Tier 6 Gems For Ops?

[DeviousDave02]

Nearly always play CV in OPS so most of my experience is in them.

 

CV wise any tier 6 will do although Ryujo and Ark Royal are the undisputed kings (seriously, get Ark Royal she is borderline broken in OPs once you get the enemy patterns down)

 

Ranger is... ok (never really liked her too much, her planes handle like a semi with two flat tires) while Furious can actually work hilariously well too although you lose out on raw damage numbers as the torps do about 300 damage less than the Ranger and her squadrons are smaller (two less planes per wave) and of course level bombers are about 90% RNG on whether they hit things and do damage or not, however her aiming is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo (x10 to the power of 20) much better than the Ranger and Ryujo allowing you to pull off stupidly cheesy torpedo drops on hard turning ships that the other CV's would struggle to hit.

 

If you do take out the Furious then I suggest NOT upgrading her level bombers or torpedo bombers as the Barracudas are actually worse than the Albacore and Skuas (IMO) - Yes the Barracudas are a bit faster (about 10 knots over the poor Albacore) and have more HP BUT they have a worse restore times (by a good 10 -15 seconds per plane restored) and in the Albacores case the Barracuda adds an extra 50 meters onto the torpedo arming distance (for some reason) while the Skua drops two less bombs than the Barracuda but also has a much smaller bombing area that is shorter and thinner than the Barracudas (meaning your more likely to hit a Cruiser sized target rather than wasting 2 - 4 bombs before and after the target like the Barracuda does)

 

As for Cruisers the Molotov is good fun although she can be stupidly fragile at times while PEF is a really good BB.

[Procrastes]

17 hours ago, Panocek said:

London have some utility with smoke and heals as well.

I thought that the London, with her smoke screen, would be more useful than she actually is in operations. The problem is, that she is very frequently so close to enemy ships that her gun bloom reveals her position in the smoke whenever she opens fire. That is one drawback of being a total noob having large-caliber guns on a smoke ship, I guess. The Devonshire has no smoke, but better heal and also - I believe - better  maneuverability.

[invicta2012]

14 hours ago, Verblonde said:

I'd forgotten about her - she ought to be on my 'cruisers' list too; she's just a bit new to have fully sunk into my memory as a 'go to'...

She's not particularly memorable. Tier V guns, short range torpedoes, and her smoke is a noob trap - her gun bloom often means she's caught flat footed, static and detected. Much better if you treat it like Devonshire and stay mobile.... but then you may as well play Devonshire.

[AnotherDuck]

Mostly I would recommend any ship you're comfortable in, although probably not any DD. You can do well in a good DD, but you can almost always do better in a cruiser or battleship.

 

I generally like Fuso for operations. Lots of guns and good reload for a battleship.

 

Leander is overall a good ship for reasons people have pointed out.

[Sir_Sinksalot]

The Leander seems very popular I think I should pick that ship up soon!!

 

Thing is though, I already have the London and wonder if the newer London with slightly better gun range and almost the same top speed along with smokes makes the Leander somewhat inferior now?

[invicta2012]

The Leander has improved Royal Navy AP which is very strong against the types of cruiser you get in Ops, and it's potent against BBs too, if you shoot the right places. She fires two salvos to London's one, and is smaller, accelerates faster, and - crucially - she has much better gun bloom detection than London. London will get spotted 6.8k away when firing in smoke, Leander 4.6k. You can let onrushing ships come on to you, stop firing at 5k, stay undetected, then light the enemy up with hydro, stick torpedoes into them at point blank range and sail away giggling. 

[NobleRipper]

20 minutes ago, invicta2012 said:

... and sail away giggling. 

This is by far the most important skill for a Leander driver

 

I have a question for the assembled: noone has mentioned La Galissonnière so far; was this an oversight, or is she just plain no good for Ops? I ask as I'm going down the French cruiser line at the moment and having indecent amounts of fun with my Duguay-Trouin, just wondering if her big sister is going to be of use in Ops (or Algerie for Narai for that matter)?

[Yedwy]

La Gal is fine, not better or worse then most other T6 CLs, you wont have issues with her

[Karasu_Browarszky]

Ops, what are they?

[Procrastes]

1 hour ago, NobleSauvage said:

I have a question for the assembled: noone has mentioned La Galissonnière so far; was this an oversight, or is she just plain no good for Ops? I ask as I'm going down the French cruiser line at the moment and having indecent amounts of fun with my Duguay-Trouin, just wondering if her big sister is going to be of use in Ops (or Algerie for Narai for that matter)?

The La Galissonnière is by most accounts an excellent ship, and I don't doubt that she can perform well in operations. Personally, I can recommend her premium sister De Grasse, which lacks the reload booster but enjoys a better "normal" dpm as well as a cute little float plane fighter. (She's also much easier to spell, which gives an advantage in forum discussions.)

 

The Algérie is an overall decent ship, but not ideal for the Narai operation. The distances involved are too small to let her take full advantage of her long-range kiting skills, and she's not at her best when surrounded by enemies at close range. If I want to set things on fire in Narai I set out in either the Boise/Nueve de Julio (which lacks torpedoes but has a superheal and much better dpm), or the Atlanta (which has torpedoes and also boasts of a radar). But the best cruiser pick for Narai, in my opinion, is the Fiji. Her guns make mincemeat out of the opposition she faces there, and she has smoke, hydro, torpedoes and a heal. In this operation, at least, she outperforms all competition with an almost insulting ease.

[Marblehead_1]

Must Have for Operations at TVI? I had all TVI in port beyond Admiral Makarov and HSF Graf Spee and I can with clear heart reccomend Leander. Seriously. This ship in Operations had no bigger drawbacks and it's silver tech tree ships.

 

DD: Anshan/Fushun - good AP and torpedoes, T-61 absolutely good with strong both artillery and torpedoes, Aigle - good artillery and torpedoes with very strong alfa. Vasteras is ok but I play her mainly due to history of her project - very interesting in Killer Whale if she had someone who deal with Kolberg.

CL: Leander - it's really king of this mode - no need to spend single $$$ if she exists, Perth - wandering smoke and scout plane in same time are very good combination, Huang He - nerfed or maybe sidegraded Perth with VMF AP shells and IJN TRB (my second favourite CL in this mode after Leander - Huang He has smallest concealment in all cruisers beyond TI gunboats, minelayers and escorts.

CA: London - was given for free and it's quiet nice due to guns and smoke, Pensacola - good AP, Graf Spee - interesting, maybe not OP but interesting for sure

BB: Warspite - accurate main gun battery, Normandie and Izmail - fast battleships with many guns, Fuso - many guns and overall strong ship.

CV: Ark Royal - 3 TB's per group allow to do many dmg on low AA ships, Ryujo - stronger torpedoes but two TB's per group and AP bombs ( in Killer Whale she can very nicely carry this operation - ofc if team at least tries go to cap, which with random teams isn't obvious... )

[Sir_Sinksalot]

2 hours ago, invicta2012 said:

The Leander has improved Royal Navy AP which is very strong against the types of cruiser you get in Ops, and it's potent against BBs too, if you shoot the right places. She fires two salvos to London's one, and is smaller, accelerates faster, and - crucially - she has much better gun bloom detection than London. London will get spotted 6.8k away when firing in smoke, Leander 4.6k. You can let onrushing ships come on to you, stop firing at 5k, stay undetected, then light the enemy up with hydro, stick torpedoes into them at point blank range and sail away giggling. 

 

Fair points and I totally agree. I don't have the Leander but the closest ship to it I do have is the Huanghe which is just so much more comfortable to play compared to the London. The London, Leander and Huanghe all have about the same gun range but with the London it's much harder to tackle targets and remain undetected simply because it's normal detection range is very close to it's gun range. So, to make use of the Londons smoke and remain undetected the London has to pop a smoke around 12km from the target, so that 1.4 km of available gun range should that target ship head away from your position and so can very quickly lose gun range on your target or alternatively, if the target ship heads towards your position, it will very quickly get from 12km to that 7km smoke detection range and so unless the target ship happens to stay on a course almost parallel to your position then the available window in which to deal damage with London while keeping gun range or undetected is really small, made all the worse by her big caliber gun reload times if you are not landing really hurtful shots and taking out that target ship quickly.

 

With the nimble Huanghe boasting much stronger concealment values and agility, the margins for error and detection distances to play around with when approaching a target and firing within smoke are so big, it's just really comfortable to play by comparison to the and with fast reloading guns, 7 seconds vs 15 seconds, missing some shots and not getting perfect full dmg pens, switching ammo types, the target changing direction etc is not as much of a factor because your guns are reloaded again really quickly and that ship will have to travel for a lot longer to get close enough to detect me firing in the smoke.... so ya I understand what you mean about the Leanders benefits. 

[Sir_Sinksalot]

15 hours ago, DeviousDave02 said:

Nearly always play CV in OPS so most of my experience is in them.

 

CV wise any tier 6 will do although Ryujo and Ark Royal are the undisputed kings (seriously, get Ark Royal she is borderline broken in OPs once you get the enemy patterns down)

 

Ranger is... ok (never really liked her too much, her planes handle like a semi with two flat tires) while Furious can actually work hilariously well too although you lose out on raw damage numbers as the torps do about 300 damage less than the Ranger and her squadrons are smaller (two less planes per wave) and of course level bombers are about 90% RNG on whether they hit things and do damage or not, however her aiming is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo (x10 to the power of 20) much better than the Ranger and Ryujo allowing you to pull off stupidly cheesy torpedo drops on hard turning ships that the other CV's would struggle to hit.

 

If you do take out the Furious then I suggest NOT upgrading her level bombers or torpedo bombers as the Barracudas are actually worse than the Albacore and Skuas (IMO) - Yes the Barracudas are a bit faster (about 10 knots over the poor Albacore) and have more HP BUT they have a worse restore times (by a good 10 -15 seconds per plane restored) and in the Albacores case the Barracuda adds an extra 50 meters onto the torpedo arming distance (for some reason) while the Skua drops two less bombs than the Barracuda but also has a much smaller bombing area that is shorter and thinner than the Barracudas (meaning your more likely to hit a Cruiser sized target rather than wasting 2 - 4 bombs before and after the target like the Barracuda does)

 

As for Cruisers the Molotov is good fun although she can be stupidly fragile at times while PEF is a really good BB.

 

That's really interesting. I do play the Furious a lot actually and I'm totally going to try those other aircraft now, thanks. 

 

Also, REALLY tempted to get the Ark Royal!!

[Sir_Sinksalot]

3 hours ago, NobleSauvage said:

This is by far the most important skill for a Leander driver

 

I have a question for the assembled: noone has mentioned La Galissonnière so far; was this an oversight, or is she just plain no good for Ops? I ask as I'm going down the French cruiser line at the moment and having indecent amounts of fun with my Duguay-Trouin, just wondering if her big sister is going to be of use in Ops (or Algerie for Narai for that matter)?

 

I really like the La Gal, pretty strong in Ops. Nice gun range, fairly accurate guns, shell velocity feels a little bit slower to some of the best in class and tier. The Engine Boost consumable is handy for traversing large bodies of water quickly when needed, it doesn't seem to get citadel clipped too easily unlike some of her alternatives and of course that Reload Booster consumable is just brilliant fun, especially when in a bit of a bind vs several cruisers broadsiding your position, can put them all to sleep fast, same when rushed by a DD or two plus, nice to use after a BB has put out it's fires just to light them all back up again quickly lol. It only fires two torpedoes each side though which seems weak and doesn't cover as much area as a nice spread of 4 or 5 torps can but they go for 9km which is really nice, have a decent sector to play around with and bang for almost 15k dmg each which is really powerful actually.

 

It also takes that bionic camo option which not all cruisers can, if you're into that sort of thing though personally I went with the Dazzle camo because it looks really amazing imho. 

 

 

I'd really be tempted by the De Grasse. 

[DanSilverwing]

17 minutes ago, Sir_Sinksalot said:

That's really interesting. I do play the Furious a lot actually and I'm totally going to try those other aircraft now, thanks. 

 

Also, REALLY tempted to get the Ark Royal!!

Furious is cool because the torpedoes arm (and aim!) very quickly so you can practically park the drop right next to their hulls if you want to. And then do a quick 180 and go again. As @DeviousDave02 makes clear, stick with the stock module for the better restoration time.

 

I found Ranger to be disappointing as her torps do less damage than Ryujo but the arming and aiming felt about the same. So targets that could be sunk in two passes with Ryujo required an extra run. Very frustrating.

 

There are plenty of "ok" ships that work, but aren't top picks. Tbh I haven't played either Trento, Dorsetshire or London since their events, but they were both fine. I'll defer to the experts choosing between the two RN CAs. Bayern is "ok" for example.

 

At the opposite end of the scale the only ship that is a total lemon for Ops is bloody Monaghan. The only purchase I regret making.

 

So most silver ships you'd only play for grinding, and use whatever Premium ships you have for Premium economy and training. The truly exceptional silver ships have already been mentioned.

[Maris_Piper]

21 hours ago, Verblonde said:

Some favourites for Ops (that aren't Newport, as I simply avoid that one):

Same here I so have to agree, everyone has to be on the ball and then some, I avoid it like the plague.

 

My main T6 Opps ships are Dunkerque, Warspite, Graff Spee 

, Devonshire and London. 

Narai  Fiji, Scharnhorst, New Orleans Boise

[Sir_Sinksalot]

2 minutes ago, DanSilverwing said:

Furious is cool because the torpedoes arm (and aim!) very quickly so you can practically park the drop right next to their hulls if you want to. And then do a quick 180 and go again. As @DeviousDave02 makes clear, stick with the stock module for the better restoration time.

 

I found Ranger to be disappointing as her torps do less damage than Ryujo but the arming and aiming felt about the same. So targets that could be sunk in two passes with Ryujo required an extra run. Very frustrating.

 

There are plenty of "ok" ships that work, but aren't top picks. Tbh I haven't played either Trento, Dorsetshire or London since their events, but they were both fine. I'll defer to the experts choosing between the two RN CAs. Bayern is "ok" for example.

 

At the opposite end of the scale then only ship that is a total lemon for Ops is bloody Monaghan. The only purchase I regret making.

 

So most silver ships you'd only play for grinding, and use whatever Premium ships you have for Premium economy and training. The truly exceptional silver ships have already been mentioned.

 

Ya I'd feel the same about the Ranger. The aiming seems very sensitive to any slight directional correction and the gap between the torpedoes is way too big which means anything slower and smaller than a BB is generally going to avoid at least one torpedo if not both rather easily. The tricky aiming is obviously very acceptable on the Ryujo by comparison and its worse than the Ranger but heavily offset by really fast torps that hit really hard so when it's not the Ryujo, I play the Furious. Smaller squadrons than the American but very comfortable to play and more reliable two torp strikes with each attack. 

 

The real surprise for me here is the Italian cruisers getting the thumbs up. I only have that tier5 premium and thought the general feeling with players is that Italian cruisers are bad and SAP is bad, so I'm surprised that the tier6 is recommended as a tier 6 gem for Ops. 

[Sir_Sinksalot]

Btw is there ever a discount on these tier6 premiums outside of the armory?

[DanSilverwing]

2 minutes ago, Sir_Sinksalot said:

The real surprise for me here is the Italian cruisers getting the thumbs up. I only have that tier5 premium and thought the general feeling with players is that Italian cruisers are bad and SAP is bad, so I'm surprised that the tier6 is recommended as a tier 6 gem for Ops. 

Me, I'm not recommending her as a gem. But if you have limited choices and you know what to do she's actually quite good as a damage dealer with good agility and speed. Plus I had the permaflage. In KW I used to go north and solo the Kolberg and the Kaiser with her, for example. Torps are long range and have good angles. Lack of hydro is the only problem.

 

5 minutes ago, Sir_Sinksalot said:

Btw is there ever a discount on these tier6 premiums outside of the armory?

Some summer sales. Spee was discounted two years ago that I remember. Most Redditors advise people wanting to spend money to use their 30% anniversay coupons to buy Doubloons and then further apply the 25% Armory coupon for Doubloon purchases.

[lossi_2018]

Italians (Trento, Zarra) are a bit finicky but they are nibble, can use smoke to disengage if stuff get too hot and great torp arks. The guns murder dds and dmg all CAs when in SAP mode. But they have have decent AP too, so when you see that broadside let loose. While not as versatile as British or the Nurberg/Spee they are very decent and can give you great results with a little support from a good BB captain. Usually one or two volleys can kill a dd. 

[Cambera_1]

3 hours ago, Karasu_Hidesuke said:

Ops, what are they?

Simples! 

They are somewhere where the players tend to be friendly, work as a team and you can have fun.

All this and more if you go in Ops as a division.

 

Oh and then there is "Defence of ***** Naval Station" which is stressful and can be down right nasty, unless you go into it as a Division. I tend to stay away that week!

 

Edit: Leander, Devonshire, Ark Royal, DeGrasse, London, Perth, Molotov, Dunkerque, Warspite, T61, Aigle all work well in the T6 ops. Graf Spee can work but often is too slow. Dallas works well in Raptor Rescue. 

 

Fiji, Haida, Schranhorst, Nelson are all good options for Narai at T7.

 

Others do work but these are my picks. 

[lup3s]

This looks like a question for @havaduck 

 

Anyway; imo thé best ship for T6 Ops (apart from Aegis) is the Ark Royal.

Especially in Killer Whale getting 200k+ damage isn't rare.

 

Other ships I like in Ops are:

- PEF, Dunkerque (full secondary fun build)

- Molotov (180mm "balans" guns), Perth (creeping smoke), Leander (smoke), DeGrasse (speed + good guns)

- Anshan/T-61 (Aegis only, citadel farming)

 

Tbh a lot of T6 ships are good for Ops (some fit certain Ops better than others), in the end I think it just comes down to the ones you enjoy the most.

[Sir_Sinksalot]

1 hour ago, DanSilverwing said:

 

Some summer sales. Spee was discounted two years ago that I remember. Most Redditors advise people wanting to spend money to use their 30% anniversay coupons to buy Doubloons and then further apply the 25% Armory coupon for Doubloon purchases.

 

Thanks. Sadly I don't see the Ark Royal as an option for coupon our Doubloon purchase... of course lol.

[lossi_2018]

Should I necro the killer whale thread, people started throwing 5 stars win again by not exiting map :/

[DeviousDave02]

46 minutes ago, Sir_Sinksalot said:

 

Thanks. Sadly I don't see the Ark Royal as an option for coupon our Doubloon purchase... of course lol.

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