A new favorite ship? Rochester

 I haven't gone far up the American cruiser or battleship line.  I feel like while they can hit hard and have excellent penetration angles for their shells, they are slow and glompy.  New word, glompy.

I cannot be without American ships though, being patriotic and what-not.  So months ago I picked up the Indianapolis (tier VII cruiser) and found it to be very hard-hitting for its tier.  The 203's (8 inch) wreak havoc, but the reload time is somewhat slow.

I had no tier VIII American ships so I decided to research and pick one.  In the end it came down to the Baltimore/New Orleans variants, but which one?  I narrowed it down to the Wichita and the Rochester.

I did some research, watched videos from Carlos Carlito and Flamu and some others, looked at the back and forth arguments in the forums.  I love that the Baltimore, Wichita, and Rochester are all slightly different in their balance and game play.  In the end I went with Rochester because I was intrigued by the smoke, and the decent concealment numbers.  The reload was nerfed from Baltimore and Wichita, but not too much, and firing from smoke, or having Adrenaline Rush sort of makes up for it in heated battle.  The hull is basically the same as Baltimore and Wichita, so if you angle a little, you can take a lot of fire without serious damage.  But, you get caught broadside and between the fore and aft main turrets, at water level, BOOM!  So there is that.

I don't know why, but the first time I played this ship I was in love with it.  And for no reason I can put my finger on.  I have been playing her only in co-op mode and I don't think I have broken 30,000 damage with her.  Meanwhile I can reap 100,000 in my Mainz or my Ochakov pretty easily.

It's not like I don't help the team!  I can sink at least 2 enemy bot ships per game and when she hits a ship she does excellent damage.  No, I am trying to figure it out... I *think* it might be the fact that I tend to find a spot and smoke up.  In co-op it is a race to clobber anything and everything.  Just run and gun.  When I smoke up and sit, all the ships around me just keep on chasing and shooting.  That's all I can figure.  The second issue with smoking up is that the Rochester's smoke lasts a long time, and becomes a comfortable haven.

So I think that is what it might be.  I am probably going to go into a few matches today and NOT smoke at all, and just sail about whomping whoever I can.

But I really do like this ship and am glad I went that way.  I had been on the fence... American cruiser or the Irian?  I already have a few tier VIII Russian cruisers (Bagration, Ochakov) and have worked my way up to the tier IX Riga... so I leaned American and have not been disappointed.  I ended up with a Baltimore with slower reload and smoke.  A nice ship indeed!

Bayard, Riga and Drake

 I picked up another premium, the French cruiser Bayard.  I really like her, she reminds me a lot of the Mainz, at least I play her like that.  She has 152, fire setting with decent penetration and pretty rapid reload.  So she is good at hanging back and spamming fire.  But if you get a decent broadside, her AP does significant damage!

I leveled my Russian cruiser line up, picking up the Riga (tier IX Russian heavy cruiser).  Riga is pretty beastly, especially with her AP.  Her armor is good for bow tanking or even kiting away.  You can get smashed by a BB if you are broadsided though.

Finally, I also leveled up my British cruiser line.  I went from the Albemarle to the Drake.  The Drake is definitely a better ship and I am looking forward to the tier X Goliath...  Drake's HE is so good that you don't even need to switch to AP for cruisers and destroyers.  It is devastating.  And the HE is good to set those pesky battleships and carriers on fire as well.

I will continue to play the Drake to get the B hull, then switch back to my premium tier VIIIs to garner XP to level up my next line.  I think I will level up the Italian line, Amalfi to Brindisi.  It isn't much of an upgrade... really just adds a 4th turret.  Everything else is pretty much the same.  After that I am not sure.  I need to level up another line so that I can win a gift from wargaming for getting 4 (or maybe it was 5) tier X ships from the main tech tree.

OH!  As an after thought, I also picked up the Cossack, a British premium destroyer.  It is a pretty nice little ship, again, helpful for farming XP.

That's all for now...

Borodino

 So my Russian BB (Battleship), Borodino, has been instrumental in me farming XP to upgrade my Japanese DDs (Destroyers).  I think I have mentioned her in previous posts.  Love this ship.  Making her better by recently focusing in getting her reload time down.

Her normal main battery reload time is 31 seconds.  31 seconds is a loooooong time between shots, especially when you only have 6 rifles and very often only achieve one penetration out of 3 hits.  AND you are surrounded (which should never happen if you are a good player, I am obviously NOT a good player) by enemy ships that want to chew you up.

I decided to forego stealth and am focusing on her main batteries.  I have chosen a captain skill that decreases her reload time by 16% if a single enemy ship is within range of your secondaries.  I also picked a skill that for every 1% of damage you take, improves reload time by 0.2%.  Next thing I will take is the skill that will extend my secondary range by 20%!  That means at around 10K out any enemy ship will trigger my fast reload.  Now suppose I take some hits, my HP is brought down to 50%... that will decrease my reload time by ANOTHER 10%.  In theory I can get my reload times down to 25 seconds (actually more like 24).  That is faster than some cruisers at higher tiers.

Anyway, I will be using my Boro to grind for the Shimi I am after over the next 2 weeks.  Maybe I will get closer to leveling up my captain and get closer to being able to pick up the next skill I want.

Yumugo

 I might have mentioned previously that in order to complete a (long and arduous) campaign, I found out (when I unlocked the final step) that I needed a tier X destroyer!  Not just any, had to be British, American or Japanese.  Well, I am not much of a destroyer player, but I liked the early tier IJN destroyers so I happened to have one lying around.

Since that time, I have been grinding like a madman to get XP and silver coins to upgrade through the IJN (Imperial Japanese Navy) destroyer tree.  I have used my tier VIII cruisers and BBs to accomplish most of this, and some using the destroyers themselves.

ANYWAY...  I made it to tier IX!!!  Very exciting.  Took me a week though.  I imagine since at every tier the requirements virtually double, that this will take another 2 weeks before I can upgrade to the Shimikaze.  This ship, the Yumugo, with stealth upgrade and stealth captain ability, is pretty darn sneaky.  It's torpedoes are 10K range, my concealment us something like 5.4K range.  So I am able to settle in, set up where I know ships will come, and just lay out a wall of torps.

It's firepower is decent too.  I have killed several other destroyers with main batteries alone, and even killed cruisers with a combination of torpedoes and main batteries.  Decent ship.

The Shimikaze (on paper anyway) looks to be a MONSTER.  It has a torpedo rating of 60 out of a hundred!!  That is exceptional... since basically 95% of the torpedo boats out there have between 15 and 25 as a torpedo rating.  These torpedoes must be photon torpedoes or something.  :)

Anyway, its main batteries are actually cruiser-level guns...  I mean everything about this "destroyer" really screams light cruiser++.  So I will grind and grind over the next 2 weeks and hope to obtain this Shimi.  I usually sell my previous level ships... I don't know though.  The Yumu is the last "traditional" destroyer as the tier X Shimi is something entirely different.

The Tiger

 This ship is... I don't know.  I knew I wanted her the moment I laid eyes on her.  I often make silly, spur of the moment decisions like that.  But I have to say, for all the naysayers, this ship, very much like the Ochokov, is a hoot to play.

It is British light cruiser... so "squishy" as they say.  But if you play her cautiously, use islands, and make sure you are never the primary target, this is another fun ship to play.  It reloads every 3.2 seconds and has special, British AP rounds.  The bad news is you ONLY have AP rounds and you ONLY have 2 turrets of 2 rifles!!  You have NO torpedos.

This ship really requires some patience as while the AP shells have a short fuse and pretty consistently deal damage, the damage is somewhat low, and you really just have to pepper ships with shells.  That is why it has that 3.2 reload.

That probably sounds stressful to many people, now that I read what I wrote, but it really can be fun, since it is a challenge.  Team mates might not feel that way.  LOL!  She is pretty quick, very accurate but with interesting ballistics, her turrets rotate SO fast that they ALWAYS stay on target; they also rotate 365 degrees.

Like I said, I knew I wanted her the moment I laid eyes on her.  She is short and stubby, little armor, few offensive weapons... but still fun to play.  I would probably NOT use her in an operation where as much damage as you can deal in as short amount of time you can is what is important.  But pretty much anywhere else I can see that she would have benefits.  She has radar, can annoy ships with constant stream of shells... etc.

This is a ship I would not recommend unless you are up for a bit of a challenge and not concerned with high scores.

The Ochakov

 Read Little White Mouse's review of this ship.

It really is delicate... it can be wiped out in one good shot from a cruiser or battleship.

But wow... it is very much fun to play.  The weapon reloads are good, the guns are small caliber (slightly larger than the Munchen and Mainz) and they do decent damage.  I will attribute that to "russian guns".  For whatever reason, Russian rifles are pretty solid.  These are accurate and pretty annoying to other ships.  This ship is also pretty stealthy and has some nice bonus abilities.

But really, the fun is in not being hit and hitting the enemy.  Being sneaky is your best bet, and if you are caught out, angle away as best you can.  Be aware a direct hit to the bow or stern can be devastating.  Otherwise, you should be able to survive... the other problem is she is NOT super speedy so, again, be careful.

Some people who play this ship hate it because it takes persistence and it all often ends in sudden death.  Some love it.  I fall in the second category... it is a lot of fun to play and I play it a lot.  Torps are decent for Russian torps as well!

Anyway...

The Mainz

 Remember what I said about the Munchen?  The Mainz is the big sister to the Munchen.  Instead of 8 rifles, she sports 12.  Instead of light cruiser armor, she sports HEAVY cruiser armor!

Everything else is pretty much the same.  Her weapons are the same (shows you how effective they are for such small caliber weapons) as the Munchen, just more of them.  This is a Tier VIII ship, which means you COULD potentially face Tier X ships.  Even so, I have had a number of matches in that scenario and if you play a little cautiously, the Mainz will survive and contribute!