ability (or not). The problem is that they often put ships in a no counterplay situation where they can maybe mitigate some damage at best, but def not avoid it, while being at no risk. Even a camping BB is at more of a risk at taking return fire than a CV is most of the time. Couple that with the removal of stealth that they do, which I think has a negative impact on gameplay (the entire concept of angling, positioning, catching broadsides, doing smart flanking maneuvers is thrown into the wind in a CV game, which is why I find those less interesting). At worst, you come across a unicum CV player, and you're in for some very hard times. At best, a 42%-er may not be able to drop properly, or understand who to focus, but he still has the ability to be supremely annoying by removing stealth, constantly buzzing over your head. Let's not pretend it's well designed. I've heard people try to justify this crap, and I've heard unicum CV players like El2aZeR openly admit they're broken, but they'd rather play and abuse them than be the victim. I can respect that kind of honesty. The whole "they're not OP because <inset false equivalency>, just dodge" position of people defending their farm machines, not so much.

WG has designed this event exceptionally well in the way it teases you. I find myself looking at the ship in the dockyard and considering dropping the cash to get her finished. Like, I'm thinking, wait until the last phase that I can get to is reached, then use doubloons. Then I remember two things: it's a clumsier Alaska, having montana dispersion and handling without her overmatch or armor, and two, I don't want to give WG money for the PR, it sends the wrong message. So.. can't say I'm not tempted to wait until the last moment and drop 15k dubs on it, but I think I'll stay away. WG needs to have lower profits than they expected from this, we need them to not do this stuff again.

I own all of the ones listed except Vanguard. Objectively, Lenin is the strongest of the bunch, and Massa the most fun (not that Lenin isn't fun, it's just that Massa meme build is hilarious).

I mean, maybe. Not for me though, I've seen way too many "sure defeat" or "sure win" battles turn the other way to be comfortable with this. I do wish WG would stop giving these missions that promote gameplay that isn't necessarily aligned with the team's best interests.

Grats, Haida is a great boat! She'll do well in operations, but don't discount her in randoms; given that her primary role is finding and murdering enemy dd's, if you learn to play her right she becomes a wr farming machine. Plus, dd duels are fun.

Yea but unless the enemy CV is his buddy / clan mate, I don't see them missing on purpose, especially if DD. Why would he sacrifice his own score and chance to win? He'll go for the kill. And he should go for the kill, otherwise it actually is rigging in the same way as "taking a fall" in boxing is. Probably better to just take a hydro DD, go to the flank with the benham / shima / something spammy, pop hydro and do torpedo beats. Bonus points for trolling a smolensk at the edge of his range.

Agreed. A CV is more likely to give you actual than potential damage.

Gorizia be like "can't touch this" I have noticed that ships don't render equally fast for players - sometimes a div mate will start shooting at a target that should be rendering for both of us at the same time (both are in spotting range, close enough to physically see it), but I will see it several seconds later. Your issue could be similar, just more extreme?