Do BB drivers tend to underestimate the Kuma?

[AMajor]

See attached replay.  I rained 33,000 HP of damage on a Wyoming with HE.  I know that she saw me.  Do BB drivers think so little of the Kuma that they just ignore her?

One other question (if you watch the replay, you'll see).  I can't seem to hit dds with this ship very well.  Any advice?

Oh yea, please ignore the running into the islands goofs - rookie move, I know.  I need to make the minimap bigger and put it in a slightly better spot. 

20171026_194323_PJSC013-Kuma-1938_04_Archipelago.wowsreplay

[RipNuN2]

If I'm a bb I love targeting kumas as they die so easily. Devastating strikes galore.

[Estimated_Prophet]

Maybe in the past I might have; but after getting tired of being sunk by such things I tend to give them my undivided attention if they get too close.

 

Like Rip said; free facefulls of HE and/or AP tend to be great discourgers.

[Noshiro_]

Was just probably just a new BB player

[shadowsrmine]

Could be the player had -Neg to enemy fire and or damage flags or Cammy...........................Or it could be the player hacked the game

[AJTP89]

My guess is that it was a new BB player, they have a tendency to tunnel vision downrange. I've even had T7 and 8 BBs completely ignore my atlanta that's hosing them down from stem to stern with HE, and praying they don't look at me. Low tier BBs consistently ignore the St. Louis hosing them.

 

I respect the Kuma's torps. If it pops up, I'm going to notice and shoot it, assuming there isn't a DD rushing me or something like that. The Kuma doesn't react well to bullets, so it's always a nice target.

 

On the DD problem, without watching the replay, lead them more. You may even have to zoom out a notch or two to keep them in the reticle. Also, they are very maneuverable, so hitting them is much more difficult than a BB. Just practice. 

 

Finally, the minimap is great, but there a few islands that are very hard to see on it because they're so small. Those are the ones I most often hit. I need to get better at actually looking where I'm going, I mean what do you expect from the in game version of GPS!

[dmckay]

Kuma.  Great ship when I joined.  Power creeped?  WG does this over time. Slowly and cleverly. Incrementally. $$$$

[Captain_Dorja]

I underestimate the Kuma because it's not a very good ship. Only time it's dangerous to a battleships is when it's inside about 1km and can't miss with torps.

[Vekta408]

11 minutes ago, Captain_Dorja said:

I underestimate the Kuma because it's not a very good ship. Only time it's dangerous to a battleships is when it's inside about 1km and can't miss with torps.

The ships is good. It's the players using it. It IS tier 4 after all. 

[dmckay]

11 minutes ago, Captain_Dorja said:

I underestimate the Kuma because it's not a very good ship. Only time it's dangerous to a battleships is when it's inside about 1km and can't miss with torps.

It was a top in it's tier ship bout a year ago.  This happens. Kinda like Phoenix and Omaha. They were good....they are not very good now.  UNLESS you really know how to play em...and some do.  Especially the Phoenix.

[dmckay]

3 minutes ago, Vekta408 said:

The ships is good. It's the players using it. It IS tier 4 after all. 

IS tier 4?  What do you mean? 

[Vekta408]

Just now, dmckay said:

IS tier 4?  What do you mean? 

Meaning it's tier 4. The Kuma is not known for being used as a seal club. Better players would rather use the Clemson for that. The not-so-famous ships tend not to get used by better players with more than a fresh tier 4's worth of experience.

[dmckay]

28 minutes ago, Vekta408 said:

Meaning it's tier 4. The Kuma is not known for being used as a seal club. Better players would rather use the Clemson for that. The not-so-famous ships tend not to get used by better players with more than a fresh tier 4's worth of experience.

Got it!  However I see tons of high tier players in tiers 3-4-5-6.  Better players? Hmnmmm maybe but just as in WoT they juice their numbers by playing the middle tiers and platooning with  buddies.  Get em alone in a tier 3-4 ship and they are generally quit average.  Hell everyone knows this. There are ways to game the system iffin you want to go to all that trouble and take the time. 

[LancerUlysses]

@ Japanese Cruiser Kuma :

 

 

 

[Estimated_Prophet]

1 hour ago, AJTP89 said:

On the DD problem, without watching the replay, lead them more. You may even have to zoom out a notch or two to keep them in the reticle. Also, they are very maneuverable, so hitting them is much more difficult than a BB. Just practice. 

 

This, THIS, THIS...

 

Shoot, and shoot, and shoot again. The only way you will learn to hit destroyers at range is to keep trying until you can.

 

Whren I got tired of destroyers sinking my South Carolina, I started shooting back at them. Now I can get hits at ultra-long range if the destroyer is making like a battleship; even if I have to move the reticle so far to one side the destroyer is off the screen. Medium range can be a roll of the dice; but if I can read the evasion pattern I can get hits...

 

...up close...? Mweh, heh, heh... If I see them coming, a destroyer's dang sure going to know I do.

[TheKrimzonDemon]

Certain BB drivers underestimate everything, and then whine about until it gets nerfed, rather than, you know, learn.

[TheKrimzonDemon]

1 hour ago, Captain_Dorja said:

I underestimate the Kuma because it's not a very good ship. Only time it's dangerous to a battleships is when it's inside about 1km and can't miss with torps.

You and I must be seeing and playing different Kuma's. 

[AMajor]

Update...3 games with the Kuma, 3 wins, all three had a Wyoming in flames at some point with at least 35,000 HPs for my Kuma at the end.  I was trying to puzzle this out in my last game, what am I doing different than other Kuma drivers?  To be fair, I'm also a dd driver with the USN and IJN lines at Tier V, I have time in the Phoenix and Omaha, and my favorite brawler is the St Louis.  As I played the last game, I started to notice that I drive the Kuma like she's a dd (in and out of islands), speed and direction changes but once I get around islands, I open up at longer ranges and channel my inner St Lo with a rain of HE fire and then once I start getting shot at, I run and hide like a good (almost) dd, come around another island, and do my St Lo thing again.  I ignore the fact that I have torps and use her as a pure gunboat.  It doesn't mean that I forget that I have torps, but I use them more as area denial tools before I go sailing into islands (plus sending up the plane as a scout helps too).

 

I'm playing the ship different enough that I tend to catch the BBs looking the other way.  It just so happens that the Kuma tends to get paired with Wyoming BBs a lot.

 

Damn, now I have to go play my Wyoming and counter my Kuma moves! 

[Captain_Dorja]

40 minutes ago, TheKrimzonDemon said:

You and I must be seeing and playing different Kuma's. 

 

2 hours ago, Vekta408 said:

The ships is good. It's the players using it. It IS tier 4 after all. 

 

I will admit to having never been able to accomplish anything in that ship. My main complaint against it is the 140mm guns. I really hate them. I prefer the 152mms on Phoenix/Omaha so much more. I feel like Kuma has the disadvantages of Phoenix (paper thin armor, huge citadel) but the only real advantage it has over here is better torpedoes, and in order to get those it's like they pushed all her guns over the side. I'd rather have the guns. It's not just because I didn't know what I was doing either. In CBT, admitted I was pretty dumb, but I learned a lot before release and 2nd time wasn't any better.
 

2 hours ago, dmckay said:

It was a top in it's tier ship bout a year ago.  This happens. Kinda like Phoenix and Omaha. They were good....they are not very good now.  UNLESS you really know how to play em...and some do.  Especially the Phoenix.

 

Yeah I believe it. There used to be a lot of tier 5 ships that were fun to play. Now... Why would I want to play an Omaha? So I can fight a Scharnhorst? Yeah lol. No thanks.

[LancerUlysses]

The Kuma is not a bad ship, but you have to realize it performs best when it is under a 'somebody else's problem' field (yes, that's a DA reference). 

Once it becomes noticed by things with 12" guns or larger, it ceases to be a factor, or more often than not, ceases to be. I like japanese cruisers, but they definitely need to remain stealthy, unobtrusive and... spider-like. :)

[AMajor]

Lancer, agreed.  If you play her like an oversized dd and pepper away at folks with HE until they become annoyed and then dart around an island, the BBs tend to forget about you until you come back around the island, hit them with more HE as they're trying to engage one of your team-mates and they have to make the choice of moving their guns towards you or continuing to fire on their target.  They tend to stay on target not realizing that the Kuma can take quite a bite of HE if she's ignored.

 

My nemesis in playing her as an oversized gunboat dd is REAL gunboat dds.  Playing hide and seek in islands tends to get you nose-to -nose with a nasty USN or Russian dd who's faster and more maneuverable. 

[Vekta408]

2 hours ago, dmckay said:

Got it!  However I see tons of high tier players in tiers 3-4-5-6.  Better players? Hmnmmm maybe but just as in WoT they juice their numbers by playing the middle tiers and platooning with  buddies.  Get em alone in a tier 3-4 ship and they are generally quit average.  Hell everyone knows this. There are ways to game the system iffin you want to go to all that trouble and take the time. 

Yeah I guess you have a point. There is nothing wrong with playing low tiers once in a while for the luls. I got one of those Halloween Blade perm-camos so now I have a reason to play the tier III Wakatake  lol.

[Captain_Dorja]

12 hours ago, dmckay said:

Got it!  However I see tons of high tier players in tiers 3-4-5-6.  Better players? Hmnmmm maybe but just as in WoT they juice their numbers by playing the middle tiers and platooning with  buddies.  Get em alone in a tier 3-4 ship and they are generally quit average.  Hell everyone knows this. There are ways to game the system iffin you want to go to all that trouble and take the time. 

 

I found that in WoT, I basically couldn't play below about tier 5 after a while because I'd basically forgotten how bottom tier games went. Different things work in t2 or t3 compared to t9, and some things that are crucial in t9 are pointless in t3 or counterproductive. Some things that were legit smart in t3 were plain suicide in higher tiers. The real seal clubbers didn't have any trouble clubbing me because I was trying to be a tier 9 tank in a tier 2 battle, except knowing how spotting etc worked.