Help! I cannot Bayern :(

[dseehafer]

Greetings all,

 

 

    Like the title says, I just cannot get a grasp on this ship. I loved the Nassau, Kaiser and Konig... but I just cannot make the Bayern work.

 

A little background.

 

When I first bought the ship I upgraded the hull and nothing else (ran out of free XP) my first 3 games were so horrid that I cracked open the piggy bank and spent $7 just so I could get the engines and range finders, hoping that would solve my problems.

 

Nope.

 

Then I had an epiphany! Bayern is a brawling battleship and I had been using her as such, but she has the lowest hitpoints among her tiermates and also has horrid torpedo protection. These two factors combined make her terrible against torpedo laden cruisers. So in attempt to boost my performance against cruisers and destroyer I loaded up her stock hull (which has more secondarys, especially where the 150mm AP secondarys are concerned, and also have respectable firing arcs, unlike on the upgraded hull. also because carriers arent a problem in CoOp so you dont need amazing AA. The stock hull also has a smaller superstructure and is less susceptible to HE fire. And it's historical, so that's a little bonus too)

 

And in the 3 games I've played since I loaded the stock hull I have not been torpedoed by a single cruiser, they just melt away under the AP fire from the 150s. But I still cannot break 50k damage unless I ram.

 

My new tactic is to charge into battle, shoot what I can, pick the biggest, most hitpoint laden battleship and plow right into him. Desperate times call for desperate measures I guess.

 

It's worth noting that I only have a 3pt captain so far, but I have purchased all upgrade slots. Perhaps I'm just having teething problems, but I had none of these issues with the previous 3 battleships so you can see why I'm annoyed by my lack of Success in the Bayern.

 

Any suggestions?

 

[KTcraft]

....

Do you have more specific details on what you are struggling with? AP not penetrating? Shot consistency? Early death due to low hp?

 

 

Personally I found the Bayern to be quite decent-punchy guns, decent speed, acceptable accuracy, good armor, great AA, good maneuverability.  

 

Honestly I wouldn't worry about the secondaries too much with the hulls.  The upgraded hull gets HE secondaries which are better for duking it out with BBs and you also gain faster rudder shift-can't overstate how important maneuvering can be.

 

[SubTender_Taigei]

Yes, the Bayern is considered a brawler, but I don't translate that as "get into range of secondaries". For me, it means get under 10 km to start packing a lot of punch. I've found that in a Bayern, you want to brawl with other battleships, not cruisers or destroyers. Use your speed to close the gap by sailing towards them, and angle just enough to have all 4 turrets shoot when they are ready to fire. After, go back to sailing bow on. However, you have to have some good awareness and pay attention to where enemy destroyers are. At the start of the match, don't try to immediately brawl, as you're likely to run into a destroyer or a cruiser with long range torpedos. Get into a good position with your speed and concealment. Support your team in taking down cruisers, then start sailing bow on to other battleships. 

 

This is what I did at least for Bayern, and I had quite a bit of fun in her through it.

[ryuukei8569]

Sometimes its just bad luck when you start off in a new ship. I have been having teething problems in the Fredrick Der Große as well. First four battles in her have been a nightmare, despite me using my Free XP to get past the stock grinds (gotta love papa papa flags.) And its crazy since when i used Freddy krueger on the playtest server, I wrecked everything, despite using only the 406 mm guns.

[dseehafer]

Do you have more specific details on what you are struggling with? AP not penetrating? Shot consistency? Early death due to low hp?

 

 

Personally I found the Bayern to be quite decent-punchy guns, decent speed, acceptable accuracy, good armor, great AA, good maneuverability.  

 

Honestly I wouldn't worry about the secondaries too much with the hulls.  The upgraded hull gets HE secondaries which are better for duking it out with BBs and you also gain faster rudder shift-can't overstate how important maneuvering can be.

 

 

pretty much this. Like I said, BBs arent the problem, it's torpedoes, it just cannot take a torpedo hit. What good is a brawling battleship if you have to turn away from every cruisers you encounter in fear that he's got torpedoes in the water. That's the whole reason I switched the the stock hull. In the other German battleships you have enough forward facing secondary guns that you can usually dispose of an enemy cruiser before he can launch his torpedoes, that is not possible with Bayern's upgraded hull because, again, the AP secondary arcs absolutely suck on it. since I've upgraded (or rather, downgraded) I havnt been torpedoed by a cruiser.

 

so I guess the real issue is that I am unable to rack up oodles of damage like I am in Nassau, kaiser and Konig. For the first time, I'm struggling to do damage, and I dont know why.

 

As you can tell i dont give a darn about WR, damage is everything.

[IAF_NASTY]

Greetings all,

 

 

    Like the title says, I just cannot get a grasp on this ship. I loved the Nassau, Kaiser and Konig... but I just cannot make the Bayern work.

 

A little background.

 

When I first bought the ship I upgraded the hull and nothing else (ran out of free XP) my first 3 games were so horrid that I cracked open the piggy bank and spent $7 just so I could get the engines and range finders, hoping that would solve my problems.

 

Nope.

 

Then I had an epiphany! Bayern is a brawling battleship and I had been using her as such, but she has the lowest hitpoints among her tiermates and also has horrid torpedo protection. These two factors combined make her terrible against torpedo laden cruisers. So in attempt to boost my performance against cruisers and destroyer I loaded up her stock hull (which has more secondarys, especially where the 150mm AP secondarys are concerned, and also have respectable firing arcs, unlike on the upgraded hull. also because carriers arent a problem in CoOp so you dont need amazing AA. The stock hull also has a smaller superstructure and is less susceptible to HE fire. And it's historical, so that's a little bonus too)

 

And in the 3 games I've played since I loaded the stock hull I have not been torpedoed by a single cruiser, they just melt away under the AP fire from the 150s. But I still cannot break 50k damage unless I ram.

 

My new tactic is to charge into battle, shoot what I can, pick the biggest, most hitpoint laden battleship and plow right into him. Desperate times call for desperate measures I guess.

 

It's worth noting that I only have a 3pt captain so far, but I have purchased all upgrade slots. Perhaps I'm just having teething problems, but I had none of these issues with the previous 3 battleships so you can see why I'm annoyed by my lack of Success in the Bayern.

 

Any suggestions?

 

1. Find another piggy bank 

2. Crack it open also

3. Empty contents 

4. Take contents and free xp to Gnes and relieve your suffering

[dseehafer]

1. Find another piggy bank 

2. Crack it open also

3. Empty contents 

4. Take contents and free xp to Gnes and relieve your suffering

 

Bayern is the end of the line for me. I dont want a-historical Gneis when I have (mostly) historical Scharnhorst and I dont want a-historical Bismarck when I have historical Tirpitz and tier 9 and 10s are just a way to lose credits. Fun to look at, but not to touch.

[Tears_of_Destiny]

 

Bayern is the end of the line for me. I dont want a-historical Gneis when I have (mostly) historical Scharnhorst and I dont want a-historical Bismarck when I have historical Tirpitz and tier 9 and 10s are just a way to lose credits. Fun to look at, but not to touch.

 

I think the Bismarck is close to being historical, isn't it, if you leave the hull stock? The hull upgrades take it to end-of-the-line Tirpitz levels and maybe a smidge past iirc, which makes sense as the "vanilla" non-premium ships are supposed to, in theory, cover how the general ship line went.

 

Either way I can see your point.

[Czevak]

Err.. you do not charge in Bayern.

 

You stay at a respectable range and lob American German Piercing shells at the enemy.

[dseehafer]

 

I think the Bismarck is close to being historical, isn't it, if you leave the hull stock? The hull upgrades take it to end-of-the-line Tirpitz levels and maybe a smidge past iirc, which makes sense as the "vanilla" non-premium ships are supposed to, in theory, cover how the general ship line went.

 

Either way I can see your point.

 

Bismarck's stock hull is historical. But her upgraded hull is not. To state that Bismarck's final hull represents late war Tirpitz is incorrect.

[KTcraft]

....

From what I can tell, you are actually struggling with survivability as a whole.  While your survival rate would be good for pvp, for PvE it's decidedly low.  

 

My suggestion is get Used to running away in a battleship.  If you see a cruiser beelining you at 10km, assume he's sprinting for a torp drop and immediately start turning around.    Yeah cruisers outrun battleships I know.  However if you are running from him, you are buying time for your own guns to take him out or dissuade him from pursuing and you also decrease the required distance for him to unload torps at you.

 

 

 

 

[dseehafer]

From what I can tell, you are actually struggling with survivability as a whole.  While your survival rate would be good for pvp, for PvE it's decidedly low.  

 

My suggestion is get Used to running away in a battleship.  If you see a cruiser beelining you at 10km, assume he's sprinting for a torp drop and immediately start turning around.    Yeah cruisers outrun battleships I know.  However if you are running from him, you are buying time for your own guns to take him out or dissuade him from pursuing and you also decrease the required distance for him to unload torps at you.

 

 

 

 

 

I am struggling with survival because I end almost every battle with a ram in a desperate attempt to meet my damage quota.

 

Before I start up WOWS i first check my stats and look at my average damage for the ship I am about to grind. I then tell myself that I have do meet that amount of damage or best it, and i am not allowed to stop playing until my avg damage has gone up. Because I have just started the Bayern I have set Dunkerque as the "average" for my tier 6 BB damage quotta, so my goal is to do 73k damage or better per battle, as you can tell, I have been less than successful in such an endeavor. 

[KTcraft]

 

I am struggling with survival because I end almost every battle with a ram in a desperate attempt to meet my damage quota.

 

actually I meant all your battleships.

[dseehafer]

 

actually I meant all your battleships.

 

Yeah, I ram in them too. Ramming is just free damage, especially if you're on low health and/or the enemy you're shooting at is the last one on their team. It's not so great a tactic in cruisers because you dont do as much damage and arent guaranteed a kill.

 

But in the others ramming is strategic, in Bayern, it's just desperation to do some damage.

[KTcraft]

 

Yeah, I ram in them too. Ramming is just free damage, especially if you're on low health and/or the enemy you're shooting at is the last one on their team. It's not so great a tactic in cruisers because you dont do as much damage and arent guaranteed a kill.

 

But in the others ramming is strategic, in Bayern, it's just desperation to do some damage.

 

I dunno, I feel like you may be putting too much stock in ramming damage, and may be sacrificing longevity-and damage output-in exchange.

[dseehafer]

 

I dunno, I feel like you may be putting too much stock in ramming damage, and may be sacrificing longevity-and damage output-in exchange.

 

Well, most battleships at tier 6 have about 50k hp, if I can ram a near full health enemy BB for 40,000 damage that means i will have only have had to have done 35k damage with my guns to meet my quotta. I usually wont ram unless I know that doing so will put me above my quotta.

[Peter_October_Brown]

You need to have an 11 level captain with Bayern to reinforce its aa and 2nd. You cannot expect a very high damage in each round in midtier German BBs.

 

Edit in red

[KTcraft]

 

Well, most battleships at tier 6 have about 50k hp, if I can ram a near full health enemy BB for 40,000 damage that means i will have only have had to have done 35k damage with my guns to meet my quotta. I usually wont ram unless I know that doing so will put me above my quotta.

 

Try cycle tanking.  Its what I often use to obtain dreadnoughts.  Basically you tank for a minute or two and after absorbing(30-50% max hp) some hopefully non citadel damage you pull back, heal, then get back in the fight rinse and repeat.  Once all your heal charges are depleted, then and only then consider ramming as an option. 

 

You'll last longer, be more helpful to the team and have the opportunity to exercise both close range fire support and mid/longe range suppression maximising your damage potential.

[BubbleRapper]

She has good enough armor that the HP isn't a problem in my experience. And I have brawled agaisnt torp-equipped cruisers and won easily because Bayern is fairly maneuverable and you can usually guess where they sent torps (or what I do sometimes is fake the start of a turn, then instead of committing to it, i turn the other way before I even spot torps in the water. Then sure enough their torps end up going in the wrong direction).

 

I have the most issue with her guns being inaccurate as heck. But they are powerful so it's give and take.

[centarina]

PVE plays bit different due to how aggressive  bots are in brawling.    I would say get to about 10km  , turn away and kite them.           

[RockaholicRaven]

No one can bayern its a heap of crap, like all the german bb's until tier 9

[PTX_007_03C]

Just listen to this song every night before you sleep for about 2 months and you will see the matrix.

 

 

Sometimes people will focus fire on you or your broadside will show for a bit, that's how life is (in my case more often than not). For me Bayern is more about opening safe space in the front lines with agressive play than having pretty stats, not really sure if you can do both. But hey, I may average 50K damage with her but there's no WTR amount that will buy the feeling of making 2 NCs go full reverse just because you are charging them bow on.

[Dradzk]

No one can bayern its a heap of crap, like all the german bb's until tier 9

 

Really? The Bayern has been awesome for me once I got it past stock and applied rudder shift. And I hear a lot of people saying pretty much the opposite, that they are awesome through tier 8, then meh afterwards.