Premium Ship Review: Siliwangi

[LittleWhiteMouse]

The following is a review of Siliwangi, the tier VIII Indonesian destroyer serving in World of Warships under the Pan Asian tech tree.  This ship was kindly provided to me by Wargaming for review purposes.  I didn't have to spend money to get access to this thing.  To the best of my knowledge, the performance and statistics discussed in this review are current as of patch 0.9.0.  Please be aware that the ship may change in the future.

Quick Summary:  A slow, Soviet torpedo destroyer with a small main-battery gun armament.  She has access to a powerful Hydroacoustic Search consumable.

PROS

• Large hit point pool.
• She uses Soviet 130mm guns as her main battery with excellent ballistics and AP penetration.
• Good main battery gun range.
• Powerful deep water torpedo armament.
• Decent concealment despite her size.
• Uses a Pan Asian Smoke Generator with their shorter reset timer.
• Access to the same powerful Hydroacoustic Search as Loyang.

CONS

• Small main battery armament of only four guns, leading to low DPM and poor fire setting.
• Slow gun traverse.
• Painfully long torpedo reload in excess of 2 minutes.
• Very limited torpedo fire arcs of less than 60º.
• Short ranged anti-aircraft firepower and not enough of it.
• Large turning circle radius combined with only a modest top speed -- she feels sluggish for a destroyer.
• No access to an Engine Boost consumable.

Not a Premium Ognevoi

Siliwangi was released alongside Bajie and Wukong, premium versions of Izumo and Charles Martel respectively.  The latter two ships are still close enough to the leads of their class to make direct comparisons simple.  The differences for Bajie and Wukong and their leads are short and to the point.  I felt I could get away with shorter reviews for them as a result.

Siliwangi is something else entirely and I have heard her often described erroneously as a premium Ognevoi.  While the two ships are similar, Siliwangi is a Skoryy-class destroyer -- an evolution of the Ognevoi-class, admittedly, but very different in construction and looks. Performance wise, Siliwangi shares a lot of traits with Ognevoi and on a trait-by-trait comparison, it's easy to itemize their differences.  However, when assembled into a singular list it gets quite overwhelming.  Thus I thought it prudent to not only give Siliwangi a full review but limit comparisons to Ognevoi on a per-section basis to keep things readable.

You'll find little asides here and there throughout this review comparing Siliwangi to Ognevoi and how the two ships differ.  I think you'll find that by the end of this article that the two ships are quite distinct despite their superficial similarities.

Overview

Skill Floor:  Simple / Casual/ Challenging / DIFFICULT
Skill Ceiling:  Low / Moderate / HIGH / Extreme

Siliwangi is effectively a modified Ogenvoi-class destroyer with handicaps.  This thing needs a big neon sign mounted atop of its bridge that says "novice players stay away!".  Her guns are just as likely to get you into trouble as they are to bail you out.  Her torpedoes reload slowly and can't hit all targets.  She handles like a one legged cow with brain damage.  Her AA power is modest-to-poor and her smoke is short-lived.

Quintuple torpedo launchers, Soviet 130mm guns and a powerful Hydroacoustic Search redeem this destroyer somewhat in the hands of an expert.  There's the potential for some real mischief with this ship.  However, the lack of speed really holds her back.

Options

Unlike the other premiums released for the Lunar New Year, Siliwangi can swap out her Pan Asian flag for a national (Indonesian) one.

Consumables

• Siliwangi's Damage Control Party is standard for a destroyer with unlimited charges, a 5s active/immunity period and a 60s/40s reset timer.
• Her Smoke Generator is standard for a Pan Asian destroyer.  It has a longer action time but shorter duration and reset timer than other nations.  It has the advantage of  coming with an extra base charge for a total of four to start. It generates smoke for 30s with each puff lasting 70s. It has a 150s/100s reset timer.
• Finally, she has access to a powerful Hydroacoustic Search.  This is the same version found on Loyang which mimics the improved performance found on mid-tier German cruisers.  Siliwangi starts with 2 charges base.  The consumable is active for 110s with a 180s/120s reset timer.  It detects torpedoes at a range of 3.75km and enemy ships at 5.5km.

Upgrades

Please be aware that upgrades are changing very soon there may not be a whole lot of shelf life on these recommendations.

• In slot one, start with Main Armaments Modification 1.  Siliwangi's guns and torpedoes break a lot.  If you really hate detonations but don't want to spring for any Juliet Charlie signals, then take Magazine Modification 1 instead.
• In your second slot, spring for a Hydroacoustic Search Modification 1.  This will cost you 17,000 Coal and is purchased from the Armory but it's entirely worth it.  If you can't afford that, default to Propulsion System Modification 1.
• In your third slot, Aiming System Modification 1 is the only one that makes sense right now.
• In your fourth slot, Propulsion System Modification 2 is best, giving you a bit more pep in the engines when starting from a dead stop.  If you intend to keep mobile and never stop moving, then go with Steering Gears Modification 2 instead.
• Finish things off with Concealment Systems Modification 1.

Captain Skills

Siliwangi is starved for commander skill points.  I found it very difficult to resist the temptation to use her skill points to prop up her glaring weaknesses.  These choices go a long way to making Siliwangi less painful to play (doesn't this ship sound fun?) though they're not all optimal.

The skills in yellow are the ones I recommend for the first 10 points spent. Both Priority Target and Concealment Expert aren't absolutely mandatory but for most players, you'll get the most mileage out of those picks. After that, customize to your heart's content. While play testing, I experimented with a few builds, at first trying to make her guns more potent (Adrenaline Rush, Basic Fire Training, Demolition Expert) and then settling for just taking skills which made the ship piss me off less (Preventative Maintenance, Expert Marksman, Torpedo Armament Expertise).

Camouflage

Siliwangi comes with Type 10 Camouflage providing the usual bonuses for a tier VIII premium.  You can also acquire a Lunar New Year - Siliwangi camouflage through loot crates (ugh) or with money with identical bonuses that shares the same look as the optional camouflage we saw with Irian in early 2019.  These both provide:

• A 3% reduction in surface detection ranges.
• A 4% increase to the dispersion of enemy gunfire.
• A 10% reduction to post-battle service costs.
• A 50% increase to experience earned.

Do I really need to say which one is which?

Versus Ognevoi

The big difference between the two ships is their consumable load-out and camouflage.  Siliwangi comes with camouflage and Ognevoi does not. You have to shell out doubloons if you want your Ogenvoi to match Siliwangi's camouflage bonuses.

Consumable wise:

• Ogenvoi uses what is ostensibly a standard Smoke Generator, giving Siliwangi the slight advantage here.  This has a shorter emission time than Siliwangi (20 seconds vs 30 seconds).  However, each puff of smoke lasts longer (89 seconds vs 70 seconds).  Siliwangi's consumable does reset faster than Ogenvoi's (240/160 seconds vs 150/100 seconds) and has an extra charge (2 vs 3).
• Ognevoi's has access to a standard Engine Boost, giving her an 8% speed boost for two minutes.  She can swap this out for a Defensive AA Fire consumable if she wishes.
• Finally, Ognevoi has access to a Repair Party.  This has a single charge base (up to three between Superintendent and taking a premium consumable), healing back up to 14% of Ognevoi's health over 28 seconds (16.8% with an India Delta signal).

So premium and tech-tree differences aside, Ognevoi's consumables make her faster and tougher, giving her a degree of flexibility Siliwangi can only envy.

Firepower

Main Battery:  Four 130mm/50 naval rifles in 2x2 turrets in an A-X layout.
Torpedoes:  Ten tubes in 2x5 launchers mounted in a forward facing down the centerline of the ship fore and aft of the rear funnel.

Darling to Some

Siliwangi's guns are controversial.  On the one hand, she's equipped with some of the best destroyer-caliber guns in the game -- the vaunted Soviet 130mm/50s.  These guns boast phenomenal ballistics, making gunnery comfortable even at long ranges.  This also translates to reasonably good penetration power on her AP shells for a destroyer-caliber weapon.  Their reload time, while not amazing, isn't terrible at a flat five seconds.  Finally, their individual shell damage is solid, with good numbers on her AP and HE shells and a high fire chance per hit to boot.

The issue playing contrary to all of these good points are three drawbacks.

1. Her gun traverse rates suck.
2. Her guns are hella fragile.
3. She only has four guns.

Admittedly, the first point is a minor quibble.  Siliwangi's gun traverse is a modest 9.7º/s which isn't anywhere close to the worst values found on destroyers at tier VIII -- it's simply a nuisance.  This results in circumstances where she struggles to lay guns on target.  When you're already fighting to pump out reliable amounts of damage, any measure of frustration  feels more pronounced than it actually is.

Her gun fire angles are decent. Her gun traverse, not so much.

This speaks well to the second issue -- Siliwangi's main battery guns are easily knocked out.  It's not that they have fewer hit points or are more prone to critical damage than those of other destroyers -- she has the same chunk of 4,000 hit points per turret as everyone else and her critical damage values are normal.  The issue is that all of her firepower is concentrated into just two turrets.  Everything that hits her guns will do damage -- they have only 6mm worth of protection.  All it takes is an unfortunate bout of RNG to cripple her firepower. Again, let me stress:  this isn't uncommon among destroyers to have poorly protected gun turrets.  But few destroyers have their firepower so concentrated and thus easily crippled.

This is a long-butt (ew) way of really stressing that she doesn't have enough guns.  Four isn't enough never mind temporarily losing two.

Now, it needs be said:  DPM isn't everything.  The low DPM of Siliwangi's guns belies their efficacy.  It's easier to put shells on target with Soviet 130mm guns than it is with most other destroyer-caliber guns -- especially at range.  I can't stress enough how comfortable these weapons are to use -- it's only the number of shells she spits out over time that holds her back.

Siliwangi simply does not have an ideal main-battery armament.

This is pretty bare bones for one of my usual graphs. I didn't even bother to account for the French Main Battery Reload Booster consumables. However, it's here to illustrate a simple message: Siliwangi does not have high DPM values compared to her peers. In trading matches where everything (or almost everything) is landing true, she's not coming out the better for it.

Unsurprisingly, Siliwangi isn't a good fire-starter. She's about on par with ships armed with American 127mm/38s, especially when you start throwing modifiers around.

Versus Ognevoi

Ognevoi's guns are almost identical being similarly limited to a 2x2 gun layout.  The primary difference between them is the type of gun and ammunition used.  Siliwangi's uses Ognevoi's stock 130mm/50 B-2LM guns while Ognevoi upgrades to the long-barreled 130mm/55 B-2-U.  This gives Ognevoi better penetration and muzzle velocity.  Her AP shell also does more damage -- 2,600 vs 2,500 per hit.  Finally, she has better Krupp (1,720 vs 1,700) and lower shell drag (0.255 vs 0.286).

Finally, Ognevoi has slightly better gun handling, more than doubling 9.7º/s Siliwangi's gun traverse with 20º/s and with 122º overlapping fire arcs for her guns as opposed to 119º of Siliwangi.  This comes at the disadvantage of less range.  Ognevoi's guns reach out to 12km instead of 12.5km of Silliwangi.

On the whole, Ognevoi has the superior gun armament, though mostly by a measure of comfort and ease of use than outright performance.

Skyfall Torpedoes

Here's Siliwangi's money makers!

Quintuple launchers!  Fast torpedoes!  Low, deep water reaction times!  Hard hitting warheads!  Massive flooding chance!  What's not to love?

Reload time.  Reload time is what's not to love.  Oh god, Siliwangi's torpedo reload is time difficult.  131 seconds is just painful, especially without access to a Torpedo Reload Booster consumable or at least access to Torpedo Tubes Modification 3 found on tier IX and X destroyer option lists.  Functionally, Siliwangi ends up with one of the longest torpedo reload times in the game and it hurts.

Watching your target ship apply WASD successfully is just heartbreaking, knowing you've got another minute to wait before your tubes are reloaded.  Of course, when things go right, Siliwangi's torpedoes end worlds.  Catch an opponent blind and there's little they can do to avoid a perfectly timed salvo.  I'd boast that this thing prints Devastating Strike medals, but in testing I never managed it.  That's more on me than a failing of the ship.

If I had one more quibble it would be their range.  10km is nice but it's hella average for tier VIII fish.  12km would have felt nicer and more fitting for what is ostensibly Siliwangi's primary damage dealers.  As it is, this poor ship has to brave Surveillance Radar ranges to dump her fish and she's not a fast boat.  Extracting herself when things go pear shaped (and they will) seldom ends well.

I should apologize if it sounds like I'm coming down hard on Siliwangi's fish.  They are excellent.  I'm confident that in the hands of someone with more patience and practice that  they'll demonstrate this performance with semi-regularity.  Torpedoes are very much a boom or bust weapon -- consistency is not their strong suit unless you're spitting out a ton of them like Benham.  With Siliwangi's long reload, she's not doing that so every attack counts.

Siliwangi's torpedo fire arcs aren't great.  She can only launch 59º off her bow and 61º off her stern, meaning you've got to show full broadside to fire.  For me, this caused more navigation issues than anything else, prompting in many a "oh crap!" moments as I nearly beached myself in tight confines.  Her two torpedo launchers don't quite overlap the same coverage area either.

Versus Ognevoi

Both ships have two quintuple launchers and a share a 10km range.  Beyond this, their torpedoes are night and day different.

• Siliwangi's launchers have a 59º fire arc which don't quite overlap.  Ognevoi's launchers have a 79º fire arc.
• Siliwangi uses deep water torpedoes Ognevoi's fish can hit everything.
• Siliwangi reloads in 131 seconds, Ognevoi in 92 seconds.
• Siliwangi's torpedoes move at 61 knots, Ognevoi's 56kts.
• Siliwangi's torpedoes finish their 10km run in 61 seconds, Ognevoi's in 66.5 seconds.
• Siliwangi's torpedoes are spotted at 800m, providing ~4.9s reaction time.  Ognevoi's are spotted at 1.1km and provide ~7.3s reaction time.
• Siliwangi's torpedoes hit for up to 17,933 damage.  Ognevoi's torpedoes hit for 15,100 damage.
• Siliwangi's torpedoes have a 302% flooding coefficient, Ognevoi's have 250%.

Ognevoi's torpedoes are easier to spam than Siliwangi's -- often necessitating as little as a 30 seconds wait between the end-run of her fish and the next salvo where as Siliwangi must exercise more caution and care with her launches.  While Siliwangi's torpedoes are more devastating when they hit, Ognevoi's fish are much easier to use and arguably more effective, especially in the hands of less experienced players.

Summary

Overall, Siliwangi's gunnery feels very Japanese to me.  Her guns are just good enough to punish opponents who underestimate her but not so good that I'd willingly want to use them to pick a fight.  While ostensibly dittoing Ognevoi's firepower, I feel less inclined to use it.  I recognize I've always taken issue with ships with poor gun handling, with fire arcs being more my bane than traverse, but I still harbour little love for issues with the latter.  Siliwangi's guns felt pretty terrible overall because of this and the frequency at which they were temporarily knocked out didn't help either.

Torpedo wise, there's little in between feast and famine.  I had a lot of success with Siliwangi's torpedoes right up until the point I had almost none.  This varied on a per-game basis.  Sometimes it felt I could do no wrong and others where radar, hydro, aircraft or just general poor positioning made landing more than a couple of hits nigh impossible.  In PVE modes, this is a non-issue:  Suicide charge a big target and derp them into oblivion with your awesome fish.

Siliwangi is very much a torpedo destroyer, but a torpedo destroyer with long gaps in between her salvos.  Her weapon systems aren't comfortable to use.  They are effective, certainly, but her firepower didn't endear itself to me.

Verdict:  As effective as your opponents are stupid.

Defense

Hit Points: 17,200
Minimum Bow & Deck Armour: 19mm

There's three things to talk about in regards to Siliwangi's durability:

1. Health Pool.
2. Module Durability.
3. Destroyer Heals

Siliwangi has a nice ol' chunk of health.  She's quite the chungus, hobnobbing with the best of the tier VIII destroyers in this regard.  While there is quite a step down from the French destroyers to Siliwangi's health pool, none of the healthier ships can boast as much concealment as she has so I think it's a pretty good trade overall.

I've talked already about the relative fragility of Siliwangi's gun armaments but it's worth repeating here.  Taking measures to protect her weapons is highly encouraged.  Use Main Armaments Modification 1 and, if you can spare the skill points, Preventative Maintenance isn't remiss either.  I'm not one to recommend Preventative Maintenance often but every little bit helps when Siliwangi is forced to trade fire with an enemy lolibote or cruiser.

The final element to consider here is Siliwangi's lack of heals.  'So what?' you might say.  I'll skip a "versus Ognevoi" paragraph here and lump it all together:  Repair Party gets increasingly commonplace among destroyers in Siliwangi's matchmaking, especially when she's bottom tier.  As good as her raw health pool looks, she doesn't have the longevity of some of her rivals which can flex some healing power over the course of a match.

Siliwangi looks pretty good if you ignore the heals out there. It's possible to trade fire with some of the smaller health pool destroyers provided she starts with a significant advantage.

Verdict:  Pretty good so long as your opponent hasn't dipped their hand into the Box o' Gimmicks and snatched themselves some mutant healing powers.  Do protect your guns, though.

Agility

Top Speed: 36.5 knots
Turning Radius: 660m
Rudder Shift Time: 4.0s
4/4 Engine Speed Rate of Turn: 7.2º/s

I'm not going to be nice.  Siliwangi's agility sucks moose-balls.

She largely echoes the agility of Japanese torpedo-destroyers, except for her whole lack of an Engine Boost consumable.  Siliwangi's top speed is modest -- not terrible, but modest.  However, her inability to exceed that with a consumable really hurts her overall flexibility.  There are few things more terrifying than being unable to outpace a pursuing opponent. Siliwangi is ill-designed to affect an escape once an enemy locks on with Radio Location.  She can't easily bring her torpedoes on target either in these running fights -- her limited fire arcs necessitates that she swing out that much more which further reduces her forward speed. Combine this with her low gunnery DPM and the long reload of her torpedoes and sailing Siliwangi in such situations gets frustrating in a big hurry.

This is a ship you must sail carefully and with a plan.  She can't extract herself from trouble very easily if she over extends.  Similarly, you're not fast enough to exploit openings as effectively as other destroyers.  Boo-urns, Siliwangi.  Failing marks here.

Siliwangi's agility leaves a lot to be desired. This deficit is even more pronounced once her lack of an Engine Boost comes into play. An increase in speed increases a ship's rate of turn (and turning radius size). Siliwangi feels pretty clumsy compared to most other destroyers. Were it not for everyone's favourite ducky-bote, she'd have the worst agility of any of the tier 8 destroyers.

VERDICT:  Disappointing.

Anti-Aircraft Defense

Medium Ranged AA: ~106dps at up to 3.5km

Just ... no.  You're a destroyer with only modest AA, no flak (not that flak really matters at high tiers) and no Defensive AA Fire consumable.  Ranked up against other destroyers, she ends up looking "okay" until you remember that anything shy of "bloody amazing" means you're just food for CVs.

No.  No no no and no.  Carriers and Siliwangi do not get along.  Ognevoi at least has a bit of teeth to her AA power -- check it out:

• Long Range AA:  46dps up to 6km.
• Medium Ranged AA: 84dps up to 3.5km
• Shot Ranged AA: 37dps up to 1.5km
• Flak Explosions: 1 blast for 1,470 damage.

Let's not kid ourselves, that's still not enough to keep an enemy carrier from preying upon Ognevoi.  She also has access to Defensive AA Fire if you want to drop her Engine Boost for it.  I wouldn't though.  DFAA is pretty much garbage at this point.  But hey, at least we can pretend.

Verdict:  As good as the CV rework.

Kaga's strikes aircraft aren't exactly known for their durability. Even with focus fire and Basic Fire Training, I didn't manage to shoot down a single one before they launched their rocket strike (though I did get close). My attempts to Just Dodge™ by using the elevated island terrain failed miserably.  Incidentally, this one attack disabled one of my torpedo tubes and destroyed the other outright. This was the first damage I took that game. Yay.

Refrigerator

Base Surface Detection: 7.56km
Minimum Surface Detection Range: 5.94km
Air Detection Range: 3.41km
Detection Range When Firing in Smoke: 2.88km
Main Battery Firing Range: 12.51km (15.01km with Advanced Firing Training)

Siliwangi's concealment is pretty good -- especially for a destroyer of her size.  I mean, she's not winning any prizes.  Her surface detection sits behind the other tier VIII destroyers: Kagero, Harekeaze, Yukikaze, Asashio, Hsienyang, Loyang, Lightning, Cossack, Kidd and Benson -- her saving grace is that she has a larger health pool than these ships while not demonstrating an absolute thunderchunker of a surface detection.  The difference between Siliwangi and some of these ships is just a couple of hundred meters which is nothing in reaction times.

Still, getting below the 6km makes her much easier to play, especially when she's top tier.  This allows her to bully most of the tier VI and VII destroyers she comes across.   When Siliwangi is top tier, not only can she sneak up on most of her opponents, her DPM deficit is less of a concern.  She can also flex that big hit point pool.  It's only the rare monsters like Haida she needs worry about.

What makes these encounters even more delicious is her Hydroacoustic Search.  This thing is bloody brilliant -- it's a mid-tier German cruiser version of the consumable; the same one found famously on Loyang.  It's stupidly-long ship detection range allows her to sniff out opponents with enough reach that in lower-tiered matches, it's like she has a baby Surveillance Radar.  It's about as disruptive too.

At higher tiers, it can make sense to hold fire when you sniff out targets, letting your team's support elements tear them up lest you risk giving your position away.  Siliwangi's 12.5km gunnery range means that she lights herself up out to a long distance, so taking such shots can be very risky.

Overall, besides her fish, Siliwangi's vision control is her best feature.  The only thing I could ask for more here would be the speed to let her better take advantage of her strengths.

Versus Ognevoi

Ognevoi's a cow.  No Hydroacoustic Search and she has a larger base surface detection (7.74km for Ognevoi vs 7.56km for Siliwangi).  The only advantage Ognevoi has here is her smaller aerial detection (3.02km vs 3.41km) and that's largely a non-issue.

Verdict:  Hella good.

Patch 0.9.1

It's a bad time to be buying premium ships.  Patch 0.9.1 promises a whole host of changes -- namely a rework of some of the upgrades.  Furthermore, just yesterday as I'm getting ready to tidy up this review for publishing, they announce that Siliwangi's torpedoes might be getting a small buff -- namely a 1 knot increase to torpedo speed and a 3 second reduction to her torpedo reload time.  I don't feel this latter tidbit will change Siliwangi's performance overmuch, as nice as the improvements will be to have.

More pressingly, there's a lot of talk about the new Torpedo Protection System (TPS).  The new modification will automatically detect any torpedoes at a distance of 1.8km (which may be further improved by Vigilance).  For ships armed with deep water torpedoes, this seems patently unfair -- they paid the price for a limited target selection.  In exchange deep water fish are supposed to have excellent stealth.  TPS patently undoes this making deep water torpedoes inferior if this upgrade becomes commonplace.

I personally don't feel there's much to worry about.

While the new modification does neuter deep water fish, it's patently inferior overall to the current Target Acquisition System Modification 1 upgrade that it replaces.  That's my logic, simply:  there's already a better upgrade and people aren't taking that, so why should we expect TPS to become commonplace?  For TPS to be competitive compared to the old upgrade, deep water torpedoes would need to be incredibly prevalent -- chronic, even.  The boost in torpedo detection range just doesn't outweigh the other benefits provided by TASM1.  Thus, the other slot-5 upgrades will still seem superior -- namely Concealment Modification 1, Steering Gears Modification 3 and even the new Ship Consumable Modification 1 have more appeal in my estimation.

In random battles, TASM1 is rarely encountered and it's hard to see its inferior replacement suddenly becoming the new meta.  It would be an easier sell if deep water torpedoes were more commonplace -- y'know, if Asashio actually had gone on to ruin the battleship meta as was promised back in 2018.  What occurs in competitive may be an entirely different kettle of fish.  A tier VIII Ranked Battles may give the new upgrade a new lease on life but who can say?  It's worth remembering that the new modification doesn't stop torpedoes automatically -- they still have to be Just Dodged™.  Even if your target does have the modification equipped, the difference will be noticeable but not the end of the world.  A ship with the new upgrade installed might be able to prevent a Devastating Strike, but it won't spare it from taking damage entirely (unless Yuro's dancing at the helm).

This all said, I'm not inclined to gamble with the contents of my wallet and I'd hold off on any purchases if you have even the slightest sense of doubt.

Taken from this article: https://worldofwarships.com/en/news/public-test/bulletin-091/
The new list of upgrades has some good news and bad news for Siliwangi. The new Torpedo Tubes Modification 1 looks great for her. So long as the new TPS upgrade doesn't take over the meta, patch 0.9.1 promises to provide a slight buff.

Final Evaluation

Siliwangi is definitely the most interesting of the three Pan Asian Lunar Festival premiums released in 2020.  I dismissed her out of hand initially, assuming incorrectly that she would echo Bajie and Wukong's cloning of extant tech tree ships.  Thankfully it took little more than a glance to see how wrong that assumption was and how deserving she was of a full review.

This is a good destroyer.  More specifically, this is a reasonable destroyer with a damn good consumable strapped onto her.  Her Hydroacoustic Search alone makes the ship worthwhile.  Had she ended up with just smoke and an Engine Boost consumable, she would have been alright -- a little dull, maybe, but alright.  As it is, I have to commend Wargaming for changing things up.  The lack of an Engine Boost is hardly ideal but the trade off for that god-tier hydro is definitely interesting.  It opens the door for some interesting plays.   She's not a ship I want to see on the enemy team.

As much as I ragged on Siliwangi's guns, I'd rather have her main battery than Loyang's, to say nothing of Siliwangi's torpedo armament.  I don't think Siliwangi displaces Loyang as the better of the two premiums on offer -- Loyang is easier to use and more flexible, but Siliwangi has definitely earned her place.

For experienced players, I'm happy to give a recommendation for Siliwangi provided 9.1 doesn't ruin everything.  She'll serve you well if she strikes your fancy, whatever the game mode you prefer.  For those who struggle with destroyer game play, it's best to stay away.  This ship won't do you any favours.

Conclusion

Whoo!  Would you look at that?  Five reviews in as many weeks.  I wish I could say that I was making some headway on my backlog, but I guess I can be content with merely keeping pace with Wargaming's stupid-hectic release schedule.  Patch 0.9.1 promises to throw a wrench into review works as the meta shifts to account for new options, so I apologize in advance for any delays in the next review.  I want to spend some time familiarizing myself with some of the new builds and see what shakes loose.

Thank you all for reading!

 

[Wolfswetpaws]

Just now, LittleWhiteMouse said:

The following is a review of Siliwangi