Scharnhorst, what to do with last Commander Point?

[Saltface]

Current fit-out

 

Current skills

 

She has done a couple of times more than 100K as she is, her LOL Commander likes to brawl and gets hit a lot LOL, 

 

Would even consider a redistribution, should it be convincing.

 

Looking forward to your replies.

[Allied_Winter]

If this is a Scharnhorst only captain I'd go for Expert Loader ...

Rest looks good.

[Cagliostro_chan]

Just now, Allied_Winter said:

If this is a Scharnhorst only captain I'd go for Expert Loader ...

Rest looks good.

This. If not, DCCA.

[hgbn_dk]

I would pick preventative maintenance 

[quickr]

8 minutes ago, hgbn_dk said:

I would pick preventative maintenance 

+1

 

[DFens_666]

13 minutes ago, Allied_Winter said:

If this is a Scharnhorst only captain I'd go for Expert Loader ...

 

This.

 

Obviously we need convincing on this one:

Scharnhorst AP can only overpen DDs, thus switching your ammo to HE quick can be useful.

PM on a BB is not that useful compared to dealing more damage to a DD when it counts.

[Saltface]

She is a Scharnhorst, and a very adorable one I might say.

If only her Commander (LOL) didn't sink her so much.

(her Commander is there to stay, I go through the hassle of developing the Commander of each vessel so I don't cut corners and I put the necessary battles in each ship)

 

Some thoughts for criticism:

 

1. I do receive many random hits (even if it doesn't show that I am detected I receive some odd ones). She is a tough nut in her tier so I kind of brush it away, even though it is rather annoying. Being noobish (if I can claim such status) I was thinking of IFA. But, I wasn't so warm about it.

 

2. As she is often the target of aircraft I posited to employ a second one and thought about DCCA. But again I questioned the use of it and the effectiveness (if any).

 

3. As far as PM is concerned I didn't feel the need. Careful use of the R thingy and letting fires burn and healing later works.

 

4. Now, EL. This one is attractive to me because it might force me to upgrade my game style. I am oblivious of the existence of my HE shells. Bad bad Saltface. LOL

 

I will let you know how it turns out. I will take EL. Maybe I will redistribute later.

 

Thank you for your comments till now. By no means I consider the thread closed because I made up my mind.

[Redcap375]

Personally i would get rid of PT and change it with EL. Then pick PM for your other 1 point. 

 

Not having your torps blown up when you need it the most is a massive help.  Swapping AP to HE is even more vital with the BB AP change. However, the Sharn always hit a DD like a truck with it's low arming AP shells, don't know how much this has changed as not played it for a while.

 

I do love your style regarding brawling .  However, only max 8km range inst enough to convince me of a out and out secondary build on the Sharn (I have done it and it's fun, but not optimal).  Plus it's secondaries don't pen things the Kurf and Gne can.  So free up 4 points as their are other ones that are very appealing to this ship (SI, BS, FP).

 

I am also surprised if your secondaries hit most things as you havnt added the Secondary mod and kept the main battery aiming mod (smart move). 

[ColonelPete]

That setup looks too burny for my taste. You have the full fire duration.

[Benaulim]

If you like to brawl and work with secondaries why waste points on Concealment Expert? I would indeed put those in Fire Prevention and the spare one in question undoubtedly in Preventive Maintenance to strengthen turrets and torpedo launchers.

[Cagliostro_chan]

1 minute ago, Redcap375 said:

Personally i would get rid of PT and change it with EL. Then pick PM for your other 1 point. 

The torps are exposed and still are easily hit and incapacitated when running Main Armaments Mod 1. One can guess how much PM helps for that. I'd never switch out of PT for that. PT is just too useful for that.

6 minutes ago, Saltface said:

She is a Scharnhorst, and a very adorable one I might say.

If only her Commander (LOL) didn't sink her so much.

 

Some thoughts for criticism:

 

1. I do receive many random hits (even if it doesn't show that I am detected I receive some odd ones). She is a tough nut in her tier so I kind of brush it away, even though it is rather annoying. Being noobish (if I can claim such status) I was thinking of IFA. But, I wasn't so warm about it.

 

2. As she is often the target of aircraft I posited to employ a second one and thought about DCCA. But again I questioned the use of it and the effectiveness (if any).

 

3. As far as PM is concerned I didn't feel the need. Careful use of the R thingy and letting fires burn and healing later works.

 

4. Now, EL. This one is attractive to me because it might force me to upgrade my game style. I am oblivious of the existence of my HE shells. Bad bad Saltface. LOL

 

I will let you know how it turns out. I will take EL. Maybe I will redistribute later.

 

Thank you for your comments till now. By no means I consider the thread closed because I made up my mind.

IFA is imo not worth it, as you can't react in time, this is not some Mogami with double rudder that could actually try dodge. Better look at the PT counter.

DCCA is best imo if this captainb goes also on tech line ships. Bismarck or such don't use EL much and double the planes mmeans double the spotting and you don't lose the perks of a plane as much if one plane gets shot down. 

PM is just there to save your torp tubes from getting destroyed as often. It won't make them invulnerable though.

EL is great for Scharnhorst-only build, as 10 sec switch time is manageable. Would consider it at the limit though. EL, imo, is best if you need to switch in a timely manner to make use of an opportunity. I use it on my German cruisers for example, because you fire HE, then switch to AP asap as an opportunity to punish heavily arises. Scharnhorst typically uses AP as standard ammo and falls back to HE vs DDs or vs angled targets. Against angled targets, imo, HE is not time critical, against DDs, overpen vs HE pen is sadly not that much difference. 9 overpens with AP are 6.8k, 9 HE pens 9.5k. Unloading the AP now and just loading HE afterwards is imo more useful than switching around and wasting 10 seconds. Given that the alternatives are however equally marginal QoL buffs, for Scharnhorst-only, it can be useful.

11 minutes ago, ColonelPete said:

That setup looks too burny for my taste. You have the full fire duration.

Would switch BFT for BoS to address that.

[_DeathWing_]

Some wasted points... build ain't so great as it looks. Also Scharnhorst works great with berserk set up. 

[Redcap375]

1 minute ago, Riselotte said:

The torps are exposed and still are easily hit and incapacitated when running Main Armaments Mod 1. One can guess how much PM helps for that. I'd never switch out of PT for that. PT is just too useful for that.

 

Anything to help keep the torps alive and the main guns working gets my vote.  Unless the turret armour is cray strong (Yam) and/or doesn't have any torps in the first place.  The Sharn guns don't have the best armour casing. 

 

PT for cruisers and DD's, sure.  But a Battlecrusier with good HP, armour and speed to help it get out of dodge? IMHO the others are more useful as your not normally the first target people will aim at.

 

 

[Procrastes]

3 minutes ago, Saltface said:

She is a Scharnhorst, and a very adorable one I might say.

If only her Commander (LOL) didn't sink her so much.

 

Some thoughts for criticism:

 

1. I do receive many random hits (even if it doesn't show that I am detected I receive some odd ones). She is a tough nut in her tier so I kind of brush it away, even though it is rather annoying. Being noobish (if I can claim such status) I was thinking of IFA. But, I wasn't so warm about it.

 

2. As she is often the target of aircraft I posited to employ a second one and thought about DCCA. But again I questioned the use of it and the effectiveness (if any).

 

3. As far as PM is concerned I didn't feel the need. Careful use of the R thingy and letting fires burn and healing later works.

 

4. Now, EL. This one is attractive to me because it might force me to upgrade my game style. I am oblivious of the existence of my HE shells. Bad bad Saltface. LOL

 

I will let you know how it turns out. I will take EL. Maybe I will redistribute later.

 

Thank you for your comments till now. By no means I consider the thread closed because I made up my mind.

1. You already have Priority Target, which in my opinion is a much more useful skill than Incoming Fire Alert. You do not need the latter skill as well.

 

2. I have Direction Center for Catapult Aircraft on my Scharnhorst captain. I like having two planes flying around to keep off attacking planes and generally keep me informed of any nearby threats (such as sneaky destroyers or incoming torpedoes). But I should mention that I have the same captain - Grossadmiral Karl Fertig - on my Graf Spee and Prinz Eugen as well, where the aircraft consumable lasts considerably longer than on a battleship. If I used Karl Fertig on battleships only, I just might go for Expert Loader instead.

 

3. I agree.

 

4. If you do not pick DCCA, I'd say that Expert Loader is the obvious alternative; see point 2 above.

 

I might add that I am an Expert Marksman junkie. I use it on almost all ships that have a 180º turret turning time of around 17-20 seconds or more, irrespective of ship class. So of course I have it on my Scharnhorst captain as well - but I also believe that it is a valid choice for that ship. This means that I have both the Expert Marksman and the Adrenaline Rush skill on my Scharnhorst captain. Your choice of skills, where you go for a combination that allows you to pick Manual Fire Control for Secondary Armament as well as Advanced Firing Training and Concealment Expert, is almost certainly a better and more efficient build, though. To be honest, I personally don't have enough in-game situational awareness to make full use of the MFCSA skill, and so I'd probably just lose out on damage done if I picked that. But if I ever get my Black Mass captain up to 14 points, I'll pick that skill next and see how it goes!

[Cagliostro_chan]

Just now, Redcap375 said:

 

Anything to help keep the torps alive and the main guns working gets my vote.  Unless the turret armour is cray strong (Yam) and/or doesn't have any torps in the first place.  The Sharn guns don't have the best armour casing. 

 

PT for cruisers and DD's, sure.  But a Battlecrusier with good HP, armour and speed to help it get out of dodge? IMHO the others are more useful as your not normally the first target people will aim at.

 

 

PT on BBs isn't there for dodging. At best if you are a Vanguard. But typically it's so you know whether

• Someone might have a shot on you. E.g. on Estuary at the start, ship gets spotted. If the counter stays up for a bit, it's best to be wary of incoming shells across the mid and look out for any windows in the mountains where this might happen. If it goes away, you likely are fine.
• How many of the opponents are actually focusing on you. If you aren't the sole ship around, this gives you an indicator of how many enemies at the moment are bothering with you. If it's just 1 and the rest don't bother, you can focus on that one and be a bit more aggressive till it goes up. Without, you'd have to constantly keep check and potentially assume them all to be aiming at you.
• Whether there are potentially more unspotted enemies around. Spot only 2 targets but 4 are targetting you? Well, likely be more careful when pushing into that.
• Torpedo alert. One of the most lauded uses of the PT counter. It goes down and up again when people switch to torp tubes. It's possible to avoid counter-change if you stay in torp mode on a DD and never use guns, so you gotta be more careful there, but the more important guns are on a ship, the more reliable it gets. Torpedo-armed cruisers and BBs typically always will switch, because few go in without firing a shot. Given Scharnhorst is a brawler, this is especially useful.

Given how often it is useful, compared to how rarely I lose a turret or how little the impact is on torpedo tube survival, PT is definitely my preferred choice.

5 minutes ago, Procrastes said:

I might add that I am an Expert Marksman junkie. I use it on almost all ships that have a 180º turret turning time of around 17-20 seconds or more, irrespective of ship class.

IJN DDs?

[Procrastes]

2 minutes ago, Riselotte said:

IJN DDs?

Erm, no. 

 

And thanks for the question! I don't play IJN DDs very much, but that might possibly change a bit now that they have gotten their popguns beefed up a bit. I still wouldn't pick Expert Marksman for them however, or at least not for any of the purebred torpedo ninjas. I guess that Akizuki and her ilk might be another matter.

[Saltface]

Dear @Redcap375 , indulge me for feeling noobish and having PT, but I find merit in your comment.

Dispersion is quite an issue. Sometimes, I enjoy a wonderful cluster of shells flying nicely where I aimed. Sometimes. But, alas,  I find my shells most undisciplined, they all go their own way. So, ASM 1 was non-negotiable.

As her Commander likes to brawl (not me its him LOL) I opted for a secondary build while maintaining the ASM 1. It works if you select your targets wisely. She has successfully bullied big ones.

Dear @Riselotte, your analysis is rather convincing. You changed my mind. LOL as if it was hard to do so since its confused right now. But the rationale presented was convincing. 

Dear @_DeathWing_ could you please define berserk?

@Procrastes MFCSA worked for me, it started out as a way to put DDs in check, click on them and let them wonder in my 8Km circle trying to put their torps on me. I found out that some of them went down even if they had eluded my attention. Then, I noticed that my brawling got better. Scharnhorst, under 8 Km has a rather accurate shot and can deal a bit of damage. Combined with the fast reload time I could close in, control click, shoot my mains twice, unload the torps and get results.

BTW, King George went down with me. LOL

I m trying to evaluate all that has been written. I don't really know, maybe I ll dump PT after all.

 

I claim I am confused. LOL

More so now than before I posted this.

 

 

 

 

 

[Saltface]

11 minutes ago, Riselotte said:

PT on BBs isn't there for dodging. At best if you are a Vanguard. But typically it's so you know whether

• Someone might have a shot on you. E.g. on Estuary at the start, ship gets spotted. If the counter stays up for a bit, it's best to be wary of incoming shells across the mid and look out for any windows in the mountains where this might happen. If it goes away, you likely are fine.
• How many of the opponents are actually focusing on you. If you aren't the sole ship around, this gives you an indicator of how many enemies at the moment are bothering with you. If it's just 1 and the rest don't bother, you can focus on that one and be a bit more aggressive till it goes up. Without, you'd have to constantly keep check and potentially assume them all to be aiming at you.
• Whether there are potentially more unspotted enemies around. Spot only 2 targets but 4 are targetting you? Well, likely be more careful when pushing into that.
• Torpedo alert. One of the most lauded uses of the PT counter. It goes down and up again when people switch to torp tubes. It's possible to avoid counter-change if you stay in torp mode on a DD and never use guns, so you gotta be more careful there, but the more important guns are on a ship, the more reliable it gets. Torpedo-armed cruisers and BBs typically always will switch, because few go in without firing a shot. Given Scharnhorst is a brawler, this is especially useful.

Given how often it is useful, compared to how rarely I lose a turret or how little the impact is on torpedo tube survival, PT is definitely my preferred choice.

IJN DDs?

 

@Riselotte, thank you for the analysis !!!! Most instructive. I need to digest it but it gave an insight I had failed till now.

 

Thank you again. 

[Procrastes]

38 minutes ago, Saltface said:

 

@Riselotte, thank you for the analysis !!!! Most instructive. I need to digest it but it gave an insight I had failed till now.

Yes, correspondence with @Riselotte tends to have that effect, or so I've found.

[gopher31]

DCCA, Scharnhorst has no hydro so if you want to brawl it’s a good investment.

 

[_DeathWing_]

2 hours ago, Saltface said:

Dear @_DeathWing_ could you please define berserk?

berserk (adjective) - out of control with anger or excitement; wild or frenzied.

[Tyrendian89]

2 hours ago, Saltface said:

 

I claim I am confused. LOL

More so now than before I posted this.

 

 

something something Be careful what you wish for...

 

If you want more detailed pointers about how you can improve your Shineyhorse gameplay beyond just the setup, you can always try posting a replay or two of a "typical" battle of yours (best not to cherrypick the best ones, tempting as it may be^^) - there's usually one or two veteran forumites with the time to give that a watch and throw a few comments and hints your way

[Saltface]

@Tyrendian89

I will do just that. Thank you for the advice.

 

Indeed I will not cherrypick. (the one I posted the results is my absolute best in Scharnhorst. I once had similar outcome in my Nurnberg and with the Hindenburg). In the Scharnhorst I have a better overall average. But most probably it is because the ones in the Scharnhorst are my last 100 battles and maybe because my initial decision to go down the cruiser line was not befitting my temperament. It seems that Battleships suit me better. Or I suit them. 

 

Actually I will post one that I can identify some errors or one that I feel something went wrong but I can't pinpoint it.

I will search the forum to see how I can record a game and share it for judgement and criticism.

 

Thank you for the most positive advise.

 

 

[Allied_Winter]

1 minute ago, Saltface said:

I can record a game and share

Replays are generated automatically and you can then put it on a website like this: https://replayswows.com

[Tyrendian89]

2 minutes ago, Saltface said:

@Tyrendian89

I will do just that. Thank you for the advice.

 

Indeed I will not cherrypick. (the one I posted the results is my absolute best in Scharnhorst. I once did similar in my Nurnberg and with the Hindenburg. In the Scharnhorst I have a better overall average. But most probably it is because the ones in the Scharnhorst are my last 100 battles.

 

Actually I will post one that I can identify some errors or one that I feel something went wrong but I can't pinpoint it.

I will search the forum to see how I can record a game and share it for judgement and criticism.

 

Thank you for the most positive advise.

 

 

if I recall, WG somewhat recently auto-enabled replays so you wouldn't even have to do anything - just check your {WoWs install directory}/replays folder.

 

And hey, if you take @Allied_Winter's post and mine together they're actually somewhat complete and helpful. That's what I call teamwork!