[Enioch]

The IJN DDs are a dead end to me.
I cannot cope with the Mutsukis torps, so I'll switch back to the US line.
Other than that, the Colorado is fun, while I'm in love with the Fuso.

Heretic.

Seriously, I can understand why you'd feel this way. IJN DDs suffer from a very spaced-apart payback on effort invested. You may spend an entire game chucking torps and get no hits.

It helps if you realise how much you're spoiling the other guys' game, if they need to swerve around like drunk drivers every fourty seconds or so. BBs especially will not appreciate it.

And also, keep in mind that even though your torpedo range is 10+ km, that doesn't mean you should launch at max range. The Mutsuki is the second stealthiest ship in the game (right behind the Kagero with a Concealment Expert captain and equal to the Minekaze). I routinely closed to 6.2-6.4 km with my Mutsuki to launch. Risky (especially if there are enemy DDs around to spot you) but the payoffs are huge. The extra range just gives you more early game options.

[Gray]

So, after a month of derping around in warbotes, I'm having a lot of fun, but still I'm not sure which line to level up first.

- US DDs: They are a lot of fun. The fully buffed Clemson does evil things to other DDs with its guns and the torps have decent range. If I survive the inital clash with other tin cans, lobbing torps at BBs results in lots of XP.

- US BB: While I can see the fun of the slower and more tactical gameplay in battleships, the dispersion of Wyoming's guns has be regularly frustrated (maybe I'm spoiled from the Königsberg), and from what I've read it doesn't get much better at higher tiers? The shotgun style dispersion is useful when shooting at DDs though, it's fun to watch them go pop from a single HE round. But maybe I should play Japanese BBs instead, since they have a bit better accuracy?

- CVs: Is just unlocked the Langley and played a few games with it... but I'm still more fighting with the control interface than against enemy ships :/

- German cruisers: After suffering through Kolberg/Karlsruhe, the Königsberg is a joy to drive around. The ability to touch people out at 16.5 km with highly accurate AP fire with a ridiculous ROF is great. Like its lower tier sister, it still pulls aggro like crazy. If spotted, everybody and his mother is shooting at you expecting an easy kill. This bloodlust it creates in others is useful for kiting though... they seem to get serious tunnel vision when hunting after me, happily ignoring my BB team mates are suddenly much closer than me, until they get a nice broadside from them.

- Japanese: I haven't played much yet past Chikuma. The stealth DDs sound kinda fun, but maybe the BBs are more enjoyable?

- Aurora cruiser: This was part of the invite code I got. It's a fun shooty tier III flamethrower with good range and decent armor.

So, my fellow HLP skippers... what are your recommendations for further boat grinding?

The US DDs are quite good, had 2k+ base XP game in a Clemson yesterday.
With the Benson TVIII, they even get good Torps, which can be used to stealth torp BBs or as area denial measure.

US BBs are quite good actually, the New Mexico is an awesome ship and if played as she was meant to be played (as a brawler), a leathal opponent even to higher Tier BBs - as long you angle your armour. Same goes for the Colorado, deadly at shorter ranges though the ~10k armour disadvantage can be a problem at times.
The NoCar at Tier VIII is quite decent and the Iowa that follows it, is just as good. However, the long range sniping that's going on on higher Tiers can suck the fun out of it.

IJN BBs are good from the Kongo onwards, the Izumo might be an letdown after the awesome Amagi, but you'll get used to it.

IJN CLs are quite good and with the Aoba onwards it only gets better, though their rather "exposed" Citadel can give you head aches.
The Mogami at T VIII is sofar my personal favorite in that line, and i enjoy the grind towards the Ibuki.

 The US CL line is good with the Cleveland standing out - what a ship. You are competetive even against Cruisers two tiers higher, so enjoy her as long as you can, cause rumor has it, that she will get replaced and later reintroduced once/ if the Cruiser lines get separated into CL/ CA.
Pensacola onwards there wont be much of a difference between the ships.

If you like the US DD line, you may also like the Russian DD line, it's almost the same gunboat playstyle minus the Torpedo range.
They can take more damage, can dish out real good and are fast as hell. And with the higher Tiers, the torps are halfway decent.
Always keep moving, and watch other DDs and BBs burn. You can even go toe to toe with some cruisers, which is always a plus.

[Scourge of Ages]

I got one-shot in my Nurnberg today by a trio of lucky citadel hits from a Kongo 14km out. I figure they came right through the deck and just exploded everything. I wasn't even mad though, it was pretty amazing.

[Col. Fishguts]

Thanks for the tips so far.

CVs are kind of messed up right now and don't get a lot of play.  Basically making one of USN cruisers great AA moot. Even so the high tiers are very scary platforms.

I play on the EU server, and on tier V there are usually 1-2 CVs per team (sometimes there are none, but it's quite rare). Were there more during CBT, or does it thin out at higher tiers?

[StarSlayer]

On NA I can go a few days without seeing them depending on the tier I am playing, this makes missions involving shooting down aircraft a major PITA.  I think the Tier IV and Vs still get play since people are trying CVs out but VII-VIII are pretty rare.  Folks who ground out their IX-Xs early still take them out since they are still scary platforms.  I haven't played CVs but my understanding is that balance between Tiers is pretty bad, WG has consistently nerfed the class and the equal number of CVs in a match requirement makes MM wait times redonk.

I think in general this has pissed off the majority of NA CV skippers and driven down the numbers, I can't speak for EU though.

[crizza]

Ok, I finally got the hang of the Mutsuki.
While I'm not the ninja, I manage to get several torps home.
But the last game with the Derpitz was pure dope.
Two North Carolinas shot the crap out of me, supported by a Fuso, a Yorck and a Nürnberg, so I turned tail.
Another Tirpitz stole my Fuso kill, because I thought waiting for my torps to got it... well.
However after killing the two cruisers i thought the battle lost and went toe to toe with the two North Carolinas.
Dunno what was their problem, although being in a division, only one fired at me, so I was able to get torps in and when my Derpitz went down, I realized that only the North Carolinas were left afloat

And that last match with the Aoba...


[attachment DELETED!! by Strong Bad]

[StarSlayer]

I love Hipster Hipper, this grind to Roon has been smooth as butter.  I didn't even notice it and the ship is nearly unlocked.


Deutschland Engineering Ja

This was a fun match.  Shot up a bunch of stuff with AP, picked off the Fuso with a surgical fish strike while he was dueling our Nor Carl then island torp ambushed a nearly full health enemy Nor Carl at 4 klicks.





They just need to give her the damn 1939 Refit, lady needs her Atlantic bow and raked funnel cap for dank German sexiness.

[crizza]

I think of finnaly getting a CV... now the question is IJN or USN?

[Rodo]

Right now... USN or burst. AA power is all there is sadly.

[crizza]

Ok, started that line during CBT but I was horrible -.-

[StarSlayer]

HIJMS Suzuya
Most 155mm fun you can have until they add the Brooklyn (unless of course they still insist on making her shells do their best Kerbal Space Program impressions).

[StarSlayer]

Armor Piercing is my mistress, in her name shall I smite my foes.  Upon her alter I offer flat surfaces as tribute and so shall she cast her implacable favor upon me.

Abusing AFT and HE in Suzuya is certainly effective.  That said, fifteen rounds of 155mm AP hammering out 6.7 times a minute will easily shred anything, even Tier VIII BBs, at close range.  It also will illicit maniacal laughter as it does so.




Why yes I will citadel Fuso at max range with Hipper 203mm, thank you very much:




Coming up on a difficult set of decisions.  Hipper has already unlocked Roon while Nagato is but a few matches away from the Amagi, "grind" is such an inadequate word to describe the process with these two ladies, more like a glide.  In addition sales on Tier VII and below is in the pipe and I'm tempted to use some free xp to jump into the Russian DD line.  Amagi was such a lovely beast in CBT but I've heard great things of Roon not to mention Kiev is supposedly a big barrel of Russian laughs.

 Too many opportunities, not enough credits 

[Gray]

If you liked the Nagato, you'll love the Amagi. Sailing her and raining destruction upon the enemy...pure joy! Not a second felt like a Grind.
I had very few games with her in Random, and she carried me well in Ranked.

I unlocked the Izumo and she's...dunno, it feels like taking 5 steps back.
Not a bad ship per se, as she's quite capable to dish out, however the rather weird turretplacement and the fact that the third turret rotates the other way around makes her somewhat difficult to play in certain situations.

After the recent patch, the York seems to has lost it's bite as the AP shells have been nerfed to oblivion, and i can't wait to get the Hipper.

The Russian DD line is quite good actually - starting with Tier IV. The Gnevny is a good boat, while the Ognevoi is pure joy. The Kiev however beats them by large margin, and she and the Ognevoi are quite capable to penetrate even higher Tier CLs.
While the shells are made of Stalinium, her Modules and Turrets are made of wet paper. AFT is a must, constantly maneuvering is necessary and keeping the distance to avoid losing turrets.
Those gunboats eat DDs for breakfast, CLs for lunch and can hunt BBs.

I got myself the Lo Yang, which is a Benson - sadly with the C hull. The Benson is quite a good ship, i just don't like having my firepower reduced.
The fact that she can carry the Hydoaccustic search makes her more versatile, however the missing gun is quite noticeable in knife fights with US and RU DDs.

[Col. Fishguts]

Sexy German engineering, ja.

Hipper is a gorgeous beast, she's the main reason I'm leveling up the German line. But how did you experience the grind up to her?
I'm currently still plonking around in the Königsberg and have almost unlocked the Nürnberg.
But today I had a match that scared me of the future that awaits me. I was placed with my Königsberg in a mostly-Tier-VI match, with two Yorcks in the enemy team, into both of which I ran into during the match.
The first one was about to engage one of our BBS, so he was ignoring me and presenting his flanks nicely. He had around 90% health when I started shooting at ~12km, my first volley cut that in half and the 2nd volley made him go pop, and there was only one citadel hit involved.
The second Yorck I encountered alone, so it was a fair 1:1. We both closed in on each other and started firing roughly simultaneously. I was expecting to loose that duel, but I could land more hits while dodging most of the return fire... he exploded after the sixth volley.

This match made we wonder how painful Yorck will be. I mean in the Königsberg I know that I have cardboard for protection, but at least I have the speed and maneuverability to dodge most of the nasty stuff coming my way. Nünrnberg seems to be roughly on equal terms from what I gathered with my duels with them. But Yorck just seems to be a big lumbering slouch with a kick-me sign on the back :/
Also in other matches, where I didn't murder them myself, they always seem to be dead latest 5 minutes into the match.

[ssmit132]

So, thought I'd give an update, since I talked about working towards getting the ARP Kongou. It didn't take me as long as I would have thought to complete the missions - just over a week, and that's a couple of weeks ago now. Destroying the cruisers was probably the mission I found most annyoing.

Anyway, I was happy to get ARP Kongou in my port.

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Amusingly, by far the MVP of the missions sans the "shoot down 150 aircraft" was the regular Kongou I already owned. Unfortunately, I don't remember how well I did with it during the beta days, but I absolutely enjoy using this lovely lady. It makes me glad that the prize ship was the same class. That being said, I haven't unlocked Fusou yet, and even when I do, I'll feel bad selling this Kongou, so she'll stay in my port alongside the Battleship of the Fog.

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Furutaka - I have mixed feelings about her. She pulled some of the weight as well and so she has my thanks too, but I also definitely find her unforgiving and hard to master. I think her AP shells are excellent, but she's really sluggish when I came from the agile Kuma. Her slow-reloading, slow-traversing turrets also mean a lot of planning ahead, too. Which I am used to, playing with battleships, but I feel Furutaka demands more care, too. Nonetheless, with the pressure of missions off, I should have plenty of time to make her work for me.

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And Zuiho, the aircraft carrier I got specifically for the aircraft mission. Well... I think you might know how that went, considering the opinion that CVs are not that good now. That's not to say the aircraft mission was a struggle, though... Zuiho managed to do that quicker than the other two missions, even with the inferior IJN fighters. Unfortunately, though, I still need quite a bit of practice at using my torpedo bombers, especially with manual aiming.

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I'm not planning on trying to unlock the ARP Myoukou, since I don't have a Tier VI ship yet, and even if I had got up to, say, Fusou, I'm not sure I'll be able to pull that off.

However, and I may be crazy to consider this, but I was thinking of trying to unlock the ARP Kongou again on my NA account ("Typhlomence_NA" is my username there), as I sometimes play with a Steam friend on there. I am yet to get to Tier V yet, but the closest ship to it is Isokaze, which I've had fun with even though I'm inexperienced with destroyers. I'm also considering purchasing Murmansk for my NA account, since I'm not sure I'll be able to complete those missions in time with Minekaze alone. Using Murmansk should also help me get free EXP to use to bypass Langley after I unlock it, so I can go straight to Bogue for the aircraft mission.

[StarSlayer]

Nürnberg is pretty much a straight upgrade of the Tier V, the increased RoF is really sweet but her MM sometimes sees things that are a little harder to pen with the 15 cm SK C/25.  Even so her AP can slap even Standard BBs for solid damage with good shot placement.  If you are effective with Königsberg then it should be more of the same with the Nürnberg, just look at the MM spread and plan your aggression/conservatism accordingly.  She is also quite the looker when accoutered with Tanz's skin:



They buffed Yorck last patch so the turret traverse is acceptable for most situations and the RoF is pretty good.  Her main sticking point is the shell flight time, if I'm not mistaken her guns were originally spares for SMS Blücher that were later used in WW2 as shore battery guns when the Yorck project never came to fruition.  Because of the quirks of WG and history the ship has WWI AP that just hangs for days and WW2 HE with decent flight performance.  In short you should rely on HE at range and switch to AP when the distance closes.  To be honest I would have preferred keeping the crap traverse for better AP arcs.  The armor is serviceable when angled appropriately, it can bounce cruiser rounds and occasionally BB caliber shells.  If you expose a flat surface you will get punished but that is true for everything, in fact punishing flat surfaces with AP is German CA's raison d'etre.  While Yorck is not a complete turd, I did not particularly like this ship and used some free XP to speed the process along.  If you have some available, applying XP boosting signals and camo to grind faster would not be a bad idea.  The following three cruisers Hipper, Roon and Hindenberg are by all accounts some of the best CAs in game and are totally worth it.

[Gray]

Sexy German engineering, ja.

Hipper is a gorgeous beast, she's the main reason I'm leveling up the German line. But how did you experience the grind up to her?
I'm currently still plonking around in the Königsberg and have almost unlocked the Nürnberg.
But today I had a match that scared me of the future that awaits me. I was placed with my Königsberg in a mostly-Tier-VI match, with two Yorcks in the enemy team, into both of which I rant into during the match.
The first one was about to engage one of our BBS, so he was ignoring me and presenting his flanks nicely. He had around 90% health when I started shooting at ~12km, my first volley cut that in half and the 2nd volley made him go pop, and there was only one citadel hit involved.
The second Yorck I encountered alone, so it was a fair 1:1. We both closed in on each other and started firing roughly simultaneously. I was expecting to loose that duel, but I could land more hits while dodging most of the return fire... he exploded after the sixth volley.

This match made we wonder how painful Yorck will be. I mean in the Königsberg I know that I have cardboard for protection, but at least I have the speed and maneuverability to dodge most of the nasty stuff coming my way. Nünrnberg seems to be roughly on equal terms from what I gathered with my duels with them. But Yorck just seems to be a big lumbering slouch with a kick-me sign on the back :/
Also in other matches, where I didn't murder them myself, they always seem to be dead latest 5 minutes into the match.

York has seen a buff to her turret traverse speed which was ~50seconds. In turn, they nerfed her AP shell velocity ( and arc?).
People not used to it, will have trouble hitting things not in range of 5km as you have to lead nearly as much as with the Atlanta.
Personally, i think the York was better off with her terrible turret traverse speed.
Her HE shells remaind untouched, which can lead to some confusion.

She's best played in situations were you are not the main focus, so you can give supporting firepower.
When i sail her, i do either give long range HE support and try to start fires or try to hunt down DDs.
When engaging CLs/CAs, i keep her angled as long as possible.

Nürnberg is an improvement over the Königsberg and requires a similar playstyle, can dish out but she's about as fragile as the KB though.

Ninja'd by Starslayer.

[Col. Fishguts]

Nürnberg
They buffed Yorck last patch so the turret traverse is acceptable for most situations and the RoF is pretty good.  Her main sticking point is the shell flight time, if I'm not mistaken her guns were originally spares for SMS Blücher that were later used in WW2 as shore battery guns when the Yorck project never came to fruition.  Because of the quirks of WG and history the ship has WWI AP that just hangs for days and WW2 HE with decent flight performance.  In short you should rely on HE at range and switch to AP when the distance closes.  To be honest I would have preferred keeping the crap traverse for better AP arcs.

Is there some way to check any stats about shell arcs and flight time ingame? I know I can check flight time by pressing Alt ingame, but I never paid much attention about any potential differences between HE and AP flight time... do I need to in general, or does this mostly apply to the Yorck?

Do they take air drag into account, meaning do shells with lower muzzle velocity and higher arcs have less oomph on impact?

[StarSlayer]

Yorck and maybe the Nor Carl? are the only two ships I can think of where the HE flies better than AP.  Yorck exhibits this because the Germans created a new HE shell in WW2 when the 210mm guns were used for shore emplacements while the AP shells still date from WW1.

If you have played US Cans, Atlanta or Cleveland you will notice they tend to arc shells so high they occasionally lose some in orbit, which makes pinning down an enemy at range an exercise in frustration at times.  Yorck suffers some of the same issues with her AP which is why its useful to sling the better HE until the arcs flatten out and then switch to the AP.  If this is your first Tier VII CA then it may not even be a noticeable issue but after running IJN 203s for so long her guns can be annoying.  Again she isn't terrible but she wasn't a keeper for me and certainly isn't Myōkō.

[Col. Fishguts]

If you have played US Cans, Atlanta or Cleveland you will notice they tend to arc shells so high they occasionally lose some in orbit, which makes pinning down an enemy at range an exercise in frustration at times.  Yorck suffers some of the same issues with her AP which is why its useful to sling the better HE until the arcs flatten out and then switch to the AP.  If this is your first Tier VII CA then it may not even be a noticeable issue but after running IJN 203s for so long her guns can be annoying.  Again she isn't terrible but she wasn't a keeper for me and certainly isn't Myōkō.

I haven't played the US Cans yet, but I noticed when playing again Clevelands, that they can't hit me at 13+ km while I happily let the 150mm rain fall on them. Any closer and they shred me to tiny bits though.