do german battleships need buffs?

[Ashardalon]

their battleships so are supposed to be good vs cruisers
but to be accurate enough to hit a cruiser with their dispersion they are well into cruiser torpedo range
and double that for using secondaries
combine that with catching on fire as soon as a cruiser looks at them
makes them pretty damn bad cruiser hunters

hunting DDs is a similarly bad idea
your main guns arnt going to hit them
and the secondaries are going to take so long you will have dodged 20 torpedo launches before it actually dies
and sure they have hydro but its still a battleships turning so there is a limit to how many torpedoes you are going to dodge
and its not like a destroyer is going to wait in a cloud for the battleship to get into 5k or something hydro range

then there are battleships
most of which have some accuracy at range
so you have to weather the storm to get into a range where your weapons can be somewhat effective
and sure they wont citadel you
but they will penetrate
a lot
or just switch to HE and set you on fire with every volley
and its unlikely your guns will citadel them, even once you get in range where they hit battleships
and with so many skills put into having secondaries you only really get some reprieve from fires at late late levels
tho honestly i changed to having fire reduction first because the secondaries dont seem to do enough to be worth it even with upgrades

so what are german battleships supposed to be hunting exactly?
as every class seems to have a counter while their weapons seem only reasonably effective
in the off chance that they hit

[StormhawkV]

German BB secondaries were much more powerful when the ships were first released but got nerfed later on as WG thought they're overperforming. German BBs are still very tanky thanks to their turtlebacks and the hydro consumable but their damage output is poor because of their low gun count and bad dispersion. What is absolutely mandatory though is a tank build to reduce fire damage, then you can have at least some success in them.

I wouldn't even say they're weak, they just got stomped by powercreep like many other ships in the game and until now Wargaming didn't buff them like they did with the IJN cruisers or the USN BBs.

[Ashardalon]

been playing japanese battleships lately
and yea they are a bit less tanky, i do feel getting citadelled now and then
but their guns both hit hard and land where you where aiming
honestly dont think the tankynes germans have compensates as a lot of the tankyness is purely for their citadel

[Firewalk]

They could use some buffs, but it should affect all ships IMO.

Secondary guns are so laughably ineffective not because some ships have too few of them, but rather because their base accuracy is worse a Stormtrooper dropout. The only way to make them any good is if you spec into them. It doesn't help that often their shells flatout do nothing (low caliber often hitting armored sections). The only thing they are often good for is finishing near-death DDs (the one thing they can reliably penetrate, but seldom hit) and setting occasional fires.

- RA -

[StormhawkV]

The better you get at the game the more you will prefer relatively squishy BBs with a reliable main battery. The majority of the players are quite bad and this shows in the stats of the various ships.

If you take a look at the tier 8 BBs, you will see that the french BB Richelieu has a noticeably higher winrate than the USN BB North Carolina even though the guns of the former are considered god awful by good players.

On the other hand it's fast, hard to citadel and its guns have a high muzzle velocity. This makes the ship much more forgiving for bad players than NC as mispositioning isn't as punishing, giving broadside results in way less citadels and aiming doesn't require nearly as much lead.

[Tericc]

What a lot of people fail to realize and especially so with people who played other BB's first is playing a German BB takes a radically different approach to combat then other BB's.

One of the first fails of a German BB player is thinking secondaries is first and foremost your best option when in reality your armor and your maneuverability is your best asset. Use those wsad Hacks, your maneuverability and fast turret speed is there for a reason. (Bayern the short bus Bismarck and higher)

If an enemy ship is far enough out where your dispersion is so bad you miss the ocean? Or that ship is smart enough to bow tank your inability to hit a mountain? Use HE(oh the Heresy!) with that 36% for catching fire (before flags and captain skills) catching a fire on their ship as you use your wsad is far more threatening then hiding behind a mountain pretending your in a fight. Or rushing into a cap thinking your secondaries are end of every conversation, and you are right, just not the way you like it. Not to mention the absolute flamethrower you turn your secondaries into with the right equipment.

And hitting a DD is rather easy if you practice enough. Of course if you are trying to snipe a DD at 19+Km when there are better targets to be shooting at you are doing it wrong.

As a Bismarck and find an unsupported Enemy DD? You are that DD's worst nightmare as long as you have the experience and 6th sense of playing torpedo beats. You are basically forcing that DD to kill you or die trying as your secondaries mixed with your speed and your underated HE (depending on the DD sometimes AP is better) and your Excellent Hydro those DD's on a smoke break are in for a world of pain.

[eMercody]

Their average exp is low, while everything else is middle of the pack. While not underperforming, they aren’t being properly rewarded.

A rewards rework is on WG’s todo list, but that’s all I see happening to german BBs.

[s u p e r g r a m p s]

if you ask me, give them Massachusetts's 60/40 sec repair party.

Originally posted by Firewalk:

They could use some buffs, but it should affect all ships IMO.

Secondary guns are so laughably ineffective not because some ships have too few of them, but rather because their base accuracy is worse a Stormtrooper dropout. The only way to make them any good is if you spec into them. It doesn't help that often their shells flatout do nothing (low caliber often hitting armored sections). The only thing they are often good for is finishing near-death DDs (the one thing they can reliably penetrate, but seldom hit) and setting occasional fires.

- RA -

Firewalk ain't kidding. ALL secondaries have a 1.0 sigma. MFSA only tightens the oval where all those shots will be flying. It's so bad that ships with triple gun secondaries (IE Yamato 155mm) will legit shotgun the second they leave the barrel, making it look like they weren't even fired from the same gun but from 3 different guns.

[Ashardalon]

Originally posted by Tericc:

What a lot of people fail to realize and especially so with people who played other BB's first is playing a German BB takes a radically different approach to combat then other BB's.

One of the first fails of a German BB player is thinking secondaries is first and foremost your best option when in reality your armor and your maneuverability is your best asset. Use those wsad Hacks, your maneuverability and fast turret speed is there for a reason. (Bayern the short bus Bismarck and higher)

If an enemy ship is far enough out where your dispersion is so bad you miss the ocean? Or that ship is smart enough to bow tank your inability to hit a mountain? Use HE(oh the Heresy!) with that 36% for catching fire (before flags and captain skills) catching a fire on their ship as you use your wsad is far more threatening then hiding behind a mountain pretending your in a fight. Or rushing into a cap thinking your secondaries are end of every conversation, and you are right, just not the way you like it. Not to mention the absolute flamethrower you turn your secondaries into with the right equipment.

And hitting a DD is rather easy if you practice enough. Of course if you are trying to snipe a DD at 19+Km when there are better targets to be shooting at you are doing it wrong.

As a Bismarck and find an unsupported Enemy DD? You are that DD's worst nightmare as long as you have the experience and 6th sense of playing torpedo beats. You are basically forcing that DD to kill you or die trying as your secondaries mixed with your speed and your underated HE (depending on the DD sometimes AP is better) and your Excellent Hydro those DD's on a smoke break are in for a world of pain.

just wanted to point out that germans are on the low side of average of turnrate
the turncircle is a bit tighter then some, tho america or the uk is a lot smaller
the rudder shift time is downright sluggish to actually slow as ♥♥♥♥
combine that with a ship that spontaniously combust as soon as a cruiser looks at it and thus having the need to tank a lot of shots until it can fight back
forcing it into fire prevention instead of getting a turnrate improvement
makes it actually a pretty damn unmaneuverable ship

sure the top speed is a little higher then most
eventually it will catch up to other factions battleships that have been shooting it for minutes and it will be able to fight back
but it is far far below cruiser and even more below destroyer speed so the idea that you can catch a destroyer that is running away from you in a bismarck is a joke as they will have the speed to show torps and get away safely
leaving you to run full speed into a wall of torpedoes and a rudder shift time so slow that even with their hydro you have a low chance of dodging them all

[shannonars]

What are buffs?

WoW needs a Glossary of Terms.

With a full time attendant.

[Ashardalon]

buffs are the opposite of nerfs
a different way of formulating the question is
do german battleships need to be made a little stronger as they currently dont have a function/ niche they fulfill on the battlefield
buffing = make stronger
nerfing = make weaker

[shannonars]

Who decides whether to weaken or strengthen a ship?

[StormhawkV]

Originally posted by shannonars:

Who decides whether to weaken or strengthen a ship?

WGs balancing department but these guys don't play the game themselves. Instead they have a bunch of spreadsheets with the performance data of all ships in the game. When they think a ship is over or underperforming they take action... after some time.

If you want to have a look at the boss of the balancing department, he's in Flamu's video about the CC summit. You can watch it on his Youtube channel.

[Ashardalon]

Originally posted by shannonars:

Who decides whether to weaken or strengthen a ship?

the community
by finding the things that work or are too easy to be effective and playing them a lot they skew the statistics of those ships
the balance team looking at those statistics then look at why their stats are wrong
and find the ships or strategy thats causing it
looking at the stats avoids players bias (for example i have been playing germans a lot so obviously i want them buffed)
but it is alwais a bit slow to respond
a popular meta attracts bad players that looks if its meta because its easy to get results
those even out the stats
for a time
so balancing around stats ends up being a slower response then some players would want but a good way to avoid player preference
and no you cant just have a player of every faction in your balance team to speed it up and skip a step, that doesnt work and ends up with a group of people that hate eachother