I quite like these ships because they're fun to shoot at.

I absolutely love Yodo. You touch on a very important part of the play style: Fire, maneuver, & take the reload time to make people miss. It's not uncommon to have five ships targeting Yodo after the opening salvo & being prepared to change speed and direction immediately after firing is paramount. This can be an advantage!!! Five ships firing at Yodo who's prepared an evasive maneuver & miss are five ships not targeting your team mates. Then, go dark, watch their turrets to shift to another target, then fire again. They'll keep turning back & forth, not getting effective damage and also exposing themselves to your pals. It's a tricky line to walk but once you get it down, it's a great time.

Aggressive maneuvers are possible on the Shimanto because the guns are able to keep up with the turns. Which is a breath of fresh air for IJN ships.

Competent CCs back in 2018: "Boise can deal some good damage per salvo, but at the end of the day, nothing you do with her guns is something you wouldn't also do with Helena, and better since Helena has higher DPM." Modern CCs in 2023: "Look at the damage. No! Don't look at the *actual* DPM! Just look at the *BEEEG* numbers when the shells hit!"

I was really surprised by how fast the turrets rotate and the back turrets can rotate thru the hull like the British DDs. Nice feature.

The T5, 6 and 7 were atrocious grinds and I stopped there. I sort of liked the ships but the lack of heal and the slower reload was a big issue for me when I stopped. Good video and perhaps I'll try again in the future.

I kind of skipped the lower tiers of the line, but I found the Tier 9 (Takahasi) to be really fun. 360 turrets are always spicy and the torp angles let you get away with rushes you probably shouldn't. Properly built it also gets near-Atago level maneuverability, and you don't even really need concealment mod because just CE puts your conceal at 11.6, so i take rudder mod for that wiggly action. I actually used Taka to hold a flank off pretty much by myself once and it was wild.

Cant wait for your video on the T9 with less DPM than a german T6 cruiser

Mogami is my favorite cruiser from the classic line, and the shimanto is just a better Mogami. Better turret traverse, better torp angles, better torp range...

I always loved these ships since they were released. I saw them and still see them as analogous of the Italian heavy cruisers, especially if you're going to run IFHE. They get a heal starting at Tier IX, they have long reloads but do tremendous amounts of damage when hitting most of your salvo, they're accurate, maneuverable, have a smoke to disengage or just harass enemies while hiding in open water, and have torps for battleship and cruisers who want to rush you, all traits that are found on Italian heavy cruisers. Most people saw the long reloads and small caliber guns, and just dismissed the line without giving it a thought. The up to Tier IX, admittedly the line is tough without the sustain that comes with a heal, but at Tier IX and X you can take risks that would send you back to port in the earlier tiers. If you loved the Italians, play these ships.

Thanks for the review!

great video as always PQ!

Comparison with Mogami Lite might be interesting.

I enjoy the grind and the yodo is a solid B tier cruisers. The rudder shift needs improvement but overall it's a good line.

What does this ship offer over 155mm Mogami? Other than turret traverse?

I was pleasantly surprised with the 8 and 9. You know what's really fun? Schroder

I seem to do really well in the T8 and I can’t figure out why haha. I find I can catch folks with pre dropped torps on a objective. I went reload in the T9. Landing shots with at extended range can be difficult. Those turrets tho… great for catching a DD that suddenly pops up, turn fast enough to catch and punish them.

awesome ship, quick turrets, awesome AA, great manoeuvrability and a good fire starter

I like the true 9 because of the heal, and sometimes I put ifhe on it idk 🤷‍♀️ but I’ve been playing a lot of schroder a lot , hunting dds.

I really like these cruisers, basically free damage for my Thunderer.

Wait until you get at T10, pain is the name of the game. The battle impact its almost zero, as soon as you get spotted and there is no cover to hide you will get blown out of the water.

I just can't deal with the fact that the T8 and T9 have worse DPM than Shimakaze, and that their ballistics make shooting at anything above 15km a challenge at best. I would still play the Mogami in a T10 game than I would the T9 in a T9 game. Mogami in particular hits 38mm pen with IFHE which notably punches out USBB decks Not having light cruiser utility, light cruiser DPM, or light cruiser agility with only 15km unreliable IJN torps to compensate is painful.

The problem is you can’t use IFHE because of 150 guns pen up to 37 mm (while Mogami’s 155 can go up to 38 mm)

T5 and T6 killed me. Having to lose a fight against a Lo Yang in a Gokase felt terrible. Super slow turning turrets with no pen and no damage, slow shells, no range and slow reload was just atrocious. Good to see higher tiers are better.

They may not be the best in most standard battles, but maps with lots of islands, they are top dogs at defencive play.. and wow, in zeppelin escort, a decent player can just destroy. In the end, they are very situational, so you will find them lacking if the right situation dosnt crop up.

"She-mon-toe"

I love my Shimanto

I ran out of patience leveling the IJN Cruisers. It doesn't matter what build you use really, you just get spotted and nuked with impunity in today's meta in these cruisers. If you go into knowing you're gonna get smashed, then game on right?

I unlocked the camo and eco boost for the tier 8 but haven’t unlocked the actual ship yet

Yup, only to the 9 so far, but I'm enjoying them. Thankfully I am bc I have a personal policy of owning every 15+ gun ship in game. o7

good review

Not bad - not terrible for me so far . Glass jaw , fast turning guns , ok(ish) HP but reload leaves a lot to be desired (a slight reload buff would not be so bad).

For me any semblance of the notion that this line is good goes out the window the moment you compare them to the Mogami. Compared to the Shimanto and Takahashi, the Mogami has higher alpha, better shell arcs and drastically better DPM. The Mogami even has better base DPM than the Yodo. Sure the Mogami loses out on the rapid traversing 360 turrets (which are really nice), but 60% higher DPM more than makes up for it.

The base DPM of this entire line is lower than the Mogami. Plus, the shell velocity, penetration, alpha, armor, speed, turning circle, rudder shift time and so on. Everything is worse.

This video was yet another good example that the player base is pretty poor at this game. :)

I feel like WG doesn’t know what a light cruiser is. Massive HP pool + light cruiser just seems contradictory imo

Why did you make a request video on a ship that wasn't requested the most?

Submarines suck.

PQ Come on Giuseppe Verdi on Airship! LESGOOOO make it work! make it work!

whats the point of a fast turret travers if the reload is 15 seconds , Mogami is a better ship in all respects 120k per game EASILY , the shells are bigger and actually do something

good ol' inertia fuse heavy explosive. burn the world and boil the oceans!

Not to be a downer but have you considered the fact that you're comparing playing without your lockon fix vs playing with your lockon fix? You're doing well but that might be the lockon fix making a weak ship act better and you should really compare your Atago while using the lockon fix not your historical records.

I wonder why everyone calls them the worst cruiser line in the game??

The japan light cruisers are DD destroyers

I thought everyone will call it shitmanto because of the expectations. XD

The real kicker is that Japanese 100mm guns have more HE pen then these 155mm guns. WARGAMING LOGIC! Speaking from the tier 5 experience, these things are "Destroyers" in cruiser form. Longer torp range then their Detection range, Decent Guns, Turning torps for WIDE torp firing angles.

Absurd how a tier 8 light cruiser gets 400hp less than the tier 10 Zaõ

I broke the Shimanto WR by getting 3368 bse xp, by far the highest, although it wont get registered because ive only had 7 and you need 40 to get on the leaderboard

why cant WeeGee actually give us IJN ships i literally got outgunned by a destroyer, he broke all my guns and i couldnt even set fire to him.. and one time my shell shattered.. like bruh ijn ships literally lack any good features it renders them absolutely useless with all these new and extreemly powerful ships that are joining the game

VII is horendous

guys we are loosing potato quality

This line is a non-starter. Not worth anyone's time. I'd rather do TT resets for research points than play new but terrible ships. What's the prize here? Yodo? GTFOH.

Pls reply in ur twitch server, in suggestions thread, pour ur wisdom onto me, oh guru @PotatoQuality