Would an HE-only cruiser be effective?

[RadioFighterYR]

The title says it all. Please explain your opinions below.

 

Thank you, even though WG would never add that, I'd still like to find out what you guys think. Yes, yes, I know how little experience on the game I have, but I have a reason to ask this - the HE-OP rounds British battleships recieve.

[ColonelPete]

It would be bad game design as AP only cruisers.

 

When a cruiser shows you broadside, you want AP. That even applies to BB in some situations.

 

AP only cruiser have trouble dealing with angled targets at long range, which should be fought with HE.

[ollonborre]

Yes and no. Yes in the sense that you will always do something regardless of angling and fires. And no-ish since that once a target gives you enough broadside the AP damage will surpass the HE.

 

Honestly I don't really see the point. Most light cruisers with the introduction of IFHE are pretty much "HE only cruisers". And even if you have HE those AP volleys are really something I would miss when a target is so saturated you can only reach a fraction of the damage.

 

The British AP only cruisers work since they get special AP, smoke, torps and heal. But that is the thing, they kind of need this pile of gimmicks to have their full potential (not in any way saying they are bad or ineffective, but you get the point).

 

[Infiriel]

It`d be effective for sure, but it`d also be damaging for gameplay.

Such ship would sit back and spam HE all day long, because it is in a disadvantage in close combat, and we don`t have enough campers yet.

[RadioFighterYR]

2 minutes ago, ollonborre said:

Yes and no. Yes in the sense that you will always do something regardless of angling and fires. And no-ish since that once a target gives you enough broadside the AP damage will surpass the HE.

 

Honestly I don't really see the point. Most light cruisers with the introduction of IFHE are pretty much "HE only cruisers". And even if you have HE those AP volleys are really something I would miss when a target is so saturated you can only reach a fraction of the damage.

 

The British AP only cruisers work since they get special AP, smoke, torps and heal. But that is the thing, they kind of need this pile of gimmicks to have their full potential (not in any way saying they are bad or ineffective, but you get the point).

 

Then how about special HE as well? That would benefit more from IFHE but lose even more fire chance as well, and can only make up half of it (for example) with demo expert?

 

[Panocek]

Light cruisers with IFHE already are HE only, as their AP against other cruisers is kinda situational - even russian railguns need to be kinda close to reliably citadel other cruisers. On other hand HE limited heavy cruisers would be straight up detrimental unless given some ridiculous gimmicks like 1/2 HE penetration or overbuffed shell damage

[ollonborre]

2 minutes ago, RadioFighterYR said:

Then how about special HE as well? That would benefit more from IFHE but lose even more fire chance as well, and can only make up half of it (for example) with demo expert?

 

But why though? Honestly we don't need more "special" things or ships loaded with tons of gimmicks. All we need are shiplines with basic pros and cons, we don't need ships with gimmicks just for the sake of giving them something to make them stick out. Look at the French cruisers. Perfectly fine in their own right, some weird spaced armor, guns somewhere in between of russian and american guns. But no they just had to have a speed boost for the sake of, something.

[GeneralSavage]

Well to be honest, it's just gonna bring up more frustrated players into the forum with an interesting, long rant. 

[El2aZeR]

6 hours ago, ollonborre said:

But why though?

 

 

I see you do not embrace concept of glorious gimmick comrade.

You will be sent to gulag at once!

[BeauNidl3]

Viable yes and some players have no idea they even have AP anyway.

Optimal? Hell no, even with 152's or smaller there are plenty of times when AP is the only right choice, the fact that some people won't ever make the choice is another matter. 

[Yedwy]

Many cl acctualy already play like that nowdays and ap is used only really really rearly ie only when another cl gives Full broadside under 10-12km so yeah u could manage but why?

[BeauNidl3]

22 minutes ago, Yedwy said:

Many cl acctualy already play like that nowdays and ap is used only really really rearly ie only when another cl gives Full broadside under 10-12km so yeah u could manage but why?

 

That's not optimal of course, many BB targets at that relatively close range get hammered by cruiser AP if aimed at the upper belt and superstructure, far more so than with HE at a similar range. Depends on the cruiser, angle and range of course.

A good deal of the player base is now wedded to HE and only HE, just had a ranked game that was an easy win thrown away by 2 HE spamming Bismarcks and an Atago so of course the opposition cruisers and BB's just showed broadside and destroyed them with AP.

[xXx_Blogis_xXx]

you better ask : why not AP only in ca ^^

[EsaTuunanen]

1 hour ago, BeauNidl3 said:

 

That's not optimal of course, many BB targets at that relatively close range get hammered by cruiser AP if aimed at the upper belt and superstructure, far more so than with HE at a similar range. Depends on the cruiser, angle and range of course.

A good deal of the player base is now wedded to HE and only HE, just had a ranked game that was an easy win thrown away by 2 HE spamming Bismarcks and an Atago so of course the opposition cruisers and BB's just showed broadside and destroyed them with AP.

All or nothing armored battleships with only small part of side covered by thicker armor are very good AP targets if they show side.

Including destroyer guns inside flatter trajectory range.

 

10 hours ago, Panocek said:

On other hand HE limited heavy cruisers would be straight up detrimental unless given some ridiculous gimmicks like 1/2 HE penetration or overbuffed shell damage

Aren't those called as RN BBs?

(except they're lot more durable than cruisers then getting also that zombie heal)

[NothingButTheRain]

I think it would be more useful then AP-only. I'm also thinking something like Zao.

[ollonborre]

15 minutes ago, NothingButTheRain said:

I think it would be more useful then AP-only. I'm also thinking something like Zao.

Sure the Zao can spam HE all game long and still be very effective. But Expert Loader combined with AP and delivering surprise 10-15k volleys on cruisers or BB's that don't expect it is even more effective.

[NothingButTheRain]

3 minutes ago, ollonborre said:

Sure the Zao can spam HE all game long and still be very effective. But Expert Loader combined with AP and delivering surprise 10-15k volleys on cruisers or BB's that don't expect it is even more effective.

Yes I know. But the question was if cruisers 'can' be effective with HE only. And my answer to that question is 'yes'.

Sure, I'll even use AP with Atlanta once in a while, but would usually use HE.

 

I suppose when shooting AP at BBs you aim for the superstructure or the side above the armored belt?

[ollonborre]

18 minutes ago, NothingButTheRain said:

I suppose when shooting AP at BBs you aim for the superstructure or the side above the armored belt?

Pretty much. All high tier cruiser AP is often a lot more effective than most people think. And even if a BB start to angle the superstructure gets enough armor for your shells to dig in aswell.

[eliastion]

We already have cruisers that hardly ever reach for AP. OF COURSE it would be possible to design one that's perfectly effective without even having the AP option in the first place - although in certain situations this would be a significant drawback, of course (after all, you can safely expose broadside to such an enemy, so the HE-only ship would have a harder time controlling enemy movements).

 

Of course, the separate problem is: WHY.

The big advantage of HE is that it's easier to use - it doesn't cause the catastrophic damage AP is known for, but it's easier to do SOME damage. Do we REALLY need a ship focused on spamming HE all day long? HE spam has the downside (from gameplay perspective, not user perspective) that it's much harder (or, in fact, not really possible) to mitigate. Current HE spammers have AP option, a ship without it would need the HE to be appropriately a bit more powerful to maintain balance. But when you do that, you have an extremely annoying ship to play against and not very skill-rewarding to play as.

 

Just like circular drop pattern of GZ bombers is a complete brainfart on WG side, a HE-only cruiser would be little better. We don't need ships with no counterplay, regardless of whether they are objectively OP or not.

[Lord_WC]

Not really.

 

You would lose all effectiveness against enemy cruisers (unless it has some idiotic HE like Conq which citadel pens cruisers).

You also could only do grey damage to enemies - and in high tiers basically everyone has heal. It would be an ideal ship so people could make 'I'm doing 200k average damage on my ship, yet the stupid team always loses' threads and never realize how incredibly useless they were.

 

On 5/9/2018 at 10:51 AM, NothingButTheRain said:

I suppose when shooting AP at BBs you aim for the superstructure or the side above the armored belt?

Get a Moskva and citadel them through the belt armor like real men do.

[wilkatis_LV]

Most cruisers never shoot AP anyway, so what's the difference?

[GhostRiderMax123]

Do we need more dedicated HE spammers? 

 

I think this would just cause more camping really something which badly needs addressed. 

[VC381]

90% or more of cruisers (or rather cruiser players) in game do this anyway and are viable, so yes it would be. Sure you can optimise but fundamentally it would work without gimmicks. Why would you want this though?

[HaachamaShipping]

It depends on the HE shell parameters. If you are talking like Cleveland but without AP, thatr thing would just be utter garbage. Why would you want a ship without AP? AP is of great importance when you know how to use it. Even if you don't know, it at least dissuades the more intelligent enemy from presenting broadside to bring potential rear turrets to bear.

 

Now, AP-only cruisers however got special SAP shells that got better characteristics than normal AP to deal with targets you'd typically spam HE against. If these HE cruisers were to receive an HE shell that actually has good alpha and good penetration characteristics (inbuilt 1/3 or 1/2 caliber pen for example), then you'd likely have a ship that can replace its AP and lose little. Then, depending on calber, these ships would be pretty brutal, as on lower tiers 152 mm can citadel 75 mm citadel belt and at higher levels 203 mm can citadel 100 mm. It would fall a bit flat vs any multi-layered armour (many BBs where you cannot pen the belt and there are multiple decks, and higher tier French cruisers) and frankly, it'd be bad game design making the ammunition choice even dumber. RN AP-only cruisers were already strange, but at least noone can say that these ships with paper armour and weakness to angled armour plates are for easier play.

[Deckeru_Maiku]

There are a couple of cruisers already, that can get around quite well using HE exclusively.

Examples:

• Yubari... now armour, will take crits like hell when shot at.. so the best way to play her is using her range, but AP is next to useless on long range, so shooting HE exclusively is the way to go
• Crispy... sorry.. Krasny Krim.. about the same as Yubari, just with longer range... yes, you could (!) use AP versus cruisers at close range, but you would get punished for trying.