Speed boost - on why Henry IV WILL suck

[dasCKD]

I need a subtitle for these long articles, so I would appreciate it if everyone thought of one for me. Like the skybuck's x-files, but without the persistent stench of failure.

 The French, the only cruisers sluttier easier to penetrate than the British

 

Speed boost is actually a terrible consumable, something that not many people appreciate. I'd need to justify that, but I would like to mention the inherent issues with cruisers first. Long ago, I had created an article on French cruisers and the potential gimmicks that they would receive. 

 

Cruisers need their gimmicks

There is a fundamental difference between a consumable on a cruiser and on any other class, something that I don't think most people appreciate. Cruisers are built around their consumables, battleships and destroyers are not. Some may think this to be an odd distinction for me to draw. After all, is the German battleship and destroyers not built around the hydroacoustic search the same way the British cruisers are built around their smoke? My answer to that is that they are not. Without the hydroacoustic search, the German destroyers are gigantic and clumsy torpedo boats but very good torpedo boats regardless with decent guns for self defense. The German battleships are ships with excellent shell velocity for battleships and extremely powerful secondaries. Some may argue that the German powerful secondaries means that they are built around the assumption of having hydroacoustic search to find destroyers. Those people are wrong, and not just because they disagree with me.

 

Let's say the Iowa has the German hydroacoustic search. She has a flat range of 6 km and a secondary artillery broadside of 10 guns with 1800 alpha HE damage uniquely with a 4 second reload with a resultant gross DPM of 270 000. The Fredish has a 8 105 mm guns and 6 150 mm guns per broadside with a 1300 alpha and 3.4 second reload and a 1700 alpha and 7.5 second reload respectively, resulting in a gross DPM of around 265 129.  The Germans may have the superior secondary range and the 150 mm shells that gives superior performance against enemy targets, but 127 mm is perfectly sufficient for almost every destroyer in the game, and certainly enough for every torpedo and smoke oriented destroyer. With hydroacoustics, the Iowa would in fact be the superior smoke rusher and destroyer hunter especially thanks to her smaller size and superior handling. The German battleships aren't built around the hydroacoustics. It's a nice bonus, but it's not mandatory.

 

Cruisers are very different. After the first two cruiser lines, cruisers are built around their gimmick. Battleships or destroyers might have those gimmicks, but they are not fundamentally built around it like the cruisers are. The British line is the most obvious one. They are a line that orbits their consumable so tightly that the tidal heaving would likely rip the British battleships to shreds in seconds if not for the fact that every battleship cannon, cruiser guns, destroyer pea shooters, and naval personnel side arm would citadel them through the bow first. The Russians are long ranged HE spammers, so they are given spotter planes and no scout fighters. The Germans have excellent turret mechanization and very annoying armor and poor HE so they can't spam very well at long ranges, so they are given excellent hydroacoustic searches. Cruisers are built around their consumables, something that can't be said about the other ship classes.

 

Henri IV, which I shall henceforth refer to as Henrietta, pretty much unanimously sucks in everyone's opinion. Except Ichase, but he thought RL was a good idea. She is big, but doesn't have the armor to compensate for it. She is very fast, but she handles like crap and can't maneuver anywhere near enough to dodge incoming fire. She has a strong health pool, but she can't hold on to any of her health even against enemies that don't know about her magazine weakness yet. Ships are strongest when they are new and people don't know how to deal with them. The fact that Henrietta performs so badly even now does not bode well for her future.

 

Speed doesn't suit Henrietta

 Have you ever had a girlfriend who really likes wearing a dress that really doesn't flatter her figure? I haven't. I haven't had a girlfriend in my entire life. My point is that a ship can well have a consumable that is entirely unsuited for their play style. Take the Chappayev for example. Possibly the worst ship imaginable to mount the radar consumable to, especially the Russian radar consumable. She is a long ranged HE spammer with a large citadel, clumsy turning circle, and very fast firing guns. This means that to use radar, she has to disengage from her main long ranged engagement to drop back into concealment and sail forwards into radar range before deploying her radar search. Her radar also lasts a short period of time with very long ranged, something that is suited for the monstrous arcs of the Zao, Hiddenburg, and the Moskva. It's not suited for the moderately good arcs and fast firing guns of the Russian mid tiered cruisers. Her rapid firing guns can't take full advantage of the radar thanks to its short longevity. Admittedly the Chappy's concealment is good enough that she can approach from complete invisibility and get a jump on destroyers, but if concealment is the main criteria then they are far better cruisers for her role. I would go as far as to argue that the Mogami and Atago is a far superior platform for such radar characteristics, given the alpha from their HE and the fact that their maneuverability is very good at keeping them alive. The New Orleans is an example of good consumable synchronicity. Her poor gun arcs but excellent handling promotes her close ranged engagement style, and her radar reflects that.

 

Let's take a look at Henrietta then. She's a long ranged HE spammer with very average gun arcs and a gigantic citadel hitbox that pushes her towards the back. Characteristics that would make her good at holding a flank against large artillery ships and possibly the worst place to put a fast ship. A long ranged HE spammer does not benefit from fast speeds nearly as much as ships with other roles do. Speeds, in my mind, are beneficial for two primary roles. The first is objective contesting. The ability to move quickly between objectives wins games. The second is as use as hunter ships. Ships that need to run down and kill other ships. Ships such as the Khabarovsk who can run down and kill destroyers or Scharnhorst that can run down and kill cruisers are so successful exactly because they are so fast. Henrietta can't run down and kill cruisers. Not even the Moskva, the ships that is meant to be the cruiser killer to end all cruiser killers, can't do that. A Kebab can hit a destroyer from any angle and do consistent damage. A Moskva will lose a bow on DPM trade with a Des Moines by several orders of magnitude, can get run down and torpedoed by a Hindenburg, can be fire spammed to death at range by a Zao, and can even be rushed by a Minotaur who can exploit her bad turret mechanization to turn her to Swiss cheese. So Henrietta will be a bad cruiser hunter. She'll be a bad battleship hunter for obvious reasons. She could hunt destroyers, but about every cruiser in the game save for the Zao has ways to be far more effective at it than her. Speed is a nice thing to have yes, but HE spamming at long ranges is not something that speed is needed for. Speed can also be quite nice for running away, but speed boost doesn't help here either. More on that under the "speed boost sucks" section.

 

Many might point to the Khabarovsk, Udaloi, and Kiev as an example to why I'm wrong in asserting that having a long ranged and comparatively unmanuverable ship needs speed to be effective. Ships like the Russian destroyers operate around 10-13 km to be most effective against large artillery ships or so I've found. At those ranges, the guns of just about any ships are still extremely flat, making vertical maneuvers when sailing broadside extremely ineffective. Speed is such a good thing to have at those ranges as turning left or right suddenly doesn't save most ships at those ranges as the flat arcs would usually mean they get hit anyways. The speed means that they can exploit the fact that people aren't used to aiming at ships that move at their speeds to survive. At the ranges of the French cruiser engagement which appears to be around 14-17 km normally, the extra speed affords very little extra protection. At those high ranges, turning quickly is far more effective considering how precise a salvo has to be to have a chance of hitting so the advantages of speed is only marginal. I would in fact argue that long ranged HE spamming would have been done far better by slower ships with far tighter turning circles that can simply dance between shells. The simple fact is that having high speeds does not suit the long ranged HE spamming style. A tight turning circle and very good speed maintenance doesn't help the British that much at closer ranges, but at long ranges it would be ideal. The French cruisers don't have this of course, and they probably can't. Though looking at the magical turning circles of the Moskva, War Gaming has little issue with messing with not just historical performance but also the laws of reality. Why they didn't for the French, I'm not certain.

 

All of this is of course just background issues. The primary issue, the one that sits like an unexploded barrel of chlorine trifluoride in the middle of a bumper car ring, is that speed boost is a bad consumable. Any line that is built around it would inevitably be bad. That is not to say that speed is a bad gimmick for a line. Just that speed boost. The distinction may seem small, but the fundamental issue is that speed boost is a bad consumable. Given the option, basically everyone chooses another consumable over speed boost. Even a consumable that gets to be used maybe one every 10 games gets chosen over the speed boost. I routinely encounter destroyers with the defensive fire cooldown despite the fact that they could go for dozens of games without ever having run across a carrier, never mind one that chose them as a target. Speed boost is just a poor choice for a consumable to base a ship line around.

 

Speed boost sucks

A domination point takes approximately 60 seconds to capture. For the purposes of demonstrating this point, the two ships on opposite ends of the map as enemies and both advance on a cap at once. One ship has a speed boost consumable that confers 10% extra speed, the other does not. Let's make those ships go at 35 knots, slow for a destroyer but close to fastest for a cruiser. This would mean that a unit with the speed consumable will in this case get 3.5 knots of speed advantage. This will result in a speed of 38.5 knots. This is significantly more than the one without. What I would like to demonstrate is its tactical benefit however. A capture point takes about 60 seconds to capture. What I would like to work out is the amount of time that both ships would have to travel before the speed boost can allow one ship to solo cap before another ship can appear to contest the point.

 

Ships in the game moving at 35 clicks (used to distinguish it from knots IRL) can cover the distance of 1 km in about 10 seconds. A ship moving at 38.5 clicks would therefore cover about 1.1 km in about the same time period. This should mean that assuming both ships start at the exactly 1 km away from the edge of the circle at their maximum speed, the 38.5 clicks ship would arrive about 0.0909 of 10 seconds or 0.909 seconds earlier. To arrive 60 seconds sooner therefore, both ships will have to be 60/0.909 or 66 km away from the capture point when they start. The caps are nowhere nearly large enough for this to be a main point of contest, and so given that some allied ships are moving towards the cap the caps will always be denied to the enemy even if a Khabarovsk is racing against an Akizuki. This means that even with the improved speed boost of the French, a destroyer gains no initial cap advantage over slower enemy destroyers. I'm not sure if the calculations here are correct. I'll correct them as necessary. Regardless of the actual values, the fact remains that raw speed alone doesn't offer an overwhelming advantage over objective contesting the same way hydroacoustics or very long lasting smoke does. 

 

Another potential use of a speed boost consumable is to escape from a larger enemy. A similar problem persists however. The speed boost lasts for 120 seconds on all known ships, but an extra 8% is rarely enough to stop a destroyer from dying if they got themselves in really deep into enemy territory. This is not to say that the speed boost is useless. Only that it is nowhere nearly as useful as the other consumable. It's a filler consumable, taken because they are no useful alternatives. Not a heal consumable or a smoke consumable that is mandatory if it is available to the ship at all or radar and hydroacoustics that should be taken if at all possible. Speed boost as it is now is just something that gets tacked onto a ship if the class is correct. Building an entire ship line around such a weaksauce premise is what causes the primary issue with the French cruiser lines.

 

I am not saying that speed boost is entire useless, simply that it is an extremely weak consumable that would be far better if it was improved to a point where it rivaled the likes of hydroacoustics or healing in terms of utility. I have devised some concepts that I would suggest that War Gaming considers. I am not sure why I'm doing the game designer's job for them. I would like this game to stop itself from growing stagnant, and that goes beyond one mediocre new line and a pathetic tier 10. Here are some things that could be added or changed about speed boost to make it actually a good addition to a ship.

 

Speed boost improvements

Buff it

Speed boost may last a long period of time, but it is far too weak as it is now. It would be a far better consumable if it could be used tactically for a short period of time. Say a ship can get 30% - 40% extra speed for 40 seconds to a minute. It would be excellent for quick tactical getaways or to defend a base instead of just being something you turn on when cruising to a target like it's a top 30 obscure songs no one listens to on the radio as you're on a 7 hour drive into the middle of nowhere. It would also be something that captains would have to be more careful with conserving instead of spamming it the moment it comes off cooldown. As it is right now, the speed boost is less of a consumable and more of a signal flag that you need to reactivate every few minutes. The buff doesn't have to be all at once either. Similar to how hydroacoustics improves in effectiveness as it goes up the tiers like radar, speed boost could start at the current 8% at tier 2 and increase as you progress up the tiers. It also offers another reason for players to choose to advance up the tiers.

 

Offer fringe benefits

British cruisers bleed almost no speed, but are extremely hard to stop. A lot of destroyers are moderately easy to stop, but it could still be improved. If speed boost allowed for more maneuverability over just raw speed, it would be a far more useful consumable. Improvements such as faster rudder shift whilst the boost is active, very noticeable improvements to the ability of ships to start and stop. Improvements to maneuverability. A smaller penalty on engines and rudders under the penalties of incapacitate with last stand active. The ability for the ship to steer incredibly well and pull off insane maneuvers would go someway to make it so that lines that depends on the speed boost won't be as abjectly awful as they are right now.

 

Remove it

And replace it with something better. It's not that great anyways.

 

The French cruisers could be improved, they could be buffed, and they could be changed. That however does not change the fact that they fundamental foundation of the French cruiser line is flawed to a fault. Speed boost COULD theoretically work as a cruiser consumable, for a line of extremely small and agile cruisers that basically serves as over-sized destroyers in the same vein as the SN DDs. A line of fast and big ships with poor armor is the melding of traits that have little to do with each other. Separately, the traits of the French cruisers adds up to a series of highly valued traits. Combined as they are now, it creates a irritatingly mediocre line without an identity and speak of. Speed boost might work with another line, but it has no place with the French.

 

I'll, as always, will await your indignant protests down below. Best regards.

[dasCKD]

Quick note, if I used the full editor then the edited timestamp doesn't appear on the post. Makes you wonder why the time stamp is necessary at all.

[Nechrom]

Speed Boost is one of those consumables that are always helpful but never useful, if that makes sense.

Everyone would like to go a bit faster but compared to all the other consumables it's never going to make a big difference.

 

If WG doesn't make the Henri IV better, then it's probably going to be known by its acronym. 

[RUSSIANBlAS]

Who is drawing those awesome little comics?!?

[Nechrom]

Who is drawing those awesome little comics?!?

 

The signature gives it away if it wasn't already obvious...

[Kazomir]

I seriously doubt anyone sane will play these cruisers past tier 7 in this state.

 

I dont know the full stats but they dont look good at a glance.

 

Your idea for the boost is good and the arguments are valid. I support it.

 

And for what it's worth, I do hope you fid a girlfriend.

[xXx_Blogis_xXx]

I seriously doubt anyone sane will play these cruisers past tier 7 in this state.

 

I dont know the full stats but they dont look good at a glance.

 

Your idea for the boost is good and the arguments are valid. I support it.

 

And for what it's worth, I do hope you fid a girlfriend.

 

why so ? t7-9 looks ok to play

[kfa]

I see 3 problems with the Henry IV

- Its base speed is crap, speed boost only brings her up to the counterpart's level. And as you said its the worst consumable ever, i even switch it to something more useful on my DDs (well except for Khabarovsk) if possible.

- The whole package is weak. The ship herself looks like a crappy version of the Moskva.. you know without radar, armor and AA...

- The guns. I dont know if Flamu is right or not, but the high shell arcs make the HE shells shatter and AP shells bounce, if its a persistent problem, nedds to be addressed.

[_ramrus_]

Registering my protest OP.

Tier8 BBs need tier10 cruisers that are easy to spank. I urge you all to play that abomination as service to the comunity. Don't disappoint me.

[Azalgor]

 The community becomes way to spoiled. Give them everything better than anything we already have, and then complain about it beying OP, but if they still wont manage to play good in it, will cry in request of a buff.

 

 

[Capra76]

I see 3 problems with the Henry IV

- Its base speed is crap, speed boost only brings her up to the counterpart's level. And as you said its the worst consumable ever, i even switch it to something more useful on my DDs (well except for Khabarovsk) if possible.

- The whole package is weak. The ship herself looks like a crappy version of the Moskva.. you know without radar, armor and AA...

- The guns. I dont know if Flamu is right or not, but the high shell arcs make the HE shells shatter and AP shells bounce, if its a persistent problem, nedds to be addressed.

 

I think there's a basic contradiction in the design, it looks like a ship designed to be played at max range, but it doesn't have the ballistics to do that effectively or the maneuverability to avoid return fire, as you say it looks like a downgraded version of Moskva, or maybe a sluggish non-stealthy Zao. 

[StuntMan0369]

Having discussed this at length numerous times in numerous places, I think the line as a whole is doing alright. Tier 5 and 6 are fun light cruisers, tier 7 is your average heavy cruiser, 8 and 9 are perfectly workable heavy cruisers, with the 9 having an AA suite that gets close to rivalling Balti. Henri though just doesn't live up to them. As someone here already said, she looks like a Moskva without all the good bits of being a Moskva. The reload is dreadful, for what is essentially a Zao HE shell, the AP performance is just flat-out terrible in comparison to all the other tier 10's (Bad krupp, bad velocity, one of them has to be improved), and the hull isn't anything special either.

 

The boost consumable would be very nice - if it actually made a bit of difference. I'm agreed with OP here on most of this. If the French ships go through as they are now, I'll have fun grinding up to 9, but I'd have zero incentive in getting the tier 10 - I'd just rather have my Saint Louis in a tier 10 game.

[walter3kurtz]

Wow where did all these excellent posts come from. It's a breath of fresh air in this otherwise poisonous atmosphere. Thanks dasCKD.

 

I haven't given the French cruisers much attention but I did see some Flamu rant on the Henri. It seems like he had some problems with "air drag", or so he said, because the shell velocity should be excellent. Not sure what that's about. Also as good as Flamu is in sharing information about the game he is often very black and white in his assessment of ships. I guess it goes with his character to not be very subtle.

 

Regarding speed boost, and having more speed in general, there is one aspect that you might have overlooked. It helps you recover from bad positioning, in area's where there isn't enough going on. While you could say that it's a tactical blunder to go to the wrong side of the map you don't always have all information available and sometimes the enemies on your side just fall like flies. Then you need every bit of speed to reposition. Of course no sort of speed will be good enough to remove yourself from a really dangerous position, that kind of blunder isn't repairable. Speed is a very valuable asset in "saving" your game. It's one of the reasons I love DD's and BB's can sometimes be very hard to play. Go o the wrong place and you will have nothing to shoot at or you will die. Cruisers have the middle ground and fast cruisers definitely have the edge here. 

 

[dasCKD]

why so ? t7-9 looks ok to play

 

They look like dull copies of existing lines.

[dasCKD]

I see 3 problems with the Henry IV

The guns. I dont know if Flamu is right or not, but the high shell arcs make the HE shells shatter and AP shells bounce, if its a persistent problem, nedds to be addressed.

 

Out of all those 3 problems, I find that one to be the largest. I am fine with a squishy ship. I am fine with a unmanuverable ship. I am NOT fine with a gun that does not only fire slowly, but also has awful shell arcs for a gun of that caliber and the shell performance that is beaten by not only the magical Russian AP but also the AP of both the Zao and the Des Moines. Her guns might be fine for another ship, but a gun that large on a ship as big as her being as bad as it is is unforgivable in my opinion. The tier 9 is boring, but functional. Could do with improvements to her guns, but I won't complain too much until I've played her. The tier 10 is fundamentally broken.

[dasCKD]

The community becomes way to spoiled. Give them everything better than anything we already have, and then complain about it beying OP, but if they still wont manage to play good in it, will cry in request of a buff.

 

Really? Because I think the community is far too complacent. A poor ship line comes out, and they don't protest it or see grim prospects coming in the future.

 

The very concept of the French cruisers are broken. They are fundamentally grounded on poor foundations. Like all of my other prophesies, this one shall come true as well

[dasCKD]

I think there's a basic contradiction in the design, it looks like a ship designed to be played at max range, but it doesn't have the ballistics to do that effectively or the maneuverability to avoid return fire, as you say it looks like a downgraded version of Moskva, or maybe a sluggish non-stealthy Zao. 

 

That's the thing though. We don't need a better Zao. We probably don't even want a better Zao. If we wanted a better Zao, then they should have just have the Zao buffed. When I first saw the Henri and heard about her armor, I thought she could be fun. A slower firing but faster moving Moskva with insane guns and really bad armor. A ship that could work well with an exciting and chaotic playstyle of rushing in close, delivering killing blows to cruisers or multiple citadels to broadside battleships when she decloacks, then runs away cackling whilst turning every once in a while to fire HE at the angry enemy ships chasing her. As things are, she just seems like a toned down version of the current cruisers with no real strengths to speak of.

[dasCKD]

I haven't given the French cruisers much attention but I did see some Flamu rant on the Henri. It seems like he had some problems with "air drag", or so he said, because the shell velocity should be excellent. Not sure what that's about. Also as good as Flamu is in sharing information about the game he is often very black and white in his assessment of ships. I guess it goes with his character to not be very subtle.

 

Flamu, in my opinion, is an extremely unreliable source in terms of ship performance. In his games with the French cruisers, the mostly employs competitive tactics such as having destroyers smoke up his ship to allow him to push in closer which often disguises a lot of the problems with a ship. Considering that even with that he still performs rather poorly even with the games that he has chosen to show, I am extremely worried about those cruisers. If he gets routinely severely damaged and is unable to do good damage with defensive competitive techniques, then I could only imagine how bad the ship would be when driven by a player sologrinding up the tree.

Regarding speed boost, and having more speed in general, there is one aspect that you might have overlooked. It helps you recover from bad positioning, in area's where there isn't enough going on. While you could say that it's a tactical blunder to go to the wrong side of the map you don't always have all information available and sometimes the enemies on your side just fall like flies. Then you need every bit of speed to reposition. Of course no sort of speed will be good enough to remove yourself from a really dangerous position, that kind of blunder isn't repairable. Speed is a very valuable asset in "saving" your game. It's one of the reasons I love DD's and BB's can sometimes be very hard to play. Go o the wrong place and you will have nothing to shoot at or you will die. Cruisers have the middle ground and fast cruisers definitely have the edge here.

 

It's why I would prefer speed boost if it worked in the way I outlined. It would be far better if the speed boost actually allowed you to recover from a bad position extremely quickly instead of being something that has very little utility in the actual performance of the ship. Signal flags are balanced so they won't be overpowered and even with that the speed flag conveys nearly the same benefits as the speed boost whilst not running out.

[ShinGetsu]

A ship that could work well with an exciting and chaotic playstyle of rushing in close, delivering killing blows to cruisers or multiple citadels to broadside battleships when she decloacks, then runs away cackling whilst turning every once in a while to fire HE at the angry enemy ships chasing her.

 

That's exactly what I wanted it to be. A WoWS version of Bat-Chat 25t. 

Get close unnoticed, burst, run away.

 

[dasCKD]

That's exactly what I wanted it to be. A WoWS version of Bat-Chat 25t. 

Get close unnoticed, burst, run away.

 

It would have been nice. :/ WG seems opposed to fun though, at least when said ship isn't a battleship.

[Capra76]

Regarding speed boost, and having more speed in general............

 

The thing is the French ships aren't that fast either, apart from Henry they're slower than the same tier RN ships (and that's a line of fairly slow ships), even Henry only gets 0.5 kn over Mosva/Zao so the ship is a huge sacrifice of firepower, HP, armour, stealth and mobility in return for a consumable of only marginal benefit.

[dasCKD]

The thing is the French ships aren't that fast either, apart from Henry they're slower than the same tier RN ships (and that's a line of fairly slow ships), even Henry only gets 0.5 kn over Mosva/Zao so the ship is a huge sacrifice of firepower, HP, armour, stealth and mobility in return for a consumable of only marginal benefit.

 

Exactly. Add that to the fact that speed is a support rather than a direct bonus (can make a good ship better, can't make a bad ship good) and it's not a great mystery why the French ships are poor.

[dasCKD]

The boost consumable would be very nice - if it actually made a bit of difference. I'm agreed with OP here on most of this. If the French ships go through as they are now, I'll have fun grinding up to 9, but I'd have zero incentive in getting the tier 10 - I'd just rather have my Saint Louis in a tier 10 game.

 

My suggestion won't really make the line good per se, but it would address the issue I've been having with the game for a long time. Speaking of which, where's this week's podcast?

[elblancogringo]

sub_octavian, today :

"Henri will receive some tweaks based on first stage of production test, as well as some other French cruisers. Stay tuned"

[Gnirf]

It may be easier to build a ship slightly inferior and then buff it in various departments than the opposite.

A ship can not be best in all departments it needs to have some points that are weaker in order to have some that are stronger.

 

Even if the lower tiers look squishy they have guns and speed.

 

/A