Petition Against Advanced Firing Training Getting Removed & Rant On How Range Isn't Everything

[t3h3th32]

Okay guys and gals, I've heard quite a frighting news, so let's dive right into it.

 

It was apparently leaked by a WG staff member over at Asia forums, that they're planning to remove this captain's skill, but last minute, they decided not to include this in the 0.5.1 patch for unknown reasons.

 

I'm operating with term "removing" this skill, while in fact, it gets so huge nerf, which is practically equal to just deleting this skill for good. What they really plan is to make it only for guns up to cal. 130 mm, which is not even BBs secondaries caliber. So, basically this skill will now only be useful to DDs and then again, not really that many DD players will even use it, because they'll rather opt for the steering gear / propulsion module and then getting less detectability on level 5, that's how that is. Okay, maybe Russian DDs will go for it, as they're those gunboats.

 

But I really started this topic in order to bring some little sense, in this futile effort, hoping someone from WG would read it and be like: "hmm, maybe it's a nonsense after all".

 

I mean look, such decision is on a level of a CBT, not doing this a month into full release, when most of us consider it a vital part of the game and they suddenly take it away?

 

I'm really afraid of what this game might be heading into, if we continue this trend. Now, before we go any further, what I like about this game is the vast diversity of ships. You get 4 classes, yes, but then each ship is pretty much a different class on its own in a certain sense, well, maybe except for carriers, but you get slow and heavily armored dreadnoughts, then fast battleships, almost equal to battlecruiers, you have heavy cruisers, light cruisers, heavy DDs, gunboats, torpedo boats, etc. Really, vast variety of ships and means to play them.

 

With Germans and Russians, WG did a very huge step in the right direction, no matter what other people say, because you'll always get idiots, who don't understand the point behind introducing new nations and ships and that each nation should be played differently. So, you get these fanboys, who were hyped by the Tirpitz and thought, the new German cruisers will have excellent armor, speed and long-range guns and will own every other cruisers in the game, but the goal is, hopefully, to add more diversity to the game, not just replacing the nations, because put in 1 OP ship or a few and people will instantly hop on the new tech tree and sell their old ships, which would only cause replacing IJNs with Germans, as you'd barely see any IJN cruiers and replacing USN with Russian one and heck, I hope, it'll never come to that.

 

Back to the point, WG introduced a bunch of new and cool ships, but I fear, they're getting a bit afraid of the balancing issue and trying to jump a hype train created by the butthurt fanboys, who just can't play the game properly. I'll elaborate on this further.

 

This is all about the range and it ties well with the German cruisers, especially the by now (in)famous tier 5 and 6 and their insane range or is it? So, basically, they brought in these epic new ships and because vast majority of the (I'm sorry) noobs had no idea, how to play them or how to play against them, it created 2 major negative hype trains.

 

NUMBER 1:

 

Players, who played them and wanted to play them, but sucked at it, instantly started spamming every forum and YouTube channel with how weak they're, how weak armor they got, how they easily break and whatnot and by the way, it's all true, I mean, the fact that if you go close range with those ships, you'll get most likely torn apart. But for God's sake, this is not how you play it. It's a long range support ship meant to put pressure and heat on enemy's BBs and possibly scare approaching cruisers, because someone's shooting at you and you can't shoot back. I've seen so many people loosing 2,000 HP and instantly turning their ship, because their HP is too precious to them, they rather want to camp at full health, than pushing forward and loosing help and actually playing the game. WG's response to that massive outcry was rather among the lines: "okay, we'll buff them over time" or improve them, so they don't fall apart so easily. Yaaay! But really? In other words, you're buffing their hull and durability, evening it out with its peers, but then... NUMBER 2...

 

NUMBER 2:

 

Issue of responding to the fragile Germans had to be instantly met with another question. If we buff their armor and their durability, you'll basically get somewhat Omaha class cruiser (which can take quite a lot of beating, by the way) with a range of fire up to 18 km, which is somewhat on a level of tier 9 stock BBs or in other words, you can shoot across the whole map from your spawn, thus passive gameplay occurs, of which I'm a great hater. So, WG had to naturally respond in a way: "okay, we'll be nerfing the range". Now, when you put 1 and 2 together, then you get this... New ships are introduced. They're cool and unique. Peopel are dumb and start crying. WG buffs the armor, nerfs the range and you get, what you already had, but with a different flag on it. Amazing.

 

The whole myth of range being too OP.

 

Apologizing for the rude word, but the it [edited]isn't anywhere near OP. Any ship and any ability is only as OP as the player playing it and that should be your primary modus operandi, not the numbers, not the stats. Now, let's finally dive into the core of this issue and list a few arguments, why the super long range isn't OP at all.

 

1) Angled trajectory. The higher caliber you go, the more flat it is, the shell flies faster and is more accurate in long range, but with lower cal., like 155 mm or 150 mm, the trajectory is very much angled, it goes high up and then descends down, upon the enemy. So, in other words, bombarding a BBs with this cal. from 18 km away, that's nearly impossible.

 

2) The velocity. The angle and velocity go hand in hand. I'm not 100% sure about the numbers, but even at like 15 km, you're operating with close to 15 seconds between shots being fired and its impact on target. Even if you had the best aimbot created by WG programmers, you can't guarantee all of it being hits or even some of it being hits on target, because even the slowest moving ship in the game could simple turn or angle and during 15 seconds, it can move by a substantial amount of distance.

 

3) You can't shoot something, you don't see. Range is 1 thing, but detectability is something else entirely. This is why a good player shouldn't even care, whether the ship has 14 km or 50 km range, it bears very little impact.

 

4) The environment and maps. Yeah, people using islands to hide behind, good luck with your range there. If someone's that good to shoot blind over the tops of the islands and still deal me damage, I won't cry and complain about OP range, I'll congratulate this guy for being that good, because it takes time to master that level of aim.

 

5) Passive gameplay gets your team killed. It's rather a phenomenon of recent games, because many, many, many players, who just researched German tier 5 or 6, but especially tier 5, have no idea, how to play it properly and they just want to blatantly abuse the range, but in fact, it gets them killed and later on their whole team. What I'm talking about? Basically, they move like half or quarter speed and then they almost part somewhere in their comfy range of fire and they tunnelvision on some guy and stat spamming him from 15 km away. What happens then is that 90% of their shells miss and while they spam that guy, another enemy gets closer and disables them with a good 2 or 3 salvos.

 

6) BBs players mega cry. This's certainly a thing now, where you get all these Wyomings and New Yorks and overall all USN BBs players, who get spammed from a distance, which is usually borderline of their own range, so they get mad. But just ignore them. These players being most vocal about it are the same players, who'll complain about DDs being too OP, torps dealing too much damage to them, their AA being too weak, planes being too OP, etc. They're just slow and they get often bullied a lot, but again, this whole outcry is only caused by the lack of their understanding as to what their in-game role is. They're there to take the damage, shiled their teams and occasionally support them with a huge and heavy barrage of fire, but primarily, they're tanks meant to take the damage and if the damage is coming from a cruiser stationed out of its range, then so be it, his teammates should then intercept this cruiser and destroy it, while it focuses on the main BB.

 

7) In the match-making, you only get like 2 or tops 3 ships of this kind and holy cow, your team gets some as well! So, bottom line, what could possibly happen is that your enemy will never ever have more than 1 or 2 ships of this insane range on his team. Even if you had 2 German cruisers teaming up together and shooting 1 BB from the beginning of the match at some 15 or 16 km, they will never ever kill it, heck, they will barely take half of its health, if it's at least a similar tier, like NY or New Mexico. I experienced even fights, where you get 1 Fuso, which is spammed by 3 cruiers at some 12 km, close to 80% shells landed, it took us nearly 10 or 12 minutes, to take him down, so yeah.

 

Overall, I gotta say, long range is cool, but it's very much a double edged sword. Of course, those who master it, will be extremely dangerous, but it'll be only a handful of players, maybe like 1 player out of 50 or so? Range isn't everything and if WG continues a trend that we need to put charges on every consumable, we need to even things out, make all ships more or less similar, then the game will become extremely boring and you'll lose even more players.

 

Removing / nerfing this captain's skill will also nerf BBs and pathetically nerf all cruisers, while the Germans wouldn't really benefit from their further range upgrade, because if you have 16 km or 18 km is no difference at all, while all other cruisers would suffer heavily from this, because cruisers like Kuma or Omaha just fall too short on the range, so this captain's skill is a really good balancing option for them.

 

Cheers,

~t3h'Pâr4d0x

[C4PT41N_0BV10US]

Soooo, what's your point really. You want this skill to stay, am I right?

[t3h3th32]

Soooo, what's your point really. You want this skill to stay, am I right?

 

That's of course opened for interpretation, but overall yes. Ships that might become insanely overpowered in someone's mind (18 km range) won't in fact benefit from the skill that much, it'll rather hurt them, while the cruisers, who're actually benefiting from it, like say Omaha, will suffer greatly from removing it. That's the short point.

 

Cheers,

~t3h'Pâr4d0x

[Ascender]

TLDR didn't read.

 

First of all as you wrote nerfing it from 155mm to 139mm (I recall it being 139) is not removal, it is nerf, ergo get your damn topic title in order.

 

Secondly, the most important part of this skill is AA range and to provide additional range for Destroyers and Battleship secondaries. Only the Japanese battleships and a few select American ones have guns with a higher caliber than this, but generally speaking the guns are 100-127mm AAA guns, and destroyers also tend to have 120-130mm guns.

 

Conclusion: this is a nerf to cruisers only. Specifically I see it as a major nerf to the Yubari (which arguably sort of needed it), the Cleveland (which doesn't need it) and the Mogami (which definitly did NOT need it) and other lower tier cruisers where it is more of a sealclub tool than anything else (such as Kuma, Omaha, Königsberg and Nürnberg). The Mogami, with these, adding in the -10% reload, skills has a range of 18.1km (which is beyond the range it will be detected at when firing) and an HE DPM value IN EXCESS OF THAT OF THE DES MOINES. If you think that is balanced you are quite broken inside.

[C4PT41N_0BV10US]

Then, my good sir, you are wrong. They should remove it and they should do it as fast as possible. And by removing, I mean nerfing. Because existence of this skill blocks the real changes to the CA gameplay. First of all, this skill generates "cheese" combinations, which are working not as intended - Cleveland, Mogami, Murmańsk mostly. I don't think any good GE CA player will take this skill instead of increased fire chance - GE CA doesn't need more range, they need help fighting BB's. So, increased fire chance on HE provides that help.

Second. AFT perk blocks the real needed changes - increasing the fighting capability of CA. 

If you played World of Warcraft, there was a similar change made to one of the champs in last expansion. Death Knight lost his Necrotic Strike ability, which was one of the most important abilities for it. The rage in community was overwhelming. Necrotic Strike was an ability that couldn't be balanced, it was either overpowered and broken for some of the champs, or it was utterly useless for other comps - which made DK rather poor champ for competitive play. With removing it alltogether, DK was buffed in many many other aspects, and actually made a quite nice comeback to the scene.

Above example is for you to ilustrate how the gameplay will evolve - taking away possibilities to create cheese tactics will actually force to increase abilities of the class in other departaments - and it is badly needed. 

So, I can't agree with you, and I'm utterly dissapointed they didn't nerf that ability this patch - they should have.

[t3h3th32]

TLDR didn't read.

 

First of all as you wrote nerfing it from 155mm to 139mm (I recall it being 139) is not removal, it is nerf, ergo get your damn topic title in order.

 

Secondly, the most important part of this skill is AA range and to provide additional range for Destroyers and Battleship secondaries. Only the Japanese battleships and a few select American ones have guns with a higher caliber than this, but generally speaking the guns are 100-127mm AAA guns, and destroyers also tend to have 120-130mm guns.

 

Conclusion: this is a nerf to cruisers only. Specifically I see it as a major nerf to the Yubari (which arguably sort of needed it), the Cleveland (which doesn't need it) and the Mogami (which definitly did NOT need it) and other lower tier cruisers where it is more of a sealclub tool than anything else (such as Kuma, Omaha, Königsberg and Nürnberg). The Mogami, with these, adding in the -10% reload, skills has a range of 18.1km (which is beyond the range it will be detected at when firing) and an HE DPM value IN EXCESS OF THAT OF THE DES MOINES. If you think that is balanced you are quite broken inside.

 

From a selective standpoint, if your guns are 152 mm and it gets nerfed down to 139 mm, it's a removal of a sort, thus referred to as to removal / nerf. I also heard the stories about Mogami, while it's not my case, you certainly have a very valid point there.

 

However, why not: "nerf Mogami's HE value" for instance or mess with its traverse speed or shells spread, that might be actually a more interesting way to take.

 

Of course, you can rise arguments for both sides. I'm always strongly vouching for getting rid of the long-range fights as much as possible, because I like to brawl, played my Omaha without the cpt. skill since I started playing this game, played with the skill like, uhm, 3 days now? It's nice to have it, nothing revolutionary, but would kinda feel odd losing it now.

 

Another approach WG could take is to move it to level 5, instead of level 4 and insert another restriction, that it'll only become available for Fleet Admirals, that meaning, it's those 5 last remaining points, so you'd still have to grind through that 9,999,999 point to get to it and that might be a fair trade, giving people certain feel of an achievement?

 

I don't know, certainly more ways of solving this, yay.

 

Cheers,

~t3h'Pâr4d0x

[red_eye1980]

Let ships and skills the way they are and put the nerf gun away. I think that's what he means and I agree. It's boring having samey ships different flag. Im not doing too bad with the american dds, but can't save my life with the russians. I don't want them changed though. I will play and play until it works 

[AgarwaenME]

There's no point in a wall of text about it.

 

It's just an underhanded nerf to a select few CA/CLs, that's all there is. Can't have it require any skill to erase CAs left and right if you're in a BB, there shouldn't be a low enough skill level where a BB can't win against a CA sadly.

[C4PT41N_0BV10US]

But it wouldn't affect RU DD - perk would apply to guns >139 mm caliber. Sooo, only CA would get nerfed in terms of main artilery.

[Exocet6951]

I'll be happy is they nerf AFT on primary weapons exceeding 139mm in caliber. Not secondaries. A lot of IJN secondaries are 140mm guns.

I'll also be happy when it means they can buff the Mogami's native range, so it isn't pigeonhole'd into either using the 155s, or forced to use 15km range guns, which with the mechanics of firing means you get maybe 14.5km of range?
You can say what you want, but past tier7, having less than 15km range is a death sentence, and relegates you to AA duty, hoping the fight closes in so you can fire. If it doesn't, you're stuck either doing nothing, or getting so close that people focus you as the easy kill.

I'd love for the range of engagements to be reduced, but as long as the metagame of no one commiting to the fight remains, range will always be one of the most important features of a ship.

[t3h3th32]

Then, my good sir, you are wrong. They should remove it and they should do it as fast as possible. And by removing, I mean nerfing. Because existence of this skill blocks the real changes to the CA gameplay. First of all, this skill generates "cheese" combinations, which are working not as intended - Cleveland, Mogami, Murmańsk mostly. I don't think any good GE CA player will take this skill instead of increased fire chance - GE CA doesn't need more range, they need help fighting BB's. So, increased fire chance on HE provides that help.

Second. AFT perk blocks the real needed changes - increasing the fighting capability of CA. 

If you played World of Warcraft, there was a similar change made to one of the champs in last expansion. Death Knight lost his Necrotic Strike ability, which was one of the most important abilities for it. The rage in community was overwhelming. Necrotic Strike was an ability that couldn't be balanced, it was either overpowered and broken for some of the champs, or it was utterly useless for other comps - which made DK rather poor champ for competitive play. With removing it alltogether, DK was buffed in many many other aspects, and actually made a quite nice comeback to the scene.

Above example is for you to ilustrate how the gameplay will evolve - taking away possibilities to create cheese tactics will actually force to increase abilities of the class in other departaments - and it is badly needed. 

So, I can't agree with you, and I'm utterly dissapointed they didn't nerf that ability this patch - they should have.

 

Again, very good points. Personally, I'm much rather afraid of them doing some sort of hall-[edited]solution, which will mess up the current balance even more. But in case of range, if getting rid of this or keeping it for DDs only, they might consider going the other opposite direction and brutally butchering ranges on every single ship, which yes, wouldn't make any sense, but we might finally get some frenzy close-range brawls.

 

All in all, I still more cling to rather fighting particular problems within the game, than doing bigger changes, which will influence more people and more ships. In this particular case, if Mogami is the big bad, mess with that ship, nerf it in other ways.

 

Who knows, how this turns out, we'll see and hope, it turns out for the best.

 

Cheers,

~t3h'Pâr4d0x

[Eruantien_Aduialdraug]

The problem we may have is that several RN BBs use 152 mm guns as secondaries. But, as it is currently, it doesn't make a massive amount of sense on the Mogami, where the larger (and historically longer ranged) 8" guns have shorter range than the 6" guns.

 

 

RN classes with 152 mm secondaries:

• Iron Duke
• Queen Elizabeth
• Revenge
• Nelson
• N3 et al.
• HMS Tiger
• Renown
• G3 et al.

The only capital ships with all centerline turrets that don't use 152 mm secondaries are the two KGV classes, the Admiral class, the Lion classes, the Courageous class, HMS Queen Mary, and HMS Vanguard, representing some of the lowest tier and highest tier ships that could be in game. Pretty much the entire mid game (where most people play) RN BBs and CC would be affected by the change.

 

[WhoopieMonster]

The skill should be changed thusly.

 

20% range boost on all secondary guns.

20% range boost on all primary guns of 139mm or less caliber.

20% range boost to AA.

 

A 20% to all primary gun range for CAs of 155mm creates a group of haves and have nots. It also means that for certain ships you are better off sticking with your 155mms which now out range your 203mms, doesn't make much sense if you ask me.

[mtm78]

I just read a tittle which said range isn't everything. I was like...

 

 

Then, I looked at his profile and I was like...

 

 

edit:

 

Ow, he also uses red text in his posts... 

 

[rafparis]

the problem is fighting a BB in a CA ... if you don't have the range on your guns to fire at the BB at a range where you can avoid his shots, you expose yourself to certain dead. The closer you are of a BB, the chances of being oneshot augment considerably.

So, if they want to remove it, they better augment the ranges of all the smaller guns, it is already difficult as it is right now for cruisers... (and easy for BBs)

 

The best thing to do with this perk is to have a variable % depending on caliber (20% until 155, 10% further, and 5% for the big guns)

[WhoopieMonster]

rafparis, if what you say is true you'd pick the guns with the longest range and that will always be the 155mms. It is still pretty hard to a hit a decent CA captain at 15km. Getting shot at by a CA at 18km is idiotic. A Cleveland currently outranges a New Mexico and a Colorado with that skill....

[Korvettenkapitaen]

"Even if you had 2 German cruisers teaming up together and shooting 1 BB from the beginning of the match at some 15 or 16 km, they will never ever kill it, heck, they will barely take half of its health, if it's at least a similar tier, like NY or New Mexico. I experienced even fights, where you get 1 Fuso, which is spammed by 3 cruiers at some 12 km, close to 80% shells landed, it took us nearly 10 or 12 minutes, to take him down, so yeah."

 

 

 

 

That is something i cant confirm, because happend to me and maybe to some others. one ore more CR can easily kill a BB within a few minutes and not in a long battle over 10 or 12 minutes.

 

 

[Kurbain]

I'm fine with the nerf of the AFT captain skill for 2 reasons:

 

1.) It doesn't look like the game was designed around AFT boosting 155mm primary guns . It allows 155mm cruisers to gain more range than 203mm cruisers, which I doubt is intended.

 

2.) The cruisers that profit the most from the AFT skill (Omaha/Murmansk/Cleveland/Mogami) are all very strong for their tier and already provide excellent results even without AFT.

 

If AFT allowed some bad ships to become viable I would consider it acceptable to let it stay as it is, but currently the 4 cruisers that are already the strongest ones in the game are the only ones to gain anything from it. (Who has a T4 captain on anything lower than an Omaha?)

I got a Murmansk which I haven't unlocked AFT for yet and even without the extra range I already consider the Murmansk slightly OP.

[T_H_0_R]

I don't see it being a problem. On Cleveland for the example shell travel time is horrendous at max range with AFT - about 18 seconds.

 

IMHO AFT should stay as is or limited to secondary guns only, while making sure DD and CL balance isn't affected.

[C4PT41N_0BV10US]

the problem is fighting a BB in a CA ... if you don't have the range on your guns to fire at the BB at a range where you can avoid his shots, you expose yourself to certain dead. The closer you are of a BB, the chances of being oneshot augment considerably.

So, if they want to remove it, they better augment the ranges of all the smaller guns, it is already difficult as it is right now for cruisers... (and easy for BBs)

 

The best thing to do with this perk is to have a variable % depending on caliber (20% until 155, 10% further, and 5% for the big guns)

True. But the solution to BB dominance over CA is not buffing the guns range. Its durbaility which is the key. Currently BB's are "lulz i kill you if you are in 14 km range" from tier VII upwards against cruisers. The longer range would only promote sniping and cowardly play, which is poor for the game. What you need is the adjustments to citadels and CA dmg vs BB. Moreover, range is something that could perfectly distinguish various CA's from different nations. US CA being shorter range ones, but with very good durability and good RoF with mediocre HE and AP dmg. IJN CA being long range snipers, with great HE and good accuracy and shell travel, good durability at long range, poor at close range. GE CA being somewhere in the middle but having excellent AP ammo characeristics and dispersion. 3 nations, three different approaches. 

Will it break BB domination? No.

 

 That is something i cant confirm, because happend to me and maybe to some others. one ore more CR can easily kill a BB within a few minutes and not in a long battle over 10 or 12 minutes.

I recently played tier X ranked games. I made myself a challenge, that I will reach rank I with New Orleans (although I know it's terribad vessel). It is not possible to fight BB in a CA on those tiers. I spent 11 minutes pounding Tirpitz with HE and AP ammo (depending on angle, distance etc.) to sink it. And I'm decent CA captain, imagine now a dude that has like 50% win rate and average dmg oscillating around 30 - 35k. He would not be able to sink Tirpitz for 15 minutes - that's just ridiculous. I played around 40 battles in NO, reached rank V and was around the middle of it, but my patience was limited right there. And, then came a battle, where I caught North Carolina with 1/5 HP. I was coming behind him, and he had his guns pointed forwards (I had around 1/3 HP right there, sunk 1 CA and 1 DD). He ignored me for 8 salvoes, put down 1 fire I started, popped HP regeneration somewhere around 4th salvo. Finally, he felt I was insulting him, he pointed hes rear turret toward me, shot and citadeled me through my stern and sunk me. All this around 11 - 12 km range. At this point I selled my beloved NO to never comeback to it again. 

TLR no, CA can't sink BB within minutes unless it's below tier VI fight.

 

[olmedreca]

I don't really understand why this skill is tied to specific caliber in the first place. Just make it "buffs secondaries and AA on all ships, primaries only on DDs".

[WhoopieMonster]

It all boils down to player experiance.

 

I've been shot by cruisers for 4/5k he damage a salvo in my Tirpitz. I've been taken out by a couple of CAs because they manouver well and keep me burning in all three sections of my ship. Like wise I've taken out several CAs because their idea of maneuvering was to point their prow at me and sail in a straight line. Sure it makes you a smaller target but because you are sailing toward me if I hit the front of your ship my round will travel the length of your ship and citadel you.

 

Also it is worth mentioning as a CA it is important to spread where you HE shells land. You can only cause a fire in the section of the ship you hit and if there is already a fire there then you will not cause a new fire somewhere else.

 

olmedreca, the skill only mentions secondary weapons. I think it was unitended but it worked on primary weapons too. Now that it has been working for sometime to take it away from primary weapons would seem like a big nerf to some ships.

[aboch]

I just read a tittle which said range isn't everything. I was like...

 

 

Then, I looked at his profile and I was like...

 

 

edit:

 

Ow, he also uses red text in his posts... 

 

 

hahhhahhahahahhhahaha, that post made me smile for 3 minutes allready, +1 from me, hahahhhahahhahaa

 

[Unintentional_submarine]

Obviously the skill needs something changed. Mogami and Nürnberg are pretty silly, Cleveland and Königsberg are decidedly strange. But then we get to the ships that do need it and don't get OP by it, like Albany (seriously can anyone even contemplate playing that one without AFT?) and Yubari.

 

Now on the PT server when they tried the nerf out (which was only a nerf to main guns, secondaries were unaffected), there was no compensation, there was no changes otherwise that would make up for it. Hence people can't be faulted for being against it since the supposed 'freeing up' of things simply didn't result in anything. We could perhaps expect it, but with no communication to that end and no indications that it is indeed what is intended, there is only the actual nerf itself. And that would be disastrous to Yubari, Albany and dare I say Mogami. Mogami? Yes. Presently she has the issues with her HE not really doing much a lot more often than before, take away the range and it might actually be too much. Now she could 'just' go 203mm, but we all know that Mogami 203mm isn't really an upgrade from Myoko, nor does it differ in gameplay.

I do agree that at present Mogami 155mm is more than a bit silly. But you don't fix that by taking that away and not giving something else back. And we have seen nothing that indicates anything will be done aside from that nerf. Arguably I would say that Mogami 155mm is the very reason such a nerf is even being contemplated, but it will drag a lot of other ships down with it, and I don't find that fair. Sure Cleveland, Königsberg and Nürnberg with AFT are really long ranged, but I haven't found (using all with AFT) that the range is that much of a benefit. Usually the enemies don't even show up until well within range. Secondly, at max range the hang time is quite significant. Hits can be made but aside from an annoyance factor, super long range fire from those is not much. Though I would argue that Königsberg without it is a little too short ranged for her extreme vulnerability. And that is a bit of a problem. Too long range with, too short without.

 

Thus, while I want changes to the skill, and a removal of the absurdities it creates, I don't want it changed that drastically until/unless other changes elsewhere are also implemented to even the score a bit, if not for all, then at least a select few that really need it.

[RamirezKurita]

I'm in the camp that it should be changed to only buff secondary batteries and AA batteries, rather than affecting all guns below a certain caliber. It makes no sense that two of the skills in the "secondary weapons" commander line are actually both two of the best skills for buffing CL and DD primary weapons. All primary batteries of 155mm and below should instead receive compensation buffs and the firing training skills should no longer apply to them, possibly with an alternative version of the skills added to the primary weapons line (with lowered numbers, to keep things balanced). Having so much power in BFT and AFT also makes those skills a complete no-brainer for 2/3rds of the ships in the game.

 

The simplest solution would be to buff all main guns of 155mm and below with about +5% fire rate and +10% range, then add a pair of commander skills into the primary artillery line to add +5% increased fire rate for low caliber main batteries and +10% range for smaller caliber main batteries (possibly with smaller increases for high caliber, similar to the turret traverse skill). The separation of the values and skills would both allow captains to specialise more into their favoured fighting style (particularly as I think the captain skills really need more variety, the amount of depth in commanders is lacking compared to WoT), as well as letting the secondary buffing skills actually make a difference without accidentally overpowering other things. The separation would also be important when if/when they get around to implementing some of the proposed 203mm IJN secondaries.