Inertia Fuse Skill. Yay or Nay?

[Sir_Sinksalot]

Just coming up on 4 "spare" skill points for my Budyonny's captain and I've always wondered if having 30% more pen for a cruisers HE shells is good or bad. At a noob glance it seems that this skill would be a good thing and basically means it pens thicker armor that it would otherwise not pen thus broadening the spectrum of ships that can be really hurt by HE.

 

This ships base HE is 24mm so another 30% would make it 32mm of pen obviously, how is this a bad thing, other than the 1% drop in fire chance?

[ColonelPete]

As in dozens of topics about this: yay

[Miscommunication_dept]

Without doubt it is a great skill with the Budy

[thiextar]

general rule: if ifhe makes your shells reach 27 or 32mm thresholds, its generally worth it. 27mm is most high tier cruiser plating, 32mm is most high tier bb plating. There are also exceptions for other thresholds though, like taking ifhe on henry to pen 50mm, which helps against stalingrad and some other stuff. Or taking ifhe on daring to be able to pen dds. There is even a case of ifhe hindenburg now as it helps with penning yama/musa/sovetsky/kremlin

[LavyDunois]

Pretty much with all cruisers (except for the English light cruisers and the Italian cruisers for obvious reasons), anything between 150mm and 180mm guns needs IFHE to pen battleships with HE.

 

You will really notice the difference once you reach the Chapayev and the Donskoi.

 

Dont put IFHE on cruisers with 203mm+ guns. That doesnt do anything. Ugh, obviously there are a couple of exceptions, but as a general rule of thumb this tip worked for me when i just started out. 

[Dukemaster105]

Don't pick IFHE. It's part of the ongoing multi-year development of making all armor in the game have no value with all HE penetrating all armor even if it's angled. It's the whole spam HE at everything plan that's going on right now where you can forget AP even exists and do well with only one ammunition type. People obsess over getting really high damage numbers and all their shots always damaging everything they shoot at, regardless of what kind of ship it is or what tier. People can't content themselves with realizing they aren't supposed to be able to damage certain ships in certain situations and adapt accordingly. But if they increased the skill-point limit to 23 points, you should get it.

[Elypse201]

8 minutes ago, LavyDunois said:

Dont put IFHE on cruisers with 203mm+ guns. That doesnt do anything. 

Wrong 

Hiden, Yoshino and Goliath are penning Kreml and Soyuz armour with IFHE and Henri is penning Stalin and Mosvka deck armour. 

4 minutes ago, Dukemaster105 said:

Don't pick IFHE. It's part of the ongoing multi-year development of making all armor in the game have no value with all HE penetrating all armor even if it's angled. It's the whole spam HE at everything plan that's going on right now where you can forget AP even exists and do well with only one ammunition type. People obsess over getting really high damage numbers and all their shots always damaging everything they shoot at, regardless of what kind of ship it is or what tier. People can't content themselves with realizing they aren't supposed to be able to damage certain ships in certain situations and adapt accordingly. But if they increased the skill-point limit to 23 points, you should get it.

Bad troll 1/10

[Butterdoll]

beware of the up coming changes.

As the thing is going (WIP)

the 152's/155's HE will pen up to 25 mm instead of the usual 24 mm.

IFHE will cease to have -3% of fire change and will subtract a whopping -50% from the base fire change.

Buddy if I'm not mistaken has a base fire change of 11%, so with IFHE will be 5.5%, if you add signals and DE you can go as high as 8.5% fire change. In top of that the IFHE penetration values will change from t1 to t7, instead of the current 30%,, they will have 25%.

According to what is being looked at or tested.

Cl's will be able to penetrating same tier cruisers but not the plating of same tier BB's.

(I don't get this, Bayern has 25 mm bow and stern and 152 will pen 30 mm and 155 will pen 25 mm).

But the MM it's +2 -2, so....

 

[thiextar]

3 minutes ago, Dukemaster105 said:

Don't pick IFHE. It's part of the ongoing multi-year development of making all armor in the game have no value with all HE penetrating all armor even if it's angled. It's the whole spam HE at everything plan that's going on right now where you can forget AP even exists and do well with only one ammunition type. People obsess over getting really high damage numbers and all their shots always damaging everything they shoot at, regardless of what kind of ship it is or what tier. People can't content themselves with realizing they aren't supposed to be able to damage certain ships in certain situations and adapt accordingly. But if they increased the skill-point limit to 23 points, you should get it.

Thats... really stupid.

 

1. ifhe will make him stronger right now = pick it

2. there is an ifhe rework incoming which will most likely make you want to take it on way less ships, but thats irrelevant, as such a rework will come with a free commander respec.

3. Just because you dont agree with a certain part of the game, dont go making bad recommendations to people to further your own agenda, in bird culture, that is considered a [edited] move.

[DFens_666]

7 minutes ago, Butterdoll said:

Cl's will be able to penetrating same tier cruisers but not the plating of same tier BB's.

(I don't get this, Bayern has 25 mm bow and stern and 152 will pen 30 mm and 155 will pen 25 mm).

 

Its only T6-7 Cruisers getting shafted, as they cant pen T8+ BB armor any longer

25*1,25 = 31mm pen. But those BBs have 32mm armor so...

On T8+, IFHE is still supposed to give 30% bonus, so for them it doesnt matter, as they can still get 32mm penetration.

[Butterdoll]

4 minutes ago, DFens_666 said:

 

Its only T6-7 Cruisers getting shafted, as they cant pen T8+ BB armor any longer

25*1,25 = 31mm pen. But those BBs have 32mm armor so...

On T8+, IFHE is still supposed to give 30% bonus, so for them it doesnt matter, as they can still get 32mm penetration.

It's only t6-t7 ships...

Guess which ships I play the most.

Just guess which BBs I play (regarding plating changes)

yeah, I will be heavily nerfed, I will be shafted when I pick a cruiser and when I pick a BB.

 

at this rate, I will hand down pavement stones among the crew to throw to other ships, subs included.

[KratosTheUnforgiving]

we all know the HE is not just because of the damage overall it is doing, it's because its the one thing the make the OP Russian super paper fleet vulnerable and the commissars at WG can't have that as their glorious leaders will be upset and the RU server players will revolt !

[Verblonde]

1 hour ago, Sir_Sinksalot said:

how is this a bad thing, other than the 1% drop in fire chance?

It basically isn't; as things stand, IFHE is pretty much a 'must have' on most light cruisers (as mentioned above, the obvious exceptions are RN and Italians, as neither gets HE).

 

If you don't have the time/patience to work out exact penetration changes versus armour thickness that you'll encounter, the wiki can help - as you'll have seen, each ship has a section giving an indication of the usefulness of each captain skill for that ship. Whilst these can sometimes be a bit flaky here and there, generally a 'three star' rating will tell you quickly which ships probably need the skill.

 

Be mindful that there are changes to IFHE incoming (although, as @thiextar points out, we'll most likely get a free respec when it launches), but in the meantime, make full use of a skill that - besides the cost - has very little in the way of downsides.

[Lakaedemonios]

1 hour ago, Sir_Sinksalot said:

Just coming up on 4 "spare" skill points for my Budyonny's captain and I've always wondered if having 30% more pen for a cruisers HE shells is good or bad. At a noob glance it seems that this skill would be a good thing and basically means it pens thicker armor that it would otherwise not pen thus broadening the spectrum of ships that can be really hurt by HE.

 

This ships base HE is 24mm so another 30% would make it 32mm of pen obviously, how is this a bad thing, other than the 1% drop in fire chance?

y

[anonym_OQ8SFxmDxroh]

I use that on Irian and I can say I do cca 30+% more damage than before. It depends of ship's statistics.

 

I don't use it for Duca D'Aosta because I start a lot of fires with Duca and I don't want to ruin fire chances which are for Duca pretty low anyway. I have 150 battles with Duca with more than 60% wins lol. 

[Chaos_Umbra]

23 minutes ago, Lepi_Mija said:

I use that on Irian and I can say I do cca 30+% more damage than before. It depends of ship's statistics.

 

I don't use it for Duca D'Aosta because I start a lot of fires with Duca and I don't want to ruin fire chances which are for Duca pretty low anyway. I have 150 battles with Duca with more than 60% wins lol. 

I have it on Duca and I would recommend it cause as it is it is a terrible fire starter anyway and TBH you want to use the AP whenever possible as that is it's strong point along with speed and manouverability.

[Jvd2000]

Since not mentioned before: German cruisers have a better HE penetration as a National flavor. Currently taking ifhe does not really ad much to the treshold you can pen. This includes the Koningsberg and Nürnberg. And future Mainz.

 

Also as a Bayard owner i feel a bit shafted by WG ifhe rework since her special build in better HE penetration (1/5 penetration) will be standard for all t8 150-180 guns.. No, she will not be worse but does lose some advantage against simmilar 15x m’n cruisers.

[HMS_Kilinowski]

15 hours ago, Sir_Sinksalot said:

Just coming up on 4 "spare" skill points for my Budyonny's captain and I've always wondered if having 30% more pen for a cruisers HE shells is good or bad. At a noob glance it seems that this skill would be a good thing and basically means it pens thicker armor that it would otherwise not pen thus broadening the spectrum of ships that can be really hurt by HE.

 

This ships base HE is 24mm so another 30% would make it 32mm of pen obviously, how is this a bad thing, other than the 1% drop in fire chance?

Especially for the Budyonny I can say I had a hard time without IFHE. I went with CE instead of IFHE, wouldn't do it again.

 

Take it and take it even before Concealment Expert. The russian cruisers of mid tiers are designed for long range HE-spam. The fire chance however is not that great. It's not bad, but you will struggle to get enough damage and have an impact on the game. The Budyonny is squishy, it must keep distance, so it is easily pushed into an uncomfortable mid-range exchange. The only real weapon you have is doing solid damage, which makes opponents disengage.

IFHE, especially when uptiered, makes the difference of just throwing cotton balls at BBs until they blap you and taunt your fruitless effort in chat and wearing them down. At least currently you still can work your way even through T8-BB-armor.

 

Anybody who tells you not to take IFHE, is not interested in your performance but in his immunity as your potential opponent.

 

Take that with a grain of salt however. The IFHE rework will eventually hit the game, at which point all T7 and below cruisers will only penetrate 1.25 * caliber / 6 of armor, so only 31mm and get fire chance cut in half. It's a bit of a joke to make it a sidegrade, since you invest 4 points into it and basically they might just as well reduce fire chance to zero, give it more pen and call it SAP. But then nobody would buy and mount fire signals and the whole game economy is based on friction.

[Bics93]

8 ore fa, thiextar ha scritto:

if ifhe makes your shells reach 27 or 32mm thresholds, its generally worth it

 

I removed IFHE on my Smolensk to get Demo Expert and BFT and reach something like 25 fires/minute (only a statistic, but it is the highest one after Colbert)  

[Panocek]

8 hours ago, thiextar said:

as such a rework will come with a free commander respec

Technically yes.

 

But as Manual AA rework has shown us, WG is willing to make free respec opt-in, with button hidden well into lengthy article.

So anyone who weren't willing to go through dozen pages of random patch junk, could and probably missed that option and was left with skill working not quite as they used to know.

[Sir_Sinksalot]

Thanks guys, I went with the IFHE and even though I only ran with it a few times in Ops it has clearly a pretty big damage dealing gain and even hit citadels on bow facing and slightly angled cruisers a few times so not just gainful against sapping BB's which was a pleasant finding. 

 

So, if there is an IFHE nerf on its way for up to T7 cruisers, will such a nerf render this skill not worth bothering with or is it still definitely worth taking when considering that while it may not be able to pen BB's like it currently does, it will still be useful for penning heavy cruisers and angling ships, or would those just get penned anyway?

 

Also, after the IFHE nerf, if IFHE is suggested as being no longer gainful and should be dropped with a free reset, what skill to take instead then? I don't really see a whole lot better options that wouldn't have already been chosen before IFHE anyway, it's not like there's a lot of choices worth bothering with left besides concealment expert.

 

Also, is such a nerf not just increasing the difficulty faced by lower tier ships in an already difficult 3 tier system? I mean, lower tiers generally have less hp, less firepower, less equipment options, less range, less everything lol... so now they are going to be even more up against it? Why would anyone want to play an even more unfair offering?

[Panocek]

34 minutes ago, Sir_Sinksalot said:

Thanks guys, I went with the IFHE and even though I only ran with it a few times in Ops it has clearly a pretty big damage dealing gain and even hit citadels on bow facing and slightly angled cruisers a few times so not just gainful against sapping BB's which was a pleasant finding. 

 

So, if there is an IFHE nerf on its way for up to T7 cruisers, will such a nerf render this skill not worth bothering with or is it still definitely worth taking when considering that while it may not be able to pen BB's like it currently does, it will still be useful for penning heavy cruisers and angling ships, or would those just get penned anyway?

 

Also, after the IFHE nerf, if IFHE is suggested as being no longer gainful and should be dropped with a free reset, what skill to take instead then? I don't really see a whole lot better options that wouldn't have already been chosen before IFHE anyway, it's not like there's a lot of choices worth bothering with left besides concealment expert.

 

Also, is such a nerf not just increasing the difficulty faced by lower tier ships in an already difficult 3 tier system? I mean, lower tiers generally have less hp, less firepower, less equipment options, less range, less everything lol... so now they are going to be even more up against it? Why would anyone want to play an even more unfair offering?

IFHE doesn't give enough penetration boost to start racking up citadel hits, not on CL guns.

 

IFHE and armor changes as they were announced throws under the bus tier 6 and 7 cruisers for two reasons:

-you still need IFHE to deal direct damage to tier 6-7 battleships and tier 8-9 cruisers, as they get 26mm and 27mm plating respectively

-you lose ability to damage 32mm plating, while still suffering -50% fire chance penalty

 

WG attempted to make IFHE "optional" instead "mandatory", but failed at it while removing fun from two tiers worth of CLs. You can read yourself on devblog section

did I mention changes make one convoluted mess while achieving nothing in practice?

39 minutes ago, Sir_Sinksalot said:

Also, is such a nerf not just increasing the difficulty faced by lower tier ships in an already difficult 3 tier system? I mean, lower tiers generally have less hp, less firepower, less equipment options, less range, less everything lol... so now they are going to be even more up against it? Why would anyone want to play an even more unfair offering?

Precisely so "hooked up but frustrated" player throw wallet at the screen to get some fun and engaging for himself

[Captain_Newman]

It's a CL with 152's, so IFHE is a no brainer. Don't worry about the incoming IFHE changes, you'll get a free respec when that happens, so you'll be able to opt out of it then if you'll want to.

[Sir_Sinksalot]

3 minutes ago, Captain_Newman said:

It's a CL with 152's, so IFHE is a no brainer. Don't worry about the incoming IFHE changes, you'll get a free respec when that happens, so you'll be able to opt out of it then if you'll want to.

Would their be any point to opt out of having it even after the IFHE change though? Wouldn't it still be of great value when fighting heavy cruisers and equal or lower tier BBs? 

[Captain_Newman]

Just now, Sir_Sinksalot said:

Would their be any point to opt out of having it even after the IFHE change though? Wouldn't it still be of great value when fighting heavy cruisers and equal or lower tier BBs? 

 

That's wait and see territorry, afaik the proposed changes aren't final yet, at least not officially. When it comes out you'll need to decide which ships you still want it on, as they're trying to make it more of an optional skill. The 50% loss of firechance is rather significant, so it'll become a tossup between wanting direct or fire damage.