New Orleans

[RearAdmiralButts]

Somebody convince me to keep grinding this ship.  Outside of the AA, its so average,  The Baltimore looks like its basically more of the same.    IJN cruisers are so much more fun at this stage. 

 

[BlazerSparta]

Then go grind IJN.

[Arvanna_1]

Just be prepared to eat citadels every time you show your broad side to anything in a turn to either try and get out of trouble or use those torps.

[Marcanbus_NA]

Don't grind it the Des Moines is garbage

[Hualalai]

For its tier, the New Orleans is the worst of the US cruisers.  IMO.

[Crucis]

Part of the problem is that there's only 2 nations' cruiser lines to choose from.  And one will appear to be better than the other.  IMO, it'll get better when there are multiple nations to choose from. 

 

I don't think that the New Orleans is all that bad.  It's just that it's more balanced (offense vs defense) than the Mogami which seems more offensive in nature.  And the nature of this game seems to value offensively oriented ships over more balanced ones.

 

Also consider the fact that historically speaking, there weren't all that many ship vs ship actions in the Pacific war.  And cruisers that were offensively oriented were probably not as valuable in the carrier war as cruisers that had stronger anti-air capabilities.  Of course, the historical exigencies of WW2 naval combat aren't particularly important in a 21st century computer game.

 

 

 

 

[crzyhawk]

Part of the problem is that there's only 2 nations' cruiser lines to choose from.  And one will appear to be better than the other.  IMO, it'll get better when there are multiple nations to choose from. 

 

I don't think that the New Orleans is all that bad.  It's just that it's more balanced (offense vs defense) than the Mogami which seems more offensive in nature.  And the nature of this game seems to value offensively oriented ships over more balanced ones.

 

Also consider the fact that historically speaking, there weren't all that many ship vs ship actions in the Pacific war.  And cruisers that were offensively oriented were probably not as valuable in the carrier war as cruisers that had stronger anti-air capabilities.  Of course, the historical exigencies of WW2 naval combat aren't particularly important in a 21st century computer game.

 

 

 

 

 

Given there are two IJN cruisers and the NOLA is the worst of the three... lol

 

I loved the NOLA in CBT.  I hate it now.  I think the problem is now, the matches I get into is pretty much all BB's slamming me in the face at ranges I can't match.  It's not the same game as CBT was.

[Eisennagel]

 

 

NO deserves to get a Mark 12 gun upgrade, to bring its AP damage to the standards of the Baltimore, though it will have more rainbow arcs with the gun.  Historically, later batch of NO class had Mark 12s.  Not only do the AP Mark 21s do more damage than Mark 19s, they outperform it in penetration, and the shell is the most penetrative shell of this class during the war.  Then give people a choice if they want to use the Mark 12s or the Mark 14s (offers flatter arcs for less AP damage, 4600 vs. 5000).

[IronWolfV]

NO was meh before and really hasn't gotten any better.

[JSFWRX85]

I enjoyed it in the CBT, use it as an escort, stick with friendly BBs. That is honestly the best way to play it. Shoot AP at cruisers and sling HE at BBs and DDs. 

[SpeedingBus]

Yeah starting at Penscola US cruisers start falling off hard compared to IJN who only get better. Seriously go look at warship stats the damage difference in top 50 is appalling.

 

Pensacola is 66-50k damage.

Myoko is 88-64k damage.

[Madman7]

I can buy the New Orleans now, but I wont. 

 

The one thing I see is, there are less and less CAs at higher tiers... its all BBs who can take 1/2 your HP in one hit. 

BBs have a better survival rate at higher level... which is needed to get more damage, to get more credits, to pay the unreal repair costs.....  CAs are just not worth it IMO... (At high tier.. low tiers are a blast)

[Deterrumeversor]

Part of the problem is that there's only 2 nations' cruiser lines to choose from.  And one will appear to be better than the other.  IMO, it'll get better when there are multiple nations to choose from. 

 

I don't think that the New Orleans is all that bad.  It's just that it's more balanced (offense vs defense) than the Mogami which seems more offensive in nature.  And the nature of this game seems to value offensively oriented ships over more balanced ones.

 

Also consider the fact that historically speaking, there weren't all that many ship vs ship actions in the Pacific war.  And cruisers that were offensively oriented were probably not as valuable in the carrier war as cruisers that had stronger anti-air capabilities.  Of course, the historical exigencies of WW2 naval combat aren't particularly important in a 21st century computer game.

 

 

 

 

 

^^^ Nailed it 

I wish more folks would keep this thought in mind when they want to rage about a free to play arcade game...

[Bobbin]

I love dropping 50% or more of an IJN CA in my Pensacola with a 2-5 citadel salvo at 15km.  NO was a fun boat in CBT, and I'm looking forward to trying it now that we're in release and see how it performs.

 

To me, the IJN CA's always felt a lot more self-sufficient than the US CAs.  However, the US are better escort ships.  Two BBs backed with a US CA sticking close will be able to scare off or kill any DD, even the ninja-IJN ones, while being very resistant to air power with the massive AA that the US CAs can project with upgrades.  Isn't NO 15km+ AA range when upgraded properly?

 

In short, the two nationalities have two different playstyles.  IJN are gun-boats with bigger cannon, but huge citadels.  US are support escorts that excel in chasing off other cruisers and DDs, dropping the hammer on any that get too close, while helping the team stay safe from aircraft, permitting the rest of your team to do their jobs without having to worry quite as much about the various threats to them. 

[Helipro]

The baltimore is a solid ship though. It's AA is insane, and it has solid armor specially when angled. 

[Poxo234]

I love my baltimore, you get a heal and max range on the guns for 18k.  I use it to play with my BB buddys.  Your not going to wreak the entire team with it, but as a support ship you have great AA and you can start fires like mad.

 

I understand the pain of the NO, i played around 140 games in that boat and i was so happy to sell it.  I found the NO worse then the pepsicola because of the higher tier ships you fight

[BadlyBrowned]

With the influx of Tier 8 BBs in the Tirpitz and the relative lack of CVs since the re-balance, I definitely felt like the NO got the short stick overall. Before that I was having lots of fun in my New Orleans. 

 

Sold my New Orleans for the Baltimore, and I am enjoying the Baltimore so far and it is not even fully upgraded yet. BBs will still wreck the Baltimore's broadside, but I can angle against other CAs pretty reliably in the Baltimore. 

 

Overall I think the US cruisers need to have a clearer advantage in gun capability since they do not have torps. Sure USN cruisers have better AA than IJN counterparts, but taking out aircraft does not yield good exp and credits. 

[Crucis]

 

NO deserves to get a Mark 12 gun upgrade, to bring its AP damage to the standards of the Baltimore, though it will have more rainbow arcs with the gun.  Historically, later batch of NO class had Mark 12s.  Not only do the AP Mark 21s do more damage than Mark 19s, they outperform it in penetration, and the shell is the most penetrative shell of this class during the war.  Then give people a choice if they want to use the Mark 12s or the Mark 14s (offers flatter arcs for less AP damage, 4600 vs. 5000).

 

 

If true (and I see no reason to doubt you), I'm curious why the NO doesn't have this as part of its upgrade tree.  Not that it's likely to make the NO all that much better, but what the heck, why not include this upgrade path option?

 

[Crucis]

I can buy the New Orleans now, but I wont. 

 

The one thing I see is, there are less and less CAs at higher tiers... its all BBs who can take 1/2 your HP in one hit. 

 

BBs have a better survival rate at higher level... which is needed to get more damage, to get more credits, to pay the unreal repair costs.....  CAs are just not worth it IMO... (At high tier.. low tiers are a blast)

 

 

Also, another problem that you see with CA's vs BBs is this.  Early on, cruisers have the same (and sometimes better) range as battleships.  But as the tiers progress, eventually BBs start to outrange CAs by a pretty decent margin.  The problem this creates is that on maps (like Ocean) where BBs engage in long range duels, if those duels aren't occurring within a CA's gun range, the CA's are left with little to do.  Of course, once those duels close to within cruiser gun ranges, those CA's can start supporting their team's BBs.

 

I don't know if I'd say that high tier cruisers aren't worth it.  But you're not entirely wrong to question their worth at high tiers.

 

[Yasenpoi]

Ibuki is no fun to play at all.  Huge target.  Worse AA than cleveland.  Slow reload.  Poor traverse.  Its like a myoukou that gets placed in tier 10 matches. 

[Arzoo]

Ibuki is no fun to play at all.  Huge target.  Worse AA than cleveland.  Slow reload.  Poor traverse.  Its like a myoukou that gets placed in tier 10 matches. 

 

Yet it does much better than Baltimore, outputting over 10k more damage per match, on average.

[crzyhawk]

 

 

NO deserves to get a Mark 12 gun upgrade, to bring its AP damage to the standards of the Baltimore, though it will have more rainbow arcs with the gun.  Historically, later batch of NO class had Mark 12s.  Not only do the AP Mark 21s do more damage than Mark 19s, they outperform it in penetration, and the shell is the most penetrative shell of this class during the war.  Then give people a choice if they want to use the Mark 12s or the Mark 14s (offers flatter arcs for less AP damage, 4600 vs. 5000).

 

I wouldn't equip the upgrade.  IMO the trajectory is more important.

[IronWolfV]

Ibuki is no fun to play at all.  Huge target.  Worse AA than cleveland.  Slow reload.  Poor traverse.  Its like a myoukou that gets placed in tier 10 matches. 

 

Why the Baltimore, is a better tier 9.

[SeaAdmiral]

A large amount of the disparity in cruiser power between the two nations is nothing more than WG's famous random assignment of national flavors. Theoretically USN's smaller citadels and better turning should make up for the raw firepower differential and speed of the IJN CAs, with torps giving IJN CAs a slight damage advantage while USN CAs score more plane kills. 

 

However, the stats have shown CA balance to be completely out of whack tier 7+; alright, here's a quiz:

 

1. Which deals more HE DPM, Aoba or New Orleans? 

2. Assuming tier to tier fire resistance is ignored, which one of these ships should cause more fires per minute?

3. Because New Orleans puts down more rounds per minute than the Aoba, and because USN HE has less base fire chance, the New Orleans benefits more from the skill Demolition Expert. After the skill is applied to both ships, which ship should cause more fires per minute?

4. DPM is only as good as you can apply it, which has faster HE shells, Aoba or New Orleans?

5. To compensate for a higher base HE damage, IJN 203mm AP has less damage than USN non-superheavy 203mm AP, true/false?

 

1. Aoba = 6 guns*5.5 rounds per minute per gun*3.3k damage per round = 108.9k HE dpm. New Orleans = 8 guns*4.3 rounds per minute per gun*2.8k damage per round = 108.36k HE dpm. Aoba wins. True, not by much, but Aoba is 2 tiers lower and puts out considerably less dpm than later IJN CAs.

2. Aoba = 6*5.5*.17 = 5.61 fires/minute. New Orleans = 9*4.3*.14 = 5.418 fires/minute. Again, not a big victory, but a victory for Aoba.

3. Aoba = 6*5.5*.2 = 6.6 fires/minute. New Orleans = 9*4.3*.17 = 6.579 fires/minute. Still not good enough to turn the tide. 

4. Aoba's HE muzzle is 840 m/s. New Orlean's HE muzzle is 823 m/s. Aoba wins on the HE front, though on the AP front New Orleans has a muzzle of 853 m/s while Aoba has a muzzle of 840 m/s. Not much difference, both lines can apply their dps near equally until Baltimore+ AP, and both of Zao's shells come into play. 

5. False, 4700 damage on the IJN AP round with 4600 damage on the USN AP round. USN super heavy AP carries larger penetration and 5000 damage, but in exchange gives up a large amount of shell velocity, only reaching 762 m/s. Zao's guns have 5400 AP damage with 920 m/s, and it gets an HE upgrade to 3400 HE damage with 920 m/s. 

 

Some further notes: Atago is often said to have the lowest IJN dpm of the 10 gun cruisers currently in game, with a RoF of 3.8 rpm per gun. It edges out the Baltimore, which has the highest non Des Moines rounds per minute for the USN CA line, in HE dpm.

 

What we know: as player skill increases on average, BBs are showing exactly how powerful they can be, especially at higher tiers. The devs themselves have stated that if you want to carry, pick a capital ship. They have said cruisers are for action types who want to support, and Destroyers are also support ships. This, plus the Tirpitz sale, has made sure that higher tiers are filled to the brim with BBs. High tiers have less carriers than before, and the high tier carriers themselves really don't care too much about AA. This points out IJN CAs as the best CA line to carry with (note that I emphasize CA line), simply on the virtue of burning down enemy BBs. USN's comparable AP no longer holds as much significance, and their AA while welcome isn't as effective as patches ago, as there are less carriers in general (note that it seems like Asia and EU still have a healthy carrier population up to and including tier 10) and the high tier carriers don't care too much about AA, often even throwing away squads for faster attack runs. 

 

Is it unfair to compare only one aspect of any ship vs the other? Yes. However, in this case, with this kind of statistical evidence on the performance of both lines on multiple servers, and due to the pure numerical nature of this DPM analysis (in that it really doesn't affect your playstyle, you spam HE when it is the most effective thing to do regardless of the HE damage), I do think that the IJN line is being propped up by much better HE rounds. I do not propose any nerfs because even the Zao, the ultimate pinnacle of heavy cruisers, struggles in tier 10 compared to BBs in carry potential. Rather, I would just like small RoF or shell damage buffs to underperforming CAs. 

[Carl]

Sea Admiral. Your forgetting the much better Armour, HP's, AAA, and probably penetration of the new orleans. The New Orleans can shat all over an aoba any day of the week.

 

That said whilst i'm nowhere near done with the spreadsheeting some spreadsheeting of the various ships show that the cruisers and DDs HP pools grows in tune with each other on a percentage basis, but that BB's starting at T7 for IJN and T8 for american's, (and rememebr how disliked the colarado was for so long till they gave it a serious offensive buff), outscale the cruisers. Whilst it's not the whole picture it screams of an obvious problem which probably goes a long way towards explaining why the T7 and T8 american Cruisers are so disliked. The japaneese Have some compensations and i suspect the firepower graph will show that most clearly.