What makes a ship best in class?

[Kilpanic 471]

I've been playing more boats lately and I'm trying to figure out what goal ships I want to grind for. Grinding takes so long in World of Warships that I don't want to spend a month shooting for a garbage ship, but I can't find robust criteria anywhere for finding whether a ship is good or not. 

I've been playing around with the data on Warships Today, but I dunno if the stats there are meaningful. For example, most of the best overall win rates are various premium ships. But is that because the ships are superior, or because they are always in their 'elite' configuration, while tech tree boats play some number of games stock? Or maybe its because they are more likely to be bought and used by enfranchised players who enjoy a skill advantage over more casual players? 

Similarly, in most tiers the two week stats show Russian DDs and Cruisers on top of the heap (right behind IJN CVs). But is that because the ships are better, or because they are being played by players who have already been through the tiers 1-3 times, vs 'first timers' in USN and IJN ships? 

Or maybe it's the case that most ships are similar within a class and tier bracket, and what ship you choose is just fluff as long as it doesn't have an unusual strength (Gremyashchy 8km torps) or critical weakness (Karlsruhe pen)? 

pls halp. 

[OnboardG1 1,279]

Anything that has the same holy trinity that makes mediums good in tanks: Speed, Firepower and survivability. So something like the Iowa is now actually pretty good because it's fast, reasonably tough and now the firepower is not-derpy actually quite good at killing cruisers. Yamato is still great because it's adequately fast, is nigh-on unkillable apart from by aircraft and has the "I give zero shits about your armour" guns. 

Anything that's cripplingly weak in one of those areas is going to be bad or super hard to use, which is why I think the Kirov is really bad (because it's very deficient in survivability). 

There are also outliers which are a bit situational in each category. The Yorck is fine if you're engaging battleships at very long range or cruisers at very short range, but it's pretty bad in between (high drag shells and clumsy handling).

[conjay810 14]

If its Russian or Japanese 

[How_Terrible 529]

The truth is that there are few ships that are truly awful in this game. Most of them are at least adequate.

[Psycodiver 101]

It really comes down to how you use the ship's, I had a Furrytaco when the game and live last year and everyone said it was the worst ship in the game but being a primary a BB driver I didn't mind the slow turret traverse and slow reload and put a hurting on other cruisers and battleships by putting those 8" shells right above their belt armor

[Jarkorsis 92]

Best in class is simply what you are good at in the game mode you are playing.

[Mesrith 356]

2 hours ago, Jarkorsis said:

Best in class is simply what you are good at in the game mode you are playing.

There are certain attributes of every ship that make them better or worse for a given role.  Not all roles are viable for given formats.  Sure, a great player could possibly take a Mutsuki into Ranked tomorrow and do well.  That doesn't mean the ship is a great ship, it means that the player is good enough in that ship to compensate for the fact that it's complete garbage at contesting cap circles against other destroyers, which is what's important in ranked.

@OP:  The question is always "what do I need this ship to do?"  There are small differences between even "good" ships that make them better or worse.  For example, I think the tier 6 battleships are a very well-balanced tier.  The Fuso, Warspite, and New Mexico are all good ships.  However, the Warspite and its 15" guns would be my choice for dueling against other battleships.  The Fuso's twelve guns with fast reload make it best in tier for murdering opposing cruisers and destroyers, but its armor and length make it arguably the most vulnerable.  The New Mexico has similar firepower on a longer reload, but with survivability closer to the Warspite if not better.

I think Russian destroyers are a bit of a unique case right now.  I almost never see terrible players in a Khabarovsk, and I suspect there's some self-selection preventing them from reaching it.  It's kind of a specialized play style that eschews stealth as a crutch compared to the other destroyers, and my guess is that most bad players decide that they hate the line long before they get to the Khab.  If you can't make the Gnevny or Kiev work for you, you're not going to put effort into finishing the line.  I think Shimakaze probably need some gun buffs to stay competitive long-term, but I don't personally think that the Khabarovsk is that much better than the Gearing as what the server stats would imply.

As for premium ships, some are very good in their own right, but they will never suffer a stock grind, and they will almost always have a higher average commander than same-tier ships.  For every one player that constantly cycles new commanders through a premium for training, there are probably two dozen more that play tech-tree ships with commanders that aren't even fully trained to that ship until they're almost on to the next one.

[Jarkorsis 92]

Any ship that does only 1 thing well, no matter what it is can generally be easier to excell at. That is one of the reasons you see so many IJN DD's. They only do torpedos well. So you set up your boat and captain to maximize the use of torps.  Any kind of generalist boats are not going to be as good as a ship that is best at one thing usually.  This is for randoms. US DD's are generalist till tier 8, then they get almost as good or arguably better torps as the IJN Navy and possibly as good or better guns as USSR once you get to tier 8 and up. My winrate in the Benson is much better (60 percent v 50 percent) than my other lower tier US DD's. (some of that is experience) My Fletcher is at 65+ percent (This is with over 150k exp.)

Another example is the USSR paper CA's. Most of them are great snipers. So do what you can to maximize sniping.

Team battles and to a lesser extent ranked battles, since they are 7 v 7 may require different ships than random battles. An example is the Matsuki. It is much better at ransoms, then it is in Team battles.

 

 

[OnboardG1 1,279]

1 hour ago, Jarkorsis said:

Any ship that does only 1 thing well, no matter what it is can generally be easier to excell at. That is one of the reasons you see so many IJN DD's. They only do torpedos well. So you set up your boat and captain to maximize the use of torps.  Any kind of generalist boats are not going to be as good as a ship that is best at one thing usually.  This is for randoms. US DD's are generalist till tier 8, then they get almost as good or arguably better torps as the IJN Navy and possibly as good or better guns as USSR once you get to tier 8 and up. My winrate in the Benson is much better (60 percent v 50 percent) than my other lower tier US DD's. (some of that is experience) My Fletcher is at 65+ percent (This is with over 150k exp.)

Another example is the USSR paper CA's. Most of them are great snipers. So do what you can to maximize sniping.

Team battles and to a lesser extent ranked battles, since they are 7 v 7 may require different ships than random battles. An example is the Matsuki. It is much better at ransoms, then it is in Team battles.

 

 

I couldn't disagree more, generalist ships are the best pub stompers and the best carry ships. The USN DDs are the ultimate generalists (you say so yourself in your post) and will win you games because they can be whatever the game demands them to be. You can't carry games by being the guy who only does one thing. Sure you'll win games on raw skill but you'll get forced into doing things that your boat is bad at at some point in the match and ships that are all rounders (USN DD, Blyska, IJN CAs, US BBs late tier) are going to perform better in those situations. I literally cannot take a point that is contested by a BB in a Russian cruiser for instance. They have neither the firepower, the torps or the durability to do it. I can win that battle probably 60% of the time in a Japanese cruiser though because they have all these things. What you don't want is a ship that's really bad at one thing in particular because when you find yourself having to do that thing in a clutch carry you'll lose. 

Shit is different in Team and Clan games. It's all about team synergy there so RU cruisers (particularly Kutuzov) are quite well used. 

[SFC_Storm 58]

On 6/3/2016 at 3:57 PM, OnboardG1 said:

I couldn't disagree more, generalist ships are the best pub stompers and the best carry ships. The USN DDs are the ultimate generalists (you say so yourself in your post) and will win you games because they can be whatever the game demands them to be. You can't carry games by being the guy who only does one thing. 

This is why the Zhao and almost all Jp cruisers are king to me. Even though being a newb on paper it has lowest DPM, middling range etc It has 10 km torps, amazing camo and I have now noticed Japanese having much better bow armor than they appear to have at a glance. IDK if its hitbox`s or what but they take very little dmg head on. But show there sides and its good night nurse.

Being new I thought US DD`s looked totally useless because they didnt have Ninja 20km torps but the more I play the more I realize after 10km its hard to predict enemies anyways, and guns on dessy`s are much better than I thought.

TBH WOWS balance is head and shoulders better than WOT and why I migrated to it. Its nice to see at least 2 countries in competition in each class. Its not all Rus meds and clones of rus meds.

Only sad part is US bb`s suck IMO. Well maybe not NC from what I have seen it looks great, huge camo for T8 BB. But Montana autopen hull vs Yamato and the slow, fat inaccurate BB`s are bad. I mean come on the US ships being slow and fat should get warspite lasers wit h17km range, not this 15 km with every 3rd salvo hitting BS.

From balance view. Kongo/Fuso should have mid range fast reload low accuracy while US gets lasers, large tanking and slow speed

[Psycodiver 101]

The USB BBs are great IMO although I did equally good in the IJN BBs but I found it easier to have amazing games in them, probably because I'm late to the party usually and taking on half or less health ship's. I would rather have US BBs on my team then IJN BBs because tomatoes seem to sit at max range missing targets and bitch about the team failing because they aren't doing anything

[xWulffx 393]

Isn't kind of hard to go with absolutes for any class.  For instance, if you are capping on the Ocean map in a stealthy DD like the Kamikaze R where there are no CV's you are obviously at a big advantage and a fast CA or a DD with good guns has to yolo you to spot you.. Whereas a map with lots of islands to hide behind favors the faster DDs with decent guns and shorter ranged torps where you can hide behind the islands and shoot and/or ambush ships with torps easier.  It's very situational and map dependent so there are no real absolutes here.   Having ships which are good all around generally work better overall IMHO.

[malaquey 7]

Because of the way world of warships works there is an emphasis on being able to aim well more than anything else. A perfect shot will land 3x as many hits, or even more than the average player. As such if you can shoot well and remember to keep evading should do well in any ship. With that in mind there are some ships that are "easy" to play but have a low skill ceiling. Battleships as a class are more susceptible to this but any ship that is more visible, and is more heavily armoured, will suffer from this. Ships with bad AP are also harder to play but they tend to have better stats elsewhere to compensate. The Mogami has terrible AP but is very stealthy and especially with the 155s can do a lot of damage with HE.

Cruisers tend to allow a greater skill ceiling due to their rapid fire guns that reward appropiate ap usage. They are also fast enough to be where needed and to run away if required. I highly recommend putting the stealth equipment/skill on cruisers since being able to stop firing and vanish 20 seconds later is a great asset, with IJN having the best stealth (under 10km detection with all modifiers).

Carriers I would say require the most skill due to the relative lack of RNG, the planes go where you want them. If you can multitask well enough you can do well pretty much every game, although the difficulty playing carriers means that most enemy carriers will be quite skilful opponents.

To add the Atago (and Zao <3) are probably the best cruisers by virtue of their stealth and heavy firepower coupled with the ability to delete anything at close range with the torpedoes. Especially after they added the repair party to Atago it is the best tier 8 cruiser and even gives tier 9s a run for their money.

[BiggieD61 364]

9 hours ago, malaquey said:

To add the Atago (and Zao <3) are probably the best cruisers by virtue of their stealth and heavy firepower coupled with the ability to delete anything at close range with the torpedoes. Especially after they added the repair party to Atago it is the best tier 8 cruiser and even gives tier 9s a run for their money.

It is the combination of a DD and a Cruiser if you have the tier 5 camo skill on your captain.  It is worth every penny in both fun and performance.  New players or those with poor skills will get wrecked early and often in battle due to the lack of armor and the speed to overextend your self.  Average players like myself can have incredible matches in it, the ship IS that good.

[xWulffx 393]

One mistake is all it takes sometimes and you get rekked in a cruiser or a DD regardless of skill.   BBs are usually more forgiving.