Exciton8964

I think CV is still the least popular ship. However, for many, you only need 1 in 12 in the queue to ruin their game.

How many of those are done solo? Admittedly, even in 3-man division, 97% WR is bonkers.

You are using 6th slot with range mod. I personally prefer reload on this ship.

Because heal consumable + 6th upgrade slot. Without those, Baltimore would be the better ship. However, heal does provide a very large upgrade to cruisers as it can be effectively a 40%+ HP increase as long as you don't get deleted. This is not unique to this line. Many cruiser lines' T9 is no clear upgrade over T8 outside of heal + 6th upgrade slot. Also, I really don't think Buffalo is a bad ship. She is just average.

She is an all-arounder but focuses on opportunistic play style. The ship has great concealment, 10km radar and strong AP shells. So you want to use those tools to ambush enemy DDs and cruisers. Her DPM is decent but her armor profile is quite vulnerable to 406mm+ shells. So you cannot trade against BBs but can do chip damage to them when their attention is not on you. You also don't want to trade against CLs like Cleveland, Chapayev or Mogami. Their DPM is just vastly superior. Again, you want to embrace the ambush mindset and hurt them with your AP. Another thing at T8 is that you need remember is you don't really 'hard-counter' DDs like T9/T10s just because you have a good radar. You might not trade favorably against the likes of Kiev, Cossack and Akizuki. So overall, she is a ship with a lot of strong tools but require very meticulous play style. This might not be friendly to a less experienced player. But once you grasp the concept, you can get a lot of great games in her. Also what you learn will carry over to higher tier games and make you a fearsome cruiser player.

Kansas is complete trash at the moment. I am not expecting them to buff her to be a good ship but hope they at least make her somewhat tolerable to play. My suggestion list: 1. Give her Colorado Shells. Her current shells have worse pen than Colorado. This is unacceptable at a tier higher. 2. Sigma should be buffed to 1.8. She can keep the flavor for long reload and slow speed. But at least make the salvo count if it is aimed well. 3. Buff deck armor to 38mm. The new USN BBs already have terrible large profile that eats lots of pen damage. The only way to play them is to stay at long distance before late game. She needs at least that to be somewhat survivable if you want to be aggressive. For Minnesota, just give her Iowa shells and call it a day.

I only have Slava. She is surprisingly fun to play. The consistency you get when shooting at broadside target is very satisfying.

They have strong heal and consistent HE damage but very vulnerable citadel. So you want to slowly wear down your enemy while not getting devastated by AP in return. Overtime, you will out trade your enemy.

Thunderer is stronger. She is probably overall the best damage dealer in the game right now. She is not as tanky as other BBs but she is stealthy/maneuverable and out damages every HE spammer cruiser while still being tankier than cruisers. Slava is situational strong. Her guns are devastating if she catches a broadside. But you either need to work hard to find broadside or have potato enemies who show you broadside. So her performance fluctuates. I still find her overall a strong and fun ship.

I recently got Smaland and she is amazing at hunting DDs with radar + ultra speed boost. Hayate has 20 torp meme and pretty good guns. I think she is a fine boat as well.

Azuma. She is such a great damage dealer at T9. I honestly don't see any cruiser(except for maybe S.Louis?) at the same tier getting even close to her damage dealing potential.

She is not bad. But you can get similar playing experience with easier matchmaking in Kitakaze if you use smoke. However, you can play her as a meme boat with torp reloader which let you spam 20 hard-hitting torps.

If you think current Mahan is bad, consider Mahan I had to play a few years back. She had 7.9km base concealment and you needed a 15pt captain to get CE to improve that(which most new players won't have when grinding up the line at T7). She only had 4s reload compared to current 3.3s. She is at least a reasonable defensive ship now with great firepower to pewpew from smoke or kill overextending enemy DDs. If you get good MM to fight ships at T7 and below, you can even spec IFHE to melt down those thinly armored cruisers and BBs.

Sounds like you gonna see a lot of Kamikazes and Guilio Cesares

It is not a waste on brawling BBs. CE helps you on the following: 1. Get closer to enemy before being detected. This is very important as getting brawling opportunity is by far the most difficult thing in this game. The last thing you want is to have enemy ship kiting away the moment they see you pushing up. 2. Conserve HP in earlier game. Even as a brawling BB, you probably won't be able to brawl in early game when the ship count is still high. As a big fat BB, every one likes to take a chunk away from you in early game. CE helps you move more freely without being focus fired. The HP you conserved will help you a lot when you finally get the chance to push up and brawl.