Baltiless - Des Moines. Your advice please

[SinkTheOthersNotMe]

Let's face it, I tried all 3 setups, AA-Reload-Range and the only reliable one is range.

- AA = Too few CV and anyway once your AA ratings reach 100 CV usually avoid you (except the tomato the other day who gave me 40+ planes kills without killing my DM)

- Reload: Since the buff and using adrenaline this is IMHO not worth it.

 

Found that IME there are only 2 efficient ways to play DM (by this I mean for stats addicts and/or players who like to win)

 

1 Follow DD (in a perfect world a gearing of your clan) and then you own the map in domination, smoke and radar + DM ROF) and try to help DD win the cap contest, issues are as usual -> need escape route and pray not all the red BB follow the red DD, best case is when an island is nearby so you can either stay behind while still maintaining a decent field of fire on the cap or you are able to go hide behind quickly if the red team is doing a lemming train.

 

2 Or play cautious, follow some of the teamates from afar and play cautiously till all red BB are spotted -> then you can play in the most efficient and risky way because no more risk of being caught broadside to a yamato.

 

Range allows you to play safely during the first 5-7min of the game and if necessary allows you to play defensively too.

 

when I got my hands on the DM I first had a not good WR and not that great DMG, since  using range and trying to (in that order)

1 catch cruisers broadside and sink them in 3-4 salvos max

2 Scare and possibly sink red DD without getting sunk in return by red BB

3 Be pain for red BB, either AP that really upset a broadside yamato -> HE rain on anything bow on

 

Oh and by the way

 

CA broadside = dead meat including at max range

CA bow on = dead because you outDPS with HE any other CA (mino is dead thx to not having HE) and if any CA, zao, hindi, mino tries to turn to torp you then bye bye citadels

 

[HagenDoz]

DM is so good,

i like the guns, it s like hammering people, you feel the weight, and when your target realize, they lost half their HP.

i put it on par with Moskva as my top Cruisers, not the same game-play, but in term of impact on the game,they are both, so powerful. 

You eat at least one destroyer per game.

I started to play it with reload module, it was to hard. Range is easier and give your more flexibility.

[loppantorkel]

Do you go all guns or focus on improving AA?

[Quallo_Musto]

Do you go all guns or focus on improving AA?

 

I run AA range module and AFT to get 7,2k protection zone, apart from that, I spend upgrades and captain perks to enhance the guns.

[mirage77]

I recently bought the Baltimore and the Ibuki at the same time. So far i can say for me the stock Ibuki is much better then a full upgrade Baltimore. Close range, long range nothing works. The only good thing is the radar and even then you must hope someone else makes the kill, because with that guns...

So to me ibuki great ship, Baltimore useless ship.

Maybe with more games i start to like it, but for now i HATE it.

[Ferry_25]

Did some more rounds with DM. I'm starting to like it. No fun though being the absolute main focus though. My guess because of radar. I need to find a MO there...

[Tomasberkut]

Hi !

Finished playing through the New Orleans, boy was this ship a joy to play. Fast, agile, stealthy, tanky, those guns. So far the US crusier line is a joy to play. The cleveland was a fun little firestarter brawler, the pensacola was a masterpiece of one salvo go to your port mr ca can I have another please while dodging shells, NO was excellent, a keeper.

The baltimore Well, in stock form and lacking a captain she's ... not as good as the pensacola or NO. I cant put my finger on it. She's more clumsy, elephant in the glass shop like next to islands, the 13.2s reload is a little too much in clutch situations. It seems to have a shoot me sign written on it. Make that a giant billboard with full ilumination, firecrackers flying everywhere and a whole air show with planes leaving smoke trails in a shooting range target style.

Unlocked the captain yesterday and feels a lot better. The situational awareness skill is a must.

The good sides. The guns. At least the stock ones hit very hard. The shell arc is meh. I wish it was more like a catapult. Very effective up to about 10km, later my shooting skils tell me to go and play tetris or do some monkey clicking CV stuff. She's tanky but I get more haha you funny citadel hits than on the NO.

 

 

[G01ngToxicCommand0]

4 hours ago, Tomasberkut said:

Hi !

Finished playing through the New Orleans, boy was this ship a joy to play. Fast, agile, stealthy, tanky, those guns. So far the US crusier line is a joy to play. The cleveland was a fun little firestarter brawler, the pensacola was a masterpiece of one salvo go to your port mr ca can I have another please while dodging shells, NO was excellent, a keeper.

The baltimore Well, in stock form and lacking a captain she's ... not as good as the pensacola or NO. I cant put my finger on it. She's more clumsy, elephant in the glass shop like next to islands, the 13.2s reload is a little too much in clutch situations. It seems to have a shoot me sign written on it. Make that a giant billboard with full ilumination, firecrackers flying everywhere and a whole air show with planes leaving smoke trails in a shooting range target style.

Unlocked the captain yesterday and feels a lot better. The situational awareness skill is a must.

The good sides. The guns. At least the stock ones hit very hard. The shell arc is meh. I wish it was more like a catapult. Very effective up to about 10km, later my shooting skils tell me to go and play tetris or do some monkey clicking CV stuff. She's tanky but I get more haha you funny citadel hits than on the NO.

 

 

The Baltmore has 10.0s reload time for the upgraded guns so where do you get the 13.2s from?

 

[El2aZeR]

35 minutes ago, atomskytten said:

where do you get the 13.2s from?

 

Stock guns + reload upgrade

[Tomasberkut]

The grind finaly starts to turn in to fun games. Got the hang of playing her in a way thats more beneficial to the team, its very hard to perform well in this ship.

 

I have found her to have a large impact on the outcome of cap skirmishes, she's also very nice at making RN crusiers a living hell. Its very effective against the smoke meta, while performing very well within the smoke (if ally DD play with you) thanks to that wonderfull hydro + radar combination.

 

Finally unlocked the catapults! Love them, they hit hard and fly high So much more islands are available, I have to learn all the juicy spots again.

 

I dont know why do people complain about the Baltimore so much, is a nice ship to play. Maybe its the fact that Im the type of guy to dislike the Myoko, Ive found it to be medicore at best. Not my bag of cookies.

[Exocet6951]

3 hours ago, Tomasberkut said:

 

I dont know why do people complain about the Baltimore so much, is a nice ship to play. Maybe its the fact that Im the type of guy to dislike the Myoko, Ive found it to be medicore at best. Not my bag of cookies.

 

It's an old perception of the ship that sticked even despite buffs.
Like the Izumo, once regarded as the worst ship of the game because of a harrowing stock grind and massive issues regarding turret lose. Nowadays, it's enjoyable.

Much like the Baltimore, which had to deal with having slow range, no torpedoes, and because of the 15 seconds of reload, poor firepower, and no radar to fall back on for way too long.

[mirage77]

The problem with Baltimore is the shell velocity. The AP is even slower then the shell from Atlanta. And while the HE is faster, its still nothing special.

At least for me thats the problem.

[Tomasberkut]

Well, she's a wonderfull ship to play now. Im having as much fun as playing CV.

 

She's a painfull, grief inducing thorn for the enemies. I know how ill set up the DM, she needs 7.2km AA. I dont feel tears raining from the sky. CV's seem to be the most annoying pests when they notice im running hydro. Come to thing of it I always liked to attack CA's if they had no AA, high value target that are squishy. Karma.

[SinkTheOthersNotMe]

Don't run an AA build on DM -> simply because your dmg come from your main guns + CV will do all they can to avoid you.

By taking an AA build:

1 You miss on the accuracy module

2 Captain skills:

You need CE + DE + superintendant so of course you can't take AFT+BFT together.

 

Why?

- CV will ignore you till you are the last one left

- When slinging HE you want the maximum ROI -> DE

- When being 1v1 against another T10 cruiser (zao-hindy-moskva-Henri-Mino) you want your HE+fire to kill them if they remain bow on and your most accurate AP if they dare try to turn to torp you.

- CE: To be able to follow your DD and surprise + sink those bad red DD and still escape with HP left.

- superintendant: Simply because 1 more radar-heal charge is priceless.

 

Hence the reason why an AA focused build is useless (this said you will still end up with AFT or BFT), now the discussion about using either the range module or the ROF module is still up.

 

Now, if you want to run an AA setup on DM you are of course free to do so just don't be surprised if you lose meeting a decent DM player who didn't take the AA setup.

[El2aZeR]

While I would also not recommend going full AA, having AA range + AFT is a bit of a necessity since your AA range then almost equals your air detectability. This makes it extremely hard for CVs to keep you spotted and, as we all know, concealment equals more survivability. The accuracy module isn't really needed, all cruisers are fairly accurate regardless of range.

Taking CE, DE and SI will still allow you to take AFT with a few points left to spare.

[Tomasberkut]

Hello.

 

Regarding the DM AA build. I know from my CV experience how much of a pain that sphere of death a properly placed DM can be. Sitting behind an island, radaring at green DD's, shelling friendlys with those wonderfull catapults. Ive had many matches where I just HAD TO get that guy from behind a rock, at any cost, no matter the losses to my planes.

 

From a CV's point of view its like cutting off your hand with a tea spoon. If he has platoon mates in a Minotaur and lets say a Gearing, and those guys have decent AA. Well, have fun with both of your legs.

 

The accuracy module vs AA range. I have wooden stumps in place of hands, my aiming is as bad as it gets. Theyre good at CV clicking, building race engines, pleasing my lady, not something as complicated as actually aiming at your opponent. Most of my fights in the Pensacola, New Orleans and Baltimore are at less than 10km and from an ambush. I dont even bother to install the range module on the Balti. Playing against CV is all about clicking those pesky airplanes away.

 

DE vs SI. Ill deff change that to SI. I dont shoot that much HE anyway, theyre maybe 10% of my volume of fire. Exacly like you say, radar and extra heal is a lot more beneficial. I never even considered BFT. 

 

ROF for me. For my playstyle DPM is very important.

[almitov]

I just got my DM after a very long grind. I didn't like playing NO and Balti that much (they're not bad, but just don't fit my playstyle). I didn't play the Balti that often as I expected the DM to be the same with better reload and more HP. In fact the DM is exactly that but the reload is what makes it completely different. It is something that I just can't describe...

If you keep at range, the Balti just does not have the DPM to make a real difference. At close range it is very dangerous, but dies pretty easy as well. The DM however out-DPMs everything up close and at range tends to land shots a lot more consistently (as Jingles likes to say: "Throw enough sh!t at the wall and some of it's gonna stick"). Even for starting fires it is a beast - 5.5s reload (4.8 with reload upgrade) and with 18% fire chance (with demo expert) it quickly lands you straight in hell.

 

I am a bit divided between the reload and range upgrades. The range offers more consistent functionality, but the reload makes a huge difference in some situations. Yesterday I made over 200K in a game where two DDs, another DM and Edinburgh, an Iowa and GK were pushing me and I managed to kill the DDs, citadel the Edinburgh to death, out-DPM and kill the DM (he didn't have reload upgrade) and set the GK and Iowa on fire just before I died from the 2 fires the DM set on me with his last salvo. If I did not have the reload module, I would have not been able to kill one of the DDs and most likely would have died fighting the enemy team's DM.

On the other hand the range allows you to burn BBs with ease even when you are in the open without fear from being citadelled. Also it rises the shell arcs even higher due to the range and allows you to hide behind higher islands.

 

Oh and there's one more thing - the AA is beastly on the DM, but then so it is on most other CAs at T10.

 

 

Overall the grind was worth it and I really enjoy it, even though I am mostly a BB player.

[JapLance]

I'm reaching the latest stages of the Baltimore, and in my opinion this ship is not a worthy tier9.

 

I enjoyed Ibuki, and also loved Roon. Definitely I am not having fun with Baltimore. At all. I've hardly had games over 100k damage. My average damage is lower than New Orleans, and I'm destroyed in 2 salvoes so often... 25k damage by enemy battleships are very common, no matter how you angle (because it's so cumbersome you can't dodge). Often my only contribution to a game is spotting enemy destroyers through radar. Every now and then you can have a 1vs1 with another cruiser, and then you can see a ray of hope, but next game brings you back to Earth. HE is weak, AP is great at broadsided targets, but these are not abundant at tier 10 (because 90% of the games are in tier 10).

 

Spoiler

 

Everybody complains about New Orleans in this line. New Orleans at its tier is excellent compared to Baltimore.

 

 

[WingedHussar_Adler]

If you don't like Balty you will not like DM too. They can not tank. Long time ago DM was strong bow on. Now you get citadel without problem. 

 

NO can take a punch. Balty and DM can not. But they have ROF on their side. 

[Ferry_25]

My exposure therapy to DM is going well. I start to like playing that ship more and more. In my case I found out it shines the best in mid battle. Don't go rush in because you'll be focussed out right away and too late in the match you'll find yourself not being able to do much. DM can finally fire more rounds than once per century: just waiting until the enemy rusts away is a far more time efficient way of combat in Lepramore when I suffered through it.

[Tomasberkut]

Hi !
Finished the Balti, DM in port.

 

Baltimore was a pleasure to play. The catapult launcher + decent stealth + radar + hydro + ap combination is so much win. Excellent against crusiers and DD, works against BB only when shooting from behind an island. I never found the need to install the range update, the whole grind was with 14.4km range.

Love the BB hate when they call me an island hugging monkey rat.

 

The DM feels more clumsy, she obviously had too many donuts and doritos. Harder to park behind islands. AA feels stronk but needs 7.2km range. Very nice gun angle.

 

4.8 sec reload. DAT RELOAD. She has so much dpm I dont know how to play her.

 

56s radar. The area denial. Ultimate counter against smokers.

[GSPDibbler]

I've been grinding US CA line since i start playing the game (like 18 months ago). Liked the progression, been learning the unforgivable cruiser way. Almost drop it when grinded to Pensacola (pre-buff), now i dont regret stomaching this tin can visible from international space station with no lens (heard its better know with concealment more suitable to CAs, but hell, i will not give it another try)

Pensa is like a harsh, unforgiving teacher that shows you why you need to angle (didnt protect against stray lolcits, but still) and position between islands to utilize high arcs. Switching to NO is then a relief since it improves on the armor

Baltimore I played postbuff and i loved it. With reload mod it has 8.8 sec reload on the main guns and superheavy shells are hitting hard. Yes, arcs are painfull, but with combination of good manouvrability, armor and concealment - you can get close. Shell normalization is kinda of a gimmick in this line - 30% better, meaning even if other cruisers angle enough to bring all their guns - they suffer. If they angle totally they can only use part of the firepower - win-win. Had a great time picking duelles with other cruisers (and potatoed few  since i felt so strong i surely can take out this hinden... well, not really). Great ship for camping islands, controling caps, hunting DDs, reliable duelist.

DM - i did grind thru Baltimore like 2 days ago and about 95% of the games since - I played DM. She is a beast. Captain with 17 points: awareness, AR, SI, CE, AFT, DE. Range mod to give her more utility at camping islands (neccesity since DM is a priority target as soon as spotted and have weak armor - lolcits will happen). I'd gave her this Defensive Fire mod just for the lols since i still didnt catch radar mod yet (DF lasts 50+ seconds now). It is so, so satisfying to take revenge on this T10 planes after this gearing or khaba battles when midways or hakuryus took interest in me. AA range mod - also, to pay respects to sky cancers (7,8 air detection and 7,2km aa range with about 400 avarage dps makes it easy to defend friends). Seriously, eating planes and blaping DDs is my new favourite thing in this game. Only after a while i noticed that DMs secondarys are also 7,2 km with range mod and AFT. Not that it matters (DDs run or are consumed too, you dont come near BBs, and in cruiser fights either one ship will sink to fast for secondaries to rank up decent damage), obviously, but it came as a surprise. Still waiting for some tanky cruiser with good secondary spec, even just for the lols of it.

Perfect position for DM is to find good island shelter near a cap or between caps and close to green ships - more central, the better. Can radar, can protect from flying cancers, can lob shells above mountains and mostly stay safe from the enemy. And that for about half of the match. Later - depends on how the rest of the team is doing. DPM is second to none, AP performance is still amazing like on Baltimore except you pump out more. Worse concealment and manouvrability, but i dont care. Had few duels so far with hindens, one zao, roon and baltimore - didnt even brake a sweat. They angle? No problem - i out-DPM them to oblivion with HE. They dont angle? Well, thats a paddlin. Lately i citadelled slightly angled Iowa from 8 km (first time for me actually, that was quite fun). My first T10 cruiser. Still in love.