Pathetic US destroyers stealth nerf an Soviet destroyers stealth buff

Game Discussion General Discussion
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Naval was my refuge from all that gaijin drama and balancing antics, but I have noticed over the past few years a disturbing incremental stealth nerf to the US destroyers. My kill/death ratio was steadily decreasing and at the same time my win rate was dropping like a fly, but that’s been going for many years before.

These days I have really hard time killing anything and I can have multiple matches where I have 5-9 assists and ZERO kills. I lost even count of how many times I would spend a minute making a sieve out of enemy destroyer and then wouldn’t even get an assist. I’m not even talking about all these 0.7+ uptiers, but just 0.3 where a match is still full of destroyers that I would attack first in mine.

Also, the point of view seems to be lowered, so you are closer to the ship (specifically destroyer), so you have a harder time spotting the enemy. Many times I would get shot at by someone that I cannot even see.

From all the matches over the past few years (with some breaks), I can see a definite stealth nerf to US destroyers maneuverability (that includes turning, starting, stopping, reversing speed and achieving full speed from stop). These days these destroyers (all fully upgraded) behave like they are stock and maneuver more like a cruiser, not a destroyer that I used to play. This also applies to the aiming system that is so many times misleading and tells me (for example) to shoot in front of the ship when the ship is going away from me. Very often the aim is even screwed up when I’m standing and the enemy ship is standing. The shells do not land where I’m aiming at.

Add to this total US destroyer stealth shell nerf. I can see I’m hitting the ship, but the damage is many times none or miniscule. I can spend a minute+, not being able to ammo rack the enemy, making a total sieve out of it, but sill doing barely any damage. I checked some replies and I was able to clearly see the shells hitting the ship and many of them going through it without doing ANY damage, as if the ship wasn’t even there and the shells didn’t explode, as they were supposed to.

At the same time, Soviet destroyers have become unusually powerful and they kill my US destroyer with 1-3 salvos while I do minimal damage to them, even if I start shooting first. I’ve seen new Naval players (most likely with stock crews and slow reload) with premium Blagorodnyy racking up many easy kills where I have a hard time getting even 1-2 kills now. It’s pretty pathetic when I cannot even destroy a 4.3 Leningrad with my 5.0 destroyer, but he can get me with 2-3 salvos, as it happened recently. I even had a case were I dropped 4x1000lbs bombs on a Soviet destroyer, but all it got was just some damage and it continued swimming and shooting until it got destroyed by a… Soviet attacker.

As for the 1:1 k/d trolls telling me to “git good”, often I used to get 12-18 kills with German and US destroyers and liked the old aiming system and was very good at it (not many people liked it for some reason). Was able to go alone against 3-4 enemy destroyers on some maps and still win with minimal damage to my ship. The German destroyers got nerfed some years back… surprise surprise.

As it is, activating SL boosters and using my Moffett doesn’t make much sense anymore. Using BR 6.3 Des Moines is a guaranteed 6.7-7.0 uptier ALL THE TIME, where there are 6-8 people and 4 of them are top tier, the rest are bots with minimal income from them smh.

We all know about the “Russian bias” in tanks. Are we having that in Naval now as well? Hmm…

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Well I can suggest what the forum mains will say.

Is it possible other people just got better at the game than when you previously played them

Or

Sounds like you were OP and the balance was a good call.

But you make some sound points that I can’t verify like how Russians are appearing to dominate. I suppose we’d need you to grind Russian tree to make sure you don’t have confirmation bias.

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You used to get 12-18 kills cause most of the team were the afk bots, now they just aimbot. And Moffet is notoriously easy ship to ammo rack when aiming on the rear turret. Having both US and Soviet destroyers and BBs, the US outclass any other nations destroyers with their 5 inch guns firepower. The US destroyers also dont produce any shrapnels when other nations hit them with HE shells due to their “antifragmentation armor” just like the US cruisers like Helena which can tank Kongo´s 356 mm 60 kg TNT SAP shells without taking any damage.

Also,that new Blagorodnyy players you see, are the said aimbot bot accounts…

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US DD’s have much, MUCH bigger magazines than hte Soviet ones, and they are not protected by fuel cells.

The Soviet 130mm is a really powerful gun - much more so than the US 5".

So in a 1:1 fight - yeah they are better - there’s lots of 1:1 matchups like that - so try to avoid 1:1 with Soviet DD’s - use your DD’s other strengths - kill other ships.

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I mainly played Naval last 3 years with some breaks from WT. I play 5.0 BR US destroyer lineup to do my dailies (especially 27 cables) and SL boosters (at least I used to). My German and Soviet blue water tree is fully researched except some upgrades in top BR ships, as there is no point spading them without researching something else. Japanese and British is done half way, just Italian and French is untouched.
I have seen the staggering decrease in number of kills and income with this US destroyer lineup. As for killing Soviet ships, I didn’t have much of a problem before.

Yeah, better blame myself for “decreased” skills instead of thinking about gaijin buffing Soviet Navy, right? Are my constant match losses the result of my decreased skills or is there a simpler explanation, such as sucky match maker? Weeks later, after my initial post about sucky match maker, I’m still constantly sitting at 45-47% win rate for each month. Was getting more than 1000 kills a month since last summer. Took extended break since last Fall before then, as that’s when I got sick during that event. Still had something like 4 months of premium left, but couldn’t be arsed to come back. The number of kills started further dropping in the last 2-3 months, when the nerf got accelerated. Last couple of weeks I play less and it takes me much longer to get my dailies done, so I don’t even finish up the medium tasks very often. I think I had just 10 of them done in the last 30 days.

Gaijin has hundreds of variables that can help them tip the scale. Remember when the HE shells were the way to go? What has happened to it? Remember when the US destroyers were very tanky and you had to use a shell with more pen to get them? Why are they made out of paper now? Why is one salvo from a Soviet destroyer taking half of my crew now, while I can spend a minute firing at it and do just some yellow-orange damage? Why are my shells going through the side of the ship and fly out on the other side without exploding inside? Are all the compartments inside less than 6mm thick? They don’t even have to be, as my shell fly at an angle. There is certainly something wrong with the US (Common) shells these days.
The fact that this nerf was very gradual and culminated in the past few months (coincidently right around the infamous review bombing), it should tell you something. Don’t you think, if there is just a slight buff or nerf, it’s enough to tip the scale? How many times have we gone through similar sketchy times before. Remember these tanky Catalinas and all bombers other times before? I do. How many years have we had “Soviet bias” in tanks before? Is it time for Soviet Navy now as well? If they are so good, why aren’t they higher BR then? Isn’t this convenient? This game looks more and more like some psychological weapon designed to brainwash you and constantly keep you stressed day after day, year after year, until you get sick. Check out how bad constant stress is for you. I already got sick twice during two grindy events that I was not able to finish. Paid with my health for what?

As for bots, 2-3 years ago there were no bots in destroyer matches, maybe just some at top BR. The matches were always full of players.

“…the balance was a good call.”
Where are the change notes and where is the balance for the Soviet ships? Looks like gaijin is changing history again, as during WWII Soviet Navy was quite pedestrian and many of their sailors did the fighting on land instead lol.

The exact stuff I was talking about has happened again in my last match. My ship was slow as molasses. Got killed by Blagorodnyy who decimated our team and ended up getting 8 kills without dying. I tried to kill Spokoiny with my A-26 and 4x1000lbs… and did just some small damage (wtf?) Never had trouble killing destroyers and cruisers with my A-26 before. Apparently Stalinium is extra stronk this time of the year…
I hate that close point of view that the US destroyer takes most of my screen. In a match before I was being shot at by someone that I couldn’t even see, yet he was able to hit me a few times before I was able to retreat. He was following my position when I changed my location. It’s obvious his point of view was higher. It was a destroyer as well, btw. You can lock on someone and still see him behind a hill with the aiming system, but I never saw the guy to begin with until later.

ps. Sorry for the long post again, but this had to be said, as this looks like some kind of hidden income nerf or is it just for me, as I like playing destroyer lineups more than cruisers and units that you play a lot and have tons of kills get stealth-nerfed?

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The point of view of vehicle (all vehicles, also type of vehicle matters) is determined by its height IIRC, the lower it is the better position it is in, the higher it is the worse it is. Theres exceptions to that ofc, but camera positions arent placed to nerf or buff a vehicle.

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All I’m saying is that now the camera view is closer to my US destroyer than it used to be. It’s annoying when you are trying to maneuver and all you see is the body of the ship. It’s too close to the ship and the body fills the screen like some cruiser now. Haven’t played other nations destroyers in a while, so cannot comment on them.

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I have read and I do understand, however its not a nerf or buff, its just one system War Thunder seems to follow, I am not sure you can bug report it or ask to chnage it simply.
If camera has bad position you can literally only be with it.

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I have around 800 matches in my US 5.0 destroyer lineup. Any change, especially stealth nerf is easy for me to spot. I just find it very strange that all these “strange things” are happening at the same time and every one of them makes the playability of the US destroyers worse than it used to be, as if there was some hidden agenda there.

Edit: If you point of view is higher, you can spot the enemy faster and you are able to lock on them faster. With the crappy aiming system in WT you are not able to land shells where you want, unless you lock on some enemy. I should be able to lob shells over the hill, even if I don’t see and lock on the enemy. The shell landing circle just wobbles around and refuses to stay where I want. Sometimes, if you shoot at enemy that is behind a hill, you can get a lock on them, even if you were unable to do that with just your mouse. That’s how screwed up this aiming system is. The fact that the aiming system sometimes tells you to aim below the ship, even though the ship is going away from me at full speed (mentioned it earlier), also tells you how screwed up this whole system is and just slight buff or nerf here already tips the scale in a major way. I might switch to Naval RB for a while, but I hear there are even more aim bots there.

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To put it simply, US destroyers have ammo racks above waterline, so they go boom, all soviet ones except Blagorodnyy,Spokoinyy and Bravy aswell, and unlike US ones, they dont have the magical antifragmentation armor eating any spall created. And again, your K/D dropped cause the chinese bots stopped being afk using AI gunners since these got disabled and started utilizing aimbot in past few months. Which is why accounts with 2k games where majority is on premium ship totally decimates enemies.