The Hipper, was it worth the grind?

[Redcap375]

 

Chaps.  First and foremost I’m a CV and Cruiser captain. DD isn’t my thing and BB I don’t mind, but I always feel more useful in a cruiser. It’s the adaptability aspect that I love the most.  AA duties, swatting DDs or ganging up on BBs (or burn them to death).  The Cleveland is my fav ship, nerfs and all and always has been. But too much of a good thing get bad so I fancied another change.  I wanted a tier 8 cruiser along with my Tier 8 CV.

 

So, something that is opposite to my Beloved Cleveland I thought?

 

I had two ships in mind really.  The German HIPPER and the IJN MOGAMI. I weighted it all up and came to the HIPPER.  Its got torps, longer range, Less guns and very good AP potential, the best of the cruisers at that tier I thought. The Mogami was more similar to the Cleveland (fire raining death, without upgrade) so just fancied a change. I know the range was nerfed on the Mogami but I’m used to that on the Cleveland.  I made a command decision, the Hipper.  Didn’t fancy the Russian cruiser line as their the size of a BB and ive sunk that many of them I thought “not for me thank you, not with that armour” The Kiov didn’t help my decision.

 

Well….Its overrated, IMO.   Like most, the thing that drew me to this ship was those beasty guns! So much is said about the German AP and I thought, one on one with other cruisers this ship would be better then the Cleveland.  I know I’m talking about a 2 tier difference here but all things being equal.

 

The first game I played in it was excellent, only because the enemy made it that way.  2 kills by cits as they were both showing there broadsides. BAD MISTAKE.  Then the pain commenced.  I cant remember how many games I lost in a row but it wasn’t a good night gaming in it.  Coming from at least 2 kills in the Cleveland per game, I would struggle to get 1.  “Im tuning into a noobie” I thought. Here is IMO why:

 

AP

Powerful, but only if you hit them in the sweet spot, or at least broadside.  Angled or coming head on, its like playing pin-pong, shots bouncing off everywhere. Tier 8 is not tier 6, players TEND to be better and know how to angel and control a ship.  The HE on this ship is pathetic and you’ve got to use your strongest weapon on your ship, those AP shells! You only have 8 guns which isn’t that much really.  The accuracy is very good tho, which I love and compared to the Yorck, its godly.  Low arch shells are such a breath of fresh air.  But I felt like one on one with another ship, both cruisers and both broadsides, I would be better off in my Cleveland that can throw 12 AP shots straight into the sides.  SO many people underestimate the Cleveland’s AP shells, its funny.  The Hippers shells either cit and blow up the enemy ship pretty quick or you can land all 8 and get very little damage, with 203mm guns?? Really. Its all or nothing.  Its not consistent. And I swear it over pens most ships I shot at.  Could that be the problem? Its TOO powerful?

 

Gotta stop writing, work break over. Was going to talk about slow turning, nothing special aa (against tier 8-10 planes now) and the armour that seems weaker then the stats suggest.

 

I want to love this ship, someone tell me its been worth it? Or I should have gone for another Cleveland, the Mogami at tier 8.

 

By-the-way, I have just obtained the range upgrade which has made things easier.  But haven’t got the hull upgrade.  Does that upgrade help it alot? Maybe im not giving it a chance as ive always got my Cleveland’s captains hat on.  I can usually adapt like the borg very well but this ship is eluding me. If you can do it for the Pensacola, you can do it with any ship 

 

The Königsberg is the one German keeper so far!! What a ship. Its sums up German ships nicely.   

 

Thoughts…This should really be in the ship forum, oh well. 

 

[IamTroublemaker]

For me, Hipper didnt feel so good and I wasnt comfortable playing it, cannot really point my finger on the reason, but Roon is one hell of a ship and imo the real gem of the line.

[Redcap375]

Another long gind to the Roon then.  But it does look like a lovely ship. I think all the German ones do.  How is the roon better, IYO? compared to other tier 9 ships.

[bug]

I cant really remember how stock hull was, so I cant tell. But, I think this ship reminds me more of Pensacola than Cleveland.

I used to love the Hipper, and had some very good games in it. But I suddenly started performing bad in it, and just dont know why. I think I stopped dealing damage with the guns. Not sure, but I think it was after patch 5.4 I lost my love for it. It has presice guns, but a tad small caliber making it difficult, also low HE damage. The AP tend to overpenetrate smaller ships, but can have problems penetrate larger ships, so pick your targets and ammo types with care.

I now have started working on Japanese and Russian cruisers, as I think they are better.  

Btw. Königsberg is a keeper

[havaduck]

The problem with Hipper is that the performance doesnt depend on you, but rather the enemy.

 

Its a cruiser ..... so it dies to EVERYTHING. Its HE is godawful .... its AP is good and packs a punch, but only if the enemy lets you score those citadels. If they are smart you wont pen (or only occasionally) and lose the HE duel to again EVERYTHING.

 

Its AA is ... well good enough if the CV is lower tier and you are AA specced, but not really stopping any CV at going at you or damaging your allies.

 

 

... still not going to sell it. Its a ship want and thus keep in harbour.

[Gojuadorai]

The problem with Hipper is that the performance doesnt depend on you, but rather the enemy.

 

Its a cruiser ..... so it dies to EVERYTHING. Its HE is godawful .... its AP is good and packs a punch, but only if the enemy lets you score those citadels. If they are smart you wont pen (or only occasionally) and lose the HE duel to again EVERYTHING.

 

Its AA is ... well good enough if the CV is lower tier and you are AA specced, but not really stopping any CV at going at you or damaging your allies.

 

 

... still not going to sell it. Its a ship want and thus keep in harbour.

 

this^

 in short i think it would be a wonderfull ship if it had acceptable HE!

[YukiEiriKun]

Well .. I have not felt as frustrated with her as I felt with Yorck.. But:

 

Then again, I'm so nUb with her (and all) that I can't really say. So far my time with here has not been that amazing..

[Et_Lanatus_baro]

The hipper is decent Roon is awesome and the Hindenburg is a joy to play HE isn't that bad on the Hindenburg either.

[Gojuadorai]

Well .. I have not felt as frustrated with her as I felt with Yorck.. But:

Then again, I'm so nUb with her (and all) that I can't really say. So far my time with here has not been that amazing..

 

pleas dont post any average stas below 100 battles that has just no meaning...

[Vogel]

Some of the German vessels will also receive correct HE ammo. KN CAs currently have a HE-AP ammunisjon (don't know how many). Can't find the source, but was from one of the Q&A floating around. The Devs have been made aware of the issue.

[Gojuadorai]

Some of the German vessels will also receive correct HE ammo. KN CAs currently have a HE-AP ammunisjon (don't know how many). Can't find the source, but was from one of the Q&A floating around. The Devs have been made aware of the issue.

 

i looked it up and i think its only the hipper (maybe the roon)

somewhre in the q&a translation thread theres  the shell named which is wrong (but keep in mind it is only the naming of the shell not the values that is wron afaik)

 

[IamTroublemaker]

Another long gind to the Roon then.  But it does look like a lovely ship. I think all the German ones do.  How is the roon better, IYO? compared to other tier 9 ships.

 

The survivability somewhat felt better in it than in Ibuki (cant talk for Balti as I just got it and I do not have Dmitri), with the Main battery modification 3 it has a reload time of 8.8 seconds which is just amazing considering it has 9 203mm guns. AP is just awesome, you can deal up to 15k per salvo (no citadels) to broadside BB, with 4k damage at least every time. HE is crap tho, and sometimes it kinda feels like AP deals more damage to DDs . Broadsiding cruisers should be dead in 2-3 salvos max, as you got 5900 citadel damage.

 

AA is quite good, you can defend yourself easily and the mobility is okay-ish, it is not a lone ship, although it can be. The best thing to do, like with all CAs is to have a BB or someone to take the damage for you

 

 

[Ictogan]

Another long gind to the Roon then.  But it does look like a lovely ship. I think all the German ones do.  How is the roon better, IYO? compared to other tier 9 ships.

Roon has a great rate of fire. With upgrade 8.8s reload time. The AP is the same as the Hipper, but it felt like a bit more consistent damage to me - might be just placebo tho. Remember to always use AP against BBs if they're not angling, it can really hurt them(10k+ salvos against BBs are pretty common).

Also, the Roon actually gets fairly decent armor. I've noticed not being citadelled while angled in it nearly as much as any other t8+ cruiser.

The Roon also has great secondaries for a cruiser - on one side it can fire 6 105mm guns combined with 6 150mm guns.

 

Only thing I didn't really like about the Roon was the turret layout.

[YukiEiriKun]

pleas dont post any average stas below 100 battles that has just no meaning...

 

Plz mr. moderator, have mercy. Oh you are not one. *phew*

 

As far as I understood, we are not talking about statistics here but opinions about Hipster.

And I tried to give my small, insignificant contribution for the discussion.

 

 

Also, which part of "Then again, I'm so nUb with her (and all) that I can't really say." you misunderstood as relaying on stats. I'll try to use even simpler language in the future.

 

 

[Gojuadorai]

well if you know  your stats dont even make a point  why bother to post em?

 

sry if im harsh here but  im so annoyed  by all those post "look here my stats they prove something"

[PuchForLife]

A yes the admiral hipper where to start.

 

First of it is a good ship. The guns work well but you have to put yourself in the situation to shoot at broadsides. Hydro is great witch makes it a excellent dd hunter as well. And do not shy away from using HE on angled targets Little damage is better than none at all.

 

No go for the hull upgrade soon it has all the usual candy, more HP, more AA and most importantly a better rudder shift.

 

Now in the hipper you should learn the sneaky german play style. Go for a stealth build and get your concealment down to round 10km. Now hold your fire until you are close to detection range and than blast of at the broadsider he should die fast.

 

The guns on the hipper did feel a bit less accurate than I was used to on the German line. I Think it has something to do with the two gun turret and the way dispersion works as those shells can both go to obesity sides of the dispersion bubble.

 

Now one last thing never forget about your torps. If you se a enemy BB going behind an island and you can ambush him do it your six torps and guns are deadly at close range.

 

I hope this held you enjoy the hipper and make Shure to push trough to the Hindenburg the top three German tiers are all amazing ships have fun.

[Ferry_25]

Oh, these posts fuel my enthousiasm again! I'm suffering through the Dorck now. I simply cannot make this ship work. Yes, sometimes I have awesome battles but that's mainly thanks to pure dumb luck.

Why does everybody say the HE is bad? In every ship I play I catch fires like they were drenched in gasoline when taking HE hits from German ships...

[Vanhal]

I think it was worth it. I have crappy stats, but the playing itself is quite fun.

 

If only game haven't treated my Hipper as tier X and i would actually get some VIII tier battles...

[Blair79]

Roons a nice ship but the tier 9/10 meta is terrible and makes Roon hardly worth grinding.

[Danielefc]

Hipper is awful in my opinion - as stated above it depends entirely on your opposition if you do well or not. Specially against Tier VIII-X opponents, as they have better armour and almost always know how to angle. So as I see it have two choice in tier VIII-X matches: 

 

1. Fire AP and bounce (or overpen DDs)

2. Fire HE and do very little dmg with very low chance of fire.

 

I even tried specking up my captain for fire in desperation... Didn't work that well.

 

Also - not exactly a nimble ship to put it mildly....

[theraven8989]

from my experience it's quite a poor dd hunter due to the low number of guns, slowish reload and terrible HE ...

 

[Myrmix]

First of all, I don't think the Hipper is the strongest cruiser on T8, but it's not a bad one.

It has awesome AP, but it only works it's magic against broadside targets. HE is more or less dissappointing, barely enough to take care of DDs and occasionally set a fire.

AA combined with the manual targeting-skill is very strong (close to kutuzov-level), but lacks range (only 4.5 or 5.4 km with 4th skill or module)

The armor is a lot better than every german ship before, you can reliably bounce enemy AP of cruisers (rarely BBs, but you don't get citadelled that often from the front)...but most cruisers use HE and you have to rely on your slim hull and wiggle.

The only thing that troubles me is the problem with the turrets (2nd and 3rd turrets are limited by some AA-models on the ship and can't shoot back angled at a certain distance)

 

The best part of the Hipper is, that it leads to two of the strongest cruisers in the game. Roon is really strong, only downside might be her turret-layout.

And Hindenburg is a Hipper on steroids with less weaknesses (and somewhat decent HE). would put it behind zao (moskva is too sluggish for me).

I just hope that's how it works atm, because I only know Roon and Hindenburg from replays.

[MatJan]

Hipper is awful in my opinion - as stated above it depends entirely on your opposition if you do well or not. Specially against Tier VIII-X opponents, as they have better armour and almost always know how to angle. So as I see it have two choice in tier VIII-X matches: 

 

1. Fire AP and bounce (or overpen DDs)

2. Fire HE and do very little dmg with very low chance of fire.

 

I even tried specking up my captain for fire in desperation... Didn't work that well.

 

Also - not exactly a nimble ship to put it mildly....

 

For some reason I overpen CAs with AP constantly(even on broadside) and do some real damage vs BBs where I can pull of citadels on some and 10k damage too if my shells decide to hit anywhere close to where I was aiming.

 

Overall Hipper right now for me feels disappointing compared to Yorck in all departments. It fires slower(210mm firing faster than 203mm logic^tm) worse turning than any tier 8 etc(had tier 9 and tier 7 CAs in beta). it's just meh.

Granted now I only have 58 battles and it's my only tier 8 CA(no prem and I don't play to much to often, so credits and exp is not going fast at all)

[ollonborre]

I enjoy the Hipper so far. I despised the Yorck with a passion (after the buff not sure, not in any rush to try it out again) so getting the Hipper and finally having those Königsberg like arcs and great penetration was a massive relief. It can do some heavy damage even at near maximum range to other cruisers and in some cases BB's with AP and it packs some close range torpedoes that while situational can still surprise people. Not to mention the fantastic Hydro.

 

If I have a gripe with the Hipper that would be the not so good AA and the weak HE. The AP pen is good, but some angled targets are just a bit to much and in this case you are fairly limited in your engagement options, since all the HE really can do is set fire to people. 

 

Still it is one of my more enjoyable tier 8 ships for some reason, so the grind to the Roon is not really a chore.

[BillydSquid]

The thing with the Hipper is that it's not a bad ship, but it suffers like all T8 CAs, it gets up tiered to T9/10 games where it will be absolutely wrecked by BBs and CAs in particular. They should really give T8 CA repair party, they're heavy CAs after all. 

 

T7/8 it's perfectly fine, vs T9/10 ships you're going to get your teeth kicked in hard. It's the reason why the Atago is the most played T8 CA, it can survive long enough in higher tier games, the other CAs, like the Mogami, Hipper, New Orleans etc. 1 mistake and you're dead. Atago has more staying power as it can heal damage done, keeping it in the fight longer and more effective as a CA. Hipper in a 1 vs 1 fight with other CAs will do perfectly well, although your gunnery has to be better than average to get the most out of it and know how to angle and move the CA to minimize flat angles to get broadsides on enemy ships, usually it'll be using your forward guns only as sticking your stern out will get you hefty damage received for little in return. 

 

Only stick use a full broadside when you've got the drop on the enemy, and learn how to lead your targets, the German CAs have some of the best shell trajectory, turret rotation and AP rounds in the game. If you learn how to get the most out of them, then you can do enormous damage, if you don't, you might as well hit them with a damp sponge.

 

The Hipper, is getting a new C Hull, so that should be good. But she doesn't really start to become good until you get the B Hull as her rudder shift and manoeuvrability aren't good in the A Hull.  

 

However, once you hit the Roon and Hindenburg the fun really begins. These ships are extremely powerful in the right hands. You want to do 10k damage with AP salvoes on a Montana or a Yamato? Go for the Hindenburg. It's AP shells do stupid levels of damage against anything giving a broadside, even vs DDs doesn't matter, aim for the midships and it'll sink a DD in 2 salvoes. I've had about 70 games in it, my damage is averaging at just over 50k. I've citadel'd Izumos, Iowas and I've managed to citadel a Montana, but only once. Vs angled bow armour however your damage potential drops sharply as the penetration angles on German AP is poor, DON'T aim at angled armour, switch to HE and hit the superstructure (getting a buff for Germans next patch!) or adjust and aim for the forward turrets with AP, the shells will penetrate and knock out the forward guns, you can also penetrate through the turret into the Barbette below to get citadels, angled armour is the biggest  problem for German AP, doesn't matter the range, you can't reliably penetrate it as the AP penetration angles for their shells are less oblique than the IJN and USN leading to shell bounces. 

 

German CAs in T9/10 have extremely high damage potential, higher than the Zao, Moskva and Des Moines IMO, but those ships will find it easier to achieve high damage, but the Hindenburg will peak higher if you get it into the right situation.