Lets Talk About the Elephant in the Room...

[10T0nHammer]

So.... WoWs has been been approaching a P2W meta and Strong lenience to bias towards certain nation's ships....

 

Bold claim I know but lets look at some ships stats!

 

Now people have always claimed that WG has had a bit of a Russian Bias. I will not lie, I am part of that crowd. It started way back in CBT (Full disclosure, I did not play CBT or OBT)

 

They released 3 ships which you could buy to get Closed Beta Access:

Gremy

Yubari

Sims

 

The Sims and Yubari... are less than stellar but the Yubari at least performs on average. The Sims? Nerfed to hell and back, cannot have USN ships compete with the Gremy after all!!!

 

I know, it reads a little Bias but look at these 2 week stats:

Name	Tier	Type	Nation	Battles	WR	Damage
Gremyashchy	5	DD	USSR	4320	57%	30,036
Yubari	4	CL	2412	2,412	53%	23,265
Sims	7	DD	4,916	4,916	50%	19,142

 

Sims is now performing better per 2 week stats but her overall stats still put it as dead last. It does less damage than a tier 4 CL and a tier 5 DD. Gremy also has weapon stats some tier 6-7 DDs wish they had. Concrete evidence? Maybe not but its definitely not looking good

 

Lets move on!

The great Omaha backstab!

For those who do not know, the Murmansk is literally an Milwaukee clone, given to the Soviets as part of the lend-lease IIRC. When the Murmansk was first released, it had more firepower than the Omaha, literally same guns but somehow thanks to the Stalinium ammo they used, the shells flew further and were more accurate! Originally the Omaha only had a range of 12km to the Murmansk 15km and the Murmansk had a much tighter dispersion. Some people called the devs out on it and the devs decided that the C hull on the Omaha would recieve the 15km distance buff yet somehow the Murmy, despite being premium, is still better than the Omaha:

Name	Tier	Nation	Battles	WR	Damage
Murmansk	5	USSR	22,573	56%	33.907
Omaha	5	USA	45,137	50%	23,796

Honorable mention: Marblehead, reason for not including the Marblehead is that it is no longer publicly available to the masses. Reason I did the CBT ships is because those all fall within the same parameter (only CBT testers have them) but It does perform very will, beating the Murmansk but as an Event ship, I did not know how to place it in this list.

 

While we are on tier 4!!!

The best ship in 2 week stats by WR is.... The Imperator Nikolai I. Color me shocked....

Lets compare this, obviously, over performing ship! BTW this creeps into both P2W and Bias!

Name	Tier	Nation	Battles	WR	Damage
Imperator Nikolai	4	USSR	3,832	59%	43,963
Arkansas Beta	4	USA	5,877	57%	38,786
Wyoming	4	USA	36,920	50%	28,533
Ishizuchi	4	Japan	4,0905	52%	27,715
Myogi	4	Japan	18,743	50%	25,503

The Nikolai is clearly overperforming and honestly, it has more usable armor than the Wyoming (Hey, isnt armor supposed to be a USN thing?) Same range but can fire all 12 guns at almost any angle. Almost no superstructure for HE to damage and can easily brawl with even tier 5-6 BBs and about a thousand secondaries, ok only 20, still more than most USN BBs.

Arkansas Beta Added to that some USN Ships are strong but not available to the public like the rest of them.

 

VMF DDs! Thanks to the recent nerfs, the VMF DDs are no longer grossly over performing and I do thank the devs for that. The VMFs still hold the lead for tier 7, 9-10. Kiev still strong, just no longer doing 50k damage a game I will admit this rank bracket is still developing as these ships still have very little players compared to the rest of the line.

 

 

Now my official post that started me digging into this!

 

Did some digging around.

 

So get this, the 5in(127mm) gun on the USN Destroyers and the unlucky Atlanta have a shell speed of:

792/ms @ around 11km range, it varies from ship to ship but this is the average.

 

The Blyskawica, which uses 120mm (about 4.7 inches) has a shell speed of:

900m/s at 12km.

 

So I cross referenced the weapons with a respectable site NavWeaps.com.

 

The USN guns are technically modeled accurately, they did have a shell velocity of 792m/s and could travel up to 18km, this game is compressed so still within ok boundaries. MY issue comes from the Blysawica, its stated of only having 811m/s. Thats a massively huge difference and a big F-U to USN guns. Both the 4"/45 (Blys main weapon) and the 5"/38 (USN DD Main weapons) had roughly the same firing distance (the Blys wins by about 800 meters, thats it)

 

Corrected, In-game Blys using Bofor 120mm guns that do indeed go 900m/s, then poor barrels

http://navweaps.com/Weapons/WNSweden_47-50_m1934.htm

 

So WG my question is, wthhappened to not selling P2W ships? Blys is clearly overperforming and is clearing designed to do so....

 

In fact, lets break it down between Blys and Benson:

 

Blys:

Level	7
Combat capability	15 500
Main battery
Maximum firing range	12 010
120 mm/50 wz. 34/36 Bofors	1 x 1 120 mm
120 mm/50 wz. 34/36 Bofors	3 x 2 120 mm
Torpedo tubes
533 mm potrójny	2 x 3 533 mm
Air defense
40 mm Bofors wz. 36	2 x 2 40 mm
13.2 mm Hotchkiss wz. 30	4 x 2 13.2 mm
Maximum speed	39.0
Turning radius	610
Rudder shift time	7.58
Surface detectability range	7.74
Air detectability range	3.84

 

 

 

 

Benson:

Level	8
Combat capability	15 400
Main battery
Maximum firing range	11 589
127 mm/38 Mk30 mod. 0	3 x 1 127 mm
127 mm/38 Mk30 mod. 1	1 x 1 127 mm
Torpedo tubes
533 mm Mk14	1 x 5 533 mm
533 mm Mk15	1 x 5 533 mm
Air defense
127 mm/38 Mk30 mod. 0	3 x 1 127 mm
127 mm/38 Mk30 mod. 1	1 x 1 127 mm
40 mm Bofors Mk1	2 x 2 40 mm
20 mm Oerlikon Mk4	4 x 1 20 mm
Maximum speed	38.0
Turning radius	570
Rudder shift time	3.5
Surface detectability range	7.38
Air detectability range	3.6

 

 

 

The Blys is as good as a dang tier 8 destroyer and better than some of the other (Looking at you Tashkent) and the stats clearly show its basically a pre-nerfed Kiev. SMH WG

 

Sources in case anyone wants to double check my work:

http://navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_5-38_mk12.htm

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNBR_4-45_mk16.htm

http://gamemodels3d.com/worldofwarships/vehicles/

Most of my evidence comes from http://warships.today/vehicles/na and if people dig around and find out I'm full of doodoo, I will admit I am wrong. Also I want concrete evidence, non of this "I lost 1 time to a DD captained by a headless chicken, clearly DDs are op!!!"

 

Thank you for reading and have a nice day!

 

Honorable mentions! I would go into more detail but I started this at 3 am with the Blys vs Benson comparison and its now 5 am and I need sleep!

Tirpitz performs better than the NC

Warspite beats USN BBs and is tied with IJN.

Atlanta.... well she sucks but at least she is no Baltimore

 

Also noted: Strong anti-USN ship bias. Remember, this is a game that is supposed to be balanced. That is why CVs do not just outright own the game like they did real life!

 

***All stats are per 2 week bases and reflect current meta changes more accurately

All comments welcomed!

[Sirus_Patton]

Should point out (since the tier 8 Russian cruiser went on sale for other servers) that the USN 5"/38 caliber dual-purpose guns are getting 3 DPS per barrel for their AAA role (a gun arguably only out-classed in a AAA role by the 100mm/65 caliber gun used by the IJN which does less DPS in-game) while the Russian 100mm/70 caliber has an AAA DPS of 7.5 per barrel.  I know it feeds the Russian Bias deal (hey, they did just nerf the crap out of the Soviet DDs), but it really makes you question just what on Earth they're doing with the USN as a line.

 

Edit:  This means that with Defensive Fire running, a Baltimore (possibly best AAA cruiser in the game) does a maximum (not including captain skills or modules) 216 DPS with it's dual-purpose armament.  A Russian cruiser 1 tier lower turns around and puts up 540 DPS with it's dual-purpose armament.

 

Note:  Defensive Fire is a 6x multiplier for dual-purpose AAA DPS.

[Noshiro_]

Personally, I don't find Murmansk to be too OP. She has a large broadside, and if played badly, you will die quickly. Course stats tell a story, but the majority of times I don't fear the murmansk.

 

Blys on the other hand... I beat a Fletcher in a gun duel at sub 5km. I guess that highlights something. Haven't really played against many Nikolais, but oh god WG, that is broken as [edited].

[DelroyMonjo]

Something you the stats theory crafters don't tell you.  The Imperator Nikolai is a torp magnet.

[RevolutionBlues]

Personally, I don't find Murmansk to be too OP. She has a large broadside, and if played badly, you will die quickly. Course stats tell a story, but the majority of times I don't fear the murmansk.

 

Blys on the other hand... I beat a Fletcher in a gun duel at sub 5km. I guess that highlights something. Haven't really played against many Nikolais, but oh god WG, that is broken as [edited].

 

Must have been a terrible Fletcher driver. O.o

[Snoozing_Mako]

I wonder if it is a coincidence that they gutted the Kiev around the release of the Blyskawica, which basically completely replaces pre-nerf Kiev as premier tier VII DD, except unlike the Kiev, you gotta pay for it.

[10T0nHammer]

Something you the stats theory crafters don't tell you.  The Imperator Nikolai is a torp magnet.

So is every BB tiers 3-5, its a moot point.

[RevolutionBlues]

I wonder if it is a coincidence that they gutted the Kiev around the release of the Blyskawica, which basically completely replaces pre-nerf Kiev as premier tier VII DD, except unlike the Kiev, you gotta pay for it.

 

I've seen plenty of people do well in Kiev post-nerf, I would hardly say that she has been gutted.

[10T0nHammer]

 

I've seen plenty of people do well in Kiev post-nerf, I would hardly say that she has been gutted.

Kiev still best performing DD for tiers 7-8 and does the same damage as the Benson, I would agree that it's not been gutted.

[Arbinshire]

 

I've seen plenty of people do well in Kiev post-nerf, I would hardly say that she has been gutted.

 

It was gutted. It was a ridiculous beast before, and it should tell you just how strong it was to continually perform well even after these nerfs.

[Fog_Destroyer_Yukikaze]

I love reading posts like these which don't just doomsay, shouting "Russian Bias!" This one actually has all the facts which prove it. Russian ships currently are unnaturally performing well, however I'd like to play devil's advocate.

The Murmansk might be preforming so much better than the Omaha because the people which own it, have had it for quite awhile and have had the time to master using it, however the Omaha is a stepping stone in the USN cruiser line. However the rest of these do not have such an excuse. Well done, and +1

 

Sidenote: Russian ships really are making the entire USN seem irrelevant; I fear that what was supposed to be a game centered around the American and Japanese lines may quickly become a face off between Soviet and IJN warships; and I don't think anyone wants that, not even the devs. (The USN line is a big moneymaker..!) 

[JSFWRX85]

I think the problem lies in the fact that everything that made the U.S. Navy great in WW2 is irrelevant in this game, radar, crew skill (which is probably one of the most important things in operation of a ship), etc

[goldeagle1123]

What in gods name. There must be some MLG-level players exclusively playing the Yubari if it's got server stats like that. Thing is garbage, and needs a buff as badly as high tier credit economy needs to be changed.

[10T0nHammer]

The Murmansk might be preforming so much better than the Omaha because the people which own it, have had it for quite awhile and have had the time to master using it, however the Omaha is a stepping stone in the USN cruiser line. However the rest of these do not have such an excuse. Well done, and +1

 

I thought that as well but considering it is cheap, 16 USD, thats less you'd spend on romancing a date it would be inclined to have more "baddies" dragging its stats down. I felt it had enough players to get a good reading on how well the ship is performing. Without access to WGs data, lol like WG would like THAT mess in its hands, all we can do is speculate at the moment. But I do see your point.

[Cobraclutch]

So.... WoWs has been been approaching a P2W meta and Strong lenience to bias towards certain nation's ships....

 

Bold claim I know but lets look at some ships stats!

 

Now people have always claimed that WG has had a bit of a Russian Bias. I will not lie, I am part of that crowd. It started way back in CBT (Full disclosure, I did not play CBT or OBT)

 

They released 3 ships which you could buy to get Closed Beta Access:

Gremy

Yubari

Sims

 

The Sims and Yubari... are less than stellar but the Yubari at least performs on average. The Sims? Nerfed to hell and back, cannot have USN ships compete with the Gremy after all!!!

 

I know, it reads a little Bias but look at these 2 week stats:

Name	Tier	Type	Nation	Battles	WR	Damage
Gremyashchy	5	DD	USSR	4320	57%	30,036
Yubari	4	CL	2412	2,412	53%	23,265
Sims	7	DD	4,916	4,916	50%	19,142

 

Sims is now performing better per 2 week stats but her overall stats still put it as dead last. It does less damage than a tier 4 CL and a tier 5 DD. Gremy also has weapon stats some tier 6-7 DDs wish they had. Concrete evidence? Maybe not but its definitely not looking good

 

Lets move on!

The great Omaha backstab!

For those who do not know, the Murmansk is literally an Milwaukee clone, given to the Soviets as part of the lend-lease IIRC. When the Murmansk was first released, it had more firepower than the Omaha, literally same guns but somehow thanks to the Stalinium ammo they used, the shells flew further and were more accurate! Originally the Omaha only had a range of 12km to the Murmansk 15km and the Murmansk had a much tighter dispersion. Some people called the devs out on it and the devs decided that the C hull on the Omaha would recieve the 15km distance buff yet somehow the Murmy, despite being premium, is still better than the Omaha:

Name	Tier	Nation	Battles	WR	Damage
Murmansk	5	USSR	22,573	56%	33.907
Omaha	5	USA	45,137	50%	23,796

Honorable mention: Marblehead, reason for not including the Marblehead is that it is no longer publicly available to the masses. Reason I did the CBT ships is because those all fall within the same parameter (only CBT testers have them) but It does perform very will, beating the Murmansk but as an Event ship, I did not know how to place it in this list.

 

While we are on tier 4!!!

The best ship in 2 week stats by WR is.... The Imperator Nikolai I. Color me shocked....

Lets compare this, obviously, over performing ship! BTW this creeps into both P2W and Bias!

Name	Tier	Nation	Battles	WR	Damage
Imperator Nikolai	4	USSR	3,832	59%	43,963
Arkansas Beta	4	USA	5,877	57%	38,786
Wyoming	4	USA	36,920	50%	28,533
Ishizuchi	4	Japan	4,0905	52%	27,715
Myogi	4	Japan	18,743	50%	25,503

The Nikolai is clearly overperforming and honestly, it has more usable armor than the Wyoming (Hey, isnt armor supposed to be a USN thing?) Same range but can fire all 12 guns at almost any angle. Almost no superstructure for HE to damage and can easily brawl with even tier 5-6 BBs and about a thousand secondaries, ok only 20, still more than most USN BBs.

Arkansas Beta Added to that some USN Ships are strong but not available to the public like the rest of them.

 

VMF DDs! Thanks to the recent nerfs, the VMF DDs are no longer grossly over performing and I do thank the devs for that. The VMFs still hold the lead for tier 7, 9-10. Kiev still strong, just no longer doing 50k damage a game I will admit this rank bracket is still developing as these ships still have very little players compared to the rest of the line.

 

 

Now my official post that started me digging into this!

 

Most of my evidence comes from http://warships.today/vehicles/na and if people dig around and find out I'm full of doodoo, I will admit I am wrong. Also I want concrete evidence, non of this "I lost 1 time to a DD captained by a headless chicken, clearly DDs are op!!!"

 

Thank you for reading and have a nice day!

 

Honorable mentions! I would go into more detail but I started this at 3 am with the Blys vs Benson comparison and its now 5 am and I need sleep!

Tirpitz performs better than the NC

Warspite beats USN BBs and is tied with IJN.

Atlanta.... well she sucks but at least she is no Baltimore

 

Also noted: Strong anti-USN ship bias. Remember, this is a game that is supposed to be balanced. That is why CVs do not just outright own the game like they did real life!

 

***All stats are per 2 week bases and reflect current meta changes more accurately

 

All comments welcomed!

 

 

Your stats are wrong regarding the Blyskawica . The guns are not the british guns but BOFORS.

 

Blyskawica is introduced in her original form. Meaning she has 1x1 and 3x2 Bofors 12 cm/50 Model 1934/1936

 

These guns have a 900 mps velocity. 

 

 

She is not in the game as the british gun variant. Hence why the velocity is so high compared to the british 120mm's . 

[Fog_Destroyer_Yukikaze]

 

I thought that as well but considering it is cheap, 16 USD, thats less you'd spend on romancing a date it would be inclined to have more "baddies" dragging its stats down. I felt it had enough players to get a good reading on how well the ship is performing. Without access to WGs data, lol like WG would like THAT mess in its hands, all we can do is speculate at the moment. But I do see your point.

 

That is very true, it's possible that the smaller player pool is letting it's stats get inflated too. My stats in the Hashidate are extremely good, but that's only because I played one match in it (That theory has its holes though, then even a few bad players should drag it down)

 

I'm still an avid believer in Russian bias though, your other examples prove that it is more than entirely possible the Murmansk is still more powerful than the Omaha, in fact I'm leaning towards that more than anything at the moment

[10T0nHammer]

 

 

Your stats are wrong regarding the Blyskawica . The guns are not the british guns but BOFORS.

 

Blyskawica is introduced in her original form. Meaning she has 1x1 and 3x2 Bofors 12 cm/50 Model 1934/1936

 

These guns have a 900 mps velocity. 

 

 

She is not in the game as the british gun variant. Hence why the velocity is so high compared to the british 120mm's . 

 

Thank you for that, didn't realize Bofors made a 120mm gun. Corrected the post.

[Wowzery]

Let's also not forget, how they play in the game, which is very different than real life (just look at tactics in the game).

[Snoozing_Mako]

Murmansk is superior to Omaha AND marbles. IIRC Omaha has [edited]torps with C hull, and Murmansk gets high damage 8km torps, along with huge default range and nice AA for the tier, which Marbles obviously lacks. Absolute dealbreaker is Murmansk's INCREDIBLE rudder shift speed. Try playing Marbles after Murmansk and it feels so sluggish. Russian bias is real.

[Cobraclutch]

 

Thank you for that, didn't realize Bofors made a 120mm gun. Corrected the post.

 

A lot of users were championing her to have the 4x2 British 120mm set up, but what many failed to realize is the velocity on these guns are USN level. 

 

The difference being that in WW2 , AA was much more predominant and useful. The Bofors had the high velocity but were not DP. the British Mk XVI was DP. 

 

This is actually going to be a huge problem with the British line. How will WG differentiate between USN and RN destroyers? They are very similar in all respects. 

[Herr_Reitz]

So here's a thought... when you start adjusting by nerfing this and buffing that, you end up with a friggin mess on your hands. 

 

If you were to lay out the ships performance so they were equal per ship class, what would differentiate them? 

The national flag they fly, that's about it. 

 

If you want to go arcade-y, then that's the way to do it - all stats across the board for every ship within it's class/tier the same.

If you wanted realism, then the ships would be what the ships would be and no adjusting anything.

What you "could" do to balance things out would be to increase team sizes based upon inclusions of weak ships on a team.

Otherwise, why would anyone play an under-powered ship in any calls/tier? No reason I can see, if you want to win.

(well... you could ensure those weaker ships paid out a bit higher but why do it?)

 

So they have chosen a middle path here, straddling the line so to say... one foot in arcade, one in realism. 

As long as they walk down the road with one foot in each world, the nerfs/buffs will continue forever. 

Got a new ship or line you want to promote? Slash/cut/erase so the new ship line is "better" - but be sure to include something in the new ship which could be perceived as a weakness for those not skilled enough to be her skipper. 

 

I keep this in mind every go-round of nerf/buff/new ship stuff... it helps. 

[byronicasian]

 

A lot of users were championing her to have the 4x2 British 120mm set up, but what many failed to realize is the velocity on these guns are USN level. 

 

The difference being that in WW2 , AA was much more predominant and useful. The Bofors had the high velocity but were not DP. the British Mk XVI was DP. 

 

This is actually going to be a huge problem with the British line. How will WG differentiate between USN and RN destroyers? They are very similar in all respects. 

 

 

Who would've thought a game that ignores seakeeping, ship stability, versatility, reliability and range will make some meh/unbalanced designs very good and some very good IRL designs average because of those factors.

 

 

[Fog_Destroyer_Yukikaze]

So here's a thought... when you start adjusting by nerfing this and buffing that, you end up with a friggin mess on your hands. 

 

If you were to lay out the ships performance so they were equal per ship class, what would differentiate them? 

The national flag they fly, that's about it. 

 

If you want to go arcade-y, then that's the way to do it - all stats across the board for every ship within it's class/tier the same.

If you wanted realism, then the ships would be what the ships would be and no adjusting anything.

What you "could" do to balance things out would be to increase team sizes based upon inclusions of weak ships on a team.

Otherwise, why would anyone play an under-powered ship in any calls/tier? No reason I can see, if you want to win.

(well... you could ensure those weaker ships paid out a bit higher but why do it?)

 

So they have chosen a middle path here, straddling the line so to say... one foot in arcade, one in realism. 

As long as they walk down the road with one foot in each world, the nerfs/buffs will continue forever. 

Got a new ship or line you want to promote? Slash/cut/erase so the new ship line is "better" - but be sure to include something in the new ship which could be perceived as a weakness for those not skilled enough to be her skipper. 

 

I keep this in mind every go-round of nerf/buff/new ship stuff... it helps. 

 

Even if all ships were perfectly balanced, it wouldn't be as if they were all the same ship; each has unique characteristics.. But win rates and raw power should not be so uneven as to allow the Russian line to make playing the IJN and USN lines useless. What we see now is a trend towards more and more new players playing Russian lines do their superiority; and when people do that you DO get games where everyone is the same, because they're all playing the same ship. Balancing is never, ever a bad thing; it leads to MORE diverse gameplay, not more homogenous. 

[Sir_Robert_Whitney]

Well, I think it is just a power creep. The devs want the new lines to be competitive and with soviet DDs and their "flavor" being blind firing, it is easy to see why they are OP at the moment, and a lot of them were nerfed. The kiev is now manageable. As for the Murmansk, I mean, it needs something to distinguish it from the Omaha. I don't even know why they made the Marblehead...., it is also an Omaha....

 

As for the Imperator Nikolai, that thing does well because it is hard to hit, and its effective armor at typical engagement range is thick, I would expect an armor nerf to the Nikolai in the coming months. On another note, all of the Nikolai's I've run into have been driven by players who know the game, and have battleship experience with armor angling and such. 

[Arbinshire]

Well, I think it is just a power creep. The devs want the new lines to be competitive and with soviet DDs and their "flavor" being blind firing, it is easy to see why they are OP at the moment, and a lot of them were nerfed. The kiev is now manageable. As for the Murmansk, I mean, it needs something to distinguish it from the Omaha. I don't even know why they made the Marblehead...., it is also an Omaha....

 

As for the Imperator Nikolai, that thing does well because it is hard to hit, and its effective armor at typical engagement range is thick, I would expect an armor nerf to the Nikolai in the coming months. On another note, all of the Nikolai's I've run into have been driven by players who know the game, and have battleship experience with armor angling and such. 

 

The Nikolai will never be touched. Instead of nerfing it, it just won't be sold again.