I just watched the first 30 seconds and have to say, you just cemented yourself as one of my favourite TH-camrs. You could have doubled down on the Smolensk cruiser game but clearly you read the comments, saw our frustration, and reacted in a positive and helpful manner. So rare to see your kind of response these days. Well done.
100% agreed! I'm someone who disagrees with PQ on BBs being the weakest class but this video is just simply good. We can all disagree on 100 things, but a constructive instructional video is always great! (And hopefully something we can all benefit from)
“You don’t get into crossfires with those fragile ships so your argument is invalid” like bruh, you shouldn’t get into crossfires at all, like avoiding crossfires demonstrates skill
I love this kind of commentary, and I really need to work on my positioning and map knowledge, but honestly 90%+ of the player base doesn't do this, or doesn't know to do this and never will. The last 10% of great players understand this but the rest won't be watching these videos, will just want to have fun in a ship (which should of course be sailing around, it is a ship!), and will throw games or simply be upset they didn't do well/got destroyed right away. There is also the simple fact that top players will be good no matter what, they have the mechanical skills and mindset to do good in whatever they run. Maybe not win every match, but always do well. I always take these kind of players "ship/class/weapon X is easy/amazing!" in any game with a grain of salt since they are not the average player. A lot can be learned from them, but they are the special few and mileage will very much vary with normal players. A great video would be what a normal player can do to become better. Is it joining a good clan and getting others feedback/advise? Is it reviewing every game played with a critical eye (which works well for me), or whatever else?
Eh, I'd say Zao fits current meta really well. I really like that you took the criticism from earlier video however, and took out a ship everyone can strive towards and educate about positioning.
Zao fits the meta pretty well but Nevsky, Hindy, and Venezia have ppwercrept it quite a bit. They're better at the long range open water spamming thanks to them all having more HP and DPM, and Venezia and Hindy also have better armor. Their worse concealment doesn't matter nearly as much when a CV is in the game, and PQ isn't even running full conceal Zao. If Zao just had like 48k HP and better torp and gun angles it could be good again.
@@KarthikVishwamitra Other ships being better doesn't make the ship bad, and Zao has always been a good ship. It has best concealment, and if you can't use it, it has best accuracy and good shell velocity when you shoot long range. Torpedo angles are bad, but they really hurt if you get hit by even one and you have potential to stealth torpedo even in open water.
@@Jahvec concealment is useless with CVs around, the gun angles is atrocious, a single cit+pen took out half of your HP, the range is lacking Its damage output is poor, and the survivability is atrocious. How is it a good ship?
@@gusp6612 You are in a video with Zao getting over 200k worth of damage, arsonist and witherer achievement. Played right it's good ship, not excellent. Just because you can't angle and change speed between shots and can't stay at range doesn't make it bad, it makes your playstyle to be improved.
@@Jahvec against sub 50% WR red stats bottom feeders that can’t aim, and can’t use damecon. Yeah, I can do the same in a T9 cruiser easily, no need for a T10.
This has got to be, hands down, one of the best guides to playing cruisers I have seen in my time playing WoWS! I really like the way you give some map-specific tips, but then you also go through the general mindset of what you are looking for as the game unfolds. I had never even heard or thought of the tip about overlapping your concealment with your friendly DD's to help repel an enemy DD. This, like all of your other videos, are top notch!!
@@Moon_Cricket_Stinks intentional. Instead, now there is a combat mission chain that will award you up to 5 signals containers, so you will get completely random signals instead of the ones you actually need
Yep same can be said for Battleship play sometimes... I've been reported for holding an entire flank , solo, keeping the only cap our team had green... and basically keeping the game winnable, because I was trading with a Scharnhorst that was edge sailing but preventing me from pushing back when I wanted , Scharnhorst isnt a ship you leave on your broadside. my team all died inside of 7 minutes, leaving me 4 vs 1.... I killed 2 of the 4, for I think 3 or 4 kills out of the 5 total. Still reported... There are a lot of really bad players in this game. Matchmaking monitor sort of helps, they are often 40 percent winrate players who do this sort of thing. basically have to learn to ignore it. If your above 50% winrate you should have confidence you are doing things right at least as often as you do things wrong and are generally beneficial to have on a team. If you are 45% winrate or below. STFU , you have no business telling anyone how to play the game. By the way the option to hide stats but leave them visible for clan mates is active now. Just in case anyone didn't know. But yeah... there are a lot more clueless people in this game than reasonable players. The average winrate is something like 48% (likely because the very best are 70%) Bottom line is play the game the way you know is best, dont pay too much attention to chat, especially from players who are below average.
@@lucasmiller5977 It was, until stalingrad and petropavlovsk came along. Now I just use it as a super accurate HE spammer that can just sit angled and take no damage in return. I out snipe most cruisers because they can't pen my 50mm plating and I can pen them everywhere. I out snipe BBs because they only overpen my superstructure and I can light fires all day. Basically just sitting at 18km and out sniping everyone. You do need teammates to spot for you though since with my build the 20km concealment range is not gonna get you anywhere.
Been a cruiser main pretty much since launch. Only became a true DD main since the commander rework(as the first 2 weeks or so it was a field day for DDs in the then new deadeye meta). From that perspective, cruisers have seen a return to form the last couple weeks or so for sure!
@@renameduser_109 ? Spam HE, go for AP when there is a broadside, use islands because you are a floating citadel. You don't get citadelled as randomly as it once was but you still don't like to get hit by bbs
Pretty much. HE spam, Radar, German Hydro, German Pen, British HE damage, American and Russian AP shells. I guess Def AA on every cruiser helps vs Carriers but lets just leave that part out cus its a mess.
I was watching your first video tried to apply some of that in ranked, had 6 games where my flank folded in under 3 minutes, and was like yeah thats now how things work. well this kinnda showed me what I was doing wrong, like fall back islands. Really helped.
I acquired Kremlin for the 1st time. Ngl, after getting all 30mm overmatch (besides 457mm Conq pre Thunderer and Shikishima), it felt just meh. Cruisers overwhelm it easily. I felt being more useful in a Petro or Moskva.
Kremlin has been nerfed to the ground. The dispersion nerf hurts it immensly, and Thunderer just murders it. All the 50mm plating cruisers added removes a lot of your zoning power as well.
@@kai-xuanyao4666 Yep. I hate to say this but Soyuz so far has been the more superior experience. Heck, even my GK feels more usable due to shell volume alone.
@@steeltrap3800 Biggest asset imo aside from the tankiness is the reload. You don't have to rely on having unreliable guns at 28 seconds. Petro and Moskva can just angle and shoot shoot shoot. Kremlin on the other hand is just take take take damage and die with low impact. Best you can hope for are straight line sailing broadsiders, but even then I can bet any other BB can get a better salvo at any range.
My Myoko has a 27%, wr, and I'd been trying to play it like an island cruiser. Recently, someone said to play it like an open water kiting cruiser. Shooting and cruising , at 1/4 speed away and when you see someone fire at you, increase speed and crank the wheel. I've only tried it once so far (in ranked) but it resulted in me being the only ship that contested a flank, pestering 3 ships on the enemy team until they got tired of getting lit on fire and went behind islands. That left me free to turn in and take the cap (killing a DD that came to investigate when they saw it changing hands). The initial 3 v 1 on my flank also gave my team a numbers advantage on the other side which resulted in an early kill there. It was definitely a different sort of play than my UK cruisers that I normally play.
Props to you for making a real cruiser video after admitting that WGBS called Smolensk isn´t the best example so far, Zao is much better. I love how you can take criticism and work with it, stay this way, please.
Man, you make that look so easy. Witherer, arsonist and 200K in a game where half your attention is on explaining stuff. Games don't seem to go like that for me, i sit behind an island and all the enemy ships are either invisible because no one is spotting, or they are out of range, in which case i lose patience and go charging out...and then die. Trying to learn though, good vid.
Same haha. Cruisers are just a straight up better class and taking away deadeye only made BBs worse imo. The problem with BBs is that they burn too quickly compared to other ships
@@rawful502 I still say its less the fire that kills you then it is the HUNDREADS or THOUSANDS of HE pens on your superstructure, your hull armor just DOESNT FUCKING MATTER.
I mean look at what bbs and cruisers can do: Battleships, Best range, biggest guns (from tier 8 and up you can overmatch most cruisers which has 27mm plating), best damage per shell, best armor and torp protection, has heal, only some have any utility items beyond fighters/spotter plane, some have torpedos. Burns for 60 seconds without skills or upgrades. Cruisers: Best DPS for main guns, can get similar range to BBs, most have torpedos (unless your a US tech tree ship), has lots of utility items (hydro, def aa, radar), they also get fighters and spotter plane, get Heals at tier 9/10, not much torp protection, if you get point blank with a bb you can still citadel them (though you will probably torp them before then). Burns for 45 (or is it 30?) secs without skills or upgrades. On top of that you have battlecruisers which basically make for discount Battleships with more utility.
@@凃少麒 thats true but if the enemy cruiser has radar, there is a cv, the options are getting less for bbs and dds, meanwhile cruiser have good aa conceal and speed. (ofc there are exceptions).
i would love to see some "teaching" content with lower tier ships. Coz there is a lot of channels/videos that will tell you how to play tier 10 ships, but thts now whern you want the players to start learning. Anyway great video PQ
love love love your vids! i learned a lot and i thank you for that. if i ever get half as good as you are in this game, i be proud of myself..but that is a long road to travel... I do have 1 wish, could you show your commander skills at the start of the video? I could deduce you run spotter plane skill, +4500 hitpoints, concealment and superintendent and most likely turret traverse and reload expert...that's 14 points..what else you use?:D
I would say that the reason for the low hp pool for zao is that it has an insane destroyer level torpedo power which is consistent because you have 2 on each sides and damage output is very good
@@kai-xuanyao4666 i know that the reload is bad but you know that u just have to go undetected and just leave your torps and zao torps have the best range only defeated by the 20km torps on yoshino. i feel comfortable with zao's citadel . the trick is to never be facing the shells that coming towards you and just stay angled at around 15-30 deg which will avoid most incoming damage.
@@codev2880 Getting off 12km torps with 10km concealment when there are DDs around is super tough. In the late game when there's no DDs I can't shake the feeling that you'll do more with your guns than sailing undetected into torp range and dropping them. They are great torps, don't get me wrong, but very situational and not really worth going out on a limb to make them work.
Might be the same reason I do that on a number of my cruisers. Yoshino, zao, hindy, and Henri. Dfaa doesn't do much sure, but its more useful more often than hydro in ships that are range/kite type since its rare you'll be threatened by torps. Just my rational tho.
Zao is my favorite cruiser. Easy to average 100k dmg per game if you play it safe. And with good mobility its fun to dodge salvos in Open water. Just stay at 16km and lure them into chasing you.
I generally break off to a side that way only attack on one side no crossfire wait launch torps then fire apon them to draw attention away from torpedoes generally get a quick kill shells fire torps then armor piercing
Glad you are giving the Zao some airtime. Still my only T10 ship. Do you by chance have any games on record where you are taking a good initial position but then the game develops completely opposite of what you prepared for? Would be great to see you being challenged and having to make use of the fall-back islands. That's where I often just kite away with my Zao not being of too much use. Nice video!
I've been playing Caracciolo and Gorizia in bronze ranked, needless to say HE spammers aren't so annoying once you slap them with SAP since none can heal at that tier. And BBs can push you just need to force your team to help, if they help you can win rather easily as enemy BBs will be hiding trying not to get spammed making your push easier since the only thing that truly poses a threat are DDs and they hate SAP more than cruisers do
Very true, but my counter is running Nelson with its super heal. While it cannot take an entire team focusing it, no ship really can, I can still keep an HE spam cruiser or two distracted as they love to shoot at that big ship and power heal out of the fires/dmg when I can. If they are shooting me they friendly ships have a better chance to keep their health a while longer. I really only play ranked for the rewards but I am having a lot of luck getting wins like this.
@@stefanocrosazzo3262 nurnberg, myoko, york, atlanta, boise, 9 de julio, helena, flint. the last game i played had a cv, 3 t7 cruisers, 1 t6 dd and the rest were bbs. those cruisers were atlanta, atlanta b, and 9 de julio.... i think i survived 7 minutes. i received no carrier damage, and only one shot from scharnhorst.
Interesting. Do you think you could make a video about how to play Alaska? She is supposed to be a very strong ship, yet unlike with my T8/9 DDs and lower tier cruisers i tend to struggle with her. I rarely get realy good matches, which is sad since i do like this ship and want to be usefull.
Hey PQ. Can you tell what crosshair, you're using in this video? I've always gone dynamic (momo classic), but I just switched to try and get better with static. I've always felt like in the heat of battle, doing the math to line up the tickmarks with the ship's speed can be time-consuming and I've noticed myself ignoring the numbers and just going by feel (and trial, error/make corrections) more. I've always wondered if the dynamic xhair sights just end up being more of a crutch and if I get good with static, I'll ultimately save myself some mental resources for other aspects of a given situation. Thoughts? Anyone else can chime in here too, please. Has anyone here made the switch to static, and did it help your aim, once you got used to judging your own leads?
the this is sady 100% correct. now and days you have to play a cruiser like a battle ship sniping stuff out wich destroys the class name itself Cruiser. yes it's good to be strategic and it works but a cruiser is made to be maneuverable and fast but if you play this way in game your pretty much screwed wich defeats the purpose of the class. i have resantly switch to destoryers as i can zip around and torp the shit out of everyone and everything and bully fleets to move where we need them to go for flanking.
Nice points about picking your fights so you don't get cross--fired, although personally, I don't like island-firing, which I note you rely on a lot (Haha, in USN CLs/CAs, I bet you marry islands) as it's not "realistic" but meh, it's the way the game works, I should sort myself out on it some day (terribly torn)
I'm new but what class shouldn't play passive in this game? I mean sure DDs can't be as passive as cruisers but even there there is a "passive" or cautious DD playstyle and aggresive DD playstyle and for me "passive" tends to be more consistent.
Basically IJN cruisers from Aoba onwards till Zao have to be played this way. It is just too risky to have them more upfront. But it all depends on the team too. If your team are too unrealiable and DDs die too early, while the enemy DDs are good at spotting and they coordinate well targetting your team cruisers as priority, there is only so much you can do. I played IJN cruisers, but my WR in asia server only 50%. I have much better WR playing KM cruisers, mostly because they are not as squishy as IJN cruisers. Even a fragile Nurnberg will perform much better than Aoba because of almost 2x faster DPM and turret rotation.
4:36 ZAO LOW DPM????? HE DPM amount CA without any upgrade or comsumable Desmoines 275k Hindenburg 184k Zao 179k Moskva 162k Goliath 150k HenriIV 141K Petro 127k Stalingrad 122k Yes Zao really is "Low DPM"
I have Yoshino with 1, 4 million exp. It's a great ship. To put it simply its just a bigger Zao. You have 20km Shima torps(don't expect them to hit anything coz they can be seen from the moon) and the guns are soooo damn accurate. Hitting 7 out of 9 shells from max range with spot plane is great when it occurs. You don't have good armor for your size though. And never show broadside. People love shooting at you.
I will never play cruisers again, I suck with them, and theyre hardest class to play. When I tried playing baltimore I die without getting a chance to shoot anyone. Because you can get citadeled from any angle, and finding a position to fsrm behind island is next to impossible
@@rosalina2938 Well, T9 cruisers finally all get a heal, and they see far fewer guns with 30 mm overmatch than T10 cruisers do. I'd say it's a pretty comfortable tier.
Cruisers are strong - but they are dependent on being played well... they have citadels and higher spotting which makes them considerably worse at being dds than dds, they have much worse armour and much lower alphas then bbs so make terrible bbs - if they're played well and they're probably easier to play well than other classes they're very strong but played badly they're comparitively weak. I think most of the complaints about deadeye were from cruiser players who instead of taking a single bb shell in their citadels at range suddenly found themselves taking whole broadsides.
its so much easier to get 3k+ base in cruisers than in bbs... even my worst crusiers got 3k... In my eyes cruisers are also "tankier" than bbs because of overpens and fires dont burn them down like BBQ
The sad thing is that the potato sub 55% players that need this advice probably won't search/watch videos like these and stay with their bad mindset. Cruisers are easily the second best class for game influence behind CV's
I have a bone to pick with you. You say some ships are OP but it is not true. The only people in the game who say this is the elite players. Because they do not want anyone to have a ship that could beat them.
yeah, just use this clip of me, a superunicum facing stupid sub 50% red stats bottom feeder BBs and absolute trash MVR as proof that cruisers are easy to play. Not a single enemy BB in this match can be considered average. PQ, honestly if those yamato and MVR is half decent you would be lucky to break 100k
A much better video than the last. But you still haven't addresses the elephant in the room. Sure, cruisers are very strong if you play them well, but no more so than a BB or DD. And cruisers are much less forgiving than BBs; a few BS (read: Russian) designs aside, one mistake is much more likely to get you devstruck in this age of super-accurate 30mm overmatch. And recognizing when a flank is about to be overrun, either by you or the enemy, and moving accordingly is a skill that takes a fair amount of time to develop.
@@siriusczech It was situational before, but they nerfed the crap out of it... just one of so many issues that resulted in me deleting the game. There was zero need to do it and it took a ship that was fin to play and trashed it... WG can KMA
You do not drive into crossfires even in a battleship. Those saying you are cheating by making the cruiser look strong by playing to properly are just stupid STARCHLESS jelly potatoes.
Everyone is commenting on the good response to criticism and I agree, your stock went up in my eyes (not that you care but it did) So... how about a real game... you had a division carrying a flank your shima never died and they never pushed your flank... it was an easy win....... how bout an example of WHEN IT DOESN'T GO SO FUCKING WELL. What do you do when it goes wrong, maybe even a game that's a loss where you are the shining example of what to do when your team sucks. Obviously there is no point in showing a 12-0 loss, in that case there is nothing you can do. Problem is that this was a 9-3 win is almost as bad. I am a mediocre player and I look pretty good in a blowout win too. What do you do when your flank loses its DD in the first 2 minutes (either because he actually gets sunk or because the CV drives him out of the cap) hence you have 0 spotting on the flank and your BB's are hanging back at 23km cuz reality check, that shit happens a lot. Showing a blowout win (and yes in my eyes 9-3 is a blowout win) in which you do well is meaningless.
There is a difference between being strong and being relevant/carrying. As a 60 percent winrate person and a lot of Zao games (over 1000) I find that it lacks ability to really carry games so i can improve my winrate. It is just not strong enough. Instead ive played way more Des Moines games in the past year and was way more succesful in carrying matches. The interesting thing is that, with all the long range BBs and cruisers, fast smoke-less DDs and carriers, the meta has negatively changed for the Des Moines. Your point is just not complete. When you have cruisers like the Petro that have no counters, yes that makes the class on average stronger already. But if you play a Des Moines and you need to carry a match against the Hakuryu, 3 Yamatos, all range focussed cruisers and a Marceau. You are in a massive disadvantage.
His point is you're wrong buddy. He specifically played Zao because it's weak and did fine. With DM, he'd do better. If you can't carry more with DM, it means you're not good enough. It has nothing to do with petro.
@@dzello is this where i tell you youre wrong about me being wrong? You missed my point entirely. Just telling someone 'if you cant carry more than ur playing it wrong' is ignorant without knowing who youre talking to. My point was that the meta is changing, giving certain ships an advantage and others disadvantage. I do very good in my des moines (65 percent winrate, only solo plays). Shame i have to waste time on such a comment.
@@austinpowersfasjer I mean, your point is strictly stupid. '' I find that it lacks ability to really carry games '' in one of the weakest acknowledged cruisers where you have 60% winrate. This is plenty of carrying. Then you talk about DM which you say carries even better than Zao in which you have 60%. So now, not only are you saying Zao does fine, you're saying Zao does fine and DM does better. And finally, you finish saying Petro is even better than both the cruisers you already carry way more than enough in. So your point is, and I would underline that, stupid. You prove Potato's point while trying to prove it's incomplete.
In other words, a ship isn't strong if you play it like a brain dead potato. Who'd have guessed? LOL If people think "cruisers aren't strong, it's just you don't play like the average moron" is an argument, then they're not worth worrying about. If they can't play anything without getting in stupid positions they ought to play CVs as they are without doubt to most 'moron proof' ships in the game, followed by Thunderer/Mongqueror.
I made a comment on your Twitch channel about how negative it was. Because it was. Nearly all whining about war game. For sharing that with you, so you could reflect on your language, you instantly banned me and calle ME a whiner. Fine, I now ban you from my TH-cam subscriptions also. Will you never learn?
I just watched the first 30 seconds and have to say, you just cemented yourself as one of my favourite TH-camrs. You could have doubled down on the Smolensk cruiser game but clearly you read the comments, saw our frustration, and reacted in a positive and helpful manner.
So rare to see your kind of response these days. Well done.
100% agreed!
I'm someone who disagrees with PQ on BBs being the weakest class but this video is just simply good.
We can all disagree on 100 things, but a constructive instructional video is always great! (And hopefully something we can all benefit from)
@@SappeREffecT i second this agreement.
Mad respect for taking the criticism and admitting the faults. Your channel is my favorite for WOWs and this just bolstered that
“You don’t get into crossfires with those fragile ships so your argument is invalid” like bruh, you shouldn’t get into crossfires at all, like avoiding crossfires demonstrates skill
Yeah you get into crossfires with anything at all you're going back to port real quick
I love this kind of commentary, and I really need to work on my positioning and map knowledge, but honestly 90%+ of the player base doesn't do this, or doesn't know to do this and never will. The last 10% of great players understand this but the rest won't be watching these videos, will just want to have fun in a ship (which should of course be sailing around, it is a ship!), and will throw games or simply be upset they didn't do well/got destroyed right away.
There is also the simple fact that top players will be good no matter what, they have the mechanical skills and mindset to do good in whatever they run. Maybe not win every match, but always do well. I always take these kind of players "ship/class/weapon X is easy/amazing!" in any game with a grain of salt since they are not the average player. A lot can be learned from them, but they are the special few and mileage will very much vary with normal players.
A great video would be what a normal player can do to become better. Is it joining a good clan and getting others feedback/advise? Is it reviewing every game played with a critical eye (which works well for me), or whatever else?
Love how you're doing WG job by teaching the community how to play there game you have my thanks dude
I mean, the community has always had to do that, WG WOWS tutorial only teaches you the basics. the Community teaches you GAME SENSE.
Eh, I'd say Zao fits current meta really well. I really like that you took the criticism from earlier video however, and took out a ship everyone can strive towards and educate about positioning.
Zao fits the meta pretty well but Nevsky, Hindy, and Venezia have ppwercrept it quite a bit. They're better at the long range open water spamming thanks to them all having more HP and DPM, and Venezia and Hindy also have better armor. Their worse concealment doesn't matter nearly as much when a CV is in the game, and PQ isn't even running full conceal Zao.
If Zao just had like 48k HP and better torp and gun angles it could be good again.
@@KarthikVishwamitra Other ships being better doesn't make the ship bad, and Zao has always been a good ship. It has best concealment, and if you can't use it, it has best accuracy and good shell velocity when you shoot long range. Torpedo angles are bad, but they really hurt if you get hit by even one and you have potential to stealth torpedo even in open water.
@@Jahvec concealment is useless with CVs around, the gun angles is atrocious, a single cit+pen took out half of your HP, the range is lacking
Its damage output is poor, and the survivability is atrocious. How is it a good ship?
@@gusp6612 You are in a video with Zao getting over 200k worth of damage, arsonist and witherer achievement. Played right it's good ship, not excellent. Just because you can't angle and change speed between shots and can't stay at range doesn't make it bad, it makes your playstyle to be improved.
@@Jahvec against sub 50% WR red stats bottom feeders that can’t aim, and can’t use damecon. Yeah, I can do the same in a T9 cruiser easily, no need for a T10.
This has got to be, hands down, one of the best guides to playing cruisers I have seen in my time playing WoWS! I really like the way you give some map-specific tips, but then you also go through the general mindset of what you are looking for as the game unfolds. I had never even heard or thought of the tip about overlapping your concealment with your friendly DD's to help repel an enemy DD. This, like all of your other videos, are top notch!!
The moment you get Arsonist and Witherer and realize you will get nothing out of those achievements
Correct me if wrong but it adds to flags.
@@Moon_Cricket_Stinks Not anymore
@@anthrax2413 damn I didn't know they took that out. I wonder if that was intentional or a bug. Like how the whole achievement system is bugged.
@@Moon_Cricket_Stinks It was intentional.
@@Moon_Cricket_Stinks intentional. Instead, now there is a combat mission chain that will award you up to 5 signals containers, so you will get completely random signals instead of the ones you actually need
But everyone complains when you use island and start angrily click the map while your shooting
Is BB´s that ewant to hide behind you... ignore it
Those guys aren’t important, if you know you are doing something right it doesn’t matter what they say, it’ll reflect on the scoreboard
Yep same can be said for Battleship play sometimes...
I've been reported for holding an entire flank , solo, keeping the only cap our team had green... and basically keeping the game winnable, because I was trading with a Scharnhorst that was edge sailing but preventing me from pushing back when I wanted , Scharnhorst isnt a ship you leave on your broadside.
my team all died inside of 7 minutes, leaving me 4 vs 1.... I killed 2 of the 4, for I think 3 or 4 kills out of the 5 total.
Still reported...
There are a lot of really bad players in this game. Matchmaking monitor sort of helps, they are often 40 percent winrate players who do this sort of thing.
basically have to learn to ignore it. If your above 50% winrate you should have confidence you are doing things right at least as often as you do things wrong and are generally beneficial to have on a team.
If you are 45% winrate or below. STFU , you have no business telling anyone how to play the game.
By the way the option to hide stats but leave them visible for clan mates is active now. Just in case anyone didn't know.
But yeah... there are a lot more clueless people in this game than reasonable players. The average winrate is something like 48% (likely because the very best are 70%)
Bottom line is play the game the way you know is best, dont pay too much attention to chat, especially from players who are below average.
Can you put the Map Screenshots with good and bad isle positions as links in the video description? They are awesome
He has some videos somewhere where he talks about specific maps and strategies
Think he’s already done it bro
This is how I play my Moskva. And I have 80% win rate across 60 games. It's surprising how good of an HE spammer Moskva is.
Really? I though AP was its strong suit.
@@lucasmiller5977 It was, until stalingrad and petropavlovsk came along. Now I just use it as a super accurate HE spammer that can just sit angled and take no damage in return. I out snipe most cruisers because they can't pen my 50mm plating and I can pen them everywhere. I out snipe BBs because they only overpen my superstructure and I can light fires all day. Basically just sitting at 18km and out sniping everyone. You do need teammates to spot for you though since with my build the 20km concealment range is not gonna get you anywhere.
Been a cruiser main pretty much since launch. Only became a true DD main since the commander rework(as the first 2 weeks or so it was a field day for DDs in the then new deadeye meta).
From that perspective, cruisers have seen a return to form the last couple weeks or so for sure!
Video idea: cruiser are really good in this meta featuring albemarle
albemarle actually is quite good now
@@derhesligebonsaibaum pls sir show me how to play good it in pls
@@renameduser_109 ? Spam HE, go for AP when there is a broadside, use islands because you are a floating citadel. You don't get citadelled as randomly as it once was but you still don't like to get hit by bbs
@@derhesligebonsaibaum theorically it seems easy
@@derhesligebonsaibaum no
The role of a cruiser.....
To be as annoying as possible
haha 12k sap with vanezia go brr
Pretty much. HE spam, Radar, German Hydro, German Pen, British HE damage, American and Russian AP shells. I guess Def AA on every cruiser helps vs Carriers but lets just leave that part out cus its a mess.
I was watching your first video tried to apply some of that in ranked, had 6 games where my flank folded in under 3 minutes, and was like yeah thats now how things work. well this kinnda showed me what I was doing wrong, like fall back islands. Really helped.
I acquired Kremlin for the 1st time. Ngl, after getting all 30mm overmatch (besides 457mm Conq pre Thunderer and Shikishima), it felt just meh. Cruisers overwhelm it easily. I felt being more useful in a Petro or Moskva.
Kremlin has been nerfed to the ground. The dispersion nerf hurts it immensly, and Thunderer just murders it. All the 50mm plating cruisers added removes a lot of your zoning power as well.
@@kai-xuanyao4666 Yep. I hate to say this but Soyuz so far has been the more superior experience. Heck, even my GK feels more usable due to shell volume alone.
@@kape2978 Yeah, Soyuz doesn't get the thicc citadel but your guns do so much more just cuz what you face in T9 is much easier to handle.
Petro isn't a Cruiser, it's another frankly absurd Soviet OP fantasy that's better than a lot of BBs.
@@steeltrap3800 Biggest asset imo aside from the tankiness is the reload. You don't have to rely on having unreliable guns at 28 seconds. Petro and Moskva can just angle and shoot shoot shoot. Kremlin on the other hand is just take take take damage and die with low impact. Best you can hope for are straight line sailing broadsiders, but even then I can bet any other BB can get a better salvo at any range.
Players in Ocean watching island positionning be like : 👀
Imo if ocean was played more than people would be better players.
@@michaelmeli23 completely true 🤣
Ocean just emphasizes the basic rule. Poke out the enemies eyes, then beat on the blind men.
Kill CV, Kill DD, win the game.
@@martinpalmer6203 pretty much.
My Myoko has a 27%, wr, and I'd been trying to play it like an island cruiser.
Recently, someone said to play it like an open water kiting cruiser. Shooting and cruising , at 1/4 speed away and when you see someone fire at you, increase speed and crank the wheel.
I've only tried it once so far (in ranked) but it resulted in me being the only ship that contested a flank, pestering 3 ships on the enemy team until they got tired of getting lit on fire and went behind islands. That left me free to turn in and take the cap (killing a DD that came to investigate when they saw it changing hands).
The initial 3 v 1 on my flank also gave my team a numbers advantage on the other side which resulted in an early kill there.
It was definitely a different sort of play than my UK cruisers that I normally play.
Appreciate this one. Might have to watch it 5 more times to get my 47% self to a better win rate!!
The fact you’re here, watching videos on how to get better is probably the best thing you can do :)
Everyone can stand to play better!
@@JoyousOblivion Thank you, Sir. Working on it!!
Props to you for making a real cruiser video after admitting that WGBS called Smolensk isn´t the best example so far, Zao is much better. I love how you can take criticism and work with it, stay this way, please.
Thanks for the tips. I love playing as cruisers but I always have a tough time learning to position myself. Im getting there though.
Man, you make that look so easy. Witherer, arsonist and 200K in a game where half your attention is on explaining stuff. Games don't seem to go like that for me, i sit behind an island and all the enemy ships are either invisible because no one is spotting, or they are out of range, in which case i lose patience and go charging out...and then die. Trying to learn though, good vid.
Honesty, i started as a bb main, but the more i play cruisers, the less i enjoy bb's overall, to the point where i hardly even play them anymore.
Same haha. Cruisers are just a straight up better class and taking away deadeye only made BBs worse imo. The problem with BBs is that they burn too quickly compared to other ships
@@rawful502 I still say its less the fire that kills you then it is the HUNDREADS or THOUSANDS of HE pens on your superstructure, your hull armor just DOESNT FUCKING MATTER.
I mean look at what bbs and cruisers can do:
Battleships, Best range, biggest guns (from tier 8 and up you can overmatch most cruisers which has 27mm plating), best damage per shell, best armor and torp protection, has heal, only some have any utility items beyond fighters/spotter plane, some have torpedos. Burns for 60 seconds without skills or upgrades.
Cruisers: Best DPS for main guns, can get similar range to BBs, most have torpedos (unless your a US tech tree ship), has lots of utility items (hydro, def aa, radar), they also get fighters and spotter plane, get Heals at tier 9/10, not much torp protection, if you get point blank with a bb you can still citadel them (though you will probably torp them before then). Burns for 45 (or is it 30?) secs without skills or upgrades.
On top of that you have battlecruisers which basically make for discount Battleships with more utility.
True: cruisers can fullfill multiple roles in the game. Meanwhile dds have to hide and torp and bbs stay in the back. Thats my view (short version)
DDs can spam HE too. The low HE pen can be appeased by precisely hitting BB superstructures with DD dispersion.
@@凃少麒 thats true but if the enemy cruiser has radar, there is a cv, the options are getting less for bbs and dds, meanwhile cruiser have good aa conceal and speed. (ofc there are exceptions).
@@enricotraica3857 not for the russian or french don't care
Lol... yeah pt.1 was more like " cruisers are good! Just dont suck" 😁
Thx for pt.2
Good stuff as always
i would love to see some "teaching" content with lower tier ships. Coz there is a lot of channels/videos that will tell you how to play tier 10 ships, but thts now whern you want the players to start learning. Anyway great video PQ
Very informative video, explains a lot to some players who do struggle with positioning, myself included.
love love love your vids!
i learned a lot and i thank you for that.
if i ever get half as good as you are in this game, i be proud of myself..but that is a long road to travel...
I do have 1 wish, could you show your commander skills at the start of the video?
I could deduce you run spotter plane skill, +4500 hitpoints, concealment and superintendent and most likely turret traverse and reload expert...that's 14 points..what else you use?:D
I would say that the reason for the low hp pool for zao is that it has an insane destroyer level torpedo power which is consistent because you have 2 on each sides and damage output is very good
12km torps on a floating citadel isn't that good... Also reload is gigantic
@@kai-xuanyao4666 i know that the reload is bad but you know that u just have to go undetected and just leave your torps and zao torps have the best range only defeated by the 20km torps on yoshino.
i feel comfortable with zao's citadel . the trick is to never be facing the shells that coming towards you and just stay angled at around 15-30 deg which will avoid most incoming damage.
@@codev2880 Getting off 12km torps with 10km concealment when there are DDs around is super tough. In the late game when there's no DDs I can't shake the feeling that you'll do more with your guns than sailing undetected into torp range and dropping them. They are great torps, don't get me wrong, but very situational and not really worth going out on a limb to make them work.
@@kai-xuanyao4666 absolutely. i agree with you .
You should make some documentary presentations. You have phonetic voice. I like your vids.
Good stuff PQ, keep it up.
im curious tho why dffa and not hydro since AA is jack, also looking forward to Des Moines in the next part if possible
Might be the same reason I do that on a number of my cruisers. Yoshino, zao, hindy, and Henri. Dfaa doesn't do much sure, but its more useful more often than hydro in ships that are range/kite type since its rare you'll be threatened by torps. Just my rational tho.
My favorite cruiser is the USS Boise, played to its strengths it is a very enjoyable CL.
Gotta agree cruiser are good in this meta.
Zao is my favorite cruiser. Easy to average 100k dmg per game if you play it safe. And with good mobility its fun to dodge salvos in Open water. Just stay at 16km and lure them into chasing you.
Same here 👍
everything you said is correct and should have said "unless your in a Petro" after each point lol.
I generally break off to a side that way only attack on one side no crossfire wait launch torps then fire apon them to draw attention away from torpedoes generally get a quick kill shells fire torps then armor piercing
First 4 salvos and 4 fires lol but great points
IRS goin' hard in the paint for those tax dollars @ 7:40
Would this apply to large cruisers like Puerto Rico, Alaska, etc?
Not all cruisers play the same. Zao plays different from Alaska. But you can apply it, it won't be bad either.
Glad you are giving the Zao some airtime. Still my only T10 ship.
Do you by chance have any games on record where you are taking a good initial position but then the game develops completely opposite of what you prepared for?
Would be great to see you being challenged and having to make use of the fall-back islands.
That's where I often just kite away with my Zao not being of too much use.
Nice video!
You know the man is serious when he makes a video that says cruisers are good and picks the Zaō to demonstrate.
play any ranked in bronze. he spammers are dominating it. and ppl keep asking why bbs dont push. i tried it yesterday. was set on fire constantly
I've been playing Caracciolo and Gorizia in bronze ranked, needless to say HE spammers aren't so annoying once you slap them with SAP since none can heal at that tier. And BBs can push you just need to force your team to help, if they help you can win rather easily as enemy BBs will be hiding trying not to get spammed making your push easier since the only thing that truly poses a threat are DDs and they hate SAP more than cruisers do
Very true, but my counter is running Nelson with its super heal. While it cannot take an entire team focusing it, no ship really can, I can still keep an HE spam cruiser or two distracted as they love to shoot at that big ship and power heal out of the fires/dmg when I can. If they are shooting me they friendly ships have a better chance to keep their health a while longer. I really only play ranked for the rewards but I am having a lot of luck getting wins like this.
Ranked out with Sinop yesterday. HE spam is not a problem in bronze.
@@stefanocrosazzo3262 nurnberg, myoko, york, atlanta, boise, 9 de julio, helena, flint.
the last game i played had a cv, 3 t7 cruisers, 1 t6 dd and the rest were bbs. those cruisers were atlanta, atlanta b, and 9 de julio.... i think i survived 7 minutes. i received no carrier damage, and only one shot from scharnhorst.
Interesting. Do you think you could make a video about how to play Alaska? She is supposed to be a very strong ship, yet unlike with my T8/9 DDs and lower tier cruisers i tend to struggle with her. I rarely get realy good matches, which is sad since i do like this ship and want to be usefull.
Zao is the worst? What would make the ship better ?
Hey PQ. Can you tell what crosshair, you're using in this video? I've always gone dynamic (momo classic), but I just switched to try and get better with static. I've always felt like in the heat of battle, doing the math to line up the tickmarks with the ship's speed can be time-consuming and I've noticed myself ignoring the numbers and just going by feel (and trial, error/make corrections) more. I've always wondered if the dynamic xhair sights just end up being more of a crutch and if I get good with static, I'll ultimately save myself some mental resources for other aspects of a given situation.
Thoughts? Anyone else can chime in here too, please. Has anyone here made the switch to static, and did it help your aim, once you got used to judging your own leads?
i can imagine how tough it is for those two shimakaze/// just painful.
the this is sady 100% correct.
now and days you have to play a cruiser like a battle ship sniping stuff out wich destroys the class name itself Cruiser.
yes it's good to be strategic and it works but a cruiser is made to be maneuverable and fast but if you play this way in game your pretty much screwed wich defeats the purpose of the class.
i have resantly switch to destoryers as i can zip around and torp the shit out of everyone and everything and bully fleets to move where we need them to go for flanking.
Nice points about picking your fights so you don't get cross--fired, although personally, I don't like island-firing, which I note you rely on a lot (Haha, in USN CLs/CAs, I bet you marry islands) as it's not "realistic" but meh, it's the way the game works, I should sort myself out on it some day (terribly torn)
Can I know what type of commander skill you applied on?
errr, werent the complains mostly about using the SMOLENKS rather than crossfires?
I'm new but what class shouldn't play passive in this game? I mean sure DDs can't be as passive as cruisers but even there there is a "passive" or cautious DD playstyle and aggresive DD playstyle and for me "passive" tends to be more consistent.
Yoshino feels like a bigger and better Zao. In this meta Zao at least needs some HP buff or reload buff other wise it feels somewhat lacking.
well you know what they say: if you can make it in a Zao, you can make it in anything :P
Great vid, Cheers for this!
Nicely done, what was your build ?
where is your thumbnail art from?
Well a good cruiser can aniolate a destroyer and kill a Battleship that's assuming you have a torpedo equipped cruser
IFHE for the Worcester? Yay or Nay?
Basically IJN cruisers from Aoba onwards till Zao have to be played this way. It is just too risky to have them more upfront.
But it all depends on the team too. If your team are too unrealiable and DDs die too early, while the enemy DDs are good at spotting and they coordinate well targetting your team cruisers as priority, there is only so much you can do.
I played IJN cruisers, but my WR in asia server only 50%. I have much better WR playing KM cruisers, mostly because they are not as squishy as IJN cruisers. Even a fragile Nurnberg will perform much better than Aoba because of almost 2x faster DPM and turret rotation.
The "NDA" ZAO 😉
dude wtf is this fire chance
Potato did you just make unicum a tag
There a lot more survivable since the Dead Eye Goldeneye orbital strikes from 24 km are gone again.
Deja Vu video
4:36 ZAO LOW DPM?????
HE DPM amount CA without any upgrade or comsumable
Desmoines 275k
Hindenburg 184k
Zao 179k
Moskva 162k
Goliath 150k
HenriIV 141K
Petro 127k
Stalingrad 122k
Yes Zao really is "Low DPM"
hmmm impressive numbers.
Zao's 30mm can bounce 16inch shells right?
Yes it can 👍
"you play cruisers well so your examples dont count, I play cruisers bad, therefore cruisers are bad!!!1!!!11!!!11"
Was thinking of getting the yoshino, is the playstyle the same as this and is the ap good on the yoshino?
You sit in max range spaming he an torping and ap is decent
It's the same except slightly worse turret arrangement for kiting.
I have Yoshino with 1, 4 million exp. It's a great ship. To put it simply its just a bigger Zao. You have 20km Shima torps(don't expect them to hit anything coz they can be seen from the moon) and the guns are soooo damn accurate. Hitting 7 out of 9 shells from max range with spot plane is great when it occurs. You don't have good armor for your size though. And never show broadside. People love shooting at you.
@@petrosmarko3092 as a bb player in Republic, Yamato. I love to slap Yoshino from max range either hahahah.
@@petrosmarko3092 btw, I have Yoshino too. And she is a really great ship as you said.
I like crazy salty bitter sarcastic PQ the best
Could you make a yoshino video?
Does anyone know what crosshair is being used in this vid ?
I will never play cruisers again, I suck with them, and theyre hardest class to play. When I tried playing baltimore I die without getting a chance to shoot anyone. Because you can get citadeled from any angle, and finding a position to fsrm behind island is next to impossible
TELL THAT TO SEATTLE I CANT LIVE THROUGH 1 MATCH ALIVE
how do you have a good game in Ibuki, Seattle or any other t9 techtree?
I must say, I have an easier life with cruisers from t9 on. T9 is mostly T9 games.
I struggle hard from t6 up. Constantly uptiered and no range
Seattle's pretty bad, but Ibuki is just cruisers 101 imho.
I feel like t9 is the worst tier. No better than T8 sometimes worse and often matches with t10.
@@rosalina2938 Well, T9 cruisers finally all get a heal, and they see far fewer guns with 30 mm overmatch than T10 cruisers do.
I'd say it's a pretty comfortable tier.
Don’t fight against ships with 457mm and above guns. They pretty much citadel you easily but otherwise very good
I get best games and most kills etc in a good battlecruser as Alaska or simler
Cruisers are strong - but they are dependent on being played well... they have citadels and higher spotting which makes them considerably worse at being dds than dds, they have much worse armour and much lower alphas then bbs so make terrible bbs - if they're played well and they're probably easier to play well than other classes they're very strong but played badly they're comparitively weak. I think most of the complaints about deadeye were from cruiser players who instead of taking a single bb shell in their citadels at range suddenly found themselves taking whole broadsides.
I basically stopped playing battleships, cruisers are loads fun
its so much easier to get 3k+ base in cruisers than in bbs... even my worst crusiers got 3k...
In my eyes cruisers are also "tankier" than bbs because of overpens and fires dont burn them down like BBQ
We need the HE spam damage to be nerfed.
Its a shame, that external fire kills a steel bb.
They are really good toke on 3 bbs 1 of them being ohio 2 dds 1 mino and 1 smol all by my self in a petro lived with 200 health at the end tho haha
Petro isn't a Cruiser, it's another frankly absurd Soviet OP fantasy that's better than a lot of BBs.
@@steeltrap3800 that i can agree haha
@@kuninagako9035 ;-P
The sad thing is that the potato sub 55% players that need this advice probably won't search/watch videos like these and stay with their bad mindset.
Cruisers are easily the second best class for game influence behind CV's
Cruisers were better in the beginning. The Cleveland used to be a beats
Sometimes watching your videos is like taking a Master Class.
I have a bone to pick with you. You say some ships are OP but it is not true. The only people in the game who say this is the elite players. Because they do not want anyone to have a ship that could beat them.
Do we paly the same game? Cruisers only lost on skills revork! So why when we hit T10 battle ther is only 2-3 cruisers?
yeah, just use this clip of me, a superunicum facing stupid sub 50% red stats bottom feeder BBs and absolute trash MVR as proof that cruisers are easy to play. Not a single enemy BB in this match can be considered average.
PQ, honestly if those yamato and MVR is half decent you would be lucky to break 100k
A much better video than the last. But you still haven't addresses the elephant in the room. Sure, cruisers are very strong if you play them well, but no more so than a BB or DD. And cruisers are much less forgiving than BBs; a few BS (read: Russian) designs aside, one mistake is much more likely to get you devstruck in this age of super-accurate 30mm overmatch. And recognizing when a flank is about to be overrun, either by you or the enemy, and moving accordingly is a skill that takes a fair amount of time to develop.
Atlanta? it used to be a good ship.. they nerfed the shit out of it. I uninstalled in Jan...
Atlanta is fun in T6-7 ranked, not in random - it is situational ship now
@@siriusczech It was situational before, but they nerfed the crap out of it... just one of so many issues that resulted in me deleting the game. There was zero need to do it and it took a ship that was fin to play and trashed it... WG can KMA
and then you get ocean xD
You do not drive into crossfires even in a battleship. Those saying you are cheating by making the cruiser look strong by playing to properly are just stupid STARCHLESS jelly potatoes.
play a des moines and see how many pp u can shoot
Everyone is commenting on the good response to criticism and I agree, your stock went up in my eyes (not that you care but it did) So... how about a real game... you had a division carrying a flank your shima never died and they never pushed your flank... it was an easy win....... how bout an example of WHEN IT DOESN'T GO SO FUCKING WELL. What do you do when it goes wrong, maybe even a game that's a loss where you are the shining example of what to do when your team sucks. Obviously there is no point in showing a 12-0 loss, in that case there is nothing you can do.
Problem is that this was a 9-3 win is almost as bad. I am a mediocre player and I look pretty good in a blowout win too. What do you do when your flank loses its DD in the first 2 minutes (either because he actually gets sunk or because the CV drives him out of the cap) hence you have 0 spotting on the flank and your BB's are hanging back at 23km cuz reality check, that shit happens a lot. Showing a blowout win (and yes in my eyes 9-3 is a blowout win) in which you do well is meaningless.
There is a difference between being strong and being relevant/carrying. As a 60 percent winrate person and a lot of Zao games (over 1000) I find that it lacks ability to really carry games so i can improve my winrate. It is just not strong enough.
Instead ive played way more Des Moines games in the past year and was way more succesful in carrying matches. The interesting thing is that, with all the long range BBs and cruisers, fast smoke-less DDs and carriers, the meta has negatively changed for the Des Moines.
Your point is just not complete. When you have cruisers like the Petro that have no counters, yes that makes the class on average stronger already. But if you play a Des Moines and you need to carry a match against the Hakuryu, 3 Yamatos, all range focussed cruisers and a Marceau. You are in a massive disadvantage.
His point is you're wrong buddy. He specifically played Zao because it's weak and did fine. With DM, he'd do better. If you can't carry more with DM, it means you're not good enough. It has nothing to do with petro.
@@dzello is this where i tell you youre wrong about me being wrong? You missed my point entirely. Just telling someone 'if you cant carry more than ur playing it wrong' is ignorant without knowing who youre talking to.
My point was that the meta is changing, giving certain ships an advantage and others disadvantage. I do very good in my des moines (65 percent winrate, only solo plays).
Shame i have to waste time on such a comment.
@@austinpowersfasjer I mean, your point is strictly stupid.
'' I find that it lacks ability to really carry games '' in one of the weakest acknowledged cruisers where you have 60% winrate. This is plenty of carrying.
Then you talk about DM which you say carries even better than Zao in which you have 60%. So now, not only are you saying Zao does fine, you're saying Zao does fine and DM does better.
And finally, you finish saying Petro is even better than both the cruisers you already carry way more than enough in.
So your point is, and I would underline that, stupid. You prove Potato's point while trying to prove it's incomplete.
In other words, a ship isn't strong if you play it like a brain dead potato. Who'd have guessed? LOL
If people think "cruisers aren't strong, it's just you don't play like the average moron" is an argument, then they're not worth worrying about.
If they can't play anything without getting in stupid positions they ought to play CVs as they are without doubt to most 'moron proof' ships in the game, followed by Thunderer/Mongqueror.
I made a comment on your Twitch channel about how negative it was. Because it was. Nearly all whining about war game. For sharing that with you, so you could reflect on your language, you instantly banned me and calle ME a whiner. Fine, I now ban you from my TH-cam subscriptions also. Will you never learn?
1st
Nice Video PQ. Keep up the good work