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Greetings Captains,
Welcome to this week’s edition of the New Player Captain's Log! For those of you who aren't sure what this is or what it might do, feel free to check out the introductory post here.
With each topic I discuss, I also added a question at the end to see how y’all feel about things in comparison to how I feel. I just thought it would be an interesting way to get some discussion going!
Without further ado, let’s proceed with this week’s Log!
Focus Points of the Week
Here’s a list of the focus points for this week:
1. Advance the German BB line a bit
2. Play one or two German Premium BBs
Gneisenau
After playing the Bayern a bit more, I finally got through and unlocked the Gneisenau in the German BB line. Having spent some time with the British Battlecruisers last week, I found that Gneisenau had a lot of similarities. She’s got a pretty decent speed for a BB, she has torps and solid secondaries. She also doesn’t have the strongest armor (that armor belt is nice though!) and she lights on fire at the drop of a hat. At the time of writing I only tried out a few games with her, but I can tell I am going to struggle with how best to utilize her. Should I keep my distance since she has solid range and detectability? Should I go full brawler and try to get myself in the thick of things more? Only time will tell I suppose. I will say that her guns do feel more accurate than the Bayern, but that could all be in my perception. Regardless, I certainly need to spend some more time with the Gneisenau before I form any hard opinions on how she performs. I will say that I can easily see why she is a bit divisive among players. She doesn’t seem easy to play effectively.
Question: What kind of build do you find to be most effective with the Gneisenau?
Scharnhorst
On the other side, I decided to pick up the Scharnhorst (specifically the Scharnhorst B) for a few more matches since I had only played her briefly once before. It is not hard to see a lot of similarities between the Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst, as they are sister ships in the same class. She’s speedy, she has torps and her rate of fire seems pretty fast for a BB. Of course, the trade off for the higher rate of fire is that Scharnhorst’s gun caliber is quite small, but it still does feel like a refreshing take on a BB/battlecruiser. All of that being said, she is NOT easy for me to use lol. Similar to what I outlined above, I struggle to find that sweet spot in which she is most effective. Either I find myself staying too far away in order to protect myself, or I have gotten too close and the fire just rains down upon me. Between the two of them, I might struggle a bit more with the Gneisenau, but I do have at least a couple more games in the Scharnhorst than her sister so I suppose time will tell where my preferences will lie.
Question: In terms of range between you and the enemy, what do you find to be the “sweet spot” for the Scharnhorst?
I think that about covers it this week! I want to remind everyone that the New Player Captain’s Log is also designed to be a place for new players to reply with their experiences or seek advice as well, so feel free to join in on the conversation below!
See you next week for some more New Player musings. Fair winds and following seas!