The pinnacle of balance - Novorossiysk (a.k.a. Giulio Cesare)

[wilkatis_LV]

So, a while back (about a month ago?) we had another Dev Q&A, where, after being asked about the GC, they completely dismissed the question, stumbled towards "it's balanced" and ended up on "we need more time to look into it". Funny how that's pretty much the same answer as we got in February - 4 months earlier.

 

As far as the February Q&A is concerned - GC was released "just" 4 months before it, so despite how balanced the ship is being obvious to everyone and their mother, it's sort of understandable that WG wanted to wait for "more data". But now, with that time doubled, still backtracking to the same answer... cmon

 

I understand that a premium ship, especially one that served in the Russian navy for 6 years, will never get nerfed, but at least be so kind as to admit that whoever was responsible for the balance of this ship massively f**ked up and pull it out of all current and upcoming sales.

 

And since WG seems to struggle with collecting that data (altho getting the data that GC needs to be buffed TWICE [torpedo belt & AP fuze sensitivity] happened surprisingly quickly, didn't it?), I spent an afternoon compiling it myself (yes, it's that easy to do it)

 

All data taken from 1st quarter of 2018 EU server - http://maplesyrup.sweet.coocan.jp/wows/shipstats/eu/ship_20180331.html

 

Instead of listing everything as totals I'm showing the difference in more detail by comparing the GC to the average of the tier. Perfectly average being 0, below average going into negatives, above average going into positives.

As for values:

Spoiler

WR given in %

XP - self explanatory (but, as always, it includes premium acc so might be somewhat misleading - then again over this many battles & players shouldn't matter too much)

Av. dmg - self explanatory

Av. kills - self explanatory

Survival rate given in %

K/D - self explanatory

Potential dmg - self explanatory

Spotting dmg - self explanatory

Main bat. hitrate given in %

 

GC compared to tier 5 BBs (including GC itself as it's one of them)

Spoiler

 

GC's obviously pulling the averages up quite a bit, so lets now compare GC to average of all tier 5 BBs excluding GC

Spoiler

 

One could say that the Revolution is clearly overperforming compared to others, but GC completely trashes that. Compared to ships of its own tier it's so far ahead in everything this my best conclusion is... this ship can't be compared to tier 5 BBs.

Also - Revolution beats it in potential dmg, clearly GC needs a buff there

 

 

Now when we see that it completely trashes ships of its own tier, lets take it a step up - compare the GC to the average of tier 6 BBs (obviously GC not included in calculating the average)

Spoiler

 

Poor GC, trailing behind in Potential dmg and Spotting dmg, clearly needs an immediate buff!!!!

A tier 5 ship, which beats all tier 6s in stuff like average dmg, kills, survival... Hell, GC even beats them all in XP, despite the fact that as the tiers go up you earn more xp by default

 

 

Clearly that still wasn't a fair comparison, lets take it to the max tier GC can meet in battle: compare to the average of tier 7 BBs (again - obviously GC is not included in calculating the average)

Spoiler

 

This is 2 tiers above the GC, and it's still consistently ABOVE AVERAGE. I mean, seriously, are you blind or what?! At least we finally found a couple of ships that GC can be compared to - Nelson, Scharnhorst, Duke of York... (kind of ironic how all of those are premiums aswell)

This bs is exactly why if I'm playing a tier 5 / 6 / 7 ship and I have a choice of fighting against a tier 7 BB like KGV / Nagato or figting a GC I'll go fight the t7 - for some f-ed up reason I stand a better chance against that ship than the god damn tier 5?!

And of course the obligatory - GC now clearly lags behind in potential & spotting dmg, needs some serious buffing!

 

And before someone says that this is only bcuz GC stomps on tier 4 ships all the time - have you been living under a rock that you have no idea what the tier 5 MM is like? As an example, since the last November I've played 70 tier 5 non-CV (as t5 CVs get special MM) games - 20 top tier (vs tier 4), 14 tier 6 battles, 36 bottom tier battles. That's 28.6% top tier, 20% "mid" tier, 51.4% bottom tier. I doubt I'm some special case in this regard, so it's safe to say that GC meets 7s about half of the games that ship plays. And it still outperforms most of them despite this

 

---

 

@MrConway @Crysantos @Tuccy could we PLEASE finally end this insanity? WG should admit their mistake and pull that stupid ship out of any sales. Tier 5 completely outdoing tier 7s is insane, and that's the best I can say about it

[Culiacan_Mexico]

9 minutes ago, wilkatis_LV said:

...And before someone says that this is only bcuz GC stomps on tier 4 ships all the time - have you been living under a rock that you have no idea what the tier 5 MM is like? 

I particularly like this part. 

 

 

 

Very good data.

 

 

[TheEntireGermanEmpire]

That is some damning evidence...
I wouldn't play the sovjet bias card, but rather the "we can't nerf premiums" one.
Still, that this ship still is on sale with that kind of performance only can mean one thing - since its not as openly broken as the  Belfast, it sells.
And if it sells, you cannot pull it of the shop.

Seeing this and still grating at the Hindenburg nerf raises my hackles.

[ColonelPete]

Hard to compare premium ships with silver ships as the playerbase is different.

When sailing silver ships, GCs in the enemy team do not scare me.

[creamgravy]

Accuracy, speed and armour has always been utterly bonkers for tier 5.

[principat121]

They cannot nerf the GC, because this would nerf the upcomming Novorossiysk too. Which they won't do.

[Prospect_b]

I've hated GC since the day it came out, and the moment WG started to pretend there is absolutely nothing wrong here, was for me the ultimate reason never to trust any single word they utter again.

 

1 hour ago, wilkatis_LV said:

And before someone says that this is only bcuz GC stomps on tier 4 ships all the time - have you been living under a rock that you have no idea what the tier 5 MM is like?

Yup, I know the joys of t5 mm.

 

But, a while ago I redid some lines on NA, and found some low tiers (real low, like 1-5) to be very fun. I think everyone should rebuy something like a kuma or karlsruhe, and see what happens when you'll meet that GC, especially since a lot of the low tier maps are quite horrid. Such effing fun.

 

And yeah, I know that specific GC is "lucky" to be top tier, cause most times he'll be uptiered, but that's where he frigging belongs.

But that's speaking about that specific GC. As the ship itself is very popular, cause OP as hell, you'll meet them a lot.

 

 

The only thing that can comfort me is knowing that it will have driven off quite some players from the game.

 

 

Thx for visualizing those details @wilkatis_LV - I am very curious if some of the WG ppl you hailed will answer.

[philjd]

Certainly quite damming statistics, both for the GC, and actually premiums in general - although the others do not over-perform to such a degree. Appreciate that premium drivers do not represent the average playerbase as a whole, which does distort the picture somewhat.

[orzel286]

43 minutes ago, principat121 said:

They cannot nerf the GC, because this would nerf the upcomming Novorossiysk too. Which they won't do.

No, no, no, obviously GC will get nerfed, so it won't be on par or a bit just a bit worse than glorious russian bb, updated with stronk stalinium plating and shells soaked in blood of dissidents for maximum accuracy and damage. OFF TO GULAG WITH YOU!

[piritskenyer]

I love my GC, but there is no denying for a second that it's way too strong. I once played the ultimate T5 "I fear no MM" division when getting into a division with a Kamikaze and a Gremlin. 5 matches we played, 3 bottom tier and in 4 of those matches we were 1-2-3.

 

It may be time for T5 in general to get a little overhaul and become stronger maybe? 

[WingedHussar_Adler]

2 hours ago, wilkatis_LV said:

So, a while back (about a month ago?) we had another Dev Q&A, where, after being asked about the GC, they completely dismissed the question, stumbled towards "it's balanced" and ended up on "we need more time to look into it". Funny how that's pretty much the same answer as we got in February - 4 months earlier.

 

As far as the February Q&A is concerned - GC was released "just" 4 months before it, so despite how balanced the ship is being obvious to everyone and their mother, it's sort of understandable that WG wanted to wait for "more data". But now, with that time doubled, still backtracking to the same answer... cmon

 

I understand that a premium ship, especially one that served in the Russian navy for 6 years, will never get nerfed, but at least be so kind as to admit that whoever was responsible for the balance of this ship massively f**ked up and pull it out of all current and upcoming sales.

 

And since WG seems to struggle with collecting that data (altho getting the data that GC needs to be buffed TWICE [torpedo belt & AP fuze sensitivity] happened surprisingly quickly, didn't it?), I spent an afternoon compiling it myself (yes, it's that easy to do it)

 

All data taken from 1st quarter of 2018 EU server - http://maplesyrup.sweet.coocan.jp/wows/shipstats/eu/ship_20180331.html

 

Instead of listing everything as totals I'm showing the difference in more detail by comparing the GC to the average of the tier. Perfectly average being 0, below average going into negatives, above average going into positives.

As for values:

  Reveal hidden contents

WR given in %

XP - self explanatory (but, as always, it includes premium acc so might be somewhat misleading - then again over this many battles & players shouldn't matter too much)

Av. dmg - self explanatory

Av. kills - self explanatory

Survival rate given in %

K/D - self explanatory

Potential dmg - self explanatory

Spotting dmg - self explanatory

Main bat. hitrate given in %

 

GC compared to tier 5 BBs (including GC itself as it's one of them)

  Reveal hidden contents

 

GC's obviously pulling the averages up quite a bit, so lets now compare GC to average of all tier 5 BBs excluding GC

  Reveal hidden contents

 

One could say that the Revolution is clearly overperforming compared to others, but GC completely trashes that. Compared to ships of its own tier it's so far ahead in everything this my best conclusion is... this ship can't be compared to tier 5 BBs.

Also - Revolution beats it in potential dmg, clearly GC needs a buff there

 

 

Now when we see that it completely trashes ships of its own tier, lets take it a step up - compare the GC to the average of tier 6 BBs (obviously GC not included in calculating the average)

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Poor GC, trailing behind in Potential dmg and Spotting dmg, clearly needs an immediate buff!!!!

A tier 5 ship, which beats all tier 6s in stuff like average dmg, kills, survival... Hell, GC even beats them all in XP, despite the fact that as the tiers go up you earn more xp by default

 

 

Clearly that still wasn't a fair comparison, lets take it to the max tier GC can meet in battle: compare to the average of tier 7 BBs (again - obviously GC is not included in calculating the average)

  Reveal hidden contents

 

This is 2 tiers above the GC, and it's still consistently ABOVE AVERAGE. I mean, seriously, are you blind or what?! At least we finally found a couple of ships that GC can be compared to - Nelson, Scharnhorst, Duke of York... (kind of ironic how all of those are premiums aswell)

This bs is exactly why if I'm playing a tier 5 / 6 / 7 ship and I have a choice of fighting against a tier 7 BB like KGV / Nagato or figting a GC I'll go fight the t7 - for some f-ed up reason I stand a better chance against that ship than the god damn tier 5?!

And of course the obligatory - GC now clearly lags behind in potential & spotting dmg, needs some serious buffing!

 

And before someone says that this is only bcuz GC stomps on tier 4 ships all the time - have you been living under a rock that you have no idea what the tier 5 MM is like? As an example, since the last November I've played 70 tier 5 non-CV (as t5 CVs get special MM) games - 20 top tier (vs tier 4), 14 tier 6 battles, 36 bottom tier battles. That's 28.6% top tier, 20% "mid" tier, 51.4% bottom tier. I doubt I'm some special case in this regard, so it's safe to say that GC meets 7s about half of the games that ship plays. And it still outperforms most of them despite this

 

---

 

@MrConway @Crysantos @Tuccy could we PLEASE finally end this insanity? WG should admit their mistake and pull that stupid ship out of any sales. Tier 5 completely outdoing tier 7s is insane, and that's the best I can say about it

funny thing this post comes from a passionate defender of Conqueror :)

do you hare RU ships

do you like Gulag mate? :)

[1MajorKoenig]

@wilkatis_LV

 

Excellent post - thanks. I admit I have GC myself but only played a handful of games.

 

My main problem with the ship is the insane concealment - you can just cloak if things go hot and your survivability goes through the roof. Bad design in my opinion. And while I support the concept of not nerfing premium ships - cutting down her concealment would be great.

 

Anyway - good that you pulled the numbers here. 

[wilkatis_LV]

18 minutes ago, 15JG52Adler said:

funny thing this post comes from a passionate defender of Conqueror :)

Conq is nothing more than annoying. It's annoying to play against, annoying to deal with. Is it strong? Meh, distinctly average would be more accurate. Is it op? Far from it.

 

You could have at least played the Kamikaze card here

 

 

[El2aZeR]

GC inferior to T7 premiums?

Clearly that means GC is underpowered and desperately needs buffs.

[BeauNidl3]

4 minutes ago, El2aZeR said:

GC inferior to T7 premiums?

Clearly that means GC is underpowered and desperately needs buffs.

 

Indeed, Minotaur heal, AA and smoke plus Shima torpedoes, would just about make it competitive, it's complete cack at it is, as demonstrated by the figures!

[JG4_sKylon]

So why is my GC broken then? Its dispersion in the last games remembers me of the Fuso.

[lup3s]

2 hours ago, BeauNidl3 said:

 

Indeed, Minotaur heal, AA and smoke plus Shima torpedoes, would just about make it competitive, it's complete cack at it is, as demonstrated by the figures!

 

Shima torps ?

Please .. at least give it Fletcher torps 

[BeauNidl3]

19 minutes ago, lup3s said:

 

Shima torps ?

Please .. at least give it Fletcher torps 

 

Nah, 15 a side is necessary, 10 a side won't make it balanced.

[StringWitch]

3 hours ago, piritskenyer said:

I love my GC, but there is no denying for a second that it's way too strong. I once played the ultimate T5 "I fear no MM" division when getting into a division with a Kamikaze and a Gremlin. 5 matches we played, 3 bottom tier and in 4 of those matches we were 1-2-3.

 

What if MM gave you a Saipan-Flint-Atlanta division to fight?

[ColonelPete]

You flank them...

[El2aZeR]

3 minutes ago, ColonelPete said:

You flank them...

1 hour ago, StringWitch said:

What if MM gave you a Saipan-Flint-Atlanta division to fight?

 

I don't think that'll work out too well unless you have massive AA support.

[ForlornSailor]

1 hour ago, StringWitch said:

What if MM gave you a Saipan-Flint-Atlanta division to fight?

 

Those kind of games are pretty much the only rounds ive lost in my GC. Its gets away with fighting T7 BBs easy.

 

Tbh: GC doesnt feel like a BB. Most certainly not like a T 5 BB. If you have played the other T5 BBs or even the Premium-Ships like Texas or Okt.Rev., you know the difference. You have speed, accuracy, you dodge torps, autodrops from CVs cant touch you and on top of that you have the concealment. GC is the cruiser ive always dreamt about.  I didnt even had to go try hard with the captain, I started it from 6 points and only after 30 games for CE. You dont really need it tbfh... its just another insane gimmick.

[piritskenyer]

1 hour ago, StringWitch said:

 

What if MM gave you a Saipan-Flint-Atlanta division to fight?

Well, the one game we didn't end up top was incidentally an our ranger vs their saipan game :|

[ApesTogetherStronK]

3 hours ago, JG4_sKylon said:

So why is my GC broken then? Its dispersion in the last games remembers me of the Fuso.

*Hands tinfoil hat and a link* 

https://forum.worldofwarships.eu/topic/103479-lock-on-bug/

[Deckeru_Maiku]

6 hours ago, Saiyko said:

But, a while ago I redid some lines on NA, and found some low tiers (real low, like 1-5) to be very fun. I think everyone should rebuy something like a kuma or karlsruhe, and see what happens when you'll meet that GC, especially since a lot of the low tier maps are quite horrid. Such effing fun.

 

Lets see... what ships do I regularly play at T4/T5/T6/T7 that can meet the Caesar Salad...

• diverse DDs... (Kamikaze, Minekaze, Gallant, Aigle etc. etc don't really give a flying eff about a GC in the battle setup. Torp it and it sinks...
• diverse Cruisers.... (Yubari, Graf Spee, Königsberg, Perth) try to follow Monty Python on about How not to be seen.. not worse than hiding from other BBs...
• some other Cruisers (Southern Dragon, Fiji, Yorck) try not to be seen, but not as hard as the lower tiers...
• and finally the mighty Crispy Creme - find a rock and kill the GC with fire!
• BBs... execute Brain.exe. If brain.exe not found = get sunk. Else repeat until GC is sunk (by you, a DD, a CV, some cruisers or other BBs...)

I really love these "OMG, this ship is soooooo OP.... nerfbat needed!!!" posts. In most cases it's not the ship, but the players that use it, which makes it's stats go up into the sky.