Any point to Auboyneau?

[Ramsalot]

Recently I started to play a couple of French ships that I find really fun: Kléber and Bourgogne.  I had 21 point Honoré commander that comes with improved Andrenaline Rush and Grease the Gears, and I got Auboyneau to 21 point right away.  After trying both I feel like the coal and elite commander XP are pretty much wasted.  I mean I could zip to cap on Kléber and pick up the extra fire chance, sometimes it works, but Honoré provides faster turret rotation which is one of the downsides of Kléber.  Bourgogne also synergies well with Honoré, and Auboyneau is too situational.  Any point to that commander, other than pretty blue tracers that often draw attention to you (yeah I know you can disable those)?

Edited December 16, 2024 by Ramsalot

[Wolfswetpaws]

The commanders are like the ships, in the sense that you can collect them.

That said, I haven't collected them all, yet.

[Asym]

Snowflake.

[Utt_Bugglier]

8 minutes ago, Asym said:

Snowflake.

Commanders don’t accrue snowflakes, only ships do.

Or are you levying a personal assessment of the OP?

[Ensign Cthulhu]

This is the spice for Auboyneau:

There are no activation limits, so every devastating strike you get will give you a reload boost. 

Of course that's if you play a mode where you can earn them, so he is less valuable for co-op mains. However his increased fire and flood chance on cap or assist still works, and you can sometimes do this more than once in a battle. 

He also has enhanced Survivability Expert, so your ship has more HP than it would with Honore.

Chances are you won't activate Surge Forward more than once in any battle, but I've seen an example of what happens when a clan managed to sync drop two divisions into opposite sides in brawls and colluded to pump this talent up. They got to some stupid speed. 

All of the information about his talents was available in the Armory interface page where you made the purchase. You had two opportunities to ask this question and avoid what you now view as a mistake; once just before you spent the coal and again just before you spent the ECXP.

Sin in haste; repent at leisure.

Edited December 16, 2024 by Ensign Cthulhu

[Asym]

1 hour ago, Utt_Bugglier said:

Commanders don’t accrue snowflakes, only ships do.

Or are you levying a personal assessment of the OP?

Brain fart........thinking ships and missed the point.......  Wow....getting old.

I don't throw personal aspersions as a habit.  Although, some live for it it seems....so sad.

[Itwastuesday]

I got him

Leveled to 21 

Put him on Cassard

Discover I hate Cassard

😩

[OldSchoolGaming_Youtube]

4 hours ago, Ramsalot said:

Recently I started to play a couple of French ships that I find really fun: Kléber and Bourgogne.  I had 21 point Honoré commander that comes with improved Andrenaline Rush and Grease the Gears, and I got Auboyneau to 21 point right away.  After trying both I feel like the coal and elite commander XP are pretty much wasted.  I mean I could zip to cap on Kléber and pick up the extra fire chance, sometimes it works, but Honoré provides faster turret rotation which is one of the downsides of Kléber.  Bourgogne also synergies well with Honoré, and Auboyneau is too situational.  Any point to that commander, other than pretty blue tracers that often draw attention to you (yeah I know you can disable those)?

Been in same situation. Have both Honorees captains and Philippe and I use Philippe on Cassard because best chance of dev strike for my ships, but I actually use Honore for the most ships I play like Kleber, Marceau, Colbert, Jean Bart etc.

So he isn't as obvious OP as say Halsay, Russian commander, Cunninham or new Pan American cap.

Edited December 16, 2024 by OldSchoolGaming_Youtube

[Ramsalot]

Yeah, that new Pan American commander looks pretty good, but since I decided to stop giving any money to WG I did not get him.

[Ramsalot]

4 hours ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

All of the information about his talents was available in the Armory interface page where you made the purchase. You had two opportunities to ask this question and avoid what you now view as a mistake; once just before you spent the coal and again just before you spent the ECXP.

Sin in haste; repent at leisure.

Nah, I wanted to have an extra maxed out French commander, because I have more than 1 non-premium French ship.  I just thought he was more valuable than he actually is, and you can't get a measure of it until you play him.  I thought I would reliably cap and grab that extra fire chance each game, but it's more of a liability than bonus, as with Kleber detection range I would have been better off not trying to cap at certain times.  Honore provides this extra turret speed and better adrenaline rush that have level of consistency that Auboyneau lacks.

[Sumseaman]

6 hours ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

Sin in haste; repent at leisure.

Delightfully insightful. Oh the utter condemnation!

2 hours ago, Ramsalot said:

Nah, I wanted to have an extra maxed out French commander, because I have more than 1 non-premium French ship.  I just thought he was more valuable than he actually is, and you can't get a measure of it until you play him.  I thought I would reliably cap and grab that extra fire chance each game, but it's more of a liability than bonus, as with Kleber detection range I would have been better off not trying to cap at certain times.  Honore provides this extra turret speed and better adrenaline rush that have level of consistency that Auboyneau lacks.

I too only recruited Honore after reviewing Auboyneau after grinding out Kleber and getting Dunkirk B and Gascogne (event and SC). Only Frenchies I had was Sirocco and Aigle. If you have multiple tech trees though I don't think you wasted your coal so long as you use him in DDs.

Edited December 16, 2024 by Sumseaman

[tocqueville8]

7 hours ago, Ramsalot said:

Any point to that commander, other than pretty blue tracers that often draw attention to you (yeah I know you can disable those)?

• +1% fire chance per cap is nice, occasionally very nice, on things like Marceau, Cassard, Colbert, and I suppose a secondary-build BB, especially one where you took IFHE (Alsace? Picardie?), maybe for PvE.
• the Dev Strike talent is useful, though not much, on BBs and the Cassard line, less so on cruisers and other DDs imho. Here's an example of me proccing it three times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn_HnlMCsVI, not that it's going to be a common occurrence
• the potential damage talent is useful on high-tier BBs and cruisers. Reaching 2M is pretty common in a hard-fought match, and reaching 4M means going about 6-7 knots faster, depending on the ship, flag and Brisk/Outnumbered.

Overall not as useful as Lutjens (or Lisboa...), but if you put him on, say, Henri IV & Brennus, Bourgogne and Marceau, it'll be helpful on a regular basis.

[Ensign Cthulhu]

2 hours ago, Ramsalot said:

Nah, I wanted to have an extra maxed out French commander, because I have more than 1 non-premium French ship.  I just thought he was more valuable than he actually is, and you can't get a measure of it until you play him.  I thought I would reliably cap and grab that extra fire chance each game, but it's more of a liability than bonus, as with Kleber detection range I would have been better off not trying to cap at certain times.  Honore provides this extra turret speed and better adrenaline rush that have level of consistency that Auboyneau lacks.

Aigle is a French smoke DD available for coal, just saying...

[S7CentNickel]

He does have nice tracers!

 

[torino2dc]

In general, captains with activated abilities are much stronger than those with only buffed skills. That said, some ships are better than others as a home for Auboyneau. 

When I have a special captain, the first question I ask is: what tech tree ship should he live in? 

Ideally it should be a high tier (10 or 11) that can use his activated abilities pretty regularly, meaning I can expect dev strikes, caps, and potential damage. Using a simple 0-5 scale, I rated the likelihood of each of them (based on my play style). E.g. 5-3-0 would mean I have a high likelihood of dev strikes, a so-so chance of getting caps, and practically never get the necessary potential damage.

My personal ranking:

Condé: 5-1-5

Patrie: 5-0-5

Henri IV: 3-2-5

Marseille: 3-3-4

Cassard: 4-4-1

République: 4-0-4

Kléber: 1-3-4

Leg. Kléber: 4-4-0

It seemed to me that my Condé would have the highest chance of benefitting from all three activated abilities, so I put him there.

The second consideration is what the captain build will be for the tech tree ship, and whether it overlaps well with premiums of the same class. Fortunately, my Condé runs a very conservative cruiser build that also works for my Toulon, Dupleix, and Carnot. Only my Colbert needs a separate firehose captain. 

Finally, I look to see which premiums of other classes synergize well with his skills. Marceau, Jean Bart, Aigle -- all benefit quite a bit from the activated abilities, and the DDs in particular like the boosted SE. 

----

Finding a home for a valuable captain like Auboyneau isn't easy, but I hope the method above gives some ideas about how to do so with the least downside. o7

[OldSchoolGaming_Youtube]

12 hours ago, Ramsalot said:

Yeah, that new Pan American commander looks pretty good, but since I decided to stop giving any money to WG I did not get him.

Same here. Im guessing WG will put him in the Armory sometime in the future for Coal just like they done with all the rest.

[Taylor3006]

I have all the pennant flying captains, all at 21 points. Since I pretty much only play premium ships, I think they are important to have. If you think about it, their skills and talents on a ship, are like having several additional equipment modules.  Even Yamamoto who never has his talents activated (I don't play PvP) but his buffed skills makes using IJN ships more comfortable, especially with enhanced turret traverse. The lessor, non pennant flying, talentless captains that have buffed skills are also a good thing to snag if you play a lot of tech tree ships. I have most of those but just don't use them much. 

IMHO after the captain skills rework, the unique pennant flying captains are very valuable to have especially if you have a nice assortment of premium ships to use them on. Almost all of my special captains are assigned to tier 6 cruisers. That goes back to when you could only use tier 6 ships in Operations so that is where my best captains were put. I have changed some of them over time but moving them around tech tree ships just seems irrelevant now since I have a big selection of premium ships for them to use and little use for tech tree stuff. 

[Utt_Bugglier]

13 hours ago, Taylor3006 said:

The lessor, non pennant flying, talentless captains that have buffed skills are also a good thing to snag if you play a lot of tech tree ships. use and little use for tech tree stuff. 

They are, even if your don’t. Having Halsey, Ovenchicken, and Doe (ex: Segal) allows you to make useful differentiation between a “flavorless (survival)” BB captain that does Iowa (or Montana)/Missouri/Alabama/WV41/Arizona/Texas, and one for Georgia and another for for WV44/Oklahoma, and you can have the Ohio/Massachusetts captained by whichever is better.

Or the same with US DDs: Forrest Sherman gets a dedicated captain, Fletcher/Black Kidd/Sims one, and you can have a low-tier Clemson/Hill/Monaghan captain that has a point dedicated to fixing those slow-turret blues.