Adapt and Evolve - 0.5.5 Shimakaze Commentary [270k damage]

[Taffus]

Sure there will be yolo shima's. But dont all label them as going to the flanks and act stupid. The prio task of a dd is scout and cap. The IJN dds excel at it. And still do compared with other dds. A fully upgraded shima with captain skills can do well under 6km detection. And it still has very good speed. So as long as you are undetected you are still very valuable. I never played the Shima hanging at the back or flanks sending out 20km torps. It was always we more fun to be in the front line (where dds should be) and attack from 6 to 12 km. 

Now the yolo you speak of absolutely also goes for US and Russian dd's. Especially Russian ones has they are perma detected anyways. These ships call for more offensive play. So also more beserkers. This will very likely compensate the Shima yolo players. Most will likely do their dailies (* 1,5), but the Shima will eventually drop in numbers. That said, it is end of the tier tree, so many IJN dd captains will still aim to get it. Its not like the Russian dd line pre 5.5 where some lower tier ships were so bad that you would end up having less higher tiers (9 and 10). Same goes for the Mogami. It causes less Ibuki's and Zao's.

 

Anyways (the word Flamu loves to say most), with radar, dd's that hunt you and the return of the cariers it is just harder to attack. Even if you are not detected, your torps will be. Dont get me wrong. I like the challenge and I think making some nerfs to the Shima is okay. But the problem with WG games is that the 'balance' is very delicate. Right now it is playable indeed. But not rewarding for end of the tier tree, and it gives you the idea of playing with a lesser ship.

Also... it is a big incentive for BB's to hang out at the back even more. Torpedos cant get to them, are very visible and the BB's are better screened by gunboats. So you will see more cowardice and apathy with those ships, and more knife fighting between dd's (which I like very mucht though). Only the weather system has a truly new impact. Which is a very interesting concept, but still not clear what to really think of it. There are still tons of dd's in every game and that is not really benefiting the Shima either. 

 

After monitoring a couple of nights I hardy see Shima's in the top 3 of teams anymore, So I dont need stats to draw the conclusion. Now either its the ship or players not being able to adapt enough. The glorious days of the Shima in general have ended (for now).

[Ictogan]

No ,statistic dont lie. Nowadays is very hard to play with the Shima mainly there are very many gunboats in every match.

Shima cant beat in 1vs1 even the tier 8 DD's except the Fubuki ,same IJN DD.

Benson,Tashkent, Lo Yang are all deadly oponents and any tier 9, 10 USA or USR DD send you back to the port in seconds.

You can see the new trend in games too, every game full with USA and USR DD's sometimes with one lone IJN DD.

After par month the IJN DD's will be obsolate becuse the gunboats will always slaugter them.

I think the IJN DD's need some buff in gun dpm and must reduce the turret traverse speed atleast with 5 sec in all tier because they cant defend themselves with cruiserlike 25- 30 sec turret traverse speed.

 

Having gotten the Shima today I have to say you are playing it quite badly if you're losing in a fight with a Benson. You have an insane advantage in terms of HP and alpha damage.

[Capra76]

I suspect it's the yolo shima drivers that pull the stats down. See quite alot of em all alone on a flank expecting to operate with impunity, till they run into afore mentioned gunboats and radar ships. I don't mind, it's lovely xp for my benson and new orleans. I suspect those players will ragequit in the next couple of weeks and the good shima captains will grasp the change in playstyle needed to be succesful.

 

Nope, if that were true the good players would still be posting averages of 90,000+ and they're just not, 70,000 seems to be the absolute maximum over any reasonable run of games.

 

Take a look at the top 10 players 3 weeks ago: http://maplesyrup.sweet.coocan.jp/wows/ranking/20160423/eu_week/ranking_ship_jp.html

 

• the highest average in there is 115,000
• 2 further scores over 90,000 and 2 over 80,000
• 4 more over 60,000
• lowest score is 43,000 (and that is over 20,000 less than next lowest)

 

now the results for last week: http://maplesyrup.sweet.coocan.jp/wows/ranking/20160507/eu_week/ranking_ship_jp.html

 

• highest score: 78,000, and that's over a very small number of matches
• one other player over 60,000
• lowest score, tied at 38,000.

 

I'm sorry, but that is far more than just bad players dragging the average down, that's the top players down 20,000+ damage.

 

 

[Taffus]

Bought the Fubuki back. Flamu can name the Shima playable, it's lost the fun factor for me (and that never was long range torp spamming by the way). Guess the 18 skill Shima capt goes back to the Fubuki.

[44smok]

Bought shima after the patch and having a blast. If this was Nerf she was clearly the best t10 before. The reason for dropping the stats can be easily blamed on the quality of shima players - what I've seen both on my and enemy team is a zoo: Shima captains unaware of their camo range or believing everything will run in terror once they see shima charging, on the other side of the spectrum shima captain staying behind BBs for safety and openly refusing to go anywhere near a cap, captains unaware they got guns onboard, captains believing those torp bombers can't hit them driving a straight line... The drop in performance of top 10 players is something I don't understand considering how good and playable the ship still is.

[Poster_2015]

To chime in on the "Shima loses to Bensons" etc etc. Yea it might lose sometimes, but Shimakaze can deal with most US gunboats just fine. RUN. You are faster then them, and you have way better shell trajectory. Keep to those strengths.

 

- The more distance you put between you and them, the harder it is to hit you for them. 

- If you RUN in a dd knife fight, no matter what ships are involved, you are putting yourself at an enormous advantage. Due to the speed of ships, his shells have often DOUBLE the flight time and dispersion compared to yours. Shima has 2 turrets conveniently located at the back. Forget you have the front one - the worst you can do in Shima (and what most people do lolz) is to get into some "turning dogfight". Run away and wiggle yourself and you can win not only vs Benson but gearing as well. 

 

Only thing a Benson can do when a Shima runs from him is to stop shooting and go back into concealment - in which case you not only had some shots before but you have 20 sec of unreturned shots at your disposal. Its exactly the same mechanics why Zao has usually not much problem winning a gunfight vs Des Moines - you just RUN and use better shell trajectory/HE alpha. If you ever actually go towards DM you will visit the botom very soon.

 

But by all means when you meet my gunboat, turn sideways to use all 3 turrets and duke it out with me, ill gladly take the xp

[MS_Surface]

Bought shima after the patch and having a blast. If this was Nerf she was clearly the best t10 before. The reason for dropping the stats can be easily blamed on the quality of shima players - what I've seen both on my and enemy team is a zoo: Shima captains unaware of their camo range or believing everything will run in terror once they see shima charging, on the other side of the spectrum shima captain staying behind BBs for safety and openly refusing to go anywhere near a cap, captains unaware they got guns onboard, captains believing those torp bombers can't hit them driving a straight line... The drop in performance of top 10 players is something I don't understand considering how good and playable the ship still is.

 

You should really play more than 4 battles with Shimakaze before starting to talk about the quality of other Shimakaze players.

[Vanhal]

 

You should really play more than 4 battles with Shimakaze before starting to talk about the quality of other Shimakaze players.

 

He could perhaps play more battles in shima before commenting on the ship itself, but it's not like we don't see tons of shima captains in 8+ battles and can observe what they are doing. Unless you think what he descripted is a good playing for that ship?

[Ictogan]

 

You should really play more than 4 battles with Shimakaze before starting to talk about the quality of other Shimakaze players.

 

Got it after the patch and 19 battles in I can say that I consider it to still be a decent ship. It doesn't have the two main weaknesses of the Kagero, which are weak guns and low speed. I haven't even played it with any other torps than the 8km ones yet, but I don't think I'll even try as it doesn't really need that long range torpedoes. Stay where you have artillery support from cruisers and knife fights will be an easy win. Even a single Shima spread with the 8km torps is often enough to get 1-2 torps into a ship, leaving you with 3 independently launchable sets of torps, each of which has a high chance of hitting the target and doing a lot of damage.

[44smok]

I'm commenting with only 4 battles cuz I know the line and can appreciate how much better Shima is comparing to her predecessors. Kagero has similar MM and is played not that much differently except for better concealment and less torps. And I can see how much more I can do with Shima using similar approach as towards my Kagero. And how much better will it get once I get used to Shima particularities and adjust my playstyle accordingly. Seriously, having only 4 battles doesn't mean I don't have enough experience to assess that. And my comments on quality of other shima captains is based on dozens of battles in which I've been observing their behavior. I could bet it's a lot easier to find Derp captain who knows what he's doing.

[MS_Surface]

 

Got it after the patch and 19 battles in I can say that I consider it to still be a decent ship. It doesn't have the two main weaknesses of the Kagero, which are weak guns and low speed. I haven't even played it with any other torps than the 8km ones yet, but I don't think I'll even try as it doesn't really need that long range torpedoes. Stay where you have artillery support from cruisers and knife fights will be an easy win. Even a single Shima spread with the 8km torps is often enough to get 1-2 torps into a ship, leaving you with 3 independently launchable sets of torps, each of which has a high chance of hitting the target and doing a lot of damage.

 

See how opinions can be different with experience? I personally think that (now) Kagero is a much better ship than Shimakaze. Not the ship itself, but comparing the tiers you play against.

I was thinking about going back to Kagero (you can see why in my previous posts in this thread) but instead i'm making a "pause" in the game, just a couple of Tier IV to VII battles here and there..

I think there's more bad players lately in Tier X than in lower tiers so instead of playing Shimakaze i'm just doing skins for it lol.

 

 

[MS_Surface]

I'm commenting with only 4 battles cuz I know the line and can appreciate how much better Shima is comparing to her predecessors. Kagero has similar MM and is played not that much differently except for better concealment and less torps. And I can see how much more I can do with Shima using similar approach as towards my Kagero. And how much better will it get once I get used to Shima particularities and adjust my playstyle accordingly. Seriously, having only 4 battles doesn't mean I don't have enough experience to assess that. And my comments on quality of other shima captains is based on dozens of battles in which I've been observing their behavior. I could bet it's a lot easier to find Derp captain who knows what he's doing.

 

I wasn't hating or anything like that because you only have 4 battles. I just wish i was so optimistc about it. There's no doubt there's a lot of bad players in Tier X but it's not always the case. When you see a Shima captain with strange behaviour, not entering a cap, the tendence is to say "noob refusing to cap" but you are not following his battle, you just look at him, from time to time. He can be trying to runaway from a cruiser that got him with radar, he can be trying to get away from the trajectory of enemy planes, he can be helping a team mate with smoke, he can actually be playing well without looking like it. Believe me you won't find many Shima captains that don't know their detection range, that hide behind BBs or refuse to cap.

Anyway most fun is between Tier IV and VII. The best battles and the most epic situations are in those tiers.

 

Cheers mate and keep sinking those fat BBs ;)