IMO, T9 cruiser balance is just awful

[MrDeaf]

The stink.
These ships all have many things in common. They have worse concealment than their T8 counterparts, for no discernible reason. The ships themselves are pretty much copy-pasta of their T8 counterpart. They also don't feature much of an improvement to their HE spam at long range, because they are using older guns.

• Ibuki - Worse concealment than Mogami, but for some reason your guns are also worse
• Donskoi - How to self defeat radar. By making your concealment worse without much of a boost in HE spam capability
• Saint Louis - What even is the purpose of Saint Louis, when Charles Martel is literally a better ship.

The one trick pony.
It does one thing excellently, which is supporting caps. It blows outside of this.

• Baltimore - Still useful radar on this ship, but it is also the worst at HE spam amongst T9 cruisers

The Suck.
It has the worst concealment amongst RNCL within its tier. At least now you get reliable AA, but only if you invest captain points in it.

• Neptune - It's not as bad as I make it out to be, but there's also no reason to nerf its concealment.

The it only feels good, because its T8 counterpart really blows

• Roon - The best cruiser amongst T9, but it's not formidable enough to scare off other ships with its prowess.

 

In comparison

The good T9 DDs

• Fletcher
• Yugumo
• Udaloi
• Z-46
• Chung Mu

The suck T9 DDs

• Tashkent

The good T9 BBs

• Iowa
• Missouri
• Lion
• Musashi

The suck T9 BB

• FdG - It's not bad, it's just that it's a larger Bismarck without much of an improvement

The stink T9 BBs

• Izumo

Clearly, the good ships to suckage ratio, in T9, is disproportionately higher amongst cruisers.
I am glossing over CVs, because we all know Taiho is better.

[this_might_be_slak__]

Ibuki is weird, you can rack up damage and struggle to win. Baltimore(2.0) does crapdamage but you can win matches if you push correctly. Roon is a combination. T9 is the absolute worst tier in game, it's a paywall and always has been.

 

I keep every boat I like, I have zero t9s...

[BlailBlerg]

While I wouldn't say its bad... I now know why the Iowa is not considered good (obviously beyond lack of radar like Missouri), its so unmaneuverable. 

 

But I agree. I'd respect those DDs and BBs, I've never been worried about any of the T9 cruisers, not even while in DDs. 

[Horama]

I’m confused on your claims about Ibuki.  The guns are not worse than Mogami’s at all, unless you are saying 2m max dispersion is more of a drawback than  gaining 0.8km max range, a module to increase the range another 16%, and a spotter plane to increase that further.  Ibuki has a 0.4 km detect range and I would gladly trade that for AA that means something (206 DPS at 5/3.1km vs only 67 at 5/3.1/1.2 for Mogami) and a heal any day.  I’m not saying she is an excellent ship, but she is certainly better than Mogami and 0.4km of extra stealth is absolutely offset by the benefits of Ibuki over Mogami.

[Komrade_Rylo]

Donskoi is in my opinion one of the strongest Russian cruisers. I love the torps, your guns can get 20km range, concealment isn't horrific yet, and the armor is a really nice long straight belt which makes easy to bait shots into it when angled. But I can understand why people hate it though

[KommandantPerry]

Tier 9 is just kinda there honestly. its the speed bump to 10, granted i feel high tier cruisers as a whole need some love but I'm not sure how to do it. 5/2/5 is so common.

[ReddNekk]

I don't play tier 9 Cruisers, or 8s either. You're always going to be pitted against tier 10s so, if you have any, why not play a tier 10 Cruiser? 

[this_might_be_slak__]

10 minutes ago, ReddNekk said:

I don't play tier 9 Cruisers, or 8s either. You're always going to be pitted against tier 10s so, if you have any, why not play a tier 10 Cruiser? 

Like I said, paywall....

[AlcatrazNC]

I find Mogami and Ibuki's gun quite similar. The only thing that make them different is the module you decide to equip. Running range mod and shooting at max range create a kind of US arc on shell. I'll have better time landing shell at 19km with my Henri than Ibuki. Didn't really liked Ibuki but I was able to make her work and she's actually not a bad ship.

 

Also I find Saint Louis to be better than Charles Martel. I like them both and they are both quite similar but just having access to reload mod make her great. Also I felt more tanky in my Saint Louis (and i'm not talking about using heal). 

[MrDeaf]

49 minutes ago, Horama said:

I’m confused on your claims about Ibuki.  The guns are not worse than Mogami’s at all, unless you are saying 2m max dispersion is more of a drawback than  gaining 0.8km max range, a module to increase the range another 16%, and a spotter plane to increase that further.  Ibuki has a 0.4 km detect range and I would gladly trade that for AA that means something (206 DPS at 5/3.1km vs only 67 at 5/3.1/1.2 for Mogami) and a heal any day.  I’m not saying she is an excellent ship, but she is certainly better than Mogami and 0.4km of extra stealth is absolutely offset by the benefits of Ibuki over Mogami.

The 155mm are better on Mogami.

IJN 203mm you get from Furutaka is REALLY outdated by T9.

[pikohan]

At least they have heals... I personally think the T8s are worse off. 

[this_might_be_slak__]

10 minutes ago, MrDeaf said:

The 155mm are better on Mogami.

IJN 203mm you get from Furutaka is REALLY outdated by T9.

Isn't that what IJN boats(flavor) are supposed to be?!?

 

203s high fire chance and easy to aim? Atago?

[MrDeaf]

6 minutes ago, this_might_be_slak__ said:

Isn't that what IJN boats(flavor) are supposed to be?!?

 

203s high fire chance and easy to aim? Atago?

Only up to 16km.

Beyond that, IJN 203mm is very floaty, much like USN 203mm.

It's so bad, in fact, that IJN 155mm has better time to target.

 

There was a reason why Mogami 155mm before AFT nerf was so good.

[this_might_be_slak__]

3 minutes ago, MrDeaf said:

Only up to 16km.

Beyond that, IJN 203mm is very floaty, much like USN 203mm.

It's so bad, in fact, that IJN 155mm has better time to target.

 

There was a reason why Mogami 155mm before AFT nerf was so good.

The 155 nerf was deserved, the issue is everyone else(Cruisers) have magic buttons. Sonar/radar whatever. French have better fire... Bleh...

[Tiracel]

I have to disagree with the OP. The cruisers at T9 get heal and the 6th module slot.

Neptune's reload -compared to Edinburgh - goes down from 7.5sec to 4.4sec. The Roon's gun range is now 20.7km? with 1 more barrel...

[hyuuu]

25 minutes ago, Tiracel said:

I have to disagree with the OP. The cruisers at T9 get heal and the 6th module slot.

Neptune's reload -compared to Edinburgh - goes down from 7.5sec to 4.4sec. The Roon's gun range is now 20.7km? with 1 more barrel...

Roon should definitely take reload mod to get reload time down to 8~ seconds. That gets it to 17km~ range which is more than enough for it to carry out to be the strongest tier 9 cruiser with its RoF

[this_might_be_slak__]

57 minutes ago, Tiracel said:

I have to disagree with the OP. The cruisers at T9 get heal and the 6th module slot.

Neptune's reload -compared to Edinburgh - goes down from 7.5sec to 4.4sec. The Roon's gun range is now 20.7km? with 1 more barrel...

Naaa, I like that you use the one outlier.

 

 

[Frederick_The_Great]

Only played 2 tier 9 cruisers so far.   Balti and the Ibuki.  The balti is pretty solid.   i felt like i could support teammates pretty well, and have a good chance to influence the match in my teams favor.  

 

The ibuki on the other hand.  What a POS.  I felt like i eat cits from any angle.   You have i believe sub 10km detection, but you dont even want to be that close to the enemy.   Especially a BB.  I felt very vulnerable at any range under 15km.  random cits from anywhere and everywhere.   Add on to the crappy turret angles(not new to the ibuki) and it is a pain to get a lot of fire power down range without opening yourself up more than you would like.(you need a lot of map awareness).  You are only good at one thing, and that is burning down BBs.   You need time to do that, and MM to favor you.    You do not have the same tools as the balti that can push the match into your favor.  I felt like i was more along for the ride than controlling what happened to determine who wins or loses.(granted, these days, i feel that way in every ship).  I felt like a damage farmer.  The floaty arcs do not help either.  It felt like i was playing an US CA.   IDK the history of the ibuki, if it was a real ship or not.   Anyways, one good buff would be to make the guns have higher velocity.   So you would have guns similar to the Zaos but the body of the older, crappier ships.     that way you can finally call it a glass cannon.  If i had a ship like that, it would of been a more enjoyable grind. 

 

At least i finally got the Zao not too long ago, and that thing is a blast.   I may not have radar, but i love shooting any DD in sight.(it is nice being able to shoot DDs past 10km unlike the DM)  The AP is great against anything giving your broadside, and you can burn down any BB.   Just have to be aware of that low health pool.  

 

Just looking at my stats for the 2, it is pretty telling.

My WR is 8% better in the Balti, despite doing 25k less average damage.  More xp in the balti.  0.16 more kills per battle and a better hit ratio in the batli.(these #s aren't that great, until you look at the server average.  jeez)

 

the only thing i managed to do in the ibuki that was great was beat my all time damage record.  That was in part the stars aligning so i could burn one BB down after the other, allowing me to do 243k. 

 

and after all i said about the ibuki, it is doing better than the balti in the last 2 weeks for NA.    

 

Sadly, i didn't have IFHE on my  155mm mogami when i grinded it, but i thought it was an equal ship to the ibuki.  I even enjoyed playing mogami a few times in ranked.  I didn't do too bad with it either, just couldn't buy a win.(went on like a 10-15 game losing streak right before i hit rank 3 with various ships)

[KaptainKaybe]

I'm not a fan of tier 9 in general, but cruiser balance at tier 9 is a hell of a lot better than it is at tier 8.

[this_might_be_slak__]

40 minutes ago, Frederick_The_Great said:

Only played 2 tier 9 cruisers so far.   Balti and the Ibuki.  The balti is pretty solid.   i felt like i could support teammates pretty well, and have a good chance to influence the match in my teams favor.  

 

The ibuki on the other hand.  What a POS.  I felt like i eat cits from any angle.   You have i believe sub 10km detection, but you dont even want to be that close to the enemy.   Especially a BB.  I felt very vulnerable at any range under 15km.  random cits from anywhere and everywhere.   Add on to the crappy turret angles(not new to the ibuki) and it is a pain to get a lot of fire power down range without opening yourself up more than you would like.(you need a lot of map awareness).  You are only good at one thing, and that is burning down BBs.   You need time to do that, and MM to favor you.    You do not have the same tools as the balti that can push the match into your favor.  I felt like i was more along for the ride than controlling what happened to determine who wins or loses.(granted, these days, i feel that way in every ship).  I felt like a damage farmer.  The floaty arcs do not help either.  It felt like i was playing an US CA.   IDK the history of the ibuki, if it was a real ship or not.   Anyways, one good buff would be to make the guns have higher velocity.   So you would have guns similar to the Zaos but the body of the older, crappier ships.     that way you can finally call it a glass cannon.  If i had a ship like that, it would of been a more enjoyable grind. 

 

At least i finally got the Zao not too long ago, and that thing is a blast.   I may not have radar, but i love shooting any DD in sight.(it is nice being able to shoot DDs past 10km unlike the DM)  The AP is great against anything giving your broadside, and you can burn down any BB.   Just have to be aware of that low health pool.  

 

Just looking at my stats for the 2, it is pretty telling.

My WR is 8% better in the Balti, despite doing 25k less average damage.  More xp in the balti.  0.16 more kills per battle and a better hit ratio in the batli.(these #s aren't that great, until you look at the server average.  jeez)

 

the only thing i managed to do in the ibuki that was great was beat my all time damage record.  That was in part the stars aligning so i could burn one BB down after the other, allowing me to do 243k. 

 

and after all i said about the ibuki, it is doing better than the balti in the last 2 weeks for NA.    

 

Sadly, i didn't have IFHE on my  155mm mogami when i grinded it, but i thought it was an equal ship to the ibuki.  I even enjoyed playing mogami a few times in ranked.  I didn't do too bad with it either, just couldn't buy a win.(went on like a 10-15 game losing streak right before i hit rank 3 with various ships)

Amazing, the fact that you found Baltimore better than Ibuki...

 

[anonym_Hf93Jbjm9WjT]

Tier 9 is not a nice place to be. We either grind it out as fast as possible, or free xp it, who, apart from for the freexp premiums Missouri and Musashi, would spend time there?

[Frederick_The_Great]

19 minutes ago, this_might_be_slak__ said:

Amazing, the fact that you found Baltimore better than Ibuki...

 

Meh.  i could deal with DDs pretty well.  I even ran hydro as CVs were really really rare when i grinded it.  Ap was great against broadsides.   Of course when i grinded it, you could cit the Iowas consistently, which was pretty hilarious.  You could still sling HE.   With the right build, you could get reload fairly low, making me feel like a slightly worse DM. 

 

Idk, the play style clicked for me.  My DM hovers around 70% WR among other noticeably better stats compared to the balti.   and that is with all the crappy maps the high tiers have.  i play almost exclusively in no divs.  

[this_might_be_slak__]

6 minutes ago, Frederick_The_Great said:

Meh.  i could deal with DDs pretty well.  I even ran hydro as CVs were really really rare when i grinded it.  Ap was great against broadsides.   Of course when i grinded it, you could cit the Iowas consistently, which was pretty hilarious.  You could still sling HE.   With the right build, you could get reload fairly low, making me feel like a slightly worse DM. 

 

Idk, the play style clicked for me.  My DM hovers around 70% WR among other noticeably better stats compared to the balti.   and that is with all the crappy maps the high tiers have.  i play almost exclusively in no divs.  

My point...

 

Baltimore is waaaay improved, Ibuki was a better boat until recently.

[this_might_be_slak__]

Improve Ibuki?

 

Give her her torps back the entire [edited]line.

[this_might_be_slak__]

Give me my IJN Torpedoes back please....