Yoshino or Hayate?

[Deredere]

I just collected coal enough to exchange them, I'm not sure which one is ok

[Ace42]

Both are fine - Hayate was considered a bit "meh", but it got buffed so it can mount both smoke and torp-reload-booster simultaneously which helped it a lot.

Yoshino's a pretty consistent HE spammer with high calibre guns that can AP-nuke broadside cruisers; but if you've got an Azuma already then really you're just going up a tier and getting torps.

Hayate's a mixed-boat DD with good fire-starting potential. Its torps are a bit inconsistent (not super fast, not super stealthy, not super tight spread, not short duration cooldown), but are pretty standard plus hit hard when they connect - and can use the reload booster to do occasional "walls of torps".

Yoshino's the more popular by quite some distance (and probably lower skill floor), but really they're both fine if you are happy with their playstyles.

[Deredere]

Originally posted by Ace42:

Both are fine - Hayate was considered a bit "meh", but it got buffed so it can mount both smoke and torp-reload-booster simultaneously which helped it a lot.

Yoshino's a pretty consistent HE spammer with high calibre guns that can AP-nuke broadside cruisers; but if you've got an Azuma already then really you're just going up a tier and getting torps.

Hayate's a mixed-boat DD with good fire-starting potential. Its torps are a bit inconsistent (not super fast, not super stealthy, not super tight spread, not short duration cooldown), but are pretty standard plus hit hard when they connect - and can use the reload booster to do occasional "walls of torps".

Yoshino's the more popular by quite some distance (and probably lower skill floor), but really they're both fine if you are happy with their playstyles.

I don't have good skill at use Cruiser, is Yoshino easier to play than Hayate? spamming HE, I would like that, play Japan Cruiser mostly average ammo spamming, send some torp and not sure what Cruiser do, I haven't own Azuma yet, Gokase is the highest tier I got now

[AK]

I don't think it gets easier than spamming HE from 18+ km. ;-) If you can't do that, its a good place to start learning.

[Ace42]

Originally posted by Deredere:

I don't have good skill at use Cruiser, is Yoshino easier to play than Hayate? spamming HE, I would like that, play Japan Cruiser mostly average ammo spamming, send some torp and not sure what Cruiser do, I haven't own Azuma yet, Gokase is the highest tier I got now

Hayate requires a bit more skill to make it work - its detection radius isn't great for the type of Destroyer it is, and you need to be good at weighing up a balance between stealth, torpedo use, smoke farming, and shutting down the enemy destroyer in order to get the most out of it.

Yoshino's way more forgiving for inexperienced players.

The thing that cruisers do is "pump out consistent damage, whilst using their various tricks to survive and maximise their "up-time".

There's a fair bit of variety in how they do this:

#1 Island camping - all ships in the game can do this to some degree, but some ships (USN cruisers particularly) rely on it for survival. If the enemy can't see you, they'll struggle to hit you. If their shell arcs are flatter than yours, their shells can whack into mountains that your shells arc over the top of.

#2 Traverse / Reload griefing from stealth: It takes battleships ~30 seconds to rotate their guns 180 degrees; it takes ~15 seconds for your gun-bloom to subside and thus drop you back down to undetection. If you're in a stealthy boat (and have countered the enemy spotting), you position on the opposite side of enemy battleships to your teammate and time your shots so that you will be undetected by the time the enemy battleships reload / traverse their guns onto you.

IJN cruisers tend to excel at this because of their stealth.
Cruisers with good stealth want to start the match by being relatively close to their DDs (not so close that the enemy detects you first) so they can get good early HE slaps on the enemy destroyer when their teammates first spot it, then safely kite away and go dark while getting ready to counter the big threats.

#3 Smoke camping - a bit like island camping, but you need to be aware of radar threats; torpedo threats; friendly spotting to give you vision; your smoke-firing-penalty radius, and the risk of enemies hard pushing your smokescreen (especially with hydro).

#4 Acceleration juking. Sit broadside to enemies at your maximum range, wait for them to shoot at you, and then (ideally with Speedboost active) throttle up or reverse so that when the enemy salvoes land, you're not there anymore. Go back down to 0 throttle to rince-and-repeat. Typically French cruisers (because of their speedboost), but Zao can also do it a bit. Spam HE non-stop.

#5 Open water gunboating. Sit angled at max range in a decently armoured cruiser (German line like Roon / Hindenberg), and rely on the enemy's poor dispersion and your good armour to minimise incoming damage while you spam HE nonstop.
If someone that can easily overmatch you starts taking too much of an interest, you mix in reload / traverse griefing to stay extra safe.

#6 Bow / Stern tanking once overmatch threats have been removed - if there's nothing left that can overmatch your bow, you're free to push in to a strong position (find enemy broadsides) and delete them with AP while their AP bounces off your angled armour.

Aside from that, paying attention to your ship's gimmicks (using Radar to destroy enemy smokescreen camping; using Dutch airstrikes in a similar fashion to punish enemy campers while you use the self-same islands to stay immune to damage) and mixing them into the above helps maximise battle performance.

Do the above and you'll find cruisers become pretty easy - just use the above techniques to achieve safety whilst keeping your damage pumping out consistently; be ready to push once the overmatch threats are all dealt with; be aware of where you need to be to support teammates (either with radar, or by positioning to maximise your gunpower - either vs DDs or finding enemy broadsides).

Yoshino's more of a #5 type boat, although like all cruisers you can mix up the techniques depending on circumstances and match-ups you're facing, etc. Pushing up to find cruiser broadsides and deleting them with Yoshino's supercruiser calibre AP and torp salvoes is strong if you're not gonna get crushed trying to do so.

[Hiei]

I'd save coal till after Christmas or collect enough for 2 ships.

[AK]

Originally posted by Hiei:

I'd save coal till after Christmas or collect enough for 2 ships.

What do you think of the idea to buy at least the T5 coal ships, to not have them in the xmas crates?

[Hiei]

Originally posted by AK:

Originally posted by Hiei:

I'd save coal till after Christmas or collect enough for 2 ships.

What do you think of the idea to buy at least the T5 coal ships, to not have them in the xmas crates?

Probably not a bad idea tbh
Just as long as you're not eating a huge chunk of coal

[ReDiR]

definitely Hayete. Best T10 dd

[Ace42]

Originally posted by Hiei:

I'd save coal till after Christmas or collect enough for 2 ships.

Anniversary event's still going isn't it? If he grabs a TX now he gets a super container's worth of tokens or so, surely?
Worth doing that early, might get lucky and get another ship (and thus more anniversary resources) if he hasn't already gotten all the good stuff.

[Jackson]

Originally posted by Deredere:

I just collected coal enough to exchange them, I'm not sure which one is ok

Yoshino in my opinion. She's marginally unique. Hayate is just a weird combo of torpedo boat and gun boat. She works. She's fine. She can be good. But if I had to choose, I'd pick Yoshi.

[Hiei]

Originally posted by Ace42:

Originally posted by Hiei:

I'd save coal till after Christmas or collect enough for 2 ships.

Anniversary event's still going isn't it? If he grabs a TX now he gets a super container's worth of tokens or so, surely?
Worth doing that early, might get lucky and get another ship (and thus more anniversary resources) if he hasn't already gotten all the good stuff.

A very fair point, though I tend to play a bit safer but a good point none the less.

[Deredere]

Originally posted by Ace42:

Originally posted by Deredere:

I don't have good skill at use Cruiser, is Yoshino easier to play than Hayate? spamming HE, I would like that, play Japan Cruiser mostly average ammo spamming, send some torp and not sure what Cruiser do, I haven't own Azuma yet, Gokase is the highest tier I got now

Hayate requires a bit more skill to make it work - its detection radius isn't great for the type of Destroyer it is, and you need to be good at weighing up a balance between stealth, torpedo use, smoke farming, and shutting down the enemy destroyer in order to get the most out of it.

Yoshino's way more forgiving for inexperienced players.

The thing that cruisers do is "pump out consistent damage, whilst using their various tricks to survive and maximise their "up-time".

There's a fair bit of variety in how they do this:

#1 Island camping - all ships in the game can do this to some degree, but some ships (USN cruisers particularly) rely on it for survival. If the enemy can't see you, they'll struggle to hit you. If their shell arcs are flatter than yours, their shells can whack into mountains that your shells arc over the top of.

#2 Traverse / Reload griefing from stealth: It takes battleships ~30 seconds to rotate their guns 180 degrees; it takes ~15 seconds for your gun-bloom to subside and thus drop you back down to undetection. If you're in a stealthy boat (and have countered the enemy spotting), you position on the opposite side of enemy battleships to your teammate and time your shots so that you will be undetected by the time the enemy battleships reload / traverse their guns onto you.

IJN cruisers tend to excel at this because of their stealth.
Cruisers with good stealth want to start the match by being relatively close to their DDs (not so close that the enemy detects you first) so they can get good early HE slaps on the enemy destroyer when their teammates first spot it, then safely kite away and go dark while getting ready to counter the big threats.

#3 Smoke camping - a bit like island camping, but you need to be aware of radar threats; torpedo threats; friendly spotting to give you vision; your smoke-firing-penalty radius, and the risk of enemies hard pushing your smokescreen (especially with hydro).

#4 Acceleration juking. Sit broadside to enemies at your maximum range, wait for them to shoot at you, and then (ideally with Speedboost active) throttle up or reverse so that when the enemy salvoes land, you're not there anymore. Go back down to 0 throttle to rince-and-repeat. Typically French cruisers (because of their speedboost), but Zao can also do it a bit. Spam HE non-stop.

#5 Open water gunboating. Sit angled at max range in a decently armoured cruiser (German line like Roon / Hindenberg), and rely on the enemy's poor dispersion and your good armour to minimise incoming damage while you spam HE nonstop.
If someone that can easily overmatch you starts taking too much of an interest, you mix in reload / traverse griefing to stay extra safe.

#6 Bow / Stern tanking once overmatch threats have been removed - if there's nothing left that can overmatch your bow, you're free to push in to a strong position (find enemy broadsides) and delete them with AP while their AP bounces off your angled armour.

Aside from that, paying attention to your ship's gimmicks (using Radar to destroy enemy smokescreen camping; using Dutch airstrikes in a similar fashion to punish enemy campers while you use the self-same islands to stay immune to damage) and mixing them into the above helps maximise battle performance.

Do the above and you'll find cruisers become pretty easy - just use the above techniques to achieve safety whilst keeping your damage pumping out consistently; be ready to push once the overmatch threats are all dealt with; be aware of where you need to be to support teammates (either with radar, or by positioning to maximise your gunpower - either vs DDs or finding enemy broadsides).

Yoshino's more of a #5 type boat, although like all cruisers you can mix up the techniques depending on circumstances and match-ups you're facing, etc. Pushing up to find cruiser broadsides and deleting them with Yoshino's supercruiser calibre AP and torp salvoes is strong if you're not gonna get crushed trying to do so.

thank for short guide, I choose Yoshino