inktomi19d

The cheekadel is silly, and promotes passive play since it limits the ways the BB can approach a fight. Other than that, the Yamato doesn't have any unique problems. Now if you want to talk about how all high tier BBs are pushed into a passive play style, that would be a better discussion.

As a general rule, small-caliber AP doesn't gain as much damage compared to HE as larger calibers do. As an example, 16" AP does about 2.5x the damage of 16" HE, while 5" AP does less than 1.5x the damage of 5" HE — there is much less incentive to fire AP from a DD Usually it's best to save the AP for after a target is saturated with damage and is taking less damage from HE. At higher tiers it also makes a little sense if most of your shots are breaking instead of doing damage. It's usually not for hunting citadels, since the base damage of small-caliber AP is so low that you will lose more damage from bounces off the heavier armor on the belt than you gain by having a few shells pen for full damage.

The freeboard needs to change. It looks stupid, and the ship is clearly not designed to sit that high in the water — there is no reason for torpedo bulges to go that high. The freeboard also makes the armor unworkable. The comparatively thin belt armor could work; if it's not over 300 mm then you need to angle anyway, and anything over about 100 mm angles pretty well. 27mm extremity protection is not okay. It's not about bow-tanking; it's about resistance to farming. With 27mm all over, DD-cailber HE damages every part of the ship, and CL or CA caliber HE can splash to damage multiple sections. 28mm is what the Atlanta had on her turrets back when DD guns would knock out turrets on every single hit, and buffing those up to 32mm did a lot to protect them. It's not about making the ship immune to damage, but every hit damages 27mm, and many HE hits will splash to damage more than one section, while some hits don't damage 32mm and HE usually won't splash to hit more than one section. When you bring a ship that large into tier 8+ with that little protection over the whole ship, people farm damage off of it. That's not fun, and it forces players into passive play. I'm not talking about a relatively light belt, which can be challenging (and fun in a way) — the problem with going that light on the extremities on s ship that size is that every singe gun on the enemy team will follow it and farm effective damage for as long as it's in range. Going up to 32mm would not make light guns ineffective (it's pretty standard for BBs of the tier, and the large superstructure should still be around 19mm), but with 27mm extremities any shot no matter how badly-placed is likely to be effective. At tier 6 that level of extremity protection doesn't hurt too much because everyone has poorer range, accuracy, rate of fire, dispersion, etc., and the worst uptier those ships see is to tier 8 (which is still rough). At tier 7 it works as long as you don't get up tiered, but it's a big part of why ships like the Colorado or Ashitaka (which is OP in it's own tier, IMO) fare so poorly when up tiered. Getting farmed for damage is not fun. That might make it through the test server, but on live it's going to be horribly unfun to play. Again, weak armor can be fun if it's something you can play around, like weak belt armor. What's not fun is getting burned down by poorly-aimed spam fire from literally every gun in range. The counter-play for a weak belt is to angle well and be careful about showing broadside; the counter-play for weak extremity armor is to never approach within 12km of a cap circle or an island — which is not fun for anyone and not something that should be designed into a game. The torpedoes are... well, why? Was anyone asking for them? Do they make any sense? I'd happily lose them to drop the freeboard by 20 feet and get 32mm of extremity armor. The radar could justify having the ship at tier 8 if not for the high freeboard and weak extremities. Like others, I'd kinda rather give up the gimmicks and get it at tier 6 or 7 though.

I find it weird that a DM would fire HE at a BB at that range; AP has much higher DPM and its easy to hit penetrable parts at that range. Overpens against a bow-on DM did not happen. You might have aimed high, sigma might have screwed you, or he might have been angle enough to get bounce angles off his belt turrets, etc, but you aren't going to overseen a ship lengthwise. Yamato can hit most DDs in the nose and not overpen — they hate it. It's a matter of distance; if you hit the side of a ship the shell might not have enough time to arm if nothing solid enough stops it, but it takes too long for the shell to travel front to back and it will always arm.

First, "detonating" ships was pretty rare. Much more normal was for a ship to take unrecoverable damage and then sink hours or days later. Usually the mortal damage was done in the span of a few minutes, but magazine detonations were not the norm, and there are even cases of a detonation blowing off the bow and forward turret of a ship and it eventually making it to port. This is the damage analysis from the Kirishima; she was sunk by flooding caused by 2 16" shells which penetrated her obsolete, turtleback citadel deck, opening holes and starting fires in both her middle deck and lower decks.The turtleback could not be patched once it was submerged, and counter flooding failed, causing Kirishima to capsize. Kirishima had a lot of other problems from other damage too, but the flooding could not be stopped, and it's what sunk her. The Kirishima sunk because she was using an obsolete armor scheme, designed to counter shells which detonate on impact, against modern, heavy, deep-penetrating 16" AP. The idea with the turtleback scheme was that shells would detonate on the belt armor, and the angled turtleback would deflect shell fragments, which would have worked if Kirishima got hit 20 years earlier. Since the Kirishima got hit by WWII shells instead of the WWI shells for which she was designed, both shells penetrated yards past the lower belt, and plunged against the angled portion of the turtleback at a good angle for penetration (it would have been sturdier if it was either sloped to direct shells downward, or if it was just a flat citadel deck), and caused gaping holes both into the citadel and in the decks above. Since the damage was so extensive on both sides of the turtleback, it's not certain that the Kirishima's crew knew exactly where the breaches were, and even if they did the way that turtlebacks angle to go below the waterline would have meant they would need divers to patch the holes. The Bismarck had a thicker belt than the Kirishima, but still not near enough to stop modern 16" AP, so she still would have taken those two shells against the turtleback at a perfect angle for penetration, and she still would have sunk. Against WWI guns, the turtleback would be fine, but against WWII 16" guns it was angled exactly the wrong way and in real life caused ships to take much more severe hits against those sorts of guns. It was not just the HE shells that caused fires. In game, AP does not cause fires, but IRL the 16" superheavy AP had 5x the bursting charge of the 5" AA Common shells, and those caused a lot of fires too. Kirishima's crew reported fires in all the sections which were hit. it wasn't the fires that sunk her though — fits would not have capsized her. She capsized due to her obsolete turtleback citadel being penetrated twice — given the placement of the mortal hits, they probably occurred in the first 3 minutes when Washington was aiming for the center mass, and Krishima still would have sunk if there were no fires. The Iowa fired the same superheavy shells as the North Carolina and South Dakota. Iowa could shoot farther, but they could do the same damage, and fire control on all of them was upgraded steadily, and always excellent. It's silly to think the Iowa would somehow be vastly superior to the Bismarck, while the USN treaty BBs would be inferior. The treaty BBs were lighter than the Bismarck, but they were still much more modern designs. That's not abnormal. The damage effects on both Hood and Prince of Wales were pretty unlucky. On the other hand the survivable hits Bismarck took from the Prince of Wales 1600 lb shells would have been lethal if they were the 2800 lb shells fired by a North Carolina, South Dakota, or Iowa. Bismarck was throwing 1800 lb shells, so they were a bit more threatening than what the Prince of Wales and Hood had, but still not a comparable threat to WWII-era 16" guns, even the "light" 2200 lb shells fired by Colorado and Nagato. *** On the general topic of the thread, every BB that doesn't play as a sniper is in trouble. Massachusetts is not great in secondary range now either (it's better at the sniper game though). What's worse is that the ships which used to be able to get up and bully caps with their main guns aren't effective that way either (and that used to include a lot of different BBs). Some ships (like Bismarck) might need some extra help, but no battleship that plays aggressively really works right now, especially at top tiers. There is no amount go buffing secondaries that would fix the problem, since ships that have always had useless secondaries can't handle aggressive play either.

I think it's a mistake to treat "brawling" and "secondary specialization" as the same thing; most BBs never had a worthwhile secondary spec, but still weren't dedicated snipers like they are now. Lower tiers still have a bit less passive meta, and tier 10 has always been a long range campfest; Deadeye just made it worse. Secondary specs are not good, but there is a lot more that goes into making a good brawler BB, or just making a general-purpose BB that pushes when needed, snipes when needed, etc. I think the core problem with high-tier BBs is their mobility. As an example, my tier 6 Arizona is a big, fat target, and it's easy to pen with HE all over, and it already faces long-range torps and HE spam at it's tier, but I'll push with it anyway. It has around a 15 second rudder shift and 650m turn radius, and that's enough to angle into incoming fire, weave to avoid over-the-rainbow HE streams (despite only moving around 14 knots most of the time), avoid torpedoes, navigate between islands, etc. In contrast, my Montana has a 22 second rudder shift and 950m turn radius, which is just too much to be able to react to enemies within about 15 km, and if I'm anywhere near an island when I try to zig-zag I'm likely to run aground. There is also a giant difference in acceleration and deceleration, and it takes over 2 minutes to switch from full-forward to full-reverse (or the other way around) on the Monty. That tier 10 sluggishness makes going anywhere near a cap deadly, because you can't get away once the enemy targets you, you can't change directions, and you can't stop pushing if the situation changes. I think the number one thing WG could do to encourage more active BB play would be to dramatically improve acceleration, deceleration, rudder shift, and turn radius at higher tiers. Those things really should not get worse after tier 6 or 7. Improving mobility would both nerf Deadeye (since it would be a lot harder to land shots against wigglier enemies at long range, and encourage BBs to get in a bit closer.

I usually waited to see torps before my YOLOs in the Georgia, but they were pretty potato other than that. I think part of it is that even though everyone could see me, it's become safe to assume that the BB is no threat, so no one thought I was actually going to charge into caps/smoke/DD hulls/etc. and they fired everything at the DDs nearby me instead. I rarely ended a match with more than a quarter of my health, but that just means my guns reload faster That tactic is not nearly as good in the silver league. There are far fewer BBs, and more HE-spammers, all of whom are looking to save a star by farming damage off me. Aggressive is still better, and I still seem to get more wins by playing the aggressive BB that I want on my team, but there is a big difference between 1-of-4 BBs YOLOing and the only BB on the team doing it.

It's fine if you don't get it — Iowa is a good ship, but not necessarily for everyone. Iowa is a bit more of a jack-of-all-trades than the NC. It's not worse than the NC in any meaningful way (a bit less concealment, but still enough to be battleship-sneaky on occasion. It's slightly better-protected, with slightly improved guns and significantly more speed, so you can play it like a NC sometimes. Where it doesn't work like an NC is that at tier 9, it faces tougher enemies more often, and it just can't get away with the same sort of play all the time. You need to adjust the Iowa to the situation. I uses a Close-Quarters build, but I will kite or snipe if that's what the situation requires, or I'll get in and push, or sneak up to 13 km and give CA a surprise citadel.You just can't do the same thing all the time with it.

I tried the Seattle, Kidd and Fletcher to start with. Since there were so many BBs in queue, and BBs have been a lot less impactful than in the past due to Deadeye (most BBs are rarely a position to really control objectives now), I figured that playing a more objective-focussed class like a DD or a USN cruiser might be the ticket, but I was going around 50% with those ships and not getting past rank 5. Win or lose seemed to depend on which side had aggressive BBs and which one didn't; if the enemies had a BB that would push up to bully a cap, all the BBs on my team would run back 15-20km, meaning that in my DD or CL I also had to run away or get focus-fired. So I switched to playing the Georgai, and probably won 80% with that ship. I am not good with the Georgia. I don't like it, and I don't even know how I own it. I think I must have gotten it on a supercontainer or something. It reminds me a lot of the Myogi, with it's 6 overpowered guns that are amazing if they hit, but scatter all around too often.I really prefer the Iowa. But the speed boost on the Georgia worked for closing the distance and encouraging all the Deadeye nubs on the enemy team to run so far from the caps that they can't influence the game. I used my Massachusetts captain (specced for Close-Quarter Combat but not Improved Secondary Aiming; the only thing I wanted from my secondaries was range to activate CQC) and pushed like a madman. I usually waited to see enemy DDs send their torps and then dove into guaranteed detection range with them at 40 knot (with HE loaded). I sunk ships by ramming twice, one was an Akizuki which just sat broadside farming damage off me. I'm amazed how many games I survived, and in the ones where I died I always helped with at least one cap (usually 2) and did over 100k damage, with somewhere over 1 mil potential damage tanked so I had the top score on my team. It was really funny how hard enemy teams would try to run from me. I mean, I know that my secondaries don't hurt most tier 9 ships, and that my 6 main guns as as likely to miss as hit, and that my citadel is vulnerable and easy to hit, but it was still normal to see superior numbers of enemies all giving up on the cap and fleeing into open water. I went straight through the qualifier after with and Close-Quarters spec Montanna. It doesn't have anything like the Georgia's speed, but that's good because I would not have survived pushing that far that fast against tier 10s.But it does have better armor, better guns, and longer range secondaries. I know I couldn't play that way in randoms, but in ranked there are few enough ships that a BB can survive pushing into a cap, and that horribly disrupts the meta. Once you understand that most BB payers are going to try to keep their distance now, and that BBs are the most-played class, that gives you tremendous power to push them around the map to places where they will be useless.

Alaska and Riga aren't CAs; both were designed as Battlecruisers (CC). The Riga is an early Project 82 design so it's not quite up to battlecruiser standards, and the Alaska was classified as a "large cruiser" (CB) to avoid starting a new arms race with battlecruisers. They're open water ships and don't play like a USN CA or fill the same role. I can understand if people don't like the USN CA play style, but if you are playing them in a way that armor or torpedo protection matter, you're doing it wrong. They are narrow, agile ships that most often work close to islands, so they should usually fit between torps, or be protected by islands. They should be positioned so they take almost all their hits on the extremities, and should usually only be hit by 1 or 2 shells out of a volley. For the type of fighting a USN CA does, they have plenty of protection.

Des Moines is definitely not lacking, it's still one of the most damaging cruisers in the game. It's got insane rate of fire, improved bounce angles for it's AP so it gets reliable penetrations even against BBs, and it's got very tight dispersion so it's easy to fire a volley and penetrate with every singe shot. It also has a detection range approximately the same as it's radar range, so you can usually move it to a good position without being spotted. I don't have the Worcester, but it's another one of the top damage cruisers. And frankly, no CA is protected enough to survive getting shot at by BBs. When I play BBs, I regally delete CAs of all nations in a single volley — none of them have manningful armor. At best they might be able to bounce BB rounds off their bow. Likewise, torpedo bulges are basically irrelevant on CAs because they need to be very poorly played to take torpedo hits. We all screw up occasionally, but a USN CA should generally be close to cover, only showing it's bow, and they have such high DPM that if a DD tries to swing around an island to torp, the DD is going to die. They just don't play like battleships. USN cruisers are island fighters, and their main defense is raw firepower.

They aren't battleships. USN CAs should mostly work close to islands, using their radar and AA to support allies. US AP is very effective, and will give you your best damage against other cruisers (aiming for citadels) and battleships (aiming for the upper belt and superstructure). Use islands to protect your citadel and to block you form ships you aren't shooting at. Duck for cover if you draw fire.Pretend that you only have your front turrets. What you should never do is attempt to cruise at max range firing HE, the way many other nation's CAs do. It's a waste of the USN's great AP, a waste of radar, and USN cruisers just aren't good at it due to comparitily lower top speeds and shorter max range. On the positive side, USN CA conceivability is good enough that you can usually remain undetected while you go find a rock to snuggle against. Pensacola and New Orleans are more fragile than later USN CAs in my experience. Once you get to Baltimore and later, if you only ever expose your bow you will survive most hits. You can bow tank other CAs very well, but can't tank BBs at all. Really the whole thing with USN CAs is to use your concealment! If you aren't going to have an unfair advantage in a fight, don't start the fight; get behind an island or go somewhere else. If a BB eyes you lustfully, get out.

The. problem with pushing now is that you are almost certain to be the only one Ranked actually seems to be a lot better than random in that way. People lay a little more seriously there (a little) and there are fewer ships so the focus fire is a lot less extreme. I really try to bring my BBs close enough to help bully caps (like 10-15km from enemies), but when I do that I will be the only target and I will get hit with streams of unending HE from over islands. That's not even close range in my opinion, but since NO other BBs are sharing the incoming damage, it's just not survivable. Though I don't think Deadeye is really the problem, the problem is that the other talents don't encourage alternative play styles.

The fact that you need to hang back where it's difficult to influence objectives is the downside. The real problem is that there isn't enough upside to not using Deadeye The only mods and other talents that you need to support Deadeye are things you would want on most BB builds anyway. I think WG meant to encourage other styles of BB play (secondaries, main-gun brawlers, and survival focuses in particular), but to go for other builds you needs to spend more talents, use specific mods, and give up a lot of overall effectiveness to excel at that one thing. Let's take a North Carolina for example; the ship itself an be played as a cap bully (mostly holding 10-14 km range, but pushing in closer when needed), as sniper, or for pure survival. If you want to build it as a sniper, then the only thing you need is Deadeye (4 points to specialize) but everything else will be the best talent or mod for the slot on every build. the Deadeye build can also take Fire Prevention Expert to get the most important part of a survival build, and can use the Artillery Plotting Room mod to extend range and improve gun performance over all ranges (other BBs could get Aiming Systems mod to also improve precision at all ranges). If the NC wanted to be a better cap bully, Close Quarter's Combat might help, but it requires Long Range Secondary Battery to have a useful activation range, so it's effectively a 7-point talent instead of a 4-point. That means that the "bully" build needs to give up other talents that the sniper doesn't (most likely Fire Prevention or Concealment Expert), degrading it's overall effectiveness. The "bully" would also need to get the secondary battery mod to extend the activation range, further degrading it's damage outside of secondary range. On top of everything, the NC can only get it's secondary range out to about 11km, and gains little benefit from the secondaries themselves, so it would rarely gain a benefit from CQC.It's no real choice. The easiest way I can think of to make CQC more attractive would be to increase it's activation range (maybe to 140% of secondary range?). This would not improve the secondary range, but would allow most BBs to get the benefit to main gun reload at up to 15km (when specced for it). This would still be in range for active and aggressive play (and for lots of return fire), but it's more reasonable than expecting every BB to close to 10 km before they start seeing benefits. Many of us would rather play a Yamoto at 15km than at 30km, but as the game is right now there is no incentive to ever bet that close (and a lot of disincentive). the way I used to play the NC kept me between 10km and 14km most of the time, but as things are there is a lot of incentive to stay farther out. If the NC wanted to build for survival, most survival talents have little effect. The biggest help is from Fire Prevention, but the Deadeye build can use that too. Emergency Repair expert isn't horrible, but the extra use of repair party is usually wasted, since in most matches the NC will take a significant amount of irreparable damage by the time it uses up the normal number of charges. It's a "sometimes" talent rather than one that will be useful in every match. The rest of the survival talents are all things that only really make sense if you have extra points to spend. Improving Emergency Repair Expert might help, maybe by making it so Repair Party could heal all damage with it. It might also help to rework the rest of the survival talents so it might be worthwhile to invest more in them. For example, if Vigilance were moved to 1 point and Enhanced Anti-Torpedo Protection were moved to 2, that would lure more players to spend points on them (and ironically, probably make them take more damage from torpedoes, since players would be more willing to risk close range). It's not just Deadeye that is a problem — most BB specs just aren't different enough from the generic BB to be worth going into..

Wasn’t trying to sharpshoot you :) Just trying to highlight that one of the big differences isn’t immediately obvious. People tend to forget how the arrangement of armor impacts the game.