Gronk

General ship purchase and leveling suggestions

10 posts in this topic

Ok, I have been working on leveling all 5 nations. Highest with IJN since I liked some of their wierd light ships.

After discussing some things on line and with what little I have experienced with the IJN BB and SS, I am changing my plans and wanted to see if you folks agree with my thinking. From what i have heard, read, and experienced; the first available BB, CV, and SS are not worth the cost of purchase and time to level the crew. So you are better off to keep leveling the crews of your lighter ships until you can purchase the second or third of the category. Do you agree?

If so, the following would be my general recommendation on what to purchase and level. Obviously there will be some differences based on personal preferences and nation ships.

A) Switch to the level 3 DD as soon as possible. The beginner one isn't very good. Do not buy the gold purchased DD since you will be in it for so short of a time it isn't worth the gold. Upgrade equipment in maxd Harbor Assault configuration for either salvo or torpedoes. Chose based on the nations ship and/or preference. Example Soviet and US torps seem to be pretty ineffective to me. At least compared to the guns for the same ships. Don't get too worked up over the DD build choices. You will replace it in your Harbor Defense and Harbor Assault lineup with the level 50 DD fairly soon. Work the crew up to veteran stars.

B) Get both the level 8 and 18 non-gold CL's. Note: Many think the gold purchase 18 CL's like the Bayern and Kitikami are well worth the purchase. Outfit one for HA salvo and one for HA torps. You want at least 1 front rank ship outfitted for torps or it is unlikely you will be able to sink enemy ships during the HA's. Work the crew of both up to veteran stars. You will have both ships in your HA lineup for a long time. So it is well worth the time to get them to veteran and outfitted for HA.

C)  Get 2 CA's. Here is where you might want to spend gold for a specific ship or different configurations while leveling and then for HA after you switch to a different ship. Which ships you chose will change some with nation and when you plan to get your first BB. For example: I like the Furious better than the County due to the range. And the Mogami(1944) is fun and effective in fleet actions, but horrible in in HA since it never launches it's planes in HA. I believe some people are choosing to not equip their CA's with a level 5 HA set because the HA special attacks are not quite so devastating and don't help at all in the second part of the HA. So far, I am still equipping mine for max critical special attack. However, I may change my mind after some more experimentation. You will want to get at least one of the CA's to veteran status. Work on the other until you eventually get it to veteran or decide to replace it with a BB.

D) Get the level 50 DD and advance to veteran status. Sub it for the level 3 DD in your HA and HD lineup. I don't think many people are equipping these for HA special attacks. Though there is disagreement on whether to max guns, torps, or hedgehogs - I think everyone gets max engines. With max engines and a good captain, these are extremely difficult to hit.

E) Skip the initial BB, CV, and SS. You won't have veteran status on both of your CA's yet anyhow. Pick one of them when you get the level to buy the second or third in the category. Work on it until you get at least most of the stars. These are the category of ships for which most people have been saving their gold. Also upgrades very wildly between captains. Some love the SS. (I am finding them very difficult with novice crew. So it is extremely time consuming to get the crew leveled.) Others find sinking capital ships from afar with the CV to be very fun. Then too, there is the allure of the ponderous wall of BB's.

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Nice work and a good read.

As I despise HA my answers/comments are based on battle requirements/tips/tactics only.

27 minutes ago, Gronk said:

Switch to the level 3 DD as soon as possible. The beginner one isn't very good.

I have to agree that the lvl 1 DD is only useful to take you to lvl 3.

28 minutes ago, Gronk said:

From what i have heard, read, and experienced; the first available BB, CV, and SS are not worth the cost of purchase and time to level the crew. So you are better off to keep leveling the crews of your lighter ships until you can purchase the second or third of the category. Do you agree?

I can only answer for Kriegsmarine as it's the only nation I'm high level for BB, SS and CV.

The BB Gneisenau is only slightly more powerful than the Hipper (CA41) so I agree there. I tried the CV next but was so frustrated at it that I gave up and built the SS to play instead.  I enjoyed it, yes it is flimsy, but I think the SS is much more dependent on player skill than any other ship in the game short Oxy endurance is a hard limitation with inexperienced crew but still there is joy in attacking and sinking powerful ships from the very beginning.

57 minutes ago, Gronk said:

Many think the gold purchase 18 CL's like the Bayern and Kitikami are well worth the purchase

Can't sing a song nice enough for the Kitakami. That ship is so nice it borders on OP. With a skillful captain I have witnessed it win many battles (including War of Fleets where it pwned 2-3 subs and kept the stronger ships at bay destroying any tactics they tried).

Bayern, Texas and the other tiny, fast CLs I despise, only because I never got one and have suffered a lot from them. They pack a respectable punch and are small and fast enough to be almost unhittable at any range except point blank. Not only excellent fleet disorganisers and CV hunters but given time and space to manoeuvre they can get ANY ship. Definitely OP.

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I agree most of it. Just I am fine with my IJN CV55 since she is one of the CV with largest number of planes to deploy.

Controlling CV is more tactical and less relying on the spec of ships. A vet CV55 is still a beast when fighting with advanced CVs. Don’t forget that the repairing cost of level four CV reaches over 12k steel so it’s not easy to level them.

My Hiryu is almost vetted and I’m now Lv7x. I’m now both using CV55 and SS68 and planning to vet them both before I purchase Yamato (or Super Yamato).

i also skipped my first level BB and SS btw.

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9 hours ago, baldrick said:

...

Bayern, Texas and the other tiny, fast CLs I despise, only because I never got one and have suffered a lot from them. They pack a respectable punch and are small and fast enough to be almost unhittable at any range except point blank. Not only excellent fleet disorganisers and CV hunters but given time and space to manoeuvre they can get ANY ship. Definitely OP.

I find myself wondering if the fast CL and and new DD50 are going to make upgrading the secondary weapons worth while.

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13 hours ago, Gronk said:

I find myself wondering if the fast CL and and new DD50 are going to make upgrading the secondary weapons worth while.

No Sec guns on the DD, it's guns and torps/HH and you need both (after maxing engines). For the fast CL I've witnessed them shoot down squadrons of bombers (probably their only vulnerability) so I guess sec guns are also useful. Also as they don't have much anti-sub capability other than the sonar, if they don't have AA capability their usefulness in the fleet is affected.

Also see the Shimakaze thread for DD50 setup tips.

Edited by baldrick
edit: add AA part
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4 hours ago, baldrick said:

No Sec guns on the DD, it's guns and torps/HH and you need both (after maxing engines). For the fast CL I've witnessed them shoot down squadrons of bombers (probably their only vulnerability) so I guess sec guns are also useful. Also as they don't have much anti-sub capability other than the sonar, if they don't have AA capability their usefulness in the fleet is affected.

Also see the Shimakaze thread for DD50 setup tips.

 

4 hours ago, baldrick said:

No Sec guns on the DD, it's guns and torps/HH and you need both (after maxing engines). For the fast CL I've witnessed them shoot down squadrons of bombers (probably their only vulnerability) so I guess sec guns are also useful. Also as they don't have much anti-sub capability other than the sonar, if they don't have AA capability their usefulness in the fleet is affected.

Also see the Shimakaze thread for DD50 setup tips.

CL18 has great auto AAW and can shoot down low flying torp plane/ bomber easily.

it is nightmare for SS too with its speed and long sonar, able to dodge torps in mid range from SS and kick them when they’re out of oxygen.

Use a CL to tag a SS, isn’t it worthwhile?

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Some more tips:

A higher level SS/BB/CV means high repairing cost as well as higher upgrading cost. Don’t forget to make sure that you’ve got stable steel production (from plant, from other ships for farming, from HA) to make on it.

 

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On 23.11.2017 at 7:06 PM, Gronk said:

I find myself wondering if the fast CL and and new DD50 are going to make upgrading the secondary weapons worth while.

If you meant to say: Use secondaries against those fast-ships - they aren't that useful, as long as those bitches keep their distance. Even secondaries fire at a high elevation so that those grenades will only hit the wake...

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 just maxed out guns on a dd50 shimkazee and now I'm actually a threat the battles ships.

 totally worth it.

  but are ijn ss just slow? C class hei type 1 is about as fast as a CA really.

American subs can just run lapse around be

 

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On 2017-11-30 at 2:55 AM, Davmak said:

Some more tips:

A higher level SS/BB/CV means high repairing cost as well as higher upgrading cost. Don’t forget to make sure that you’ve got stable steel production (from plant, from other ships for farming, from HA) to make on it.

 

Yup, my ijn ss blueprint is almost unaffordable AND uncompetitive

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