The Silliness of Russian Cruisers

[DaBung]

I have just playing clan battles for the first time and I am already fed up with how meta defining Russian cruisers are. It’s fairly clear that a Petro, Stalingrad or Moskva are ‘must haves’ and having more than 1 of them is always at advantage. Not really surprising given that the 12km radar is a hugely powerful battle changing ability by itself; any ship that carries this really ought to have big comprises to balance it. These ships though… they have battleship grade armour, hydro and universally useful hyper velocity guns as well. 
 

Honestly I think the game would be greatly improved with these ships removed or significantly nerfed (something like completely removing that radar would be what I mean by ‘significant’)… at the very least they could make competitive more varied by banning them, not that randoms wouldn’t benefit too, but I think it’s a little less of a issue there. 
 

On a side note, I don’t buy into Russian bias thing generally as these are the only ships that I think are truly OP for there class: Kremlin is strong but not op in my mind, Russian DDs are one of the weakest and the CVS… well they are CVS. 

[ColonelPete]

And still you have DM, Napoli, Venezia. At the beginning of the season we also used Wooster significantly to great effect.

[DaBung]

9 minutes ago, ColonelPete said:

And still you have DM, Napoli, Venezia. At the beginning of the season we also used Wooster significantly to great effect.

I haven’t played CBs enough to know definitively and I am DD main so bias against radars, but ai don’t think these ships are as oppressive. 
DM - Radar but shorter range and low velocity guns make it easier to dodge (the armour is also less silly).

Napoli - Tough as Petro (nearly?) but no radar and the utility of smoke is easily countered. 
Venezia - again no radar, if the spotters die it becomes weak (which is why a team with radar has the advantage, they can kill spotters easier while simultaneously needing the less themselves). 

 

Every balancing issue becomes more obvious in competitive play, but I think the RU CLs stand out by a lot to be honest and aren’t really comparable to the above.
 

[Panocek]

You know, there is this little gem of a saying: "don't like it? don't play it". Same goes with spending on the game - how is anything going to change when people just keep approving WG actions with money, bottom line why WoWs was made in first place?

[Bainsmit_steel]

Russian cruisers are ok but DM is the king of all cruisers.

[ColonelPete]

12 minutes ago, DaBung said:

I haven’t played CBs enough to know definitively and I am DD main so bias against radars, but ai don’t think these ships are as oppressive. 
DM - Radar but shorter range and low velocity guns make it easier to dodge (the armour is also less silly).

Napoli - Tough as Petro (nearly?) but no radar and the utility of smoke is easily countered. 
Venezia - again no radar, if the spotters die it becomes weak (which is why a team with radar has the advantage, they can kill spotters easier while simultaneously needing the less themselves). 

 

Every balancing issue becomes more obvious in competitive play, but I think the RU CLs stand out by a lot to be honest and aren’t really comparable to the above.

Especially as a DD main, you should know what a problem Venezia is for DD.

DM is a about utility and strong DPM and Napoli can go places other cruisers cannot. She is just that tough.

[Itwastuesday]

Well, what else are you going to bring? Cruisers suck. You'd bring a varying level of getting smashed by battleships and/or not dealing with destroyers any better.

[Prophecy82]

36 minutes ago, DaBung said:

I have just playing clan battles for the first time and I am already fed up with how meta defining Russian cruisers are. It’s fairly clear that a Petro, Stalingrad or Moskva are ‘must haves’ and having more than 1 of them is always at advantage. Not really surprising given that the 12km radar is a hugely powerful

 

24 minutes ago, DaBung said:

I haven’t played CBs enough to know definitively and I am DD main so bias against radars, but ai don’t think these ships are as oppressive. 

 

Personally I dont think that neither Petro nor Stalin are good radar ships. 

Infact I usually dont even feel the need to flee when I cought  by a Petro-Radar, even in CB. 

Moskva and Stalin are also visible from the moon. 

 

Dont get me wrong, all those ships are very strong and competitive. But not bcs of the radar.... I mean nobody takes a Radar Mino into CB even tho its the most powerful/busted Radar-ship there is.  

[Prophecy82]

8 minutes ago, Itwastuesday said:

Well, what else are you going to bring? Cruisers suck. You'd bring a varying level of getting smashed by battleships and/or not dealing with destroyers any better.

I liked the old one-BB-rule better.  

[Adm_Lindemann]

1 hour ago, DaBung said:

I have just playing clan battles for the first time and I am already fed up with how meta defining Russian cruisers are. It’s fairly clear that a Petro, Stalingrad or Moskva are ‘must haves’ and having more than 1 of them is always at advantage. Not really surprising given that the 12km radar is a hugely powerful battle changing ability by itself; any ship that carries this really ought to have big comprises to balance it. These ships though… they have battleship grade armour, hydro and universally useful hyper velocity guns as well. 
 

Honestly I think the game would be greatly improved with these ships removed or significantly nerfed (something like completely removing that radar would be what I mean by ‘significant’)… at the very least they could make competitive more varied by banning them, not that randoms wouldn’t benefit too, but I think it’s a little less of a issue there. 
 

On a side note, I don’t buy into Russian bias thing generally as these are the only ships that I think are truly OP for there class: Kremlin is strong but not op in my mind, Russian DDs are one of the weakest and the CVS… well they are CVS. 

As Moskva and Stalin can be visible from the other side of the moon, they are not really an issue, your team should focusfire them - it is one point, where CB is differing from random.

[stefanorgano]

1 hour ago, DaBung said:

I have just playing clan battles for the first time and I am already fed up with how meta defining Russian cruisers are. It’s fairly clear that a Petro, Stalingrad or Moskva are ‘must haves’ and having more than 1 of them is always at advantage. Not really surprising given that the 12km radar is a hugely powerful battle changing ability by itself; any ship that carries this really ought to have big comprises to balance it. These ships though… they have battleship grade armour, hydro and universally useful hyper velocity guns as well. 
 

Honestly I think the game would be greatly improved with these ships removed or significantly nerfed (something like completely removing that radar would be what I mean by ‘significant’)… at the very least they could make competitive more varied by banning them, not that randoms wouldn’t benefit too, but I think it’s a little less of a issue there. 
 

On a side note, I don’t buy into Russian bias thing generally as these are the only ships that I think are truly OP for there class: Kremlin is strong but not op in my mind, Russian DDs are one of the weakest and the CVS… well they are CVS. 

Stalin doesn't get hydro. Also, Stalin and Petro radar have very short duration. And Stalingrad is extremely easy to burn down if it pushes into radar range, or smashed by CVs. A well played Des Moines is way more dangerous.

If you want a fine example of RU bias, you have to look at Soviet CVs. They have the striking power of old RTS CVs and the ability to completely ignore AA (not that other CVs really care about AA either).

 

[Fatal_Ramses]

As you see comrade, soviet cruisers not so bad. If in a DD you can easily avoid them and farm them from distance with guns and torpedos.

 

Also very easy to burn down, if you can get whole fleet to concentrate fire it go down somewhat fast.

 

Absolutely nothing wrong here. Very balanced ship class.

[ollonborre]

Russian cruisers are picked mainly because they are safe picks. You pick a Petro because it survives almost everything and if you try to push it it has balans guns at close range (it is absolutely horrid at mid-long range so in that sense it's only purpose is soaking damage). You pick a Stalin because long range firepower, and the Moskva for something in between. And all of them have the great utility of 12 km radar.

 

Without ship restrictions I agree that soviet meta cruisers are boring and really strong, but with ship restrictions? If you build a good comp and practice with it you will quickly find that just picking muh balans cruisers is not exactly easy win. We only run a Petro and that is purely because of it's stupid tankiness. The rest of them are very good, but they are big and sluggish so they are suprisingly easy to focus down.

 

If you want to talk about some proper meta defining ships currently I would argue the trinity is Petro-Småland-Ragnar, not all of the soviet cruisers.

[animalresearch]

Petro is the only real problem here. The stupid thing takes ages to kill and that's usually time you don't really have in CB's. Take that out of the equation all together and you would starting seeing a lot more of the other cruisers.

[arttuperkunas]

I'm not sure I agree that all the Russian cruisers are must picks. The only one that has to be picked is Petro (sigh), which is indeed meta defining.

 

As for the Russian cruisers in general, they are easy for fairly inexperienced players to play, and can be useful if you don't have a very defined comp/tactic, as their sheer survivability will be useful in many situations. But, by and large, the only one that you really need is Petro. Stalin/Moskva are not necessarily picked if your comp doesn't suit them. And having only russian cruisers is IMO a weakness, you really need something that also has DPM and lazy arcs that allow it to shoot over islands (which the Moskva/Stalingrad cannot do).

[Yedwy]

4 hours ago, DaBung said:

I have just playing clan battles for the first time and I am already fed up with how meta defining Russian cruisers are. It’s fairly clear that a Petro, Stalingrad or Moskva are ‘must haves’ and having more than 1 of them is always at advantage. Not really surprising given that the 12km radar is a hugely powerful battle changing ability by itself; any ship that carries this really ought to have big comprises to balance it. These ships though… they have battleship grade armour, hydro and universally useful hyper velocity guns as well. 
 

Honestly I think the game would be greatly improved with these ships removed or significantly nerfed (something like completely removing that radar would be what I mean by ‘significant’)… at the very least they could make competitive more varied by banning them, not that randoms wouldn’t benefit too, but I think it’s a little less of a issue there. 
 

On a side note, I don’t buy into Russian bias thing generally as these are the only ships that I think are truly OP for there class: Kremlin is strong but not op in my mind, Russian DDs are one of the weakest and the CVS… well they are CVS. 

Just wait till you meet a competent Desmo or Wooster driver, trust me that 20-something radar on the russkies is nothing compared to being lit up for nearly a minute…

[Hirohito]

4 hours ago, Prophecy82 said:

Personally I dont think that neither Petro nor Stalin are good radar ships.  

Infact I usually dont even feel the need to flee when I cought  by a Petro-Radar, even in CB.

It's not necessarily about being killed within a radar duration, but how these radars give pinpoint accuracy on what the enemy team (especially the DD) is up to.
As a DD I don't want the enemy to know exactly where I am, for several reasons:

- Depending on where I get radar spotted, it clearly shows where I am, and where I'm headed - meaning, it shows what my intentions are (for eample if I intend to cap, launch torps, or go aggressive against their DD).

- Being radared also shows where I am not, which is very important information to have for a flank that is worried about whether or not I am there to contest any DD or set up cross torps as they contemplate pushing. Heck, even a radar sweep that doesn't reveal me, it at the very minimum gives the enemy the information that there is nothing within 360 degrees, 12 kms out, which often can confirm where I actually am ("he has to be either at X or Y. We just confirmed he isnt at X, so he must be at Y").

As for other ship types, maps like North is a good map example to illustrate the problem.
12km radar, even if it just sweeps for 15 seconds, will show where most of the red ships are (and where they are not), and what they are up to.
Being caught in a radar as you try to gather up 4 ships to do a surprise push on C cap on North, just ruins the attempt as the defenders are in position to take advantage of it or start kiting back in time.

[Animalul2012]

Fitting how everyone is bitching about petro but smaland/ragnar/ohio/des moines and to a certain extent kleber and marceau but no ones seems to care about those hmmmm....

Stalin and Moskva might be decent because you know clan wars and all that "competitive" BS is about spamming HE from 20km+. Now if there was an active cyclone since the start ehehehe you would be here calling kurfurst/schielfen OP. Also in what world is stalin a good ship, horrible concealment,horrible handling,very dependent on broadsides, burns better than a BB, explodes when broadside wtf dude c mon.

[Hirohito]

4 minutes ago, Yedwy said:

Just wait till you meet a competent Desmo or Wooster driver, trust me that 20-something radar on the russkies is nothing compared to being lit up for nearly a minute…

I don't agree with this.
Yes it's bad when you get caught for so long in a Desmo radar, (at least if we're talking about a "surprise desmo radar") but if you do, in the majority of cases it means you mispositioned badly, or took the position knowing full well that you aren't gonna be doing anything useful anyway.
Soviet radar is way more oppressive, because it covers such a huge area, giving you proportionally less room to work with.

[Hirohito]

8 minutes ago, Animalul2012 said:

Also in what world is stalin a good ship, horrible concealment,horrible handling,very dependent on broadsides, burns better than a BB, explodes when broadside wtf dude c mon.

Yeah, the fact that it was the meta pick until Petro came along is irrelevant here, right?
Saying Stalingrad is a bad ship is just way over the top.
You might not like it, but in no way is it a bad ship - just stop it.

[Animalul2012]

40 minutes ago, Hirohito said:

Yeah, the fact that it was the meta pick until Petro came along is irrelevant here, right?
Saying Stalingrad is a bad ship is just way over the top.
You might not like it, but in no way is it a bad ship - just stop it.

Stalin is a ship that has aged liked milk. The guns alone(which are not even better than a standard BB) do not cut the horrible concealment,handling,armor and poor utility yes a 20 seconds radar does not cut it. 

[Yedwy]

3 minutes ago, Animalul2012 said:

Stalin is a ship that has aged liked milk. The guns alone(which are not even better than a standard BB) do not cut the horrible concealment,handling,armor and poor utility yes a 20 seconds radar does not cut it. 

She still has some utility in CB due to being “almost a BB but in a cruiser slot” outside of it I tend to agree

[Aethervoxx]

Russian/Soviet Cruisers are 'silly' in the sense of their fantasy joke abilities but this is nothing unique to this nations ships is it?

[Prophecy82]

1 hour ago, Hirohito said:

It's not necessarily about being killed within a radar duration, but how these radars give pinpoint accuracy on what the enemy team (especially the DD) is up to.
As a DD I don't want the enemy to know exactly where I am, for several reasons:

- Depending on where I get radar spotted, it clearly shows where I am, and where I'm headed - meaning, it shows what my intentions are (for eample if I intend to cap, launch torps, or go aggressive against their DD).

- Being radared also shows where I am not, which is very important information to have for a flank that is worried about whether or not I am there to contest any DD or set up cross torps as they contemplate pushing. Heck, even a radar sweep that doesn't reveal me, it at the very minimum gives the enemy the information that there is nothing within 360 degrees, 12 kms out, which often can confirm where I actually am ("he has to be either at X or Y. We just confirmed he isnt at X, so he must be at Y").

As for other ship types, maps like North is a good map example to illustrate the problem.
12km radar, even if it just sweeps for 15 seconds, will show where most of the red ships are (and where they are not), and what they are up to.
Being caught in a radar as you try to gather up 4 ships to do a surprise push on C cap on North, just ruins the attempt as the defenders are in position to take advantage of it or start kiting back in time.

I partially agree. 

Ofc getting detected/not detected, as you wrote, limits the options of angles where the reds can expect torps from. 

As from my observations so far in this season I really dont think torping ships isnt really a job of a DD... not in CB. 

Since there are no CVs this season nobody slots DFAA anyways and runs hydro if aviable, which limits your chances of successful hits even further. 

 

Your jobs are capping, vision control, hunting DDs and farming ships (imho).

There is a reason pretty much every team runs Smaland + Ragnar. And both ships are really bad Torp DDs. 

 

Given the "early spotting due to radar" - argument I have to really disagree here. 

If you want to sneak up a flank you can do it... it just takes a bit more time. 

And lets be honest here, even early 12km radar spotting is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay less opressive and more suprising then the instant "tactics" / division - reveal CVs were able to do the last seasons. 

 

I know that WG wants to rework spotting on CVs, but in competitive it wont be any better. Since you are usually in voice chat with your team and - unless CVs get a 2-3 Minute delay before they can start their first planes - there will be still no suprises.  

[Hirohito]

42 minutes ago, Prophecy82 said:

Given the "early spotting due to radar" - argument I have to really disagree here. 

If you want to sneak up a flank you can do it... it just takes a bit more time. 

And lets be honest here, even early 12km radar spotting is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay less opressive and more suprising then the instant "tactics" / division - reveal CVs were able to do the last seasons. 

 

Oh I dont disagree that CVs can be worse, but Soviet radar doesn't make that right either.

I remember back last year when it was T10 and Sleeping Giant was in the rotation.
I was, as usual, sharking the middle channel in my Daring, while the enemy team had a Shima and Kleber.
Before going into A cap (the one formed like an "eye", with two entrances) I needed to know whether or not I could enter the cap, or whether I should keep zoning the middle.
Asked the Petro (who sat at the usual spot right below the "eye", near the middle channel) to radar, and even if that radar sweep had just lasted 1 second, it would give me all the information I needed.
Nothing there - go into A and cap it, also telling most of our western flank to redirect and shore up the eastern flank immediately (most likely a huge push incoming on the other side, since 0 ships were detected on this side).
Shima spotted - be careful, maybe zone him depending on his position (indicating what he's up to), or contest the cap if he goes in without support.
Shima + Kleber spotted, maybe also some cruisers lurking on either side (the 12 km sweep shows those as well since it's so large) = gtfo.
 

In a way it's nice having all that information and being able to use it against a team that doesn't know how to utilize the information in the same way, but when two competent teams meet it really puts a big speed bump on any plays utilizing concealment and surprise, which I think is a shame as it makes the games very predictable and static.