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Played a Zao game last night. The stars aligned and I found myself in a Random battle with mostly T8-9 ships. T8 CV. 1 DD per side. Zao (eyes glowing red): "I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine." 2 kills, 14 fires, 3 torpedo hits, 9 citadels, 1 cap assist, witherer, high cal, and confederate medals and 241000 dmg later ... my team just managed to scrape by with the win. I got 2400 base xp. The friendly Mogami working the other flank took second place with 2300 bxp. The game hammered home a few things for me. 1. IJN cruisers can sometimes be gifted "golden games" where by luck and skill you are largely left alone. Against T8 and T9 ships, though, Zao is especially effective since the fire starting chances scale with the tier difference and - with the spotter active - you outrange pretty much everything on the map. 2. Cruisers contribute most in long, drawn out, closely fought battles of attrition. 3. Late game is when Zao becomes especially lethal, when you can (and should) close to duelling range. Those torps pack enough to take out the biggest BB The biggest lesson I learnt here though was that, unpleasant as it may be morally speaking, in Zao you need to take advantage of what I call "ablative armor", i.e. use your teammates as human shields. I can even suggest a technical term for this: untanking. I did as well as I did, and contributed towards winning as much as I did, because by plan or by luck there were always ships in front of me taking damage instead of me. All of them died before I did, but you have to be cold blooded about this fact - better them than you. Some were BBs, but a couple were cruisers. Since I out-tiered them and could do more damage than they could, however, it was better for my team that I should survive. Untanking is the opposite of tanking. Of course no cruiser goes out to deliberately take damage, but untanking takes it a step further and can be considered as a form of negative potential damage. You actively position in such a way to ensure that teammates take damage instead of you. Sounds rotten, but look at it in the sense that those ships would have been targeted - even if you weren't there. You are just making their sacrifice more useful.

Zao is one of the ships that have been powercrept again and again. Before I talk about other things, I will talk about Zao as it is. Zao is a Tier-X heavy cruiser with trollish citadel armor, powerful HE shells, great accuracy and best stealth among heavy cruisers. But... Most ships have a trollish citadel armor, of all kinds: Spaced Multi-layered armor, Underwater Citadels, Hard Angled Turtlebacks or even simple "thin" armor which causes AP to over-pen. Powerful HE shells? Goliath got same powerful HE shells which actually pens more than Zao's. In terms of accuracy, the rest of the ships can get away with regular accuracy due to the amount of fire power they can put out. If someone wants a stealth cruiser, just get Minotaur instead. Sure, Zao can sneak up to an another cruiser but it will get rekt as easily as a Destroyer. And Zao can't even win any kind of HE trade which is supposed to be the feature of the line and rather has to both-broadside AP trade and citadel the enemy way often than you get citadeled. Zao just paid so much for her gimmicks. If someone says 'Zao is balanced, every other ship is not', that is just looking at constant numbers. If you are saying something is "Balanced", you are comparing it to the current meta. The current meta has a lot of powerful ships, so in order for a ship to be balanced, she needs to be powerful. Of course, "Powerful" and "Overpowered" are two different meanings. "Overpowered" means a ship as too powerful for her own needs. For example: If a ship as powerful as a Tier-X ship has been placed in a lower tier, it would be uselessly overpowered. Let's look at a few examples for how powerful the ships of the current meta is and how powerful Zao needs to be. The first examples are just in the lower tiers of IJN cruiser line itself. Furutaka and Myoko are the ships I'm going to talk about. Everyone can agree they are very powerful. They have the same features that the rest of the line has such as: High Damage HE shells, Accurate Guns, IJN Torpedoes, Good Maneuverability and Outstanding Stealth. Above all that, they got unusually high hitpoints. If you argue 'Ships above Mogami gets low hitpoints because they get Concealment Systems Modification 1' then, Every other ship gets the same upgrade and they also have better hitpoints. The next examples are Hindenburg and Goliath. Hindenburg is basically the mirror-opposite of Zao. Strangely, Hindenburg gets away with better HE DPM than Zao does. Ofcourse Hindenburg lacks the stealth but she still got many gimmicks of Zao as well as her own. Goliath is an another HE spammer. The RN superheal easily makes up for Zao's stealth and speed etc which Zao uses for her tanking tools and still Goliath can tank better than Zao in all cases. And Goliath still have many extra gimmicks like 16mm overmatch and improved HE pen. The next examples are the Light Cruisers. Zao uses her stealth to sneak up to somebody's side and shoot some AP at the exposed broadsides, but Dev-Strikes in a Zao is not something very common. Even if she gets radared, Zao can shoot and run away unlike destroyers. But Light Cruisers have better stealth. Although they can't deal massive damage as easily as Zao can, they can finish off what they started and kill the enemy unlike Zao which has to run away and re-locate after one good salvo. Even as a Heavy Cruiser, which can easily kill a Light Cruisers in short or long ranges, Zao struggles to fight against even Light Cruisers in any ranges. And Light Cruisers still have better HP than Zao. So you can see that Zao is clearly lacking. It has a similar amount of good and bad features but the rest of the ships has more good features than bad features. But what to buff Zao for? There is two ways to buff a ship: Buff anything or Buff where it is lacking. Buffing anything is what WG have been doing to Zao for quite a while. It is making a ship to extremely specialized like Smolensk which is balanced by nature(same ratio of good and bad features and gets rekt easily on misplays which is why you see this low WR on smolensk) but frustrating to fight against or even play it. Buffing where it is lacking will make Zao more versatile and more heavy cruiser-like. It makes a ship versatile like Des Moines(maybe not as versatile but you get the idea) which doesn't punish bad play but doesn't reward good play either. It also makes a ship a worthy opponent that anyone wants to fight against. What I'm asking for is just buff the Zao's hitpoints. It certainly won't change the stats of Zao players that much(except the initial burst of good players returning to play this newly buffed ship) since people who like to HE spam from the back would just play safe would stay at high HP most of the match and dies quickly when the enemy comes to them. It just makes a better ship that can reliably fight in the front lines and combat this passive gameplay. Just Buff the HP by 5k, not a lot but it certainly makes Zao stronger than a light cruiser. But I feel that 9-10k might be optimal. Ibuki and 203mm Mogami also shares the same fate as Zao as well and they should propably be buffed accordingly(not by the same amounts of course like propably 203mm Mogami 1-2k and Ibuki 3-4k).

Preview Download:https://drive.google.com/open?id=1GZV1LaMpl2uaQBB_znMd31_xX0DSdi7m If you like this skin, comment at the bottom. TobiichiOrigami's Skin For Zao.7z

この頃、高ティアの日巡を使ってて感じるのが物足りなさや扱いにくさだと思う… 蔵王は斉射の火力においては巡洋艦トップクラスの威力と火災発生率を誇っていると思う。だけど、射角45°と遠距離砲戦向きな傾向にあり、結果として芋がの増加や戦法の一極化を招きかねないけいこうにあると感じた。(現に、接近戦では射角の悪さからか、格下に負けかねない。) また伊吹に関しては、射角は35°と標準的だが、装填時間が遅い為か、火力の不足を感じずには居られない。弾道も、ティアとしては良い部類とも言えない。 2隻とも生存性は、同格の巡洋艦最下位なので、どうしても他の巡洋艦との交戦では不利を感じてしまう。特殊な消耗品も無いので、砲弾以外は目立った特徴もない。 私個人の意見としては、何らかの形で強化してほしいと思う。 蔵王は ・射角を広くする(艦首から35°で撃てる程度) ・砲の基数を減らし、その代わりに装填時間を早くする(上の項目とセット) ・生存性の向上(HPを45000くらいまで戻す) 伊吹は ・砲戦能力の向上(無茶を言えば蔵王の連装砲版を乗っけるなど) ・生存性の向上(HPをせめて愛宕程度まで) 勿論、それに伴う隠蔽の弱体化なども行っても良いと思う。 日巡に関して、私以外のプレイヤーの皆様からの意見が欲しいなと思い、投稿させて頂きました。

Hi, Devs! I like the Zao that has an option to change the torpedo (like in Shimakaze) to Type 93 mod.2 (10 km range at 67 knots) from Ibuki or Type 93 mod.3 (12 km range at 67 knots) from Shimakaze.

我是大拿玩家= =，说实话在x级房别的不怕，最怕的就是zao，真的看着海面上无缘无故飞来一堆HE，哗啦啦的就吧你点上2把火你却看不到对方吗（不同于卡山和烟雾里的卡山侦察机能搞定，烟雾里盲烟就好），就很气，修火之后哗啦啦又把你点上2把，好了.如果那zao亮了大拿一轮打过去稍微外切一下躲了，然后又反过头来噗噗噗又是2把火，好，就算能打到zao了，还是挺着肚子的那种，想给他一轮惊喜，一轮过去啪啪啪7个过穿，然后对方回过头来咻咻咻又是2把火，或者能打到zao了吃我大拿12发406啦，一轮过去叮叮当当几发跳单加1个过穿那是常事，对方又是噼里啪啦给你点上生日蜡烛，我之前大拿打zao出过7发跳蛋= =你们敢信？？？好不打他，打不过，省得一身火，结果zao就追着你跑，发现你看他要么就是准备外切的样子要么就是T头对着你，想都不想打他，不看他，头上10万发zao的炮弹飞过来了，啊，这船对大拿来说简直无敌啊，大和还好说哦，460强制击穿，打2发半伤就赚回来了，好气啊，气死人了，（所以只要对面zao盯着我打了我就会送他2个举报= =）最后为zao做首诗：南村群zao欺我老无力，忍能对面为毒瘤，公然点火入山去，船焦炮软打不着，归来举报自叹息。

After my previous "Zao is OP post" about how taking RoF on Zao makes it a really strong, borderline OP ship, path 0.6.0 came. And with that came Adrenaline rush. So I decided that an aggro build would be pretty viable, so I took Rudder mod 3 instead of the usual Concealment mod. Guess what, this thing becomes even more OP. Before: After: Skills: AR, EL, EM, AR, DE, AFT, CE Modules: Main battery 1 / AA range / RoF / Damecon / Rudder 2 / Rudder 3 Currently it has: 12.1 - 9.7s reload 16.2 - 19.4km range (spotter + DFAA) 10.8s Concealment range Most importantly ->> 3.7s rudder. Right now this build can troll USN BBs at 12km and dodge all their shells, and troll all other BB types (except maybe Izumo cos 870m/s shell velocity) at 14km. The 3.7s rudder can even troll CVs. Wargaming may want to balance CAs in this tier by either buffing the others (like poor Hindenburg) or (recommended) nerfing the Zao. Of course detractors may claim Zao is not OP, but they are just not playing Zao in the most optimal way. Why else would the best Zao players have the highest CA win rates in T10? Only for 3-man divs does DM outwin the Zao (according to warships.today) How am I going to remove slippery aggro Zao players from the enemy team when I can't hit them? Why would WG put a T10 ship with literally no weaknesses in the game? As someone who cares the about the playability of T10 games (since I play T10 quite a bit), I am quite concerned about this troll build. One does not simply add an "anti-everything" ship into the game, unless it is premium. This would literally be encouraging players to cheese.

It is time we need to have some discussions about the Zao Here are some points about the Zao, feel free to add in more observations in the replies. -Excellent HE alpha, ~202k HE DPM with 13.1 fires per minute when running RoF mod. Shell arcs are also excellent -AP shells are excellent, they are heavy and fast, and have excellent penetration. Of course, you would not be spamming them but using them situationally against CAs, so alpha is more important than DPM. 64800 AP broadside is no joke, especially with her dispersion. -Armour Layout: Similar to other T10s, it has 25mm of bow and stern armour and 30mm of upper belt and deck, but..... The armour geometry is broken af. The upper deck is flared out for most of the ship (look up in armour viewer). This allows it to bounce 16 inch shells off its upper belt/deck readily. -6.1s rudder shift with rudder mod. This is an extremely agile ship, apart from German BBs and Izumo, you have a lot of time to dodge shells, especially if you are already kiting. While most people fear the 18.8km stealth firing Zaos, they are not the most dangerous, nor the most OP. The Zao players I fear are those running rudder 2/3 mod, and using RoF mod. They are literally the most broken ships in the right hands. Impossible to hit, high fires per minute, troll armour, what else you want to make it more irritating? Case in point: After I changed from range mod to RoF mod, my average damage increased from ~88k to ~122k This is not balanced at all. So in conclusion, Zao is very survivable, due to maneuverability and troll armour layout, has excellent fire setting potential, has great AP to slam into CA broadsides. The torpedoes are cherry on the cake. You don't even need the torps, and it will still be OP.

Can we have a “Type F3 Mod 2” torpedo upgrade to improve the torpedo arcs? If I was captain I would have ordered my engineer to cut wider holes in the hull, even while at sea. If I was admiral I would have ordered the Zao and her sister ships back to port for a refit. At least a 20% forward arc increases for the forward tubes and a 20% aft arc increases for the aft tubes. Or 2 extra mods, 1 to only increase the forward arc 30% and 1 to only increases aft arc 30%, the choice would be the player.

Ship Names T10 IJN Cruiser - Senjo戦場 to Zao蔵王山 0.3.1? Unless there has been changes. The next major update will change the Tier 10 IJN cruiser name to Zao from Senjo. Now I assume Senjo is a papership hence the devs could call any name to it, which probably ended up and named Senjou = battlefield, however they probably changed it to 'Zao' as historical naming of IJN heavy cruisers and bigger ships after mountains. That mountain is Mt. Zao as many assume. But the name Zao by all means sound chinese. The patriotic chinese wont probably like a chinese sounding name into an IJN ship. It may or may not cause some trouble in the future. There are alternate mountains names to choose from. Unless its official paper ship name is Zao? If anyone is following the chinese and japanese threads what are their opinion on the ship naming?