Improving the British Low Tier CL's

[Carl]

 

Lets be fair the general consensus is that the T2-T5 RN cl's have issues. My own opinion, (firming but not set with emerald), is that all of them are a little weak. My opinion is that this is only slightly so, but i agree they need some work.

 

First what are the issues, well i want to seperate emerald out from the T2-4 because i think the issues are very different.

 

 

The single biggest problem for the T2-4 is their top decks being so thin they're overmatched by BB AP, and (T2 and T3), cruiser AP meaning the normal auto bounce mechanics don't come in and save them. On it's own thats not a huge issue Other T2-4 ships have such thin top decks, What those other ships don;t have isn't citadel that extends to that top deck, making said top deck their citadel roof and pens of it Cits. Every other ship either has a thicker top deck as their citadel roof, or a thin top deck but a thicker citadel roof some way below. This is compounded by the short bows of the british ships, othr T2-5 ships mostly have long bows or below the water citadels so they can't be citadeled through the bow reliably, or, (Phoenix and Omaha), at all. The combination makes it frighteningly easy for them to go from full health to dead in a single broadside from a BB or some cruisers.Even when angled extreme damage is normal.

 

The heal and maneuvering characteristics help evade damage and heal if you do get hit. But the heal seems not to heal citadel damage before T5 so the amount healed is quite small and surviving a salvo to use the heal can be a very big if.

 

In terms of damage dealing the torpedoes are excellent for the tiers and the AP shells deal good damage almost irrespective of target and angle if you place them right, and the T2-4 have a good number of guns and good rate of fire, dispersion is acceptable for the tier too. You're not going to take big chunks out of a BB with them, but that's more because you won;t survive long enough in a good firing position than anything else. The one real fly in the ointment is the terrible travel time. The shells on the danae actually take longer, 9by a full second), to reach 12.4km than the atlanta's. he nature of their velocity over distance profile means they land at a shallower angle and the higher dispersions helps too so they're not as tough to aim, but they're still fairly unpleasant to deal with. And is really the only offensive issue they have, their real problem allways comes back to surviving long enough to use their offensive power.

 

TLDR: Good offences if a little hard to aim due to long flight time, but got a serious deficiency in deck armour that makes them vulnerable to mass citadels in situations other ships of the tier just aren't and this is not adequately compensated for by their maneuvering and heal abilities.

 

 

 

 

What about Emerald, the T5? Like i said different problems entirely. If you know how to play her she's much more durable. Hell even when you give a BB a nice good broadside shot your likely to get off with severe damage rather than total deletion 90% of the time. It comes back to her top deck. It's 37mm think, that can auto-ricochet all AP, and handle HE below 222mm. The citadel is still huge, she can still be bow citadel, and HE and Ap to the superstructure still hurts. But she's nowhere near as fragile as the T2-4. Those make an atlanta look tanky, Emerald is more on par with Atlanta, but fighting worse opposition. However her tendency not to die in one salvo means you get to use her heal, and it seems able to heal cits too and/or just heal's a lot more overall. As a result you get a lot more health back with it. Taking >30k damage is quite normal in this ship, and >40 k can happen with superintendent, premium consumable, and the right circumstances, in a perfect world it can hit 45k with flags. I'd actually say that outside of very specific circumstances, (where the Omaha can beat her), she's the toughest cruiser in her tier by a fair margin. Thats not to say she's can't feel fragile. She has the lowest range which means a much higher percentage of shots fired at you will hit and she carriers the reputation of the preceding tiers meaning everyone will stop to throw everything they have at you. if you get close enough they'll fill kitchen sinks with dynamite and throw those at you, (though if your that close they're probably going to be on the receiving end of santa's 533mm presents). But in terms of the number of hits it takes to kill you she's pretty dammed durable generally.

 

What isn't so good anymore is her maneuvering. Don't get me wrong most ships in the game would kill to maneuver like she does, but compared to the Danae the large turning circle, and especially long rudder shift really hurt, it's much harder to rapidly duck in and out or turn towards away or get swung about to use the other sides torpedoes or whatever. Simply put it makes it harder to respond when somthing happens unexpectedly.

 

Offensively they're as much a reverse on the danae's as they are defensively. Their shells are now fired using supercharges which gives them a much higher velocity and shaves a LOT of the travel time at max range, taking a lot of getting used to after the danae TBH. However the Emeralds extra gun is mounted such that they can still only get a max of 6 on one target and they fire no faster. This means every other T5 cruiser can either put a lot more shells on target, or, (in the special case of the Furutaka), hits much harder per shell. It's an enormous negetive because they just get badly out damaged by anything in a gun duel. The layout isn;t great in terms of how far out you have to turn tog et a lot of guns on target, but the slow ruddr makes it significantly harder as you can;t open and close the angle between salvo's as easilly.Equally whilst they get more torpedoes, (and they can have a higher damage per torp with upgrades, which i admit i don't have yet, just the upgraded hull so far), i also have and had few issues getting kills with 6 when i can use them. 8 per side is still nice, but you can't use both sides as easily as you could in the danae due to the slower turning and rudder, so it's not always an advantage. Overall though the big issue is range. At T3 and T4 a 6km range is nice, average engagement ranges are low and maps and playstyle factors let you into that range fairly often if you play it right. T5 things are a bit more standoffish and 6km becomes much harder to use. Don't get me wrong a lot of my emerald drops are still from much closer ranges than that. But 6km limits me badly in a lot of situations where i'd like to drop a few torps because hey why not, but i'm just not in range.

 

 

What about smoke you ask. Honestly it's a bit of a gimmick on emerald, i use it to cap and one time when i ran aground, and there's probably going to be the odd future situation where i use it, but honestly it's not somthing you should be depending on for much of anything, when a situation pops up where you can use it, fine, but don't expect it to be a massive help.

 

TLDR: Smoke is a bit gimmicky, surprisingly tough but maneuvers poorly which hampers defensiveness but especially several offensive and positional aspects, gets focused due to rep and short range, (atlanta drivers know this story so well), offensively arcs and dispersion are good but limited shells per minute overall severely hurt it in gun duels and torpedoes are very marginally better than preceding ships in a tier where the nature of play means the 6km rnage hampers them somewhat. Oh and the stock AA is downright awful .

 

 

So what needs to change IMO:

 

 

T2-4 first.

 

The number one change is to make the roof immune to BB overmatch and at least destroyer HE, thought for danae i'd really want 6" HE immunity too.

 

Working off that and bearing in mind weymouth almost never meets T4 BB's 22mm is the minimum she'd need. that would not be overmatched by guns of 314mm or less, and HE of 131mm or less can't pen it either. For Caledon which can face T4 BB's with their 14" guns 25mm is needed, this also provides HE immunity against 149mm or less shells. For danae the minimum is 26mm, but to follow the +3mm progression of previously i'd go with 28mm. Either way the result is the same, immunity to 6" but not 8" HE and 14" BB overmatch immunity.

 

The second change 'd like to see accompanying that is to give the T2-4 Emeralds Super charge fired shells. I don't think the extra pen would matter much as penning isn't a huge issue for RN AP and the better arcs would make the ships much more capable at the limits of their range and make the progression to emerald smoother. If after all that and further observation they need a further buff, bring their repair party in line with emeralds in terms of healing potential.

 

 

 

Ok What about Emerald? I suspect the turning circle is off limits to changes though i would like it tightening a bit, i'd also like to see the rudder shift brought down a couple of seconds, make it a bit more responsive to inputs. Neither of these alone really fix the ship but they address one of it's more awkward properties, and every little helps. Offensively the only change i feel confident in suggesting is to either increase the range of her upgraded torpedoes to 8km like the Leanders top torpedoes, or alternatively give it the Leanders top Torpedoes, the Mk IX. The main thing i'd say is 106 seconds is probably allready the upper limit on reload for them without the reload length becoming an issue, even with 96 second reloads i find myself chafing on occasion. Gun wise i don't know what to suggest, with only 6 barrels it would take one hell of a RoF buff to let her catch up with the other T5's. And then she risks overshadowing Leander a bit. Yeah i'm at a bit of a loss with Emerald TBH for idea's.

 

 

Also for people who want them, here's a couple of my replays, one from the danae, one from my emerald, my best games so far in each:

 

Danae: http://wowreplays.com/Replay/20251

 

Emerald: http://wowreplays.com/Replay/20252

 

[IAmTim]

They should delete the line and start again. Everything about Danae is frankly terrible:

• The travel time on the shells is a joke.
• The dispersion is so wide beyond 7km that you might as well not bother shooting at anything
• The armor is so pathetic that there's no point trying to get close to use torpedoes as you'll get one-shotted
• Danae is detected from 10+km so can't even try and ambush.

 

God alone knows what the developers were thinking. I know their all Russian and as such loath US/UK, but come on. 

[Aduial]

I don't care about anything else, but please make the RN CLs capable of bouncing 100mm shells! I can literally citadel the Caledon through the bow with Clemson's 100mm guns. 

[renegadestatuz]

They should delete the line and start again. Everything about Danae is frankly terrible:

• The travel time on the shells is a joke.
• The dispersion is so wide beyond 7km that you might as well not bother shooting at anything
• The armor is so pathetic that there's no point trying to get close to use torpedoes as you'll get one-shotted
• Danae is detected from 10+km so can't even try and ambush.

 

God alone knows what the developers were thinking. I know their all Russian and as such loath US/UK, but come on. 

 

From Leaner and up they are very good ships. If you haven't gotten that far yet, then you should really at least get to Leander and play with her before you judge the line. Lots of people are having gteat success with the line. You just have to adapt to how the line is. If you try to make a line adapt to how you play, then it won't work out for you.

 

And the flight time on their shells are similar to the USN line. Do you think the whole USB cruiser line should be scrapped? And I have no problem easily hitting my targets at the max range if the ships. Just need to learn the lead time on them and it's easy.

[Carl]

 And the flight time on their shells are similar to the USN line.

 

No they're not. They're worse than atlanta which is worse than the cleveland which is worse than the rest of the USN 6" guns which is worse than any of the 8" guns. The fact that you can get hits in spite of the travel times doesn't make the travel times not a issue.

[BladedPheonix]

 

hehehe, too bad boys you wanted RN CLs before they were ready, you reap what you sow!

 

[renegadestatuz]

 

No they're not. They're worse than atlanta which is worse than the cleveland which is worse than the rest of the USN 6" guns which is worse than any of the 8" guns. The fact that you can get hits in spite of the travel times doesn't make the travel times not a issue.

 

So you're telling me that the Atlanta which has a slower shell velocity than Fiji and a shell that weighs half as much as Fiji's shell has a faster shell flight time? Cleveland also has a slower shell velocity than Leander, but her shells weigh 9kg more.

 

At 13km, Atlanta's shells have a flight time of 14 seconds.

At 13km, Fiji's shells have a flight time of just around 9 seconds.

 

That's almost 5 seconds longer flight time for Atlanta's shells. Tell me how the flight time for those shells are worse than Atlanta's.

[mofton]

hehehe, too bad boys you wanted RN CLs before they were ready, you reap what you sow!

 

Yeah, we only gave WG 5 years of development, 1 year of release, 10 months since KM cruisers, 6 months since fantasy RU CL, and 62 days of testing (viz 12 for RU CL).

 

 

Patience is a virtue, impatience isn't necessarily a vice.

[Khafni]

I seem to recall that the German low-tier cruisers were crap and so where the Russian low-tier cruisers when those lines came out. Is this a trend or consequence of design and the desire of WG to get you lads and lasses up to middle and high tiers?

[renegadestatuz]

I seem to recall that the German low-tier cruisers were crap and so where the Russian low-tier cruisers when those lines came out. Is this a trend or consequence of design and the desire of WG to get you lads and lasses up to middle and high tiers?

 

To me it seems like most cruisers below tier 5 are crap. Pretty much sums up why a lot of veteran players skip up to at least tire 5 when a new line comes out. And it seems more so a desire of WG than a consequence of design.

[Carl]

 

So you're telling me that the Atlanta which has a slower shell velocity than Fiji and a shell that weighs half as much as Fiji's shell has a faster shell flight time? Cleveland also has a slower shell velocity than Leander, but her shells weigh 9kg more.

 

At 13km, Atlanta's shells have a flight time of 14 seconds.

At 13km, Fiji's shells have a flight time of just around 9 seconds.

 

That's almost 5 seconds longer flight time for Atlanta's shells. Tell me how the flight time for those shells are worse than Atlanta's.

 

Where talking about the low tiers here, Fiji has no place in this thread. Get with the program.

 

For that matter Atlanta's aren't 14 seconds, not even close. It's 9.15 at 11.08km. The Danae is slightly ahead when i cross checked against that. It's tenths of a second but it is longer. Sadly i didn't take a screenie of her ulike atlanta .

 

The problem is the low tiers use 4crh shells, they lose speed a lot faster than atlanta's, or for that matter fiji's.

 

 I seem to recall that the German low-tier cruisers were crap and so where the Russian low-tier cruisers when those lines came out. Is this a trend or consequence of design and the desire of WG to get you lads and lasses up to middle and high tiers? 

 

Only the T4 got a really bad rep at release.

 

[Ivlerlin]

ASM0 for T2-4? The orbital strike shells aren't so bad provided they land on the decks. 

 

As aggravating as the grinding is at the lower Tiers it does demonstrate ship characteristics and quirks you need to mitigate through playstyle further up the line. 

 

Looking at the other lines the majority of the 'keepers' are Mid-High Tiered. Cleveland, Kongo, Mogami, Bismarck, Hipper, Budyonny, Benson, Fubuki, ect. There are some lower Teir keepers also like the St. Louis but I find those are more 'fun factor' ships rather than Credit Earners; not that the credit earners aren't fun, they are. 

 

But if you consider where the 'keepers' are and majority of the Premium Ships are also designing for T5+ makes sense while 2-4 leans more towards 'learning mechanics' 

[renegadestatuz]

 

Where talking about the low tiers here, Fiji has no place in this thread. Get with the program.

 

For that matter Atlanta's aren't 14 seconds, not even close. It's 9.15 at 11.08km. The Danae is slightly ahead when i cross checked against that. It's tenths of a second but it is longer. Sadly i didn't take a screenie of her ulike atlanta .

 

The problem is the low tiers use 4crh shells, they lose speed a lot faster than atlanta's, or for that matter fiji's.

 

 

Only the T4 got a really bad rep at release.

 

 

I used Fiji because you brought up the Atlanta. Both are tier 7. And the flight time is longer than that on the Atlanta's shells. I used 13km, not the base 11km because Fiji easily reaches that and Atlanta can reach 13km when modded to max range. Fiji's shells at 13km get to target faster because of the shell velocity and heavier shell. And even if you use the 11km range, Fiji's shells still get there faster at just under 8 seconds. So how are they slower than the Atlanta?

[HazeGrayUnderway]

The one fix I would do to improve RN CLs?

 

Improve shell hang time, velocity, improve their AP performance to actually be at least somewhat worthwhile against angled targets.  They supposedly, currently have favorable AP characteristics but I don't see that.  The minute someone has any sort of angling, it's an automatic double F-U to the RN CL as your shells do nothing.

 

If these ships are going to be flimsy as hell up and down the entire line, then like some of the weak hulled RU Cruisers, MAKE THEIR GUNS ACTUALLY WORTHWHILE.

 

EDIT:  I want to add that my post has more to do with the RN CLs below Tier VI.  Tier VI Leander has been fine so far.

[Carl]

 I used Fiji because you brought up the Atlanta. Both are tier 7. And the flight time is longer than that on the Atlanta's shells. I used 13km, not the base 11km because Fiji easily reaches that and Atlanta can reach 13km when modded to max range. Fiji's shells at 13km get to target faster because of the shell velocity and heavier shell. And even if you use the 11km range, Fiji's shells still get there faster at just under 8 seconds. So how are they slower than the Atlanta?

 

Again we're not discussing Fiji, where discussing low tier Rn CL's, look at the title and OP. Fiji has nothing to do with this discussion in any way shape or form. Hell the post you replie to that started this was talking about anae, what does Fiji's shell performance have to do with that?

 

 Improve shell hang time, velocity, improve their AP performance to actually be at least somewhat worthwhile against angled targets.  They supposedly, currently have favorable AP characteristics but I don't see that.  The minute someone has any sort of angling, it's an automatic double F-U to the RN CL as your shells do nothing.

 

Hit the deck and superstructure, or hell in most cases the bow/stern. Sure you shoot the belt armour of an angled ship you'll bounce. But unless they've got a very narrow bow then the bow and stern are pennable and so are the decks and superstructure, just avoid the turrets.

[StoneRhino]

At tier 4 people always try and angle against me and get shot to bits. It's like the thread where people actually believe RN cls can not kill CVs. Once you get enough distance that your shells arc, you start hitting the targets deck armor or a bbs superstructure. Use your torpedoes to keep them back and rain happiness on them. If you flatten the trajectory then the low tiers will get bow tanked by everything. Honestly my danea plays like my minekaze when spotted but with better guns and X2 torpedoes. I have been playing as the vanguard and doing fine in nearly every aspect except I rock a 4% survival rate. I love when DDS ambush me only to give me more "first bloods"

[Carl]

 If you flatten the trajectory then the low tiers will get bow tanked by everything.

 

Right because it;s not like RN AP has good auto-bounce angles and can thus pen most bows. Oh wait it does have good auto-bounce angles and it can pen most bows. Seriously i love people who go bow in and think they're safe.

 

Still thanks for at least discussing the topic instead of all the "RN Cruisers SUck Plz Remove, e.t.c." everyone else has been doing.

[StoneRhino]

Try it. Get close enough to a red ship that has >11mm bow armor that your shells flatten out and see how much those good angles help.

 

Anything with less then 11mm you over match and the angle does not matter.

[Carl]

 Try it. Get close enough to a red ship that has >11mm bow armor that your shells flatten out and see how much those good angles help.

Anything with less then 11mm you over match and the angle does not matter. 

 

I have repeatedly, and i've got loads of pens.

 

EDIT: note; i'm not saying there aren't ships that can bounce your RN AP bow on, or even that most ships won;t bounce some of it, but most ships i can get an acceptable number of pens bow on.