Verdha603

I do have the agree, my largest complaint about the line at this point is the gun range is disappointing (at least if you don't set the ships up with a recon plane to compensate). 15.7/15.8 km guns at T8? You may as well make me just a nice juicy target the moment I fire my guns, because everyone is going to start turning their guns at me because most other cruisers have a couple KM's on me in terms of range in comparison at that tier. Heck, Budyonny at T6 has an extra KM of gun range on me in a T8, which is downright ridiculous to think about.

I keep a couple so I have them on hand for when I get friends to get into the game, and sometimes it's just fun to jump down to low tiers and meme with a division. St. Louis, Derzki, and Mikasa come to mind. I also tend to keep Kuma just because she's a monster of a T4 cruiser.

My only major complaint with her is that the 25mm deck armor and high citadel in comparison to the Stalingrad/Kronstadt forces me to essentially sit behind battleships at beyond 15 km the entire game just to stay relevant. You can get away with that with the Ibuki/Zao when their concealment is less than 10 km and they have torps for an "oh crap" button, but Azuma can't get away with that, so frankly she needs some serious armor work to be worth playing for me.

Honestly I think the easiest fix they could make would simply be to increase the armor up to 27mm and drop the citadel down a little. Every other aspect of the ship is either good or typical for the tier, and as much as I would like her to be more maneuverable, I will agree that it makes the most sense to not make her a sharp turner with her large size.

Currently my only T10's are Zao and Hindy, and it's becoming a problem when at least Hindy I have a 50/50 shot of winning a game, while Zao has thrown me into 5-6 games of losses straight. How am I supposed to play Zao in Ranked when I can't really shoot at long range when everyone has to focus on the caps?

Currently in Ranked, and I prefer playing CA's; big guns, lower rate of fire, like Zao and Hindenburg. Lately I've been noticing that unless they're a [edited] and show broadside the CL's can wreck me like no tomorrow; Minotaur, Des Moines, and Worchester, and frankly I can't really come up with many options to counter them aside from staying inside a group of ships and try not to look like the easiest target. How on earth am I supposed to counter these ships when they literally can pump more shells, and thus more damage into me in a 1v1 fight?

While I absolutely love my Scharnhorst, I definitely do not consider her OP. Against battleships, you have to hope the enemy gives broadside to get decent chunks of damage with her tiny 283mm guns, and in the current meta you can barely use her secondaries and torps since folks seem to enjoy playing the "shoot from the edge of our range game" most of the time. Combined with her inability to spot torpedos with hydro, she's a sitting duck to anything that has torpedo's as well as battleships that can manhandle her with bigger guns and thicker armor.

Sadly I can understand the frustration of working with a Hindenburg. Just earned her a few days back and it's been a struggle trying to learn how to make her work. On the one hand she's got good armor so she's bounced some shells in situations that I wasn't expecting her to, but on the flip side I still get walloped for a ton of HP due to my poor concealment (currently sitting at 14 km since I only have a 4-pt captain on her). I'm also used to using my German ships close in, so it's annoying having to sit at the edge of her 17.8 km range throwing shells out opportunistically because the DD's can keep me spotted while I can't see them. Finally I don't know what it is about T9/10 play but damn does everybody sit back and play the long range game for the first half of the game. Whether its DD's not capping, cruisers refusing to fire in order to avoid getting focused, or battleships trading volleys at 20 km or more, I honestly don't think I've seen this conservative of games since well...ever, really. (NA server, for reference)