A-poi-calypse Now II: the death of torpedo boats

[dasCKD]

A-poi-calypse Now II: what killed the IJN destroyers? Not a guide, not about the update. Do not move!

Spoiler

Image is a spiritual sequel to this post.

Yeah, we're doing this again. The poster girl this week is Yuudachi of the Shiratsuyus by the way. We won't be talking about her.

 

I recently returned from a prolonged and painful surgery to correct various extreme medical injuries, self inflicted during and after playing the Shimakaze. Needless to say, I needed to have several of my teeth forcefully extracted from my tongue. I'll also have to drop by a nearby church for some supplies to clean up the things I managed to summon with my guttural screaming whilst playing the Shima. That brings me back to something that I would like to discuss however: the state and the future of the IJN destroyers and torpedo focused destroyers in general.

 

The Shiratsuyu will be nerfed, as many may know. The Shiratsuyu, War Gaming's last attempt at introducing a fleet destroyer after the menace that was the Shimakaze in early release, was designed in the game to fulfill the role as a fleet destroyer despite her quite weak torpedoes and small size. War Gaming has decided that she was too strong however, and they decided to remove the last non-Akizuki Japanese destroyer that could genuinely be considered good aside her peers. Even now, it appears that War Gaming has no place to put the high tiered IJN destroyers.

 

Reminiscing about: torpedoes

Spoiler

Torpedoes are in some ways better and some ways worse weapons than guns. Both are capable of killing enemy ships in one shot, but torpedoes don't lose their lethality with range. They also don't have to be aimed as precisely as guns. As long as the aim is more or less correct, the torpedoes will hit for deliberating damage. In return, it requires far more predictive ability than the gun to use effectively. So much that, in fact, the game has a built in prediction mechanic which still has to be supplemented by personal player skill to be used to notable success. Torpedoes could be used very effectively against ships with a known general location but with an unknown exact location such as in the case of ships inside of a smoke screen, something that a ship's guns struggle to do. Shells also bounce off, shatter, or hit non-vital components whereas damage is basically guaranteed with a torpedo hit. To add to all this, torpedo use doesn't affect the concealment of the ship. To balance this incredible power, torpedoes are given a significantly longer reload than guns on the same ship. The description of these two weapons seems to make them perfectly complementary. One allows for moderately stable but limited damage. The other with far more knockout punch which has to be used sparingly. In theory these two weapons are perfectly complementary.

 

Averages are a funny thing. Being a statistics, averages are inherently deceitful little buggers that scuttles around undoing shoelaces and bumping into things deep into the night to scare children and sarcastic forum editorial writers. Take for example a Shokaku and a Lexington. The two carriers have an average difference of only around 5000 to 6000 damage points in the Shokaku later, but the Shokaku has a massive fundamental advantage over the Lexington even assuming that the fighters were removed from the carriers. Briefly put: Shokakus have consistency that the Lexington can't boast. A Lexington's dive bombers are left largely to RNG even with a perfectly aimed salvo, making it extremely difficult to guarantee damage. A ship that does 20 k damage every time, in a skill based tactical shooter, is fundamentally better than a ship that does 40 k damage 50% of the time and none the other half.  Whilst not directly analogous, USN dive bombers and IJN torpedo boats suffer from the same issue: a lack of consistency.

 

Currently, the best performing destroyer at tier X is basically a cruiser without the weaknesses of a cruiser. The second best is a dedicated destroyer hunter with the smoke and hydroacoustics combo. Torpedo boats aren't completely obsolete, but more and more they are being edged out by the growing number of destroyers that are rendering them weaker and weaker by the day. Destroyers are by far my worst class, but the reasons behind the current status of the true torpedo boats are obvious to anyone with just a cursory glance.

The Golden Age of IJN DDs

Whilst only the Shimakaze has the official designation as fleet destroyer in the game (for the Japanese tree), many destroyers of the IJN line used to act as fleet destroyers. They distinguished themselves from the lower tiered destroyers by being utterly lethal area denial and fleet destruction weapons. Before they were neutered and nerfed into the ground.

Spoiler

Destroyer hunting destroyers always existed in the game in the form of American destroyers. Back before the Russian destroyers, the Nicholas was a real danger to the Minekaze and the Gearing was a problem to the Shimakaze when the former spots the latter. In the golden age however, both the Shima and Minekaze both had the ability to remain safe even against their natural enemies (exceeding even the cruisers before armor could deflect HE). I am quite certain that this is caused by very specific outcomes of game factors that has been modified in the past years: namely the 4 line captain skills, the push towards directed torpedo attacks, and the introduction of more destroyer lines.

 

A Minekaze and a Shimakaze are incredibly dangerous ships in their golden age, but the reason that they were could not be less similar for torpedo boats. The Minekaze is small, maneuverable, and extremely dangerous due to her blisteringly fast reload speed, excellent torpedo speeds, and excellent concealment. She can easily avoid a Nicholas thanks to how stealthy she is, and a Nicholas doesn't have a chance of catching a Minekaze before the guns of friendly cruisers turns her to a smear of oil over the ocean's surface. Her rapid rate of fire means that even if the enemy manages to avoid a salvo, another will be on its way. I, for one, have lost count of the times I have been caught out by the rapid fire torpedoes of a Minekaze or Kamikaze and the speed of the torpedoes means that her torpedoes will hit more often than they miss. Her torpedo range is moderately poor however. Even with a full layer of concealment, she has a torpedo margin of only 1.5 kilometers. This necessitates her to chase down enemy ships in order to make use of her torpedoes. She is a very reactive destroyer, and about as close to a true battleship hunter as the game has in those days.

 

A Shimakaze is nothing like that. Her main strength is her ability to perform even without a target. If a Minekaze is a sniper rifle, a Shimakaze is a carpet bombing. A Minekaze generally requires her to be in the precisely perfect location in front of her target to launch an effective salvo. Due to the size and maneuverability of the higher tiered ships, the Shimakaze requires far less precision. In her original incarnation with 20 kilometer ranged blisteringly fast and excellently concealed torpedoes, she could end an entire ocean ecosystem just from the salt she is able to generate from multiple ships with one simple salvo. The Minekaze is powerful, but she requires a precise target. Lucky hit on invisible ships that she wasn't aiming at is virtually unheard of. Conversely, generating massive amounts of damage on invisible ships is almost the whole point of the Shimakaze. The Shimakaze has a very low chance of winning a fight with a Gearing despite having similar concealment. If A Minekaze has the same concealment range as the Nicholas, she would be a far weaker ship as it is easy for a Nicholas to escort enemy battleships. A Shimakaze back in her golden age however, did not need to get close to a target. Launch a salvo, and you'd be unlucky not to hit something. The Minekaze and Shimakaze are both formidable, but they are also extremely different. The only time a Gearing could have a chance of catching a Shimakaze off guard is when a Shima is on transit towards a new enemy fleet. The Shimakaze was one of the few torpedo kiters in the game, a race that is all but extinct now.

F3s and the Minekaze

The problems with the Japanese destroyers from tier VI onward basically all stems back to a simple change. The Shimakaze was the scourge of the sea in her golden age. After the first drop in carrier players, there was nothing left to stop the Shimakaze to become the dominant ship. Poor concealment but having the fastest speed of her time, she could keep any enemy at arm's reach and fill an entire map area with torpedoes that even destroyers struggled to dodge. A Minekaze needs 80-100% of her salvo firepower to kill a battleship. A Shima could kill most battleships with four torpedo hits, and most cruisers with two. Due to the escalation of arms, more players kept gravitating towards the Shimakaze until it was not rare to see half of each team made out of nothing but Shimakazes. War Gaming stepped in, as they probably had to, to begin the collapse of the IJN destroyers.

Spoiler

From a game design perspective, the Shimakaze was broken and the Minekaze wasn't. WG has decided to nerf both, but only the Shimakaze went against a fundamental game design pillar. If you are being targeted by a Minekaze, and you had to be targeted by a Minekaze to be at risk from her, there was a clear and simple action you could take to avoid a Minekaze. You knew you were being targeted, and so you evaded accordingly. For a crippling strike, the Minekaze has to be in the perfect place and requires you to sail straight. A Shimakaze doesn't need that. You could be entirely unspotted for the entirety of the game and still die to a Shimakaze's torpedo salvo because you were in the wrong half of the map at the time. A Minekaze could also be rendered entirely ineffective by running the other way, whilst a Shimakaze's torpedoes would pursue you to the ends of the earth. The Minekaze worked because she worked as a torpedo boat, she can hide from enemy destroyers just by turning away when she spots them. A Shimakaze can't, so she is forced to stay at a distance.

 

Along comes the introduction of the F3 torpedoes. The F3 were a bit of a shame on the Zao. Conditionally very dangerous, but her concealment and torpedo arcs makes the Zao a quite unsuitable platform for the F3s. The IJN destroyers on the other hand, were a perfect candidate for the F3s. The thought process was entirely understandable. The Minekaze was a ship that was balanced: she was an easy ship to counter whilst maintaining her strengths that made her an effective weapon. The Yuugumo is a joy to play thanks to her F3 torpedoes. She isn't comparable to the Minekaze however. The Minekaze can outrun every single ship at her tier, and she has double the speed of a fair number of battleships. The maps were also far smaller. A Minekaze works so well because she can cross the map incredibly quickly and her torpedoes are ready the second she arrives at her next victim. By the time she approaches a target and finishes turning away to avoid spooking the enemy, her torpedoes are ready again. Her concealment also means that she is able to either chase enemy destroyers away (with the team's support) or force the enemy destroyer to drop smoke and deny their team intelligence and risk being sank by the Shimakaze.

 

The same can't be said about the Yuugumo. Not only can she be outran by every other destroyer at her tier whilst having to deal with far larger maps than the Minekaze ever has to worry about, she also doesn't have anywhere near the reload period of the Minekaze. The more aware and skilled higher tiered players are also able to easily avoid her longer torpedo periods. There is a reason that the Kagero and Hatsuharu were considered so poor compared to the Fubuki and Shimakaze. The Minekaze model didn't work at the higher tiers like it did at the lower ones. Some battleships lagged behind destroyer by a matter of knots, whilst the map grows far larger and more sparse. The Hatsuharu lacked the torpedo weight to be considered a fleet destroyer, whilst the tier 8 Fubuki had the torpedo reload speed and torpedo weight to defend a flank without having to target a specific victim. Using her nine 15 km torpedoes, it was easy for the Fubuki to constantly bleed an enemy fleet of health just by hitting them again and again, caring little for the evasive maneuvers they pulled. The Kagero is considered a poor destroyer because she was a regression of that playstyle, and the play style matured with the Shimakaze. It is well and good to try to give the Shimakaze and Yuugumo the F3 torpedoe, they can do horrific things to enemy ships given the correct circumstances, but they lacked the ability to readily get into those circumstances considering their size, speed, and the speed of their prey. Their concealment is also relatively poor compared to what the Minekaze enjoys. It's easy for a Gearing to ambush a Shimakaze thanks to her concealment, it's easy for just about any destroyer to ambush the Shima in fact. Even a Grozhevoi could ambush a Shimakaze now. The Shimakaze in her original iteration had a design that made her similar to her original planned intent in real life, whilst the current attempts of WG to shoehorn the Shima into a role that she fundamentally is incapable of fulfilling continues to kill her. The buffs to the 12 kilometer torpedoes and the extension of said torpedoes into tier 9 suggests that WG seems to grasp this, but are hesitant to give the IJN destroyers more power least they recreate the past. Whilst understandable, their hesitance is slowly strangling almost the entirety of the IJN destroyer line.

 

Much is made of the terrible concealment of Japanese torpedoes and whilst the concealment does contribute to the inherent awfulness of those ships, they are but a tiny part of the attempt to address the dominance of fleet destroyers by trying to force them to fulfill a role inherently unsuitable for their natures as ships.

 

The Captain's Skills

All good things comes to an end, and the age of the Japanese destroyers slowly died. The first death blow was the changes to the captain's tree. Namely the removal of sixth sense and the fifth line of captain skills.

Spoiler

For newer players to the game:

Tier I skills

Expert loader - faster shell switch

Basic firing training - faster loading secondaries, -10% primary gun reload speed, +10% AA firepower

Basics of Survivability - -15% to repair time for modules, floods, and fires

Situational Awareness - Indicates when a ship is spotted

Expert rear gunner - largely useless

Tier II skills

Expert Marksman - faster turning main guns

Torpedo Armament expertise - faster loading torpedoes

Fire prevention - largely useless

Incoming fire alert - to use, look at indicator and hold rudder

Tier III skills

Torpedo acceleration - illegal mods to naval approved torpedoes uses up fuel faster

High alert - faster damecon

Vigilance - spots torpedoes earlier

Dogfighting expert - largely useless before the premium carriers

Superintendent - more consumables

Tier IV skills

Demolition Expert - Burn.

Advanced firing training - more gun range for destroyers, more AA and secondary reach

Survivability expert - more ballast tanks at the bottom of the ship

Aircraft servicing expert - faster service, tougher planes

Manual fire control - More AA

Tier V skills

Concealment expert - More ninja

Last chance - adrenaline rush when it still sucked

Manual secondary control - confiscate secondary crew's liquor

Preventative maintenance -  -50% chance of module incapacitation

Air supremacy - should not exist

Jack of all trades - -15% to consumable reload time

 

I can be brief here. Thankfully. My eye is beginning to go off. Of the changes to the game itself, the biggest contributor to the damage to the IJN line is probably the move of the fifth captain skill, namely the situational awareness and concealment expert skill. The effect of situational awareness is obvious, the concealment expert skill is less so. But the effect is far from nonexistent. In earlier days, battleship captains won't necessarily take situational awareness as basics of survivability are usually deemed to be more important and are chosen over situational awareness. Thanks to how little random players communicates, this makes it simple for a lucky Japanese destroyer to run across an entire pack of oblivious battleships and to laugh evilly before sending death their way. The addition of this skill as a default skill makes it far harder for a destroyer to catch an enemy battleship fleet unawares. When battleships see no targets but are constantly spotted, they start sweating and begin evasive maneuvers that makes it harder for the torpedo destroyers to do their thing. Certain battleship captains still took situational awareness, but the fewer ships with situational awareness meant that the IJN fleet destroyers could still do their part for the team's victory.

 

Ships in this game sails in fleets, usually at similar speeds. When an enemy battleship is spotted going at a relatively stable speed, it'll be easy for a entrepreneurial Shima captain to spot the targets and lay a wide spread the way of the enemy before heading towards where they were heading earlier. A battleship generally is following a destroyer or a cruiser, meaning that if the Shimakaze captain is lucky they would be able to catch several of those out as well. The expensiveness of Concealment expert and the existance of skills like AFT, Vigilance, Superintendent, and High Alert makes it so that battleship captains generally choose multiple tier II and III skills over a lone tier V skill. In the old system, only 1 tier V skill is available to a captain, meaning a fair number of battleship captains miss out on a tier V skill entirely or opt to instead go for Manual Secondaries. The change instead towards the 4 tier system makes it so that battleships don't really act as 'markers' for the enemy fleet like they used to. As the game goes on, it gets more difficult to see a battleship before they start firing which makes it difficult for a fleet destroyer like a Shimakaze, the former Fubuki, or the Shiratsuyu to acquire a moderately accurate firing solution on enemy ships. Whilst not as dramatic as the free situational awareness, it still contributes to the downfall of the IJN fleet destroyers.

The addition of destroyer lines

The last cause of the death of the IJN destroyer line is perhaps the addition of more destroyer lines. The IJN line maintained the weaknesses they had in their earlier and far more dangerous phase, whilst lacking any of the strength of the other destroyers. The KM line is introduced almost as a 'fixed' IJN destroyer line. They are designed after the Minekaze playstyle. The issue with map size and ship distribution has gone unaddressed by War Gaming however, which means that the German destroyer lines are primarily played as anti-destroyer miniature cruisers. The IJN destroyer line is dying due to their lack of distinctiveness and the rise of awareness in the player base that makes the playstyle of the Minekaze style torpedo sniper more and more nonviable as time goes on. Ultimately, the Shimakaze will most likely not get restored to her old glory. I am unconvinced that such a thing could even be done without breaking the game. Ultimately though, there is little I could do or say. The problems with carriers is caused by gross incompetence and lack of comprehension of the class from the developer's standpoint. The problem with torpedo destroyers are far more intrinsic, and I can't say how they should fix it if it could be fixed at all. There's not much I could do, but watch it slowly vanish into the dark of the night without being able to say even a word of farewell.

 

Addendum: I do realize that IJN DDs are still around, death is a literary device used in the editorial. I'm putting this here because no doubt someone will try to start a semantic argument with me down in the thread about this. To that guy, screw you!

[snakecake]

Another patch another nerf.

 

What i do not get is why Shiratsuyu was given that consumable in the first place, well i do know it was because otherwise Akatsuki would outperform her. 

3x3 on a 76s reload vs 2x4 on a 101s reload. Why is reload bound to the tubes a launcher has, and not tweaked per ship ?

With the current system a ship with more launchers and less torpedoes per launcher but more torpedoes in total is better then the other setup and that is not even figuring in the flexibility more launchers has above less.

They could have given Shiratsuyu a 70s reload on those torpedoes no need for a special consumable, but that wouldn't be a gimmick every line needs to have.

 

[AkosJaccik]

Very interesting read.

I don't know who said this on this forum, but I read something like "You know classes are well balanced if people cry OP to everything in more or less the same way." This can be a good indication about the state of the torpedo-focused destroyers, barely anyone rants about them nowadays. The reason for the occassional CV rants might even stem from some sort of reoccuring novelty of "Oh wow, I got nuked, they can do that?!" as opposed to for example the german battleships, a case which I see as a serious chunk of powercreep, but we don't talk about them anymore, as they don't come in with an occassional boom, they just simply represent the concrete-walled, immovable everyday-reality of the game now. (See also "I get too many overpens, this isn't fair!" etc.)

 

But I am steering off course... I agree that it all started about at the point where CVs started to die out, giving torp DDs longer leashes. This resulted in nerfs, further wrecking the original meta, eventually snowballing into what became basically the dismissing of the rock-paper-scissor scheme. Now lines are blurred by different speeds and concealment distances getting closer to each other, consumables and cpt. skills running wild, and it's sort of "be in sight and shoot with your main guns", while smoke and radar dukes it out. Problem is, this gave the crown to the ships whose original task was already "be in sight and shoot with your main guns", and ships that got "dragged into the light" are still just searching for their places. It was hilarious when WG wrote somehing like that "the reason for the worse performance on part of the Ognevoi is that she should be played more like a torpedo destroyer". I mean, they are sort of not wrong on the reason, I guess.

 

And imagine the purely hypothetical situation where the "CV rework" actually works and the skies get reliably filled with airplanes again. In a demagogic and hyperbolic way, that would be the last nail in the coffin, although it would be somewhat ironic. "Hey, guys, we are back again to counter y.. oh! Oh. We don't need to anymore. Cool. Gotcha."

 

I am pessimistic; things that can't be countered obliviously and anybody seem to be less and less popular, see for example the AA-buffs, but in a way detionation is also such a mechanic. Apparently WG don't really want to hear the sentence "I don't have a direct tool to personally deal with this situation and that's bullsh*t!"  However, I also sort of understand that the original notion was easier to maintain with 30 ships in the game than with 300.

More precisely about the Shira's consumable I can't have an informed opinion as they yet again nerfed something before I was reaching said ship.

_{(^ Let's say that the reason for the lack of coherence is the ~2:00 a.m.)}

[lup3s]

3 hours ago, dasCKD said:

she could end an entire ocean ecosystem just from the salt she is able to generate from multiple ships with one simple salvo

 

[dasCKD]

5 hours ago, lup3s said:

 

 

Hey! Ocean ecosystems are very important for the world!

[SteDorff]

Just when I started to play DD lines and got to the good stuff well stopping here and now and back to my BB s then.

[philjd]

Very nice piece, lets hope they listen (and understand).

[AnotherDuck]

I play destroyers because I find it fun to play challenging ships. I play cruisers because sometimes I'm apparently a masochist. I play battleships because sometimes I like to relax, not worry about any mistakes, and still be able to perform just as well as better players of less favoured ships by WG.

 

Wargaming hates torpedoes and stealthy ships. They can claim otherwise, but everything points to them loving battleships above diversity. If it looks big and strong, it should be tougher and stronger than anything else.

[Fat_Maniac]

8 minutes ago, AnotherDuck said:

Wargaming hates torpedoes and stealthy ships

 

Only because I think having read the historical posts, people exploited stealth and unlimited torpedoes, to basically spam fire. No real skill involved, get in range, stay hidden and spam spam spam, in the general direction you think the enemy is going.

 

Now if WG would keep ships stealthy but limit the number of torps available so that the skill becomes working your way in close and then surprise attacking, then stealthy torp boats would be worth having.

 

The problem with BB power in this game is that a BB was a monster in real life, you killed it by removing its ability to shoot you with main guns and secondaries by destroying the turrents or killing the crews, then you moved in for the kill with torps. Until WG introduce something like that BB's will always be all powerful and the easiest class to play.

[Exocet6951]

That awkward moment you realize that a year ago if someone would have asked you "Is IFHE a good idea" and you answer no, but as of today, you entertain the possibility of having guided missiles, because why the hell not? It can't break the game any more than it already is.

 

 

Only because I think having read the historical posts, people exploited stealth and unlimited torpedoes, to basically spam fire. No real skill involved, get in range, stay hidden and spam spam spam, in the general direction you think the enemy is going.

 

Now if WG would keep ships stealthy but limit the number of torps available so that the skill becomes working your way in close and then surprise attacking, then stealthy torp boats would be worth having.

 

The problem with BB power in this game is that a BB was a monster in real life, you killed it by removing its ability to shoot you with main guns and secondaries by destroying the turrents or killing the crews, then you moved in for the kill with torps. Until WG introduce something like that BB's will always be all powerful and the easiest class to play.

 

People exploited the fact that they had lower detection to destroy the ships they're supposed to counter?
Stop the presses, the small, unarmored ships that can't rely just on evasion also rely on not being seen.
And no skill?
Try to use an IJN torpedo boat. If you just spam spam spam, you'll do on average 28k damage at tier 6.
That's half the HP of one of the ship you're supposed to counter.

Limiting the amount of torpedoes? 
Why in the love of god?
Even at a "overconfident" 7-8km, a single maneuver means missing the entire salvo.
Terrible. 
 

[AnotherDuck]

5 minutes ago, Fat_Maniac said:

Only because I think having read the historical posts, people exploited stealth and unlimited torpedoes, to basically spam fire. No real skill involved, get in range, stay hidden and spam spam spam, in the general direction you think the enemy is going.

 

Unlike the current BB (and with variations, CA) play, which is to stay at range, bow in, and spam spam spam AP. No real skill involved. Why is it that one thing isn't allowed for one type of ships, but is for another?

 

WG can't live in the past. Back then a lot more people had no clue about how to avoid torpedoes, and now they're more informed, and torpedoes are nerfed to hell and back. So why keep the same mentality?

 

The moment a DD focused on torpedoes gets decent stats, it gets nerfed hard. Battleships? Nah, let's create more overpowered ones to balance that out.

[Fat_Maniac]

1 minute ago, AnotherDuck said:

 

Unlike the current BB (and with variations, CA) play, which is to stay at range, bow in, and spam spam spam AP. No real skill involved. Why is it that one thing isn't allowed for one type of ships, but is for another?

 

WG can't live in the past. Back then a lot more people had no clue about how to avoid torpedoes, and now they're more informed, and torpedoes are nerfed to hell and back. So why keep the same mentality?

 Because to WG angling and aiming your guns is skill? 

 

And agreed Torps are easy to avoid if you expect them to be coming and use those funny things called the WASD keys.

[Bismarck_chan]

Shiratsuyu is getting nerfed? Oh, go suck a barrel of vaguely torpedo-shaped objects, WG! What's so bad about the Shiratsuyu if abominations like Flint, Edinburgh, Black and Missouri get to exist? 

 

13 minutes ago, Fat_Maniac said:

 

Only because I think having read the historical posts, people exploited stealth and unlimited torpedoes, to basically spam fire. No real skill involved, get in range, stay hidden and spam spam spam, in the general direction you think the enemy is going.

 

The problem with BB power in this game is that a BB was a monster in real life, you killed it by removing its ability to shoot you with main guns and secondaries by destroying the turrents or killing the crews, then you moved in for the kill with torps. hitting it with bombs or torpedoing it.

Spam? I do more spamming in my Warspite than any high tier DD does with it's torpedoes. Now the good old Umikaze with around 20 secs reload time, that's spam, but a cycle time of more than a minute? How is that spam? Even if we are talking the torpwalls, that's once every 3+ minutes and that's generous.

[Exocet6951]

12 minutes ago, Fat_Maniac said:

 Because to WG angling and aiming your guns is skill? 

 

And agreed Torps are easy to avoid if you expect them to be coming and use those funny things called the WASD keys.

 

But maneuvering and predicting how people will react a minute in advance is not?

 

Remember this thing about having your opinion being backed by experience?
Well how about you actually TRY to use torpedoes and more specifically DDs with torpedoes before you claim it's no skill spam ?

 

Cleared up point, message above not relevant.

[Fat_Maniac]

2 minutes ago, Exocet6951 said:

 

Well how about you actually TRY to use torpedoes and more specifically DDs with torpedoes before you claim it's no skill spam ?

 No my friend, I think I worded it wrongly.

 

WG perceived it as no skill spamming, after listening to the BBabies.

 

I actually thing DD play is by far the hardest skill to master in the game. Trying to predict where the enemy going is skill.

 

And as for trying I do plan too I just cannot decided which DD line I want to play, a gunboat, torp boat or combi.

[ColonelPete]

16 minutes ago, Fat_Maniac said:

 

Only because I think having read the historical posts, people exploited stealth and unlimited torpedoes, to basically spam fire. No real skill involved, get in range, stay hidden and spam spam spam, in the general direction you think the enemy is going.

 

Now if WG would keep ships stealthy but limit the number of torps available so that the skill becomes working your way in close and then surprise attacking, then stealthy torp boats would be worth having.

 

The problem with BB power in this game is that a BB was a monster in real life, you killed it by removing its ability to shoot you with main guns and secondaries by destroying the turrents or killing the crews, then you moved in for the kill with torps. Until WG introduce something like that BB's will always be all powerful and the easiest class to play.

Considering that even then the survival rates of BBs were much higher than the ones of DDs, you seem very mistaken about the necessary skills.

[Fat_Maniac]

1 minute ago, ColonelPete said:

Considering that even then the survival rates of BBs were much higher than the ones of DDs, you seem very mistaken about the necessary skills.

Please read my post above yours. I was trying to say WG percieve it that way, just didn't say it right. Ooopps

[Userext]

and here I was considering coming back to this game... ABORT MISSION

 

But seriously, why did they nerf torpedo destroyers? Are they going to bring in a new class?

[Exocet6951]

5 minutes ago, Fat_Maniac said:

 No my friend, I think I worded it wrongly.

 

WG perceived it as no skill spamming, after listening to the BBabies.

 

I actually thing DD play is by far the hardest skill to master in the game. Trying to predict where the enemy going is skill.

 

And as for trying I do plan too I just cannot decided which DD line I want to play, a gunboat, torp boat or combi.

Fair enough, I edited my message to reflect your train of thought.

Still, limiting torpedoes just isn't the way.
In fact, nerf after nerf to DDs is not the way.

That's how we get so many damn BBs, followed by idiotic solutions such as the Kebab, current iterations of AP bombs and more and more powerful BBs just to counter other BBs.

[Fat_Maniac]

Just now, Exocet6951 said:

Fair enough.

Still, limiting torpedoes just isn't the way.
In fact, nerf after nerf to DDs is not the way.

That's how we get so many damn BBs, followed by idiotic solutions such as the Kebab, current iterations of AP bombs and more and more powerful BBs just to counter other BBs.

You forgot to add 

 

And BB's that don't push and tank damage

[AnotherDuck]

4 minutes ago, Exocet6951 said:

That's how we get so many damn BBs, followed by idiotic solutions such as the Kebab, current iterations of AP bombs and more and more powerful BBs just to counter other BBs.

 

3 minutes ago, Fat_Maniac said:

And BB's that don't push and tank damage

 

And what do the AP bombs nerf? The battleships actually pushing, and especially the ones built for pushing.

[Exocet6951]

6 minutes ago, Fat_Maniac said:

You forgot to add 

 

And BB's that don't push and tank damage

That was never going to happen anyways.
You give the random online gamer a tool with long range and HUGE survivability, and he'll use that long range to increase his survivability even more.

With things like that, and when a community gets that idea ingrained in its collective heads, the only two ways to break the cycle is either over the course of years try to correct the problem, or to just put something scarier behind BBs so they feel compelled to move up rather than fall behind.

CVs should be that thing.
CVs with large bombs, anti-ship rockets, heavy module damage, the whole shebang.

 

 

2 minutes ago, AnotherDuck said:

 

And what do the AP bombs nerf? The battleships actually pushing, and especially the ones built for pushing.

That's incredibly naive though.
German BBs don't push either, and are just an incredibly hard thing to kill if played right.
AP bombs nerf a branch of ships that have been overperforming since day 1.

[JaiFoh]

Make Japanese Destroyers great again, team up with Kancolle 

As an aside i think the process to make Battleships fear the destroyers at high tier again is when the british begin to appear with single fire torpedos as it allows for much more flexibility in guessing course changes. 
But IJN destroyers do have problems and i do need to take my Shima out for a few cruises before this nerf happens but my days of moving her up close holding a cap and ambusing DD's trying to take me out at close range thanks to the torp boost is prob gone. 

At least we have Kamikaze

[AnotherDuck]

20 minutes ago, Exocet6951 said:

That's incredibly naive though.

German BBs don't push either, and are just an incredibly hard thing to kill if played right.
AP bombs nerf a branch of ships that have been overperforming since day 1.

 

I've been playing different games than you, then. Sure, a lot of them just snipe, but there are those who do push (myself included). Those are the ones who're going to be punished the most. Not the ones sitting back with a bunch of other ships for a good combined AA rating and easily defended by friendly CV.

 

Looking at the stats, no, they don't really overperform much. Sure, they're overall above average, but there's not a whole lot of difference. And if you want to look at overperformers, look at the premium ships.

 

But the point is, the nerf comes exactly where it's not needed, and it only encourages even more sniping. It's like reducing tankiness to encourage people to play more aggressively.

[LOZFFVII]

@dasCKD

In your opinion, would you say Harekaze is a good addition to the IJN DD lineup (with her multiple gun configurations, allowing the player to choose slightly different styles of play for her), or not really anything significant?

I'm finding the ability to rely on my guns more quite fun, actually.

 

Would you say a good idea for the Japanese DDs is to improve their gun performance at high tiers so they can more reliably defend themselves against enemy DDs?

 

Off topic:

Spoiler

@AnotherDuck

I love your avatar.

"Kamo poi!"

"It's, like, a duck!"