Why all the fuss about German BB secondaries?

[CaptGodzillaPig]

So, I ground my way through the IJN BB line until I got to the famed and storied Yamato.   What a great ship.  She seemingly could do it all, as long as you kept her soft spot covered and avoid the shell magnet effect.   But, I liked the brawl and slug fest and I kept hearing about how German BB's ruled the roost with regards to secondaries and brawling abilities (the armor is certainly better) and so with a little head hanging about all the time I wasted getting to Yam, I set off on the long grind to the GK.  Not that the trip hasn't had its fun moments.  Bismark was a hoot as long as you didn't end up in a long string of T9-10 games   But alas, here I am in the Freddy and a mere chip shot away from the GK (finally) and now I see that most are leaning towards accuracy and main battery builds and abandoning the secondary build completely as being a waste of points versus the return of investing in the big guns.

 

Well, shoot.  The one thing Yammy did, and did very very well, was shoot them big guns of her's without much help in the modification or skill point department.  The other thing she did pretty darn good was shoot them secondaries when she was spec'ed out to do so.

 

So alas, I will finish my grind to GK and then I suppose it will be back to Yammy.     I know that the stat guys will point to the data and talk about how the this and thats support German BB seconds, but if you aren't going to spec them out, or if you have to spec out the mains to compensate for their poor performance, then what does it matter?

 

 

[Captain_Dorja]

Personally I wasn't under the impression that on the German BBs you did have to spec out the mains. 

[saru_richard]

thing is the secondary build vastly help your ability to brawl for extended periods of time and it gives your German BB the dpm to make up for the long main battery reloads, also it gives the secondaries ridicules range that makes you a no sail zone for anything that is not a battleship and combine that with the turtleback armor the german BB's posses allows them to be monsters at close range combat

[CaptGodzillaPig]

Yeah I get the better armor, but Yammy secondaries have farmed far more close quarters badges than the FD has.  Granted that is a T10 to T9 comparison.  WIth the secondary build on Yam I am reaching 10k plus, so not much different than the german line.   

 

The difference seems to be that while the impression is that the german BB secondaries are these crushing forces, they really aren't THAT much of a difference than the IJN line, but you are taking a thumping from far superior guns before you can get close enough to get into a secondary battle.  Yes the turtle armor is hard to citi.  So, don't try to citi it.   Go for regular pen damage and roll it up on them.  Believe me, you can knock the stuffing out of a german BB with just penning.

 

I guess my point isn't to knock the German line.  It has it's good points and very good points, but it has fallen short of the expectation as being some overwhelming force in close.   Iunno..  Maybe the GK will change my mind about it.

[AdmiralThunder]

I think on the whole, as a line, the German BB secondary's are the best. Might be an individual ship like the Yamato that is as good or better at it's tier but on the whole German line seems to have the best( range and numbers ). I am only to Fuso( actually T6 for all BB )for IJN, so LONG way from Yamato, but so far their secondary's have been garbage compared to the German BB's.  US seem to have decent ones but range is short.

[CaptGodzillaPig]

I think on the whole, as a line, the German BB secondary's are the best. Might be an individual ship like the Yamato that is as good or better at it's tier but on the whole German line seems to have the best( range and numbers ). I am only to Fuso( actually T6 for all BB )for IJN, so LONG way from Yamato, but so far their secondary's have been garbage compared to the German BB's.  US seem to have decent ones but range is short.

 

Yeah, the IJN secondaries don't start picking up steam until Amagi, but still fall short of the German line at that point as Bismark makes a big jump in that line's secondary performance as well.   I agree that across the tiers the German line has the better seconds, but once you get to the glorious T10 finish it seems to start falling flat.  Hope the GK has some serious buff over the FD.

[Shadeylark]

The issue you're running into with secondary performance dropping off has less to do with the secondaries being bad or below par and more to do with the T9 and t10 meta.

At high high tier it's all about sitting bow on at standoff range, instead of closing n brawling properly. That alone causes a massive dip in secondary effectiveness.

 

In short, nobody will find their secondary build as effective unless you can force a proper brawl, which is really dependent upon your team's dds forcing enemy bbs to scuttle out from behind islands n expose themselves to you.

[HazeGrayUnderway]

I think on the whole, as a line, the German BB secondary's are the best. Might be an individual ship like the Yamato that is as good or better at it's tier but on the whole German line seems to have the best( range and numbers ). I am only to Fuso( actually T6 for all BB )for IJN, so LONG way from Yamato, but so far their secondary's have been garbage compared to the German BB's.  US seem to have decent ones but range is short.

 

Before the German BB line arrived, IJN BB secondaries from Tier VII onwards were really good over the USN BB ones.  Nagato was the first in that regard and she shined, a lot of guys specced her for Secondaries.  Secondaries Build Nagato was a nasty thing for DDs that get detected by her trying to creep close.  Buuuutttt, the arrival of the German BB line changed all that.  You had a line of Battleships that:

1.  Were very fast tier for tier, faster than Nagato and even Amagi.  The only BB that can outrun the Germans at high tier is Iowa / Missouri.

2.  In general, did not play the citadel game that USN & IJN BBs had to be paranoid about, thanks to heavy armor and turtlebacks.

3.  There are 4 BBs in the entire game with torpedoes, 3 of them are German, 2 of them sit in Tier VII alone.

4.  Before the German BBs, the only long range Secondaries BB in the game was Yamato at Tier X.  With the German BBs' arrival, 10.6km Secondaries start at Tier VIII with Bismarck.

 

USN BB Secondaries are terrible.  Range is the issue.  A lot of the upper tier ones can hope for 7.6km at best, which is laughable in the face of 10.6km Bismarck onwards, and 7.6km is standard fare for the Germans at Tier VII.  Couple that Secondaries weakness for USN BBs with mediocre armor and abysmal speed at Tier VII and below, or HORRIBLE armor and citadels at Tier VIII+, USN BBs are poor choices in a short ranged fight with the Germans.

 

Anyways, if they're not tangling with German BBs in a knife fight, IJN BB Secondaries are pretty decent to great.  Again, Tier VII on they're great.  Secondaries Spec Nagato, Amagi, Yamato can be painful.  Unlike most USN BBs, IJN BBs have the speed to force the issue for Secondaries.

[Wowzery]

I find if you are trying to pull off massive damage in a short amount of time, the German line sucks the worst.  I play a lot of T6 BBS, and the German BBs are the lowest on the threat meter because they need a good shot, and good RNG to do anything.  People talk of armor, yet I have no problem taking 10-25k of HP from a German BB in a single salvo.  German BBs might be brawlers, yet I'd rather brawl in the Arizona, NM and Dunkerque before the Bayern.

[JojoTheMongol]

The Bayern is the low point of the line and its still a decent ship. Overall the German BBs are really good.

[CaptGodzillaPig]

got rid of HE fuse on my seconds...   this has made a big difference.   Seems my problem was that HE fuse was more of a hinder than a help.

[HazeGrayUnderway]

The Bayern is the low point of the line and its still a decent ship. Overall the German BBs are really good.

 

There is only one line of ships that can say they have it better than that.  But it still shows how overall good the German BB line is.

[BattlecruiserOperational]

the FDG is the pinnacle of secondary power in the game. It has the same setup as the Bismarck, but you can mount the T9 module which increases the RoF of your secondaries even further. The GK is actually a step down from the FDG when it comes to secondaries. I've contemplated selling my GK and buying back my FDG. Decided against it, and will just save up in time.

 

Now on the GK, I run what I would call a mild hybrid build to make more use of the 25% increase in main battery firepower over the FDG.

[HazeGrayUnderway]

I find if you are trying to pull off massive damage in a short amount of time, the German line sucks the worst.  I play a lot of T6 BBS, and the German BBs are the lowest on the threat meter because they need a good shot, and good RNG to do anything.  People talk of armor, yet I have no problem taking 10-25k of HP from a German BB in a single salvo.  German BBs might be brawlers, yet I'd rather brawl in the Arizona, NM and Dunkerque before the Bayern.

 

Bayern is a funny one.  I actually discarded Secondaries Build for her to specialize in other things.  I opted for ASM1 instead of SBM2 and the guns become very nice and accurate.

[AdmiralThunder]

 

Bayern is a funny one.  I actually discarded Secondaries Build for her to specialize in other things.  I opted for ASM1 instead of SBM2 and the guns become very nice and accurate.

 

​I went with ASM1 on my Bayern over a secondary build as well and really liked the ship. I found the guns no worse than any other  BB's accuracy wise and when you do hit they hit very hard. Tough ship as well although like any ship in the game it can suffer from +2MM. As good as Bayern is for a T6 when it sees T8 BB's it is just out matched plain and simple. However, it takes it better than Fuso or even New Mexico IMO. Liked it so much I have kept it even though I am on to Gneisenau now( a ship I am not overly fond of at this time, ironically, despite the great speed and torps ).

[FavorHouseAtlantic]

CaptGodzlla... there seems to be one other factor, in regards to those in the Kurf going main guns voer secondaries, that hasn't really been mentioned:

End-tier games tend to be a bloody campfest. 

I have the Bismarck, I have the Freddy (and 100k in XP from Kurf). In bismarck... I see low tier games, which, for the main part, is full of hyperly aggressive people, which allows me to be me (overly aggressive, and use my amazing armor and secondaries to melt the hell out of ANYTHING).

 

In the Freddy... I mainly see tier X games... and I am stuck in a campfest. I charge... no one follows.... I die an inglorious death due to a hail of HE, torps, and the occasional plane that sneaks through my AA web. I am stuck sitting back and lobbing my inaccurate main guns, all because everyone and their brother turtles, hard. I imagine Kurf will be even more of that.

It's all part of the meta, unfortunately... people would rather camp, and try to live longer, which is understandable. However... in matches where I can convince 2-3 people to be aggressive and charge with me in my Freddy... then that secondary build shines. I have melted down Yamatos with secondaries in Freddy (main guns in it, as well, to help, not to mention the cruisers with me), because they focus on me and ignore the cruisers buzzing them. 

A large part of this game is the meta... those who break it solo get punished severely; those who punish it en masse can cause mass chaos. Don't give up on Kurf as of yet... keep in mind, the meta at end game is hugging islands, DD smokes, sitting at max range... which is NOT the German BBs best friend. But if you convince just 2 others to be hyper aggressive with a cap, then the secondary builds do indeed shine like no other.

[bewbs_]

I still went with a secondary build on the GK, the main gun accuracy doesn't bother me as I'm close enough it doesn't matter, I also recomend using manual secondaries on the tier 8-10 German BB's, makes a huge difference.

[_Luna]

got rid of HE fuse on my seconds...   this has made a big difference.   Seems my problem was that HE fuse was more of a hinder than a help.

 

It was a hindrance. Lowers your fire chance for no in game improvement in secondary HE penetration.

It only makes a difference on the upgraded hull Gneisenau, and the Grosser Kurfurst, and even then, is it worth 4 points?