52,539 [MAUS] LittleWhiteMouse Members 13,795 posts Report post #1 Posted April 19, 2021 (edited) The following is a review of ZF-6, the tier IX German destroyers. This ship was kindly provided to me by Wargaming for review purposes; I did not have to grind or pay to have access to her. To the best of my knowledge, the statistics discussed in this review are current as of patch 0.10.3. Please be aware that her performance may change in the future. It's dockyard time again! How many of these have we done now? My brain fuzzes over when I try to count. After the Puerto Rico disaster, all of the subsequent dockyard events blur together. Add in the Cossack, Benham and Graf Spee grinds of yesteryear and it's too easy to confuse the two. Anyway, if you want ZF-6, short of outright paying for her, you're going to have to fork over some hard earned cash on top of the grind. This is the first destroyer on offer from the dockyard and it's a German destroyer too. I say this merely to point out that German destroyers in World of Warships do not have the best of reputations. There's a deserved stigma associated with German lolibotes (and the new 150mm armed tech-tree line is not helping). So is ZF-6 worth it? Let's look under the hood. Quick Summary: A small(ish) destroyer with a decent guns and fast, but short-ranged fish. She has access to a weird set of consumables including Main Battery Reload Booster. PROS Excellent AP shells, with good DPM and auto-ricochet angles. Improved penetration on her HE shells. Good fire angles on her guns, making it easy to maximize damage output. Wicked-fast & hard hitting torpedoes. Good surface and aerial detection ranges for a tier IX destroyer. Has access to Defensive AA Fire and Main Battery Reload Booster. Did you hear about her Main Battery Reload Booster? It's pretty important. CONS Small hit point pool for a tier IX destroyer. Anemic HE DPM and fire setting characteristics. Her torpedoes are short-ranged. Not very fast or agile. Shackled with a German Smoke Generator with its short cloud duration. No access to Hydroacoustic Search. (!) Don't worry about these flaws though, guys. She has a Main Battery Reload Booster. Did I fail to mention that she has a Main Battery Reload Booster? Yeah, I dunno what the big deal is either. I'd rather have hydro. Overview Skill Floor: Simple / Casual / CHALLENGING / DifficultSkill Ceiling: Low / Moderate / HIGH / Extreme ZF-6 isn't a ship I would recommend to novice players. Her play style is just going to get them killed. Her torpedoes are too short ranged. She's not fast. Her smoke's duration is very short. She's not very agile. And she's just stealthy enough to let you push in too deep where your friends can't help you. Add on her ammunition demands, her consumable demands and just how much better she performs if you know how to best make use of islands and smoke? Yeah, there's a pretty steep learning curve here. She's effectively a Fletcher with extra-steps. But for all of these same reasons, ZF-6 is a destroyer that will grow with you. Her concealment in particular is fun to use and abuse. The question, though, is if it's worth all of the extra effort to get the same numbers you might on another boat. Options It's easy to get lost in ZF-6 having "ALL OF THE CONSUMABLES!" only to fail to notice what's she's missing: She does not have Hydroacoustic Search as most other German destroyers do. Consumables Her Damage Control Party is standard for a destroyer. It has unlimited charges, a 40 second reset timer and a 5 second active period. Her Smoke Generator is also standard for a tier IX German destroyer, which is to say that it sucks. The duration of each individual cloud is only 73 seconds as opposed to the usual 93 seconds of tier IX Japanese and Soviet destroyers (or the 127 seconds of the Americans). So that's awful. Otherwise it's normal enough, starting with three charges, a 20 second emission time and 160 second reset timer. Her Engine Boost is totally normal: three charges to start, 8% boost to her speed, 120 second active period and a 120 second reset timer. We're going to skip slot four to talk about slot five's Defensive AA Fire. It increases continuous damage by 50% and quadruples flak explosion damage for 40 seconds. It starts with three charges and has an 80 second reset timer. and finally, let's backtrack to slot four... ZF-6 has access to a Main Battery Reload Booster. This is meant to be her main selling feature and is identical to that of the tier IX French destroyer, Mogador. It starts with four charges and cuts the reload time of her main battery guns by 50% for 15 seconds. It has a 100 second reset timer. Upgrades The short range of ZF-6's torpedoes precludes her from being a good torpedo boat, unfortunately. I mean, you can do it. But you're probably one of those nutters who enjoyed AL Yukikaze, you sick momo. Start with Main Armaments Modification 1 in slot one. You can use Magazine Modification 1 if you really hate surprises, though. The Special Upgrade, Engine Boost Modification 1 is best in slot two if you can afford it. It wi ll set you back 17,000 from the Armory. If that's not available to you, default to Engine Room Protection. For slot three, you've got a choice. None of them are bad ones, so pick the one you like best. Aiming Systems Modification 1 is easily going to the most popular so you can just turn your brain off and default to this, confident that it will help (a little) with long-range pew-pews. Torpedo Tube Modification 1 is kinda fun, in that it accelerates ZF-6's already stupid-fast torpedoes up to plaid (78.5 knots, WHOO! ♪). If you just want a quality of life boost, then Main Battery Modification 2 is fine for that extra turret traverse speed. Propulsion System Modification 1 is your best choice in slot four, giving you more acceleration from a dead stop which is helpful when island camping or hiding in smoke. To no one's surprise, Concealment System Modification 1 is still optimal in slot five. Double-yawn. ZF-6 isn't agile enough to make Steering Gears Modification 1 and 2 worthwhile for slots 4 and 5, btw. Cap this gunship's performance off with Main Battery Modification 3. Commander Skills This was the loser-build that I ended up playing with while testing ZF-6. It worked alright, but it's sloppy. I'm pretty lax with my commander builds as of late knowing there's a reset coming. It's hard to fuss over optimization knowing that some key changes are in the works.. Camouflage ZF-6 comes with two camouflage options, Type 10 Camouflage and War Paint - ZF-6. If you complete the dockyard event, you get both with the ship. They are cosmetic swap , providing identical bonuses common for tier IX premiums: -3% surface detection +4% increased dispersion of enemy shells. -20% to post-battle service costs. +100% to experience gains. You can unlock ZF-6's alternate palette for her Type 10 Camouflage by completing the first section of the "German Navy" collection. Crates for this can be purchased for 1,000 in the Armory. ZF-6's War Paint camouflage gets less fancy when you bring it into battle. Firepower Main Battery: Five 128mm guns in four turrets with a twin turret mount on the bow and three single mounts in an A-P-X-Y superfiring configuration.Torpedoes: Eight torpedo tubes in 2x4 launchers with one mounted between the funnels ahead of P-turret and the other behind the rear funnel. The Penultimate German 128mm Gun? If you buy into the hype, ZF-6 has the "best" German 128mm gun in the game right now. Compared to those found on the tech-tree destroyers, ZF-6's guns have a higher muzzle velocity and better auto-ricochet angles on her AP shells all for the cost of a slight dip in shell damage. If you're married to the idea that German destroyers should be throwing AP shells whenever possible, then yes, ZF-6's guns are the best of the 128mm bunch. I am not convinced, however -- mostly because German destroyer AP rounds are not the universal shell that we're so easily led to believe. Let's start with overpenetrations. Overpenetrations take the pop and pizzazz out of AP. Their punchy appeal is predicated upon performing properly when presented with paper-thin panelling upon most perimeter parts of the panoply of presently proffered peers. In other words: the shells won't pop if the steel won't stop. [Lert: If the fuse don't start, your damage's a fart.] This limits the functionality of AP shells when they engage soft targets. Knowing what thickness of steel is necessary to prime the fuses is key. And while angled targets do provide thicker absolute values of steel, one must keep the auto-ricochet values in mind. This creates a rather complicated series of angles where AP = very yes and others where AP = very no. All German 128mm AP shells need 21mm worth of steel in order to arm correctly, so the flat broadsides of a 19mm, tier VIII+ destroyer hull simply doesn't have enough steel present to make the shells go boom. And while good ol' Pythagoras will tell you that 19mm becomes 21mm at about 26º from the perpendicular, the complication of normalization rears its ugly head and you won't see the shells arm until 36º from the perpendicular (though this is always somewhat less to allow for the vertical angle). Against tier VII destroyers with 16mm worth of armour, you're looking at 49º from the perpendicular -- well into ricochet territory for normal 128mm AP shells. We get something that looks like this: AP penetration results for approximate engagement angles against a 19mm armoured target with German 128mm guns. A very special thanks to @mofton for showing me similar graphics earlier! ♥ Against 16mm, the margins get even worse, with normal 128mm AP shells having to contend with ricochets and ZF-6's shells losing 5º on their full penetration arc. I think it's safe to say that ZF-6's AP shells are not the best choice when fighting destroyers. Spamming HE will have you losing many DPM races, even with your vaunted Main Battery Reload Booster. Given her smaller hit point pool and lack of a Hydroacoustic Search consumable, knife fights with other destroyers is an uncomfortable. She can pull it off using her Main Battery Reload Booster as a crutch, but that's definitely outside of her comfort zone. She just doesn't have the health or the overwhelming DPM with her HE shells to be able to out-muscle same-tier (or higher-tier) destroyers. You're essentially hoping your opposite number will flinch when your consumable is active. It doesn't last long enough to decide contests. ZF-6 being a crappy lolibote hunter does not make her guns bad or even sub-par compared to other German 128mm weapons, however. Against battleships and tier VIII+ cruisers, it's a non-issue. Be the best angry smoke cloud you can be and spam that AP to your heart's content. This is where ZF-6's gunnery excels and it's super satisfying to watch hit point pools of cruisers and battleships melt when you can cycle her guns with impunity. Good AP DPM and crappy HE DPM. Pretty standard fare for a German destroyers. Do keep in mind that her lower HE DPM is compensated for by increased HE penetration. While this won't help you against other destroyers, it will increase her overall damage output against larger ships. ZF-6's AP penetration is ... well, it's not great. If you're pelting AP rounds and big-stuff, you want to do so no further than 10km or so to ensure your shells don't shatter against the 25mm/27mm/30mm/32mm of structural plate on your target. Outside of 10km, Pythagoras will tell you that your penetration values get kinda dicey and are likely to shatter. Big surprise, ZF-6's base FPM is terrible. Her Main Battery Reload Booster fixes this briefly. All the more reason to lean onto her AP shells when you can. ZF-6 has some very comfy fire arcs. Her turret traverse rate is kinda slow for a destroyer though, especially if you slap Main Battery Modification 3 on it. It starts at 10º/s but MBM3 will drop it down to 8.7º/s. This isn't enough to make her out turn her turrets, but it's less than ideal. Torpeedus I had a lot of good things I wanted to say about ZF-6's torpedoes. But I can't get past their terrible range. Whatever their strengths, that lack of reach undermines any effectiveness they have. Yes, they're very (VERY!) fast. Yes, they hit hard for a German torpedo, which is great! It's nice to see some German fish with some teeth! Their reload time is normal, so there's no extra penalty incurred for being special. But that range. Oh, that RANGE. Outside of using them to sweep smoke clouds, it was a pain in the butt to make use of ZF-6's torpedoes on the regular. After my play test games, I concluded there were really only two opportunities to make good use of them in the average game. The first, as I mentioned before, is to use them to rake through smoke clouds. This typically happens in the early portions of match in those invariable duels against other lolibotes as you contest cap circles. ZF-6's torpedoes are so fast that it's easy for an opponent to misjudge just how much room they have to manoeuvre. While they don't provide much in the way of reduced reaction time, it's that they move so quickly that your opponents may misjudge and mistime their dodges. I had a lot of success picking off destroyers in smoke -- in fact, this was the number one source of damage with my fish, which is kinda sad but kinda hilarious. The second opportunity comes in the end game, when there's a lot more room to manoeuvre and a lot less Surveillance Radar and Hydroacoustic Search being thrown about, where ZF-6 can take advantage of its low surface detection to finally bring its fish into range of juicier targets. Of course, this latter scenario is generally predicated upon carriers being distracted elsewhere or absent from the match entirely. If there are attentive aircraft present, you can generally forget ZF-6 has torpedoes outside of a suicide charge. The same goes for Surveillance Radar equipped cruisers. If they're still in the game and operating anywhere near your side of the map, then forget this ship has torpedoes. Just don't do it. VERDICT: Good AP shells and a good gunnery consumable. It's like spamming shells with a more-different duckybote. Her torpedoes are too short ranged to get used on the regular. DurabilityHit Points: 17,000Bow & stern/superstructure/upper-hull/deck: 19mm / 13mm / 19mm / 19mm ZF-6 has almost the same amount of health as a Fletcher-class destroyer. I am now going to tell you that this is a bad thing. If you don't have heals or a monster-pile of hit points, your destroyer's durability is sub-optimal. The trickle down effect here is that unless your gunship destroyer severely out-muscles her opponents in terms of damage output, this really limits their ability to go heads up in a knife fight. Similarly, not having a whole lot of health limits how often (and how long) a given destroyer can take risks like hammering a larger ship from open water without the cover of islands or smoke to protect it. This is doubly dangerous for ships like ZF-6 that aren't especially fast or agile. A smaller hit point pool acts as a lens, magnifying a destroyer's problems in other areas. For example, remember those torpedo woes we talked about? Because of ZF-6's low hit point pool, creeping in close onto an enemy battleship to use her torpedoes is all the more dangerous because if she gets lit, she's not likely to last very long. The same goes with surprise knife-fights, getting spotted by aircraft, lit by Surveillance Radar and you name it. So, low hit points = bad. Welp, we're at the stage where the vaunted Fletcher-class has been so badly powercrept their hit point totals are considered "bad". VERDICT: Crap. AgilityTop Speed: 35ktsTurning Radius: 670mRudder Shift Time: 3.9s4/4 Engine Speed Rate of Turn: 6.7º/s at 29.3kts It's ZF-6's low top speed that gets her in trouble. She's one of the slowest destroyers at her tier and indeed, within her matchmaking spread. Only Shiratsuyu, Yudachi, Akizuki, Fen Yang, Jutland are slower. 35 knots is pretty much the baseline of most high-tier destroyers so not being able to exceed that largely dooms the ship to mediocre agility unless they have some gimmick to compensate. The British (including the aforementioned Jutland) manage this with improved energy retention and ridiculous acceleration. Others, like Mahan, have very tight turning circles, making them feel more agile than their slow speed would otherwise suggest. But not ZF-6. While her turning radius isn't terrible for a German destroyer, it's certainly not "good". Her rate of turn sits in the doldrums at her tier being among the worst present. The only reason ZF-6 doesn't look worse is that her turning radius is average. VERDICT: ZF-6 isn't Soviet rancid-mayonnaise-bad here, but her speed and agility are both pretty lame. Imagine having just enough speed to get into trouble but not having enough to get out. That's common for most destroyers, frankly, unless you can exceed 37 knots. Anti-Aircraft DefenceFlak Bursts: 2 + 1 explosions for 1,540 damage per blast at 3.5km to 6km.Long Ranged (up to 6km): 52.5dps at 100% accuracyMedium Ranged (up to 4km): 70dps at 100% accuracyShort Ranged (up to 2.0km): 115.5dps at 95% accuracy (109.7dps) ZF-6 is advertised by Wargaming as having "powerful AA defenses". Yeah, no. Her AA power is good for a tier IX destroyer. That's factual. But "powerful?" Her sustained AA DPS is comparable to Fletcher. If you consider Fletcher's sustained AA DPS to be "powerful" then sure, ZF-6 is just a small step down. Personally, I consider Fletcher's sustained AA DPS to be "okay" and verging upon "slightly annoying to contend with if I'm playing my CV like an idiot". I only consider Östergötland and Friesland of having "powerful" examples of AA at this tier. ZF-6 can't shred planes the way Friesland does. ZF-6 will get dropped on and she cannot stave off repeated air attacks. Your best defences are not to be made a target in the first place. Use smoke, Just Dodge™ and hope for the best. The good news is that ZF-6's aerial detection is wonderfully small, so you have that going for you. Keep her AA off and they need to get in close in order to find you. Yes, ZF-6 can put some hurt on planes that loiter but it would be a mistake to think that she can prevent a strike, especially when tier X planes get involved. As with most destroyers, you're hoping for the CV player to be inexperienced or to make mistakes. Protecting yourself is kind of a pipe dream unless they're already running out of planes... or you're playing Co-Op. CVs in Co-Op are a bit of a joke. I have these sorted in my usual way, using the formula ( Sustained AA DPS x [ range - 1km] ). It's not perfect but it does give a sense of who has the better base AA DPS values. That's why Z-44's chunky DPS rates lower than Jutland's, for example -- Jutland will keep enemy aircraft under fire for longer, even if the raw damage her guns can put out is overall less when aircraft are in optimum range. VERDICT: Keep your AA off until you absolutely need it and Just Dodge™. Or go play co-op where enemy aircraft are XP piñatas cuz they don't dodge flak. Vision ControlBase/Minimum Surface Detection: 7.42km / 5.83kmBase/Minimum Air Detection Range: 3.2km / 2.59kmDetection Range When Firing in Smoke: 2.79kmMaximum Firing Range: From 11.86km to 13.76km I make a lot of lists. Here's a helpful one listing all of the destroyers within ZF-6's matchmaking, ranking them by how low they can potentially get their surface detection range. Her 25th position may look alright, but context matters (for those wondering, ties are 'broken' by tier first and then the order in which nations were released into the game with tech-tree ships having precedence over premiums and reward ships) . Tier VIII is a tough competition with ZF-6 being on par to most of her competitors (100m difference is nothing).. She out-performs most of the VIIs barring Haida and she's reasonably comfortable against most of the tier IXs and Xs. ZF-6's concealment is pretty damn good and, in my opinion, this saves this ship from ignominy. Her guns are decent. Between their auto-ricochet angles and Main Battery Reload Booster, they're more than alright. Her torpedoes are painfully short ranged. You can't really play with those when there's radar lurking about but towards end game? Sure, they're more than workable and their high-speed a nightmare for any surviving battleships. Her agility and speed are both disappointing. Her health is bad for a tier IX destroyer and her AA power is over-hyped. But with stealth, with good concealment, ZF-6 allows for some damn fun shenanigans, especially if you can survive until the latter half of a match. Oh, but if she only had Hydroacoustic Search, she could be the total package -- good early in the game as well as late. As it is, short of sniffing things out with her face, she has no special tools to help her suss out enemy lolibotes when smoke or island cover comes into play and that's a shame. Still, she is small enough to out-spot some of her competitors. To this end, knowing which ships you can comfortably spot while keeping hidden really ups her game. This game play is very reminiscent of that of Fletcher, so those with experience there should be reasonably comfortable with how ZF-6 performs in this regard. If you can afford the points for Radio Location, it will help immeasurably in this regard. Keep a close eye on those team lists. One thing to keep in mind here is that Fearless Brawler will soon be losing its associated concealment penalty and will become a must-have for any and all gunship destroyers that can afford it. Taking it now worsens ZF-6's maximum concealment from 5.83km to 6.12km which is a pretty sizable leap (dropping her to 44th place on the graphic above). That's a pretty hard compromise on one of her best features, so it's a bit of a hard sell at the moment. If ZF-6 had more health or more speed (the latter to help avoid incoming fire), open water firing would be easier to endorse. But as it stands, I'd hold off. VERDICT: Redemption. Final Evaluation "Fletcher with extra steps". That's how ZF-6 feels to me. And the comparison is horribly clumsy, I know. Fletcher doesn't have a Main Battery Reload Booster. She doesn't have improved AP performance, or high-penetration HE. Fletcher's torpedoes are long ranged. Fletcher doesn't scooch about like a dog dragging it's butt on the carpet either. ZF-6 has a lot going for her that Fletcher doesn't, however Fletcher feels more "whole" and "put together" than ZF-6. Her consumables feel like duct-tape keeping the concept from falling apart. I dunno, maybe it's just me. Is ZF-6 any good? Well, she's not awful. Playing against her, I'm certainly going to respect those torpedoes and her Main Battery Reload Booster if I'm in close. But she's not a destroyer I fear to face. Seeing a Kitakaze on the enemy team? Yeah, I sit up and take notice. The same goes for a Fletcher, Jutland or Mogador. I can't say the same for ZF-6. This isn't a ship I'd balk at, I'm happy taking a swipe at in my tier VII Haida, to give you an idea, while I wouldn't contest a duckybote. I think that says a lot right there. Mouse out. Edited April 24, 2021 by LittleWhiteMouse 41 32 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
2,790 SilverPhatShips Members 4,644 posts 24,366 battles Report post #2 Posted April 19, 2021 Thanks again been waiting for a good review of it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
223 [-NEM-] hanesco Members 1,114 posts 13,530 battles Report post #3 Posted April 19, 2021 Thank you for your work Mouse. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
71 Rub_My_Cit_BB Members 307 posts 17,273 battles Report post #4 Posted April 19, 2021 Great breakdown! I got her last night and only have 2 games in, but i'm loving it already. Gunning down a Minotaur with AP reload booster is definitely a rush! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
39,481 [HINON] Lert Alpha Tester 27,858 posts 27,302 battles Report post #5 Posted April 19, 2021 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
1,402 [WOLFC] GRIMLOCK__ Members 2,809 posts Report post #6 Posted April 19, 2021 So a cruiser hunter but not a Yolo cruiser hunter. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
4,427 [WKY19] Zaydin Beta Testers 2,752 posts 19,997 battles Report post #7 Posted April 19, 2021 I see a LWM review, I upvote it. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
26,187 [ARGSY] Ensign_Cthulhu Members 32,115 posts 31,749 battles Report post #8 Posted April 19, 2021 A German destroyer having no hydro is only a tragedy because everyone's grown accustomed to German destroyers having hydro. American, French and Japanese destroyers also do not have hydro (though IIRC Harekaze 2 is going to change that situation for the IJN when she eventually gets here). And yes, I certainly wish for it in my Fletcher... but I can't bemoan the loss of something I never had to begin with. As far as ZF- 6 is concerned, though... 1 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
78 [FEM] Lexmechanic_ [FEM] Members 109 posts 195 battles Report post #9 Posted April 19, 2021 As always, thank you, Miss Mouse, for the in-depth review Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
3,890 [-K--] vak_ Beta Testers, In AlfaTesters 8,179 posts 10,923 battles Report post #10 Posted April 19, 2021 Thanks for the review! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
1,991 [CO-OP] HamptonRoads Members 5,462 posts 45,697 battles Report post #11 Posted April 19, 2021 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
1,156 [TSF] Litigo_1970 Members 969 posts 22,875 battles Report post #12 Posted April 19, 2021 (edited) 2 hours ago, LittleWhiteMouse said: Their punchy appeal is predicated upon performing properly when presented with paper-thin panelling upon most perimeter parts of the panoply of presently proffered peers Alliteration at its finest. Well done Mouse! Edited April 19, 2021 by Litigo_1970 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
2,004 [-THG-] Karstodes Members 2,937 posts 8,374 battles Report post #13 Posted April 19, 2021 2 hours ago, LittleWhiteMouse said: But you're probably one of those nutters who enjoyed AL Yukikaze, you sick momo. Hai domo! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
202 [LSNB] dagger1013 Members 309 posts 10,455 battles Report post #14 Posted April 19, 2021 (edited) As a French DD player I'm quite used to trying to catch enemy DDs with no vision tools of my own, so no hydro is nothing significant for me. Though out of interest, I wonder which you would have preferred, hydro at the cost of smoke, or the current version? Imo giving it hydro on top of the tools it has now would make it a tad overpowered. Quite frankly I just feel you're undervaluing the combination of the MBRB and the good concealment. ZF-6 quite comfortably outguns all the DDs with similar or lower concealment, minus Vampire II and Småland with its stealth radar, boasting the 3rd highest HE DPM of T9 DDs. Not to mention, if the enemy DDs tries to turn and kite you can get probably 4 or 5 salvos of fusing AP in, 2 as they turn out and go broadside, then 2 more as they angle out to run. Edited April 19, 2021 by dagger1013 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
4,053 [SYN] MrDeaf Members 16,027 posts 12,803 battles Report post #15 Posted April 19, 2021 There's probably like 100 players in total that can actually play this ship and enjoy it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
1,018 Rouxi Members 2,134 posts 14,841 battles Report post #16 Posted April 19, 2021 2 minutes ago, MrDeaf said: There's probably like 100 players in total that can actually play this ship and enjoy it. This ship isn't that niche. I think you're being overly hard on it. It has competitive firer power and concealment, just those two alone put it ahead of some other DD. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
1,402 [WOLFC] GRIMLOCK__ Members 2,809 posts Report post #17 Posted April 19, 2021 59 minutes ago, MrDeaf said: There's probably like 100 players in total that can actually play this ship and enjoy it. What this "enjoy" you speak of? I thought most gameplay was a series of "AUGH my stupid teammates" moments, coupled with an occassional "oh crud, that was a dumb move I made" with the very occasional "Today I was a GAWD/GAWDESS!!" experience. i.e. a lot like dating 1 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
50 [SALV0] CankedTank [SALV0] Beta Testers 174 posts 10,410 battles Report post #18 Posted April 19, 2021 2 hours ago, Rouxi said: This ship isn't that niche. I think you're being overly hard on it. It has competitive firer power and concealment, just those two alone put it ahead of some other DD. I'm not so sure about the firepower front. It has the shortest torpedo range at its tier outside of Yolo Emilio (it shares this distinction with the Tashkent and the Mogador.) That's not good. And the HE is good for farming but bad for dealing decisive damage against enemy DDs, and German AP is finicky as always. Working with german AP angles on destroyers is an enormous PITA / exercise in frustration against other destroyers. So this thing farms well against enemy cruisers and battleships, except you can do that better with either of the Soviet DDs, the French DDs, or the Fletcher even. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
17,954 [WOLF5] HazeGrayUnderway Members 39,301 posts 31,553 battles Report post #19 Posted April 19, 2021 (edited) Outside 1-2 premiums, German DDs have been some strange, mediocre ships. ZF-6 and this new split seem to continue this tradition. They try to sell you on some gimmicks here and there, but in the end, like German Engineering, it's more complicated than it needs to be. Edited April 19, 2021 by HazeGrayUnderway 1 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
6,776 [SIM] SkaerKrow Members 6,307 posts 10,286 battles Report post #20 Posted April 20, 2021 Thanks for the excellent review, Mouse. This is the second time that I’m skipping a dockyard event, and after reading this I’m pretty comfortable with that decision. What I’m seeing here is giving me the impression that this ship is essentially a slightly better Z-35, and Z-35 is the worst ship that I’ve ever played, so... 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
251 [CAAT] Stjernestov Members 304 posts 13,655 battles Report post #21 Posted April 20, 2021 Oh Miss Mouse, I can't thank you enough. I read all the review and notice the ZF-6 being a "meh bote" like you used to say, and more important, you help me decide which is a good tier IX destroyer to have, Friesland! Im so gratefull with you @LittleWhiteMouse because I don't have too many time to play and you spare me 38.150 doubloons! You re the best World of Warhsips reviewer, really, many thanks and stay well and safe PS: Sorry if my english is weird 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
283 [B_Y_F] sapient007 Members 862 posts 19,960 battles Report post #22 Posted April 20, 2021 Thanks for the review LWM. Always enjoy those valuable details. Base on what I experience playing against them in game. This ship do not feels weak in rank. Consider the fact that T9 is a Jurassic Park for DD, this really speak a lot. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
296 [MI8] MichaelJakaSwifty Members 941 posts 24,055 battles Report post #23 Posted April 20, 2021 Great review as always. Thank you, LWM! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
471 [PHD] GrayPanther2018 Members 2,249 posts 10,152 battles Report post #24 Posted April 20, 2021 21 hours ago, Ensign_Cthulhu said: American, French and Japanese destroyers also do not have hydro (though IIRC Harekaze 2 is going to change that situation for the IJN when she eventually gets here). Harekaze 2 ???!!!? Is there a WG attempt to make up for the Yuduchi and the removal of the Asashio! Is salvation of IJN torp boats nigh? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
471 [PHD] GrayPanther2018 Members 2,249 posts 10,152 battles Report post #25 Posted April 20, 2021 Thanks Mouse for a great review! A DD review is a nice break from WG BB ship spam. The list of DD concealments is great! Got to see if I can print it. Oh and the alliteration,! Thanks!!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites