Italian Destroyers How Are They In Random

[tm63au]

I like the line and have fun in Coop but I am yet to venture into random,WG MAS Boat Doctrine as I term it is OK against BOTS but against a competent player in random specially in another DD seems to me a recipe for disaster.

Trying to get past a DD and CA/ CL screen to attack a BB with those short range guns and slow torpedoes dose not bode well for me.

You got limited smoke and speed burst and if you mange to dodge the escort you then have try to escape DD's that out range you.

Anyone having success with them in random.

regards     

 

 

[Kynami]

Your job with such a ship initially is trying to ambush other destroyers in randoms. You have no business dealing with the bigger ships at the start of the game unless they are actively shoving in and thus giving you potential angles to torpedo and let you have nearby islands to duck behind if your smoke is lit up by hydro and radar. Unfortunately you are a bit of a one trick pony with those ships until the opposition fleet screening elements is somewhat culled. Use your short bursts of speed and if needed also the smoke to rapidly get back out after mangling an enemy destroyer's health bar. You'll get your chance at the battleships if the game goes long enough and your side swats enough of the opposition spotting.

[MidnightPhoenix07]

The tech tree Italian destroyers are fat, clumsy, short-ranged destroyer assassins. And that short range is both a blessing and a curse for the line. They're also not a good starting destroyer line, but they scale a lot with player skill and ability. Knowing how to leverage their strengths and work around their weaknesses is pretty crucial to making them work with their gimmicks.

Your first focus is finding the enemy destroyer on your flank, chasing it down, and smacking it with your SAP until it stops sailing. Speccing into RL is very helpful in this role, since the enemy DD will spot you first, but it likely won't be able to outrun you while you run right at it. Then once the destroyer is dead, your short gun range means there's very little chance any other ships will be within your gun bloom and you'll immediately go dark. That's the blessing part of the short range.

After that, you can cap, and then either stick around to pester larger ships or go help the other flank kill their destroyer(s). If you choose to stay on your flank, you ideally want to play right around the edge of your gun range (so you can turn out if you start to get focused, and go dark by having no enemies in your gun bloom). Throw torps when you have the opportunity, but know that they're very much a secondary weapon -- send them toward choke points, where their slow speed can catch enemies off guard, or toward big stationary ships in case they stay there. Shoot targets that are distracted by your allies, and go dark (by turning out, or smoking if you need to) when you get too much attention.

That's where the curse of the short range comes in, since you have to be very close to enemy cruisers and battleships to be able to shoot them. And as you go to higher tiers, you'll run into more long range radar and secondaries that exceed your firing range. They ideally want some extra range (definitely the range upgrade, and either AFT or Sansonetti's range talent) and whatever concealment they can get, since otherwise their detection range exceeds their firing range. But that ability to go dark almost at will through the lower gun bloom range is key, so you don't want too much extra range. 

Another problem as you get into higher tiers is actual gunboat destroyers. At low and mid tiers, you can pretty much stomp on any destroyer you face (provided you actually know what you're doing, of course). But at higher tiers, you'll run into things like Mogador/Kleber/Marceau, Smaland, Ragnar, etc, that will outgun you without any real difficulty. You'll still be fine against torp destroyers and most of your torp-focused hybrid destroyers, but you will need help if you have to fight something that can actually fight back and win.

As for a build, they're even more points starved than most destroyers (which are already generally points hungry). Most destroyers are playable with a 10-point minimum build, but the Italian destroyers need a minimum of 14 (so they can get both CE and AFT).

Some players say to swap RL for FB, but I don't think it's necessarily worth it. Having RL to know exactly where an enemy destroyer is (either to hunt it down, or where to avoid it if it's a gunboat), is kind of crucial for their early game role. FB would give you a slight theoretical DPM increase in both your destroyer fight or when farming distracted enemies, but in practice it's really just an extra salvo (and a bit) per minute. 

If you want to swap the Slot 6 reload mod for extra range, I'd drop AFT in favor of BFT for the extra reload there. Having both range increases kicks you from 11.5 km (on Regolo) up to 13.3 km (and 14.4 if you have Sansonetti as well), which is a bit more comfortable for farming but means you're a lot more likely to have other enemies in range so you can't go dark after killing a destroyer.

I'd take AR before RL since that'll also help reduce your reload a bit as you take some chip damage, and if you're playing the Italian destroyers you hopefully have enough game experience to know roughly where enemy destroyers should be. If you find yourself getting surprised by enemy destroyers popping up where you're not expecting them, you can swap the order of the two. You just might want to play a bit more cautiously when farming, since you won't have the DPM boost from AR until you have a max level captain.

 

Wiki article for Maestrale, for a bit more detail and some more build stuff. I did the articles for Curtatone through Maestrale, but the same general ideas apply to all ships in the line. Just don't forget that the low and mid tier destroyers will easily chew through their opposing destroyers, but the high tiers will face gunboats that will to the same to them.