Survivability Expert on my BB. Reasons why it's NOT a bad choice.

[Runenstahl]

Greetings,
it's a common sight in forums, videos and ingame that people are being ridiculed if they take survivability expert on their BB.

Well, I'm one of those people but I'm doing it because I think it's better then other choices I have.

The ship in question here is the Bismarck. I'm running a level 19 captain and for skills I have Priority Target, Jack of All Trades, Adrenaline Rush, Basic Firing Training, Manual Fire Control, Advanced Firing Training and yes, Survivability Expert.

I completely agree that the skill is more useful on a DD (or a CV to buff your planes) but that isn't helpful to decide what to take on your BB.

On the BB the other T3 skills are:
Basics of Survivability
Superintendent
Demolition Expert
and
Vigilance

Demolition Expert isn't that useful. German HE is awful. I avoid using it except in special circumstances. And my secondaries are quite good at starting fires without this skill.

Vigilance is an option since it does stack with Hydro. However I do not get attacked by Torps in every game and when I am, Hydro and the Maneuverability of the Bismarck usually allow me do dodge often anyways.

That leaves Superintendent. Many people clearly would pick this over SE. An extra heal gives you theoretically +20 % health while SE only gives you + 4 % health. The important word here however is "theoretically". The 4 % through SE are something I get ALWAYS. The 20 % of Superintendent I get only if I need more then 4 healings (I use Repair Party II) AND survive that long in the first place. Since I play rather agressively I often die before even getting to use up all my heals. So it is very rare that I find myself in a situation where I actually need and could use that 5th healing. Again, the 4 % extra HP however are useful in nearly every match,

Lastly there is Basics of Survivability. The strongest contender (in my opinion) for a level 3 skill on this ship. It reduces maximum repair time for modules, fires and flooding by 15 %. But again I ask you how useful that actually is. Note that it does NOT reduce fire and flooding damage by 15 %. It just reduces the maximum time these things need to repair.So it only works if you do not extinguish the fires / stop flooding and let them run for more then 85 % of their usual runtime. That happens very rarely for me. I rarely get torped (and like most people I stop the flooding immidiately) and while I do get set on fire often, I use Damage Control Party II and usually manage to put those fires out before they burn even halfway through their time.

But lets say I have let a fire burn through it's time completely.
(Note: I'm also have Damage Control Modification II module installed.)
With SE that would take 15,3 % of my 72.000 HP and leaves me with 60.984 HP.
With Basics of Survivability that would take 13,005 % of my 69.200 HP and leave me with 60.201 HP.

Okay, lets look at 2 fires then.
With SE that would take 30,6 % of my 72.000 HP and leave me with 49.968 HP.
With BoS that would take 26,01 % of my 69.200 HP and leave me with 51.201 HP.

So in order to get more use out of Basics of Survivability I would have to have 2 (or more) fires burning for their for whole time. If that doesn't happen then SE is simply better.

And there you have it. It may be very circumstancial but for my playstyle in combination with the ship and the modules I'm using it, SE is NOT a bad choice.

Thanks for your attention. Love to hear your thoughts about this but please try to stay civil and back your arguments with some mathematical data.

[Sidian]

Originally posted by Runenstahl:

The ship in question here is the Bismarck. I'm running a level 19 captain and for skills I have Priority Target, Jack of All Trades, Adrenaline Rush, Basic Firing Training, Manual Fire Control, Advanced Firing Training and yes, Survivability Expert.

So a secondary build then, alright.

Originally posted by Runenstahl:

On the BB the other T3 skills are:

You could also remove Jack of All Trades (5% less cooldown isn't that much) and use a t4 skill instead. IFHE to enable your 105mm secondaries to pen 27, 30 and 32mm of armor (very common armor thresholds at t8-t10). Or you could take Fire Prevention to reduce the damage of fires by 25-40%.

Originally posted by Runenstahl:

Demolition Expert isn't that useful. German HE is awful. I avoid using it except in special circumstances. And my secondaries are quite good at starting fires without this skill.

Your secondaries have a 5-8% chance to set a fire, with the skill it's a 7-10% chance. That's a huge increase of 25-50%. Way better than 4% more HP.

Originally posted by Runenstahl:

It may be very circumstancial but for my playstyle in combination with the ship and the modules I'm using it, SE is NOT a bad choice.

It's a bad choice because there a 4+ skills which are more useful. Unless you survive with 2800 HP or less for more than 20+ seconds (basically to get an other salvo off), SE does not have any effect. It's like you are using a 16 point commander all the time.

You could also say that SI doesn't have any effect unless you run out of a consumable, but players usually are less conservative with their consumables if they have more, so they also use them more often and thus increase their battle performance when using SI.

[Runenstahl]

Jack of All Trades - Yes, 5 % isn't that much. But unless I'm mistaken it does affect Damage Control Party, Repair Party, Fighter and Hydro. So I would not underestimate it.

IFHE - I don't like because it's a tradeoff between penetration and chance for fires. Also I would have to give up other skills to take this.

Fire Prevention - Again I would have to give up more then just SE so it's not really a fair comparison. It does reduce chance for fires by 10 % and prevents you from getting more then 3 fires at the same time. I usually take around 15 to 25k damage from fires over the course of a game. 10 % less means I get 1,5 to 2,5k less damage. BTW I can't remember the last time I had more then 3 fires burning on my Bismarck. I don't have any data on it but I would be surprised if that happens more then 1-2 times in a 100 battles.


Demolition Expert - That is a good point. I've been trying that build on another server but the difference isn't as big as one might hope. I can't back this up with math since it's quite complicated.
A - Starting one more fire might be a huge difference in damage if that happens when the enemy just used his damage control. In this case DE rocks.
B - Starting one more fire might be no difference at all if you hit a part of the ship that is already burning or the enemy just extinguishes them all together with his damage control. In which case DE does nothing.

I do run a signal to increase the chance for fires already so the gain for me would also be (slightly) lower. My main point against DE is that it usually will not affect my main guns since I rarely use HE there. So it is "just" my secondaries that gain a benefit from it. But your right, it is a valid alternative.

[Sidian]

Originally posted by Runenstahl:

Jack of All Trades - Yes, 5 % isn't that much. But unless I'm mistaken it does affect Damage Control Party, Repair Party, Fighter and Hydro. So I would not underestimate it.

Yes, it does. And it's often used as a filler for builds which are basically "complete" at 17 points or less. But how often do you activate a consumable right after its cooldown is over? And how important were the 3-5 seconds you saved with that?
Secondary builds have too many "must have" skills to waste points at "filler skills".

Originally posted by Runenstahl:

IFHE - I don't like because it's a tradeoff between penetration and chance for fires.

Yes, it's a tradeoff. But it can be very strong, depending on what enemies you usually hit with your secondaries.

Originally posted by Runenstahl:

Fire Prevention - Again I would have to give up more then just SE so it's not really a fair comparison. It does reduce chance for fires by 10 % and prevents you from getting more then 3 fires at the same time.

The reduction to 3 fires is what's so good about the skill. The reason for that is that the two middle sections are combined to one big section, it's not just a numerical limitation of fires on your ship. Most HE users want to hit the middle part, either to increase the total amount of shell hits at greater distances or because that's the only part where they can damage you.

That means every time you had 2 fires burning on your mid section, one of these would have been prevented by Fire Prevention. That's why my estimation of the total fire damage reduction of that skill is about 25-40%.

Originally posted by Runenstahl:

I usually take around 15 to 25k damage from fires over the course of a game. 10 % less means I get 1,5 to 2,5k less damage.

Even without the reduction in fires which is the whole reason why so many players take the skill, that's almost the value that SE gives you.

Originally posted by Runenstahl:

My main point against DE is that it usually will not affect my main guns since I rarely use HE there.

As i said, SE won't effect you at all unless you are below 2800 HP and survive long enough to do something, like firing an other salvo. The increase in healing is evened out by the increased fire damage you take.

[Lavian]

You're missing the main benefit of FP. The tooltip doesn't do a good job of explaining it, but the reason it's so strong is because it outright removes one of the ignition points on your ship.

Normally, your ship can catch on fire in four places, the bow, the stern, and two parts of the superstructure. FP combines the superstructure points into one big ignition area.

In practice this means you get double fires far less often, triple fires pretty much never happen, and quad fires are impossible.

Stack this with other tanking skills and modules like BoS and Damage Control System Modifications and you can confidently let single fires burn, using Repair Party to manage the damage, while using Damage Control to put out double fires immediately when they happen, with a good chance that it's not going to happen again particularly soon.


EDIT: welp, got beat to the punch.

[Sidian]

Originally posted by Lavian:

EDIT: welp, got beat to the punch by a matter of seconds.

Your explanation is more detailed though.

Btw, i'd like to add that the reason why SE is so good in DDs, is not just because the % HP increase is greater, but also because they have a way easier time to get away with less than 3k HP and they can still be useful at that point. BBs surviving with 3k HP and still being useful is quite rare.

[Runenstahl]

Thanks for the explanation about FP. Thats useful knowledge I did not have and does indeed make FP more worthwhile. However it doesn't change that it is a 4 point skill so it's not really fair to compare it with SE.

Originally posted by Sidian:

But how often do you activate a consumable right after its cooldown is over? And how important were the 3-5 seconds you saved with that?

I agree that for planes and Hydro that is pretty much irrelevant. For Damage Control Party and especially Repair Party however it happens quite often that I have to use them as soon as the cooldown is over.

Originally posted by Sidian:

As i said, SE won't effect you at all unless you are below 2800 HP and survive long enough to do something, like firing an other salvo. The increase in healing is evened out by the increased fire damage you take.

Again I sadly don't have any hard data. How often does it happen that I cling barely to life while below 2801 HP and I'm able to do some more damage or activate that repair party one more time ? Not very often. But statistically 4 out of 100 hundred games would be appropriate for a 4 % increase. And I dare say that if you figure in healings this happens even slightly more often then that.

[mystikmind2005]

I just went through my captains now, not one of them have i used a captain skill from the 4th row....not even my 19 point captains!!... nothing there is worth the 4 points asking price - THATS THE PROBLEM.

[Sidian]

Originally posted by Runenstahl:

Thanks for the explanation about FP. Thats useful knowledge I did not have and does indeed make FP more worthwhile. However it doesn't change that it is a 4 point skill so it's not really fair to compare it with SE.

As i said, you could trade Jack of all Trades in addition to SE for a 4 point skill (and an other 1 point skill). If you take 15-25k damage from fires every match, FP can easily save you 5-10k HP on average.

Originally posted by Sidian:

I agree that for planes and Hydro that is pretty much irrelevant. For Damage Control Party and especially Repair Party however it happens quite often that I have to use them as soon as the cooldown is over.

And are the 3-5 seconds time you save while being in a situation where you use your consumables back to back really worth 2 points that you could trade for a 4 point skill that can save you quite a lot of HP?

Originally posted by Sidian:

How often does it happen that I cling barely to life while below 2801 HP and I'm able to do some more damage or activate that repair party one more time ? Not very often. But statistically 4 out of 100 hundred games would be appropriate for a 4 % increase.

But by taking a skill that's useful in 4% of your games, you miss out on skills that are useful in 50-100% of your games (and might still be more usefull in these 4% games).

There is a reason why players are often ridiculed when taking the skill on BBs and why no good/experienced players will ever take the skill on BBs (or even cruisers). I wouldn't ridicule anyone for that because the game mechanics aren't exactly simple and in other games, even small percentages can be quite powerful (i remember when the +5% health buff for Taurens in World of Warcraft was nerfed to +1%). But the skill is just not good enough for 3 skill points for any ship class other than DDs, especially when playing a build that already uses 8+ skill points for some "must have" skills to even work.

Originally posted by mystikmind2005:

I just went through my captains now, not one of them have i used a captain skill from the 4th row....not even my 19 point captains!!... nothing there is worth the 4 points asking price - THATS THE PROBLEM.

Most 4 point skills are worth it, depending on the ship/build. For battleships, Fire Prevention is godlike. For secondary builds, AFT, Manual Fire Control and for some ships even IFHE are a must have. For light cruisers, IFHE and Concealment Expert is a must have. For most DDs, Concealment Expert ist a must have and RPF is very close to that.

[mystikmind2005]

Originally posted by Sidian:

Originally posted by Runenstahl:

Most 4 point skills are worth it, depending on the ship/build. For battleships, Fire Prevention is godlike. For secondary builds, AFT, Manual Fire Control and for some ships even IFHE are a must have. For light cruisers, IFHE and Concealment Expert is a must have. For most DDs, Concealment Expert ist a must have and RPF is very close to that.

Fire prevention is Godlike?? ... i tried it, never seemed to me to make any difference at all??.... but in gaming, i am an anti luck magnet, ... 1 shell = 1 fire, 1 torp = 1 flooding. Anything other than that happens and i will be f--ing shocked. perhaps it works for people with normal luck?

I also used IFHE on most of my light cruisers when that perk first came out assuming it was good .... after some time though, i began to question is it really doing all that much to be worth the 4 points?.... Not so much.

[Runenstahl]

Please put stuff about IFHE in a different thread. As long as it isn't about trying to figure out how useful it is in comparison to SE it is very much off topic here.

[Sidian]

Originally posted by mystikmind2005:

Fire prevention is Godlike?? ... i tried it, never seemed to me to make any difference at all??.... but in gaming, i am an anti luck magnet

As i and Lavian explained, it has nothing to do with luck. The strongest part of the skill is that it combines the 2 middle sections into one, so you can't have two fires in the middle anymore. Since most HE shells land around the middle - either to increase the amount of hits at longer distances or because the HE caliber is so small that they can only deal damage to the superstructure - the immunity to a second fire there is huge.

Originally posted by mystikmind2005:

I also used IFHE on most of my light cruisers when that perk first came out assuming it was good .... after some time though, i began to question is it really doing all that much to be worth the 4 points?.... Not so much.

It is not only worth it, it's necessary to do anything major to certain ships. For example, the Cleveland has 25mm of armor all around with the exception of the turrets, the citadel armor belt and the superstructure. The penetration of 152mm HE shells (with the exception of the german HE shells) is 24mm. That means 152mm HE shells cannot penetrate anything on a Cleveland but the superstructure.

However, the superstructure is saturated quite quickly (which means it won't take any further damage when it received too much). That means, without IFHE, a Cleveland has a hard time killing an other Cleveland with HE.

But if you use IFHE, the penetrations jumps up to 32mm, which is enough for the bow, stern, deck and upper belt armor of almost all cruisers and a lot of battleships - up to t10.

You can see the effect of IFHE vs without IFHE here (18:22 if the time stamp isn't working for some reason):
https://youtu.be/WpIoVc0N35c?t=1099

I'm using IFHE there, getting 3k salvos on the enemy Cleveland. He doesn't have it, and in the time i deal 6.5k damage to him, he deals 1.5k damage to me - 700 of that from a fire. That's the power of IFHE.

You basically need that skill to properly fight t6-t10 battleships and t8-t10 cruisers with HE if you have 152mm guns. Most Battleships at t5 or lower don't have enough armor to make any difference - or (ironically) too much armor.
And then you have ships like Daring and Harugumo which rely heavily on IFHE.

[Firewalk]

Running FP on something like a GK or Kremlin makes a HUUUUUUGE difference, trust me!

- RA -

[mystikmind2005]

Originally posted by Runenstahl:

Please put stuff about IFHE in a different thread. As long as it isn't about trying to figure out how useful it is in comparison to SE it is very much off topic here.

Talking about captain skills in a topic about captain skills is off topic.... noted.

[Ł o u a]

Too long didn't read. But yes SE is ALWAYS a bad choice on a BB.
BoS is a way better choice. It prevents WAY more damage from fires and flooding than SE will give you.

[Runenstahl]

In my too long text I went into that.

In short: BoS is only better if you let at least 2 fires burn through their full time without using Damage Control. If that doesn't happen SE is better.