TacticalOni

I concur with everyone that says that the human factor is the biggest part of it. That said, some ships and lines just contribute to a shallower learning curve while others steepen it. I chose to start grinding the Soviet DD line at tier 7 when Kiev had just recently been nerfed and Tashkent was tier 8 and much maligned by everyone, but I remember just having the worst time trying to figure the line out, it took me a lot of failing to get to the point where I felt comfortable playing them and feeling like I could contribute to a match. Meanwhile I felt so comfortable in the Tirpitz that I got the feeling like I could rule the roost after 5-6 matches, and basically instantly if I had some booze in the system. So there is something to be said about the inherent playability of the line and skill floor versus ceiling of a specific ship and how long it takes to "master" I don't play Randoms much any more to save my arterial walls from the massive spikes in blood pressure this game gives me, but I do remember that. I am a BB main and I only have 5 BBs that I have played more than 100 matches in and one of them is Nikolai (I don't think there are enough showers to take.)

Renown has been announced as the tier 6 British BB in the upcoming battlecruiser split. Long ago I predicted this, Repulse would always make a better premium while Renown has incentive to those who want a better Repulse to grind the line

As a blatant BB main 90% of any downsides you carry in this game can be mitigated heavily by rate of fire which all CLs have in spades. and the fact that we are getting more CLs than ever that can cover up poor marksmanship and tactical decisionmaking with DPM, I'm fine watching them get softened here and there.

I'd play with Loki in one of his moods as long as he's telling me what he's doing and telling me kinda why, I don't need someone to count on as much as I like to know what my teammates are thinking

I determined long ago that I wouldn't play solo at high tier anymore, if I'm going all-in with my biggest, baddest ships, I want people I can communicate with. Now, I play up to tier 8 by myself and I have enjoyed the game a little more than I have in the past.

Long, long ago, can't remember if it was at the end of Beta or the start of Live, when the game was low pop and MM was throwing fits about everything, I queued up for randoms in my Tier 2 US DD and got matched against a single tier 2 IJN DD. It was a completely random 1v1 match against a guy. We both got in and were like "whaaaaA" which resulted in both of us spending about 5 minutes searching for each other, followed by a furious gun action, and me torping him. I wonder if he's even still playing, it was all in good spirits.

You're proving that you're a BB main that other BB mains hate to see. There's certainly an art to pushing and not getting yourself killed, but not trying at all is even more damning.

I'm unlocking them so I can sell them when the line releases. I don't care for or about this line, and the way they've been set up thus far has proven my suspicions. So I'll hold onto the ugly behemoths until I can make money from them.

I only have the Siegfried, but I think overall I made the better choice. I'll prolly get Agir someday, but right now I'm saving up XP for that new German DD line. Anyway, I watched a few videos and I fell in love with how accurate the Seigfried's guns are. I'm running a 49% hit rate right now, and with German 15" guns thats always going to be a fair amount of hurt. The secondaries aren't outstanding in any way but they are good for making DDs panic if you're gutsy enough to charge on them in the later stages of a match. But as others have said, I feel more comfortable than I should toeing the line against battleships, I don't think they anticipate the damage that 6 15" guns you have to be drunk to miss with can do. And then you smash them with torpedoes, and laugh your way to the bank. Only downside is the torpedo armor pocket that will occasionally eat pens all day every day, but the upside is that the armor can be laughably strong when you least expect it. I've watched salvos come in and I think "welp thats it I'm dead" Followed by the deafening sound of that entire salvo bouncing. I do want the Agir, if only to have it and satisfy the collector in me, sadly I can't report on how good it is.

if there were no Carriers they wouldn't have a place. But because carriers are in and there's no way to inherently balance them (because you can't balance an even number of classes against themselves) subs are required to fix the struggling balance matrix.

Going out on a limb here, but I'm going to suspect its because you have to pay real money to get the thing, and there's no refunds. So if first hand you realize you don't like it, you have a ship you don't want and you're out real money. I don't know the price, I don't care enough, but I know I'd rather get a cheeseburger than a digital ship that has the community so polarized.

1. Thats the dispersion reduction coming to a head for you. You're a giant, seaborne claymore, the closer you get the more devastating you become. 2. Thats the idea behind RU BBs, in order to succeed you have to get close, not brawling close but closer than is comfortable for most other ships depending on the phase the match is in. A player with any reasonable amount of skill and education regarding armor angling will generally be able to close the distance. 3. Ties in with number 2. The hull armor is great, you're not going to get penned by much other than other battleships firing HE, but that is kind of the point, cruisers at range are dangerous in that they can fire ridiculous amounts of HE and engage you in your worst nightmare. Constant fires. Damage may be small, if any, but it's the DoT effect that fires can have that will wear you down regardless of what phase the match is in. Either you will burn up your heals or your DCPs and either way, you're soon going to be out of luck if you can't mitigate the bombardment. It's a powerful line, but not one that is easily learned to use it to the best of its abilities. Not every Mary, Joe, and Sue will be able to jump in and do insane amounts of damage consistently. I think they are well balanced and some slight nerfs wouldn't be totally out of order, but at the time, I don't see them necessary.

There's a lot of soft stats that can be worked on and massaged to generate a distinct playstyle for a Battlecruiser tree. One that I went over heavily in my British battlecruiser tech tree proposal thread

As someone who is closely involved with the operation of Warbirds, I can assure you that all of the Foundation's planes are IRAN'd at the end of every tour cycle, engines are repaired and replaced with zero-time units if they're in need of a more comprehensive overhaul. That doesn't mean they aren't liable to break even if they are new. Jumping to conclusions helps nobody, and ideally we should all wait to read what the NTSB has to say at the conclusion of their investigation.

I don't think we will see them, personally. As I posted in another thread, with subs, thought I'm not the biggest fan of their implementation as I enjoy the primarily surface combat aspect of the game, it does complete the RPS aspect of balance the designers sought from the start, and I knew it was but a matter of time before we saw them. The main issue with the game in the state it was released was that you can't naturally balance around 4 classes. Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard inherently unbalances the game, and gives one class an unfair advantage over the rest. Adding in Subs balanced the game to Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock, and while it does muddy the waters in terms of who can kill what and how everything works cooperatively, it is inherently balanced. As much as I like PTs, I don't think we will ever see that gameplay in the game until many many years on, like WOT adding two-gunned tanks. Once the devs start running out of ideas and lines to make who knows what we will see.