Neptune - What to make of it?

[HaachamaShipping]

Alright, with PEF credit grind over, I decided to buy Neptune. I had it unlocked for a while, but prioritised other ships, because I didn't feel in a hurry to move on. One doesn't hear good things about this ship, I saw the stats in port and the armour model was quite... scary. And Neptune is one of my favourite targets as a cruiser or BB, because it is so easy to farm citadels on it. But hey, there has to be something right?

 

So, I know, currently is like the worst time to play this ship (hello there, credit grinding Kronshtadts, Missouris and Musashis, newly acquired Stalingrads), but well, gotta learn when I got time. It has been, trying, to say the least. I know, I'm not a stellar player, but I try my best and what I really miss with the Neptune is... consistency. To me, the averages I get in Neptune are about as good as what I get in Roon or Ibuki, but the individual match results vary greatly and my WR seems crap. Asking clan mates who actually like this ship, they mostly just were like "gotta get used to it" priestess.png, which doesn't really help make me feel more at ease with this ship.

 

What I gathered so far is that Neptune basically is just not able to play close range support like other RN cruisers could, because the survivability of the ship is garbage and the concealment is decidedly bad for the kind of vessel it is. In Edinburgh, I liked to just change smoke for radar and play the ship by ambushing DDs and camping behind islands when I felt like farming some damage. Damage totals weren't impressive, but when you can get an early kill on a DD, I felt like I was at least useful and the WR was decent too. On Neptune, I can't do that, because you get outspotted easily and then get absolutely murdered by everyone. And with smoke, the approach that seemed to work is to find somewhere 10-12 km away from the target (further if it's a Russian), smoke up, apply insane dpm. Further than that and they'd outrun my gun range, closer and I'd have to potentially fight them in the open as withdrawing from my smoke leaves me with 10.1 km concealment. And the dpm is nice, as is the torpedo armament. But other than that...

 

Is there a way to play this ship in a more consistent manner that isn't necessarily just trying to matter by farming broadside ships at range? Also something that actually has some impact to provide the team with an advantage before it falls apart and I get overrun? I don't want to make some rant about this ship (though I find the concealment could need some help), but as it is, the only thing keeping me from losing my patience on this ship is looking up collaboration art of Neptune inbetween battles and my own ambition to get a WR of 50+%.

 

Weeb stuff (AL Neptune):

Spoiler

 

[ShinGetsu]

If you really want to try hard, mount radar+radar duration module, and play close range with cover. It's risky tho. But very rewarding when mastered.

 

Other than that, it can play pretty straightforwardly by giving close range support with smoke and hydro to your DD... but you have to be very careful. Too close and you'll be spotted and one-shot, too far and you're useless.

It... can work. Honestly it's not easy and I didn't have very good stats with it, but it CAN works and do some good stuff. 

 

Also, upgrade your AA range with AFT+range module. For the simple reason you want your AA range to be bigger than your plane detection range.

 

You want to get to Minotaur as quickly as possible honestly. But the grind isn't that horrible either. Buffalo and Seattle are far more painful IMO.

[HaachamaShipping]

4 minutes ago, ShinGetsu said:

If you really want to try hard, mount radar+radar duration module, and play close range with cover. It's risky tho. But very rewarding when mastered.

 

Other than that, it can play pretty straightforwardly by giving close range support with smoke and hydro to your DD... but you have to be very careful. Too close and you'll be spotted and one-shot, too far and you're useless.

It... can work. Honestly it's not easy and I didn't have very good stats with it, but it CAN works and do some good stuff. 

Alright. I tried one game with radar today in desperation, but got Tears of the Cruiser - Standard Battle and wanted to kill myself. Will try more next week, when I'm back from abroad and can maybe play a few games again. I know it'll require me to get a better grip on the handling of the ship though, given RN cruisers basically don't decelerate, so any mistake in slowing down too late might be instant death.

 

Thanks.

[HaachamaShipping]

So, played a bit with radar today, trying to be a more careful Edinburgh. Ship feels like a downgrade compared to Edinburgh, just because of that added 1.1 km in detectability and the insane citadel size. I pretty much have to wait for a DD to mess up and plunder into my radar range before I can radar, which often means it gets me 10k spotting damage or so and the DD might get away. With Edinburgh, you could at least be a bit more offensive, as long as no big gun threats were around.

 

Overall, my radar results are not much different from my smoke results. Decent damage average, crap WR, because when things go south, this ship can't hold a flank at all. It just dies and it being not very fast, not very stealthy and not tanky means I often get utterly wrecked if there's noone spotting and drawng the fire.

 

Overall, I don't like this ship, I have no clue how this thing is supposed to be decent, given it seems to be completely inconsistent. Good results mostly depend on the enemy being stupid and putting all their big gun ships where they can't shoot me or where they ignore me (rare, but happens). If there's even just 1 BB around, I can basically just go and suck it, because even if I find some island to camp behind and they don't just delete me with spotter plane, actually killing ships before they push into me is hard. I don't even want to know painful this'll be with 8.0, when planes are everywhere, AA range gets nerfed, CE gets nerfed for cruisers and Alaska gets released.

[urr027]

I generally don’t sell my ships, I think Neptune is the only tier 5+ ship I’ve gotten rid of, I found her so difficult that I was sure never want to play it again after grinding through it.

[rnat]

Radar Neptune isn't really viable imo. Edin can get away with the small stealth-fire radius because it gets overpend a lot and Mino has a whopping ~1.2km stealth-radar and the dpm to make it count.

 

One of the balances you'll have to learn with Nep and Mino (and Nep is a harsh mistress after the Edin let you get away with a lot more risky plays) is when and where you choose to make a stand and for how long.

Don't think of it as an evolution of the Edin but more of a very exaggerated Fiji: More DPM, much more fragile, more torps.

If you notice your position is getting compromised but you still have time on your smoke: Bail. Staying can work but that takes experience to judge and is still risky in the best of cases, but for now play it safe.

If the enemy pushes run (maybe send some torps backwards to annoy them) and try to get around and on the side of their push.

At some point the enemy usually stops chasing you (unless a DD keeps you spotted) and turns to deal with the rest of your team.

At that point stop, smoke and farm the ever-living hell out of them.

[LeSnoet]

I personally think the smoke nerf killed it. You can be seen from 7.2km when firing in smoke, when you almost need to show broadside to get the maximum out of it. 

It was quite good before the nerf, good AA, torps. But now I cannot recommended it anymore. Too sluggish, insta-blappable. 

And the Minotaur plays very differently in terms of manouvering. 

 

Sorry, can’t help you out with this one. 

[HaachamaShipping]

10 hours ago, rnat said:

Don't think of it as an evolution of the Edin but more of a very exaggerated Fiji: More DPM, much more fragile, more torps.

I don't like Fiji much, because it feels like a meh upgrade on the Leander (Yes, 50% more dpm, but one less torp per side and 1 km worse concealment at worse MM) and Neptune feels like even less of one over Edinburgh. Nor do I really need a dpm sidegrade over it. I'd frankly rather play Fiji vs T9 than smoke Neptune, because Fiji has Edinburgh's citadel, not Neptune's, it has better concealment and having impact as aT7 cruiser vs a T9 cruiser is avastlydifferent thing.

36 minutes ago, LeSnoet said:

I personally think the smoke nerf killed it. You can be seen from 7.2km when firing in smoke, when you almost need to show broadside to get the maximum out of it. 

It was quite good before the nerf, good AA, torps. But now I cannot recommended it anymore. Too sluggish, insta-blappable. 

And the Minotaur plays very differently in terms of manouvering. 

 

Sorry, can’t help you out with this one. 

Concealmentwhen firing from smoke is6.6 km though...

 

Also, I find that the smoke firing penalty isn't that much of an issue. If a DD is within 6.6 km, you should run anyway, because you are about to get torped. If someone is rushing your smoke and is within 6.6 km, you are hardly likely to gun them down before they would detect you even if it was something like 4 km. And in general, way too often you stay 10+ km away just because of radar.

[Adm_Ballsey]

@Seiranko

I posted this a few weeks ago about how I approach the Neptune. In my humble opinion this ship is amazing when played this way

 

[Absolute_Potato]

I understand your point.

 

I am playing the Neptune because of the match making with T8.

Playing the Edinburgh against a Hindy / Roon or Moskva is a big challenge.

 

My games are very situational, it depends strong on the map and where on the map you spawn.

I am not the most experienced player so it is 50/50 in results, sometime I can make a little difference, but mostly I don't.

 

With the Fiji I am able to really contribute to a game .  In the Edinburgh I do better than with the Neptune.

T8 MM is brutal, 75% of the games I am bottom tear, which made me wonder if it would not better to just grind to a T9 cruiser (or BB).

I choose the Neptune as T9 cruiser but it is not an easy ship to play.

 

Cheers.

[Cyclops_]

Neptune in Ranked is pretty strong, but only if your team help by spotting etc, sadly  this was a losing game.

 

[HaachamaShipping]

21 hours ago, Cyclops_ said:

Neptune in Ranked is pretty strong, but only if your team help by spotting etc, sadly  this was a losing game.

Honestly, I mind less if they fail at spotting and think the main issue if they let you get flanked. Neptune even before getting concealment below radar range is quite good at ambushing DDs and can 1v1 cruisers (except Kronshtadt). If you however get flanked by the big guns, you die.

[bloodynicknames]

The Neptune sucks, i've seen them get oneshot countless times. ...

 

BUT

 

It teaches you the importance of positioning which comes in very handy with the Minotaur. 

Dont rely on smoke and go with radar and use Islands as cover and try to stealth fire from behind them whenever you can.

I've started with the Minotaur running smoke but for the last 100 games or so i've ran radar and after you get used to the fact you can no longer just camp and spam in smoke(which is a bad idea anyway with radar + torpwalls) the ship is so versatile now that even at T10 you can carry a crap team(not always but sometimes).

 

1) Great concealmeant

2) Ability to actually cap thanks to 1) 

3) Radar outranges your concealment by almost 1km so if you're spotted by a DD it's bad news for the DD

4) 10km torps and the ability to stealth torp thanks to 1) 

5) massive damaged output even against BBs. Thanks to your concealment you will easily be able to position yourself in a way that they show you broadside and then they just melt, by the time they managed to fire their guns twice you'll have melted half their health away. 

6) great maneuverability and acceleration makes for excellent getaway ability

 

so the Neptune is kinda worth it if you know what comes next. 

 

[Absolute_Potato]

I have been playing the Neptune for about 20 times.

The more experience I have with the Neptune, the better it performs. Yes, you can be the receiving end of devastating strikes and even detonations, but if you have some map awareness and understand positioning you can be aggressive.

Like in any other light cruiser, don’t be the first to make a mistake and return to port. First watch how the game develops, which ships are where and where are they going.

My play with the Neptune begins with support to friendly DD’s at capping, play safe with positioning (able to counter an attack, support DD against cruisers and other DD’s) and move to cover when PT tells you that more than 1 ship is focusing on you and BB are close by.

RN cruisers can accelerate very fast, I use it to my advantage for dodging.

Later in the game I become more aggressive, hunting DD’s, cruisers and harassing the BB’s (torps and farm damage) taking more risks. When the game goes into the final phase and the numbers are not so dense, I attack more aggressive and finish red’s off.

When my team is falling apart, I am mostly the last man standing (and yes, I am almost always in the top 5 of the XP earners).

And that is also how I play the Fiji, Edinburgh and the Minotaur. With the Minotaur I am not the one that is machine gunning, but full volleys at a time (more accurate) and as a result more efficient.