New Orleans Sucks, or I do, probably me, help please

[waterman165]

 

I not so recently got my New Orleans, after playing I few terrible games, I came to the conclusion that this was really nothing more than the Pensacola but with tier 10 ships, I decided to put it away for a while, thinking that perhaps those few games were simply an unfortunate series of bad luck. I just started playing the NO again recently with the hopes of getting to the Des Moines and OH MAN have I been sucking hard at the NO. I'm constantly at the bottom of the chart and IDK, I don't like blaming the ship for a bad result but, either i'm doing something very wrong, or the NO is just not suited for me. So Does anyone have some suggestions? I'm going to list out the things I don't like, about the ship, things I've heard about the ship, and how I play my NO to try and see if I can expose what I am doing wrong.

 

1) 9 gun instead of 10, ok not really a big deal, but I miss the tenth gun.

 

2) It's almost just another Pensacola, problem is I like my Pensacola and do well in it, but not the NO, I try to play my NO the same as I play my Pensacola, long range support, try to stay with other ships, keep my ship angeled/bow pointed toward incoming fire, target cruisers first, keep the BB safe from air strikes. However I've yet to play a game in the NO where I can say "That was a GOOD game" only forgettable to terrible results. In the Pensacola I was able to get around 40,000 to 60,000 damage per game, but in the NO I have trouble leaveing the 30,000 range, I was maybe able to breach 40,000 in a game or 2 but those are rare. I like the Pensecola, despite it flaws, and I felt that it was a different enough play style to the legendary Cleveland that I feel accomplished and refreshed for getting it. But not the pensecola to the NO.  

 

3) Citidels, I keep hearing the NO is tougher, has better armor then the Pensecola, maybe it's true, but not for me it seems, the NO seems to get citadel ALL THE TIME for me, I'm citadeled in almost every game it seems and I remember distinctly being citadeled several times while pointing my ship at the single target that was firing at me. Its almost as if my whole ship is one giant citidel, which is what everyone says the pensecola is but I've never been citdels this as regularly over the course of so many games as I have in the NO. Maybe my the builders on my account swapped the armor of the Pensacola with the one  for the NO. *shrug*

 

4) compared to other ship of the same teir, the NO is disappointingly lackluster and average compared to the other ships, no torps, guns don't have a particularly fast ROF, do the least amount of damage of all the 203s, has less health than any other, the second slowest, second lowest AA. In my opinion these are really the important stats in the game because to me the most important thing is to be able to dish out and take/avoid damage which the NO doesn't seem to do to well in.

 

5) The only Pros it has is it is overall the most maneuverable with the tightest turning circle, and has the best concealment however these are really not that good in my opinion. The NO is nowhere near maneuverable enough to dodge incoming fire or run away from it. Now this is perhaps the key to why I suck at the NO and where I hope someone will be able to set me straight. The concealment, I don't get it. I keep hearing that the NO is a pretty good concealment rating and how you can hide and get closer to your enemies than you can with the Pensacola without being detected, BUT I've never really found or thought that concealment to be very useful in a cruiser. For one thing if you sneak closer to your enemy just to fire your guns, your probably the one of the closest ships to the enemy and everyone is going to want to shoot at you because you are the easiest target now. If you wait and hang around with your team and not get detected, you can't fire your guns or it negates your concealment. Trying to be sneaky in a cruiser is like a machine gunner trying to sneak around. If you don't fire, sure you stay hidden but your not doing damage and not contributing as much as you could be to the team, if you fire everyone will see you and it becomes pointless how good your concealment is.

 

SO does anyone have any suggestion to help me out or anything, something that I don't seem to be getting or just tips in general, playing like I'm still in my pensecola just doesn't seem to cut it and nothing I try seem to work, I I go aggressive I get obliterated, If I play passive I don't do anything the whole match and do no damage, if I try to balance and just keep with my team, I get citideled. I would really love to improve, please help, 

Thanks for reading

 

 

[Macabe]

It's not you. The ship is by nature, bad.

 

1) Ya, you're not wrong

2) Been awhile since i touched a NO but you're a support ship. Burn things down and move with the pack providing air cover

3) tougher cruiser armor is still cruiser armor

4) it is lackluster to literally every other tier 8

5) pretty much

 

I recommend literally any tier 8 ship that's not the New Orleans.

[Aduial]

has the best concealment

 

Mogami begs to differ, with 12.1 base surface detection range.

But anyways, i've heard a lot about this ship, and not much of it was good. But from my experience in cruisers, if you have good concealment, you have to use/abuse it. When engaging cruisers, get as close as possible, and when they show their broadside, hit them with multiple citadels. Against BBs, you keep raining fire from a distance, and when they focus too much on you, drop out of the detection zone, relocate, and start hitting them again.

[yamatotamura]

I have a New Orleans and I have mine the same as my Zao's captain. High Fire and Low concealment. I sit next to BB's and support fire and hide behind islands bow in. armor is soft but thats what I make of it. averages 9 fires for every 70 shell hits

[Jekub]

 

First thing is, never move alone! Find a big ship to buddy up with and stay behind them.

 

Second, never be the first ship on your team to go any where, let a DD scout for you and if possible, let your big friend go first.

 

Third, the stock ship is awful, the upgraded hull, guns and FCS aren't much better but you do get a slight increase in Rate of Fire. You get floaty shells so know your lead distances.

 

Fourth, your shells may not do the most damage but, you can citadel other cruisers at some very nice angles.

 

Fifth, never be the first one seen, This goes back to the first 2 points, but is still important to say. Never be the first ship the enemy sees, you WILL be killed by a Battleship on the other side of the map, you have the smallest health pool at your tier, conserve it how ever you can.

 

Sixth, don't be afraid to run away, if you get a bit out in front of your team, do a 180 and scuttle back to safety, don't let your pride kill you.

 

Seventh, you probably got used to this in the Pensacola but, learn to hold your shots, don't fire as soon as your guns are loaded unless you've got a good broadside shot. let the enemy ship give you an idea of his next maneuver and let him show you where to shoot next, for instance if he starts a turn, hold your fire for a few seconds and see if he is going to give you his broadside, if he's turning try to time your shots to hit him in the flank, if you time it right you can rip him apart with a single salvo.

 

Eighth, forget you have an X turret, sail bow on to your target, try to angle your hull against his shots and wiggle your ship a bit when your someone fires at you

 

Ninth use the right mouse button to zoom out after every shot and have a look around, you can see when some one fires at you so zoom out and dodge the shot as best you can

 

TL : DR start the match as a coward, run away from danger, never sail alone and learn the lead for your guns

 

[BadlyBrowned]

Imo, the New Orleans is overtired, particularly in AA defense since it doesn't get the twin 5in/38 turret yet. The only thing good about it is that it has good muzzle velocity for a USN cruiser. 

[inktomi19d]

I not so recently got my New Orleans, after playing I few terrible games, I came to the conclusion that this was really nothing more than the Pensacola but with tier 10 ships, I decided to put it away for a while, thinking that perhaps those few games were simply an unfortunate series of bad luck. I just started playing the NO again recently with the hopes of getting to the Des Moines and OH MAN have I been sucking hard at the NO. I'm constantly at the bottom of the chart and IDK, I don't like blaming the ship for a bad result but, either i'm doing something very wrong, or the NO is just not suited for me. So Does anyone have some suggestions? I'm going to list out the things I don't like, about the ship, things I've heard about the ship, and how I play my NO to try and see if I can expose what I am doing wrong.

 

1) 9 gun instead of 10, ok not really a big deal, but I miss the tenth gun.

 

 

You're looking at it the wrong way -- you have one more gun than the Pensacola most of the time. Even when not going bow-on, it's easier to get the front turrets on than to set up a broadside. When facing anything with torpedoes, or with guns less than 10" or so, it's smart to show them the slimmest profile possible anyway, so you end up gettoing a lot more use out of those 6 forward guns than you would out of the extra 4 guns that you'd need to show a side for.

 

 

2) It's almost just another Pensacola, problem is I like my Pensacola and do well in it, but not the NO, I try to play my NO the same as I play my Pensacola, long range support, try to stay with other ships, keep my ship angeled/bow pointed toward incoming fire, target cruisers first, keep the BB safe from air strikes. However I've yet to play a game in the NO where I can say "That was a GOOD game" only forgettable to terrible results. In the Pensacola I was able to get around 40,000 to 60,000 damage per game, but in the NO I have trouble leaveing the 30,000 range, I was maybe able to breach 40,000 in a game or 2 but those are rare. I like the Pensecola, despite it flaws, and I felt that it was a different enough play style to the legendary Cleveland that I feel accomplished and refreshed for getting it. But not the pensecola to the NO.  

It's not another Pensacola. You have far, far better stealth than the Penscola, and with your forward guns and radar you are far, far better at fighting DDs. Your forward armor is also far, far better at tanking damage from other cruisers. With the NO you should be supporting your allied DDs instead of supporting BBs like in the Pensacola. the guns handle similarly, but that is the only similarity.

 

As a rule you want to be a little behind your DDs with HE loaded to nuke the crap out of any enemy DD they spot. If the enemy DD smokes, pop your radar and continue to wreck him. If enemy aircraft spot your DDs, move up and give them AA. Enemy cruisers are a concern, but against those you first use islands and your superior stealth to get the first shot (preferably on a side) and then bow-tank them.

 

You can do the long-range style of the Pensacola, but that is really really the last thing you should be doing, because the NO is really no better at that than the Pensacola, and by the numbers the Pensacola is the worst cruiser in the game.

 

 

3) Citidels, I keep hearing the NO is tougher, has better armor then the Pensecola, maybe it's true, but not for me it seems, the NO seems to get citadel ALL THE TIME for me, I'm citadeled in almost every game it seems and I remember distinctly being citadeled several times while pointing my ship at the single target that was firing at me. Its almost as if my whole ship is one giant citidel, which is what everyone says the pensecola is but I've never been citdels this as regularly over the course of so many games as I have in the NO. Maybe my the builders on my account swapped the armor of the Pensacola with the one  for the NO. *shrug*

 

Check the minimap for where the red BBs are. Go elsewhere. BBs will citadel you just the same -- never try to bow-tank them.

 

Other cruisers, on the other hand, will bounce off your bow. My Atlanta, with it's 127mm guns can citadel a Pensacola from most angles (my best so far is 12 citadels in a single volley) -- I can't do that against a New Orleans unless the NO gives me a flat side shot. Russian and US DDs can kill the Pensacola with citadels, as can BB secondaries.

 

Against other cruisers, the NO actually has pretty good armor, and it 6 guns forward mean that other cruisers are forced to either face you with only 4 guns, or show you their citadels (they almost always choose to show their citadels). You will win if it comes to trading shots with another cruiser and you are bow-tanking.

 

The main thing is that you need to understand what your armor is good against, and understand that it's never good against BBs. Ever. 

 

Also, your concealment is armor. If a BB takes an interest in you, stop shooting and move 11km away and vanish.

 

 

4) compared to other ship of the same teir, the NO is disappointingly lackluster and average compared to the other ships, no torps, guns don't have a particularly fast ROF, do the least amount of damage of all the 203s, has less health than any other, the second slowest, second lowest AA. In my opinion these are really the important stats in the game because to me the most important thing is to be able to dish out and take/avoid damage which the NO doesn't seem to do to well in.

I'm not going to tell you that the NO is not a bad ship -- it has the worst stats in tier 8. But tier 8 is loaded with great ships.

 

You just came from the Pensacola, which is the worst ship in tier 7, and by a wider margin. If you can have fun in the Pensacola, you can have fun in the NO -- between the two, the NO is a far better ship IMO. 

 

 

 

5) The only Pros it has is it is overall the most maneuverable with the tightest turning circle, and has the best concealment however these are really not that good in my opinion. The NO is nowhere near maneuverable enough to dodge incoming fire or run away from it. Now this is perhaps the key to why I suck at the NO and where I hope someone will be able to set me straight. The concealment, I don't get it. I keep hearing that the NO is a pretty good concealment rating and how you can hide and get closer to your enemies than you can with the Pensacola without being detected, BUT I've never really found or thought that concealment to be very useful in a cruiser. For one thing if you sneak closer to your enemy just to fire your guns, your probably the one of the closest ships to the enemy and everyone is going to want to shoot at you because you are the easiest target now. If you wait and hang around with your team and not get detected, you can't fire your guns or it negates your concealment. Trying to be sneaky in a cruiser is like a machine gunner trying to sneak around. If you don't fire, sure you stay hidden but your not doing damage and not contributing as much as you could be to the team, if you fire everyone will see you and it becomes pointless how good your concealment is.

 

In most matches, there are two fights: the battleship fight, and the destroyer fight. The Pensacola is support for the battleship fight; the New Orleans is support for the destroyer fight.

 

Your maneuverability so there to help you dodge torpedoes and work in and around islands, not to dodge BBs firing from 15km away. Your defense against BBs are the islands you work in, or the DDs you protect. I think a lot of your problems with tanking damage and avoiding fire are because you are thinking of a fight that involves BBs, when you should be in a part of the fight that most BBs actively avoid.

 

Your concealability is there to help you move to island cover, and to help you move behind your DDs. On most maps, you should be able to get to a place where BBs can't target you before you are spotted.

 

For the first part of the match, you should mostly ignore the BBs and focus on (in order):

1. Killing enemy DDs
2. Killing cruisers that threaten allied DDs
3. Shooting down planes that spot allied DDs

 

Once you need to engage BBs, be a coward about it. Any time they start rotating guns in your direction stop firing and vanish; most BB players won't bother wasting the 30 seconds it takes to aim their guns if you keep disappearing

 

 

 

 

Again, I'm going to point out that the NO is not a good ship. It is worst in it's tier by the stats, and would probably be okay in tier 7 if they moved it down (though it would lose some of it's concealment, so maybe not). I learned to enjoy the ship, but it took me a while and I'd need to go back and play it a bunch to break 50% with it. Then again, I enjoyed it enough that I might go back and fix my win rate with it.

[Doomwaffel]

I have currently upgraded my NO a bit. Better turning, concealment and the slightly better Health pool.

Doesnt make much of a difference though. Plus I seem to be really unlucky when it comes to pen, In 20+games I maybe got 1 citadel hit on an enemy, it feels like this ship cant pen paper on 8 miles.

 

I really dont know what WG's idea for the american cruiser line is, especially now that every other line has torps for short range(might not be used often, but its a tool) or just more HP and or better guns. (especially german Cruisers)

What is the edge of the US Cruisers to make up for the lack of Torps and other things?

I will definately not purchase the Baltimore, but I will at least unlock it.

 

The way I thought of US CA was that they are tanky, AA heavy and have hard hitting guns which tend to shoot rainbow arcs.

But despite the name of a "heavy cruiser" there isnt really anything heavy about it. The fact that you shoot slower after the Cleveland just gives you the impression that you turn into a small BB. Which isnt true at all.

Everything you can do in a Pen, NO or Balt other ships can do better.

Come on Wargaming, why should I play them?

 

EDIT: My recent game: There are 3 BBs, > hide behid a rock and check if there is a option to attack that doesnt give a BB an angle on you. Shooting some salvos on 2 cruisers, minimal dmg, both get killed by 2 salvos from BBs (could have saved my ammunition). There is a DD spotting me all the time, more hiding behind rocks. I attack the DD I get spotted, immediately 2 salvos from a BB, im dead.

At this point my feelings switched. This ship adds NOTHING to the pool. It gets spotted it dies, it is useless against BBs and easier to kill than any DD. They get spotted harder and dont get 1 shotted all the time.+ They can kill all enemy ships, the NO can maybe kill DDs or Cruisers if lucky, dont even try to shoot at BBs. The moment you shoot, you get spotted, they turn on you once, kill you and return to what they did before.

As you can tell I am quite enraged by now.

 

 

 

[TP152]

I just purchased the NO, upgraded it to the Max, have a 16 point captain in it and I agree with every single point you wrote, its as if I wrote your posting.  I was hoping it would be like my Pensacola experience, where after the upgrades and playing it a while I got good at it, have had numerous very fulfilling battles, and believe it or not have even kraken 'ed  in it, could not believe that one!  The NO however, unreal how under classed it is.  I will most likely sell it never to return to the USN cruiser line again.

OK I gotta change my original post....I had not upgraded it like I though I had!  Dupe!   Now that It is fully maxed out I thoroughly enjoy playing this ship.  Gotta play it like the cruiser it is, but I've had a lot of successful games in it since the upgrades.  It plays much like the Pepsi, gotta dodge and weave and hide, it's got good guns and decent maneuverability and the radar of course.  So if you like the Pepsi, which I eventually did once I upgraded it, you'll also like the NO, just make sure to upgrade it!  

[thehelmsman]

New Orleans is a notoriously frustrating ship to play. When the USN cruiser line gets reworked, it will probably drop to tier 7, which would suit it better; it never really even deserved to be a tier 8 in the first place. It's a very difficult ship to play in the current meta, but the buffs did make it excel in one particular role: it is an outstanding DD hunter and smoke-camper bully. You have 9.1km concealment with a full stealth build, which basically means the instant you're spotted by any ship, you can radar them and spot them back. A New Orleans popping up at 9km is a nightmare situation for any destroyer, regardless of tier.

So spec for concealment and maximizing the impact of your guns, support friendly DD, bully smokes with your radar and excellent gun power, and try to make yourself a nuisance wherever you can otherwise.

--Helms

 

[vonKaiser]

Island abuse.  I run a stealth build on her and in the beginning of the match I tend to not even bother getting into a position where I can do damage, I go where I can get maximum radar coverage for the DD's pushing the caps while remaining in full hard cover where I CAN'T be shot at.  Once that's done, DD's back off or die, I relocate and get out of close proximity and head to where I can be a proper support ship and rain HE and AP fire down from longer ranges.  I'm only a few games in on it myself though.  Been having hit or miss results with this method, sometimes works good, other times... yeah not so much.

With regards to it being better armored then Pensacola... well it kind of is, but it's still cruiser levels of armor.  When you're fighting enemy cruisers similar tier, you can angle and pull off some bounces.  But at the same time the heavy hitting BB's are HEAVY hitting and don't care one iota about your armor.  When you're playing the New Orleans you have to rely on avoiding the shells instead of the armor.  Doesn't matter if you avoid 9 out of 10 shells, that 1 shell landing on your back deck from a tier 9 or 10 BB?  Yeah it's gonna be a citadel shot :(

[LastSamurai714]

I hit a Moskva today at 8.5km with a 30k volley in New Orleans.  One volley.  6 citadels plus normal pens.  

 

I have about 30 games in her so far and am still figuring it out but I will say...never be sideways, straight on or straight away from anything.  Like / or like \ once you learn the right angle it's not so bad.  Use AP every chance you get.  Know when not to fire.  Just because you have a ship broadside doesn't mean shoot.  Look around check for battle ships plan your escape route...then fire.  

 

My damage numbers in NO aren't great but a NO helps immensely.  Half way through the game once you have done your job then you can take risks and have fun.

 

I will try to be more specific as I learn her more but so far 30 games in with 60% win rate...I will take it.

 

Edit:  1v1 a Neptune today who has sinificatly better DPM...radar he leaves smoke...nose on angled, reversing at 9km or so...one volley 6 citadels just like on the Moskva.  He returned fire a couple times and got nothing but overpens and bounces.  I planned it all ahead and it worked out.  If it didn't and the BB I was watching on the mini map turned in instead of out I would've bailed and picked another fight.  You have to plan ahead and not be purely reactive in NO.