mid tier italian cruisers

[SkollUlfr]

what are these things supposed to be good at, because all i seem to be doing is straddling targets and bouncing shells off of dds and getting citedelled by... everything.

are they basically an entire line of emeralds?

because i cant think of another situation where i had more ricochet ribbons and wet tissue armour than suffering through the emerald yuckboat.

 

tried looking up guides, but all they said is these ships are bad and only shoot dds... which is easier said as "entire line of emeralds".

 

is there advice for making these things work, or should i just upgrade these ships to empty port slots?

[fnaves_POR]

The fun starts at tier 8 below is pure garbage just grind the line and sell them all premiums included, to me reload time is the worst part

[DFens_666]

You can follow your DDs in the beginning because you have that smoke which gets you out of those tricky situations. Look for broadside targets. Shooting BBs on the lowermidtiers is a bit annoying due to their armor, just shoot the superstucture or bow/stern. You can get good salvoes against Cruisers by aiming at the right spots, also against squishy BBs like RN/US.

Reload is slow, thats true, but it gives you enough time to wiggle in and out between salvoes, unlike others which suffer DPM loss if you dont use all your guns.

Zara is actually rather tanky with its 30mm upper belt. Properly angled you can pretty much bounce almost all BB shells coming your way. 

[GarrusBrutus]

11 minutes ago, fnaves_POR said:

The fun starts at tier 8 below is pure garbage

This ^

[ColonelPete]

51 minutes ago, SkollUlfr said:

what are these things supposed to be good at, because all i seem to be doing is straddling targets and bouncing shells off of dds and getting citedelled by... everything.

are they basically an entire line of emeralds?

because i cant think of another situation where i had more ricochet ribbons and wet tissue armour than suffering through the emerald yuckboat.

 

tried looking up guides, but all they said is these ships are bad and only shoot dds... which is easier said as "entire line of emeralds".

 

is there advice for making these things work, or should i just upgrade these ships to empty port slots?

When you do not hit targets, you are aiming wrong.

When your shells bounce on DD, what are you doing?

 

The problem are angled BB and CA. Which is bad enough.

The smoke allows to play very agressive.

[Verblonde]

13 minutes ago, fnaves_POR said:

The fun starts at tier 8 below is pure garbage

I was quietly hoping Narai might return this week (instead, it's bleedin' Newport), so I can maybe get past the T7 at last.

 

I struggle to summon the enthusiasm to play it the rest of the time...

[invicta2012]

I have just dumped Amalfi and will be proceeding no further up the line. I'm sure these ships seemed fun at the time, but, like the Euro DDs, they have no purpose in the modes I play. 

 

However... I do still have the Trento, Zara and Gorizia, and I like them rather a lot. Trento is as fragile as heck, but she has her uses - SAP, properly used, is powerful and she has punchy AP. With regard to straddling targets, I do this all the time on twin gun turret ships - you just need to adjust a little bit up or down.

[GulvkluderGuld]

If you think italians are bad, dont even think about playing british CAs (Citadels Afloat) 

 

Ter 6-8 are basically copy-paste tier 5 Monte-giggolos which are only outlcassed in the garbage department by aforementioned british CAs. 

 

Dont give up though, the fun start with Brindisi and Venezia is still dumb, nerfs notwithstanding (there is not better word).

[HaachamaShipping]

1 hour ago, fnaves_POR said:

The fun starts at tier 8 below is pure garbage

Saying fun starts at T8 ignores that fun is not an objective value. You can have fun it pretty much any ship. Better question is, does performance start at T8 and that it certainly does not. Performance you can get at T6 already, whether you find it fun or not is up to the player. I also don't like playing Fiji. Doesn't mean its a bad ship.

 

Trento seems kinda underrated. The ship has two issues, which are that it is not yet as tanky as the higher tiers and the ballistics are lazy. First one is an issue, second one, imo, is an "issue". 70 mm belt and lack of the 30 mm upper belt section means, you have to be a bit more careful than on later ships, but Trento is fast and still has signature dodge and smoke. Trento also as a heavy cruiser gets 25 mm, so against 356 mm and such, you can do fine. The ballistics are an "issue", because they have their uses. Midtier dreadnoughts tend to have all kinds of reinforced armour. Something like Pyotr and Sinop for example you are hardpressed to pen at the upper belt, but you can pen the deck. Trento ballistics make hitting that deck much more likely than Zara and up's railguns, given with Zara you actually often need spotter plane to get the required angle of fall to deal decent damage on a Sinop. Otherwise, learn to lead your target and don't underestimate the AP. It's 203. At T6, if you meet T5, it overmatches cruisers. If you meet Leander, Perth, Fiji, Belfast, Atlanta or Flint, it overmatches those too. Also, Trento's armour isn't special at T6, it is emblematic for low tier plating. Everyone has crap armour. Trento AP will punish broadside cruisers still. Lastly, Trento regularly meets ships it can actual citadel with SAP. 

 

Zara now gets the tankiness, the railguns, the better smoke you get up to the Venezia and is just great. I have no clue why people hate this ship.

1 hour ago, fnaves_POR said:

to me reload time is the worst part

Trento and Zara have better reload than Amalfi and far better reload than anything after that. It should also be noted that the dpm increase from Trento (155k) to Zara (167k) and from Zara to Amalfi (176k) is not much compared to what the step up with Brindisi (213k) and Venezia is. Amalfi for all intents and purposes is Zara 2.0, with 16 and 25 mm plating replaced by 25 and 27 mm respectively, one extra torp per side and a bit more ship speed (at the cost of worse turning circle). One tier higher. Amalfi isn't bad, but if you could make Amalfi work and Zara not, despite the ships playing pretty much the same, it's hard to see why. 

 

Also, it should be noted that the Italian line is likely one of the most rewarding lines for knowing plating of different ships, as knowing where to aim, where to not aim, when to use SAP and when to use AP is quite well-rewarded. I'd also consider the lines some of the most ignorant lines regarding tiering, because a Zara doesn't really care if it is farming a Bayern, a Nagato or an Iowa, your approach to survival is always the same and your SAP pen is always relevant. Ship line plays also the same across the entire line, which is basically farming any broadside you find in range, using AP to get citadels when you see the opportunity, paying attention to who might aim at you and dodge with topkek turning. Use smoke when things get out of hand. Other cruisers are good targets because your damage matters more and they have less armour to shatter SAP, DDs are a target of opportunity. DDs fear SAP, but you don't hunt DDs, you just shoot them when they get spotted. This stays the same across the entire line, whether it's Trento or Venezia.

21 minutes ago, GulvkluderGuld said:

If you think italians are bad, dont even think about playing british CAs (Citadels Afloat) 

 

 

Devonshire and Surrey are pretty standard for their tier. Albemarle without its stupid citadel would be kinda OP, given how insane a heavy cruiser with superheal at T8 is. Atago is a solid cruiser with a normal heal and a pretty sizeable cit, Albemarle has better dpm, similar concealment and a superheal. Also similar range with access to a spotter plane. Something has to give if you don't want Albemarle to just crap on everything in its tier. Drake and Goliath meanwhile can tank quite a lot of fire for being quite stealthy heavy cruisers.

[SkollUlfr]

im actually having some fun with the rn cas though. getting damage instead of bounce ribbons is quite good for growing frustration.

 

1 hour ago, invicta2012 said:

Trento is as fragile as heck, but she has her uses - SAP, properly used, is powerful and she has punchy AP.

trento is the ship im on now. but im finding it just painful. taking it into pvp it feels like a cumbersome dd armed with pingpong shooters.

 

taking it into scenarios gets me performance similar to a fubuki. but im trading the stealth for bounce ribbons and the opportunity to get citedelled up the stern by nurnbergs let alone aobas.

[invicta2012]

3 minutes ago, SkollUlfr said:

trento is the ship im on now. but im finding it just painful. taking it into pvp it feels like a cumbersome dd armed with pingpong shooters.

It's fragile and everyone knows it is, so in PvP everyone shoots at it. Be prepared for that, especially as her armour (like a lot of cruisers) makes her vulnerable to heavy hits while kiting away - her deck gets overmatched by anything above 14 inch and plunging fire from abaft will probably result in citadels. You may want to save your smoke for that moment when something big is targeting you from 10-15k away. 

 

The guns on the Italian CAs do take a lot of getting used to but they're actually good practice for a technical approach to gunnery. I got a lot from them.  I may be a Co-op/Ops main these days but I like a challenge and you do have to think about where to aim with these things - but it's rewarding when you get it right (see the post above from Haachama). Ops are a good place to practice this - you can make a big impression if you pick the right angle of attack to get the best from your guns. 

[FukushuNL]

2 hours ago, fnaves_POR said:

The fun starts at tier 8 below is pure garbage just grind the line and sell them all premiums included, to me reload time is the worst part

Really? I found Trento already showing what Italian CAs are capable of. Certainly becauce she has the cannons in turrets. Great accuracy, the SAP, great manouverability. I found it super easy to hit whatever I wanted to hit, including DDs at range, up to a point I thought it was a bit too easy. And when you hit, it realy hurts. At the sane time dodging stuff has never been so easy in a cruiser either. Sure, it gets better with tiers, but Trento is imo where the fun starts. Up to the Italian CAs the RN CLs were my faves, but the ITA CAs easily conquered that spot. Simple to control, no real gimmick apart from SAP and maybe fuelsmoke, and SAP has a huge drawback in loss of power when ships get dmg saturated, plus they reward you so much if you angle correctly. And let's not get started on Venetia <3

[HaachamaShipping]

42 minutes ago, SkollUlfr said:

im actually having some fun with the rn cas though. getting damage instead of bounce ribbons is quite good for growing frustration.

Trento has to look out for whoever is silly enough to not angle. As it is fast and has a smoke, you might consider going to positions where you know people will show their side. Ideally, where people will keep showing side, as they want to go through. Take Estuary for example, Going wide typically is not a great idea, because people go head from mid towards the caps and then through the caps. Positioning somewhere behind the rock edges that extend from the home cap towards the sidecaps gives good shots at broadsides of whatever is passing by. And you know, most people won't just turn into your shots, as that'd mean they'd yolo straight into the cap and into your team there.

 

Also, observe carefully what ribbons you get. There's three types of ribbons that give no damage:

• Ricochet: Your shell bounced off. This means, the surface was too angled. Is there any plate on the target ship that is not angled like that. On Trento, as I wrote before, shells fall at range, so you might try to go for deck pens at extreme range on BBs. On other Italians or Trento close up, consider superstructure shots as a measure of desperation. Also note that some cruisers you can simply overmatch, then go for the parts where you don't need to make a bounce check.
• Shatter: The part you hit was too thick. Aim for somewhere else. Shatter at least means, the angle was right. As I pointed out before, the most frustrating ships in this regard will be Russian BBs, but stuff like Fuso at the wrong spot can be just as painful. If you constantly run into ships you cannot pen, study their armour in port to learn where you might pen. Heck, Pyotr if it kites can be SAP citadelled. Not reliably, but is funny when it happens. On cruisers, if you shatter, you likely hit the belt or a turret/conning tower. Don't shoot cruisers' centre of mass, unless you know you can SAP citpen or you got AP loaded. If you shoot for example another Trento with SAP, much of the middle of the ship is 70 mm main belt, shattering SAP. AP would citadel. Upper belt would give SAP pens on the 25 mm section. Bow and stern give SAP pens too. Meanwhile crap like Mikoyan can be SAP citpenned, so you can just shoot centre of mass and laugh as it evaporates.
• Torpedo belt hit: This is like the most frustrating and weird thing. Many ships have a torp belt that does not count for damage if hit. Go into port and disable torpedo protection in armour viewer to see the difference and where you should aim to not hit torp belt. Thankfully, for the Trento, the only examples you really meet where this is a notable issue would be Nagato, Amagi and some of the USN 21 knot standard dreadnoughts. French cruisers can have this too, but there, just load AP. High tiers has way more of this feature, with ships like Henri or Yoshno being very notable for having a light outer plating and an internal belt that might trick people into shooting that area, yet getting 0 damage hits.

If you feel you don't want to learn most ships' armour schemes, it's honestly better to just play a different line. Will be more fun. But it's not a Trento issue. I think one reason why people feel high tier Italian cruisers are more "fun" is because at T6, weird armour is all over the place and BB-wise for example, large parts of Fuso, Bayern, Izmail and Normandie are off-limits, most cruisers are relatively small with large cits that border the hull, so sizeable main belt sections. High tiers get BBs that often have pretty minimal armour except for the belt, or at least not more than 50 mm and cruisers often start having a bit smaller citadels (while the ships grow bigger) that also at times are internal (like on Zao or Hindenburg), so you really can just fire with little regard of where you hit and likely deal damage. But after Venezia pen angle nerf, Venezia and Zara are pretty much similarly "forgiving" or not in what angles they pen and Venezia just throws 15 shells, Zara 8. But Zara still can do damage from pretty silly angles if it hits the right area of ship, just like the high tiers, as can Trento.

1 hour ago, SkollUlfr said:

taking it into scenarios gets me performance similar to a fubuki. but im trading the stealth for bounce ribbons and the opportunity to get citedelled up the stern by nurnbergs let alone aobas.

You shouldn't get citadelled by either of those through your stern. But consider that none of the Italian cruisers are stealth ships. I'd go so far as to say, Italian cruisers for good cruiser players are as much about being seen as they are about dealing stupid damage, because dealing direct damage is one of the few things these ships can do. Baiting shots and dodging, thus wasting enemy fire is a second means of padding the crappy match influence these ships can have in randoms. Best is though, stay at mid range and use the fact that your SAP has no drop-off in performance in range. It pens as much from 2 km as it pens from 20 km. Once BBs are gone, you can push in and do cheeky stuff like duel other T6 cruisers more aggressively if you feel confident. But thus, you don't need extreme stealth and if you really have to disappear, you got the smoke. This is not for farming, it's for disengaging. I'd honestly not take Trento into ops though. Bots can aim and it's very different from how randoms work, where these ships do decent.

 

As for the guns of Trento, they are really not great, but they are 203s and you can expect them to be similar in ballistics to any other T6 203 mm gun. I decided to compare the T6 flight times of 203s to showcase this here.

Zara is there for comparison with a high tier-grade high velocity gun (German 203s from Hipper onward are similar ballistics, Zao is superior to Zara, but Aoba's 203 actually is same ballistics as you get all the way to Ibuki), to put it into perspective and highlight how close these guns are in ballistics. Algerie also is very much like these T6 guns, so Trento isn't exceptionally lazy, it's just in line with what most people get at T6 and what some lines use up to T8 (Albemarle still uses same guns as Devonshire in ballistics) or T9 (Saint-Louis gets only slight improvement over Algerie and the Ibuki is same as Aoba). And if people can do AP-heavy Pensacola or New Orleans play, throwing Trentos SAP around shouldn't be impossible either. It just isn't the kind of instant arrival shell you get from Zara onwards.

 

Also, one thing I consider personally with Trento: Don't be surprised if damage isn't steadily coming in. Due to the tier it's at and the opportunism you have to embrace, the Trento might not see a steady increase, but often gets more explosive increases in damage as it spends some time just not doing much till it finds the target that feeds you damage. On later tiers, you get more steady damage, as you can just keep multiple enemies in range and punish whoever isn't angled properly with fast SAP. On the other hand, as pointed out multiple times now, Trento can meet enemies it can citadel with SAP and that obviously can make your damage numbers explode when you just delete a ship in very few salvos.

[Chaos_Umbra]

The problem with the Trento is not only how squishy it is with the largest citadel with the weakest armour of the tier, it is also out spotted by BBs like Arizona... which is loads of fun plus if anything angles your damage drops to 0... Well at least with it being Tier 6 you can overmatch T5 cruisers...

[SkollUlfr]

3 hours ago, HaachamaShipping said:

As for the guns of Trento, they are really not great, but they are 203s and you can expect them to be similar in ballistics to any other T6 203 mm gun. I decided to compare the T6 flight times of 203s to showcase this here.

thanks for taking the time to write this out, but it is following paying attention to the ribbons that i made this post. i really wish i was getting the same results with this ships guns as i do with other 8", but as i said, im either straddling the target or getting bounce ribbons.

that and wondering how a 152mm armed ship directly to my stern managed to get citedels on me. maybe it came through the deck, but it still happened.

 

im going to swap out the steering gears for engine mod to see if i can do better evasion/baiting with speed changes.

not hopeful though.

 

graph explains why i like the pepsi so much though

 

2 hours ago, Chaos_Umbra said:

Well at least with it being Tier 6 you can overmatch T5 cruisers...

heh. if i see any outside ops il remember that. but like i said, im getting bounce ribbons from shooting dds.

[Yedwy]

IMHO Zara is already quite decent, Trento is a bit too soft for my taste, as for RN CAs Surrey is acceptable but Drake is where the fun really starts...

[Bindolaf_Werebane]

With so many great posts above, I can only add one thing: a potato's viewpoint.

 

I liked the Montecicciolina and had fun in it. It seemed agile and the guns decent. Then, the Trento, wow. Just as agile, but with better guns (and let's not forget Italian lol-torps that keep surprising pursuers). The smoke was great, but took a lunar year to reset.

 

And then... the Zara. Ugh. I hated it. Someone asked, "if you like the Amalfi, why do you hate the Zara". Well, it felt as agile as a donkey laden with bricks. I actually free-xp'd the donkey. I should note here that I play Italian cruisers like the French more or less. Incoming fire alert and open-water WASD-hack. 

 

I am currently at the Amalfi. I have fun with it, but win rate is abysmal. It's not unusual for me to rank 1.5 M. damage. Well, not tank, dodge. My damage output varies, but I do harass flanks, prioritise DDs and - don't forget AP against cruisers! Just yesterday I got 4 or 5 citadel's on a Mogami who thought her HE scared me. She sank.

 

All in all, I'm having good, wholesome potato fun with the line (I love the Genova too, though I play her differently, of course). I'll slowly creep up towards Brindisi and Venezia, but I am not grinding the line, or anything. Just play it for fun. The Zara still sucks, though.

[GulvkluderGuld]

6 hours ago, HaachamaShipping said:

Devonshire and Surrey are pretty standard for their tier. Albemarle without its stupid citadel would be kinda OP, given how insane a heavy cruiser with superheal at T8 is. Atago is a solid cruiser with a normal heal and a pretty sizeable cit, Albemarle has better dpm, similar concealment and a superheal. Also similar range with access to a spotter plane. Something has to give if you don't want Albemarle to just crap on everything in its tier. Drake and Goliath meanwhile can tank quite a lot of fire for being quite stealthy heavy cruisers.

Devonshire has myopic  (almost DD level) range and the only improvement on Surrey is spotterplane. They would be pretty standard with 1-2 km more range. 

I'm not sure if you are serious or joking about Albermarle? We agree on Drake and Goliath are okay CAs.

We already have Edinburgh which has a super heal and is more tanky than Albermarle in addition to having a smoke screen.

Atago has more dpm, not Albemarle. It comes with 12 barrels compared to albermarle 9 barrels on the same alpha and roughly the same reload, more torpedo launchers as well as a far smaller citadel with almost the same concealment. I'm not sure, but I think it also shares the better dispersion of IJN cruisers. There is a reason Atago was a very popular pick for ranked and Albemarle was not very popular.

Having low dpm as well as low alpha volleys means a ship has very low influence in a rapidly changing environment and if it cannot tank either (like Atago which is VERY tanky unless you play like a potato) it even worse.

Albemarle is mainly suffering from the BB meta and might be strong in a cruiser meta since they cant overmatch it, but it still has such low dpm I expect CLs would be able to burn it down faster than it can heal.

[fabatka]

If you play in your tier, these ships are fine. The problem is you NEVER play in your tier.

Just bought my Zara, 1st battle, stock ship, T9 battle... Thank you WG!

[Yedwy]

2 hours ago, GulvkluderGuld said:

Atago has more dpm, not Albemarle. It comes with 12 barrels compared to albermarle 9 barrels on the same alpha and roughly the same reload, more torpedo launchers as well as a far smaller citadel with almost the same concealment. I'm not sure, but I think it also shares the better dispersion of IJN cruisers. There is a reason Atago was a very popular pick for ranked and Albemarle was not very popular.

Emm Atago has 10 guns?

[Eternus_Damnatio]

11 hours ago, fnaves_POR said:

The fun starts at tier 8 below is pure garbage just grind the line and sell them all premiums included, to me reload time is the worst part

I enjoyed the Trento and Zara not enjoying the Amalfi so far although thats not the ships fault just bad matches taht are over too quick so far in her.
Doing a 12k damage volley to a Friedrich in the Zara was a highlight I enjoyed :)

[Jvd2000]

11 hours ago, fnaves_POR said:

The fun starts at tier 8 below is pure garbage just grind the line and sell them all premiums included, to me reload time is the worst part

Never sell premiums... leave them in port for snowflakes... selling them will give back only silver while having the increased risk that you get them back due to an award crate.. For example we have the KOTS collection that gives you a free random T7 premium... you would not like to receive Gorizia back....

[Animalul2012]

All Italian cruisers are bad! Easy to be countered thanks to garbage SAP ammunition which ricochets at the slightest angle and you are going to roll the magic numbers 858,1716,3434 every 16-21 seconds...Not to mention the atrocious rudder shift and the absurd reload of venezia which has been turned into another khabarovsk(compare it to brindisi, the ship is almost just a side grade, a tier 9.5 ship at best)

Saw someone talking about british heavy cruisers, surrey, drake and goliath are quite good and tanky if played right. Also goliath with range modules is pure madness to fight against especially against BBs, also make sure to use Andrew Cunningham, you will activate that witherer quite easy and get a reduced 10% reload on guns and torpedoes. 

When they will buff this thing it will just be another henri 4 but one that tanks anything and burns anything down.

[HaachamaShipping]

9 hours ago, SkollUlfr said:

thanks for taking the time to write this out, but it is following paying attention to the ribbons that i made this post. i really wish i was getting the same results with this ships guns as i do with other 8", but as i said, im either straddling the target or getting bounce ribbons.

that and wondering how a 152mm armed ship directly to my stern managed to get citedels on me. maybe it came through the deck, but it still happened.

 

im going to swap out the steering gears for engine mod to see if i can do better evasion/baiting with speed changes.

not hopeful though.

 

graph explains why i like the pepsi so much though

 

heh. if i see any outside ops il remember that. but like i said, im getting bounce ribbons from shooting dds.

I'd always take rudder mod on these ships, because the rudder shift isn't great, turning circle is. The best thing about Pensacola 203s is the improved AP pen angles and SAP has even better angles.

8 hours ago, Bindolaf_Werebane said:

And then... the Zara. Ugh. I hated it. Someone asked, "if you like the Amalfi, why do you hate the Zara". Well, it felt as agile as a donkey laden with bricks. I actually free-xp'd the donkey. I should note here that I play Italian cruisers like the French more or less. Incoming fire alert and open-water WASD-hack. 

Zara has a turning circle radius that rival Shiratsuyu. It isn't fast, but it has turning abilities that are insane for such a cruiser. To dodge, I wouldn't rely on IFA, but on PT, knowing how many aim at me and dodging when they are firing. IFA seems to me too late to prepare and initiate an accurate dodge.

7 hours ago, GulvkluderGuld said:

Devonshire has myopic  (almost DD level) range and the only improvement on Surrey is spotterplane. They would be pretty standard with 1-2 km more range. 

I'm not sure if you are serious or joking about Albermarle? We agree on Drake and Goliath are okay CAs.

We already have Edinburgh which has a super heal and is more tanky than Albermarle in addition to having a smoke screen.

Atago has more dpm, not Albemarle. It comes with 12 barrels compared to albermarle 9 barrels on the same alpha and roughly the same reload, more torpedo launchers as well as a far smaller citadel with almost the same concealment. I'm not sure, but I think it also shares the better dispersion of IJN cruisers. There is a reason Atago was a very popular pick for ranked and Albemarle was not very popular.

Having low dpm as well as low alpha volleys means a ship has very low influence in a rapidly changing environment and if it cannot tank either (like Atago which is VERY tanky unless you play like a potato) it even worse.

Albemarle is mainly suffering from the BB meta and might be strong in a cruiser meta since they cant overmatch it, but it still has such low dpm I expect CLs would be able to burn it down faster than it can heal.

None of the British cruisers have great range, which is intentional, otherwise you'd look at a repeat of the British BBs, just firing HE from the backline doing absolutely nothing otherwise. Devonshire's range is bad for a CA, but you still got ships like Dallas with less range and just like Dallas, Devonshire can fire over cover. As can any of them. These ships become open water gunboats at T9 and before that, they typically shouldn't be the first thing a BB shoots at. However, and that's what most people seem to utterly ignore, is that British CAs from Devonshire up can bully other cruisers (and DDs if those engage in an open fight), due to having a heal and thus the necessary sustain. A Devonshire in a cruiser vs cruiser fight has all the means to win at T6, a Surrey can crap on T8 heavy cruisers at times, because it can just outlive them and they all got pretty ok torps and great concealment. Surrey also has a pretty small citadel (which is unsurprising, given it has a pretty lackluster propulsion).

 

Edinburgh has a superheal, but Edinburgh does not have 25-27 mm plating on the whole ship. A Fuso can screw over an Edinburgh through the front. An Edinburgh cannot run up to any BB pretty much risk free and torp it in the face. Albemarle can, because it can tank any small caliber BB, it can tank any and all cruisers except Siegfried (which still bounces off the midsection). Albemarle has no business tanking some NC, but when you for example run into top tier MM and just fight something like Lyon, Odin, KGV and a bunch of cruisers, Albemarle already is ridiculous and if it had more dpm or more range it'd just be a bit broken as a top tier ship.

 

As for Atago, Atago has 10 barrels (not 12), 16s reload vs Albemarle's 13s, so no, Albemarle has more DPM and one shell less alpha per volley. And yes, Atago has the better dispersion and a smaller cit, which is the entire point of the argument I made. If you reduce the cit of Albemarle, it basically is an Atago with better dpm, spotter plane, superheal and the lulzy trade-off of having one less torp launcher per side (which however has excellent firing angles, has less reaction time, slightly better reload and can be single-fired). Atago already is popular, because its heal allows it to outlive opponents despite its poor dpm, you can guess if Albemarle offered that with superheal, it'd just crap on pretty much every cruiser and BB.

 

Also, for comparison, Albemarle DPM sits on the same level as Charles Martel, just that CM can boost the dpm temporarily, Albemarle can restore 48% of its hp pool in one go. DPM is worse than Baltimore, better DPM than the Hipper, PE and Atago. As for having low influence, such is the live of a HE farm cruiser line. Same can be said about Japanese cruiser lines and French cruiser lines that still have poor influence, unless they can preserve their ship to capitalise then on their strengths, which a cruiser line with heal should be able to do too.

 

Drake and Goliath meanwhile are basically often absolute bricks when properly angled, that can tank incredibly well and with their 28% fire chance can basically incinnerate opponents quite well.

 

As for being unpopular in ranked (or other modes that aren't random), being a ship that just doesn't fit the meta for ranked is not a crime. Albemarle also in terms of performance isn't the absolute worst, performing on par in WR with other ships that aren't massively powerful in ranked meta, like Charles Martel, Mogami, Amalfi, Alabama, Amagi, Benson and fan favourite Bismarck (all sitting ~48%). Ship does ok, just not really best pick for ranked.

[SkollUlfr]

while i appreciate the advice given in this thread, it is clear the trento is worthless broken trash.

 

it is worse at hitting anything it fires at due to whatever is on with its dispersion, and worse at doing damage than any other t6 cruiser and less capable than many t5.

 

whatever positives this trash is supposed to have on paper, im seeing nothing good about it in game.

 

may it rest alongside emerald in the stinking bowels of hell.