Ministry of Balance: Spring Changes

The April update brings a set of new balance changes for various warships, particularly for the Italian destroyers and high-tier French large cruisers. Various specific ships have also received changes according to their situation, including small economic changes to some ships at Tier VIII and a bunch of spawn changes to maps. Let's dive in and break down all the changes this update!

Ship Changes

Resistance

Resistance is trying to find her spot in Tier VI, but she needs some help getting there. This update improves her AP shells and survivability.

• Main Battery AP shell damage increased from 11,350 to 12,000
• Ship HP increased from 55,200 to 59,000 
  • Bow HP increased from 2,800 to 3,000
  • Hull HP increased from 41,400 to 44,300
  • Magazine HP increased from 27,600 to 29,500
  • Steering Gear HP increased from 16,600 to 17,700
  • Superstructure HP increased from 4,000 to 4,200
  • Casemate HP increased from 8,700 to 9,300
  • Engine HP increased from 55,200 to 59,000

Hawke

Due to Hawke's increased citadel vulnerability and longer reload than most other battleships, she currently feels uncomfortable to play and underperforms. To combat this, we're improving her reload substantially this update.

• Stock Main Battery reload time reduced from 34 to 31 seconds 
• Upgraded Main Battery reload time reduced from 31 to 28 seconds

Saint Louis

Saint Louis is designed around being one of the ultimate glass-cannon ships, focused purely on damage potential. However, she often still struggles to compete, so we're improving her survivability and reload.

• Stock Main Battery reload time reduced from 10 to 9 seconds 
• Upgraded Main Battery reload time reduced from 8.5 to 7.5 seconds 
• Stock Hull total health increased from 38,800 to 40,000 
  • Stock Hull Bow HP increased from 2,900 to 3,000
  • Stock Hull Stern HP increased from 2,900 to 3,000
  • Stock Hull HP increased from 29,100 to 30,000
  • Stock Hull Magazine HP increased from 19,400 to 20,000
  • Stock Hull Steering Gear HP increased from 11,600 to 12,000
  • Stock Hull Superstructure HP increased from 3,000 to 3,100
  • Stock Hull Casemate HP increased from 2,900 to 3,000
• Upgraded Hull total health 40,900 to 44,000 
  • Upgraded Hull Bow HP increased from 3,000 to 3,300
  • Upgraded Hull Stern HP increased from 3,000 to 3,300
  • Upgraded Hull HP increased from 30,700 to 33,000
  • Upgraded Hull Magazine HP increased from 19,400 to 22,000
  • Upgraded Hull Steering Gear HP increased from 12,300 to 13,200
  • Upgraded Hull Superstructure HP increased from 3,200 to 3,400
  • Upgraded Hull Casemate HP increased from 3,000 to 3,300
  • Upgraded Hull Engine HP increased from 40,900 to 44,000

Alaska

Alaska has sometimes proved to be extremely durable after her recent buff, so we're making her less difficult to damage throughout the match by negating the effects of saturation. While the HP of these modules is increasing, this means it takes more damage for parts of the ship to saturate and is functionally a reduction of the ship's survivability. Plus, we're increasing Alaska's reload time slightly.

• Main Battery reload time increased from 18 to 20 seconds
• HP increased for bow, stern, casemate, and superstructure—increasing the damage the ship takes before saturation. 
  • Bow HP increased from 3,500 to 5,000
  • Casemate HP increased from 6,900 to 10,000
  • Superstructure HP increased from 3,700 to 5,000
  • Stern HP increased from 4,200 to 6,000

Stalingrad

Stalingrad shares the same situation as Alaska, so she's getting a similar nerf to her survivability. We prefer to make nerfs via the saturation system rather than the armor plating, as modifying HP and saturation leads to more predictable outcomes.

• HP increased for bow, stern, casemate, and superstructure—increasing the damage the ship takes before saturation. 
  • Bow HP increased from 4,900 to 9,800
  • Casemate HP increased from 5,300 to 10,600
  • Superstructure HP increased from 5,800 to 11,600
  • Stern HP increased from 5,800 to 11,600

Cherbourg

The primary pain point anyone playing the French large cruisers will notice is the lengthy reload time, so we're slightly improving Cherbourg's rate of fire to address this. She's only slightly behind most other Tier VII cruisers, so the change is small.

• Main Battery reload time reduced from 29 to 28 seconds

Brest

At Tier VIII, the playstyle of the French large cruisers becomes even more difficult to achieve, so Brest gains a bigger change to her reload time than Cherbourg.

• Main Battery reload time reduced from 28 to 26 seconds

Leone

Leone is one of the destroyers with the greatest potential as a hull; eight guns on a Tier V destroyer is notable. However, this ship lacks greatly in rate of fire compared to her peers as compensation for the number of guns, which detracts from the ship's unique traits. To address this, she sees a substantial improvement to rate of fire.

• Main Battery reload time reduced from 9.5 to 8 seconds

Cyclone

Our 4 Year Loyalty reward, Cyclone, is lacking in several areas at Tier IV. We're giving her a couple necessary improvements to spice her up for her return this year.

• Main Battery Reload Time decreased from 10 to 6.5 seconds
• Torpedo speed increased from 57 to 65 knots
• Repair Party moved from slot 2 to slot 4, making this an additional consumable for the ship.
• Overview traits changed: Added Slow trait. Agile trait was changed to Heal Consumable.

Italian Tech Tree Destroyers

Italian destroyers from Tier VI and up quickly lose the ability to stand in gun duels and aren't designed for torpedo warfare. We're improving the reload on these SAP gunboats to bridge the gap:

• Luca Tarigo 
  • Main Battery reload time reduced from 6.5 to 5.5 seconds 

• Vittorio Cuniberti 
  • Main Battery reload time reduced from 6.0 to 5.5 seconds 
• Adriatico 
  • Main Battery reload time reduced from 5.7 to 4.5 seconds 

Economy Changes

We're making some small credit economy changes for a few Tier VIII ships to make them earn credits and XP at similar rates.

• Credit-Earning Increases 
  • Maine credit-earning rate increased by 11%
  • Izumo credit-earning rate increased by 11%
  • Temeraire credit-earning rate increased by 11%
  • Friedrich der Große credit-earning rate increased by 11%
  • Dmitri Donskoi credit-earning rate increased by 5.5%
• Credit-Earning Reductions 
  • Brest credit-earning rate reduced by 5%
  • Petropavlovsk credit-earning rate reduced by 5%
  • Brindisi credit-earning rate reduced by 5%
  • Sejong credit-earning rate reduced by 5%

Map Changes

A bunch of maps are getting spawn changes! The main focus is to avoid having ships spawn at an angle and give players more choice in the direction they want to take at the start of battle. Another focus was to spread spawns out more to cover the map evenly.

Trap

• Removed angling from spawns.
• Spawns repositioned to avoid line of sight.
• Carrier spawns moved forward.

Haven (Lower Tiers)

• Removed angling from spawns.

Haven (High Tiers)

Both Domination and Capture the Base variants

• Removed angling from spawns.
• Removed west-side bias to spawns. Spawns are spread more evenly across the map.

Shatter

• Spread spawn groups out across the map.
• Map border added to reduce empty map area.

Estuary

• Tuned capture zone sizes.
• Central capture zone size increased.
• Spawn point weighting adjusted.
• Two new scenarios for Estuary have been added, using the left and right halves of the map.

Riposte

• Moved awkward spawn points for better navigation.

Strait

• Two new scenarios for Strait have been added: one for mid-tier and one for top-tier battles.

Tears of the Desert

• Epicenter game mode removed from matchmaking.

That covers this edition of the Ministry of Balance. We plan to make more changes in future updates, so stay tuned and keep turning the tide!