Are RN BBs going to shift the meta more to camping?

[MoveZig]

I'm planning on getting Nelson when it comes out, and having done my research, I've reached the conclusion that like the UK cruisers, the real threat to these is large-caliber guns. You can heal *all* the fire and HE damage and then some, but AP hits will directly reduce your survivability by not being as repairable. Essentially as long as you're not taking AP damage, you're by far the toughest ship at the tier so you want to be positioned to avoid that at all costs. So what do you do? You island-hug so you can scoot as soon as a BB targets you. By the time you're on the other side, your guns are reloaded, the enemy BB has changed target and his DC is on cooldown, so you can start new fires, then head for the next cover. You've also bought yourself more time for your next superheal.

 

The fire-based damage also encourages skirmishing, in fact this is the playstyle the devs themselves encourage in the dev diary. Now of course, you'll say that the opposite applies to the opposition - those KM BBs will want to aggressively charge you so that you can be killed quickly with AP damage, but something tells me the UK will end up more popular than KM for quite a while, and combined with a general unwillingness by BBs to attack decisively, we'll see an increase in island-hugging and attritional combat. That's what these BBs seem to specialize in. Also unlike plunging AP, fires work absolutely fine at any range and angle, so some UK players will prefer to stay at max range and spam fires. Preferably from behind an island. Short range is just too risky for these ships, since AP is way more effective there.

 

If you disagree, how do you plan to play Nelson using its strengths and weaknesses?

[Azalgor]

No, they gonna shift the meta into HE spamming BB since their ap will be crap against BB, but will make CA gameplay even more fun.

[__Helmut_Kohl__]

Penetrating AP and HE shells can be repaired quite a lot, which is exactly their strength. 

Only citadel hits from AP or torpedoes are their weakness. 

 

Which is exactly why we will see typical BBaby camping in the back. 

The good HE of RN BBs will even support that. 

 

Not even the ultimate brawling class (German BBs) was able to change that. 

[Drunken_Jedi]

Depends how popular they are after the initial hype on release. The KM BBs are uber popular because they're so damned easy to play. You simply can't be citadelled in many situations and their insane secondaries mean that some of your fires and damage will be purely passive requiring no user input. They also have hydro to shaft IJN DD's even more (by now it's WG's favourite past time I think).

 

If they become super popular, then yeah it might be an issue. Their low concealment will mean that cruisers really won't want to push for fear of having a Conqueror pop up 11km away and delete them with one salvo. So yeah, it could be that people camp EVEN MORE than they do atm. However, you all know that the a lot of players will simply never load AP with this line "because HE is stronk!"... which it is in the right situation. We'll have to wait and see what tweaks are done prior to release but I'm looking forward to ambushing the higher tier ones given their lack of hydro or spotted planes which if the line takes off will be a real boon for DD's and RN cruisers with torpedoes, less spotter aircraft and hydro to detect them which might influence the smoke meta a bit too.

[Armorin]

I don't think you can stop BB's camping with the current narrowing of the ship classes stealth approach. A BB can camp because it can hit basically everything on the map and let the other ships stop any DD's from sneaking through the front line.

So widen the stealth gap between the ship classes, make these floating fortresses stick out like a sore thumb, and allow DD's to sneak through the enemies lines and teach them that they need support from their team mates as much they need to support them.

I mean, would you design a medieval battle game, where the castle was super stealthed, and all the other units locations where permanently shown up on the map?

[Capra76]

Higher tier ships:

• Thin plate across most of the hull makes them very vulnerable to regular penetrations;
• strong HE makes long range HE spam rewarding
• good stealth makes disengaging easy provided you keep your distance from the enemy.

 

So, on the face of it, pushing forward and tanking is the way to die very quickly (zombie-heal T9/10 excepted), sit back at 15 km and spam HE for 1/4 penetration damage and fires then stealth up once you get focused looks like the way to maximise XP/damage, not playing the ship looks the best way to maximise WR.

 

Not looking good.

 

 

[walter3kurtz]

51 minutes ago, Azalgor said:

No, they gonna shift the meta into HE spamming BB

 

Exactly. While I don't necessarily see the RN BB's camping so much, other nations BB will have another reason to stay all the way back.

 

You have to pity WG though. Whatever they do, they can't change the fact that big slow ships try to not get into a position that gets them focus fired. Only thing they could do to change that is to make the BB more durable against sustained fire from multiple sources. A true tanking role, instead of "meh, I can bounce a bit while perfectly angled". Before you pull out the BBingo card, realize that I'm not advocating this only saying that there is no magic to reduce camping except remove the fear factor (in combination with reducing BB main gun efficiency at all ranges).

[Azalgor]

4 minutes ago, walter3kurtz said:

 

Exactly. While I don't necessarily see the RN BB's camping so much, other nations BB will have another reason to stay all the way back.

 

You have to pity WG though. Whatever they do, they can't change the fact that big slow ships try to not get into a position that gets them focus fired. Only thing they could do to change that is to make the BB more durable against sustained fire from multiple sources. A true tanking role, instead of "meh, I can bounce while angled". Before you pull out the BBingo card, realize that I'm not advocating this only saying that there is no magic to reduce camping except remove the fear factor (possible in combination with reducing BB main gun efficiency at all ranges).

 

Fear factor is not the issue, the players are, WG did everything to make T10 playeble for everyone - premium camos, fixated repair costs, more income on playing the objectives... But there are still people who cry that its hard to farm credits on T10, they want to be rewarded more for doing less, now what fun would that be? Cruisers cry that BB one shot them, BB cry that DD/CV one shots them, DD cry there are to many radars on CA... WG removed CVs from the game and alowed BB to camp, because when a CV does pop out, can you imagine the fun of deleting them bots on the back line 1 by 1?

Torps were nerfed to the ground, esp the line that depended most on them - IJN...

WG cant balance anything, despite some pleasant changes in interface and visuals, the gameplay will never be the same as on Closed Beta...

 

[Armorin]

22 minutes ago, walter3kurtz said:

 A true tanking role, instead of "meh, I can bounce a bit while perfectly angled".

 

You perhaps have a point which applies to all classes. Fear of broadside creates a game play which is vastly different to the traditional naval tactics of going broadside to bring all guns to bear on the enemy.

Edit: Should add that at range the danger was in plunging shells, so broadside should only really be a danger up close.

[__Helmut_Kohl__]

To be honest IJN torpedoes are still good enough. 

You just cannot sit in the back spamming them without ever getting into danger yourself. 

Instead you have to get into the action and catch them off guard. 

 

My IJN DDs will farm lots of salty RN BB tears... 

 

[lycea]

30 battleship-bow-in-HE-spamming-at-eachother matches incoming!

[PseudoMi]

My question about evolving Meta is related to the auxiliary armament devastated by those high caliber HE shells.

 

We’ll have KM BBs left pretty much without secondaries, USN BBs with AA shaved and so on. It applies to cruisers too, maybe even powerfully, after suffering high caliber HE impacts.

 

In every game with RN BBs, the strike power configuration of many ships will change drastically during the match. New meta ?

[rvfharrier]

The meta isn't caused mainly by ships and game mechanics, even if these do play a part; it's caused by players and MM. As has already been pointed out, BBs are, overall, the easiest class to play to a minimum standard but they're also the class that will be subject to the most fire if they push. Attractiveness of a class to less-skilled players is an awful combination with the expectancy to tank a lot of damage and be in the middle of the action, resulting in a lot of camping and sniping BBs. Now factor in that the MM very often allows for five BBs to be on each side and you force passive play from the cruisers who simply can't focus on and angle against all threats because there's too many of them. Result? Camping, passive gameplay.

 

RN BBs will change nothing of the above. If anything it may* actually improve it. If they're slightly harder to do well in then you may find slightly better players in them who may be willing to play them in a more aggressive manner. It still does very little good for the cruisers though.

 

* Almost certainly not, however.

[steviln]

3 hours ago, Armorin said:

I mean, would you design a medieval battle game, where the castle was super stealthed, and all the other units locations where permanently shown up on the map?

You would not have a castle in a medieval battle game, but a medieval siege game. 

[HotshotJimmy]

I just find it hilarious that RN BBs will have HE loaded always and only load AP if they go up against DDs  long live those fuse times I say! It'll be interesting to see how they are used. Personally I can bet they'll sit back and HE spam anything that moves. Hopefully not though.

[WingedHussar_Adler]

RN BBs will [edited]gameplay totaly. 30 km HE spamers. Only good thing is that they will spam other BBs with 69% fire chance HE. 

 

Probably next thing that will be nerfed is fire because hordes of monkeys will flood this forum with tiers after flhordes of RN BBs burns them to ground. 

[MoveZig]

4 hours ago, Azalgor said:

No, they gonna shift the meta into HE spamming BB since their ap will be crap against BB, but will make CA gameplay even more fun.

 

Hadn't thought of that actually. There are always BBs that insist on using HE, but imagine if most BBs spammed nothing but HE and ''stole'' fire slots from CAs and gunboats. Actually, I think we won't have to imagine it in a couple of weeks when they launch.

 

 

[daki]

I have serious doubts that WoWs can become more campy than it already is.

Players with camping playstyle do it no matter the ship class or nation.

[Capra76]

1 minute ago, daki said:

I have serious doubts that WoWs can become more campy than it already is.

Players with camping playstyle do it no matter the ship class or nation.

 

But then the line seems to be designed to cater to exactly this kind of player.

[captainhaddock_2015]

People camp with German BB's so i can't really see how much is going to change.

[Podalire]

22 minutes ago, captainhaddock_2015 said:

People camp with German BB's so i can't really see how much is going to change.

 

They will be efficient doing it ... (with HE) and it's sad.

[KurtVonSteiger]

To be honest, we are creating a self fulfilling prophecy...yes the way to maximize your individual performance is to stay back and lob shells all the way across the map - but, the fact that we do do this is why camping is so common.

I try to use My BB's aggressively and push caps etc but if the rest of the team is hiding behind islands I am just getting deleted for no real reward and most games nowadays seem to be Cruisers and DD's doing most of the fighting (and getting deleted) and then the BB's finally get into the act.

 

And when playing my cruisers this is all to evident - try to get into effective range, get focus fired and deleted before I can get out of the BB's range.

Camping is the safest way to play but it's also a state of mind- stay at the back and get the occasional long range hits then hopefully roll in and mop up all the badly damaged survivors at the end of the Battle or wade in guns blazing and possibly get sunk but with a crap load of damage dealt!

 

If all the BB's got stuck in there would be less focus fire and the cruisers could be useful again and the BB's would take less damage as again, they would not be subject to focus fire - but this requires a willingness to take risks!

Camping is more of a safe bet so most people are more comfortable doing it - openly stating that 'this type of ship favours this behaviour' only reinforces the safe option.

 

[mtm78]

Quote

Are RN BBs going to shift the meta more to camping?

 

Idk about you, but it seems WG has finally released the RN Heavy Cruisers. Why should my Hindenburg push without a destroyer scouting, if there could be a RN Heavy Cruiser in the game with better stealth ( and HE  ) waiting for me somewhere? 

 

That's the one.. well that is ONE of the things which I don't like. Seriously, a battleship with better than cruiser concealment  I'd like to meet the genius who thought that up, why play a cruiser then? 

[Dominico]

Yeah of course, a slow battleship with really good concealment and armour is going to be hiding behind a hill. Yes this will definately be the way that players will play it to win. Im sure it will work great.

 

Back to reality, how many warspites do you see behind hills or at the back of the map, yeah... thought not. 

[mtm78]

Back to reality, Warspite good fur tanking yah trust me as I haz gotten 1 and haz gud results with it  

 

Warspite is not a Conqerour / Lion with lolheal and cruiser concealment. Ow and 40% HE. Who cares about a Warspite ( or QE ). The tier 5 with 40% fire chance ( and more HE damage as an Montana per shell... ) also looks to teach the newest babies how to properly play a battleship. 

 

GG WG GG. 

 

But hey, they have short AP fuses so they will help with those broken AP penetrations on destroyers which you made such a high priority to fix  Will this be the year of the CV's .. Wait let me start again: Will next year be the year where battleships finally require the same skill to play as other classes?