(source: NKNKN, Reddit)
Yesterday I said I’d do this, so I did it 🙂 Just some stats to compare for reference.
First sheet shows turning radii changes, second shows changes for HE guns. I listed the HE changes by gun because it was more compact that way. I put the guns into categories based on their names, damage, and fire chance (I’m aware that some of the guns in the same category have different AP damage values, but I didn’t bother separating them since this patch only changed HE).
Things of note:
- St. Louis is, as far as I can see, the only ship that is not a battleship or an aircraft carrier which has received an increase in its turning radius, from 380m to 450m. The Chester’s radius is 460m and the Phoenix’s is 630m, so this makes a bit of sense (plus St. Louis was already a strong ship for its tier). No destroyers or other cruisers have had their radii changed.
- USN battleships overall have gotten their radii increased slightly more than the Japanese, except at tier 9 and 10 where it is the opposite. The general trend is that at tiers 3 to 8, all IJN battleships turn worse than USN battleships, while at the top end Iowa and Montana are less maneuverable than Izumo and Yamato. Overall all radii for battleships have been increased.
- Carriers drive like shit now, which is slightly hilarious to me. Lexington now holds the record for longest turning radius in-game (unless it’s Taiho or Hakuryu, I don’t have those ships to check) at 1180m, Shokaku and Essex following close behind at 1130m and 1120m. I’m concerned this will lower the ability of carriers of either nation to avoid early-game yolo torpedo runs from the opposing carrier(s), which will probably be further detrimental to carrier gameplay (one side’s CVs will die early and the other side’s will dominate the skies for the rest of the game). Concerned.
- Fire chance on guns does not appear to have been tweaked, although Pyromania has, as said, been lowered from +5% to +3%.
- Interestingly, Warspite is the only battleship that has not had its turning radius tweaked. It’s the second tightest-turning battleship in-game now behind South Carolina, where previously it was 7th.
- I̶ ̶p̶l̶a̶y̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶ ̶m̶a̶t̶c̶h̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶Z̶a̶o̶ ̶e̶a̶r̶l̶i̶e̶r̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶D̶e̶s̶ ̶M̶o̶i̶n̶e̶s̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶s̶t̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶b̶u̶l̶l̶s̶h̶i̶t̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶r̶
- There’s no way to see in the game client how AP deflection or plane slowdown has been tweaked. I now realise I could’ve compared the new Japanese bombers to the old ones but I didn’t jot down the old values for those, so my bad 🙁
- Watching this video shows that the HE nerfs have not nerfed HE shells to anywhere near the level of before 0.3.1.0, as far as I can see. At least we know WG has not “pendulum’d” too far back the other way, as HE at the levels pre-0.3.1.0 was, as we all know, mostly useless.
Let’s see how these changes affect the game in the coming days…
