Minotaur: Impressed with Ship, Not Impressed With MM

[saagri]

Finally got a RN captain to 15 points so I wanted to try a Minotaur with a concealment build. 

Didn't see any T4 skills that were too appealing so I got AFT for better AA.

 

I heard that Mino's guns suck with the range upgrade but I wanted to try it out anyways. I was hoping to make use of the invisifiring capabilities of the ship. After playing a few rounds I took it off. At ~13km range the shell flight time is about 10 seconds. Personally that is my limit, any more than that is practically useless. 

 

Of course the shell arcs are Cleveland-esque so I tried to do the firing over islands thing which worked pretty well with one problem. Catapult planes. I hate those things in the Minotaur. Quite a few times I am doing the pew pew behind an island when all of a sudden I am detected by a plane. Had one incident where a BB almost one shot me as I lost about 37k hp

 

Thank goodness for the super RN CL heal though. Was able to bring myself back up to almost half HP. Unlike other ships with repair, I might drop superintendent from my captain as I haven't even come close to using them all. Will play a few more matches but generally either I take little damage in a match or just get over run by the enemy team.  

 

AA on the Minotaur seems fairly good. It has better range and DPS on the DP guns and the 76.2mm AA is on par with the Des Moines. No Defensive AA sucks though. 

 

As it stands, Minotaur is of course very good for chewing on Battleships. One problem I ran into was when super structure got saturated. I remember firing on a GK and was doing 0 damage on SS hits. This was disheartening as it only had 4k hp left... On the other hand it is hilarious to get the first hit in on a fresh BB and watch 7k get knocked off every 3 seconds. 

 

I found myself struggling against Cruisers. They could angle and WASD so that my effective DPS goes down. I don't want to show too much side as I can take massive damage from AP, so my rear turrets aren't used as much. And of course torpedoes if they rush me.  Speaking of torpedoes, the torpedoes on the Minotaur are decent. With 4x4 launchers, 2 each side, decent alpha 10km range and speed.  I was actually able to throw down some torpedo walls and get a few hits. 

 

I feel sorry for DD's in my Minotaur. Especially when I know they have no backup. They get chewed up pretty bad, especially if you can get broadside hits. And with Hydro and super RN CL turning, I can dodge torpedoes pretty well. 

 

CV's are a mixed bag. Minotaur has the DPS to gradually shoot down planes but a focused attack may be problematic. In addition Minotaur can't set fires if it catches a CV and it will have penetration problems. Especially on CV's with armored decks. 

 

TL;DR

Minotaur struggles a bit in the current meta of being as non-committed as possible and sniping in the back. However a lot of maps offer islands and with smoke, DPS, and torpedoes the Minotaur can dish out serious pain in a short amount of time before losing half it's hp to one salvo. 

[Grevester]

Eh, you can still land 1-2k damage salvos at max range on BBs. But you can go with AA and use manual instead of AFT. makes your max range AA very painful.

[saagri]

Eh, you can still land 1-2k damage salvos at max range on BBs. But you can go with AA and use manual instead of AFT. makes your max range AA very painful.

 

Sure, at stock max range ~15km is good enough. Can be slightly difficult to hit a BB that is using their rudder.

 

And I wanted AFT so I can't be perma spotted by planes easily. Air detection is around the 7km mark with max concealment. With AFT the 152's reach out to 8km.  

[Terrible_Turtle]

Reminds me of the Atlanta. You're heavily reliant on the map and the aggressiveness of your team to do well. 

[saagri]

Reminds me of the Atlanta. You're heavily reliant on the map and the aggressiveness of your team to do well. 

 

I feel like the Minotaur has the stealth and smoke to be able to operate closer to the enemy team without support. Just need to have good timing for when to run. 

[Nachoo31]

Reminds me of the Atlanta. You're heavily reliant on the map and the aggressiveness of your team to do well. 

 

  This is the flaw of all cruisers.  You need to have a team of players not afraid of taking damage.  If they flee and keep moving away from fire, you, the cruiser are the focus and no matter how well you can dodge incoming fire, your going to get a RNG hit and it might kill you.

[HazeGrayUnderway]

Just like with Neptune, I did not opt for the main gun range upgrade either.  The shell flight times are too long and I disliked it.  I went with Concealment and AA route on her.  In a pure AA capacity, Neptune is better with the manual trait but Minotaur still rips planes apart.

 

Both Neptune and Minotaur are great when divisioned up with Destroyers and being behind them a tad bit.  You have the AA to make CVs pay and to quickly delete last ditch spotter / catapult aircraft that would otherwise annoy your DDs.  You have the guns to lend towards bigger threats to make them worry about, in addition to the torpedoes of both your DDs and your own RN CL's, and both Neptune and Minotaur once again pack 2 sets of launchers per side, something RN CLs lose after Tier V Emerald.

 

Des Moines and Minotaur are similar in that, I think, because they can creep a little closer.  DM however has the far stronger guns but Minotaur has the gun ROF to make people panic and the threat of very heavy torpedo armament.

[WhiteRecon]

I don't want to hear any complaints about the mino, you guys are T10 punishment at its finest - it always makes my day when I catch one out of position. 

 

Btw, mino is the last current T10 that I want - but really like my T7 sisters for the time being - T7 MM (read all) can make you lose your hair tho...

[Exafs]

Agreed, the Mino relies on good team support. I will push pretty hard most of the time and try to have an escape plan if/when my backup bails. This ship is 90% understanding positioning and reading the map.