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. =]