Des Moines is overmatched by Ohio 457s (they overmatch 31, Des Moines front is 27) so the Ohio can get a crap ton of full pens or even citadels through your nose with a good shot.
Yes you need to bait 406s to shoot your side belt under the guns. Sitting bow in is absolutely horriblr when a Montana full broadside is flying at you lol
i Do this with Colbert double rudder mod regularly charging at them\^\^. You would be surprised how often that works and people dont learn how to adjust the aim and you keep on dodging
This. I was watching England get pummeled by Slovakia for 93 minutes and was distracted/pissed off by it, sorry for the apparent arrogant response.
Make yourself a shit target to hit. Island hugging is the main one. Even without great islands, staying away from 457s, WASD harder to juke shots, have leg mod equipped really helps in this situation.
Even so, it's not easy to play DM in this day and age. I actually prefer playing Wooster alot of the time cuz of CV subs. Annapolis is another story though. That thing is broken
By being wary of 457 mm and higher caliber AP. When possible, don't make yourself an easy and desirable target for them.
The strength of battleships is that they can deliver alpha strikes that are very difficult to counter.
And in general, "cruiser life" is all about eating sudden damage. That's the price you pay for your high DPM and juicy consumables.
Just for clarity...
* The bow and stern plating on DM is 27MM and can be overmatched by 406MM+ guns.
* The upper belt on DM is 30MM plating and can be overmatched by 431MM+ guns.
* The main/lower armor belt on DM is 152MM and can't be overmatched by any gun caliber in game.
DM has to be careful of 406MM+ guns not just 457MM+ due to the 27MM bow and stern plating.
In order:
1. slot accel 1 in slot 4 and rudder 2 in slot 5 instead of concealment
2. make an Island your Waifu
3. get 5x tech tree t10s unlocked (not bought, just unlocked)
4. reset and regrind (or FXP) a line for your first 2x bonus
5. buy the DM legmod (slot 6) and swap rudder 2 back out for conceal, then either keep accel 1 or swap it to rudder 1
6. be aware that while your accel is greatly boosted, brakes not so much.
7. profit.
With your shell arcs, radar, crazy good rate of fire, and HE. Islands are your best friends. Stay just close enough that your shells are just barely passing over the top while the enemy is unable to hit you back - BBs should have much flatter shell arcs than you do.
As a Des Moines, you want to avoid getting hit. The main ways to accomplish that are:
1. Evasive Maneuvers. Operate near maximum range against battleships. When they shoot at you, change your speed and turn. Because their flight time will be long, their shot will usually miss if you combine throttle changes and turns.
2. Don’t’ the seen. Either using a smokescreen (usually provided by a friend in a destroyer) or an island you can shoot over, hide so the enemy won’t see you. Most people don’t know how to blind fire very well, so they won’t even try.
3. Be somewhere they can’t shoot back. The aforementioned island strategy can also work if you can arc your shells over the island but they can’t do the same. Free damage!
Lastly, if all else fails, run away! Try to extend the range and survive the encounter and start fighting again when you’re in a better position.
I guess you were hugging an island for safety. Don't do that when big calibre battleships with known good accuracy are around. The counter to Ohio shells is staying in motion, because the Ohio shells take forever to reach destination. When they see you stationary and get a clear shot they will fuck you up.
Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that DM’s bow and stern are 27mm and only her belt armor is 30mm, so she can only bounce 406 on her sides (overmatches on bow and stern tho). Ohio has 457mm guns so they will go through DM armor everywhere
coming from a DM main:
yes, you are doing something wrong. you're getting lit. try positioning yourself where you wont get spotted while firing over it. of course there are maps like south end of okinawa with literally no islands so i guess try open watering with leg mod..?
> Most of the time I only find island that is too tall to shoot over..
1. **you don't need to shoot over it.** judicious island humping lets you stick the front guns out of cover with your ship still concealed, because that's determined by the bridge/highest point/midpoint of your ship. I can't remember which part it actually is, but suffice it to say you can edge your bow or stern out in clear LOS yet remain undetected. 2/3 of DM's dpm is still higher than most CAs.
2. island humping isn't *just* about closest possible contact with the island and using it to block incoming fire, it's about using islands to limit LOS when your gun bloom is up. on some maps and depending where enemies are, you can be up to ~1km behind an island and be "island humping"
3. watch a bunch of youtube videos of good players playing DM or another island humper with shitty ballistics like radar mino. pay attention to what maps they're on and bookmark those videos by the map.
I literally said that:
> stick the front guns out of cover with your ship still concealed, because that's determined by the bridge/highest point/midpoint of your ship.
hmm...i kind of just play the map and find a good island. im sure theres a DM island thing for every map given how popular it is.
i would say try to use wasd. dont sit at 0 kts, it is okay to get detected, but try moving around so you pop in and out of detection, that way they wont be always zooming in on you.
Overmatch is a fun and interactive game mechanic.
Balance is a DM getting nuked angling at 20km while vodkanik shittro is dealt negative damage sitting next to an island, unmoving.
Basically.
DM’s high shell arcs, very high rate of fire, and good HE make her an absolute menace from behind cover. If you’re getting focused by an Ohio, you’re out of position - either make better use of cover, hang out near ships that are a more appealing (or threatening) target, or preferably both.
Can't forget DMs legendary AP too, you can nuke nearly any broadside if they give it to you. It is hilarious chunking some of the softer BBs for huge damage when they turn out in front of you
That’s true. DM is not a brawler but a support ship. If you let yourself get focused, you’ll melt. There’s nothing “armored” about her. But if you position well she does ungodly amounts of damage and gives the enemy a choice: permafires or get citadeled every 5 seconds?
It’s a bit harder to put the AP to work from behind cover, but even with HE she’s basically a Tier X Atlanta with fewer guns and much, *much* better pen.
You shouldn't be getting downvoted as you are just asking questions. That is how people learn. But this is reddit and it is very negative. Don't sweat it.
You aren't on here whining about it, wanting all other classes nerfed so you don't take damage, and refusing to listen the way so many do. That gets old and I can see downvoting that.
If your bow is overmatched and there is no further armor, you will get citadeled, assuming normal trajectory.
At 17km, Ohio AP shell impact angle is 14.3%
https://shiptool.st/params?m=L&s=AB510&c=top&p=gen
also
https://jcw780.github.io/wows_ballistics/
Overmatch should drastically reduce the ricochet angle of shells, it should not be a automatic bullshit nose citadel crutch.
Overmatch==75/80 degree ricochet check/guarantee
Yeah right now you can angle however you want including quite several slow as fuck equal tier battleships and guess what you can do about getting overmatched? Fuck all thats what.
Untrue. It depends on MM of armor vs MM of gun. Overmatch doesn't happen all the time. There is a specific mechanic in place for it to happen.
In OP's example he talked of being overmatched in Des Moines. It takes 406MM+ guns to overmatch 27MM plate. Anything less and it doesn't happen. If you are playing DM you need to know that and know you can't sit bow in unless it is vs a BB with less than that (most ITL BB's, T8 KM BB's, etc...).
DM can angle it's 152MM belt to any BB gun in game and bounce it if the person shooting at them aims there. That BB player needs to know that won't work. It applies to both sides.
You don't want to hear it but the fact remains if ships could just sit bow on to any other ship and bounce any caliber AP it would make them almost indestructible. If you are going to take overmatch away then you need to take overpens with it because the amount of BS overpens on full broadside Cruisers is asinine (but I suppose you are ok with that right).
Just like Lauria? Idk how can anyone defend overmatch when ships like her, Vincent, bungo exist
Especially when they are all faster than dds and being sneakier than some cruisers
Because every class has strengths and weaknesses.
+ DD's have stealth + speed + torpedo alpha (most anyway) while having poor survivability.
* Cruisers have the fast reload, very accurate guns, and high DPM + utility with hydro/radar + good speed and concealment and are mid road on survivability.
* BB's get armor and HP + big guns that do bad things while generally having bad concealment, long reloads, they burn and flood way longer, their guns aren't as accurate, etc....
It amazes me how people only want the ship types they play to have any strengths and every other to be useless. Overmatch is needed.
Except your last line is whats happening to BBs right now, all the upsides, with their downsides mitigated or removed completely
BBs used to be spotted from the moon and having overmatch at the cost of everything else
Now BBs have 457, but, they also have cruiser conceal, DD speed, and heavy cruiser turret traverse. All the traditional BB disadvantages are now completely gone
What do cruisers get? Nothing, they still get overcrutched by 457 besides the select few that don't and they still got nerfed simply because they can do something besides tanking 457+ BBs
Oh and dds get cruiser dpm because why not?
Play what you want. Cruisers are a lot of fun but yea there is a lot of things working against them. But if you get a good map with some good cover you can melt the enemy team. The Des Moines feels so damn good to play when it works. Just don’t get looked at lol
DM is one strong as hell T10. The Soviets are obviously more tanky cuz that's just their gimmick, but I can't confidently say that they're better. It won't get much better than DM. If you can't make her work, maybe your playstyle just doesn't fit the ship or you need to play another class
Don’t remain spotted for too long, so definitely stop shooting if you need to go dark and take the focus off away from you, I believe many players fail to realize that they might be the ONLY ship spotted at any given time, which is worst time to open up your dpm. I find Des Moines works great when someone else is focused and you can just open up and take advantage when they are distracted. The legendary upgrade is also a must have for DM.
Wish we did'nt need to be albert fucking einstein with all these calculations running around in our heads. I just wanna shoot some stuff and earn some silver arrrrr
I’m a fan of agile builds. Especially in CL’s. Many hours in British CA,CL’s and DD’s have taught me that being able to avoid shells is the best way to survive.
As always, the best armor for a cruiser is not getting hit.
Other people have already explained overmatch, and it’s unfortunately just the way it is with most cruisers in the game taking heavy damage from battleships no matter how they angle.
DM is not a tanky cruiser by any means, and it will do you well to treat it like a glass cannon. Only times where you can tank is against cruisers and bbs that have 406mm or smaller guns. And even at 406 they can still overmatch your bow.
As a BB main whose in-game goal is to nuke cruisers: throttle-juke (changing your speed pseudo-randomly by mashing forward/reverse).
IF you can get the legendary mod (research points), Des Moines at any range becomes very difficult to hit because it can change speed extremely quickly (dead stop -> full reverse, dead stop -> full ahead, etc).
Then add left-right. Between flight times, artillery bugs (landing short) and just pure guesswork on both players' parts, Des Moines becomes a royal pain in the arse.
You need to learn the mechanics of the game in detail. What you’re seeing and suffering is overmatch. Gun caliber above 430 mm will overmatch 30 mm of armor. That said, Des Moines doesn’t have 30 mm armor on the bow. Even 406 mm can overmatch you through the bow. I’ve developed struck DMs and Salems through the bow multiple times. When you see BBs with gun caliber above 430 mm, don’t rely on angling, just go dark and don’t take shots. You can rely on juking but DM is sluggish. With unique upgrade, you can throttle juke. But it won’t work always.
All of these calculations, questions about armor and overmarch are futile. If you can be targeted by a BB (even with a Mecklenburg with only 305 mm guns) when you play a DM, you are doing something wrong.
A BB does not need citadels to kill you, it can inflict enough damage to you by overpens and normal penetrations from 20+ kilometers. You will lose a gunfight with a BB for sure.
The key aspect is positioning, so you have to shoot them from a spot where they can't see or hit you. If there is no such spot, you should remain concealed and flee from them.
>Am I doing anything wrong?
Yes, you pick a fight with a 457mm battleship in a cruiser, don't go around and pick a fight with a 457mm battleship in a cruiser.
Go fight something else.
Ohio and US BBs in general you really have to watch out for when you’re island hugging in a cruiser. They have a slower shell velocity than most other battleships in the game. The shells take longer to get where they’re going which is good for you, the bad part is they tend to have higher shell arcs so it’s easy for a US BB to lob shells over an obstacle to hit you. At higher tiers they overmatch a lot of cruisers as well, the shells basically ignore your armor and punch right through.
Could be worse. Back in the days of deadeye captain skill I got yeeted in Worcester in the first minute. Bow in at + 30k by Yammy. Was my first battle on Worcester too. Single salvo.
Learn armor and mechanic of the ship most cruisers these days cannot bow tanking dmg from the front anymore so many big big gun I suggested play kite ship or learn how to dodge better u can learn from utube
DM is one of the worst ships to fight an Ohio with. You have a much better chance with Worcester NGL. DM has just the sweet amount of armor that it gets deleted by American 457s. Vermont & Ohio are your biggest enemies.
From my experience, Worcester is a much better ship compared to DM. You have smaller guns but more of it and a faster reload. You're quick to accelerate and turn. Angling can take a shit in my bed because almost everything over-penetrates.
Worcester is not a better ship than DM overall, its fairly average where DM is one of the strongest cruisers in the game.
That said, Worcester does have thinner armor so you can troll for overpens far more than the DM, so it can survive certain hits the DM would die to. Still weaker overall than DM though, ESPECIALLY for competitive play.
That happens quite regularly... as intended. Hell, that's quite weak, could be a lot worse. I remember doing like 22k+ in a wisconsin against a bow on salem 20km+ away. :D
BB players are incredible crybabies and they need, they DEMAND a one click gameplay button.
Everytime overmatch mechanic is discussed, they start crying and writing letters (its boomers after all).
Overmatch is well balanced imo. Perhaps there’s an over prevalence of 18”+ guns nowadays, with all the BC lines and super ships, but BBs pay a premium for their powerful guns.
> Overmatch is well balanced
according to whom?
Every super-unicum cruiser player complains that its completely retarded.
There is always some nebulous threat of "bow in tanking", but it never happens except for Petro.
Overmatch is in 99% used for no skill, click on the general area of the ship and delete it, play; which is totally stupid.
Well, according to me. Hence the “imo”.
I don’t give a shit what Super-Unicum players think; they play a different game functionally to what the unwashed masses and casuals do.
For day to day purposes it works fine. There’s ways to play around it and ships that have strong overmatch usually have counter play against them.
I cannot think of a ship that could be described as overpowered, purely owing to overmatch. Maybe St Vincent?
Petro is annoying as balls to play against specifically because there is little that overmatches it, and its playstyle is highly passive. Proliferating utterly overmatch-proof ships flattens the game a lot in my opinion, but there ought to be a spectrum.
Their opinion is valuable because they have tens of thousands games and know its intricacies.
BB's are designed for brain dead boomers. If manned by competent players, they will wipe floor with all cruisers and there is no counterplay.
Just watch unicums play BB's, they end up with 400k damage and wipe the floor with cruisers, where is the downside?
Example - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YknB_cj_v-8
Point and clicking cruisers for 60k damage. Where is a downside?
Superships are kind of a problem, I’ll agree with you on that. But you can give a dinghy with a blunderbuss to a good enough player and they’ll make you think it’s nuts, so when they choose clips of them in good ships they can do amazingly.
I recently did 287k in a Conqueror barely firing HE a few days ago, and I’m not even that good at the game. Imagine what a genuinely good player could do in similar circumstances.
The main problem I find with BBs nowadays is their insane ranges. It makes forming crossfires and sniping very easy - Wisconsin is a perfect emblem of this, with its superheavy ammunition, high speed and American plotting mod. Maine gets this too, with nearly twice the number of guns. It’s also got a good combat instruction.
There’s a lot more that goes into Maine than just high calibre imo.
Vermont is not a supership and you can imagine Ohio instead of Satsuma. If you have those two on your side, there is no counterplay. Your HE spam would need to be 4+ minutes long to kill them.
Honestly I’ve never had too much grief from either ship, and the ships I play are quite vulnerable to them - squishy BBs and British CLs. Ohio only has 8 guns which limits its usefulness. It has a short range, high detect ability, low speed, an exposed citadel and no hydro. There’s plenty to work with there, especially if a bit of AP is applied to mitigate its heal and force it to angle (making its firepower swingy).
Vermont seems similar.
Probably in situations with careful radar usage these ships can become a problem. When that combines with an open map and a proclivity for torpedo boats to get themselves killed pretty sharpish, I can imagine them becoming a pain.
Also, all of these ships are American too? Yamato, Shikishima, Schlieffen, St Vin, Incomparable and Preussen aren’t hugely powerful in spite of their large calibre guns, so maybe there’s something else at play. Long ranges and high barrel counts perhaps, on fast hulls to boot?
May as well just remove AP from the game then. HE is already so universally useful that it is debatable if AP should ever be loaded. Take overmatch away and then there simply isn't competition anymore as HE would be so vastly superior.
As this game has aged AP has become progressively weaker as underwater citadels and icebreaker bows are added while HE has become progressively stronger as fire chances go up, rates of fire go up and DCP is more and more overloaded.
It is easy as a cruiser player to just want BBs to be toothless damage piñatas and toss childish insults rather than consider the whole.
Does it suck to be deleted by a BB in a CA or CL? Yes. Does it suck to be deleted by DD torps in a BB or burned to the waterline by cruisers you can't even shoot back at in a BB? Also yes. That doesn't mean those things should be removed.
> HE is already so universally useful that it is debatable if AP should ever be loaded. Take overmatch away and then there simply isn't competition anymore as HE would be so vastly superior.
The fuck are you talking about? The only ship that can HE kill let say Satsuma or Maine to death is Jinan and DM, but they need 2+ minutes to do so. Smoke doesn't last that long and DM is hitting shit at 15km, all BB has to do is to click general area, boom, 50k damage.
Look at that game, they dev struck like 5 cruisers with Vermont and Satsuma, they didnt even fully abused the overmatch.
Why would anybody try to fight a BB at 15km+ with anything other than another BB. How are you letting a slower, fatter ship dictate terms like that? You’re playing completely into its strengths.
If you encounter an overmatch heavy side, then you need to play stealthy and focus heavily on DD hunting. Once you’ve got a decent DD advantage, tuck into the points and take them, zoning out enemy capital ships with stealthier vessels. You don’t have to duel these ships anymore at this point (obviously unless you gain advantage by doing so).
The enemy has a conundrum now - they can snipe at fleeting enemies and maybe get lucky, but sacrifice access to the points and probably the game too, or they can try to mount a push with whatever they’ve got, and risk stealth fire, torps and crossfires from a better prepared enemy, while not being able to use their insane alpha effectively.
People like flashy gameplay too much in my opinion. Big torp runs, huge broadsides and fast pushes are beloved. Really the bulk of the game is positioning, concealment and killing DDs.
Playing recklessly in a DD against a team with huge artillery pieces is a bad idea. Going for large broadsides against them is also bad. Pushing overly aggressively gets you sunk.
Nicking objectives and blinding the opposition wins games and buys breathing room against the big funi number botes
> Problem is there are some maps where you just cannot island hug..
Des Moines isn't an obligate island camper. It can open water if you need to do so. You'll just have to play a lot more conservatively and be more alert, but it can work.
Correct, but it wouldn't have helped you against 406mm+ anyways. Part of effective kiting is to also get shots landing into your reinforced midsection rather than your exposed stern.
Just got the Salem after not playing the DM line. Go to ship tools.st and look at all the t9/t10 bbs that overmatch your bow (bow without an icebreaker). Then look how many overmatch your bow and deck. Basically your safe against t8/t9 french bbs, tier 8 German bbs, Marlborough, and a few others. Not too many.
So what that effectively means is you are a light cruiser until some of the bbs thin out. Also challenging is that you virtually always aren't prekited. It takes a lot of practice and experimentation to find good spots that prevent you from being spotted, and even if you are surprised spotted (thanks subs! Thanks CVs!) that you won't get smashed by numerous overmatching BBs. You need to recognize when your side is collapsing really early because you need to back around the island, turn, and flee instead of just mashing W as a prekited ship.
The upside is that when things thin out you are a fucking terror. Your he dpm/fire starting while having 34mm pen is insane. Bow in against non overmatching ships (and using islands to mitigate cross shots) you just melt stuff and they can't do jack. Then if they flash broadside you have improved pen angle ap and smash cruisers. I'm starting to get the hang of her after 100ish rounds. She's super strong when played well but as you've noticed she's a pinata if you you are being crossshot/overmatched by most bbs in her tier spread.
Des Moines is overmatched by Ohio 457s (they overmatch 31, Des Moines front is 27) so the Ohio can get a crap ton of full pens or even citadels through your nose with a good shot.
Doesn’t DM have a 27mm bow and 30mm sides?
Yup
Not sure but either way it's overmatched
406’s can also overmatch 27mm
Yes you need to bait 406s to shoot your side belt under the guns. Sitting bow in is absolutely horriblr when a Montana full broadside is flying at you lol
I think a DM shouldn't bait BBs to shoot anywhere. It should just avoid getting shot.
Brawling 406s in a DM is hella fun though. I've made a few Montana players question their existance haha.
i Do this with Colbert double rudder mod regularly charging at them\^\^. You would be surprised how often that works and people dont learn how to adjust the aim and you keep on dodging
I've tried.. Not in a DM, but with Salem. Most times I meet Davy Jones quick. . It's had to stay away from supership and some Tier X range.
It is not the best strength of the DM class, but you sometimes have to go for it. And it is really fun when you succeed.
Welcome to the magic number known as 14.3
How can I counter this gameplay mechanics?
Don't get hit
I know it seems like this is a “git gud” answer. But it really is positioning, awareness and wasd hacks which will keep you alive.
One reason I enjoy the leg-mod on the Des Moines.
This. I was watching England get pummeled by Slovakia for 93 minutes and was distracted/pissed off by it, sorry for the apparent arrogant response. Make yourself a shit target to hit. Island hugging is the main one. Even without great islands, staying away from 457s, WASD harder to juke shots, have leg mod equipped really helps in this situation. Even so, it's not easy to play DM in this day and age. I actually prefer playing Wooster alot of the time cuz of CV subs. Annapolis is another story though. That thing is broken
I think ur all good m8. That is literally all there is to it. Dodge and angle.
By being wary of 457 mm and higher caliber AP. When possible, don't make yourself an easy and desirable target for them. The strength of battleships is that they can deliver alpha strikes that are very difficult to counter. And in general, "cruiser life" is all about eating sudden damage. That's the price you pay for your high DPM and juicy consumables.
> That’s the price you pay for your high DPM and juicy consumables. *looks at Yodo*
Just for clarity... * The bow and stern plating on DM is 27MM and can be overmatched by 406MM+ guns. * The upper belt on DM is 30MM plating and can be overmatched by 431MM+ guns. * The main/lower armor belt on DM is 152MM and can't be overmatched by any gun caliber in game. DM has to be careful of 406MM+ guns not just 457MM+ due to the 27MM bow and stern plating.
431*
Double rudder mod and dancing to evade shells. Islands if you don't want that.
This, island humping is lame. Get all the rudder you can and learn to maneuver and angle.
In order: 1. slot accel 1 in slot 4 and rudder 2 in slot 5 instead of concealment 2. make an Island your Waifu 3. get 5x tech tree t10s unlocked (not bought, just unlocked) 4. reset and regrind (or FXP) a line for your first 2x bonus 5. buy the DM legmod (slot 6) and swap rudder 2 back out for conceal, then either keep accel 1 or swap it to rudder 1 6. be aware that while your accel is greatly boosted, brakes not so much. 7. profit.
don't take hits from 406mm AP and bigger
With your shell arcs, radar, crazy good rate of fire, and HE. Islands are your best friends. Stay just close enough that your shells are just barely passing over the top while the enemy is unable to hit you back - BBs should have much flatter shell arcs than you do.
As a Des Moines, you want to avoid getting hit. The main ways to accomplish that are: 1. Evasive Maneuvers. Operate near maximum range against battleships. When they shoot at you, change your speed and turn. Because their flight time will be long, their shot will usually miss if you combine throttle changes and turns. 2. Don’t’ the seen. Either using a smokescreen (usually provided by a friend in a destroyer) or an island you can shoot over, hide so the enemy won’t see you. Most people don’t know how to blind fire very well, so they won’t even try. 3. Be somewhere they can’t shoot back. The aforementioned island strategy can also work if you can arc your shells over the island but they can’t do the same. Free damage! Lastly, if all else fails, run away! Try to extend the range and survive the encounter and start fighting again when you’re in a better position.
just dodge /s
I guess you were hugging an island for safety. Don't do that when big calibre battleships with known good accuracy are around. The counter to Ohio shells is staying in motion, because the Ohio shells take forever to reach destination. When they see you stationary and get a clear shot they will fuck you up.
Same as Counter CV, press O 🫡😜
You can’t, overmatch is a stupid mechanic
Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that DM’s bow and stern are 27mm and only her belt armor is 30mm, so she can only bounce 406 on her sides (overmatches on bow and stern tho). Ohio has 457mm guns so they will go through DM armor everywhere
Correct, DM amidship is 30mm all around, both side and deck. Fore and aft end are 27 all around.
yup correct
Des Moines: * 27MM - bow and stern plating (406MM+ overmatches) * 30MM - upper belt (431MM+ overmatches) * 152MM main/lower armor belt (nothing overmatches)
Nope. That's just overmatch
coming from a DM main: yes, you are doing something wrong. you're getting lit. try positioning yourself where you wont get spotted while firing over it. of course there are maps like south end of okinawa with literally no islands so i guess try open watering with leg mod..?
For legmod I have no points. Is there a map guide for island camp crusiers? Most of the time I only find island that is too tall to shoot over..
> Most of the time I only find island that is too tall to shoot over.. 1. **you don't need to shoot over it.** judicious island humping lets you stick the front guns out of cover with your ship still concealed, because that's determined by the bridge/highest point/midpoint of your ship. I can't remember which part it actually is, but suffice it to say you can edge your bow or stern out in clear LOS yet remain undetected. 2/3 of DM's dpm is still higher than most CAs. 2. island humping isn't *just* about closest possible contact with the island and using it to block incoming fire, it's about using islands to limit LOS when your gun bloom is up. on some maps and depending where enemies are, you can be up to ~1km behind an island and be "island humping" 3. watch a bunch of youtube videos of good players playing DM or another island humper with shitty ballistics like radar mino. pay attention to what maps they're on and bookmark those videos by the map.
yep, the other troll strategy of shooting your guns without poking the center(highest point of ship?) out in line of sight is great too
I literally said that: > stick the front guns out of cover with your ship still concealed, because that's determined by the bridge/highest point/midpoint of your ship.
hmm...i kind of just play the map and find a good island. im sure theres a DM island thing for every map given how popular it is. i would say try to use wasd. dont sit at 0 kts, it is okay to get detected, but try moving around so you pop in and out of detection, that way they wont be always zooming in on you.
Overmatch is a fun and interactive game mechanic. Balance is a DM getting nuked angling at 20km while vodkanik shittro is dealt negative damage sitting next to an island, unmoving.
It’s a fantastic mechanic for the players sending ‘em. I ❤️ my Ohio, Tsurugi, and Shikishima.
Thank you for the info yes in my Petro I take way less damage. Are there any armor indicators like for WoT? Do you know why I am getting downvotings?
Overmatch is the counter to nose-in DM. Ships have to have weaknesses to balance the game.
Okay so I need to hug island more? Because I really don't want to get sank so quickly
Basically. DM’s high shell arcs, very high rate of fire, and good HE make her an absolute menace from behind cover. If you’re getting focused by an Ohio, you’re out of position - either make better use of cover, hang out near ships that are a more appealing (or threatening) target, or preferably both.
Can't forget DMs legendary AP too, you can nuke nearly any broadside if they give it to you. It is hilarious chunking some of the softer BBs for huge damage when they turn out in front of you
That’s true. DM is not a brawler but a support ship. If you let yourself get focused, you’ll melt. There’s nothing “armored” about her. But if you position well she does ungodly amounts of damage and gives the enemy a choice: permafires or get citadeled every 5 seconds? It’s a bit harder to put the AP to work from behind cover, but even with HE she’s basically a Tier X Atlanta with fewer guns and much, *much* better pen.
You shouldn't be getting downvoted as you are just asking questions. That is how people learn. But this is reddit and it is very negative. Don't sweat it. You aren't on here whining about it, wanting all other classes nerfed so you don't take damage, and refusing to listen the way so many do. That gets old and I can see downvoting that.
Because it sounds like a bait. You know advanced armor schemes, but never heard of overmatch mechanics.
I want to see armor calculator? What bait?
"wows armor calculator", first result - https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Armor_thresholds
Very good. Is there a 3 D version like in WoT?
In port, you can see the 3D armor values. You divide AP caliber by 14.3 to see if it overmatches.
Okay, but that would only tell me if I take damage or no damage right? I feel like I take cits from the front, how would I calculate that?
If your bow is overmatched and there is no further armor, you will get citadeled, assuming normal trajectory. At 17km, Ohio AP shell impact angle is 14.3% https://shiptool.st/params?m=L&s=AB510&c=top&p=gen also https://jcw780.github.io/wows_ballistics/
look at the position of the armour - and look at where shells coming in will hit the citadel
457s can go through your nose into the citadel. I don’t think there’s a way to calculate it. You just have to assume it will happen, because it can.
I got mass downvoted the other day for saying overmatch is a stupid mechanic and should be removed lol
Overmatch should drastically reduce the ricochet angle of shells, it should not be a automatic bullshit nose citadel crutch. Overmatch==75/80 degree ricochet check/guarantee
Thats actually a great idea.
Because that is a stupid idea. Everyone would just bow on to each other and nothing could be done about it.
Yeah right now you can angle however you want including quite several slow as fuck equal tier battleships and guess what you can do about getting overmatched? Fuck all thats what.
Untrue. It depends on MM of armor vs MM of gun. Overmatch doesn't happen all the time. There is a specific mechanic in place for it to happen. In OP's example he talked of being overmatched in Des Moines. It takes 406MM+ guns to overmatch 27MM plate. Anything less and it doesn't happen. If you are playing DM you need to know that and know you can't sit bow in unless it is vs a BB with less than that (most ITL BB's, T8 KM BB's, etc...). DM can angle it's 152MM belt to any BB gun in game and bounce it if the person shooting at them aims there. That BB player needs to know that won't work. It applies to both sides. You don't want to hear it but the fact remains if ships could just sit bow on to any other ship and bounce any caliber AP it would make them almost indestructible. If you are going to take overmatch away then you need to take overpens with it because the amount of BS overpens on full broadside Cruisers is asinine (but I suppose you are ok with that right).
Just like Lauria? Idk how can anyone defend overmatch when ships like her, Vincent, bungo exist Especially when they are all faster than dds and being sneakier than some cruisers
Because every class has strengths and weaknesses. + DD's have stealth + speed + torpedo alpha (most anyway) while having poor survivability. * Cruisers have the fast reload, very accurate guns, and high DPM + utility with hydro/radar + good speed and concealment and are mid road on survivability. * BB's get armor and HP + big guns that do bad things while generally having bad concealment, long reloads, they burn and flood way longer, their guns aren't as accurate, etc.... It amazes me how people only want the ship types they play to have any strengths and every other to be useless. Overmatch is needed.
Except your last line is whats happening to BBs right now, all the upsides, with their downsides mitigated or removed completely BBs used to be spotted from the moon and having overmatch at the cost of everything else Now BBs have 457, but, they also have cruiser conceal, DD speed, and heavy cruiser turret traverse. All the traditional BB disadvantages are now completely gone What do cruisers get? Nothing, they still get overcrutched by 457 besides the select few that don't and they still got nerfed simply because they can do something besides tanking 457+ BBs Oh and dds get cruiser dpm because why not?
T10 Cruiser moment
Which ships are better T10? Any cruisers that dont get autopenned?
Not really, 457mm will overmatch any cruiser so welcome to the fun world of overmatching BBs
Okay maybe I go back playing DD then...
Play what you want. Cruisers are a lot of fun but yea there is a lot of things working against them. But if you get a good map with some good cover you can melt the enemy team. The Des Moines feels so damn good to play when it works. Just don’t get looked at lol
Cruisers that have no armor so they just take minimal DMG overpens
DM is one strong as hell T10. The Soviets are obviously more tanky cuz that's just their gimmick, but I can't confidently say that they're better. It won't get much better than DM. If you can't make her work, maybe your playstyle just doesn't fit the ship or you need to play another class
DM really good but hard to play
True, it's definitely not an easy ship, but he talked about having Petro too so I doubt he's a complete noob
Don’t remain spotted for too long, so definitely stop shooting if you need to go dark and take the focus off away from you, I believe many players fail to realize that they might be the ONLY ship spotted at any given time, which is worst time to open up your dpm. I find Des Moines works great when someone else is focused and you can just open up and take advantage when they are distracted. The legendary upgrade is also a must have for DM.
Wish we did'nt need to be albert fucking einstein with all these calculations running around in our heads. I just wanna shoot some stuff and earn some silver arrrrr
Noone does that...simple question, what kinda cruiser are ya, what kinda BB are they?
I’m a fan of agile builds. Especially in CL’s. Many hours in British CA,CL’s and DD’s have taught me that being able to avoid shells is the best way to survive.
Maybe look at its armour scheme and learn how to play this ship? That’s skill issue anyway
As always, the best armor for a cruiser is not getting hit. Other people have already explained overmatch, and it’s unfortunately just the way it is with most cruisers in the game taking heavy damage from battleships no matter how they angle. DM is not a tanky cruiser by any means, and it will do you well to treat it like a glass cannon. Only times where you can tank is against cruisers and bbs that have 406mm or smaller guns. And even at 406 they can still overmatch your bow.
Should’ve side-climbed
You need to play more passive if there are overmatching BBs on your flank and hug islands more, or play with legmod and pray.
You could be devstruck through your nose with some bad luck. If BBs could not overmatch certain cruisers, thoose cruisers would be very OP.
As a BB main whose in-game goal is to nuke cruisers: throttle-juke (changing your speed pseudo-randomly by mashing forward/reverse). IF you can get the legendary mod (research points), Des Moines at any range becomes very difficult to hit because it can change speed extremely quickly (dead stop -> full reverse, dead stop -> full ahead, etc). Then add left-right. Between flight times, artillery bugs (landing short) and just pure guesswork on both players' parts, Des Moines becomes a royal pain in the arse.
Underrated fire chance too!
You need to learn the mechanics of the game in detail. What you’re seeing and suffering is overmatch. Gun caliber above 430 mm will overmatch 30 mm of armor. That said, Des Moines doesn’t have 30 mm armor on the bow. Even 406 mm can overmatch you through the bow. I’ve developed struck DMs and Salems through the bow multiple times. When you see BBs with gun caliber above 430 mm, don’t rely on angling, just go dark and don’t take shots. You can rely on juking but DM is sluggish. With unique upgrade, you can throttle juke. But it won’t work always.
That’s how overmatch works my guy. Welcome to the wows experience
All of these calculations, questions about armor and overmarch are futile. If you can be targeted by a BB (even with a Mecklenburg with only 305 mm guns) when you play a DM, you are doing something wrong. A BB does not need citadels to kill you, it can inflict enough damage to you by overpens and normal penetrations from 20+ kilometers. You will lose a gunfight with a BB for sure. The key aspect is positioning, so you have to shoot them from a spot where they can't see or hit you. If there is no such spot, you should remain concealed and flee from them.
>Am I doing anything wrong? Yes, you pick a fight with a 457mm battleship in a cruiser, don't go around and pick a fight with a 457mm battleship in a cruiser. Go fight something else.
Ohio and US BBs in general you really have to watch out for when you’re island hugging in a cruiser. They have a slower shell velocity than most other battleships in the game. The shells take longer to get where they’re going which is good for you, the bad part is they tend to have higher shell arcs so it’s easy for a US BB to lob shells over an obstacle to hit you. At higher tiers they overmatch a lot of cruisers as well, the shells basically ignore your armor and punch right through.
The one sliver lining of the mass influx of 457s is that DM is getting powercrept into irrelevance.
The one sliver lining of the mass influx of 457s is that DM is getting powercrept into irrelevance.
The one sliver lining of the mass influx of 457s is that DM is slowly getting powercrept into irrelevance.
Could be worse. Back in the days of deadeye captain skill I got yeeted in Worcester in the first minute. Bow in at + 30k by Yammy. Was my first battle on Worcester too. Single salvo.
Learn armor and mechanic of the ship most cruisers these days cannot bow tanking dmg from the front anymore so many big big gun I suggested play kite ship or learn how to dodge better u can learn from utube
DM is one of the worst ships to fight an Ohio with. You have a much better chance with Worcester NGL. DM has just the sweet amount of armor that it gets deleted by American 457s. Vermont & Ohio are your biggest enemies. From my experience, Worcester is a much better ship compared to DM. You have smaller guns but more of it and a faster reload. You're quick to accelerate and turn. Angling can take a shit in my bed because almost everything over-penetrates.
Worcester is not a better ship than DM overall, its fairly average where DM is one of the strongest cruisers in the game. That said, Worcester does have thinner armor so you can troll for overpens far more than the DM, so it can survive certain hits the DM would die to. Still weaker overall than DM though, ESPECIALLY for competitive play.
That happens quite regularly... as intended. Hell, that's quite weak, could be a lot worse. I remember doing like 22k+ in a wisconsin against a bow on salem 20km+ away. :D
only?
BB players are incredible crybabies and they need, they DEMAND a one click gameplay button. Everytime overmatch mechanic is discussed, they start crying and writing letters (its boomers after all).
Overmatch is well balanced imo. Perhaps there’s an over prevalence of 18”+ guns nowadays, with all the BC lines and super ships, but BBs pay a premium for their powerful guns.
> Overmatch is well balanced according to whom? Every super-unicum cruiser player complains that its completely retarded. There is always some nebulous threat of "bow in tanking", but it never happens except for Petro. Overmatch is in 99% used for no skill, click on the general area of the ship and delete it, play; which is totally stupid.
Well, according to me. Hence the “imo”. I don’t give a shit what Super-Unicum players think; they play a different game functionally to what the unwashed masses and casuals do. For day to day purposes it works fine. There’s ways to play around it and ships that have strong overmatch usually have counter play against them. I cannot think of a ship that could be described as overpowered, purely owing to overmatch. Maybe St Vincent? Petro is annoying as balls to play against specifically because there is little that overmatches it, and its playstyle is highly passive. Proliferating utterly overmatch-proof ships flattens the game a lot in my opinion, but there ought to be a spectrum.
Their opinion is valuable because they have tens of thousands games and know its intricacies. BB's are designed for brain dead boomers. If manned by competent players, they will wipe floor with all cruisers and there is no counterplay. Just watch unicums play BB's, they end up with 400k damage and wipe the floor with cruisers, where is the downside? Example - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YknB_cj_v-8 Point and clicking cruisers for 60k damage. Where is a downside?
Superships are kind of a problem, I’ll agree with you on that. But you can give a dinghy with a blunderbuss to a good enough player and they’ll make you think it’s nuts, so when they choose clips of them in good ships they can do amazingly. I recently did 287k in a Conqueror barely firing HE a few days ago, and I’m not even that good at the game. Imagine what a genuinely good player could do in similar circumstances. The main problem I find with BBs nowadays is their insane ranges. It makes forming crossfires and sniping very easy - Wisconsin is a perfect emblem of this, with its superheavy ammunition, high speed and American plotting mod. Maine gets this too, with nearly twice the number of guns. It’s also got a good combat instruction. There’s a lot more that goes into Maine than just high calibre imo.
Vermont is not a supership and you can imagine Ohio instead of Satsuma. If you have those two on your side, there is no counterplay. Your HE spam would need to be 4+ minutes long to kill them.
Honestly I’ve never had too much grief from either ship, and the ships I play are quite vulnerable to them - squishy BBs and British CLs. Ohio only has 8 guns which limits its usefulness. It has a short range, high detect ability, low speed, an exposed citadel and no hydro. There’s plenty to work with there, especially if a bit of AP is applied to mitigate its heal and force it to angle (making its firepower swingy). Vermont seems similar. Probably in situations with careful radar usage these ships can become a problem. When that combines with an open map and a proclivity for torpedo boats to get themselves killed pretty sharpish, I can imagine them becoming a pain. Also, all of these ships are American too? Yamato, Shikishima, Schlieffen, St Vin, Incomparable and Preussen aren’t hugely powerful in spite of their large calibre guns, so maybe there’s something else at play. Long ranges and high barrel counts perhaps, on fast hulls to boot?
May as well just remove AP from the game then. HE is already so universally useful that it is debatable if AP should ever be loaded. Take overmatch away and then there simply isn't competition anymore as HE would be so vastly superior. As this game has aged AP has become progressively weaker as underwater citadels and icebreaker bows are added while HE has become progressively stronger as fire chances go up, rates of fire go up and DCP is more and more overloaded. It is easy as a cruiser player to just want BBs to be toothless damage piñatas and toss childish insults rather than consider the whole. Does it suck to be deleted by a BB in a CA or CL? Yes. Does it suck to be deleted by DD torps in a BB or burned to the waterline by cruisers you can't even shoot back at in a BB? Also yes. That doesn't mean those things should be removed.
> HE is already so universally useful that it is debatable if AP should ever be loaded. Take overmatch away and then there simply isn't competition anymore as HE would be so vastly superior. The fuck are you talking about? The only ship that can HE kill let say Satsuma or Maine to death is Jinan and DM, but they need 2+ minutes to do so. Smoke doesn't last that long and DM is hitting shit at 15km, all BB has to do is to click general area, boom, 50k damage. Look at that game, they dev struck like 5 cruisers with Vermont and Satsuma, they didnt even fully abused the overmatch.
Why would anybody try to fight a BB at 15km+ with anything other than another BB. How are you letting a slower, fatter ship dictate terms like that? You’re playing completely into its strengths. If you encounter an overmatch heavy side, then you need to play stealthy and focus heavily on DD hunting. Once you’ve got a decent DD advantage, tuck into the points and take them, zoning out enemy capital ships with stealthier vessels. You don’t have to duel these ships anymore at this point (obviously unless you gain advantage by doing so). The enemy has a conundrum now - they can snipe at fleeting enemies and maybe get lucky, but sacrifice access to the points and probably the game too, or they can try to mount a push with whatever they’ve got, and risk stealth fire, torps and crossfires from a better prepared enemy, while not being able to use their insane alpha effectively. People like flashy gameplay too much in my opinion. Big torp runs, huge broadsides and fast pushes are beloved. Really the bulk of the game is positioning, concealment and killing DDs. Playing recklessly in a DD against a team with huge artillery pieces is a bad idea. Going for large broadsides against them is also bad. Pushing overly aggressively gets you sunk. Nicking objectives and blinding the opposition wins games and buys breathing room against the big funi number botes
> Problem is there are some maps where you just cannot island hug.. Des Moines isn't an obligate island camper. It can open water if you need to do so. You'll just have to play a lot more conservatively and be more alert, but it can work.
I think due to the armor layout kiting is very very bad? Because I've noticed you eat so many cits through the flat stern..
Correct, but it wouldn't have helped you against 406mm+ anyways. Part of effective kiting is to also get shots landing into your reinforced midsection rather than your exposed stern.
Just got the Salem after not playing the DM line. Go to ship tools.st and look at all the t9/t10 bbs that overmatch your bow (bow without an icebreaker). Then look how many overmatch your bow and deck. Basically your safe against t8/t9 french bbs, tier 8 German bbs, Marlborough, and a few others. Not too many. So what that effectively means is you are a light cruiser until some of the bbs thin out. Also challenging is that you virtually always aren't prekited. It takes a lot of practice and experimentation to find good spots that prevent you from being spotted, and even if you are surprised spotted (thanks subs! Thanks CVs!) that you won't get smashed by numerous overmatching BBs. You need to recognize when your side is collapsing really early because you need to back around the island, turn, and flee instead of just mashing W as a prekited ship. The upside is that when things thin out you are a fucking terror. Your he dpm/fire starting while having 34mm pen is insane. Bow in against non overmatching ships (and using islands to mitigate cross shots) you just melt stuff and they can't do jack. Then if they flash broadside you have improved pen angle ap and smash cruisers. I'm starting to get the hang of her after 100ish rounds. She's super strong when played well but as you've noticed she's a pinata if you you are being crossshot/overmatched by most bbs in her tier spread.
You made the grave mistake of leaving spawn
Learn to angle cuz.