Drake is better than Goliath IMHO

[SYST3M_OVERIDE]

Goliath has 3 more barrels, 0.9km more gun range, 0.3km bigger gun range to detectability window, 11800 more health and more AA. What she sacrifices to get this is 0.5s longer reload and the inability to increase her gun range and decrease her reload. Drake can take MBRB3 and drop her reload down to 15.8s and increase her firing range temporarily to 18.9km with her spotter plane. Goliath doesn't get planes at all. These are heavy cruisers in the sense of gun caliber only. They will happily eat citadel's just like light UK cruisers (thought to a slightly lesser degree). Drake and Goliath share the same torps and gun damage numbers.

To sum things up Drake is to Goliath what Alsace is to Republique. Now don't get me wrong I love Republique but there's no denying Alsace is the better of the 2.

[Ramsalot]

You are at “I know everything” part of the curve.  Don’t worry, it will pass.

[tcbaker777]

1 hour ago, SYST3M_OVERIDE said:

Goliath has 3 more barrels, 0.9km more gun range, 0.3km bigger gun range to detectability window, 11800 more health and more AA. What she sacrifices to get this is 0.5s longer reload and the inability to increase her gun range and decrease her reload. Drake can take MBRB3 and drop her reload down to 15.8s and increase her firing range temporarily to 18.9km with her spotter plane. Goliath doesn't get planes at all. These are heavy cruisers in the sense of gun caliber only. They will happily eat citadel's just like light UK cruisers (thought to a slightly lesser degree). Drake and Goliath share the same torps and gun damage numbers.

To sum things up Drake is to Goliath what Alsace is to Republique. Now don't get me wrong I love Republique but there's no denying Alsace is the better of the 2.

ill give the Drake one thing, its Conning tower looks so much better than Goliath's

[Meatshield_No13]

Firstly I suspect my disagreement is because of playstyle, we probably prefer different things in our ships.

I disagree because the Goliath has a 40mm central deck and 30mm upper belt compared to 30mm and 25mm respectively on the Drake. 15" guns can overmatch that upperbelt, which means you have to treat almost every BB in your spread as a serious threat (excluding the odd 14"). The 30mm deck also means 430mm and up just go straight through. This means the Drake simply has less mitigation than the Goliath.

The Goliath upper belt is 30mm, 16" and below you can bounce, 40mm deck means you can bounce any BB shell, that central deck also is bigger than I gave it credit for, covering a fair portion of the ship.

The Goliath has the ability to stay fighting longer, it's not about the extra gun or slower reload, it's about the ability to persist and keep a steady output of damage.

I'm running the range module which gives me plenty of flexibility to engage at the ranges I need with guaranteed uptime. The Spotter plane is nice but it will inevitably be on cooldown limiting your options.

[yashma]

1 hour ago, SYST3M_OVERIDE said:

These are heavy cruisers in the sense of gun caliber only.

That's what all heavy cruisers are though.  The difference between a CL and a CA is defined entirely based on gun caliber, there is no such thing as a "heavy cruiser hull".  

[SYST3M_OVERIDE]

1 hour ago, tcbaker777 said:

ill give the Drake one thing, its Conning tower looks so much better than Goliath's

There's that too. Goliath looks like they shrank the hull but left the superstructure alone.

[TriHard_DodgeDealership]

Agreed but that Alsace-Republique comparison was a Bruh Moment. Maybe it was true before Alsace got nerfed but nah Republique is the better ship

[Turbogerbil]

6 hours ago, yashma said:

That's what all heavy cruisers are though.  The difference between a CL and a CA is defined entirely based on gun caliber, there is no such thing as a "heavy cruiser hull".  

 

 

WG seems to think so though, given the RN CAs lack of "baked in" acceleration module and their general feeling of sluggish manoeuvrability.

The RN CLs feel like sports cars by comparison.

[DeadIyArT]

7 hours ago, SYST3M_OVERIDE said:

Goliath has 3 more barrels, 0.9km more gun range, 0.3km bigger gun range to detectability window, 11800 more health and more AA. What she sacrifices to get this is 0.5s longer reload and the inability to increase her gun range and decrease her reload. Drake can take MBRB3 and drop her reload down to 15.8s and increase her firing range temporarily to 18.9km with her spotter plane. Goliath doesn't get planes at all. These are heavy cruisers in the sense of gun caliber only. They will happily eat citadel's just like light UK cruisers (thought to a slightly lesser degree). Drake and Goliath share the same torps and gun damage numbers.

To sum things up Drake is to Goliath what Alsace is to Republique. Now don't get me wrong I love Republique but there's no denying Alsace is the better of the 2.

HARD NOPE.  drakes Armour is S@#$. 

[Turbogerbil]

I'm struggling with Drake. The short gun range significantly increases the risk to the ship, as you have to close in to engage the enemy. This has the knock-on effect of limiting manoeuvre because of the greater interaction with islands. Spotter plane is ok-ish (just why hasn't WG yet introduced an on/off toggle?), but when its in cool down, Drake is out of the game until you close in again.

The armour(!) and heal don't amount to much for the same reason - if you are close enough to engage, you are too close to kite away without being focussed and heavily damaged/deleted.

The nearest comparable T9 CA is Ibuki. For some reason the "buffed" Ibuki is quite good - perhaps because its base ROF is so much better than Drakes.

 

So far I've found that the RN CLs are better in nearly every way than their CA counterparts. I suppose the ultimate test for me is to now buy back Neptune and run it alongside Drake!

[AdmiralThunder]

3 hours ago, DeadIyArT said:

HARD NOPE.  drakes Armour is S@#$. 

Got to agree.

Drake takes massive damage from ANY angle while Goliath can tank some if you get the angles right. Drake is a T9 Emerald/Pensacola type ship sadly.

[CriMiNaL__]

of course drake is better than goliath because if history is correct drake killed goliath with a stone.

[KiyoSenkan]

12 hours ago, SYST3M_OVERIDE said:

These are heavy cruisers in the sense of gun caliber only.

Would it shock you to learn that Mogami was classified as a light cruiser until she swapped her 15.5cm guns for 20.3cm guns?

[Pura__Vida]

Range>rate of fire.

You can't hurt what you can't hit. The chances of continuous firing in this ship are almost nill. To much juking and ducking to ever fully take advantage of the rate or fire mod. So many times in a ship like this you are praying to go dark and not deleted. Not extending your range at all costs seems silly.  Range plus spotter plane does give you some decent 20k+ range for the few times you do get to island camp and spam. These ships feel like they have one extra layer of carboard over the Neptune and Mino, I would rather be further away.