Tips on playing the Emile Bertin

[ErteRthefirst]

I recently started playing world of warships and have been enjoying it a lot. I have mostly been grinding the Japanese battleship line and the French cruiser line. I was quite succesfull  with the French cruisers. I generally played them quite aggressively using their long main battery range to get some damage in early on in the game and then using their good speed to try to get up close and get a couple of nice torpedo hits. After unlocking the Emile I tried to do the same and got completely and utterly destroyers. So I am looking for some general gameplay tips for the Emile. It would also be nice to hear what upgrades and commander skills are considered best for the ship.

[belalugosisdead]

You simply got higher in Tiers. You cant play Cruisers as Torp Boats any more. BBs get more accurate. Use your Speed. Spam HE. Use AP on Broadside Cruisers. Shoot DDs. Get dark if focused. Play with your consealement. 

[Bindolaf_Werebane]

I played the French cruisers up to tier IX (for now) and I enjoyed them immensely. I loved the Bertin, the Galissoniere and the Martel the most and enjoyed some success with them.

 

Here's my tip: (for now) forget they have torpedoes.

 

French cruisers enjoy the open sea, they revel in speed and agility. So, upon the battles starting, see first where things are going. Then, stay at near max range and fire HE at hapless ships. Once you have 2 perma-fires on them, move to the next. Killing DDs is viable, but be careful when close to BBs, they can (and will) one-shot you. Torpedoes can (and should) be launched at targets chasing you (a dumb move). Your torps are fast, have good range and damage, but they are not your primary weapon.

 

As to avoiding damage. Use your concealment, but don't just hide behind islands. Keep mobile. Take incoming fire alert. Once you see the alert flashing, change course and/or speed, rinse and repeat. This works best at max range and loses effectiveness the closer you get.

 

This is my advice, in short. In all the tiers I played, I don't think I ever stopped my ships in the water. Always keep up your speed, know when to fire (but do it a lot) and when to run. Enjoy a really good line!

 

O7

[ErteRthefirst]

Thanks for the reply bindolaf. Since you have quite some experience with the French cruiser line I was wondering what upgrades signals camos and commander skills you think are best for the French cruiser line.

[bratisla_boy]

Adding my own question : for my permanent french commander for Bertin I chose IFHE over CE, buuuuuut .... meh for the moment. I may as well suck, but I would like some feedback for the moment.

 

@ErteRthefirst : for general french cruiser captains, you cannot go wrong with Priority Target, Adrenaline Rush, Demolition Expert and Concealment Expert. Superintendant is not *that* useful even when you get the reload boost, but is not useless. IFHE is good on 155mm and 240mm buuuut Algerie, Charles Martel and Saint Louis have 203mm so I'd suggest to hold on that - and as I said meh on Bertin, dunno why. Expert Marksman can be thought about, too. After that you pick quality of life skills.

For signals : everything improving the fire chance. French cruisers are fire spammers. Forget the torps except for last desperate defence. Spoob beest of course, french cruisers have a reputation to hold. For modules you want the modules improving accuracy and steering, to wiggle at large distance. My 2 cents.

[Yedwy]

@OP My tip is - dont, before they nerfed the reload on her guns she was a real peach, now she is just a lemon...

[RAHJAILARI]

In general, Cruisers just aren't torpedoboats. Torps are there just for extreme emergencies. The only Cruisers, you can still attempt to do some torp work with from tier 5 upwards are the Japanese and even with them, you have to be extremely careful or you will end up torping your own side instead of the enemy (with 10 km torp range, it is plenty of time for anyone to get in-between your torps and their intended target).

 

Emile is a VERY good ship. It is the fastest Cruiser in its tier and you can use that speed to run down enemy DD's (especially, if you put the speed flag on), most of which tend to be slower than you - This also helps you to get away from anyone chasing you. Also, if possible, put one of the French special commanders into it (buffed turret traverse), this together with her good agility will help you keep your guns on target while weaving -> WASD.

 

You see, with them using Standard sights, you 14-15km away and going at 40 knots, and the amount of lead they need to take to target you... Well, most computer screens simply won't be wide enough for them to even see you properly while aiming (you will face this problem more acutely in high tiers, when trying to shoot at French or Russian DD's). BTW consider changing to Dynamic at some point.

 

Generally, if facing BB's stay at maximum range, keep full speed and WASD, Emile's speed means it will be very difficult to hit, especially when changing directions. Spam mostly HE from a distance, but if a Cruiser comes to within 10km of you showing broadside, switch to AP for a few good Citadels (works on CL, CA are sometimes more difficult due to slightly better armor). Forget you have torps, if ever you get close enough to the enemy BB to be able to use them, you've probably already seriously messed up and are about to be dead very soon. So they are strictly just a last resort revenge weapon (short range, not very powerful and not enough of them to guarantee a kill). Nothing more.

[Captain_Newman]

I'm tempted to say - the way you play the Emile is sail broadside to every BB you can find and only get overpens on you.. She seems quite trolly in that regard, at least if I'm the BB 

 

Seriously though, trying to force torpedo usage on cruisers is usually what gets inexperienced cruiser players killed. Bonus point for what I call the Tirpitz / Donskoi maneuver, but it's applicable to anything with torps, really - going broadside in front of a bb's bow so you can maybe land one torp while he blaps you off the map.. don't be that guy.

 

In a french cruiser, you usually want to be kiting at range on a flank, dealing damage. You're especially valuable if the enemy is trying to push, then you can easily kite and burn them. Torpedoes are highly situational and should be used late game in opportune moments (island ambush, BB chasing you, etc). Try to resist the urge to yolo BB's to torp them, mid to high tier you'll just get blapped.

[BlackYeti]

Slap a speed flag on.

Stay full speed at range.

Go HONHONHON as enemies struggle to get a proper lead on you.

Profit.

[DEADSNAKE2]

26 minutes ago, Captain_Newman said:

I'm tempted to say - the way you play the Emile is sail broadside to every BB you can find and only get overpens on you.. She seems quite trolly in that regard, at least if I'm the BB 

Pretty much this.

Émile's armor scheme rivals most destroyers. Even her turret Barbette armor is a meager 15mm. It's almost impossible for BBs to citadel Émile since their AP usually doesn't hit armor thick enough to arm the shell. I just load HE if i play a BB and encounter an Émile. In hopes of crippling their rudder or engine. Even with cruisers it's challenging, but it's possible to citadel her. Just aim below the water line.

26 minutes ago, Captain_Newman said:

In a french cruiser, you usually want to be kiting at range on a flank, dealing damage. You're especially valuable if the enemy is trying to push, then you can easily kite and burn them. Torpedoes are highly situational and should be used late game in opportune moments (island ambush, BB chasing you, etc). Try to resist the urge to yolo BB's to torp them, mid to high tier you'll just get blapped.

You don't have engine boost but you're pretty much faster than every DD at your tier(Except Podvoisky), this will teach you how to use your speed as your survivability in this cruiser line, as with Galissoniére and up you get slower, but you get an Engine boost and MBRB.

 

I love Émile. Have her set as a primary ship in port. One of the most fun low tier cruisers to play hands down, even with that reload. 

[DFens_666]

10 hours ago, ErteRthefirst said:

I recently started playing world of warships and have been enjoying it a lot. I have mostly been grinding the Japanese battleship line and the French cruiser line. I was quite succesfull  with the French cruisers. I generally played them quite aggressively using their long main battery range to get some damage in early on in the game and then using their good speed to try to get up close and get a couple of nice torpedo hits. After unlocking the Emile I tried to do the same and got completely and utterly destroyers. So I am looking for some general gameplay tips for the Emile. It would also be nice to hear what upgrades and commander skills are considered best for the ship.

 

Might also be, that you still had protected Matchmaking. I think currently, its up to 75 random battles, but not past T5. (didnt find anything on that, but i think thats how it works). Within that protection, you are either playing against other new players or even bots afaik.

 

40 minutes ago, Captain_Newman said:

I'm tempted to say - the way you play the Emile is sail broadside to every BB you can find and only get overpens on you.. She seems quite trolly in that regard, at least if I'm the BB 

 

Yep, T3-6 French Cruisers are more vulnerable to citadels if angled... Might just say, thats pretty horrible design. Emile being the "worst" of them all, aka it almost never get citadels while broadside. If you are lucky and hit the water then its possible, otherwise i dont think it is.

[Captain_Newman]

1 minute ago, DFens_666 said:

Yep, T3-6 French Cruisers are more vulnerable to citadels if angled... Might just say, thats pretty horrible design. Emile being the "worst" of them all, aka it almost never get citadels while broadside. If you are lucky and hit the water then its possible, otherwise i dont think it is.

 

I know, right? It can be pretty infuriating. Luckily, I have my revenge machine in port - the Gremy citadels them all, no problem. Had a game yesterday in it where I AP cit-killed 3 cruisers in one game in it. Git balans'd 

[ForlornSailor]

10 hours ago, ErteRthefirst said:

After unlocking the Emile I tried to do the same and got completely and utterly destroyers.

 

the reason here is absolutly obvious and, well, a fact. You have 69 battles played. Thus you are/were in protected matchmaking. You saw new players with less then 75 games played and bots only. Protected matchmaking stops, when you pick a T5 ships. So with Emile, you play against "real" players, no matter that you havent played more then 75 games yet. Everything, that you "learned" playing in pretected mm is useless. I suggest to watch some youtube. Rushing in early to torp & shoot will NEVER EVER work in this game - when er talk about randoms.

[RAHJAILARI]

6 minutes ago, DFens_666 said:

Yep, T3-6 French Cruisers are more vulnerable to citadels if angled... Might just say, thats pretty horrible design. Emile being the "worst" of them all, aka it almost never get citadels while broadside. If you are lucky and hit the water then its possible, otherwise i dont think it is.

Yupp, only got myself Citadeled real good once while in an Emile and this is precisely what happened. Straight through the rear and... OUCH!!!

[M4R4Z]

Learn how to kite BBs, i.e. shooting at them while running away at medium speed, showing your stern, turning and changing speed.

When you spot a BB that is in range, if you are not spotted yet, do not shoot immediately. Go a bit closer, start turning away and when you are at half the turn or more, shoot. Then start kiting as explained above. Most cruiser players start shooting when they are still closing range, so sooner or later they have to turn and show their broadside, and risk taking some citadel hits. Use the Priority Target skill, so you can know how many ships are targeting you. If it's just one BB, it's easy timing your shots, so that you can turn and show a bit of your broadside andshoot your front guns when she is reloaidng her guns. 

Be a bit cautious at the start, when there are many enemies that can obliterate you. Cruiser tend to shine in the latest part of the battle.

 

EDIT: also, do not play tier 5 until you have at least 400-500 battles at lower tiers. Play all classes (except maybe CV) so you learn the pros and cons of each class and you can fight them better.

[invicta2012]

The other thing to remember is that the French Tier IV has a massive torpedo loadout. She is up there with Emerald in that respect, so you can get close up and Dev Strike a battleship, just like a Triangle.... Sorry, a DD.

 

You can't do that in an Emile Bertin. Emile's speed caused me huge problems when I played it as I always over-extended and the ship doesn't have the tools to recover from misplays like that. Spaced armour or not, you will get whacked.

 

The thing about cruiser survival is that you need to vary your speed as much your direction, and that you always need to be looking for cover. Emile B has nearly 15k range so there's no need to rush at the start of a game - don't zoom ahead and get spotted and focused, work with your team, focus targets and spam HE to get them burning and wasting their damage control. Then you can use your speed to look for opportunities - getting in close to a cap to hunt DDs or re positioning, if your team needs it. It's that same old sweet spot between staying alive and over caution, being daring and dying too too quickly. That takes time and practice (and if you work it out, tell me how).

[Bindolaf_Werebane]

1 hour ago, bratisla_boy said:

Adding my own question : for my permanent french commander for Bertin I chose IFHE over CE, buuuuuut .... meh for the moment. I may as well suck, but I would like some feedback for the moment.

I'm not the best person to answer that. I'll just say this: I didn't take IFHE, I'm waiting to get it on the Henri. I didn't suffer for it, at all.

 

Perhaps tier V is too low to see a great difference - not sure if targets are that heavily plated. Then, as you said, the 203 mm guns don't profit from the skill.

 

My feedback would be, just have fun with it, don't stress about the damage output. I am really not a good player, I'm pretty average. Still, I can't tell you how many times I've slowed down a flanking enemy or harassed a capping force, or... or... Especially, for some reason, the Galissoniere clicked with me (maybe the only ship I had purple stats with).

 

Don't play for damage, play to the needs of the match,  speed like the wind, guns blazing, WASD mad hacking and have fun :)

[Yedwy]

In all honesty IDK if I would go past T8 at the french CA line as it stands now, the Henry nerf as well as the 30mm ovetmatching BB proliferation in high tiers makes their life increasingly harder nowadays, Martel with a permacamo is as high as I would bother to go

[Captain_Newman]

11 minutes ago, Yedwy said:

In all honesty IDK if I would go past T8 at the french CA line as it stands now, the Henry nerf as well as the 30mm ovetmatching BB proliferation in high tiers makes their life increasingly harder nowadays, Martel with a permacamo is as high as I would bother to go

 

St. Louis is and always was good. Henri needs some adaptation in playstyle now - as in, you can't cockroach at maximum range just throttle juking every shell, but need to actually make standard kiting maneuvers. Yes, imho they nerfed the acceleration too hard, but it was way too trolly before, it's not like it didn't need some attention, and we all know WG balances things with a sledgehammer if it isn't russian. I'd still say you're not wasting time if you decide to grind this line.

[Yedwy]

I know you can, I played it after nerf but IMO the whole point in grinding Henry out was having her for CB and this season I am not seeing many (and I am not driving mine either) as there are easier choices... I mean even last season (before nerf) it became obvious that her utility was decreasing with the large caliber BBs that made your deck armor usless and one lucky dense salvo would basically put you to margins as you had no HP left, with nerfed mobility she is even easier to hit and devastate...

 

StLouis is just a slightly improved Martel but in return you need to put up with T10 much more often not to mention T9

[RAHJAILARI]

2 hours ago, bratisla_boy said:

Adding my own question : for my permanent french commander for Bertin I chose IFHE over CE, buuuuuut .... meh for the moment. I may as well suck, but I would like some feedback for the moment.

In my experience, French Cruisers seem to work better, if you just play them as flamethrower ships. HE and fires, so make sure to take DE but IFHE is a bit MEH and at higher tiers you won't be needing it any more anyways (since already 203mm+ gun caliber)!

[DFens_666]

9 minutes ago, RAHJAILARI said:

but IFHE is a bit MEH and at higher tiers you won't be needing it any more anyways (since already 203mm+ gun caliber)! 

 

I just put IFHE on my Buffalo to test it. Back when IFHE was introduced, we didnt have that many ships with 33-44mm plating (only US BBs techtree + Missouri). But now we have more of them:

NC, Massa, Iowa, Missouri, Georgia, Montana, Ohio - all 37/38mm midsection.

Vladi 40mm mid

Goliath 40mm deck

 

[ErteRthefirst]

Thanks for all the replies. It helps a lot.

4 hours ago, ErteRthefirst said:

Thanks for the reply bindolaf. Since you have quite some experience with the French cruiser line I was wondering what upgrades signals camos and commander skills you think are best for the French cruiser line.

If someone could give me answer to thuis question as well that would be awesome.

[Yedwy]

Cap skill wise - PT/PM-EM/AR-SI/DE/SE-CE

 

Modules wise per slots:

S1 - Main battery and torp surv

S2 - Rudder mod for up to T8 (soon to be engine and rudder in one) OR Engine boost modification (from arsenal for coal)

S3 - Aiming modification (reduced dispersion on main battery) for now I guess, reimains to bw seen next patch when new modules hit

S4 - rudder shift increase or engine increase as per taste

S5 - Concralment module OR unique upgrade on Henry

S6 (T9/10) - depends on playstyle some get more utility from extra range, some from faster reload, I usually take the latter but in CB sometimes range can be an issue

 

As for camos - most camos have the concralment and dispersion boon so it doesnt really matter

[DFens_666]

21 minutes ago, ErteRthefirst said:

Thanks for all the replies. It helps a lot.

If someone could give me answer to thuis question as well that would be awesome.

 

Depends a little when you move up the tiers. And we will get updated modules soon aswell, so that might change some things

 

- Main Armament mod 1 in 1st slot

- If you have for the higher tiers Engine boost mod 1 in 2nd slot, otherwise stearing gears mod 1

- Aiming System mod 1 in 3rd slot. Now, soon the Main battery mod 2 gets changed, i think it might be a viable alternative for better turret traverse.

- 4th slot either Propulsion or Stearing gear, imo its not that clear cut. If you move full speed all the time, then take Stearing gears.

Not sure if we need to talk about Slot 5+6 yet, as you arent that far anyway and they are only available at T8+.

 

Camos is up to you, and so are mostly the signals. Both of them which increase firechance are useful and SierraMike for extra speed. T9+ can also use healing flag.

 

Captain skills:

- PT is a good defensive choice, but i prefer EL. Basereload is rather slow, so its good if you can swap ammo fast. And with reload boost, you can swap even faster.

- AR / EM

- SI, but not before you get MBRB, probably could even skip it till T9 when you get heal. DE for more fires

- CE. HIV can take IFHE, but its not a must imo.