Are the Japanese destroyers fun anymore?

[Popingheads]

I just recently got back into the game after a year of not playing and was having a lot of fun with Japanese BBs and CVs, but upon trying to get back into destroyers I'm nearly on the verge of quitting the game again. I just can't have any fun in the mid tier DDs it seems.

 

I'm told that the Japanese destroyers were re-balanced a few months ago so they are less reliant on torpedo and better able to use their guns, yet I don't get that feeling in game. The Minekaze and Mutsuki both still have crappy guns compared to any other ship in the game, and now have bad torpedos to go along with it. Plus all I see are tier 7 games in both of these ships, which feels like some kind of bad joke, especially in the last few matches where I ran into Indianapolis's and Belfast's that have radar.

 

A tier 5 ship with 7km range torps against cruisers with radar. Seriously?

 

Plus the whole reason I originally went down this line was for destroyers that primarily used torpedos. If I wanted to play a gunboat or a hybrid class I would have gone for the US or now available Russians. I don't think removing the Japanese ships special playstyle makes any sense at all. Not to mention they are still worse as hybrids than other nations, the US DDs seem to be just straight up better all around now.

 

I'm not completely sure if they get better at higher tiers but I have very little motivation at all to grind through to the higher tier ones. The mid tier ships just feel so bad now.

[SireneRacker]

IJN Destroyers mainly depend on their enemy. If I get the right enemy I love playing the Hatsuharu. I really love it. But if there are Bensons in the enemy team, well goodbye then. I can hope that he just detonate, but let'S stay honest he will wreck me. Same goes for Kagerou. Oblivious battleships? I enjoy them. Radar equipped ships spotting me most of the time while Khabarovsks melt me down? No thanks.

[Estimated_Prophet]

Was never motivated to go past Mutsuki, which has now been dropped a tier, so I can't really comment on anything except the now T6 Fubuki I received in the rework,

 

Fubuki has been 'meh,' for me; I liked my T6 Mutsuki better.

 

For the IJN "Gunboats,' Akizuki is a dream gem; if you have a CE captain you can put in it, and equip the Concealment Module, the stealth is better than just about anything out there, it can stealth fire, (until that gets changed, if it does,) and it is almost an IJN Atlanta. 200 hit games are easy with decent positioning, and I even had a 400 hit game once.

 

Of course; the balance is weak damage. Lots of pewpew, low damage totals, though fires and the occasional torp hit help.

[4bRbyHSSzZ6pk]

Yes, as long as there's no carriers in the game, they're fun but require you to develop the right skills to play them. Once a carrier shows up in your battles though, you can still do well or even excellent in them but it's not gonna be fun.

 

Seriously, if you think radar is bad, just wait until you're running into CVs with 7 squadrons of aircraft spotting your every torpedo, lighting you up 100% of the time, with each of those squadrons moving a lot faster than you so you can never get away. You'll ask for radar cruisers instead of that

[Capt_Mexib]

After being forced out of the old Minekaze by the changes I played the mid tiers for a time. For my preferred play style I thought they where not really all that good. The problem is that tier IIV and IIIV get up tier all the time. I gave up on the mid tier and just played the Yugumo. She's a good all a rounder. With all the upgrades she is very competitive and in some way better the most of the DD's you run into. But here's the thing. At the start of the match, check out the red DD's and decide which ones you will gun fight and which ones to avoid. Never pick a fight you can't win. What I mean is never start a gun fight you can't win. I want to fight battleships not destroyers.

[Raiiako]

Their ability to do damage and survive got totally nerfed. And really got nothing in return. All in all. Bad feelings. 

[Cruiser_CleveAniki]

The changes have make ships like Kamikaze and Fujin pure gold at tier 5. Both are arguably P2W compared to the tech tree tier 5 DDs, if we're talking in relative terms among tier 5 IJN DDs only.

[Popingheads]

The changes have make ships like Kamikaze and Fujin pure gold at tier 5. Both are arguably P2W compared to the tech tree tier 5 DDs, if we're talking in relative terms among tier 5 IJN DDs only.

 

Yeah I noticed both of those ships kept their old stats/playstyle, unfortunately there is no way for me to get either of them anymore.

 

Unless they are also included in the Christmas gifts? But even then I don't want to gamble a bunch of money on getting them.

[k75fish]

Once u get the fully upgraded Akatsuki the fun should start again for you

[Cruiser_CleveAniki]

 

Yeah I noticed both of those ships kept their old stats/playstyle, unfortunately there is no way for me to get either of them anymore.

 

Unless they are also included in the Christmas gifts? But even then I don't want to gamble a bunch of money on getting them.

 

If you're "lucky" (aka WG things they can get you to spend more money) you sometimes get "special offers" in your port to buy ships. Which is how I got my Kamikaze (not Kamikaze R, just Kamikaze).

[TenguBlade]

Yes, as long as there's no carriers in the game, they're fun but require you to develop the right skills to play them. Once a carrier shows up in your battles though, you can still do well or even excellent in them but it's not gonna be fun.

 

Seriously, if you think radar is bad, just wait until you're running into CVs with 7 squadrons of aircraft spotting your every torpedo, lighting you up 100% of the time, with each of those squadrons moving a lot faster than you so you can never get away. You'll ask for radar cruisers instead of that

That's the case with every DD.  It was true of IJN DDs to the same extent it was before the rework too.  A class that relies on stealth will get shafted by the one that provides universal spotting, that's a given.

 

I've been doing okay with my Hatsuharu since the patch split, but that mostly stems from not having more than 6 points on the captain in a line where you need at least 10 to make the boats good, and my own lack of skills.  My Akatsuki, which has my 10-point pre-split Hatsuharu captain, is much more fun to play: I've only taken her out once into Randoms, but I got 50k worth of only fire and gun damage.  In Co-op, where my terrible torpedo-aiming skills are less of a problem because the bots straight-line, I'm averaging ridiculous amounts of damage.  She's a fun boat to play, but I'm not a good-enough captain to make full use of her.

[Capt_Mexib]

Once u get the fully upgraded Akatsuki the fun should start again for you

Yes, she's my second go to ship. The reason why's she second is her detection range. I hate be spotted first.

[GearaDoga]

The line CAN be worthwhile...  IF you're willing to work absurdly hard at it.

 

But they've been nerfed so much, in so many ways, that they're always the worst possible option.

 

They're trying to make IJN captains go out and use the guns, and they're encouraging this by... Heavily nerfing what were already the worst guns and offering nothing to offset it.

 

But on the other hand, they're trying to dissuade us from using torpedoes. Which they're encouraging by taking the already badly nerfed torpedoes and... Yup, nerfing them further.

 

All of this while the ships themselves have seen none of their always poor soft stats increased at all, either.

 

As of now, the IJN DD line is the absolute worst with guns, period. And they're outclassed in the torpedo boat role by the USN and KM ships at almost every tier. The only time the IJN comes out on top is if you compare the to the VMF ships in a pure torpedo duel, for some reason.

[DedPan]

The high detection on Type93 torpedoes sometimes feel like even a broadside battleship has time to dodge them.  It makes for very frustrating games when you throw dozens of torpedoes out and only land 2-3 hits no matter how careful or unpredictable you think you're being.

[Umikami]

The high detection on Type93 torpedoes sometimes feel like even a broadside battleship has time to dodge them.  It makes for very frustrating games when you throw dozens of torpedoes out and only land 2-3 hits no matter how careful or unpredictable you think you're being.

 

 

Didn't used to be that way; IJN torps used to have the same detection range as everyone else. Then baBBies whined, and whined, and whined, and IJN torps, at higher tiers, now have TWICE the detection range low tier torps have.

Welcome to World of (protected) Battleships.

[centarina]

IJN Destroyers mainly depend on their enemy. If I get the right enemy I love playing the Hatsuharu. I really love it. But if there are Bensons in the enemy team, well goodbye then. I can hope that he just detonate, but let'S stay honest he will wreck me. Same goes for Kagerou. Oblivious battleships? I enjoy them. Radar equipped ships spotting me most of the time while Khabarovsks melt me down? No thanks.

 

I've killed benson with hatsuharu stock hull, but  it is lot of luck and being astutue.   In t8, you have to play support DD role.  if he smokes up and start to fire, you can move in and torp him.   only t9 that I enjoy currently is udaloi.   I am CL more than DD though.     9km conceal but great agility.

[SireneRacker]

 

I've killed benson with hatsuharu stock hull, but  it is lot of luck and being astutue.   In t8, you have to play support DD role.  if he smokes up and start to fire, you can move in and torp him.   only t9 that I enjoy currently is udaloi.   I am CL more than DD though.     9km conceal but great agility.

 

When the situation allows it and I happen to have my guns pointed at him I can also take away some points, but in a normal fight 1v1 I stand no chance as long as he knows what he's doing.

[Harv72b]

Ehhh....my first reaction was to jump to the defense of the "re-balanced" IJN destroyers, but then I thought for a few moments and realized that wasn't your question.  Are they fun?

 

Not really, for the most part.  The Shiratsuyu certainly can be fun at T7, and Umikaze has always been a blast at T2 (but most T2 ships are anyway), but when I play a Japanese destroyer these days it's usually somewhat stressful.  I mean, they're still great when it comes to concealment, but once you hit those upper few tiers there will pretty much always be at least a couple ships on the enemy team packing radar or hydro, which largely negates your concealment edge.  In most cases the guns are better (haven't played new Minekaze or Mutsuki, though), but with a couple of exceptions they still aren't very good.  Their (lack of) speed really hurts the fun factor too, as it can take way too long to shift flanks or close to torpedo range against a lone target, and heaven help you if you ever get lit up by radar within range of multiple cruisers.  If I had to pick one word to describe them, I'd use "challenging"--they can produce some very good games, but it takes a good bit of work to get them even against bad opponents.

 

For a strictly fun destroyer experience, there are still some of them out there.  The American tier 4 destroyer Clemson is a lot of fun for me, at least, as she can really wreck a typical T4 game.  The Soviet tier 7 Kiev is my favorite ship in the game right now--always fun for me to play her, although she doesn't really play like a typical destroyer.  Blyskawica is a lot of fun if you want to dip into premium ships, and while I don't have the Leningrad her numbers on paper make it seem like she'd be a lot of fun as well.  But of course "fun" is subjective, so you and I may have widely differing ideas of what it means in this game.

 

If you're just looking for an experience similar to the original Minekaze, then you're pretty much out of luck right now--Umikaze would be the closest thing, but in a T2 ship most of your games are going to be against nothing but cruisers and other DDs, making long-range dev strikes difficult.  Many of the higher-tier destroyers have excellent torpedo armaments and are very much capable of launching from stealth for an entire game, but few of the opponents you'll see at those tiers are going to allow themselves to be hit by long-range torpedo salvos.  The German T2 destroyer seems like she should be a lot of fun, but I haven't played her since launch day for that line when almost every ship in the lobby was a V25. 

 

With most destroyers the current meta is to lean heavily on their guns, combined with smoke, to burn down enemy ships from range; that play style is fairly effective, but I'm not sure many people would call it "fun". 

[chewonit]

I find myself sailing mostly Shimakaze and Akizuki these days.

 

I drive Shimakaze with 20km fish and TA for potato farming. I will never win a game in her but it's fun knowing people still zombie through the 15+ seconds of reaction time and get hit. I am still getting 5 to 10 torp hits a game.

 

And Akizuki for the change of path and pew-pew my way through the match, dying quickly and back to potato farming in Shimakaze.

 

Once you stop caring, it's fun again.

[Espinoza75]

I like em.

 

A good experience is playing Russian DDs up the Ognevoi.

 

Make sure you get AFT and you open up the guns to some real fun..

 

They are fun for me. Fun for you? ?

[Seraphil]

Some of my most enjoyable games lately have been in Akatsuki.

[Cruiser_CleveAniki]

Some of my most enjoyable games lately have been in Akatsuki.

 

I enjoyed Akatsuki, especially her speed, The problem was just that the appeal of 16 torp walls was too much of an appeal, even if the 9 torp spreads Akatsuki can shoot are more frequent.

[Capt_Q_Sparrow]

So the answer after reading all these posts is  NO  They are not fun to play with anymore , and I agree .

[Seraphil]

So the answer after reading all these posts is  NO  They are not fun to play with anymore , and I agree .

 

You didn't read anything.  The majority of the posts here are saying YES.

 

You're just another whiny baby trying to stir up trouble.

[CommodoreLane]

I just recently got back into the game after a year of not playing and was having a lot of fun with Japanese BBs and CVs, but upon trying to get back into destroyers I'm nearly on the verge of quitting the game again. I just can't have any fun in the mid tier DDs it seems.

 

I'm told that the Japanese destroyers were re-balanced a few months ago so they are less reliant on torpedo and better able to use their guns, yet I don't get that feeling in game. The Minekaze and Mutsuki both still have crappy guns compared to any other ship in the game, and now have bad torpedos to go along with it. Plus all I see are tier 7 games in both of these ships, which feels like some kind of bad joke, especially in the last few matches where I ran into Indianapolis's and Belfast's that have radar.

 

A tier 5 ship with 7km range torps against cruisers with radar. Seriously?

 

Plus the whole reason I originally went down this line was for destroyers that primarily used torpedos. If I wanted to play a gunboat or a hybrid class I would have gone for the US or now available Russians. I don't think removing the Japanese ships special playstyle makes any sense at all. Not to mention they are still worse as hybrids than other nations, the US DDs seem to be just straight up better all around now.

 

I'm not completely sure if they get better at higher tiers but I have very little motivation at all to grind through to the higher tier ones. The mid tier ships just feel so bad now.

 

I find them very fun...