Destroyer's Make or Break Games. It Needs to Stop.

[SylarN7]

I'll say it plainly: Destroyers have become too damned powerful. If you are a DD captain and take umbrage to that statement, bear with me.

What I am mostly referring to are mid to high tier DD's. Let's take a look at the aspects of the Destroyer class in general:

1. They have the (or at least some of the) hardest hitting weapons in the game with torpedoes. Honestly, this one feature about DD's I agree with...they're supposed to be glass cannons.
2. They have the (or very nearly) the fastest firing main battery guns in the game, and at high tiers can reach out 11, 12, 13km with no problem. These guns set FAR too many fires for the low caliber that they have.
3. They are the fastest ships in the game. Add in point number 2, and getting away from them is a nightmare. There isn't a single recorded case of a Destroyer sinking a Battleship in World War 2 (which this game is mostly based on), yet in this game Destroyers are openly firing on and chasing down Battleships. Really??
4. They have the best concealment in the game. If you're playing in anything but a DD, they have seen you long before you see them. Again, this comes with the territory as it's perfectly reasonable for glass cannons to be stealthy (within reason...the Kamikaze for example is ridiculously broken in this regard)
5. They have no citadels, and rarely take anything more than a few thousand damage from the larger caliber main battery guns of their Cruiser and Battleship counterparts. I completely agree with AP doing a minimal amount of damage...after all it would pierce through one side of the ship and go right through the other without actually exploding. However, when 15" or 16" HIGH EXPLOSIVE shell hits a Destroyer, you better believe that thing would be DEVASTATED. Yet in World of Warships it does a few thousand damage, if you're lucky. This, my friends, is horse crap.
6. In keeping with the glass cannon trend, they should have the lowest HP of all ships in the game, and they do. However, some DD's at higher tiers have a VERY healthy amount of HP (Elbing, Harugumo, Paolo Emilio, Ragnar, etc). Take into account the no citadel and the amount of overpens they get, and these glass cannons are actually much more hearty than they seem.
7. Building from 6, they have the fastest repairs in the game. Knock out their rudder? Repaired. Set them on fire? Repaired. Take out their engine? Repaired. Get a nice salvo that knocks out their torpedoes, rudder, AND engine?! Repaired.
8. As someone who tried to play the entire afternoon in subs to give them a try, DD's are the literal perfect counter for them. Destroyers eat submarines alive! I agree with many of the DD captains that they should be able to control themselves how their Depth Charges fire (at least control to some extent), but even on top of that DD's are nearly impossible to escape as a sub!

Now, if ships had a few of those above points, that's fine...there should be diversity in the game, even among classes of ships. My gripe is that destroyers have ALL of those, and they need to be reeled in! Period! High tier games are won or lost based on the performance of the destroyers, especially when there's four or five of them per team. That ALONE should warrant a closer look at their balancing IMO.

From my point of view, DD's simply have too much going for them. They need to be heavily reeled in, and I have a few suggestions how (I imagine this where some DD captains will want me keel-hauled)

1. The HIGHEST fire chance of any DD in the game should max out at 5%, while most should be in the range of 3 or 4%.
2. Impacts from High Explosive main battery guns need to cause SIGNIFICANTLY more damage than they currently do. I understand it wouldn't be much fun if a destroyer gets taken out by 2 or 3 shells from a BB, however they should take more damage than they currently do. 
3. The damage control needs to have a longer cooldown than it does. Being able to repair so quickly gives DD captains confidence to stay in dangerous areas for longer periods of time, doing more damage before retreating.

This is where I'm at. From where I'm sitting, there is one class of ship in this game that is head and shoulders more powerful and significant than all the other classes in the game...Destroyers. I encourage other points of view, and I welcome DD captains to try to change my mind. Feel free to offer counter-points or straight up disagree with me...I just ask to do so respectfully.

[desmo_2]

When I saw your post title, I immediately made an assumption..."low battle count". 

Confirmed.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not blasting you for it.  But, "DD too stronk!" is a common complaint from new players, especially if they are heavy BB players.  Once you learn how to not be an easy target for destroyers, you realize they aren't as OP as you once thought.  Expand your experience, get better at understanding the game mechanics, and you will realize that even as a battleship main, destroyers aren't as OP as you currently think.

Do you think I'm wrong?  Then I offer you this challenge...play destroyers for a while.  See if you rack up easy kills and carry wins.  I'm betting you won't.  Destroyers are capable of great things, but it takes an uncommonly good player to do it.  The typical destroyer player is sunk within 5 minutes.

*edit - Just to clarify, I am not a DD main.  If I were to categorize what I play, it would be pretty close mix of destroyers/cruisers/battleships.

[CoinsForCats]

DD mafia inbound. They'll sort you out.

[Wombatmetal]

Just now, TacoBellDog said:

DD mafia inbound. They'll sort you out.

Nah; low battle count, he'll learn on his own. 

[Murotsu]

Why?  (From a cruiser driver)

[Navalpride33]

17 minutes ago, SylarN7 said:

I'll say it plainly: Destroyers have become too damned powerful. If you are a DD captain and take umbrage to that statement, bear with me.

What I am mostly referring to are mid to high tier DD's. Let's take a look at the aspects of the Destroyer class in general:

1. They have the (or at least some of the) hardest hitting weapons in the game with torpedoes. Honestly, this one feature about DD's I agree with...they're supposed to be glass cannons.
2. They have the (or very nearly) the fastest firing main battery guns in the game, and at high tiers can reach out 11, 12, 13km with no problem. These guns set FAR too many fires for the low caliber that they have.
3. They are the fastest ships in the game. Add in point number 2, and getting away from them is a nightmare. There isn't a single recorded case of a Destroyer sinking a Battleship in World War 2 (which this game is mostly based on), yet in this game Destroyers are openly firing on and chasing down Battleships. Really??
4. They have the best concealment in the game. If you're playing in anything but a DD, they have seen you long before you see them. Again, this comes with the territory as it's perfectly reasonable for glass cannons to be stealthy (within reason...the Kamikaze for example is ridiculously broken in this regard)
5. They have no citadels, and rarely take anything more than a few thousand damage from the larger caliber main battery guns of their Cruiser and Battleship counterparts. I completely agree with AP doing a minimal amount of damage...after all it would pierce through one side of the ship and go right through the other without actually exploding. However, when 15" or 16" HIGH EXPLOSIVE shell hits a Destroyer, you better believe that thing would be DEVASTATED. Yet in World of Warships it does a few thousand damage, if you're lucky. This, my friends, is horse crap.
6. In keeping with the glass cannon trend, they should have the lowest HP of all ships in the game, and they do. However, some DD's at higher tiers have a VERY healthy amount of HP (Elbing, Harugumo, Paolo Emilio, Ragnar, etc). Take into account the no citadel and the amount of overpens they get, and these glass cannons are actually much more hearty than they seem.
7. Building from 6, they have the fastest repairs in the game. Knock out their rudder? Repaired. Set them on fire? Repaired. Take out their engine? Repaired. Get a nice salvo that knocks out their torpedoes, rudder, AND engine?! Repaired.
8. As someone who tried to play the entire afternoon in subs to give them a try, DD's are the literal perfect counter for them. Destroyers eat submarines alive! I agree with many of the DD captains that they should be able to control themselves how their Depth Charges fire (at least control to some extent), but even on top of that DD's are nearly impossible to escape as a sub!

Now, if ships had a few of those above points, that's fine...there should be diversity in the game, even among classes of ships. My gripe is that destroyers have ALL of those, and they need to be reeled in! Period! High tier games are won or lost based on the performance of the destroyers, especially when there's four or five of them per team. That ALONE should warrant a closer look at their balancing IMO.

From my point of view, DD's simply have too much going for them. They need to be heavily reeled in, and I have a few suggestions how (I imagine this where some DD captains will want me keel-hauled)

1. The HIGHEST fire chance of any DD in the game should max out at 5%, while most should be in the range of 3 or 4%.
2. Impacts from High Explosive main battery guns need to cause SIGNIFICANTLY more damage than they currently do. I understand it wouldn't be much fun if a destroyer gets taken out by 2 or 3 shells from a BB, however they should take more damage than they currently do. 
3. The damage control needs to have a longer cooldown than it does. Being able to repair so quickly gives DD captains confidence to stay in dangerous areas for longer periods of time, doing more damage before retreating.

This is where I'm at. From where I'm sitting, there is one class of ship in this game that is head and shoulders more powerful and significant than all the other classes in the game...Destroyers. I encourage other points of view, and I welcome DD captains to try to change my mind. Feel free to offer counter-points or straight up disagree with me...I just ask to do so respectfully.

Look OP.. Just because you refuse to play more then 400 at high tiers, doesn't add up to the reality of high tier issues...

Currently at high tiers..

• Fire is more evident/dominate then torps... With a %30 hit avg on guns you're more likely to be sunk by burning then torps
• TTorps have a %8 hit rate.. Which means after 10 salvos of 5 torps fired (that is 50 torps)... Only  1 or 2 will hit
• Plane spam from All classes including CV (DDs dont have planes yet but IMO its coming).
• AP potency is out of control at high tiers...
  • Because of this... Games are over at the 10 min or less mark!

With torps being the highest detected ordnance at high tier and with the highest torp reloads of any tier... If you get sunk by them, its your fault...

 

GL OP hope your improvement in dodging torps becomes better.

[Lazy_Joe]

19 minutes ago, SylarN7 said:

I'll say it plainly: Destroyers have become too damned powerful. If you are a DD captain and take umbrage to that statement, bear with me.

As usual the advice is: play those ships yourself. This way you'll see if your statements hold up to reality. 

[hammerfall314]

You know, the man actually has a point here. Most of my tier 8 BB losses are a direct result of BURNING to death from mass dd HE spam. Let's be honest, even with advance warning, what CAN Bismarck actually do vs most T8-10 DDs?  The fire chances are honestly kinda broken. Especially with the current secondary nerfs.

[Navalpride33]

3 minutes ago, hammerfall314 said:

BURNING to death from mass dd HE spam.

Not really... Conqueror and Thunderer will burn you faster then a fleet a DDs will ever do...

 

[The_Drunken_Wombat]

6 minutes ago, hammerfall314 said:

You know, the man actually has a point here. Most of my tier 8 BB losses are a direct result of BURNING to death from mass dd HE spam. Let's be honest, even with advance warning, what CAN Bismarck actually do vs most T8-10 DDs?  The fire chances are honestly kinda broken. Especially with the current secondary nerfs.

Tht's not a DD issue, that's a HE spam issue.

[hammerfall314]

Never had that issue actually, usually dead from HE alpha before then. And I tend to wait on the DC cause of the torp barrage I know is coming in the next 30 sec.

3 minutes ago, Navalpride33 said:

Not really... Conqueror and Thunderer will burn you faster then a fleet a DDs will ever do...

 

 

[SylarN7]

A lot of responses here have been pretty humbling, and I accept all of it without a shred of contention. I do have a low battle count, and I haven't been playing WoWs on PC very long. All I can say in response is that I don't like Destroyers and have no desire to play them. On my best day, I would consider myself average to maybe slightly above average. So even if I were to jump in a DD I would utterly blow.

I in no way meant to make Destroyers sound easy. Overpowered compared to the other classes, yes, but not easy. I have seen plenty of DD captains go out and get blapped early on and contribute nothing to the team or the game. However, I've also seen plenty of DD captains absolutely control and dominate games.

I say that to really say that I respect DD captains as much as I respect any other captains out there, and meant no disrespect. I agree with several of the above replies that HE spamming has become a massive problem in the game, and I personally want to see fires completely reworked. However, they certainly add to the problem (again, incredibly fast firing guns, decent ranges at higher tier, and they still seem to set plenty of fires).

[Asym_KS]

20 minutes ago, SylarN7 said:

I'll say it plainly: Destroyers have become too damned powerful. If you are a DD captain and take umbrage to that statement, bear with me.

What I am mostly referring to are mid to high tier DD's. Let's take a look at the aspects of the Destroyer class in general:

1. They have the (or at least some of the) hardest hitting weapons in the game with torpedoes. Honestly, this one feature about DD's I agree with...they're supposed to be glass cannons.
2. They have the (or very nearly) the fastest firing main battery guns in the game, and at high tiers can reach out 11, 12, 13km with no problem. These guns set FAR too many fires for the low caliber that they have.
3. They are the fastest ships in the game. Add in point number 2, and getting away from them is a nightmare. There isn't a single recorded case of a Destroyer sinking a Battleship in World War 2 (which this game is mostly based on), yet in this game Destroyers are openly firing on and chasing down Battleships. Really??
4. They have the best concealment in the game. If you're playing in anything but a DD, they have seen you long before you see them. Again, this comes with the territory as it's perfectly reasonable for glass cannons to be stealthy (within reason...the Kamikaze for example is ridiculously broken in this regard)
5. They have no citadels, and rarely take anything more than a few thousand damage from the larger caliber main battery guns of their Cruiser and Battleship counterparts. I completely agree with AP doing a minimal amount of damage...after all it would pierce through one side of the ship and go right through the other without actually exploding. However, when 15" or 16" HIGH EXPLOSIVE shell hits a Destroyer, you better believe that thing would be DEVASTATED. Yet in World of Warships it does a few thousand damage, if you're lucky. This, my friends, is horse crap.
6. In keeping with the glass cannon trend, they should have the lowest HP of all ships in the game, and they do. However, some DD's at higher tiers have a VERY healthy amount of HP (Elbing, Harugumo, Paolo Emilio, Ragnar, etc). Take into account the no citadel and the amount of overpens they get, and these glass cannons are actually much more hearty than they seem.
7. Building from 6, they have the fastest repairs in the game. Knock out their rudder? Repaired. Set them on fire? Repaired. Take out their engine? Repaired. Get a nice salvo that knocks out their torpedoes, rudder, AND engine?! Repaired.
8. As someone who tried to play the entire afternoon in subs to give them a try, DD's are the literal perfect counter for them. Destroyers eat submarines alive! I agree with many of the DD captains that they should be able to control themselves how their Depth Charges fire (at least control to some extent), but even on top of that DD's are nearly impossible to escape as a sub!

Now, if ships had a few of those above points, that's fine...there should be diversity in the game, even among classes of ships. My gripe is that destroyers have ALL of those, and they need to be reeled in! Period! High tier games are won or lost based on the performance of the destroyers, especially when there's four or five of them per team. That ALONE should warrant a closer look at their balancing IMO.

From my point of view, DD's simply have too much going for them. They need to be heavily reeled in, and I have a few suggestions how (I imagine this where some DD captains will want me keel-hauled)

1. The HIGHEST fire chance of any DD in the game should max out at 5%, while most should be in the range of 3 or 4%.
2. Impacts from High Explosive main battery guns need to cause SIGNIFICANTLY more damage than they currently do. I understand it wouldn't be much fun if a destroyer gets taken out by 2 or 3 shells from a BB, however they should take more damage than they currently do. 
3. The damage control needs to have a longer cooldown than it does. Being able to repair so quickly gives DD captains confidence to stay in dangerous areas for longer periods of time, doing more damage before retreating.

This is where I'm at. From where I'm sitting, there is one class of ship in this game that is head and shoulders more powerful and significant than all the other classes in the game...Destroyers. I encourage other points of view, and I welcome DD captains to try to change my mind. Feel free to offer counter-points or straight up disagree with me...I just ask to do so respectfully.

Ow.  As a DD main, well, no.......  We lost stealth to Radar.  We lost what little stealth left to planes - BTW, that we couldn't fight to long and win.  We lost torps to planes and spotting.  So, with little or no Stealth, ah..........even the best of the DD mains can sneak around, tease Radar, evade planes and even, with good situational awareness, make Cruisers and BB's at little nervous, we aren't OP in anyway anymore..... 

Now, are battlespace mechanics ever fair?  For a simple arcade shooter, somewhat.  Is there any historical realism......no and that's another whole post repeated several times a year....

Please OP: it's just a simple small map arcade shooter......  If it had at least some serious realism, the game would simply be over before any great Free-For-All ever occurred........  Imagine one 3,200 pound HE round hitting a very lightly armored DD amidships.....  Oh my.  The DD would be combat ineffective immediately.  Radar did not work the way we see it in the game.  Smoke, the same way.  The Type 93 long lances were just about undetectable and were fully functional OTH and did in fact cause immense damage the US had no idea about till 1943 !  And, the list goes on and on......

So please, learn what the game has as effective use and call it a day !  It's a simple game of "whack a ship" and not a SIM.....  Gosh, no one would really enjoy a SIM.........play Harpoon some time.....  Have fun !!!!  It's really not a serious game. 

[Zaydin]

24 minutes ago, desmo_2 said:

When I saw your post title, I immediately made an assumption..."low battle count". 

Confirmed.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not blasting you for it.  But, "DD too stronk!" is a common complaint from new players, especially if they are heavy BB players.  Once you learn how to not be an easy target for destroyers, you realize they aren't as OP as you once thought.  Expand your experience, get better at understanding the game mechanics, and you will realize that even as a battleship main, destroyers aren't as OP as you currently think.

Do you think I'm wrong?  Then I offer you this challenge...play destroyers for a while.  See if you rack up easy kills and carry wins.  I'm betting you won't.  Destroyers are capable of great things, but it takes an uncommonly good player to do it.  The typical destroyer player is sunk within 5 minutes.

*edit - Just to clarify, I am not a DD main.  If I were to categorize what I play, it would be pretty close mix of destroyers/cruisers/battleships.

Destroyers are easily the most influential class in the game and anyone who says otherwise are deep in denial.

[hammerfall314]

If destroyers weren't the most influential ships in the game currently why exactly would it be that they're usually the first ones to get targeted in a match barring the lumbering battleship? People shoot the biggest threat first most of the time. Or at least the first one that they see.

[Lazy_Joe]

11 minutes ago, SylarN7 said:

A lot of responses here have been pretty humbling, and I accept all of it without a shred of contention. I do have a low battle count, and I haven't been playing WoWs on PC very long. All I can say in response is that I don't like Destroyers and have no desire to play them. On my best day, I would consider myself average to maybe slightly above average. So even if I were to jump in a DD I would utterly blow.

I in no way meant to make Destroyers sound easy. Overpowered compared to the other classes, yes, but not easy. I have seen plenty of DD captains go out and get blapped early on and contribute nothing to the team or the game. However, I've also seen plenty of DD captains absolutely control and dominate games.

I say that to really say that I respect DD captains as much as I respect any other captains out there, and meant no disrespect. I agree with several of the above replies that HE spamming has become a massive problem in the game, and I personally want to see fires completely reworked. However, they certainly add to the problem (again, incredibly fast firing guns, decent ranges at higher tier, and they still seem to set plenty of fires).

DDs have it just as hard in this game as BBs. However, since you do not play destroyers you lack that kind of experience. Furthermore if it takes a good DD player to do well the same kind of good player will perform better than you in a BB, even against massive DD opposition. 

It is not so much the game, it is rather you.

[Zaydin]

6 minutes ago, hammerfall314 said:

If destroyers weren't the most influential ships in the game currently why exactly would it be that they're usually the first ones to get targeted in a match barring the lumbering battleship? People shoot the biggest threat first most of the time. Or at least the first one that they see.

Sometimes it feels like a variation of a persecution complex on DD mains part. Easier to pretend they are underpowered and picked on than admitting that DDs get focused primarily because they are so influential and major threats.

[Zaydin]

1 minute ago, Lazy_Joe said:

DDs have it just as hard in this game as BBs. However, since you do not play destroyers you lack that kind of experience. Furthermore if it takes a good DD player to do well the same kind of good player will perform better than you in a BB, even against massive DD opposition. 

It is not so much the game, it is rather you.

It's weird, so often I see comments from people along the lines of 'You don't play DDs so your opinion is invalid" when someone points out just how much influence on a match DDs have. Yet if you say the same thing to CV haters they go ballistic.

[CoinsForCats]

3 minutes ago, Zaydin said:

Destroyers are easily the most influential class in the game and anyone who says otherwise are deep in denial.

Concealment is worth more than a large HP pool, way more. A skilled DD player can murder half a team, without ever being seen.

Does this mean DD's are OP, well that's arguable. A skilled player can do that with any class. Still, fighting an invisible opponent who can devstrike you is no fun, that's for sure.

Without Radar and Hydro, DD's would be even more ridiculous. The only thing keeping them in check is CV spotting, which DD main's are lobbying to get rid of, so there's that.

 

 

[hammerfall314]

I'll admit, my experiences with DDs, BBs, and carriers has left me rather... confused at times. 

The meta for threat seems to be: 

1) destroyers

2) carriers

3) everything else 

Though that's assuming all of them were to get spotted at the same time. At the same range.

 

[Lazy_Joe]

2 minutes ago, Zaydin said:

It's weird, so often I see comments from people along the lines of 'You don't play DDs so your opinion is invalid" when someone points out just how much influence on a match DDs have. Yet if you say the same thing to CV haters they go ballistic.

There are also players having played a significant amount of battles in CVs that find current CV gameplay to be bad for the game overall. You don't find that so much when it comes to DDs. I think that is the difference.

[Zaydin]

3 minutes ago, TacoBellDog said:

Concealment is worth more than a large HP pool, way more. A skilled DD player can murder half a team, without ever being seen.

Does this mean DD's are OP, well that's arguable. A skilled player can do that with any class. Still, fighting an invisible opponent who can devstrike you is no fun, that's for sure.

Without Radar and Hydro, DD's would be even more ridiculous. The only thing keeping them in check is CV spotting, which DD main's are lobbying to get rid of, so there's that.

 

 

Yep. Just knowing a DD is lurking in stealth can kill a push due to fears of eating a wall of skill. While a DD is hidden in concealment, they are also lighting up the enemy team for their team.

I've been playing since the Closed Beta and I remember what life was like before the addition of radar. DDs were unholy terrors in high tier matches if there was no carrier present to hunt them down. Your own teams DDs were useless because they were just as likely to be hiding in stealth vomiting torpedoes as the enemies and couldn't be bothered hunting down the enemy DDs.

[paradat]

You should become a DD main then. 

[hammerfall314]

7 minutes ago, Zaydin said:

Yep. Just knowing a DD is lurking in stealth can kill a push due to fears of eating a wall of skill. While a DD is hidden in concealment, they are also lighting up the enemy team for their team.

I've been playing since the Closed Beta and I remember what life was like before the addition of radar. DDs were unholy terrors in high tier matches if there was no carrier present to hunt them down. Your own teams DDs were useless because they were just as likely to be hiding in stealth vomiting torpedoes as the enemies and couldn't be bothered hunting down the enemy DDs.

And the cruisers refused to hunt the DDs for fear of getting nuked by both the DDs and the BBs sitting in the back line.

 

 

Edit: anyone else wanna throw in their 2 cent spread? Or ya just gonna lurk in the back?

[mushmouthmorton]

1 hour ago, SylarN7 said:

 There isn't a single recorded case of a Destroyer sinking a Battleship in World War 2 (which this game is mostly based on), yet in this game Destroyers are openly firing on and chasing down Battleships. Really??

Quote

1. Building from 6, they have the fastest repairs in the game. Knock out their rudder? Repaired. Set them on fire? Repaired. Take out their engine? Repaired. Get a nice salvo that knocks out their torpedoes, rudder, AND engine?! Repaired.

I am not an ace DD player, never claimed to be. But I am a WWII history buff and I have 2 words for your statements quoted above.             Leyte Gulf

The battleship Fuso was torpedoed by DDs in the action at Surigao Straight, No BB or CA or CL laid a glove on her. The DDs took her down before the battle line ever fired a shot. Her sister the Yamashiro took both shell hits and torpedo hits, but it was the torpedoes that finished her off.

Then check out the action by the DDs and DEs in the battle off Samar later that morning. Those "tin cans" faced overwhelming odds, were hit by everything from machine guns to BB shells. They kept shooting and fighting until the ships fell apart around them. They fought with everything they had, sank a couple of cruisers and damaged some more. Their sacrifice saved most of the jeep carriers they were escorting, and confused the Center force so badly that the fleet turned around and headed for home!

In the game dd's are hard to kill and they hit back even harder - The same as at  Leyte Gulf