Valparaíso isn’t that good

I’ve got a 9-years patch and all positive win rates. I think this might be the most overhyped release since I started playing. I haven’t seen one YouTube personality appraise it accurately.

Its single big strength, immunity to bumbling small caliber farmers, is a dice roll. It is trivial to avoid impaling yourself on it like an NPC, but its weaknesses are so dramatic and reliable to exploit that the thing feels like a clever way to make older ships more relevant.

There is exactly one viable tactic for a Val, and if that doesn’t just pan out your way while you angle and robotically punch thru your special abilities, well shit. If your flank collapses, you’re dead fast. If they’ve got big guns, you’re dead fast. If they give you 12.1km of space, well shit.

Very large guns easily punch through to the citadel, even at moderate angles. Val’s own battery is inconsistent and mediocre at best, and using the rear two turrets is a nonstarter against equal opponents. And you’ve got nothing else but GK-tier secondaries. Old Izumo is a hard counter from inside the edge of Val’s secondary range to the other side of the map. Even high caliber cruisers like Le Havre can annihilate it from max in a shockingly small number of good salvos. Forget big guns with a reload booster; Val is a quick snack. Everyone says to use torpedoes, which works ok but is probably the slowest way to deal with it. In practice, in games, the citadel is among the most vulnerable of any battleship for tier.

It has a good rudder (not good enough to dodge shells at engagement range) and acceleration (but very slow), yet it plays like a T9 Nelson; they sound insane on paper and look stupid when they work, but the reality is most often getting chunked like a piñata thru the bow and scratching a worthless pack of Jesus heals. The most godlike repair teams in the world can’t protect it from its ubiquitous hard counters or even a minute or two of competent counterplay.

No real hate; it’s good. But that’s all it is. I’ve got the Bremen too, and that thing is genuinely powerful, comfortable, and reliable because it’s just a standard well-equipped light cruiser. Hawaii has a gimmick, but there’s a reason Atlanta is still relevant once in a while Nelson is not. If this post makes sense to you, I’d recommend either cruiser before Val. Even PanAm BBs are superior because they have reliably high damage and quirkier citadels.

It’s fun and it feels strong when it goes your way, like any other decent ship. It’s an above average duelist if you can stay totally unmolested. I’d call it about as powerful and reliable as a Smolensk in ranked. In randoms, it is flatly weak uptier fodder with good credit income. Not worth all that steel and not even a new concept, really. Thanks for coming to my ted talk