GK Role in Ranked

[ArIskandir]

This weekend I ran into an interesting situation while playing GK in a Ranked match. Some guy on my team indicated amazement I pushed with a GK, according to him a GK should not push... I didn't want to immediatly disqualify his opinion, which is different to mine. Of course discusing such things in detail is not really possible over in game chat so I was left curious about his reasoning for why a GK is a bad 'pusher' ship... Does any of you guys share that perspective?, if that's the case, why do you think a GK is not well suited to push?, and on a more general scenario, what do you think is the best role for a GK in Ranked?

[Itwastuesday]

Big target, huge superstructure, poor torp belt, poor maneuverability, horrible turret angles bow toward the enemy, bad concealment... Dies really fast if pushing done wrong. Much like most other battleships in that regard, though. Better turret angles toward stern and probably better at holding and defending. 

Of course a blanket statement that a battleship shouldn't push is simply wrong. 

[Nevermore135]

The two things that come to mind upon reading this are:

1) He was being facetious, throwing shade on the GK players (and battleship players in general) he has encountered that play passively, or

2) In his mind he equates “pushing” with a suicidal charge to get within secondary range, which is distressingly common behavior amongst players of certain ships.

[ArIskandir]

1 hour ago, Nevermore135 said:

The two things that come to mind upon reading this are:

1) He was being facetious, throwing shade on the GK players (and battleship players in general) he has encountered that play passively, or

2) In his mind he equates “pushing” with a suicidal charge to get within secondary range, which is distressingly common behavior amongst players of certain ships.

During the same exchange he conceded it is 'correct' to push in Napoli. So I'm assuming at least some knowledge about the potential of different ships to perform offensive roles. I don't think he was being facetious as it was open criticism for my decision to push, as the Napoli who pushed along me got no such criticism it was apparently GK specific. 

1 hour ago, Itwastuesday said:

Big target, huge superstructure, poor torp belt, poor maneuverability, horrible turret angles bow toward the enemy, bad concealment... Dies really fast if pushing done wrong. Much like most other battleships in that regard, though.

That's the thing I see, many of those characteristics are similar to most T10 BBs. Many are huge, clumsy beasts with poor maneuverability and bad concealment, all can die really fast if pushing carelessly. With Hydro and good secondaries GK is as good a BB to push as most others not called Schlieffen. Granted she can be a better 'defender' but that can be said of practically any ship due to the power of kiting. 

[Itwastuesday]

The why and how and when of how to push is lost to the playerbase to such a degrew that they'll only ever push when it's an unnecessary win more move or when a ship is hyper specialized for it. Kurfurst isn't one of those, so for the playerbase it's kiting sniper battleship #165 in which kriegsmarine drivers ruin their games by pushing and dying in 4 minutes. 

[Nevermore135]

13 hours ago, ArIskandir said:

During the same exchange he conceded it is 'correct' to push in Napoli. So I'm assuming at least some knowledge about the potential of different ships to perform offensive roles. I don't think he was being facetious as it was open criticism for my decision to push, as the Napoli who pushed along me got no such criticism it was apparently GK specific. 

Napoli has cruiser burn/DCP timers and exhaust smoke as an excellent tool to disengage if you overextend. Add that on top of of her armor scheme and she’s stupidly forgiving in that regard. It’s much easier to overextend and get focused to death quickly in GK, which happens to a lot of high tier German BB players that haven’t learned to temper their aggression.

Edited August 20, 2024 by Nevermore135

[Kynami]

Unfortunately there have been plenty of times in regular randoms I've had to burn the speed boost on Wujing, Bourgogne, or similar to take up station on a flank that a GK or similar straight up abandons at the very start of the game. Its not even not pushing, its straight up not even using it to hold that annoys the heck out of me for some of the players with these ships. And usually a very solid reason that the game still ends up being won is because I did hold said flank and prevent the enemy team pushing through for free. Somebody needs to keep hold over the side of the map because your average enemy Napoli or similar isn't going to sink itself without some help from eating broadsides to the tune of twenty thousand or better damage.

[Nevermore135]

14 minutes ago, Kynami said:

Unfortunately there have been plenty of times in regular randoms I've had to burn the speed boost on Wujing, Bourgogne, or similar to take up station on a flank that a GK or similar straight up abandons at the very start of the game. Its not even not pushing, its straight up not even using it to hold that annoys the heck out of me for some of the players with these ships. And usually a very solid reason that the game still ends up being won is because I did hold said flank and prevent the enemy team pushing through for free. Somebody needs to keep hold over the side of the map because your average enemy Napoli or similar isn't going to sink itself without some help from eating broadsides to the tune of twenty thousand or better damage.

In Ranked I’ve gotten in the habit of hanging back a bit and waiting to commit to a flank until I see how the team deploys. The number of times I’ve seen the ships that spawn on one side cut across the spawn area to follow the lemming train is astonishing. I dread the “all push (insert cap)” message in chat.

It honestly feels like more than half the time I find myself fighting a holding action on the weak flank (regardless of where I spawn) because the average player doesn’t comprehend the importance of map control (especially on smaller maps with fewer ships per side).

Edited August 20, 2024 by Nevermore135

[Wulf_Ace]

still better then when I see sniper Kurfurst players

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

20 hours ago, ArIskandir said:

This weekend I ran into an interesting situation while playing GK in a Ranked match. Some guy on my team indicated amazement I pushed with a GK, according to him a GK should not push... I didn't want to immediatly disqualify his opinion, which is different to mine. Of course discusing such things in detail is not really possible over in game chat so I was left curious about his reasoning for why a GK is a bad 'pusher' ship... Does any of you guys share that perspective?, if that's the case, why do you think a GK is not well suited to push?, and on a more general scenario, what do you think is the best role for a GK in Ranked?

German battleships excel at defensive brawling. I.e., heavily punishing ships that push into them.

Perhaps he has seen this concept and assumed that it's good practice to never push with a GK...which is somewhat absurd.

Every ship can push given the right context.

Identifying that context and exploiting it is the magical skill.