AL Yukikaze - don't buy! i wasted my money!!

[POP]

hope this helps someone looking to try DDs at ranked/random matches

The Yukikaze's torpedoes are only 8km and at T8 you're matched against radar, ultrasound, aircraft spotting, located skill, etc.

the AA is laughable, by dodging and weaving i still lost 5k damage vs aircraft on my way to cap.

detection is 6km stock, you hardly get between 6 and 8km to shoot off torps without getting detected and even then you might get 1 hit.

the ship is too slow, even BBs can turn away and won't catch them without getting shot at but their allies (they just turn on radar, location, etc - done deal -

hope this helps someone looking to purchase a DD, im sure there are better options, i don't know which is best but there are DDs with 10,12,16.5 and even 20km range. good luck, cheers.

[(눈‸눈) 💢]

Should've watched some ship reviews on it before buying m8

[Totally Innocent Chatbot]

Kinda sounds like you just need to get better at playing destroyers, seeing as pretty much every other high-tier DD in the game experiences similar issues.

[noralovro504]

I' ve seen her doing well in some battles, but she did not impress me.
She can not mach Cossack.
And I did not buy her. 😀
To me, best T8 DD is Cossack.

Here is one old post by Supergramps about t8 dd's:

Finally finished my Benson grind to get the Fletcher, and I've now switched gears to the Z-23. And man, I like the Z-23 waaay more than the Benson. I felt like the Benson had just pea-shooters that fire very quickly, sure, but being able to citadel light cruisers and some heavy cruisers is so nice with Z-23's 150mm guns. I even broke a personal damage record in her recently for most damage done in a DD.

That said, Z-23 isn't short of problems: her guns turn very slow for a tier VIII DD, she has the 2nd highest detection range for her tier, her Y&Z gun angles are bad, her AA is bad, and she is rather sluggish. In fact, I'd warrant her as one of the worst tier VIII destroyers. She needs at least an 18 pt captain to fix a lot of her problems. Still better than the Benson at least.

The Benson... 5 or 4 single 127mm guns is just kind of meh in my eyes, especially when competing with the likes of the Akizuki or even worse: the Cossack. I mean the torpedoes are nice and all, but I just feel like she lacks in both areas, which I guess holds her true to the USN flavor of DDs: jack of all trades, masters of none.

Also, lets talk about the Cossack for a moment: this boat is scary. A DD with THE largest single shot broadside weight at her tier AND has a maximum concealment of ~5.2km is absolutely busted. Like only the Kagero and Asashio have a better concelament but only by like 200m! I've pretty much labeled this ship as the "Tier VIII Kamikaze" but instead of fast super-powerful torpedoes that reload quickly, she has 4x2 120mm guns.

Like I thought the Loyang was busted, but this ship is something else.

[Jackson]

AL Yukikaze is ranked 6th in DD's of her tier. Definitely in the top half, but not outstanding. I want to say she's probably got a counterpart in the tech tree, but I don't own it and haven't paid much attn to it. Either way, there's certainly many ways to know about something before buying it.

[Lavian]

Yukikaze is fine.

https://na.wows-numbers.com/ship/3541972688,AL-Yukikaze/

Her concealment is top class. It doesn't get any better than what she has. Use it well, and the enemy won't know to turn on hydro or radar in the first place.

Her speed isn't particularly high, but it's also a pretty standard DD speed. If you can't deal with her speed, you can't deal with the speed of most IJN DDs (or the Cossack, for that matter).

Her torpedoes are fast and hit hard, so they're good for catching enemies off guard. They're actually torpedoes that T9 and T10 IJN DDs can take as an option, but they're on the T8 Kagerou hull instead. They require some particular high-risk play as compared to most torpedoes though, owing to their short range.

She's certainly not for everyone, and it's probably easily arguable she's bad for more organized modes like clan battles. She's been doing her thing just fine in Randoms though, which is where I assume most of us spend most of our play time.

For those people that stuck with her over the past year she's been doing quite well.
http://maplesyrup.sweet.coocan.jp/wows/shipstats/na/ship_20200627.html

Her more recent weekly stats are more average, and her early stats are also more average, so I'm assuming that has a lot to do with self-selection (look at Asashio vs Asashio B stats to see how much that matters). She also performed pretty average in ranked, so she may be worse in a smaller battle format.

Still, there's pretty much nothing to indicate that she does poorly (that I know of anyway).


On a personal level. I literally don't have experience with any other high tier DD other than Harekaze, and that experience is pretty light (to put it mildly).

Funny that I took her out for the first time in a long time today.

This happened:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2196705908
It was fun. Hydro won't save you if you have no idea that a DD with hard-hitting torpedoes is targeting you in the first place.

[casualsailor]

You are correct. I play almost exclusively DDs and currently at T-8.

At T-8 you are in T-9 and T-10 games about 2/3rds of the time.

There are ~31 ships in T-8 thru T-10 with Radar and only the DDs with 7.5 km Radar fail to out range your torps.

All 3 of the T-7 Radar Cruisers out range your torps as well. So being in a T-7 thru T-9 isn't much better. I rarely find myself a T-6 thru T-8 game. I think whenever I'm top tier it is an all T-8 match.

And it's not as if you can actually avoid all the radars with competent play. Some of them can radar you while remaining undetected. The first notice you get they are even in the area is when the sky opens up and then falls upon you.

Your experience is why I'm not a fan of purchasing Premium Ships. They are the proverbial pig-in-a-poke.

They are worse than buying a used car since a used car dealer will at least let you drive it around the block a couple of times before you hand over your money.

[Lavian]

If you're caught with radar, it's because the enemy was made aware of your presence. This is by you firing torpedoes near them, or by capping near them, or popping smoke near them. Possibly getting spotted near them, if you get a little careless or caught by an enemy DD. Also planes, of course; planes make everything much more dodgy for DDs that rely on stealth.

Alternatively, they could have RPF and notice that the nearest ship indicator is pointing in a direction that's different than a ship that they can see within their radar range, but cruisers running RPF is pretty uncommon, to say the least.

Nobody is going to just randomly blow one of their radar consumables without any prior indication that a DD is nearby though.

Radar is something you need to learn to play around, and it's tough, but it certainly isn't going to totally shut you down.

As much as I don't have a lot of experience with DDs (at all), I've actually got roughly 150 battles on Yukikaze, and a positive record with her (which, to be fair, could be totally wiped in bad cold streak).

[POP]

they're aware of DD presence by their captain skill, then they fire up radar. i get spotted without firing and at a distance... this ship should be Tier XII

[Jackson]

Originally posted by POP:

they're aware of DD presence by their captain skill, then they fire up radar. i get spotted without firing and at a distance... this ship should be Tier XII

Eh.. Almost no on uses RPF. While admittedly it does make life miserable for that one DD once in a while, it's mostly a waste of 4 points. As soon as you spot them, yes, they know they've been spotted. Most of them you can spot before they can radar you tho. There's only a handful that you can't. And then if you're prepared you're so far away they probably won't be able to kill you.