Ragnar vs Smaland

[Ocsimano18]

Ragnar has much better stats over the last 28 days. Is she really much more OP than the Smaland, or is it the exclusive steel folk who could allow themselves to get the Ragnar are much more skilled than the Smaland players?

[ollonborre]

Could be the steel crowd because the Ragnar is a bit of an acquired taste in terms of DD (no torps, no smoke), and it still has a very low amount of games played so stats are still inflated. It could also be that the Småland is avaliable in lootboxes, so my guess is a lot of those Smålands are people who got lucky and tries out a new shiny toy.

 

That being said Ragnar is very very strong, with all of the stuff it has going for it. 

[Leo_Apollo11]

Hi all,

 

50 minutes ago, Ocsimano18 said:

Ragnar has much better stats over the last 28 days. Is she really much more OP than the Smaland, or is it the exclusive steel folk who could allow themselves to get the Ragnar are much more skilled than the Smaland players?

 

According to Proships.ru just 2817 players did play Ragnar in past 28 days (and 3689 players for Smaland)... this is still pretty low number...

 

 

Leo "Apollo11"

[Bear__Necessities]

Having both now. They are equally as good as each other but play very differently. 

 

I'm not a "farmer". I play the caps and hunt other DD's, but they are very good at their jobs. 

 

 

Some of the guys In the top NA clan who I know have them, well.... the damage numbers they can pull.... offff. But that's just not my style. 

[Hirohito]

2 hours ago, Bear__Necessities said:

 

Some of the guys In the top NA clan who I know have them, well.... the damage numbers they can pull.... offff. But that's just not my style. 

I find it sad that there is so much focus on raw damage numbers to begin with in this game, and not % damage dealt.

Makes BB fire farmers look so good, when in reality it's often low % dpm and also low game impact type of damage.

[Miscommunication_dept]

Ragnar is certainly the better farmer. Probably the best long range HE spammer in the game.  Close range battles involving torp dodging, the Smalland is superior.

 

Ragnars 25mm plating make it very sturdy against most destroyers even at range where their dpm should give then an advantage.

 

I expect Ragnar has better players playing just by virtue of it being a steel ship but it does seem ridiculously strong.

[Trench4nt]

Vor 5 Stunden, Ocsimano18 sagte:

Ragnar has much better stats over the last 28 days. Is she really much more OP than the Smaland, or is it the exclusive steel folk who could allow themselves to get the Ragnar are much more skilled than the Smaland players?

 

 

You got it. The relative pool of experienced Ragnar players is much higher than the pool of experienced Smaland players.

As it is the usual case for newly introduced steel ships.

[Camperdown]

50 minutes ago, Trench4nt said:

 

 

You got it. The relative pool of experienced Ragnar players is much higher than the pool of experienced Smaland players.

As it is the usual case for newly introduced steel ships.

Smaland cost 2 mil fxp. That surely wasn't available to many people? I did not collect that in time for sure.

[RuruushuVuiBuritania]

4 minutes ago, Camperdown said:

Smaland cost 2 mil fxp. That surely wasn't available to many people? I did not collect that in time for sure.

2 million FXP is not an exceptionally large amount and it is a much easier resource to get than Steel. Not to mention that you had more time to get Smaland than the time that has passed since Ragnar's release.

[Verblonde]

1 hour ago, Camperdown said:

Smaland cost 2 mil fxp. That surely wasn't available to many people?

Smaland is/was also available in this year's Xmas boxes; presumably, at least some of the games being played are newbies to the ship (I'm still learning how to play her properly, and I've had her since before she was removed - she'll be difficult to get serious results with for many typical players, I suspect).

 

Personally, I think Smaland is better than Ragnar for a typical player; the lack of torps on the latter calls for more skills than most people (including me) have - IMO, of course.

[General_Alexus]

I havnt played Smalland and likely never will, and I do think Smalland has better potential, but I feel like Ragnar is easier to perform well in. Only having guns means that you can concentrate your positioning and gameplan around it. With other hybrid DDs I notice myself having downtimes when I try to use torps and are not shooting my guns, with bestcase scenario in ragnar you just hold down LMB and are shooting 20 mintes strait.

[arttuperkunas]

7 hours ago, Ocsimano18 said:

Ragnar has much better stats over the last 28 days. Is she really much more OP than the Smaland, or is it the exclusive steel folk who could allow themselves to get the Ragnar are much more skilled than the Smaland players?

Småland is more rounded due to having torps, lower concealment, and better agility/maneouvrability.

 

Ragnar is more or less a one trick pony - a very good HE farmer that also sidelines as a DD killer. And in a one on one, the Ragnar will win (if it doesn't eat torps). But I would still argue that the Småland is a better DD hunter overall.

[zheng_he14]

I am a lousy DD player and have a Smaland, which I really only use in Ranked, where it makes me look like I am an OK DD player since the team that's left with the DDs tends to win and shimas and hallands are just canon fodder for a Smaland! In my experience Ragnar's are hard to kill with a DD, a Smaland would lose a straight gun fight pretty much every time, after one encounter in Ranked, I tend to leave them alone in my Smaland, bait out their radar, let them fire to get them spotted and engine boost out of there, leaving them for the Russian cruisers! 

 

That said, in randoms the Ragnar seem to fall prey to hi tier British CAs especially a reload Drake, the combo of low detection, decent speed,  accurate HE and ridiculous heal means a Ragnar that choses to stand and fight a Drake just dies as it can't trade against that heal and whenever the HE connects it just tears chunks out, running away and going dark negates its presence in the game and since it doesn't have torps it can be run down, its concealment once on fire just makes things worse for it. 

 

That's kind of what you'd expect I guess, since its essentially a light cruiser!  

 

I've got the steel for a Ragnar but holding off for now, with the voucher now have the steel for a shika which is hopefully enough for an incomparable! Besides want to see what the delny is like as a long range run and gun boat and if Russian bias is real!

[Yosha_AtaIante]

8 hours ago, Ocsimano18 said:

Ragnar has much better stats over the last 28 days. Is she really much more OP than the Smaland, or is it the exclusive steel folk who could allow themselves to get the Ragnar are much more skilled than the Smaland players?

Ragnar is a much better farming ship than Smalland is why her stats are so good. People who know how to play can do a lot of damage and influence the battle mid to lategame after they got their 150k dmg to win.

[Trench4nt]

Vor 1 Stunde, Camperdown sagte:

Smaland cost 2 mil fxp. That surely wasn't available to many people? I did not collect that in time for sure.

 

It is a matter of time (the availability), not of resources.

 

There are also old ranked statistics online from the first seaons where Smaland was the most successful ship

 

https://wows-numbers.com/season/1001,Season-1/

https://wows-numbers.com/season/1002,Season-2

https://wows-numbers.com/season/1003,Season-3

 

You can see that Smalands winrate decreases while the popularity increasesd. Of course there are other, additional influencing factors. But it is a hind that the more players play a ship, the worse the statistics get. Simply because good player have an earlier access due to the increased amount of resources.

 

Although we have lots of events, camos, special fags, etc in the game, the most influencing XP boost is still skill.

[Verblonde]

37 minutes ago, arttuperkunas said:

Ragnar is more or less a one trick pony - a very good HE farmer that also sidelines as a DD killer. And in a one on one, the Ragnar will win (if it doesn't eat torps). But I would still argue that the Småland is a better DD hunter overall.

I've hardly played my Ragnar against real people (due to a mixture of having Smaland, which I love, and getting her before an extended period of snowflaking; Druid has been neglected too, for similar reasons), but this seems to be a pretty decent summary.

 

If you leverage the radar effectively, Ragnar is a monster against other DDs, but against bigger things, you need time to do your thing; I recall one game where I did pretty well (they happen occasionally!), but that was largely because I was left alone by the tubbier members of the opposition, giving me the time to set fires, and generally make a nuisance of myself. If there aren't DDs to hunt, Ragnar's effectiveness (for a normal farty, like me, at least) drops off if the opposition actively try and make your life difficult...

 

Of course, in my case, this is entirely a L2P issue.

[arttuperkunas]

23 minutes ago, Verblonde said:

I've hardly played my Ragnar against real people (due to a mixture of having Smaland, which I love, and getting her before an extended period of snowflaking; Druid has been neglected too, for similar reasons), but this seems to be a pretty decent summary.

 

If you leverage the radar effectively, Ragnar is a monster against other DDs, but against bigger things, you need time to do your thing; I recall one game where I did pretty well (they happen occasionally!), but that was largely because I was left alone by the tubbier members of the opposition, giving me the time to set fires, and generally make a nuisance of myself. If there aren't DDs to hunt, Ragnar's effectiveness (for a normal farty, like me, at least) drops off if the opposition actively try and make your life difficult...

 

Of course, in my case, this is entirely a L2P issue.

I used to play the Ragnar like that. Then I really stopped thinking of the Ragnar as a DD and learned that while the Ragnar seems like a DD killing ship, what it actually excels at is farming BBs/cruisers at range. The reason for this is simple - while the Ragnar will win any one on one with any DD, it will also take disproportionately massive amounts of damage from supporting fire because it is a massive, slow target with bad concealment, bad agility and very little ability to disengage, and eats torpedoes. If you go all in in a Ragnar, you must win or else you're going to die, because it's so hard to disengage - and that kind of risky play is usually not worth it. So in cap-contesting situations it is IMO not that great, as a normal DD on DD cap contest fight also involves supporting ships.

 

The peak effectiveness of the Ragnar is farming BBs and (particularly non-Russian) cruisers at 13-15 km, either from behind cover or in places where it can manouevre and speed juke. The really bad threats for a Ragnar are close in Schlieffens and basically any Russian bias cruiser. Unfortunately, you see a lot of both in Ranked, which really only promotes the HE farming at range playstyle rather than DD killing.

[Verblonde]

15 minutes ago, arttuperkunas said:

I used to play the Ragnar like that. Then I really stopped thinking of the Ragnar as a DD and learned that while the Ragnar seems like a DD killing ship, what it actually excels at is farming BBs/cruisers at range.

Now I've (finally) finished snowflaking, I really ought to make the effort to learn to suck less with Ragnar - thanks for the tips!

[Migantium_Mashum]

As a DD main... who doesn't have Ragnar or Smaland....  I would prefer to face a Ragnar any day... Smaland in good hands is a beast of an opponent.

[RuruushuVuiBuritania]

21 minutes ago, Migantium_Mashum said:

As a DD main... who doesn't have Ragnar or Smaland....  I would prefer to face a Ragnar any day... Smaland in good hands is a beast of an opponent.

If the Ragnar has a radar ready, you would regret that decision rather quickly. Ragnar is easier to outplay and outmanoeuvre but much more dangerous at longer ranges for other DDs

[Migantium_Mashum]

8 minutes ago, RuruushuVuiBuritania said:

If the Ragnar has a radar ready, you would regret that decision rather quickly. Ragnar is easier to outplay but much more dangerous at longer ranges for other DDs.

I battled a Ragnar only recently with my Shimakaze... at the very end I had 4k HP and the Ragnar 12k HP...  I won.

I don't often lose against a Ragnar and even with her Radar she is vulnerable.

 

I have never beaten a Smaland yet in a Shimakaze unless I got torps into her...

 

 

[RuruushuVuiBuritania]

6 minutes ago, Migantium_Mashum said:

I battled a Ragnar only recently with my Shimakaze... at the very end I had 4k HP and the Ragnar 12k HP...  I won.

I don't often lose against a Ragnar and even with her Radar she is vulnerable.

 

I have never beaten a Smaland yet in a Shimakaze unless I got torps into her...

 

 

Defeated a bad player in a Ragnar, very impressive. Equal skill level, the Ragnar wins unless it hits a torpedo. Point being, Ragnar and Smaland serve two different roles and play differently.

[arttuperkunas]

3 minutes ago, RuruushuVuiBuritania said:

Defeated a bad player in a Ragnar, very impressive. Equal skill level, the Ragnar wins unless it hits a torpedo.

Yeah, the one thing Ragnar does well is piss all over the Småland, no contest.

 

This doesn't mean Ragnar is a better DD. Just absolutely excels at that particular matchup. I would honestly be more worried about a well played torpedo DD. In fact, a well played, unspotted shima can really do a number on a ragnar. (not with guns obviously; I mean feeding 15 torps in its expected path)

[RuruushuVuiBuritania]

1 minute ago, arttuperkunas said:

Yeah, the one thing Ragnar does well is piss all over the Småland, no contest.

 

This doesn't mean Ragnar is a better DD. Just absolutely excels at that particular matchup.

I wouldn't even call a Ragnar a DD. It is a cruiser without a citadel, that excels at farming things at range.

[Migantium_Mashum]

2 minutes ago, RuruushuVuiBuritania said:

Defeated a bad player in a Ragnar, very impressive. Equal skill level, the Ragnar wins unless it hits a torpedo.

 

I must have only ever met bad players then because like I said I don't fear Ragnar as I do Smaland.