Lert's thoughts on the RN BB's high fire chance

[Lert]

Overall I think the Royal Navy's high fire chance with HE is a good thing.

Now before you get your pitchforks out, let me explain why.

1) It changes the bow-on meta

Much has been said about the bow-on battleship meta, about passive play. High fire chance breaks that meta. Now, sitting still and camping is a guarantee you'll be turned into a smoking bonfire, It encourages people to bow-on less.

2) It changes the Battleships-fire-AP meta

Battleships were the only class where ammunition choice was at most times a non-factor. Now that's no longer the case.

3) It encourages survivability builds

Survivability / tanking builds are now more viable for battleships

4) They encourage the purchase of premium damage control parties.

Hey, WG encourages the spending of more credits, which in turn might encourage the purchase of more doubloons / premium time / premium ships. I can accept that.

5) It's a national flavor

Yeah yeah you might argue it's not a good national flavor, but it still is one. Without it, the RN BBs would've been yet another line of BBs that played just like all the other ones.

6) For the most part, they're not overpowered.

Now, don't get me wrong, there are some problem children, like Orion for example. Conqueror might be one as well. But on the whole they're reasonably well balanced. Though their damage totals are high, their winrates are middling meaning that even pulling their impressive damage numbers, they're not swaying games.

To explain this, we have to look at a concept called quality of damage.

"Quality of damage, what's that?"

In short, these royal navy battleships farm fire damage on other battleships, damage that can be easily and fully healed back with repair parties. 30k damage to a battleship's citadel is far more damaging than 60k done in fires. A 15k HP destroyer sunk is higher quality damage than 50k fire damage to a Yamato, which it can heal back in its entirety over the use of several repair parties.

Getting high damage numbers is fun, earns XP and credits. So from the viewpoint of the driver of an RN BB, setting all the fires is fun, earns him a ton of credits. From the viewpoint of the victim, better damage management is encouraged. A tankier captain build is encouraged. A tankier ship build is encouraged. And speaking as a battleship main, I'd rather burn for 60k and heal it all back than get smacked for 30k in my citadel.

"But what about the <Insert ship here>?"

As I said before, the balance is a bit off with some of these ships. I mentioned Orion and Conqueror. I'd argue these might be overpowered, though Orion more so than Conqueror. But you can't judge these ships just on their damage done numbers. As I explained above, it's all about the quality of damage, and the damage they farm is the lowest quality of damage. Conqueror's WR is fine. Not so sure about Orion's.

"But burning is so annoying!"

I can understand that sentiment and part of me agrees. Still, I personally don't think it's excessive now. It's certainly more than before, and to some that might automatically make it excessive, but I personally believe it's still tolerable. I certainly respec'd a few ships and captains to be more tanky and use more premium DCPs.

"I still think they're overpowered!"

That's fair, you're entitled to your belief, as am I to mine.

[IronWolfV]

Meh I look at it as this. Higher fire chance and good BB HE was always there.  Now there's just more of an excuse to use it now. I mean most BBs sit around the 30% mark for fire damage. And they have been capable of doing that ALL THE TIME. People just refused to use or accept that till the Brit BBs kicked down the door.

[pewpewpew42]

I would support a small nerf. Maybe 3-4% or something, but nothing huge.

[biggie1447]

I agree Lert.  We need to let the community adapt for a few weeks at least before any considerations of nerfs or buffs can be considered.  You never want to base decisions upon the first week of a new ships stats.

[Woofship]

The exact reason they're apparently hated so much is because they did something to the meta of the game at least when it comes to BB gameplay... despite the fact one of the biggest and most frequent complaints were that the previous meta was a problem to begin with.

[Lert]

4 minutes ago, CruiserQuincy said:

The exact reason they're apparently hated so much is because they did something to the meta of the game at least when it comes to BB gameplay... despite the fact one of the biggest and most frequent complaints were that the previous meta was a problem to begin with.

[SuzutsukiKaiNi]

After a week or two, RN bbs arent really even annoying anymore, since it seems most people either spec their captains to be better against fire, or just simple learned to get around them. And guess overall its just the player like always that can make a ship seem op or not. And I think people were qqing since above average players were playing them a bit more than the general populous. I haven't had problems with them anyway..

[Herodotus4]

One thing that they have done is made the pensacola more fun; now you eat 5k damage and a fire instead of 20k damage when a battleship looks at you funny.

[IJN_ZekamashiShima]

I'm fine with the RN BBs having really good HE shells, but I feel that the BB line should either have great HE or great AP, but not both. They have the ridiculously good HE shells with /4 penetration and a high fire chance, but they also have ~0.015 sec AP fuses, compared to the 0.033 sec fuse arm time of other nations BBs. The RN should either have great HE or great AP but not both. That gives the ships a little TOO much utility IMO. 

[Lit199]

But HE is not the only advantage they have. They also have super heal, concealment, untouchable citadel, maneuverability and AA.

[IJN_ZekamashiShima]

2 minutes ago, Lit199 said:

But HE is not the only advantage they have. They also have super heal, concealment, untouchable citadel, maneuverability and AA.

And this as well^^^^^

[BaronVonTom]

I dont have a problem with the HE so much as the super-duper heal.

[Lert]

5 minutes ago, Lit199 said:

But HE is not the only advantage they have. They also have super heal, concealment, untouchable citadel, maneuverability and AA.

Yeah, well, it's not translating to WR is it, at least for most of them. There are exceptions, but they're still recent ships and those might still normalize.

[KiyoSenkan]

Above average damage, average winrates.

[SaidNoOneEver]

3 minutes ago, Lit199 said:

But HE is not the only advantage they have. They also have super heal, concealment, untouchable citadel, maneuverability and AA.

That may be true for T9 and T10, but besides the Lion and Conq, the whole line is pretty much balanced....okay maybe Orion needs a look at, but really the whole line is pretty well-balanced. 

[SaidNoOneEver]

1 minute ago, AraAragami said:

Above average damage, average winrates.

This coincides with Lert's argument.  Just because they're doing better damage, does not mean that they're carrying games to a broken level.  This needs to be considered!

[KiyoSenkan]

Just now, SaidNoOneEver said:

This coincides with Lert's argument.  Just because they're doing better damage, does not mean that they're carrying games to a broken level.  This needs to be considered!

 

Probably because they're not picking the right targets.

 

That super-HE is more than capable of 100%-ing a same-tier destroyer. Which I've been doing in Bellarophon.

[BlailBlerg]

Why RN BB's high fire chance isn't a good thing: 

1. It focuses the question on only one aspect of the line, and not the entirety. 

RN BBs are also nigh uncitadelable, which doesn't feel like they need to be. Even with low HP and low armor. They shouldn't have German immunity.  German immunity is just bad game design power creep continuing. 

They also have higher than normal HE pen and HE damage!

2. It doesn't reallllly change the one-ammo type issue.  It just makes RN BBs nearly HE only. When you can citadel cruisers with your HE at nearly any angle, why bother with AP? Let, I think your #2 is really not that sound. 

3. They also simply delete DDs at random. Very unfun game circumstances. 

4. Honestly, the extra fire is okay, but irritating. The annoying thing is that its making fire prevention builds nearly required. 

 

Their fire chance should be reduced, their HE pen power and and damage should be reduced, so that there is a requirement to shoot HE and AP to do the best in these ships. Right now the skill floor is so low you can get away with HE all day. Armor should have some ability to be citadel'ed.  

 

Generally, RN BBs need to be toned down a little. And KMS BBs really didn't need the range buff.  

 

[Lit199]

5 minutes ago, Lert said:

Yeah, well, it's not translating to WR is it, at least for most of them. There are exceptions, but they're still recent ships and those might still normalize.

Not saying that these attributes really make them op or not. I don't have the experience to decide that. But they do "sound" a bit too good.

[garfield001]

While I agree that most RN BBs are not as overpowered as people make them to be, I'm not so sure about them changing the meta as much as OP thinks they do. Sure, RN BBs shoot HE instead of AP, but every other BB in the game still only shoot AP. I haven't seen fewer BBs bow tanking. I haven't seen more BBs getting hit by torps. I haven't seen fewer cruiser getting deleted by BBs. Maybe people panicked a little the first week because they got set on fire a little more, but overall, they don't change much. If anything, they just reduce the overall effect cruisers had against BBs, with them being able to completely heal back what they do to them. They're also always ready to deal with DDs (not that AP doesn't hurt DDs too), so they can more easily take on their "counter" class.

Quote

They don't have a citadel. (or similar quotes from many people)

This isn't really a problem to be honest. Not having a citadel is only a problem in BB vs BB balance. If the weakness of a class is only its own class, there is a problem. BBs should be weak against DDs, the same way cruisers are weak against BBs. This is not the case at the moment, and RN BBs don't solve anything about this issue. If anything, they are even better at hurting DDs than other BBs are. I'm of those that think citadels should be completely removed from the game to allow more survivability to most ships (cruisers can be citadeled by every class of ships, but can only citadel other cruisers).

[Korval_BB55]

Wow, one could say this topic is ... on FIRE.  :)

(Surprised I haven't seen the image of the cartoon dog in the blazing building saying "I'm fine with this".)

[IronWolfV]

11 minutes ago, AraAragami said:

Above average damage, average winrates.

So did German BBs when they first came out.

[SpeedingBus]

I am sorry I don't appreciate losing to mindless HE spam. You might as well as call it gold ammo but with more RNG. 

[aAkula]

Poor positioning? No worries, lowered citadel. 

 

Angled target? No worries, use HE. 

 

Getting focused? No worries, 40k heal. 

 

 

[abyssofthetriffid]

42 minutes ago, Lert said:

Overall I think the Royal Navy's high fire chance with HE is a good thing.

Now before you get your pitchforks out, let me explain why.

1) It changes the bow-on meta

Much has been said about the bow-on battleship meta, about passive play. High fire chance breaks that meta. Now, sitting still and camping is a guarantee you'll be turned into a smoking bonfire, It encourages people to bow-on less.

2) It changes the Battleships-fire-AP meta

Battleships were the only class where ammunition choice was at most times a non-factor. Now that's no longer the case.

3) It encourages survivability builds

Survivability / tanking builds are now more viable for battleships

4) They encourage the purchase of premium damage control parties.

Hey, WG encourages the spending of more credits, which in turn might encourage the purchase of more doubloons / premium time / premium ships. I can accept that.

5) It's a national flavor

Yeah yeah you might argue it's not a good national flavor, but it still is one. Without it, the RN BBs would've been yet another line of BBs that played just like all the other ones.

6) For the most part, they're not overpowered.

Now, don't get me wrong, there are some problem children, like Orion for example. Conqueror might be one as well. But on the whole they're reasonably well balanced. Though their damage totals are high, their winrates are middling meaning that even pulling their impressive damage numbers, they're not swaying games.

To explain this, we have to look at a concept called quality of damage.

"Quality of damage, what's that?"

In short, these royal navy battleships farm fire damage on other battleships, damage that can be easily and fully healed back with repair parties. 30k damage to a battleship's citadel is far more damaging than 60k done in fires. A 15k HP destroyer sunk is higher quality damage than 50k fire damage to a Yamato, which it can heal back in its entirety over the use of several repair parties.

Getting high damage numbers is fun, earns XP and credits. So from the viewpoint of the driver of an RN BB, setting all the fires is fun, earns him a ton of credits. From the viewpoint of the victim, better damage management is encouraged. A tankier captain build is encouraged. A tankier ship build is encouraged. And speaking as a battleship main, I'd rather burn for 60k and heal it all back than get smacked for 30k in my citadel.

"But what about the <Insert ship here>?"

As I said before, the balance is a bit off with some of these ships. I mentioned Orion and Conqueror. I'd argue these might be overpowered, though Orion more so than Conqueror. But you can't judge these ships just on their damage done numbers. As I explained above, it's all about the quality of damage, and the damage they farm is the lowest quality of damage. Conqueror's WR is fine. Not so sure about Orion's.

"But burning is so annoying!"

I can understand that sentiment and part of me agrees. Still, I personally don't think it's excessive now. It's certainly more than before, and to some that might automatically make it excessive, but I personally believe it's still tolerable. I certainly respec'd a few ships and captains to be more tanky and use more premium DCPs.

"I still think they're overpowered!"

That's fair, you're entitled to your belief, as am I to mine.

You are wrong.