BB AP vs DDs - Flamu

[Aduial]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMDKrRdVAqc&lc=z222yddz5xa3ttnz504t1aokgzjqic0gpq3dxkzyap4rrk0h00410

 

Not sure if this has been posted already, but I agreed so strongly with what Flamu was saying, that I couldn't help but post it. 

 

Summary of the video (for anyone who doesn't have the time to watch the whole thing): Full penetration damage from BB AP shells to DDs is an unnecessary mechanic that breaks the "rock-paper-scissors" balance of the game. While some may argue that this mechanic is realistic, realism is not a valid reason for breaking game balance. However, BBs should still be able to punish DDs by switching to HE, or by landing a large number of overpenetrations. 

[Thunderstruck2016]

I said it there and you brought it up here.  

 

 

Rock Paper Scissors Balancing is DEAD.

 

It has been a decreasing trend throughout this games life beginning at the release of the Mikhail Kutuzov.  Whats the purpose of giving a cruiser (which is supposed to counter a DD) smoke and 19.1km firing range.  How do either of those traits help it hunt and kill DDs.  Newsflash, they don't.  It was balanced around HE Spam.  So how to HE spamming cruisers fit into the Rock Paper Scissors?  They [edited] don't.  If they did, then the Henri IV would be the worst cruiser EVER.  

 

Should Battleship AP not do as much damage to DDs in the Shim clip? Probably, I mean, he got 1 regular penetration that was worth 8k.  That baffles me.  I usually get 2k or 3k for a regular penetration.   

[MorbidGamer]

You know the funny thing is everyone whined about AP vs DD (HE was better) so WG buffed it. Now we got whining again. Can people make up their minds? This is why you shouldn't listen to potato players asking for changes to the game. It often breaks it.

[Captain_Dorja]

2 minutes ago, MorbidGamer said:

You know the funny thing is everyone whined about AP vs DD (HE was better) so WG buffed it. Now we got whining again. Can people make up their minds? This is why you shouldn't listen to potato players asking for changes to the game. It often breaks it.

 

Battleship AP has always been better against DDs than HE. After they took away the citadel on DDs, it just took a while for people to realize it. WarGaming didn't buff anything, or chance AP shell mechanics... In other words, they didn't listen to "potato players" or buff battleship AP against DDs. They nerfed it.


That said, I think what @Aduial says, courtesy of Flamu (whom I mostly cannot stand), is pretty much dead on. BB overpen damage against DDs is already better than using HE. Standard pens are literally overkill.

[GrandAdmiral_2016]

Go with what is in the breach, AP or HE. But target the DD with your secondaries because if she won't back off, most DDs (our Balanced, Comerade Russian paper DDs excepted of course!) will get melted by secondary HE PDQ. I always use CTRL mouse click select to designate against anything within range, and it is usually a DD. I do it for two reasons a) self-defence, and b) farming extra damage points. Think about it for a bit...DDs are a BBs natural enemy..solution... keep enough distance in hand to deal with it, and get good with point-blank gunnery. If it ain't broke don't fix it!

[Kuckoo]

I'm convinced WG stopped giving a damn about "rock-paper-scissors" a long time ago.

 

Now it just "coddle battleship players".

 

[Estimated_Prophet]

Maybe some AP round will go through a DD long-ways and stick for full damage; but that's about as forlorn a hope as spamming AP at a bow-on cruiser hoping for a magic citadel to kill it before it torps you to death.

 

Shoot what's up the spout, yes; but I'd sooner trust battleship HE to kill destroyers than AP, any day of the week.

[MorbidGamer]

14 minutes ago, Captain_Dorja said:

 

Battleship AP has always been better against DDs than HE. After they took away the citadel on DDs, it just took a while for people to realize it. WarGaming didn't buff anything, or chance AP shell mechanics... In other words, they didn't listen to "potato players" or buff battleship AP against DDs. They nerfed it.


That said, I think what @Aduial says, courtesy of Flamu (whom I mostly cannot stand), is pretty much dead on. BB overpen damage against DDs is already better than using HE. Standard pens are literally overkill.

It was never as good as HE. The damage, fires and disabled modules totally screwed them over. They moved up the HP and skill that prevented them losing modules. Then they added a mod that is almost as good as a det flag. So HE got a big nerf with that. You don't see DD's exploding like you used to.

 

P.S.

Plus they also made it harder for guns to be destroyed... You used to knock out all their guns in 1 HE volley.

[Aduial]

1 minute ago, Estimated_Prophet said:

Maybe some AP round will go through a DD long-ways and stick for full damage; but that's about as forlorn a hope as spamming AP at a bow-on cruiser hoping for a magic citadel to kill it before it torps you to death.

 

Shoot what's up the spout, yes; but I'd sooner trust battleship HE to kill destroyers than AP, any day of the week.

I don't think what you're saying is true. As long as you can overmatch the bow of the cruiser you're shooting at, AP is ALWAYS better. Against DDs, HE may be more consistent, but you're not going to land those crazy salvos that you can with AP. 

But as for your second point, I think that's how it should be. HE should always be the solution for DDs when playing battleships - but right now, it's not, and it's making it too easy to punish a DD. 

[Komrade_Rylo]

So dds should be able to stay bow in to bbs to become nearly impossible to hit and do very miniscule damage. Do you know how to ensure a bb never gets full pens on you? sail broadside

[Captain_Dorja]

2 minutes ago, MorbidGamer said:

It was never as good as HE. The damage, fires and disabled modules totally screwed them over.

 

Respectfully disagree for 3 main reasons.
1) - AP hits, because of overmatching, always pen and they always pen for at least 10% damage (so if a North Carolina hits a C hull Benson, every AP shell will do a minimum of 1,310 HP, which is 8.5% of the enemy total health). Where a hit scored anywhere on a ship is 100% certain to deal a minimum of ~7% damage to a target, and there is no variance to that damage at all, except for a chance to do even more, I consider it better than the uncertain results of HE damage.
2) - Breaking modules is only debilitating if a target is still alive after the modules are broken. DDs have such low HP, and BB AP overpen hits are guaranteed to do such a proportionally high amount of damage to the enemy that if my battleship fires at a DD and hits more than 1 shell, there is a very high probability of an outright kill. Why would I want to shoot for temporary and uncertain levels of incapacitate when I can shoot for permanent removal of that target ship from the match? Keep in mind that aside from the Juliet Charlie and Magazine Mod making detonations less likely, literally every single DD out there runs Last Stand, so knocking out their engines and rudder, which in CBT was basically a death sentence, isn't even always an insta-repair for a DD now. There is nothing to be gained in this game for shooting to wound targets with such low HP when they can be just a certainly and reliably shot with the intention of completely killing them, and a dead ship is infinitely less dangerous than a wounded ship with module damage.
3) - Just the chance of getting an AP standard penetration hit is high enough to mean I don't shoot HE at DDs. HE does less certain damage, the module damage is nowhere near as devastating as people like to think, and there isn't any chance of the devastation of a 33% chance AP pen. In the previous example of a Benson being shot by a North Carolina, 1 AP overpen dealt 8.5% of the Benson's total HP pool. 1 standard pen, in the same scenario deals 28% damage to that same target. The ability to potentially erase more than 1/4 of the targets HP pool with a single shell hit far outweighs the dubious value of breaking modules that are protected by flags, captain skills, and equipment, plus which can be instantly made fully functional again with a single keystroke.

Anyway, it's a playstyle difference. As someone who primarily plays battleships, and plays them quite well if I might be so bold, I just felt like explaining my rational to anyone out there who might not understand it. I do agree though that the 1/3 AP pen damage to DDs is stupid though.

[Aduial]

8 minutes ago, Fog_Battleship_NCarolina said:

So dds should be able to stay bow in to bbs to become nearly impossible to hit and do very miniscule damage. Do you know how to ensure a bb never gets full pens on you? sail broadside

Nearly impossible to hit? Not from what I've seen. While this might have been true at one point in the past for low tier battleships, BBs have become more and more accurate in general, and it's honestly not that hard to land a few shells on a DD even if he's bow in. I would also like to remind you that BBs are in fact NOT the counters to DDs, and therefore are not required to do heavy damage to DDs. 

As for your second point, if you sail broadside, you're opening yourself up to damage from other sources, so at the moment, DDs don't really have a safe move when it comes to avoiding damage, unlike battleships or cruisers, that can angle to mitigate damage. 

[SimiaStoicus]

DDs are my least played class at less than 14% but I do think they got a hard life.

This is 1 point i completely agree with Flamu. Lessen RNG and increase decision making/skill in game.

[MorbidGamer]

1 minute ago, Captain_Dorja said:

 

Respectfully disagree for 3 main reasons.


Anyway, it's a playstyle difference. As someone who primarily plays battleships, and plays them quite well if I might be so bold, I just felt like explaining my rational to anyone out there who might not understand it. I do agree though that the 1/3 AP pen damage to DDs is stupid though.

It's ok... I still remember the days when HE was king.

AP was crap for taking out light armored stuff.

[crzyhawk]

25 minutes ago, MorbidGamer said:

It was never as good as HE. The damage, fires and disabled modules totally screwed them over. They moved up the HP and skill that prevented them losing modules. Then they added a mod that is almost as good as a det flag. So HE got a big nerf with that. You don't see DD's exploding like you used to.

 

P.S.

Plus they also made it harder for guns to be destroyed... You used to knock out all their guns in 1 HE volley.

That mod is pretty darned good.  I dont know why more DD players don't run it, I rarely detonate in mine while using it.

[yashma]

27 minutes ago, Kuckoo said:

I'm convinced WG stopped giving a damn about "rock-paper-scissors" a long time ago.

 

Now it just "coddle battleship players".

 

Well to be fair one of the most recent breaches of  RPS balancing was a cruiser line designed around countering BBs.  For whatever reason people didn't pick up on them and they have gotten a lot of hate, but high tier French cruisers most definitely counter BBs.  

 

[crzyhawk]

Annoying BBs and countering them are two entirely different things.

[yashma]

23 minutes ago, crzyhawk said:

Annoying BBs and countering them are two entirely different things.

Well I suppose that really depends on how you define countering.   If you want a hard counter that erases BBs on the spot, then I French cruisers don't quite fit the bill.  But  if you just want a line of ships that make BB's lives hell, then the French are spot on.

Either way, from my experiences in the Missouri and grinding the French cruiser line, I have a hard time saying the French cruisers were a beneficial addition for BBs*.

 

*Well, unless of course the French cruiser decides he wants to slowly reverse out from behind an island, showing full broadside to a BB 9km away, but I suppose that can't be helped.  

[Crucis]

1 hour ago, Thunderstruck2016 said:

I said it there and you brought it up here.  

 

 

Rock Paper Scissors Balancing is DEAD.

 

It has been a decreasing trend throughout this games life beginning at the release of the Mikhail Kutuzov.  Whats the purpose of giving a cruiser (which is supposed to counter a DD) smoke and 19.1km firing range.  How do either of those traits help it hunt and kill DDs.  Newsflash, they don't.  It was balanced around HE Spam.  So how to HE spamming cruisers fit into the Rock Paper Scissors?  They [edited] don't.  If they did, then the Henri IV would be the worst cruiser EVER.  

 

Should Battleship AP not do as much damage to DDs in the Shim clip? Probably, I mean, he got 1 regular penetration that was worth 8k.  That baffles me.  I usually get 2k or 3k for a regular penetration.   

I also noticed this in the video.  He got 2 hits, 1 overpen and 1 regular pen for about 9.6k damage.  Something was wrong with the math there, since as I understood AP shell damage, an overpen should do 10% damage and a regular pen should do 33% damage, which should have added up to about 5.8k damage to the Shimmy.  So how did the BB do 9.6k damage on an overpen and 1 regular pen?  (Note: I assumed that Flamu's GK was using the larger guns with my math.)

 

[WanderingGhost]

44 minutes ago, Aduial said:

I don't think what you're saying is true. As long as you can overmatch the bow of the cruiser you're shooting at, AP is ALWAYS better. Against DDs, HE may be more consistent, but you're not going to land those crazy salvos that you can with AP. 

But as for your second point, I think that's how it should be. HE should always be the solution for DDs when playing battleships - but right now, it's not, and it's making it too easy to punish a DD. 

 

I have to disagree. You get a fool DD charging you head on so you get to hit lengthwise, maybe. But Even taking NC, HE will pen, AP normally over pens, meaning HE usually does more damage, and everyone forgets that side thing that AP rarely if ever knocks out modules like oh say, torpedo tubes. HE I've seen them lose all tubes in a salvo. How rarely I see DD's deleted by AP, I'm sticking to launching whatever I have at them, preferably HE.

[Crucis]

I don't agree with people who claim that normal pen AP hits on DD's are wrong.  For one thing, if a DD is sailing broadside to you, aren't the chances rather low that you'll get a normal pen AP hit, with the possible exception of certain DD's that are a bit better armored, which may make them better protected vs other DD's but may actually make them more vulnerable to heavier guns?  Sailing directly towards or away from a BB narrows your profile and should make you somewhat more difficult to hit (at least with multiple shots), but at the same time, it increase the chances of taking normal damage AP hits, since you're giving those shells a lot more ship to pass through and not overpen.

Also, I agree with you, Ghost. I've also rarely seen DD's get deleted in a single volley.  Maybe that will become a more likely or common thing with the shorter fuses on RN BB AP shells.  But up to now, about the only things I know of that takes out full health DD that easily are torps or a detonation.

 

[Aduial]

2 minutes ago, WanderingGhost said:

 

I have to disagree. You get a fool DD charging you head on so you get to hit lengthwise, maybe. But Even taking NC, HE will pen, AP normally over pens, meaning HE usually does more damage, and everyone forgets that side thing that AP rarely if ever knocks out modules like oh say, torpedo tubes. HE I've seen them lose all tubes in a salvo. How rarely I see DD's deleted by AP, I'm sticking to launching whatever I have at them, preferably HE.

If the DD is bow-on or stern-on, you are almost guaranteed to get a full penetration. That's just a fact, and you can confirm it in the training room if you want. 

[WanderingGhost]

8 minutes ago, Aduial said:

If the DD is bow-on or stern-on, you are almost guaranteed to get a full penetration. That's just a fact, and you can confirm it in the training room if you want. 

 

Don't need to, know it, seen it, the maybe was more when dispersion goes "lol no" and the fact that other than maybe noobs or fools I seldom see a DD charge head on enough to eat full AP salvo's, usually angled in a way that reduces it happening and allows a torp shot. Get a full AP hit, yeah, it's devastating, devastating to everything. 

[Wulfgarn]

I've mentioned all of this before, even down to why BBs should use HE for DDs.

 

During the time it takes them to switch, just think of the time that could give Cruisers. It would help take a lot of heat off of them. 

 

If some changes could be done, I think it would be a help to both ship types and actual make some special Commanders both now and in the future more wanted.

 

It could potentially create new builds for BBs as well. 

[Combined_Fleet_HQ]

1 hour ago, yashma said:

Well to be fair one of the most recent breaches of  RPS balancing was a cruiser line designed around countering BBs.  For whatever reason people didn't pick up on them and they have gotten a lot of hate, but high tier French cruisers most definitely counter BBs.  

 

 

Don't forget the high tier German CAs, they are also contenders for stomping BBs

 

2 hours ago, Aduial said:

I don't think what you're saying is true. As long as you can overmatch the bow of the cruiser you're shooting at, AP is ALWAYS better. Against DDs, HE may be more consistent, but you're not going to land those crazy salvos that you can with AP. 

But as for your second point, I think that's how it should be. HE should always be the solution for DDs when playing battleships - but right now, it's not, and it's making it too easy to punish a DD. 

 

Well you'll be likely to see an increase in HE usage against DDs. Specifically, the more players sailing around in UK BBs. Ships like the Lion can devi strike with their HE salvos, if not then they can at least take away 5-9k guaranteed. The HE consistency is more potent than its AP counterpart