Tier 7 Battleship Review: Nagato

[Psycodiver]

Preamble: I know it has been a couple months since my last review but a combination of the busy season at work, family and burnout on this game forced me to take a step back for a little while but I'm back with another round of ship reviews

 

 

Nagato

 

Welcome Captains to the Glass Cannon known as Nagato. I'm sure several players are already not happy by that first line but hear me out. She has the most powerful guns for her tier, the most accurate guns for her tier yet she is surrounded by 15" and 16" gun ships that hit faster and/harder than she does with the least citadel protection for her tier. Powercreep has caught up to the mighty Nagato and while her guns are first rate her protection is in the back of the pack. She was one of the first battleships introduced into the game and since then has not received any major buffs nor nerfs outside of losing her original A hull. I actually ground this ship during this time and rage sold her. I did recently come back and now that I am a better player, I can appreciate her to her fullest. I found her to be a nice grind, while not my favorite ship I can easily see why many players do love her

Health

Nagato has the second largest health pool of the tier 7 battleships sitting in at 65,000 which is a good amount more than everyone else except for the Hood which only overtakes the Nagato by 2,000HP. As with earlier IJN battleships, your going to need that HP because she is poorly protected and will eat citadels from 15" and 16" guns at nearly every possible angle. She was one of the first battleships in the game and at the time of release she was consider well protected because every ship under her carried at max 14" guns which having 25mm of outer hull plating meant she could bounce most of those shells with a steep angle. Now that several ships below her carry 15" guns, this spells trouble. Also add in the fact that when she was introduced IFHE wasn't in the game yet, with that low caliber HE shells now could easily penetrate her hull. Using her superior range and accuracy becomes very important, this allows you to stay at or beyond the max range of most ships while your still able to massive chunks off of them.

Guns

This is the most redeeming quality for this ship, her guns. She packs 8 410mm guns pack into 4 turrets with 2 barrels each. They have the slowest rate of fire at Tier 7 at 32 seconds with a modest 360 degree rotation of 47.37 seconds (40s with Expert Marksman). They feature a 2.0 sigma and reach out to 20.46km with a dispersion of 231m while still having enough energy to still punch through 386mm of armor. Her guns have the best penetration for her tier with the Colorado only being a tick away from her. In practice her guns are plain wonderful but their very accurate so to hit targets you also have to be accurate. I know that sounds odd but understand that other battleships have worse accuracy so if your aim is off RNG will sometimes take over and a random shell or 2 will still hit while with the Nagato, where you aim is pretty much where your going to hit

 

The Nagato features secondaries that are very familar to the Fuso, Kongo, and Myogi. They work but are to short ranged and the AP tends to be lack luster against BBs and angled cruisers. I don't see a point in investing into them because this isn't a front line brawler, shes a deadly sniper waiting from the enemy to present broadsides that she can hit.

AA

Her AA is the weakest of the standard line BBs (excluding premiums naturally) consisting of a ok mid range and meh long range AA. When I first got into her I went with BFT, AFT, Fighter, and AA module and this served her pretty well against most CVs I faced. They would still get through but I would at least shoot down enough planes that I could usually dodge torpedos. Later I respeced the captain and took away BFT and AFT and I was totally trashed by a T6 CV. This leads to a tough decision because Tier 4-6 still has a good bit of CV play so running into them in battle is fairly common. If you plan to keep the ship I would recommend investing into her AA as a just in case.

Speed/Rudder

At 25 knots she used to be considered fast, but with recent lines coming she is really feeling slow. While her rudder shift isn't terrible she feels sluggish when compared to the other lines also which technically she isn't bad, but she feels like it

Mods

I ran the usual Main Armament Mod 1, AA Mod, and Damage Control Mod 1 and Steering Gear mod 2. I ran Aiming Systems mod for a few games and I found the guns more than accurate enough without it so AA for me felt like the next best option

Captain Skills

For the first tier I Preventive Maintenance, at T2 Expert Markmans since her turrets are so slow, T3 Basics of Survivability to increase the tanking more but Superintendent good choice as well, T4 I ran Concealment Expert (this captain is going up the line) this brought her concealement down to a okish 14.26km. Coming back around I ran Adrenaline Rush and Superintendent.

Tactics

As with the previous Kongo and Fuso, she is more of back line fighter. You use her superior accuracy, range, and hard hitting guns to strike unsuspecting enemy ships. Sitting at the enemies max range or beyond will allow you more time to respond to incoming fire. That said she is a softy so while brawling is not recommended, it will happen and if you haven't learned how to bait shells into your angled belt armor, now is the time to learn because she just doesn't have the raw armor otherwise. She is very good at failing flanks because she has a really nice ability to kite the enemy

 

How did I do

As I said I can see why people love this ship, but she really isn't my style of play because if forces me to be more passive which is not something I am, I prefer to be aggressive. That said I do not ever see myself buying her back and keeping her

 

Out of the 10 battles I saw CVs 40% of the time, I averaged 3.33 plane kills during those CV matches. I was in Tier 9 matches 10% of the time, tier 8 20% and I was top tier 70% of the time. I averaged 1212 base XP with my best game was 1695 base XP. My winrate was 60% and my survived 70% with a kill average 1.6. Accuracy was 26% with average damage was 70,559, best game was 128,665 with a average damage per shell of 2138 (meaning every shell that hit average out to this number). Please remember this is only 10 games, your millage may very

 

How Does She Compare

While the power creep is real, she still feels very competitive. Her guns are her shinning point with good marksmanship being very important. In T9 games her shells, range and accuracy help keep her relevant but her armor is just unable to take any sustained abuse. Mixed with her poor concealment means she usually the first seen in the game which means usually the first shot at, mix that with T8s and T9s they have the same ability to hit her back at the ranges she is most comfortable. I found the best way to use her is not to be the most savory target to the enemy, try to go unnoticed and strike the enemy when their attention is else where

[warpath_33]

I actually went full secondary build with everything short of manual secondaries. No, really.

These were my stats so I must have been doing something right.

[Psycodiver]

2 minutes ago, warpath_33 said:

I actually went full secondary build with everything short of manual secondaries. No, really.

These were my stats so I must have been doing something right.

 

Hey if it works for you thats great, I don't like ships that can only be played one way either way I just never found it to be worth while. Now I ran a secondary build on a Colorado for a bit, hilarious amount of fun

[Arvanna_1]

I found the secondary build quite useful when I was grinding her, bagged quite a few DD s with them who apparently believed they weren't a real threat even if they were on low health.

[HazeGrayUnderway]

The ship is kind of a paradox.  There are players that swear by Nagato's power and accuracy, then there are those that swear she can't hit the broadside of a barn.

 

Nagato is very d*mn accurate.  But to take advantage of that, you need to have good aim.  If your aim is off, or you relied on "Fuso Shotgun" effect to land hits, then Nagato will not serve you well.

[nero222015]

She sucks plan and simple. I get sunk all the dam time.

[Psycodiver]

56 minutes ago, nero222015 said:

She sucks plan and simple. I get sunk all the dam time.

Sounds like a captain issue not a ship issue

[Royeaux]

I'm not sure "glass cannon" is a proper way to describe a ship that has the armor to resist heavy damage from about 85% of the ships she'll face.  I go secondary spec and cruisers and destroyers soon start regretting their life choices with their pop guns.

[Grand_Commander_LuXun]

I've sucked in her compared to the Colorado. Like the OP I just don't like the fact that she demands a much more cautious playstyle, the fact that she's seen easily, doesn't turn as well, doesn't tank as well. Her guns also felt more gimmicky to me compared to the CO.

[Palladia]

One of my better ships,  oddly enough.  Went secondaries because that's just what I do but balanced aggression with patience.  You can generally whittle things down before they reach you and then use her secondaries to assist in finishing off the target.  Its important to not try to play her like German Battleships though,  she is not a good early pusher. 

For some reason though I just didn't really enjoy using her.  No idea why,  she performed fine for me.