[2022] Is WG ever going to buff underwhelming Dockyard ships?

Gonna have to disagree with you on that one.
De7 is an amazing ship - one of the better DY ships in my estimation. The airstrikes have long range for her tier, just low area - which is fine in my book as it means you just have to aim them better. Her gunnery is the scariest part about her. Even if you take IFHE she still lights tons of fires.

Hizen isn't as bad as people make her out to be. She still has a very big throw-weight, the reload just punishes mistakes and she lacks anything that makes her feel "special".

Marlborough I don't care for myself much either, but my fear is that a buffed Marlborough would quickly become the HE spamming monster that KGV is at T7 or Conq is at T10. It's a fine line between making a ship more attractive and turning it into a headache.

Odin I generally like as it was the first time we got a German BB where the secondaries and the detection nearly lined up - I don't think we were ready for that until the Schlieffen line showed up.

ZF6 remains one of the best DY ships pound-for-pound in the game.

Atlantico is awesome, full stop.

PR is a solid T10 Large Cruiser with a big meaty AP broadside and a hidden citadel.

Anchorage is underrated because the gameplay is a little too straightforward for most people's tastes I think. Smoke and heavy cruiser doesn't seem to mesh well in most people's minds.

Repulse is just the best

De7 is already one of the better performing DY ships tier-for-tier. She's really not in need of a buff.

What about it? She's an HE spammer and I think we all know how HE spammers are regarded when they're too good.

Marlborough is always open to being buffed if it's found to be underperforming too severely so we'll keep an eye on it.

Odin can be compared to Brandenburg pretty well. Very similar ships, but Odin functions like a "Pocket-Brandenburg", which itself functions like a "Pocket Pommern", which itself is a "Pocket GK" . Odin does suffer from low HP for a BB, but it also has good conceal, excellent secondaries, and good rate of fire. She's meant to be played more like a Large Cruiser than a BB in my experience. It's not easy at all, but it's very fun when it works.

I have hundreds of hours of streams on my personal channel as a CC or on the Official stream where I demonstrate that I'm perfectly able to recognize when a ship may be amazing in my hands but difficult for a new player. That would be a "High skill-floor" ship like Austin, Napoli, or Incomparable. It requires a high-degree of skill to master, but once mastered it can do things few others can do.
I honestly pride myself in being able to discuss, teach, or critique things from the perspective of various levels of skill / familiarity.

Not true!

DY ships are always open to being adjsuted after the fact. We don't balance ships based on whether we're trying to actively sell them or not. We were accused of this in the many San Diego threads, even told directly to buff it further because "it would sell more" and I had to emphatically state that we do not buff ships to sell more of them. We don't balance things for sales and we never will. I would hope all of you support that.

Hizen has no distinct "personality" to it the way that many of DY ships do. I think this is the reason by people feel it's underwhelming, but a 12-gun 410mm broadside is still nothing to scoff at. I think people poo-poo Hizen because it plays a lot like the American BB line split "Standards" that came out around the same time: Big guns, lots of them, and long reload.

HE pen or AP pen?

The guns are 305mm, so they won't behave like Battleship guns. Below I compared the German BB's and CA that have 305mm and all have penetration consistent with what a 305mm gun does. Agir has a slightly higher penetration at shorter ranges, but it evens out towards the end. German AP shells as a theme have higher base damages than other nations, except maybe US ships that have Heavy AP shells.

I'm guessing that you are treating the 305's as you would other battleships of higher calibers - but that's not the case. They are Large Cruiser-caliber guns and just don't have the inherent penetration of something crazy like a Stalingrad's 305's.

Partly this is to balance the fact that most german ships have excellent secondaries as a damage-dealing mechanic.

I'd love to see an ice-breaker on Agir and Siegfried. Doesn't mean they need it

They are, in fact - super accurate. And they fire

You got what you wanted!

Siegfried performs exceptionally well having 380’s of extreme accuracy on a cruiser hull with the mobility that comes with it. Reload is 26 standard but that goes to sub 24 with module… and the armor on the upper hull (90mm) is a huge part of what makes her and Agir so strong 1 that she can bounce BB shells when angled proper and shatter every cruiser HE shell in the game.

It’s not a secondary-focused ship . That tends not to be a Japanese theme outside of ships like Kii or maybe Shikishima.

It has BC dispersion

Actually you’re correct here. There are no literal group values for CA/BC/BB dispersion. It’s just us comparing to what else exists.

Siegfried has dispersion similar to other heavy cruisers, but happens to carry Battleship caliber guns.

Because we try to make sure ships have a distinct feel to them that sets them apart in some way from others. The scale of that difference is bigger in some cases and smaller in others, but PR is basically a Large Cruiser / Light Battleship in many ways, so she has that as a means of making her otherwise massive broadside for a cruiser stay in line.

Possibly, but I would not put too much stock in this. Something like Odin might get a buff some day, but that might not necessarily mean it's coming back as a DY boat.

Soviet Bias?
Where?

Ha! I grew up with a mother and father who were very, very different. Being able to acknowledge the importance of multiple perspectives is it very dear to my heart

To clarify, “Supercruiser” is a term the community uses to identify cruisers that have battleship burn times. Internally and in our publications “super cruisers” are referred to as “Large Cruisers” to indicate that they have battleship burn times.

I never cared too much for the distinction until Superships entered the game and suoerbattleship, super destroyer, and super cruiser became terms that meant something very specific again.

What’s the bias? Accuracy?

Some ships are more accurate than others and pay for it in other ways.

Sounds like you’re pulling my leg though - that Sevastopol’s proposed accuracy compared to Kronstadt’s would create one middle-of-the-road accuracy pattern

Slava’s armor is extremely weak for a T10 BB.

Stalingrad is a gigantic target with a big citadel exposed on the side and some of the worst maneuverability for a cruiser in the game.

Its not ALL about accuracy, brother. The “Russian bias” trope doesn’t hold much water anymore.