Why Mainz?

[jags_domain]

6 sec reload. IFHE for free. Almost 18 km range. 32 knots.

The ones I have seen are hard to deal with.

Prince Eugen seems to be more popular are its arguable not nearly as powerful.

Why is Mainz unpopular?

[El2aZeR]

According to maplesyrup Mainz has had 1013 players last week while Prinz Eugen had 648 on NA. On SEA it is 1557 vs 528 while on EU the numbers are 1956 vs 1080.

So yeah, no idea what you're talking about. Mainz won't win any popularity awards compared to something like Thunderer (3049 on NA last week) but there are plenty of premiums that are less popular too.

[Lord_Slayer]

18 minutes ago, jags_domain said:

6 sec reload. IFHE for free. Almost 18 km range. 32 knots.

The ones I have seen are hard to deal with.

Prince Eugen seems to be more popular are its arguable not nearly as powerful.

Why is Mainz unpopular?

its kind of a German Atlanta.

Its also squishy like Atlanta and thus capable of being deleted quickly.

[PotatoMD]

8 minutes ago, El2aZeR said:

According to maplesyrup Mainz has had 1013 players last week while Prinz Eugen had 648 on NA. On SEA it is 1557 vs 528 while on EU the numbers are 1956 vs 1080.

I get a feeling they used the total games played as a metric. 

Which is ridiculous considering how much longer Eugen has been out

[Mego_Splat]

I agree its a good ship.

When it came out a lotta reviews were "meh" maybe that slowed sales.

[Taylor3006]

Been having a real hard time deciding what to spend the last of my doubloons on. I have around 12k of them and will probably never replenish them ever. I love cruisers and cruiser play and the three I am missing (and want) are Mainz, Pyotr Bagration, and Ochakov.  I keep leaning towards Mainz but just as I am going to blow my coupon and buy the ship, I back out. Probably the hardest ship buying choice I have had to make in the game since I started playing. 

[jags_domain]

14 minutes ago, Taylor3006 said:

Been having a real hard time deciding what to spend the last of my doubloons on. I have around 12k of them and will probably never replenish them ever. I love cruisers and cruiser play and the three I am missing (and want) are Mainz, Pyotr Bagration, and Ochakov.  I keep leaning towards Mainz but just as I am going to blow my coupon and buy the ship, I back out. Probably the hardest ship buying choice I have had to make in the game since I started playing. 

Agreed. I have 1 ship left in my stash and not adding to it.

Always liked Prince maybe historical reasons, but I have Hipper. Manze in annoying and hard to fight so seems like a solid pick, but I have other fast firing HE spammers.

Florida seemed interesting because it is different.

[Freecloud]

1 hour ago, Lord_Slayer said:

its kind of a German Atlanta.

Its also squishy like Atlanta and thus capable of being deleted quickly.

Yeah.  You have to be aware of your surroundings when you play Mainz.  She can be easily deleted if she goes broadside to an eager battleship.  Even taking a line of torpedoes is pretty crippling to her.

[HazeGrayUnderway]

EU Server stats week of 06-26-2021.

Why EU?  It's one of the larger servers out there for the game, so both will see more action than they do here on NA.  If something is played more, then you can trust the stats more compared to ships that almost nobody plays.  This is going to be an easy contrast because both PE and Mainz are Premium Ships.

Players / Battles Played / WR% / XP Avg / Dmg Avg

Prinz Eugen

1080 / 2700 / 51% / 1393 / 38.8k

Mainz

1956 / 5849 / 50% / 1493 / 46.9k

 

Mainz is more popular, sees more action.  WR% between the two are both good and close to each other.  XP & Damage Averages favor Mainz.  Before I get further, here are Fitting Tool links for Tech Tree Admiral Hipper (Prinz's sister ship), Prinz Eugen, and Mainz.

Prinz Eugen is a historical ship of the Admiral Hipper-class and a WWII survivor who met her fate as a target in the atomic bomb tests in Operation Crossroads.  Mainz is a paper ship that is based on the Hipper-class hull, just stuffed with 150mm guns instead of 203mm.

 

While Prinz Eugen looks exactly like her tech tree sister Admiral Hipper, Hipper has better agility and gun handling, but Prinz has Repair Party.  RP access is her most precious thing compared to Hipper and Mainz, between the 3 ships, it's exclusive to her.  RP access for a Cruiser below Tier IX is a big deal because it's uncommon.  Repair Party access for Cruisers is not standard until Tier IX, so any Cruiser that has it at VIII and below has a nice luxury that her same tier peers may not have.

 

High Tier German & American Heavy Cruisers have the perk of a 27mm bow.  This is significant when you're dealing with Battleships armed with 381mm or smaller main batteries because their AP shells can be face tanked with the bow.  However, 406mm and larger AP shells will Overmatch.  It's a nice perk for Prinz Eugen to have when the situation arises getting into a 1-on-1 with a 15" or so armed Battleship.  Couple that with Repair Party access, Prinz can face tank quite a good while and be annoying a.f. to deal with.  While Mainz looks like she has a Hipper-class hull, she does not have the 27mm extremities, because she's a CL, thanks to WG's armor standardization for tiers and CLs / CAs.

 

In terms of handling, Mains is a bit better.

Same 32kt speed.

Mainz has better turning circle radius by a narrow margin: 720m vs 770m.

Main has a very slightly better rudder shift:  10.5 seconds vs 10.9.

 

Concealment, Prinz Eugen is actually slightly sneakier, 14.4km surface detection with camo only, while Mainz is 14.8km.  However, poor concealment is a common characteristic for most German Cruisers.

 

Both ships are armed to the teeth with 6km torpedoes but Mainz has more of them.  Mainz has a 4x4 torpedo setup, 2 launchers on both sides with 4 fish each launcher.  Prinz is a 4x3 setup.  It's also funny that Prinz has a 68 seconds reload for her torps, Mainz has 90 seconds.  If you're a BB and either of these two ships come around the corner in short range, and you can't put them down quickly, you're in trouble.  You're going to eat a lot of damage from torpedoes. 

 

Both Prinz & Mainz have access to the same awesome German Hydro, so in an island environment, they're also going to have that advantage going for them.  German Hydro = Best Hydro in the game, without a doubt.  6km ship detection, 4km torpedo detection.  The combination of German Hydro, plenty of torpedoes, and armor system built for close range combat, this makes the High Tier German Cruisers dangerous in short range fights, especially in an island infested situation.

 

MAIN BATTERY.  This is where the true heart of differences lie between the two ships.  One is a CL geared for steady damage output, the other is a slower firing CA.  The truth of this comes out in Mainz dealing better Damage Average than Prinz Eugen, despite Prinz having Repair Party to hang around games longer and having 50mm HE Pen due to her larger guns.  Mainz still does better damage.  Both ships have the same 17.5km max gun range, neither have Spotting Aircraft access.

Prinz Eugen

203mm 4x2 arrangement.

13 seconds reload (slightly faster than the 15 seconds that is typical for 8" guns).

51mm HE Pen (still a very important armor threshold to farm).

The reload and 8 guns only holds Prinz back from doing more damage like Mainz does.

 

Mainz

150mm 4x3 arrangement.

6 seconds reload (very handy, especially when trying to nail fast, small targets like DDs).

38mm HE Pen (you can farm US Battleships.  Considering we are on NA server where US ships are real popular, this is nice).

12 of those nice German 150mm guns firing 38mm HE Pen shells, on a 6 seconds reload is why Mainz does good damage.  This is why people are sold on Mainz.

 

However, Prinz does have one ace over Mainz.  Prinz Eugen is a Heavy Cruiser, armed with bigger 203mm guns.  High Tier German 203mm AP shells have respectable penetration.  This means Prinz can see broadsides of other Cruisers and try to nail them with AP shells, getting Citadel hits.  Unless Mainz is super close to another Cruiser, she can only resort to steady HE spam.  Spike damage with AP in the right situation is something Prinz Eugen will do better.

 

Prinz Eugen's shells are also larger, heavier, retain better shell flight characteristics as the range increases.

 

Artillery Chart below with the AP shell flight characteristics for both ships:

I added same tier peers Baltimore (CA) and Cleveland (CL) to act as a contrast.

 

Camo.  As Premium Ships, both come standard with Perma-Camo.  Mainz's Perma-Camo stats are typical for such things in Tier VIII but Prinz Eugen's has an unusually better set of bonus on them, as you'll see below.

Mainz

Prinz Eugen

 

Also, I'm not sure if it holds true to day for someone getting Prinz Eugen now, but when I bought her when she first came out, she had the option of the Adler Perma-Camo that had a better bonus.  The Adler camo is a separate purchase.

The difference from Adler Perma-Camo to Prinz's stock one is the +10% credit bonus.

[tfcas119]

Could be that 

1: her initial testing phases until near the end she was fairly meh to not very good

2: Prinz Eugen already existed, so those who have Eugen may not of had a need for another premium T8 German cruiser.

3: Eugen’s default has a bonus for commander XP, and she also has access to an Adler camo providing extra credits, so she makes slightly more credits or Commander XP, the latter being fairly valuable now a days

4: she is basically Hipper with 6in guns, and Hipper/Eugen are not considered among the best T8 cruisers, as they probably fall toward the bottom half, so people may of Perceived her as a fairly meh T8 cruiser with a turret swap 

[tfcas119]

3 minutes ago, HazeGrayUnderway said:

Prinz Eugen has more of them.  Mainz has a 4x3 torpedo setup, 2 launchers on both sides with 3 fish each launcher.  Prinz is a 4x4 setup

Other way around. Mainz has 4x4, Eugen 4x3

[HazeGrayUnderway]

28 minutes ago, tfcas119 said:

Other way around. Mainz has 4x4, Eugen 4x3

Correct, I'll have to edit it.

[missile742]

i have both and tend to play Prinz more often, mainly due to more comfortable gunnery.  Mainz shells lose so much velocity they practically float down at max range.  Not saying Prinz is better, i just dont play Mainz enough to be used to her gun handling

[Delicious_Flat_Chest]

Could be because most people don't really pay attention sometimes to what ship is out or there's little hype or talk about the ship from CCs. But Mainz is disgusting and basically OP in the right hands. I'm averaging 92k damage in it so far in 22 games which isn't too many, but I'm sure with a division with smoke you can get 100k average or the high 90s easily. It's basically lidl hindenburg at t8.

[Zaydin]

Eugen is sturdier which probably factors into it. She has a heal, too, which helps Eugen stick around longer in a fight whereas Mainz does not. Mainz can do a lot of damage if you know what you are doing but the lack of a heal plus her weaker armor versus Eugen and she is much easier to delete.

[HazeGrayUnderway]

5 minutes ago, ThiccLoliThighs said:

Could be because most people don't really pay attention sometimes to what ship is out or there's little hype or talk about the ship from CCs. But Mainz is disgusting and basically OP in the right hands. I'm averaging 92k damage in it so far in 22 games which isn't too many, but I'm sure with a division with smoke you can get 100k average or the high 90s easily. It's basically lidl hindenburg at t8.

There was a lot of hesitation at first when she came out because of a drudge of mediocre German Premiums before.  She was the first good one in a long time.  Even Prinz Eugen was altered a lot.  Both Hipper and Prinz Eugen when Eugen first came out, were different from what they are today, and more "normal."  They didn't even have the 27mm extremities.  Prinz was basically a Premium Hipper and didn't even have the Repair Party she has today.  WG buffed Prinz quite a bit on the down low in the time between her initial release and Mainz coming out.