Minotaur skills question

[EmilyFara]

Well, today I got myself a brand new Minotaur. Am quite happy with it even though I haven't gotten around to sailing it (too tired).

 

But I am coming up to a 4th non-assigned skill point and I am not really sure what to take anymore. There are quite a few options that are not bad. But not really any that stand out as 'must haves'.

 

Currently I have

1 - Priority Target (personal preference over Incoming Fire)

2 - Smoke Screen Expert - Adrenaline Rush

3 - Superintendent

4 - Concealment Expert

 

For upgrades I have:

- Main Armament Mod 1

- AA Guns Mod 2 (+20% AA range)

- AA Guns Mod 3 (+25% AA dmg)

- Propulsion Mod 1

- Steering Gears Mod 2

- Concealment System Mod 1

[daki]

Survivability Expert scales extremely well with the super heal that Minotaur has.

Imho much more useful than any other 3 point skill.

If you insist on a 4th level, you can always chose AFT to further boost excellent AA.

[tsounts]

In my opinion there aren't that many cvs to go for a full a/a build (but of course when the situation arises it should work like charm).

I've gone for the dispersion module on second slot and a/a boost on 3rd slot.  I think that with such a rapid rate of fire the less dispersion the more hits you may lay on your target and maybe finish him off faster.

Having said that, she's giving me a really hard time.... Probably the hardest of all my ships.... Every time I play her my teams fail miserably and don't seem really wiling to support me in caps... Even dds rest in smokes and don't spot...
How on earth can I fix this?
Wanna division with me?

[tajj7]

I have the reload mod IIRC, not sure what I have in slot 2.

 

I also found that aside from concealment expert there are not that many useful tier 4 captain skills for the Minotaur. I had RDF for a little while but didn't find much use for it. AA is good enough considering you don't meet too many CVs at the moment. 

 

IIRC I have 17 point captain at the moment, and I have 3 level 2 skills, Jack of all trades because it boosts the reload of all your consumables, smoke screen expert and adrenaline rush.

 

Then superintendent and surivability expert at tier 3, with concealment at 4. 

 

 

[RUSSIANBlAS]

I intend to man up and use radar instead of smoke when I get into a Minotaur.

 

I'm already playing the Edinburgh that way. I've played on PT with this build. Plays like a monstrously powered up Atlanta.

[EmilyFara]

Survivability Expert scales extremely well with the super heal that Minotaur has.

Imho much more useful than any other 3 point skill.

If you insist on a 4th level, you can always chose AFT to further boost excellent AA.

I'm not insisting on a tier 4 skill. I just can't figure out what would be good to get next.

I don't really understand why survivability expert. It is only an 8% increase in health. How does that help?

In my opinion there aren't that many cvs to go for a full a/a build (but of course when the situation arises it should work like charm).

I've gone for the dispersion module on second slot and a/a boost on 3rd slot.  I think that with such a rapid rate of fire the less dispersion the more hits you may lay on your target and maybe finish him off faster.

[...]

Wanna division with me?

The reason why I go for AA is because I think the rest of the ship is good enough. And I usually play with a mate of mine who is either in a Yamato or Shimakaze. And in both ships he is incredibly paranoid of carriers. The spread can be useful when shooting DDs at range. Even if they maneuver you can get a few shell hits and still damage them. While an accurate shot would mean a full miss. The rate of fire is high enough that it doesn't really bother me.

 

But we could division sometime. I haven't tried her yet. So I don't know how she plays for now. I was way to tired to play her yesterday.

[...]

I had RDF for a little while but didn't find much use for it. AA is good enough considering you don't meet too many CVs at the moment. 

 

IIRC I have 17 point captain at the moment, and I have 3 level 2 skills, Jack of all trades because it boosts the reload of all your consumables, smoke screen expert and adrenaline rush.

 

Then superintendent and surivability expert at tier 3, with concealment at 4. 

 

 

I only use premium consumables, do the reload on the consumables has never bothered me. And I've never been in a situation where I thought "wish this was 5% faster!". It was either reloaded on time, or just used and not coming back for quite some time, with or without the JoaT.

I just don't understand, why SA? It is just an 8% increase.

[BillydSquid]

Well, today I got myself a brand new Minotaur. Am quite happy with it even though I haven't gotten around to sailing it (too tired).

 

But I am coming up to a 4th non-assigned skill point and I am not really sure what to take anymore. There are quite a few options that are not bad. But not really any that stand out as 'must haves'.

 

Currently I have

1 - Priority Target (personal preference over Incoming Fire)

2 - Smoke Screen Expert - Adrenaline Rush

3 - Superintendent

4 - Concealment Expert

 

For upgrades I have:

- Main Armament Mod 1

- AA Guns Mod 2 (+20% AA range)

- AA Guns Mod 3 (+25% AA dmg)

- Propulsion Mod 1

- Steering Gears Mod 2

- Concealment System Mod 1

 

Skills I have on my Minotaur. 

 

Tier 1

Priority target, Preventative maintenance

Tier 2

Smoke screen expert

Tier 3

Survivability expert, Superintendent

Tier 4

Concealment Expert

 

You should have 5 points remaining before you max out, I'll probably dump the points into either AFT for even more AA range or go for vigilance and adrenaline rush or jack of all trades, I don't know yet. 

 

Mods

Main armament mod 1

AA gun range

Main battery reload mod

Damage control system 

Rudder shift

Concealment 

 

Personally, I'd go with survivability expert for your new skill, it stacks extremely well with the Minotaur's heal ability given it heals 2% of hp rather than 0.5% for the normal non RN heal I think. So the more HP you have the more you heal per second. Second I'd probably swap out AA damage for main battery reload speed, there's not many CVs in the game at the moment, the main battery reload speed mod does decrease turret traverse time a little, and on the Neptune that can slow things up a bit; but on the Minotaur the turrets traverse blindingly quick, even with the decreased traverse time and no Marksman expert skill. Plus you get the benefit of the Minotaur's even faster rate of fire, which basically melts any DD unlucky enough to be caught in the vicinity in a few seconds, or CAs careless enough to give a broadside, like the Neptune, but even better. Combined with the concealment skill and mod that gives you a detection radius of 8.9km in a CL which can turn tighter than some DDs. 

[BillydSquid]

I intend to man up and use radar instead of smoke when I get into a Minotaur.

 

I'm already playing the Edinburgh that way. I've played on PT with this build. Plays like a monstrously powered up Atlanta.

 

The thing you'll encounter is that the Neptune and the Minotaur are actually more prone to citadel hits than the Edinburgh. They've got a raised citadel under the smoke stacks which makes showing even a small amount of broadside extremely dangerous. Edinburgh has a waterline citadel which makes it s little harder to hit.

 

Playing Minotaur with radar is still fun, actually the RN is probably the most fun I've had out of the KM, IJN and Soviet CA lines.  

 

DD in smoke, activate radar *panic*

 

[EmilyFara]

Well, thank you guys. I went with Survivability Expert .

I will stick with the AA range, mostly to assure my usual division partner with a carrierphobia. "Sure I can protect you from planes!" -_-

As for the rest, this is my initial setup, and I'm not afraid to swap things around if I think it is more effective another way. But first I'll test out my current setup.

[kalamies]

I use this kind of setup: http://shipcomrade.com/captcalc/0011000100000100000100101010000019

[Blitzkrieguk]

This is my current build

http://shipcomrade.com/captcalc/0100000001000010010001000000010119

 

Now the thing with the Minotaur is as it's a very flexible ship as long as you have the core skills most other choose able skills are pure preference. The core skills being Superintendent, Concealment Expert and in my opinion Survivability Expert. The rest of the skills are quite preferential especially since CV's are not exactly common if they were then an AA skill would be mandatory. I would also suggest Manual AA over AFT, while AFT has its up points which is mainly if someone is spotting the plane for you, then AFT has an advantage over manual AA, however since this happens a lot you'll find you're spotting the plane your self, and most planes don't appear until 6-7km which means the use of AFT was literally made redundant as they've flown 1 to 2 KM inside your AA range without taking fire. Where with manual AA as soon as they appear they are taking literally double the damage from your 10x 6inch guns. But your choice, both work. 

 

Only thing i'd suggest to change from your build is the 3rd slot module and take the main gun reload time. Not enough CV's to really warrant it and it's still increasing the DPS of ship which posses monstrous DPS. 

[tsounts]

I intend to man up and use radar instead of smoke when I get into a Minotaur.

 

I'm already playing the Edinburgh that way. I've played on PT with this build. Plays like a monstrously powered up Atlanta.

 

Radar? I'll try it but I think I won't live for long.. This ship is more fragile than Edinburgh.  One look from the enemy and you're dead.

[tsounts]

I use this kind of setup: http://shipcomrade.com/captcalc/0011000100000100000100101010000019

 

But minotaur spams AP and not HE! IFHE is totally useless unless you're hugging dds.

[daki]

I'm not insisting on a tier 4 skill. I just can't figure out what would be good to get next.

I don't really understand why survivability expert. It is only an 8% increase in health. How does that help?

I just don't understand, why SA? It is just an 8% increase.

 

Let me try to explain with some numbers .

 

Minotaur has:

- Heal ability of 936 HP/s for 20 sec which gives a maximum heal potential of 18.720 HP

- Base HP is 43.300

- SE gives additional 3.500 HP

 

So before heal effects you nominally get around 8,1% HP boost which is already not too bad, for a total of 46.800 HP pool.

Heal, being very potent on high tier RN cruisers has a maximum heal potential of 18.720 which is 40% of total HP pool.

If we assume 4 heal uses (with Superintendent skill) at its maximum effectiveness, we get a whopping 74.880 HP healed, well above the base HP (i.e. a maximum potential HP pool of 121.680!!).

However, scaling between SE and heal is as such difficult to determine as it depends largely on the match circumstances.

Nevertheless, if we assume based on the above that on average each heal provides a 40% bonus to SE effects (since it can heal up to 40% of HP), we end up a bonus of  1.400 HP per heal or 5.600 HP for 4 heals just coming from SE skill..

 

So finally with SE+heal, the effective bonus is around 9.100 HP (3.500 base bonus and 5.600 scaling bonus) which is 21% compared to base HP.

Of course, in practice if you get insta-deleted by a well placed salvo at the beginning of the match the benefit is 0, however if you are lucky to receive only 100%heal-able damage and use 4x heal, the maximum SE benefit can go up to 17.500HP (3.500 + 3.500x4) or 40% of base HP.

 

Hence to me SE is a far superior choice compared to any other skill for RN (excluding Concealment Expert of course).

[Blitzkrieguk]

 

But minotaur spams AP and not HE! IFHE is totally useless unless you're hugging dds.

 

[EmilyFara]

 

Let me try to explain with some numbers .

 

Minotaur has:

- Heal ability of 936 HP/s for 20 sec which gives a maximum heal potential of 18.720 HP

- Base HP is 43.300

- SE gives additional 3.500 HP

 

So before heal effects you nominally get around 8,1% HP boost which is already not too bad, for a total of 46.800 HP pool.

Heal, being very potent on high tier RN cruisers has a maximum heal potential of 18.720 which is 40% of total HP pool.

If we assume 4 heal uses (with Superintendent skill) at its maximum effectiveness, we get a whopping 74.880 HP healed, well above the base HP (i.e. a maximum potential HP pool of 121.680!!).

However, scaling between SE and heal is as such difficult to determine as it depends largely on the match circumstances.

Nevertheless, if we assume based on the above that on average each heal provides a 40% bonus to SE effects (since it can heal up to 40% of HP), we end up a bonus of  1.400 HP per heal or 5.600 HP for 4 heals just coming from SE skill..

 

So finally with SE+heal, the effective bonus is around 9.100 HP (3.500 base bonus and 5.600 scaling bonus) which is 21% compared to base HP.

Of course, in practice if you get insta-deleted by a well placed salvo at the beginning of the match the benefit is 0, however if you are lucky to receive only 100%heal-able damage and use 4x heal, the maximum SE benefit can go up to 17.500HP (3.500 + 3.500x4) or 40% of base HP.

 

Hence to me SE is a far superior choice compared to any other skill for RN (excluding Concealment Expert of course).

 

Thank you. That is quite an excellent bonus.

[tsounts]

 

 

Ooopsy, I hadn't checked the other skills he had put! Lol, fell for it!

[kalamies]

 

Ooopsy, I hadn't checked the other skills he had put! Lol, fell for it!

 

Yeah, i tried to pick all the useless skills. This is the real captain that i have: http://shipcomrade.com/captcalc/0100000001001000000001010000100119

 

Vigilance gives extra seconds to dodge torps while sitting in smoke, and bigger smoke puffs give more room to manouver. Also its safe to put smoke up from faster speed. I have been trough these discussions before in different thread.

[tsounts]

 

Yeah, i tried to pick all the useless skills. This is the real captain that i have: http://shipcomrade.com/captcalc/0100000001001000000001010000100119

 

Vigilance gives extra seconds to dodge torps while sitting in smoke, and bigger smoke puffs give more room to manouver. Also its safe to put smoke up from faster speed. I have been trough these discussions before in different thread.

 

This damn ship drives me nuts to say the least, that's why I'm so desperate about her, tried radar for 2 matches and it worked well but you really need to have someone to smoke you up

[kalamies]

 

This damn ship drives me nuts to say the least, that's why I'm so desperate about her, tried radar for 2 matches and it worked well but you really need to have someone to smoke you up

 

I just use smoke myself and rely that someone does spotting for me. And BBs trying to charge into smoke get suprise in form of 8 torps. Killed 2 yamatos in one match while they were sailing towards my smoke.

[KaraMon]

About Survival expert.

 

For me a bit stronger repair does not matter, what matters is the ability to survive a bit longer. If you survive you can repair and still fight . Many times SE saved me from instant deletion , i survived having 1000 , 500 , 2000 HP .

Many times SE changes the 50k dmg 1 kill game into 200k dmg 5 kills game .

[kalamies]

SE can be usefull but its the amount of HP it gives that bugs me. 350hp per tier is pretty low i think, it works on DD but it should be higher on cruiser. And since its only 3500 extra HP i will always pick superintendt and vigilance over it. 3500hp is just damn too low on ship of that size.

[KaraMon]

As i said , it is enough to save me a lot . Vigilance is not needed imho , just use hydro in risky positions

[tsounts]

But even with SE you can get insta citadeled, ain't it so?

I tried her with radar too, it's fun but then you feel really naked if noone smokes you.  However, there have been matches with 3 ships dying in the first 3 minutes of the map because of radar.

Currently I run radio location, manual AA which rocks and concealment.(the others are PT, PM, AR, and SI)

[kalamies]

Vigilance gives more range to hydro so dodgin torps is easier but thats just my elitist opinion. We had this conversation before Karamon. Everyone has his own opinion and everyone has his own playstyle.