BeardyBandit

Chunking BB bow, stern and superstructure works well, particularly if they are already on fire. The British DD AP is stupidly good against enemy DDs who show broadside. Most DD AP will work well against lightly armoured cruisers as well. It's relatively easy to get good damage on British, Russian and US light cruisers (gunning down a Smolensk with AP from a Marceau is always good fun) with DD AP in short to mid engagements.

You won't have any regrets. It's an easy ship to rack up damage in and can easily hold a flank if you know how to position well. Unless of course the CV wants you dead...

For me it comes down to the heal and armour. Get into a good position and you are very hard to remove without at least trading with the enemy, even against T10. The guns are serviceable, the secondaries are a meme (but fun and effective against over extended DDs and light cruisers) but the survivability sets it apart. Sure, that means potatoes can survive a few minutes longer, but in the hands of a good player, it has the potential to hold a flank with little assistance in many cases (obviously all bets are off if you're focussed by a CV though)

Both are great but I enjoyed the Z-46 over the Jutland. That reversed at TX for me though, and would definitely grind to the Daring over the Z-52 first. Really you can't go wrong either way though.

The AA is okay, but certainly not Halland levels. The DefAA is good in certain situations. It won't stop a CV intent on hammering you if you're alone, but it quite effective when helping another ship defend against a strike. The torps are very effective if you know how to bait well and can get enemies to reliably chase you. You do get 12 as well with great firing arcs so you can flood an area quickly. The range and reload is poor though, so they are more situational than Halland. As Drakon said, a well played Marceau if terrifying to go up against. A poor one is a free kill.

Marceau is great. Initially I regretted my decision to use my resource coupon to get it but I'm glad I did now. It is a beast in clan battles too, as you can take caps quick, bait a lot of damage and waste the enemies time. Once you've taken a reasonable amount of damage, cosy up to an island and use your high shell arcs to lob over the top. And the Yolo ability with 12 torps is just too much fun some times.

I'm a DD main and I still feel that I have the most control over a match in a DD. I have been playing a lot of CA matches lately grinding Hinden and DM and though I feel I do well individually, my overall win rate has been dropping as I just don't have as much influence. As soon as I jump back in a DD though, it's a different story. There is a fairly recent thread in the forum about how to get better as a DD player which is well worth a read if you haven't seen it already. IlUltimayely, if you find yourself dying often in the first 5 min often, try different things like going out further on the flank, staying behind the cap a bit longer, being a bit more patient in general. You've got 20 minutes to win a match, no need to do it in the first 5 🙂 T10 DD can still be a lot of fun. I had a fun match in the Daring against @Moggytwo last night where we traded caps the entire match and played as pickets for our tteam

I had a game about 3 months ago where an AFK Amagi won it for the enemy team. I was the last one left on my team with very little health in the Maass and sunk their Graf Zep but not before he got one last flight of rocket planes up. He ended up sinking me and the Amagi, still sitting motionless in spawn with a wave of my torps going towards him, was the last one left. Sometimes, by sheer dumb luck, the campers/AFKs/bots can somehow get a win

I'd like to add another one to your (impressive) list that a lot of DD players don't do: Reverse into the cap! So many DDs enter the cap forwards, get radar'd and then eat a ton of damage making a 180 degree turn to bail. If you don't know where the radar ships or enemy DDs are, take the extra time to stop, turn and reverse into the cap. That way if you soon get sprung by radar, you can bail quickly and only show a very narrow profile to the enemy. Sounds simple but I rarely see anyone else do it.

Radar baiting is an important skill as a DD player. Either get the radar ship to waste a radar by being in a position he can't shoot, or better yet, bait him into the open where your teammates can kill him off. I had a great game in the Yugumo last night where I was on the edge of a DMs radar range and baited him out of his island cover. He then over committed to killing me and got focussed down really quickly. Most enemies will focus a DD when it gets spotted, so use that to your advantage where possible.

Cool video! Daring is such a fun ship. Maybe a smidge OP but always fun to play.

I've had a few double CV matches lately, particularly at T8. In these instances, it really came down to which CV pair worked better together to focus down targets. The rest of the team were largely just trying to stay alive for as long as possible by grouping up behind islands. It didn't make for particularly engaging combat as neither team actually wanted to make a push.

I still find that I have the most control over the outcome of a match in a DD, and the is even with being on an absolute horror run in the last few weeks. There are occasions where you will be neutralized pretty easily (I had 1 game with 2x Petros, 1x Alaska and 1x DM on the enemy team while in my Z-23) particularly of the CV wants you dead early. But if you work out what your team needs from you early (either focus on spotting, capping, flanking or dropping smoke) and stick to it, you should still do fine. Playing cautiously is well advised as well. Don't give away your position early, know where the radar cruisers are and plan for where they are most likely to go next. Or just bait them into attacking you and charging out from behind an island into your waiting team. Works a treat.

Most (but not all) CVs are predictable in how they will start a game. Usually rocket planes with a sweep along typical paths where DDs normally go into or near caps and to see where enemy ships are positioned. Be the unpredictable DD and change or delay your heading until the planes pass by and find another target. If you know you are going to get spotted either turn in or away to present the smallest profile possible and jam on the brakes. You'd be surprised at how often that works and the CV drops too soon or too late depending on how you have turned. Don't be afraid to burn a smoke if you're low health. The longer you're alive, the better off you're team is. If the CV is really out to get you, you can use that to your advantage by getting him away from the rest of your team and wasting his time. This is a surprisingly successful tactic. Finally, we are getting the air detection buff to DDs soon and the addition of the German CVs has diluted the CV population's effectiveness against DDs somewhat. So as DD mains, we are in a better spot now than we have been for a while. So i disagree that the Rockets are OP. Painful? Definitely. But there are ways to blunt their effectiveness. If you do cop a big hit from them, look at where you are position on the Minimap and think of where a better spot would be in future to prevent this happening again.

It's a great ship if you're divisioned up with another DD or a radar cruiser. Play it like a light cruiser, using changes in speed and direction to juke enemy shots. Make sure you have IFHE and watch the enemy health drain away real quick, no matter what it is. Only go into a cap if there is no one else better suited to capping, and even then proceed with caution. 2x Harugumos and a radar Mino is one of the most fun divisions in the game 🙂