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

[Capra76]

1 hour ago, AnotherDuck said:

It's kind of obvious that WG just doesn't get Japanese DDs and torpedoes. Or balancing properly after the playstyles and ship choices they claim they want.

 

I think the problem is that WG never really developed a sensible power curve for DD.

 

What I mean is that if you compare Kongo to Izumo the T9 ship is far more powerful in terms of gun calibre, DPM, armour, TPS, HP etc but what does Yugumo get over even the nerfed Minekaze?  It's still stuck with the same DPM on its torpedoes albeit with the ability to concentrate that DPM into one massive punch, it gets a some more range and speed on its torps but it's now operating in a radar/hydro environment, apart from that in all the things you really want out of a torpedo boat (speed, maneuverability stealth) it's actually worse than it's T5 equivalent.

 

I honestly think if you gave the Minekaze the F3 torpedoes (with it's current reload) and the T8 concealment module it'd be a far better ship at T10 than the Shimakaze.

[Flid_Merchant]

That's the thing, as soon as you hit tier 8 and concealment module is available, detection range increases to make it pretty much mandatory or you are worse off than before. As a pure torp boat you could probably take pretty much and T5+ IJN DD into a T10 game and not be at a massive disadvantage.

[eliastion]

3 hours ago, MasaruKondera said:

The problem with the Shira nerf is that there is no real possibility to buff her other stats.

The thing is, however, that WG seems to be changing Shiratsuyu in such a way that they push her into the exact playstyle they don't want! Her ability to brew torpedo soup is currently getting buffed significantly with her TRB (premium) buffed massively from 240 to 160 cooldown. The ship is also forced to just move around and torp because she can't rely on smoke (Shira without TRB is garbage, PERHAPS she will still be somewhat viable in Ranked due to being best concealment DD on her tier, but that's about it). And in exchange for her smoke, Shira is now supposed to get these super-volleys more often!?

 

There are some ways to change Shiratsuyu so that it would make sense. Just off the top of my head:

#1 go the opposite of what they did. They have a ship and they see that it overperforms. Instead of taking away the ship's special playstyle, they could try and nerf it bit by bit until satisfied with the results: they could just leave TRB where it is and nerf the cooldown on it a bit. If still not enough, they could increase the cooldown some more. Basically: tweaking rahter than a reviloution.

#2 make a massive change to TRB (maybe even putting it in the same slot with smoke) but instead break with the stupid 4 torps/launcher =  more CD than 3/launcher rule. Shira could lose to Akatsuki by having less versatile set-up NOT by being far, far behind in raw torp output. TRB would be an occasional gimmick of the ship rather than the reason for its viability.

#3 They could decide that it's time to prepare for how slow Akizuki is - leave Shiratsuyu with smoke but just outright take her speedboost away

#4 Give Shiratsuyu and Akizuki line a different kind of torps altogether - torps that would deal significantly less damage than in the main line but that would reload much faster. The mighty torp walls would be a thing but they wouldn't be as crippling as they are with standard IJN torps - most torp damage of Shiratsuyu would be thx to relative spammability of these 8 torps rather than due to the knock-out punch of the nigh-unavoidable 16.

 

It's a game. There are plenty things that can be changed and adjusted. And torp reload mechanics are mostly an [edited]-pull anyway, after all, since the special thing of Shiratsuyu was that she could actually reload torps at sea AT ALL, right? Instead what they do is facilitate and encourage what they supposedly don't like: big wave of torps after big wave of torps. Long waiting periods and then a wall of death when the cooldown ends. I just don't understand that - especially since the old Shira (pre nerf/buff one) performs well but isn't very frustrating to play against...

[Krikkio82]

I had huge success in Fubuki when T8. Now I have huge success in Yogumo. Dunno how it is T7-8 anymore but IMO IJN DDs are OK !!
In ranked they are allways best DDs due to the best concealment and also in random this perk is pretty strong. They don't get huge AP damage and are more difficult to hit.....
Not so much to complain here....
 

[GulvkluderGuld]

Shiratsuyu was OP in her released form. Most youtubers remarked on how strange it was for the gunboat T7 dd to have smoke and TRB in seperate slots while the Akatsuki had them in the same slot (afaik). That effectively made Shira a better torp boat than akatsuki. So swapping them around makes a lot of sense from the standpoint of natural progression in the ijn dd lines.

[eliastion]

52 minutes ago, GulvkluderGuld said:

Shiratsuyu was OP in her released form. Most youtubers remarked on how strange it was for the gunboat T7 dd to have smoke and TRB in seperate slots while the Akatsuki had them in the same slot (afaik). That effectively made Shira a better torp boat than akatsuki. So swapping them around makes a lot of sense from the standpoint of natural progression in the ijn dd lines.

Shira was never a gunboat though. If anything, she's more torp-focused than Akatsuki, having the exact same guns and less of them. Seeing how Shira is also slower, more fragile AND with less torps (2x4 vs Akatsuki's 3x3) on longer cooldown (her only "basic" advantage being better stealth) OF COURSE she needed some advantages.

It should also be noted that - according to text - Shiratsuyu was developed from Hatsu, so it makes sense to be in the same tree. What's more, Akizuki needed the torp booster to have any torping capability at all, so it makes sense for the other smoke+TRB ship to be in the same tree. And, finally, both minekaze and hatsu are also torpboats, so no matter how you look at it, the only non-torpboat ship in the whole split IJN tree is the Akizuki.

 

The split (the way ships were distributed) generally does make some sense because it goes through a pretty simple reasoning: many launchers = 1st line. Less launchers = 2nd line. The only problem is that Akizuki should have a horizontal move back to Kagero, because t8 is both the epitome of "less torps" (1x4 on Akizuki) and the tier at which the 1st line loses the "many launchers" capability, to only get it back at tier 10.

[AnotherDuck]

4 hours ago, Capra76 said:

I honestly think if you gave the Minekaze the F3 torpedoes (with it's current reload) and the T8 concealment module it'd be a far better ship at T10 than the Shimakaze.

 

I've always wanted to play an Umikaze with Shimakaze speed at high tier. No other changes.

 

Umikaze and Minekaze have always been the least tier-dependant ships in the game. I used to play Umikaze at T4-T5 in divisions since I found that that was a lot more fun, since you could take better advantage of the excellent stealth more, and she's already got a good amount of tankiness, assuming anyone can even hit that tiny ship (and bouncing BB shells in a DD is always hilarious).

 

The main reason they handle different tiers well is that DDs rely a lot on stealth, and the earlier ones are almost always smaller and stealthier, so even if they've got weaker guns, they can still do a good amount of damage with torpedoes (which generally get slower to reload but bigger alpha, as you mentioned). On the whole, I don't really mind that, but that still doesn't mean the upgrades should be negligible. It shouldn't feel like a downgrade to go up a tier, or non-progress.

 

At T8, DDs get the concealment module, which changes the balance completely, since they now get better stealth than the previous tier, plus all other upgrades. Now, as I mentioned, upgrades should come with higher tiers, but they shouldn't still just screw lower tiers over, like with how they did with the low tier CVs if they meet higher tiers. We don't want the WoT mechanic where higher tiers just plain win unless there's an extreme difference in skill.

[AnotherDuck]

1 minute ago, eliastion said:

Shira was never a gunboat though.

 

The one caveat to that was that prior to the stealth fire nerf (and yet another BB buff), Shiratsuyu had good stealth fire capabilities with good stealth and good range. Now she's just too squishy and slow for that type of gameplay.

[eliastion]

1 hour ago, AnotherDuck said:

 

The one caveat to that was that prior to the stealth fire nerf (and yet another BB buff), Shiratsuyu had good stealth fire capabilities with good stealth and good range. Now she's just too squishy and slow for that type of gameplay.

Well, she was like Yugumo: she had the stealthfire window allowing her to supplement torp damage with guns a bit. Sometimes it gave good results, especially if she managed to get a fire on something that just used repair to stop flooding. But other that hardly counted as being a gunboat.

[BotWhisperer]

This thread has been moved to destroyer section by the moderation team due to being in the wrong section.

[lup3s]

Damn, I just found out the Shira is getting nerfed heavily.

 

Why does WG hate IJN DDs so much?

[keya_kin]

I predict that a lot of players are going to use that torp reload boost instad of smoke (since torping does more dmg and smoke in higher tier games is useless if radar'ed).
Fun part will be when bb's will start ragging because they don't get a smoke by a dd (perhaps WG will listen to those bb's that damand to give back the smoke :) )

Also, yeah, I'll miss the good old Shira :(

 

(unless this is WG tactic to sell premium Yuudachi with smoke and reload boost >_> )

[gekkehenkie50]

14 minutes ago, keya_kin said:

(unless this is WG tactic to sell premium Yuudachi with smoke and reload boost >_> )

Good point there.

Also, WG announced a while back that Kitakami will be a CW reward ship, so I'm not quite sure if they are as anti-torp-wall as we like to believe. Or maybe they still just wanna be an E-sports game

Scource:

Spoiler

 

 

[keya_kin]

16 minutes ago, gekkehenkie50 said:

Good point there.

Also, WG announced a while back that Kitakami will be a CW reward ship, so I'm not quite sure if they are as anti-torp-wall as we like to believe. Or maybe they still just wanna be an E-sports game

Only as CW reward ship? Ashame, as a profound believer and predicant of the word of Torpedo's (and not being in any kind of clan) I had hoped that it wouldn't only be from CW that you could get this ship :(

[gekkehenkie50]

Just now, keya_kin said:

Only as CW reward ship? Ashame, as a profound believer and predicant of the word of Torpedo's (and not being in any kind of clan) I had hoped that it wouldn't only be from CW that you could get this ship :(

Maybe we should form a clan who's sole purpose is to farm kitakami ships for the entire player base? Like, switch out members every season so eventually, the grand 120 torpedo wall divisions can come back to WoWS

[AnotherDuck]

1 hour ago, lup3s said:

Why does WG hate IJN DDs so much?

 

Because they're a good counter to battleships, and we can't have anything that's effective against battleships. #notevenjoking

[CaptainThunderWalker]

20 hours ago, Capra76 said:

I honestly think if you gave the Minekaze the F3 torpedoes (with it's current reload) and the T8 concealment module it'd be a far better ship at T10 than the Shimakaze.

This I'd love, though it should probably look slightly more modern to fit in at such a tier.

 

Maybe as a Tier VIII DD, it'd be interesting in its own right for competitive play even if the guns would probably still suck (even if the Mutsuki guns were used).

[Elenortirion]

16 hours ago, eliastion said:

it goes through a pretty simple reasoning: many launchers = 1st line. Less launchers = 2nd line. 

 

it breaks down at the very beginning of the split - t5 - with DD of "many launchers" [minekaze] being in the split line and the one with "less launchers" [mutsuki] being in the main line

 

[not to mention that historically mutsuki was developped off minekaze and in terms of ship progression in the tree they are reversed, WG pls swap them around finally :/]

[gekkehenkie50]

This just in from the WG QnA; Regarding Shiratsuyu:

They will keep the torpedo booster in the same slot as smoke

But they will tweak the booster itself, giving it a shorter cooldown period so more Pois per minute, and it will keep its 5 second reload, not the 8 seconds reload that was initially planned.

[IsamuKondera]

2 hours ago, gekkehenkie50 said:

This just in from the WG QnA; Regarding Shiratsuyu:

They will keep the torpedo booster in the same slot as smoke

But they will tweak the booster itself, giving it a shorter cooldown period so more Pois per minute, and it will keep its 5 second reload, not the 8 seconds reload that was initially planned.

 

Still won#t change anything in my opinioun regarding this nerf. It's just the wrong way for this ship.

[gekkehenkie50]

Agreed, but atleast its something

[AnotherDuck]

Not really, since it only means you run out faster. As it is now you still have plenty of time to use all of them, and if they're as limited as they are, a little faster reload won't really do much. It's just a tweak meant to look like it makes it less of a nerf, but doesn't float any more than a BBaby dev hit by a full Shiratsuyu torpedo salvo.

[Hugh_Ruka]

fun thread :-) I started with IJN DDs back when Minekaze had the 68knot torps (before split). I got to Isokaze just before the split. After reaching the Akatsuki, I do not play much IJN DDs aymore.  I switched to the RU DDs, they are much more fun.

 

The main problem with the T5+ IJN DDs is their lack of speed (FUBUKI !!!). Repositioning the ship for a strike is sometimes impossible and once you are caught by another DD, there's no escape (unless that other DD is an IJN one or stupid).

 

The other option to buff the torpedo DDs would be to make the different torpedo options as ammunition types a hybrid system between guns and planes. Basically you get a magazine configuration of different torpedo types that you can take into battle, similar to the squadron options CVs have. Then you can switch/reload them as you need during battle. To balance that, you's only get a limited number of reloads of each type with the basic/starting type being unlimited ... Given that the usual reload time is more than a minute at higher tiers, you'd only need a few reloads of the "premium" types ...

 

too much out of the box ?

[Redbubble481]

I like the Isokaze. So I thought I would like the Mutsuki. Boy was I wrong. If the IJN torp line does not get better I think I'll skip it. I often do more damage with my guns than torps in my Mutsuki. The guns are so bad. I found that torps are next to useless. I only hit if I get very lucky. Isokaze has 42 secs reload launching 3x2 torps. Mutsuki has reload of 73 secs launching 2x3 torps. Same number of torps just less often. I feel the extra range on the torps is not worth the considerable increase in reload time. Are you really telling me it take an extra 31 seconds to load triple launchers than double launchers with the same number of torps?

 

Some ships are very hard to hit. The Dunkerque reverses so fast it avoids your torps even if you launch them from in front of them. I try to predict where my target will be. It does not help. I found the best results are from dropping torps around island like a USN ship would do. I feel the extra range on the torps is not worth the considerable increase in reload time. Are you really telling me it take 34 seconds more to load triple launchers than double launchers?

 

Perhaps this is a bit off-topic. I just feel this is an example of what IJN DDs have to deal with.

 

From what I have read and experienced IJN DDs are scouts that can't run and have limited ability to hide or dodge. Sounds balanced.

[OrennjiPeko]

I got say the amount of damage that Wargaming is doing to the japanese torpedoes destroyers, making them in terms useless against over nations destroyers that have better turning rates of the guns and the spotting range of them. while I grinding up the japanese torpedo line of IJN destroyers I  noticed that tier 6 stock ship can be spotted at 6.5kms and has stock torpedoes that need to be fired at 6.0km. so the enemy would spot me before I got in range with torpedoes attacks on them. wargaming made the grind for the upgrade torpedo tubes hard to get forces players to spend 10,000xp on hull upgrade and 4,000xp for the tubes after. 

all games that played ship was death with 9,000 damage with guns and being killed by cruisers and destroyers from other nations. 

I got say in the CBT the IJN was the great ships with their torpedoes and great power to hide from cruisers and destroyers alike.

since they added Hydroacoustic Search and radar  that can spot IJN easily when they haven't popped smoke or have smoke up. The Belfast is heavily OP and wargaming is too scared to nerf it because it's premium ship tag to it's name.

 

Wargaming needs to buff the IJN torpedo destroyers and fix this game before the Japanese DD will be useless line in the tech tree