Statistics Galore - State of WoWS (final episode)

[Crysantos]

 

Hey guys,

 

I haven't done one of these for a few weeks and I've promised some people to do one in January. This one is going to be my last one though, main reason for this is the introduction of the hidden stats feature - which means 3rd party tools can't get a complete list of all accounts anymore and thus I can't make representative analysis anymore. Before I start with the analysis I wanted to share my 2 cents on the current state of WoWS with you - if you're not interested in that, just skip to post #2. As usual my source is http://maplesyrup.sweet.coocan.jp/wows/ranking/index.html - with the latest available term from 2.1. - 9.1.2016.

 

So what's up with WoWS right now? I've played this game for the past 8-9 months now, pretty much since April when the CBT opened up for many players with the beta access bundles. During the past months we saw quite a few changes, some good, some bad - and there's still a sh**load to do. I love this game, I think it has a huge potential and as many gamers, I'm passionate about my favourite games and how they're developing. I started these threads because of the immense forum myth concerning ships and their balance, the usual WG policy of no transparency and the discussions revolving around CVs and their impact on the game in the early OBT phase. I always valued balance in a game as the highest good besides fun and I think many games that want to be successful on a longterm perspective need to have a decent balance to keep their playerbase happy. Despite the attempts of WG to fix the balance, we're still far off a balanced game - which is ofcourse hard to achieve with all the different classes and approaches to their gameplay - but there are some things I don't understand why they haven't been touched yet. In particular TX balance is off the charts... 71.5% of all DDs are Shimakazes (of 3 nations!!!!), 62% of all BBs are Yamatos, 46% Zaos (3 nations!) and 69% Midways!... and the usual suspects of Pensacola, Baltimore, Izumo and many others are still in dire need of rebalancing - and we're not talking about major buffs or nerfs. I've played Eve Online a lot and I think WG could learn a lot from CCP about how to deal with some of these things, especially small tweaks to ships to get them balanced. Small buffs to RoF, armor, agility would probably solve a lot of issues with these ships and could be done in small iterations over the next patches. Besides that I have a list of small things that should be so easy to fix but would have a huge positive impact on the game and its players.

 

- bans for TKing (just do temporary bans for kills, the more - the longer the ban)

- troll divisions (limit the spread of Tier to +/- 1, there is absolutely no sane reason for anything else)

- chat bug ingame, text disappears when you enter a battle

- unified accounts

- different/old skins (just sell them!)

- lags/disconnects

- mirrored MM for TX classes (we've all been in battles where the enemy had 2-3 Yamatos but your team had no TX BB at all) - in general better MM when it comes to class distribution (6 vs 1 DDs etc.)

- official support for replays + proper replay videoplayer

- MODS (just implement the popular ones like the damage counter, modified minimap, some different tracers or crosshairs)

- seal off the client to any other modifications besides the ones approved - end the discussion about aim mods

- enable the training room or at least offer them for rent, give clans a chance to actually do stuff

- get your devblogs/announcements in order

- global events, same content for all servers

- bundles (sell new premiums on bundle, but once they get online in the store for the 2nd or 3rd time, offer them unbundled)

- clanwars

 

On a personal note - detonations. Probably the most frustrating moment for most players, especially with expensive ships to just randomly explode. I'll keep my mouth shut about ranked mode, just check the current discussions and player feedback concerning this mode. In general I have to say, the less players need to rely on RNG, the better for the game.

 

Quite a few things but shouldn't be too hard to deal with. It's the small things that make players happy! Anyways, thx for taking the time to read this, I hope it helped you guys to get a better grip of the current meta and balance ingame.

 

[Crysantos]

Some general things that I've witnessed while doing these stats threads I wanted to mention in here, to help you with the interpretation of these stats. Stats always depend on the players using these ships - the bigger the playerbase, the better we can judge the ship's performance. But we also need to count in the experience of the players and the way some ships are played by the majority. Why does that matter? For several reasons - some ships are obtained by doing missions (ARP ships, Emden), others are sold on the premium shop. Ships that get unlocked by missions are played by a more experienced playerbase, usually the ones investing quite some time per week to play this game, thus they'll end up getting better results than the average Joe or new player, like on the Emden. On the other hand when you compare ships like the Omaha and the Murmansk, basically the same ship with some minor differences, you need to take into account that people who buy the Murmansk get the final version of the ship - and they bought it to play it, not to grind towards other ships. The Omaha will always be a worse ship than the Murmansk, due to the nature of upgrading hulls, retraining captains and the lack of experience on that ship while grinding for the Cleveland and so on. Thus the premium ship should usually come out a bit on top of its counterparts for the average playerbase, besides when a new premium ship gets released. On higher Tiers that factor gets a bit balanced out by new players buying high Tier ships (Atago herd back in OBT, Derpitzes...) and getting rekt by experienced players. Just keep things like that in mind when you want to call something OP or UP. Despite what many people say, damage usually translates into winrate, as you can see with most ships - there are some exceptions, usually DDs that are more gun than torp focused and thus hunt other DDs, dealing less damage but earning the same XP, being superior on caps, too.

I don't claim to be the perfect guy for this, but I hope that I can provide you with a balanced interpretation of these statistics, I played most of these ships or often encountered them in battles.

 

So here the actual analysis - let me start with the current playerbase:

 

playerbase

 

number of battles

 

 

 

As you can see, we have a very healthy mid-Tier area where most players "live" but the influx of new players is low - considering the amount of Emden players is only slightly lower than the combined numbers of the other Tier II ships, it's a bit alarming. When it comes to classes, we're able to see some shifts in the meta with Tiers - especially when it comes to cruisers. Cruisers are the most popular class and they do have 3 nation trees, same as the destroyers. Logically, the amount of players should be higher with 3 instead of 2 trees, if you compare it to BBs, but that's the reason why I also included the number of battles, in my opinion the best measurement of the popularity of a class. Battleships are a bit more popular than destroyers and CVs are not that popular, but still a part of the meta - which changes around Tier 7, where we can see a shift in population away from cruiser, to battleships and destroyers. This is also the area where CAs switch from light cruisers, using low calibre guns with high rof towards heave cruisers with 203mm guns and lower agility. This is even more obvious on Tier 8, where we see the starting dominance of BBs (certainly influenced by the number of Tirpitz owners). Tier IX and X have a very unique playerbase and due to low numbers it's hard to see on these first tables, so here a T IX / TX only image:

 

playerbase

battles:

 

As we can see, The meta shifts completely around this Tier. CVs are pretty much non-existent, BBs have the highest player numbers, but DDs have the largest amount of battles. This might be a bit surprising considering the problems we had months ago - where we had a lack of DD players. This coincides with the several nerfs to CV gameplay aaaaand, it's not as if we had an evenly distributed amount of DDs per nation. It's Shimakazes mostly - 71.5% of the DDs around, 19% Gearings and 9% Khabarovsks. This is something I predicted in earlier episodes, there's a clear trend towards Shimakazes - furthermore, we see the same pattern with BBs and CAs. Yamatos make up 62% of the TX BB population, 46% of Zaos vs. 30% Des Moines and 24% Hindenburgs. All of these IJN ships deal consistently more damage than their counterparts and something I always stated, the more damage you deal, the higher the winrate. USN CAs hurt the most, also coinciding with the lack of CVs due to their usual AA strength, while IJN CAs are usually more anti-ship focused.

 

Let's take a more detailed look on the individual classes and one thing I want to mention before that - thank you WG for finally fixing XP. Almost all ships are on a comparable level of XP gain unlike last year, well done.

 

Battleships:

(green = best ship)

 

BBs - one of the most popular classes ingame and usually one of the most consistent lines to grind up. Unfortunately no signs of any other nation's BB tree yet, so we'll only have the IJN and USN lines to compare. Tier III is pretty balanced and both nations are doing fine but we can see a certain preference for USN ships. On Tier IV the Wyoming is still outperforming its faster counterpart, but at least the XP gain got balanced thanks to the latest patches. Tier V-VIII shows a pretty consistent picture of more popular american BBs, but higher damage dealing and xp earning japanese ships. The Izumo interrupts this pattern but isn't too far off the Iowa when it comes to damage. Oh surprise, the Yamato is still absolutely dominating TX in any regard (>5% higher winrate!) and we can see how much more popular this ship is compared to the Montana, especially considering the usual USN preference of players on the preceding Tiers.

 

in general: BBs are still the most consistent class ingame - with a proper scaling of performance (main indicator is damage) with increasing Tiers. I can see no evidence of sudden BB annhilitation due to the latest patch, the biggest impact is probably the shifting MM-meta with more DDs than before, resulting in less possible damage due to less juicy HP targets. One thing that hurts is the huge overpen issue on close range with the "fixed"-AP model though.

 

Cruisers

 

Let's take a look at cruisers! Tier 1 is pretty balanced, while we can see an apparent "OP" case of the Emden - but if we take a look at the Emden and the way people aquired it, it's easy to see that it's basically a modified Dresden, the better results are due to a more experienced playerbase that unlocked that ship with missions, rather than being played mostly by new players. Tier III and IV still show us underperforming german CAs, especially the Karlsruhe is still more like a Tier III ship when it comes to dmg and xp. Tier V is still owned by the Murmansk, Omaha and Königsberg seem to be doing pretty fine and the Furutaka is the worst ship of the Tier, as usual.

Tier VI is pretty well balanced, all ships seem to be on par with each other. The Myoko kept its lead on Tier VII, the Atlanta keeps crying for a buff. But some new developments on Tier VIII - the introduction of the Mikhail Kutusov and the buffs on the Atago had some impact - the Mogami is still the best Tier VIII cruiser, but the Atago is doing pretty well now and the Mikhail is performing equally to the Hipster and Atago. Only our beloved New Orleans is still a bit underpowered, suffering dmg and xp-wise. Tier IX has a good balance between Roon and Ibuki, but the Baltimore is just not able to keep up with them - 20% less damage on that Tier means a lot of frustration. No surprises on TX, Zao is still a goddess and doing much better than her counterparts, the Hindenburg apparently lacks some XP and should be buffed a bit in that regard.

 

in general: CAs are in an odd spot, the most popular class around low-mid Tier but just can't compete with top Tier BBs or DDs. In my opinion the incredible range of the heavy guns of BBs and the pretty comfortable concealment zone of these high Tier DDs make it hard for CAs to actually shine - they can't hunt DDs that outrun them and spam torps from safety, same thing applies to the 380mm+ guns raining down citadels on mid-long range - especially these random citadels even when maneuvring a lot and keeping good angles make it so hard to play them. With the low popularity of these ships they hurt a lot when the meta is focused on BBs and DDs - CAs need a CA heavy environment on high Tiers to able to carry a game. The lack of CVs hurts USN CAs in particular.

 

Destroyers

 

Last episode we had the issue of a very small playerbase when it came to the new soviet DD line, so I'm glad to see how they're doing after some time with a bigger playerbase. Tier II-VI are dominated by the stealthy torp-focused IJN destroyers, dealing substantially more damage than their counterparts. Consequently they earn the most XP, too - but with the different focus of the other nations the xp advantage isn't as big as it used to be. Despite the recent nerfs we can still see that the Kiev is still the best DD on VII.

Tier VIII actually has a pretty balanced setup of DDs, despite their different focus. The buffed Benson is doing very well, dealing almost as much damage as the Fubuki but winning more battles, the Tashkent probably suffers from the big hull and can't quite keep up with its counterparts. We can see a similar picture on Tier IX, the Kagero is dealing most damage but the Udaloi manages to get a higher winrate. So take a guess who's dominating TX... oh, the Shimakaze! Highest damage (by far), highest winrate, by far most biased playerbase of any class with 71.5% Shimakazes of all TX DDs (and even 75.5% of all TX DD battles).

 

in general: DDs are in a good spot right now and are back on track when it comes to playernumbers. We still see a heavy focus on torpedospamming ships and the TX meta is way off balance - the lack of CVs make it a perfect environment for these ships to shine.

Carriers:

 

No real surprises here - the low Tier IJN CVs manage to deal a lot more damage due to their layouts, resulting in a higher winrate. The USN counterpart manages to get significantly more aircraft kills but that doesn't seem to outweigh the missing damage. The damage and aircraft kills gap between them is pretty big, so I still think they should be tweaked to grant more balance. We can see that the mid-Tier CVs are more balanced, there's still each nation's advantage but the gap attenuates. Tier IX is pretty balanced, we can see comparable damage, aircraft kills and winrate - probably the thing we should aim for regarding the whole class. On TX the tide is turning, the Midway is dealing quite more damage but loses its air superiority... but as usual damage translates into winrate, thus the Midway wins more battles - significantly more battles (5% higher winrate!). Oh and fun fact - 74% of all TX CV battles are conducted by Midways.

 

in general: I've been one of the guys in OBT who argued for a nerf of the CV class - but WG overdid it way too much, instead of improving the UI and gameplay and rebalancing the damage potential of these ships, they hit them with the nerfbat. This results in an incredibly low number of CV players, even on TX where CVs are still the damage dealers #1. I don't see that changing anytime soon, but I hope that WG is able to make CVs a strategic assets, rewarding them for proper teamplay like assist on kill when a target gets spotted permanently by the CV, etc.

 

Addendum - missing ships:

 

The Blyskawica is doing fine and is pretty balanced somewhere in between the Kiev and Mahan/Hatsuharu - supporting the claim that it's a decent allrounder and far from being OP. The Warspite is doing comparably well, dealing not as much damage as the Fuso (more than the NM), but winning more battles. The Imperator is doing muuuuch better than its counterparts, with an incredible winrate of 59% and dealing far more damage! This would be one ship I'd consider worth a look for rebalance.... The Orlan is dominating Tier 1, dealing quite more damage and winning more battles than the other Tier I's.

 

A final personal note:

 

I think the worst thing that happens on Tier X is that most ships get extremely long ranges - DDs spamming torps 15km away, BBs sniping on 20-30km, CAs somewhere in between - this isn't healthy. Why? It doesn't encourage action or brawling, the combination of the ability to snipe and the repair costs on this Tier make people extremely reluctant to risk their ship. So my 2 cents on this - cut off the max range, limit it to 20km on BBs and torps on 10km. People should need to get into the combat zone when they want to fight, not snipe happily at each other for 20 minutes and being absolutely bored to death. There's a reason why mid-Tier battles are so much more fun and interesting besides the lower repair bill!

[Kazomir]

Also cruisers of tier 7 and up need a survivability buff. CItadels just hurt too much. (basically a citadel equals a hit by a torpedo, but is much more harder to predict  and evade)  Just my 0.02$.

 

 

[Phlogistoned]

Wow. Very interesting. Thumbs up!

 

I find it fascinating that at some tiers the numbers are totally off center - you can't play ANY T9 Cruiser and expect to have better than 50% winrate.

 

Interestingly, it looks the same for T9 BBs...

 

Ah! The T9 DDs are the culprits. Both have >50% winrate.

 

Must be that the MM sometimes swaps a DD for another ship, and the DDs are just much more effective at that tier.

 

(Btw, I think the 'Damage dealt' for the Tier 1 Cruisers is wrong - according to the numbers, the Erie - with the green bar - has the least damage dealt)

 

 

[Picard12]

If I did not just miss them you forgot three ships: Orlan at T1 and more importantly: Imperator Nikolai I at T4 and Blyskawica at T7.

Otherwise, thanks for the stats, interesting read.

[T0rad]

I must ask, how old are these stats? i mean like, are those 5.2.X stats exclusively? or is there a residual influence of older patches? 

[Takru]

Interesting read and pretty much what you experience when you play a lot these days, especially in the T8+ area.

[Crysantos]

I must ask, how old are these stats? i mean like, are those 5.2.X stats exclusively? or is there a residual influence of older patches? 

 

Stats are from January, term should be 2. - 9. January 2016

 

If I did not just miss them you forgot three ships: Orlan at T1 and more importantly: Imperator Nikolai I at T4 and Blyskawica at T7.

Otherwise, thanks for the stats, interesting read.

 

Meh, yeah forgot to include them (they pop up on a different spot in my table) - I'll include them later today.

[_FTD_]

I highly appreciate the time and effort you've put into this, one thing id like to add to the things this game needs is a proper clan function. Clans would motivate players to get to a certain tier to compete with others and thus increase the amount of player aswell as the time they put into the game = higher activity.

 

Thanks again for this topic Crysantos, it was an interesting read.

[kfa]

Interesting read, but i hope WG wont misunderstand these kind of infos. The Shimakaze doesnt need a nerf nor the New Orleans a buff. They should fix the whole damn carrier class, which should solve many more problems.

[EsaTuunanen]

Ah! The T9 DDs are the culprits. Both have >50% winrate.

 

Must be that the MM sometimes swaps a DD for another ship, and the DDs are just much more effective at that tier.

Just watch this WG's idea of "balanced" working as intended match making:

There just wouldn't be any way for cruisers to do anything.

Even gunship DD would have lots of work in just avoiding all torps...

 

Actually there wouldn't even be that much problem in those weaker/stronger ships of lines if MM was competent instead of what it's now:

Four Karlsruins in queue? Congratulations, your team won all of them.

Four Königsbergs in queue? Enemy gets them all and you'll get two cruisers more, of course with Karlsruin, Kohlberg and Phoenix as three of them along with disadvantage in BBs.

[Et_Lanatus_baro]

Excellent post as always Crysantos mate, My 2 cents the balancing of CV's especially at higher tiers is a must games are getting very stale as the only thing thats happening now especially T9/T10 is the BB's just stopping angling and using front guns as there are no CV's to threaten them. Get the CV's sorted and gameplay will improve

[Hanszeehock]

Hi Crysantos. Thanks for your hard work. Can you also add Warspite please ? 

[von_chom]

Also cruisers of tier 7 and up need a survivability buff. CItadels just hurt too much. (basically a citadel equals a hit by a torpedo, but is much more harder to predict  and evade)  Just my 0.02$.

 

 

 

exactly, T8 CAs need repair ability for sure imo, but not T7

[Crysantos]

Hi Crysantos. Thanks for your hard work. Can you also add Warspite please ? 

 

Added it in the 2nd post, here's the part with the Warspite, Blyska, Imperator and Orlan. A bit too lazy to change all the other tables now

 

The Blyskawica is doing fine and is pretty balanced somewhere in between the Kiev and Mahan/Hatsuharu - supporting the claim that it's a decent allrounder and far from being OP. The Warspite is doing comparably well, dealing not as much damage as the Fuso (more than the NM), but winning more battles. The Imperator is doing muuuuch better than its counterparts, with an incredible winrate of 59% and dealing far more damage! This would be one ship I'd consider worth a look for rebalance.... The Orlan is dominating Tier 1, dealing quite more damage and winning more battles than the other Tier I's.

 

@kfa:

Interesting read, but i hope WG wont misunderstand these kind of infos. The Shimakaze doesnt need a nerf nor the New Orleans a buff. They should fix the whole damn carrier class, which should solve many more problems.

 

I disagree, at least to a certain degree when it comes to buffing the NO. A slight buff to rof would help that ship a lot, the Shimakaze would be okay-ish with a higher CV presence, but I'd still cut the max torp range - for the reasons I've posted before.

[EsaTuunanen]

 

Added it in the 2nd post, here's the part with the Warspite, Blyska, Imperator and Orlan. A bit too lazy to change all the other tables now

Looks like it's as external link instead of embedded image in 2nd post.

[Crysantos]

Looks like it's as external link instead of embedded image in 2nd post.

 

Yeah, the forum sometimes has problems with too many external links in one post, it's got the right format though. Just check out the link or my latest post above you.

[Takeda92]

Murmansk deals more damage than all cruisers up to tier 8 (excluding Mogami) and more than Baltimore. 

 

Not that WG is planning an AA rebalance next patch, and if it means a buff then we can pretty much say goodbye to the CV playerbase.

 

 

[EsaTuunanen]

Murmansk deals more damage than all cruisers up to tier 8 (excluding Mogami) and more than Baltimore.

Considering size of its player base more of its players are probably those who have mastered its use.

Just like Sims being not so far behind Mahan despite of its worser torps.

Or Fujin doing more damage than others near tier DDs... and more than even "omnivorous" Gremlin.

 

 

Yeah, the forum sometimes has problems with too many external links in one post, it's got the right format though. Just check out the link or my latest post above you.

Great forum software they have...

It's not the only problem.

I haven't found a way to have actual link text like in web pages instead of usually nondescript URL shown as link.

And basically the most primitive forum softwares have that abilitity with it being very easy and fast to use by writing bbcode.

[MrEasyUK]

Destroyers

 

Last episode we had the issue of a very small playerbase when it came to the new soviet DD line, so I'm glad to see how they're doing after some time with a bigger playerbase. Tier II-VI are dominated by the stealthy torp-focused IJN destroyers, dealing substantially more damage than their counterparts. Consequently they earn the most XP, too - but with the different focus of the other nations the xp advantage isn't as big as it used to be. Despite the recent nerfs we can still see that the Kiev is still the best DD on VII.

Tier VIII actually has a pretty balanced setup of DDs, despite their different focus. The buffed Benson is doing very well, dealing almost as much damage as the Fubuki but winning more battles, the Tashkent probably suffers from the big hull and can't quite keep up with its counterparts. We can see a similar picture on Tier IX, the Kagero is dealing most damage but the Udaloi manages to get a higher winrate. So take a guess who's dominating TX... oh, the Shimakaze! Highest damage (by far), highest winrate, by far most biased playerbase of any class with 71.5% Shimakazes of all TX DDs (and even 75.5% of all TX DD battles).

 

in general: DDs are in a good spot right now and are back on track when it comes to playernumbers. We still see a heavy focus on torpedospamming ships and the TX meta is way off balance - the lack of CVs make it a perfect environment for these ships to shine.

 

 

Some interesting observations but the DD's with regards CV's is not accurate from game experience, yes a DD is in a better position in a game without CV's but presently CV's can just hang planes over DDs so they remain spotted until destroyed having a serious impact on game play, they can do this due to poor AA on both standard hulls and AA hulls, in fact for the cost in  XP and credits the AA hull provides no real improvment or justifiction for the expense. So for example you have a Benson destroyer in ranked, it has the worsed AA ability of all DDs and vulnerbale to plane hangging by CV's, if the AA hull is selected it offers little to no improvement in dettering plane hanging. If i use a AA hull on the benson its like a 20% nerf instantly for something just does not work.

 

The DD set in my eyes is far from acceptable.

 

 

[Crysantos]

 

Some interesting observations but the DD's with regards CV's is not accurate from game experience, yes a DD is in a better position in a game without CV's but presently CV's can just hang planes over DDs so they remain spotted until destroyed having a serious impact on game play, they can do this due to poor AA on both standard hulls and AA hulls, in fact for the cost in  XP and credits the AA hull provides no real improvment or justifiction for the expense. So for example you have a Benson destroyer in ranked, it has the worsed AA ability of all DDs and vulnerbale to plane hangging by CV's, if the AA hull is selected it offers little to no improvement in dettering plane hanging. If i use a AA hull on the benson its like a 20% nerf instantly for something just does not work.

 

The DD set in my eyes is far from acceptable.

 

 

 

I totally understand where you're coming from and in ranked I agree - that mode has quite some issues and this is one of them. On random mode though, I think this is where teamplay comes in and why we have a mirrored MM with CVs - you need to play as a team and can't just solo-warrior stealth torp everything. I still think the "spotting" range of DDs from the air should be reduced and that the spread of torps should be linked to the enemy ship's size. But in general I think that's part of the balance, I can't do much against a decent CV torp in my BB, too - except for tagging along with others and keeping an eye on the enemy CV's movements.

[YesYesYall]

Really good info to look through - tx very much (+1)

 

Loving the Yubari stats, it s a ship i really enjoy

[Takru]

Really good info to look through - tx very much (+1)

 

Loving the Yubari stats, it s a ship i really enjoy

 

Funnily, I don't enjoy playing Yubari these days. There's literally nothing good on her left.

[WolfGewehr]

Kudos to you for this very interesting  work! Sad that this series comes to a stop.

[Pastaiolo]

Interesting analysis. I wish it was possible, like in WoT, to also see the average statistics of players using a certain class. That can easily explain why some premiums have inflated win rates, since of course it also depends on the type of player that uses them. And a player that spend money on the game is likely to be more dedicated and hopefully more experienced too.