New Japan tier 10 cruiser

[tappo01]

Zao used to be a strong and feared ship back then, nowadays it has been nerfed a thousand times both direct nerfs such as stealth fire removal, demo expert nerf and buff to other classes such as fire prevention. It still has 40k dp which is ridiculous, stupidly long reload, terrible turret traverse, AA is mediocre at best and no radar. It is time for Zao to be moved back to tier 9 maybe with concealment nerf and reduced HE alpha and have a new tier 10 cruiser that can hold its own in this BB dominated meta.

 

Discuss.

[ColonelPete]

Why would you make a ship worse and put it back one tier instead of making it better?

What you propose is much more work. Apart from the fact that Zao is still a good ship.

She is on the same level as Moskwa and Hindenburg, better than Henri, but worse what Minotaur and Des Moines.

 

 

[Ferry_25]

Can't say I agree. It seems and feels on par with the other T10 cruisers in the game. Perhaps tweak it's detection to 10km and make stealth Zao's strongest point. That's my thought.

[dasCKD]

I can't say I particularly like the Zao, she is probably the weakest of the tier X cruisers with the exception of the Henri. That said, her AA is not weak and her AP would be far too powerful against tier 7s. If they beefed up her health pool and maybe improved her torpedo and gun angles, I can't see why she wouldn't be able to at least compete with the rest of the tier X cruisers. I would argue that ships like the Minotaur, Des Moines, and Msokva suffers from too many battleships far more than the Zao does. Besides, what will be the ship that you will replace the Zao with? A ship with more health? Just buff the Zao's health and leave her where she is. A ship with better AA (not necessary, the Zao's AA is more than strong enough) and a radar suite also won't fix the fact that the Zao without stealth fire performs poorly in a battleship dominated game. If anything, I'd like a Zao range buff so you can take the reload speed buff instead.

[FishDogFoodShack]

The only two things I'd imagine Zao deserves/should at this point would be an HP and turret traverse buff. Maybe bringing her HP up to 43-45k and bringing her traverse down to maybe 30-33 seconds which would make MBM mod 3 a better choice for her.

Even without these things though she is still a good ship.

[Affeks]

Zao, just like all tier 10 cruisers atm its super well balanced in the current meta. Just leave it be as it is, all the indirect nerfs were deserved as it was just super OP back in the day.

Ibuki however could use a few touchups.

12 minutes ago, ColonelPete said:

Why would you make a ship worse and put it back one tier instead of making it better?

What you propose is much more work. Apart from the fact that Zao is still a good ship.

She is on the same level as Moskwa and Hindenburg, better than Henri, but worse what Minotaur and Des Moines.

 

 

No tier 10 is better or worse than any of the other ones, their quirks and strengths are so different from each other that their impossible to compare to each other. I even found Henri to be super competitive in the last season of CW (trust me I was in Typhoon).

 

5 minutes ago, Ferry_25 said:

Can't say I agree. It seems and feels on par with the other T10 cruisers in the game. Perhaps tweak it's detection to 10km and make stealth Zao's strongest point. That's my thought.

Zaos concealment is already its strong point. The fact that it could out spot all other cruisers or BBs made is suprisingly competitive in the last CW season.

[ColonelPete]

If you talk about random, you can measure performance with server stats.

And yes, Des Moines stands out.

[Affeks]

1 minute ago, ColonelPete said:

If you talk about random, you can measure performance with server stats.

And yes, Des Moines stands out.

"Server stats"

 

Okay Im done

[tank276]

8 minutes ago, FishDogFoodShack said:

The only two things I'd imagine Zao deserves/should at this point would be an HP and turret traverse buff. Maybe bringing her HP up to 43-45k and bringing her traverse down to maybe 30-33 seconds which would make MBM mod 3 a better choice for her.

Even without these things though she is still a good ship.

Those two things (especially turret traverse) you mention are nice ideas, would prefer a gun reload buff though.

That being said ,the ship is pretty decent/good as you said.

You could see one in almost every team lineup in Ranked, that says a lot.

I consider all 3 roaming cruisers solid (Zao, Hindenburg and Henri IV).

[dasCKD]

9 minutes ago, Affeks said:

Zaos concealment is already its strong point. The fact that it could out spot all other cruisers or BBs made is suprisingly competitive in the last CW season.

That's because a combination of excellent concealment, good speed, and lethal AP broadside made her a dangerous enemy against cruiser heavy teams. Whilst the Zao has moments where she shines, most of those moments aren't really there anymore in the current meta.

[Acetessigester]

There is no more enough reason that Zao must have such low HP since steath fire got stupidly fucked. But WG pretend not to see it. They think every old ship has been well balanced like vodka.

 

Maybe they don't care those poor old things at all. Yes it is an effective method to make old ships broken so that people can spend more on new ones.

[iJoby]

All this little lady needs is a +3 sec faster reload to put her back on par with other T10 Cruisers, moving her to T9 makes no sense.

[eliastion]

Looking at the ship's performance alone, it might be a good idea to buff Zao a bit, but - while doing worse than other t10 cruisers - it's not really terribly outclassed either. Basically... when you have 6 ships, one of them has to be last in performance, there's no going around that. There are two ships that seem to perform better than the others (Minotaur and, especially, DM) but the other 4 seem to be pretty similar results-wise. There's only about 0,5% winrate difference between places #3 and #6 in stats from last two weeks.

[Jethro_Grey]

Zao a bad ship? Lul.

9.7km concealment, trollish armor, very strong HE with a fire guarantee, strong AP and a fearsome sting in the tail.  Yes, pls buff.

[Pekoe_Darjeeling]

Maybe I don't know but I wouldn't say Zao needs any bufs as it is.

[Affeks]

1 hour ago, dasCKD said:

That's because a combination of excellent concealment, good speed, and lethal AP broadside made her a dangerous enemy against cruiser heavy teams. Whilst the Zao has moments where she shines, most of those moments aren't really there anymore in the current meta.

I would rather say that Zaos ability to deal 10k HE volleys on unsaturated angled cruisers like DM is stronger than its situational AP shells.

[Major_Damage225]

Instead of downtiering Senjo, split the line at Aoba and put more IJN cruiser in the second branch 

[SV_Kompresor]

Um, no....Zao is amazing. I love it just as much as DM. I mean if you want to buff it, I'm all for it, I just don't think it needs it

[tappo01]

I dont see why anyone would pick zao over hindenburg, hinden is just better at everything except concealment

[dasCKD]

20 minutes ago, Affeks said:

I would rather say that Zaos ability to deal 10k HE volleys on unsaturated angled cruisers like DM is stronger than its situational AP shells.

If it's just pure HE firepower, the Hindenburg has the Zao beat especially considering the gap between the DPM. The simple fact is that the Zao's alpha damage doesn't justify her place in the game anymore considering how easy it is to force her out of her preferred engagement ranges.

[Affeks]

5 minutes ago, dasCKD said:

If it's just pure HE firepower, the Hindenburg has the Zao beat especially considering the gap between the DPM. The simple fact is that the Zao's alpha damage doesn't justify her place in the game anymore considering how easy it is to force her out of her preferred engagement ranges.

Very often pure dpm doesn not translate to better damage dealt than high alpha. When shooting from stealth alpha is preffered over dpm for example, oh and it just so happens that Zao has amazing stealth.

 

Idk what youre on about, cuz its not her alpha that has to justify anything, rather its concealment and agility backed with a good armor layout, small citadel and both workable AP and HE that makes the ship good. Just tol bad most Zao players I see in randoms never use that amazing stealth.

[Tekacko]

2 hours ago, iJoby said:

All this little lady needs is a +3 sec faster reload to put her back on par with other T10 Cruisers, moving her to T9 makes no sense.

How about no?

 

A small traverse buff would suffice.

[RamirezKurita]

What about giving the Zao the same selection of torpedoes as the Shimakaze? That way, they can choose to keep the 8km desperation strike, or alternatively go for the stealthable 12km torps or spam away with the 20km torps.

[Allied_Winter]

Here's an interesting insight of Sub_Octavian on why the Zao will not get a buff (keep in mind though that these answers are from 3 to 4 months ago):

 

Quote

Q7/7: Any chance Zao get's a small reload OR turret angle OR torp angle buff? Given that she has the lowest base reload of all T10s...
A7/7: I don't think so, because Zao is doing good.

 

Quote

However, I feel we still do not have understanding on balancing concept. People here tend to insist on "we know better", "you're catering to the lowest denominator", "don't balance the game around those who play once a week" stuff, thinking that "considering all players important" is a bad thing. However, in WoWs, there are too many different ships and too many variables. If we balanced the ships around top players only, well, I guess the Kiev, for example, would be nerfed to hell, and was absolutely unplayable for the majority of the players. The same strategy, by the way, tells that Shima actually can use some nerf, too...but I guess you realize it's absolutely not needed. So the point is we need to look for feedback and for wide array of stats: both average AND skill-divided. We do that.

 

Source: 

Greetings

 

 

 

[Major_Damage225]

4 minutes ago, RamirezKurita said:

What about giving the Zao the same selection of torpedoes as the Shimakaze? That way, they can choose to keep the 8km desperation strike, or alternatively go for the stealthable 12km torps or spam away with the 20km torps.

No 20km torps please, wouldnt end good. 

Travere buff perhaps as mentioned above, i also dont think she needs fast RoF, zao is a burst CA, not a DPM machine.