stopping at bayern

[chaosrealm93]

i have the bayern and am 15k xp away from gneisenau. i hated the ship and made the fatal mistake of using free xp to buy the gneisenau hoping for an improvement. surprise surprise i hate this one too. 

 

honestly i think i can nail down the reasons why these BBs arent for me

 

-thin superstructure armor, prone to HE spam

-guns with random dispersion

 

can anyone (preferably ones with experience with multiple BB lines) confirm or deny if its the same story up the tech tree?

 

 

[Mr_Tayto]

Random dispersion isn't so much of an issue at brawling range. Plus she's fast, nimble and has torps. Sadly she's the last of this type in the tree. I love gneisenau.

[chaosrealm93]

4 minutes ago, Mr_Tayto said:

Random dispersion isn't so much of an issue at brawling range. Plus she's fast, nimble and has torps. Sadly she's the last of this type in the tree. I love gneisenau.

some may call it brawling, but losing a lot of your health to get close enough to make your guns consistent is what i consider a death sentence. i understand the push from the devs point of view to encourage BBs to push and be relevant in the battle, but is giving them enough armor too much to ask?

[Aotearas]

German BB guns are definately temperamental. That won't change up the tiers.

Neither will the huge superstructure, but the hull and deck armour on those ships is very HE resiliant due to thicker armour plating so once your superstructure has gotten saturated, the damage HE spammers can deal to you drops significantly.

[cpt_sparrow_jack]

if u have the time to learn the mechanics of the game and bb playstyle from youtube videos or someother guides u will enjoy them..i ll advise u to dont free xp ships..because u dont learn to play properly and corect the ship or the line..and it doesnt mean that if u grind higher tier u ll enjoy more the game if u havent learn how u have to play corect the line..

[HaachamaShipping]

Yes, these are two downsides of German BB, though the superstructure is less about being thin (other nation's superstructure is equally unarmoured) and mostly just massive. So, it is easier to hit. I wouldn't call the ships bad or unfun, but on those two things, yes, they are worse in this regard compared to others and it'll not get any better. If you compare the accuracy and superstructure of a Friedrich der Große to that of an Izumo...

 

Naturally, Gneisenau leads to Bismarck, a more well-rounded ship, that I enjoy greatly, because for randoms, going secondary build and wrecking faces is just fun. So, if you want to hang on, I can only recommend it. If you however feel like this style (including the other factors like being short-to-midrange brawlers) are not to your liking, I think you can go back to your IJN and USN BBs and enjoy those, as they undoubtedly have better main gun performance. It's up to your personal preferences.

[Butterdoll]

47 minutes ago, chaosrealm93 said:

i have the bayern and am 15k xp away from gneisenau. i hated the ship and made the fatal mistake of using free xp to buy the gneisenau hoping for an improvement. surprise surprise i hate this one too. 

 

honestly i think i can nail down the reasons why these BBs arent for me

 

-thin superstructure armor, prone to HE spam

-guns with random dispersion

 

can anyone (preferably ones with experience with multiple BB lines) confirm or deny if its the same story up the tech tree?

 

 

 

34 minutes ago, chaosrealm93 said:

some may call it brawling, but losing a lot of your health to get close enough to make your guns consistent is what i consider a death sentence. i understand the push from the devs point of view to encourage BBs to push and be relevant in the battle, but is giving them enough armor too much to ask?

 

What?

What?

 

Man, Gneisenau it's awesome.

It's like a super cruiser.

You know when you bow in, angled in a cruiser?

And then at the last moments all falls apart? Because of a lot of things like shells trajectory's flatter?

 

well, Gneisenau shines, excels, nothing happens to you, the shells only bounce, you can take damage but good luck citadeling that Panzer.

 

And it's fast for what it is, it's not a BB by the way.

 

But ok, maybe it's not your style, they are others more squishy, slower but more accurate but also with worst secondaries and armour. 

You have to have a good captain thou and a full upgraded ship.

 

 

 

 

[chaosrealm93]

>super cruiser

 

that describes the moskva much closer than the gneisenau

 

 

[HaachamaShipping]

4 minutes ago, Butterdoll said:

 

 

What?

What?

 

Man, Gneisenau it's awesome.

It's like a super cruiser.

You know when you bow in, angled in a cruiser?

And then at the last moments all falls apart? Because of a lot of things like shells trajectory's flatter?

 

well, Gneisenau shines, excels, nothing happens to you, the shells only bounce, you can take damage but good luck citadeling that Panzer.

 

And it's fast for what it is, it's not a BB by the way.

 

But ok, maybe it's not your style, they are others more squishy, slower but more accurate but also with worst secondaries and armour. 

You have to have a good captain thou. 

 

 

 

 

To be fair, Gneisenau is lulzy in those few moments and sucks in most others. If you compare the Gneisenau to the Nagato, the Nagato may not have the speed, but it has the guns to not need the speed to run down opponents. Gneisenau has mostly the armour and if you get into any crossfire or focusfired (which can happen, especially if you close in, because noone likes torp BB rushing you), this ship can still eat absurd amounts of damage from shots in the side or superstructure. Insofar, you cannot just yolo-rush opponents all the time and will often need to bide your time, which can be frustrating with 6 guns only that have terrible accuracy. Secondaries don't make this any better, because by the time you brawl in secondary range, you likely finish off your target with a torp salvo for the actual damage. Looks cool though.

 

Scharnhorst or Bismarck though... Now, that's where you get a proper main battery, combined with survivability, for a much more well-rounded package. But Gneisenau... it just is not a very good ship. It is not a horrible ship, but it is, to me, far too one-dimensional.

[Nechrom]

1 hour ago, chaosrealm93 said:

-thin superstructure armor, prone to HE spam

 

I'm pretty sure superstructure armor is normalized across ship classes and tiers.

What will usually decide if a BB is vulnerable to HE spam is if they have 32mm or less for deck/upper hull armor. Generally KM BBs are very good in this way by having thick decks and be armored all the way up the belt.

 

1 hour ago, chaosrealm93 said:

-guns with random dispersion

 

Dispersion is definitely crap on KM BBs. Bayern also has really weak guns.

While the guns remain inaccurate all the way up to tier 10, they become way more reliable when the do hit after the Bayern.

 

If you don't like mainly being a tank for your team and you don't have fun trying to get use out of your secondaries, then the KM BBs are not for you.

You need to get quite close to really get the most out of the ships and you won't always have that opportunity. Sniping with them isn't fun.

[chaosrealm93]

i actually dont think the guns, rather the shells to be that weak. they put up solid numbers when they do hit. the issue is getting them to land in the first place

 

may be just a placebo, but i think their trajectory or penn angles are fairly generous like american AP.

[El2aZeR]

Superstructure armor is always thin. In fact, KM BBs have the best plating against HE shells out of all BB lines.

 

KM BB guns remain trollish but they become workable at mid-close range with Gneisenau.

[AmazingBeaver]

Gneisenau is a very strong ship in the right hands and it's my favourite tier 7 BB with Scharnhorst coming close second. I'm actually in EU top 30 with Gneisenau. I prefer Gneisenau over Scharnhorst for increased firepower and even more powerful AA. Scharnhorst tends to win more games than Gneisenau for it being a bit more versatile I think. Manual AA on both ships is über, but on Gneisenau its absolutely disgusting, you will laugh at Saipan planes. Combined with speed and armor it is in fact tankiest BB in tier 7. Guns are punchy, but not meant for sniping, althought you'll be forced to snipe at somepoint because of the HE spam meta and running out of heals quickly. I'd give Gneisenau a second chance, I hated the damn thing at first and it took me a while to find a suitable playstyle.

 

 

[Nechrom]

1 hour ago, chaosrealm93 said:

may be just a placebo, but i think their trajectory or penn angles are fairly generous like american AP.

 

KM and USN BB AP has very little in common.

KM AP is high velocity and low drag, but they are very light and don't have quite the same raw penetrating power as USN shells.

USN AP on the other hand is slow and high in drag, but the shells are ridiculously heavy and are very good at penetrating.

Neither has any special bonuses to penetrating angles or normalization.

 

tl;dr - KM has good ballistics but bad penetration at long range. USN has bad ballistics but great penetration at any range.

[El2aZeR]

36 minutes ago, Nechrom said:

Neither has any special bonuses to penetrating angles or normalization.

 

Actually USN AP does have better auto bounce angles (unless they changed that? Don't think so tho tbh).

Also their higher shell arcs make them more capable of achieving underwater penetrations where the citadel is usually the most vulnerable.

[Nechrom]

3 minutes ago, El2aZeR said:

Actually USN AP does have better auto bounce angles (unless they changed that? Don't think so tho tbh).

 

Only the USN 203mm AP shells.

[El2aZeR]

1 minute ago, Nechrom said:

Only the USN 203mm AP shells.

 

Huh, I was under the impression that it applied to all USN shells.

Learn something new everyday. :)

[Pikkozoikum]

4 hours ago, chaosrealm93 said:

some may call it brawling, but losing a lot of your health to get close enough to make your guns consistent is what i consider a death sentence. i understand the push from the devs point of view to encourage BBs to push and be relevant in the battle, but is giving them enough armor too much to ask?

Many people think, when they play a german bb, they can tank everything and go straight into the fight, but that won't work. There also pretty vulnerable like any other bb. You have to pick the brawl in the right moment, when another bb is splitted for example. THat also means you need information. You have to know, if there are many other ships hidden or not. The first minutes you really need patient before you brawl. Generally it's also better, if you let come the brawl to you, that happens often enough. Before that, just play like any other bb.

[Nechrom]

5 minutes ago, El2aZeR said:

Huh, I was under the impression that it applied to all USN shells.

Learn something new everyday. :)

 

USN CA has gotten a ton of buffs over time to bring them up from their old sad state. One of these buffs was their unique lower ricochet and auto-bounce angles.

After that they also got way better concealment, higher RoF and radar. But I'm veering off-topic... 

[El2aZeR]

5 minutes ago, Nechrom said:

USN CA has gotten a ton of buffs over time

 

Fun times when Cleve was essentially the peak of the USN line, capable of killing everything even when up tiered to T10. 

[JapLance]

My recommendation: stop playing German BBs. AP bombs will make every game with a US carrier a nightmare.

[WingedHussar_Adler]

7 hours ago, chaosrealm93 said:

i have the bayern and am 15k xp away from gneisenau. i hated the ship and made the fatal mistake of using free xp to buy the gneisenau hoping for an improvement. surprise surprise i hate this one too. 

 

honestly i think i can nail down the reasons why these BBs arent for me

 

-thin superstructure armor, prone to HE spam

-guns with random dispersion

 

can anyone (preferably ones with experience with multiple BB lines) confirm or deny if its the same story up the tech tree?

 

 

Same story till end. And t 9 is worst of whole line and worst t 9 ship overall 

[Adm_Hoshiko]

Evil sisters are both great ships you just need to learn what is important in KM BBs - to see the situation and be good and timing to go brawling because that is where you will shine from this ship on to t10 - your guns and armor will become great at 12km and under ..

 

To me Scharnhorst is far better because of 3x3 and 20 sec reload and fast turret traverse it is a true Battlecruiser, with 19pt cpt and full secondary build it is monster in T7 

[Origin47]

Gneisenau needs a buff for the accuracy and reload time (it only has 6 inaccurate guns). You cannot always compensate the lack of dpm with secondary and torpedo damage.

[albinbino]

I remember Gneisenau  as great ship in many aspects back when i worked my way trough German BB line, even OP i would say :). Also fun to play.