BB AP nerf needs tweaking (or buff expert loader)

[mrk421]

2 minutes ago, Verblonde said:

This, right here, is the root of a lot of the issues in WOWS.

 

I don't believe it can be easily (or completely) fixed, but proper tutorials/other learning resources might help;

I believe one of the best tools would be to introduce an AOE heal / Repair Zone consumable on BBs. That would make BBs that stay with their team so much more effective than max range snipers that eventually I'm certain the meta would shift towards more coordination within teams.

[__Helmut_Kohl__]

3 minutes ago, mrk421 said:

What sort of changes would you propose to make CCs more self-sufficient then?

 

At least all heavy cruisers will get buffed midship-armor, to bounce any BB-AP (IIRC from last waterline episode).

DDs are self-sufficient anyway.

 

Light cruisers will often rely on spotting or fire support, since they are mostly a support class.

[Verblonde]

1 minute ago, mrk421 said:

I believe one of the best tools would be to introduce an AOE heal / Repair Zone consumable on BBs. That would make BBs that stay with their team so much more effective than max range snipers that eventually I'm certain the meta would shift towards more coordination within teams.

That's quite an interesting idea, although I fear what might end up happening is that BBs would generally *still* hide at the back/borders and make damaged boats come to them...

[DFens_666]

25 minutes ago, Aotearas said:

However if the playing field gets leveled to a degree that the average joe can do his job, mediocre at it as he may be, without getting instadeleted by one of the 5 BBs on the enemy team, you'd find that on average, more cruisers would do their job.

 

As i stated above, its not about "level playingfield"

Its about (once again) WG managed to create a new level of stupidity.

 

First we should ask the question: Why do you want to yolo rush a BB in the first place? Obviously DDs dont want to "wait" and get all the damage right away (torping from further away = less chance to hit/kill).

Now we have to ask: What is a BB supposed to do? It shouldnt shoot from range, but at the same time if it gets too close and abandoned, a DD can rush it. Whether some people around here like it or not, even when BBs are quite fast on hightiers, they cant just "run away" like a DD or even a Cruiser. Or other option you have braindead Cruisers who go full broadside and evaporate, then what?

 

Havent played that many games after the change, but even in those you see idiots more than before + what ive seen on streams.

- DDs rushing BBs both succesful and not. Worst offenders going full YOLO and dieing within 10 secs.

- BBs shooting SOLELY HE for the entire match - we can only speculate on the reason, but there were some of those

 

And on another note, i think Flamu deliberately ignored to shoot a DD because he had AP loaded  to shoot a - surpise - Cruiser. How does this help making Cruisers more popular?

 

The game is not getting better by making it easier for a specific class - i think we already knew that from BBs.

[Verblonde]

8 minutes ago, __Helmut_Kohl__ said:

DDs are self-sufficient anyway.

Nope.

 

Not completely; DDs are still all kinds of dead when cruisers get near them, for example (especially when they have radar). Depending on class, I fancy my chances against lone BBs in most DDs, but I'm boned if an intact screen (other DDs and especially cruisers) finds me...

 

Edit: incidentally, I'm assuming trying to play a DD 'properly' i.e. spotting and capping being primary aims. DDs are a lot less vulnerable if they don't try and do their jobs i.e. abuse concealment and stealth torp from range, but that loses you battles and/or doesn't help your team.

[Exocet6951]

45 minutes ago, __Helmut_Kohl__ said:

 

Since when is 15% going to blow them out of the water ?

 

And it is dumbing it down for DDs. Just rush any BB you see.

 

And extra 5% is literally the equivalent of an extra 127mm HE hit at mid tier, and almost a 152mm hit for the bigger guns. 

 

 

That per hit. 

The current 10% can already take a 25% chunk of unrepairable damage to a DD on a good hit, and you're already talking about a guaranteed 50% increase in damage. 

 

Let's take a rather low estimate of 13000 damage shell and high estimate of a 22k hp DD 

One overpen is currently 1300 damage, so 6% of the DD's hp in a single hit. 

You're boosting it up to 15%, or almost 2000 damage per hit, so 9% per overpen. 

 

And that's a low estimate on a very healthy DD. 

Imagine a big 14500 alpha gun on a lower tier DD. 

You can look at 12% of a DD's hp per overpen. 

 

Two hits from the class that counters you to shave off 25% of it's hp. 

Legit.... 

When can I expect that sort of thing on DDs and cruisers? 

[Verblonde]

One thought that does occur: not specific to this discussion, but in general: during the loading screen (where the makeup of both sides is displayed), have brief pop-ups for each ship on the opposing (or both) side giving highlights of the role and characteristics.

 

e.g. Chapy - fragile cruiser with radar; Tirpitz - brawling BB with turtleback and torps; Cossack - gunboat DD with single-fire torps, and so on...? Perhaps include 'primary targets' for each too?

[__Helmut_Kohl__]

4 minutes ago, Verblonde said:

Nope.

 

Not completely; DDs are still all kinds of dead when cruisers get near them, for example (especially when they have radar). Depending on class, I fancy my chances against lone BBs in most DDs, but I'm boned if an intact screen (other DDs and especially cruisers) finds me...

 

DDs can choose how close they get to cruisers, while still being aggressive. They have the speed and the concealment to choose their engagements. 

 

For BBs aggression is often not possible without support. 

[thiextar]

You cant be a counter to everything

[Prospect_b]

Wow.

Really, the changes have been implemented for a few days and already this?

 

We can only hope that "dds being too strong in rushing bbs" (which I seriously doubt) leads to the end of the typical 5 BB per game, and makes place for more cruisers, which would seriously temper DDs to begin with. You know, the original counterplay this game started on...

 

As long as there are still too much BBs, there is absolutely no problem at all with DDs. There being quite a lot DDs at high tier for a while now should have made an impact on BB numbers already to begin with. Which they didn't.

 

Which shows deeper flaws. BB as cruiser counter did drive cruisers away with their numbers. DDs as "BB counter" didn't.

 

 

[__Helmut_Kohl__]

6 minutes ago, thiextar said:

You cant be a counter to everything

 

But most DDs actually are. 

 

And I am not a whiner about DDs - I am in fact very experienced in them. 

[Verblonde]

4 minutes ago, __Helmut_Kohl__ said:

DDs can choose how close they get to cruisers, while still being aggressive. They have the speed and the concealment to choose their engagements.

You're entirely correct at lower tiers; I should have said, I was mainly thinking about those tiers where radar is prevalent - that's where I mostly play at the moment...

 

Unless your opponent are entirely clueless (in which case, they have my thanks), perhaps more than two radars (assuming 10 km range) renders even the best concealment moot.

[anonym_2hneAFaIyP4T]

I've been playing a fair bit of BB's recently (well... 1 BB... NC to be precise)

 

IMHO, the change is 'fine' - no, DD's shouldn't be 'invulnerable' to BB's, but they shouldn't be hard countered by them... and this change means they're not. I mean, even I have hit DD's at 8-10 ks with AP - 3 shells for nearly 4k damage is not nothing by any stretch of the imagination... although I will confess to have opted to target a broadsiding cruiser at 13k instead of a DD at 9 once or twice!

 

Also... RN aside, a full pen from BB HE isn't much higher damage than an overpen from AP anyway... although you don't quite get the same module damage from the splash radius of HE. If AP is loaded, shoot it! Switch to HE if you are likely to have another shot when it's reloaded.

 

And yeah, as per @Saiyko - if this encourages a higher population of cruisers, then props to WeeGee 

[Verblonde]

3 minutes ago, __Helmut_Kohl__ said:

But most DDs actually are. 

I would dispute this, if they're being played properly. The only way to be a serious threat to everyone (assuming no DWTs) is to entirely neglect your primary mission, in which case you run out of game time and/or lose, surely?

[__Helmut_Kohl__]

Just now, Verblonde said:

I would dispute this, if they're being played properly. 

 

Whatever floats your boat mate. 

[Gojuadorai]

- The nerf was needed

- The nerf was done in an unreasonable way

 => as a concequence it took skill out of the game (on the DD side as well as on the BB side) and thats BAD

how to fix it?

easy just make a pen count for 15-20% instead of 10%

 

and no loading HE is not feasible unless you have a USN special commander with expert loader

(or youre one of those special BB players shooting HE only...)

 

[mrk421]

On the topic:

First of all, just a few days after a significant change is hardly the time to make assessments about that change. Of course people are trying out weird things at first, but over time things should settle down, people will get used to the change and adapt. Who knows, maybe it WILL even lead to slight decline in popularity of BBs...

Secondly, to me at least, it was quite clear from the beginning that this change would not make BBs switch ammo vs DDs: they'd either stick to AP despite its lower effectiveness or spam more HE all the time. With 30s reloads (or even 15s with EL) ammo switching is rarely worth it and really only in situations where you can be sure that the DD will be spotted for that long and not be killed before you manage to take a shot. Otherwise you'd just be stuck having the wrong ammo type loaded for any other targets...

 

23 minutes ago, Verblonde said:

That's quite an interesting idea, although I fear what might end up happening is that BBs would generally *still* hide at the back/borders and make damaged boats come to them...

And the win-rates / average performance of those who did would suffer as a result. So over time they'd have to come out of their hiding, if they wanted to get better results.

[DFens_666]

6 minutes ago, thiextar said:

You cant be a counter to everything

 

I think this is a bit far fetched.

Only Missouri can "counter" DDs (somewhat). Because you have to spot a DD to actually kill it, there are only limited options to counter DDs.

 

- CVs: I think the original hard counter to DDs, which ofc didnt really work out

- Radar ships: Quite obvious

- Other DDs: I basicly say that this doesnt count as a counter. Every class could counter each other by that definition. Also it means, that the DD that wins that encounter gains a tremendous advantage over the other side.

 

On lowertiers, some Cruisers have the ability to counter DDs, because of map size and torprange compared to detection range.

[__Helmut_Kohl__]

Guys:

DDs are not supposed to rush BBs!

 

This has nothing to do with being a "hard-counter" or even a counter to them.

 

The question is just if braindead rushing them should be possible.

[Verblonde]

1 minute ago, __Helmut_Kohl__ said:

 

Whatever floats your boat mate. 

I assume you disagree?

 

Okay, to pick an example, you want your DD to hard counter a CV or camping BB - to bag either of them, you have to (most likely) go very wide to avoid the enemy screen, so avoiding capping, and a lot of spotting opportunities. You spend quite a lot of time doing this as well, time you aren't spending doing more useful things. Everything goes according to plan, and you eventually sink whatever it was you were after; while you were performing your cunning manouevre, the enemy were busy doing what they should have been doing (against a team effectively a boat down), and either won, or did a lot towards that end.

 

I hope that explains what I mean a bit better.

[Verblonde]

2 minutes ago, __Helmut_Kohl__ said:

The question is just if braindead rushing them should be possible.

I agree that it shouldn't be.

 

The only question is should BBs have the ability to stop it on their own (which I don't think they lost entirely post-changes, based on what I've seen so far, but it is early days)...?

[mrk421]

2 minutes ago, __Helmut_Kohl__ said:

Guys:

DDs are not supposed to rush BBs!

In most cases, NO. Agreed!

 

Give it time. The change is very fresh and people are trying out different things, every DD player is very excited now I suspect and wants to see for themselves if it's really true.

Over time the meta will settle down and then we'll see...

[NothingButTheRain]

55 minutes ago, Admiral_Nightingale said:

That DD get everything they cry for because they still can't yolo rush.. next thing they are going to cry about HE shells aswell so they get nerfed!

They will just complain about Conqueror being OP. And complain about Wooster rada....oh wait 

[Gojuadorai]

11 minutes ago, Verblonde said:

I would dispute this, if they're being played properly. 

 

i have a riddel for you

which is you and which is helmut

 

[Verblonde]

3 minutes ago, mrk421 said:

every DD player is very excited now I suspect and wants to see for themselves if it's really true.

Almost every DD player! This one thinks he deserves to be deleted if he rushes a defended BB (and an isolated BB deserves it)...!

 

Mind you, one of the first things I did after the last patch was take a couple of BBs for a run-out in Ops and Coop, to see what the changes had actually done against actual DDs (albeit bot-driven ones).