Don’t buy PEF - she sucks hard

[JapLance]

This evening I broke a mouse against the table in frustration when playing this ship. A game of 44 hits, less than 40k damage.... shatters and bounces at broadside ships, overpenetrations...An absolutely ridiculous amount of "supposed penetrations" that do 0 damage, much higher than any other BB I've played before, and something that convinces me that the WG explanation that 0 penetrations are because you hit a module blah blah blah ...you can kiss my [edited], WG.

 

Had I been playing a Warspite in that game, I would have reached 80k easy (probably more because I would have hit more often).

[BLUB__BLUB]

17 minutes ago, EgyptOverseer said:

That is a very low bar. Weaker than a BB with all stats nerfed compared to the silver counterpart, and less heals, all for a useless hydro? 

Ah well, but they say King Grog the Filth is very OP (could have fooled me though, I think it sucks).

Now DoY is sort of like the KGV, how can it be really bad? I think it's better than PEF (probably not for me...).

The thing is, there's hardly a T6 BB I'd rather shoot at than PEF. Always a smacker, and never hits back hard. 

 

I've even met one that wanted a broadside duel with my Hood. Guess what... 

[EgyptOverseer]

27 minutes ago, BLUB__BLUB said:

Ah well, but they say King Grog the Filth is very OP (could have fooled me though, I think it sucks).

Now DoY is sort of like the KGV, how can it be really bad? I think it's better than PEF (probably not for me...).

The thing is, there's hardly a T6 BB I'd rather shoot at than PEF. Always a smacker, and never hits back hard. 

 

I've even met one that wanted a broadside duel with my Hood. Guess what... 

Well, on this ranked it absolutely wipes the floor. No BB in tier can even come close.

[Rosletyne]

I'm not going to even pretend to have read all 14 pages of debate on exactly how much the Eitel Friedrich sucks. Suffice to say, its guns have problems, and I did not enjoy playing her in randoms.

 

But, holy crap...

 

This is the absolute best and most enjoyable battleship I have ever played in Raptor Rescue, and I look forward to trying her in other operations. She has the best speed, best agility, best gun handling, best secondaries, best AA defense... she lacks the punch of her peers, but when the bots obligingly show you their broadside, what matters is accuracy, and she has that.

 

In this game, both our cruisers went off to sink the first carrier, leaving it to the battleships to take out the enemy destroyers. No problem for the Eitel Friedrich. But the defining moment came after that, when I outran the rest of the convoy, charged the last enemy group of two battleships and two cruisers, and sailed right through them firing point blank salvos into their broadsides. I was under air attack too, but just did not give a damn. I even survived that part, it was only the very last enemy ship that got me just before the game ended.

 

It was glorious. This ship can brawl like no other.

 

I may not play her much in randoms, but I expect to get much joy out of her in scenarios.

[anonym_mlJIAFnOwMVb]

30 minutes ago, Rosletyne said:

I'm not going to even pretend to have read all 14 pages of debate on exactly how much the Eitel Friedrich sucks. Suffice to say, its guns have problems, and I did not enjoy playing her in randoms.

 

But, holy crap...

 

This is the absolute best and most enjoyable battleship I have ever played in Raptor Rescue, and I look forward to trying her in other operations. She has the best speed, best agility, best gun handling, best secondaries, best AA defense... she lacks the punch of her peers, but when the bots obligingly show you their broadside, what matters is accuracy, and she has that.

 

In this game, both our cruisers went off to sink the first carrier, leaving it to the battleships to take out the enemy destroyers. No problem for the Eitel Friedrich. But the defining moment came after that, when I outran the rest of the convoy, charged the last enemy group of two battleships and two cruisers, and sailed right through them firing point blank salvos into their broadsides. I was under air attack too, but just did not give a damn. I even survived that part, it was only the very last enemy ship that got me just before the game ended.

 

It was glorious. This ship can brawl like no other.

 

I may not play her much in randoms, but I expect to get much joy out of her in scenarios.

pretty much. This ship is a ops monster but it will be eaten alive in randoms against players that know to stay further than its effective range.

[wilkatis_LV]

Re-posting the same stuff would be kinda spammy, so I'll just leave the link to it:

 

 

[Odo_Toothless]

I have played a lot of operations first with PeF, where She just shines :-). Then tried some PVP. My observations are that her survability is ok (much better then Dunkerque), and thanks to rather good dispertion (as BB), killing cruisers and destroyers is not that hard. Fire at BB when there is no other targets and only when they give a lot of broadside. Forget about crappy HE and this ship can work fine.

 

Anyway I find her easy to play thanks for speed and very narrow target when nose in. Could be better (26 s - reload would be ok), but she is far from bad. Typical game was about fifty/fifty penetrations and overpenetrations, 1-4 citadels and a few bounces and shatters. Personally, I like her.

[Lieut_Gruber]

Its just not a ship for the average BB player. Sniping from map edge isnt possible with this one, you have to go in andere brawl with it. This does not fit the playstyle of most players, so the ship must be crap right?

[jss78]

Yeah, I think she's definitely going to be super fun for operations. Which is good enough -- ship didn't cost anything, and you can throw in that 19pt Bismarck guy once in a while.

 

That said, I HAVE been having a good time in Randoms too. I have NOT been struggling to do damage. After a lot of time in the Hood and Scharnhorst, the guns kinda feel familiar. Against tough targets, aim a little bit higher. She doesn't feel exceptionally soft under enemy fire, I'd say about average for a T6 BB. 

 

Standout strengths for include speed, secondaries, and AA.

 

I enjoy the play style suggested by all her features. Use your mobility, be aggressive, wreck face. I expect the typical BB player will absolutely hate this ship -- I think I'll love her.

[Mr_Tayto]

11 hours ago, JapLance said:

An absolutely ridiculous amount of "supposed penetrations" that do 0 damage.

You too, huh? I genuinely wondered if it was just me getting these. Constantly.

 

In fact, since last patch, I'm getting them a LOT more on all ships, but particularly with the PEF. I don't really have a dog in the race with PEF, I find her decent enough, I just play her as Scharnhorst (with same feelings towards target selection due to guns).

[Aragathor]

Flambass has posted his replay/opinion of the ship:

Quote

I used to like this ship but now it's just super meh at best. There is speed and good AA, but nothing else is really good about this ship anymore. But thanks to one of the campaigns where I needed to grind A LOT of credits with it, I decided to stack all the bonuses I have and play it for few games to get the missions done. Game after game I was doing around 50-60k dmg and complaining how it doesn't work. Then THIS match happened which was a total shock. NO I did not change my opinion on this ship because of this game because it's in a minority...not to mention that it's probably never gonna happen again because I won't play it again xD

Spoiler

 

 

Another CC negatively judging the ship. Man, the CCs are all bad at the game if they cannot see how awesome this ship is./s

[Ubrael]

As someone who enjoys playing the Scharnhorst my first impression of the ship is that she's very comfortable to handle for a T6 BB. The turret traverse is a bit on the slow side for my liking and the reload is a tad too long. If you take BB AP in the right place it'll hurt, but that's the case for all German BBs.

I fired two whole salvos on cruisers in my first game with her, blapped a low-ish health Nurnberg, and Dev Striked an Emerald. Scharnhorst likely would have had 100% overpens on a similar target at that range.

She's fun to brawl in, but you do quickly notice the turret traverse if you find someone willing to dance with you.

I'm interested to see how I feel about the ship after more matches. I have low expectations when it comes to dealing with some T7 and most T8 BBs.

[BLUB__BLUB]

6 hours ago, jss78 said:

I expect the typical BB player will absolutely hate this ship -- I think I'll love her.

This is the point. Also, it is FOR SALE, so many people gonna be disappointed.

 

2 hours ago, Ubrael said:

I have low expectations when it comes to dealing with some T7 and most T8 BBs.

I expect about the same as Hood when it gets uptiered, probably a bit worse,

because best things of PEF are secondaries/AA and those do not uptier like speed and fat heal(th) do.

[Ocsimano18]

2 hours ago, BLUB__BLUB said:

because best things of PEF are secondaries/AA and those do not uptier like speed and fat heal(th) do.

My PEF has 80 AA, just waiting for 8.0.

[BLUB__BLUB]

46 minutes ago, Ocsimano18 said:

My PEF has 80 AA, just waiting for 8.0.

Do you know how much that is compared to a Texas...? 

And don't worry... you'll get 0.8.0, just like the rest of us.

[DFens_666]

7 hours ago, Aragathor said:

Another CC negatively judging the ship. Man, the CCs are all bad at the game if they cannot see how awesome this ship is./s

 

I havent played the PEF in randoms yet, but atleast in OPs its brutal.

And quite frankly, i dont understand the problem what people are saying.

- Dispersion elipse like german BBs, yes its bad. But it has 2,0 sigma compared to 1,5 like Fuso/NM.

- Small caliber guns - same as Fuso and NM, they will only overmatch T5 BBs so nothing bad there?

- Atleast compared to NM 6 sec better reload.

 

But its also faster than the other T6 BBs. I guess people did expect a T6 GC 4 free? Why would anyone want to play T6 all the time anyway (probably one of the reasons why it should have been OP rather than average)?

I think its very much like the Graf Spee: Solid, but T6 is meh by itself, and no real reason to play it i guess

[Aragathor]

6 minutes ago, DFens_666 said:

Dispersion elipse like german BBs, yes its bad. But it has 2,0 sigma compared to 1,5 like Fuso/NM.

The problem with it is that both Fuso and NM need to hit something once, the weak PEF projectiles need to hit often. And that better sigma is in LWM's words:

 

Quote

You'll land a lot of hits with this ship. Whether you hurt your target or not goes back to those issues with penetration.

 

8 minutes ago, DFens_666 said:

Small caliber guns - same as Fuso and NM, they will only overmatch T5 BBs so nothing bad there?

While the difference in caliber is only 6mm, the stat difference is huge:

	Prinz Eitel	Fuso	New Mexico
HE Damage	4000	5700	5000
AP Penetration 10km	364mm	470mm	489mm
AP Penetration 15km	266mm	376mm	394mm

 

As you can see PEF has serious problems penetrating enemies, so even though the AP damage is similar between the 3 ships, the other two are superior when fighting at range. And HE on the PEF is just bad.

 

14 minutes ago, DFens_666 said:

Atleast compared to NM 6 sec better reload.

I'd rather take the NM over PEF. More guns and better gun performance triumph in the long run. And I'd take Fuso over NM, as 12 guns with a 28s reload are even better.

 

 

[DFens_666]

1 hour ago, Aragathor said:

The problem with it is that both Fuso and NM need to hit something once, the weak PEF projectiles need to hit often. And that better sigma is in LWM's words:

 

 

While the difference in caliber is only 6mm, the stat difference is huge:

	Prinz Eitel	Fuso	New Mexico
HE Damage	4000	5700	5000
AP Penetration 10km	364mm	470mm	489mm
AP Penetration 15km	266mm	376mm	394mm

 

As you can see PEF has serious problems penetrating enemies, so even though the AP damage is similar between the 3 ships, the other two are superior when fighting at range. And HE on the PEF is just bad.

 

I'd rather take the NM over PEF. More guns and better gun performance triumph in the long run. And I'd take Fuso over NM, as 12 guns with a 28s reload are even better.

 

Probably comes down to the playstyle - as i said, i havent played it in randoms yet.

But i tend to focus DDs/Cruisers anyway, and better accuracy makes for more citadels on Cruisers. If you manage to get rid of those, BBs will die either way - even if you cant citadel them really. Even 394mm AP penetration at 15km is questionable imo - NM has 25+343 = 368mm belt armor, so even a slight angle will cause the shells to shatter. (at 10km it looks bad for PEF tho)

On the other hand i agree that the HE is a bit too weak...

[BLUB__BLUB]

1 hour ago, DFens_666 said:

 

Probably comes down to the playstyle - as i said, i havent played it in randoms yet.

But i tend to focus DDs/Cruisers anyway, and better accuracy makes for more citadels on Cruisers. If you manage to get rid of those, BBs will die either way - even if you cant citadel them really. Even 394mm AP penetration at 15km is questionable imo - NM has 25+343 = 368mm belt armor, so even a slight angle will cause the shells to shatter. (at 10km it looks bad for PEF tho)

On the other hand i agree that the HE is a bit too weak...

It's not THAT bad... but the thing is, suppose when in Arizona (New Mex) you shoot AP at a PEF, and it shoots AP back.

Now suppose you're both perfect shots and paid sheep to RNGesus. Guess who is alive after 3 shots...  

PEF will still shoot and pen AZ/NM ~everywhere, just the AZ/NM will throw in a few PEF-citadels.

 

[Hedgehog1963]

Well I've done the missions got the steel bought the USS Black.  I shall never play in the PEF again.

[Armorin]

Sacrifice all your goats and virgins to RNGesus before taking this ship in randoms. It's either all over-penetrations and bounces, or you get a devastating strike. Brawling can be fun if you can get into a brawling position, it's secondary's are decent without even speccing into them.

[asalonen]

After 14 randoms and a few ranked, I'm very fond of the ship. For a tier 6 battleship, she has great speed, great maneuverability, great secondaries and very good AA. She seems pretty tanky as well, or at least the citadel is well protected. 

 

I imagine I could complain about the lack of punch of the main battery, but I don't expect everything in one ship. She's a terrific close range brawler, and the typical ranges of the mid-tier games suit her well. You'll want the same captain skills for the AA anyhow, so there's no trade-off in the build. 

 

Now, if you do end up against tier 8's you're unusually *ucked. With Dunker you can still do her thing (full reverse and shoot HE), or with Warspite or Fuso your AP is still relevant. Prinz Eitel up-tiers very poorly, but that's really my only issue with the ship. When playing against tiers 5 to 7 she feels strong, and seems to deliver. 

[xRSxrs]

After my first few games i was thinking this ship is total garbage. Every other T6 BB is much better. I was looking for those big hits that other BBs can do but they never came. I had to continue  playing PEF in random so i excepted the fact that it is gonna be hard work for those steel missions. 

 

Then i said to myself dont play it like any other T6 BB, play it like a Hood or some tanky cruiser that can kite. Sudenly it didnt felt like a bad ship. I quite like it now. It is a ship that exels on a long run because you dont have those guns with good hits to do lots of damage in short term. Switching ammo especially when uptiered is a must and dodging incoming fire as much as you can (use your exellent maneuverability and sufficient speed). It can work even in a T8 match. 

 

And the other thing is that AA. I dont have to wory anymore about CVs like in other T6 BBs.

 

It is very dependant what your play style is. I like that kind of play. I like Hood and DOY and they are one of my favourite BBs. I dont know why they are so hated ships. Probably because they are not that high dmg ships, but hydro can make a diference beetween loss and a win with DOY sometimes, although KGV is going to do more DMG. 

 

 So, my first and final verdict is like day and night. You have to use ships advantages and playing on a long run. But i think it is dependant on a persons playstyle. Either you like it or hate it. It is not some new bad [edited]BB. 

 

[jss78]

Out of interest, I looked up the translation of "Eitel". I think all you guys who hate this ship will find this humorous. Big Fred at Tier 9 now joined by Worthless Fred at Tier 6?

 

[Allied_Winter]

9 hours ago, Hedgehog1963 said:

Well I've done the missions got the steel bought the USS Black.  I shall never play in the PEF again.

In before the next 'Snowflake' event ;)