Ships you were surprised that you liked

[RainbowFartingUnicorn]

Anybody else play a ship they got - grinding through a tech tree, or dropped from a crate or whatever - that has a bad rap, or that you didn't think you'd like, but you actually found you really enjoyed it?

I've been a DD main for most of the past two years, but I just started grinding USN BBs from New York and am both surprisingly enjoying them and doing fairly well in them.

Huanghe is also a long-time favorite of mine despite her bad reputation.

I am also grinding RN CAs after having to start from Hawkins thanks to trash luck in the RN CA event, and Albemarle did me well.

[sapient007]

Lately, FunYang. 

A ship drop from a new year container. 

I still think she is a worse Akizuki.Not a very competitive ship. But with the PA unlimited on demand smoke and improve AP angle. She is actually enjoyable in random. 

I got a 10/10 win in my first ten game so it might be a little bias. But I can see I'm going to play more games with it. Only downside is now we don't have free respec but this ship need a dedicated commander. 

[Torenico]

Izumo, started hating it but ended up loving it, turns out it's a pretty solid BB, not competitive but solid. Right now it has to be Udaloi, while I'm playing it exclusively on ranked, I had my very serious doubts about this ship but it's just very good, adapts well to most situations because you have the speed, the guns and the consumables to stay alive for a while. Not bad, despite losing badly on the concealment department.

[BrushWolf]

5 minutes ago, Torenico said:

Izumo, started hating it but ended up loving it, turns out it's a pretty solid BB, not competitive but solid. Right now it has to be Udaloi, while I'm playing it exclusively on ranked, I had my very serious doubts about this ship but it's just very good, adapts well to most situations because you have the speed, the guns and the consumables to stay alive for a while. Not bad, despite losing badly on the concealment department.

The Izumo got buffed awhile back.

[HazeGrayUnderway]

Ships that surprised me that I ended up liking:

Spoiler

 

 

[warheart1992]

West Virginia for me; not a BB main nor interested in US Standards, but when I got her from a container and played a few battles I could only appreciate how many problems relatively accurate 16'' rifles solve, regardless of all the other shortcomings.

Sometimes all you need is a brick.

[Merc_R_Us]

Halland. I hated the line so so much. but then finally your patience is rewarded with a large torpedo salvo, decent dpm, and an amazing AA suite.

[Beauregard23]

Minnesota.  I'm a dd main but i grind out everything anyway.  Kansas sucked and everyone was lumping it together with Minnesota but you slap a rudder shift on it and it becomes a whirling dervish of death.  I ground it to Vermont before they buffed it and still had a near 60% wr.

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

22 minutes ago, BrushWolf said:

The Izumo got buffed awhile back.

It did indeed, and I ground it out after it received all those buffs, but I was still surprised at how much I liked it.

Big surprises for me were the Russian DDs. I won a permacamo and 10pt captain for the Kiev from a Halloween event so I set out to grind up to it. Minsk was a hoot in co-op, even if I never quite got the hang of her in Randoms.

In addition, Wyoming was a godawful pain that I never want to play again but New York was just awesome for some reason.

[BrushWolf]

Just now, Ensign_Cthulhu said:

It did indeed, and I ground it out after it received all those buffs, but I was still surprised at how much I liked it.

Big surprises for me were the Russian DDs. I won a permacamo and 10pt captain for the Kiev from a Halloween event so I set out to grind up to it. Minsk was a hoot in co-op, even if I never quite got the hang of her in Randoms.

In addition, Wyoming was a godawful pain that I never want to play again but New York was just awesome for some reason.

For me it was the Emerald. Awhile back before the CV rework I had a plane mission and took it out and even with a low point captain on her she was fun to play even though she was a chore to level through.

[Versili]

Huanghe.

Was pleasantly surprised at the versitiliy that little matchbox has in operations.

 

[kyesac]

ok, one of each:

Tech Tree - I had read al;l the negative reviews about the FdG and was dreading that grind to the GK.  I finally got it and thought I would do a few battles in it just to ease the FXP cost.  Turns out, I love the ship.  It was one of my favorite T9 grinds.  It still sits in my fleet.

Premium - For some reason I like the RM navy.  So, it was a no brainer that once I got into the higher levels, that I would get the Roma.  I was expecting a really poor ship (I also have the D'Aosta and the Abruzzi.  Turns out, I enjoy the Roma.  Don't sail her as much as I want to because of DD grinds, but it will be back in action once these are done this Summer.

[Estimated_Prophet]

Emerald.

Mutsuki.

New York. (Three years after parking it, playing other battleships, then coming back to it.

Montana and GkF. (Good reps, but I’ve generally hated tier 10s, and ignored those two ships until 2019. Wound up liking them so much I wish I’d gotten them sooner.)

Krasny Kyrm.

Others.

[1meanDad]

Fiji and Edinburgh

[paradat]

Colorado

[Rollingonit]

300 games +. The Irian. I even now can have it spec'd as a torp cruiser. Is it the most effective spec, no; is it fun shooting out torps everywhere, yes.

Wasnt expecting much of anything when I purchased it years ago, always have a good time in it. 

[Helstrem]

1 hour ago, Ensign_Cthulhu said:

In addition, Wyoming was a godawful pain that I never want to play again but New York was just awesome for some reason.

Huh.  I had the exact opposite experience.  I found Wyoming to be a monster and New York to be garbage.

[Double_Doody]

2 hours ago, Rollingonit said:

300 games +. The Irian. I even now can have it spec'd as a torp cruiser. Is it the most effective spec, no; is it fun shooting out torps everywhere, yes.

Wasnt expecting much of anything when I purchased it years ago, always have a good time in it. 

Same here... I always find time to play it.

[Whiskey_Rebel]

Wichita, which showed up in a crate. At the time I was into CLs and didn't think that the longer reloads of the CAs were workable with DDs about. But since it seemed like a waste to never play a free tier 8 premium, so I gave the 203s a try. Now I'm a CA main. 

[shinytrashcan]

Seattle. On paper it only looked like a sidegrade compared to Cleveland, and unremarkable against Worcester. Somehow I ended up having a lot of fun games in her, don't know why. Guess I just had very low expectations, so every minute of dakka before the inevitable explosion was a pleasant surprise.

[SurpriseMotherTrucker]

The Redhead Step-Child Ognevoi - Always gets underestimated so I played it in Ranked and it was surprising the WR 

[KilljoyCutter]

Krasny Kyrm.

Everyone piles scorn on that ship, but at least with a good captain (AFT and BFT), it was a buzzsaw.

 

[tcbaker777]

Kansas, after you get past that 40 second reload its not that bad, 12 16" guns are 12 16" after all

[cheekywarship2018]

For me, it was the Fiji. I never really liked RN Cls particularly for there lack of HE shells and my few rounds in Randoms with here were atrocious to say the least. However, after a few rounds in Narai and Coop, Fiji taught me how to use and to respects these shells and I ended grinding out Edinburgh despite my intentions to stop grinding the line at Fiji. 

[pepe_trueno]

after the skill rework i tried couple cruisers with the anti concealment build and found the hawkins to be a fun ship, sure guns may be crappy but that troll bow  makes BB AP cry.