Pommern , wtf is this crap?

[bl66]

On 11/28/2020 at 3:21 PM, Knutorius said:

After having played about 75 games in this ship I can't help but repeat what I initially thought of her. Its trash.

 

Guns: are terrible. Its like putting pebbles on a catapult. Mostly unreliable at any range. You can have a 10km broadside target in front of you, it will still let you down.

Forget firing at long ranges.1/12 is a regular event. Even if you hit, its mostly overpens, sometimes an occasional citadel for no apperent reason or the lovely 1300 dmg full pen. Its absolute gambling. You never know what you gonna get.

33 second reloead is a slap in the face. While HE cruisers are reliably doing several thousand which each salvo. But that's an issue with the game balance anyway.

FDG gets bigger guns with a higher rate of fire, better turret traverse, better range, better dispersion, higher damage. Even the fire chance is higher.

So, what exactly is the advantage of playing a Pommern over a FDG?

 

Armor: Forget the armor. Even if statistics experts will tell you how good it is, you will get slapped from 20km by other BBs anyway. Imagine this ship with worse armor..Its actually necesseray to ensure a basic survival of this promo turd.

Since people have already figured out that you're an easy target you will get focused quickly by everything in range. Or even out of range. And as per usual thats your HE cruisers either kiting, sitting behind an island, in smoke or whatever brilliant game mechanic they are taking advantage of. Bottom line is: you will burn. Which makes it evermore exciting to get in close and use the "advantages" of the pommern.

So in essence the armor is nothing special and won't save you from HE shells raining down on you at tripple speed of your reload time.

 

The rest:

Torpedos: Well you got torpedos. Which is fun. But try to fire them when a couple of salvos of enemy high explosive destroy them easily at any given moment. Again brawler qualities.

AA: On the bright side the Pommern actually has some decent AA guns. Unfortunately the AA system is broken so it doesn't really matter how good it is. In my experience enemy planes are less of an issue though.

Secondaries: Yawn.. unfortunately its the only strenght of the german BBs,  really. Without the captain skills its useless.

 

Lets look at the 'Pros' listed in the WG wiki:

• Good main battery traverse speed and range
• Potentially devastating broadside of twelve (12) main guns
• Excellent hull and deck armor
• Reasonably fast for such a large battleship with a base speed of 31 knots
• Heavy secondary armament with good base range and penetration
• Strong short-ranged AA suite
• Equipped with one quadruple torpedo launcher per side of the ship
• Has access to the Hydroacoustic Search () consumable

Yeah, right. Any of these points seem either false or are standard or average in comparison to other ships, especially its tech tree counterpart, Mr. FDG

 

---

 

Again, this ship seems very underwhelming given the enemies it's facing in tier IX and X.

I found myself so often in situations where an enemy cruiser could just spam me down to pieces, while I wait for my two guns facing the enemy to reload for 33 seconds, only to get 1 or 2 overpens in return (if I'm lucky). Then having to reload again. Again, a general problem with the game balance, with BBs being but a joke in terms of damage output. But very noticable on the Pom.

 

Generally I like the Pommern. The idea, the looks of it. I really wanna have fun with it.

But I find myself over and over again being in the position of either having to stay away from getting burned to death or getting devestated from overextending. It's like a being a kid having to stay at home, watching the other kids play outside through the window. Your team mades hardly take note of you advancing most of the time, so getting in brawling sounds very nice on paper, but happens rarely and mostly on maps where you can take advantage of islands.

So I end up with underwhelming damage counts and a current win ration of 44%

I'm not sure how the premium unicum fanboys make this work, but I think it boils down to a couple of things. Captain skills, play style and probably playing in divisions.

 

 

 

Apparently, we have exactly the same type of experience with her. Worthless, useless. Her place is in a junkyard in India. There, she will shine, a lot of steel to recycle.

 

Apprently, according to Potato_quality, if you are in a division with two dds providing smokes for you, you can start using your secondaries....So, this is it, she needs two dds at her service to become useful.

 

A total waste of coal. Thank you Wee Gee. Great job. 

[ColonelPete]

4 minutes ago, bl66 said:

Apparently, we have exactly the same type of experience with her. Worthless, useless. Her place is in a junkyard in India. There, she will shine, a lot of steel to recycle.

 

Apprently, according to Potato_quality, if you are in a division with two dds providing smokes for you, you can start using your secondaries....So, this is it, she needs two dds at her service to become useful.

 

A total waste of coal. Thank you Wee Gee. Great job. 

Maybe you should take a step back and look at her objectivly.

She has the third highest winrating of your 9 Tier IX BB....

[bl66]

3 hours ago, ColonelPete said:

Maybe you should take a step back and look at her objectivly.

She has the third highest winrating of your 9 Tier IX BB....

This is what I have done already. She is clearly under the other premium t9 bbs with the exception of the al sov rossiya. According to the stats on wows stats numbers. She takes huge damage at each shot taken, angling doesn't matter, she burns all the time, and her guns are so poor that she can't really return efficient fire to the ennemy team. Irreleveant ship. 

 

And yes, maybe she has. But far behind the Georgia, which is a real good Bb. I never complained about spending coal on georgia, neither on the JB. But the Pommern? Way too much situational. Not enough influence on the issue of the game. Of course, she is slightly better than the FDG, or Izumo, which I both played a long time ago, when they were pure garbage, before they were buffed. Happily she is better than these ones...but not worth the coal.

 

Do you have the ship? Have you played her enough times? I wasn't able to find it in your stats. 

[ColonelPete]

4 hours ago, bl66 said:

This is what I have done already. She is clearly under the other premium t9 bbs with the exception of the al sov rossiya. According to the stats on wows stats numbers. She takes huge damage at each shot taken, angling doesn't matter, she burns all the time, and her guns are so poor that she can't really return efficient fire to the ennemy team. Irreleveant ship. 

 

And yes, maybe she has. But far behind the Georgia, which is a real good Bb. I never complained about spending coal on georgia, neither on the JB. But the Pommern? Way too much situational. Not enough influence on the issue of the game. Of course, she is slightly better than the FDG, or Izumo, which I both played a long time ago, when they were pure garbage, before they were buffed. Happily she is better than these ones...but not worth the coal.

 

Do you have the ship? Have you played her enough times? I wasn't able to find it in your stats. 

Why does she win more than your other 6 BB, including the JB. What does your complaint say about these ships that win even less?

[bl66]

5 hours ago, ColonelPete said:

Why does she win more than your other 6 BB, including the JB. What does your complaint say about these ships that win even less?

There are reasons for that. The non premium t9 bbs, I played them a while ago. So, I might have a bit more experience now, and may be better results. These t9 bbs by the way were mediocre. Most of them were a pain in the [edited]to grind. I know some of them have been buffed since then, which is what is going to happen with the Pommern, since she is so crap for a premium ship.

 

And again, do you have the ship? I mean, analysing statistics is something, playing the ship is another. And the experience when you play her, I have already described it. Taking huge damage, at all range, whatever the shells, burning, burning, burning......, doing no damage, having not much influence on the issue of the game. 

 

Already, the Pommern shoes to be the second worse ships among all the premium t9 bbs... And as she is new, this can only worsen, considering that new buyers will be more average players, her stats should get worse. The ship, in her current state lacks something to be worth the coal. Right now, it feels like I spent the coal to get a slightly improved FDG... I regard it as a total misuse of coal. 

[ColonelPete]

2 minutes ago, bl66 said:

There are reasons for that. The non premium t9 bbs, I played them a while ago. So, I might have a bit more experience now, and may be better results. These t9 bbs by the way were mediocre.

So a ship that is better than a mediocre ship is crap. Interesting.

You are aware that premiums are not P2W?

[bl66]

1 hour ago, ColonelPete said:

So a ship that is better than a mediocre ship is crap. Interesting.

You are aware that premiums are not P2W?

Play her, and let"s talk. If a ship is slightly better than mediocre, it doesn't lean it is good. Mediocre, crap, it is the same. Mediocre is nothing but a polite way to say crap. Compared to a Georgia, she is total garbage. 

 

But again, play her. You will find out for youself. 

 

Premium are not P2win? Hmmm, when I think of Smolensk, Belfast, and premium cvs, I tend to disagree with you.

[ColonelPete]

3 minutes ago, bl66 said:

Play her, and let"s talk. If a ship is slightly better than mediocre, it doesn't lean it is good. Mediocre, crap, it is the same. Mediocre is nothing but a polite way to say crap. Compared to a Georgia, she is total garbage. 

 

But again, play her. You will find out for youself. 

FdG has the same armor and I have no problem with her defensive capabilities.

[Forum_User]

Vor 14 Stunden, bl66 sagte:

Apparently, we have exactly the same type of experience with her. Worthless, useless. Her place is in a junkyard in India. There, she will shine, a lot of steel to recycle.

 

Apprently, according to Potato_quality, if you are in a division with two dds providing smokes for you, you can start using your secondaries....So, this is it, she needs two dds at her service to become useful.

 

A total waste of coal. Thank you Wee Gee. Great job. 

I agree with this statement!

Although I managed somehow to have on average some 10k more damage than wows-numbers states for the Pommern, I have a winrate of only 38%. Which baiscally means me playing that ship is bad for everybody in my team. I think the reason I have more damage is that I try to play her according to her 'Pros'. And when getting in closer range to use her offensive 'Pros' some other players may try to join my pushes and they get wrecked like I do. Then I did some reasonable damage but we are going to lose the game. I made some notes for a series of games I won with Pommern, these are games with very little damage dealt and tanked. So its games which my team would have most likely won without me...

Actually I dont want to blame the ship itself too much, since I think its - neglecting the dispersion of the main guns - a good ship. Its more the style of play in T IX and T X battles. It has become like World of Tanks. Players go to some island to have their flank protected and then just face bow on the enemy. Its not only one player doing this, often its like half the team, excluding DDs. And this is a scenario Pommern cant face. Like an Alaska is going to wreck me in such a situation. With every salvo from her I eat 5-10k damage, even when poperly angled. And in return you can congratulate your crew if they manage to land one hit at all. But here we only talk of a hit, which is then usually an overpen or a ricochet. I also tried to take some notes on that, in my games its about 1/3 pens, 1/3 overpens, 1/3 ricochets. In more dynamic battles, you can take advantege of her 'Pros', but in these unfortunately static battle types you are srewed. Because often it is not possible to just fight at a different place. Push forward, you get focussed and die very fast - try to retread, you get slowly burned down while you are out of range in which you can do effective hits - try to go somewhere else which forces you to go broadside for only a short time, goodby!

Improving the accuracy of her main guns would not change the problem of this static-game-style (which I personally dont like, but this is just my opinion and I am totally fine with everybody enjoying to play like), but it would make her a little bit more compatible in such scenarios...

[bl66]

1 hour ago, ColonelPete said:

FdG has the same armor and I have no problem with her defensive capabilities.

Okay, but untill you get the ship (what I recommend that you don't do), this conversation is a bit weird. I mean, you don't yave I he ship. So, rather hard to talk about the type of experience you have when you play her...

 

What I know when I play a tier 9 cruiser, I don't fear the Pommern. With the Alaska, the Kronstadt or the Siegfried, I am very happy to fight a Pommern. Because I know that she can't really harm me wity her guns. Yes, I stay outside the range of her secondaries, in case she is specialized in them, with ifhe, and then I just smile and fight her. On the contrary, when I face a Georgia, then, I start to be very careful and will certainly try to get forgotten by her. Why? Because I kniw that her guns hit very hard and are very accurate. Plus, keeping a Georgia at a given distance is not easy, because of her speed boost.

[ColonelPete]

4 minutes ago, bl66 said:

With the Alaska, the Kronstadt or the Siegfried, I am very happy to fight a Pommern.

These are supercruisers. They are tough as hell. And when they work with 305 and 380mm guns, why should the Pommern not work?

With 380mm guns you should not select bow on targets in high Tier, that you cannot overmatch. That applies to all ships.

[Benser33]

On average Pommern wins more games than it loses. If your winrate is below that then you are apparently not a representative example of what the ship can do.

 

Maybe Pommern varies wildly in its winrate, with some players having 40% winrate and some easily getting 60%, this would indicate an issue with the skill floor and skill ceiling of the ship. You are punished much more for playing such a ship wrong and there is a skill in using the ships strengths to win games that is not simply dealing damage with it.

[Forum_User]

Vor 8 Minuten, ColonelPete sagte:

These are supercruisers. They are tough as hell. And when they work with 305 and 380mm guns, why should the Pommern not work?

With 380mm guns you should not select bow on targets in high Tier, that you cannot overmatch. That applies to all ships.

So if one should not select bow on targets, then what is left? DDs? Ships which are close to the max range of Pommerns which you are defenitly not going to hit because of the dispersion.

And the high caliber guns of the supercruisers work better because of better accuracy. With a the Ägir I am going to do more damage to a bow on T X BB, because when I aim at the superstructure I am going to hit it. With Pommern I will most likely get one hit.

 

Vor 11 Minuten, Astolfo_Is_My_Waifu sagte:

On average Pommern wins more games than it loses. If your winrate is below that then you are apparently not a representative example of what the ship can do.

 

Maybe Pommern varies wildly in its winrate, with some players having 40% winrate and some easily getting 60%, this would indicate an issue with the skill floor and skill ceiling of the ship. You are punished much more for playing such a ship wrong and there is a skill in using the ships strengths to win games that is not simply dealing damage with it.

I guess the winrate varies for different players, some may have very high win rates, others not. Maybe I am playing the Pommern wrong since I try to deal damage. Maybe one should be much more passive, idk. It would be very interesting to see the average damage for the Pommern games which endet with a win and compare it with the numbers of lost games.

 

I also tried different play styles, captain skills and modules and checked you a lot of videos of how different people play the Pommern. But so far I did not find a suitable way. And the Pommern is my only BB with a winrate less then 50%...

[ColonelPete]

1 minute ago, Forum_User said:

So if one should not select bow on targets, then what is left? DDs? Ships which are close to the max range of Pommerns which you are defenitly not going to hit because of the dispersion.

And the high caliber guns of the supercruisers work better because of better accuracy. With a the Ägir I am going to do more damage to a bow on T X BB, because when I aim at the superstructure I am going to hit it. With Pommern I will most likely get one hit.

That is why you flank and look for targets that show the side to you.

While Pommern has less accuracy, she has more guns.

And Supercruisers do not work well vs a bow-on Pommern (or any other BB). The only way to really hurt her is to flank her and get her upper belt. That is where the 305mm guns shine.

[Benser33]

3 minutes ago, Forum_User said:

I guess the winrate varies for different players, some may have very high win rates, others not. Maybe I am playing the Pommern wrong since I try to deal damage. Maybe one should be much more passive, idk.

Dealing damage by itself rarely does win games, thats why people refer to ships like Conq and Henri or glass cannons like Slava and Champagne as ships that dont win games. They can farm a ton of damage, but they cant easily make any other sort of decisive maneuver that creates a win or flips a loss. Pommern has that ability, but identifying how and when it can do that is a difficult skill to learn, it requires a lot of mechanical, map and ship knowledge, good spatial awareness, foresight and patience.

[HaachamaShipping]

55 minutes ago, bl66 said:

What I know when I play a tier 9 cruiser, I don't fear the Pommern. With the Alaska, the Kronstadt or the Siegfried, I am very happy to fight a Pommern.

When I play Drake, I don't fear alaska, as I know I can take it on and win any 1v1 with just a single turret even. Clearly Alaska is crap. WG, please buff Alaska.

[bl66]

40 minutes ago, ColonelPete said:

These are supercruisers. They are tough as hell. And when they work with 305 and 380mm guns, why should the Pommern not work?

With 380mm guns you should not select bow on targets in high Tier, that you cannot overmatch. That applies to all ships.

Maybe, but they steal fear the Georgia. And if I play in the tier 9 us cruiser, the Buffalo or even the Seattle, I don't fear a Pommern either. Though they are not super cruisers. The issue with the Pommern here is that she has nothing for herself. No armour, crap accuracy, and lack of penetration because of the caliber. This is too many lacks. I mean, when I buy a premium ship, I expect that she will have a really strong point. Well, Pommern is not. And I bet she will get a buff sooner or later. In her current state, she is not worth the coal not the cash.

 

But again, please if you really think I am wrong, buy her and enjoy. At least you will have pragmatic arguments, not theorical ones anymore. 

[bl66]

7 minutes ago, HaachamaShipping said:

When I play Drake, I don't fear alaska, as I know I can take it on and win any 1v1 with just a single turret even. Clearly Alaska is crap. WG, please buff Alaska.

Non sense. 

[HaachamaShipping]

Just now, bl66 said:

Non sense. 

Same logic as yours, so what does that tell us? 

[bl66]

24 minutes ago, Astolfo_Is_My_Waifu said:

Dealing damage by itself rarely does win games, thats why people refer to ships like Conq and Henri or glass cannons like Slava and Champagne as ships that dont win games. They can farm a ton of damage, but they cant easily make any other sort of decisive maneuver that creates a win or flips a loss. Pommern has that ability, but identifying how and when it can do that is a difficult skill to learn, it requires a lot of mechanical, map and ship knowledge, good spatial awareness, foresight and patience.

True,dealing damage doesn't automatically win the game.

[ColonelPete]

1 minute ago, bl66 said:

Maybe, but they steal fear the Georgia. And if I play in the tier 9 us cruiser, the Buffalo or even the Seattle, I don't fear a Pommern either. Though they are not super cruisers. The issue with the Pommern here is that she has nothing for herself. No armour, crap accuracy, and lack of penetration because of the caliber. This is too many lacks. I mean, when I buy a premium ship, I expect that she will have a really strong point. Well, Pommern is not. And I bet she will get a buff sooner or later. In her current state, she is not worth the coal not the cash.

 

But again, please if you really think I am wrong, buy her and enjoy. At least you will have pragmatic arguments, not theorical ones anymore. 

Pommern has one of the best armor schemes on Tier IX.

The 380mm guns are enough to punish all broadside ships in the game.

And her strong point is obviously close range combat. That is hard to miss.

 

And your own performance (thirdbest WR of your Tier IX BB) in her speaks for itself, but I never saw you complaning about the JB.

[Forum_User]

Gerade eben, ColonelPete sagte:

Pommern has one of the best armor schemes on Tier IX.

The 380mm guns are enough to punish all broadside ships in the game.

And her strong point is obviously close range combat. That is hard to miss.

 

And your own performance (thirdbest WR of your Tier IX BB) in her speaks for itself, but I never saw you complaning about the JB.

 Sure the 380mm guns *can* punish any broadside ship. Its not about the caliber. Its about hitting. I just played a game in which I managed to flank an enemy group of ships. I had three full slavos on fully broadside not moving ships at a range of 14km. I did not score a single hit. I know RNG and so on. But this is the point. Such things happen to often with Pommern. Even when you play carefully and get yourself into game winning positions, the accuracy of the ship lets you down...

[bl66]

1 minute ago, HaachamaShipping said:

Same logic as yours, so what does that tell us? 

Alaska is feared by many ships. Some can deal better against her, and yes, Drake is one of them. 

This doesn't mean that Alaske needs a buff...I think she will be nerfed sooner or later, as she is really strong. 100% worth the coal.

My point was rather that in many cruisers, I don't really fear the Pommern. Because of ger inaccurate and lacking penetration guns. 

If I were still playing other tier 9 bbs, I would not fear Pommern either. Why that? Because she doesn't really represent a serious threat to any ship in the current meta.

Which is long range at the start of the game, and pushes when a breach in the ennemy team appears later. 

So, if a ship is not feared by one other or a few others, it doesn't mean she needs a buff. 

If she us feared by none or almost none, she needs one. 

 

 

[ColonelPete]

2 minutes ago, Forum_User said:

 Sure the 380mm guns *can* punish any broadside ship. Its not about the caliber. Its about hitting. I just played a game in which I managed to flank an enemy group of ships. I had three full slavos on fully broadside not moving ships at a range of 14km. I did not score a single hit. I know RNG and so on. But this is the point. Such things happen to often with Pommern. Even when you play carefully and get yourself into game winning positions, the accuracy of the ship lets you down...

 

• Pommern can easily move closer than 14km, she has the armor for that
• missing 3 complete salvos at that distance is either EXTREMLY unlucky or an aiming error

[bl66]

19 minutes ago, ColonelPete said:

Pommern has one of the best armor schemes on Tier IX.

The 380mm guns are enough to punish all broadside ships in the game.

And her strong point is obviously close range combat. That is hard to miss.

 

And your own performance (thirdbest WR of your Tier IX BB) in her speaks for itself, but I never saw you complaning about the JB.

Play it, and you will see that the "best" armour scheme is something you cannot rely on. This is pragmatic experience. Not theoritical thoughts.

And yes, she can punish broadsides. And she will. But very rarely. Not because the aiming is not good, but because she lacks accuracy. Again, a pragmatic experience.

 

Concerning the JB, she would greatly benefit of a better accuracy (With a good accuracy though). She is not a pile of crap though. Much better than the Pommern, hence, even if she is not the best premium bb, I don't see any reason to state that she is bad. And the general stats on wows numbers go in the same direction. 

 

But buy the Pommern Colonel Pete. You will see for yourself.