Rest in peace Cruisers, may you be remembered.

[ThinderChief]

You know what ?  After countless battles in cruisers I no longer afraid even be alone cruiser in game. Proper play style, heavy using of WSAD, constant map awareness and good positioning makes me survive most of the games with good results. Yea - cruiser play is hard but can be mastered eventually. Only in a very small percent of games I am one shotted.

Easy mod of cruiser play style ? Atago, MK and Sharnhorst - the uber cruiser ;-)

 

Now I see things like that: more BB - more DMG to farm ;-) Sure - games are more interesting when facing a lot more other cruisers.

 

You should give a go to the Des Moines then...

[ThinderChief]

You're the force multiplier, the cavalry just in time, the ace up your team's sleeve...

 

You're... The pain in the butt invisicamping spamming HE?

 

I play Cruisers and i kind of like them, the USN branch suits me well and i am aiming for Des Moines, originally i didn't want to touch a BB because of a natural dislike of anything heavy i got from WoT, but ships are different and BB quiet enjoyable to play.

 

I grinded the USN line up to Baltimore before this damned update made my system obsolescent (lack of memory so i'm stocked in Co-Op with average-to low fps and high ping), but i'm sure i'll love the Des Moines...

 

But i HATE positively those HE spammers, playing like they are totally incapable of scoring a pen and who spend most of their time carpet bombing the area in your general direction hoping to torch you.

 

My answer to that have been to buy the Dunkerque with her 2 X 4 330 mm and if you dare spam me with this hot cr@p, i promise you i'll stuff your citadelle no matter what, and i do time and time again, it's a Battle Cruiser classified as BB for the game but the perfect Cruiser hunter-killer, good vs BBs as well, the kind that scores citadels on a North Carolina at 18km.

 

Now, after my PC upgrade i'll be back in random with it and look forward to teach some of those guys a lesson in courtesy, LEARN TO SHOOT and pen, i can do H.E as well and will WIN this one too.

[VC381]

That isn't really what I meant. I meant a combination of turning up where you need to be unexpected and flanking to give the enemy a hard choice. Yes DDs are stealthier but also more predictable due to caps etc., if you can't see a DD you still kind of know where he is likely to be but a cruiser can really be anywhere. Stuff like baiting enemy BBs to go tunnel vision on you and have to give broadside to your team or ignore you and take free damage. I didn't mean HE spam at all, in fact flanking BBs with AP is probably better, especially with US cruisers.

[ThinderChief]

That isn't really what I meant. I meant a combination of turning up where you need to be unexpected and flanking to give the enemy a hard choice. Yes DDs are stealthier but also more predictable due to caps etc., if you can't see a DD you still kind of know where he is likely to be but a cruiser can really be anywhere. Stuff like baiting enemy BBs to go tunnel vision on you and have to give broadside to your team or ignore you and take free damage. I didn't mean HE spam at all, in fact flanking BBs with AP is probably better, especially with US cruisers.

 

​Arffff.

I was joking! Not implying you do HE spamming etheir, but i still dont like the H.E spamming thing, it's not a tactical move it more often a case of lack of gunnery skills for some players...

[Diminios]

 

​Arffff.

I was joking! Not implying you do HE spamming etheir, but i still dont like the H.E spamming thing, it's not a tactical move it more often a case of lack of gunnery skills for some players...

 

Lack of gunnery skills? Hitting the target at extreme ranges seems to me like an example of gunnery skills, not a lack thereof.

[creamgravy]

 

Lack of gunnery skills? Hitting the target at extreme ranges seems to me like an example of gunnery skills, not a lack thereof.

 

The whole 'HE spam is stupid' comes from the RNG nature of fires, not the skill of landing long range salvos. One random HE shell can take off 10-20% from your HP, very painful for ships with no heal.

[ThinderChief]

 

The whole 'HE spam is stupid' comes from the RNG nature of fires, not the skill of landing long range salvos. One random HE shell can take off 10-20% from your HP, very painful for ships with no heal.

 

Originally, if i understood well what was explained to me, this "RNG nature of fire" thing was changed to favour of H.E in the hope that players not to camp,​ but it had the opposite effect, people still camp but on top of that they dont even try to pen anything, i figured this after i procured the premium Atlanta, which i hated and sold rapidely...

When i took my decision to splash some dosh in it, it was the result of a video showing just that, camping and spamming HE but then i didn't know the game and havent experienced this unpleasant play style myself.

So much for a skill considering the results, to give you an example, i have the same 35% hit ratio with a Dunkerque than many guys on more accurate Japanese Cruisers and i always start engaging at long range, whatever the type, from agile DD to BBs, with ONE or two HE salvo, passed that i pen them if they are not DDs for cause of over-pen, and i collection the citadelles with it.

Now, to counter this HE B-S, from Cruisers and DDs alike (I can understand DDs firing HE since they cant pen anything), i did find very useful to max-out my secondaries, show them my back and let those 130mm chew them up clocking 29.5 kt out of range of their torps, then finish them with an over-the-shoulder 330mm salvo, since i adopted this tactic, i'm laughing at them.

Fire can be repaired to an extend citadelles cannot and scoring pen requiers a lot more skills than setting a ship on fire, i can do that too (the 330 HE pens Cruisers very well)...

[cro_pwr]

Tinder you have pretty wrong perception of few things. First things first, you fight BBs that camp bow on by spamming HE and killing them since you wont pen them. Or you use it when engaging long distance targets and you don't want to hope for plunging fire penetration that can be random or impossible for some ships. On top of that, DDs don't have to use HE only, they can VERY MUCH pen BBs that show them broadside, and can even citadel cruisers at short ranges / regulary pen them at mid ranges.

Now, if anyone chooses to shoot HE while driving a BB and shooting a cruiser... Thats completely different story.

[ThinderChief]

First things first, you fight BBs that camp bow on by spamming HE and killing them since you wont pen them.

 

If you know how to shoot at long and medium range YES you pen them, you wont do that by aiming at the water line though, but as i said, i use HE for the first 1/2 salvo or vs DDs and i got pen from the bow as well, i managed to get a citadelle on a North Carolina at 18km with the Dunkerque.

 

On top of that, DDs don't have to use HE only, they can VERY MUCH pen BBs that show them broadside,

 

That's the very last thing i would do, or only for a very short time with the Dunkerque, first i face every ship from long range or the start of an engagement, I favour high-speed but when not possible i also brawl backward when needed.

 

I use this maneuver when they are equiped with torps, if not BB which can hurt a lot when showing them a broadside even for a very short time (you need a perfect timing and then again it's not a good idea to show a BB your rear side), i do a quick 180 after the last salvo when the ennemy ship is commited to a run or/and in torpedoes range and coming my way.

 

Not only i deny them their torp shoot but i keep them under fire for the whole time, i rarely get pen from them during the maneuver and damages from DD and Cruisers from the rear are not much higher.

 

Generally it end up with a few hits from them but no pen, while i reload, my secondaries are wrecking them (i maxed out my ship's upgrades and Captain skills for the purpose of using the 130mm Secondaries, next, Manual Fire Control for Secondary Armament) and it's already showing results, (i did sink a lot of DD/Cruisers with those 130, even finished some BBs).

 

After that it's a matter of giving a few degree of angle to shot backward once reloaded, Dunkerque rear-firing angle is really good, it works every time, and when i am not engaged by ships from different angles it's real safe, i control the engagement.

 

What you say proves my point, most players (even bots emulating the trend, since i play mostly Co-Op until i can upgrade)​ chose to fire H.E, it became a fashionable thing and something else, i rarely got citadelled by those guys, they dont try, they dont work at their skills, as simple as that and i should know, before the memory-heavy update, i grinded the USN Cruiser line up to the Baltimore with the Des Moines in view, i made a point of getting pens and citadelles.

 

And that's not misconception, it's MY experience of the game, you might have a different one.

[zappori]

Also "I told you so".

 

This is what we predicted even during CBT, and in pretty much every case these predictions have become true.

 

Yupp. The main difference between CBT and Live is that almost everything could be considered OP, and the difference was teamplay.

 

Carriers were OP if you were caught on your own, so you needed a group/AA cover. Which give very real reason to play a cruiser with AA support role.

DDs were OP so you needed a teamwork between your own DDs spotting, your CA's popping them, and BB's trying to snipe CA's to tilt the balance early. The game wasn't about BBs sniping BBs, since it didn't really matter if your CA's / DDs were dead.

 

And it just used to happen, not sure that its about CBT players being on average better, but much more so as bing actively interesed and maybe more competitive than your average lemming who just wants a quick match in this free to play game and can't be bothered to think about tactics and teamwork. So they demanded nerfs.

 

I mean I used to sail BB's and rage about CV's but in the world of rock paper scissors it made sense. Oh well.

[Plaztma]

Cant be bothered to read all the posts here, but I think the OP is completely wrong. Never been better to play cruiser than now, lots of burningmaterial for my Bogatyr, Kutuzov, Ibuki, Belfast, Donskoi and Moskva and those broadsides are pure bliss for Fiji, Edinburgh and Neptune