Akatsuki Appreciation Thread

[TheStarSlayer]

I feel I need to take a moment and laud this Can, for she is a Elephant Elegant Lady.

Pros:

• 39.9 knots while flying Sierra Mike
• 3x3 610mm torpedo tubes, 10km, 62knts
• Usable 3X2 127mm guns
• 13000hp base HP without SE
• Tier VII MM

Cons:

• Asymmetric stacks are not as sexy as the Group II Special Type DD, that poor fore stack is nearly vestigial.
• Only 6.4 Concealment with CE
• Type 96 25mm can go die in a hole, but that's the IJN lyfe

So what is in the tin?  Basically a old Tier VIII Fubuki at Tier VII that traded concealment for blistering speeeed.  Now the concealment is an issue, especially for contesting caps and out spotting OpFor DDs, so you need to be a little more circumspect early game.  Luckily 10km fish give you a generous buffer for skirmishing without unduly risking the boat and the speed can extract you from the excrement.  Once the map opens up a little, however, that speed is glorious, allowing you to flex about the map with ease.  Despite the general apathy for IJN 127mm they are usable when played to their strengths, so if the opportunity presents light em up(hint: when USN 5" needs to file flight paths with air traffic control). 

Now for the best part: Nine fish in flexible triple launchers coupled with nearly 40knots and Tier VII MM.  Akatsuki allows you to CQShank lone battle wagons like it's a bad day in prison.  The majority of BBs her tier and below simply lack the agility, main battery accuracy and secondaries to stop you.  If you make your approach with their guns pointed the wrong way you can pretty much punch their ticket.

When the line split the Shira and her 16 salvo memes overshadowed this Can but overall Akatsuki offers a solid generalist DD platform that rewards an aggressive skipper and excels at delivering late game coup de grâce with aplomb. If you decided to miss out on this plucky Can, I would recommend a second look.  

Cheers,

-JB

[pikohan]

This boat is definitely a missed gem!

I love the 3x3 torp arrangement, I think it's a lot better than the 2x4 on Shira, Kag, etc.

As you said the guns are solid too: the only real downside is that they don't traverse well, so you can't really knife fight other DDs. High alpha damage, and decent DPM make them good for firing around islands or from smoke.

Only other downside is concealment, but hey, all the T7 DDs (besides the Shira) have mediocre concealment.

[NoCoGaming3645]

The concealment is ridiculous, and it's why this ship sits in port permanently for me. I play the Shiratsuyu exclusively at T7.

You just can't play against T8 & T9 gunboat DDs that have over a KM better concealment.  I found all I did was sit behind other ships and throw torps out at absolute max range, which is VERY unfun.

The ship needs a minimum of the same concealment as the Shiratsuyu to be really functional.

[Sabot_100]

8 hours ago, EAnybody said:

The ship needs a minimum of the same concealment as the Shiratsuyu to be really functional.

Not quite that good, but should be better than it is. Shira needs to be able to outspot the other DDs so it can (slowly) try to run away before being spotted.

[Trash_Taste_In_Waifus]

I loved this boat. This and kmai are easily my favorite ijn dd's

[Slyv]

The Fastbuki is my most played and hands down favorite ship in the game. Yes the 6.4 detection can be annoying but for me her high speed more then makes up for it. I really dont mind being up tiered either I find she handles it pretty well. I play her mainly as a torp boat while using her guns every reasonable chance I get. She is a good torp boat with decent guns and good speed. For me that's a fun combination.

[NoCoGaming3645]

"can be annoying"?

For a ship that weak in gunpower and HP, the only way the Akatsuki makes out is if it's top-tier, and even then, it's a crapshoot, since it's only VERY slightly more stealthy than the T6 & T7 US/KM gunboats that have no problem wrecking it.

And how often does that happen these days (being top-tier at T7)?

 

Frankly, when compared to the Fubuki,  you:

• Give up the much better T6 matchmaking (where you see radar ships FAR less often, and are only outconcealed by *some* T8 DDs)
• Give up 400m concealment
• Have a 20% slower rudder shift

All to gain:

• +3 knots  (8% - the same bump you get while using Engine Boost )
• 200 Hit Points  (really WG?  200 HP for going up a tier? wth?)  And heck, the stock A hull Akatsuki has 800 LESS HP than the B hull Fubuki, and only 100 HP more than the stock A Hull Fubu.  That's less than 1% increase. F-U, WG.
• 1 extra gun turret of decidedly mediocre guns
• Torps that gain less than 1k damage and 3 knots of speed (about a +5% increase in both)
• AA that goes from awful to just crappy

 

It *might* be tolerable, but the Concealment Module availability at T8 simply means the Ataksuki is severely outmatched for well over half it's games. Heck, the T6 RUSSIAN DD Gnevy out-conceals it significantly. 

 

WG needs to do three very serious things:

1. Remove the Concealment module from the game completely. It's just stupid, and causes all sorts of problems - it [edited] on T5 to T7 ships of all kinds when they're forced to play with T8 and T9 opponents.  
2. Make a pass back at all the ship concealment numbers.  Redo them for consistency. They're hideously inconsistent now.  I mean, what's the T6 Gnevy doing with a 7.0 base concealment?  That's better than most other T5-7 DDs of ANY nation? And why is the Neptune 15% more visible than a Minotaur? Huh?
3. Be serious about game balance and make it so that NO SHIP of a bigger class can out-conceal (even with captain skill) ANY ship of a smaller class.  NO BB should be stealthier than a CA, under any circumstances, including being up-tiered. Same for CA/CLs over DDs.  There's no excuse for a T8 BB being able to out-stealth 90% of lower-tier cruisers it fights.

[zubalkabir]

Love this ship.  You just have to be aware of its shortcomings and work around them.

• The guns are slow to fire and traverse, which means you have to anticipate which direction you're going to need to fire, and lock them in place while you maneuver.  Use the ship's speed and agility to effectively goose the traverse speed.  And I find the guns are fairly accurate.
• Love the torpedoes, especially the 3x3 arrangement.  It lets you fire 3 down the middle, lead the target with 3 more in case it speeds up, and trail the target with the last 3 in case it slows down or reverses.
• Hit points are somewhat low, but I've been checking my damage stats after games, and it doesn't appear the enemy gets a bonus either way by switching from HE to AP, or vice versa.  I seem to take about the same average damage from both, even including fire damage with HE.  I haven't been recording it in a spreadsheet over time or anything, so that could just be a fluke of the past few games.
• Concealment blows, but after moving my captain up to Kagero and having to play with stock concealment until I could grind a new one up to 10 points, the 6.4 km feels like heaven.  And having to go back to stock for a while has taught me a few things, like skirting around the edges of caps instead of entering them in the early game.  I can usually get around and spot enemy BBs and cruisers for my team.  And if enemy DDs pop smoke in the cap, I can send torps in at their broadsides instead of at their bows or sterns while I glide past.  It's amazing how many DDs you can kill by blind firing torps into smoke.

[Destroyer_KuroshioKai]

3 hours ago, zubalkabir said:

Love this ship.  You just have to be aware of its shortcomings and work around them.

• The guns are slow to fire and traverse, which means you have to anticipate which direction you're going to need to fire, and lock them in place while you maneuver.  Use the ship's speed and agility to effectively goose the traverse speed.  And I find the guns are fairly accurate.
• Love the torpedoes, especially the 3x3 arrangement.  It lets you fire 3 down the middle, lead the target with 3 more in case it speeds up, and trail the target with the last 3 in case it slows down or reverses.
• Hit points are somewhat low, but I've been checking my damage stats after games, and it doesn't appear the enemy gets a bonus either way by switching from HE to AP, or vice versa.  I seem to take about the same average damage from both, even including fire damage with HE.  I haven't been recording it in a spreadsheet over time or anything, so that could just be a fluke of the past few games.
• Concealment blows, but after moving my captain up to Kagero and having to play with stock concealment until I could grind a new one up to 10 points, the 6.4 km feels like heaven.  And having to go back to stock for a while has taught me a few things, like skirting around the edges of caps instead of entering them in the early game.  I can usually get around and spot enemy BBs and cruisers for my team.  And if enemy DDs pop smoke in the cap, I can send torps in at their broadsides instead of at their bows or sterns while I glide past.  It's amazing how many DDs you can kill by blind firing torps into smoke.

Shes the closest thing in the line to Shimakaze.  Guys that can make Shima work tend to like Akatsuki as well.

I havent really played Akatsuki much, I already was through the line when the split happened.  I did buy back down the line before the split and have had her ever since fitted out but no captain.  With the CB exp rewards I dropped 1 million elite commander XP on some low tier IJN DDs for up coming ranked seasons.  Akat and Hatsu both got 14 point captains, and I should have them both at 19 points before ranked rolls around again.

Its kind of refreshing playing these boats again with CE.  Prior to the new captain skill tree rework Kagero was the first DD I played with CE. 

[zubalkabir]

2 minutes ago, Destroyer_KuroshioKai said:

Shes the closest thing in the line to Shimakaze.  Guys that can make Shima work tend to like Akatsuki as well.

Oh, that is so good to hear.  I've been grinding toward Shima for ages (just got Yugumo), but then I keep reading about how it sucks because the torpedoes can be detected half way across the map.  So if it plays like a tier 10 version of an Akatsuki, that sounds good to me.

[Destroyer_KuroshioKai]

1 hour ago, zubalkabir said:

Oh, that is so good to hear.  I've been grinding toward Shima for ages (just got Yugumo), but then I keep reading about how it sucks because the torpedoes can be detected half way across the map.  So if it plays like a tier 10 version of an Akatsuki, that sounds good to me.

Paying attention to the forums and buying their [edited] trashed my Shima stats as I got her just before the nerfs.  She is a shock as you lose the vision control advantage you have enjoyed most of the line.  In return you get good speed and lots of torp DPM.  Just be prepared for the adjustment.  It might help to revisit Akatsuki too if credits are an issue.

Consider looking for a competitive clan that has training camps if you are struggling.  There are lots of scary good IJN DD players around that could teach you the way.

[NoCoGaming3645]

The main problem with the Shima is the same thing wrong with the Akatsuki:

Extremely mediocre concealment relative to her peers in a ship who's entire lifespan depends on stealth.

The Ataksuki gets out-stealthed by well over half the DDs it plays again, a factor of the bad base concealment combined with the T8 concealment module availability that the Akatsuki can't get.  The Shima gets out-stealthed by 8 of it's competitors, and has either equal or virtually equal (i.e. 100m or so difference) for 8 other - that's about 75% of the DDs it can face.  Which is ridiculous.

The 20km torps on the Shima are virtually useless due to insane detectability and VERY slow speed.  The 12km are probably the sweet spot, and the 8km are suicidal.

The Shima's primary defense is actually speed, not stealth.  It's faster than everything but a russian DD, so if you can flee when first getting spotted, you're OK. But if you're not in a position to do so, you're screwed, since your opponent can keep you detected long enough for everything in a 15km radius to turn its guns on you and kill you.

The Shima is the poster child for power creep and bad balancing.
 

You *can* make it work, but it's ludicrously harder to do so than in any other DD line, and most of the time it's performance depends less on your skill than on the (lack of) skill of your opponent.

[TheStarSlayer]

God this Can is so dirty when top tier.

Once the map opens up up a little bit you can just fly her by the claws.

 

[NoCoGaming3645]

Sure. I can nuke T5 potatoes all day in an Akatsuki.

Then again, I can do the same thing in any T7 DD. Or T6 DD. Or T5 DD, for that matter. I can post identical numbers to that game in any T5-T7 IJN DD.

The better test is the most common scenario: being in with a mix of T8 and T9 ships.  And that's where the Akatsuki fails. Most of the T7 DDs struggle, too, but the Akatsuki is particularly inept at being uptiered.

And when 75% of your games are being uptiered, that's not a lot of fun...

[TheStarSlayer]

Its been workable in my experience, so long as you have map awareness and don't over commit early she has the speed to extricate herself from the crap and dictate the range.  The only Cans that can reliably chase her down are those of the VMF and you can out spot them.  I find the margin for error on the Tier VIII and IX smaller despite the concealment advantages.  While I do love Kagerō, neither she or Yūgumo can pull enough knots to easily bail out when caught out of position and if you opt for TRB no "oh shite screen." 

My impression was that Tier VII is the Goldilocks zone of favorable MM.  The general consensus seems to be that Tier V and VIII typically get the short end of the stick when it comes to being bottom tier all the time.  In addition the power-scale from V to VII is a lot more steep in most lines then VII to IX. 

While it is a bit harder to have a monster game in Akatsuki when bottom tier, she can still reliably pull her weight and I have not found her typical MM to be punitive at all.

[Azumazi]

9 hours ago, EAnybody said:

Sure. I can nuke T5 potatoes all day in an Akatsuki.

Then again, I can do the same thing in any T7 DD. Or T6 DD. Or T5 DD, for that matter. I can post identical numbers to that game in any T5-T7 IJN DD.

The better test is the most common scenario: being in with a mix of T8 and T9 ships.  And that's where the Akatsuki fails. Most of the T7 DDs struggle, too, but the Akatsuki is particularly inept at being uptiered.

And when 75% of your games are being uptiered, that's not a lot of fun...

There is nothing wrong with the Akatsuki. Last match in her was December (or January) along with Shiratsuyu. That's 64 matches, quite a few of them uptiered that she did JUST fine. The issue is entirely between the keyboard and chair and you not knowing how to read the mini-map which is a serious requirement with IJN DD's as you have to know how and when to push and when to not push due to radar. That also means knowing what has radar and keeping an eye out for them. Based on how you perform in the Kagero at tier 8 and the Yugumo that's most likely the issue. When you were last playing with Fubuki at tier 8, there were fewer players in Radar vessels and fewer of them that carried it. Now you have to keep a better eye open meaning far more knowledge of enemy ships, what they can carry and where they might be on the map as well as being able to read the map well.

Now, as for losing gun battles with her I've destroyed in 1 on 1 fights Bensons and Kiev's, it's all about knowing how to work those rear turrets and what skills your captain has by the time you hit tier 7. My captain was only 12 points when I hit Aka, so it's not like I jumped into it with 19 points. Sure, can I farm damage better with Shira? Yep, but do I trust her in a gun fight like I do Aka? Nope, because Shira's 35 knots makes it REAL hard to run away compared to Aka. I also love ripping up Mahan's and Sims with the Akatsuki, because I always get the jump and I out run them meaning it's easy to dodge those floating shots at 8km out while I shred them with 3-4 hits per salvo from the rear guns.

Now, had you talked about the old tier 7 Hatsuharu, I would have been up there with you because as you can see with your stats and mine, we both did TERRIBLE in it because it was a TERRIBLE ship at tier 7.

So, either I'm amazing in DD's (which I personally just think I'm very good in them as I am good at understanding the mechanics) or we aren't playing the same ship. Based on the game, I would just say you're not well suited to the play style of IJN DD's currently which there is nothing wrong with it as you seem to be doing fine with German DD's.

 

[Azumazi]

13 hours ago, TheStarSlayer said:

God this Can is so dirty when top tier.

Once the map opens up up a little bit you can just fly her by the claws.

 

Nice, best so far for me in Aka I think was 140k in a tier 8 match. But grats on that Kraken in it.

[centarina]

i havn't played akat, but I like my shinonome.   do well in it.    shiratsuyu is still pretty strong even though it got nerfd.      i dont play much higher ijn dds. 

[NoCoGaming3645]

5 hours ago, Azumazi said:

There is nothing wrong with the Akatsuki. Last match in her was December (or January) along with Shiratsuyu. That's 64 matches, quite a few of them uptiered that she did JUST fine. The issue is entirely between the keyboard and chair and you not knowing how to read the mini-map which is a serious requirement with IJN DD's as you have to know how and when to push and when to not push due to radar. That also means knowing what has radar and keeping an eye out for them. Based on how you perform in the Kagero at tier 8 and the Yugumo that's most likely the issue. When you were last playing with Fubuki at tier 8, there were fewer players in Radar vessels and fewer of them that carried it. Now you have to keep a better eye open meaning far more knowledge of enemy ships, what they can carry and where they might be on the map as well as being able to read the map well.

Now, as for losing gun battles with her I've destroyed in 1 on 1 fights Bensons and Kiev's, it's all about knowing how to work those rear turrets and what skills your captain has by the time you hit tier 7. My captain was only 12 points when I hit Aka, so it's not like I jumped into it with 19 points. Sure, can I farm damage better with Shira? Yep, but do I trust her in a gun fight like I do Aka? Nope, because Shira's 35 knots makes it REAL hard to run away compared to Aka. I also love ripping up Mahan's and Sims with the Akatsuki, because I always get the jump and I out run them meaning it's easy to dodge those floating shots at 8km out while I shred them with 3-4 hits per salvo from the rear guns.

Now, had you talked about the old tier 7 Hatsuharu, I would have been up there with you because as you can see with your stats and mine, we both did TERRIBLE in it because it was a TERRIBLE ship at tier 7.

So, either I'm amazing in DD's (which I personally just think I'm very good in them as I am good at understanding the mechanics) or we aren't playing the same ship. Based on the game, I would just say you're not well suited to the play style of IJN DD's currently which there is nothing wrong with it as you seem to be doing fine with German DD's.

 

 

Sorry, but you're wrong.  Looking at your stats, you're WAY above average, and thus a terrible example to evaluate as to the abilities of the Akatsuki.  YOU might be able to make it work, but that doesn't speak at all to the relatively significant problems average to good players experience in the ship. Which is the VAST majority of players:   your stats put you in the top 5% of players, and, frankly, that pretty much invalidates your direct experience in terms of success when claiming it's balanced and workable.  You personally might be able to make it work, but that's a significant outlier. As is, at least 4 standard deviations from mean, going by your WTR score.

I fit in the "good" category of players - my IJN play varies from the VERY good to the mediocre across all tiers, and the Akatsuki is SEVERELY underperforms for me and others in that category, due to the factors I cited. "Git Gud" only applies up to a certain point; it certainly doesn't apply as a maxim once your reach an average 1100 WTR, because that *is* "Gud" - if your average WTR rating is 1100 in IJN DDs, you absolutely have gotten "Git Gud", and if the Akatsuki underperform then, well, that's not a PEBKAC problem, it's a ship problem. Which is the case here.

The only thing I do worse in than an Akatsuki is my Kagero, and that has nothing to do with that particular ship: I'm leveling a brand new captain in it, so I don't even have CE yet for my Kagero.  Whereas there's a 14 point captain in my Akatsuki specifically spec'd to it.  Personally, my IJN DD performance until the last year (2017) was sub-par, because it was the VERY first ship line I played starting 2 years ago, and my newbie experience really showed.  But even now I, like most other IJN players, struggle to get the Akatsuki to perform decently, even for an IJN DD.

 The server-wide stats bear this out: for ALL IJN DDs, the Ataksuki sits in the bottom 30% of pretty much EVERY statistic, and even worse when you adjust for tiers.

 

 

[TheStarSlayer]

All I can say is she rewards a certain play-style in spades, I don't know if folks are being too aggressive early or just not knowing when to let her off leash.  You hit that threshold were you have some HP to play with and the map opens up, then this Can just comes into her own and rips it up.

[Azumazi]

3 hours ago, EAnybody said:

 

Sorry, but you're wrong.  Looking at your stats, you're WAY above average, and thus a terrible example to evaluate as to the abilities of the Akatsuki.  YOU might be able to make it work, but that doesn't speak at all to the relatively significant problems average to good players experience in the ship. Which is the VAST majority of players:   your stats put you in the top 5% of players, and, frankly, that pretty much invalidates your direct experience in terms of success when claiming it's balanced and workable.  You personally might be able to make it work, but that's a significant outlier. As is, at least 4 standard deviations from mean, going by your WTR score.

I fit in the "good" category of players - my IJN play varies from the VERY good to the mediocre across all tiers, and the Akatsuki is SEVERELY underperforms for me and others in that category, due to the factors I cited. "Git Gud" only applies up to a certain point; it certainly doesn't apply as a maxim once your reach an average 1100 WTR, because that *is* "Gud" - if your average WTR rating is 1100 in IJN DDs, you absolutely have gotten "Git Gud", and if the Akatsuki underperform then, well, that's not a PEBKAC problem, it's a ship problem. Which is the case here.

The only thing I do worse in than an Akatsuki is my Kagero, and that has nothing to do with that particular ship: I'm leveling a brand new captain in it, so I don't even have CE yet for my Kagero.  Whereas there's a 14 point captain in my Akatsuki specifically spec'd to it.  Personally, my IJN DD performance until the last year (2017) was sub-par, because it was the VERY first ship line I played starting 2 years ago, and my newbie experience really showed.  But even now I, like most other IJN players, struggle to get the Akatsuki to perform decently, even for an IJN DD.

 The server-wide stats bear this out: for ALL IJN DDs, the Ataksuki sits in the bottom 30% of pretty much EVERY statistic, and even worse when you adjust for tiers.

 

 

It's not the ship, it's the meta. The IJN DD's are one of the hardest if not the hardest set of ships to adapt to due to the game meta for late game. It's the opposite for the US DD's where it's one of the hardest for the early game till Mahan in most circles due to having short range torpedo's and floating guns in the mid tiers.

In the case of the IJN, it's about map awareness and patience. The reason why the IJN DD's perform so badly overall and why others do extremely well is the skill set required to make them work. So many IJN DD players I watch rush into a cap to take it. That's the worst spot to be in most IJN DD's as you're best when the enemy DD's are 7km and above from you where your flat firing guns have a much better advantage for you do dodge or weave their shots. About 60% of all IJN DD's I see die in the first 2-3 minutes of the game because they rushed in to blind torp, ran into enemy DD's right off the bat, got focused by the gun line and died. Then they spend the rest of the match talking smack in chat when they died due to their own faults.

Why does this happen? Truth be told, because unlike the US DD line, the early game IJN DD's are a lot easier. The majority of enemy targets are slow, their guns are extremely inaccurate compared to high tiers, and many players do not attempt to avoid torpedo runs. This means the players aren't forced to learn how to predict player movements, develop map awareness, and overall evolve what I call a "Battle Sense" where you start to immediately pick up on details before they start to unfold based on experience and watching player habits on the minimap.

The reason why this is so hard to balance for WGing is much the same reasons why they have issues with CV's. The skill ceiling due to a set of skills is extremely hard to balance around. This is also why a lot of players get confirmation bias when talking about early tier IJN DD's vs Late tier is because the shear difference in skill ceiling required due to the average skill set of the opposite players coupled with the ships speeds, accuracy, and overall setting. The other huge issue is the major difference in Carrier players as the main bane for a good DD player is a good CV player who can keep his torpedo's spotted and him spotted if not careful. This also requires a lot of skill in watching CV player habits and having patience to not launch torpedo's even if the target looks good to reveal themselves to the CV.

Overall, there is few things they can do to most of the IJN line to adjust the skill ceiling other than a few basic tweaks that would be okay. Most changes I personally called for were for the "Gunboat" line as we jokingly laugh about.

Now, one thing that I have argued about for a long time that would probably help bring players up a bit without even touching the ships is removing the permaspot on torpedo's when located. Especially with CV aircraft as that is just absurd. That one change to a mechanic would probably push a lot of IJN DD players up around 100 WTR points overall.

[GoaJim]

Apologies for reviving an old thread, but I just started posting here (after lurking for months) and if there's an Akatsuki Fan Club, I want to be in it. I've played my Akat almost exclusively for a year or so, and I can't imagine moving up to a higher tier. I have a Kagero, but don't like it. It took me a long time to understand the way to play IJN DDs (and I still have brain farts now and then) but now I have a lot of fun with it. Tier VII is perfect for me-I don't mind facing tier IX; one thing I learned playing sports is that you learn from better players. However, at tier VII, I will never face tier X++ players who are much, much better. And, of course, facing tier Vs is often fun.

And let me go on record as not demanding a buff to IJN DDs. I understand the arguments for it, and will, of course, accept it if it's ever given, but I actually like playing (some) games with a handicap. I feel better about having a good game under unfavorable circumstances than I do when I have a good game under favorable ones.