Stalingrad: the HE needs to go.

[__Helmut_Kohl__]

It is probably too late anyway, to make any changes before the patch on Wednesday.

 

But if you want to change something: remove the HE.

 

The long reload means that it will never be an HE spammer like Moskva - that is not the reason.

The reason is that the HE makes it too versatile.

 

• If Stalingrad did not have that HE, it would not be able to reliably damage angled cruisers, making it very situational and a true specialist.
• A true specialist is allowed to have great strenghts (AP), because it also has great weaknesses (angled targets).
• Without HE, it would not replace Moskva in Clan Wars, since it also does not have the Hydro.

 

That is my opinion, and I will be getting the ship.

[LordMeru]

It's a russian ship, they will never nerf it.... and if we ask for a change they'll just make it stronger

WG is not able to balance ships, any ship, and they are even worst with russian's one

[thiextar]

Agreed, the current Stalingrad is just stupid, the absolute minimum change required would be to remove he

 

[ColonelPete]

AP-only ships are boring. They give you less choice and therefore eliminate skill.

Stalingrad should not have the magic AP shells with reduced riccochet angles and should have less Sigma.

[__Helmut_Kohl__]

6 minutes ago, ColonelPete said:

AP-only ships are boring. They give you less choice and therefore eliminate skill.

 

What?!

If anything eliminates skill, it is HE ammunition, because it can deal damage from any angle.

 

What requires skill, is good positioning.

And guess which ammo type needs good positioning, to actually be able to catch broadsides ?

 

This ship will go to the people who know how to position themselves. 

Having a challenge by playing a true specialist AP ship, is the only thing that is not boring.

Anyone can sling HE at stuff...

 

 

[DFens_666]

7 minutes ago, ColonelPete said:

AP-only ships are boring. They give you less choice and therefore eliminate skill.

 

You do know that the line with only AP is considered to be the hardest to play well

Which is mostly to the fact that it only has AP....

[ForlornSailor]

9 minutes ago, ColonelPete said:

AP-only ships are boring. They give you less choice and therefore eliminate skill.

 

Since when using HE requiered more skill then using AP?

[AgarwaenME]

1 minute ago, ForlornSailor said:

 

Since when using HE requiered more kill then using AP?

 

Read what he said.

[ColonelPete]

4 minutes ago, changenam324255 said:

 

What?!

If anything eliminates skill, it is HE ammunition, because it can deal damage from any angle.

 

What requires skill, is good positioning.

And guess which ammo type needs good positioning, to actually be able to catch broadsides ?

 

This ship will go to the people who know how to position themselves. 

Having a challenge by playing a true specialist AP ship, is the only thing that is not boring.

Anyone can sling HE at stuff...

 

 

Yeah, and when your targets know how to play too, what then? Great fun throwing AP at angled targets.

[howardxu_23]

2 minutes ago, ForlornSailor said:

 

Since when using HE requiered more skill then using AP?

Good example: HE spammer conquer  vs Yamato

[WeGreedy]

32 minutes ago, LordMeru said:

It's a russian ship, they will never nerf it...

Khabarovsk.

[ForlornSailor]

4 minutes ago, ColonelPete said:

Yeah, and when your targets know how to play too, what then? Great fun throwing AP at angled targets.

 

Congratz, you found the point of the thread - remove the versatility of the ship cuz it has too many strenghes otherwise?

[ColonelPete]

Then reduce the strengths...

Do not doctor around the problem.

[Azalgor]

25 minutes ago, SeeteufeI said:

58 minutes ago, LordMeru said:

It's a russian ship, they will never nerf it...

Khabarovsk.

Khabarovsk is overnerfed, but then again it is not premium, if they ever decide to change Stalingrad, most likely they will rather reduce the Moskva to same level of garbage.

[thiextar]

9 minutes ago, ColonelPete said:

Then reduce the strengths...

Do not doctor around the problem.

There are two ways to fix it, remove nearly all the versitillity, or nerf the crap out of ap accuracy and angles. One of them has to be done, id say remove he and def aa, if you wanna give this ship to the top players

[DFens_666]

33 minutes ago, ColonelPete said:

Yeah, and when your targets know how to play too, what then? Great fun throwing AP at angled targets.

 

How about hope that one of your 11 teammates is able to capitalize by angling against you?

Also, every hightier player knows how to angle perfectly I like those imaginary worlds where everyone is playing perfectly all the time. Can you let me in please, i dont like those random potatoes anymore...

 

 

 

[VeteranGamer84]

Removing the HE will make this hard earned ship useless against most of the ships. I didn't like the idea at all !!... Either give her the American AP shells or give her HE.

[ColonelPete]

3 minutes ago, DFens_666 said:

 

How about hope that one of your 11 teammates is able to capitalize by angling against you?

Also, every hightier player knows how to angle perfectly I like those imaginary worlds where everyone is playing perfectly all the time. Can you let me in please, i dont like those random potatoes anymore...

 

 

 

Sure, all matches are 12v12 for 20 minutes.

There are not other matchtypes and no ship gets every sunk before the match is over...

[WeGreedy]

11 minutes ago, Azalgor said:

Khabarovsk is overnerfed, but then again it is not premium, if they ever decide to change Stalingrad, most likely they will rather reduce the Moskva to same level of garbage.

Just disproving the Russians-don't-get-nerfed-BS.

[HaachamaShipping]

36 minutes ago, DFens_666 said:

 

You do know that the line with only AP is considered to be the hardest to play well

Which is mostly to the fact that it only has AP....

Eh, frankly, the AP ammunition is not so much the reason these ships are hard to play compared to the non-existent armour and low range. To a degree, the reduction to one ammunition type with improved characteristics removes the skill needed to select ammunition proper for the job, as well as some other aspects that one has to consider with HE ammo. If I compare for example Leander with Perth, apart from the different smoke, the plane and lack of repair, Leander just needs a decent position and can spam AP even at angled ships, provided you know where to shoot them (superstructure, given it typically is not angled as well and the improved ricochet angles and short fuze does the rest). If the position becomes unviable, you leave it. While you AP spam, your damage is pretty solid. Meanwhile, Perth not only needs 4 more skill points to get reliable penetration performance for HE, it also has to choose its ammo and work harder for its damage. HE has lower damage, so you essentially have less dpm than a Leander if you have to fall back on HE, as your normal AP is more likely to bounce. The equalising factor you can hope for is fires and if you are good, flood-fire DoT stacking. But that requires skill and it requires getting a far better grip on how long you can stay in a location to try get those fires.

 

So, yeah, Stalingrad as is is just broken, but removing the HE with the ship having improved characteristics AP doesn't make her more skill-based compared to normal Russian HE and AP.

[__Helmut_Kohl__]

Omfg, none of the people who will get this ship actually think it requires skill to choose the right ammo type for each situation. That is basic stuff. 

 

The challenging thing is to position yourself so that you can get crossfire shots with AP. 

[DFens_666]

1 minute ago, ColonelPete said:

Sure, all matches are 12v12 for 20 minutes.

There are not other matchtypes and no ship gets every sunk before the match is over...

 

So when you are alone, then its tough luck and you should lose?

Should i cry that RN CL should get HE when all enemies are running away from me?

 

2 minutes ago, Riselotte said:

Eh, frankly, the AP ammunition is not so much the reason these ships are hard to play compared to the non-existent armour and low range. To a degree, the reduction to one ammunition type with improved characteristics removes the skill needed to select ammunition proper for the job, as well as some other aspects that one has to consider with HE ammo. If I compare for example Leander with Perth, apart from the different smoke, the plane and lack of repair, Leander just needs a decent position and can spam AP even at angled ships, provided you know where to shoot them (superstructure, given it typically is not angled as well and the improved ricochet angles and short fuze does the rest). If the position becomes unviable, you leave it. While you AP spam, your damage is pretty solid. Meanwhile, Perth not only needs 4 more skill points to get reliable penetration performance for HE, it also has to choose its ammo and work harder for its damage. HE has lower damage, so you essentially have less dpm than a Leander if you have to fall back on HE, as your normal AP is more likely to bounce. The equalising factor you can hope for is fires and if you are good, flood-fire DoT stacking. But that requires skill and it requires getting a far better grip on how long you can stay in a location to try get those fires.

 

So, yeah, Stalingrad as is is just broken, but removing the HE with the ship having improved characteristics AP doesn't make her more skill-based compared to normal Russian HE and AP.

 

AP only is precisely the reason why they are harder to play. The further away you are, the less damage AP can deal. HE doesnt care for range. Which leaves us with: Proper positioning, mostly aggressive. You have to play more aggressive in order to deal damage. Give me HE minotaur i slot the range module on it. Easy as that.

How can farming damage with HE be harder than with AP? Angling removes damage potential from AP, not from HE. Perth has 7,5 sec reload. If you cant decide in that time span, if you should shoot HE or AP, i think you are doing it wrong. If you take EL then it can be as low as 4 seconds.

With the ability to stay further back, you also can escape faster and wont get targeted that much.

And dont forget: RN AP is short fuse. So if the superstructure is empty, you will most likely deal 0 damage because every shell penetrates. With slower fuse AP, you can still overpen the superstructure and deal damage all the time.

[HaachamaShipping]

1 minute ago, DFens_666 said:

AP only is precisely the reason why they are harder to play. The further away you are, the less damage AP can deal. HE doesnt care for range. Which leaves us with: Proper positioning, mostly aggressive. You have to play more aggressive in order to deal damage. Give me HE minotaur i slot the range module on it. Easy as that.

How can farming damage with HE be harder than with AP? Angling removes damage potential from AP, not from HE. Perth has 7,5 sec reload. If you cant decide in that time span, if you should shoot HE or AP, i think you are doing it wrong. If you take EL then it can be as low as 4 seconds.

With the ability to stay further back, you also can escape faster and wont get targeted that much.

And dont forget: RN AP is short fuse. So if the superstructure is empty, you will most likely deal 0 damage because every shell penetrates. With slower fuse AP, you can still overpen the superstructure and deal damage all the time.

Given RN CLs have not too much range and not a lot of pen to begin with, you can basically farm the same areas with it that you typically farm with HE. If your AP cannot pen the crappy armour there, chances are, IFHE 152 mm would not pen it either. So, no, pen isn't the issue. Nor would it be on a Stalingrad that can citadel ships up to max range. And if a shell penetrates, an AP shell also doesn't deal less damage than if it pens at close range.

 

The thing is though, AP has a higher base damage compared to HE, so a ship that can get away with pure AP spam might not deal DoT damage, but it deals more reliable damage (which on top is less easy to recover). Angling takes out some dpm, but typically, only if you angle in very sharply to the point even the improved autobounce won't matter. Slight angling does not matter. If you have farmable superstructure, it also will not reduce much of the potency of the AP. The best ships to angle with are DDs, because if you run away directly, you are the smallest profile and you can bounce (though Stalingrad will just overmatch you, unless RN cruisers and get full pens, deleting you). And if the enemy angles and denies you damage effectively, that isn't exactly your skill, it's the enemy's. Nor is it exactly great skill if Stalingrad potentially just camps 16 km behind the frontlines undetected and blaps cruisers that aren't even aware of its presence and cannot adequately angle in in time.

 

And sure, Perth has 7.5 seconds reload. Feel free to duel a Leander with it. Even if Leander wouldn't have the heal, on equal skill, Leander typically wins, because for fast turning cruisers, 7.5 seconds is a lot of time at T6, so if you in a Perth start loading AP in anticipation of a broadside, that enemy cruiser might already be angled again by the time you are finished, meaning you just wasted valuable time, while that Leander always has the "right" ammunition type loaded and even the most potato Leander will just citpen you if you don't stay at autobounce angle, because there is no way to switch to HE ammunition. Heck, that Leander can just angle slightly and use all 8 guns, while straightening out between shots, because you'd bounce off, while the Perth would eat pens due to the improved ricochet if it tries the same.

 

Also, EL is just another skill point lost that could go elsewhere.

 

In my opinion, any single-ammunition "choice" design reduces skill, because it reduces things to take into consideration. Other cruisers have to think about when they can and cannot use certain ammunition effectively for two types of ammo, single-ammo makes that one, which as a consequence is useful in many situations, and useless in a few, but that depends not on your skill. In that regard, if one disregards all the other factors that make RN CLs hard to play (having to work around low range, little armour, little hp and where to effectively use smoke or radar, ...), the RN CL ammunition choice is lazy and pretty skilless, compared to other cruisers. Oddly enough, the likely most skill-based ammunition choice is on the cruisers that are otherwise among the least skill-based, Germans. Given there you have basically two ammunition types with HE bein crap in all aspects other than penetration, while the true damage potential is locked behind a flimsy AP shell, making it imperative to actually know what type of ammo to use to maximise the damage and impact of the ship.

 

Which also brings me to another point: HE spam is a tactic that requires little skill indeed, but it only is a no-skill design when HE spam is an actual winning tactic. If HE spam is just gimping you out of most of your dpm, then it's just dumb to only use HE, even if it requires less skill. RN BBs aren't braindead because they have HE shells, because all BBs have HE shells. They are dumbed down because they are the only line where HE spam is an actually viable approach (not ideal, but not as terrible as it would be to play HE spam USN or even worse, HE-spam Kriegsmarine). Similarly though, it's not exactly skillful design if you remove HE and replace it with an AP shell that has the characteristics to be a viable replacement in most situations, replacing RNG based DoT light damage with reliable moderate damage.

[Nechrom]

Doesn't matter.

The AP is great against everything anyway with magic angles, magic fuses, super pen and super accuracy.

[AgarwaenME]

58 minutes ago, changenam324255 said:

Omfg, none of the people who will get this ship actually think it requires skill to choose the right ammo type for each situation. That is basic stuff. 

 

The challenging thing is to position yourself so that you can get crossfire shots with AP. 

 

It still takes more than never having to think about it at all.