Harugumo, am I missing something?

[Ramsalot]

So, recently I ground out Harugumo, not because I wanted it, but because I had surplus of free XP and nothing else to get that was unusual in a way (as in non-meta).  There are number of subject matter experts out there that put many destroyers over Harugumo when they compile some sort of tier list, so I think it's kind of a dark horse at this time.  But I found it to be pretty amazing, maybe my sample size is too small, am I missing something?  The only thing ship has going against it is that it is big and clumsy, and gets messed up when caught with it's pants down, but it has an amazing raw damage output, insanely strong torpedoes for a gun boat, and workable concealment.  I really like it.  The closest thing to it is probably Sherman, with the biggest difference is trading hydro for torpedo power, but it is a hell of a trade.  Both get murdered out of position, and both will absolutely shred opposition when positioned correctly, but Sherman gets all the love.

[tocqueville8]

At 12 km, Harugumo's shells arrive 25% later. For a gunboat, that's kind of a big deal.

At that same distance, Harugumo's AP pens only 32 mm, so it's pretty much useless against 30-32 mm plating (cruisers and BBs), when you factor in the angle of impact. Sherman's SAP pens 36 mm with much better ricochet angles, and the impact angle doesn't add to the effective thickness of the plating, so it's usually a penetration. The HE DPM and base firestarting is similar, but SAP is much more consistent than AP: Harugumo can citadel CLs close enough, but that's not a common situation anyway, while F. Sherman can easily farm a semi-broadside Des Moines, Hindenburg and whatnot.

Harugumo has the torps and an extra smoke charge for the hydro, plus better concealment, but I still find F. Sherman the clear winner. Her gun power is just much more effective.

[Ramsalot]

With my build Harugumo has 37mm penetration with 3.5% fire chance on HE with 2.5 sec reload.  It's HE DPM does not match Sherman SAP damage, but it is very consistent and does not care about angling.  It works better than I expected.

[Itwastuesday]

It kinda loses to many other gunboats because they're less fat and have better ballistics. And it's the best destroyer in the game for eating torpedoes.

Sherman sucks too, though. Never understood what people are on about when they praise it. All that Sherman players ever do is not spot, then smoke if they manage to waddle into a distance to spot something, then REQUEST INTELLIGENCE DATA, all for some useless spam on battleships that don't matter.

[Wolfswetpaws]

1 hour ago, Ramsalot said:

So, recently I ground out Harugumo, not because I wanted it, but because I had surplus of free XP and nothing else to get that was unusual in a way (as in non-meta).  There are number of subject matter experts out there that put many destroyers over Harugumo when they compile some sort of tier list, so I think it's kind of a dark horse at this time.  But I found it to be pretty amazing, maybe my sample size is too small, am I missing something?  The only thing ship has going against it is that it is big and clumsy, and gets messed up when caught with it's pants down, but it has an amazing raw damage output, insanely strong torpedoes for a gun boat, and workable concealment.  I really like it.  The closest thing to it is probably Sherman, with the biggest difference is trading hydro for torpedo power, but it is a hell of a trade.  Both get murdered out of position, and both will absolutely shred opposition when positioned correctly, but Sherman gets all the love.

A slow awkward hull might do better as a stealthy torpedo boat?
I have the Harugumo, but don't play it often.
 

[OldSchoolGaming_Youtube]

1 hour ago, Ramsalot said:

So, recently I ground out Harugumo, not because I wanted it, but because I had surplus of free XP and nothing else to get that was unusual in a way (as in non-meta).  There are number of subject matter experts out there that put many destroyers over Harugumo when they compile some sort of tier list, so I think it's kind of a dark horse at this time.  But I found it to be pretty amazing, maybe my sample size is too small, am I missing something?  The only thing ship has going against it is that it is big and clumsy, and gets messed up when caught with it's pants down, but it has an amazing raw damage output, insanely strong torpedoes for a gun boat, and workable concealment.  I really like it.  The closest thing to it is probably Sherman, with the biggest difference is trading hydro for torpedo power, but it is a hell of a trade.  Both get murdered out of position, and both will absolutely shred opposition when positioned correctly, but Sherman gets all the love.

Harugumo is a BEAST, its like a Wooster with no hydro and no citadel but with smoke and torps pretty much. Forget the fact youre a DD. You always build it for range and you play it like a Smolensk/Jinan instead and the cant get an entire flank to fook of if you have someone spotting for you (same as Sherman).

 

Just dont think youre a DD! Youre actually a light cruiser witw DD conceal!

[OldSchoolGaming_Youtube]

30 minutes ago, Itwastuesday said:

It kinda loses to many other gunboats because they're less fat and have better ballistics. And it's the best destroyer in the game for eating torpedoes.

Sherman sucks too, though. Never understood what people are on about when they praise it. All that Sherman players ever do is not spot, then smoke if they manage to waddle into a distance to spot something, then REQUEST INTELLIGENCE DATA, all for some useless spam on battleships that don't matter.

Youre not wrong, but at the same time I think 1 Sherman will get the flank to fook off more quickly then 2 other T10 BBs will (been there done that). NO BB EVER wants to get the attention of a capable Sherman player .... you Melt....

But "Capable" Sherman captains is a dime a dussin.

[SureBridge]

Harugumo is also ocassionally seen in clan battles putting out a ton of DPM - in CB's it generally does not have IFHE, since its job is killing DD's and setting everything on fire. 

I don't generally play 'Gumo, because I'd much rather play Kleber or Marceau (which fill much the same roles) and have the additional advantage of being crazy-fast. Kleber I build for gun range, since it can effectively hit cruisers and BB's out to about 18 km, Marceau is built for raw dakka, since the US 37 caliber guns are renowned for their loft.

[Asym]

Ah, the sleeping IJN gunboat.  I've been playing that line of IJN DD's in Operations forever...  It's not perfect.  I've never played in PVP cause I don't play PVP, but in PVE.......ooooh @!

It's a lot of fun and in some Ops, a real killer.  And, you have to play it in Ops with a terrible turn radius foremost in your mind.

Other than that.......pew pew till the cows come home.

[Itwastuesday]

15 minutes ago, OldSchoolGaming_Youtube said:

Youre not wrong, but at the same time I think 1 Sherman will get the flank to fook off more quickly then 2 other T10 BBs will (been there done that). NO BB EVER wants to get the attention of a capable Sherman player .... you Melt....

But "Capable" Sherman captains is a dime a dussin.

Battleships often scamper off against gunboat dd, often reasonably so, but it's not enough. Destroyers have to do everything in the game. Often alone.

I mean, maybe you've discovered something about Sherman/Haru that I haven't (quite possible, playstylewise I hate smokefarmers and don't care about any kind of farmers tbh), but to me they absolutely suck, and the winrates look like this 

Edited November 21, 2024 by Itwastuesday

[OldSchoolGaming_Youtube]

2 minutes ago, Itwastuesday said:

Battleships often scamper off against gunboat dd, often reasonably so, but it's not enough. Destroyers have to do everything in the game. Often alone.

Yup, exactly right!

But then I almost favor DDs like Haru or Sherman with their insane range they dont need to count on base camping scared cats BB players to get some damage done.

[Ramsalot]

12 minutes ago, Asym said:

Ah, the sleeping IJN gunboat.  I've been playing that line of IJN DD's in Operations forever...  It's not perfect.  I've never played in PVP cause I don't play PVP, but in PVE.......ooooh @!

It's a lot of fun and in some Ops, a real killer.  And, you have to play it in Ops with a terrible turn radius foremost in your mind.

Other than that.......pew pew till the cows come home.

I only play co-op for missions, and I believe Harugumo might be the best ship for that.  I used to use Colbert as my go to boat for any quick co-op mission grinds, but Harugumo takes it to the next level.  You can burn down DD or two on your torp run to nuke one or two ships with your torps, it is very reliable.

[Itwastuesday]

Just now, OldSchoolGaming_Youtube said:

Yup, exactly right!

But then I almost favor DDs like Haru or Sherman with their insane range they dont need to count on base camping scared cats BB players to get some damage done.

Ah, yes, I see. Kinda the same reason I play Khabarovsk. It doesn't care about anything, it just gets shot at and trolls the enemy. Spots for itself too, the mystery of smoke farmers continues to forever elude me. 

[Unlooky]

46 minutes ago, Itwastuesday said:

Battleships often scamper off against gunboat dd, often reasonably so, but it's not enough. Destroyers have to do everything in the game. Often alone.

I mean, maybe you've discovered something about Sherman/Haru that I haven't (quite possible, playstylewise I hate smokefarmers and don't care about any kind of farmers tbh), but to me they absolutely suck, and the winrates look like this 

If you're doing 50k per game in Sherman you aren't farming. That's such a braindead easy mark to hit that imo everyone should be doing at least 80k+. 

Sherman and Harugumo are very effective ships on their own against mediocre and bad players, and when they can play behind a friendly DD, are very serious threats. 

[Itwastuesday]

9 minutes ago, Unlooky said:

If you're doing 50k per game in Sherman you aren't farming. That's such a braindead easy mark to hit that imo everyone should be doing at least 80k+. 

Sherman and Harugumo are very effective ships on their own against mediocre and bad players, and when they can play behind a friendly DD, are very serious threats. 

I'm not sure they're farming. Hate having that ship on my team. Any time I am on a flank where Sherman is the destroyer, it means the entire enemy flank is unseen forever and the flank is lost before anybody does anything. It's worse than the 40% shimakaze players running 20km torps.

[Ensign Cthulhu]

3 hours ago, Ramsalot said:

 But I found it to be pretty amazing... I really like it...

You worry too much. If it's working for you, shut up and enjoy it. 😎

It's quite a different matter if you find yourself absolutely sucking sweaty donkey dong in a ship with a consistently good reputation, and I know that feeling. 

[derf]

 

if your donkey is sweating like that it doesn't trust you

[tocqueville8]

2 hours ago, Itwastuesday said:

I mean, maybe you've discovered something about Sherman/Haru that I haven't (quite possible, playstylewise I hate smokefarmers

Again, I can't make Harugumo work personally: I eat torps all the time and the damage doesn't stack up quickly enough.

However, contrary to the "smokefarmer" moniker, Sherman is great in the open: her shells are in the same speed class as those of Khaba, Druid, Lushun, Delny, Grozo, Kléber, Gdansk, Tromp and Ragnar, i.e. around 9s to fly 14 km. I don't even take CE, since the detection is bad anyway, and I try to shoot as much as possible: not only I spot for the team, I also draw fire away from them: at those ranges, or even a bit closer depending on the target, it's fairly safe. The smoke is more of a backup, or for ambushing DDs.

Not saying this is "the" way to play her, but it works just fine for me.