RN Cruisers...

[Gudgeon]

Here is my review of the RN line upto and including tier 4.

 

They are like IJN Yubari without HE and slightly stronger AP. That is it. Once they are slotted into a 'proper' game comprising of all ship types/Nationality of ships, not just RN, they are going to be found to be totally broken. I have a Kraken in the Caledon, but that is not going to happen in 'real' battles. I  have just seen Nikolai's prowling....mine is being fueled and armed as we speak.

 

Basically, buying the Belfast is on hold.

 

Very Disappointing.

 

I am going to go to T5/T6 ASAP and make a final judgement.

 

 

[Spithas]

 

The T10 is battleship size with DD armor, anything and I mean anything citadels it from pretty much any angle, I saw one get absolutely mauled earlier by a gearing using AP.

 

Moskva is even larger, suffers citadels just as much can't maneuver or heal up as good as the Minotaur doesn't have stealth and doesn't have torpedoes. Gearing and Khaba both wreck it from the side as well.

 

Yet it works just fine if you play it to it's strengths.

 

Until i see the Minotaur played to it's strength and by that i don't mean smoke hogging i consider any judgement on it to be flawed.

 

[VapeyVic]

I have a feeling that someone in WG based the RN line off of the RL russian line, and then based the russian line off of what the RN line SHOULD be.

 

I'm in the process of playing through the RN line, but something doesnt feel right about them...after reading this thread... yeah, I aint going to be buying the Belfast when its released.

[damo74]

 

Basically the same for me, these cruisers were what I was going to come back to the game for and sounds like they are a big dissapointment.

 

Maybe I'll just get Belfast, build up some free XP and wait for Wg to buff them in a couple of months. 

 

That's what they want you to do. Don't fall for it.

 

Spend money on gold to free XP in order to skip to the one or two ships of this line that are not completely trash, typically higher tier. Or spend a stack of cash on a premium ship, which is bound to get nerfed later on.

[Surmaaja]

 Well if the traditions of the Royal Navy are Rum, Buggery and the Lash then only one question remains...

 

 Where is my rum and how long is the lash having apparently willingly parted my bum cheeks for some reason I cannot quite fathom. Masochism I guess....

I guess I'll have to pick a bottle of my favourite rum for the weekend. Emptying the bottle may spark the alcohol induced tendency to do something stupid, like grinding RN cruisers (and probably regret it the next morning).

[Lance_Horne]

The one thing I find strange is no HE, its as if WG has deliberately hamstrung the British line? But why, it doesnt make sense, why would a company put a all the work into a product that is inferior to everything else, because no one will play them, and all that effort would become a waste of time?

[VapeyVic]

So, was in the Caledon, a Nassau managed to take me out with a single volley, and i was angled.  My own shells just kept bouncing off.

 

Yeah... not a good sign.

[Gudgeon]

I have a feeling that someone in WG based the RN line off of the RL russian line, and then based the russian line off of what the RN line SHOULD be.

 

I'm in the process of playing through the RN line, but something doesnt feel right about them...after reading this thread... yeah, I aint going to be buying the Belfast when its released.

 

could not put it better myself. At least the Russian light cruisers (inc. Buddy, Schors, Chappy and MK) get HE. Joke. So, does the incoming Russian BB line only get HE, to make it different from the 'other' battleships?

[Admiral_noodle]

WG don't want anything I be trash or to fail. The best thing you can do is:

- play the ships and see if you find it fun

- stop playing them if you don't find them fun

- don't buy Belfast if you Intended to use it as a RNCL trainer until you know if you like the RNCL

 

Then the stats will tell and WG will act accordingly. In this game so far WG have never allowed a ship to stay totally UP for long. Things get buffed. Premiums generally don't get nerfed 

[StringWitch]

 

Besides screwed up screenshot, how exactly that differs from releasing German bottlesheeps?

It differs in that RN cruisers are UP instead of OP and directly weak to German BBabies.

Battleships are too strong atm, so when they released the German line not only did the number of BBs inflate, but the number of cruisers dropped to like 3 a match even on lower tiers and DDs started to climb (in my observation). Cruisers are weak and designed to be the most popular class, so the inflation of them on the servers won't destabilise the meta anywhere near as much.

 

 

In this game so far WG have never allowed a ship to stay totally UP for long. Things get buffed. Premiums generally don't get nerfed 

 

Mikasa would like a word.

[Corvi]

The ammount of tears when you take out the Mikasa with fully skilled Yamato Captain into a game fill of AP spamming RN boats .. Hahahahahaha

[von_chom]

Then the stats will tell and WG will act accordingly. In this game so far WG have never allowed a ship to stay totally UP for long.

 

CV, US DD (before torp buff), pensa (before AP buff), trolorado, old Furu

its took them quite a lot of months .... and with CV its like never-ending story

 

but hey, depends what you consider as "long". imho you are mistaking long with Tuccysoon^TM 

[ReapingKnight]

Well the new video from Jingles playing the Minotaur...tbh it seems like a fun\challenging ship to play taking into account what most are saying the grinds going to be a pain and I can only assume Belfasts will be swamping the MM for a bit to train crews for ppl who free exp'd the line.

[Blue_Bug]

It differs in that RN cruisers are UP instead of OP and directly weak to German BBabies.

Battleships are too strong atm, so when they released the German line not only did the number of BBs inflate, but the number of cruisers dropped to like 3 a match even on lower tiers and DDs started to climb (in my observation). Cruisers are weak and designed to be the most popular class, so the inflation of them on the servers won't destabilise the meta anywhere near as much.

 

 

 

Mikasa would like a word.

 

The problem is even more severe. The DD gameplay didn't rise that much. At the moment if you play DD (or CA) you get immediately a batle. When playing BB you have to wait, sometimes more as a minute. You get this many DD's in batle because MM wants a variation of shipsclasses.

 

IMHO Ca's aren't that weak. Only the number of BB's makes them more weak as they are. With normal number of BB's (3-4) they can handle them selfs. WG should hardcap the BB's in the MM (it might be an idea to hardcap DD's too). When the number of BB's in a batle goes down, I think the CA's will be back.

[Admiral_noodle]

Really we should break the discussion up ship for ship or st least low mid high.

 

For low tiers 1-3: "meh. Not great. Does it matter?"

For mid tiers 4-6: "challenging, and for me not much fun. Seriously underpowered"

For high tiers: 7-9: "good or at least good enough. Fun"

Minotaur: "ok, situational but useful"

[creamgravy]

Regardless of tier it absolutely sucks not being able to damage players than know you can only shoot AP.

[_GrimLock__]

I will take this cruisers in the end as a personal challenge ...it was tough in the ru cruisers in the end i conquered them all...if i manage to tame this too....well im sorry bbs ).Thats how i will grind them ,as a challenge for myself

[LilJumpa]

 

Not always are torps fired at you, not always do you have to move out of smoke while dodging.

 

Ist not a perfect analogy, but whats the main difference between a rather mediocre Atlanta and a near-OP Flint? Smoke instead of radar. Sure, Minotaur is more agile and has worse smoke, but I wonder if it makes such a massive difference considering it is more prone to regular pens and is larger. I guess we will see.

 

Spithas has a point though.

That acceleration is amazing. Just tested this with the T3 Cruiser in a CoOp battle:

It takes 9 secs from 0 to 27 kn (topspeed is reached after 23secs). The Udaloi (without boosts) reaches 27 kn after 13 secs (topspeed at 30 secs)

 

Deceleration is not that significant but can be played with:

28kn to 14 kn (6secs), 28 kn to reverse 24 secs

 

If that is a theme on the higher tiers also, adjusting your WASD hacks to use more W/S , using Islands etc. could really be a thing. At least vs BB fire.

[300ConfirmedKills]

This whole debacle defies rational understanding. It looks like WG decided RN cruisers were coming out in 0.5.13, no matter what, and are blindly hoping that tacking on the repair party to the lower tiers would make them viable. This sort of approach might have been understandable if the release date was the focus of some marketing master plan which had been building hype over an extended period, but it was only announced two days in advance.

 

I guess now we know the reason why IWM insisted upon the big 'IWM does not support or endorse the aims and ambitions of Wargaming.net' disclaimer which prefaces the video on the Belfast

[Mister_Greek]

Btw, RN CL can get citadelled by HE.

 

To anyone who plays against them,don't even bother changing ammo, both ammo types can finish the job.

[ulcusrodens]

The problem I see isn't the ammunition being AP but the guns and the dichotomy of the line.

 

Consider. Fiji comes along and you get effectively two more turrets over the tier 6. 12 vs 8 guns. That's the reason Fiji onwards are so much better. More guns. More dps. More "it doesn't matter if I get bounces because I have so many guns". Then the RoF improves...

 

Edinburgh has useable torps too.

 

But the thing that depresses me is the abject weakness of tier 4-6 where I like to play quite a lot. None of the ships tier4-6 in this line approach "fun". And the problem I feel isn't the getting nuked. Isn't even the AP only but the arcs + 7s reload.

 

If the arcs were pulled down and the dispersion made good at tiers 4-6 at least you'd be able to hit more and do damage before you die. The big problem is as you get too few guns. Too hard to hit. Too little reliable damage if you do hit. It's frustrating. And4-6 isn't where I want to see bad ships. 4 maybe. But 4-6 makes the whole line feel awful because it's such a way to tier 7! 

 

I can make the tier 4-6 pull their weight. I can do decent damage and come top 3 reliably. But I don't really want to play that hard every game. My personal feeling - for the tier 4-6, or 3 out of 10 ships (perspective) - is that they were too much effort for the reward. 

 

Anyway. I still consider the 7-10 to be useful competitive and fun.

 

I'm slightly tired of repeating "the tier 4-6 are weak and no fun" so I'll stop saying it now

 

ships with high arcs are stupid, and definitely not fun to play. high arcs and slow reload are already  the worse combination imaginable. high arcs, slow reload and unreliable damage are beyond bad.

[Panocek]

I wonder how things would go if WG swapped RN and RU cruisers gameplay - RN having AP, HE and short smoke as "brawlers" while RU cruisers would be long range AP spammers with radar.

 

At least you could pin magic AP penetration on paper cannon/shell designs

[allufewig]

 

Spithas has a point though.

That acceleration is amazing....

 

 

Sure you two have a point. No doubts you can play around with that agility nicely. But in the end you give away part of your survivability to RNG and rely a bit more on the stupidity of the enemy. I find working with smoke nicely predictable and probably will prefer a smoke+hydro combo unless I find out that trolling BBs with accel/de-accel works truly incredibly well. (Still have doubts atm)

[ulcusrodens]

 

The T10 is battleship size with DD armor, anything and I mean anything citadels it from pretty much any angle, I saw one get absolutely mauled earlier by a gearing using AP.

 

tier 10... you people are insane.

[Corvi]

First verdict: They are EXTREMELY fragile. Took out the Emerald, a Budyonny came around the corner, put a salvo of HE into me and i lost 12k HP instantly. Next salvo hit me for 10k, third sank me. All while i was able to land 20 shells on him for 6k dmg .. Thankfully he sailed straigt into my torps so i got him too, but they are really not ment to encounter anything at all at sub-10km range ..