US BB's. Vermont or Montana Line... or None?

[Sir_Sinksalot]

Hi guys,

 

Just looking for some insight into US BB's since I've settled for playing BB's in randoms and looking to perhaps expand my BB collection but only with BB's that are actually worth bothering with and suffering some potentially painful mid tier grinds.

 

The end product I'm looking at in any of these BB line nations is the T8-T10 offerings and don't really care about anything lower tier since I just won't be playing those in randoms most likely. 

 

At a glance it appears US BB's are painfully slow during those lower tier grinds up to and including the T7 Colorado... 21kts style BB's om*g though! Fine, I can freexp to a T8 most likely lol! At T8 there's two options, either keep going with the painfully slow style of BB that probably has some sort of redeeming qualities for being that slow I hope you guys will share info on, or there's a much more attractive looking 30kts BB options which probably has a snag which again, I hope you guys will share info on. 

 

I see a lot of US BB's in battle but I'm sure if that's because they're strong or if it's just players collecting some of their favorite historical icons. Are they even worth bothering with compared to perhaps better BB nations offered?

 

Thanks.

[Yedwy]

In general - none, but if it has to be one of them take the Monty route, she is still a more usable pick overall then the fat slug

[lafeel]

Not even remotely a contest, Monty line all the way. Vermont line is too gimped by it's slow  speed and slow reload to be worth considering.

[Northern_Nightowl]

Vor 3 Stunden, lafeel sagte:

Not even remotely a contest, Monty line all the way. Vermont line is too gimped by it's slow  speed and slow reload to be worth considering.

Nothing to add to this. I have only Kansas (got her in early access), but went on to Montana.

Slow speed and slow reload are not the only disadvantages of the paper Standard BB, although the Kansas has a great main gun range, you pretty much sit in a 12-barrel-16''-shotgunnery machine. The fast BB feel much more accurate and have the better shells (super heavy AP).

If somebody brought a Kansas in one of the last Ranked seasons, the team was nearly guaranteed to loose (if I recall or estimate the win ratios correctly, out of 10 Ranked battles where a Kansas was to be seen, one was a win for the fatty's team).

 

Regards, Nightowl

[Bindolaf_Werebane]

Colorado is a seal clubber favorite, so maybe play it. North Carolina is a great ship, Iowa is great and Montana superb. They all have good armor, decent hit points, turn well and their guns are absolutely devastating. The other line? Endure two bad ships to get a mediocre one (though it hits hard). If you want to go that route... fine :p

[Panocek]

North Carolina, maybe Iowa.

 

Montana is mighty fine battleship against enemies dumb enough to keep showing broadsides, 12gun HE salvos also can prove annoyingly effective against angled BBs. But, against somewhat competent cruiser players that can maintain angle, Monty suffers HARD.

 

Vermont does have 30mm overmatch capability, but pays too heavy price for that and 12gun broadside of hers. Yes, she can print devstrikes, but cripplingly slow reload coupled with cripplingly slow ship can result in ship that feels outright boring to play and that can't influence randoms at all.

 

NorCal I'd say is one of the best tier 8 BBs, if you can get along with her very low velocity guns. Reasonably accurate, stealthy, VERY agile and long ranged, so you don't feel helpless when uptiered and both teams refuse to press W.

Iowa is more of a sidegrade of a NC - what you can in speed for those juicy 33kts, you lose in turning radius. AA and armor is the same as NC, guns have tad better velocity and thus penetration, but that also makes overpens tad more likely.

[bobtherterrible]

4 hours ago, Sir_Sinksalot said:

 

The end product I'm looking at in any of these BB line nations is the T8-T10 offerings and don't really care about anything lower tier since I just won't be playing those in randoms most likely. 

 

Wait till you get to T9 and 10 BBs before deciding that.

In my humble experience, the most fun I had in BBs was Fuso, Gneisenau and Nelson

[hellhound666]

vermont line is one of the worst ... slow bathtubs with loooooooooong reload, extremely boring 

[Sir_Sinksalot]

Thanks guys.

 

Ya fair enough, I'll give them a miss I suppose. I just saw a lot of them in battles and while I didn't see anything amazing in regards their battle performance, wondered if there was a reason to their popularity I just wasn't seeing. It's often hard to know of a ship is good or bad because players abilities are good and bad obviously. Usually when you see a lot of the same ships regularly

 

Here's the thing though, I really enjoy playing the T8 Bismarck and don't really like going back to anything lower tier because the accuracy tends to suffer and the AA gets weaker and gun range drops away and armor gets thinner etc.

 

Fine, but what I guess I'd like to know is(and maybe I should have just started the thread about this instead), is what are the top 1-2 BB's for T8, T9 and T10? For T8-T10 what are currently the strongest "meta" BB's? Not premium btw, ain't paying the money. For Coal or steel or free xp totally fine obviously.

 

Also, where the hell is the Nelson gone? I know it was a bit of a floating citadel but I was actually looking forward to getting it for some Narai battles with free XP which it was once available for in the tech-tree. I picked up a Duke of York in the armory for coal instead but would have liked that Nelson and it's 3 front turret layout too.

[Verblonde]

6 minutes ago, Sir_Sinksalot said:

Also, where the hell is the Nelson gone?

She was removed several patches ago, although I don't recall exactly when - presumably, she was too popular/inexpensive...

I don't really do BBs, if I can avoid it (ew - BB cooties!), but I'm hoping we get Rodnol in some form or other eventually - it's a shame we don't at least one of these ships available for the history buffs.

[Panocek]

26 minutes ago, Sir_Sinksalot said:

Here's the thing though, I really enjoy playing the T8 Bismarck and don't really like going back to anything lower tier because the accuracy tends to suffer and the AA gets weaker and gun range drops away and armor gets thinner etc.

FdG you can almost writeoff as downgrade over Bismarck. 406mm guns solve lack of 27mm overmatch, but in return you get even bigger, clumsier ship with even bigger superstructure to casually chunk for 10k+ with BB AP pens, while worse firing arcs don't mix well with THINNER main belt and being more likely to see hightier BB guns. And 300mm belt isn't something you want to show to even cruisers at shorter ranges.

 

30 minutes ago, Sir_Sinksalot said:

Fine, but what I guess I'd like to know is(and maybe I should have just started the thread about this instead), is what are the top 1-2 BB's for T8, T9 and T10? For T8-T10 what are currently the strongest "meta" BB's? Not premium btw, ain't paying the money. For Coal or steel or free xp totally fine obviously.

Russian ones I suppose would be amazing with their survivability, as long as you don't get caught broadside, at least I'm having lots of fun in Soyuz. They are somewhat short ranged until T9 though. IJN with Yamato on top would be timeless classic.

 

For Coal, Georgia was and still is phenomenal BB, Jean Bart also gets honorable mention... precisely why they are gone from sales. Marco Polo is kinda eh, Pommern is literally Tirpitz+

For "broken" BBs, I suppose new Kearsage would be one? 12gun broadside on rather fast hull, so already powercreeps Minniesota and you have access to rocket fighters that can act as your own spotting utensil. Tumor sized superstructure convinces you to stay away from action too

[lafeel]

52 minutes ago, Panocek said:

Pommern is literally Tirpitz+

Not saying that the Pomm is bad or anything but she's in a bit of a bind currently with GK about to be turned into a special ship, for free for anyone that currently owns her.

[tocqueville8]

1 hour ago, Sir_Sinksalot said:

Fine, but what I guess I'd like to know is(and maybe I should have just started the thread about this instead), is what are the top 1-2 BB's for T8, T9 and T10? For T8-T10 what are currently the strongest "meta" BB's? Not premium btw, ain't paying the money. For Coal or steel or free xp totally fine obviously.

Judging by my WR, I'd say Vladivostok - a tie between Iowa, Alsace, Izumo and Soyuz - Conqueror or Colombo.

 

In practice, I think the old USN line is very consistent, but you should remember to switch to HE occasionally. Halsey might help you with that.

IJN BBs are also powerful, though the Yammy is a bit unwieldy.

The French are compromised by their dispersion (until the République), and the armor is also a pain.

Soviet BBs are supposedly not very "meta", as they rely on bow-tanking and brawling, which people claim are out of fashion, but their ability to lock down a position is unparalleled, and that often wins a flank and the game.

 

TL; DR:

Among freemiums, since Georgia and JB are out, I'd recommend the Shikishima, though she's been hurt by the removal of Dead Eye.

The overmatch is powerful, the AA is a good deterrent, the deck armor is alright, and you can even build her for secondaries (not recommended, but you'll get more replay value).

Techtree-wise: Conqueror for consistency, République for variety (good HE, decent secondaries, very accurate guns if built for that)

[BlackYeti]

4 hours ago, Bindolaf_Werebane said:

Colorado is a seal clubber favorite

surely you mean as a target?

[Bindolaf_Werebane]

1 hour ago, BlackYeti said:

surely you mean as a target?

There is a faction of BBabies that takes Colorados to tier V games, sits at max range and devastates unsuspecting cruisers. It's no Kamikaze, but still.

[Panocek]

4 minutes ago, Bindolaf_Werebane said:

There is a faction of BBabies that takes Colorados to tier V games, sits at max range and devastates unsuspecting cruisers. It's no Kamikaze, but still.

16inchers are absolute overkill against tier 5s, printing overpens left right and center. For demolishing cruisers you can safely go with ships that aren't crippled with 20kts speed

[SolanumTuberosumRex]

I like North-Carolina and Iowa. Iowa especially has long range highly accurate guns, she is fast and has a good heal. Versatile BB.

[Sir_Sinksalot]

Hi guys so I got the N-C and only played two battles so far. 

 

It's ok actually, a bit better than I was expecting. Shell velocity is as slow as expected so needs more lead but it's not too bad, just lets some targets off the hook since they have a little more time to react and turn into or away from the shells. Looks fantastic though I must say.

 

Just a few questions moving forwards before I waste credits or skill point. I know some of the answers to these questions boils down to ship  build and playstyle pref BUT, some experienced opinions would still be nice.

 

1. So, the 3rd module slot. Sadly it doesn't take the aiming mod, sigma's great though so maybe that's why. So then, more gun range or faster turret speed which is also nice or even perhaps a secondary build? Have you guys ever run the N-C with a secondary build? The secs actually look pretty good in terms of layout, reload speed and range. Would need IFHE most likely but they're 5X2 turrets on each side, all look like they don't obstruct each other so all turrets can shoot at the same target and also have a very generous looking arch. 

 

 

2. The remaining skills, though I might take a reset.

 

The camo is actually pretty good even without concealment expert so maybe no need to waste 4 points on that. Fire Prevention works really well on the Japanese BB but not really set on fire much so far(wow 2 battles lol), there's that secondary build option possibly and of course since this commander has a couple of perks so maybe worth putting a few points on those.

 

Thanks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SodaBubbles]

On 11/8/2021 at 5:24 PM, Sir_Sinksalot said:

Hi guys,

 

Just looking for some insight into US BB's since I've settled for playing BB's in randoms and looking to perhaps expand my BB collection but only with BB's that are actually worth bothering with and suffering some potentially painful mid tier grinds.

 

The end product I'm looking at in any of these BB line nations is the T8-T10 offerings and don't really care about anything lower tier since I just won't be playing those in randoms most likely. 

 

At a glance it appears US BB's are painfully slow during those lower tier grinds up to and including the T7 Colorado... 21kts style BB's om*g though! Fine, I can freexp to a T8 most likely lol! At T8 there's two options, either keep going with the painfully slow style of BB that probably has some sort of redeeming qualities for being that slow I hope you guys will share info on, or there's a much more attractive looking 30kts BB options which probably has a snag which again, I hope you guys will share info on. 

 

I see a lot of US BB's in battle but I'm sure if that's because they're strong or if it's just players collecting some of their favorite historical icons. Are they even worth bothering with compared to perhaps better BB nations offered?

 

Thanks.

 

Except for Kawachi, the IJN line is solid all the way through. Kongo is a ton of fun, Fuso is amazing once you master its gunnery, Nagato is good, Amagi is good, Izumo has some of the best guns in the game, and of course Yammy with legendary...

The French line is also solid from Normandie on. Lyon is brilliant, Richeliu highly underrated, Alsace a ton of fun, and of Republic is also underrated, excellent guns and troll armor. The Frenchies are a really fun BB line. 

 

Either line is way more fun than the old US line, and the new US line was huge disappointment of slow clunky food masses for other ships to feast on. They won't be improved until the devs throw in the towel and substantially reduce their reloads.

 

The German line is still strong, except for FdG, which I always view as food when it appears on Red. GK in the current HE spam meta is basically a funeral barge. T5-8 on that line are good, though. 

[Sir_Sinksalot]

2 hours ago, SodaBubbles said:

 

Except for Kawachi, the IJN line is solid all the way through. Kongo is a ton of fun, Fuso is amazing once you master its gunnery, Nagato is good, Amagi is good, Izumo has some of the best guns in the game, and of course Yammy with legendary...

The French line is also solid from Normandie on. Lyon is brilliant, Richeliu highly underrated, Alsace a ton of fun, and of Republic is also underrated, excellent guns and troll armor. The Frenchies are a really fun BB line. 

 

Either line is way more fun than the old US line, and the new US line was huge disappointment of slow clunky food masses for other ships to feast on. They won't be improved until the devs throw in the towel and substantially reduce their reloads.

 

The German line is still strong, except for FdG, which I always view as food when it appears on Red. GK in the current HE spam meta is basically a funeral barge. T5-8 on that line are good, though. 

 

I seem to attract the odd map pinger while playing the Richeliu yet practically never when playing other BB's. This would appear to be because of the perception of doing nothing that "all guns up front" layout gives lol. With the Richeliu(and other such derivatives), you are blessed with a bow facing layout whereby you never need to show broadside to the enemy since there's not main guns at the rear of the ship. This also means when a flank is lost you can reverse from advancing enemy, shooting at them as they advance without ever showing any obvious weak points or reducing the main gun capacity, and just bleed distance slowly as they advance while you reverse. But because it doesn't appear like a playing using a Richeliu is doing much of anything, it can get some unwanted love from less knowledgeable teammates.

 

By the way, what make the Izumo have some of the best guns in the game? I almost have that unlocked and can see it has that Nelson style of "all guns up front" layout and will most likely get that same occasional teammate map pinging as a result lol. When playing a conventional split turreted "2 front and 2 back" or "2 front and 1 back" BB, players are regularly moving about as they go in and out of broadside so they look much busier and interested than someone playing a BB with all the guns up front but can be just as busy and interested obviously lol!.. it just doesn't look like it sometimes.

[Itwastuesday]

Montana is quite fine though. No overmatch 30mm? Okay. Battleships don't get 30mm and neither do DD. Petro and Stali get soviet armor, Napoli I think has 60mm sides or something. Light cruisers usually have less than 30mm... And the rest still tend to have 27mm nose/stern. And lower tier ships have less armor usually too. Overmatching Hindenburg and some decks isn't the be-all end-all of things. 

 

 

[SodaBubbles]

4 hours ago, Sir_Sinksalot said:

By the way, what make the Izumo have some of the best guns in the game? I almost have that unlocked and can see it has that Nelson style of "all guns up front" layout and will most likely get that same occasional teammate map pinging as a result lol. When playing a conventional split turreted "2 front and 2 back" or "2 front and 1 back" BB, players are regularly moving about as they go in and out of broadside so they look much busier and interested than someone playing a BB with all the guns up front but can be just as busy and interested obviously lol!.. it just doesn't look like it sometimes.

Izumo guns hit hard and are super accurate, excellent shell grouping. 

[invicta2012]

If it helps, there are no French BBs with 16 inch guns in the game. That's because of Iowa. There's no need. Fast, flanking BB which is strong enough in all areas? Already got one...

[Sir_Sinksalot]

10 hours ago, invicta2012 said:

If it helps, there are no French BBs with 16 inch guns in the game. That's because of Iowa. There's no need. Fast, flanking BB which is strong enough in all areas? Already got one...

Is that an endorsement of the Iowa or the Frenchies?

 

Honestly, so far I must the N-C is pretty likeable, more so than I thought would be. For a finish I decided against a secondary build as it just doesn't seem tanky enough to bother nor do I feel that it's what the N-C playstyle was envisaged by the devs. So I went with a Artillery Mod for slot 3 for an additional +16% gun range and feel this is what the N-C is all about. This means that for a T8 BB, I have 406mm guns with good overmatch potential combined with an outrageously good 27km gun range and 2 Sigma, plus up front it has 2X3 gun turrets instead of Bismarck's and Amiga's 2X2 so at range isn't most leaky BB armor I've played bow on

 

. As mentioned, the N-C may have an impressive 2 sigma but balanced with horribly slow shell velocity. That said, it hasn't really translated into as much suffering as I first thought and just needs a little more lead and little more acceptance that some faster classes such as cruisers or battlecruiser style BB's may dodge some long range efforts but other than that, it lands shots pretty well. That means slower targets get focused a little more while agile targets are turned down a little more by comparison an Amiga or Bismarck which by contrast would just about catch cruiser before it ducks in behind an island, I'll simply not pull the trigger with the N-C. 

 

Surprisingly I have been playing it with 4 skill points unused since I STILL haven't settled on where those should go lol, so maybe you guys can help me decide. So far

 

1. Incoming Fire Alert(It's armor is leaky and vs T10 a lot so I would feel so vulnerable to being broken in half without it!)

2. Vigilance(It has TERRIBLE torpedo protection, T8 + T10 CV's still get through AA and fighter efforts so that +7% is actually a huge gain). Grease The Gears(Special Commander for +25% increase to gun traverse, really nice actually. Not essential but very comfortable)

3. Adrenaline Rush

 

Not the most trained commander at just 12 points obviously but seems to manage at just 8 points used lol. Because of it's near 27km gun range and already decent concealment range(about the same as Amiga when Amiga has Concealment Expert!) I'm not sure taking Concealment Expert at this point is good value, maybe later. Fire Prevention Expert is a really nice skill, tempting, but so too is BoS which would cost 3 points instead of 4, leaving 1 skill point free to perhaps take Gun Feeder which because of this commander, is a 75% faster ammo switch reload which might come in handy should a cheeky DD try a yolo effort. That said... I don't really bring it in close to brawl since the armor and torpedo protection is weak so that is a rare likelihood... so maybe Fire Prevention Expert makes the most sense. What do you guys think?

[Sir_Sinksalot]

11 hours ago, SodaBubbles said:

Izumo guns hit hard and are super accurate, excellent shell grouping. 

Nice.

 

And how does that 3 turrets up front layout work out during a battle, good or clumsy or something else?