What can I say but “wow, is this painful.”
The American line was not a grind.
The German line was mostly fun to grind.
The Soviet line was great to grind.
The Japanese are hit and miss but the great torpedoes help.
The French ships were a bit painful, but not awful.
The Italians are just the most painful ships I’ve ever had the displeasure of playing.
When do they get better? Which ones are the stars of the line that I won’t want to hurt myself while playing? How much Scotch and bourbon will be required to reach a decent ship?
The destroyers are absolute unmitigated garbage. Do cruisers get any better? All of you people I see in the Andrea Doria and Duilio, how did you get there and stay sane?
For Italian destroyers, mastering the use of APCB shells is crucial. A well-placed shot can ammorack most targets, but dispersion remains an issue. The torpedoes on Corazziere/Verrazzano are surprisingly decent, outperforming those on Margottini/Regolo.
The initial light cruisers are misnomers; Regolo is a destroyer and Etna is an antiaircraft cruiser. Regolo’s torpedoes are ineffective at long range due to their slow speed, similar to German torpedoes. The 135mm cannons have a low rate of fire and disappoint with their weak explosive filler. However, Etna excels within 4 km with its 65mm antiaircraft guns, quickly eliminating destroyers.
The first respectable light cruiser is Colleoni. Though it has low armor and a slow rate of fire, it’s a personal favorite of mine thanks to its excellent APCB shells. The same shell is found on Montecuccoli/Eugenio di Savoia and Duca degli Abruzzi, but these ships have superior armor and rate of fire. Montecuccoli and Eugenio di Savoia may feel overtiered, but it’s typical in the Italian tree.
Among heavy cruisers, Trento is reliable, comparable, or even better than American counterparts at its lower tier, presenting numerous optimal targets. Zara performs well, but at 5.7, you’ll encounter many battlecruisers.
Personally I think the tree becomes bearable only after Colleoni and Trento, all the ships after that line are good in my opinion with even excellent ships like the Duca degli Abruzzi. The bizarre thing is that we have a tool to balance the nations, the Battle Rank system; sadly, with Italy, it is completely broken.
The only good Italian destroyer is postwar Geniere premium. Cruisers are good enough, apart from Regolo which is a destroyer actually with a light cruiser spawn and Etna, idk why it’s been added especially considering it wasn’t finished.
Btw Italian HE shells are awful, I use HE on purpose only on 120/45 and BBs.
Well, in the game lately, every battleship seems to explode after a minor sneeze in its general direction. The less armor of the battleships is a lesser issue at this point. Since various British battleships and battlecruisers have received a BR reduction, it might also be the case to reduce the BR of the Italian ones if the issue of thinner armor is perceived as equally significant
Not really true - eg Arizona and Scharnhorst are very tough ships, and there’s a marked difference in armour from a 8-9" belt to 13" or more
Those Brit ships were always over-BR’ed - Invincible at 6.3 was ludicrous and probably should be 5.7 max TBH - why would you ever use it over Dreadnought??
The Dreadnought itself and Colossus have mediocre or poor armour and poor gun arrangement, no AAA - the Italian ships have weak armour, but excellent numbers of main and secondary guns - much better than either of those Brit ships - so it’s not a good comparison.
I have gotten ammo racked in both the Scharnhorst and the Kronshtadt, but it’s definitely rare. They can also take a lot of punishment in general compared to other nations. The number of times you can sail into danger and fight 4 or 5 on 1 is pretty incredible. I don’t expect to be able to do that with Italian battleships. I just don’t want to grind all the way to them and get destroyed in 3 minutes.
They start to get decent from rank 4. Trento’s the star of the tree IMO. Just the right performance at just the right BR.
Grinding through the destroyers and early cruisers required about double the match count compared to the other trees. I honestly don’t know how I got through it. If you really want to grind quick, consider buying the Geniere (D 555) on sale.
Also using ranging fire to split the reloads of your turrets helps a bit with the slow RoF.
Actually Italian torpedoes are very similar to Soviet ones, having high speed but very short range. The slow speed probably comes from installing torpedo mode.
The Dante and Doria have exposed ammo racks, but that is to be expected for any 6.3. Duilio has her ammo racks well below water thankfully, but her armor is still thin.
I used a previous event to grind out Aviere ’just in case’ I ever went down the Italian tree. Eventually I did, and I was able to reach the cruisers using just Aviere with Comandante Margottini as a second spawn, so I avoided all the other destroyers. Although Aviere is nothing special on paper, I had a lot of good games in it and it seems decent enough.
As noted above, the early cruisers - or pseudo-cruisers - are not really cruisers, but are interesting in different ways and are good for killing destroyers.
Trento probably best-for-BR, although I’ve just finished spading Dante and found that one to be very good too.
Yeah the Italian line is excruciatingly painful.
I have made it as far as the Etna and it just gets ripped apart by US destroyers. I had hoped that after suffering through the destroyers, that things would get better…sadly not. Etna should be a 4.3 or a 4.0.
Im sure it would be quite good at close range with the 5x 65mm on each side. But i haven’t lasted long enough to get close to anything. I think 5 minutes would be the average lifespan of the Etna. You usually spawn with nothing to hide behind and sink before you reach the first island.
Might abandon the Italian line for a bit in the vain hope that Gaijin will fix it.
I have completed the US and Russian lines and am almost finished the UK and German lines, but nothing the Italians have so far are close to being competitive at BR