A very straightforward "food for thought" moment: German BBs

[NovaTempest]

This came across my mind earlier this morning and I figured, "Heck, lets toss it up and see how it'd be digested..."

The thought?

Give T8-T10 German BB's a Hull damage mechanic similar to the French DDs.

Not only would this boost their durability in the current meta, but make them more forgiving and give their secondaries more time to chew into ships, thus eliminating most notions that these ships have been power-crept on without drastically changing any of their other characteristics. It would also make them more popular for secondary builds over french BBs and the premium American BBs that seem to out-do them at the very thing the KMG battleships were touted as being particularly good with.

To go a little further, each tier could have a different number of "sections".

Bismarck - 3 Sections

FdG - 4 Sections

GK - 5 Sections

They'd still take DOT damage from flooding and Fires normally, they'd just be harder to kill with blind HE spam that doesn't cause very many fires.

Thoughts?

[ValkyrWarframe]

See...the way hull damage is modeled for destroyers is different compared to battleships.  Destroyers have a uniform hull section and 4 individual sections (bow, midsection, stern and superstructure), and no citadel.  Battleships have that already technically, they just have a citadel too (and their midsection/superstructure HP is insanely high so you basically will never run out of HP there).

There are far better ways to make German battleships better, such as buffing the turret arcs or giving them a slightly faster heal cooldown.

[pikohan]

42 minutes ago, ValkyrWarframe said:

There are far better ways to make German battleships better, such as buffing the turret arcs or giving them a slightly faster heal cooldown.

 

Yes, better firing angles please. And at least match the Krem's 30s traverse speed. 

[Ace_04]

I'd very much like to hear @Edgecase's opinion on something like this.

[wdarkk]

I'd like to see a change to improve the HE pen of the secondaries so IFHE isn't necessary for full power, and a buffed heal cooldown like the Gascogne.

[Edgecase]

21 minutes ago, Ace_04 said:

I'd very much like to hear @Edgecase's opinion on something like this.

It fits WG's somewhat ill-received idea that German ships are tanky and brawly. The signature saturation quality of French Destroyers is accomplished by taking HP out of the central section so that it saturates easily. There's no reason the same thing can't be done with a battleship. It means penetrations against the midsection would drop to half damage faster than they do currently. The difference in survivability would come primarily against other battleships, which tend to hit the upper belt with AP. My sense is that cruiser HE tends to be aimed toward the superstructure and deck ends on those ships (plus fires), and cruiser AP is aimed at the bow and stern plating.

IMO those wouldn't be the worst thing. The German ships in this game have substantially weak offense right now, but their survivability is massively eclipsed by the Russian ships. Moving some of that back to the German lines makes sense to me, especially if accompanied by a targeted nerf to some of the sillier parts of the Russian BB armor schemes.

[FirestormMk3]

I don't think messing around with damage saturation sections is best.  Rather I'd reduce their frankly troll dispersion a bit.  I'm obviously not talking about bringing it in line with lines with accurate main batteries like USN or IJN, but at least similar characteristics to the French.  Secondaries were always going to be a weak gimmick considering this game's meta (though I point that out as someone who enjoys secondary builds, I just recognize the bog standard DOT reduction build is ALWAYS better on a BB in this meta) and now French BBs have power-creeped them into irrelevancy.  They do secondaries just as well, they have solid citadel protection, and their main batteries are simply far more reliable.

[reaper_swpz]

KM BB should be given the same accuracy buff the Russians get at close range. They're brawlers, that can't hit the broad side of barn at brawling range.

In lieu of an accuracy buff, improving the secondaries (Massachusetts stats and +1km range?), maybe giving them better fire resistance or damage saturation on the superstructure that's realistic and not 75% of HP? So they can actually close the range without being shredded by HE spamming CL.

It's quite disappointing to try to close in as a KM BB only to lose 80% of your HP in short order and be forced to back line snipe because 20km range CL is apparently a good idea.

Alternatively nerf all those 130+mm CL ranges to 15km and remove the ability to mount a range module. Without CL HE spammers, brawler BB can actually survive to move up. This might be the better route as the existing balance of most other ships wouldn't be affected as they might be with a blanket KM BB buff.

[pepe_trueno]

superstructure being very weak vs HE spam can be easily solved by increacing the armor, no need to change damage saturation,  olso i dont mind the weak derpy main guns if secondary guns did their job, problem is they arent doing their job.

 even after upgrades their range is still rather slow specialy true for low /mid tiers that range between 5 and 8km so if i have to spend 14 points into secondary related captain points + modules for something with short range the least i would expect is that those guns bring hell to anyone fool enought to get close but that is not realy happening.

[Balon_Greyjoy]

The Krautwagens have definitely been power-crept over the years. Don't know what approach Lesta might want to take, but the whole German BB line could use some updating.

[Frederick_The_Great]

there are a variety of ways they can tweak the KM BBs.  Turret traverse and firing angles come to mind.  The latter being of far larger impact than the former.  The handling on the FdG and GK is abysmal compared to the bismark imo.  I am not sure how good changing damage saturation on certain sections of the ship will help.  Could make them too strong or not matter that much. 

 

they could go the Mass route and give them far better secondary accuracy and faster heal recharge. 

 

to be clear, im not saying giving KM BBs all of the above, just some of these could make the line more enjoyable.  Some are more QoL than more than an outright major change/buff.

Of course, any balancing to captain skills with regards to secondaries, or general changes to secondaries would be a buff to them more than any other line.  currently tank builds are vastly superior in both impact and cost. 

 

personally, i am surprised they didn't do something similar upgrade wise to the US BBs when the line was released.(i was new to the game around the time german BBs were fairly new, so idk what convos happened back then)  Remove the better accuracy upgrade, give them better base accuracy, and either replace the secondary upgrade with something better, or give them a unique slot 6 upgrade that is quite strong similar to the US.  I guess just giving them better base accuracy and removing that upgrade would/could be a buff.  i doubt this would ever happen unless WG wanted to do something similar for all BB lines, to add more flavor.

[Drifter_X]

There is no way to improve firing angles on the ship unless its getting a redesign. Furthermore making them more accurate would make them too powerful at all ranges. I say alter thier durability in regard to HE resistance, concealment, and torpedo resistance, and finaly main battery output.

[Battlecruiser_Repulse]

I'd rather just see the line have slightly less derpy guns. It's a really stupid "flavor," especially considering that the Germans were actually fairly renowned in both World Wars for their good shooting.

[Aetreus]

Eh, I don't really like the existance of German BB's and their whole plasma shield gimmick against BB AP. OTOH, I could be convinced that they deserve their section HP being moved around and getting a split upper hull and casemate to make them more tanky against HE and less braindead versus AP.