Napkin Overview 0.14.0 Balance Changes

[torino2dc]

We have arrived, dear reader, at the time of year when Wargaming likes give out lots of Christmas presents to long-suffering ships. Unlike the real Saint Nick, who thoughtfully apportions each child's gifts according to the income bracket of their parents, the buffs handed out by our favorite video game developer vary wildly in apparent quality.

The one inescapable fact is that there are a lot of buffs to talk about -- too many for a lone writer who can at best commit a few hours a day to his favorite subject matter. The last time around, trying to tackle the whole set left me with a severe case of burnout in addition to a heap of regrets for not having gotten to discuss some of the most interesting buffs in the 0.13.1 balance pass.

My New Year's Resolution^TM is to be a bit more judicious about how I invest my writing time. I will have to abbreviate some analyses or sacrifice some write-ups entirely to make sure that the really important ships get the deep dives they deserve. So as not to suffocate a potentially interesting reader-discussion in the crib, I think a fair compromise is to briefly touch upon all the (non-ASW) balance changes in this overview article.

The rules I set for myself were simple: write one sentence each outlining each ship's situation, the proposed fix, and my initial impression. Below each ship is a rating on a scale of 1 (very unlikely) to 5 (overwhelmingly likely) on the odds that I will talk about the ship in an upcoming deep dive. If I am missing something that you think I need to take a closer look at, now is the time to let me know 😃

____________________________________

Zaō 

• Situation: Player base won’t stop complaining until Zaō regains her once-mythical status as the best T10 cruiser, even though her current statistics are acceptably middle-of-the-road.
• Fix: A bloated six-item list of minor quality-of-life improvements to turret- and torpedo-angles that will do almost nothing to address the ship’s power level. 
• Initial Impression: Because WG and the player base cannot see eye-to-eye on what the Zaō should be, we will continue to get these meaningless buffs rather than a proper rework.
• Deep Dive: 🍣 🍣 🍣 🍣 🍣 As much as WG prefer we didn't, we gotta have a serious talk about the Zaō.

____________________________________

Tsurugi

• Situation: Fragile sniper battlecruiser struggles to win despite doing above average damage and kills per game.   
• Fix: Buffs to turning circle, number of heals, reload, and HE shell flight time. 
• Initial Impression: The improved turning circle and extra heal will help a lot, but the 25mm bow/stern will remain a crippling vulnerability that will forever hold the ship back.
• Deep Dive: 🦐 🦐 🦐 🦐 🦐 The Tsurugi is a very interesting but very flawed ship; i.e. a writer's dream.

____________________________________

Hizen

• Situation: Moldering 12-gun battlecruiser is both the weakest IJN BC and the weakest of the 12x406mm battlewagons at Tier 9.
• Fix: Buffing the reload from 38s to 34s.
• Initial Impression: Reload wasn’t really the issue, as even with a 12% improvement the Hizen is still the weakest IJN BC and 12 gun BB at the tier. 
• Deep Dive: 🍤 🍤 🍤 🍤  Probably worth talking about how this battlecruiser got so sad.

____________________________________

Yumihari and Adatara

• Situation: T8 and T9 Japanese tech-tree sniper BCs struggle to win games.
• Fix: Make the HE easier to use by improving the incredibly high shell drag.
• Initial Impression: The ships have such a mountain to climb in order to be competitive – making HE easier to lead is an inadequate fix.
• Deep Dive: 🍥 🍥  Most of my Yumihari analysis still stands.

____________________________________

Bungo

• Situation: T10 Japanese tech-tree sniper BC is in the upper third of her tier in terms of performance. 
• Fix: Make the HE easier to use by improving the incredibly high shell drag.
• Initial Impression: Unnecessary buff, as making the HE easier to lead makes the ammunition too versatile, watering down the skill requirements for successful play.
• Deep Dive: ⛩️  I don't think there is much to say here other than IJN BB HE is slow for a reason.

____________________________________

Satsuma

• Situation: Tier 11 yotta-Yamato combat instructions apparently were too easy to use?
• Fix: Change the requirement for qualified shots from near misses to hits. 
• Initial Impression: Making combat instructions harder to load up is probably a move in the right direction. 
• Deep Dive: 🍡 I don't have enough experience playing her to say anything meaningful.

____________________________________

Tulsa

• Situation: Tier 9 mini-Des Moines struggling to win games despite DPM and good kit.
• Fix: Give her destroyer-levels of accuracy (i.e. very good).
• Initial Impression: Smart move from the balancers, removing a pain point (bracket shots) and increasing effective damage on target.
• Deep Dive: 🍔 🍔 🍔 🍔 Deserves to be talked about at greater length.

____________________________________

Jacksonville

• Situation: Wacko-Worcester leads the pack among Tier 11 cruisers in damage and wins.
• Fix: Curb some of the absurd (for a USN CL) range from 18.2km to 17.2km.
• Initial Impression: Good move in the right direction, but they could shave off another kilometer and this ship would still be very strong.
• Deep Dive: 🇺🇸 🇺🇸 🇺🇸 Maybe worth looking at, though the thesis will likely be "too much range = bad." 

____________________________________

Dmitry Pozharsky

• Situation: Tier 8 AP-only Kuznetsov struggles hard to win games and secure kills despite decent damage numbers.
• Fix: Increase the AP alpha from 3000 to 3300.
• Initial Impression: The remedy doesn’t seem to fit the problem – the ship needs help in killing things, not farming them for bigger numbers. 
• Deep Dive: 🧅 🧅 🧅 🧅  Pozharsky is an interesting ship design that needed help, even if I don't agree with how it was done.

____________________________________

Dmitri Donskoi

• Situation: Middle-of-the-road Tier 9 cruiser doing decently at most things except kills.
• Fix: Increase the radar duration from 25s to 30s.
• Initial Impression: Almost all Russian radars fit an easy-to-understand duration template, not sure why it needed to be broken here.
• Deep Dive: 🪬 🪬 I suspect a deep dive here would devolve mostly into speculation -- better to wait and see if it becomes a pattern.

____________________________________

Novorossiysk 

• Situation: Tier 6 Russian Giulio Cesare is decent at everything.
• Fix: Improve the sigma from 1.4 to 1.5  
• Initial Impression: Not sure why the ship needs help, all the publicly available numbers are adequate.
• Deep Dive: 🍯 🍯 🍯 The Novorossiysk has a weird history.

____________________________________

Admiral Ushakov

• Situation: Tier 11 kilo-Kremlin struggled to get her combat instructions up?
• Fix: Change the requirement for qualified shots from near misses to hits + potential damage. 
• Initial Impression: Making it possible to charge combat instructions while functionally AFK is probably not a move in the right direction. 
• Deep Dive: 🥊🥊 Maybe worth thinking about whether AFK charging an F-key is good game design. 

____________________________________

Clausewitz

• Situation: Tier 11 hecto-Hindenburg does decently in terms of wins and damage but struggles to get kills. 
• Fix: Buff the hydro from 6km to 7km.
• Initial Impression: One of the most interesting buffs in the set, unlocks a lot of teamplay potential by turning the Clusterwitz into a 7km 2-minute radar buoy. 
• Deep Dive: 🥨 🥨 🥨 🥨 the move to 7km hydro is a substantial buff and we need to talk about it. 

____________________________________

Hannover

• Situation: Tier 11 plus-size-Preussen apparently ate too many torps and also struggled to get combat instructions up?
• Fix: Buff the hydro from 6km to 7km, change the requirement for qualified shots from near misses to main battery and secondary hits. 
• Initial Impression: Supporting and rewarding smart pushing within secondary range is a good thing.
• Deep Dive: 🍖🍖🍖 probably should talk about the pork-knuckle getting the best hydro in the game.

____________________________________

Undine and Sturdy

• Situation: Tier 6 and Tier 8 British subs struggled in surface sub-vs-sub battles?
• Fix: Buff shell velocity of the secondary battery?
• Initial Impression: headscratching – why not just make the deck gun player-controlled like on the T10 Thrasher?
• Deep Dive: 🐟 WG obviously doesn't take the class seriously, so I don't see why I should. 

____________________________________

Belfast ‘43

• Situation: British light cruiser floundering at T8; bottom of the barrel in terms of wins, kills and damage.
• Fix: Buffs to reload, HE fire chance, turret traverse, and number of radar charges.
• Initial Impression: Two thumbs up, the ship needed some major help.
• Deep Dive: 🥧  🥧  🥧  🥧  🥧  100% gotta talk about this one.

____________________________________

Renown

• Situation: Tier 6 British battlecruiser just cannot get out of the winrate basement.
• Fix: Buffs to turret traverse, main battery range, shell velocity, and reload.
• Initial Impression: The turret traverse buff is the big one, as it unlocks the ship’s brawling potential; the other buffs are nice to have.
• Deep Dive: 🥫🥫🥫🥫We need to talk about it but since I already wrote about Renown, we'll keep the revisit brief.

____________________________________

Champagne

• Situation: French sniper battlecruiser gets plenty of damage but cannot seem to win games.
• Fix: Add Main Battery Reload Booster 🤯
• Initial Impression: One of the most interesting and gutsy changes to date; MBRB is a high impact consumable that can decide games.
• Deep Dive: 🥐 🥐 🥐  🥐 🥐 The most audacious buff of the patch, gotta talk about it.

____________________________________

République

• Situation: Venerable French citadel generator has fallen behind in terms of wins, damage, and kills. 
• Fix: Buff the already excellent 2.0 sigma to 2.1 sigma.
• Initial Impression: The entire French BB line needs a rework – this bandaid is not enough.
• Deep Dive: 🍷 🍷  Any analysis of the Repub necessitates a discussion of the entire tech tree, and that's a meaty article.

____________________________________

Luca Tarigo, Vittorio Cuniberti, Adriatico, Attilio Regolo

• Situation: Italian tech tree DDs mostly struggle to have any sort of battle impact.
• Fix: Buff the engine boost duration from 25s to 40s and cut its reload by 25%.
• Initial Impression: Good start, as it gives players a more versatile tool for outplays; I remain doubtful whether it is enough of a buff.
• Deep Dive: 🧄 🧄 🧄 Undecided.  

____________________________________

Marco Polo

• Situation: Italian T9 BB with 406mm SAP cannot seem to win games or net any kills.
• Fix: Buff the reload from 36s to 34.5s.
• Initial Impression: The whole ship concept is borked – she needs a lot more than just a 4% improvement to the reload.
• Deep Dive: 🍝 🍝 🍝 🍝 Another sad Tier 9 battleship, probably gotta talk about how it got this way.

____________________________________

Dalian

• Situation: Pan-Asian CLAA struggles badly to win games at T9 despite decent damage and kills. 
• Fix: Buff the range from 13.5km to 14.1km and improve the reload by 0.4s.
• Initial Impression: The additional range is very welcome, but the damage dealing was never the problem.
• Deep Dive: 🥠 🥠 🥠 I've already dissected the Dalian, maybe we do a quick update.

____________________________________

Jinan

• Situation: Pan-Asian magical torpedo generator cannot win games despite okay damage and decent frag numbers.
• Fix: +6% HP, +5.5% HE alpha, +22% HE fire chance, +5% torpedo alpha.
• Initial Impression: HP buff is good, all the rest makes the ship more toxic without addressing her core issues.
• Deep Dive: 🥮🥮 🥮 🥮 Words cannot express how little I want to talk about Pan-Asian CLs, but this hamfisted buff demands discussion.

____________________________________

Split and Lambros Katsonis

• Situation: Pan-European radar DDs are at the bottom of the barrel at everything.
• Fix: Tiny buffs to the main battery and the torpedo reload. 
• Initial Impression: The ships are dead last in % of battles survived – this is the root cause of all the other problems. 
• Deep Dive: 🥙 🥙 🥙 🥙 Lest WG turn ineffective buffs to these ships into an annual tradition, we should talk about it.

____________________________________

Coronel Bolognesi

• Situation: Pan-American light cruiser doesn’t seem to do much damage.
• Fix: Buff the AP alpha from 3000 to 3200; slightly improve the combat instructions bonus on cooldowns.
• Initial Impression: The T6 and the T8 are doing fine despite very similar equipment – methinks the bloaty British hull is a part of the problem.
• Deep Dive: 🌮🌮 If someone desperately wants to hear about why Crown Colony class cruisers eat citadels, hit me up. 

____________________________________

Conclusion

Unlike the 0.13.x balance changes, which I generally view in a positive light, the 0.14.x buffs+nerfs are more of a mixed bag. Naturally they are only a snapshot in time, and we will see if Wargaming builds upon the changes or whether they will remain isolated engimatic tweaks. I hope that this overview offers an interesting jumping-off point for discussion as well as help me to husband my resources properly for the write-ups to come. As always, thank you for reading ♥️

[tm63au]

Quick question @torino2dc and I know you don't work for WG but are they planning to delete Tier 1 to 6 from the game because I only see 2 maybe 3 Tier 6 ships looked at and not 1 ship 5 or below.

Great work on this post by the way. 

[Justin_Simpleton]

1 hour ago, torino2dc said:

The rules I set for myself were simple: write one sentence each outlining each ship's situation, the proposed fix, and my initial impression. Below each ship is a rating on a scale of 1 (very unlikely) to 5 (overwhelmingly likely) on the odds that I will talk about the ship in an upcoming deep dive. If I am missing something that you think I need to take a closer look at, now is the time to let me know 😃

I like the style of your write ups, and I find them helpful.  I'm a little confused about your point-of-view when talking about wins, kills, and damage.  Are we talking about performance in Ranked, Random, Clan battles...?  Also, aren't some ships ideal for team support rather than kills and damage? 

[Itwastuesday]

Why pick Zao over Conqueror? Or another cruiser? Why pick a cruiser anyway? 

A bit of concealment, hydro and torpedoes? BAH

Needs to be addressed eventually. You can play Zao as a backline HE spammer. It does nothing. It does nothing on most CA. It's killing something really slowly. Can do that with Conqueror but with the added benefit of not having the million cruiser downsides. 

You can play more aggressively, and maybe should, and that might accomplish something against destroyers. Not battleships though. 

I agree that these buffs won't do it, but better gun angles could help with pushing in, something which all of these 4-turret cruisers suck at. It's sorta-kinda a step in the right direction. 

WG needs to rework heavy cruisers. 

[Wolfswetpaws]

6 hours ago, torino2dc said:

Deep Dive: ⛩️  I don't think there is much to say here other than IJN BB HE is slow for a reason.

In reality, the reasons would involve the ballistic coefficient of the projectile, the muzzle-velocity and the weight of the projectile.

In-game, it seems to be arbitrary decision-making by the developers to place their figurative thumb(s) on the scales-of-balanz?  🙂 

[Wolfswetpaws]

6 hours ago, torino2dc said:

République

• Situation: Venerable French citadel generator has fallen behind in terms of wins, damage, and kills. 
• Fix: Buff the already excellent 2.0 sigma to 2.1 sigma.
• Initial Impression: The entire French BB line needs a rework – this bandaid is not enough.
• Deep Dive: 🍷 🍷  Any analysis of the Repub necessitates a discussion of the entire tech tree, and that's a meaty article.

The Republique's problem is simple, I feel.  She lacks turrets with gun barrels.  Alsace and Bourgogne have 3 turrets.  Republique has two turrets.

Among the first "cons", listed in the X République's wiki, is her 32mm armor thickness.  Increasing this to 33mm might make a difference?
If she's going to be a large and long target with a slow rudder-shift and a large turning radius, then perhaps she should be a bit more tanky, eh?  🙂 

[Wolfswetpaws]

6 hours ago, torino2dc said:

The rules I set for myself were simple:

The consise format is appreciated.

[Ensign Cthulhu]

5 hours ago, torino2dc said:

We have arrived, dear reader, at the time of year when Wargaming likes give out lots of Christmas presents to long-suffering ships.

Just when you thought your work was done, Santa brought an extra delivery: https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/closed-test-140-changes-to-test-ships-2-60233 However, these are for test ships, whose form is still unsettled.

Concerning THIS lot of changes, my call is as follows:

1) Any buff not accompanied by a nerf is a good buff. It might not be the buff the ship really needs (which seems to be Torino's overarching thesis here), but it is better than a "compensated" buff, no buff at all, or explict nerfs.

2) Looking at the ships which are relevant to me, because I have them, am grinding them, or one day will be grinding them, and acknowledging that I am mostly but not exclusively a co-op player:

a) Zao: I played her in the PTS to see what the buffs were like. I think the large buff she got on her aft torpedo arcs should have been given to the forward one as well. That being said, the forward arcs are only a little further forward of amidships than they used to be, but they still felt much more comfortable than for any other IJN tech-tree heavy cruiser north of Furutaka.

b) Hizen. With the reload mod in slot six, Hizen's reload at least falls below the BB standard of 30 seconds. I'll take it.

c) Yumihari (vs Bungo). I'm only up to the Yumi right now, and haven't even got enough PTS time in the Bungo to be able to comment on it. I'm curious as to why you think Yumi and Adatara are doing so miserably and Bungo so well - IIRC the switch to 18 inch guns happens with the Adatara, so it can't be entirely the gun calibre.

d) Tulsa. I'm very glad I got this ship in a Christmas box while spamming for something else, because I'm sure I would never have bought her otherwise. Why waste coal on this 33% emasculated version of Salem a tier lower? I only barely got as far as T7 when the US cruiser line split, so I never knew what Baltimore was like as a T9, but I suspect Tulsa was crafted to match T9 Baltimore's DPM while using Salem autoloaders. Shooting better may rescue her. I have a vague recollection of being much happier with her in PTS than I was in the current live-server iteration, so we'll see whether that impression sticks when she goes live. Needs a Sylvester Stallone captain, if only the licensing fees wouldn't be impossible. 

e) Pozharsky. You may be right about the basic problem, but the major premise of this ship was to get a Mikhail Kutuzov hull into the Russian Navy without the HE-spamming-from-smoke issue that got the Kutuzov pulled from sale in the first place. Add to her bag of tricks too much and you might push her into the same bracket, a shame since she's one of those ships that has recently broken the embargo on T8 premiums being for coal. 

f) Donskoi - I'm just short of 100K XP away from finishing this ship the second time around (the first was to get Moskva before she became a coal ship; now I want Nevsky). I won't be using her for much longer, so she's less relevant, BUT here we go anyway. Radar use in co-op is very different from Randoms, because the bot DD smoke algorithm is "deploy immediately upon being spotted" while at the same time not doing anything to slow down into it in order to use it. However, this means that it sometimes lays a covering trail for any bigger ships coming in behind it, and there's no denying that being able to keep these ships lit for an extra five seconds while they enjoy their little friend's funnel effluent might make the difference. The other occasion on which radar is useful is vs. bots with Italian fuel smoke, or vs. Shinano or Essex-line bot carriers when they smoke themselves up as the net closes in. 

g) Novorossiysk - I have the ship but hardly ever use her. Until recently, Russian BBs have been a pain point for me, but they are finally starting to behave. I'm not sure what lifting the sigma from a low point to a not much higher point will do, unless there's a non-linear relationship on the curve which makes things that much better.

h) Sturdy. A weird change. It would be interesting to know WG's thinking on this one.

i) Renown. I have her, but have long since ground past her. Might be worth a revisit.

j) Champers. I paid a lot of coal for this thing when she was offered in a resource swap. Giving her MBRB is a major change. I tried it out in the PTS; it makes her a monster. Looking forward to this one getting let off the leash in the live server; I have a newly minted 21 point Auboyneau who wants newer and better toys to play with.

k) Republique. Again, my experience is that this change turned an already meaty ship into an even meatier one. Randoms mains may disagree, but I liked this change. I really hope you write the analysis article, Torino, because I look forward to reading it with a beer, some snacks and a notepad. Knowing you, it will be an eye-opener.

l) Italian tech-tree destroyers, Tier 7 and up. Currently at Tier 8, I struggle with these and they have accordingly been set aside while other priorities get settled. I'll take the extra time at high speed and see how that works out.

m) Marco Polo. Another Santa Crate side benefit that I didn't have to pay cash or resources for, this one gets occasional trips out but got more or less sidelined when I acquired Sicilia. Meh, it's a buff with no compensatory nerfs. Better than nothiing.

n) Jinan. As a co-op player, I simply don't f***ing care how toxic this ship is already or how much more toxic it becomes, because it's likely that mine will never see use against humans. I want POWER, dammit, and this buff delivers. 

o) Split and Katsonis. I'm in the Split, close to getting Katsonis. I've had enough gun kills stolen from me at the last second to wish my DPM was just a touch higher, so I'm very pleased for this change. Likewise, the change in torpedo reload is equivalent to having the Fill the Tubes skill for free, and as a co-op player I want my torps back ASAP, especially when the torps are of the fluffy pillow variety. I wonder if WG looked at the fights these two ships lost and analyzed exactly by how much they failed to kill their opponents. My suspicion is that such a statistical analysis is the reason for the nature and magnitude of the changes. Not TOO much of a buff, but enough to convert a critical number of one-on-one encounters into victory instead of death. 

p) Bolognesi. I actually enjoyed this one, because my first line to T10 was the British light cruisers and this lot feels similar. Maybe familiarity breeds an inability to see what the problem was, or maybe she's that much worse in Randoms (in which I ground the Fiji extensively, back in the day)? This ship is long since ground out for me and I'm not required to ever play her again, but maybe a post-patch revisit is in order.

Great analysis, Torino. Some agreements, some disagreements as always, but inevitable in view of my playstyle. Keep up the good work.

 

[torino2dc]

1 hour ago, tm63au said:

Quick question @torino2dc and I know you don't work for WG but are they planning to delete Tier 1 to 6 from the game because I only see 2 maybe 3 Tier 6 ships looked at and not 1 ship 5 or below.

Thankfully there are no such plans as the lower to mid tiers are essential for onboarding new players. 

The reason there are very few changes at T5-T6 is mostly because there is very little content that needs to be balanced. Half the tech trees these days start at T8. The tech trees that do have T5-T6 ships often lack the key gimmicks that define the high tiers, which makes balancing pretty straightforward. We just now are seeing an influx of new generation of T5-T7 premiums after a long dead period, so it will be a while until the numbers stabilize. 

The good news for players is that if you want to experience WoWS pretty much like it was in 2018, play T6 -- it is a refreshingly like playing 'WoWS Classic'.*

*Terms and conditions apply, occasional submarine interference possible.

 

[torino2dc]

17 hours ago, Justin_Simpleton said:

I like the style of your write ups, and I find them helpful.  I'm a little confused about your point-of-view when talking about wins, kills, and damage.  Are we talking about performance in Ranked, Random, Clan battles...?  Also, aren't some ships ideal for team support rather than kills and damage? 

Good question, I should have clarified that I am using the tomato.gg 60-day Random stats as a rough baseline. Since the Random battle experience is the core around which the game is built, this is where most of the ships are judged in terms of their overall health.

Regarding team-oriented ships, they usually show good win rates despite other statistics being poor. Very few of the above ships won a lot despite not doing damage or kills. 

[Estimated_Prophet]

4 hours ago, torino2dc said:

Thankfully there are no such plans as the lower to mid tiers are essential for onboarding new players. 

The reason there are very few changes at T5-T6 is mostly because there is very little content that needs to be balanced. Half the tech trees these days start at T8. The tech trees that do have T5-T6 ships often lack the key gimmicks that define the high tiers, which makes balancing pretty straightforward. We just now are seeing an influx of new generation of T5-T7 premiums after a long dead period, so it will be a while until the numbers stabilize. 

The good news for players is that if you want to experience WoWS pretty much like it was in 2018, play T6 -- it is a refreshingly like playing 'WoWS Classic'.*

*Terms and conditions apply, occasional submarine interference possible.

This.

Every time I answer someone asking how to 'get in' on Reddit, or X, I tell them to play through the lower tiers.

1. You learn basic game mechanics.
2. You build up in game currencies, so you aren't always short of those later.

It doesn't matter how boring it is, or how slow someone thinks it is; in the long run someone will be better off for spending time in lower tiers.

Just as a singular example; When I got tiered of getting sunk by torpedo botes in South Carolina, I started learning how to avoid them, or how to shoot at and hit them.

Now hitting destroyers is just a thing... Even if I have to aim at a theoretical '25' on a reticle that only goes to 15 to do so.

Edited January 4 by Estimated_Prophet

[Kruzenstern]

I still can't believe they are going to buff her with MBRB. I will of course welcome it, but other ships that don't get any need a buff much more urgently while Champagne is fine for me as is. Then again knowing WG, some of those buffs might just not come at all.

[Frostbow]

4 minutes ago, Kruzenstern said:

I still can't believe they are going to buff her with MBRB. I will of course welcome it, but other ships that don't get any need a buff much more urgently while Champagne is fine for me as is.

I've had fun with the Champagne, but her reload is on the long side. 

This and buffs to other ships are welcome.

[WildWind84]

Where is Massachutets on this list? 🤔

[torino2dc]

On 1/3/2025 at 5:13 PM, Wolfswetpaws said:

Increasing this to 33mm might make a difference?

Off the top of my head, 32mm of armor thickness is only a relevant threshold for a few armaments:

-460mm AP (which is why Yamato/Musashi dumpster French BBs so badly)

-128mm German HE (main or secondary) 

- Miscellaneous secondaries with IFHE (e.g. 155mm IJN secs). 

Moving to 33mm would flip those matchups in the French BB's favor, but I doubt it would make much of a difference. The next big threshold would be 35mm, which would render it immune to most 203mm HE. I think short of a complete line-rework, WG wouldn't make such a dramatic shift though. 

[torino2dc]

13 hours ago, WildWind84 said:

Where is Massachutets on this list?

Massachusetts got her ASW buffed. This list specifically excludes the ASW changes because (in my opinion) neither Subs as a class nor their countermeasures are in a solid enough place to warrant serious analysis. 

[Scrubby_McScrub]

interesting about Champagne. This is the 2nd major round of buffs for her. The first round gave her around 10,000 extra HP. 

They got this one wrong. Her 25MM bow armor with no icebreaker is what dooms her. They can give her all the reload booster they want. It's not going to help her survive from melting against 380mm+ overmatch. I have 34 battles, 53%WR and 83k per in mine but you HAVE to sit back and snipe all battle because of her armor issues. 

The proper move here would have been to simply give her 27mm bow and stern armor. The reload booster will be nice to have, so I can just fire more salvos from 24km out. But, it doesn't fix the flaw in the ship which is her survivability. 

[Wolfswetpaws]

6 hours ago, torino2dc said:

Off the top of my head, 32mm of armor thickness is only a relevant threshold for a few armaments:

-460mm AP (which is why Yamato/Musashi dumpster French BBs so badly)

-128mm German HE (main or secondary) 

- Miscellaneous secondaries with IFHE (e.g. 155mm IJN secs). 

Moving to 33mm would flip those matchups in the French BB's favor, but I doubt it would make much of a difference. The next big threshold would be 35mm, which would render it immune to most 203mm HE. I think short of a complete line-rework, WG wouldn't make such a dramatic shift though. 

Hmmm.  Something to think about, I suppose.  Thanks for the reply.  🤔

[Utt_Bugglier]

I’m the one who has harped on your analyses being for too long winded to qualify as any “napkin analysis,” but I do think the organization of this one is much better -it’s broken down into a series of napkin analyses.

As a whole, it’s still more like a tablecloth, but this is a more digestible collection of succinct standalone assessments, easy to pick and choose what to take in.

Edited January 6 by Utt_Bugglier
Typos

[Itwastuesday]

21 hours ago, torino2dc said:

Off the top of my head, 32mm of armor thickness is only a relevant threshold for a few armaments:

-460mm AP (which is why Yamato/Musashi dumpster French BBs so badly)

-128mm German HE (main or secondary) 

- Miscellaneous secondaries with IFHE (e.g. 155mm IJN secs). 

Moving to 33mm would flip those matchups in the French BB's favor, but I doubt it would make much of a difference. The next big threshold would be 35mm, which would render it immune to most 203mm HE. I think short of a complete line-rework, WG wouldn't make such a dramatic shift though. 

All the French bb need is their role as flankers/fast pushing bb solidified. Repub is the anomalous one. Lyon/Alsace have the broadside weight. Richelieu has the aggressive turret layout. They have decent AA to somewhat help operate solo. Repub vomits out high quality rather low precision shells, which is not what you want for playing aggressively and neither it is something you need when your ability is repositioning (speed boost). And the turret layout is weird for such a ship. 

Like faster/better heal, american dcp, something. Do to Repub the gk/preussen thing and make a 406's armed one with good salvo weight. 

Edited January 7 by Itwastuesday

[Aethervox]

On 1/3/2025 at 8:46 PM, torino2dc said:

The good news for players is that if you want to experience WoWS pretty much like it was in 2018, play T6 -- it is a refreshingly like playing 'WoWS Classic'.*

*Terms and conditions apply, occasional submarine interference possible.

** Terms and conditions apply, occasional reworked CV interference possible (as well) 😁

[22 cm]

On 1/7/2025 at 7:36 AM, Itwastuesday said:

All the French bb need is their role as flankers/fast pushing bb solidified. Repub is the anomalous one. Lyon/Alsace have the broadside weight. Richelieu has the aggressive turret layout. They have decent AA to somewhat help operate solo. Repub vomits out high quality rather low precision shells, which is not what you want for playing aggressively and neither it is something you need when your ability is repositioning (speed boost). And the turret layout is weird for such a ship. 

Like faster/better heal, american dcp, something. Do to Repub the gk/preussen thing and make a 406's armed one with good salvo weight. 

Burgogne much?

[sonoasailor]

On 1/3/2025 at 7:57 AM, Wolfswetpaws said:

In-game, it seems to be arbitrary decision-making by the developers to place their figurative thumb(s) on the scales-of-balanz?  🙂

How dare you insinuate that the devs would ever do this!!!  (HEAVY sarcasm here!)

[sonoasailor]

On 1/8/2025 at 9:19 AM, Aethervox said:

** Terms and conditions apply, occasional reworked CV interference possible (as well) 😁

And those damn subs

[Wolfswetpaws]

2 minutes ago, sonoasailor said:

And those damn subs

Really?  Some of them are said to be quite tasty.  🙂 

These Sandwich Chains Make the Best Subs in the Country
By Mariana Zapata , updated on December 5, 2024
https://www.farandwide.com/s/best-sub-sandwich-chains-usa-016c4edc52e14e7a