Tier 8 Cruisers...

[Kazomir]

Here I am trying to talk about something.

 

Its the tier 8 cruisers. Something bugs me about them. They seem like the biggest crapever. 

 

While other classes' tier 8s are huge improvements over their tier 7's (NCal from Colorado, Amagi from Nagato, Benson from Mahan, the carriers, etc....)

 

The tier 8 cruisers are literally no different from tier 7s (even the range is the same,), bar some non-important tweaks. And this does not cut it when you start facing tier 9s or even 10s (who can shoot you to bits even before you get in range) .

 

Keep in mind, Im not talking about the tier 8 PREMIUM cruisers. They have some tricks up their sleeve that make them be able to survive better against the tier 8-10 onslaught. Kutuzov's range and smoke, Atago's heals...that sort of stuff. But tier 8 normal cruisers just get obliterated by everything. Battleships can delete them outright, a carrier can kill them no problem, They have to watch out to not get damaged by other cruisers as well, since they have no repairs,  They even have to watch out for enemy DDs because they are too stealthy to get close to them without being killed by one of the other classes. Here I am not sure about the Chepayev, but I assume the problem with it is not so severe, since the line is newer and, well, russian.

 

The only decent cruiser at the tier, the Mogami, got nerfed, and then got wrecked with nerfs once more, without any compensation to it. (meanwhile the barely released Kutuzov got a huge compensation for that change of game mechanics)

 

So, is it only me that has this problem? How do you play your tier 8 cruisers?

[Slezman]

For me Hipper was jump from frustration to fun, being (under)average player, I still enjoyed most of the games in it.

[chaosrealm93]

Here I am trying to talk about something.

 

Its the tier 8 cruisers. Something bugs me about them. They seem like the biggest crapever. 

 

While other classes' tier 8s are huge improvements over their tier 7's (NCal from Colorado, Amagi from Nagato, Benson from Mahan, the carriers, etc....)

 

The tier 8 cruisers are literally no different from tier 7s (even the range is the same,), bar some non-important tweaks. And this does not cut it when you start facing tier 9s or even 10s (who can shoot you to bits even before you get in range) .

 

Keep in mind, Im not talking about the tier 8 PREMIUM cruisers. They have some tricks up their sleeve that make them be able to survive better against the tier 8-10 onslaught. Kutuzov's range and smoke, Atago's heals...that sort of stuff. But tier 8 normal cruisers just get obliterated by everything. Battleships can delete them outright, a carrier can kill them no problem, They have to watch out to not get damaged by other cruisers as well, since they have no repairs,  They even have to watch out for enemy DDs because they are too stealthy to get close to them without being killed by one of the other classes. Here I am not sure about the Chepayev, but I assume the problem with it is not so severe, since the line is newer and, well, russian.

 

The only decent cruiser at the tier, the Mogami, got nerfed, and then got wrecked with nerfs once more, without any compensation to it. (meanwhile the barely released Kutuzov got a huge compensation for that change of game mechanics)

 

So, is it only me that has this problem? How do you play your tier 8 cruisers?

 

even the atago's heals wont save you from the zao 

 

i found that out the hard way

when i first got enough money and XP to move up to the mogami, i thought i was on top of the world

all the youtube vids praise it to be some sort of japanese T8 cleveland

and since i enjoyed the cleve, i figured i would enjoy the mogami as well

boy was i wrong !

 

like you said, outranged and outgunned

and generally outclassed as well

 

the T7 ships are arguably stronger because of better MM

 

same is true with the US CAs

from pensacola onwards up till the baltimore, it feels like the same ship over and over again

same guns, same configuration, same citadels

only perk is you get radar now

 

maybe its history, maybe its business model that the ships are so closely resemble each other

 

oh and careful about critiquing russian cruisers, i made a thread about how weak the schors was and one of their admins got butthurt and deleted it under "causing distress" or something

[Atris2nd]

New Orleans is pretty terrible. I enjoy it anyways cause the guns are strong but it's more or less the worst ship of the bunch. Worst hp, least utility, extremely easy to citadel. Baltimore isn't looking much brighter either but I'm a dedicated cruiser player so we'll see how it goes. Admiral Hipper is fantastic though. Mogami used to be great with 203s prior to the 155 nerf, I imagine she still is.

[Shirakami_Kon]

I only know about the IJN tier 8, so I can only speak of that one. All I can say, is that back then, when I was trying to which line to pick, Mogami caught my attention, because back then she was still good, maybe not OP as clsed beta testers seem to remember her, but still something ok from what it was said back then, so I picked IJN cruisers first.

 

Today, not only it seems nerfed to death with the 155 mm guns for which I started the to research the line, but yeah, feels weak (mainly because of the high amount of BBs in those tiers that straight delete her), but yeah, it doesn't feel much of an improvement of Myoko aside from that if you upgrade the guns to the 203 mms they actually turn (I like Myoko, except for the turret traverse, Furutaka with the individual guns is worse, but Myoko can't talk much about turret traverse either).

 

The other thing that I noticed after playing the line until Mogami (I stopped there, I reached Mogami after all the nerf so she was no longer the ship for which I started the research and at that time for me the amount of XP and credits needed to play or research more the line was impossible), was that overall, the IJN cruiser line, actually is not the problem that there's almost no difference between the tier 7 and the tier 8, it happens with almost half the line.

 

My feelings while researching the line back then were something like... 

- Hashidate, "ok".

- Chikuma, "nice".

- Tenryu, "Oh, look! This thing has torps! Fun!".

- Kuma, "a bigger Tenryu, a few guns more, well, still fun".

- Furutaka (at that time she just had the one gun torrets only, but now since she has the upgrade to three dual guns is where my point starts).

- Aoba, right now Aoba, just as Kuma is a "big Tenryu", Aoba is just a "big Furutaka".

- Myoko, another Furutaka, +2 turrets added, enjoy.

- Mogami, yet another Furutaka, the 203s guns are better, the concealment improves a bit, but that's pretty much about it.

- Ibuki, I don't own it as I said earlier, but on paper, for me looks like another "I hope you liked Furutaka, 'cause there's more coming in".

 

And Zao is when FINALLY seems that some sort of fresh air and a real difference comes in.

 

And those are my long two cents. Sorry for the long post.

 

 

[chaosrealm93]

New Orleans is pretty terrible. I enjoy it anyways cause the guns are strong but it's more or less the worst ship of the bunch. Worst hp, least utility, extremely easy to citadel. Baltimore isn't looking much brighter either but I'm a dedicated cruiser player so we'll see how it goes. Admiral Hipper is fantastic though. Mogami used to be great with 203s prior to the 155 nerf, I imagine she still is.

 

i hear balti has pretty tanky bow armor

 

203 mogami is alright, but you have to give a lot of sides to shoot them and often gets you citadeled in the process

[Kenliero]

Hipper was actually little bit disappointing after good Yorck. Not bad, not not good either, and very difficult to survive against T9-10..

Mogami has been pleasant surprise in stock version, but unfortunately detection is bugged in it. You get 203mm gun detection while shooting, even when using 155m guns in top hull... It is rather disappointing to use 155mm guns and forced to use stock hull the entire grind because "detection bug".

Soon getting NO and Chapa. I am assuming that survivability is not any better with them, either. They could all use heal or extra hp if you ask me.

 

 

[Tyrendian89]

 

i hear balti has pretty tanky bow armor

 

203 mogami is alright, but you have to give a lot of sides to shoot them and often gets you citadeled in the process

 

Balti armour is good against cruisers, but actually a disadvantage against BBs because you eat more pens than overpens

on the actual topic... Chappy gets Radar and massively better concealment over Shchors, both of which is big, and Hipper is a massive upgrade in terms of AP and durability over Yorck. Mogami is kinda odd these days that the 155s aren't as good anymore - pretty much just a Myoko with more reasonable turret layout and one extra tube per launcher plus better concealment. NO is... whelp, how to be diplomatic... not the strongest ship ever, but it still gets some actual armour and Radar over Pensa. So, I feel like they are indeed worthwhile upgrades over their predecessors - being bottom tier is always problematic...

[Brett50]

The Hipper is a nice upgrade over the terrible firing arc of the Yorck but I hated the Mogami, the armour is much weaker than the Myoko, it's 155's got nerfed to the sea bed and you have to show way too much side to get your guns off, the Atago actually feels competitive, like a tier 8 cruiser should be, never tried any of the russkies and after the hell of the Pensacola I never even bought the New Orleans but I have the Indianapolis at tier 7 and that is similar and I find that to be somewhat lackluster. They just really need to do something about the survivabiltiy of cruisers, so many battles I've been killed by less than 10 shells (either from an invisible BB at 20+km's or by being citadelled even while heavily angled. I can't wait for the Scharnhorst, guns similar to a cruiser but useable armour

 

[fnord_disc]

The concealment module helps with staying alive, but in general I agree that it's hard to make T8 cruisers work inside their tier.

[ghostbuster_]

Here I am trying to talk about something.

 

Its the tier 8 cruisers. Something bugs me about them. They seem like the biggest crapever. 

 

While other classes' tier 8s are huge improvements over their tier 7's (NCal from Colorado, Amagi from Nagato, Benson from Mahan, the carriers, etc....)

 

The tier 8 cruisers are literally no different from tier 7s (even the range is the same,), bar some non-important tweaks. And this does not cut it when you start facing tier 9s or even 10s (who can shoot you to bits even before you get in range) .

 

Keep in mind, Im not talking about the tier 8 PREMIUM cruisers. They have some tricks up their sleeve that make them be able to survive better against the tier 8-10 onslaught. Kutuzov's range and smoke, Atago's heals...that sort of stuff. But tier 8 normal cruisers just get obliterated by everything. Battleships can delete them outright, a carrier can kill them no problem, They have to watch out to not get damaged by other cruisers as well, since they have no repairs,  They even have to watch out for enemy DDs because they are too stealthy to get close to them without being killed by one of the other classes. Here I am not sure about the Chepayev, but I assume the problem with it is not so severe, since the line is newer and, well, russian.

 

The only decent cruiser at the tier, the Mogami, got nerfed, and then got wrecked with nerfs once more, without any compensation to it. (meanwhile the barely released Kutuzov got a huge compensation for that change of game mechanics)

 

So, is it only me that has this problem? How do you play your tier 8 cruisers?

hipper from yorck? new orleans from pensa?

[xXx_Blogis_xXx]

For me NO was prob not that fun play , mogami was fine , Admiral was ok , chapajev mm loved that ship

 

[chaosrealm93]

The Hipper is a nice upgrade over the terrible firing arc of the Yorck but I hated the Mogami, the armour is much weaker than the Myoko, it's 155's got nerfed to the sea bed and you have to show way too much side to get your guns off, the Atago actually feels competitive, like a tier 8 cruiser should be, never tried any of the russkies and after the hell of the Pensacola I never even bought the New Orleans but I have the Indianapolis at tier 7 and that is similar and I find that to be somewhat lackluster. They just really need to do something about the survivabiltiy of cruisers, so many battles I've been killed by less than 10 shells (either from an invisible BB at 20+km's or by being citadelled even while heavily angled. I can't wait for the Scharnhorst, guns similar to a cruiser but useable armour

 

basically this

 

i might actually buy the scharnhorst

from what ive seen so far, it looks great

[Ryuuteimaru]

Chapayev is pretty good other than that the others are rubbish, Hipper was my biggest disappointment for the tier.

[ScottishSalmon]

Pre-nerf Mogami was fun, and I loved my Hipper (although that might be because of the Yorck grind before it). I agree that t8 cruisers are a bit squishy though.

 

Currently grinding the Chapayev and I honestly hate it. The only way to safely play it is to sit back and spam HE, which is...well, boring. Any other playstyle gives you a ticket to Citadel City.

 

Tier 9 is where things really start looking up for cruisers imo.

[damo74]

New Orleans is pretty terrible. I enjoy it anyways cause the guns are strong but it's more or less the worst ship of the bunch. Worst hp, least utility, extremely easy to citadel. Baltimore isn't looking much brighter either but I'm a dedicated cruiser player so we'll see how it goes. Admiral Hipper is fantastic though. Mogami used to be great with 203s prior to the 155 nerf, I imagine she still is.

 

My only T8 cruiser is the New Orleans, and I am growing to hate the thing. It blows up as soon as someone looks at it, because of this everyone shoots at it first. I was hoping for something better after the horror of the Pensacola. Apart from improved spotting range there is little improvement. I have almost ground the Hipper, and I am hoping it's better than the New Orleans.

 

I'm tempted to get myself an Atago.

 

I think the power gap between tiers 8 and 10 is a problem. It's huge. Much wider for example tier 6 and 8. Tier 10 matches in a tier 8 ship (especially a cruiser) usually don't end well.

[Ferry_25]

Hm, I beg to differ. My point is: the time a cruiser can Yolo off to 1 useless site of the map is gone or the World of Tankers: lying behind an island and making a snipe shot once in a while and covering back while in fact being completely useless to your team. Egoistic play will be punished. The side with the best teamplay will win the game. As right it should. The T8 and + cruisers hold the key to succes IMO. You just have to pick up your role as support. Cover your DD's and BB's. Even if that means sacrificing yourself. And the BB's should cover their cruisers as well for that matter. From T8 and on the teamplay is vital. Below that you might get away with it but no more. Every error will be punished severely (as right it should too).

 

So buffs are not recquiered IMO. Just take your role and take the risks involved. Or go back to tier 6 and below. And there's always Tetris is you don't like it. Or maybe Pokemon go ( I always tempt to stress the last word of that game but that's an entire different matter (-;)

[creamgravy]

I think the New Orleans is massively underrated. A ~9km surface detection with 9km radar is a very powerful combination, thank goodness you never see them around. 

 

[Kysmet]

 

My only T8 cruiser is the New Orleans, and I am growing to hate the thing. It blows up as soon as someone looks at it, because of this everyone shoots at it first. I was hoping for something better after the horror of the Pensacola. Apart from improved spotting range there is little improvement. I have almost ground the Hipper, and Om hoping it's better than the New Orleans.

 

I'm tempted to get myself an Atago.

 

I think the power gap between tiers 8 and 10 is a problem. It's huge. Much wider for example tier 6 and 8. Tier 10 matches in a tier 8 ship (especially a cruiser) usually don't end well.

 

I love my Atago, but you should know that you will end up in T8-9-10 matches. And those are a different kettle of fish altogether; the playstyle is vastly different because most of the time the players don't want to go beyond sniping -- and the Atago doesn't have the range to deal with that. I tend to play mine as an oversized DD with no stealth in those matches. Snuck up on a Yamato last night and sank her. But those situations are exceptional. Atago is most fun if you end up in non T9-10 matches.

[Mik1984]

You don't know how to hipper.

[WhoCares01]

The Chappy is a little monster in disguise - the ultimate DD hunter. Radar, and stealthy enough that a DD needs to be in radar range to spot you, and that is without "Concealment Expert" skill that many tier 8 captains may not yet have. Then you have your rapid-firing 4x3x152mm guns - often not enough to sink a DD in the 20secs on your own, but if you announce your intention and have one or two teammates around... Just yesterday I had such a moment - start of the round, I get detected and tell the team about it. Waited a few more seconds and then triggered radar - 30secs later a teammate posted in global chat that he feels sorry for that Fubuki... You have to be careful early in the round, when the DD may have full support behind, but mid to late game this may be decisive.

Against other cruisers you have a fairly even fight, battleships you harrass with HE/fires, and hope and pray when they point their guns at you - but that's the same with any cruiser...

 

As for the other cruisers, Hipper wasn't anything special for me - improvement over the (pre-buff!) Yorck, for sure, but overall an average experience.

Haven't played the New Orleans since CBT, except for some rounds on the public test server last week, so I wouldn't want to judge it - except for the fact that I didn't like the tier 8 and 9 US cruiser experience in CBT, and so didn't play them afterwards again...

As for the Mogami, not much of an improvement to my beloved Myoko, and with more challenging match-making.

[Quetak]

I have all T8 cruisers at the moment.

1. Hipper - I like him most of them. Good HP pool, good overall armor. 2x3 6km torp tubes on both sides. Fantastic AP on close range deleting boardsiding cruisers in few shots. Good range. Its brawler. I hated Yorck but Hipper was worth grind.

2. Chapayev - Very similar to previous russians. It feels more squishy than Hipper. Its burning beast. You can spam HE from long range and burn everything. Has long range radar.

3. Mogami - I have stealth build on her (10,5km spot range w/o 5th captain skill). Its good for helping DDs with caps with such spot range. When is in danger it can easily run and hide. Disadvantage is short shooting range.

4. New Orleans - It has nothing special agains others. Has everything good but not great.

 

I had same feeling as OP when I moved to T8 cruisers. But now when I found "Incoming Fire Alert" captain skill all cruisers feels much better. You can avoid lots of damage with this skill. You will be no more sniped by Yamato from 26km - just use WSAD when red text appears. I suck in cruisers most from all ship types but its getting better and better. Cruisers are okay for me, its just harder to play them since you can be easily deleted because one wrong move. Use your short spot range wisely.

 

 

[woodyudet_17]

Hopper and chap are good fun. Mogami was great pre nerf. Only New Orleans sucks. Worth playing hipper as its good and Roon is excellent once you get used to it. I've kept hipper and Roon despite having Hindenburg 

[Nephilim]

The problem with tier 8 cruisers is the MM and human nature. They are ill equipped to deal with tier 9 AP cruiser shells, cant shoot down many tier 9 planes and just do fire damage to high tier BB's. I shot a Yam 50x for 5K dmg with a chappy, pointless. The high tier BB's can wreck you with 1 salvo as they can fire across the whole map, one lucky AP pen whilst you dodging other cruisers and its all over.

 

The human nature part is "must getz killz". Many times I've had tier X BB's fire over top of far closer tier x in my own team just to gank me in a tier VIII.

[Kazomir]

Hopper and chap are good fun. Mogami was great pre nerf. Only New Orleans sucks. Worth playing hipper as its good and Roon is excellent once you get used to it. I've kept hipper and Roon despite having Hindenburg 

 

Fair enough but a cruiser really cant be a game-changer as a tier 8 CV, BB or a DD can be. Makes you feel kinda obsolete.