Make St.Pavel great again

[Dalai Lama]

Unfortunately the St. Pavel at its current state is one of the most useless boats in game. I would love to see the St. Pavel rebalanced to give it some purpose.

Whats wrong?

Even though I like its balanced crew and high turnrate it is way slower than a buccentaure, has less broadside weight with a usless weather deck having only 6pds/24pdrs carros which cant penetrate much at this class. Not to mention the quarter castle, and it has no front chasers. It is by far the worst 2nd rate (maybe even worse than 3rd rates?)

It is easy to leak, cannot even compete with a 3rd in a 1v1, has no role in portbattle or OW PvP.

How to improve it?

My suggestion would be to keep the good handling and crew balance, keep its lower broadside weightbrates but make it the fastest 2nd rate (somewhere half way inbetween buc/cristian and bellona) and give it some front chasers. Maybe upgrade the 6pdrs to 9pdrs or 24pdrs to 42 pdrs carro. To make the quarter castle more intersting give it 68pdr carros?

This would make the Pavel a good hunting boat compared to it's bigger and more powerful brothers.

What do you think?

[OjK]

So You basically want to make Pavel a Christian?

[Lord Gud]

It was never great.

[Vernon Merrill]

Some ships just aren't as good as others at Meta...   Make one like LOVE used to have...  A fir/fir boarding monster that would take down 1st rates....

 

[Angus MacDuff]

25 minutes ago, Vernon Merrill said:

Some ships just aren't as good as others at Meta...   Make one like LOVE used to have...  A fir/fir boarding monster that would take down 1st rates....

 

I agree here.  This discussion crops up periodically on behalf of different ships.  "Make the (insert ship) great again....".  Somebody has to be the goat.

[Dalai Lama]

The St. Pavel got nerved in speed a while ago. It was fast. You could build decent hunting ships and it was used as such. Now you see one occasionally in the PZ if someone found a note in an epic event.

Well a Teak / White Bellona is faster than a Fir/Fir Pavel... so whats the point of having a ship which has no raison d'être!? 

Teak/White Cristian 11.4 kn, 74 thickness, 7990 side armour hp, 2.9 turnrate

Fir/Fir Pavel 11.4 kn, 58 thickness, 7270 side armour hp, 2.9 turnrate

T/W Bellona 11.8 kn, 72 thickness, 7667 side armour hp, 2.9 turnrate

while the bellona has 260 pds less broadside you should consider the 144 pds of pavels 6pds easily bounce off a the bellona's 72 thickness in any angle

[Dalai Lama]

14 minutes ago, Angus MacDuff said:

I agree here.  This discussion crops up periodically on behalf of different ships.  "Make the (insert ship) great again....".  Somebody has to be the goat.

I disagree, every ship should have some purpose/role otherwise we can just remove it. But of course not all ships should be good in everything. There should be a diversity for good BR/thickness -> RvR... fast->hunter/OW PvP... cheap ship -> PZ 

Pavel isn't even cheap

[Angus MacDuff]

I hear ya, but is that really reasonable?  In order for every ship to have an advantage that no other ship has, there would have to be an enormous amount of work done and probably a severe limit on the number of ships in the game.  Is it worth it? 

15 minutes ago, Henry Durnin said:

while the bellona has 260 pds less broadside you should consider the 144 pds of pavels 6pds easily bounce off a the bellona's 72 thickness in any angle

They should bounce.  Ship designers put smaller guns up high for a reason.  We can't just decide that because a certain gun is no use against a large ship we should buff it to be more effective. Some ships just belong in the ranks of the AI, so that we can appreciate how they look and kill them.

Edited January 30, 2019 by Angus MacDuff

[Dalai Lama]

15 minutes ago, Angus MacDuff said:

I hear ya, but is that really reasonable?  In order for every ship to have an advantage that no other ship has, there would have to be an enormous amount of work done and probably a severe limit on the number of ships in the game.  Is it worth it?

Never said there should be an advantage no other ship has. Just it should be good/useful or even decent in/for something!? 

And of course it does require a bit of time to balance ships but I rather see a bit of diversity in ships and thus in playstyle than everyone sailing in the same boat. 

Would love to see more than just one 3rd rate in game too.

[Angus MacDuff]

3 minutes ago, Henry Durnin said:

Never said there should be an advantage no other ship has. Just it should be good/useful or even decent in/for something!? 

And of course it does require a bit of time to balance ships but I rather see a bit of diversity in ships and thus in playstyle than everyone sailing in the same boat. 

Would love to see more than just one 3rd rate in game too.

There's a human nature aspect of this.  One ship (in a class) is going to always be better than the others.  Because as players, we have a choice, we will always choose the best.  In RL, a Captain was assigned a ship, he had to make the best of it.  In addition, tactical and professional skills made some ships more famous/successful than other ships that may have been better constructed.  Was Victory the "best" ship at Trafalgar?  The Royal Navy, which was arguably the most successful navy of the period, was very happy to "buy in" foreign built, captured ships, because of their high quality.  I don't think we can realistically simulate all of the aspects of a ship that makes it successful.  Some just need to be...AI.

But hey, maybe devs will get around to a major balance project

[Dalai Lama]

You are repeating your argument and we are still talking about a game right? I am not asking for a complete overhaul of ship balance. I think it just needs a bit of love (speed) to make it competitive. Also the Pavel is the only boat which is quite unbalanced, apart from maybe the Wapen.

[Guest]

Poods only for russian ships and french sols limited up to 36pd just saying

[William Death]

Pavel was balanced nicely when it was faster than the Buc. It already has the turn rate and hull shape it needs. Buff the speed and change the 24pd carronade deck to 32pd carros and its good.

2nd rate balance should be as follows:

Bucentaure: most HP, medium thickness, 2nd best broadside, worst speed/agility, worst hull shape.

Christian: least HP, medium thickness, best broadside, medium-high speed/agility, best hull shape (tied with Pavel), 4x stern chasers.

Pavel: medium HP, highest thickness, worst broadside, best speed/agility, best hull shape (tied with Christian).

 

ALL ships should get bow and stern chasers. Especially the second rates which have enormous forecastle decks with plenty of room to mount some chasers. 

 

All that being said, I've been sailing Pavel a fair bit in Port Battles, and I've done well with it. But I would absolutely not recommend others sail it. Its too difficult for most players to use without getting leaked out (most players don't know what to do to prevent leaks anyways). Its slow and difficult to get out of bad situations. Broadside firepower feels barely better than Bellona with poods&carros. And DD means you can't just go rageboard first rates either. In addition it is just plain not worth the saved ~50 BR over a Buc/Christian. Better to drop to 3rd rate with poods and save another 100 BR. 

So yes, please return Pavel to a good spot.

Thats about all its good for at the moment. Boarding players who carelessly tack in front of you with less crew than you on their ship. 

[Tiedemann]

I totally agree to OP, and not just because of this:

I would really like it if the St. Pavel got bigger cannons and a flat 1kn speed boost.  

Edited January 30, 2019 by Tiedemann

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Wyy said:

Poods only for russian ships and french sols limited up to 36pd just saying

Actually the french pound was heavier than the british, so.. the french 36pds were actually 40-42 pds in the britis navy...