Premium Ship Review #127 - Yoshino

[LittleWhiteMouse]

The following is a review of Yoshino, the tier X Premium Japanese Super Cruiser kindly provided to me by Wargaming.  Please be aware that though this represents the release version of the ship, her statistics may change in the future.  To the best of my knowledge, these stats are accurate as of patch 0.8.5.

Yoshino certainly deserves a full review, but the amount of redundancy between Azuma and her is downright painful.  Honestly, I wish I had held off on writing about Azuma entirely -- a sentiment that will probably be echoed by anyone that forked over cash to afford her 1M free experience price tag.  Yoshino is Azuma but better in nearly every respect.  Rather than repeat myself, I'm changing up my usual format to do a side by side comparison.

TL:DR Yoshino is Azuma BUT...

• Yoshino is tier 10.  Azuma is tier 9.
• + Yoshino has slightly more hit points and a modestly improved armour profile.
• + Yoshino has slightly better penetration and fusing for AP shells and improved ballistics for both shell types.
• + Yoshino's main battery has more range and reloads faster.
• + Yoshino has torpedoes.
• + Yoshino has longer ranged secondaries. 
• + Yoshino has improved AA defenses.
• + Yoshino can swap its Spotter Aircraft for a Catapult Fighter
• + Yoshino has better economic bonuses on her camouflage
• - Yoshino can only overmatch 20mm of armour with AP while Azuma can overmatch 21mm.
• - Azuma has a much faster reset timer on her Repair Party.
• - Azuma has better base credit earning coefficients.

A couple of these differences are owing to a bug in her main battery profile (see below for more details), however, Yoshino is above and beyond a solid upgrade to Azuma.  The big question is if these upgrades change Azuma's lackluster design into something worth collecting and playing.

Differences in Defense

Yoshino has 3,450 more hit points than Azuma, which really isn't that much.  This does give her the 4th largest hit point pool among cruisers in the game currently:

1. 72,450hp - Stalingrad
2. 71,050hp - Kronshtadt
3. 65,400hp - Moskva
4. 61,800hp - Yoshino
5. 60,800hp - Alaska
6. 58,350hp - Azuma
7. 53,300hp - Henri IV
8. 51,900hp - Hindenburg
9. 50,600hp - Des Moines
10. 49,700hp - Salem

The second improvement to Yoshino's protection scheme over Azuma is the increased armour protection of her upper hull and her deck amidships.  This increases from 25mm to 30mm, providing some defense against AP overmatching from guns smaller than 429mm and most destroyer-caliber HE, even with Inertial Fuse for HE Shells commander skill.

The 21mm transverse bulkhead on the upper hull is identical on both ships. Yoshino's sole improvement to armour protection is this buffed deck and upper hull armour, increased to 30mm from 25mm.

Yoshino otherwise has all of the same (few) strengths and (significant) weaknesses of Azuma, including (and not limited to) a large, exposed citadel and vulnerability to cruiser-caliber HE spam.  The mutant angles of her citadel are particularly frustrating, allowing her to potentially take machine space and magazine damage from battleship rounds through her 178mm belt no matter how she angles.

The one area where Azuma out-performs Yoshino has to do with her Repair Party.  Both ships begin with an extra charge of their heals compared to other cruisers.  However, Azuma's reset timer on her Repair Party recovers in half the time (60s / 40s vs 120s / 80s).

Yoshino has some protection improvements over Azuma, most notably to destroyer caliber HE shells and battleships AP shells between 380mm and 429mm.  However, these improvements are not enough to plug the very obvious holes in Azuma's protection scheme and Yoshino shares most of her weaknesses.  Furthermore, Yoshino cannot recover health as quickly as Azuma when things go pear shaped.

Differences in Firepower

There are four areas I need to cover here.

1. Yoshino's secondaries
2. Yoshino's torpedoes
3. Yoshino's increased rate of fire
4. Her main battery firepower bug

Three of these are permanent features.  The fourth, the bug, isn't likely to stick with the ship in the long term.  I've reported the bug to Wargaming but I'll cover it here anyway just to be thorough (cuz that's what I do).

Manly Little Pew-Pews

The difference between Azuma's and Yoshino's secondaries is simply a matter of range.  Azuma's secondaries reach out to 5.0km stock while Yoshino's begin with a 6.0km range.  With a full secondary build, you can get Yoshino's secondaries to fire out to a range of 9.07km which is almost respectable.  The weight of firepower from her 100mm/65s and their high, 25mm base penetration (32mm with IFHE) makes for a fun meme build if you're up for it, though it's not especially competitive outside of Co-Op.  Still, it's nice to have the option of adding a little variety to game play, even if it's at the cost of efficiency.

Main Battery

So let's start with the bug...

Yoshino and Azuma both have 310mm guns.  Short of reload time and range (both of which we'll discuss after this), the guns have identical performance.  Well, almost.  For whatever silly reason, Yoshino fires a 305mm shell out of her 310mm guns.  Yes, really.  Azuma fires a 310mm shell.  This has the following effects:

• Yoshino's HE shell flies faster than Azuma's, reaching 20km in 11.63s vs 11.74s.
• Yoshino's AP shell flies faster than Azuma's, reaching 20km in 11.20s vs 11.29s.
• Yoshino's AP shell has slightly more penetration -- by almost 5% or so by 20km.
• Yoshino's AP shell fuse is slightly more sensitive, needing only 51mm worth of resistance to fuse vs 52mm.
• Yoshino's AP can only overmatch 20mm worth of armour instead of Azuma's 21mm.
• Strangely, this had no impact on the penetration of her HE shells which already behave like they're 310mm.

I've brought up this issue to Wargaming (and I'm sure I'm not the first).  All you need to know is that when (if?) this is corrected, Yoshino's AP shells will lose a smidge of penetration.  When this happens, she'll have identical gun performance to Azuma except for the aforementioned rate of fire and range.

Penetration values courtesy of proships.ru. Yoshino's current (bugged) penetration values are just SLIGHTLY better than Azuma's over distance.  However, she's by no means a heavyweight when it comes to AP performance like the Soviet battlecruisers.

Speaking of Rate of Fire & Range

• Yoshino has 21.29km range and Azuma has 19.09km range.
• Yoshino reloads in 18.5s and Azuma reloads in 20 seconds.

Yoshino has more base reach and a better rate of fire.  Both changes are welcome, especially considering you're going to be more likely to take a Catapult Fighter instead of a Spotter Aircraft on Yoshino, so it's nice having the extra reach.  Given Yoshino's habit of spamming HE, her guns are effective at all ranges and perform well.  Still, it would be a bit presumptuous to call Yoshino's main battery guns good.  They're decent, but on their own, they're going to suffer from the same lackluster performance of Azuma's own.

This is Azuma's dispersion -- 180 shells fired at 15km at a Fuso that has no camouflage. Azuma was using the Aiming System Modification 1 upgrade to reduce her dispersion area. Currently, Yoshino has SLIGHTLY worse dispersion. Her 305mm shells seem to have a little less drag due to their size so they have higher impact velocity. This will lead to an oh-so-tiny and barely perceptible increase in maximum vertical dispersion at nearly all ranges.

Torpeedus

The big reason Yoshino is considered such a massive improvement over Azuma is the presence of her torpedo launchers.  She has four quadruple launchers, two to each side with each launcher covering one quadrant (with some overlap) in a similar but not identical manner to Atago.  Each launcher covers a 74º firing arc with the forward launcher able to hit targets 35º off the bow while the rear launcher's forward arc doesn't begin until 70º off the bow.

Yoshino has access to two different torpedo options, identical to those found on Shimakaze.

• Type 93 Mod 3 - 23,766 damage, 12km range at 67 knots with 1.7km detection range and 171s reload
• Type 93 - 20,966 damage, 20km range at 62 knots with a 2.5km detection range and a 167s reload.

Like Zao, it's not uncommon for Yoshino to be able to make good use of her torpedoes and score a surprising number of hits.  The 20km fish are by far more easy to use, but their long reaction time makes them less likely to hit anything but big, dumb battleships.  Applying Torpedo Acceleration to these fish does wonders though and still gives them an effective 16km reach. Her 12km torpedoes are harder to use given that her surface detection can't get much lower than 11.9km giving her the tiniest of stealth-fire windows outside of kiting and dumping them into the face of pursuers.  Still, they hit that much harder and are difficult to dodge, so they're great at flushing out ships hiding in smoke.

Yoshino has much improved firepower over Azuma with a better rate of fire, better (bugged) AP performance, more range, improved secondaries and very powerful torpedoes.

Differences in AA Defense

Azuma on top and Yoshino on the bottom. Red: twin 100mm. Purple: twin 40mm. Blue: triple 25mm. Green: twin 25mm. Yellow: single 25mm.

Overall, Yoshino has better AA defense that Azuma.  It's a far cry from "good" but it is improved.  Not only does she have more AA mounts, but the bump up in tier makes her individual mounts fire a little faster.  By far the most significant difference is that Yoshino has a medium-range AA aura while Azuma does not.  Here's the breakdown of their numbers:

Azuma:

Long Ranged (5.8km-1.9km):  400 damage every 1.78s (224dps) and 8 explosions at 1,470 damage.
Short Ranged (1.9km to 0.1km:  140 damage every 0.33s (430dps)

Yoshino:

Long Ranged (5.8km-3.5km):  410 damage every 1.74s (235dps) and 8 explosions at 1,540 damage.
Medium Ranged (3.5km-1.9km):  210 damage every 0.83s (252dps) and 7 explosions at 980 damage.
Short Ranged (1.9km to 0.1km:  140 damage every 0.28s (496dps)

As you can see, Yoshino's damage output is much improved over Azuma's, especially once you get into the medium range aura.  Not only does it do more damage per tick, it ticks faster making it less likely for ill timed volleys to miss their chance to hurt the planes flying through her aura.  Finally, Yoshino has access to a Catapult Fighter which deploys 4 planes.  This won't wipe out an attacking enemy squadron but may discourage CVs at least on the short term.  Now to be clear:  Yoshino DOES NOT have good AA defenses -- they're merely adequate for a tier 10 cruiser.  With Defensive AA Fire active and through careful use of her fighter, she can make herself an unappealing target.  Proper commander skill choices and managing her AA focus is imperative to getting reasonable performance out of her defenses and can mean the difference between being a thorny target or a ready victim.

Yoshino's anti-aircraft firepower is a significant improvement over Azuma's, including access to a fighter squadron that Azuma lacks.  However, her AA isn't strong enough on its own to keep the ship safe and requires a significant investment in upgrades, commander skills and player input to prove effective.

Differences in Camouflage & Economy

When it comes to stealth and detection, the two ships are identical.  However, there are pretty significant differences between the camouflage and economy of Azuma and Yoshino.

Azuma's camouflage patterns and bonuses.

Yoshino appears to have the advantage, but these numbers don't tell the whole story.

Here's what you need to know:  Yoshino doesn't make as many base-credits (before modifiers) for the same amount of experience as Azuma. 

Azuma has the same baked-in economic bonus as ships like Kronshtadt, Alaska and Musashi.  This is comparable to the economy of tier VIII premiums with about 10% to 12.5% bonus.  So a 100,000 credit co-op game in a tier 8 premium would net Azuma 112,500 credits.  Yoshino, by contrast, earns LESS than a tier VIII premium base.  I'm still collecting data on credit earning (it's a tedious process) but Yoshino's earning appears analogous to Salem and Bourgogne, earning about 90% of what a tier VIII premium does in raw credits.  Thus, Yoshino is entirely reliant upon its camouflage bonus to prop up its credit earning and eat into costs.

Azuma earns more credits than Yoshino does.

Which is Better?

• Tier for tier, Yoshino is much (MUCH!) better than Azuma.  She hits harder and more often and her game play is more varied.
• Economy wise Azuma is better than Yoshino.  After accounting for camouflage bonuses and the like, it's not by much but it is noticeable.

Overview

"But Mouse", you say, "I respect myself and therefor didn't touch Azuma with a 10 foot pole.  How does Yoshino play?"  Gotcha covered.  Here's a link to my full review of Azuma.

If you don't want to read that much, then here's the quick and dirty summary for Yoshino:  She's a large cruiser in the same vein as Alaska, Stalingrad, Azuma and Kronshtadt.  Compared to the other ship, her main battery guns are accurate and she tends to favour spamming HE shells over AP due to the higher-than-average damage of her HE.  Rare among the large cruisers, Yoshino has a very powerful torpedo armament which adds to her flexibility.  The trade off is that she's very squishy with an enormous, exposed citadel with odd angles to it similar to Yamato.  Furthermore, she's highly vulnerable to battleship caliber (380mm+) overmatch and light cruiser (150mm+) HE spam.  This tends to push back her engagement range, forcing her to fire from long distances.

PROS

• Large health pool of 61,800hp.
• Excellent range of 21.3km on her main battery guns.
• Good alpha strike and penetration for a cruiser.
• Increased penetration on her secondaries.
• Powerful torpedo armament, including the choice between two weapon load-outs.
• Extra charge of her Repair Party consumable.

CONS

• (Mutant) Octagonal citadel which sits high over the water.
• Relatively thin armoured belt for a large cruiser.
• Large target and vulnerable to HE shells.
• Takes increased damage over time effects like a battleship.
• Enormous 920m turning radius and poor rudder shift time.
• Large surface detection range.

Skill Floor:  Simple / CASUAL/ Challenging / Difficult
Skill Ceiling:  Low / Moderate / HIGH / Extreme

Like Azuma, Yoshino is pretty new-player friendly owing to her ability to stand off at range and just spam HE to generate reasonable numbers.  It's really not terribly effective but it's not hard to do.

The improved armour profile, torpedoes and gunnery gives Yoshino just that bit more flexibility than her tier 9 sister.  While brawling is ill advised, Yoshino can pull it off in a pinch.  In addition, it's also possible to conduct some stealth torpedo runs in this ship which makes flanking all the more viable provided you don't get prematurely spotted and blown out of the water.

Summary

Despite the long laundry-list of differences between Azuma and Yoshino, they are effectively the same ship.  Durability-wise, they're almost identical.  Agility is the same.  Concealment is the same.  Gunnery and gun handling is almost identical.   Don't kid yourself that the 30mm upper hull and deck on Yoshino makes that much of a difference when it comes to toughness.  The squish is real. Furthemore, Azuma is more durable than Yoshino to non-citadel hits with her faster heals.  Offensively, the two ships are very similar but Yoshino definitely has the edge with her torpedoes and faster rate of fire.

I am downplaying the impact of Yoshino's increased reload on her main battery.  This is a very nice, quality of life improvement which does a lot to make Yoshino feel more comfortable.  Her torpedoes are a far more dramatic addition.  Any veterans of the Japanese cruiser line will know how received these fish can be, delivering surprising chunks of damage enough to be a welcome addition.

While Azuma was arguably one of the worst of the large-cruiser designs to so far be implemented in World of Warships, Yoshino is a far more solid implementation.  I wouldn't say that she's near the top of the pile by any means, but at least her contributions aren't a joke.  If you like playing ships like Kronshtadt, Alaska and Graf Spee, you'll find Yoshino's game play interesting and comfortable.

While Yoshino lacks the stealth of other Japanese cruisers, her game play isn't that far removed from them: 

• Dump HE on unsuspecting targets. 
• Kite and dodge at long range. 
• Clench your buttocks when a battleship looks at you funny. 
• Unleash her AP shells when you catch someone broadside.  

Most novel about Yoshino's game play is that she can push and use torpedoes where opportunities permit.  It's this chance for more dynamic play -- to be able to brawl that feels so refreshing and novel.  Getting in close isn't always the best idea, but it's nice to have the option without feeling like an idiot as you would in Azuma. Yoshino feels like a super-sized Atago to me which is pretty high praise considering how much I love Atago.

I like Yoshino.  She's worth the price in coal to me.  I dunno that I would play her often, but she's fun for a change of pace every now and then.  This is a far cry from Azuma that I'm doing my best to forget about.

Final Evaluation

How would the ship rate on an Angry YouTuber scale of Garbage – Meh – Gud – Overpowered?

• GARBAGE– I hate it!
• Mehbote – An average ship.  Probably forgettable.
• Gudbote – The best thing ever.  Totally not overpowered because I like padding my stats in it.
• OVERPOWERED – I hate playing against it!

In Closing

Thanks for reading and your support.  I'm going back to bed.  Blech.

 



 

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, LittleWhiteMouse said:

While Yoshino lacks the stealth of other Japanese cruisers, her game play isn't that far removed from them: 

•  

but good concealment among the tier 9/10 supercruisers, no?

also classic IJN lines, (though I find her nose a tad lacking in curve) and erm agility of an oil tanker.

for those who like Zao, (many of us) sounds like a nice alternative for random battles.

[Super_Dreadnought]

Nice review LWM. Keep up the good work.

Personally I spent my coal, with coupon, last night on Georgia instead of Yoshino. I am convinced that nothing of value was lost. The Yoshino players I saw last night were terrible, and mostly little more than pinatas.

[LittleWhiteMouse]

5 minutes ago, Super_Dreadnought said:

Nice review LWM. Keep up the good work.

Personally I spent my coal, with coupon, last night on Georgia instead of Yoshino. I am convinced that nothing of value was lost. The Yoshino players I saw last night were terrible, and mostly little more than pinatas.

You made the right decision.  Georgia is hands down better for the cost in coal. 

[TorchCad30]

Awesome review! 

[Lert]

[warheart1992]

Thanks Miss Mouse for the review, though not really in the market for such a ship. I feel Atago can cover most of my needs anyway. 

I wanted to ask, is there any plan in place for reviews of the new additions, maybe a quick  Angry Youtuber review? I know there's loads of content and so little time, just curious.

1 minute ago, Lert said:

 The day has dawned where someone has used a Black Books gif. Now my life is complete .

[LittleWhiteMouse]

18 minutes ago, warheart1992 said:

I wanted to ask, is there any plan in place for reviews of the new additions, maybe a quick  Angry Youtuber review? I know there's loads of content and so little time, just curious.

I'm too hopped up on cough medicine to be able to plan my day, never mind schedule content production at the moment (damn cold).  So not right now, no.

[DJC_499]

Great review, as always, and it was fun battling with you on Two Brothers the other night when you were in the Yoshino. Memorable Coop battle with a pre-release Yoshino and a Stalingrad....

Thanks!

[Guest]

I have just bought her, and played one battle (using my Zao captain). First impression, she is anything but meh, those guns are sublime, the AP a terror from afar, the HE more than adequate, the AA sufficient to deter t8 cvs in random battles (no idea versus tier 10 air squadrons), but most important of all, she has very fine lines, cutting through waves purposefully and exudes confidence, (except that's a lie, as she is best sniping from range!).

not so much meh, as justfine. I enjoyed shouting in chat, JUST DODGE! as my AP shells slammed into 20 km distant targets with enjoyable precision.

[dbw86]

Another outstanding review going into my 3 ring binder of them.    Video reviews I tend to watch once, where your written reviews I pull and re-read them often to refresh my memory.    Perhaps, later on, I may add Yoshino to my fleet but right now I think I will pass on here, a shame as I was really strongly considering her.

[Mad_Moff]

Siegfried when?

[SaltyMoonshine]

Thank you for the review.

I bought the Yoshino last night. I've only played 2 games in her but she's served me splendidly so far, with those torpedoes killing a Kremlin and a pursuing Yamato to win a game. In any other non-torp cruiser I'd have been dead.

She feels very much like a super Atago. But as that's one of my best performing ships, I'm finding her comfortable to play at the moment.

Currently I play her as a long range sniper, sticking to 15-18km engagement range where her stealth allows her to disengage when needed and great angled hard hitting torps can be a life saver when you simply must push. I've found that with 16 sec reload (mod 3), 21km range and good ballistics and accuracy, i can use terain to hide for maximum effect. The shells are slow enough and engagement range long enough I can park behind islands while fast enough that I can reliably land 5-8k salvos every 16 seconds with regular fires.

[Friederiz]

I have coal for Georgia and Yoshino. But there is a lots/some of high tier ship incomming. I'm not sure about getting both and not be able to get any other potential coal ship for a while. 

Anybody have any input on other delivery method for other tier 9-10 in development? 

[Panzer1113]

Bought her last night, had coal sitting around and a fresh new coupon (have all the other coal ships).  I agree with your review, can be fun, but it is amazing that any BB caliber shell that comes in your direction seems to result in a cit.  Having this, no need for an Azuma, so will see what the next free exp ship is.

[TheOneBlackMage]

Thanks for the review!  I picked up Yoshino last night, and I'm excited to see what I can do with her.  I skipped on Azuma because I didn't think it was worth the FXP.

One small error I found:

Quote

 Rare among the large cruisers, Azuma has a very powerful torpedo armament which adds to her flexibility.

 

[LittleWhiteMouse]

13 minutes ago, TheOneBlackMage said:

Thanks for the review!  I picked up Yoshino last night, and I'm excited to see what I can do with her.  I skipped on Azuma because I didn't think it was worth the FXP.

One small error I found:

Thanks.  Correcting now.

[Bellicose_Intent]

Excellent review and thank you for your time 

[Deaddeye]

Thank you once again for an excellent review! Going to buy her now based on your review. Hope you get better soon.

[Hotel_a_QT]

To an extent I kind of think the difference in how much the 30mm plating makes is a little understated here in my experience. In a vacuum it's not that big of a difference, but in practice I've bounced way more BB AP than I was expecting to at all so far in a pretty limited play time, quite literally every game since I got her it's been happening. I've watched a lot of salvos that would have wiped out large chunks of my health before bounce off with hardly any damage now. Being able to play without so much worry that I'm just going to get overmatched all the time filters a lot into how many options I have during a game, and it really makes the overall experience a lot more enjoyable. 

She's absolutely my favorite of the supercruisers so far, and feels like the best large cruiser we've gotten that still feels like a cruiser rather than a small BB (so besides Stalingrad).   

[Wows_Nightly_News]

Good review. Wish I could say the same about Yoshino herself but you saved a lot of people's coal reserves. Get well soon.

[Merc85]

Excellent review as always LWM.  Thanks. 

Take lots of meds and feel better. 

[Wows_Nightly_News]

6 hours ago, LittleWhiteMouse said:

I'm too hopped up on cough medicine to be able to plan my day, never mind schedule content production at the moment (damn cold).  So not right now, no.

Yah take it easy. What's being released right now would be a lot under the best health.

[Captain_Slattery]

9 hours ago, Super_Dreadnought said:

Personally I spent my coal, with coupon, last night on Georgia instead of Yoshino. I am convinced that nothing of value was lost. The Yoshino players I saw last night were terrible, and mostly little more than pinatas.

That's exactly what I did.  Honestly, my choice was actually Georgia or wait for the next coal ship.  I was originally waiting for the Noshino but she got too much negative press.  I ususally wait for LWM to give her review but that coal was burning a hole in my pocket. 

No regrets on my decision.  LWM did have good things to say about Georgia.  I think she is an absolute wrecking machine.  Georgia is a blast!

[eicjc]

THanks as always Mouse.

I (like many) really wanted Yoshino to be good. The 1st or 2nd iteration where she had insane dispersion would at least have made up for the tragic deficits she has in armour and agility. Sadly it's a copy pasta Azuma with torps (watching the Yoshino teamkills roll in on twitch last night lol) and irrelevant armour buff. The reload buff is ok, but nothing special. I'm just so underf*****gwhelmed. Will the Hayate be coal? Will WeeGee ever give us a great IJN Premium (Musashi aside - which I don't need cos Yamato).