Module choices, first slot

[Northern Nightowl]

Hello!

I'm pondering about this for a while.

In lots of references about WoWS ship builds, be it the Wiki or the LWM reviews, there's nearly every time a recommendation for Main Armament Modification 1 in the first slot. Why? While I easily see the advantages of this module on DD, other light ships and the Frenchies with their frontal turrets, I lost my confidence about its worth especially on heavy vessels without torpedoes.

Let's have a look at your plain, typical battleship, maybe an American one. It's a rare sight to have a turret disabled on those and you won't have torpedo equipment. But you're bound to fight in environments with unfriendly planes overhead. So, if you're going for the archetypical tanking build, won't it be wiser to use Secondary Armaments Modification 1 in the first slot by its virtue of enhancing the AA mount survivability?

Regards, Nightowl

 

[Project45_Opytny]

I am not sure about the details, but I recall LWM has once concluded that due to how the improvements are calculated, the advantages offered by Secondary Armaments Modification are not enough to really make a difference considering battleship HE shells are being regularly used by now.

Though for a number of ships every single bit of secondaries durability is highly desirable. Like Kremlin (the notorious AA durability nerf) and Atlantico (heavy secondaries are the defining feature of this ship, yet they seems to be bugged regarding durability).

[Kynami]

Unless your ship is super reliant on the secondaries to function correctly you are better off preventing your main guns being knocked out and having them come back up faster than slowing down how fast you lose AA and secondaries. Because it won't stop you from losing them when being hosed with HE, merely slow it down. The bonuses are percentage based and +50% for the main turrets and torpedoes is significantly more than the +100% for each secondary and AA mount on an individual basis.

And when it comes to anti-air mounts good luck having that help enough considering how many options there are to do things like skip-bombing from outside effective AA range or a couple gremlins hosing your entire deck from behind islands or smoke.

Also I can't tell you how many times even with Main Armaments Mod 1 I've still had turrets knocked out when pushing in with a German BB. But its certainly better than having them permanently gone the way torpedo mounts love to go away when you would really prefer they had lived another ten to fifteen seconds.

[torino2dc]

For non-specialized win-focused random battle builds, the decision tree for slot 1 looks something like this:

Can the ship mount Aiming Systems Mod. 0?

Yes -> Run it. 

No ->

Does the ship rely on particularly fragile turrets or torpedo mounts for damage? 

Yes -> Main Armaments Mod. 1

No ->

Does the ship have 15s+ DCP? 

Yes -> Damage Control Party Mod. 1

No ->

Is the ship reliant on some spotter plane gimmick that needs extra duration? 

Yes -> Spotting Aircraft Mod. 1

No ->

Is the ship build reliant on secondary/AA mounts but not torpedoes?

Yes -> Auxiliary Armaments Mod. 1

No -> Default to Main Armaments Mod. 1

Don't waste time on Magazine Mod. 1, either run the signal or accept the risk.