Drake: Range Mod or Reload+Spotter?

[shinytrashcan]

OK, I finally finished the torturous grind that was Albermarle and made it to Drake. Safe to say, it is a bit of an upgrade.

I do struggle a bit with the setup though, this is currently mine:

Spoiler

I have 3pts left on that captain, so I have a bit of flexibility. GTG was more a holdover from the grind to compensate for the very sluggish turrets of some of the boats.

Now, my issue is with the long reload of the main guns. They do hit hard and start good fires, but 18s reload is painful. So I thought I might go with the reload mod instead, while compensating the lack of range with the spotter plane and Eye in the Sky.

However, given that Goliath has no spotter apparently, this would require me to either retrain the captain or train up another one for Goliath eventually. Of course, I could just go reload instead without EITS but 15.9km range seems just a bit too litlle as I find most targets are in the range from 17km to 14km nowadays. Closer and you become the priority target by virtue of being the closest one (not really happy about it, but it is how it is).

Any thoughts on this?

 

 

[Drifter_X]

59 minutes ago, shinytrashcan said:

OK, I finally finished the torturous grind that was Albermarle and made it to Drake. Safe to say, it is a bit of an upgrade.

I do struggle a bit with the setup though, this is currently mine:

  Reveal hidden contents

I have 3pts left on that captain, so I have a bit of flexibility. GTG was more a holdover from the grind to compensate for the very sluggish turrets of some of the boats.

Now, my issue is with the long reload of the main guns. They do hit hard and start good fires, but 18s reload is painful. So I thought I might go with the reload mod instead, while compensating the lack of range with the spotter plane and Eye in the Sky.

However, given that Goliath has no spotter apparently, this would require me to either retrain the captain or train up another one for Goliath eventually. Of course, I could just go reload instead without EITS but 15.9km range seems just a bit too litlle as I find most targets are in the range from 17km to 14km nowadays. Closer and you become the priority target by virtue of being the closest one (not really happy about it, but it is how it is).

Any thoughts on this?

 

 

I had fun  grinding it myself. I Went with range. If you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar at close range you are dead. If you are going for Goliath then regular spotter is fine.

[Almedius]

I settled on the range mod after going back and forth(and wasting a lot of dubs)...I was just missing out on too many opportunities without it...The reload is pretty brutal though...It's especially annoying to try and reload AP for broadsiding targets...only to just miss out...I would have loved to have access to improved expert loader but /shrug it is what it is...For ranked / small scale pvp especially I could see reload with spotter plane build working better...My play was almost exclusively in randoms though...and I didn't want to respec for Goliath as well...

[Mizzerys_Fate]

Range.

I tanked over 4 mil in a ranked season 10 game while kiting and killing a mushi.

[shinytrashcan]

Well, I went with Range for now and it works well enough.

Reload is still bugging me, but especially considering that Goliath has no spotter and I'll have to go range with that anyway I guess I'll stick to range. Thanks to all for the input.

[Cicero__]

-Range. Because of the long reload, you aren't a DPM ship. It's not like a Des Moines where you need that DPM to kill DDs and to fight other cruisers. Range is much more useful. And run spotter. Why would you ever run fighter, the most useless consumable in the game?

[Almedius]

2 hours ago, Quantumphysics333 said:

-Range. Because of the long reload, you aren't a DPM ship. It's not like a Des Moines where you need that DPM to kill DDs and to fight other cruisers. Range is much more useful. And run spotter. Why would you ever run fighter, the most useless consumable in the game?

Nobody was advocating using the fighter instead of the spotter...It was a question of using eye in the sky and the coal Mod for the spotter plane build...Unfortunately Goliath doesn't get the option to do so anyway...Fortunately it does get 3 more guns to make up for the long reload...

[Chozo_Elder]

This question has been on my mind for a while. I haven't been finding Albemarle that difficult when bottom tiered. I've tried eye in the sky on other cruisers and I've found it really useful to have it come back so quickly, so my next two points will go there. I don't intend to go up to Goliath because T9 matchmaking is so comfortable. I'm also a weeb who likes her in Azur Lane. The thing on my mind is that Drake doesn't get the same belt armor that Albemarle has, which I've used a lot to bait out shots. So idk how comfortable Drake will be by taking the reload mod over range. I think I'll just have to get it and play a few games to see if I prefer the range.

[Skpstr]

21 hours ago, shinytrashcan said:

Well, I went with Range for now and it works well enough.

Reload is still bugging me, but especially considering that Goliath has no spotter and I'll have to go range with that anyway I guess I'll stick to range. Thanks to all for the input.

I know I tried it both ways with Hindenburg, and found that the spotter was only available half the time I wanted it, so stuck with range.

Mind you, you are looking at almost double the reload time......

[epojokke]

I went reload on the Goliath and I have had many good games in clan battles.

[Abbye]

On 7/3/2021 at 5:52 PM, shinytrashcan said:

Now, my issue is with the long reload of the main guns. They do hit hard and start good fires, but 18s reload is painful. So I thought I might go with the reload mod instead, while compensating the lack of range with the spotter plane and Eye in the Sky.

Eye in the Sky was very useful for my grind, I recommend it.  You are correct it won't be used on Goliath, however WG announced another free respec was due this year.  I'd use EitS and just deal with it until free respec

Abbye