Post 0.10 Update Decision: Which Tier X to Get Next?

[WolfRawrrr]

Hello. I've looked for some general-type thread where I could ask this so I don't clutter the forum with yet another what-should-I-do thread, but there doesn't seem to be one. I hope it's ok to ask here.

 

I've been playing for just over a year now and in that time I've managed to acquire three Tier X ships: Midway, Yamato, and Halland. In that order. I don't get much enjoyment out of playing the first two overall, both are kind of underwhelming for what I expected them to be, though I do like the Halland. Not as OP as I felt it to be when I used to play against it, but it's decent.

 

Now with the commander rework update, I'm finding playing battleships less and less fun - I'm really not a fan of floating around in the back and trying to hit something at +20km. It's pretty boring, and even with +10% accuracy from Dead Eye it's still really hard to hit anything when most ships are kind of fast and they have a lot of time to maneuver given how long your shells spend flying through the air (that's just reaction time - imagine when they actively anticipate where you will shoot). The shells do fall reasonably closely together thanks to Dead Eye, but usually altogether in the wrong place. I don't entirely suck at aiming, but at those distances it's way too much of a guessing game to be fun. And German BBs just feel quite unsatisfying after the commander skills rework, while I had some great times before playing Gneisenau and Bismark (yes, even Gneisenau). So I'm not looking into getting another Tier X battleship, though I could freexp to G. Kurfurst or Montana if I wanted to.

 

Note that I don't have any Tier IX ships. I play mainly Tier VIII and eventually skip to Tier X, my reasoning being that I save probably +20 million credits for not purchasing those ships and their upgrades/modules. Sure, it costs a couple hundred thousand free xp, but somehow it's the credits that are always a problem for me. Not free xp. That stuff just piles up with nowhere to go after a while. Anyway...

 

So now I have almost enough credits to buy my fourth Tier X ship, but I'm not sure which one to get. I play 90% random battles by myself (or solo ranked), and every now and then manage to get some clan members together for a fight. Ideally I'd like a ship that can perform well in any of those queues. I also don't know which ships are still viable or generally still good in the new meta since the rework, and when I try doing research online, most of the info I find is outdated by years. I guess WoWs isn't that popular after all! I can't play 10 hours a day so getting credits and choosing what to grind and what to buy matters to me. It's also the reason why I used to sell ships/upgrades as I moved up (until Tier VI -VII where I started keeping them).

 

I'm going to freexp from one of my Tier VIII ships - I've narrowed it down to a few options, and I'd appreciate any opinions and advice I could get to help me decide which one.

 

• Worcester
  I heard this ship is supposed to be great, but I don't see it often anymore. I like spamming HE and I'm not opposed to hiding behind islands. I like my Cleveland though I do seem to die a lot in it - probably because I tend to try and always be close enough to the action to make my radar useful, like covering capture points. Worcester would probably be equally team-dependent, which may be a good and bad thing. I'm a fan of utility and tactics so I'm liking the radar and the insane AA, but at this point I'm starting to feel like perhaps I should have grinded the heavy cruiser line instead - Des Moines seems to be massively popular as a spammy ship that can somehow also take quite a beating. 
   
• Hindenburg
  German cruisers are probably the best thing for open water fighting and are possibly the only cruiser line that can afford to get repeatedly shot at by battleship fire. They're tanky and have great guns, yet despite being on the slow side are still somehow agile enough to maneuver. This is the first class I started playing in this game, and I was actually pretty bad at it even after reaching Tier VIII. However, eventually I learned with some help from the community how to play these ships right and have since had some amazing games playing Yorck and Hipper. I honestly can't imagine sailing out in the open and opening fire at enemy battleships and cruisers while relying only on WASD hacks in anything that's not a German heavy cruiser. But is it still good in the new meta, where it's probably going to be near perma-detected owing to its commander skills?
   
• Minotaur
  I've learned to avoid this ship - when playing aircraft carriers because of its insane AA, and when playing battleships/cruisers because of its insane AP spam. Sure, it's just AP, but if you show broadside you get serious broadside damage, and if you angle against it you get... still pretty serious superstructure damage. Very few Minotaurs actually run radar (Memetaur huehue), so I've never been afraid of approaching a Minotaur's smoke in a destroyer in order to get his main guns to detect him and try and torp him while at it. This ship is the reason why I started grinding the Royal Navy CL line. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Fiji and Edinburgh (even Leander was alright), so I guess yeah I like to sit in smoke and spam. However, from the research I did, in the end Minotaur seems like a high risk/high gain ship, pretty situational since it's made of paper and unless you have hard cover, it's generally a bad idea to fire your guns at anything. And as long as you're sitting in smoke, or even behind an island, you are almost entirely dependent on your team for spotting. I've seen lots of Minotaurs die pretty stupid deaths, as intimidating as they'd been up until that moment.
   
• Gearing/Shimakaze
  This is still an option, though I feel like I've satisfied my DD needs with the Halland for the time being. I'd been weighing between Gearing/Halland/Shimakaze before, but I should probably get a Tier X cruiser before I go for a second destroyer. I played destroyers from the start, mostly German but eventually realizing that I do perform best in American and European ones. Torpedoes are a game of luck and guesswork more than skill, in my opinion (not to discredit the highly skilled DD players out there), so as someone who moderately sucks at torping I've felt very comfortable with the fast yet low-damage torpedoes found on Oland and Halland - and equally enjoyed the decent guns. American torpedoes lack range until Tier IX-X, but even so from what I've read online Gearing apparently isn't what it used to be? Power crept? A lot of people are saying that Daring/Harugumo/Halland all outperform it, and that its best feature is the smoke. Shimakaze seems to be going as strong as ever, insanely stealthy and fast little ship that only needs to land a few of its hard-hitting torpedoes to sink you - and it gets to fire a lot of them. I'll probably get it someday, but I'm not sure yet.

 

Sorry for the long post, but I guess if you're still reading this then you might not mind. I'll certainly appreciate any help, advice, or tips I can get. Thank you and fair seas!

 

TLDR; wooster, hindy, or mino???

[Azalgor]

Austin, as its new reliece, will be OP for some time

[gopher31]

7 minutes ago, Azalgor said:

Austin, as its new reliece, will be OP for some time

Doesn't look particularly exciting.

Smolensk has more than double the dpm and much better shell arcs.

[gopher31]

Hindi is probably the easiest to get to perform.

 

Smoke Mino is great around caps, murdering destroyers.

 

I'm not as brave as some; I have never run the radar Mino but a lot of good layers seem to have a lot of success with it.

[Itwastuesday]

I think Hindenburg is a safe bet since it's kind of everything. And there's nothing exactly forcing you to go for the DPM max build of being seen from the moon, it has plenty of DPM to go by anyway. 

 

I wouldn't FXP anything to T10 though, not now when T10 is just about Thunderers spamming HE from range. FXP is pretty valuable. You could get something cool, like an Ägir!

[DFens_666]

59 minutes ago, WolfRawrrr said:

I don't get much enjoyment out of playing the first two overall, both are kind of underwhelming for what I expected them to be, though I do like the Halland. Not as OP as I felt it to be when I used to play against it, but it's decent. 

59 minutes ago, WolfRawrrr said:

Note that I don't have any Tier IX ships

 

Thats the reason why you dont get much enjoyment out of TX ships. (well CV doesnt count obviously, since there is no T9 CV).

You basicly jump from a role, where you dont have to do too much (T8 when lowtier) into the role of being always toptier. And that means, you always have to perform. Yamato is especially not an easy ship, just overmatching everything doesnt actually work anymore, and you want to have a good position. If you overextend, Yamato is way too vulnerable to pull out again, and not being properly angled can mean getting citadelled through the cheek.

 

I think if you want to enjoy / feel the strength of T10 ships, you have to go back and play the T9 ones. Even if you lose a bit of Credits, you can always sell them if you feel like it. Then you get half of it back, and the other half you should try to earn while playing them. Use Zulu for 20% credits and the one for -10% repair cost.

And then there is always the possibility, that you dont like T10. I dont like it either, and it keeps getting worse and worse. Gameplay is horrible, some yolo in 4 minutes, others camp the entire game on the backline. All the potatoes are trying to get to TX asap, and then spam the hell out of it - usually with Thunderers. They cant play properly, they are stupid on your team, and when you play aggressively then the enemy ones burn you down.

 

If played properly, Yamato can dish out huge damage numbers - its my 2nd highest in damage with 138k average.

 

Out of your 3 options tho, all T9s are really kinda meh. Seattle might even just be a worse Cleveland, Roon has that weird turret setup and Neptune has not that good concealment and is rather squishy. But atleast the last one teaches you how to not get deleted with Mino. The problem with them is, that literally everyone is shooting you in your smoke, and getting citadels on them is really easy.

Worcester isnt the monster it used to be. If you want to farm someone with Mino from smoke, they will usually start to angle against you (and then shoot your smoke), so i guess Hindenburg is probably the safe choice. But id still play Roon.

[albin322]

15 minutes ago, DFens_666 said:

If played properly, Yamato can dish out huge damage numbers - its my 2nd highest in damage with 138k average.

138 k is nothing 

here are a few of mine :S

is it alowed to stat shame myself ? 

 

326 348
Conqueror

245 499
Akatsuki

227 543
Iowa

220 822
Kagerō

166 582
Ark Royal

271 101

yamato

 

 

 

[neorvo]

From my limited experience playing co-ops, I had better results with De-Moines > Mino > Worcester playing more than 200 each with my potato style (that was in that time, Legend Modules had another way to get and I rush to obtain them). Lastly, I got my Hinder, and I had not an equivalent experience to compare, but I found it great to play, surely it is a good choice too.

[neorvo]

7 minutes ago, albin322 said:

138 k is nothing 

here are a few of mine :S

is it alowed to stat shame myself ? 

 

326 348
Conqueror

245 499
Akatsuki

227 543
Iowa

220 822
Kagerō

166 582
Ark Royal

271 101

yamato

 

 

 

Big numbers there, but what if your advice for the OP of this stream? Mino, Worcester, Hinder, De Moines ? Playing cruisers what are the ones you can recomend ?

[albin322]

1 minute ago, neorvo said:

Big numbers there, but what if your advice for the OP of this stream? Mino, Worcester, Hinder, De Moines ? Playing cruisers what are the ones you can recomend ?

depends on what he wants and if its only tier 10 he is after.

 

mino is a awsome ship if you can play it (high skill gap should be able to play it without smoke)

zao still decent.

demoin is possibly 1 of the winners on the rework great alaround ship.

 

petro still awsome if you want the bow in tank cruisser (might be hard to play in thunderer fire spam meta)

 

venezia would be my choice such a strong awsome ship. 

 

i would be so bold to say that there are no bad tier 10 ships at all (meaby montana)

they all play diffrent.

[BLUB__BLUB]

1 hour ago, WolfRawrrr said:

Des Moines seems to be massively popular as a spammy ship that can somehow also take quite a beating.

Get a Salem (coal) it is almost the same - has lesser radar but it has a "Conqkek heal" much like Minotaur. 

That said - Mino and Worcester are kinda back, I'm avoiding them like the plague when I am playing CV. 

I have a Venezia and it is quite good, too. But the grind there... man... 

[albin322]

1 minute ago, BLUB__BLUB said:

Get a Salem (coal) it is almost the same - has lesser radar but it has a "Conqkek heal" much like Minotaur. 

That said - Mino and Worcester are kinda back, I'm avoiding them like the plague when I am playing CV. 

I have a Venezia and it is quite good, too. But the grind there... man... 

but if he is gonna free xp anyway he could just skip the horrible italy grind! 

[The_Gathering]

I wouldn't free xp my way into tier X, with all the flags, camos and boosters available now. But anyway, of those listed either the Hinden or Mino. Depends entirely on your preferred play style, as they play very differently.

 

Avoid the Worcester; with the range nerf and firefighting skills nerf to cruisers, a tier X short range cruiser with no smoke, is imo a sailing steel coffin.

[DFens_666]

51 minutes ago, albin322 said:

138 k is nothing 

 

Average

But Yamato is topdamage with 307k for me - first to break 300k.

[Verblonde]

2 hours ago, WolfRawrrr said:

Gearing/Shimakaze

Both, but don't free xp (except modules - go crazy there), as both T9s are excellent.

• Yugumo is - IMO - a strong candidate for the best 'sneaky' silver DD in the game: 5.5 km spotting distance, but with 12 km torps (doing 74 kts with a Swift Fish captain), and much less dreadful AA than Kagero. Definitely a keeper; I have rather more games in mine than I do in Shima.
• Fletcher meanwhile is still a strong candidate for the best dakka T9 DD in the game (IMO): excellent balance between torps and dakka, reasonable AA, and you get the US smoke into the bargain. Another keeper, although mine would get played more if things like Black/Neustra/Benham didn't exist.

Of the two, I prefer Gearing, although I've run mine exclusively in Unique Upgrade configuration for ages (you lose dpm, but gain Shima levels of sneakiness)...

[BLUB__BLUB]

1 hour ago, albin322 said:

but if he is gonna free xp anyway he could just skip the horrible italy grind! 

TBH some of them are quite decent. The T7 is OK (I still have it), the T9 is kinda nice. 

I sold it because the T10 is much much better. However... these days, better get a steel/coal-boat. 

Because those teams are so bad - even if you are in a division and wreck 6 ships, they'll still throw it. 

Meanwhile they blame CV, and their DDs, and everything - while NOBODY caps. And they all run into the enemy one by one. 

 

 

[WolfRawrrr]

2 hours ago, Azalgor said:

Austin, as its new reliece, will be OP for some time

I saw an in-depth analysis of Austin and it seems like a ship specifically built to hunt destroyers. Very squishy though, with bad armor and I believe the lowest HP of all cruisers. It has its strengths, for sure though - I'm not considering it since it's not a tech tree ship, and I don't have enough coal, steel, or doubloons for any good ship (also no idea if it'll be a coal or steel ship anyway). It's definitely a ship to keep in mind for tactical play, lots of utility even if it is squishy. Thanks!

 

2 hours ago, Itwastuesday said:

I think Hindenburg is a safe bet since it's kind of everything. And there's nothing exactly forcing you to go for the DPM max build of being seen from the moon, it has plenty of DPM to go by anyway. 

 

I wouldn't FXP anything to T10 though, not now when T10 is just about Thunderers spamming HE from range. FXP is pretty valuable. You could get something cool, like an Ägir!

You know, I was looking at what I could buy with FXP that would interest me... If I recall correctly, only Alaska and Agir caught my eye... But a million FXP is a lot, and I do like keeping some around not just for entirely skipping ships that I don't enjoy playing, but also sometimes to skip parts of a grind. From what I know about Agir, it's basically a somewhat better Hipper? (Or does it compare more to Hindenburg?), but instead of being a long range firestarter you are actually supposed to use AP since Agir HE is bad according to the wiki at least. I think I might pick it up when I find myself with a million spare FXP, depending on if it's still considered good at that time. Thanks.

 

1 hour ago, DFens_666 said:

Thats the reason why you dont get much enjoyment out of TX ships. (well CV doesnt count obviously, since there is no T9 CV).

You basicly jump from a role, where you dont have to do too much (T8 when lowtier) into the role of being always toptier. And that means, you always have to perform. Yamato is especially not an easy ship, just overmatching everything doesnt actually work anymore, and you want to have a good position. If you overextend, Yamato is way too vulnerable to pull out again, and not being properly angled can mean getting citadelled through the cheek.

 

I think if you want to enjoy / feel the strength of T10 ships, you have to go back and play the T9 ones. Even if you lose a bit of Credits, you can always sell them if you feel like it. Then you get half of it back, and the other half you should try to earn while playing them. Use Zulu for 20% credits and the one for -10% repair cost.

And then there is always the possibility, that you dont like T10. I dont like it either, and it keeps getting worse and worse. Gameplay is horrible, some yolo in 4 minutes, others camp the entire game on the backline. All the potatoes are trying to get to TX asap, and then spam the hell out of it - usually with Thunderers. They cant play properly, they are stupid on your team, and when you play aggressively then the enemy ones burn you down.

That's a fair assessment. I mostly agree with you - certainly there are some big differences between how ships play at certain tiers, notably between Tier IX-X and Tier VIII. Amagi and Izumo are a good example - the Izumo is basically a worse Yamato, but it does prepare you for how different Izumo and Yamato are from Amagi. However, at the same time I believe that you can learn how to play a new, different ship without having to go through a whole extra tier to prepare yourself. I mean, what's supposed to prepare you for Tier IX if Tier VIII is nothing like it? You have to start somewhere. I skipped Izumo but learned about it by playing against it and watching others play as well as reading. I have no regrets about that, to this day I'm sure that I wouldn't enjoy the ship and I'm glad that I didn't have to wait an extra couple months or however long it would have taken me to get my hands on the Yamato. I wanted the Yamato since I started playing WoWs (I like real, historic famous ships), but yeah it was a rough transition and it was made worse because i couldn't afford all the modules and I only had a 6 point commander... So because I didn't enjoy it I didn't play it as much - recently I started playing it more and I'm getting better with it, and I think the best way to get better with a ship is to play that ship, not play another similar ship. The only real "let down" about the Yamato for me is that I expect this insane damage from these biggest (or used to be?) guns in the game, but so often I get 1380 or 3.5k or some such, even against broadside BBs. I know that's just RNG screwing me, and I did see some citadels and blepped some ships for 20-30k at a time, but in comparison, playing North Carolina with its smaller guns I get more consistent high damage and more citadels, somehow. Maybe I just hyped up Yamato too much since it's THE Yamato lol.

 

Having done my research on Seattle/Roon/Neptune and talked to people who played them, I came to the conclusion that I wouldn't really enjoy them and that it's better to keep my credits - it is a lot of credits to get a ship and properly set it up, mind you. Also, if you are a Tier X ship, you can't get uptiered. You can only get lucky and play with lower tiered ships, whereas a Tier IX ship still gets uptiered - though I understand a lot of Tier IXs are just as capable as the top tier, some maybe even better. Gameplay wise... Well, for me Tier X definitely feels like playing against people who know what they're doing (most of the time). I have a hard time in my Midway because most people are quite good at maneuvering and know exactly what to do and what not, and there are plenty of ships with great AA at top tier. Yoloing, camping, potatoes, there's that in Tier VIII as well. Even more. And with the last update WG definitely rewards camping, sniping, and staying back. It's unfortunate but a more skilled, coordinated team is still going to win most of the time. People are saying how pushing gets you killed, yet I've lost tons of games where our team sniped and camped and just couldn't stop the enemy when they simply all rushed at us at the same time.

 

But that's off topic now.. Thanks for your insight and the Hindenburg recommendation!

 

1 hour ago, albin322 said:

mino is a awsome ship if you can play it (high skill gap should be able to play it without smoke)

zao still decent.

demoin is possibly 1 of the winners on the rework great alaround ship.

 

petro still awsome if you want the bow in tank cruisser (might be hard to play in thunderer fire spam meta)

 

venezia would be my choice such a strong awsome ship. 

 

i would be so bold to say that there are no bad tier 10 ships at all (meaby montana)

they all play diffrent.

Sadly I am too far down the lines to be thinking about Zao, Des Moines, or Petropavlovsk. I only recently started grinding Japanese cruisers, with the USN I obviously went down the CL path for no real reason, and as for the RN I am actually heading for A. Nevsky... but I'm only at Tier VI right now. The Italian ships are pretty funny... I didn't want to touch them for a long time, but now I'm on Zara and I can say it's actually not that bad. I don't find Italian cruisers that enjoyable, but I think that's mostly down to their horrible turret traverse speed... I did ok in Trento and I'm finding Zara actually playable... And I'm told that the Venezia is a nice reward for the long grind and definitely the best ship of the line by far. It won't happen anytime soon, but I'm looking forward to it. I faced off against Venezia and I can say it's really annoying how hard it is to hit, and then it smokes up to mock you lol. Sometimes I don't bother shooting at it even when there isn't anything else to shoot at, because I know I'll probably miss and that he won't miss me, heh. Especially painful against a 2x Venezia division one time, man I got so tilted... Must be a great ship!

 

1 hour ago, BLUB__BLUB said:

Get a Salem (coal) it is almost the same - has lesser radar but it has a "Conqkek heal" much like Minotaur. 

That said - Mino and Worcester are kinda back, I'm avoiding them like the plague when I am playing CV. 

I have a Venezia and it is quite good, too. But the grind there... man... 

I will remember Salem for later. But I only have 100k right now, so even with a coupon I'm not sure I will be able to save enough to buy any of the high tier coal ships before WG refreshes the Armory selection. Not sure if only some ships or leaving or if they are going to completely restock things. But I'm too late to jump on the Thunderer bandwagon that's for sure :D Worcester is supposed to have the best AA in the game (Halland 2nd place? Minotaur is also close), but that's good - even as a CV player I have nothing against there being a few AA fortresses to keep things challenging.

 

1 hour ago, The_Gathering said:

I wouldn't free xp my way into tier X, with all the flags, camos and boosters available now. But anyway, of those listed either the Hinden or Mino. Depends entirely on your preferred play style, as they play very differently.

 

Avoid the Worcester; with the range nerf and firefighting skills nerf to cruisers, a tier X short range cruiser with no smoke, is imo a sailing steel coffin.

Oh I'm definitely freexping. Thank you for the warning, but I just can't be bothered farming all the credits needed to buy and properly setup so many ships, and not to mention where do I get the commanders? And commander skills can make a huge difference, especially on DDs where if you don't have a 10 point for the concealment expert (and the concealment module if applicable), you are simply not competitive. I've lost track of DDs I so easily kept outspotted and gotten killed just because they weren't fully specced yet were trying to take caps. Good point about the range nerf, that's got me worried as well. I know Worcester used to be very good before, but I'm not seeing many anymore, and I suspect the new update is reason why. I might grab it another time and just go with something else for the time being. Thanks!

 

1 hour ago, Verblonde said:

Both, but don't free xp (except modules - go crazy there), as both T9s are excellent.

• Yugumo is - IMO - a strong candidate for the best 'sneaky' silver DD in the game: 5.5 km spotting distance, but with 12 km torps (doing 74 kts with a Swift Fish captain), and much less dreadful AA than Kagero. Definitely a keeper; I have rather more games in mine than I do in Shima.
• Fletcher meanwhile is still a strong candidate for the best dakka T9 DD in the game (IMO): excellent balance between torps and dakka, reasonable AA, and you get the US smoke into the bargain. Another keeper, although mine would get played more if things like Black/Neustra/Benham didn't exist.

Of the two, I prefer Gearing, although I've run mine exclusively in Unique Upgrade configuration for ages (you lose dpm, but gain Shima levels of sneakiness)...

I think I'll go through Yugumo, then. I rarely see it for some reason but it does seem like a good ship on paper. And I did plan on going through Fletcher once upon a time. Thanks for the encouragement there, I might just do that. Gearing and Shimakaze can wait since I already have one Tier X destroyer now (Halland).

 

 

 

Thanks to everyone who commented so far, really appreciate it! (even people who I didn't directly reply to) Got more responses than I expected ^^ I'm surprisingly leaning towards the Hindenburg right now, though if you asked me a few days ago I would have probably said Worcester or Minotaur... But I am still a few million short so I have more time to decide ^^

[GulvkluderGuld]

2 hours ago, WolfRawrrr said:

TLDR; wooster, hindy, or mino???

Should consider the IJN gunboat line. Kitakaze is still the most fun tier 9 in the game. Shima still one of the best DDs if played properly.

 

Mino if you like constant fast-paced action of high risk, high reward gameplay. Requires a lot of skill. Maybe get the tier 7 Fiji and stop there for a while.

 

Hindenburg is probably the safest bet.

[WolfRawrrr]

I'm actually considering starting the IJN gunboat line. I kind of forgot about this other branch when I decided to grind the torpedo boat path, but I realized later on that some of those ships are actually quite good. Like the Kitakaze. Thanks for reminding me!

 

As for Minotaur, I definitely want to get it at some point. You may have missed in my post that I already got to the Edinburgh, which I'm enjoying just like I enjoyed playing Fiji.

[Verblonde]

2 hours ago, WolfRawrrr said:

I'm actually considering starting the IJN gunboat line.

They're very much worth it (they're also the least expensive line to regrind for the RB, if that sort of thing interests you)...

[The_Chiv]

11 hours ago, WolfRawrrr said:

Hello. I've looked for some general-type thread where I could ask this so I don't clutter the forum with yet another what-should-I-do thread, but there doesn't seem to be one. I hope it's ok to ask here.

 

I've been playing for just over a year now and in that time I've managed to acquire three Tier X ships: Midway, Yamato, and Halland. In that order. I don't get much enjoyment out of playing the first two overall, both are kind of underwhelming for what I expected them to be, though I do like the Halland. Not as OP as I felt it to be when I used to play against it, but it's decent.

 

Now with the commander rework update, I'm finding playing battleships less and less fun - I'm really not a fan of floating around in the back and trying to hit something at +20km. It's pretty boring, and even with +10% accuracy from Dead Eye it's still really hard to hit anything when most ships are kind of fast and they have a lot of time to maneuver given how long your shells spend flying through the air (that's just reaction time - imagine when they actively anticipate where you will shoot). The shells do fall reasonably closely together thanks to Dead Eye, but usually altogether in the wrong place. I don't entirely suck at aiming, but at those distances it's way too much of a guessing game to be fun. And German BBs just feel quite unsatisfying after the commander skills rework, while I had some great times before playing Gneisenau and Bismark (yes, even Gneisenau). So I'm not looking into getting another Tier X battleship, though I could freexp to G. Kurfurst or Montana if I wanted to.

 

Note that I don't have any Tier IX ships. I play mainly Tier VIII and eventually skip to Tier X, my reasoning being that I save probably +20 million credits for not purchasing those ships and their upgrades/modules. Sure, it costs a couple hundred thousand free xp, but somehow it's the credits that are always a problem for me. Not free xp. That stuff just piles up with nowhere to go after a while. Anyway...

 

So now I have almost enough credits to buy my fourth Tier X ship, but I'm not sure which one to get. I play 90% random battles by myself (or solo ranked), and every now and then manage to get some clan members together for a fight. Ideally I'd like a ship that can perform well in any of those queues. I also don't know which ships are still viable or generally still good in the new meta since the rework, and when I try doing research online, most of the info I find is outdated by years. I guess WoWs isn't that popular after all! I can't play 10 hours a day so getting credits and choosing what to grind and what to buy matters to me. It's also the reason why I used to sell ships/upgrades as I moved up (until Tier VI -VII where I started keeping them).

 

I'm going to freexp from one of my Tier VIII ships - I've narrowed it down to a few options, and I'd appreciate any opinions and advice I could get to help me decide which one.

 

• Worcester
  I heard this ship is supposed to be great, but I don't see it often anymore. I like spamming HE and I'm not opposed to hiding behind islands. I like my Cleveland though I do seem to die a lot in it - probably because I tend to try and always be close enough to the action to make my radar useful, like covering capture points. Worcester would probably be equally team-dependent, which may be a good and bad thing. I'm a fan of utility and tactics so I'm liking the radar and the insane AA, but at this point I'm starting to feel like perhaps I should have grinded the heavy cruiser line instead - Des Moines seems to be massively popular as a spammy ship that can somehow also take quite a beating. 
   
• Hindenburg
  German cruisers are probably the best thing for open water fighting and are possibly the only cruiser line that can afford to get repeatedly shot at by battleship fire. They're tanky and have great guns, yet despite being on the slow side are still somehow agile enough to maneuver. This is the first class I started playing in this game, and I was actually pretty bad at it even after reaching Tier VIII. However, eventually I learned with some help from the community how to play these ships right and have since had some amazing games playing Yorck and Hipper. I honestly can't imagine sailing out in the open and opening fire at enemy battleships and cruisers while relying only on WASD hacks in anything that's not a German heavy cruiser. But is it still good in the new meta, where it's probably going to be near perma-detected owing to its commander skills?
   
• Minotaur
  I've learned to avoid this ship - when playing aircraft carriers because of its insane AA, and when playing battleships/cruisers because of its insane AP spam. Sure, it's just AP, but if you show broadside you get serious broadside damage, and if you angle against it you get... still pretty serious superstructure damage. Very few Minotaurs actually run radar (Memetaur huehue), so I've never been afraid of approaching a Minotaur's smoke in a destroyer in order to get his main guns to detect him and try and torp him while at it. This ship is the reason why I started grinding the Royal Navy CL line. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Fiji and Edinburgh (even Leander was alright), so I guess yeah I like to sit in smoke and spam. However, from the research I did, in the end Minotaur seems like a high risk/high gain ship, pretty situational since it's made of paper and unless you have hard cover, it's generally a bad idea to fire your guns at anything. And as long as you're sitting in smoke, or even behind an island, you are almost entirely dependent on your team for spotting. I've seen lots of Minotaurs die pretty stupid deaths, as intimidating as they'd been up until that moment.
   
• Gearing/Shimakaze
  This is still an option, though I feel like I've satisfied my DD needs with the Halland for the time being. I'd been weighing between Gearing/Halland/Shimakaze before, but I should probably get a Tier X cruiser before I go for a second destroyer. I played destroyers from the start, mostly German but eventually realizing that I do perform best in American and European ones. Torpedoes are a game of luck and guesswork more than skill, in my opinion (not to discredit the highly skilled DD players out there), so as someone who moderately sucks at torping I've felt very comfortable with the fast yet low-damage torpedoes found on Oland and Halland - and equally enjoyed the decent guns. American torpedoes lack range until Tier IX-X, but even so from what I've read online Gearing apparently isn't what it used to be? Power crept? A lot of people are saying that Daring/Harugumo/Halland all outperform it, and that its best feature is the smoke. Shimakaze seems to be going as strong as ever, insanely stealthy and fast little ship that only needs to land a few of its hard-hitting torpedoes to sink you - and it gets to fire a lot of them. I'll probably get it someday, but I'm not sure yet.

 

Sorry for the long post, but I guess if you're still reading this then you might not mind. I'll certainly appreciate any help, advice, or tips I can get. Thank you and fair seas!

 

TLDR; wooster, hindy, or mino???

As I have all these ships here is how I rate them

 

Hindenburg: Solid performer. Can play the long range fire support role, support crossfire role, and kite role. Its HE may be underwelming, but its improved HE pen and its improved AP damage make this thing a monster.

Minotaur: Another solid choice. There are two main issues with this ship. 1 it is beyond fragile and a good salvo can end you. 2 you only have AP and angling can mitigate the hell out of you. It is also a great cruiser for spotting and  or dd hunting.

Worcester: This ship use to be amazing. Then dd players complained. It was still good though, then the cv rework happened. Now it  just meh. If you can find cover to fire from this ship is great. If you are top tier in a cv match it is great. If you are in a full T10 match with a T10 cv however you will find it's aa almost nonexistent. Much like the Minotaur it is supper fragile. It does however have the ability to out dps a Des Moines in a 1v1.

 

Gearing/Shimakaze: I have both of these and to be honest find them very boring. They are good for 2 things spotting and flanking, which thanks to cv's is a bit of a nightmare these days. You can try to push caps with both but this tends to force smokes and running away leaving your team blind in the process.

[NikolayKuznetsov]

15 hours ago, WolfRawrrr said:

German cruisers are probably the best thing for open water fighting and are possibly the only cruiser line that can afford to get repeatedly shot at by battleship fire. They're tanky

That's 4 years ago, now German cruisers are anything but tanky, turtleback works at close range, at long range it works against you. A hindenburg gets smacked by 457mm harder than other cruisers because it's slow and a bigger target. Hindenburg isn't about being tanky, it's about consistency, your guns never stop.

Of your list, Hindenburg is the most enjoyable ship, because you're always busy, you can do long range HE spam better than most and when you need to get close to other cruisers, you're like a baby-pommern, they can't citadel you, you can rip their face off. Best thing about hindenburg is cyclones, nothing beats hindy in a cyclone. It's not a competitive ship at all, but it's a ton of fun in randoms.

Consume alcohol before grinding through hipper though, or save up some FXP, painful experience.

[WildWind84]

33 minutes ago, NikolayKuznetsov said:

That's 4 years ago, now German cruisers are anything but tanky, turtleback works at close range, at long range it works against you. A hindenburg gets smacked by 457mm harder than other cruisers because it's slow and a bigger target. Hindenburg isn't about being tanky, it's about consistency, your guns never stop.

Of your list, Hindenburg is the most enjoyable ship, because you're always busy, you can do long range HE spam better than most and when you need to get close to other cruisers, you're like a baby-pommern, they can't citadel you, you can rip their face off. Best thing about hindenburg is cyclones, nothing beats hindy in a cyclone. It's not a competitive ship at all, but it's a ton of fun in randoms.

Consume alcohol before grinding through hipper though, or save up some FXP, painful experience.

Ty for this update :) I saw Hindy all time in Ranked (I played with Georgia in silver ), good ship :) And one question - what is his "legendary module" and how I can get that module? Tnx :) Second question: Roon - better jump over him with FXP or not (I have few more battles in Hipper to get Roon and I am not great with cruisers - still learning).

[NikolayKuznetsov]

41 minutes ago, WildWind84 said:

Ty for this update :)

The legendary module is only worth getting on a very select few ships, hindy is not one of them, you want reload module there. Do not skip roon, roon is a good ship. Hipper is the roadblock in that line but you are almost done with it anyway.

Roon and Hindy for a novice player, you want to sit at max range and rain HE shells on everything for consistent damage output without getting deleted, change your speed and course frequently to throw off battleship aim. As you get better, you can start "making plays" - Like closing the distance and switching to AP (German cruisers have the highest AP damage per minute but their penetration values are bad so you need to get close, which is risky) - Another really nice play in Hindenburg is if there's an island in the cap and you see there's a way to make it to that island without dying, smash your ship into that island early and pop hydro to catch DDs, not only will you get their DD killed, but you will "trap" everything on the other side of that island behind that island. You can keep half a dozen ships out of the game doing this because nobody wants to push a Hindenburg at close range with sixteen torpedoes, half a million AP DPM and turtleback armor (which actually works at close range)

First thing you want to do in roon is sail forward a bit and then do a 180° turn, your rear towards the enemy push, then "walk away" from them as you spam them to death. But walk away zig-zagging at varying speeds to throw off their aim. Do that until you feel comfy in the ship to do more. Obviously make that turn before you're spotted, not after xP

[WildWind84]

22 minutes ago, NikolayKuznetsov said:

The legendary module is only worth getting on a very select few ships, hindy is not one of them, you want reload module there. Do not skip roon, roon is a good ship. Hipper is the roadblock in that line but you are almost done with it anyway.

Roon and Hindy for a novice player, you want to sit at max range and rain HE shells on everything for consistent damage output without getting deleted, change your speed and course frequently to throw off battleship aim. As you get better, you can start "making plays" - Like closing the distance and switching to AP (German cruisers have the highest AP damage per minute but their penetration values are bad so you need to get close, which is risky) - Another really nice play in Hindenburg is if there's an island in the cap and you see there's a way to make it to that island without dying, smash your ship into that island early and pop hydro to catch DDs, not only will you get their DD killed, but you will "trap" everything on the other side of that island behind that island. You can keep half a dozen ships out of the game doing this because nobody wants to push a Hindenburg at close range with sixteen torpedoes, half a million AP DPM and turtleback armor (which actually works at close range)

First thing you want to do in roon is sail forward a bit and then do a 180° turn, your rear towards the enemy push, then "walk away" from them as you spam them to death. But walk away zig-zagging at varying speeds to throw off their aim. Do that until you feel comfy in the ship to do more. Obviously make that turn before you're spotted, not after xP

Tnx man, it is best and detail advice I got on this forum :) And I can learn from that you write :) I will listened your's advice :) Ty :)

Hipper - I actually enjoy in him, more in Ranked than in Randoms.