The premiums that time (Updates) forgot

[Riggerby]

I'm sure that like many, There are a gluttony of ships sat in your carousel that seem to solely exist to take up a port slot these days, and quite a shocking number of them are premiums, which is a shame because the overwhelming majority have a monetary value to them. For almost all of them, they either weren't very good to begin with, or were once great but have been rendered obsolete or poor by powercreep, mechanic changes, meta changes or all of the above.

 

Who are some of the biggest port queens?

 

Atlanta / Flint : 

Spoiler

Once very potent ships to face, and in the case of the latter a symbol of a high performing player, either requiring excellent performance in ranked or the most precious resource ingame to obtain, have been absolutely brutalize in the last year. Their once devastating AA, In Atlantas case arguably the best AA tier for tier in game rivaled only the likes of Des Moines, Is now nothing short of an embarrassment. The range obliterated and the damage output humiliating, a ship which once vaporized planes can now expect to eat all 3 strikes from tier 8 attack planes even with Def AA popped, and its a shame to say her unique unlimited use Def AA probably holds less value to use now than a mediocre Hydro. The IFHE rework arguably hit these ships, along with the other 127mm US gunboats harder than any other type in the game. A sad death of a once popular and loved ship.

 

 

Hood :

Spoiler

Whilst she was never the most meta vessel to begin with, a large part of which belonging to her enormous length and painfully slow traversing turrets, she was still certainly fun, and adored by all history and Royal Navy buffs as the pride of the British fleet. Despite receiving much needed, yet minor sigma buffs, wargaming giveth, and wargaming taketh. Hood was originally packaged and sold with a fairly unique fuse time which, in some way, kind of made her like she was firing SAP before it was cool. This short fuze meant against cruisers she was very scary, and against BB superstructures or even hulls at closer range could put out serious hurt without over penning as much, Very much like Italian SAP now. Her fuze time was lengthened and stripped her of this 'gimmick', speaking of diminished gimmicks, she is the only ship in the game to feature the Royal Navies Rocket AA. And at the time (correct me if i'm wrong), she was the only battleship ingame to feature Def AA. A consumable which for a brief period of time turned that rocket AA into some of the most ridiculously powerful AA in game, just deleting entire squads instantly. Though with the CV / AA rework, Those rocket AA launchers are about as comically useless as they were in real life.

 

 

Texas :

Spoiler

When she released she was slow, she was inaccurate, She loved to eat citadels and she was Slowwww. Now you're probably thinking, she is still all of those things, what's changed?. Great question, glad you asked. When Texas was put up for sale she came with one unique aspect that made me and many others snap her up instantly. Her clunky, slow, dummy thicc self was absolutely covered from top to toe in AA guns. AA here, AA there, AA literally everywhere for every crewman and his grandma and his dog. The AA output of this thing at tier 5 was nothing short of ridiculous. So what happened?. Well. The CV work came along, her AA range was reduced to a uselessly embarrasing 3.5km. Meaning by the time your AA starts shooting the torps are being dropped in a second or two anyway and despite being covered in 40mm / 76mm AA gets a grand total of 0 flak bubbles. The once insane AA now, in practice, doesn't even exist. You can be focused by CV all game and barely shoot anything down because they spend so little time in your weak AA range.

 

Indianapolis :

Spoiler

A ship who's story is rich in history for all the wrong reasons, she now finds herself as stranded and desperate for rescue as her crew. Originally packaged as a hard hitting upgrade of the then tier 7 Pensacola, she came with a 10km radar lasting 25 seconds, and the choice between Def AA or Hydro with the former actually giving her really strong AA, though, as bored as i am saying it. her AA is now practically useless post CV rework. She was always a squishy girl but time has done her no favors. In the IFHE rework, all cruisers bar a handful had their armour schemes buffed, and the clever among you may have guessed she was one of the unlucky few to be overlooked. With 16mm on the bow and stern, the overmatching against her is absolutely brutal. This is especially ridiculous when you consider the Pensacola, the ship she sat along side at tier 7 who is now a tier 6, DID recieve the buff giving her 25mm bow and stern. Many still seem to argue this is a fair price to pay for the 10km radar at tier 7, but there is a reason you will never see this ship in any form of competitive setting. She is in desperate need of an armour buff or a heal to compensate for the extreme squishyness if she is ever to leave port again.

 

 

Graf Spee :

Spoiler

A gorgeous ship, an amazing concept, but a poor integration into the setting of the game. One of the most RNG dependent vessels ingame, a bad roll of the wargaming dice can see you waiting 25 seconds to try and do better than the misses / overpens your mere 6 guns with ughh dispersion just granted you. But this isn't the end of the world as when the dice land you can be doing some pretty brutal damage. So whats the catch?. Very much like Indianapolis, She is one of the ships that was overlooked in the cruiser armor buffs. Leaving this girl with 16mm bow and stern armor. For a cruiser which sacrifices all DPM and mobility to be a 'hard hitting tanky cruiser', There is very little tanky about her. The damage you can eat even angled perfectly is brutal and desperately needs addressing, for now she is nothing more than a unique collectors item.

 

 

Blyskawica :

Spoiler

 

An oldy but goldy in the game fondly loved by long time players, she is now seen as the ugly child in the EU DD tree. For those unaware, Back in earlier days of the game, spotting mechanics were very different than they are now. It used to be possible to fire in open water without being detected as your maximum detection range would expand to a set range, often much lower than your max gun range. This gave many ships, famously Zao and Blyskawica who enjoyed it heavily, a very strong ability to farm their enemy with total impunity. Was this fair or fun? Almost definitely not. And the change of this mechanic was undoubtedly a huge improvement for the health of the gameplay. Though, For the Blyska', The change was pretty much the beginning of a downwards spiral into obscurity and irrelevancy. Everything she could do in the post detection change reality she found herself in, there were always newer DD lines that could do it better. 

 

 

 

 

 

Graf Zeppelin :

Spoiler

 

Oof. Oof. And Oof. The best word to describe this is Oof. The CV rework did no favors to the GZ.Infact that putting it mildly. It brutalized her. She went from the highest average winrate and highest average damage of all tier 8 CV on EU, to the lowest average winrate and lowest average damage on EU. She is now only worth dusting of as a secondary meme ship or 899 divisions. 

 

 

 

 

 

Saipan :

Spoiler

Adored by her captains, Feared by the enemy. Pre CV rework Saipan was an absolute bully. Being able to absolutely dominate the enemy CV with vastly superior fighters and a unique strafe mechanic where didn't lose an aircraft, Air supremacy build Saipan was a guardian angel for its team mates and the plague of then Tier 7 opponents Ranger and Hiryu. And if you felt like going easy on the enemy CV, you could always sacrifice one of your 3 fighter squads in order to swap your single dive bomber squad for two torpedo bomber squads, making you a menace to enemy BB's whilst still retaining some air dominance capability. Then ofcourse the CV rework up tiered her to tier 8, scrapped her fighters that was EVERYTHING which made Saipan great and unique, and made her just a regular boring CV only except having extremely small squadrons with horrific plane regeneration times. Why would you play her over Enterprise ? Answer is, you wouldn't. The lucky ones refunded her when given the chance, the unlucky ones kept a port princess.

 

 

Vanguard :

Spoiler

Controversial to put her on here? Perhaps, as she is still enjoyed by some. An absolutely gorgeous ship, and yes i say that with a huge degree of bias being British, never was a competitive addition to the game. A squishy design and some of the worst firing angles you'll find at high tier already had her in the 'meh' category, so why have i added her here?. Well. She has 15'' guns. And with the IFHE rework buffing cruiser amour, the class she once munched on now laugh at her penetration / overmatch ability. Unlike Bismarck or Tirpitz armed with the same calibre that have great armor and lol secondaries / torps to redeem them, Vanguard has no tricks up her sleeve or gimmicky consumables. It seems as though much like real life, she is without a purpose.

 

 

There are many more premiums that i feel have been powercrept to the status of port queen, though these are merely the main offenders in which i feel updates and mechanic changes have directly nerfed or indirectly hurt them. I am certain there are ones i have missed, but these are the ones that come to mind.

 

What about you, what premiums do you feel like have been rendered inferior to when you bought / obtained them?.

 

 

[Filipin00]

I only definitely agree with two grafs in the list, since I don't have the rest of the ships (I have blyska but I think she's fine), though graf spee still is fine and can work, but as for graf zeppelin I agree - OOF

[kfa]

Yeah i liked my Atlanta very much (AA build ofc), i played my Flint a fair bit as well but their downfall was the introduction of Fiji and Belfast, no matter the amount of gimmick WG threw into the 2 american boats, even before the CV and IFHE rework they were just bad. Now they have no AA, and no real damage potential, they became very weak firestarters.

[Riggerby]

6 minutes ago, Filipin00 said:

(I have blyska but I think she's fine),

 

Aye, Don't get me wrong, in the hands of a solid player, like any ship she can still do very well. Just in comparison to what she once was is why i included her. In the versions of WoWS she grew up in, she was an absolute terror and extremely painful to deal with.

[Riggerby]

Just now, kfa said:

Yeah i liked my Atlanta very much (AA build ofc), i played my Flint a fair bit as well but their downfall was the introduction of Fiji and Belfast, no matter the amount of gimmick WG threw into the 2 american boats, even before the CV and IFHE rework they were just bad. Now they have no AA, and no real damage potential, they became very weak firestarters.

 

Aye, Its a very solid point. One that applies to many on my list. Its not only the mechanics and environment changes which harm them, but the additions of new ships who can do anything they can do better. Its a great point about those 2 ships in particular.

[kfa]

Sims also got powerkrept by everything, last nail in her coffin was the removal of the Operations.

[Riggerby]

4 minutes ago, kfa said:

Sims also got powerkrept by everything, last nail in her coffin was the removal of the Operations.

This is very true. I was tempted to put her on my list. She was the first premium i bought (As it allowed access into the closed beta test) and times not done her any favors. Lackluster guns, Painfullllyyyyyyy slow torpedo's and Def AA nerf slashing her utility, She's very 'meh' indeed now.

The only saving grace with sims is the US smoke, and the fact she has a weird unique modifier that gives her more XP than other ships. The latter obviously not helping you in anyway ingame, and not helping you research anything faster since shes a premium obviously, but, a unique thing to note none the less. 

[Europizza]

I miss my Atlanta so much

[Cambera_1]

@Riggerby

So to summarise what appears to be your argument for many of your stated examples. 

'Please reverse IFHE and CV Rework.'

 

This might improve the performance of some premiums but would hardly solve the problems with the game. 

Going back to the the old RTS CVs without major changes would be a retrograde step.

(Please Note: This is not saying that the current situation is even OK, a full rework of CVs is needed, starting with 'What do we want CVs to do?')

I do think that the IFHE changes just need a revisit of every premium to see what was adversely affected by the changes. The USN 127mm being one area. Specific Armour, such as the Graf Spee, being another.

(Overall the IFHE changes were good, it just needs further tidying up. Will that happen? I guess not, not systematically anyway.)

[Fatal_Ramses]

Now Hood just feels like a german BB, without the good AP grenades or protecting armor.

*edit

Also Saipan, not a CV player but it just to give that OH ! OH ! when on opposing team but now its just meh, hes gonna deplane fast.

[Riggerby]

42 minutes ago, Cambera_1 said:

@Riggerby

So to summarise what appears to be your argument for many of your stated examples. 

'Please reverse IFHE and CV Rework.'

 

Not once did i say or even imply i want IFHE or CV rework to be reverted. That is not a summary of my post.

 

IFHE was a small step in the right direction of reducing the toxicity of HE spam and the CV rework is great in the sense we no longer see full health ships being deleted by CV.

 

But as with any change there are winners and there are losers. For the health of the game these changes were good things, but for the ships that were designed in those meta's, and excelled or relied upon them, when the changes happen and WG didn't adequately compensate them for what they lost in the new world they found themselves in, they simply fell into obscurity or a weak state.

 

I do not want cruisers to get their armor nerfed and IFHE patch reverted because Vanguard now struggles to overmatch, no. I want Wargaming to adequately compensate Vanguard with buffs to compensate for the fact they indirectly nerfed her.

I do not want CV rework to get reverted because Saipan is now thoroughly mediocre, i want Wargaming to actively take steps to reintroduce some better fighter mechanics and give her the strong position in the dogfighting world she once had.

 

I do not want IFHE change reverted because Atlanta / Flint took a nerf, no, i want Wargaming to either compensate them with special pen like other ships got or increase fire chance to compensate. Preferably the former as i believe fire spam is toxic and alpha from increased pen is less RNG. 

[ColonelPete]

1 hour ago, Riggerby said:

I'm sure that like many, There are a gluttony of ships sat in your carousel that seem to solely exist to take up a port slot these days, and quite a shocking number of them are premiums, which is a shame because the overwhelming majority have a monetary value to them. For almost all of them, they either weren't very good to begin with, or were once great but have been rendered obsolete or poor by powercreep, mechanic changes, meta changes or all of the above.

 

Who are some of the biggest port queens?

 

• Atlanta/Flint do fine
• Hood is still ok
• Texas is doing well
• Indianapolis still got her radar and was never a super strong ship to begin with
• Spee sisters are still strong cruisers on their Tier
• Blyska just recently recieved some improvement and is doing fine
• Zeppelin is still a CV
• Saipan is still a CV
• Vanguard needs some attention, but was never a strong BB

[CptBarney]

I forgot vanguard existed.

[invicta2012]

13 minutes ago, Cambera_1 said:

So to summarise what appears to be your argument for many of your stated examples. 

'Please reverse IFHE and CV Rework.

Well, the IFHE rework was not kind to Tier VII Cruisers or DDs. And the CV Rework was a classic example of WG rethinking part of the game without considering how people play against it. AA remains a terrible, terrible joke, and WG should not be selling anything based on its perceived AA abilities. 

 

However....  Atlanta remains ludicrously overpowered in certain game modes. I would suspect that the reason we don't have too many Tier VII operations is simply because Atlanta farms the heck out of them. And for that reason alone I don't see her getting buffed. 

 

Sims I still like. It's a quirky boat, not at all optimal, but still quick and nimble and unusual to play and play against. And if you don't like it, play Mahan - still a great ship. 

 

I will admit I don't see the point in Gallant any more, especially not with her total lack of AA and limited smokes. Icarus is so much better.

 

 

[gopher31]

All tier 7 premiums have been forgotten by me due to matchmaking changes, armour changes and the IFHE change.

 

tier 7 was hit very hard.

[Riggerby]

12 minutes ago, gopher31 said:

All tier 7 premiums have been forgotten by me due to matchmaking changes, armour changes and the IFHE change.

 

tier 7 was hit very hard.

 

Its a fair point tbh mate. All the indirect nerfs are hard enough, But they're only compounded by the uptiering.

For example, You can still somewhat make Atlanta and Flint work at their tier because with IFHE they can still pen superstructures. Put them in a tier 9 game though and their range is useless, they can pen almost nothing, their AA is atrocious against tier 8 CV, their detection isn't adequate to DD hunt, they're made of absolute paper and in Flints case, just gets Radar'd to death.

 

Tier 7's, premiums and non, almost all of them are underwhelming ships with glaring flaws. They're like the ugly acne teen years of the tech tree. They just get butchered in tier 9 games.

 

[Panocek]

21 minutes ago, Riggerby said:

For example, You can still somewhat make Atlanta and Flint work at their tier because with IFHE they can still pen superstructures. Put them in a tier 9 game though and their range is useless, they can pen almost nothing, their AA is atrocious against tier 8 CV, their detection isn't adequate to DD hunt, they're made of absolute paper and in Flints case, just gets Radar'd to death.

You don't need IFHE to damage superstructures. And then 26mm pen achieved with IFHE is inadequate to damage T8 cruisers due to 27mm deck/upper hulls, leaving you only bow/stern to pew pew at... as long as they aren't US/Ger CA.

[creamgravy]

Hood's now one of the best and most complete BBs in the game. Same old complaints. It's hilarious people think a BB with a 51mm deck, 127mm sides and submerged citadel has has no armour. Guns can now blap BBs in addition to everything else. All with the speed of a CA, jezz.

On 5/16/2020 at 8:04 AM, Riggerby said:

Though with the CV / AA rework, Those rocket AA launchers are about as comically useless as they were in real life

 

Montana 6km AA = 175 dps (6+2 x 1680 explosions)

Hood 5.8km AA = 227 dps (4+1 x 5600 explosions)

 

Mmm, comically useless... (Hood will farm AA Defence flags from noob CVs)

 

 

Sims will always be super stonk, these are the same complaints since release.

Spee's super strong but I'd still give her full KM BB secondaries.

Tier 7 CLs have been unfairly neutered hard, hate the extreme jump to tier 8.

[El2aZeR]

Saipan is fine. Just requires more skill and brains to play than the average CV player can muster.

[lossi_2018]

Spee and Blyska left out is criminal. Spee needs a buff to compensate for all she loses desperately. Any buff. An amazing historic ship is left behind, shame utter shame. 

 

Indy, Hood need a touch also.

[Lebedjev]

Historical ship don't get a preferential treatment in term of balance and it's a good thing.

[159Hunter]

I plan to play the next ranked season only with Indi and Atlanta. So I'll see how they perform during that period.

[Phayk]

Since those old premiums make barely any money for WG, they're not gonna fix/buff them. Why bother when that work could be put into releasing new premiums. Powercreep is an easy way for the devs to make new content for the game.

[Animalul2012]

I would like to add:

-Tier 7 soviet destroyer leningrad, or to say better the whole soviet dd line that leads to khabarovsk except tashkent-needs a lower reload and faster turret traverse and for the sake of god remove  those crappy 4 km torpedoes this aint 2015.(I know leningrad gets 8 but why minsk and gnevny do not?)

-Tier 8 french BB Gascogne-this thing need better dispersion and a reload booster.

-Tier 9 japanese cruiser Azuma-needs the destroyer like dispersion that all the other IGN cruisers get and a lower reload or give 1 torpedo launcher on each side.

-Tier 6 pan asian cruiser Huang He-give it better range,lower the reload a bit and make it possible to mount the hydro and the torpedo reload booster in separate slots.

-Tier 6 and tier 7 italian premium cruisers( The duca aosta and abruzzi)-need 30 mm HE pen to compensate for the low HE alpha and low fire chance, give it the italian smoke generator.

PS:Boise/Nueve de Julio need better range, 13.6 is....atrocious give them 15 km range.

 

 

 

 

[Aragathor]

All fair points here, but as long as WG employs people who do not play the game and only look at superunicum statistics we will never get any buffs for these ships.