Iowa - The Better Minnesota 

Realizing I had tanked more health than the Minnesota theoretical maximum at the end was just depressing. Vermont has to be ridiculous to justify the Kansas and Minnesota, but I'm not sure how much of a good thing that would be. Two Free XP dumps and a silly 457mm monster? idk, we'll see once I get to test it. Stream: www.twitch.tv/flamuu Insta: instagram.com/flamugram/ Twitter: twitter.com/flamuchz Discord: discord.gg/Flamu

I haven't even watched the video yet, but I need to say that the Minnesota is perfect for my clan leader. He has a suicide issue in most of his fast ships, but he can't suicide if the battle is already over by the time he gets there.

Interesting, the US Battleship line is a better version of the new US FATtleship line, thanks WG

"These are the kind of guys that don't know the ingredients for peanut butter and jelly, know what I'm sayin?" -Dunkey

I think the reason players seem to have “lost their patience” is that many people want to play a fun arcade game, and some want to play a strategic game. Problem is that the game does neither well, with historical stats meaning the sum total of jack. I wrote a long diatribe about German Battleships and UK Cruisers, but I realised it boiled down to this; some ships are superior, and you realise it going into battle. When you’re in a sub par/terrible ship, and it’s also a bottom tier ship, aka Albermarle in tier 10 matches, what can you do? You have something like 15.8km range when it’s absolutely maxed, meanwhile there are destroyers with that range in tier 10! Your guns fire barely twice as fast as most battleships, it they hit for 3x the damage. Your armour is paper. It’s not that you can’t effect the battle, but a lot of people hate a slow passive play style that is utterly unlike real life. So they just say “screw it” and lose all regard for their ship. It’s because they constantly end up bottom tier, or see the team folding. Why waste the next 20 minutes behind a rock barely getting 30,000 damage?

I love the fact that the Iowa’s guns in WW2 were so accurate irl that when the USN refitted her, they kept the analog firing system

as a minnesotan this title triggered me. iowa has corn and nothing more

Tier 8+ players never want to move up or push until the 'brain rot' takes over after about 10 minutes and most players become very impatient, and usually, they think the game is either definitely won or lost at that point so their plays no long matter. For many though they remain passive the entire match all too often. There are two big reasons for this, one is just the simple deterioration of the playerbase, which is easy enough to figure out. The second is brought about by the rampant and unchecked power creep creating an environment that is simply too hostile to all ship classes (except for 1, and we all know which it is!) DDs don't want to push because of the completely broken, one-sided exchange of rocket planes vs. DDs, the fact that Radar is WAY too common now, and that there are many other DDs that will delete you in a hopeless fight if you stumble upon them (Daring, Kitakaze/Harugumo, etc) CAs don't want to push because of stupidly accurate and destructive BBs that have incredible range and great accuracy combined with common plate overmatch. When it was only Yammy, this was tolerable. Then came Republique. Then Kreml. Then Thunderer. Then Georgia. Then Ohio and Shikishima and Slava, jesus christ man! New AP bombs from Richtoffen haven't helped at all either (hey i'm just gonna fly over and hit for 28k citadel damage, and there's fuck-all you can do about it have fun!) BBs don't want to push due to the insanely cancerous HE spam meta thanks to the likes of Smolensk and lesser offenders such as Harugumo, Wooster, Friesland, AlNevski. While they try to dodge this they also contend with endless walls of insanely fast torps from the Pan-Asian and Pan-Europe DDs that are impossible to dodge on reaction. CVs are the only ones who get to have fun any more, and it shows. The end result is that everyone sits back in spawn just hoping the enemy team will be stupid enough to make a mistake first. I've played WAY too many matches of Epicentre mode lately where one team grabs the points unopposed with 1 or 2 DDs and the other team just lets it happens and continues camping the border until point-out. Game ends with maybe 2 or 3 ships lost per side. God I hate what this game has become.

What's especially infuriating is that the Minnesota didn't have to be as bad as it is. If you look up the specifications for the Tillman/Maximum Battleships designs, ALL of them mounted either the 406/50s or the 457mm guns. Both the Minnesota and the Kansas were gimped from the start, and for seemingly no good reason. Hell, all of the designs had a minimum top speed of 25 knots. As someone who got lucky and got the Minnesota, I can say that if it had the better guns and slightly better top speed, it could've been a legitimate option to Iowa, albeit with many asterisks. What a shame. I feel bad for the art team and WG. So much time and effort for a waste of space and time.

Shell landing short bug right there at 8:57. WeeGee can keep denying it LOL

Stopped playing wows awhile ago for many reasons however i still enjoy your content and appreciate your skilled play and commentary. Thanks for this one Flamu Cheers and be safe.

i feel like an iowa with a buffed ROF and HP pool would have been a better t10 ship than the montana sometimes.

Are we playing the same game?! I really like playing Iowa, but in my games these shots would not have been citadel after citadel... more like water and overpens... :D Keep it up Flamu!

I love CVs. CVs ALWAYS have the high ground.

always seem to make my day with your Iowa gameplays Flamu. watching some of the first ships in the game still holding strong in the game currently gives me hope that WG isn't screwing EVERYTHING up in W.O.W. But it's mostly that I'm strongly biased towards the ship.

You need to look for a doctor, Flamu. All this carrying is hurting your back!

People don't focus fire a DD unless I am captaining it. then I get an entire team shooting at me.

Iowa is always the fun and a good fast Battleship Iowa is good at Knocking Richelieu and Jean Bart’s Guns out like you in your last Iowa Video and I forget Iowa is a legend

I just unlocked my first IX, the Iowa. Thanks for the tips!

dude everytime I watch you you get these cruisers that just go in straight lines like do they not have PT on your server? whenever I try to shoot at a cruiser its like they have ESP and immediately do a sharp turn causing me a complete miss 80% of the time I try to take potshots.

It looks so weird how fast the turrets turn and they turn perfectly together

The 360 no scope on the Ibuki was very satisfying to watch.

Why should I bother playing Minnesota or Iowa when I can play Georgia

Iowa is still the best looking Battleship in my opinion

Flamu, thanks for the video. Do you show, somewhere, your captain build for this ship after the new skills in-game? Thanks mate!

Wp flamu was great to watch!

I love the radar cruisers that pop radar while they are still near the spawn. And it mostly happens when I’m playing a DD. FML

Look, no cv and it's so much fun to play! Nice gameplay as always Flamu!

I thought this video was about the states, and boy did I have some words for you!

'You should always try to win' - Yes this. I scream this at people all the time. Get involved, turn and fight, have fun. You never know you might go on a killing spree.

Super fun to see ur shots get stuck in the ships u shot at. If i dont prey to RNGesus i wont get more then over pens and bounces in the same position.

Amazing game flamu!! Show us some zao gameplay soon Pls

Also, I dunno about the Minnesota, I haven't seen that many, but my subjective impression has been that the number of Kansas on a team are the best predictor that that team will lose. I mean, it's not guaranteed, they could still have an amazing player that carries the game, and so on. But if I see two Kansas on one team, and two ANYTHING ELSE than Kansas at the same tier on the opposite team, well, if I had to bet money, I'd bet on the team without Kansas. Now I'm probably not qualified to judge if it's the ship, or just that everyone who only played up to T5 (which is all that the directives required) now got a Kansas and feels a need to play it, or whatever, but that's my subjective impression.

Really miss having that concealment on Montana :( sucks that 14 is as low as she'll go.

You traveled 53 km's in less than 20 minutes. I knew Iowa was fast but that's FAST! I mean, more than 150 km/h of AVERAGE speed!!

As a Minnesotan, this cuts deeply.

In World of Tanks there is a real downside to your tank getting blown up: your crew only gets half XP. Or at least it used to be like that years ago. I wouldn't be surprised if many players here coming from wot think this happens in wows as well.

8:25 If this was a Minnesota play, it would have ended there, as soon the Pommern got you in the range of his secondaries

Can you do a stats comparison for the Vermont and the monti please?

If you love the challenge of playing in a tactical straightjacket and don't mind enforced boredom, then Minnesota is for you. The 23 knots makes sure the tactical straightjacket is cinched up tight and you can never escape, while the 40 second reload ruthlessly forces you to suffer from boredom. The only thing good about a 40 second reload is Flammu can eat lunch and play WOWS at the same time with any loss in effectiveness. But I have to say, I don't even enjoy watching a Minnesota stream. Boring is boring and no getting around it with Minnesota.

@17:00 you are making a very accurate statement about the state of the game and I have been asking the exact same question. People either start to rush to the edge of the map and try to fall off it, or they try to climb thr mountains at A10 or they convene behind the smallest possible rock on the map for a mating ritual to create little baby ships. I do not understand for the sake of god why in some games 90% of my teammates give up on the game in minute one and would take a loss over a scratch to their precious ship. As if they owned an oldtimer they brought to an oldtimer convention and did not like what they see there. I do not get it.

You are correct, cruisers have to rely more on player ability than other classes. They lack the extremes in firepower, protection, and concealment, other types can depend on to be effective.

"Speed is Life."

I really appreciate that you go through and delete all the adds youtube shoves into the video.

Creating cross fire angles in a central position is the toughest thing i find.

As a minnesotan I can confirm this

Long story short is along the lines of: Iowa loses 3 guns in order to gain just about everything else

Wargaming made the USN standard line, which was immediately powercrept by the US fast battleship line, which is an initial release line LMFAO.

Honestly, I think the cruisers have started charging in because battleship won't anymore. The sitting back and sniping sure bothers me, and I often have to catch myself before I just charge in.

the name of the teammate kitikaze that torped his own teammate ostergoland is actually in Chinese pinyin, which means “classmate Zhang”

"Iowa is a better Minnesota". WG: "So what you're saying is, we need to nerf the Iowa to hell?"

Ahh yeah nothing beats the big stick! ✊🏻

We just need another Iowa USS Wisconsin-1991

I think the Iowa is really undervalued these days. With the combination of speed, concealment and kinda reliable guns it is still my top choice, when playing a Tier IX Battleship. Also, I think people do exaggerate about how squishy it ist. Yes, if you show broadside, you will get citadeled, but if you keep the Iowa angeled - as you saw in this game - it really can tank a lot.

I get games like this... except I am not good enough to carry, and with teams that refuse to push, hides BEHIND spawn point etc, it always turns into a rout.

I just wish we had this 33knots rather than 30 on legends

He's killed two of the 7 dead enemies and says "...I NEED to get kills because no one else seems to be getting them." Oh, C'MON man, lol.

Hey Flamu - would the Mo be as comparable here, to the Iowa?

The problem with most of the early US BBs and the alternate BB line is that WG won't inflate their stats from history and the tactical and strategic concerns that gave rise to them aren't modeled. The US Dreadnaughts and Standards were built in a time where the USN was numerically inferior to the navies of equal tier powers and the US had to protect a large amount of the Pacific. To accomplish this, the USN designed their BBs to be able to fight as a single cohesive unit by standardizing their size, performance, and armaments so they could defeat numerically superior forces by fighting as essentially one massive ship. They also designed the ships to be slow in order to be as fuel efficient as possible so they could cruise from the West Coast to the Philippines with as few resupplies as possible. Unless smart players ever try using coordinated formation tactics (which I doubt) and/or WG implements a fuel mechanic (which they won't unless it is a p2w mechanic), the US slow BBs will be more or less pointless.

Flamu, will you ever do a live gameplay commentary in the future?

I always fight for the win. I don't care about winning or losing percentages, I always go for the win. So, I die a lot lol.

is it just a replay thing where it doesnt show the full crosshair? or is there a way to get your crosshair to look like this?

Nice team you had their.

I think the most important advantage is that Iowa looks so much better. Long, sleek, kinda skinny. Minnesota is literally a floating brick

Flamu how did you manage to add the Slava disperssion on the Iowa ? Leave some citadels for the rest of us lol.

If Minnesota is 555 Iowa is 666

they are quite different...armor, speed ,gun and concelment.

Missouri! 🤤

So many thing that I hope the Legends team learns from PC, to optimize it, reduce the BS, keep it balanced, etc.

Iowa/Missouri have this advantage of just being decent and without gimmicks, they didn't need to be made special and unique they are just what they are, reasonable speedy, decent enough armour, solidly preforming guns. With a lot of new stuff something needs to be special about them and once that gimmick runs it course they suddenly can struggle.

Tf that Citadel just ignored any angles whatsoever

Is this Wargamings way of buffing and spotlighting the og US BB line?

Iowa, La Fantasque, or Neptune as my next ship?

Still a Jutland as in Jug and not an ootland.

Average WG player: "find red dot, big guns go boom". Clueless players even at top tiers, apparently devoid of any understanding of how to win (nor caring) or even the strengths and weaknesses of their ship v those of the enemy ships (or tanks in WoT), was the last straw for me with WG titles, and I was only ~55% player (which puts you in a surprisingly high decile of all players I might add). Having played from Alpha through to release I could almost put up with lots of shitty mechanics, laughable 'balans' and tiresome spamming of nonsense ships etc etc, but not on top of so many battles where people have no fkn clue. Same with WoT, where I played from Beta in 2010 and finished after playing everything available including clan wars with a total of ~11k battles. The quality of players, and the calamitously bad for balance and transparently grasping releasing of premium ammo for in-game currency, finished that game for me way back in 2013. Kind of sad given I've played all sorts of REAL war games from SSI and Avalon Hill and other great and REAL game designers and thus loved the potential of these games only to watch WG chase the lowest common denominator again and again. I know, I ought not bother ranting, LOL, but seriously, watching so many of these players I'd really love to be able to pop up wherever they're playing and ask them to explain their thinking as I just don't understand how people enjoy failing terribly over and over and over.

This the new potbs update?

Dood, if I do that, I get HE spammed to death in one minute. I do not get it now Flamu gets these positions and not get focused on by everyone in range.

1:59 Why does that happen? I was in same situation before but I only got overpen.

Why DM Donskoi is too ıp? I cant also kill it with any battleship, I get overpens in the best salvo

In fairness I think the FdG was going for the ram against that Pommern.

Did you and jingles plan this? 😂 He releases a video on how bad the other ship is and you post a video on the Iowa!

I wonder if the trying to not take damage to save money comes from players who came from WOT?

2:15 And This. Why do I sometimes get wrecked for 25000 damage but sometimes do not? Like in this case.

Anyone else confused through most of the battle was confused by mixing up minnesota with the missouri? I legit thought we were comparing two iowa battleships and didn't remember the missou being that far off from the iowa. Took me about 12 minutes into the video to finally realize I had mentally mixed it up.

I know the feeling, my all time damage record in monty was on a defeat. Some teams just wanna lose no matter what you do.

Helpfull Video sadly i dont feel the iowa at all. I cant seem to hit and if its only 1 shell thats either riccochet or whatever... very rarely cits even on broadside targets rng goes everywere... i fight so hard but i rarely get over 50-70k dmg with it (i think i do in the middle around 51k per btl.)... (at least i know how to stay alive and fight with it now after 66 battles though haha...)

I just had a battle in my Seattle where an Akizuki sat in front of an enemy Musashi at 5 km, firing his guns and without using his torps even once. He didn't cap and he didn't spot. I had BBs push into crossfires and eventually I was the last one left alive. After hitting 196 shells I got 2 fires. Just absurdly bad time all around. The game has completely devolved into this state for some reason

Tutto pro kitting

As true in the game as it is in real life

Flamu’s iowa has slava dispersions. Broken Af Apparently by reading through comments I am not the only one thinking so. CC buff is real

"I thinks"

Is it possible for there to be a "worse Minnesota"?

0:13 Why load HE?

Play izumo it's such a good ship. 870 m/s railgun 406s.

I really really want to love the Iowa, but I just can't. It is the most cursed ship for me. Every single time when I am absolutely sure that I got a good volley off, it disappoints me. Every god damn time. And it is not like I don't know how to play BBs. Hell, I have unicum stats in the North Carolina, but Iowa is simply cursed. It was that way the first time I played through that line a few years ago, and it was still the same in the last few weeks, when I played through the line again because I reset them.

Rng made me leave this game along with its lack of pve content, but its always nice seeing someone stick through it.

Iowa/Missouri with railguns

Iowa is slick while Minnesota is Thicc

WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SHIP AND A BOAT?

wtf double citadel on that brindisi twice?? the very next shot citadel on the pommern! OOK! how come most times I shoot they manouver or I get overpens? are the gods in favour of wows youtubers or what? it's like: ok this guy will broadcast this match so let's help him a bit here ok? :D