World of Warships

[HVC]

Thanks Berk

[Berkut]

A basic primer on penetration mechanics in WOW specifically as it relates to HE vs AP.

When an AP shell hits, it is checked against the targets armor in that location. It can either:

1. Penetrate, and deal some amount up to its full damage potential.
      a. If they area penetrated is protecting the citadel of the ship, the AP round has a chance of getting a critical hit, which can be devastating.
2. Ricochet/bounce, in which case it does nothing.
3. Break up, in which case it does nothing.
4. Over-penetrate (basically pass through the armor section without exploding at all) in which case it always does 10% of its maximum damage.

When an HE shell hits, it can

1. Penetrate, and deal some amount up to its full damage potential. This is rare though, even against light armor since HE is designed to explode on contact.
2. Break up, in which case it does nothing. This happens when smaller HE shells hit very heavy armor.
3. Explode, in which case it will do some damage up to something like half its total potential, and have a chance to start a fire.

So, back to my original matrix. You use HE against DDs because they almost always have no significant armor, and hence nearly all AP shells will over-pen, doing little damage. However, I am not much of a DD player, and there are times when I think DD vs DD makes sense to use AP. DDs themselves generally have small, fast firing guns that have little chance of penning anything, so they stick to HE.

BBs generally have large, high pen guns, so they tend to use AP against other BBs hoping to get pens. Sometimes, they use HE instead because those large shells have high fire chances, and getting the target burning, then switching back to AP is often a good plan. And sometimes if you are in a T5 BB shooting at a well armored T7 BB, for example, you switch to HE just because your AP is going to have a tough time penning anyway.

When BBs shoot at cruisers, they mostly use AP. Cruisers tend to have ok armor, but not enough to have much chance of shedding a round from a battleships rifles (unless they are nicely angled). So you can reliably pen them, and have a shot at through to their citadel as well, which can be devastating.

When BBs shoot at DDs, their guns will almost always over-pen if they are using AP. Sometimes that is not big deal though, since those large guns even doing 10% damage can still be very damaging to a DDs small HP pool. So HE is probably your best bet.

Cruisers are the most interesteing. Their guns are in between, so what you fire is very dependent on understanding what you are shooting at. My rule of thumb above assumes that in general, a CA will over-pen a DD (hence use HE), can pen a CA (hence use AP), and is not likely to pen a BB (use HE). But there are some CAs with really great penetrating guns (the Germans) where using AP against same or lower tier BBs can work great, especially if they are being nice enough to show their broadside to you.

There are some cruisers with pretty terrible AP, and will struggle penning other cruisers.

Then there is the entire "light cruiser" versus "Heavy cruiser" difference as well. In general, cruisers in WOWs fall into light and heavy groups. In a nutshell, a light cruiser tends to have armor more like a destroyer. They are fast, often have fast firing 6" guns that do great DPM, but distringrate when hit because the idea is that their defense is to NOT get hit to begin with - so why have a bunch of armor that won't stop shells anyway?

Heavy cruisers tend to have 8" guns, and the armor intended to actually turn back cruiser shells. So knowing which of these you are shooting at is important when you are in a cruiser.

IIRC, it is basically:

IJN Tiers I-VI: Light, Tier VII+: Heavy
US Tiers I-VII: Light, Tier VIII+: Heavy
German Tiers I-VI: light, VII: Balanced, VIII+: Heavy
USSR: Tiers I-VIII: Light, IX+: Heavy
UK: Light
German Tier


There is a lot more to all of this of course, the armor and pen models are not necessarily terribly realistic, but they are pretty detailed. I am by no means an expert.

[Neil]

The USS Texas is a premium ship? 

HELLS YEAH IT IS

I own and have played this game.  The counters are fully punched and everything.

[CountDeMoney]

Great, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Albertastan got its internet back.

[Neil]

Great, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Albertastan got its internet back.

It never was out.  I just left because I felt that Languish was making me a worse person.

[CountDeMoney]

I just left because I felt that Languish was making me a worse person.

Good one.

[HVC]

battleships are soooo slow. maneuvering, turrets, everything.

[Neil]

battleships are soooo slow. maneuvering, turrets, everything.

You really have to have a plan with them.

[Malicious Intent]

battleships are soooo slow. maneuvering, turrets, everything.

As Neil said, it's all about planning ahead. Upgrades and crew skills can also help with turret rotation and ship agility.
I Started WOWS preferring DDS and cruisers, but I have shifted more and more towards BBs over time.

The IJN BBs are at least quite fast from tier 4 onwards. Myogi and Kongo work great in concert with cruisers, as they can easily keep up with them. Sadly, many new players just see their long range and insist on inaccurate long range sniping.  I'm currently at the Fuso, which is the one slow BB in the Japanese tree at only ~25 knots. It's also rather fragile (easy to citadel).

US BBs have a comparatively tight turning circle. They actually feel rather agile and it's quite easy to evade torps. But they are painfully slow at only 20-21 knots up to tier 7. I have a Colorado and the huge high tier maps can be a big pain in it, especially if you have to shift flanks in mid-battle. The poor BB-45 is just outclassed at it's tier. I would rather take my good old Arkansas to battle, but I can't grind the tech tree with it. 

German BBs seem occupy the middle ground between the other two trees, at least up to tier 6 (Bayern), where I am now.

I have no clue how the French (Dunkerque), or Brits (Warspite) play.
The Russian Imperator Nikolai has the reputation of being OP and was quickly removed from sale.

[Berkut]

I am on the Bismarck (T8) and it is clearly the class of the tier.

I actually like the North Carolina more... but the Biz is definitely the better ship at Tier 8.
10.8km secondaries? Yes please!
31+knots speed? Yes please!
Excellent armor that lets it take on T9 battleships? Yeppers!

The only downside to it is that it is inevitably going to get nerfed...

[Malicious Intent]

I still have a far way to go till I reach the Bismarck, but at least the Bayern makes for a nice grind. Actually I very much enjoyed every German BB so far.
What's the Gneisenau like? It seems seriously undergunned. The torps are great for brawling, but few people are dumb enough to engage the Gneisenau in a short range fight.

[Berkut]

I think the German BB line was pretty fun all the way up. The Gnei is fine - those guns hit fricking hard at her tier, even if there aren't many of them.

[HVC]

I hit a kawachi 194 times for 30751 damage, and sometime took my kill hah.

[katmai]

 

Set up a Languish WOWS discord server....if anyone is interested. I think it is persistent, but I am not sure...

https://discord.gg/hnCym

tells me invalid or expired invite.

[Berkut]

https://discord.gg/QDEhvdC