USS Buffalo guide

[VC381]

1 hour ago, Muki321 said:

any recommendations for captain build?

I have taken PT, EM, SI and CE

have 2 points left and not sure where to put them in. Maybe Adrenaline rush would make sense....don't want to build up an AA platform

 

AR is a great pick at 12 points. Or save for DE at 13 and AR at 15.

[HMS_Kilinowski]

I got PT, AR, DE, CE and AFT.

 

EM is imo not needed as the ship turns too slow too outturn the guns even with the firerate module. SI can be useful as you have 3 different consumables, but then again heal is low and damage, when it comes, comes fast and hard. An extra heal will seldom save you. The extra radar is nice to have, but even then will you or the enemy DDs live long enough to see 3-4 DD hunts in a battle? And defAA is also nice to have given a CV is present, given you and the CVs planes live long enough to see 4 attacks and given the CV has not learned the lesson after 3 attacks.

 

I mean EM and SI are certainly useful. EM can be very useful when you get into a brawl within islands and cannot use your rudder to bring your guns to bear. I can even see Expert Loader as a useful skill, given you shoot a lot of HE and really must be quick to get AP ready when a cruiser exposes himself. That issue however is specific to slow reloading CAs and solves itself with the Des Moines.

Most players will see the Buffalo only as a means to get to Des Moines and will want to train their captain to end up there, where some of Buffalo's weaknesses are gone and compensation is not needed. And your playstyle apart from the support role depends on lighting many fires on many enemy ships fast, so AR and DE make a lot of sense. EM and SI are useful but I don't see why they would be essential enough to be trained before AR and DE.

[HMS_Kilinowski]

Finally, I have finished my Buffalo.

In retrospect that was not fun. The Buffalo was a karma- and WR-killer. I had better results even in terms of XP on my T8 cruisers.

 

I had my best results when playing her in the open rather than hugging islands as she is intended to. Imo the biggest flaw of this ship is its slow rudder shift and poor acceleration.

- If you play an island camping style, enemy ships can flank your position. You rely on your team to stand their ground to prevent this flanking but that won't happen. Your team will run cause they feel they have to and they can, leaving you exposed.

- Even being slightly flanked will result in your nose or rear becoming exposed and consequently being shot at.

- Your firing arcs are somewhat high enough to shoot over islands but as enemy shells - especially CL-shells - loose speed their angle gets steeper and they can hit you too.

- As enemy ships move closer, your arcs will be lower and your initial position behind the island will no longer be sufficient to shoot over the island. You will hit the island.

- Taking all together you will need to reposition your ship quickly to another spot at the same island, to a spot further away from the island or to another island.

- You don't have thrusters on the side like modern ships, so you reposition your ship like you would park a car, going back and forth, even when you only need to move your ship a few meters sideways. With slow acceleration and huge turning circle, this means that it will take you forever and you are almost guaranteed to overshoot your cover.

 

I found that kiting BBs at distances of 12km and more works quite well. You will set a lot of fires and can angle against most of the incoming fire. Against 460mm guns you however stand no chance.

A colleague of mine has reported having good results with a kiting build. That requires you to take Propulsion Mod2 in the 4th slot and Steering Gears Mod3 in the 5th slot. Effectively you are giving up a lot of concealment and will be fired more upon. The better propulsion will prohibit you from taking the Steering Gears Mod2 (-20%), which you overcompensate by SGM3 (-40%), getting 6.7s rudder shift. Alternatively you could leave Propulsion as it is and go full rudder shift kiting build, taking SGM2 and SGM3 for a total of -60% and a rudder shift time of 4.5s. That is better than the usual Zao build and a Zao is designed for kiting at range.

I think the key element to successfully dodging is the fast rudder shift here. When you move your ship to evade a salvo from 12km and beyond you effectively at the start move your rear into the opposite direction of where you are going (much like getting your rear out of a torp or ramming attempt). Thus your rear is pretty much moving through the spot where the shells are going to land. Only with fast rudder shift you will be able to navigate your ship back on your original course in time, and pulling your rear section out of the impact zone, performing an S-shaped maneuver. Shell flying time is about 12s at medium range, With 4.5s rudder shift you will be able to engage full rudder to one side, have it return to center position and engage full rudder to the other side in about 13.5s. So you almost complete your turn by the time, the salvo hits the target area.

 

My cpt was a 14 pt captain that I have taken all the way from Erie up to Des Moines. Skills used were PT, AR, DE, CE and AFT.

AFT has been of questionable use as atm few CVs are seen and if I was attacked by them they were coming in hard, baiting defAA with TBs and following with AP-bombs once defAA was on cooldown, nuking me.

So I think an alternative way to go is to pick SI and IFA, to give you more of your plentiful consumables and be warned of long range salvos. If you kite as soon as you are targetted, lots of good players will anticipate your turn and fire to where you are going. Effectively you are targetted much more than fired upon, so IFA will probably help you to distinguish both. This build will also work nice in Clan Battles as there are no CVs and AFT would be a waste of points there. In random however you are vulnerable to air strikes.

But if we continue treating CV- and DD- players the way we currently do, this will soon be a BB-and-cruiser-only game anyway. ;)

[Corocotta15]

I hate this ship. No range, weak broadside, weak bow, no torps... Only is good for AA. Is the nurse of BB's.

[rnat]

5 hours ago, Corocotta15 said:

No range

You're free to pick the range mod if you really want to.

5 hours ago, Corocotta15 said:

weak broadside, weak bow

The heaviest T9 tech-tree cruiser broadside shooting 12 USN super-heavy 8'' shells and sporting the "heavy" 27mm cruiser bow.

The only ships that actually best the Buffalo in those regards are the T9 battle cruisers like Alaska and Kronshtadt (and even that one has a weaker bow)