Which is the best Naval BR to play?

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Thus far I’ve ground through the coastal up to Tier 4 and the Bluewater up to the first Light Cruisers (5.3) in the British tree. Bit of USSR and Japanese coastal too. The latter being particularly good fun.

Was thoroughly sick of the Moffat spam though once you get almost exclusively heavy and light cruisers in the game it seems as though the gameplay is just sitting behind an island and spamming. Or worse on an uptier the BCs just sit in the open and spam the spawns. Seems to be good for silver lions, but not much fun. Few times I’ve used a coastal boat to cap then realised that noone on the enemy side has even spawned in my half of the map, they’re all clustered around a couple of islands close to the heavy spawn.

So which nation and tier is the most competitive, fun or best for making silver? Also which blue water line is the hardest? Are there any which require mastering a particular playstyle?

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So the static gameplay is half due to the bots, and half due to the current game mode and map design. The premium spam is mostly due to the bots. Most humans actually move around instead of island camping, since they care about winning and know they’ll lose if they don’t contest the cap points.

USA and USSR 4.7~6.0 would be the most competitive, fun, and lucrative, if not for the constant uptiers and static gameplay from all the botting. Currently I find 4.3 destroyers and coastals to be the most competitive and fun, if somewhat less lucrative than higher tiers. You don’t see any 5.7~6.3 cruisers which are popular with bots, and you can actually get quite a few full downtiers(where the only bots are Gaijin official bots). 5.3 cruisers are a rare sight. Most of the time the worst you can see will be 4.7~5.0 destroyers(mostly using bots) and cruisers which you can deal with, with some skill and luck.

Coastal in general is also competitive and dynamic and fun, but the BR compression is even more insane than bluewaters, and most small gun-only boats can’t do anything against frigates and destroyers. The queue times for lower BR coastal can be quite excessive as well.

I’d say the Italian bluewater tree is the hardest, as their only decent ships are at rank 4, with ranks 1~3 being the absolute worst and rank 5 only being ahead of France(which is grossly incomplete). But Italy is hard in a frustrating way, and not in a challenging and fun way, so if the latter is what you want, don’t try Italy. The Japanese tree(up until about rank 4) is about the only one that requires mastering a particular playstyle, that of using torpedoes as your main weapon instead of guns. IMHO that is also mostly frustrating and not challenging and fun.

But what I really think you should aim for is getting some good 5.7+ ships and playing naval EC(Enduring Confrontation) with them. It’s a great multi-hour experience on huge maps with various different objectives. It’s much more dynamic and quite different from the ‘normal’ maps and game modes. Not having any bots about, and having many human players actually working together is also a plus. Queue times can stretch as long as an hour though(usually much shorter than that but still very long compared to normal matches), and the servers can be unstable at times. And the rewards(both RP and SL) are less than normal matches on a per unit of time basis.

Naval EC is available every week from Thursday 11:00 UTC to Monday 11:00 UTC. It rotates between AB(which is actually pseudo RB with torp/bomb/rocket/etc reloads, AB torp warning distances, enemy vehicle names on scoreboard, and using AB BRs and reward modifiers) and RB difficulty every 24hrs. So it’s pseudo RB from Thursday 11:00 UTC to Friday 11:00 UTC and from Saturday 11:00 UTC to Sunday 11:00 UTC, and true RB from Friday 11:00 UTC to Saturday 11:00 UTC and from Sunday 11:00 UTC to Monday 11:00 UTC. Make sure to read the mode description in the even tab, as there are some requirements and restrictions.

Hope this helps!

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Thanks for the helpful reply.

After I wrote that I thought, why not take my own advice and play Japanese blue water as I enjoyed their coastal craft. Absolutely loved it. Tanky fantastic handling destroyers with powerful guns and turrets that you have to plan a week in advance for. Creeping up on island squatters and lacing them with torps. Having played such on Wows probably helps and if you get caught out in the open and focussed it’s a bit frustrating though I’ve had some really excellent games. I particularly like being more selective over what to fire at and where.

Did pop into EC too which was quite an experience. Why on earth is this locked behind tier 4.7 and only for RB one day a week? Felt much more realistic though as you point out you need something quite a bit higher to be competitive as it was a long range open water slug fest where most people bring CAs, CLs or higher. Seems like a brilliant game mode, shame they don’t do a lower tier version of it as they’re locking most of the player base out.

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Fun is subjective, but imo, the US line is a blast. It is competitive, and if you have access I believe it’s the most profitable if you’re willing to invest in premium ships. I currently run with the Moffett and USS Detroit, with a backup on each. Both are 5.0 in Naval RB. They both have +462 RP and +1800 SL. Even if you don’t have the Detroit, which was in a battle pass, you can also get the Frank Knox or Cowell both at 4.7 and pair them with the Moffett. The .3br difference isn’t going to effect you much. The Cowell has the same bonuses as the Moffett, the Knox just a tad lower. In addition playing at 4.7-5 you get a bit of a mix of ships to fight against. You’ll still see a few coastal ships, lots of destroyers, light cruisers and maybe a few Heavy Cruisers, but you avoid the majority of heavy and will not see any Battleships. So, while there will always be a few stationary players who just sit in the back or behind islands and lob, at this level you see a lot more maneuvering and closing battles than you do higher up.

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5.3 is what I’ve been playing a lot of, with HMS Dido. Can’t say I’ve seen much manoeuvring, if I cap with a coastal then I’m almost always the only one. Which tends to win the game as noone else seems to cap at all, though is barely worth it oddly. Use a very low rank speedboat and the reward is peanuts, use something a bit higher, 200% sort of range, and you’re left with loads of targets 7-8k away and no hope of getting close to them. So you can either J out, I think that’s the only way (?), or head across open water for a looong time before getting blatted. Then spawn into the CL with everything 12km away and get focussed by a Prinz Eugen hiding behind an island…

Gave the first 4 Italian tubs a go… Painful, very painful. Especially the Dardo. Had a semi interesting mong fest with another Dardo. We ended up 2 km away from each other circling. His rear turret always missed, so did mine, kind of a crosseyed destroyer. So just 2 4inch guns plinking away for an embarrassing amount of time. At one point our salvos both took out each other’s forward turrets… I’m going to assume they don’t get any better though I did quite like the Aquila with it’s forward firing torps.

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Nice to know I helped.

Good to hear that you had a good experience with Japanese destroyers.

EC is available 4 days a week but rotates between difficulty levels, as I explained above. It really is a great game mode compared to the ‘normal’ naval modes, and it’s a shame lower BRs aren’t allowed in.

At 2km and closer, it’s normal for any ship to get “crosseyed”. It’s a fault of the aiming system. You have to shoot your front turret(s) first(use the ‘ranging fire’ controls) and then shoot the rear turret(s) with a different aim. Italy’s destroyers and early cruisers all suck and it does get better at rank 4 as I said, and it’s arguably better than British, German, and Japanese rank 4. But their rank 5 is a disappointment again.

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Hey @Spinflight

I know I’m late to the party here, but I thought I would add my 2 pennies on EC mode. It’s the only naval mode I play once I’ve researched everything on a ship. I have all of the US ships at this point I can say that it is my favorite country for Naval mode. I’m a US player in general but I have found that the British ships are quite enjoyable as well.

I think that they limit EC mode for a few reasons. But note that you must have a 4.7 to 5.0 ship in your lineup, but as long as you have one, you can use anything from 3.3 to 7.0. On the US tree, there are quite a few options for Coastal equipment.

However, the maps are so large and the games so long that even if you could use any rank, you would quickly be frustrated. The lower tier ships are plenty fast, but very unstable on the open waters in this mode. I do keep a fast boat (US PT-811) in my lineup for quick hits with torpedoes if there is a close enough spawn. The problem is, once we’ve played for a while and people start spawning in Battleships and Battlecruisers, you’re pretty much a one-shot points factory for them. It can get frustrating pretty fast to spend 5 minutes getting into the fight only to be nailed before you can fire all of your torps.

It’s worth it when you get a hit (and I always love getting that “Rank Doesn’t Matter” award for sinking a Battleship, but that can get old too. The only thing I can think of is to may suggest to Gaijin an EC mode for lower classes, with a smaller map (between Random Battle and EC size) with a rating between 1.0 and what? 4.7 or 5.0 maybe? I think that would give a good option for more fun and give beginning players a chance to get in on the EC fun. If you agree, you might post something like that in the suggestion forum.

And if you do, PM me and I will pass the word on and try to get some likes added plus my own. I would play that mode and I think a lot of other would too!

I hope I’ve been helpful and let me know what you decide! See you on the High Seas!

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