Ragnar Question.

[john1953]

Presently have Kleber, Marceau and Groningen in Port. Enjoy playing them all although no great shakes.

After years have accumulated enough resource to buy a "steel" ship.

Looking at the Ragnar. Does this offer different gameplay to the other three or is it much of the same?

 

Cheers.

 

[SurfaceFish]

Compared to French DD much easier to hit ships in the Ragnar, but Ragnar is also much easier to be hit especially without engine boost active. But plays like French DD, set fires from range while dodge incoming shells. 

[ollonborre]

Ragnar offers 2 different things/or simply approach that playstyle from a different angle.

 

1: The base HE pen is 30 mm. This means nothing when fighting DD's (although meaty alpha is nice) but it means a lot when fighting cruisers, as you can pen almost every cruiser without having to rely on fires and superstructure hits.

 

2: Radar. The Ragnar can actually hunt other DD's in a whole different way without having to rely on ambushes. With full stealth build the radar range and concealment range is the same, so as soon as you are spotted you just pop radar and then enjoy 30 sec where no DD can hide within 7.5 km from you. Also 30 mm sides means most DD shells simply shatter along your hull.

[Karkong_the_Impaler]

7 minutes ago, ollonborre said:

Also 30 mm sides means most DD shells simply shatter along your hull.

Unless the enemies remember to 2 key. And Druid eats Ragnars for breakfast, but anything else is probably fair game.

 

As far as I understand, Ragnar suffers a lot unter the supershits and thus isn't played much anymore. I don't have it....

[SurfaceFish]

It takes a brave and excellent player to take Ragnar into a knife fight. As you need skills to beat other hybrid or gunboat DD. Slow, long reload and easy to eat torpedoes. 

 

I think she is most comfortable playing at range. 

[ollonborre]

7 minutes ago, Karkong_the_Impaler said:

Unless the enemies remember to 2 key. And Druid eats Ragnars for breakfast, but anything else is probably fair game.

 

As far as I understand, Ragnar suffers a lot unter the supershits and thus isn't played much anymore. I don't have it....

Yeah meant to say DD HE, AP is a different question entirely. 

 

As for superships, it's a mixed bag. In randoms I think it is still fine. In comp however a Condé or what have you will make a bulky unmanuverable Ragnars day painful.

[dommo77]

17 minutes ago, Karkong_the_Impaler said:

Unless the enemies remember to 2 key. And Druid eats Ragnars for breakfast, but anything else is probably fair game.

 

As far as I understand, Ragnar suffers a lot unter the supershits and thus isn't played much anymore. I don't have it....

Build her for max range and collect super tears 🙂

[Port_Authority]

AP is way more powerful than the French. You will want to get cruiser broadsides.
I'm not saying Kleber AP doesn't do cruiser broadsides well, it's just that Kleber will be more efficient if it HE spams the cruiser while he's still angled and then switch to AP once at a proper angle. The Ragnar might want to hold off the spamming fire, get into position and then do a ton of AP dmg.

Ragnar is a pure second line DD whereas Kleber isn't. Kleber eats DDs in a knife fight. Ragnar doesn't. This is the main difference. Ragnar hunts down DDs situationally well because it has radar and surprise element, but straight out 1 vs 1 against a proper gunboat is sketchy. You need to manuever against torps and enemy doesn't.

For all purposes aside the matchmaker, Ragnar is a torpedoeless very light cruiser.
Its side armour arms even the usually useless DD AP shells such as Shimas.

 

[Nibenay78]

A friend with smoke is a friend indeed...

[tocqueville8]

5 hours ago, SurfaceFish said:

Compared to French DD much easier to hit ships in the Ragnar

The dispersion is way better on the Ragnar, but imho for DDs the main issue is the shell flight time, and hers is very similar to Kléber's.

 

2 hours ago, Port_Authority said:

AP is way more powerful than the French. You will want to get cruiser broadsides.

Again, Ragnar has much better accuracy, but the AP penetration is superior on the Kléber: she can citadel a broadside Mino at around 13 km, Ragnar only at 10 km or so. It's Elbing >>> Kléber > Tromp > Ragnar, basically.

 

The Marceau is obviously nowhere near, on either metric.