Best destroyer at Tier 7?

[_VAMPA_]

On 3/30/2018 at 4:19 PM, loppantorkel said:

Gadjah Mada for me. Right out better than Mahan, Maass, Akatsuki and Shira. Haven't played Blyska, Lenin/Minsk or Sims, but I doubt they can hold a candle to GD when it comes to carrying games.

no boat can carry as RU GunBoat

 

GM cant kite reliably, long torpedo reload, cant hit dds with torps....

 

There is No good dd in T7.

 

most fun DD Minsk/Lenin

best for contesting Maasssaasasssssa

[Procrastes]

When it comes to tier VII destroyers, there are two names that shine for me: The Blyskawica and the Gadjah Mada. Both are truly excellent ships.

 

The Blyskawica is an old favourite of mine. Se was strong when she was first introduced. She's still strong, despite the removal of open water stealth fire (a good change btw) and some slight power creep. Due to her relatively large detection radius (for a DD) she must be played carefully if contesting caps, and she is at a bit of a disadvantage in a close-range knife fight versus a USN gunboat, but other than that, she can hold her own in any situation. The number and placement of her guns make her an outstanding long-range kiter, and her fire trajectories and shell velocity are good enough to let her use the extra range that comes with the Advanced Firing Training skill to good effect. Her torpedo armament, while by no means her strongest point, is good enough to get the job done. In short, she's an excellent all-rounder.

 

The Gadjah Mada is, in my book, the nearest contender to the Blyskawica. Both are superlative gunboats, but where the Blyskawica excels at firing over her shoulder while kiting away from the enemy, the Gadjah Mada's gun turrets are placed for an offensive approach: She has six guns, with four of them in forward-facing overlapping twin turrets. Her firing arcs are thus better when driving towards the enemy, which has its advantages as well as its disadvantages. She's got deepwater torpedoes, which makes her torpedo armament far more dangerous versus all enemies except destroyers, and the fact that she has 2x5 tubes as apart from Blyska's 2x4 tubes also makes a big difference. Her superior stealth (is it 6,1 km detection radius with all available bonuses?) makes her a very capable cap contender, and she has that Pan-Asian silver line smoke reload that allows her to be almost continually smoked-up if she so chooses. All in all, she surpasses the Blyskawica in most regards except for raw speed and long range fire power. I' be hard put to choose between them, and for a long-time Blyska addict, that is high praise indeed.

[_DeathWing_]

Gadjah Mada indeed.

[MoveZig]

I think Mahan is a bad ship at its core. Having the worst detection range at t7 is a really bad situation.  You get uptiered with Kageros which can spot you from literally over a mile away, you get downtiered with 'kazes and Mutsukis that can do the same, even in the same tier Shiras and GMs have a huge advantage. It's made even worse by the fact the shell arcs make DD combat hard even at your detection range with CE. And speaking of the guns, you get no upgrade over Farragut whatsoever. So Mahan is a big loser at the basics. I would not call it versatile in that sense, if it suffers at the most basic task of capping vs. most other DDs.

 

But then there's the utility and quirks of the ship that make it interesting. The torps are quite nice, 12 tubes with a good reload and decent range is great for t7, even if you have to wiggle to use them all and the damage is mediocre. Def AA gives you something no torpboat at t7 has (besides AA-specced Aka, I guess), the ability to get aircraft off you. The smoke is arguably the best you could ask for, with the mod + SSE you can lay down some majestic screens. And of course, the ability to abuse gravity and cover with your mortar-guns is a lot of fun if you manage your positioning. I like the US DDs, they have a lot of character despite being one of the earliest lines. And Mahan is one of the most lopsided, awkward ones in the line.

 

Shira - Well, it's a preview of the Kagero, but in the wrong line. Stealth, TRB, mehguns, hates CVs. Or use smoke and defeat most of the purpose of the ship.

 

Mass - Brawler. One of the most gun-oriented ships in the line. Best cap contester around. Like Mahan, poor effective range + bad stealth are a nasty combo, but not quite as bad here. Great AP DPM, if you can get good pens. Hates CVs.

 

Akatsuki - most versatile IJN DD. Decent torps, decent guns, some AA potential, not-terrible stealth. This is the real jack-of-all-trades of t7 DDs.

[Alex_Connor]

I don't have the other tier 7 DDs yet but Akatsuki is really fun if you enjoy the stealth torping lifestyle.

 

Initial impressions were "holy crap this thing gets spotted from orbit" but that is coming from having Fubuki and Hatsuharu with concealment expert captains, so once retraining finished concealment dropped from 6.8 to 6.4 which is a lot more workable. I like to play quite aggressively and contest caps which means leading the way with torpedoes. The trick seems to be dropping torps early and making an unpredictable torp wall, for example fire one launcher on narrow spread and then 2 on wide spread all at slightly different points of aim, you get a lot of torpedoes in the water with different angles and uneven gaps which is very hard to comb.

 

Just had a game with 2 DDs a side and enemies were a division so I ran into them both on B, they weren't expecting torps already in the water, the enemy Akatsuki caught one and died, then a few minutes later his Shiratsuyu division-mate came over to hunt me on C and sailed round the corner into another torp wall so I got both the enemy DDs pretty early in the game. May not seem like the obvious DD killer but you only really need to land one torpedo and the Akatsuki can put a lot of them in the water.

 

Compared to Fubuki and Hatsuharu the slight loss of concealment hurts but you get 9 torpedoes like the Fubuki with the speed of the Hatsuharu plus some really quite decent guns which is well worth going up a tier.

[ollonborre]

Never played the Leningrad or Minsk but they are annoying as hell and if it is a gunboat you want go for them.

 

But for overall versitility I vote for the Maass (with atleast a 10 point captain however, you really need CE to get the most out of it). It has good guns with nasty AP DPM when close enough and given broadside but pretty poor HE, still workable. 

 

Torps are good enough, not terrible reload, damage is ok and they are fast. But it is the Hydro that makes this ship a great cap bully, and with SE you get a nice HP pool so it can trade favourably.

 

 

[VC381]

I did get a Leningrad after considering the opinions in this thread. I think I'm too aggressive in it, but it's very fun and very versatile! Usable torps on a great gunboat, super fast and looks awesome 

 

Also on Fushun, going for GM.

[Mr_Tayto]

I've recently taken up DDs again after ditching the IJN line over a year ago (at yugumo).

 

I have Mahan and GM at tier 7 and both are excellent. I also enjoyed Maass.

[Runegrem]

On 2018-05-01 at 12:59 AM, Alex_Connor said:

The trick seems to be dropping torps early and making an unpredictable torp wall, for example fire one launcher on narrow spread and then 2 on wide spread all at slightly different points of aim, you get a lot of torpedoes in the water with different angles and uneven gaps which is very hard to comb.

As a general rule, never use wide spread. Sure, you get a lot of coverage, but you will also have to make offering to RNG-sama if you want to hit anything.

[Alex_Connor]

On 5/4/2018 at 12:42 PM, Runegrem said:

As a general rule, never use wide spread. Sure, you get a lot of coverage, but you will also have to make offering to RNG-sama if you want to hit anything.

Idk, I'm getting some pretty solid results mixing wide and narrow spread with the IJN DDs. 1-2 narrow spread (depending on number of launchers) with a wide spread launch layered over the top gives both coverage and density. Plus the pattern itself looks very random and targets seem to panic when they see it instead of neatly evading.

 

I used to use narrow spread all the time which lead to a few full hp deletions against targets not paying attention, but for an active opponent I'm definitely getting better results with mixed spreads.

[Aragathor]

1 hour ago, Alex_Connor said:

Idk, I'm getting some pretty solid results mixing wide and narrow spread with the IJN DDs. 1-2 narrow spread (depending on number of launchers) with a wide spread launch layered over the top gives both coverage and density. Plus the pattern itself looks very random and targets seem to panic when they see it instead of neatly evading.

 

I used to use narrow spread all the time which lead to a few full hp deletions against targets not paying attention, but for an active opponent I'm definitely getting better results with mixed spreads.

 

I'm doing this with the Akatsuki. But I don't think it's worthwhile for any other combination of launchers but the 3x3 you get on the Fubuki/Shinonome/Akatsuki.

[Prospect_b]

I like(d) mahan, gadja, lenin, akats

I dislike(d) maass, shira

 

Minsk I don't remember. Don't have Blys or Sims.

 

Given the best mm spread (besides tX), akats might be the best IJN torpboat ingame.

 

 

The "objectively" best will probably be the gadja or leningrad.

[GhostRiderMax123]

Mahan's a good all rounder with a 10 point capt she can be very good at contesting caps when well handled.

 

Gadjah is a fairly good DD but you cant really contest caps like the Mahan can due to the deep water torpedoes not being able to hit DD's other than that shes a nice little DD

[SplatterFest]

Z-39?

 

 

[Ysterpyp]

 

Here is my conclusion

 

Belfast > Ganja  Mama > Blys > Lenin > Sims > Mahan > Minsk >  Shiratsuyu (Leads to akizuki ) > Akatsuki  

 

The ones in bold i didn't play/own 

 

For fun factor , it probably pick  all of them accept Minsk and Akatsuki :)

[Mr_Tayto]

Had my first game in stock Minsk last night...

[_DeathWing_]

2 hours ago, SplatterFest said:

Z-39?

 

 

Defo not

 

That thing has only the best HP the rest is meh

[Infiriel]

There isn`t one, just like at tier 10.

Each and every one of them is better at one thing, and worse at other things.

 

For example if you want to hunt enemy DD`s Leningrad, and Sims are both really good, but they are both garbage if they have to contest caps due to awful concealment.

Shiratsuyu, Akatsuki, and Gadjah Mada all are great at dealing with enemy capital ships, but they have trouble defending themselves against enemy DD`s: IJNs can`t outgun anyone so it relies completly on it`s torpedoes, and Gadjah is vulnerable to being bum-rushed with torpedoes because it can`t torp the enemy DD back, though in this particular case her guns are a very strong deterrent.

[zappori]

Gadjah Mada

[VC381]

9 hours ago, zappori said:

Gadjah Mada

 

I need 3k XP and 5mil credits to unlock this beauty.

 

In the meantime, I am totally sold on Leningrad! It very quickly became one of my best performing DD and one of the most fun ships in the game

[GulvkluderGuld]

Fiji 

 

Played them all except akatsuki and Minsk and here's my 5 cents:

 

#1: Leningrad & Blyscawica almost equally good as all-round fun gunboats able to cap at need.

 

Shiratsuyu is my 3rd for the torp option, best concealment of the tier and powerful torps. Guns have great alpha for poke.

 

Gadjah mada is a decent 4th but it comes with many downsides and vulnerabilities.

- turret angles are atrocious when kiting away, which makes smoke shooting the only practial solution. Also speed is on the slow side for smokeless gunboating

- Smoke shooting is impractical against competent dds ( they will charge smoke, torp GD's [edited]and laugh gleefully as the DW torps pass harmlessly under the keel)

- Dpm is actually rather bad.

 

Maas  comes a close 5th

(and Sims if you can put up with the mortars and sea mines) comes next.

 

Mahan: skip it, the horrible ship.

 

[loppantorkel]

3 hours ago, GulvkluderGuld said:

Gadjah mada is a decent 4th but it comes with many downsides and vulnerabilities.

- turret angles are atrocious when kiting away, which makes smoke shooting the only practial solution. Also speed is on the slow side for smokeless gunboating

- Smoke shooting is impractical against competent dds ( they will charge smoke, torp GD's [edited]and laugh gleefully as the DW torps pass harmlessly under the keel)

- Dpm is actually rather bad.

You're probably not playing it correctly then... Turret angles are godlike for hunting down dds. Smoke shooting isn't necessary against competent dds since you'll gun them down regardless. You're the one that should charge the smoke and gun them down with that heavenly DPM. It's so good it's boring and I see a nerf incoming.

[creamgravy]

13 hours ago, loppantorkel said:

You're probably not playing it correctly then...

 

Has better stats in GM than all his other DDs, inc the T10s.

 

"A decent 4th with lots of downsides"

 

Sure. 

[GulvkluderGuld]

16 hours ago, loppantorkel said:

You're probably not playing it correctly then... Turret angles are godlike for hunting down dds. Smoke shooting isn't necessary against competent dds since you'll gun them down regardless. You're the one that should charge the smoke and gun them down with that heavenly DPM. It's so good it's boring and I see a nerf incoming.

You seem to forget DD fights are usually decided the backup and charging in usually is suicide.

Later in the game it is indeed good at chasing, but turret angles are terrible earlier when you want to kite, Khaba style.

It cant turn more than 90 degrees away before turrets cant fire.

I happily charge smoked up PA dds whenever i get the chance, and so far they died, not me. 

2 hours ago, creamgravy said:

 

Has better stats in GM than all his other DDs, inc the T10s.

 

"A decent 4th with lots of downsides"

 

Sure. 

Small sample size of 29 concerning winrate (damage is not impressive at 49k)

My Fushun stats (damage and wr) are even better than GD, so by that measure, Fushun is a better boat 

[creamgravy]

37 minutes ago, GulvkluderGuld said:

My Fushun stats (damage and wr) are even better than GD, so by that measure, Fushun is a better boat 

 

Yep, Fushun is another stealthy gunboat with great torps and smoke. No idea why it doesn't have Anshan surface detection etc, it might even be better than Hsienyang...

 

40 minutes ago, GulvkluderGuld said:

You seem to forget DD fights are usually decided the backup and charging in usually is suicide.

 

I've messed around with GM quite a bit and you can certainly yolo large groups just to kill off one DD and survive, this includes most tier 8 DDs. (assuming a stealth radar CL like Belfast doesn't show up)

A 'bow on' GM spamming 6 guns is very hard to hit. Esp when they mess around speed, rock forwards/backwards, reverse wiggle etc.

 

The only problem comes from feeling unbeatable and you stick around to take on 5+ ships on your own when you should really just run. 

 

GM is way more powerful than OG Kiev imo.