so, the BB's

[cervena_karkulka]

i just wanted to know what do you think about current status of BB's in the game? i played them in CB, made i to Colorado. I started IJN in OBT, now at Kongo (7k EXP left to Fuso). And i must say that BB's in my eyes started to be really boring. You shoot only every 30s or so with average 10 shots per salvo. from this 10 hits maybe 3, max. 4 if u are very lucky. when you hit citadel and do 10-15k DMG per each shell, its really satysfying, even more when you oneshot enemy cruiser. but most of the time you will score 6k average DMG per salvo. but thats all. your ship turns like a whale, turrets rotate nearly the same way, cruisers will torch you with nearly every second volley and DD's will dance their deadly torpado dance that is very hard to effectively counter (when they launch 6 and more torpedoes). these big ships are really nice cousing that WOW! effect to new players, but i think that dont have anything to offer to other players.

 

when i was bored, i started to play USN cruisers and IJN DD's and they are so much more fun. i finally have a feeling that i am doing smthing for my team, endind regularly in TOP 3 players of my team. I can react in seconds to whats happening on the battlefield, neutralizing threats and trying to avoind incoming fire (and this can be done much more effectively that in BB's).

 

all in all, BB's feels like smthing like big posters, eye cathing tinsel to attract new players. but if I want more intensive feeling from the game, i would pick cruiser or destroyer 10 out of 10 times. 

 

P.S. carriers are their own category, dont have eny experience with them so far.

[Siagor]

all in all, BB's feels like smthing like big posters, eye cathing tinsel to attract new players. but if I want more intensive feeling from the game, i would pick cruiser or destroyer 10 out of 10 times. 

 

Bingo! That's the beauty of this game - different classes for different energy levels while playing.

[cervena_karkulka]

 

Bingo! That's the beauty of this game - different classes for different energy levels while playing.

 

yeah, i agree.i am definitelly not saying that thay are bad ships, they are and allways will be players who love them. they just arent what i wanted them to be - kings of the seas (until carriers arrived in 1940's) that can decimate enemy ships. unfortunatelly 

[ollonborre]

Biggest problem with BB's is that they are the most RNG dependant, and they do suffer the most in this whole spam HE fire meta.

 

However, they can still be powerful and in my oppinion generally interesting and even fun to play. 

[OVanBruce]

North Carolinas and Amagis are spawns from the devil blowing up everything in their way. Iowas are Archdemons and a Montana is Satan himself.

 

Edit: Gotta make my 1000 post declaring my hate and fear of BBs.

[_Maou_]

People need to actually learn that different people like different classes.Some will love battleships and some will hate battleships and this pots this class is boring or trashing a certain class of ships is just pointless,if you don't like it somebody else will .And bb's are only eye catchers ehhh..Yeah that's why they one shot cruisers,and every other ship in the game,you just need to learn how to play them.

[tfioi]

Point of your post? Cause I end up top on my team list in my BB regularly.
Even in the Nagato, which I am currently underperforming in, I find my self top in the team exp rankings almost every other match.
While in my Aoba, altho I have decent avg exp and dmg done, I can not carry my teams to victory at all. The play style just does not fit me.

 

It's personal choice and likings/affection.

[Iron_Gekko]

A BB with the ability to aim properly (yes I know about RNG) but I've seen some BB's absolutely dominate the game more so then carriers, doing citidal hits left and right, making themselves very hard targets for torp attacks while keeping their team alive.

 

I think the BB is an easy ship to play but an insanely hard ship to master, I normally play the Kongo and the one thing I have learnt is scoring snapshots at extreme ranges, figuring out where a ship is going to be is science, yes it can turn course, but few ships actually do unless you're danger close.

 

I play a CV with a Yamoto and a Montana in my Division, I am normally purely fighter with the idea of keeping air superiority above those to ships and chasing away DD's.

 

I don't do the damage in those games, the Yamoto and Montana do...

[Fi_8_8_8_8]

BBs are nice..as long as you don't come 1 on 1 with a Cleve (with experienced captain) then the HE spam bullshovel will take its toll..and a good Cleveland captain should have no problem to get your full health Mexico onto the bottom of the ocean..with maybe losing half his health tops.

That's the biggest issue for me..late cruisers reload slower and have less guns but still can cause some problems with the ridiculous He-fire combo..since of course every BB is made of trees 

 

Thus, WG IMO needs to rework something to alter a BBs role. Cruisers should shrug with fear when a BB comes around an island and not the other way around (their role is to be the kryptonite to Cuisers as DDs and CVs are for BBs)

[Vaderan]

BBs are a mixed bag. They have great potential, but they require the surroundings. For actual gaming mechanics, which means since start of OBT, i can only speak for BBs up to tier 5. Being with the Kongo and the New York, i´d say they have completly different playstyles, with strengths and weaknesses.

As most BBs, maybe even more, low tier BBs rely on their team. While the Kongo has the speed to keep up or at least stay close to the rest of the fleet, USN BBs just fall behind in this matter. This ain´t bad, as long as the team stick with you. But as soon as your CA/DD escort turns away, things start to change.

 

The main issue i have with BBs, is the fact that they lack the ability to react to changes on the battlefield with apropriate speed. CAs and DDs can turn and change side, race to support other teammates. BBs cannot do that properly. Yes, the designers (and their historical engineers) gave them the ability to loop their shells across half of the map, but runging fire at 15 km and above requires exceptionall gunnery skills.

While these skills can be earned easily with enough dedication, there is still the RNG factor. It´s that huge at BBs (at least at low to mid tier), that even single fired turrets leave a huge gamble, with the chance of penetrating plunging fire, aswell as just overpenetrations, bounces or misses.

While this is somewhat realistic, it is just not rewarding, since it makes the BB fell relying more on lack than on skill.

In addition, if you made mistakes in you lead calculation, or the enemy turned away during the 15+ seconds flight time, it takes up to 30 seconds until you are allowed to try again.

That´s why i can understand people who say, BBs are boring. It just takes it time until you can participate at a batte. It takes even longer, if the battle starts at the other side of the map. Good gunnery skills are essential, and where accuracy is the most essential, it is the worst in the game, resulting in a very slow gameplay with incredibly satisfiying moments when you land that lucky hit, and even more moments of frustration, when you perfectly aimed shots go everywhere around the target, but don´t hit.

 

BBs are nice and shiny, but DDs and CAs are, where thrill and fun are at home, right now, especially when playing alone...

[cervena_karkulka]

ok, thanks for the opinions. i tried to explain my thought on BB's as how i like them, i'm definitelly not saying that theyare bad ships, there will allways be  players who like them and other who dont like them (like me). i am just a little bit disappointed by how they are in the game right now...

[Feuchte_Grotte]

First you define the role, and then you define the ship. If you don't have the role nailed down, then there is no point in the ship.

[Fresh_Pickle]

Biggest problem with BB's is that they are the most RNG dependant, and they do suffer the most in this whole spam HE fire meta.

 

However, they can still be powerful and in my oppinion generally interesting and even fun to play. 

 

Basically this. Far to RNG dependent to be considered fun or engaging, whereas cruisers are much more engaging to play and with their guaranteed damage from HE, much more fun too. Fire causing % of your HP as damage is really inappropriate for BBs as well and needs to be changed to a flat damage amount as well as happening less often.

[Mister_Greek]

BB's main problem right now is the ridiculous dispersion of their shots within 7 km.In a BB you have to think minutes in advance what your strategy will be cause of the lack of speed and adaptability to changing situations.

 

As for their style of play,it is pretty hard to draw a definitive conclusion about BB's if you have not reached Amagi,Iowa,Yamato or Montana.

 

They need some love thats for sure and its pretty evident by the slow decrease of their numbers on med-high tiers.

[max24dj]

i guess it's a matter of taste as i feel the opposite way, being an extremely aggressive player CA just lack the staying power to be in the thick of the fight and survive. Sure you can hold your own again 1 BB in a cruiser but can you do that against 3 while still pushing forward? The only moment i feel thrilled when playng a CA it's when i can obliterate other CAs with AP but it doesn't happen often enough to keep me entertained. BBs might not be exciting if you play them as "snipers" but once you get in the thick of the fight just surviving takes evrything you have. How can your heart not pound when you chase a DD into his smokescreen to engage him in a 2km slugfest? or when you charge 3 enemy BBs head on hoping that you angled armor will hold out long enough to give you the time to get to their citadels trough their exposed broadsides?

BBs are not versatile, they are too sluggish to be evrywhere around the map as soon as the need arises but that's not their role, the are meant to push into the enemy lines and break them and they are the only ones sturdy enough to do it.

[Gazbeard]

BBs pushing into enemy lines is suicide when the enemies have Clevelands in their team.

 

I just played a battle where the enemy team all camped at the furthest back corner around their carrier and their three clevelands on their own decimated us (including our 5 BBs) ... my own Warspite lasted just 8 salvos from one Cleveland before sinking after being at full health before he started HE spamming me.  I didn't even get my guns in range of him.

 

CLEVELANDS NEED A MEGA RANGE NERF MINIMUM - how in hell 5 inch guns can outrange 15 inch guns is beyond me - the devs need to go read about the Battle of the River Plate and adjust all cruisers' capabilities - right now cruisers are a little too powerfull, but the Cleveland is a one ship fleet - it needs a major nerf.

[Woel]

I found that many lower tier BBs are seriously lacking (especially in terms of accuracy). What I really dislike about them is the lack of speed and the whole long reload with RNG. You have to either hang back for a long time or commit early, there's a decent chance on certain maps you won't achieve much if you're going the wrong way. 

Recently I've been playing Cruisers mostly and while BBs can basically kill me in one salvo, it's still a gamble. Majority of the time they won't even hit me for anything serious damage if at all, meanwhile I can do HE salvos for about 6-10k damage easily and remove Cruisers with citadel hits without much of an effort. 

BBs do have a pretty solid potential to carry the team, but I think they deserve some accuracy buff (tighter spread, especially horizontally).

[rvfharrier]

I found that many lower tier BBs are seriously lacking (especially in terms of accuracy). What I really dislike about them is the lack of speed and the whole long reload with RNG. You have to either hang back for a long time or commit early, there's a decent chance on certain maps you won't achieve much if you're going the wrong way.

 

This. While there's not much that can be done in terms of balancing the class to get rid of this, WG should really factor this in to their map designs. I despise Two Brothers and Hot Spot for this exact reason. If I'm in my 21 knot US BB then I have to make a choice at the beginning of the map as to where to go and if I get unlucky and choose wrong, I could go the whole game without ever being able to do any damage.

 

As for the point of the thread: BBs are great. They're absolutely not perfect and the best thing WG can do for them right now is lowering the dispersion at close range, and they're probably the hardest class to play well but they're so unbelievably satisfying and rewarding when you get good in them. No better feeling in-game than that yellow ribbon popping up in the bottom right (On that subject WG, change the colour of the 'Incapacitation' ribbon! So many times I thought I'd citadelled a guy only to discover I merely knocked out a turret for 1k damage)! Ideally in a BB you would division up with another BB, and stick together for overlapping AA, or even better a cruiser. If you have no one to division up with just ask a cruiser in team chat! Quite a few times I've seen a scary CV on the enemy team while playing solo in a BB and just asked a Cleveland or an Atlanta if he can stick with me and give me some AA, you'd be surprised how often good teamwork can actually happen with just a little bit of effort in the chat.

[Ragoutrabbit]

Boring to play and weak as hell apart from a few of the higher tier ships.

[varis]

ATM the BB are the most tricky to play due to bad team support. A lone DD can easily torch an unsupported BB - which happens often.

 

Against cruisers, IF you can hit it's a decided match. But those buggers are very fast and nimble, too often!

[Crysantos]

ok, thanks for the opinions. i tried to explain my thought on BB's as how i like them, i'm definitelly not saying that theyare bad ships, there will allways be  players who like them and other who dont like them (like me). i am just a little bit disappointed by how they are in the game right now...

 

Question: What do you expect them to be? High ROF, that's DD and CA country. I expect big f***ing guns, obliterating what I pick as target. I enjoy BBs a lot and I think they're actually in a pretty good shape right now, could use some minor love here and there, but that's stuff I would link with other classes, not the BBs itself, like nerfing fire a bit and balancing CVs + MM. Most people expect BBs to be unbeatable and then reality (of WoWS) sets in ;)

 

I think that's the beauty of the game, want fast-pace action? Jump into US DDs and CAs. Want guns that rip other big ship apart? Go for BBs and IJN CAs. Want some RTS? Get a CV. Want to be a douche? Hug the border. We're still in beta, certain things need to get tweaked but I like the general feeling of the game.

[HaachamaShipping]

i guess it's a matter of taste as i feel the opposite way, being an extremely aggressive player CA just lack the staying power to be in the thick of the fight and survive. Sure you can hold your own again 1 BB in a cruiser but can you do that against 3 while still pushing forward? The only moment i feel thrilled when playng a CA it's when i can obliterate other CAs with AP but it doesn't happen often enough to keep me entertained. BBs might not be exciting if you play them as "snipers" but once you get in the thick of the fight just surviving takes evrything you have. How can your heart not pound when you chase a DD into his smokescreen to engage him in a 2km slugfest? or when you charge 3 enemy BBs head on hoping that you angled armor will hold out long enough to give you the time to get to their citadels trough their exposed broadsides?

BBs are not versatile, they are too sluggish to be evrywhere around the map as soon as the need arises but that's not their role, the are meant to push into the enemy lines and break them and they are the only ones sturdy enough to do it.

Sure, my heart would be pounding, but I feel it's unnecessary, if not downright suicidal. Well, fighting destroyers at 2 km range anyway. The sole reason the DD should ever get that close is if you have really bad RNG with primary and secondary guns and couldn't kill them before they got within 2 km of your ship. Because at 2 km, in a smokescreen, the chance of eating a spread of torpedos which you got no longer any chance to evade is just too high for me. The 1 vs 3 is mostly my preference to pick fights that have even or better odds of being won.

 

But I like playing BBs up to now and it may not be as thrilling as throwing a DD around, but it's thrilling enough for my taste.

[max24dj]

Sure, my heart would be pounding, but I feel it's unnecessary, if not downright suicidal. Well, fighting destroyers at 2 km range anyway. The sole reason the DD should ever get that close is if you have really bad RNG with primary and secondary guns and couldn't kill them before they got within 2 km of your ship. Because at 2 km, in a smokescreen, the chance of eating a spread of torpedos which you got no longer any chance to evade is just too high for me. The 1 vs 3 is mostly my preference to pick fights that have even or better odds of being won.

 

But I like playing BBs up to now and it may not be as thrilling as throwing a DD around, but it's thrilling enough for my taste.

It's not as suicidal as you think it wuold be, if you go straight into him you are already presenting him the least surface to be hit and his torpedoes are gonna be pretty much on top of eachother so even minimal movements on your side will make them completely miss. I cuold slip my amagi in between 2 torpedo spreads at 1.7km, it's not easy to hit a ship coming straight to you even from that close, and if they fail to kill you they are pretty much dead. Every time i tried it ended up with a dead DD an me taking almost no damage at all, most of the times they panic so much when you charge them that the torpedoes fly all over the place, they wuoldn't hit even if you tried to run into them. What it's really suicidal it's knowing a destroyer it's there and not try to chase him down, sooner or later you are gonna eat those torpedoes no matter how hard you try to avoid them. In an ideal world you cruisers wuold do that but usually they are too busy setting BBs on fire or hiding in a corner so you have to take the situation into your hands.

 

Same for the uneven fight, in an ideal world your team wuold push as one and share the beating but for every teammate running behind your carriers you have one more enemy you have to face. I really don't feel like wasting 20 mins to end the game in a draw so if it looks like it's possible to win the fight with the few teammates that aren't trying to run out of the map i'll take the chance even if it means being the one that takes all the hits.

 

Overall i believe that BBs are the most fun and effective if you take the high risks for the chance of the high rewards, if you play conservatively they are just big, slow and with retarded dispersion at long range.

[Francois424]

BB does not stand out enough. 

 

 - They make good damage shots, sometimes... completely random if you hit. > Inconsistent Damage output, you might do 100k in a game, and playing same way, only 16k the next match

 - They are supposed to be the Shield of the team soaking up damage... Armor is not strong enough against HE (and that's besides the fires) > Inconsistent survivability

 - Secondary guns don't have the range to do Area denial. It would need at least 7-10km to do that.  does not have to hit, just make the opponent think twice before crossing you. > Inconsistent area control.

 - BB are supposed (as per WG) to counter cruisers... this might work tier 6+ (not there yet), but not working tier 2-5 (T2=Mikasa).  Sometimes you get lucky, but you should not require luck for cruiser control with a BB > Inconsistent role.

 

Don't get me wrong I love the class (see my NA profile), but it's no surprise so many ppl are wondering : "What's the point ?  Let me play X instead !".

All IMHO of course.

 

 

[Tomerell]

I loved the BB's in CBT, but now in OBT after hitting my head against the wall on my way up to IJN BB line, I just stopped playing in T4. Changed to the CV line, and now I make more than double the XP in a CV than I could make in a BB. 

I'm not an expert gamer, just pure average, but as such I'm a surrogate of a big part of the players here, and as BB's are right now, they are not appealing, for me that is...