Sir_Sinksalot

TLDR. Cut to the chase, then add the text wall for those that want a more deep breakdown. Or better yet, just make it a video instead. Also, add some free community tokens for an extra care factor.

As the owner of such a camo, I very much like that idea.

I also have a soft spot for those ships with "Dazzle" camo applied by talented artists. Before homing torpedoes, it must have given U-boats a real headache to try and formulate an accurate torpedo solution, especially since ships often implemented a zigzag heading. Is the ship coming towards you, away from you. Is that the front, the back, the side lol.

For me it's Capital ships, hands down. Which specific one is the best looking is too hard to choose and I like many of them from the different era's of BB design. The early era BB's would be my most favorite to look at. They're stunning and were build and maintained with such pride of each nation. They were the flexing muscles of a nations might and prowess so they got all the attention and fanciful decorations. They were the celebrities of the time and thousands came out to see them pass by. I love the inverted bow design on the early BB's which reminds me of the Greek Trireme warships that used the shape to ram and sink other ships. Dreadnoughts are amazing looking with their unapologetically industrial age big rough sheets of iron and steel armor plates held together with big chunky rivets. I think their secondary guns placed in these big bulging casemate housing really highlight the era and how these early battleships took on an almost floating castle like design and many had fantastic decorations and crests applied. They were truly like floating art, it was a shame they had to ever see battle lol. We just don't see that anymore but at least in this game we get to look at and even play these ancient relics... that's pretty cool actually.

I was a bit short on German tokens to get the T7 so felt it was good value and logic to spend 500 community to complete the required amount of German tokens. Probably could have could have got the T7 just by collecting just the German tokens through missions but I think I was a little slow out of the blocks for the first weeks personal missions so didn't get the maximum available. Still, for just 500 com tokens I spared myself all the grinding and credit spending I'd have to do whenever it's released to the tech tree. I haven't played much of it but it's not really much fun tbh, disappointed. A lot more to learn about this ship but so far I'd feel it's best left for Co-op and Narai. It does have torps with 10km torps but they're not fast like a DD and generally you'll be more focused on other things so won't use them much in randoms tbh nor will many enemy players walk onto them very often as is the case with torps on BB's in general. It has 4X380mm instead of the Gneise 3X380mm but there's a catch and see the screenshot. While it does have 2 more guns than the Gneise, the last turret doesn't have the same angles as the other 3 and gets restricted by some large louvered lower deck breather thingy, not sure what it is but it doesn't matter, it restricts the last turret guns from getting on target unless you show a lot more broadside while is very dangerous because the armor is pretty bad. The guns do actually travel up over that vent thingy, but only when pointing the guns close on maximum range so they go up over the top. Anything closer and you have to go a lot more broadside to bring that last turret into use. Also, another thing I really hate so far, and I already knew it was going to be a possibility, is the short gun range. While the Gneise has less guns, it does have good range at 19.5km whereas P Heinrich only has 17km range and as a result, you end up with situations like this. If this was the Gneise, that ships getting smashed. So sail closer? Well ya obviously but as you guys know, targets can just get spotted where they were once not and it's really nice to be able to punish those that just like this guy in the screenshot, made a really bad play and deserves to get smashed, but as you can see, I can't. One final thing. The guns are boasted as being accurate... no they're F'ing not!

Weak...

Here's the TLDR version

I was thinking further up the road. Usually these little tests have a habit of become a permanent addition. As we've experience before, if WG put the time into developing something, it tends to always end up being added as a permanent feature at some point. Like I said it's just so much content lately that it's hard to understand if they're THAT desperate for more money, have a new boss at the wheel that's clueless but instructed to crack the whip at devs, or if the playerbase is wilting away faster than expected and this is all a bid to keep players playing. Maybe the result is upsetting and scaring more players away than attacking and keeping players or enticing them to spend money. I wouldn't know I don't have the facts and figures. Just seems like a lot of threads and posts of so many upset and concerned players and CC's lately, and not just because of any one thing, it's lots of things sadly.

Ya it seems more so now than even before and with a notably increased push(I also play WoT and WoWP). There was always OP vehicles added and a purposeful powercreep to prevent the game becoming stale and entice players to grind new lines and spend money obviously but in recent months the new content has sky rocketed and almost in desperation. Not sure if there's some new tyrant of a boss at WG who's clearly whipping these devs heavily to produce more and more content and money spinning gimmicks or if the playerbase is dropping away alarmingly fast that they're desperately trying to save the franchises existence and recover the playerbase with new content but it's God awful lately and bordering insufferable. We've seen a few changes even here in the forum with WG staff. Natural change or escaping a sinking ship or a-hole new boss? Pure speculation of course. The result is I have zero confidence in this game or any WG titles, development is so turbulent and seemingly rudderless, without sense or consideration. I'm sure a lot of you guys have lost confidence in WG offerings too.

There's no problem other than the balance in this game. If things are balanced, then obviously all is fine and can add another several more tiers so long as the transition and balance is sensible. At the end of the day new things "scare" people including gamers and in WoWS or any WG title, gamers have good reason to be alarmed because WG time and time again, screw their playerbase and ultimately themselves too. As players have mentioned a thousand times, if we had a 2 tier instead of a 3 tier system, instantly there's an improved gaming experience and btw being top tier can be just as annoying at times as your guns caliber overpens lower tier armor for crappy returns. So ya, at the end of the day, if these T11 ships are balanced and fair, then it's just more content and would eventually be welcomed by the more established players that have reach that end-game since such players currently have nothing to do and would like to have more ships to grind and spend their free xp and credits on along with trying new ships, gimmicks and playstyles. Sadly though, and most likely, as history in this and all WG games have proven, these new ships are most likely NOT balanced. That's the problem, as usual, balance, not the fact it's a T11. Also. I understand some players concerns that would have enjoyed either some T9 ships as their "sweet spot" and some players who love their T10 ships and top tier status. For sure, this will screw that balance they once enjoyed since T9 only saw +1 MM at worst and many can hold their own against T10 ships yet now will most likely feel that terrible -2 tier helplessness as they face T11 ships while the T10 ships will now not be top dog anymore which reshuffles the order of how things are. I understand that's a bit of a kick in the balls for those players.

Thanks guys. Ya fair enough, I'll give them a miss I suppose. I just saw a lot of them in battles and while I didn't see anything amazing in regards their battle performance, wondered if there was a reason to their popularity I just wasn't seeing. It's often hard to know of a ship is good or bad because players abilities are good and bad obviously. Usually when you see a lot of the same ships regularly Here's the thing though, I really enjoy playing the T8 Bismarck and don't really like going back to anything lower tier because the accuracy tends to suffer and the AA gets weaker and gun range drops away and armor gets thinner etc. Fine, but what I guess I'd like to know is(and maybe I should have just started the thread about this instead), is what are the top 1-2 BB's for T8, T9 and T10? For T8-T10 what are currently the strongest "meta" BB's? Not premium btw, ain't paying the money. For Coal or steel or free xp totally fine obviously. Also, where the hell is the Nelson gone? I know it was a bit of a floating citadel but I was actually looking forward to getting it for some Narai battles with free XP which it was once available for in the tech-tree. I picked up a Duke of York in the armory for coal instead but would have liked that Nelson and it's 3 front turret layout too.

Managed to grind up and get the T7. So far they're complete shite in random battles as one would expect from a BB that combines crap armor with short gun range in a perma-bottom tier MM system vs higher tier ships with bigger guns, better range, better accuracy, better reload, bigger alpha, more hp that can just smash these weak armored crappy little paper ships to bits most the time for the paltry damage dealt in return before going to the bottom of the ocean. Torps and BB's are not really much use most the time vs real players and secondaries work best when you have decent armor and as mentioned, these BB's don't have that so what they do well the ship itself can't use because it just breaks in half. Nice to have hydro if only to see the shoal of unavoidable homing torps coming at your ship that bit sooner but nothing you can do about it obviously because devs think that's balanced. Best kept for Co-op vs dummy bots that offer no sensible resistance and will allow you use all these nice features no human enemy would very often. Oh, and scenarios, will probably be nice for those too, just not anything serious. A bit annoyed because I don't feel the grind was well rewarded but that's how it goes.

Aigle is what I would recommend from my lineup. Anshen is pretty good too with more noob friendly guns while I really don't play with the Gallant much tbh. Where I feel the Aigle is the strongest is the combination of big caliber hard hitting guns and torpedoes that are simply insane for destruction. The other two mentioned kinda need to land both racks of torpedoes against higher tier BB's where the Aigle will put just about any BB to sleep with just one rack which means you can yolo between two BB's, tank their best efforts and knock out two full health BB's in one pass while probably still surviving so the Aigle can really turn a battle on its head pretty quickly if played tactically. The camo certainly isn't the best but like I said it's very tanky and that's why the camo is sensibly not as good at those other two. That said the camo is still good enough to deploy her 8km torps and not get spotted so it can still implement that invisible torpedo bar steward gameplay if needs be, so it's not THAT bad in the camo department either. Just be warned that the Aigle's guns, while incredibly destructive, can best be described as more of a missile boat. Ballistic missile levels of arch and as such does need practice to adjust to the correct lead and obviously restricts long range success against more fleet footed boats. Also, the very last gun is almost redundant in the sense that you need to almost full broadside to bring it on target and that's not always a good idea for obvious reasons. Sure, you don't have a citadel but it's still presenting a lot of ship for enemies to hit and if you do it while sitting in smoke you're kinda inviting a wall of torpedoes onto it. By comparison the Anshen and Gallant are more user friendly that way but once you get the hang of the Aigle it's imho a far more destructive DD. I think all 3 of these are available for coal, it's how I acquired them anyway, maybe not anymore. Also, what commanders you actually have available is going to be a factor too. If you have a highly trained UK DD commander and don't have a French DD commander or don't have a Pan-Asia, then obviously this makes a strong case to chose one and not the other lol. I don't think you can go too far wrong with any of those 3 though, all of them are very good.

I'm currently using the Nagato as I grind my way down this IJN BB line. Honestly, I must say the Nagato is an amazing BB for it's tier, quickly turning into a keeper. It might turn out to be tier for tier one of the best in the line. Here's the thing, I've been learning my higher tier BB trade with the Bismarck, played lots of battles with that ship, it's a brilliant T8 BB and I was looking for other BB's that are somewhat similar to her. There actually isn't really any other but what I did find is the Nagato's guns are in many ways very similar, only better, and a tier lower lol. The Nagato is indeed very accurate as you'd expect for 2 Sigma, don't get any better although her vertical dispersion is not as good as the Bis. Shell velocity is really good for her tier and caliber, almost as fast as the Bismarck but 410mm instead of 380mm so they hit harder than the T8 Bismarck and overmatch things the Bismarck can't. But arch, speed and gun range is very similar to the Bis, so for me it was an easy transition and I'm really loving the Nagato during this grind, to the point, that I can already see that there's maybe little gain in taking on the T8 with the same guns yet inferior range for some reason. It's an important factor. You can see that US BB's get 2 sigma on some of their BB's too but when you see the utterly shite shell velocity, further burdened by it's intergalactic shell arch, then it actually translates into being almost unusable against anything other than a static target which is rare target indeed. Why care about gun range? Well, BB's are big targets, lowest camo ratings, the least agile, normally slowest too and therefore the most attractive and easiest to hit obviously while other classes tend to sneak about or pull up behind islands etc. You'd shoot cruisers if you could but they're not seen as often. If your BB has a short gun range, then you're going to have to get closer to the enemy than your teammates BB's obviously right? Ya that tends to translate into getting F'd in the A by the enemy team, focused and the closer you get, the more enemy guns start to have the range to reach your BB and it snowballs into a total focused fire nightmare lol, and of course, enemy DD's in the area and subs start to work their way into unleashing torps at you, all bs and horrible to play. Well Nagato has almost 21km range which is pretty damn good for a T7 and combine that with its good shell velocity, good arch and 410mm overmatch potential(and sheer punch power). This means it's really comfortable to play in s supporting role and a big damage dealer while out of range of most enemy guns and that's a good thing not just for obvious reasons mentioned but also the fact it's going to be bottom tier a lot against many higher tier BB's that will break your T7 BB in half if they landed their big guns so if they don't have your gun range, that's obviously a very good thing. The Nagato also doesn't have great armor like the Bismarck nor hydro, nor amazing AA so you don't really want to screw around in close quarters early on in a fight or get too close to choke points and islands with enemy ships hiding around them. The Nagato doesn't need to. Sure, later on as the battle starts to break up or when you're top tier, you can be more adventurous and daring and aggressive, but for most the time, the Nagato is very happy playing a ranged game, dealing damage and sapping enemy ships with her big accurate 410's. At least that's my findings with her so far.

Because Russia makes the best everything as we all know. Just like in real life. Tanks, jet fighters, subs, ships, guns, porn, the whole damn lot!

Pretty much this. I really don't know why WG devs send out these surveys when they clearly don't read them or could even hope to read them. If thousands and thousands of players filled out these surveys do you know how long that would take to go through each and every one? What poor saps would have to go through all those and actually give a flying F about each and everyone's personal take on subs? The list of gripes would stretch half way across Europe. Also, who's survey would the devs take points from and who's would they dismiss? Most players I've seen haven't a clue what they're doing during a battle and I say that as a noob myself. Is that the caliber of player you want "calling the shots" lol? What most likely would happen, as is the case in life, is the devs would take the points they like and what ties in with their own opinion and dismiss the other 99% of comments that doesn't. I don't know if these surveys are to try and fake some sort of interest in what their playerbase wants to pacify the playerbase into thinking WG gives a shhhh about what players think, or if they actually take stock of at least the ticked boxes section and note of what the most popular ticked boxes are. But read through each and every attached note? Pfffff ahaha!

Ya ya great story. Now get rid of homing torps.

There, 100 T8 random battles with a BB played! Overall I have enjoyed randoms with BB's more than other classes and it's been mostly with the very likable Bismarck. I like this class emblem because it requires consistently decent amounts of damage dealing every battle which encourages a player to play a bit more aggressively, a bit more sensibly and to find that balance. By comparison the national emblems are for winning X amount of battles in the top 3 on the team which is still nice but I guess can be achieved by anyone if they throw enough battles at it. I can't get any higher achievement unless I buy a T9 which I'll get eventually. Anyway, I think this red and gold emblem is the nicest looking of them all lol. Also had this nice battle a couple of days ago. The previous battle was a fast loss as bottom tier in which I did my best and lot more than most the top tiers but that didn't stop a teammate from contacting me post battle and letting me know that he hoped cancer ran in my family, so was nice to be top tier for a change. Being top tier can be a blessing and a curse depending on the teams fair. I still had to battle several other T8 counterparts and was not really helped much as I pressed down a flank but this is why I enjoy playing the Bismarck more than any other T8 BB I have right now. It just has all the attributes to counter a lot of the bs in this game including unhelpful teammates. Tanky armor to weather a storm of focus fire for a bit, great secondaries to rip into yoloing DD's along with other ships that either drift too close or I purposefully close in on. Hydro and decent mobility to flush out incoming torps and avoid them. Strong AA and fighters to counter the attacks from CV's admirably. Excellent long range mains with a decent shell velocity, accuracy, punch and fast reload times to play a supporting role when bottom tier from behind your higher tier BB's or to hit ships trying to escape at flank speed. Camo rating is pretty ok, top speed is great... ya... it's just a fantastic BB really isn't it? Taken down by a bottom tier sub lol!! To be fair the battle had only 1 minute left and someone throwing a stone would have sank the Bismarck at this point since all consumables were used up and I was down to a few pixels of health and nothing left to do only flank speed at the subs direction to mop up a bit more damage dealing before the battle ended and I did nail him hard with depth charges so the trade was very good indeed lol. Look at those secondary guns doing the business. Over 46k dmg dealt, 43k of which was raw damage, not fires.(I have IFHE)

I tested a Warspite sec build months ago and it was rather fun and effective on Killer Whale and Raptor Rescue. I also ran the Warspite with a Propulsion Mod for slot 4 to offset her sluggish failings. The top speed of the Warspite is pretty good for a dreadnought to be fair but without a prop mod she takes her sweet time getting there and srubs a lot of speed during hard turning so that equipment is essential for the build in order close on targets quickly enough. In Killer whale you can just yolo into the harbor and let those secondaries loose on all those merchant ships and whatever else falls within range and not really lose anything in accuracy with the mains from those ranges. The enemy ships in Ops also tend to be programmed to attack you or approach your direction so there's plenty of action for a secondary in that regards without being hampered by having a slowish ship. For a finish however, while a secondary build Warspite is plausible and to somewhat affective under those conditions, it just isn't the sensible build for Co-op battles which are just too fast and frantic. As others mentioned, the Warspite isn't that quick and Co-op tends to have target ships quickly reduced by half to yoloing teammates DD's that race around shotgunning big juicy targets with their torps so... while there's time to actually shoot something I feel it best to rely on the Warspites rather impressive main guns which are pretty big for her tier, really accurate once you learn the shell velocity and do hit very hard. Far more reliable for consistent damage dealing. But like I said, for those two mentioned Scenario battles, a secondary Warspite build is actually pretty good and fun. Edit- Also, being a dread, the Warspite tends to catch fire easily and often. So it's nice to go with a normal build that includes equipment and skills for reducing fires and fire duration etc.

How does the T7 and T8 compare to the Gneise and Bismarck in random battles?

Ya I must admit to having a few T7 BB's kitted out purely for PvE Lols, mostly Narai Ops. Most of these builds would make a PvP focused player cry with rage because they would undoubtedly be very inefficient across a decent sample size of battles and suffer greatly. But because Scenario battles is very much a rinse and repeat with very few variables(and even Co-op to a lesser extent), such a cringe setup will work very well because we know exactly what ships are in the battle, where they are and when they arrive(mostly!!) and as such, we can get away with a build tailored for maximum fun as we would see it lol. Gneise, Lyon and even that relatively new addition from the Armory, the Duke of York. All secondary builds, delightful to play with all those guns popping off at enemy ships and they all have their own little flavor in regards their secondaries. They all have Auxiliary Arm mod in slot 1, Secondary Battery Mod in slot 3 and a Steering Gears mod in their 4th slot to swing that big BB around more efficiently. Commander skills include all the secondary skills obviously, Adrenaline Rush which is common to all battle modes of course but some other skills are dropped in favor of more fun such as taking the "Grease the Gears" skill for faster main battery traverse speed to compliment the improved turning with Steering Gears plus I've taken the skill "Close Quarters Expert" instead of concealment or any of the damage reduction or prevention type skills. There's no way I'd run these builds in PvP but in these PvE modes, they totally work and with maximum fun potential lol. In these PvE modes, we get to select skills and builds that we probably would love to try but wouldn't dare risk in PvP and that's a good thing... keeps the game playable instead of just clicking battle into randoms with the same basic BB build and playstyle over and over again.

Hi guys, Several battles lately this has happened. At some points during the battle, enemy ships that are apparently spotted and clearly fighting with my teammates are not shown on my screen, they're invisible. I have to get to within around secondary gun distance before they appear again. This isn't something that happens from the very start and tends to kick in during the battle at some point without any obvious reasons. I thought perhaps it was some new update where I need some direct line of sight before the target is shown to me and also, when the target is not visually on my screen it seems to be shown as a lighter shade of red, then goes to that normal darker shade of red when they become visual again. Is this a bug, connectivity issues, a new feature or is there a new Romulan cloaking device available for ships I wasn't aware of? Surely I should be seeing this Sinap. and this enemy Bismarck. Just a few of many such examples I could have used. The Bismarck is located right in the center of this screenshot and you see his secondaries popping away. No ship.

Interesting. Thanks guys. :)

According to wowsft both ships have identical rudder shift times and turning circle radii so unless there's some unstated differences in lost momentum or power to weight ratio then both ships should have identical turning performance. Nicely timed thread btw. I was taking a long hard look at the Tirp since I find myself playing a lot of the Bismarck lately and wondering which attribute, hydro vs torps, was more important to the majority of players with these BB's. I guess like anything, you get used to and play towards what you have and what you don't have so while the ships are very similar and almost identical in many areas, having and not having torps will employ two different playstyles approaches at various moments during a battle along with having and not having hydro... same way that even two identical ships would play differently if one had a secondary build and the other was a non-secondary build. Same ships, yet different ships. I suppose to answer the "Is the Tirpitz worth it if you already have the Bismarck" question would be yes for the obvious fact that the Tirp is a premium ship with all the benefits and flexibility that comes with that while the Bismarck is a tech tree with all of those failings and limitations.