How do you feel about class balance at the moment?

[Fresh_Pickle]

Hi folks,

 

Almost every day, someone starts a thread complaining about one balance issue or the next. Usually, the complaints surround e.g. torpedoes and DDs etc. and are smacked down by people who play those classes or claim they can handle them and thus that they are fine. So instead of continuing the trend, unless a thread like this already exists, I thought we could have a discussion about balance and try to gather as many different opinions as we can. I will try to break down each class in broad terms and we'll see where we go.

 

Cry elsewhere please if that is what you want to do.

 

DDs.- These are the WoW Rogues of World of Warships. Stealthy, agile and able to completely gib you if you let them. Does this make them OP? In my opinion, no. DDs are very fragile, always get a busted motor or rudder when hit and basically explode if you shoot them with HE. Once detected, particularly by aircraft, they are just about doomed to die in a glorious fireball. I would like to see DDs get more HP across the board, have better turret traverse so as to be less dependent on their torpedoes, and be less prone to taking module damage. Their detectability is a tricky one to handle, they basically have to fire their torpedoes from maximum detection range (until higher tiers and 20km range torpedoes) to guarantee a hit, making them a high risk style of ship to play with potentially high rewards. I cannot think of any other changes I would like to see made to DDs besides perhaps making them slightly less manoeuvrable, but that may be to hard a nerf.

 

CAs/CLs.- These ships are the Masters and Commanders at the moment. Staying together and focusing fire, cruisers can completely control engagements by, depending on gun calibre and target etc., either burning or wrecking their opponent with relentless fire, high dpm and so many chances at good citadel penetrations. The hard counter to DDs with their HE, they can clear flanks and pathways originally denied by those pesky DDs pretty quickly meaning that an attack proper can begin on that flank. I feel that Cruisers in general, though there will be exceptions like the St. Louis, suffer in the armour department perhaps more than they should. Whenever I see one sailing at 90° to me, I basically know that I'm going to wreck them in a few salvoes, if they don't turn. I feel that the rudder shift time on cruisers could do with coming down a bit, but if they had an armour buff, then this may not be necessary.

 

BBs.- Guns, lots of guns. That is why you play a BB, because you know your damage potential is going to be massive. A well angled BB is an absolute nightmare for certain classes to shoot at, with some ships having to rely on HE and/or torpedoes to do any significant damage to them. It has to be this way, of course, because of their high rudder shift times, turret traverse speed and dispersion. But, every now and then, a BB will take someone out in one salvo, which is the fun part of course. Changes I would like to see made to BBs are better dispersion at all ranges and better turret traverse. Being less vulnerable to fire, but still taking the same base HE damage would be a nice change too. I think the dispersion change in the upcoming patch is pretty laughable and would like to see it tied in with secondary range so it is less arbitrary. Secondary armament also needs to be at least somewhat threatening, but this applies to all classes equally as much.

 

CVs.- It is difficult for me to say much about these ships as they are the class I have played the least, due mostly to their horrible gameplay but I have had some good (and bad) games in them. Being able to completely wreck your opponent without the chance of repercussions to yourself and with your attacks being pretty much unavoidable make this class very non-compelling. In their current state, I feel they detract more from the game than they add. I realise that being able to dodge every torpedo bomber squadron they launch at you would be ridiculous, but for the reasons I just mentioned, I feel they need some changes. I am open to ideas and suggestions about how to change them for the better. Planes probably should have some sort of range limitation on them, forcing the CV itself to come closer and put itself in more danger.

 

So, this is a long post, I am sure I missed something and that I am mostly talking in massive generalisations. Disagreeing with me is perfectly fine, these are my opinions after playing almost 1000 games and you are also entitled to yours. I also realise that I am not a good player and, if you are better than me, you are bound to criticise me but that is entirely up to you.

 

How do you feel about the classes you play, which do you play the most and why? Do you agree with my opinions on things as they are now? What do you love and hate about your classes at the moment?

[Philipp_ab_exterminatore]

I play all classes and think the only thing that needed adjustments was the mid tied jap carriers. I'm not looking forward to the new patch with the increased rudder shift time as it felt fine as it was and last time they increased it the game sucked so the increase was removed

[Boold]

Well in my opinion most of classes are good.

My only BUT goes to CV.

They can be OP when u don't have air deff. or they can do absolutely nothing when U play against higher tier CV.

But this should be balanced in 4.1 .

I have most fun in CA just because they shoot fast they move fast, they hit hard if u aim and they can do most of the things good.

BB's are fun as well but i just don't like to wait 30 sec to shoot and then hit with one shell ;D

But for first month of Open Beta Test it's pretty good overall ;)

[Atris2nd]

Call me crazy, I'd say every ship class save for destroyers is relatively balanced when played well and team coordination is in order. Cruisers escort battleships and keep planes off you, battleships hit other battleships and cruisers when they get within proper firing distance at around 12km, CVs support ships, disrupt enemy lone wolves and seem to be coming along nicely with the upcoming update. But destroyers? Very little point to them at the moment and buffing the rudder shift time of everything makes them even less prominent, as CVs can do their jobs better. They need adjustments and alot of them.

[Insane_Ringworm]

IMO i find all classes well balanced even CVs, Its very hard to do anything against a team that covers each other.

The AA ability and the scouts and fighters that ships launch destroy planes fast and make aiming very hard, against a well covered team a CV can do almost nothing.

The problem I believe is the lack of XP rewarded for shooting down planes, if it was higher players would most likely cover more making CV play harder.

Plus CAs, CLs captains are in a way taking a risk sitting back covering as if the ship they help doesn't get attacked, they lose out so give em more for shoot downs.

 

[varis]

I love the differences of the classes and their distinct roles. ATM this looks to be the (?) thing that carries Warships.

 

Somehow I feel OP was banging around the nail but didn't quite hit it. Class balance is of course important, but there are bigger issues than that. There's a good lot of weirdness in gameplay that needs to be addressed - of course intimately connected to balance. Like do we want destroyers to be the kiting gun-spammers, or is it fine if they are mostly torpedo ambushers? If you're in a tier IV carrier, and opponent has higher tier or 2 tier IV carrier, you will be wasted and they'll likely sink you sooner or later. Your fighters might not be able to catch enemy TB, if you engage enemy fighters in friendly AA cover, the fighters are locked but the AA sails away... That kind of stuff.

 

People blame MM and Wargaming is going for a fix there, but it feels like the real issues are a bit more fundamental.

 

In my short experience (lots of tier IV and some V), CA, BB and DD are definitely playable, not much off as different classes. CVs seem more powerful though - might have something to do with lack of AA.

 

The chosen tier effects balance, also if it's ranked or a clan match, which we don't really have in the open so hard to say the last word here.

[voidwyrm]

I dont know... in my oppinion atm there isnt really much Balance.

(BB are just crap and Carriers are OP. But at least the problems are known to the developers -> 4.1 patchnotes.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tinbawx]

To be honest the only real problem I have atm is against destroyers capable of stealth torping, because I don´t know what to do against them. It´s not like they blow me up without me knowing what happened. If I get hit by torps it´s usually one, sometimes two, unless I mess up completely. I just have no idea what to do about them. Unless they srcew up I will never see them or catch them, while they send a torp wall every minute or so, without me being able to do anything about it.

 

My only hope is that a friendly DD tries to hunt him down, a CV sends some planes, or that he gets cocky and tries to rush. In cruisers I tried to hunt em, but didn´t have much success since I advanced past the Omaha in the tech tree. In higher tiers giving chase only meant that his torps, going 60+ knots, effectively closed in at 90+ knots, adding my own speed to theirs.

 

Yep I´m utterly unable to fight well played stealth torpers.

[Nagine]

Perhaps the weakest point are low tiers (1-4). I, as primarily DD player, agree that new players can be frustrated by torp spam of "invisible ships". It is normal that they lack skill of dodging. Thus early DDs and CVs can be looked into. However, by tier 4-5 everyone should have gained necessary evasion skills, so after that nerfing should be much more careful.

 

The biggest thing I myself am currently missing is the true feel of a big slow moving ship. I am dreaming of a slow hard hitting battleship with good armor. Current zipmobiles don't differ much from cruisers, except that they spend more time burning. To meet the demands of torp whiners this BB maneuverability nerf could be compensated, for example, by requiring torps to hit specific zones of a BB in order to make normal damage.

[Nagine]

Tinbawx, if you are alone and in a slow ship there is little you can do but to dodge (the first barrage can be unexpected if an enemy was undetected, but after it you can predict the next one). However, if there are at least two reasonably fast cruisers, catching a DD is quite easy. Just capture him in view range box. Then everything depends on your shooting and his dodging skills.

[Boevebeest]

This is how i see it at the moment.

 

BB: Well balanced but boring gameplay.

 

CA: Best balanced and fun to play.

 

DD: WG is really killing them patch by patch. There where some DD's that really deserved a slight nerf but this is just not funny anymore.

I don't mind them being a hard class to master, I like the challenge. But with all the nerfs they suffered they can't play their role anymore.

 

CV: One horrible big mess. Wonder if they ever get done right, little hope though.

[Ascender]

I think the CLASS balance is fine. The biggest issue with balancing are individual ships which are too far above (Minekaze, Fuso, Mogami, Lexington) or too far below (Furutaka, Ibuki, Colorado) in terms of performance compared to their peers - or in the case of the three mentioned low-end ships straight-up worse than the ship they succeeded!

 

Quickly to break in on that. Did you know that:

- The Colorado has 50.100 hitpoints, New Mexico 53.200? The Tier 7 IJN BB, Nagato, has 65.000.

- The Colorado only has 900 horsepower more than the Wyoming and 8.100 less than the New Mexico?

- The Ibuki and Mogami with 203mm guns both have significantly worse DPM values than the Myoko, even post-nerf, and are more comparable to the DPM values of the Aoba!?

 

Despite having played A LOT of carrier games I like to think of myself as a pretty well-rounded player at the moment. I have reached tier 6-8 in about every line imaginable right now (with the exception of USN Cruisers and Carriers, they will have to wait!). Each ship/class has pros and cons. Battleships can one-shot cruisers, cruisers and put things on fire and be an absolute menace to DDs, DDs can throw torps over long range, deploy smoke and generally be annoying and carriers are #justcarrierthings. Each class can be shut down brutally hard, cruisers by getting shot in the citadel a few times, DDs by well...  by being spotted, battleships by burning down and generally presenting a big, slow target and carriers by an enemy team that concentrates their AA power and has attentive cruisers (+ other carriers of course which with the new MM will be an actual thing).

 

Like three quarters the things I see people complain/cry about don't even rank as an issue for me. BBs having problems with carriers? Really I only had this problem recently when my Fuso got matched against a Taiho, because my AA could not shoot down any of his planes I was unable to put enough pressure on them to "drop now or risk losing all your planes!". Cruisers just trucking along nicely, occasionally getting some frustrating citadel hits but rarely enough to completely ruin my game. Carriers died out for me on Tier 10 when I reached Hakuryu, primarily due to the uselessness of fighters, being adressed in upcoming 4.1 so expecting some fun again there! Bogue too, waiting for the new MM before picking it up. Now my biggest pain in the [edited]that remains are destroyers. The Hatsuharu is just tragic and I can't beat myself through it, it is the first and only ship I have sold before completing the research on it, it's slow and can't stealth torp well, what's the point of trying if you are only 2 kts faster than most cruisers you face? They will catch you because of map edges. The americans (Farragut atm) are still doing okay, probably mostly because they don't rely on stealth torping for their performance. But DDs are the one class I feel could really use something going into the mid-high tiers, say tier 6 to 8, where they just become really unfun to play and likewise there are VERY few destroyers in matches of this tier. That by itself is an indirect buff to battleships (and to a lesser degree carriers). I assume though that WG has statistics on all this and will work it out eventually...

[goodman528]

Played all classes. I get more kills, more damage, more credits earned, more xp per game, and easier to play game in CV than in any other class. Balance? What balance?! The only thing a CV player fears on the opposing team is another CV of same or higher tier.

[Xevious_Red]

Personally I think cruisers are just about right - they're the work horses of the fleet and a pack of them is dangerous. On their own however they can be taken down easily enough, especially if you can get a side shot on them.

 

BB are alright, I don't have much problems with carriers or fire when I play, and very rarely feel hopeless in one. The reload time is fine for the damage they do. However the damage is a slight lottery - at extreme range I'm ok with the shells splashing down for no hits. At medium range when you watch the shells sail over and under, and it does the same next volley, before having the third volley hit the citadel (with no change to aiming) means that the average damage is ok but you feel you're hoping for good luck more than precise aiming. I'd happily do less damage if it was more accurate (giving the same average damage as before, but so you feel you've done something rather than RNGESUS has). Hopefully the German BB have this as their feature (going from bismark).

 

CV - so far (up to tier 5) these seem ok. They do more damage on average, but conversely they don't take an active part in capturing, so raw damage is mostly what they provide. Not too bothered when I'm against them as the planes are avoidable, or in the case of BB the damage from 1 or 2 torps is easily mitigated. However when I'm using them, they're quite easy to seal club in. Simply fly towards 3 battleships. The one that reacts to bombers at 8km away you ignore immediately since he has a brain. The one that reacts at 3km you could hit, but it won't be a full spread so you ignore him too. The one that merrily chugs along in a straight line you drop on and watch as 6 torps hit him with no reaction at all.

This leads to the problem - against competent people they're fine. But they can sink a noob fairly easily. If you balance them so the unnel visioning BB survives regardless they'll be useless against anyone remotely paying attention. If you leave them as they are then they're an easy choice for seal clubbing. Hopefully the 4.1 patch should spice up the air war and make fighters a decent choice for keeping fleets "safe".

 

IJN DD - only up to tier 4 atm (I remember from CBT that they get very crap at 6+), and having the same problem as CV. Namely, I don't have an issue facing them, but when I use them it's pretty easy. You just patiently watch a BB, and if after 30 secs he's made no course adjustment at all you unload 6 torps into him and sink him. Now I don't think they need a nerf aside from maybe a slightly longer torp reload (low tiers), but the availability of totally unaware captains makes it almost too easy. 

 

US DD - now this is a different story, these are teeth gnashingly painful to play. At low tiers they have short ranged guns, get spotted before they can torp and now can't use the smokescreen offensively. Unless you go on a suicide run, or get lucky you probably won't get much in range for torps, since you can't make the smokey playground anymore. Firing the guns doesn't do a huge amount against BB, especially when one lucky shot from him will wreck you. The guns work marginally better or cruisers, but they'll tear you a new one. Currently struggling to find a reason to use the clemson when I could use the phoenix instead. Don't know what I'd suggest but at the moment they're the class I'm struggling the most to use effectively 

[FloRead]

Everytime I see a player say "CV crazy OP", when I look up the stats, they will show an IJN carrier player. 

 

Is it just me? 

 

Anyone wants to chime in on USN carriers because I find that any skillful player can totally negate USN carriers, till T9 when revenge is finally the USN carrier's. IJN always have enough squadrons and the agility to do something even when outmatched.

[Ascender]

Everytime I see a player say "CV crazy OP", when I look up the stats, they will show an IJN carrier player. 

 

Is it just me? 

 

Anyone wants to chime in on USN carriers because I find that any skillful player can totally negate USN carriers, till T9 when revenge is finally the USN carrier's. IJN always have enough squadrons and the agility to do something even when outmatched.

 

4.1 will rework the splits completley. The reason IJN CVs were/are called OP is because of their strike splits and nothing else, their TB squads are individually far worse, as well as their fighters, and their divebombers, in fact every plane is individually worse. Their advantage was, however, that they could get MORE of them. 12 torpedo bombers compared to USN's maximum of 6, and the ability to split it up 3 ways, even though they are able to land less % of torpedoes on-target they simply have so many more torps to drop it doesn't matter. Bringing this down to a maximum of 8 torpedo bombers until tier 9 should SERIOUSLY hamper the OP-factor of IJN CVs, on top of this having IJN CVs be forced to have fighters will also indirectly increase the interaction among them and keep each other in check a little more too.

 

It was all those non-fighter splits that made it OP. The 0-3-1 Zuiho, 0-3-2 Ryujo, 0-3-3 Hiryu and Shokaku. Changing this to 1-2-1, 1-2-2 and 2-2-2 as the most strike-heavy splits available to japanese carriers will mean their damage will go down drastically. Personally I played 0-3-1 Zuiho, 0-3-2 Ryujo and 2-2-2 Hiryu/Shokaku. While they are relatively old by now I think they do reflect it nicely, 102-120 avg dmg with strike setups, 88-95 with the 2-2-2 setups and then 106 on the Taiho with 3-2-2. It is not unreasonable to think these numbers would have been anywhere between 20% to 40% higher if I had actually chosen a strike setup instead.

 

But ofcourse rather than read any of these notes people will just continue on crying instead about how they did not pay attention to the sky in their BB and they were unpleasantly surprised to find torpedoes appearing right next to them and weren't able to dodge because they couldn't make a 90 degree turn in 5 seconds. Basically until battleships change into cruisers I don't see those kinds of people ever stop complaining, though come to think of it I don't think this would do much for them as even cruisers can be vulnerable if you do not take pre-emptive evasive action.

[Banelord300]

I dont know... in my oppinion atm there isnt really much Balance.

(BB are just crap and Carriers are OP. But at least the problems are known to the developers -> 4.1 patchnotes.)

Id say you should L2P as they are awesome (well not Lolorado and Kawacrap) im grinding up the IJN BB line and after the horrible tier 3 BB you get the good Myogi and then the excellent Kongo.

 

[FloRead]

Well, I mostly agree Ascender. However, what I disagree with is that while most of the ships being air torpedoed and devastatingly struck are those asleep at the wheel or being stuck in binocular vision, 2 torpedo bomber squadrons is still a major difference over 1.

 

With 1 squadron, an alert captain who wants to stall the US torpedo squadron can play the turning game a very long time and it's a matter of when you call it quits and just drop. The bigger circle makes it also harder to make that optimal run. With 2 squadrons, you can force the enemy ship to commit to a dodge, and then anvil him with the other. Also, the smaller drop circle meant correcting mistakes(which in the first place you shouldn't!) is easier.

 

In OBT, I still haven't gotten my IJN carriers yet, so I am basing a lot of my knowledge on what I knew back in CBT when I had both. If my knowledge of IJN carriers have since change(the drop circle), I apologize.

[Ganuti]

Playing  DD on high tier is just useless, with a CV on the enemy team you are always spotted,  or the bigger prob your torps are spotted and dodging them from 10km or 20 km is just way to easy, but getting closer is impossible moving away from the team is just a suicide, so the DD needs a good buff or balancing to perform better, it just horrible to play them atm, far away from being fun

[TheJezna]

 

DDs.- These are the WoW Rogues of World of Warships. Stealthy, agile and able to completely gib you if you let them. Does this make them OP? In my opinion, no. DDs are very fragile, always get a busted motor or rudder when hit and basically explode if you shoot them with HE. Once detected, particularly by aircraft, they are just about doomed to die in a glorious fireball. I would like to see DDs get more HP across the board, have better turret traverse so as to be less dependent on their torpedoes, and be less prone to taking module damage. Their detectability is a tricky one to handle, they basically have to fire their torpedoes from maximum detection range (until higher tiers and 20km range torpedoes) to guarantee a hit, making them a high risk style of ship to play with potentially high rewards. I cannot think of any other changes I would like to see made to DDs besides perhaps making them slightly less manoeuvrable, but that may be to hard a nerf.

 

CAs/CLs.- These ships are the Masters and Commanders at the moment. Staying together and focusing fire, cruisers can completely control engagements by, depending on gun calibre and target etc., either burning or wrecking their opponent with relentless fire, high dpm and so many chances at good citadel penetrations. The hard counter to DDs with their HE, they can clear flanks and pathways originally denied by those pesky DDs pretty quickly meaning that an attack proper can begin on that flank. I feel that Cruisers in general, though there will be exceptions like the St. Louis, suffer in the armour department perhaps more than they should. Whenever I see one sailing at 90° to me, I basically know that I'm going to wreck them in a few salvoes, if they don't turn. I feel that the rudder shift time on cruisers could do with coming down a bit, but if they had an armour buff, then this may not be necessary.

 

BBs.- Guns, lots of guns. That is why you play a BB, because you know your damage potential is going to be massive. A well angled BB is an absolute nightmare for certain classes to shoot at, with some ships having to rely on HE and/or torpedoes to do any significant damage to them. It has to be this way, of course, because of their high rudder shift times, turret traverse speed and dispersion. But, every now and then, a BB will take someone out in one salvo, which is the fun part of course. Changes I would like to see made to BBs are better dispersion at all ranges and better turret traverse. Being less vulnerable to fire, but still taking the same base HE damage would be a nice change too. I think the dispersion change in the upcoming patch is pretty laughable and would like to see it tied in with secondary range so it is less arbitrary. Secondary armament also needs to be at least somewhat threatening, but this applies to all classes equally as much.

 

CVs.- It is difficult for me to say much about these ships as they are the class I have played the least, due mostly to their horrible gameplay but I have had some good (and bad) games in them. Being able to completely wreck your opponent without the chance of repercussions to yourself and with your attacks being pretty much unavoidable make this class very non-compelling. In their current state, I feel they detract more from the game than they add. I realise that being able to dodge every torpedo bomber squadron they launch at you would be ridiculous, but for the reasons I just mentioned, I feel they need some changes. I am open to ideas and suggestions about how to change them for the better. Planes probably should have some sort of range limitation on them, forcing the CV itself to come closer and put itself in more danger.

 

So, this is a long post, I am sure I missed something and that I am mostly talking in massive generalisations. Disagreeing with me is perfectly fine, these are my opinions after playing almost 1000 games and you are also entitled to yours. I also realise that I am not a good player and, if you are better than me, you are bound to criticise me but that is entirely up to you.

 

How do you feel about the classes you play, which do you play the most and why? Do you agree with my opinions on things as they are now? What do you love and hate about your classes at the moment?

 

Not sure we are playing the same game looking at some of these points.

 

DD:s Are they OP? That shouldn't really be the question under discussion. With the ammount of nerfs they have had through CBT and now they can hardly be considered as a competative alternative to other classes, especially so looking at the US side. Yes, they can be effective at low tiers, killing newer players, but as the tiers rises, the capabilities of the DD's does not at the same rate as other classes, and att tier 6 and up, most people know how to deal with them, and the ammount of planes are beginning to get to the point where it's very difficult to stay concealed, and for your torpedoes not to be detected early enough that your target has to be asleep not to dodge. To add to that comes the 0.4.1 rudder shift buff, further decreasing the chance of landing a torp attack. In fact, if 0.4.1 goes live as is, I think destroyers will be completely useless more then as a gimick to play once in a while for kicks.

 

CA/CL: They are quite dominant, mostly due to the HE/fire mechanics which allows them to hose any target without actually aiming very carefully, something that should in my opinion be tweaked. As the tiers progress however, their fire rate goes down, and BB's accuracy and damage potential goes up, making the cruisers not that big an issue, and at top tiers it's debateable whether BB's aren't to powerful in comparison, especially since DD's which are supposed to keep BB's in check can do no such thing.

 

BB's: Again, they are fairly inaccurate at low tiers, but get pretty accurate at higher ones, combined with increasing damage output. I agree that at lower tiers they could be more accurate, but that would probably require a drop of damage potential, since you know exactly what happens when a BB score a perfect hit. Turret traverse is fine IMO, dealing with that is part of the challenge of playing a BB. As mentioned before, they grow increadibly powerful at high tiers and there is really nothing that counters them there.

 

CV's: Could say alot about these. First of all, I think the upcomming changes are good. But seeing from the test server, they are still increadibly powerful. There are those that argue that this is fine, and even desired as a method to make people play the game the way WG intends, as a coordinated fleet that stays together. As I see it this is a bad idea. First of all, in this game you get thrown together with 11 total strangers. Yes, you can division to have 2 non-strangers with you, but that's it. To enforce teams selected that way to execute team tactics, formations etc is a difficult and probably impossible proposition; there are communication issues, issues of deciding what to to when everyone thinks their idea is the best one, there are people who are bad at teamplay and there are those that simply don't want to play the game like that. Moreover, the experience of the carrier's power from the perspective of the non-CV player is that suddenly they are selected for elimination, and there is really very little they can do abaout it. Such a random death factor is not enjoyable for those it happens to. The fact that this factor is on top of everything controlled by another player, who are generally scoring twice the money and XP of the victims makes it even more aggrevating for people.

Moreover, the CV dominance pushes the game in the direction I described earlier, where the teams end up just beeing battleships + 2 carriers: Let me explain: Without destroyers to threaten battleships, one of the big jobs for cruisers gets taken away. Their other main role is AA. But for AA to be effective enough, most of the team needs to stay relatively close together. However, bunched up like that, BB's AA is good enough without the cruisers, heck, US BB's often have better AA then cruisers, only lacking the AA barrage skill. And without the need for crusiers to provide DD protection or AA cover there is very little need for cruisers at all. Both teams are now formed as small fleets (battlegroups might be a better word) and will go araound the map until encountering the other team, where firing will commence. In such a situation, crusiers have neither the range, the armor or the firepower to be an effective resource, and another BB will always be more useful.

 

So, long text, I know. But to sum it up I think that at low tiers there may be a couple of issues, like BB accuracy and HE/Fire-spam. After about tier 5 though, I think there are some serious balancing issues that needs to be taken care of, and they get worse as the tiers raise. And even though it may sound like I'm just grumpy my favorite class is getting wrecked I do actually think that viable destroyers at all tiers are key to achieving balance, as well as dropping the vision of enforced team-play and also balancing CV's to be compareable to every other class in performance. Continuing to balance the game the way WG currently are I am afraid will kill the game. And don't think that's impossible. World of Warplanes was a great game in beta, but was destroyed by idiotic balancing decisions, and unfortunatly, IMO this game was also better a couple of patches ago in closed beta. There are simply to many good games competing for players attention that a game can't afford to do such mistakes.

[UzukiPyon]

I feel playing DD when the enemy team got CV is really hard, they can plant a fighter squad or something over me to keep me spotted for their long range BBs or CA/CLs to wreck me in a few shots. Doesn't help that the AA on DD's is crap.

The problem could be dealt with by having a competent teammate CV send a fighter squad to deal with the planes spotting me, but good luck finding one who does that...

[Ganuti]

I feel playing DD when the enemy team got CV is really hard, they can plant a fighter squad or something over me to keep me spotted for their long range BBs or CA/CLs to wreck me in a few shots. Doesn't help that the AA on DD's is crap.

The problem could be dealt with by having a competent teammate CV send a fighter squad to deal with the planes spotting me, but good luck finding one who does that...

 

And even a CV on your side is useless cause the planes will always spott your torps dodging them is way to easy with such a spotting mechanic

[Flavio1997]

CV - so far (up to tier 5) these seem ok. They do more damage on average, but conversely they don't take an active part in capturing, so raw damage is mostly what they provide. Not too bothered when I'm against them as the planes are avoidable, or in the case of BB the damage from 1 or 2 torps is easily mitigated. However when I'm using them, they're quite easy to seal club in. Simply fly towards 3 battleships. The one that reacts to bombers at 8km away you ignore immediately since he has a brain. The one that reacts at 3km you could hit, but it won't be a full spread so you ignore him too. The one that merrily chugs along in a straight line you drop on and watch as 6 torps hit him with no reaction at all.

This leads to the problem - against competent people they're fine. But they can sink a noob fairly easily. If you balance them so the unnel visioning BB survives regardless they'll be useless against anyone remotely paying attention. If you leave them as they are then they're an easy choice for seal clubbing. Hopefully the 4.1 patch should spice up the air war and make fighters a decent choice for keeping fleets "safe".

 

IJN DD - only up to tier 4 atm (I remember from CBT that they get very crap at 6+), and having the same problem as CV. Namely, I don't have an issue facing them, but when I use them it's pretty easy. You just patiently watch a BB, and if after 30 secs he's made no course adjustment at all you unload 6 torps into him and sink him. Now I don't think they need a nerf aside from maybe a slightly longer torp reload (low tiers), but the availability of totally unaware captains makes it almost too easy. 

 

US DD - now this is a different story, these are teeth gnashingly painful to play. At low tiers they have short ranged guns, get spotted before they can torp and now can't use the smokescreen offensively. Unless you go on a suicide run, or get lucky you probably won't get much in range for torps, since you can't make the smokey playground anymore. Firing the guns doesn't do a huge amount against BB, especially when one lucky shot from him will wreck you. The guns work marginally better or cruisers, but they'll tear you a new one. Currently struggling to find a reason to use the clemson when I could use the phoenix instead. Don't know what I'd suggest but at the moment they're the class I'm struggling the most to use effectively 

Cv, thats the main problem: Cv punish too much ( for wg)  idiots player  that think thiis game is wot and don't  pay attention at their sourrinding. I will tell you a story: during the alpha ( and some old alpha tester  have still it as signature ) almost  everyone was saying 1 thing: Cv were up, and you know what? At that time, fighter  where useless, so everyone  use the strike lodout, and that lodout had from tier 4 12 tbs in the air, with even tighter  spreads than now and bbs had 30 secs of rudder shift time ( now they have 18 secs, in 4.1 they will have 15) and half the aa power that they have now ( only strong aa ship where us cruiser line ans Yamato, peraps even the amagi). You know what was happening during the alpha? Bad alpha player ( not so many, maybe 25% of playerbase, now is the opposite) where owned by cvs, and when they used them, they where useless, good player with cvs could score an average of 10 out of 12 hits ( still remember  some games when with the essex did 36 out of 36 hit and 47/48). But still, we said that tier 6+ carrier had to be loved.

Dds, in alpha they where balanced ( aprt from mutsuki and hatsuru), you saw their torps at about half of the range that you have know, have smoke that were released  for 60 secs and that last 2-3 minutes,  so that you could be in the smoke always  if you want ( i remeber one game where i did 280k of damage with the mahan: 4 full hp fusos+cleveland+dd).

Now everything is becaming a joke, they nerf cvs in the wrong way ( messing up with the lodouts ) whyle they should lower the torps damage, but give us tighter spread ( so that it would be why more skill rewarding) but as wg said in the alpha, that was discriminating for player who sucks

[TheJezna]

Id say you should L2P as they are awesome (well not Lolorado and Kawacrap) im grinding up the IJN BB line and after the horrible tier 3 BB you get the good Myogi and then the excellent Kongo.

 

 

Of course they aren't crap. Now, granted, this is with the daily 1.5X

 

 

 

[Eternus_Damnatio]

Enjoy all classes except CV which is just not my playstyle.

So far I have found pretty good balance between classes. With only some minor points that I believe need tweaking.

1. CV torp bombers manual drop is just too close and gives no chance at all for evasion.

2. HE and fire damage need tweaking for better balance.

3. 203mm guns for CA's need a buff. As currently smaller caliber guns have better damage potential. And can make use of the 20% range increase from advanced firing training.