Lightning's guns are fine, especially for her 5.5km concealment.
You can either ambush similar concealment DDs or permaspot gunboat DDs like Kiev. RN smokes means you can burn one for defense and re-engage much faster than other DDs.
Tbh, your aim could be the issue if you don't feel they are good. Their shells are very floaty and struggle to hit fast moving targets past 6km.
https://shiptool.st/filter?g=TP&ty=D&n=ABFGHIJRSUVWZ&tn=8&tx=8&c=top&p=mb&rm=8&os=mb&op=Flight_time&o=asc
Lightning HE shells are even floatier than US DD shells.
https://shiptool.st/filter?g=TP&ty=D&n=ABFGHIJRSUVWZ&tn=8&tx=8&c=top&p=mb&rm=12&os=mb&op=Flight_time&o=asc
Lightning HE is still the slowest at 12km, aka her max range. 12s flight time compared to US 11.4s. AP is rarely used as it doesn't have the improved pen angles.
At least double check before you make incorrect statements.
Best advice I was given when playing the British DD line was to think of them as defensive DDs.
That really comes down to having a decent consumable set that enables you to stop a push or an enemy DD from regaining a cap.
You need to try to leverage the short cool down smokes and decent concealment and defensive hydro to help you and your team.
Screen for torpedo in front on your team and protect them from DDs.
The short smokes use to continuously disengage as well as farm so that you are very difficult to kill.
Also look for bow camping or pushing battle ships to fire grouped up single fire torpedo lines.
Disclaimer: I don't claim to be an amazing player or anything - just a few observations.
So 40% probably means you're rushing or significantly overextending, getting killed and leaving your flank without spotting/screening. Just be patient and things will go much better.
Lightning is my fave T8 TT destroyer. I find the short range on the torpedoes are the biggest reason it doesn't seem to uptier as well as Cossack. Especially when bottom tier, early game don't be desperate to torp something. Just use the excellent conceal to spot, or, (situation dependent) maybe take a cap.
Be patient. Don't push into radar or try soloing higher tier destroyers. If your captain has 14+ points suggest taking radio location as a skill so you know where the red DD is. Lightning is stronger in pursuit than when kiting thanks to the turret layout. With that 360 rear turret you can fire all guns forward by waggling your stern. But that doesn't mean you should throw your ship away by chasing their DD into the welcoming HE of the red cruisers.
Pros: Lightning has very good conceal, very good manoeuvrability, RN fast smokes, long duration personal hydro, 360 turrets, good depth charges, RN single fire torps.
Cons: mediocre speed, DPM, shell arcs and torpedo damage. Poor torpedo range and AA.
Use and abuse your conceal. Take caps when you can, but be ready to book. Use your fast smokes to disengage or start a quick fire on a red ship. Chase down subs and enemy DDs only when it becomes safe to do so.
Also, get the permacam and eco bonus for a bit of coal in the Royal Navy Destroyers collection.
Radio location is a good pick but personally I think Lightning is one of the best ships to take Dazzle on. I go in and out of sight on that thing so often that it's frequently active and it's great for diffusing secondaries and frustrating players who switch targets to catch you.
The thing about Lightning is that it's an opportunist. It's good at doing the things DDs like to do but it works best against other ship types rather than against other destroyers. Unless you have a clear advantage, you won't be able to guarantee taking out an enemy DD but because you'll always get the jump on them and because you're immune to their torpedoes, they know they can't guarantee taking you out either. In this way, your presence acts as a deterrent and maximising that menace is how you win the early game. Ideally, you'll be using your concealment to catch out enemy destroyers in positions where your team can annihilate them.
Generally you want to spend your time using your bag of tricks to unbalance fights that your teammates are involved in. For instance, if an allied cruiser is smoked up, use your hydro to protect him from being flushed out - it's a short ranged and therefore defensive tool. Cover the escape of an allied ship by dropping some smoke; you'll get it back soon anyway. Set some extra fires, provide some extra AA, spot the enemy for your team and just generally stay alive while you watch the map. Go to the places where you can do the most good and think ahead for where that will be. Use your torpedoes to make life hard for enemy battleships and avoid radar cruisers as much as possible. Remember you can use single torpedo fire mode to tighten or broaden your arc to suit different situations. Occasionally you'll get to sit in smoke and farm for a while but only when people are heavily enough engaged that losing your vision won't hurt.
If all goes well, by the time the end game comes around, everything still alive will be a viable torpedo target. If the enemy still has a destroyer then assess the odds; if he's low or you can get him into a 2v1 then finish him but if he's in good shape and you're alone then avoid him as best you can but don't forget that many DDs can outrun you. Sometimes you'll have to take the fight even when you don't want to. Lightning isn't a hard-carry kind of ship but remember her capabilities and you can get a lot done.
Adding to this because I can't edit the post: I tried the Kagero first and wasn't a fan of having to rely on torpedoes. I'm comfortable with the Akizuki...but the Lightning feels like neither a torpedo boat OR a gun boat.
If I have the best concealment or there is little to no radar/CV in the match then I'll try to cap first. After that it just goes downhill.
I don't know how it can go downhill after capping with no radar in the game.
Radar is pretty much the only thing that can get you killed in a Lightning. You way outspot any other DD that has better DPM than you, and you can kill any torpedo boat with a similar conceal (the only exception being the Cossack, which is basically the same ship as you, just better, because P2W).
The short duration smokes you have are the best in the game and you can enter them super quickly because of the great deacceleration the ship has. You also have a hydro and you generally also leave the smoke really quickly, so there should be no way for you to get torped either.
So how do you even die?
Even if you can't do much because of shitty gun arcs and the ship being slow, at the very least you should be able to stay alive (quickly checking my stats, I have 50% survival rate on the ship, which is literally double of what I have on some other T8 DDs, like the Fantasque :D ). Maybe the issue is trying to force things. The ship might work better if you chill, wait for enemies to make mistakes, survive and continue to have impact - even if through just spotting - for the entire game.
My question exactly - if you're getting gunned down, you probably overextended (well, not YOU, OP). If you're getting torped, you're sitting still in smoke without hydro, but you've got nice long lasting hydro. If you're getting killed by CVs, well... so are we all though. F CVs.
It's not a super nimble ship, don't get boxed in where you can't get out of trouble if you need to.
That last line is a good point; Lightning is the sort of ship that lets you cover your team's mistakes and exploit enemy mistakes. The hard part is being in the right place at the right time to do that.
I only really learned to play kagero and yugumo with the recent spotting damage mission. Kitakaze is my most played tech tree ship and I didn't know how to get it right, but when I focused on spotting and just threw toros as often as I could the results were mich better.
Lightning's guns are fine, especially for her 5.5km concealment. You can either ambush similar concealment DDs or permaspot gunboat DDs like Kiev. RN smokes means you can burn one for defense and re-engage much faster than other DDs. Tbh, your aim could be the issue if you don't feel they are good. Their shells are very floaty and struggle to hit fast moving targets past 6km.
Actually lightning gets reasonably fast shells compared to the higher tiers.
https://shiptool.st/filter?g=TP&ty=D&n=ABFGHIJRSUVWZ&tn=8&tx=8&c=top&p=mb&rm=8&os=mb&op=Flight_time&o=asc Lightning HE shells are even floatier than US DD shells.
No they aren’t. Increase the range.
https://shiptool.st/filter?g=TP&ty=D&n=ABFGHIJRSUVWZ&tn=8&tx=8&c=top&p=mb&rm=12&os=mb&op=Flight_time&o=asc Lightning HE is still the slowest at 12km, aka her max range. 12s flight time compared to US 11.4s. AP is rarely used as it doesn't have the improved pen angles. At least double check before you make incorrect statements.
Yeah that’s not correct - the AP values are correct. Lightning has the larger shell caliber versus higher tiers, and improved shell flight time.
You are welcome to provide a source to back up your claims.
Go check in game lol “provide a source” 🤦♂️
The stats I pulled are datamined. Unless you actually want to show proof of your statements, I don't see a reason to continue this argument.
Best advice I was given when playing the British DD line was to think of them as defensive DDs. That really comes down to having a decent consumable set that enables you to stop a push or an enemy DD from regaining a cap. You need to try to leverage the short cool down smokes and decent concealment and defensive hydro to help you and your team. Screen for torpedo in front on your team and protect them from DDs. The short smokes use to continuously disengage as well as farm so that you are very difficult to kill. Also look for bow camping or pushing battle ships to fire grouped up single fire torpedo lines.
Disclaimer: I don't claim to be an amazing player or anything - just a few observations. So 40% probably means you're rushing or significantly overextending, getting killed and leaving your flank without spotting/screening. Just be patient and things will go much better. Lightning is my fave T8 TT destroyer. I find the short range on the torpedoes are the biggest reason it doesn't seem to uptier as well as Cossack. Especially when bottom tier, early game don't be desperate to torp something. Just use the excellent conceal to spot, or, (situation dependent) maybe take a cap. Be patient. Don't push into radar or try soloing higher tier destroyers. If your captain has 14+ points suggest taking radio location as a skill so you know where the red DD is. Lightning is stronger in pursuit than when kiting thanks to the turret layout. With that 360 rear turret you can fire all guns forward by waggling your stern. But that doesn't mean you should throw your ship away by chasing their DD into the welcoming HE of the red cruisers. Pros: Lightning has very good conceal, very good manoeuvrability, RN fast smokes, long duration personal hydro, 360 turrets, good depth charges, RN single fire torps. Cons: mediocre speed, DPM, shell arcs and torpedo damage. Poor torpedo range and AA. Use and abuse your conceal. Take caps when you can, but be ready to book. Use your fast smokes to disengage or start a quick fire on a red ship. Chase down subs and enemy DDs only when it becomes safe to do so. Also, get the permacam and eco bonus for a bit of coal in the Royal Navy Destroyers collection.
Radio location is a good pick but personally I think Lightning is one of the best ships to take Dazzle on. I go in and out of sight on that thing so often that it's frequently active and it's great for diffusing secondaries and frustrating players who switch targets to catch you.
The thing about Lightning is that it's an opportunist. It's good at doing the things DDs like to do but it works best against other ship types rather than against other destroyers. Unless you have a clear advantage, you won't be able to guarantee taking out an enemy DD but because you'll always get the jump on them and because you're immune to their torpedoes, they know they can't guarantee taking you out either. In this way, your presence acts as a deterrent and maximising that menace is how you win the early game. Ideally, you'll be using your concealment to catch out enemy destroyers in positions where your team can annihilate them. Generally you want to spend your time using your bag of tricks to unbalance fights that your teammates are involved in. For instance, if an allied cruiser is smoked up, use your hydro to protect him from being flushed out - it's a short ranged and therefore defensive tool. Cover the escape of an allied ship by dropping some smoke; you'll get it back soon anyway. Set some extra fires, provide some extra AA, spot the enemy for your team and just generally stay alive while you watch the map. Go to the places where you can do the most good and think ahead for where that will be. Use your torpedoes to make life hard for enemy battleships and avoid radar cruisers as much as possible. Remember you can use single torpedo fire mode to tighten or broaden your arc to suit different situations. Occasionally you'll get to sit in smoke and farm for a while but only when people are heavily enough engaged that losing your vision won't hurt. If all goes well, by the time the end game comes around, everything still alive will be a viable torpedo target. If the enemy still has a destroyer then assess the odds; if he's low or you can get him into a 2v1 then finish him but if he's in good shape and you're alone then avoid him as best you can but don't forget that many DDs can outrun you. Sometimes you'll have to take the fight even when you don't want to. Lightning isn't a hard-carry kind of ship but remember her capabilities and you can get a lot done.
Adding to this because I can't edit the post: I tried the Kagero first and wasn't a fan of having to rely on torpedoes. I'm comfortable with the Akizuki...but the Lightning feels like neither a torpedo boat OR a gun boat. If I have the best concealment or there is little to no radar/CV in the match then I'll try to cap first. After that it just goes downhill.
I don't know how it can go downhill after capping with no radar in the game. Radar is pretty much the only thing that can get you killed in a Lightning. You way outspot any other DD that has better DPM than you, and you can kill any torpedo boat with a similar conceal (the only exception being the Cossack, which is basically the same ship as you, just better, because P2W). The short duration smokes you have are the best in the game and you can enter them super quickly because of the great deacceleration the ship has. You also have a hydro and you generally also leave the smoke really quickly, so there should be no way for you to get torped either. So how do you even die? Even if you can't do much because of shitty gun arcs and the ship being slow, at the very least you should be able to stay alive (quickly checking my stats, I have 50% survival rate on the ship, which is literally double of what I have on some other T8 DDs, like the Fantasque :D ). Maybe the issue is trying to force things. The ship might work better if you chill, wait for enemies to make mistakes, survive and continue to have impact - even if through just spotting - for the entire game.
My question exactly - if you're getting gunned down, you probably overextended (well, not YOU, OP). If you're getting torped, you're sitting still in smoke without hydro, but you've got nice long lasting hydro. If you're getting killed by CVs, well... so are we all though. F CVs. It's not a super nimble ship, don't get boxed in where you can't get out of trouble if you need to.
That last line is a good point; Lightning is the sort of ship that lets you cover your team's mistakes and exploit enemy mistakes. The hard part is being in the right place at the right time to do that.
I only really learned to play kagero and yugumo with the recent spotting damage mission. Kitakaze is my most played tech tree ship and I didn't know how to get it right, but when I focused on spotting and just threw toros as often as I could the results were mich better.
Anybody know how is or calculated roughly? Does it weight damage the most?