Of Superships and Operations

[Frostbow]

I purchased 3 Tier XI ships for the Steel and to satiate my curiosity. I wanted to experience firsthand how they can contribute and make impact for the team in  Operations, and how it feels to face bots with insane amounts of HP.

First, the Jacksonville. After a round in Aegis, I think this ship, with its range and comfortable ballistics, is too strong for Operations. It has shell arcs that are better than Worcester's and the range that can reach out to targets, allowing Slot 6 for the reload mod.

This is my first time to score at least 2,000 Base XP in Aegis. I've been finding it hard to break the 2,000 Base XP mark in this Op. Seems to me WG is a bit stingy here. 

But something else caught my attention.

A single AP shell from the GK of the last wave scored a whopping 22,242 damage! That is more damage compared to say, an AP shell from Incomparable.

WG probably boosted the damage levels of the bots because of my cruiser's Tier. Makes sense, though I was surprised at the amount of damage a single shell could do.

[Frostbow]

Next is Novosibirsk. I was hesitant at first to buy this Tier XI, but just like with the Jacksonville, I was curious.

Perhaps it was just RNG, but in Aegis (again), the heavy cruiser's dispersion was simply amazing. 54 citadels and 6 kills. 

Of course, negative earnings. LOL

As far as Base XP is concerned, I've given up trying to understand or expect something good when it is in Aegis. The personal score was better compared to the one made with the Jacksonville, yet the Base XP for this game was surprisingly low, at 1,426.

Nevertheless, this has been my highest citadel score made with a heavy cruiser in Aegis. I reached 40+ citadel hits before, in the same Operation, but that was during the time when Operations was for Tiers VI and VII only.

[Kynami]

The sheer amount of over match enabled damage is a feature that really does not help when you go to play a T8 ship and it tosses you into a T9 by fiat lobby. Because at that point it you can be dev struck while angled and trying to get behind allied battleships that are refusing to tank. The fact that you can and will face super ships the moment even one T9 or higher is foist upon a match you queued up on hurts so much. It also doesn't help that the bots are significantly more accurate than some of the ships would naturally be.

Can make playing typical tech tree cruisers really depressing when you get a bunch of battleships that play the coward. Because while Weegee does play with health and damage a bit, the sheer abundance of large guns that ignore all angling the moment you are facing the upper bracket is exceedingly annoying.

[Frostbow]

I got the Satsuma next, assigned a spare 15-pointer, and then went to Operations.

RNG sent me back to Aegis for the 3rd time. It started okay, but then it got worryingly close to another defeat as our team dwindled fast, as cruisers died one by one even before the Transports were able to make their turn.

I tried to score a kill, but unfortunately, I was not successful. All I got was 584K damage and a few citadel hits.

Fortunately, our Napoli was able to shepherd the lambs from near slaughter to assured victory by judiciously using his smoke.

Zero kills, but much to my surprise, I landed first on the Team Score board! LOL!

Now I hardly pay attention to Reports, but I was surprised once again when the game informed me that I was 'reported'—for what, for scoring 1,755 Base XP without destroying a single bot? 

[Frostbow]

14 minutes ago, Kynami said:

The fact that you can and will face super ships the moment even one T9 or higher is foist upon a match you queued up on hurts so much. It also doesn't help that the bots are significantly more accurate than some of the ships would naturally be.

I like it. It gives PVE players a real challenge not found in Co-op or in Asymmetric. Now I know that won't sit well with a lot of other PVE players, and I do understand the legitimate concern, but there are many ways to mitigate the inherent advantages of superships in high tier Operations.
 

17 minutes ago, Kynami said:

Can make playing typical tech tree cruisers really depressing when you get a bunch of battleships that play the coward. Because while Weegee does play with health and damage a bit, the sheer abundance of large guns that ignore all angling the moment you are facing the upper bracket is exceedingly annoying.

I agree. The first time I played my Henri in high tier Operations, it made 720K damage in a defeat in Aegis. We could have won that if the battleships stopped moving backward even if there was no reason to hide. There are plenty of players who still need to adapt to the environment in Operations. It'll take a little bit of time.