US Tier III - the first major obstacle

[d3nn1us]

So, after the wipe for OBT we all had to start anew. And I noticed that the US Navy line has a massive problem at tier III. There are currenty three ships there (stats and everything are for fully upgraded).

- the St. Louis: yes, it's spectacularly well equipped with guns, and it has a fair amount of HP. That's about it. Even upgraded, your guns cannot shoot beyond 10.6km - and you will end up in tier V battles in this ship occasionally. It's slow, it's not exactly nimble, the AA armament is nothing to write home about. Still, probably the best choice you have at this tier, as long as the matchmaker is at least a little kind to you.

- the Wickes: Again, keep in mind that in the worst of cases, you will find yourself in tier V battles. This is a US destroyer without the perks of other US destroyers. It's guns are arranged so that you can at best shoot three of them at your target at once. The torps - not a strong point of US DDs anyways - are laughable: 4.5km range and ~6k damage. A citadel penetration from a St. Louis will do more damage than that. It gets spotted from further away than its IJN counterpart, the Wakatake.

- the South Carolina. Oh jeez, where to begin. It's slow, but alright, all US BBs of the lower tiers are. It's got a whopping 500 HP more than the St. Louis, woohoo! With the guns actually having LESS range than those of the St. Louis. The guns are also inaccurate as all hell, even at short(er) ranges. It doesn't get AA guns, and as with the other two ships: it's not unlikely that you will have to fight at tier IV or V. I hate this ship.

 

This is especially weird when you compare it to the Japanese lineup at tier III. Both the Tenryu and the Wakatake are damn good ships (I haven't played the Kawachi in its current state yet, but in CBT it was nowhere near as atrociously bad as the South Carolina is now). Playing Japanese at tier III, grinding through modules and unlocking the next tier ships was a breeze. Playing US, it's, well, a grind.

 

Is it just me who feels this way? Or is this a deliberate obstacle in US progression, because especially the cruisers starting from tier IV are fantastic? Or is it just an imbalance, not uncommon to beta stages, that will be fixed at some point?

[ColonelPete]

No, I like the ships.

The St.Louis is a great and fun ship. The South Carolina is better than the Kawachi, but BBs at that Tier are difficult to play. The Wickes is not as good as the IJN DD, but it works quite well. You have to chose your targets more carefully.

[JeeWeeJ]

I have to disagree with you there:

St. Louis has long has the nickname "god", given how easy it is to do VERY good in her. Yes her speed and range is limited, but the sheer amount of DAKKA this thing can dish out more than makes up for it. Even against tier 5 ships you can be a menace if they're stupid enough to get in range.

SoCal is like other BBs as in that she suffers against cruisers with a high RoF spamming HE. That said, I never really had any problems while sailing her, especially in low tier battles. Yes, the range and speed is a pain but, like with other BBs, it's all depending on where you position yourself on the map.

 

I do not play DDs, so can't comment on the Wickes.

 

Anyway, point being, these ships aren't I-WIN buttons. You need a certain degree of skill to really make them work, but compared to their IJN counterparts I don't really get the feeling that they're massively UP nor OP.

[ilhilh]

The St Louis is a beast.  Sure it doesn't have the best range but it is bristling with fast firing guns in all directions (you can just turn in circles and hammer things) and a very decent HP pool.  You can just keep a constant rain of shells on people setting fires everywhere.

 

As for the South Carolina, sure it doesn't have much more HP than the St Louis but that is because the St Louis is abnormally high for its tier. But the tier III BBs are notoriously hopeless on both nations...

[Damathacus]

Anyway, point being, these ships aren't I-WIN buttons. You need a certain degree of skill to really make them work, but compared to their IJN counterparts I don't really get the feeling that they're massively UP nor OP.

 

A small child with a BB gun in a leaking rowboat would appear massively OP when compared to Kawachi .

[d3nn1us]

Hmm, maybe it is a question of playstyle... Don't get me wrong, apart from the South Carolina (which is just bad) I don't mind playing the other two at tier III. They just seem a lot more difficult to do well in than their Japanese counterparts. Which, assuming that the CBT players are by now probably a minority, does pose quite an obstacle for new players. If I didn't know how really, really good some of the later US ships (dat cruiser lineup!) are, I'd probably have stopped playing them by now.

[Aldramelech]

St. Louis in a T3 game is one of the very few ships that can actually "carry". 

[caldark]

The St Louis is prob one of the best ships in the game for its tier.. its imense and nothing can hold a candle to it.. Can even handle itself in higher tier battles in the right situations..

 

No issues with the wicks myself but it didnt take me long to get past ti really but i cant remember it being horrible.

 

South Carolina - I also hate this ship yet if you do hit with the guns then you do grate damage..

[69thBuLLeT]

OP: Your main complaint seems to be the matchmaking more than anything else.

 

You're going to get into T5 games with all the above ships, but it should be a fairly rare occurrence.

 

The St Louis is a great ship and a keeper in my port.

 

I wish I could tell you that it gets much better at T4, but really, only the Phoenix is a significant improvement.

The Wyoming still sucks 50% of the time, and now you're up against aircraft more frequently which you can't avoid and you can't really shoot down.

The Clemson is still a US DD. Ambush tactics and IJN DD hunting are what you do. It's the playstyle. (And a lot of fun)

[Aldramelech]

OP: Your main complaint seems to be the matchmaking more than anything else.

 

You're going to get into T5 games with all the above ships, but it should be a fairly rare occurrence.

 

The St Louis is a great ship and a keeper in my port.

 

I wish I could tell you that it gets much better at T4, but really, only the Phoenix is a significant improvement.

The Wyoming still sucks 50% of the time, and now you're up against aircraft more frequently which you can't avoid and you can't really shoot down.

The Clemson is still a US DD. Ambush tactics and IJN DD hunting are what you do. It's the playstyle. (And a lot of fun)

In fact, I'm wondering why I don't own one????? Might have to do something about that after work 

[Siagor]

Oh for cryin' out loud, stop talking how good St Louis is!

 

It's a bad ship, just skip it and move on.

 

(please follow my lead :-)

[Aldramelech]

Oh for cryin' out loud, stop talking how good St Louis is!

 

It's a bad ship, just skip it and move on.

 

(please follow my lead :-)

 

Yes terrible, nothing to see here, the OP is completely correct, stupid low tier rubbish ship..............

[d3nn1us]

OP: Your main complaint seems to be the matchmaking more than anything else.

 

You're going to get into T5 games with all the above ships, but it should be a fairly rare occurrence.

 

The St Louis is a great ship and a keeper in my port.

 

I wish I could tell you that it gets much better at T4, but really, only the Phoenix is a significant improvement.

The Wyoming still sucks 50% of the time, and now you're up against aircraft more frequently which you can't avoid and you can't really shoot down.

The Clemson is still a US DD. Ambush tactics and IJN DD hunting are what you do. It's the playstyle. (And a lot of fun)

 

Well, the St. Louis' MM has improved greatly since CBT, probably thanks to more people playing now - I used to get into tier V matches 80% of the time back then.

Loved the Phoenix back then, and the Clemson (as opposed to the Wickes) at least gets torps with a somewhat decent damage output.

As for the Wyoming... At least it's got a s#!t ton of guns! And they shoot further! And it's got a HP pool actually allowing you to take a few hits...

Compared to tier III, there's a downhill slope after that (btw: is the New York still as good as it was in CBT? Loved that ship.).

 

Edit: And I never said the St. Louis was bad. But it has its shortcomings, especially when getting into higher tier matches.

[Figment]

St. Louis and South Carolina are excellent ships. The Wickes though. Not so much without a proper smokescreen to cover it, while the detection range is far too large for what it can do, should be 5.9.

[d3nn1us]

[..]South Carolina [..] excellent ship.

 

Would you be so kind as to tell us how you play it in order to come to that conculsion?

[Siagor]

South Carolina, actually, is a fantastic brawler. Go close and personal.

 

[chaplainDMK]

St. Louis is murder for anything that gets in range. Phoenix will get eaten if it gets under 10 clicks of a St. Louis, and even an Omaha will get a good chunk of it's health taken away. 

 

SoCal is decent, certainly better than Kawachi. But low tier BB's are just crap, you get eaten by cruiser HE. I didn't really like the Wyoming that much more, and I'm not liking New York either. Just slow, poor to react, and totally at the mercy of RNG. Had one round where I instagibbed 2 cruisers in a row from full health at 10 kilometers, next round I got eaten alive by a Phoenix because every shot I fired at it overpenned for the glorious 830 damage rolls, while he wiped 1-2k with each salvo + all the fires he set. 

 

Wickes no idea, I liked it. 

[GoldenRoot]

I've not played SC since the CBT, but I always found if I hid around the islands and got in close I could obliterate most things tier IV or below, even the Wyoming would melt if you got in close enough and generally stuck with HE.

 

Issue with playing her as a brawler is always closing range, she isn't exactly nimble so closing in to that range was like charging with a sword against a rifle division, sure the swords still deadly but your almost certainly dead getting close enough to utilise it, which is why you had to treat her more like a US DD and go gorilla tactics.

 

The dispersion was also pretty bad too from memory.

 

St. Louis on the other hand....... I really like this ship, mainly because of it's armour anything less than 6" and there is no point in trying to Pen her (sure this was an actress said to the bishop joke) with AP, but fending one off is easy enough if you know what your doing, just outrange her and burn her pretty deck with HE, as long as you don't get in close and you can pound away with immunity.  So not OP just requires a different play style to handle, problem is most players at that tier just lemming in and want to get in close to you, and the St. Louis is going to make mince meat of it, even Kuma's that come into range to try to torp you even though they could easily kill it at 11 or 12km. 

 

Wickes is the only one I didn't really like, skipped her pretty much completely in favour of the Clemson.

[Figment]

Would you be so kind as to tell us how you play it in order to come to that conculsion?

 

AP barrage of 8 cannons in melee (below 9km) virtually always results in one or two citadel hits.

 

Overall Results
Battles	18
Victories	12 (67%)
Battles survived	9
Damage caused	717,819
Warships destroyed	25
Aircraft destroyed	1
Base capture	0
Base defense	209

Average Score per Battle
Experience	775.22
Damage caused	39,878.83
Warships destroyed	1.39
Aircraft destroyed	0.06
Main battery hit ratio	30%
Base capture	0.00
Base defense	11.61

Highest Score
Experience	1,298
Damage caused	89,135
Warships destroyed	3
Aircraft destroyed	1

[YukiEiriKun]

Would you be so kind as to tell us how you play it in order to come to that conculsion?

My experiences are similar, SouthCarolina is a good tier3 BB.

South Carolina:

 

 

 

 

Kawachi:

 

 

 

[22cm]

No, I like the ships.

The St.Louis is a great and fun ship. The South Carolina is better than the Kawachi, but BBs at that Tier are difficult to play. The Wickes is not as good as the IJN DD, but it works quite well. You have to chose your targets more carefully.

 

Only Wickes is crap, and I had awfull MM in it, all games tier 5, only once tier 3.

[jimonwye]

I am using the St Louis to train up a new commander, because I have found it to be the best low tier considering the MM and my play style (so far).

I'll probably use the Isokaze to do the same for IJN.

I'm only up to tier V so far, so may change as I gain experience. Like in WoT it's handy to have a few good ships in the pool for playing with friends who are new to the game, and to relieve the stress of grinding higher up.

St Louis performance so far;

Overall Results
Battles	36
Victories	21 (58%)
Battles survived	8
Damage caused	820,236
Warships destroyed	40
Aircraft destroyed	0
Base capture	0
Base defense	696

Average Score per Battle
Experience	628.36
Damage caused	22,784.33
Warships destroyed	1.11
Aircraft destroyed	0.00
Main battery hit ratio	35%
Base capture	0.00
Base defense	19.33

Highest Score
Experience	1,340
Damage caused	63,328
Warships destroyed	4
Aircraft destroyed	0

[Aerroon]

But the St Louis is amazing? What the hell. Made a video about it literally yesterday where I got 7 kills in one match in a St Louis:

[lordofhavoc]

If the St. Louis is already a problem for you, then never try to play Japanese cruisers.

 

[simonmd]

Even I have managed to get 4 kills in one match in the St Louis, its by far, my fav' ship in the game so far, I hated the Phoenix after it and the fully upgraded Omaha only just come close. 

 

Thing with the old girl is yes its slow but its a damn sight easier to aim at 20 kts so you do get more consistent hits in my experience, also, yes, if you just sit there, you will die but if you keep turning, you can face off some surprising opponents. I once sunk a New York BB with one because I kept setting him on fire and out turning his guns!!! (I was down to about 5% health after that fight mind....)

 

As for the South Carolina, I think you need to learn how to play it. People who do the 'lone wolves' thing and rush in on their own will find they die VERY quickly, however, hang back on the edge of your range and stick with another BB or 2 and you can be a very effective support ship. If that fails, make good use of cover, ie islands. Look ahead and plan to fire a salvo in a gap, then get behind an island to reload, do a full 180 about turn in required as well. I've used this tactic towards the end of a game against 2 cruisers who were out in open water and the fact I was behind cover when I couldnt return fire ment I ended up killing them both. The next level up, the Wyoming, is not a bad ship, having an extra 2 turrets and better AA helps but is still as slow as the SC and is a bigger target so really, its not bad for an entry level BB.