Destoyers in Harm's Way

[Cowcat137]

Trying to learn destroyer skills, get sunk a  lot.  True or false: getting sunk is not necessarily bad because to be effective in DD  you have to take risks.

Or am I wrong? What do you think?

[Spyde]

You should never die in cap at start.  Losing the cap is better than getting killed.

 

 

A team that loses all its DD's fast is in bad shape.

 

DD's can die fast.  Attack from cover and drop spot if they focus you.     Can't do your job if your dead.

[alexf24]

You have to take risks, but there are big differences among torpedo DDs (e.g. most IJN) and gunboats, and even then there are big differences between USN, RU, and KM variants (plus Polish and Pan-Asian versions of the USN/RU originals).

 

You play all these very differently from each other. Specify which ones you are playing/talking about or check the excellent Forum guides, reviews, and the many YT videos on them.

[saagri]

Good DD's can be shot at but hard to hit. 

 

Although I am a firm believer in staying alive. 

[gurudennis]

It's not necessarily wrong to be sunk but not necessarily right either. A destroyer increases in value the longer she survives as opportunities to detect and counter her become more and more scarce. There's a line between taking a calculated risk to take a cap (very good) and outright YOLO.

[urk_the_red]

DDs as a whole have low survival rates, they favor high risk/reward and have low survivability. That said it should always be your goal to win any duel you get into and run away from fights you can't win. The longer you live as a DD, the more valuable you become to your team.

 

So basically, getting sunk is still bad but not surprising or uncommon.

[giovybez]

You should never die in cap at start.  Losing the cap is better than getting killed.

 

 

A team that loses all its DD's fast is in bad shape.

 

DD's can die fast.  Attack from cover and drop spot if they focus you.     Can't do your job if your dead.

 

^^ this all day long

[Crucias]

If you die in a DD, but you have done at least double your HP in damage (which wasn't fire damage because that can be healed back more readily) then you have done your job. If you're a DD that relies on fire I would suggest you aim for three times your HP. That's how I measure my contribution when I am playing DD.

 

Also rushing cap and dying hamstrings your team, but rushing when there are CVs is also very very risky - if the planes spot you early you might find the whole enemy team taking shots at you.

[K1ra_Yoshikage]

You can retake the cap if you run. It's hard to do if you are dead.

[Captain_Dilbert]

And it depends upon the circumstances of your getting sunk.  As someone mentioned earlier, if you are basically alone contesting a cap early....not worth dying over.  If you sink because you sat in smoke trying to cap...bad move on your part.  If you are trying to make a torp run on a BB and you unexpectedly cross paths with an enemy DD and you then get focused...those things will happen and are part of the life/death of a DD and often are not avoidable.   

[DwarfKingHack]

Like others have said, it's all about when and how you die. DDs become more dangerous as the game goes on and there are fewer enemies alive making it easier to sneak around and steal a capture point or torpedo ambush a BB.

Don't get me wrong, it's not necessarily a bad thing to trade your life to kill a full health battleship, but once you're gone you're gone.

[khorender_1]

I'm a Hippie but................

[CapnCappy]

You're going to have to be more specific on which ships you're talking about and what you're trying to do.

 

US gun boats live fast and die fast. IJN, some games they never see me. Russians stay at range. British.... ugh, they're a lot of work.

 

Had a game last week where I get into cap, torped left, torped right, died. First blood, double strike, double devastating. Was in battle 30 seconds, did my part. Kiev and Myoko on the bottom.

 

Better practice your torpedobeats and learn when to move just to the edge of your smoke (because torps are coming).

[Trip_Wir3]

Depends on which nation of dd's you're talking about

each branch plays differently & some die earlier then others

 

Overall no cap is worth dying for unless it means winning the game.

but once your dead you're not a distraction to the enemy team anymore.

[Misniso]

Taking risks in a DD isn't good.  Too many things can go wrong.  Scout plane.  Radar.  Islands.  Aim botter.

 

That said, it is to your discretion on what counts as a risk.  Most of the stunts that I pull off can be considered risky but for me it's run-of-the-mill.

 

That said, if you can't hold a cap, leave it.  Particularly if no one is behind you to support.  Caps are good, but you can just grab it later after they take it.

[Tulisang]

Trying to learn destroyer skills, get sunk a  lot.  True or false: getting sunk is not necessarily bad because to be effective in DD  you have to take risks.

 

IMO maneuvering & battling in a DD takes a considerable amount of gamin' skill and getting sunk early on in terms of earning a victory may not benefit the RNG'd team. I'm primarily a BB captain, however when battling with DDs (I'm still learning too) it is, in and of itself swift & fun, if not a challenging effort. Getting sunk is a "bad" thing; taking out any number of upper tier boats before being sunk into Davy Jones' locker is a "good" thing.   For me it's all about motion and direction; to just keep movin', or one will find themselves swimming back to port?

 

[centarina]

yes,  please  take risks and get sunk to my guns 

 

[Reifen]

Don't pop smoke then sail out of it's protection like most noob destroyer captains I see doing, unless you're being chased. Pop and stay hidden and invisi fire, sent a lot of ships to the bottom doing this. Unless someone pops radar or sonar, then run away!

 

[R1CK]

If you die in a DD, but you have done at least double your HP in damage (which wasn't fire damage because that can be healed back more readily) then you have done your job. If you're a DD that relies on fire I would suggest you aim for three times your HP. That's how I measure my contribution when I am playing DD.

 

Also rushing cap and dying hamstrings your team, but rushing when there are CVs is also very very risky - if the planes spot you early you might find the whole enemy team taking shots at you.

 

Thats a horrible metric for a destroyer. DD HP is worth more than the HP of any other class because it has no heal and has so little to start with. Also, a major factor in knife fights is who started with more HP. 

 

Never ever intentionally trade HP with another ship. It's bad for your team.

It's also a bad metric because DDs aren't the damage dealers on the team. Why then would we judge performance on damage done? 

 

Teams NEED their DDs to be spotting, especially at the start of the match so that everyone can get situated. Without DDs spotting, the rest of the team is unsure, and will either yolo and die or sail circles in the spawn. DDs are eyes.

DDs are also powerful for their smoke and they can use torpedoes to funnel the enemy in a certain direction or make them go broadside to your BBs.

Of course that's all ignoring one of the biggest roles of DDs which is capping; which is usually necessary to win.

 

So yeah, big damage is great and all, but it has no relevance whatsoever when it comes to 'doing your job' in a DD.

 

Besides, with such a tiny HP pool, doing 2x or 3x your HP in damage is laughable.

[Cowcat137]

I'm a Hippie but................

 

You have reached your quota of positive votes for the day

[Cowcat137]

I'd say I have died most often making torpedo attacks, sometimes I get good payoffs with hits on BBs or CAs, other times my shooting is bad.  I try not to fight other DD's because we usually both end up dead. I've been rammed by DD's and I wonder if they knew they were going to die too. Or we exchange torps at close range and we both go.

Scouting I watch my detection ramge while trying to get spots. I can do well against ships but Airplanes have doomed me more than once.

As for caps, if it's full of heavy units I turn around, sometime the team covers me, usually they don't. But that's another story.

 

Thanks for all the great advice!

I used up my upvotes.

 

[murf4321]

yolo'ing dds are the worst.

 

when dds die in first 60 seconds I lose my cool.