Pensacola

[EsaTuunanen]

Another thing is that on top of fragility, Pepsi has insanely bad detectibility range of 15.7km. I belive it may be a mistake/bug as its much higer than any other Cruiser in game and same or even higher than some battleships(like New Mexico has 14.2, New Carolina has also 15.7):

That's what I wondered during CBT while grinding USN cruisers.

[kennydbt]

I am still on the first set of guns, I am hoping the second ones are better.

First off this is a stand off ship and not front line. You have to keep zip zaging in this ship. You need to be a good shot as well, go for ship of same level as you. use both HE and AP

I find HE is best at mind rage and long it AP. At short rage it depends on the ship but as an all rounder it is AP.

As with all ship for DD only use HE.

as soon as you can level up out of this ship do so.

[piritskenyer]

Maybe bring poor bastard's detenction range in line? Maybe? Please? 

[Panocek]

Maybe bring poor bastard's detenction range in line? Maybe? Please? 

 

Considering it took only few years to "fix" old KV tank in tonks, I would assume you would have to wait at least year or so to see Cleveland moved, Pepsi fixed and Cruisers in general sorted out.

[AmbiroaEU]

Bookmarked this for future use. I have sufficient XP and creds to get this, but I am really hesitant based on stories like these on both NA and EU forums (I primarily play on NA). Plus, also thinking about stopping here for the US CC line, and wait till the German CCs arrive in two weeks.

[Meneleus]

The Pensacola is not nearly as bad as some make it out to be, provided it is upgraded (stock turrets especially are terrible due to very slow turret traverse speed, replace them asap). Point is that it is a very different animal compared to the Cleveland at T6, and a different style of play is required.

 

The Cleveland has an ungawdly rate of fire from four triple turrets. The calibre of the guns work really well with available captain skills. At long range unfortunately the Cleveland is underwhelming. The guns are inaccurate at extreme ranges and shell velocity is horrible, making it very easy for maneuverable ships to dodge. To reliably hit agile targets you really need to close to 10km or less, meaning you have to expose yourself to enemy fire.

 

The Pensacola is more vulnerable then the Cleveland, but it dances slightly better, though not as good as the Murmansk. The guns are very appealing though. They do more damage, are more accurate and enable effective use of AP shells. I think the Pensacola works best when used at ranges of 10-15 km. Your guns can do work at this range while you maintain enough distance to dodge, or rather, dance ;)

 

Cheers, M

[Vadon90]

The problem with the pensacola is that it is made out of citadel. It is the only ship that I frequently 1 shot from full health in my BB and you can feel its citadel everytime you play the pensacola even if you angle.

[Sille]

The problem is the entire line they lack firepower too compete whit the ships around them while they themself get easly 1 shooted.

[piritskenyer]

 

Considering it took only few years to "fix" old KV tank in tonks, I would assume you would have to wait at least year or so to see Cleveland moved, Pepsi fixed and Cruisers in general sorted out.

 

I don't mind the Cleve where it's at, I don't mind the Pepsi much (used to love her in CB), all I want is for her detection range be at about 13.5-ish km's instead of the max gunrange she has now.

[Nefczi]

Pensacola is a glass cannon, without the cannon And dont get me wrong. I really like the 203mm guns, they pack decent punch per salvo and have quite nice accuracy and velocity. But the 15 second reload doesnt cut it. It simply lacks DPS considerign how fragile it is. 3-4k HE damage and sometimes a fire every 15 seconds is not enough punch considering how much damage you recive from every shell that hits you. You can get easly citadeled even if you angle your armor. This ship simply doesnt do enough damage to justify its insane fragility at this tier.

 

Myoko at least has like 20% more DPS, nice torpedoes to deal with BBs at close and is a bit less fragile. 

 

Pensacola is not a bad ship and I like it much more then Clevelend, but performance wise its closer to tier 6 Aoba really. I wish they moved Pepsi to tier 6, NO to tier 7, Clevelend to tier 8(but give it better shell velocity, similiar to Mogami). Then buff Baltimore/Ibuki RPM to around 6 and we would have quite capable(and more balanced) cruiser lines with nice progression.

 

Im about to unlock New Orleans and I wonder if I should invest in this line further in its current state. NO and Balti seems only marginally better, while BBs at those tiers become very powerfull. And Des Moines worries me also, as it seem to have a "cleveland like" shell travel time/arc. And I didnt like Clevelend becouse of that

 

 

[Panocek]

Pensacola is a glass cannon, without the cannon And dont get me wrong. I really like the 203mm guns, they pack decent punch per salvo and have quite nice accuracy and velocity. But the 15 second reload doesnt cut it. It simply lacks DPS considerign how fragile it is. 3-4k HE damage and sometimes a fire every 15 seconds is not enough punch considering how much damage you recive from every shell that hits you. You can get easly citadeled even if you angle your armor. This ship simply doesnt do enough damage to justify its insane fragility at this tier.

 

Myoko at least has like 20% more DPS, nice torpedoes to deal with BBs at close and is a bit less fragile. 

 

Pensacola is not a bad ship and I like it much more then Clevelend, but performance wise its closer to tier 6 Aoba really. I wish they moved Pepsi to tier 6, NO to tier 7, Clevelend to tier 8(but give it better shell velocity, similiar to Mogami). Then buff Baltimore/Ibuki RPM to around 6 and we would have quite capable(and more balanced) cruiser lines with nice progression.

 

Im about to unlock New Orleans and I wonder if I should invest in this line further in its current state. NO and Balti seems only marginally better, while BBs at those tiers become very powerfull. And Des Moines worries me also, as it seem to have a "cleveland like" shell travel time/arc. And I didnt like Clevelend becouse of that

 

 

 

Well, from Pepsi/NO/Balti/DM, Pepsi actually might be the best as you keep the same 203 guns with marginal RoF changes until Derp Moines. Pepsi AA is decent though it lacks long range from Cleveland, those 40mm when upgraded are not something to sneeze at. Nope Orlean is pretty much the same ship, minimally better armor which doesn't work anyway, two triple turrets are nice when pursuing, not so much when you're pursued. AA is the same as in Pepsi except short range. Balti is again the same ship as NO, again with little more armor, little more RoF, only thing that actually improves is AA, which can be scary. But then, Balti together with DM gets "upgraded" 203 gets heavier AP shells, thus AP have actually lower velocity than HE, which is the same for all US 203, so I assume trajectory doesn't change (much). DM AA is actually close to useless, it does have range, but lacks DPM to do more than "oh look, they are firing at me, how cute"

 

Of course assuming this table is correct

 

 

TL;DR there is no gold pot to be found on the Derp Moines.

 

Also I doubt US crusiers will get their shell velocity buffed as these values, for 152 and 203 guns are actually historically correct, if that site isn't off.

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_6-47_mk16.htm (Cleve)

http://navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_8-55_mk9.htm (NO and Pepsi)

http://navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_8-55_mk16.htm (DM)

And they aren't Russian ships, so forget about buffs beyond historical specs "for balancing reasons"

[GulvkluderGuld]

The problem with the pensacola is that it is made out of citadel. It is the only ship that I frequently 1 shot from full health in my BB and you can feel its citadel everytime you play the pensacola even if you angle.

 

This is the reason Pensacola remains eternally inferior to the cleveland. Playstyle (as some comment on) hardly matters when it gets citadelled and killed in 2 salvos pretty much regardless of how it is angled or at what distance it is. 

 

tl;dr: If you want to play US CA's beyond tier 7, play Destroyers.

[DukeH4mm3r]

This ship needs serious rework and rebalancing. It's under-performing for it's tier and is completely outclassed by even tier 6 ships to the point you're actually a liability to your team and don't contribute anything. Don't believe me, check out how badly it's doing stats wise on warshipstats.com and see how badly it's doing. Using the same site you can see how badly other ships are doing too. This game's far from balanced or finished and the fact they're adding new content is only going to compound the balancing problem. 

[Guillotine]

This ship needs serious rework and rebalancing. It's under-performing for it's tier and is completely outclassed by even tier 6 ships to the point you're actually a liability to your team and don't contribute anything. Don't believe me, check out how badly it's doing stats wise on warshipstats.com and see how badly it's doing. Using the same site you can see how badly other ships are doing too. This game's far from balanced or finished and the fact they're adding new content is only going to compound the balancing problem. 

Its pretty much japanese as underdog untill T7 so i dont see point taking drastic action if USN has 1 slightly worse ship in comparison.

 

Ofc game needs balancing but its wider range and shouldnt focus too much on 1ship.

 

[Exocet6951]

 

This is the reason Pensacola remains eternally inferior to the cleveland. Playstyle (as some comment on) hardly matters when it gets citadelled and killed in 2 salvos pretty much regardless of how it is angled or at what distance it is. 

 

tl;dr: If you want to play US CA's beyond tier 7, play Destroyers.

 

Also called "Every single IJN cruiser past the Kuma". 

I remain persuaded that people get used to the spam machine with tiny, underwater, divided and oddly placed citadels that is the Cleveland, and get a giant dose of reality injected back into them with the Pensacola.

[DJ_Die]

Its pretty much japanese as underdog untill T7 so i dont see point taking drastic action if USN has 1 slightly worse ship in comparison.

 

Ofc game needs balancing but its wider range and shouldnt focus too much on 1ship.

 

 

Ijn are the underdogs how? Post buff Furutaka is not all that bad and Aoba is great...

 

Pensacola is the Furutaka of the USN cruiser line because the play style changes radically due to transition from 6" to 8" guns but fully upragede it's playable even if not all that great it still has nice firepower with its 10guns but the problem is that it's very fragile and easily spotted too.... 

[Guillotine]

 

Ijn are the underdogs how? Post buff Furutaka is not all that bad and Aoba is great...

 

Pensacola is the Furutaka of the USN cruiser line because the play style changes radically due to transition from 6" to 8" guns but fully upragede it's playable even if not all that great it still has nice firepower with its 10guns but the problem is that it's very fragile and easily spotted too.... 

Aoba is great i lovd it and sold cleve till the 155mm fire spammer gets better playstyle and he is nerfed a bit. Fragile = whole IJN cruiser line and they have bigger citadels even comapred to pensacola.

[Nefczi]

Its pretty much japanese as underdog untill T7 so i dont see point taking drastic action if USN has 1 slightly worse ship in comparison.

 

Ofc game needs balancing but its wider range and shouldnt focus too much on 1ship.

 

 

Its not one ship and its not slightly worse performance wise. Every US cruiser past tier 6 is performing noticably worse than IJN counterpart. The diferences are quite big, beside tier 9 where Ibuki sucks a bit less than Baltimore.

 

Myoko vs Pensacola(WR/avgXP/avgDMG):

 

51.2%

1,818

43,063

47.0%

1,641

31,565

 

Mogami vs New Orleans

 

51.4%

1,992

51,225

47.0%

1,863

34,780

 

Ibuki vs Baltimore

 

47.7%

2,007

47,453

45.3%

2,143

36,989

 

Zao vs Des Moines

 

50.3%

2,411

73,201

48.6%

2,129

54,799

 

And as for lower tier, IJN is not really an underdog, its a mixed bag:

 

Hashidate is performing noticably better than Earier.

Chikuma is performing noticably better than Chester.

St. Louis is performing only slightly better than Tenryu, despite its reputation.

Kuma is performing slightly better than Pheonix

Omaha was performing vastly better than Furutaka, but IJN cruiser got buffed noticably lately, altho its still worse.

Cleveland is performing only minimally better than Aoba, despite its "OP" reputation.

 

 

And its not really only US vs IJN cruiser line balance issue. Generally cruisers are falling noticably behind battleships past tier 5/6. Only Mogami and Zao can somwehat compete with higher tier battleships, performance wise.

 

[Cosseria]

Got this ship Yesterday, and I read this thread before. Thanks to your advices (stay with the fleet, keep angled just to name a few) I managed to not be the first to die on every occasion and consequently to not feel utterly disgusted. Indeed I find her fragile, perhaps too much if we consider the amount of punishment that USS Salt Lake City was able to absorb at Komandorsky Islands. While the armor is what it is, a higher HP pool is mandatory. The stock 8 guns configuration is nonsense too.

Anyway I'm confident I could work her in a fine fighting ship as soon as I get out of the dumb capt - stock ship purgatory. I like her artillery more than Myoko's.

[Spruty]

I still havent found  a way to make her work. Stay with the fleet and snipe from the 2nd line you say, but still i often get focused. Several battleships  with less than 1000 hp around me and still the enemy seems to focus on the single Pensacola..... understandable though if every salvo results in juicy citadels no matter which angle you shoot.

 

Apart from that I find that "sniping from the 2nd line" with that 15,7km range is very situational...

[piritskenyer]

I still havent found  a way to make her work. Stay with the fleet and snipe from the 2nd line you say, but still i often get focused. Several battleships  with less than 1000 hp around me and still the enemy seems to focus on the single Pensacola..... understandable though if every salvo results in juicy citadels no matter which angle you shoot.

 

Apart from that I find that "sniping from the 2nd line" with that 15,7km range is very situational...

 

The problem is that from all the cruisers around you are the one who gets noticed first. In fact, your detection range is only lower than that of BB's. And since smart players know that you need to take the DPM out of the game in order to augment your chance to win, they'll focus the CA's.

[alpha12125]

While i think the Pensecola needs some work, the biggest change to make it abit more friendly is changing the skilltree a little bit. The guns should not be tied to the b hull. Make them directly researchable because they are the absolute bare minimum to make this ship workable in any way or form . The grind from the stock pensacola is tedious, to put it nicely.  So either you play with a almost useless stock pensecola or you use your free xp to directly train it. However you have the Colorado aswell at Tier 7 where you need to use the free xp to skip the extremly bad stock hull.

 

A fully upgraded Pensecola is not perfect but atleast you can see the idea behind it, however stock it is outclassed by almost everything on the battlefied. While this is no problem at, lets say tier 5, it starts to get progressively more annoying at the highter tiers because the grind takes longer and longer. In an ideal world, the t7-t10 the stock hulls should be comparable aswell as upgraded hulls and not just only fully upgraded ships.

[GulvkluderGuld]

 

Also called "Every single IJN cruiser past the Kuma". 

I remain persuaded that people get used to the spam machine with tiny, underwater, divided and oddly placed citadels that is the Cleveland, and get a giant dose of reality injected back into them with the Pensacola.

 

Sorry, but you should be careful about making strong statements without experience to back them up.

Dared to check your stats to see if you ever played this ship or BBs and it doesnt look that way (CBT, though?).

 

When i drive my BBs, I dont even have to aim anywhere specific on the Pensacolas to citadel them. 

It also does not matter if he is bow/stern, broadside on or angled (although maneuvering makes the ship as a whole a harder target). 

Neither is true for any IJN Cruiser i attempt to shoot up - in other words, it has much MUCH bigger citadels than those IJN cruisers you name.

To make matters worse, it's misery doesnt stop there, since it has a concealment rating worse than most BBs. Guess who will be the BBs first target in any game? (hint: it will not be IJN CAs)

 

Finally, Clevelands are about as easy to citadel as japanese cruisers - notably the Myoko and Mogami (they're all armored and frigging long).

Thus you have to actually AIM at a specific part of the the ship.

I'm sure getting shot up is annoying, but please dont try to underplay other ships weaknesses on that basis.

 

 

[piritskenyer]

I just bought the guns and remember why I loved her in CBT. I still don't have the range, but I came up as top xp in my two matches since I have the guns unlocked. Both matches were losses, but both were matches where I didn'T feel useless. I can finally effectively screen and shoot stuff. 

Being detected right off the bat in any match is still fu...ng annoying, but I'm finally able to react to situations effectively. I can take evasive action when I'm fired at and still expect my guns to be pointing where I want it to WHEN I want it to. Huge improvement.

 

Oh yeah, and I got called an aimbotter by an enemy atlanta after I triple-citadeled and thus single-salvoed him, while I was chasing him down.

[Exocet6951]

 

Sorry, but you should be careful about making strong statements without experience to back them up.

Dared to check your stats to see if you ever played this ship or BBs and it doesnt look that way (CBT, though?).

 

When i drive my BBs, I dont even have to aim anywhere specific on the Pensacolas to citadel them. 

It also does not matter if he is bow/stern, broadside on or angled (although maneuvering makes the ship as a whole a harder target). 

Neither is true for any IJN Cruiser i attempt to shoot up - in other words, it has much MUCH bigger citadels than those IJN cruisers you name.

To make matters worse, it's misery doesnt stop there, since it has a concealment rating worse than most BBs. Guess who will be the BBs first target in any game? (hint: it will not be IJN CAs)

 

Finally, Clevelands are about as easy to citadel as japanese cruisers - notably the Myoko and Mogami (they're all armored and frigging long).

Thus you have to actually AIM at a specific part of the the ship.

I'm sure getting shot up is annoying, but please dont try to underplay other ships weaknesses on that basis.

 

 

 

Yes I played in in CBT. Also, BBs all the way to the Nagato. I had a blast with the Pepsicola when I elited it,capable of dodging BBs sniping and introducing them to mister 8 inch shell.

I played it both when armor wasn't modelled properly and everyone shot AP, and when armor was introduced and HE spam peppered with AP was the norm.

I found her decently maneuverable, with very good guns. She could do with a little tune-up, like reducing the idiotic 15km concealment range, maybe adding a bit of accuracy to the main guns, but overall, the ship isn't bad. 

 

Clevelands aren't as easy to citpen as IJN cruisers. Those, like the Pepsicola have one long citadel midship, with parts above the water line. Citpenning is as easy as shooting midship and waiting for a penetration.

Clevelands? Two small citadels below the water line. It's not hard to penetrate, the armor isn't anything special, but the citadels are just oddly place, and hard to hit.

Any claim that "you just have to aim at a specific spot and you'll get easy citpens on a Cleveland" is, with as much due respect as possible, a giant hunk of bull****

 

The Pensacola is just an IJN ship in disguise, which comes as a huge shock to players expecting an upgrade, and instead getting, at best, a sidegrade.

She's hated for the same reasons people thought the Aoba was trash back in CBT. The only difference between the two is that the Aoba doesn't have flaws like concealment range to bring it down.