British Heavy Cruisers Vs British Light Cruisers

[LATAM_LOL_11]

Hello fellow captains, 

Im currently grinding the Tier 4 Danae and I'm still trying to decide whether to go for heavy cruisers or light cruisers.

I thought this could spark a discussable topic so I decided to post this.

My only problem with the light cruisers is that they don't have HE but they are more maneuverable than the heavy cruisers.

Does anyone have any opinions on both lines?

 

[Karstodes]

So here is my bone on the subject:

Advantage of the Light Cruisers:

-Smokes and heal make them more user friendly.

-Great radar option at tier 8 and 10 (I wouldn't take it on the Neptunde).

-Overall great line with no real stinker: from Leander to Minotaur every ships can be quite competitive, even if the heavy Russian radar meta makes them hard somewhat.

 

Advantage of the Heavy Cruisers:

-Give Devastating Strike medals to the enemy team.

-Easy way back to port give you plenty of time to drink tea and imagine what it would be if the British CA was actually good.

-Drake's and Goliath's 59mm HE pen and super heal.

 

Seriously go with the light cruisers. They are challenging for sure, but thanks to the mix of Hydro, Smoke, Torpedoes and high DPM it is not that hard to work well with them. And yes, they lack HE, but their AP got the best penetration angle and short fuse, making them somewhat close to SAP in term of reliability.

Meanwhile the Heavy are... Hawkins was a nightmarish experience. Devonshire was competitive thanks to being one of the few Heavy Cruiser at tier 6 and having a heal, Surrey and Albermarle are probably the worst cruisers of their tier and offer nothing more than the other line (yes you have heal, but where other line can mitigate damage or kite from far away you cannot do that with them). Then you get Drake and she is good, albeit the damage per minute is not great (take range mod to make her usable).

[Hukom]

Surrey and Albemarle are horrible. On the other hand, Fiji is totally amazing. Then you have Neptune, and Minotaur. I have Goliath also, and that thing is a fire starter; however, not that nimble compared to Minotaur.

[HamAndCheez]

18 minutes ago, Hukom said:

Surrey and Albemarle are horrible. On the other hand, Fiji is totally amazing. Then you have Neptune, and Minotaur. I have Goliath also, and that thing is a fire starter; however, not that nimble compared to Minotaur.

Surrey is currently the highest-performing non-premium tier 7 cruiser. It's in 4th place overall out of 26 total tier 7 cruisers. I quite like it, personally.

[cgbosn4]

I’d go with the light cruisers. Loved the Leander and Fiji! Edd was meh but liked/loved Neptune & Mino. 

Not much love for Surrey above but I liked her. Albemarle was tough but Drake & Goliath are Ok. 

The smoke & heal of the lights might be more user friendly...

[Karstodes]

34 minutes ago, HamAndCheez said:

Surrey is currently the highest-performing non-premium tier 7 cruiser. It's in 4th place overall out of 26 total tier 7 cruisers. I quite like it, personally.

Yes.

but at the same time it got the least game played, making the result less reliable.

[HamAndCheez]

1 minute ago, Y_Nagato said:

Yes.

but at the same time it got the least game played, making the result less reliable.

By that reasoning, because Belfast has less games played than Fiji, the results showing Belfast as being better than Fiji are less reliable, also. If reasoning is to apply to one ship, it has to apply to all the ships on the chart.

[MollyGodiva]

Just now, HamAndCheez said:

By that reasoning, because Belfast has less games played than Fiji, the results showing Belfast as being better than Fiji are less reliable, also. If reasoning is to apply to one ship, it has to apply to all the ships on the chart.

200k games played is plenty of data. What is missing is who is playing those games. Are they regular players, are they skilled players, are they people who have no skill and just buy premium ships? I have skepticism of early access or new tech tree ships because the players that get them first are probably the more hard core players.

[Karstodes]

7 minutes ago, HamAndCheez said:

By that reasoning, because Belfast has less games played than Fiji, the results showing Belfast as being better than Fiji are less reliable, also. If reasoning is to apply to one ship, it has to apply to all the ships on the chart.

Not really. If 2 ships have the same way to be acquired (2 tech tree ships for instance) yes it can to some extend. If the way to be acquired then is differently (premium buy with money vs steel ships vs tech tree ships) less so.

 

Specially for such line that are grinded quickly first by good players (thus have higher stat than reality) and are not touch later on due to the first report of them.

[MasterDiggs]

I only went far enough down the CA line to get Devonshire, but at that tier the CL wins for me and it wins handedly. You have to aim at different parts of the red ships often but the CLs feel better and more flexible than the CAs to me.

[HamAndCheez]

22 minutes ago, MollyGodiva said:

200k games played is plenty of data. What is missing is who is playing those games. Are they regular players, are they skilled players, are they people who have no skill and just buy premium ships? I have skepticism of early access or new tech tree ships because the players that get them first are probably the more hard core players.

British heavy cruisers have been out for 11 months now. Plenty of time for people to get an idea of how they play.

[Crucis]

I honestly don't like the CL's that much  because of their AP only ammo (lack of) option.  Sure, if you can get broadside targets, the CLs can wreck stuff.  OTOH, if you can't get any flanking shots, you're going to have a rather unproductive battle.

If I have a gripe about the CA line, it's that their AP is subpar, which IMO sort of doesn't give players much of a reason to close the range on the enemy to use good AP.  And instead, it seems to me that the lack of good AP only incentivizes longer range HE spamming.

[Estimated_Prophet]

2 hours ago, Y_Nagato said:

Meanwhile the Heavy are... Hawkins was a nightmarish experience. Devonshire was competitive thanks to being one of the few Heavy Cruiser at tier 6 and having a heal, Surrey and Albermarle are probably the worst cruisers of their tier and offer nothing more than the other line (yes you have heal, but where other line can mitigate damage or kite from far away you cannot do that with them). Then you get Drake and she is good, albeit the damage per minute is not great (take range mod to make her usable).

It’s a premium, but I’ve nothing bad to say about Exeter.

Have had reasonable success playing support early, then great success hunting late game cap attempts, especially ones that tried to hide in smoke.

My first Random all I really did was spook and sink a Fubuki trying to come around that NW corner on New Dawn, but the game made such a positive impression of the ship on me that I love it.

[Karstodes]

17 minutes ago, Crucis said:

I honestly don't like the CL's that much  because of their AP only ammo (lack of) option.  Sure, if you can get broadside targets, the CLs can wreck stuff.  OTOH, if you can't get any flanking shots, you're going to have a rather unproductive battle.

If I have a gripe about the CA line, it's that their AP is subpar, which IMO sort of doesn't give players much of a reason to close the range on the enemy to use good AP.  And instead, it seems to me that the lack of good AP only incentivizes longer range HE spamming.

With the improve pen of the CL you can wreck people pretty much regardless of their angle. Just hit the superstructure if they are bow in.

 

and yes, the heavy push you to long range HE...only they doesn’t have long range, nor a good velocity to make long range as effective as French, Japanese or German.

[Crucis]

3 minutes ago, Y_Nagato said:

With the improve pen of the CL you can wreck people pretty much regardless of their angle. Just hit the superstructure if they are bow in.

 

and yes, the heavy push you to long range HE...only they doesn’t have long range, nor a good velocity to make long range as effective as French, Japanese or German.

That hasn't bee my experience, because hitting the superstructure of a bow on enemy heavy is extremely difficult and RNG tends to limit the number of shells that will strike that small area.  Not to mention some of the forward facing areas on the superstructure of a BB are very heavily armored.

[ArIskandir]

4 hours ago, LATAM_LOL_11 said:

Does anyone have any opinions on both lines?

Both are fun in their own way. I find the lights a bit limited by not having DoT capabilities tho they make it up with smoke, their role is more of dedicated DD hunters and killers of squishy stuff, I struggle a bit against armored targets and they also eat citadels from every angle. Most will tell you heavies are terrible but I actually like them a lot, they are average but very well rounded as a whole, solid ships able to adapt to any threat, they are also more forgiving to use than the lights. As first line I will recommend the Heavies, Lights are more difficult to play right.

[Crucis]

11 minutes ago, ArIskandir said:

Both are fun in their own way. I find the lights a bit limited by not having DoT capabilities tho they make it up with smoke, their role is more of dedicated DD hunters and killers of squishy stuff, I struggle a bit against armored targets and they also eat citadels from every angle. Most will tell you heavies are terrible but I actually like them a lot, they are average but very well rounded as a whole, solid ships able to adapt to any threat, they are also more forgiving to use than the lights. As first line I will recommend the Heavies, Lights are more difficult to play right.

I agree with this.  I think that the RN CAs are easier for newer players to learn to play, while the RN CLs require a better understanding of various game mechanics, such as smoke.