Italian Ships SAP

[FAP_pt]

After playing until tier 7 with Zara its been extremely annoying finding SAP almost useless, in my last game even DDs can rebound theses shells, and then we have to wait for 14 secs to another shitty salvo and pray for not being wiped out in one BB shot. This picture illustrates the efficiency of SAP, 24 hits, 6 000 damage. An average of 250 per shell.

 

[lossi_2018]

Make SAP great again!

[Jethro_Grey]

Learn to play issue. 

[Bics93]

I average about 70-80k on Zara if I’m not mistaken, you should prioritize unsaturated BB superstrictures and badly angled cruisers to get good results.

 

Also the 30mm upper belt gives you a little more survivability against AP, provided you get a bit of luck. 

[FAP_pt]

I already knew that was going to be bad untill tear 8, but i never thought it would be so bad, i wonder if Amalfi and the rest is worth the effort, well see.

The only good thing about this ships is the ability of making turns with smoke when in tricky situations, everything else we can do better in any other cruiser, the only ones that are so fragile are the light american cruisers that have to hide behind islands, but they are stealthy, these italians are seen from outer space and have to be way far away to try and avoid being blapped...

Its a bad line... thats way so many few are playing them.

[Chaos_Umbra]

Basically if you want SAP that is reliable free XP to the tier 10 otherwise your gonna have to keep relying on the enemy sailing broadside to do any damage...

[CptMinia]

Yup, I complained when the ITA cruisers came out with the nerfed SAP which was primarily nerfed because we could delete destroyers sailing across the map in a straight line. Quite frankly I didn't see the problem but hey ho I don't make the decisions. Point is when the nerf came I was surprised not to see a reload buff. The nation in the past known for long reloads was the japanese cruisers, but now it is the Italian cruisers. You either try to get damage quickly and don't pick your targets well resulting in poor damage, or spend so much time trying to find a good shot you can exploit that you end up with poor damage anyway. It's hard to average a set amount of damage with the Italian cruisers compared to other nations. Honestly I find them boring and not enjoyable, which is why I've barely played them after I grinded them.

 

Regards,

               Minia

[GulvkluderGuld]

Tier 5 to 7 are fit for the dumpster due to bad sAP pen angles. They cannot deal with BBs at all.

Amalfi is slightly better, but you may not really notice it since it still cannot deal with BBs.

Brindisi at tier 9 is when the ammuntion starts to become actually useful.

I still dont have Venezia.

 

2 hours ago, Jethro_Grey said:

Learn to play issue. 

Actually, not exclusively L2P issue.

None of those ships below tier 8 can sink a bowtanking BB even if it is afk without resorting to torps.

36 minutes ago, CptMinia said:

Yup, I complained when the ITA cruisers came out with the nerfed SAP which was primarily nerfed because we could delete destroyers sailing across the map in a straight line. Quite frankly I didn't see the problem but hey ho I don't make the decisions....

SAP still deletes DDs, Venezia can land 20k salvos.....If you play DD the one ammunition you absolutely HAVE to dodge is the italian SAP. Even if you get hit by 6 other ships to dodge it, that usually is better than eating one italian SAP volley. Meanwhile only Venezia and Brindisi can deal somwhat with BBs since the masterrace must be protected. Never mind the rest of the italian cruiser line is painful to play and with painfully long reload and bad concealment. Honestly while i heavily disagree with the statement above, I'm in agreement with a quallity of life reload buff, as long as SAP damage is toned down correspondingly. Surprisingly I enjoy the Brindisi,  it is very tanky for a cruiser in additions to have excellent SAP and fuelsmoke, and honestly I think it might be a tad overpowered. It certainly does not need any buffs.

EDIT: brindisi is the best tier 9 silver cruiser by winrate (wows-numbers)

[Miscommunication_dept]

It’s funny how some seem to see SAP is weak whereas others say it’s very strong. I’m regulary landing 13-15k salvos on battleships even when angled. I can take half the smolensks health in one short and angling won’t help him.

destroyers of course can be one shotted, even Khabas 50mm plating won’t help him.

 

The only area where they are weak is against Soviet battleships.

[veslingr]

8 hours ago, Jethro_Grey said:

Learn to play issue. 

No it is not. SAP on lower tier is most inferior ammunition type. Anything a little angled will reduce your dmg  by 80%  even broadside salvos are not better than AP salvos on same target. SAP should be specialized weapon that deals great amount of dmg balanced with 0 firechance and longer reload. But infact it is inferior ammunition without firechance and long reload. If you do let's say 80 k dmg in lower ITA ship if you played IJN ship and have same hits you would do minimum 100k. 

[Butterdoll]

8 hours ago, Jethro_Grey said:

Learn to play issue. 

No.

 

It's a  throwing into the garbage issue.

 

Sap sucks

The Italian line as is, it's just a joke.

Easy to citadel, no fires, slow ROF, useless torps.

All that is undesired in a cruiser, in a cruiser .

And they don't do much for my potential damage, when I'm in my Bayern.

[Capra76]

1 hour ago, gopher31 said:

I’m regulary landing 13-15k salvos on battleships even when angled.

 

Superstructure, early game?

 

What happens later on when that's depleated?

[veslingr]

1 hour ago, gopher31 said:

It’s funny how some seem to see SAP is weak whereas others say it’s very strong. I’m regulary landing 13-15k salvos on battleships even when angled. I can take half the smolensks health in one short and angling won’t help him.

destroyers of course can be one shotted, even Khabas 50mm plating won’t help him.

 

The only area where they are weak is against Soviet battleships.

And still you do subpair dmg and your WR is to be polite not to good. I would think you dominate everything with 15 salvos from t6-7 ship 😁😁

[beercrazy]

I enjoyed the tier 7 but found upto that tier all the Italian cruisers where awful

the tier 9/10 are a beast in my view but even they are support ships and really only become viable for 1v1 towards end of game where you don't take the risk of a broadside salvo from a bb that you didn't anticipate

sap on lower tiers does need a buff

[Taliesn]

3 hours ago, Butterdoll said:

No.

 

It's a  throwing into the garbage issue.

 

Sap sucks

The Italian line as is, it's just a joke.

Easy to citadel, no fires, slow ROF, useless torps.

All that is undesired in a cruiser, in a cruiser .

And they don't do much for my potential damage, when I'm in my Bayern.

 

Sap sucks in certain situations, it is glorious in others. Just like every other cruiser ammo really, except, maybe, US AP. Fires from HE are ok if you are farming damage against BBs but that doesn't necessarily mean you are doing what you should in order to win.

Torps are not useless, citadel hits, I'm afraid, are the order of the day for most cruisers in game, including those pesky russian cruisers.

 

You are hardly the best Bayern player anyway, maybe you are not encountering enough italian cruisers?

 

9 hours ago, GulvkluderGuld said:

Tier 5 to 7 are fit for the dumpster due to bad sAP pen angles. They cannot deal with BBs at all.

Amalfi is slightly better, but you may not really notice it since it still cannot deal with BBs.

Brindisi at tier 9 is when the ammuntion starts to become actually useful.

I still dont have Venezia.

 

EDIT: brindisi is the best tier 9 silver cruiser by winrate (wows-numbers)

 

Funny you should say that. I've had exactly the opposite experience with the italian cruisers from tier 5 to 8. Enjoyed Monte and Trento, hated Amalfi with a vengeance.

 

 

Brindisi is more than fine.

[Captain_Newman]

This thread appears to have traveled in time from the past. See, what happened is, ita cruisers came out, people complained about SAP, it got some minor buffs, but still complained for a short while, then learned how to use it, now nobody thinks italian cruisers are bad anymore. Well, almost. You're just running a bit behind the curve, is all. Once you learn to use it, it's fine, especially t8 and up. I will grant you that t5-6 SAP ships are fairly bad, but you can get out of those tiers pretty fast.

[GulvkluderGuld]

2 hours ago, Taliesn said:

Funny you should say that. I've had exactly the opposite experience with the italian cruisers from tier 5 to 8. Enjoyed Monte and Trento, hated Amalfi with a vengeance.

That comment related mostly to the SAP penetration angles getting only slightly better at tier 8. I still didn't like the ship.

They are all very dependent on MM throwing DD and cruiser heavy games at them. Since I got only BBs and CVs with 1, max 2 DD, it was painful to say the least.

[HaachamaShipping]

14 hours ago, Jethro_Grey said:

Learn to play issue. 

There is a limit to how much player skill can overcome game mechanics. Before Amalfi, Italian cruisers are basically trash that relies on misplays to get anywhere and even on the much better Venezia, you can run into situations where you are just out of luck. Zara with its SAP is basically just a mediocre to bad cruiser for its tier, which is silly given its actually a tier with a fair number of good cruisers, but while stuff like Venezia can throw out huge SAP dpm if they get the proper angle, Zara barely outdpms the Myoko on HE and is left in the dust if it comes to AP. Myoko then adds actually decent torps, fire setting and better armour ontop, as well as having a hydro instead of the smoke and better accuracy. So, even when it comes to deleting DDs, Myoko just is a better ship for that. And everything before Zara is even worse of a joke.

[Taliesn]

1 hour ago, GulvkluderGuld said:

That comment related mostly to the SAP penetration angles getting only slightly better at tier 8. I still didn't like the ship.

They are all very dependent on MM throwing DD and cruiser heavy games at them. Since I got only BBs and CVs with 1, max 2 DD, it was painful to say the least.

 

10k SAP Brindisi salvoes against Iowas for example I find quite common. Ditto for many other BBs, except russian ones.

 

HE damage on other cruisers looks fine as a stat but is usually not getting you any closer to victory.

[GulvkluderGuld]

2 hours ago, Taliesn said:

10k SAP Brindisi salvoes against Iowas for example I find quite common. Ditto for many other BBs, except russian ones.

 

HE damage on other cruisers looks fine as a stat but is usually not getting you any closer to victory.

Yeah we agree Brindisi is quite strong against all classes.

 

Tier 5-7, on the other hand, are lucky if they do 1k dmg vs angled BBs like colorado, gneisenau and the likes. 

The same tier 5-7 can easily do 50% of any DD hp in one volley, making them quite overpowered for their tiers vs DD.

 

Not sure why you bring up HE damage? 

[Taliesn]

3 minutes ago, GulvkluderGuld said:

Yeah we agree Brindisi is quite strong against all classes.

 

Tier 5-7, on the other hand, are lucky if they do 1k dmg vs angled BBs like colorado, gneisenau and the likes. 

The same tier 5-7 can easily do 50% of any DD hp in one volley, making them quite overpowered for their tiers vs DD.

 

Not sure why you bring up HE damage? 

 

Because it is the first port of call for most people criticising the italian cruisers and their, supposedly, poor SAP and their lack of HE ammo.

 

Bottom line, I don't want for every new cruiser line to be more or less like every other before it and italian cruisers work just fine as they are. They might not be for everybody, but they do work. I have managed to do fine damage wise with all italian cruisers except Amalfi and there is no lack of BBs in those mid tiers either.

[Chaos_Umbra]

The main issue with the Italian SAP is that no matter what it will always be inferior to HE in terms of reliably doing damage and at the same time your SAP DPM is only inline with other cruisers HE DPM which means unless your are shooting all game long you will always have a harder time matching your damage in other cruisers and as a knock on effect of the High SAP Alpha being balanced against the low Alpha HE it means the Italian's AP DPM is the worst off all cruisers, so the ships have even less of a reason to switch ammo than even a Worcester. In fact the Yamato has a Higher AP DPM...

 

Basically SAP is a gimmick that at the end of the day is just a liability to the entire line without including the other limitations added to the ships on top of it...

[Animalul2012]

Ah yes the italian SAP deals 10-15k damage salvos.....only if the ship is not saturated and you manage to hit him with most of the shells at the right angle,sounds easy right? if he angles bow in your SAP is becoming worst ammunition in the game! Wait for drake and goliath when those will be able to score maybe 6 to 10k damage salvos on unsaturated ships and they wont care about your angle and they will set you on fire as well, because they fire high quality HE!

PS:they also get better reload than ITA SAP cruisers! and better consumables!

[Pivke]

i find SAP ammo to be quite interesting.

basically its a more reliable but less damage AP variant. its inferior to HE tho, no question.

SAP is good for farming damage against battleship superstructure and upper armor belt, its very good against destroyers too.

 

against (broadside) cruisers its a great dilemma, either use AP to try to get juicy citadels or end up with just overpens. or use SAP for no citadels but decent damage?

 

the only thing that bothers me about italian cruisers is the horribly terrible long reload times!

supposedly the whole line reload times are balanced around having the special commander Luigi and also getting confederate achievement in every battle, just to have a normal reload speed??? (not to mention, by the time you get confederate with that god damn pathetic fire rate the battle is pretty much ending anyway)

[Butterdoll]

9 hours ago, Taliesn said:

Sap sucks in certain situations, it is glorious in others. Just like every other cruiser ammo really, except, maybe, US AP. Fires from HE are ok if you are farming damage against BBs but that doesn't necessarily mean you are doing what you should in order to win.

Torps are not useless, citadel hits, I'm afraid, are the order of the day for most cruisers in game, including those pesky russian cruisers.

 

You are hardly the best Bayern player anyway, maybe you are not encountering enough italian cruisers?

 

Perhaps they are your cup of tea.

they are not mine.

The great majority of Italian cruisers are in a clear disadvantage. they are full of drawbacks.

- short duration smoke ( one can wait it out to blapp them) and a considered detection while shooting in smoke

- No Damage over Time  at all.

- Low DPM

- citadel and armour are weak

- Useless torps, very slow torps

- Low damage

The only Hail Mary , they can be ignored if there are other ships near them. Low priority target.

As a cruiser main I don't see why I would play them, when I'm playing BBs, well, I don't think much of them either.

HE is not only for BBs, it's for everything.

you could have Low DPM but High ROF

But Low DPM and Low ROF? Extra squishy, nah, you can keep it.