totally_potato

This is a long one uhh what??? Much better reply than part 1 where all kinds of shenanigans were made. But apart from that, are they trying to say that Hindenburg is as weak as Zao coz spreadsheet says so? Ok so they stated some good points. WR isn't everything as some players like to see it, Zao is a popular cruiser sure (that's mostly down to it being the last ship of a pretty popular line of ships). And ok, if you really mean that Zao is alright in other areas of statistics, release it to the public domain. We all would like to see, how good it actually is. And no, the perception that Zao is a weak ship is not becoz of low WR. ZF-6 has a pretty average WR, yet its a very good destroyer. It comes from playing the ship. Its seen how many ppl actually played the ship, and most of them are saying Zao is weak, not just me and some random streamer. Her main strengths are her agility and firepower (torps are a bonus, so I am not touching that aspect). But we have to look at these 3 strengths relative to other T10 cruisers. She has 12 8 inch guns with good HE shells (standard pen, good alpha and good fire chance), and decent AP shells (decent pen, and alpha) and good ballistics, very good conceal, and good maneuverability as a whole. Now if we compare her to other farming cruisers like Henri, Hindenburg, Moskva, Salem etc, we can see that the guns are similar in performance and if lacking somewhere, it compensates somewhere else. Henri has 9 guns only, but a big caliber with very good HE shells (good pen, good damage, good fire chance), and good AP shells (amazing pen, great damage) with great ballistics. She has base faster reload than Zao (not by much tho tbh), better range, better firing arcs and MBRB. While she doesn't share the maneuverability characteristics, she is insanely fast (fastest cruiser in the game atm), however turns worser than a Zao. She has worser concealment, but sufficient HP, and combined with her speed, she is quite survivable. So Henri not only has better guns than Zao, but beats her in speed as well as survivability. Let's compare her to her closest companion, Hindenburg. To start off with guns, they are polar opposites yet the same. Zao has decent AP and great HE, while Hindi has great AP and decent HE. Her HE has a significant armor threshold crossed which is 50mm, which means unlike Zao who has to rely on fires here, Hindi does consistent damage to several BBs, soviet cruisers, and some of the other heavily armored cruisers. Her fire chance is lower (its still quite decent tbf), and her alpha is the lowest among T10 CA HE, but she makes up for it in RoF, and raw DPM which is applies very well. So her HE is much more versatile than Zao. As for her AP, pen is a bit lower, but her alpha is amazing, and her RoF and good ballistics makes this AP quite good against broadsides, just like Zao AP. And she has some of the highest AP DPM among T10 CA. Her guns are also very comfortable to use (arcs, range and all). Her concealment is worser and so is maneuverability, but she is way more survivable, and is in fact the better damage farmer. Honestly from a damage dealing point, Zao's concealment and maneuverability don't provide that much to the table. It makes her disengage better, sure. But from a damage dealing perspective, it doesn't provide much to the table. They are more national traits than actual valid points to bring a Zao to even randoms, let alone comp. Back in the day, the Japanese cruisers had this stealth attack sort of deal that made them quite strong. But ever since the ranges have been pushed out, and better damage farmers have been introduced, Zao has lost her touch. You nerfed her HP becoz stealth fire was a thing, and that was a good balance change. But its been years since Stealth fire was removed. Zao hasn't got her HP back. Her turret angles were also a balancing factor becoz she could do the whole pop out of nowhere, set a fire and disappear jazz, and so players should be able to somewhat counter it. Yeah that made perfect sense when stealth fire was a thing and engagement ranges were shorter. Now it doesn't. I don't ask for much, but 5-6k more HP (still lower than other cruisers, but now her concealment and maneuverability trait make a lot more sense with this buff, and slightly better turret angles. I don't want them to be absolutely amazing, but it would be nice if she had a bit better turret angles. Her firing range is also an issue, but that can be kept, or used as an alternative for the HP or gun angle buff. Then Zao would be fine tbh. Uhh ok? You did not refer to the branch of new BBs as close range fighters? Yep you totally didn........... ..........right anyway The BCs from T3-6 are pretty well armored imo, however, the T7-9 are certainly not tanky at all. Then the T10 is back to good armor. Its kinda weird tbh. But honestly 30mm icebreaker makes no sense in any way, especially on T8 and T9 (the entire bow and stern plating of a standard BB of that tier is more than that, like literally). The T8 has this massive 10Head superstructure, and a ton of shell catchers and traps. The T9, well its better but the whole armor scheme makes no sense. Also well BCs are supposed to be you know, fast? Atleast faster than the same tier German Battleships? This holds true again for the same pattern of ships. T3-6 have this and so does the T10, the T7-9 don't. T7 Prinz Heinrich German BC goes 28 knots, while T7 German battleship goes 32 knots. Now this one case can be forgotten, becoz the Gneisenau was sort of a Battlecruiser type of ship. So I can be fine with it. But Zieten and Prinz Rupprecht? Zieten goes at the same speed as Bismarck, and the BCs and some BBs of the tier outrun it. T9 P.Rupper goes faster than FDG by a whole 1 knot while sacrificing a ton of armor and HP, which makes no sense. Not to mention a ton of T9 and T10 ships outrun it. Georgia, Alsace, Iowa, etc. Now these were my problems listed. Back to the main topic. I don't see any issue with the secondary battery, unless the accuracy isn't good. And yes, if possible, give the 105mm guns a bit more fire chance, becoz the ships you compared them with, relied on fires and high accuracy to hit the superstructure at mid range. And yes as you mentioned, a test is better than an assumption. Btw, despite adding all kinds of ships, the meta is still kinda of stagnant so yeah, so much for saying that. Now you did buff German BBs in the past, but that doesn't mean they are great or anything. Also on every stat page, we see these ships at the absolute bottom of the pack, especially the high tier German BBs. The lower tier ones are completely fine, so are the mid tier ones. But the high tier ones, well, they suck to put it lightly. So much superstructure, pushing being an opportunistic and dumb than a smart and tactical play in todays meta, secondaries not being the best (hopefully next update fixes that) and being prone to breaking in HE spam, inconsistent gun performance, you name it. While a full branch buff is not needed, the high tier ones (T8-10) need a whole lot of tweaking. Hmm, good answer for this Fair enough Ok I suppose I wish Interceptor was a type of fight available for BBs, so that I can hurt CVs a bit more while I do agree that adding penetration, impact angle charts, every single statistic will overload the game interface, small things like fuse time, ricochet angles, flooding chance for torps, overall alpha and DPM of a certain shell type of a certain ship, these things can be mentioned in the main statistics tab. These small things shouldn't overload the interface to the point where it can't be fixed, atleast any 2 of these figures. How can a few numbers simply tell you something is unchanged? The gameplay speaks for itself. While it is true, that Siegfried's main feature wasn't secondaries, it was still a feature many ppl bought siegfried for, not just the guns. Some of us bought this becoz this was the first cruiser on which secondaries could be built. Well now, the cruiser either needs to have good secondary accuracy base, or you can just forget secondaries exist, and I really don't think that should be the case. Also super cruisers in general, have had their survivability taken away becoz of these fires I did a proposal on the forum a few days ago altho idk whether that matters anyway but I'll show it. It basically brings back the secondary skill and FP for cruisers along with tweaking a few weird skills. Now I could have give BoS, but keeping the fire duration at 60 seconds unless major maneuverability or concealment sacrifices are made, but I wanted to keep at 3 fires. Even normal cruiser can spec it if the want, so its overall helping both cruisers and supercruisers. But back to my point, many of the features, that you took away made certain ships fun and appealing to the consumers, so taking it away was not a great move on your behalf. this kind of makes sense on paper, but doesn't happen in practice that efficiently. But yes, "Random" battles. It would be nice however to have a filter for maps, tier selection, etc. So the one who chooses a comfortable experience, have to wait a bit longer than others. But queue time impact is not great and a "positive" experience. Still I feel like a filter option should atleast be in the game. So that the time spent waiting for your random MM or comfortable MM is mostly in control of the player. Just a suggestion Fair enough So uhh, CVs don't nuke ships outright, so not OP, while ignoring the other factors? CVs shouldn't even be in Clan Wars tbf, but oh well, no luck for clan guys. Glad I don't have to play that mode. That still doesn't change the fact that 2 CVs is hilarious fair enough I suppose But still we haven't even had new maps in a while let alone a different symmetry of a map. 18-19 months to be specific. So new maps plz? And yeah, different symmetries of maps would be something different and even fun. Even tho, at a later point it might not be relevant, it would atleast confirm your speculation if you release a map with rotational symmetry into the random queue of maps we currently have. While I agree that the approach is much better than the CV rework and commander rework fiesta, the subs are not anywhere close to release. They are kinda boring, they don't offer anything new that DDs couldn't do. Subs diving is similar to DD smoking up, DD has a sap secondary that is nice, but utterly pathetic compared to DD guns, and DDs also have torps, as well as a ton of utility. Subs are basically in this case, gunless DDs, and its pretty boring. The whole idea of subs was never going to work tbf but since its been 2 years, do what you can. What I did find bizarre is that the BBs that are kinda supposed to push and close in (Russians, Germans and Italians) get no ASW equipment whatsoever, while ones that don't need to push in, do get the ASW equipment. Weird. Again, idk how all of this is gonna work, its a mess atm, but well again, do what you can. Better QnA than before with better answers, but some of the weird ones still remain. Again, you are just looking at statistics in terms of balance, not looking at the gameplay where the ships interact. Maybe have a look at that too, in the future? Edit: Press F to pay respect to my hand

ah thnx, lemme take a look at it I'd like to see what WG says that everyone thinks is messed up in part 2

I mean Iowa is a fast BB concept, which literally every T9 that isn't the fat burger american T9 counterpart Minnesota, are. If you want to flank, you have the Lepanto, Georgia and Alsace, you want to brawl, you have FDG/Pommern, and Lepanto, you want to play your typical mid range normal BB gameplay, there is Izumo, if you want gun presence there is Musashi. There are so many options to choose. Iowa is basically a good beginners BB, but once you are a vet, and understand the game, and have a fair few T9 BBs, you will never miss the Iowa's gameplay. Also Iowa, while she does have 3 more guns, are lower caliber, and they reload in the standard 30 seconds. Georgia has 18 inch guns with high alpha, that gives several ships especially cruisers a run for their money. And you have BC dispersion and fast reload. And that extra 4-5k HP honestly doesn't mean a whole lot tbh. Yes you'll probably survive in more scenarios in tanking than Gerogia, but a Georgia is much more survivable thnx to decent concealment and 40 knots speed. So yeah

becoz its a great line for beginners?

in 2050? Will probably arrive a bit too early How about 2.0.0

thing is mate 16 inch guns are now the standard caliber for T9. So its not that special. But it can overmatch quite a few cruisers. 9 guns isn't special, and they are decently accurate at range. The armor isn't special. Big bow and stern leads to more HE penetrating there, 38mm helps you vs HE of standard and IFHE CLs, Standard CA, and DDs that aren't the German heavy DDs (Elbing line) or some reckless guy with IFHE specced German DD (Z-52 line). Everything else pens your deck with HE and there is a ton of everything else. The belt is decent, but cit is pretty big so you will hit it. Its waterline I think so its not as ez as hitting a flat Soyuz cit, but its not particularly hard either. And you have a cheek weakness which isn't Yamato prominent but its def there. Also the superstructure is gigantic. Its only defining thing in survivability is probably the heal which heals 0.66% HP stock per second vs the standard 0.5% per second. She is fast yes, but in a straight line. She doesn't turn particularly well. And you lose a ton of speed in the process. And there are many BBs you'll face in her tier spread that are similar or faster in speed. Decent concealment tho TLDR you are getting this ship for historical purposes if at all. Not saying its a bad ship But there are better options.

Hmm interesting But I suppose short fuse is both a blessing and a curse Otherwise Petro would overpen all cruisers and would cit Iowas 15km away

I'd say Lutgens. Think about it. TLDR is Lutgens is an essential boost to all German ships (even the CVs), so you unlock new potential on many ships OR A very competitive FR DD, but you can just play Kleber and get a similar if not better experience

if you are a vet you should know WG can say something and do something else entirely They did kinda explain MM but idk whether I should trust it. I just consider MM random. In ranked, only same league players can play, and idk about clan, but similar level of leagues can play together as far as I know.

you realise that his eyes are healing? He went through an eye surgery a few weeks ago. He's playing for the content, and well even I can see at times Flambass's eyes twitch. tbf if I were him, I wouldn't even consider playing till my eyes are fully healed.

I have to admit. I am glad they put this in the game. Its so different from the others, its so much fun to play. And also it feels weird playing this so called "Super" DDs. Like we all knew Spahkreuzer was a bad design choice considering the M class Designs were already a thing and much better when paired with normal DDs. We knew she was gonna be pretty bad considering she wouldn't be a good cruiser or a good destroyer. Even when it came out, we bashed WG so much. They proved us all wrong. This line turned out to be a good line. It also follows a sleek transition from the normal DD (T-22 and Gaede 128mm gun version), to the big gun DD (Gaede 150mm version, Z-31), to the mini cruiser (GJM, F . Schultz, Elbing). Its a very good transition line imo. And honestly when you look at DPM, effective DPM is the most reliable source on how good DPM ships will be. Ships like Marceau can only apply like 20% of their DPM vs a BB, while Z-52 can apply from 60% - 100% of her DPM on BBs and well Marceau has the better DPM on paper. So yeah. Also these ships can perform some roles for the team. A second line DD who is with the DD, a few km behind and is shielding the DD with gun support and AA cover (Felix AA is decent, Elbing AA is quite good), or quite simply a large fleet escort which has torps as a zoning tool, smoke to cover teammates, and AA support. These ships are quite good in a div.

there all kinds of strats that can be used. All kinds of good decisions that isn't confined to just one gamemode

Island camping is ez to counter in such a short mode. You only have 3 ships to fight, and well in T7 you just rush the guy. Now in a DD you can fully yolo dump your torps, and give the guy a face full of gun dmg unless its a BB. In a cruisers, you perma spot him if you have hydro, and if you don't hug the island and insta spot him (why would you take a non-hydro cruiser anyway). And in a BB, you bait the torps and rush him afterward, or just push him out of hiding hole and the rest of your team can kill him. In T6 you have the god class in so yeah, I don't need to tell much more than that. Ofc its a such a short mode, and T6 CVs aren't tanky af, so you will find them and kill them easily. And I have seen very few ppl camping at the back. And if they camp, they don't have much where else to go since you can just rush it and kill it anyway. The worst thing they do is rush in a like a A-hole. And well in this small mode, you can carry your team more times than not coz 3 ships isn't that big of a deal considering the maps you have, get a lot of islands, and you don't get shot at 100% of the time. You have a few moments to approach your situation. Unless you chose the most bizzare ship you could think of. Its brainless if you don't want to think about, its interesting if you have some close range strats to use. And the most of all, its fun for ppl. Idk why brawls is hated when it fulfills the primary goal of being fun. Like srsly? how is it boring then? ok fair enough I mean if one of those 6 ppl is you then sure. If its not and you care about having fun and winning, you can do it, way better than ranked or randoms. Way less ships, the maps in the gamemode have a lot of islands for a breather, and when you do fight the ships, there way less of chance of missing your shells (unless you are the guy who tried hard to make that shot miss and blame WG(not saying its you, I am talking about some of those potatoes)). And these are short matches where you have a ton of impact so its fun.

Petro has bad HE DPM. So bad ship. What? Don't look at me. Ask the flat earthers why its a bad ship. They told me

The US BBs were one. The early tier ones were slow af. But I quickly learned to think ahead of what I am doing and I got better at them. Helped me a lot when I got to stock NC which was abysmally slow till I upgraded the engine. And then the glorious Iowa and Montana grind which I enjoyed. The FR BBs and DDs. They looked garbage at first glance. Only liked the Lyon. But ended up liking them. I particularly enjoyed Richy rich T8 BB, becoz the frontal gun setup allowed me to do a lot of "interesting" stuff. As for the DDs, I thought that even with good speed, they need some sort of way to survive and thought the idea was garbage. I was wrong again. Ended up being a line I enjoyed a fair bit, even the mid tier ones. The British CLs. Well yes actually. I hated the fact that I exploded when getting shot at, and was even cit by DD HE. I stopped at Danae, looked at the vids ppl put out to get a good understanding of them, and while even today I don't play the Mino that much, I still consider them good ships and enjoyed the grind. The Japanese split DDs. Well the simple reason was, I tried playing the Minekaze, Hatsuharu like gunboats. I eventually played the Minekaze like the Kamikaze, got to Hatshu, tried to play her like a gunboat, failed miserable, free XPed to the T7, tried gunboating, failed miserably, decided to play her like a torp boat, worked wonders and then I started to question WG's decision on this. Got to the Akizuki and finally played her like a gunboat and it worked. At that time I think the Harugumo was in testing so I briefly got to play her with the bad HE, but the buff came and I enjoyed Akizuki, and then grinded both Kita and Harugumo. Kita was amazing, Haru literally was the first DD that could murder cruisers with its firepower. Then when I regrinded the line when the Research bureau came out, I played the full line till T8 as torp boats and then from Aki I played as gunboats and I thoroughly enjoyed the line. Its a bad line design becoz two different playstyles, one of which contradicts the purpose of the line, but its also the most enjoyable. I was wrong about the line's ships being bad but I still stand by my word that its trash design and therefore a bad line FInally, the new Ger DDs. Do I need to explain why we all misunderstood this line? The reasons lines are good is becoz A) The ships bring a unique playstyle or flavour or approach to a certain established playstyle (considering out the the lower below T6 ships since they teach you normal ship tactics before they touch the line's flavour and playstyle) B) The line maintains a consistent playstyle direction (from T5 onwards) C) The ships of the line are quite good for their tier (atleast 70% of the line). If they tick any two of the boxes, I can consider them a good line, particular point B. For eg. I consider the German BBs a good line becoz they tick points A and B. I consider the Japanese gunboat line a bad line becoz they only tick point C. So there you go

I said its a possibility Stop being a jerk everytime

yeah

Ok so you like camping at the back Also 3 man divs are a thing here Becoz its fun, and refreshing from the boring and frustrating meta of randoms and ranked?

I wonder who selected option no. 10 Maybe the ones who don't have a 2 year old kid?

officially no, nothing was nerfed. But y'know WG can keep secrets from us, so it might have been a stealth nerf. Who knows.

I would say first know your ship before making a good build on it. In 10.7, free skill resets are coming, so then you can fiddle around with different builds For my recommendation, I personally think Fletcher is a good gun boating knife fighter, and decent torpboat. So its an ok hybrid. Now it would be nice to know how you play the Fletcher, and how you want to play her. But I'll give three builds that I have tried and it worked fairly well for me, I would say Focusing on versatility Focusing on offense Radio location build Now the builds that work for me might not work for you, so I would say wait for the next update to drop to try out new builds becoz there will be a skill reset, and in the meanwhile, look for several Fletcher reviews to get an idea on how to play. P.S Pyro might actually be a good skill to take

its an alpha cruiser Not a DPM one So it gets outtraded heavily plus 60 second fires. But alpha does compensate somewhat. It is a balanced ship. T8 Alaska balanced by low trading power.

hmm, not a bad collab But I fear it might be a scam and then putting the communication thing as a defense. I have to say, I admire AvP in that skin

@gopher31 thnx Here we go So you buffed the detection significantly by 2km. That could be a very nasty thing since COnnecticut does have some amazing guns. Honestly the slow line should have gotten good conceal to compensate for their low speed You buffed the heal significantly, made a very nasty damage control which is more like a DoT/module breaking immunity consumable, which allows it to get into cover or pushing cruisers a bit more effectively. Full build makes it go 46.8 seconds which is nuts. So interesting variation in the damage control party. So consumable wise, looks nasty and refreshing. Uhh, brawler Vermont?? WHy reduce casemate? Armed too many shells? Was stupidly tanky? Uh wtf. Why did you nerf the acceleration and deceleration that much? Like its a brick now. Ok so you gave it back Vermont shells. Verdict: It looks different from the Vermont but idk why you would brawl with a circular iceberg that moves 23 knots. So gun change on ballistics? Interesting. Torp range change could put an impact on its range of maximum effect. Let's just wait and watch Verdict: Interesting, but honestly idk what to say. Incomparable is a weird ship. I really don't care about conceal But the reduction in consumables seems odd. Maybe you could have just reduced the number of heals and maybe radar. Keep the emergency speed boost as 3 charges Verdict: I don't like it. Never found Ragnar to be OP anyway. Oof Across the board nerf on planes. Tbf, the Cvs did seem overpowered. On the public domain we saw how ridiculous the strikes were. And nerfing the number of planes on deck gives other ships a breather. Constant strikes of one very heavy attack flight was just ridiculous af Verdict: Looks good. Soviet CVs provide something different to CV gameplay so hopefully they turn out great. . So Brandy never had the improved German accuracy? Well glad you buffed that Overall gun accuracy and reload buff? Hmm seems pretty good actually. The main problem remains. This is a brawler with low HP and no hydro. So idk Verdict: Much needed buffs, and welcomed by me. However the core issue remains. WG knows that brawlers can't work consistently without the HP to sustain. Its not about the HP you lose in a brawl, its the HP you lose to get there. And ngl, on Carbine's stream we saw a Brandy rush a Massa and a few ships in two brothers and secured some good kills, but half his HP was gone by just a alvo from bow guns of Massa. Like that's kind of scary for a supposed tanky brawler. And no hydro means you can't push in that well. DDs will just crush you. Nice buffs but core issue remains These guns had literal crap values. Like slow reload, lowest individual alpha, lower pen than even an Alaska which has the lowest pen among supercruisers, and weird set up for kiting. It had one special thing and that was short fuse. It made the guns consistent against cruisers. Why remove that? WG, for balance changes can you plz give a specific reason on the buffs or nerfs on certain aspects of a ship when it comes to balancing them. Verdict: Bad ok so you buffed the attack aircraft. Fair enough. I still think this ship should never see the light of day. But who am I to tell I suppose Verdict: idk what to say. Its more like, ok you've done it, now what, type of deal So a Baltimore with smoke. That kinda changes things. Oh well Verdict: Not needed tbh, but whatever Same deal. Also the main problems these ships is not even touched. Their fire duration is pointless. Even on GL, it doesn't have a higher HP pool. Its just a normal cruiser with Scharnhorst guns and airstrikes which are inconsistent. Verdict: Bad Oh god, the T4 to 9 are out and the T1-3 are still being tested Ok I suppose Yeah we aren't gonna miss that, since its unnoticeable anyway. The boost is small, and it resets when AA is inactive. Just like how MBRB running out resets the reload back to what it would have been without the Reload boost. Verdict: Not gonna miss it Same deal with consumable removal for cruisers. NOt gonna miss it The whole idea for " Improved Repair Party Readiness" is good. The problem was that the value was too low, and it only affected repair party which was limited in charges and didn't make a difference when you actually stacked up soo much potential dmg to make a difference as heals would probably run out by that point if you are actually using your heals well. You have increased the value. That's great, but not enough. It should be 1% per stack, and it should affect damage control party too. Then I would call this a good skill to compete with something like BoS Ok so the penalty was reduced slightly. Honestly, the penalty should have never been reduced in the first place. But every bit helps. The core problem remains of having bad enough accuracy to not hit DDs at first, allowing them to escape when they shouldn't have been spotted at that range in the first place. And a DD rushing you is just game over. Although German base BB accuracy is good enough at around 6km to start hitting properly, its still meh. But I like this approach of stacking up. I just feel like the initial value should be higher (20% for example), and the time to gain the full boost should be reduced, and the stacking up and losing the accuracy of the secondaries should take the same time. For eg if it takes 30 seconds to stack up to 60% bonus, then it should take 30 seconds to lose that, after the grace period of 10-15 seconds. Verdict: A good change for the better. Btw, can the 3 point BFT get the depth charge dmg increase, and then rename it to, something like Multitasker, etc. Ok I suppose. But combined with 80+ knot torps, I fear this may be too much. General opinion: Ok devblog. Some good changes, some bad ones. Skill changes were good.

Hmm, looks like a good update Anniversary collection Soviet CV event Aircraft Bureau contest CONVOYS (been waiting for that crap for years now) And a bunch of new content such as Glorious skins, bunch of flags etc