Akizuki: the verdict

[dasCKD]

I have only grinded my way up to the Akizuki one night before the patch came in, so I have very little experience with the Akizuki's stealth firing capabilities. The sum total of my experience with her using sustained stealth fire was against a Kurfurst which consisted of a few minutes of ineffective plinking before a Zao rounded the corner and ended me before I could turn my rudder away. The Akizuki strikes me as a ship that was built around stealth fire however, her feeble HE, poor alpha damage, and unspectacular gun arcs (though still better than the Germans and Americans) was traded in for her ability to receive a smaller penalty when firing her guns. Formerly, this would have made her an excellent harasser, even against cruisers. Now however, that has been taken away. I would like to gather the experiences of those who have had experience with her both prior and in the current patch. How is the Akizuki now?

[Migulaitor]

Wg already gave it more range so its fine

[Kittykami]

Not played her since the patch but I'd assume the best option would be a buff to agility. Make her able to juke and dodge shells. Or give her a US-spec smokescreen maybe?

 

[mtm78]

Don't make it smoke dependent, as I still expect WG to tick the 'smoke is OP' box of the BBaby Bingo card development roadmap next. So while not having played it on live ( which is why I haven't answered the poll yet.. ) I would say it would be more FUN is you could play a gunboat while evasion tanking. Or a heal. Anything which will let you focus on using those guns without fearing to be removed from the game before being able to have an impact. 

[Aotearas]

Don't have her (though am still planning to get her) but from all I hear from mates that have some experience in her the opinion is largely the same. She's just not very agile. Plus on the bigger end of the scale so not exactly easy to dodge stuff with. So a buff to her agility (manouverability and acceleration/deceleration) might just be enough, at least for a start.

 

Don't think she would've been that effective with stealthfiring anyway since her low caliber shells mean her AP couldn't be too consistent with penetrations at longer ranges that isn't perfectly sailing broadside to a hailstorm of shells and her HE wouldn't penetrate anything with more than 16mm of armour anyway so the only value there would be to simply pour enough shattered shells into that ship to try and start a fire or two with the low firechance. The only effective benefit from her stealthfiring would be not getting shot at in return, but with an agility buff making her able to actively dodge incoming fire would amount to roughly the same end results. At least that's my theorycrafting from looking at her stats and secondhand experience.

 

So yeah, agility buff would be neat.

 

Or maybe give her Defensive AA if WG doesn't think they've been screwing over CVs enough already

[T0byJug]

Don't make it smoke dependent, as I still expect WG to tick the 'smoke is OP' box of the BBaby Bingo card development roadmap next. So while not having played it on live ( which is why I haven't answered the poll yet.. ) I would say it would be more FUN is you could play a gunboat while evasion tanking. Or a heal. Anything which will let you focus on using those guns without fearing to be removed from the game before being able to have an impact. 

 

I hope this Cheep commander retraining sticks around for a while. OK BB and CA/CL no real change and i suspect most of my DDs commander skills will stay the same as well. AFT is if anything more important as you want to keep the range open.. I am however Guessing the Expert marksman will come a must on ALL IJN DD and MOST lower Tier RU DDs

 

But I have 20 Active DD commanders to Avaluate. 

 

 

[G01ngToxicCommand0]

Honestly I can't feel the difference, the primary problem is still the Akizukis lack of mobility - that is simply sub par and not competetive in any game meta, long, slow, high detection range and slow turn rate is a recipy for fail. It is completely dependent on team mates spotting as it will almost always be spotted by the DDs it is supposed to hunt.

 

For it to work you have to have AFT & IFHE then get CE which requires an 18 point captain just to be competetive with 0 point captain on a Benson for example.

The ship needs a major overhaul to fit into the game meta and it both need a buff in mobility and/or Repair Party so it can survive the initial moments when encountering enemy DDs. OK IRL it was an AA destroyer but as such a niche is not fun to play in the game it has to be DD hunting of which it is completely unsuited for p.t.

Could have been a very fun ship to be aggressive in but from the start it has been relegated to supporting other DDs as it is not really suited for any of the roles in the present meta.

[Mc_Dumble]

i have had her since release and have great stats in her !! they will stay that way as 2 games in her today has shown how bad a ship she is and ill no longer be playing her EVER . . RIP AKIZUKI 

[duoinvasion]

Wg already gave it more range so its fine

 

>more range so its fine

TopKek

[Nechrom]

I don't really know what they could do within historical parameters to make the Akizuki decent again. They can't really do much about the things which hurts it the most, which is speed and shell velocity fall-off. The first is historical and the second is basic physics of a light shell.

 

Short of giving it US smoke, which I don't really want since smoke camping is boring, they can't really improve its survivability while shooting in many ways.

So I think that the only way to solve it is giving it a healthy dps buff (higher shell damage and better HE pen) so that when you do open fire and put your huge slow DD in the line of fire, you can actually get some damage done in a shorter amount of time. Plinking away at superstructures for ages was okay when you could do it safely, but now the damage you get out of it isn't close to being worth it seeing as it's probably the most vulnerable DD in the game when spotted.

[G01ngToxicCommand0]

I don't really know what they could do within historical parameters to make the Akizuki decent again. They can't really do much about the things which hurts it the most, which is speed and shell velocity fall-off. The first is historical and the second is basic physics of a light shell.

 

Short of giving it US smoke, which I don't really want since smoke camping is boring, they can't really improve its survivability while shooting in many ways.

So I think that the only way to solve it is giving it a healthy dps buff (higher shell damage and better HE pen) so that when you do open fire and put your huge slow DD in the line of fire, you can actually get some damage done in a shorter amount of time. Plinking away at superstructures for ages was okay when you could do it safely, but now the damage you get out of it isn't close to being worth it seeing as it's probably the most vulnerable DD in the game when spotted.

 

British acceleration and turn radius would help a lot.

[creamgravy]

Akizuki has 3 main play styles. (example builds might not be optimal)

 

• Support: http://shipcomrade.com/captcalc/1100000000000001000010000000110119

Spot, smoke teammates, melt planes, chase off other destroyers, tank, shoot ships from range. 0.6.3 has actually buffed this play style, best for team/ranked.

 

• Fire starter: http://shipcomrade.com/captcalc/1000000000000011000010100000100119 or http://shipcomrade.com/captcalc/1100000000000011000011100000000119

Concentrate on setting multiple fires across the ship and forget actual HE damage, then pelt with AP. This used to be utterly broken agasint BBs in randoms who didn't have anyone to spot but the buffed range should make this play style viable. Use smokes and range more effectively.

 

• Destroyer hunter: http://shipcomrade.com/captcalc/1100000000000001010000000010001119

IFHE makes you deadly agasint other destroyers, only a Khab gets close to your DPM output agasint lightly armoured ships. US DD vets should be used to ambushing faster, stealthier IJN destroyers.

 

Here's the fire probabilities for each commander skill.

 

Akizuki captain skills	Fires per minute (50% hit rate against a tier 8 ship)
IFHE	1.0
IFHE, BFT	1.1
IFHE, DE	1.9
IFHE, DE, BFT	2.1
Stock	2.4
BFT	2.7
DE	3.4
BFT, DE	3.7

 

[CuddlyPanda]

Just one test game in her. With AFT you have 15km range and 14 seconds to target at that 

 

[Ian_MacAllan]

Fixing the Akizuki? Easy: replace her with the Super-Akizuki...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Akizuki-class_destroyer

 

- 36.7 knots instead of 33 knots

- 5 or 6 torpedo tubes instead of 4

 

Add a reasonable turning circle radius, and you have a very decent ship.

 

While Defensive AA would be useless on the normal Akizuki (as you would have to give up Speed boost for this), with 36.7 knots it would be a good option (maybe even OP) ...

[RUSSIANBlAS]

Played one game earlier. Too soon to make any decisions but the 15km bloom looks down right dumb.

 

Basically it's got the same concealment as my Atago when firing now 

 

Someone should go to WG Developers office and fire various naval guns nearby and see what they make of the different noise levels. Not a simulator no but neither should it be down right wtf...

[mtm78]

Played it, felt useless. Lost most of my HP pretty early, could do some damage by smoking up and plinking away but I couldn't influence the game much. Sadly the ships which might, like our Mighty Zao which always made sure to stay 18km away from the enemy, forgot it was domination so sailing parralel to blue line on 10 line isn't going to win him any games. 

 

Anyway, back to Akizuki. Is there a reason to play it? Nope there isn't. If I want to gunboat at tier 8 I will put a good captain on Kiev. Why play a slow, 730m turning radius gunboat which is spotted from the moon when firing?

 

Fixing the Akizuki? Easy: replace her with the Super-Akizuki...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Akizuki-class_destroyer

 

- 36.7 knots instead of 33 knots

- 5 or 6 torpedo tubes instead of 4

 

Add a reasonable turning circle radius, and you have a very decent ship.

 

While Defensive AA would be useless on the normal Akizuki (as you would have to give up Speed boost for this), with 36.7 knots it would be a good option (maybe even OP) ...

 

That sounds reasonable for a replacement. Which is why I don't think it will happen. 

[Zemeritt]

I'd prefer if she would recloak faster, so that you're not out in the open for 20 full seconds.

She's not bad, but she isn't that good as she was before.

 

I've removed AFT from her for the time being... 12.5 range should be enough imo.

Being spotted 15 km away is way too much.

[VeteranGamer84]

Is she still a good ship?

 

-She was never a good ship.

 

If you would have her buffed, what would you want to give her?

 

-Maneuverability & Speed.

[mtm78]

-She was never a good ship.

 

Excuse me? It's my highest WR / DMG DD at tier 8 iirc  

[Spellfire40]

Wg already gave it more range so its fine

 

​Wich is useless because he cant hit relyable at that range ist only there so you can swap out aft (wich makes her worse in dealing with planes ) and pick up superindendent for the fun and engaging smokecharge because everyone loves to sit in smoke and wigle to get damage done.

[Thunderslap91]

WG shoud give akizuki HE shell the same treatment they give UK cruiser "magical pen" because right now you have to take IFHE do have any change to fight other dd's, if you don't have it you melt doing 0 damage if the other player is decent or know the trick to fight this ship.

 PS: Iowa and tier 8/9/10 cv's are faster them you

[RUSSIANBlAS]

A lot of higher tier stuff is. I overtook one in my Atago earlier lol

 

 

[eliastion]

WG shoud give akizuki HE shell the same treatment they give UK cruiser "magical pen" because right now you have to take IFHE do have any change to fight other dd's, if you don't have it you melt doing 0 damage if the other player is decent or know the trick to fight this ship.

 PS: Iowa and tier 8/9/10 cv's are faster them you

 

That might be true, but from my experience - I hardly ever encounter people knowing how to fight Akizuki; rarer still are those capable of really pulling it off without putting themselves severely out of position (leading to their death either way). I don't say I never got outplayed that way - I distinctly remember the frustration of enemy DD angling, denying me most of my damage and finally sailing away with a kill. It did happen. Once.

All the other times? Well, I do lose some damage, sure, but never to the point where I decided to pick IFHE - HE I use only to start fires and I don't feel the need to chaange that (and hurt my fire chance in the process).

[mtm78]

And again I will say you're seemingly the most lucky guy alive when it comes to only meeting potato DD players as everyone except some potato's know to angle or get shredded. And when they do I can actually still damage then trough IFHE. 

[Zen71_sniper]

Played one game earlier. Too soon to make any decisions but the 15km bloom looks down right dumb.

 

Basically it's got the same concealment as my Atago when firing now 

 

Someone should go to WG Developers office and fire various naval guns nearby and see what they make of the different noise levels. Not a simulator no but neither should it be down right wtf...

 

Nah, they will still find some stats to deny the reality.....