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The famous advice from The Godfather, part II comes to mind with the Z-23: Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. This German Tier VIII DD is a lot like Mafia muscle. Brutal violence skillfully deployed at the right time and place. It is less fun to play than other DD lines as your job is straightforward and a bit repetitive: stay out of trouble until the time comes to smash someone's head in. That said, the Z-23 is an effective and useful ship, a bodyguard to keep your team safe and hold a flank solid. It is in no way a "bad" DD. Okay, so how to you play the Z-23? 1. You build for, and play around, your Hydro. If you aren't making bank from this consumable, you may as well play a different DD line. Equip the enhanced Hydro consumable, run SI. Find as many uses for it as you can think of: a. It's a personal anti-torpedo shield. When it's up, you cannot be torped. EZ cap is EZ. b. You can catch unsuspected DDs in smoke with classic "deer in the headlights" ploy where you hydro them and later smoke up yourself so you can shoot them and they can't shoot you back. c. It's an anti-torpedo shield for your teammates. Don't underestimate the value of this. Just sitting in front of a group of friendly ships with hydro up neuters enemy DD attacks for a couple of minutes, it can be a real lifesaver when facing e.g. Asashio. 2. Remember the "keep your friends close" part of the quote. You have 6.2km concealment, not good enough to be playing far away from your support. Stay close enough to your team that any enemy DD that chooses to get into a fight with you is going to take return fire from both you and your team. 3. CVs are a particular pain. If one has it in for you, you just have to retreat back to a friendly AA cruiser or maybe a Euro DD for help. Don't try to go stick it out. 4. KM DDs are something of an OG version of the British line, in that they are built to defend rather to attack. You want to wait for an enemy DD to blunder into you, rather than the other way around. General advice for DDs: "play carefully and don't overextend" is doubly relevant to the Z-23. When facing bad odds (i.e. T9 games, games with 12 km radar or CV) stay back until you see the game develop. No pressure to cap early. 5. I build with TAE to bring the already fast torp reload down. Torps are not great, but they aren't bad either, and while the Z-23 is a hybrid generally you'll not want to be open-water shooting at anything not a DD so the more torps you can pump out the better. Plus the buff to the already fast reload can catch people out that aren't expecting a second so quickly. 6. You have two options for guns, 4x 128 with quick reload and 5x 150 mm with slow reload. Less dakka-dakka on the 150mm means it feels less impressive, and it is in fact a 12% reduction in dpm - but the alpha increases from 6k to whopping 11k which is nothing to sneeze at. Plus the penetration on the AP makes it formidable when you are smoked up with broadside targets to shoot at. In my view both guns are viable, but on balance the 150mm are better. Build (0.9.9) [Lutjens 15 points] PT-LS-TAE-CE (PM-LS-EM) <- this is not ideal, but he moves between several other ships.

Finally i managed to use IFHE and CE on this ship. And the video is the first time i use her after getting the skill. A lot of luck involved, and thanks to our team CV. Also thanks to 2 BBs who followed me, although one was YOLO, i might not survive without him lol. Many people doesn't like this ship, and say, don't invest into it. I've tested the build at PT server, then i came with 3 requirements need to understand and to be done before making this ship useful. Not a powerful ship, but useful. 1. Fully upgraded 2. IFHE + CE 3. Do not gunfight another DD with same or higher tier Explanation : 1. The ship only have 4 x 128mm gun if you refuse to get 150mm. Hull B and 150mm both required to get the ship 5 guns. The fore gun will transform into dual mount. Since her firing range also horrible, plus you don't get bonus from Advanced Firing Training skill, extra range also a necessity. Torpedo upgrade should be the last, note at this video, even BB managed to torpedo beat mine. The spread of 4 tubes are huge, so it must be lucky to hit. 2. IFHE, inertial fuse high explosive Is a skill needed to increase number of options to deal damage to another ship. 150mm + IFHE is equal to russian cruiser 152mm + IFHE. Mogami's 155mm is a little bit higher. You can deal damage to BB bow and stern using this skill, note that i did full damage hitting North Carolina's bow. It is ship's hull part in front of the first turret. CE is concealment expert, needed to reduce ship detectability. Almost a must have skill for DD, nuff said. Her max concealment is 6.2km 3. Z-23 is a poor gunboat to deal with another DD, even killing a Kagero is a lot of pain. She is good against anything else tho. AP penetration also horrible, as if the big 3700 AP damage a lie. The only good target if you want to use her AP probably Shchors. The bad penetration should be good against DD, you might think but it also wrong. No good DD player would show broadside all the time.