Ok, How to smaland?

[Excavatus]

Hey There.. Yeah I've bought it.. because my buddies knacked on my brain for days! 

StROngeST DD in GamE! ItWillGONE! GeTiT!!... 

 

I was about to get Friesland.. but nooooo.. had to smalland!! 

 

What I can do.. 

I can survive.. 

I can torp people.. 

 

What I can't do.. 

I can't contest caps.. I die.. or lose a lot of HP, 

I can't go knife fighting with other DDs.. yes I can mostly take care of most.. or scare them.. but in the process I either die, or get very close to it. 

and mostly, I can't do damage.. 30k - 40k at tier 10 is not acceptable for me.. 

 

Yes I have very few battles with her.. (5) but I really really hate my performance.. 

I really don't like to play DDs without a smoke.. If this thing is "the Strongest"... tell me.. how to? HALPH!?

 

Smaland.. 

 

My other tier 10 DDs. 

 

[Miscommunication_dept]

I’d love to help but I’m on the same in this.

 

Go to cap

radar

Blap Shima

 

get focused by enemy team....

[SV_Kompresor]

25 minutes ago, Excavatus said:

I was about to get Friesland.. but nooooo.. had to smalland!! 

It was kilian wasn't it? That rat bastard.

 

Could've just asked me. (even though I only have a few battles in it...I do have a few more in halland tho)

[Trench4nt]

Vor 32 Minuten, Excavatus sagte:

Yes I have very few battles with her.. (5) but I really really hate my performance.. 

I really don't like to play DDs without a smoke.. If this thing is "the Strongest"... tell me.. how to? HALPH!?

 

 

 

Well, if you never learned to play a DD without smoke, then ist would be a bad choice to start with the top notch ship? Okay, French DDs at T9+ are even more difficult due to their concealment, but in general you cannot play a smoke DD like a non-smoke one.

[anonym_ED57N4NbHHsY]

Well I have a 70% solo WR in smaland which is about 10-15% higher than most of my other tier 10 DDs, I have a very average damage though because I focus on being a DD assassin and just wait till enemy DDs are isolated and kill them, you can out-gun any dd except marceau and kleber but you have a significant concealment advantage on them. You just need to be calm and sensible and wait for opportunities. Radio location skill is a must for hunting.

[GarrusBrutus]

@Excavatus I asked that same question to @Captn_Crap (one of the best Smaland players). This was his answer:

 

"Hey,

 

Ill start with the captain build: PM, AR, LS, BFT, SE, CE. For the remaining 4 points either SI + 1 pointer or Radio Location (which I prefer). Skills like AFT or IFHE are not needed. (<- pre-captain rework obviously) 

 

I always try to go for the enemy DD first, even if that means ignoring the cap. Smaland is the best DD to hunt other DDs in the game, but its shells are quite slow. That means that you want to get as close as possible before getting spotted by the other DD, to increase the hit rate. You can also use islands to surprise other DDs and begin the gunfight at shorter than 6km ranges.

 

One of Smalands best tools is its speed boost. Always keep it for gun fights and don't use it to get to places faster. The duration is only 1 min but the speed increase is much higher than for other DDs making it far more difficult to hit you.

 

After killing the DD I like to open gun boat BBs, or even cruisers especially if you are still full HP and want to take some fire away from your teammates.

 

Standard modules with reload and radar mod. Your reload can go down to 1,3 seconds which is the lowest in the game. Smaland is not easy to play but extremely strong when played well."

[Lootboxer]

You can spec AFT and farm bbs. You'll get more damage but will win less. 

I have very low damage too but I can bully and scare or kill red dds and win games this way. That's all that matters. Go full gunboat built and hunt them. Steal their smoke later or run away with a speed boost. You can heal some damage back. Playing in a div helps with support. 

[Excavatus]

1 hour ago, SV_Kompresor said:

Could've just asked me. (even though I only have a few battles in it...I do have a few more in halland tho)

what are you waiting for to tell then? 

come on.. tell me.. how to..

[MementoMori_6030]

[SV_Kompresor]

7 hours ago, Excavatus said:

what are you waiting for to tell then? 

come on.. tell me.. how to..

You won't learn much just by me telling you, we need to div up sometime...

 

That being said:

• Get superintendent
• Get extra hp
• Get concealment
• Maybe get some aa skills?
• Do not for the love of god build it for range. Friesland can be built for range due to its smoke, smalland/or any other pan eu dd cannot. Keep the range low, that way, after you kill the enemy DD, you'll go undetected instantly.

 

 

[Excavatus]

15 minutes ago, SV_Kompresor said:

Do not for the love of god build it for range.

ok I'll start by changing that :) 

 

Divving up tomorrow! 

[MementoMori_6030]

Or just wait until those missiles are operational?

[Hirohito]

Småland took me a lot of practice to get down, but once she clicked she became a favourite of mine.
It was rough though, during the first 50-80 or so battles I was stuck at below 50% and my stats in her still suffer from that early bit.
 

Generally I seek out open positions with her if I can, as she has rather poor gun angles and turning circle, with an excellent engine boost consumable.
Contrast this to a Daring that thrives in closed spaces and can disengage at will with smoke.
Småland can still work in closed spaces, but then you're usually better off using islands to break contact when needed, and staying away from maneuvering in those spaces as she isn't really built for that (exceptions exist ofc, and getting better in her helps a lot).

As mentioned above, save the engine boost for when you engage the enemy DD, you'll need it to throw off returning gunfire from half the enemy team.
Early on I like to use it for a "hit and run" tactic, where I open up on the enemy DD, pop the boost and kite out while trying to land as many shells as I can.
The trap here is when you see that you get a favourable trade on the enemy DD, and try to finish him off by chasing him, that's when you'll most likely overextend and end up dead.
Later on when there are less ships, your room to chase down and finish a DD increases, but as with all things in the game, it depends on the unique circumstances.
I'll happily finish off a DD that has close to no support early, but in the majority of cases an early hit and run-tactic is the most solid.
You can cap quite well once the local DD population has been thinned out and you know there are no radar nearby (or a single radar is on cooldown).

Radar is to be saved (usually) for a DD smoking up, especially if you run CE (as you usually detect most DDs "naturally" through a hard spot).
If you skip out on CE and run AFT (some people do in order to play her more like a russian/french cruiser pressuring DD), you can use the radar as a DD counter-spotting tool (7,1km detection or so is enough to counterspot with the 7,5 km radar).

Småland isn't that easy to play to begin with though, so expect to have to put in some hours to make her work beforehand. :D

[Hirohito]

5 minutes ago, Excavatus said:

ok I'll start by changing that :) 

 

Divving up tomorrow! 

Well you can play her with AFT and no CE in an open water gunboat role, but you really gotta practice your juking then when you engage cruisers/BBs near max range.
Fortunately, Småland is fantastic for juking in open waters with the engine boost active, and speed boost mod helps a lot for that, get it. :-)

[Hirohito]

Also keep in mind that Småland gets weird reload behaviour due to its low reload speed.
Some might have seen the topic that was created on this about a month ago.
My testing shows that BFT (assuming main battery mod 3 for -12% reload) does not improve your reload with 5%, but rather between 9-22%.
So the skill is atm a very viable option to spec into to get you another leg up.

[Sigimundus]

I have a question - Should I use "Fearless Brawler" on Smaland? It increases reload speed so it is good to hunt DD but it also has a penalty for concealment so it is not good for hunting DD.

[Camperdown]

One thing I seem to miss so far in the responses.

Smaland is DD hunter. At least trying to get support from your team is KSF? Sure you won't always get it, but you should try and adjust your aggression to it.

So in chat: hi, I will be your red DD destroyer for this battle. With my radar I can keep red DDs spotted. Cruisers please shoot said DDs. BBs, please keep red cruisers from blapping me. Do this, and ya'll will be safe from red DDs and live long and prosper.

If they do help you, your survival rate shoots up. If they don't, lower your risk appetite accordingly.

[FallenOrchid]

13 minutes ago, Sigimundus said:

I have a question - Should I use "Fearless Brawler" on Smaland? It increases reload speed so it is good to hunt DD but it also has a penalty for concealment so it is not good for hunting DD.

Thanks to your radar you don't need max conceilment: The moment you get spotted you pop radar and gun down whatever you see (*). But this skill is rather expensive so I am not sure if it is a good option.

(*) ofc it is not alway that easy, you need to be aware of other ships supporting your victim etc.

[DFens_666]

2 hours ago, Excavatus said:

What I can't do.. 

I can't contest caps.. I die.. or lose a lot of HP, 

I can't go knife fighting with other DDs.. yes I can mostly take care of most.. or scare them.. but in the process I either die, or get very close to it.  

and mostly, I can't do damage.. 30k - 40k at tier 10 is not acceptable for me.. 

 

With DDs, i dont care so much for damage.

I have 40k myself, but 11 kills in 5 games, of which 7 were DDs. (one Neustra was kinda close, but he ran away, and with his zombie heal, i didnt want to take an open fight with him)

 

 

 

1 Loss is missing, which i kinda effed myself, but i had 12k on an XTREM Halland while he hardly got anything on my... sadly, Halland torps reach 90kts, i didnt expect them at that point (i thought he could have torped there, but he basicly threw behind where i was going..) so i had to turn in, and got spotted through stupid islands when his team farmed me (hate those islands where you sometimes can see a ship over it)

 

I basicly dont see any problems with fighting DDs and getting caps. Now torping people, thats the hard part Out of the few torps ive hit, 2 of them dealt less than <1k damage, because the ship was basicly dead

The 2nd game i just went center on Sleeping giant, got the öster there. Daring and Halland were consecutively in A cap, first Daring, killed it, Halland had no choice to contest A (because his team was falling apart with no caps, and its a hurricane clan player), so i just waited at the gap in A for him to come around. Then started to dakka him once he did.

 

I generally want to go, where enemy DDs have no support, so i can snack them myself (hence going center on Sleeping giant f.e.). Either i get the cap for free, or i get the DD AND the cap

Thats basicly all i do, and since we know what teams do without DD support, aka run to the mapborder, i dont expect to get much damage out of it.

 

19 minutes ago, Sigimundus said:

I have a question - Should I use "Fearless Brawler" on Smaland? It increases reload speed so it is good to hunt DD but it also has a penalty for concealment so it is not good for hunting DD.

 

Flamu said yes, but i think i wont take it. The concealment nerf doesnt matter so much because of the radar, but i rather take some other skills which help me more (RPF, SI).

 

1 hour ago, SV_Kompresor said:

Do not for the love of god build it for range. Friesland can be built for range due to its smoke, smalland/or any other pan eu dd cannot. Keep the range low, that way, after you kill the enemy DD, you'll go undetected instantly.

I was thinking to take the new AFT so i can shoot a bit after ive killed the DDs. What is the range, 12,x with so many russkibalanz radars and CVs around, more range could help with that. But not sure, ill take SI first (ive played with a 10pt captain first, then buffed it to 14 because i wanted RPF )

[T0byJug]

1 hour ago, Excavatus said:

what are you waiting for to tell then? 

come on.. tell me.. how to..

@Excavatus  OMG what you gon and done old chap

 

Full disclosure My stats in Smalland/Friesland are not good at all but my Tech tree European ships are pretty good...  Nonsmoke DDs take some getting used to...    Jumping to tier X is just silly (im surprised at you)  go play the low tier EU DD's a bit.. 

 

for me the EU DD's are an engage/disengage heal up rinse and repeat...   The DD's are actually pretty good Torp boats.. they are LOW damage but they are fast and fast reload...

 

As you know im a DD man......  Europian DDs are my favorite  tech line by a long way..   go play them they are great fun... then come back to the Smalland

 

 

 

 

 

[Excavatus]

1 minute ago, T0byJug said:

go play the low tier EU DD's a bit.. 

I dont like you...

[Cippalippus]

The way I see it, the Smaland is not a damage dealer but a game winner. There are very little consistent ways to deal damage with it and they mostly rely on the enemy team collaborating and eating torps.

 

As others have said, you cannot build it for range for a number of reasons: costs, efficiency. I don't bother trying to hit the jackpot with it, rather have a steady flow of wins and, more importantly, letting the enemy know that they are constantly under threat.

[MrBogi]

Smaland can be anything u want, from sweaty dd bully to dmg farmer (hybrid build can also work) it depends what u want to do and then choose the correct build, from a player like me that barely plays dd i played it hybrid (some team play, some farm) and it worked; only thing i can say, dont try to be a hero at the start of the game, rest is common sense

[Anakin_Painwalker]

This is a reply to the first post asking for help.Thats basically a positioning problem mostly and understanding your surroundings. You need to learn when to open fire and when it's a good time to go in to contest. It needs a lot of trial and error but it can be learned over time unless you are in denial. Smäland is a really strong boat so no point trying to make it look bad. Since you mentioned friesland its an inferior boat and you would probably hate yourself after buying it.

[ObiWankov]

So much missinformation in this thread 

 

This is the go to smalland build imo, use concealment expert module in comb.

 

6.8 concealment allows you to radar when you get spotted...