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European tech tree review / World of Warships guides / WoWS

European tech tree review / World of Warships guides / WoWS

By Denis Marasan ☆ 24/Mar/2020

For now, there’s only one fully developed European tech tree line in World of Warships (play now!) and that’s Swedish Destroyers. In this article I will review a European Destroyers tech tree line, and few premium and promo ships, including Småland, Friesland and Viribus Unitis.

European Destroyers

European Destroyers are torpedo-focused ships with a bunch of distinctive features:

  • Not-so-good concealment and maximum speed on higher tiers
  • Not-too-bad artillery meant for close-combat
  • Repair Party consumable in place of Smoke Generator
  • European Destroyers are good for newbies

European Destroyers are fun to play since you can launch torpedo attacks and hit enemies rather often. Unfortunately torpedo reload will increase to 70 seconds by tier VII and 100 seconds by tier X, though it’s not too much by high-tier standards. Speaking of tier V Visby, she features good concealment and permits attacking enemy warships from closer range IJN-style, maximizing the chances of success. Another feature of European Destroyers is narrow torpedo spread. The density or torpedoes in the spread is impressive, so if you guess it right you’ll break the bank. But this feature makes your torpedo launchers an even more hit-or-miss armament.

On the downside, the AA-defense on mid-tier European Destroyers sucks. This makes up a problem since the Swedes have no smokes to hide, though the Repair Party consumable sweetens the pill. Turning to AA-defense, the Europeans get a Defensive AA consumable by tier VIII Öland.

Speaking of main battery guns, the firing rate at tier V Visby and tier VI Västerås is low, and the trajectory is curved making it difficult to hit small nimble targets from a distance. The main battery firing rate becomes sensible by tier VII Skåne only, though at the expense of a turret. Since all high-tier European Destroyers feature only two turrets instead of three on mid-tiers. But the trajectory remains an issue. Overall, the main battery is OK if battling enemy torpedo-focused Destroyers, but enemy gunnery-focused Destroyers will surely tear the Swedes to shreds.

Apart from good main battery firing rate tier VII Skåne gets 76 knot torpedoes. These high-speed torpedoes ensure you’ll get more hits on enemy warships. Watching those torpedoes speeding towards enemy warships is very satisfying. On the downside, high-speed torpedoes have a very high visibility factor, so enemy ships will detect them in good time and will have enough time to react.

The European Destroyers tech tree line rocks starting from tier VII Skåne, though what’s great about it is that even tier V and tier VI Destroyers are fun to play and don’t require Free XP investment to blaze through, like e.g. in the case of questionable mid-tier French Destroyers. Though as usual in World of Warships all juicy bits are on higher tiers, i.e. tier IX Östergötland, tier X Halland and Småland.

Destroyers to notice: it looks like tier VII to tier X Destroyers are particularly good.

Notes on tier X Halland: a great Destroyer with fast reloading torpedo launchers, rapid firing main battery guns with a curved trajectory and good AA-defense. Halland will be a great addition to your collection of high-tier warships.

Notes on tier X Småland: the highest-tier promo Destroyer for 2 million Free XP. This ship is very similar to Halland, but with several differences:

  • one five-tube and one three-tube torpedo launcher instead of two five-tube launchers on Halland;
  • Surveillance Radar consumable instead of Defensive AA;
  • slightly faster main battery reload.

This makes Småland a better gun boat than Halland and a worser torpedo boat. But since this is a tier X promo ship, she’s not very good for farming credits.

Premium European Destroyers: tier VII Błyskawica is a Polish Destroyer for doubloons or coal. Very similar to Soviet gunnery destroyers. When she was first presented in 2015, she was great. But because of power creep she doesn’t look so good nowadays.

Since tier IX Friesland was introduced in 2019 several months before the European Destroyers tech tree line, she’s also very different. Friesland has no torpedoes and Repair Party, but has Smoke Generator and Hydroacoustic Search. She is intended for attacking enemy capital ships from smokes and setting them on fire by her rapid-firing guns with a curved trajectory. Friesland’s available in World of Warships for 1 million Free XP.

  • Check out this guide on Commander Skills, including the skills overview, as well as the Commandes Skill builds for different classes of ships in WoWS.

 

 

European Battleships

A few words on Viribus Unitis

For now Europeans have only one Battleship, i.e. tier V Viribus Unitis. This Austro-Hungarian Battleship could be perfectly OK, if it were not for her AA-defence. Considering you will face one or two Aircraft Carriers every time you join the battle, your play on Viribus Unitis may be a real nightmare every time the enemy Carrier decides to beat the $h!t out of your Battleship.

Another problem is that her top speed is only 20.5 knots, much as mid-tier USN Battleships.

Apart from that the ship is perfectly OK. Viribus Unitis features good armoring, except for the rear end and deck armor, that is counterbalanced by small health pool. She has 305 mm main battery guns arranged in 4 three-gun turrets with comfortable rotation speed, sensible reload time and nice dispersion. Viribus Unitis will interest players from countries and regions that were once a part of Austro-Hungarian Empire.