Hi there captains! I have recently started playing ships and I realised there isn’t a guide on which ship is good and which one to avoid. If you don’t know what I mean see for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfGPD0MGRMc for the USA plane techtree.
I’m grinding USA, USSR, and Japan, and I’ve finished Rank III (destroyers). As the RP for bigger ships increase, I would really appreciate any help at all! Thanks in advance!
Attached below are the techtrees taken from War Thunder wiki.
Disclaimer, I have never played US, USSR or Japan Bluewater, only fought against them
US, You cant go wrong with USS Atalanta, That ship is boarderline OP and Cleveland seems quite strong too. Most of their 6.0 cruisers though seem fairly solid all-rounders
I think the US 6.3 cruisers stuggles with an issue of uptiers and most of their battleships dont survive long if the opponent knows where to aim.
Im not gunna give any specific advice regarding Japan or USSR as I dont feel I fight against them with enough regularity to be able to fully ID ships and give their strengths and weaknesses (also non-english names means I dont recall them as easily)
Unlike with planes and tanks, it’s kinda hard for me to figure out which ship is good by fighting against them (probably skill issue on my part), since there’s rarely a 1v1 situation.
What I think so far:
USA:
Cleveland & Fargo: seem good with fast firing guns.
Atlanta: basically a better Porter/Somers, probably good in a downtier and bad in an uptier.
Literally no idea about the rest except that Alaska has the best reload in Rank VI.
USSR:
Bravy: might be funny to play with its missiles.
Imperatritsa Mariya & Izmail: faster reload than Poltava and Parizhkaya Kommuna.
Parizhkaya Kommuna: I hear this ship is good, but it has a slower reload than Mariya. Does it have great armour to make up for it?
Kronstadt: I hear this is bias.
Japan:
Furutaka: seems solid with a great number of guns.
Suzuya & Mogami: seem solid as well for same reason as above.
Hyuga: even more guns, so that’s good I hope?
Kongo: lower br compared to the rest of Rank VI, so might be good as it won’t be sucked up to 8.7?
Thanks for the near-instant reply!
I’ve been eyeing Atlanta as well. Guess I’ll just use it to grind out all the cruisers then.
Basically JP cruisers have decent guns,best torpedoes as they have Type 93 Long Lances but doesnt have much armor. Their BBs can be quite easily ammo racked aswell,tho Kongo class is harder to ammo rack,meanwhile Hyuga/Ise/Yamashiro/Fusou are easier to ammo rack with shot under the turret. Amagi is very good,Yamato is bit of a joke atm. Soviet cruisers are lacking a bit, due to having 152 mm guns and facing battleships regularly in 7.0 uptiers, but they have great RoF,again vulnerable magazines. US BBs reload entire eternity and can easily be ammoracked due to having ammo in barbettes. Their cruisers are probably best due to high RoF and ability to just keep enemies permanently on fire with HEs.
Thanks for the reply! Seems like most of the BBs here are floating ammo-racks?
I have heard Amagi is good and Yamato is an ammo-rack. Absolutely didn’t know the rest though, so thanks again!
Yes. Mutsu is ok too.
japan not worth it if your going for BBs torps are good most toptier BBs have paper armor but good guns alll glass cannons
US has some very good BBs and some not good BBs majority being pretty average or above average USS iowa second best BB ingame
Russia has strong dreadnoughts and blantantly OP boats like low tier there BBs are strong and some midtier ones best BB ingame is sovet soyuz
all in all id say russia first
The reason I’m grinding USSR is because Soyuz OP and also the tree is much shorter. USSR might get me into naval BB the quickiest (and probably the easiest) so I can have some idea of what it’s like. At the end of the day though, I don’t really like the idea of sailing around in a ship that didn’t really exist.
For US, I’m going for Iowa, which as you say is good as well.
For Japan, I want to go for Yamato. I know it’s bad in the game, but it’s Yamato.
Looked into the Royal navy yet?
Just had a quick look. My previous knowledge of british ships was limited to trouble fighting against Flower class corvette in coastal.
I know you play a lot of Royal Navy, but idk …
Soyuz is pure OP (at least that’s what I hear, not that I have it). Iowa also good, but I was secretly going for it because you can make firework with how many AA guns it has.
British ships just didn’t quite click with me. Most have turrets with twin guns except Rodney (which I heard you like). I just like the 3*3 turret look a bit more I guess. Plus I did read more on pacific naval warfare compared to what happended in the atlantic.
Would still welcome some recommendations if you have any!
Fair enough.
If you do intend to tackle the tree in the future. Then:
I need to replay most of the dreadnoughts sicne the decompression but yes. Rodney is fun, Warspite/Barham and Hood are Solid and I really wish they buffed Vanguard a little because it could quite easily be the third best rank VIII battleship in the game right now imo and easily top 5 of all battleships, and those buffs are entirely historically accurate possible.
This is a solid reason to grind certain things over others, imo, just because something is meta, doesnt make it fun and if you have fun, you’ll do better no matter what. I love the Sea Harriers and Tonkas because i’ve read books about them. I love the Challenger 2 (or at least want to love it) because i litereally see them on the roads (use to be quite often)
Thanks a lot for the pointers and the sentiment!
On a completely irrelevant note, I recall you said something about testing ships in custom missions half a year ago in a soyuz or yamato thread? I do have some experience with the CDK and I’m willing to help if you want anything.
Thank you, but I never got round to it and I don’t think it matters anymore.
I was interested in seeing what something like a Buc S1 or Canberra with 2x 4ks would do, but Buc S1 was made unusable and I opted out of the BR increase from bringing Canberra. Infact I’ve barely touched top tier naval, CBA to even deal with the chance of encountering a wall of Soyuz.
-Atlanta: very OP firepower due to sheer amount of 5in guns(death by thousand cuts), but weak armour and can be easily detonated with 20cm guns or bigger
-Cleveland/Fargo: lose a single triple 6in turret and antifrag armour for lower BR, overall they are still one of the strongest 6.0, with only weakness being shells stored in barbette so someone with excellent aim(and luck with the gun dispersion) can cripple you, but only if the enemy has 20cm guns or bigger since the armour is strong enough to stop 15cm guns
-Brooklyn/Helena: same as previous ship but at 6.3 due to extra turret and antifrag armour hull, might be a bit overtiered but is better for the game that this ships dont see 5.0 ships anymore
-Northampton folder and New Orleans: kinda a bit overtiered ships, Northampton folder doesnt have enough armour and poor ammo rack location and reloads slowl, and New Orleands while it improves the armour and ammo rack location, retains a subpar reload for the BR
-Roanoke: very easy to detonate, but incredible firepower(Atlante if it had 6in guns instead of 5in guns)
-Pittsburgh: New Orleands with antifrag armour and reload speed that is actually useful
-Des Moines: Take Pittsburgh, remove the antifrag armour and place the ammo in very easy to detonate location in exchange of very fast reload and you get Des Moines, play it at your own risk as its very niche
-American dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts in general: Easy to detonate, and either great penetration and damage but slow reload(356mm and bigger), or average penetration with average reload(305mm guns)
-Alaska: weak armour, but can empty some of its ammo to make it very hard to detonate, decent guns for its BR
-Iowa: second best BB, can do the same trick of Alaska of emptying half its ammo to make it harder to detonate compared to the rest of american BBs, has great armour too and good guns with finally average relaod instead of slow reload
-Bravy: the missile is more of a gimmick that is very useful againts DDs, but isnt that useful against Cruisers with actual armour
-Kirov: good guns with inconsistent shells(0.01 fuze delay makes them detonate before full penetration depending of the impact angle), also its very easy to detonate due to poor armour and shell room placement
-Project 68 class: its certainly an improvement over Kirov in terms of armour as now it protects against 15cm guns, but 20cm guns will still detonate you as the shell room is still poorly located
-Kerch: italian ship, less firepower compared to Kirov, but better armour and more protected ammo
-Russian dreadnoughts(Gangut class and Imperatrista Mariya): Inconsistent armour, their belt armour is average if not weak, and they lack internal barbette armour, so they are deceptively easy to detonate if you have the proper gun to shoot at them(15kg tnt shells should do the work quite nicely), otherwise, their rather weak armour works quite well against weaker guns, their guns have a bit low pen but very longs fuze delay, so they may struggle to pen but when they do, they hit deep inside the enemy. Btw while Mariya reloads faster, she is way easier to detonate than the Gangut class
-Izmail: take a russian dreadnought, give it bigger guns but make the shell rooms as easy to detonate as an american BB and you got Izmail, play it at your own risk
-Kronstadht: Imagine Kirov but as a BB, that means great guns, weak armour and easy to detonate shell rooms, but now the shell has a long fuze delay instead of short fuze delay, so now you can deal great damage if left unnoticed
-Sevastopol: Bigger imported german guns compared to Kron´s, but even easier to detonate as now the magazine is easy to detonate
-Novo: Italian BB in russia, better armour than Kronstadht, ammo better protected too, but shells a bit weaker(same great penetration, but with less tnt and shorter fuze delay)
-Arkhangelsk: british BB in russia, good armour, good guns but with incosistent shells as british ships has the shortest fuze delay in BBs guns so they tend to detonate prematurely in some situations
-Soyuz: the best BB ingam by far, great guns with average reload, and while the shell rooms is in an easy to detonate location like the Kronstadht, unlike Kron´s weak armour, Soyuz has the strongest armour ingame making her inmune at typical combat range to all guns ingame
-Japanese CAs: weak armour, but good guns and in good amount of turrets for their BRs, also you get the second best torpedoes(only because Akizuki class, and Kiyoshimo and Yukikaze get an even stronger version of the japanese torpedo)
-Agano: kinda a weak ship, only strong point is the torpedoes and that she is hard to detonate her ammo
-Ikoma/Kurama: weak armour against 20cm guns(can be detonated easily) but against 15cm guns she can endure quite a decent time, a bit niche ship due to low amount of main guns
-Suzuya/Mikuma: Japanese Mogami class CA with 15cm guns, consider them a Brooklyn with nerfed reload and armour in exchange of great torpedoes
-Settsu: Dont, guns may have decent performance and armour is decent, but the mains guns have different muzzle velocity between the amidships turrets and the fore and aft ones, so its very hard to aim them at typical combat range
-Hyuuga/Yamashiro: lots of firepower, but rather weak armour and very easy to detonate(Yamashiro is way easier compared to Hyuuga)
-Ise/Fusou: modernized sistership of the two ships mentioned above, same strenghts and weaknesses(at least the armour is more average rather than weak now), with Fusou being easier to detonate than Ise
-Mutsu/Amagi: similar, if not a bit better armour than Ise/Fusou, with shell room being a bit harder to detonate compared to how easy it was to detonate them, but still Amagi and Mutsu can be at risk of being detonated against high penetration guns if the enemy has good aim
-Yamato: RIP, cant angle her armour as she has armour plate layout like and IS-1 tank, and said armour is not strong enough at typical combat range ingame
(damn just spent a full hour writing this)
Btw, looked into Regia Marina yet?
Bravy is , well… Doesnt do much since, torpedos are nice missile is situational. But remember to shoot torpedos asap, those blowing on your deck is not good for healt :D
Poltava was solid first BS , but it is slow.
Kommuna and Maria made solid 6.7 lineup , izmail is awesome, especially amount of secondarys in it.
Kronshtad, glass cannon. Very weak turret/ammos but packs a lot of punch and fast loading. Not so broken as scarnhorst in 7.3 overall damn good boat but you tend to blow up when players know to aim on front hull.
Novorossiyk, well italian ship, takes a bit beating lacks punch avoid it, or keep it as “reserve” with khronstad.
Arkangelsk , solid BS, only good things to say.
This is a very detailed analysis indeed! I literally can’t think of much to comment. I truely do appreciate this.
Had this been stackexchange I’d mark this as an answer to such an open-ended question.
Nah, spare me, dude. Climbing three trees at once should be more than enough for any man. My eyes are already swimming with boats and ships …
