Some personal thoughts on Kansas

[Miragetank90]

First of all, though she probably won't be well-liked by most, I'm enjoying the ship. She brings with her some unique challenges. I like that. 

 

Getting right into it - Some might see this as contradictory, but though I'm enjoying her imo she is a very mediocre, perhaps borderline crappy ship, but not for the reasons you might think. 

 

For example, her hull is actually nice. It turns responsively and completes turns quickly, and accelerates well even if the topspeed isn't good. Duking and baiting shells is quite easy. Getting citadelled is a non-issue, and provided you know what you're doing, getting HE farmed is not a big concern. This is important, because the 32mm plating is the whole ship. Otherwise, it's enough for everything else save Yamato-sister focus. Torpedo protection is good.

 

AA wise, relative to other USN BBs at this tier, it's a mixed bag at a glance. They have 2 more flak puffs and in some cases better DPS base(with identical hit chances), until you pop DefAA, in which case you will out DPS them all. Range is of course the same.

 

So that leaves the guns. Where everything else is workable or even nice, to me the guns are what really let this ship down. Keeping it short, you've got a main battery with:

 

Bad accuracy. Not consistent at all save very close ranges. Awful shell grouping on average. 

Mediocre penetration. No idea of the actual values here, tbf. This is just based on personal shooting experience. Still, workable.

Bad reload. Everyone knows this already.

Bad damage per shell. Coupled with the above, esp. the accuracy, I'm feeling it. 

 

She does have massive broadside potential for sure(141600) though the guns pay for it. The only other BBs currently in the game that have more are Alsace and Bourg(very slightly), Lyon, Minnesota, Montana, GK(420mm) and soon to be introduced Vermont. 

 

Honestly, I wouldn't advocate for any buffs, the ship is balanced, if unremarkable. That being said, I would not be opposed to getting a little more consistency in her shell groupings. Would this make her OP? If you know how to aim, and coupled with her alpha potential, maybe. idk. 

 

These are just my impressions. Definitely going to be playing a lot more of the ship. 

 

Also she's THICC and I therefore automatically approve even if she was the worst ship on earth

 

[Aixin]

Vor 1 Stunde, Miragetank90 sagte:

First of all, though she probably won't be well-liked by most, I'm enjoying the ship. She brings with her some unique challenges. I like that. 

 

Getting right into it - Some might see this as contradictory, but though I'm enjoying her imo she is a very mediocre, perhaps borderline crappy ship, but not for the reasons you might think. 

 

For example, her hull is actually nice. It turns responsively and completes turns quickly, and accelerates well even if the topspeed isn't good. Duking and baiting shells is quite easy. Getting citadelled is a non-issue, and provided you know what you're doing, getting HE farmed is not a big concern. This is important, because the 32mm plating is the whole ship. Otherwise, it's enough for everything else save Yamato-sister focus. Torpedo protection is good.

 

AA wise, relative to other USN BBs at this tier, it's a mixed bag at a glance. They have 2 more flak puffs and in some cases better DPS base(with identical hit chances), until you pop DefAA, in which case you will out DPS them all. Range is of course the same.

 

So that leaves the guns. Where everything else is workable or even nice, to me the guns are what really let this ship down. Keeping it short, you've got a main battery with:

 

Bad accuracy. Not consistent at all save very close ranges. Awful shell grouping on average. 

Mediocre penetration. No idea of the actual values here, tbf. This is just based on personal shooting experience. Still, workable.

Bad reload. Everyone knows this already.

Bad damage per shell. Coupled with the above, esp. the accuracy, I'm feeling it. 

 

She does have massive broadside potential for sure(141600) though the guns pay for it. The only other BBs currently in the game that have more are Alsace and Bourg(very slightly), Lyon, Minnesota, Montana, GK(420mm) and soon to be introduced Vermont. 

 

Honestly, I wouldn't advocate for any buffs, the ship is balanced, if unremarkable. That being said, I would not be opposed to getting a little more consistency in her shell groupings. Would this make her OP? If you know how to aim, and coupled with her alpha potential, maybe. idk. 

 

These are just my impressions. Definitely going to be playing a lot more of the ship. 

 

Also she's THICC and I therefore automatically approve even if she was the worst ship on earth

 

Agree played 2 games in it so far. Hitting stuff further away then 12km is impossible. Everything about the ship is OK besides the guns tbh. If I have to wait 40s to shoot then I don't want crappy dispersion or no pens...... 

[The_Chiv]

Not gonna lie I was not looking forward to grinding this line. I have been rather pleasantly surprise in how much I enjoy this ship. Probably the biggest take away I have from this ship is at tier 8 having a glove of 32mm is surprisingly very bouncy to most bb fire and if you can close to 15km or less you can decimate anything you point at. 

[159Hunter]

Aaah, you got your thick boat :D

 

thb, I like the ship. Mind you, I'm a weirdo when it comes to BBs, I actually loved colorado and hated the NC grind.

Against anyone that isn't a good CV player / a TX CV the AA does an okay job. You probably won't stop the first strike, but follow up strikes are very unlikely.

 

Shell grouping is indeed an issue, but so far this BB has been very consistend in devstrikes cruisers at mid - ranges. And even at long ranges citadelling them is no issue at all.

The guns do struggle somewhat against other BB and I've already given up shooting a broadside Kansas as this hardly does any damage.

 

The most annoying part is the reload. If I miss a volley I get annoyed because now I have to wait the full 40 sec for another shot. Very annoying indeed.

Plus, this makes me take every shot I can, because there are only so many shots you can take.

 

Probably the hardest part of them all, and that's where I see tons of Kansas players fail, is the positioning. If you mess this one up you're either death in the water or useless for over half of the game.

For me this really is a BB to position in a central location, because once you commit to a position, you are too slow to reposition comfortably. Thus going to a flank is a huge risk. Too big of a risk if you ask me.

The central position allows me to maximize my full range circle, but the biggest issue I face is the rest of my team. They generally all go flanking and leave the middle right open. When that happens, I'm a bonfire and torpedo magnet.

[Ocsimano18]

Crappiest shite in the game:

 

 

Definitely... 

[Captain_Newman]

11 minutes ago, Ocsimano18 said:

Crappiest shite in the game:

 

 

Definitely... 

 

That's a nice game, and don't get me wrong, I don't think the Kanzas is bad - but showing one great battle is generally a poor indication of the ship's worth. I could show you some great post battle result screens with HuangHe, Omaha, Marblehead, and so on. Every ship can have it's day.

 

Good job on that one, btw.

[Ocsimano18]

2 minutes ago, Captain_Newman said:

 

That's a nice game, and don't get me wrong, I don't think the Kanzas is bad - but showing one great battle is generally a poor indication of the ship's worth. I could show you some great post battle result screens with HuangHe, Omaha, Marblehead, and so on. Every ship can have it's day.

 

Good job on that one, btw.

Thanks, I have 4 battles with her so far, all wins.

[Captain_Newman]

2 minutes ago, Ocsimano18 said:

Thanks, I have 4 battles with her so far, all wins.

 

Wasn't quite so lucky, I took mine out 3 times, 2 times out of those my teams just collapsed, as they do when the MM fills them with 45-ers and below. Still managed a fairly decent average damage on it - when the guns aren't trolling you, they do hit pretty hard.

[SV_Kompresor]

6 minutes ago, Ocsimano18 said:

Thanks, I have 4 battles with her so far, all wins.

I too have 4 battles in it.

By far the worst ship I've ever played in this game. About on par with the original karlsruhe. I didn't think anything could trump my hate for donskoi and riga, but here we are.

[Ocsimano18]

4 minutes ago, Captain_Newman said:

 

Wasn't quite so lucky, I took mine out 3 times, 2 times out of those my teams just collapsed, as they do when the MM fills them with 45-ers and below. Still managed a fairly decent average damage on it - when the guns aren't trolling you, they do hit pretty hard.

The three players coming after me on the scoreboard were 40%, 42%, 48% WR. They left me more to take. 

[DFens_666]

25 minutes ago, Captain_Newman said:

I could show you some great post battle result screens with HuangHe, Omaha, Marblehead, and so on. Every ship can have it's day.

 

Im always in favour for buffing Marblehead

 

To not go completely OT:

I couldnt be bothered to actually grind Kansas... way too much grinding for basicly no gain at all. Easier to just play 2-3 games Colorado in Narai if id want it later on. And then there is still the issue with playing Kansas... which i dont want either

[kfa]

i am ready. wasnt too bad. IS THAT ALL YOU GOT WG???

[Aragathor]

My opinion is simple. If I can perform better in the Monarch, a glorified T7  put into a T8 slot, then the ship is not worth playing.

[kfa]

10 hours ago, Miragetank90 said:

 

So that leaves the guns. Where everything else is workable or even nice, to me the guns are what really let this ship down. Keeping it short, you've got a main battery with:

 

 

Yup, just checked it yesterday factually.

It has worse pen over 12km than one of the crappiest BB guns in the game, the Bismarck 380mm.

Way more flight time and Wyoming sigma (1.5) while ships like North Carolina have 2.0.

And on top of everything else +10 sec reload.

 

I also have little to nothing against the shiphull itself, only the guns are trash.

[ColonelPete]

While she is boring, you can have nice battles in her:

Spoiler

 

Even with video:

 

 

[Captain_Newman]

46 minutes ago, DFens_666 said:

 

Im always in favour for buffing Marblehead

 

To not go completely OT:

I couldnt be bothered to actually grind Kansas... way too much grinding for basicly no gain at all. Easier to just play 2-3 games Colorado in Narai if id want it later on. And then there is still the issue with playing Kansas... which i dont want either

 

Fair enough. TBH I found her guns extremely trolly. When they want to do the work, they can hit pretty hard, like me triple citadeling a Riga kiting at max range, also breaking it's engine so he ended up spotted and almost stationary for the team to finish off.. but then you pay for it when a potato GK decides to come behind an island at 2.5km range full broadside to you, you're thinking "delicious" and then get two overpens, and a bunch of bounces on a waterline aimed shot at point blank, which should be impossible. Three battles so far isn't enough of a sample size anyway. Jean Bart she is not, that's for sure.

[jss78]

1 hour ago, Captain_Newman said:

[snip]...Marblehead, and so on. Every ship can have it's day.

 

Tier VII game in the Marblehead:

 

[Miragetank90]

39 minutes ago, kfa said:

Way more flight time

 

Yeah, that's something I didn't mention above. I wasn't sure if I was imagining it but to me flight time when it leaves the barrel starts off OK, then appears to drop very quickly over a certain range. 

I found it very noticeable, unlike say NorCal shells which are just slow.

 

It felt a bit jarring. 

[Hades_warrior]

I dont have it and I wont finish the grind. Got last 5k tokens for 12 Ouroboros flags bundle and im done with this update. Not interested in playing slow ships.

[albin322]

17 minutes ago, Hades_warrior said:

I dont have it and I wont finish the grind. Got last 5k tokens for 12 Ouroboros flags bundle and im done with this update. Not interested in playing slow ships.

good for you il write upp in the book of things i really needed to know! 

[Furius_Marius]

Kansas is a boring ship the slow speed + the slow reload makes a lot of minutes of battle doing nothing. In CO-OP is even worse. xD

[peoplescavalry]

At 40sec per volley and assuming it will take 2 minutes to actually get into combat means that in a 20 min match you will get to fun left click at the most 26 times?  I love American BBs but I will probably give this a miss   (Haha).

[ollonborre]

Here are the pen values and flight time compared to the Colorado:

Spoiler

Soo yeah the pen and shell flight time are pretty, well crap for a tier 8. Now I must say I have been suprised by the shell grouping in the few games I've played, it's not so horrible I thought it would be. Still not brilliant and it does lead to frustrating misses and single hit pens at even medium distance but not so bad I felt mega frustrated.

 

Overall though, initial impressions are that I might actually grind this line. I have a soft spot for super dreadnought design and the Kansas has been decent enough. Nothing amazing or even good, but not terrible.

 

I will say though I do find it hard to justify 40 sec reload on it. 35 would be fine and nothing gamebreaking, 40 is just eugh.

[Yedwy]

I dont mind the slow speed as she is nimble, i dont mind the long reload although the DP is less then the Ncal (theoretical AP DPM Ncal-238 800 vs Kanzas-212 400) but I cant imagine the reason why this ship had to be nerfed to ground with horrible shells and 1.5 sigma since her damage output is nothign special anyway and she is slow and a tinderbox... Utter BS you wait for 40s try to compensate for slow shells and when you finally hit - you do nothing...

 

Tried Minnesota one final time today (she is just as bad) and TBH I dont want to play it anymore, I might FreeXP the Vermont IF she turns up to be good and I am selling this two turds as soon as I can

[Aethervoxx]

5 hours ago, Ocsimano18 said:

Thanks, I have 4 battles with her so far, all wins.

Gee, no wonder. It's new so WF is going to favour it one way or another.