How do I Colorado?

[Desmios]

Hey all,

 

   Not a big BB player, mainly play DDs.  Love CVs, but USN CVs are utter garbage, so my lex is mothballed til something changes.

 

  ON THAT NOTE: How do I colorado?

 

  I HATE sitting back and sniping, absolutely, 100%, HATE it; sitting back and rolling dice to RNG gods every 30seconds SUCKS  I LOVE brawls.  There is nothing more fun to me than (when it rarely occurs) getting <9km with another BB and duking it out; but this nearly NEVER happens.

 

   I was told USN BBs were for brawling, so what is what I went for.  What no one told me was that you'd have little-to-no support while closing the distance, that everyone and their mom would be aiming for you, that other allied BBs would not attempt to take any fire from you, and that the cruisers that 'support' you will usually fly full-speed ahead infront of you and get killed before they actually can do their job.

 

  Oh and DDs screening for torps?  lawl. 

 

  What am I supposed to do?

 

EDIT: I forget which BB was before my colorado (new mexico?), but I do not remember being nearly as frustrated in it.  Wondering if this is maybe a Colorado thing.

[B4lduR_28]

Your a tank, your armor bounces pretty much everything at an angle, coupled with the relatively agile rudder shift and the punchy if a bit wonky guns you can outbrawl everything outside 6km (german BB torps)

 

You burn better then kerosine and have a low health pool for your tier but she is a great ship if played to her strengths

[poeticmotion]

Poetic's guide in How to Colorado, post-0.5.10 edition

1. Look at Colorado in tech tree. Consider buying her. 

2. Decide not to buy her.

3. Buy a Nassau. 

4. Grind through Kaiser, Konig, and Bayern. Make sure you have plenty of port slots as you will fall in love with them and want to keep them. 
5. Buy Gneisenau

6. Make LOLorados regret the day they decided to purchase their ship. 

7. ???

8. Profit

[Desmios]

Your a tank, your armor bounces pretty much everything at an angle, coupled with the relatively agile rudder shift and the punchy if a bit wonky guns you can outbrawl everything outside 6km (german BB torps)

 

You burn better then kerosine and have a low health pool for your tier but she is a great ship if played to her strengths

 

Any tips on how to play the fair maiden?

[JCC45]

I generally sail to the middle of the map at 1/2 speed.  By that time I can see where our team is headed and where the bad guys are headed, and plan accordingly.  Stay with the other BBs as much as possible.  

 

You can't snipe in a Colorado as the dispersion is too bad.  You will be lucky to get anything at all.  You need to close to withing 10 km or so to be effective.  With broadside cruisers, using AP, you can get citadels and even against some BBs.... except for German ones.  The armour is so OP on the German lines that you are lucky to get chip damage using AP at any range, so switch to HE, try to set them on fire and get the hell out of there as fast as a Colorado can go.  They are faster than  you, they can out manoeuvre you and they can citadel you whereas your AP just bounces off for chip damage.  Plus they have torpedos.

 

Keep angled towards everyone else and stay with the others as much as you speed will allow,

[Nachoo31]

Poetic's guide in How to Colorado, post-0.5.10 edition

1. Look at Colorado in tech tree. Consider buying her. 

2. Decide not to buy her.

3. Buy a Nassau. 

4. Grind through Kaiser, Konig, and Bayern. Make sure you have plenty of port slots as you will fall in love with them and want to keep them. 

5. Buy Gneisenau

6. Make LOLorados regret the day they decided to purchase their ship. 

7. ???

8. Profit

 

  There is no regrets.  Just ask the Cola I deleted in one salvo from 21 km. 

[Desmios]

I generally sail to the middle of the map at 1/2 speed.  By that time I can see where our team is headed and where the bad guys are headed, and plan accordingly.  Stay with the other BBs as much as possible.  

 

You can't snipe in a Colorado as the dispersion is too bad.  You will be lucky to get anything at all.  You need to close to withing 10 km or so to be effective.  With broadside cruisers, using AP, you can get citadels and even against some BBs.... except for German ones.  The armour is so OP on the German lines that you are lucky to get chip damage using AP at any range, so switch to HE, try to set them on fire and get the hell out of there as fast as a Colorado can go.  They are faster than  you, they can out manoeuvre you and they can citadel you whereas your AP just bounces off for chip damage.  Plus they have torpedos.

 

Keep angled towards everyone else and stay with the others as much as you speed will allow,

 

Sounds like German BBs have a lot of advantages over USN BBs, are the USN BBs better in anyway? a bit of AA?

[ValkyrWarframe]

Never bow-on against other battleships with guns bigger than 14 inches.  Your bow does not overmatch their shells.

 

Also, don't broadside other battleships completely unless you want a crap ton of normal penetrations on you.

[SkywhaleExpress]

Poetic's guide in How to Colorado, post-0.5.10 edition

1. Look at Colorado in tech tree. Consider buying her. 

2. Decide not to buy her.

3. Buy a Nassau. 

4. Grind through Kaiser, Konig, and Bayern. Make sure you have plenty of port slots as you will fall in love with them and want to keep them. 

5. Buy Gneisenau

6. Make LOLorados regret the day they decided to purchase their ship. 

7. ???

8. Profit

 

Eh, no...

 

1. Buy her.

2. Set her up for AA, her secondaries aren't good (but NC's start to get okay).

3.Skip Nassau and go to Kaiser+.Still play Lolorado.

4. Have fun derping CA/CL with 2200 lb. AP Mk. 1 16 inch shells. Derp all non-German BBs, including other Lolerodos.

5. Get a Triple Critadel on an Iowa and hear him complain.

 

[SkywhaleExpress]

 

Sounds like German BBs have a lot of advantages over USN BBs, are the USN BBs better in anyway? a bit of AA?

Their only main advantage is their armor thickness and near invulnerability from citadels.

Never bow-on against other battleships with guns bigger than 14 inches.  Your bow does not overmatch their shells.

 

Also, don't broadside other battleships completely unless you want a crap ton of normal penetrations on you.

That is the North Carolina>Iowa>Monty, not Colorado. Lolorado's bow and angled armor were the best in game until the Germans came out.

[B4lduR_28]

 

Any tips on how to play the fair maiden?

 

yes, travel with the pack at the beginning, your not a front line ship for the first 5-10 min, thin the herd of enemy CA from ranges of 10-15km, her guns have a bit of a weird dispersion but at that range you can hit those citadels reliably. While you do this watch your angles to other BB and only open up for your shots.

 

in a 1v1 or 1v2 BB situation you do the same as before, wait til they shoot, open your broadside, your guns are the punchiest at tier and pen more reliably especially at shorter ranges and watch the salt when they bounce and bounce

 

you also have quite potent heals that you can should use strategically (let single fires burn if the threat isn't neutralized, you can repair 100% of the fire dmg, so your fine if your not swamped)

 

last but not least the agility in the turns helps a lot with torps and planes (AA is ok not great)

[X15]

My Colorado guide:

Use your monster armor and angle in, your rudder is fast enough you can pop out your rear turrets fairly safely.

10-13 km is your golden range, the Colorado's guns are actually incredibly accurate and you can destroy broadside cruisers with ease.

Your AA is solid when you have AFT, not quite Gnisenau but solid.

Stick with your team as much as you can and look for those broadsides. Your AP is wonderful, I've gotten devastating strikes on NC and Iowa as well as 20k + salvos on IJN BBs.

Your HE protection is crap, Atlanta, Myoko, RU CAs, and USN DDs can tear you up. But you can nuke them.

You are slow as molasses so find yourself a cap or a channel and defend the heck out of it.

[K1ra_Yoshikage]

Before the KM joined the Colorado was a respectable brawler. Angle her, close in and laugh while you penetrate everything else till tier 7 bow on. Now you close in you get burned down by KM secondaries or plain sunk by torpedos. Best spot is around 7-10km from any KM BB. Still your armor is good and your guns can deal a good amount of damage.

[JCC45]

 

Sounds like German BBs have a lot of advantages over USN BBs, are the USN BBs better in anyway? a bit of AA?

 

Haven't been able to stay alive against one long enough to  notice.  

 

Once a Scharhorst gets within 10 KM of you, and decides that you are going to die... you are going to die.  If you stayangled towards to avoid his penetrating power he will sail right up and torp you (your AP is useless even at close range against an slightly angled Scharnhorst).  If you turn broadside to run away he will hit you right in the Cits. He can out run you, out gun you (due not to his guns but his armour making your AP shots ineffective) and last longer than it takes you to burn him down due to acombination of his superior HPs, repair abilities and your sloooooooooooooooow reload times and turret traverse.  Even with the Colorado hull upgrades she doesn't have a chance against a semi-skill Scharnhorst driver

 

WG really screwed the Colorado players with the German lines.

[Captain_Dilbert]

I just completed my grind to the NC...and it was just that, a grind.  Unfortunately you have hit the nail on the head multiple times.  First, make sure you get the plotting room upgrade as this will at least give you range.  Yeah, it's no fun sitting back at 18km but with this upgrade at least you have a chance during the first 5 minutes of battle to reach a target.  Yeah, forget about any long-term DD or CA support because you are so slow they will out pace you and forget you exist.  The good news though is that because you are slow you can't YOLO straight into a battle and get yourself killed in 5 min.  The reality is that you do need to sail back and forth (trying to stay angled) and look for targets.  Then as the battle takes shape (7+ min into it) you can assess how best to close the range and begin to brawl.  Issues to remember...when you are top tier, you will still be dealing with IJN DD's and lots of tops (7km range from the Minekaze and 10km from Mutsuki and Hatsuharu) so you need to always be mindful of WASD hacks...always be weary of the T7/8 German BBs with torps because they will crush you if you get too close...and when you are low tier you need to be weary of T8 & T9 BBs because they can overmatch your armor (which you can do to other T7 and below BBs) but you cannot overmatch theirs.  So when you see that NC bow on...start firing HE and head for cover because it will wreck you.

 

The short answer is that the Colorado is not lots of fun, it is a grind.  The good news though is that because of the changes to the T4 MM you will now see more battles where you are top tier and if all you have to worry about is another Colorado or a Nagato, then the battle is much more manageable.

 

I hope this helps.

[JCC45]

Their only main advantage is their armor thickness and near invulnerability from citadels.

That is the North Carolina>Iowa>Monty, not Colorado. Lolorado's bow and angled armor were the best in game until the Germans came out.

 

 

ummmmmmm,... wut?

 

I get citadeled at least once every match.  You must be very lucky.

[Captain_Dilbert]

 

Sounds like German BBs have a lot of advantages over USN BBs, are the USN BBs better in anyway? a bit of AA?

 

The Germans are tough, but at T7 the USN and IJN BB's have bigger guns (and more than the Gneisenau) than the German T7 and T8's, thus I don't believe that they can overmatch your frontal armor.  Even the CO has better dispersion than the German T8s and the Gneisenau and while the Scharnhorst has better dispersion than you (13.1m/km vs 13.9m/km), she is firing 280mm shells vs your 406mm shells.   

[SkywhaleExpress]

 

 

ummmmmmm,... wut?

 

I get citadeled at least once every match.  You must be very lucky.

 

Not in Germans. You might get multiple pens against you, but I rarely see citadels against German, except Tirpitz

[poeticmotion]

Eh, no...

3.Skip Nassau and go to Kaiser+.

 

Suit yourself. I wouldn't spend the free XP to skip Nassau. She's a blast of a ship and it doesn't take long to grind through her to get to Kaiser. Easily beats Bogatyr as my new favorite t3. 

[Captain_Doll]

I have not played the Colorado since the German line was introduced. Here is what I recommend:

 

 

 

 

 

(1) Keep targets at approx. 11 to 15k;

(2) Do not charge allow Scharnhorst/Gneisenau within 6 k.

(3) Close the distance against a Nagato

 

Your best attributes is strong AA and hard hitting guns. You have the potential of deleting cruisers whereas the Scharnhorst/Geneisenau really don't, at least not on a sufficiently regular basis. You can also put up better AA than a Nagato.

 

You are a fleet battleship. The Colorado is at its best when it has some cruisers nearby to fling HE at aggressive German battleships. You can engage in a 15k snipping battle with a Nagato and come out of top if you can throw off the Nagato's aiming.

 

Finally, USN battleships require a lot of forethought. Your much too slow for on the fly adjustments.

[Megrim3]

The Colorado is still the worst us bb I have ever played...But boy

 

Is it ever better than when I was grinding it pre patch. How do you Colorado? Get out of the Colorado. I was forced to rebuy it for last season of ranked and I hated the thing. Brought back all kinds of terrible memories in that pos. Still...I did manage to get rank 2 in it specced as an aa ship. 

 

 

 

In this ship....You need your team more than ever.

[Ghostdog1355]

What I did was first move my captain into it that 15 points. Get the quicker turret traverse, better shell dispersion, the better detectability and hits points (its only 2100 but it helps). Upgrade every thing. Like others have said and I agree the Scharnhorst is a killer. It's the only ship I don't like going up against. 10-13 km is the best range. Save your shots, don't fire at maximum range unless they are the only shot and you have ample reload time. Finally don't be the lead ship and don't be the last. DDs will feed on you.

[Desmios]

What seems to be standing out to me is how fleet-focused USN ships are.  USN BBs and Pepsicola, etc. all seem to need support ships to shine

[LordCorellon]

 

Any tips on how to play the fair maiden?

 

Angle. get in up on the enemy as best you can, without being overrun. you will obliterate enemy ships, but you need to be around 8-10km to do it. your angled hull will bounce alot of enemy shells. Dont try to get a full broadside salvo unless you can safely do it(angle while reload, turn back just before guns are reloaded) At the worst its better to get 2 turrets to fire and stay angled instead of a full salvo and get punched for half your life(or worse) with a multi citadel hit. Cruisers that follow you will get so many gravy points from fires and multiple shots in while your bouncing shells and getting the enemy to fire on you.

 

This is what you can do when up close. I took it to a pair of nagatos that got uppity. Note the before and after. His buddy finished me off, but I put quite a dent in him as well before I went down.

 

 

 

[teamoldmill]

Poetic's guide in How to Colorado, post-0.5.10 edition

1. Look at Colorado in tech tree. Consider buying her. 

2. Decide not to buy her.

3. Buy a Nassau. 

4. Grind through Kaiser, Konig, and Bayern. Make sure you have plenty of port slots as you will fall in love with them and want to keep them. 

5. Buy Gneisenau

6. Make LOLorados regret the day they decided to purchase their ship. 

7. ???

8. Profit

 

Gneis is no threat at all to a CO who knows how to angle and not sail alone in a direct line towards one.