Best steel ship currently available

[CFagan_1987]

1 hour ago, Kruzenstern said:

Well my assumption came from your false assessment that any ship can work in PvE. I don't know, I guess you are a super-unicum and this is true for you, and you are so far removed from normal players that you can't see how this might not be true for them . Maybe you can even get top scores in coop every battle in a California like Chuck Norris. But I dare say that I am an above average player myself, and I can't do that. Nor do I see (m)any others doing it.

Just like normal cruisers not performing in high-tier asymmetric battles. I have now done my fair share of asymmetric battles (I guess some 70 or so?), and only once have I seen a non-smoke or large cruiser be in the top 2 in a tier9 or tier10 asymmetric battle, and that was an odd one with oodles of DDs on the bot team. So it is not just me who has a hard time getting good scores with these ships. Whereas it is ridiculously easy in a secondary BB. DDs and subs are a bit hit and miss, they seem to do a lot better when its standard battle and the bots rush the cap from all directions, and worse when it's Domination and the bots stay split up for longer. Large cruisers like Marseille and Napoli work pretty much as well as normal BBs. Smoke cruisers again are somewhat hit and miss, a lot depends on where the bots go after they reached 'their' cap.

Also this only relates to tier9+ asymmetrics, at lower tiers normal cruisers will probably do a lot better as the bot ships below tier7 have much worse range, overmatch and overall gun performance, as well as worse armor and fire resistance that is much weaker against HE spam and AP into the broadside. And there are not so many Schlieffens, Pommerns, Ruprechts etc. that take most of the bot HP for themselves. Though the Massa is very dominating in tier8, but you don't get three of them in many battles.

Yep, this is my sole major complaint about Asymmetric battles: it's still World of German Battleships like it was the last time around. I've had some decent runs in my Iowa and Bourgogne but playing cruisers and destroyers is a real struggle. 

Speaking of steel ships does anyone know how the Mecklenburg performs in Asymmetric? 

[YouSatInGum]

On 12/2/2023 at 4:48 PM, BOBTHEBALL said:

That is a complete and utter lie, I'd urge you to check your ship stats. Vallejo doesn't ahve the most dpm of any tier 9 cruiser, she has the 6th best AP DPM at 314k and she has the 4th best HE DPM at 216k. On another note if I was forced to play a tier 9 kiting cruiser I'd rather play a Roon, the firepower feels move consistent and easier to apply to all ship types while having that 27mm plating and extra heal for improved survivability. 
 

I didn't say it had the best DPM.... but it does have the most DPM of ships that have ballistics to comfortably kite at mid to long range AND have more than 15 and half km range.  Vallejo effectively has 18.8km range (trick spotter plane) so you don't have to give up DPM (use range mod) to get that range.  The ballistics are basically the same or better than many heavy cruisers, bettering even Chapy and Mainz.

If you want a Mainz playstyle at T9 (access to a heal) then there is no option closer to that than Vallejo.

 

As I have said before, I think the DPM amount should be more considering the utility given up, but it did too well in tester hands.... which it is a high skill floor ship and when div'd with 2 Black's....is not surprising.

I'm not saying it's the best T9 cruiser...but when used to it's strengths it's not bad at all.

When 1 v 1 against any other t9 cruiser except Siegfried, as long as range isn't too close, it can usually win the engagement.

 

[Asym]

14 hours ago, CFagan_1987 said:

Yep, this is my sole major complaint about Asymmetric battles: it's still World of German Battleships like it was the last time around. I've had some decent runs in my Iowa and Bourgogne but playing cruisers and destroyers is a real struggle. 

Speaking of steel ships does anyone know how the Mecklenburg performs in Asymmetric? 

It's a German BB......  What else is there to say.  I've used it several times and............

Gosh, ASB's aren't meant to be COOP.  They are meant to be a PVE Random battle ! 

As far as Cruisers, oh-gee, I've played almost all of the IJN TT and Premium Cruisers more than a few times.... 

Surviving is all about "fighting from a position favorable to your weapons..."  I see all sorts of Cruisers charge in as if ASB's are COOP and get obliterated....game, after game after game....  "It's not fair....." in chat. 

At the same time, us "super potatoes" are working with BB's to simply kill the BOTs....inside of our strengths versus being exposed and not supported.....  And, I am a Super Potato - with Additional Skill Identifiers (ASI's) of Mashed (dev striked);  Baked (burnt to the water line); and, Au Gratin (for having some cheesy torpedo kills that save the BB's butt....)

If I can do this, oh my, playing one handed no less, you'all should be Barney level players !!!!

 

[BOBTHEBALL]

On 12/5/2023 at 9:33 AM, YouSatInGum said:

I didn't say it had the best DPM.... but it does have the most DPM of ships that have ballistics to comfortably kite at mid to long range AND have more than 15 and half km range.  Vallejo effectively has 18.8km range (trick spotter plane) so you don't have to give up DPM (use range mod) to get that range.  The ballistics are basically the same or better than many heavy cruisers, bettering even Chapy and Mainz.

If you want a Mainz playstyle at T9 (access to a heal) then there is no option closer to that than Vallejo.

 

As I have said before, I think the DPM amount should be more considering the utility given up, but it did too well in tester hands.... which it is a high skill floor ship and when div'd with 2 Black's....is not surprising.

I'm not saying it's the best T9 cruiser...but when used to it's strengths it's not bad at all.

When 1 v 1 against any other t9 cruiser except Siegfried, as long as range isn't too close, it can usually win the engagement.

 

So you're using steel to pay for a mid tier 9 cruiser. That's not saying much because majority of tier 9 cruisers are dogwater anyway. If you want a cruiser to not carry and just farm damage there are much better options in the tech tree and for coal. Wasting such a valuable resource on something that's not too great is a horrible decision.

[YouSatInGum]

7 hours ago, BOBTHEBALL said:

So you're using steel to pay for a mid tier 9 cruiser. That's not saying much because majority of tier 9 cruisers are dogwater anyway. If you want a cruiser to not carry and just farm damage there are much better options in the tech tree and for coal. Wasting such a valuable resource on something that's not too great is a horrible decision.

#1.  Steel ain't the same resource it was way back in the days when Stalingrad really was OP...

#2.  Name the better tree cruisers for farming/kiting.... and before you say Roon... a Vallejo vs. Roon is no contest in a 1 vs. 1 or damage stacking numbers.  I'm averaging 90k in vallejo right now.... in solo play.

One thing I will agree on is that most T9 cruiser are crap... that page is directly out the WG psy op playbook.

[BOBTHEBALL]

18 hours ago, YouSatInGum said:

#1.  Steel ain't the same resource it was way back in the days when Stalingrad really was OP...

#2.  Name the better tree cruisers for farming/kiting.... and before you say Roon... a Vallejo vs. Roon is no contest in a 1 vs. 1 or damage stacking numbers.  I'm averaging 90k in vallejo right now.... in solo play.

One thing I will agree on is that most T9 cruiser are crap... that page is directly out the WG psy op playbook.

Roon, Saint Louis and Drake. There three cruisers that would be better at farming than Vallejo.

Roon as better damage output, why do I say that? It's because it has amazing AP alpha and 51mm of HE pen which means barely anything is safe from the HE shells. While yes they don't have the best HE alpha at least you're constantly penetrating basically everything you're shooting at. Also Roon is tankier than Vallejo because of the 27mm plating and the extra base heal. 

Saint Louis has the mobility and the burst damage output to be able to set multiple perma fires on ships when needed. She also pens at least 32mm plates which is amazing compared to the 30mm Vallejo can pen. They speedboost allows for easy dodging in open water and lets you reposition when needed to make plays. 

Drake packs the biggest punch out of all these ships. Her massive guns with amazing HE are really what you want when trying for damage. Not even mentioning the superheal she has which would let the ship rebuild itself a couple times over if you happened to make a mistake.

Steel while isn't as easy as it once was to get is still not an easy grind. Not everyone is sitting on hundreds of thousands of steel. Some people are getting their third, second or even first steel ship. The last thing they need are people who have an unimaginable amount of resources telling them about a ship they think is "good" when it's clearly not a good option at all.

Also this was just talking about tech tree cruisers for farming damage, once you start to include prems the list expands a tiny bit, not too much though.

[Unlooky]

17 hours ago, YouSatInGum said:

#2.  Name the better tree cruisers for farming/kiting.... and before you say Roon... a Vallejo vs. Roon is no contest in a 1 vs. 1 or damage stacking numbers.  I'm averaging 90k in vallejo right now.... in solo play.

I'll add on to what Bob has already said, and put forth Sejong. Especially now with the buffs, she should be very comfortable to play. Best DPM at the tier by a nice margin, good Pan Asian smokes, and DWTs as the chef's kiss. In terms of pure farming she's very potent and I would rate her higher than Vallejo.  

[RX160S_Byarlant_Custom]

Adding on to what both comments above have said, I will name Azuma, and a 1v1 isn't really the best metric to compare ships. She has great HE and AP capable of great damage per salvo and crossmap shot potential, although she fires relatively slowly she is still pretty much guaranteed a fire every other salvo and can nail impressive shots on BB upper belts or broadside cruisers at a distance. Her squishiness mainly limits her to a farming role but her ballistics means she can more effectively control an engagement against a BB, and is partially offset by her good concealment (for her type) and also the quick cooldown heal, which also has one additional charge. This can make her decently tanky in short pushes, though misplay will still send you back to port quickly. For consistent farming without having to hold LMB so much, Azuma is a better farmer than Vallejo. It is a ship quite literally purpose built for long range farm, but as a large cruiser also brings its 310mm AP for long range broadsides and heal for durability and pushing, thus making her both well equipped and a forgiving farmer, which Vallejo cannot claim to do as well. 

[Arcus_Aesopi]

OK… the best steel ship is found in the Customizations category in the Armory. 

“Made of Steel” camo with T10 bonus package you can separate and put on any tier 10’s!

only 10K steel!

well, once you have the couple steel boats you want…

😄 

[Itwastuesday]

Got Stalingrad, not realizing Lauria was coming right now. Oops. Though I'm not sure Lauria wouldn't also be just a port queen. 

At least steel is just a byproduct of clan battles for me and not something I'm working to get.

[YouSatInGum]

5 hours ago, BOBTHEBALL said:

Roon, Saint Louis and Drake. There three cruisers that would be better at farming than Vallejo.

Roon as better damage output, why do I say that? It's because it has amazing AP alpha and 51mm of HE pen which means barely anything is safe from the HE shells. While yes they don't have the best HE alpha at least you're constantly penetrating basically everything you're shooting at. Also Roon is tankier than Vallejo because of the 27mm plating and the extra base heal. 

Saint Louis has the mobility and the burst damage output to be able to set multiple perma fires on ships when needed. She also pens at least 32mm plates which is amazing compared to the 30mm Vallejo can pen. They speedboost allows for easy dodging in open water and lets you reposition when needed to make plays. 

Drake packs the biggest punch out of all these ships. Her massive guns with amazing HE are really what you want when trying for damage. Not even mentioning the superheal she has which would let the ship rebuild itself a couple times over if you happened to make a mistake.

 

I realize I'm going against popular opinion here...but my experience with the ship has been good. 

Roon's pen is nice, but I have a lot of Roon experience and it just doesn't have the DPM to take down targets quickly without RNG help.  The pen doesn't offset 80% more DPM and about double fire setting (actually more since making fires stick is a not a linear equation).

St.L and Drake are some of the better T9 ships but also fill a different niche from Vallejo.  Drake is not a kiter.... and St.L is run and gun flanker. 

I'll say this again.  If you like Mainz playstyle and you want a T9 version with a heal... Vallejo is the closest until they drop a German CL line. 

Anyway... the main point here is that you said Vallejo is a bad ship.  I won't say it's great... it has it's faults, but in it's niche it can do just fine.  It's not bad and server stats say the same thing as it's consistently towards the top in damage.  BTW - I have never told anybody to get it before something like a Ragnar or Burger. 

First game in it tonight.... just an average game...

but helped carry a team...

 

Now I have a soft spot for Sejong.  I love that ship.... but it's still a pain in random sometimes because the range isn't there....but in ranked that thing rocks.

Here's the most recent monthly server stats for T9 cruisers...

Odd for a "bad" ship to put up similar damage to Alaska...

[Leo_Apollo11]

Hi all,

On 12/1/2023 at 1:49 AM, Otago_F111 said:

any noise about new steel ships coming up?

We got Italian Tier X BB (BC really) R Lauria in this latest patch.

 

As for other we can only speculate - I use this WWW page for it:

Work in Progress Premium and Special Ships including Resource Cost 2023

https://www.wows-gamer-blog.com/p/work-in-progress-premium-and-special.html

 

Leo "Apollo11"

[BOBTHEBALL]

13 hours ago, YouSatInGum said:

I realize I'm going against popular opinion here...but my experience with the ship has been good. 

Just because you do good with a bad ship doesn't make the ship good. It just means 1. You can fit it's playstyle or 2. You're a good enough player to make anything work. 

13 hours ago, YouSatInGum said:

Roon's pen is nice, but I have a lot of Roon experience and it just doesn't have the DPM to take down targets quickly without RNG help.  The pen doesn't offset 80% more DPM and about double fire setting (actually more since making fires stick is a not a linear equation).

If you're only using HE in Roon then you're 100% playing it wrong. Roon also has better initial gun velocity and that allows it to be easier to aim at the longer ranges that she can get out to. This makes her AP quite easy to aim and because of the very high alpha you can chunk people for 6-7k quite easily per salvo.

13 hours ago, YouSatInGum said:

St.L and Drake are some of the better T9 ships but also fill a different niche from Vallejo.  Drake is not a kiter.... and St.L is run and gun flanker. 

How else would you play Drake then? Hiding behind an island not making us of your superheal while the enemies dev strike the friendly Vallejo on your team who finally got matched up against battleships who can aim? Or would you play kiting on the flank dodging and angling away while making us of that ship printing tool she has.

Also SL is 1000% a open water kiter. Just because she can play on the flanks doesn't mean she can do what she was designed to do. And that is kite open water out in the open making use of that incredible speed boost and acceleration she gets. She is 100% a better ship to play for farming damage and kiting compared to Vallejo. 

13 hours ago, YouSatInGum said:

Anyway... the main point here is that you said Vallejo is a bad ship.  I won't say it's great... it has it's faults, but in it's niche it can do just fine.  It's not bad and server stats say the same thing as it's consistently towards the top in damage.  BTW - I have never told anybody to get it before something like a Ragnar or Burger. 

No but she is a bad ship you see, she offers nothing new and doesn't really excel at anything at all. Why would you waste steel on it when you can get tech tree ships or even freemiums that do it better?????

13 hours ago, YouSatInGum said:

Now I have a soft spot for Sejong.  I love that ship.... but it's still a pain in random sometimes because the range isn't there....but in ranked that thing rocks.

Now again 15km of range is plenty to work around with Sejong. Especially with the incredible Pan Asian smokes you gain access to which allow you to rack up damage so easily. Lets also not talk about how awesome the torpedoes are. Another great choice if you just want to farm farm farm and get lots of damage.

13 hours ago, YouSatInGum said:

Here's the most recent monthly server stats for T9 cruisers...

Odd for a "bad" ship to put up similar damage to Alaska...

The fact you just said that shows me you have no idea what you're talking about. Just because that ship has comparable average damage to Alaska while not NEARLY having as many battles as her is an incredibly horrible and stupid take. If you look above Alaska you have Siegfried. And we all know how BAD she is but we're not saying that she's better or even comparably to Alaska now are we? If we were saying that people should stop listening to us and go find someone with common sense to help them out. 

Please I beg you to stop simping for Vallejo and open your eyes a bit. No one is saying you can't enjoy bad ships but what we are saying is that you shouldn't tell people to get bad ships because you like them. Bad ships can be played, they can be played good but that doesn't mean you should actually get the bad ship. 

I know people who have purposely gotten a bad ships and made them work. But where they go wrong is then saying it's not actually bad and people should waste their resources on it.

Basically enjoy you Vallejo but don't tell people to waste steel on it, k thanks.
 

[Itwastuesday]

Vallejo is so unpopular there's practically no reliable stats for her. 

[BOBTHEBALL]

On 12/8/2023 at 12:39 PM, Itwastuesday said:

Vallejo is so unpopular there's practically no reliable stats for her. 

Yep that's another factor. Also why using those stats is not always reliable and why only desperate people who want their ship to be considered good use it.

[Otago_F111]

On 12/8/2023 at 10:03 AM, BOBTHEBALL said:

Basically enjoy you Vallejo but don't tell people to waste steel on it, k thanks.

it is a free (not muted) forum and people can write what they like about their ships they like. who are you to give orders??  jog on sunshine

[BOBTHEBALL]

On 12/10/2023 at 7:38 PM, Otago_F111 said:

it is a free (not muted) forum and people can write what they like about their ships they like. who are you to give orders??  jog on sunshine

And I can say how they're wrong and shouldn't recommend bad ships to people, it's an open forum. 

[YouSatInGum]

5 hours ago, BOBTHEBALL said:

And I can say how they're wrong and shouldn't recommend bad ships to people, it's an open forum. 

Quite true.

I disagree with your point of view.... But I also wonder if you confused me with the other guy saying its a good steel ship to get

I never said that and I never said its one of the best T9 cruisers.  In fact, it should be one one of the last steel ships picked up, since ships like Burger and Ragnar should be must haves.

My main contention is that Vallejo is not a bad ship.  It certainly has a higher skill floor as most light cruisers do, but the DPM ballistics combo is quite good for T9. 

[BOBTHEBALL]

2 hours ago, YouSatInGum said:

I never said that and I never said its one of the best T9 cruisers.  In fact, it should be one one of the last steel ships picked up, since ships like Burger and Ragnar should be must haves.

I wouldn't even recommend picking it up to begin at all, it offers nothing special over other TT ships at tier 9.

2 hours ago, YouSatInGum said:

My main contention is that Vallejo is not a bad ship.  It certainly has a higher skill floor as most light cruisers do, but the DPM ballistics combo is quite good for T9. 

The combo is alright, it lacks quite a bit to make it actually worth getting at all. I would say it's still a bad ship, if you see a Vallejo on a flank you're not scared at all, you know it's free food for you.

[YouSatInGum]

14 hours ago, BOBTHEBALL said:

I wouldn't even recommend picking it up to begin at all, it offers nothing special over other TT ships at tier 9.

The combo is alright, it lacks quite a bit to make it actually worth getting at all. I would say it's still a bad ship, if you see a Vallejo on a flank you're not scared at all, you know it's free food for you.

There are other steel ships that are quite questionable as well.

Austin for instance... a lot of the same qualities at Vallejo... crap utility and primarily a farmer but can be good would played at high level.... but when you see them on a team with a sub 51% player you know that one is probably going die early.

...and of course the non-surface ship ones like FDR... always a worse pick than any steel in my book.

before I was trying to point out that Vallejo does serve a niche not currently available with another ship... if you want long range ballistics/range combined with high-ish dpm (more than 200k) then there aren't any other options at T9. 

The ship should have never be taken below 5.5 reload (WG did an 11th hour nerf just prior to release) for the utility given up given that it's a steel ship.  Had they left the DPM at Seattle levels then I think it would be much more popular...

But WG hates light cruisers and especially T9 cruisers. 

Over the holidays I plan on releasing a report showing the decline of cruiser players in the face of subs, cvs, and overmatch power creep.

[MrWastee]

imo quite simple:

- z42: there's better dakka boats, sure. there's better smoke boats, sure. there's better torp boats, sure.... but none got the overall combo with german ca hydro on top. 6.**2km concealment possible on 6km ship acquisition range on the hydro, nuffsaid. *on a note, i like short burst smokes ^^...

- plymouth: coz belfast. only downside (no HE) is not really a downside while hunting down dd's. 50+secs of radar possible, swiss-knife gimmick set... aaaand again, only **200m between concealment and radar range. one gets spotted, one can counter.

if one can handle these ships and gets halfway lucky these do outrule everything (xcept for the master class ofc ^^).

*on nther note: with no word i said i actually am capable of handling these lol

 

**GOSSIP!!1!!1!!111.... z42 concealment maxed out is 6.2km, plymouth 9.2km... so it's 200m gap, not 100m ^^.

Edited December 13, 2023 by MrWastee

[BOBTHEBALL]

3 hours ago, YouSatInGum said:

Austin for instance... a lot of the same qualities at Vallejo... crap utility and primarily a farmer but can be good would played at high level.... but when you see them on a team with a sub 51% player you know that one is probably going die early.

Austin has that amazing reload booster which turns her into a machine only for the duration that it's active. It's at least unique in that sense while Vallejo isn't really unique at all. 

On another note there's nothing that makes Vallejo worth picking up. Like I've mentioned before there are many TT cruiser that are just better. Vallejo is most cases is Plain Bad.