Molotov Burns?

The Tier VI Premium Russian cruiser, the Molotov, hit the SEA server yesterday and I wasted no time buying it. Having had great fun with all of the Tier 5 - 8 Russian cruisers I was pretty confident I'd like the Molotov too and, if nothing else, it'd make a great ship to train Captains with.

At just under thirty Australian dollars it was right on the edge of what I'd call good value. The only more expensive Premium I own is the Atlanta and it's fair to say I've got my value from that ship. Whether or not the same can be said of the Molotov, only time will tell.

Outwardly, it resembles the Tier VI Budyonny and indeed shares a lot of its characteristics. The major difference however, is in the artillery. The Molotov has the same artillery specifications as the Tier IX Russian cruiser, the Dmitri Donskoi. That means flatter arcs because of higher velocity shells, less lead time and higher damage scores. At Tier VI, it also often means you will penetrate even well angled cruisers, right to their citadel. Does that make it overpowered?

It's not as easy as yes or no. If you get the nice draw and find yourself as the top tier cruiser and up against Tier IV's & V's then yes, it's probably going to be something of a seal clubbing exercise if you play it even half right. I was scoring citadel hits on Furutacas and Omahas front on, after all. You can only feel sorry for those poor bastards doing everything right but being punished regardless. That said, when you find yourself in Tier VII & VIII battles, things get significantly tougher. Your enemies are alarmingly accurate, just as fast as you and as the ship is known to be a fragile heavy hitter, it usually gets primaried shortly after being spotted. As such, you really need to be second or third in line and play it defensively, at least initially. However, it can trade punches well above its weight class as you'll see in the video below. I had been forced south by a New Orleans and a Pensacola pushing hard and a Cleveland lobbing shells from afar but after taking some damage, managed to quickly dispatch the Pensacola and aided in seeing off the New Orleans shortly after. The Cleveland also fell to my guns and whilst I couldn't find his citadel [no surprise] the damage numbers with armour piercing shells were often over 4K.

I'm using it with my Tier VIII Chapayev captain at the moment as it seems the best fit. With Demolition Expert it has a 16% chance of fire and, due to it's outstanding ranged accuracy, makes it a blight to Battleship captains everywhere. It doesn't get the benefit of concealed firing that the Chapayev does, but it's not so sluggish in turns that it's an easy target either. Keep jinking, vary your speeds and you'll live much longer.

The real question though, is it worth it? I guess? I'm not 100% sold on it yet, it's still early days and I seem to keep getting drawn into high tier games where the struggle is real. Given more time and some more favourable draws and yes, I can see myself pouring many hours into it. If you can spare the thirty bucks there are worse ways to spend it. You know, like on a Texas. =]

Concealment Specialist

I've recently had both a US and Japanese Captain join the ranks of the 15 point skill level and, as one uses the Atlanta and the other a Kagero, concealment specialist was my Tier 5 skill of choice. With the Atlanta it has proven to be tremendously helpful, reducing my sea borne detection from 10.7 km's down to 9.4 km's but, more importantly, airborne detection down to under 6 km's. Considering my anti aircraft weapons open up at 7.2 km's, that's really bad news for Carrier Captains. Against surface ships it's outstanding too, allowing me to ambush cruisers and even destroyers far more effectively, and making me a hard target for Battleships, which must surely be the arch nemesis of Atlanta captains everywhere.

With the Kagero the difference has been more subtle, reducing my detection range from 6 km's to 5.4 km's, but it's a welcome buffer at Tier 9 where enemy guns are alarmingly accurate and staying concealed is much the same as staying alive. After having some fun rounds in the Kagero I thought it was high time I put this captain to use in the Kamikaze R, the IJN Premium Destroyer. It's already a tremendously fun boat to use but with a 5.4 km detection range and 7 km torpedoes, it's at risk of being a little overpowered at Tier 5. Club in hand, I went looking for baby harp seals.

My first round kicked off in typical fashion as I sped off to cap a distant flag and, suprising absolutely no one, getting absolutely no back up of any sort. To add insult to injury, a Myogi captain had seen fit to Division with a Tier 1 Cruiser, putting our team on the back foot right from the get go. Undaunted I pushed on, briefly spotting an Isokaze on an intercept bearing. Still undetected I quickly put a tight spread where I anticipated him to be and the next time he appeared to me was moments before he sailed into one of my torpedoes and gave me the First Strike. With the flag capped I moved up unopposed to the enemy spawn area where I found a Myogi idle in the water, not AFK, but idle nonetheless. His angle to me wasn't ideal but three of my torpedoes struck, all caused flooding and it was clear he was going to sink without any more attention from me. Before my flooding could finish him off however, a friendly Carrier dealt the death blow, depriving me of my second kill.

I pushed on however, hunting down the enemy Carrier and quickly dispatching it before turning my attention to a Kongo who, despite his best efforts to evade and engage me, was soon put out of the battle too. With three kills secured and only three enemy ships left in play I made my way for the Arkansas Beta and his Kuma escort. The Kuma could be a handful so I again made use of my low detection profile and was fortunate enough to predict his movements scoring two more torpedo hits and leaving the Arkansas un-escorted. With just the Arkansas standing in the way of a Kraken award I threw caution to the wind and charged him down. Tickets were bleeding fast and, despite knowing how dangerous the Arkasas are in close, I made certain of my torpedo strike, sinking the Battleship moments after his own guns had sunk my Destroyer.

With that the round ended & the Battle Performance sheet made for some pretty reading. Over 160,000 in damage, 16 Torpedo Strikes, 14 Floodings and a bag full of signal flags. That was a pretty good day!

3 vs 1? I like those odds.

This week to change things up with Team Battles in the World of Warships my fellow team mates and I developed something of a troll team called Fukushima Sunset, because let's face it, the horizon always glows over Fukushima. The goal was to really just try some stupid shit and see how far it would get us. Early going mostly #YOLO tactics were employed with great effect, earning us about a 5 to 1 Win/Loss ratio and quickly boosting us into Charlie League. Last night we even put in a team of seven Atlantas for maximum trollage only to be summarily out trolled as you can see from the image below. We managed to kill just one Myoko and, to be fair, had it been any other map I'd have given us a decent chance, but Ocean is just the death knell for an Atlanta.

Moving on to this evening and we were short a player but had the good fortune to find a few handy mercenaries to fill the void. We had three good wins under our belt when an opportunity came up for my Atlanta to get into some short ranged knife fighting. The results, as seen below, were hilarious.

If you maintain the Atlanta is a bad ship I'm quite certain you're just doing it wrong. Situational sure, but your job as its Captain is to put it in the right situation to exploit its obvious strengths. I really try to not make every post about Atlanta awesomeness, but it's just so awesomeness. Even cycpwnus agrees.

No Dry Dock for You!

The HMS Campbeltown hit the Premium store this week and, being a sucker for cheap, low tier premium ships, I naturally bought her. For the uninitiated, the Campbeltown was formerly a US Wickes class Destroyer that was famously used to sabotage the dry dock for the Tirpitz, essentially removing the Battleship from the theatre of World War II. It's a story that's been well covered so I'm not going to go over it again, but there are documentaries you can find easily enough for the full story. It's pretty epic.

In the World of Warships it fills the Tier III bracket and is an almost dedicated torpedo destroyer. The standout features of this tug are the 7.5km range of its torpedoes and it's 6.5km concealment range allowing the cunning Captain the ability to surprise butt secks his victims. The guns are awful, there's only three of them and you can only use two at once so they're almost redundant, but it can make for some pretty funny gun battles with other Campbeltowns. The torpedo armament is an interesting one, with a triple launcher mounted on each side of the vessel, much like you see in low tier US Destroyers. On the flip side, it's quite agile and you can almost fire them forward, so it's not impossible to get six torpedoes into a fat, slow target, it just requires a little practice and daring.

I've had some early success with it, you quickly forget how fond low tier Battleship Captains are of not using their rudders, and I think it's right up there for fun factor as the Russian Derzki. Nothing tops the Derzki for doing stupid shit like this though...

So is it worth it? Well, it was eleven bucks, so yeah, I'll say it is. I've spent more than that on a sandwich before. If nothing else it gives me a chance to put some Command Points into a Royal Navy Destroyer Captain which will, if the rumours are true, pay dividends later this year as the Royal Navy ship tree hits World of Warships. As long as it keeps returning lol moments like the one below, it's making a return on the investment that I'm pretty comfortable with.

Detonation!

Recently I had a little bitch about turret destruction on the Atlanta. It was only a little one as War Gaming have seen fit to address it with the next patch but it brings to mind what must be the most maligned mechanic in the game; detonations.

Now, it goes without saying that a detonation in a ships magazine would be a catastrophic disaster. The USS Arizona that still lies in Pearl Harbour is probably the most famous incident of this kind, so no one can argue that this sort of incident has no basis in reality. But World of Warships isn't reality. It's entertainment.

It's entertaining to one shot an enemy ship, sure. But only for the person who rolls the 20 to actually get the detonation. For the victim it's utterly frustrating, dare I say a table flipping moment that, in that moment, ruins the game experience for the victim. Most people can deal with being out flanked, out gunned, out numbered or out played but detonations have no influence on those variables. It's taking one particular real life incident and incorporating it into a game where it has no place and is often the determining factor in a win/loss result.

Take for example last weekend, TankManMick and I were out in our Atago and Mogami trying to flank the main group when we got a brief visual on a Tashkent. Fortune smiled on me with my artillery being already well aligned to his position, I fired a volley and detonated him. Moments later a Hatsuharu appeared briefly to Mick who fired a volley and detonated him. Two Destroyers gone in two volleys, the enemy weren't coming back from that. Yes, it was hilarious, to everyone except our opponents.

Does this sort of game changing, rage inducing mechanic have any place in our game? I don't think so, but I'm interested to hear your opinion. In the meantime I'll just keep rolling the dice and hoping my enemy doesn't roll a damn 20 again...

A Schors to Settle

Do you remember grinding your way to the Cleveland? It was my first Tier VI Cruiser and from the moment I could see what it was capable of, I had to have one. Twelve 155mm artillery pieces raining all fiery hell upon your foes, setting fires all day, delivering close range citadels to unsuspecting Japanese cruisers and having an elusive citadel of its own, it was everything I had hoped for and more. In fact, of my lower tiered ships, it's the only non-premium that remains in my port. Then I bought a Pensacola and my love affair with US Cruisers came to an end.

My efforts then went into the Japanese and then German lines and whilst the Myoko wasn't disappointing, it wasn't particularly exciting either. Sure it gets a high chance of fire but the rate of fire is slow and the turret rotation even slower. The Yorck at Tier VII in the German line felt more like a Pensacola than its predecessor, the Nurnburg. Sure it could deal impressive damage, but the situations that allowed that to happen seldom came for me.

So recently I've started on the Russian line of cruisers and I wrote recently of my experience with the Budyonny, and whilst it has been enjoyable, I've been eager to get to the Schors and see if I could finally have a Tier VII Cruiser that really suited me. Well, today I bought a Schors and it appears my prayers have been answered.

I spent the dubloons to retrain my captain instantly and set about taking advantage of the Schors high rate of fire, range, shell velocity and accuracy. With demolition expert I have a 15% chance of starting fires on target and when you can fire 7.5 salvos a minute from twelve barrels, that's a lot of fires. Being able to reach out to 16.8 km's and stretch that to a whopping 20 km's with a spotting plane it really allows you to deliver the love and keep your enemy at arms reach all the while having plenty of time to avoid incoming fire. The upgrades are predictable enough with turret survivability, accuracy, damage control and rudder shift, all no brainers. Regarding the consumables, I always pack a Damage Control Party II and Defensive Fire Upgrade II. The AA stats are not impressive on the Schors, but your turning speed is pretty terrible so making any incoming bombers panic drop is absolutely necessary.

With the ship in order, it was time to take it out for a test run. Keep in mind I still haven't upgraded the hull or artillery fire control radar yet, so this was really just a test run. The verdict? I've finally found the Tier VII cruiser I've been looking for, I just hope they don't smack it with the nerf bat. The next few days will see me have this lovely ship fully upgraded and ready to take into Team Battles on the SEA server which is currently capped at Tier VII. It means my team will have to share the AA load without my Atlanta around, but I'm confident we can cover it. The Schors is a beast.

The Rudderless Yamato

The Yamato remains the most famous Battleship of the modern era, but it has been the Moby Dick to my Captain Ahab. On numerous occasions I've had it slip from my grasp, never able to secure a kill against it in my own right. Granted, I don't see myself opposed to it very often as I get the most enjoyment in Tiers V to VII, but it has always remained on my bucket list.

This morning I went into a Tier X match with a couple of friends in a Yamato of his own and a Shimakaze. My Fubuki didn't look too out of place and it's high concealment factor means it's still viable at this level, I would just have to play it smart. The round started off routinely enough with Musty and I laying torpedo walls for the enemy Benson to sail into as he tried to capture the position we wanted. He obliged, blundering into one of Musty's torpedoes and we moved North to try and flank the main group, secure in the knowledge that their Destroyer escort was now gone. The next ten minutes consisted of unsuccessful torpedo runs and a close encounter with a Mogami that saw Musty's Shimakaze go to the bottom. I barely escaped and kept forward recon up for cycpwnus' Yamato but in tangling with the enemy Iowa and it's cruiser support he went to the bottom also, taking the Iowa with him. With only an Amagi left to escort and an increasing imbalance in enemy ships to friendlies, things were looking grim. To compound issues, the Amagi now had to deal with a Yamato that had joined the fray, which is about where this video picks up.

Nine torpedoes launched, seven strikes, one Yamato down. From that point on the dominos kept falling with our Zao captain performing a hard carry on the other side of the map, giving us the ticket lead and eventually the victory.

One more thing off the bucket list. :)