World of Warships [Wargaming.net]

[Renegade334]

Sheer damage has dropped, sure, but persistence has increased, in the form of consecutive attacks and the fact that CVs now have infinite planes at their disposal. I was in a Nelson earlier this day (finally swapped Concealment Expert for Fire Prevention and boy, what a difference it made! I wasn't being lit on fire with every HE volley) and I was practically spinning my hull around like a whirling dervish to avoid all those consecutive torp drops coming from different directions. Couldn't avoid all of them, which is quite irksome as the Nelson doesn't have a good torpedo damage reduction rate.

The biggest damage so far, IMHO, is the undermining -if not outright demolition- of ship concealment: not only were the mods nerfed, now all you have to do to thwart the enemy's plan (if any: we all know how chaotic and disorganized the first few seconds of a match are) is to have your CV fly an air wing across the median objectives and voilà, everyone is spotted and the element of surprise is lost from the get-go, before the DDs even reach their chosen cap point. Worst off are the DDs that now have to contend with the risk of being permaspotted and focused on by the CV, preventing them from peacefully capping or ambushing oblivious opponents. I more often than not see DDs popping smoke right as they reach the cap circle, so that CVs can't find and designate them to the rest of the enemy fleet. Before, DDs waited before popping smoke but now they no longer do - that's just how debilitating airborne scrutiny is.

Parallel to that is the confusion generated by the AA changes. Now AA is layered and each type (short, medium and long range) of antiair artillery has a dedicated "doughnut of responsibility" instead of having overlapping auras. Before, when an enemy plane slipped into the short range area, all three (short, medium and long) AAs were firing to terminate the target, but now, only the short range AA shall be firing; long and medium range AAs will be silent. I also see a lot of people confused as to which skill they should get for such or such ship, BFT or AFT (my understanding is that AFT is better for ships whose AA complement is mostly made of long-range guns)...or both. Which leads to some skill compromises I'm not always comfortable with (trading either Basics of Survivability, Fire Prevention or Concealment Expert for BFT or AFT).

That said, I haven't had that horrible a time with the CV rework, though the gameplay did feel a bit too chaotic...and I miss being not spotted. In other news, I just got my Kitakaze...all I need to do is get IFHE for my captain and I'm good to go for some serious facemelting.

EDIT: might I suggest getting a Hakuryu?

YouTube

https://youtu.be/R5bBhKBfmIk

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[Renegade334]

Hallelujah, it seems not all at WG are in the middle of executing the ostrich strategy and are planning to resolve the current CV issues.

Originally Posted by Sub_Octavian on Reddit

Dear players,

It's been less than a week since update 0.8.0 release - a major, and probably the biggest change in the game yet, CV rework. We want to share the first list of fixes, changes and tweaks that are to be implemented to improve new CV and counter-CV gameplay. But first of all we sincerely thank you for your feedback and game activity, as well as apologize for any stress and inconvenience that you could experience due to massive game change.

Please note that all information in this post is preliminary.

Critical changes and fixes that we're working on right now (to be implemented within 0.8.0 in "hotfix" update ASAP).

• Reduce the excessive efficiency of IJN tier X CV Hakuryu;
• Reduce the excessive efficiency of IJN Torpedo Bombers (reduce flooding chance, introduce spread debuff when maneuvering);
• Resolve the "F-spam" issue, when a CV can just recall its squadron at any time without considerable penalties (increase the vulnerability time for the squadron after recall so that players can shoot down some planes before it completely disengages);
• Do overall AA balancing: shift a part of damage from flak bursts to constant DPS. Flak bursts proved to be an interesting aspect of AA. However, on the one hand, they deal disproportional amount of damage, and on the other hand, avoiding them often results in completely insufficient damage to the planes;
• Do overall Attack Planes vs. Destroyers balancing. While this is an important thing to do, we would like to indicate that most players seem to underestimate the power of manual AA activation ([P] by default). Due to great DD concealment, if often makes sense to turn AA off until spotted. A DD spotted at minimal range is a lot harder to hit with the first attack run even with rockets. Although, this trick does not remove the need for further balancing;
• Do additional Premium CV and UK CV (unreleased) balancing;
• Remove the inconsistency between Des Moines and Salem in close/mid-range AA;

Changes and improvements that we work on now in the timeframe of next updates (0.8.1 and beyond).

• Improve plane reserves UI (information should me better presented);
• Improve AA sector UI (better usability);
• Do additional balancing for individual ships, armament, skills and upgrades, as the statistical data is being accumulated;
• Clear the minimap for non-CV ships (remove the unnecessary info about returning planes, etc);
• Finish the development for CV bots (Cooperative Battles);

Open questions and concerns to be researched in more detail and addressed if needed (no specific update planned yet, but it may change).

• The amount and quality of CV spotting in the new meta;
• MM limits (our ideal limit is 1 CV per team, very few cases of 2 CV (and always 1 at tier X, but right now the limit is 3 across the board): we would like to change the limits where/when possible.

As indicated before, these are the first plans after several days of release. We will keep monitoring your feedback and update you about any further changes.
Thank you, good luck, and fair seas!

<< Source >>

About time, too. DD has become utterly unplayable and it was only with great pain that I managed to complete my Benson grind (that 200% first win bonus with special signal flags helped tremendously). I now have two T9 DDs (Kitakaze and Fletcher) and I'm not at all enthused about taking them out. I just get permaspotted all the time and if those planes don't designate me to the enemy cruisers before I could get behind cover, then I get peppered with rockets, gouging chunks of precious HP every time. Worse even, the American gunboats I was so fond of have suddenly become rather lackluster. At T8, Benson felt horribly fragile and it seems that Fletcher will continue the trend. Sure, it gets significantly better torps (little reaction time before impact) but I feel like I'm getting whacked silly every time I try to contest a cap and wrest it out of an enemy, non-US DD (meeting a Japanese gunboat being my worst nightmare).

That said, not everything is dyed black in 0.8.0 and every once in a while I do get things like this:

With 25 air kills, I swatted 3.4x more planes out of the sky than all of my team combined (and that paints a rather bleak portrait about the current state of ship AA). I only wish these little pearls occurred more often to make me forget the Horrorkuryus that keep torp- and F-spamming at high tiers.

[Renegade334]

So I have been testing my new ships in the current changing meta and the past couple of days have been a rather strange rollecoaster of a ride that alternated "WHY?" with "HOT DAMN!" moments.

• The Kitakaze is a beast, extremely dangerous when knife-fighting other DDs. Its presence is dreadful enough to cause opponents to turn away in a panic (unless you're a Harugumo or a Worcester) and BBs to swiftly consider a career change. Of course having only one torp launcher (with TRB to mitigate the loss) is a bummer, but any more would render it outright overpowered.
• I'm handling the Fletcher better than I did the Benson, even though it's still a rather fragile ship that has, to make matters direr, been seriously powercreeped by other, newer DDs. Still, I'm having some difficulty with this one, which stands in perplexing contrast to my otherwise stellar experience with the Mahan, where I was doing swimmingly well. The Benson derivatives seem rather weak in my hands and my main gunnery is markedly inferior to the Kitakaze's, even though simple math should put my DPM above the latter's (most likely due to the IJN DDs' improved HE ballistics with 1/4th penetration). The upside? Those 10.5km torps (90s reload when fully kitted!) leave little notice to their targets before making contact, thus allowing for some rather nasty surprise!torpsex situations.
• The Roon is...ugh. I had breathed a small sigh of relief when I got its predecessor the Hipper (finally, two front turrets!), but even to this day I cannot fathom (no wonder: the Roon is a papership designed by WG to fill in the blanks!) why German engineers placed two thirds of the cruiser's firepower aft! This is a ship where, in order to traverse most -or all- of my guns to bear onto my target, I have to sail at a rather dangerous angle or even with my back (full retreat!) completely exposed to my foe! WTH? To add insult to injury, the Roon has a very dreadful turret traverse rate when in stock state and the rudder shift is predictably atrocious, making for a frustrating CA to initially grind through. And even now, on Hull B with the main guns upgrade, it regularly feel like the ship is fighting my keyboard input when I'm kiting around. I'm afraid I'll have to use a USN CA approach for the Roon: park behind an island and start lobbing long-range shells, then pull out for drive-by attacks later in the game. Not fun. I can't wait for the Hindenburg...
• The Monarch: I just restarted grinding it...and am now considering eschewing it completely. I just don't seem to contribute much to my team and it just feels dreadfully emasculating. I get penetrated through the hull at most angles, even when I think I should be bouncing AP, and those 381mm guns just feel inadequate (firestarting chances are alright, but nowhere near the pyromaniac exuberance of the Zao). I swear, I feel like the Bismarck and Tirpitz, despite having 1 less 381mm gun (8 instead of 9) than the Monarch, are more productive despite the lousier dispersion. And I often hear that the T9 Lion feels somewhat meh, making this grind particularly...loathsome.
• The Worcester: fantastic ship, even better than the Des Moines thanks to its massive DPM and the inclusion of an extra consumable (sonar). As an AA ship, however, 0.8.0.0 ruined everything because everybody's avoiding me now and I don't do much flyswatting anymore unless the opponent CV has a lapse in his geographical awareness. Ironically, most of my latest air kills have been credited to my aforementioned DDs, which understandably pose more far more enticing targets for the enemy CVs.
• Charles Martel: haven't sailed it yet, but my last weeks with the Algérie were filled with some serious sealclubbing episodes, including my swiftest Kraken so far. Hope it'll be more of the same.

The horrors of 0.8.0.0 have been somewhat mitigated with the latest nerfs (no more F-spam!), but every once in a while, you still experience some aircancer-related frustration - especially if you're in a DD trying to creep your way towards the cap point. Air wings can no longer instantly attack you upon initial spotting, but the successive (3 total, if the player hasn't already struck other ships in your vicinity) attack waves can seriously ruin your fun, especially with those fighter rockets.

Thankfully, double-CV matches aren't as ubiquitous as before, but when they do show up, you just want to punch your fist through the nearest wall you can find. I haven't personally tried the new CVs aside from a couple training room sessions and am unlikely to do so for the foreseeable future. Yes, I know there is a British CV event scheduled for the coming weeks, but my interest towards it remains lukewarm (not to mention, I just learned those cheeky buggers have even more fighter rockets than the other nationalities...(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ︵┻━┻).

[Xero8420]

It looks like the Russian/Soviet BB line has been announced. As far as I know based on my findings in the past:-

• Tier III - Knyaz Suvorov/Prince Alexander Suvorov (the first dreadnought BB design preceding Gangut/Sevastopol)
• Tier IV - Gangut/Sevastopol (first dreadnought BB actually completed & in service)
• Tier V - Pyotr Veliky/Peter The Great (possibly a pre-Izmail development design variant that can be found in the book about the development of Izmail-class battlecruiser) [Apparently, he's the Russian Kongou]
• Tier VI - Izmail/Borodino (unsurprisingly treated as a BB, a tad too slow to be a proper battlecruiser [BC/CB]) [like Fusou]
• Tier VII - Sinop (Kostenko's Project GUK 16-incher Battleship 1916 design! YES!!!) [Russian equivalent to Colorado & would have been the first 16-incher BB ever existed should it realized into fruition before Nagato]
• Tier VIII - Vladivostok (Early Type-A BB development design circa 1936 based on the Ansaldo BB Project UP.41 schematics the Soviet naval architects bought from the aforementioned Italian shipbuilding company for their Type-A BB project)
• Tier VIII (P) - Project 21 Lenin [Soviet Nelson]
• Tier IX - Project 23 Sovetsky Soyuz (direct evolution of Pr. 21 & would have been the first Soviet modern BB if given more time & luck to complete construction)
• Tier X - Project 24 Kreml (direct evolution of Sovetsky Soyuz) [This Soviet Leviathan is ultimately made as the Soviet Yamato with 457mm main batteries & unironically a mobile floating fortress if you get what the word Kreml actually stands for]

Compared with other factions:-

• They will possibly be having the highest HP that any other factions in general.
• Armor compositions may not be as good as the German counterpart for earlier ships, but will get better when getting into the last three Soviet BBs - Vladivostok, Sovetsky Soyuz & Kreml.
• Given their highest HP, they could possibly be better at torpedo protection, but even more so for both Vladivostok, Sovetsky Soyuz & Kreml, which its torpedo protection values could be having the highest resistance to torps damage due to the application of Pugliese torpedo defense system & later American-type TDS.
• On all the above, it effectively make high-tier Soviet BBs possibly the most resilient of all.
• Unfortunately, most Soviet/Russian BBs' main guns will be struggling hard in terms of max. range. It was said that it supposed to be having the longest range, but reduced to be in the margin of German main gun range. Possible reason being is that a max. effective "acceptable" ranges are given instead, because beyond the given in-game gun range parameter, dispersion would get abysmally worse that it is deem unacceptable.
• But, their main guns' AP firepower are actually pretty decent, it matches the American firepower & then has the strongest firepower with Kreml (rivals Yamato)
• Their secondary firepower in overall may not be as powerful & dakka-ish as the Germans nor the French, but their total DPS are actually pretty good & wouldn't perform as bad as the Americans, British & Japanese combined.
• AA firepower may not be performing well on earlier ships, but gets better down the line. At least not worse than Japanese counterparts. But with Kreml, her AA firepower comes close second to Montana's.
• Maneuverability aren't their strength due to having the largest turn radius, but they got the fastest rudder turn speed to make it up.
• Top speeds are good & consistently improves down the line.
• Strangely, they aren't as big as the German counterparts.

[Psyco Diver]

Redownloaded the game a couple weeks ago to respec my captains, played around in Training Room but I can't find the motivation to play a match. I used my FXP to buy the Montana and Richelieu and fully upgraded it in the process

[Renegade334]

Well, the Russian BBs will be there in a little while, so I guess that's one thing to look forward to? (I personally am not and am still miffed WG has eschewed the non-paper Italian BBs and cruisers in favor of the mainly-paper and cancelled Soviet BBs...not to mention that WG is slowly developing the RU BBs into HE-resistant, bowtanking fortresses with superior firepower at close range).

I used some steel and most of my coal to get the Jean Bart and boy is it a joy to play. Sure, the Dunkerque-style turret arrangement means you are porked if you're being pursued (and you are horribly vulnerable to HE spam), but otherwise, that damage burst can deal some significant hurt on the enemy. And it prints some serious money.

After the RU BBs will come the French DDs and a smattering of new premiums like the Somers (a 1930s US DD with three centerline torpedo launchers and NO ANTIAIR WHATSOEVER, shoehorned into T10), the Smolensk (a Russian Atlanta paperbote at T10), the Georgia (a South Dakota-Iowa hybrid prototype with six 18'' guns, Massachusetts secondaries, engine boost consumable and cruiser dispersion), the Indomitable (UK CV), the Yoshino (a T10 Azuma with better middle section deck plating and Shimakaze torps), etc.

Will try to save some coal or FXP for the Georgia (despite the slight armor buff, I feel the Yoshino is still going to be squishy AF and me no likey), but I am currently falling into a slump due to several factors...such as trying to finish Assassin's Creed Odyssey New Game+ just before the arrival of the second DLC arc...and considering buying Anno 1800 (RIP wallet). I completed the last arc of the Exeter marathon on day 1 and once again, wham, gaming burnout...I just don't learn from my past mistakes.

[Pen3]

After missing out on Musashi, i havent played at all. Kind of regret picking Missouri because nobody really uses that ship anymore, but plenty of Musashi. USS Georgia looks like a nerfed Musashi, so thats no go either.

[Renegade334]

The Georgia does have some things going in its favor, though:

- Unmatched precision for a BB; while it only has 6 guns, cruiser-type dispersion will ensure that enough shells land on target to make up for the lower rifle count. Pair that with the highest AP damage (per shell, not per broadside) in the game for a BB (even higher than the 18.1'' AP a Yamato), and you're looking at a serious threat.
- Massachusetts secondaries, 'nuff said.
- Warp speed eclipsing that of an Iowa, if WG keeps that French engine boost there.

As for the Missouri, it is true it has fallen a bit by the wayside, what with the profusion of radar ships (WG has after all added the radar-toting US CL line along with a few others like the Stalingrad and Kronstadt) and the appearance of other T9 premiums, but it still shows up from time to time. Also, it's nice to have it when you're short on credits...and, personally speaking, the Mighty Mo is one of the few ships where I consistently do well in.

[Psyco Diver]

Originally Posted by Renegade334

Well, the Russian BBs will be there in a little while, so I guess that's one thing to look forward to? (I personally am not and am still miffed WG has eschewed the non-paper Italian BBs and cruisers in favor of the mainly-paper and cancelled Soviet BBs...not to mention that WG is slowly developing the RU BBs into HE-resistant, bowtanking fortresses with superior firepower at close range).

Italians are being left behind because their naval blueprints are harder to get for WG, apparently the Italian government hasn't been very cooperative with WG

[Renegade334]

There are a few rough blueprints floating around like the BB1936 (AKA UP.41) that WG could use as basis for vessels above T8 (at least for the battleships; not too sure for the cruiser line, which would stop at T8 Zara). They also should have more than a little documentation lying around in Russia considering the Ansaldo company had sold a few BB designs for the VMF (if you look at some of the Russian cruisers, you can definitely see the Italian influence right there - especially in the guns and conn towers) that were also considered for the Regia Marina, and more than a couple blueprints had been sent over to Moscow before war broke out. Still, a hypothetical Italian line would have more "actually built and entered in service" ships than the upcoming Russian BB line.

Besides...if I may be a bit snarky here...if you look back at Zao, Hindenburg, Roon or Vladivostok, WG has no qualms cooking a design from the ground up, using vague cues from preceding vessels. Heck, even the Georgia is based on a very vague Iowa precursor design that briefly toyed with the idea of 457mm guns (and, yes, a single 18'' gun was actually built and test-fired by the USN) before going back to 406mm.

That said, I know they're pandering to their non-negligible Russian playerbase and this is merely a business-oriented decision, but the history aficionado deep inside of me chafes at the continued lack of (regular) ITA ships.

[Pen3]

Originally Posted by Renegade334

- Unmatched precision for a BB; while it only has 6 guns, cruiser-type dispersion will ensure that enough shells land on target to make up for the lower rifle count.

I don't know about that. From all the Georgia videos i have seen, it misses a lot. It is very obvious when both ships are bow in and you are stuck with 2 guns, you'll be lucky if one shell even lands. The ship looks amazing on paper, but in actually game, it suffers from having only 6 slow guns that still doesn't autopen unlike the IJN counterpart.

[Renegade334]

This thread's regulars will probably remember me as someone who is rather quick to complain about the ships in the game, if not outright whine (if I didn't care about it, why would I?), but this time I feel like exploding in a way I never have, in my, what, two years of WOWS gaming?

The object of my exasperation? You guessed it, the CV rework.

TL;DR…

 

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[Xero8420]

Actually, Renegade, you may need to take note that Izmail & Sovetsky Soyuz were partially built, but never completed due to ill-fated events that prevented them from getting completed.

As for Smolensk, it was in fact the small light cruiser MLK-16-130 variant made primarily for anti-aircraft purposes along with other air defense light cruiser projects to be armed with 152mm & 180mm DP guns. It was one of Admiral Kuznetsov's decreed postwar projects in response to Worcester, Minotaur (later redesigned as Tiger) & De Grasse & Colbert. I actually made a small Soviet AA CL line suggestions a couple of years back. Regardless, Smolensk being niche premium ship was already expected, since there's Atlanta before that. Although I personally suggested the MLK-12-130 as Tier VIII premium, to give players an opportunity to play around with the postwar 130mm DP guns found on Moskva, Stalingrad & Kreml, but we still get the same guns on MLK-16-130 Smolensk.

And by the way, when I finally managed to talk more about Admiral Kuznetsov & his legacy, soon you guys will come to at least understand why I keep defending the USSR VMF's existential potentials & it's legacies to the bitter end. Why? Because unlike the very popular Marshal Zhukov, Fleet Admiral Kuznetsov's legacy was never widely understood by many people outside of Russia & former Soviet republics. And from the way I see it, this is probably the main reason why the VMF has been so reviled with a great deal of ridicule & prejudice because of their ignorance on Fleet Admiral Kuznetsov, who was apparently the father of the Soviet Navy.

[Psyco Diver]

I get the feeling the CV hate train is coming to its climax soon, even CCs are being more and more vocal about it.

[Renegade334]

@Xero8420: noted, I also know that the SSes had a series of problems in the shipyard and one of the incomplete hulls was (IIRC) even written off due to quality problems (rivets made from inadequate steel? can't remember). I probably sounded a bit aggressive when I made my previous post but I sometimes really wish WG would stop pumping out all those paper or imaginary (like the recently-announced T10 Thunderer, which is actually a what-if concept created by NA contributor LittleWhiteMouse) designs and concentrate on the historical vessels that were actually built instead. Also, I'm not too enthused by the appearance of so many Atlanta-type ships at T9-10. Minotaur, Harugumo and Worcester are bad enough in that department already, no need to add more.

@Psyco Diver: doesn't surprise me, the CV affair is source of myriad frustrations nowadays. Most annoying, I guess, is the fact that AA performance is often inconsistent, leading to vastly different results: in one match with the Des Moines (to cite one AA-strong CA) you could easily sweep the skies and in the next you can get citadelled to kingdom come by AP divebombers without a single air kill for consolation. I remember having matches in my Roon where I had upwards of 25 air kills, followed by very paltry performances that left me scratching my head in confusion. From what I read on Reddit (fair warning: beware of confirmation bias!), a lot of people really miss the consistency of the old AA mechanics with overlapping (rather than separate) air defense fields.

0.8.4 promises a few more CV tweaks (such as the starting grace period), but I'm afraid the damage is already done.


Anyway, the past couple of weeks has been very productive and fruitful in terms of new acquisitions for yours truly. I managed to unlock (and purchase!) no less than three T10s in five days:

- T9 Lion. Finally managed to get over the Monarch by heaping special signal flags and camos on it. Will be a port queen for a while, I need a break from RN BBs.
- T7 Lazo. Got the 1,500 tokens required even though I wasn't certain I could pull it off in time. Nothing too special, I guess, but I won't turn down a free premium.
- T10 Harugumo. The Kitakaze was an absolute blast to play, even though CVs occasionally came to rain on my parade, and will stay in my port for a loooooong time.
- T10 Gearing. The Fletcher is now, along with the Kitakaze, one of my favorite DDs in the game...especially with those awesome stealthy torps. Also a keeper.
- T10 Hindenburg. I'm glad to see the Roon go, that A-XY turret configuration was making me see red even until the last day. Just sold my Roon right now, shall not regret its absence.
- T9 Yugumo. I used to play well in the Kagero, but the CV rework kind of turned it into a piece of junk for me (even had to swap my traditional TRB for smoke). I nevertheless had a few good matches that, with the help of special camos and flags, helped me complete the grind and move on to the Yugumo.


That said...I feel rather exhausted and will probably take a couple weeks off from WOWS. I can't even be excited for Part 2 of the Victory competition and the special Russian captain (wish it was a permanent campaign rather than an unlock using temporary currency). I just grinded too much in the past couple of weeks and really need some fresh air.

[Newhope]

CV's are why I've left the game they where powerful before the rework but thankfully fairly rare, now they're even more powerful and there's usually 2 every match.

I used to main the Hindenburg now it's almost unplayable, it's AA used to be fairly reliable now it doesn't seem to do much even with defensive fire it'll maybe pick off a plane here and there, so now you have to stick to the lemming train or die, add onto that been almost constantly spotted...

[Renegade334]

There should an in-built "one CV per side only" restriction for the topmost tier (T9-10), but I have nevertheless seen a couple of four-cv matches mostly populated by T10s. Still, we grab whatever small blessing we can (at T4-6 there are even six-cv matches [!!]). With 0.8.4, we will get an additional reprieve with the 30s grace period that will allow DDs to reach the cap points mostly unmolested, but I'm not sure what else WG will balance to make sure the CV mains won't feel too emasculated.

I just got a T5 Pyotr Veliky mission from one of the Soviet boxes from the Armory (I can buy at least one daily with the remainder of my provision tokens), 9K base XP to go. Would've preferred a Vladivostok instead (I really didn't like the Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya, so I'm not looking forward to [re]grinding the T6 Izmail), but I shouldn't be greedy and just content myself with what RNG puts in my lap once in a thousand blue moons - I'm usually extremely unlucky when it comes to lotteries and randomness-based rewards.

[Renegade334]

For those who didn't catch the announcement on Reddit:

Back in 2018 many of you have participated in the operation called 'Terror of the Deep'. This event allowed everyone to try a new class in our game — submarines. By the end of the event, it became clear that our players are highly interested in submarines and we should be engaged in full development.
And now, we are happy to announce that the first stages of closed testing will begin shortly, where the new gameplay of submarines will be tested. The American and German submarines will be the pioneers of the new class.
After the SuperTest submarines will be available for players to try on a special server, before being added to the main game client. Once introduced, the new class will initially be available in a special separate battle type only and this final configuration stage will last for several months. This will allow us to make additional changes to the new class under the conditions of the live server.
We will be sharing more details with you shortly. Follow our official game channels for more news!

Not sure how they are going to implement this, given that BBs are not exactly ASW-oriented and thus will have trouble properly fighting back...that said, I'm definitely going to keep an eye on this.

Still playing on and off and I'm ~22K coal away from a Yoshino but for some reason I'm procrastinating as hell, taking my diabetes-inducing sweet time bridging that final gap. ION, I'm bummed the Ohio is a reward for that dumpster fire called the Research Bureau, I'd have loved getting myself a Montana with eight 457mm guns.

[Firefly00]

Originally Posted by Renegade334

For those who didn't catch the announcement on Reddit:

"...the rangefinder is sticking. Sonar, one ping only for range."

Not sure how they are going to implement this, given that BBs are not exactly ASW-oriented and thus will have trouble properly fighting back...that said, I'm definitely going to keep an eye on this.

Of course they aren't; that particular tasking is right up the DDs' collective alley. I'm guessing many players have forgotten about important concepts like 'combined arms' and 'team play'.

And, again, it's a shame that Koei hasn't seen fit to revive their Naval Ops/Warship Gunner series.

[Renegade334]

Originally Posted by Firefly00

Of course they aren't; that particular tasking is right up the DDs' collective alley. I'm guessing many players have forgotten about important concepts like 'combined arms' and 'team play'.

There is that; in WWII ASW duties were assigned to either corvettes, escort destroyers (not the full-fledged, more onerous destroyers) or even aircraft carriers, thus leaving cruisers and battleships with their pants down against this threat. I am curious as to how they're going to balance that and how they're going to rework the MM to make sure subs can't spawn in a match without a DD already present in the lineup...and hopefully in sufficient numbers (I have recently had matches with only one DD or none at all...or sometimes with five of them on each team).

Additionally, WWII subs weren't exactly as fast as Roadrunner. ~22kt was quite good for T10 equivalents (Balao, Gato class) for that time, but that might be horribly slow for the higher-tiered matches, where the maps are very large. Will WG give them 20km+ torps or fast reload to make up for this? Dunno.

It'll furthermore be interesting to see how sonar will gain in gameplay value, once the subs are unleashed on the live server.



As an aside, I'm getting rather pissed at WG's recent practices.
- They made the T9 Kronshtadt then released a better version called the T10 Stalingrad.
- They rolled out the T9 Azuma then later on a better version called the T10 Yoshino.
- They created the T9 Georgia before introducing a tankier, bigger brother called the T10 Ohio (locked behind the Research Bureau dumpster fire).
- Now I've just learned that, after gifting us the T9 Alaska, they're going to push the T10 Puerto Rico onto us (historical CA-2D design, an Alaska with thicker, 13in armor belt and a fourth triple turret).
*@&+/£~%#!!

What's next after that? Siegfried followed by Super Siegfried, after everyone has been tricked into purchasing (with $, FXP or coal) the lesser precursor version?


As I've previously stated, I'm sloooooooowly collecting coal to get that Arsenal T10 Yoshino, but if WG makes the Puerto Rico available for coal right after I get the super-Zao, for roughly the same price, I'm probably going to go out and flip every table I can find.