Ibuki - and i thought the Furutaka was brutal.

[Livid]

I'm really struggling with this boat. My rant is actually just a disguise - I'm really actually looking for suggestions on improving game play.

 

I hacked it through the Furutaka. The delve into 203's, the 45 second 180 degree rotation time was absolutely brutal but it trained me how to be patient with the guns and to be a patient cruiser pilot.The Aoba was an absolute breath of fresh air. The Myoko tier for tier didn't feel as good as the Aoba but was doable.The 155 Mogami was amazing. It was a tier 8 fire setting machine that's like an Atlanta on cocaine. (And rightly deserves the upcoming chance-of-fire nerf coming its way)

 

But the Ibuki?

 

I'm aware there's a few other topics on it. Plenty more will pop up as time goes on with people wondering the same thing I am: 'where's the upgrade here?'.

 

It's going to be the longest grind to the Zao (which people assure me is a beautiful and well balanced tier 10 boat) but the current slog fest that is the Ibuki is really disenchanting. At first I thought I was just coming down off the high of the Mogami - which part of it was - but I'm fully upgraded now, and between a hull upgrade that gave next to nothing for the associated price tag, a slightly higher range, with worse dispersion, the only other perk is a very nice set of torpedo's. Oh and the 'less hit points than the previous tier? That was a nice touch /s

 

But the meta of the game has changed at this tier. If I'm in a position to be dumping torps and scoring hits, I'm doing something wrong. I shouldn't be caught dead in a sub 10k engagement unless I'm confident my torps will connect and I have enough hit points to foot the bill of that full broadside hit that's incoming. So if torp usage is unreliable at best (and I was fully aware of this going into this entire line) I'm relegated to being a less effective boat than a 203 Mogami, or even a 203 Myoko. At 16.5km range, it feels a bit small when range is supposed to be the IJN modus operandi. Especially at tier 9.

 

So what about the HE / AP debate? I'm usually not trying to dump AP on fellow cruisers at 16 klicks when I have a dispersion of 147 and they're pulling hairpin turns. It's a waste of time. Even at half that range on a full broadside im finding the angle of approach my shells take just don't seem to net me citadels like I would like. So that relegates me to a HE boat in a traditional sense for anything over 10km. But lets be honest, it's about setting fires in many cases. And my USN counterparts can do that far better than I can with their ROF difference. Sure my HE shell does more base damage but it feels worse. I'm literally scared of tier 7's that charge me. Their ROF is better and they're fire setting machines. I don't have a problem with USN having better ROF! I understand we get torps as a tradeoff, but I'm talking about this specific ship and where it stands in the grande scheme of appropriate balance.

 

I really don't think I'm a bad player! I'm middle of the road with a 54% win rate and a decent KDR. I've made it this far and I'd like to think I know when it's appropriate to use ammo types, when to be aggressive and when to back off and yet I just can't find my groove with this patsy of a boat.

 

For the love of god, does anyone feel my pain? I've never complained about balance of any of my ships. I felt the Furutaka needed some love - and sure enough it's getting some love. I felt the Minekaze was overpowered (which i piloted) and it's getting nerfed appropriately. The Mogami is getting the fire setting nerf which I also totally agree with. I've completely agreed with the balance changes, but I can't understand the selling point of the Ibuki. If this was tier 7 or 6 and just a 'bad apple of the tier' that would be one thing, but it's and the end of the line before the big payoff, and it's the longest thing to slog through.

 

What can I fix in my playstyle? If they were to hypothetically 'balance' this boat further, what would be an appropriate buff/nerf combo to put it more into a niche roll? Anyone out there in a Zao or Ibuki that is flourishing in their Ibuki?

[Elysion]

I take every chance i get to express how unsatisfactory ibuki is 

 

You just suffer through it. I stopped trying to use AP at all in it about half way through the grind. Hang back, provide AA, shoot at stuff. 8 inch HE hurts DDs more than 6 inch HE does, if your aim is good you can really mess up destroyers in a single volley with ibuki. Your main damage chunks will come from HE spamming the high tier battleships you encounter, and hoping one of the fires you start sticks (fires will typically only do around 500-1.5k damage by my experience, but some games you set just a few and end up doing 30k fire damage).

 

As far as how they can fix it, all they would need to do is make its AP work like aoba/myoko/zaos AP works. Why it doesnt, i dont really know.

 

Honestly i free expd all the upgrades and divisioned exclusively through the rest of it, and that was even so unenjoyable that if there was another wipe, i wouldnt go down the line again (maybe to mogami). Zao is good, but the same amount of effort could get you into a yamato.

 

Here is a video. Zao citadelling a DM at close range, working like how myokos AP works, then getting citadeled through the stern by a yamato, because yamatos dont care about armor, while being highly resistant to most everything else that isnt a yamato, because zaos armor is actually kind of neat.

 

 

 

Zao can go back to being more agressive, but its still just a cruiser, and if it breaks you have to pay 225k to fix it.

 

My honest advice to anyone not dead set on being a cruiser player, is just to avoid grinding down a cruiser line for now. Go get a battleship instead, maybe they will fix ibuki, maybe they will fix high tier cruisers in general. Untill then yamato is probably the best non carrier ship at t10 because it just doesnt care about armor, not just against zaos, but against montanas as well, it outclasses everything else in its tier.