I'm on WoWs now guys, and i'm a noob.

Decent secondaries, yes, noob friendly, no.

Gneisenau is frustrating to get the hang of. Usually you do not survive long enough to get within secondary range if you charge in heedless of danger. Her bow armour is very strong from the front, but HE rounds absolutely ruin her as she has a weak superstructure and deck armour, so most enemies HE fire spam you as you try to close within secondary range. While it is rare to recieve a cit, she takes a TON of regular penetration damage from AP rounds. Top tier, you will get focus fired as soon as you are spotted if you arent careful, and bottom tier your armour will not hold up against enemy battleships and some cruisers.

She is as long as a small island, so unless EVERY enemy is directly in front of you, your length is a detriment, providing a huge and relatively weakly armoured target, not to mention the continuous threat of torpedoes. You can NOT afford to be complacent in Gneisenau.
She is actually pretty nimble, but if you get caught by a spread of torpedos and you arent already actively trying to take evaisive action, you will likely get hit by most, if not all of the salvo because of her length.

I have had 100,000 damage games in Gneisenau, to be fair. You must be extremely patient. Bide your time, stay near support at all times, but the moment you find an enemy that is distracted, overextended, or with only minimal support, press your advantage. Sail straight at your target to minimise your exposure, and use only your front 2 turrets to attack them as you close to roughly 7km's for your torpedos and secondaries. Prey upon cruisers whenever possible, as her guns will shred them if they get a hit.

One final note: Gneisenau's guns are extremely unreliable at anything beyond about 10-12km's. A significant majority of your shots will completely miss their intended target, even if you perfectly aimed them, the target is sailing in a straight line and is entirely broadside.

Agree. The heal gets even more crazy at T9/T10 (just like Nelson's heal at T7, except Nelson doesn't have submerged citadel). I played them on the PTS and they are forgiving to a fault. Submerged citadel means you are invulnerable to citadel hits, except for the odd long range/plunging fire shots. You really don't have to angle if you don't want to. The strong HE means you don't have to worry about your target's angling. And...the extra benefit is besides fire, the HE damages all kinds of modules - knocks out torp tubes, guns, AA, secondaries. Oh, and with 1/4 caliber pen (the 419mm can pen 104mm of armor) you can even citadel thinly armored cruisers with HE.

Well put Rest. She requires the upmost patience, but calculated agression.

You must know when to attack and when to flee, otherwise you will have no sucess in her. The guns are too inaccurate to do any reliable damage from range, and she takes far too much HE damage and fires to really stay out in the open too long.

I will say that in an experienced hand, she can be extremely effective, but she pales in comparison to her Japanese counterpart, the Nagato.

Nagato has similar secondaries, MUCH bigger guns, with more range and relaibility, is of a comparable speed and it seems to take less fire and HE damage.

It is better across the board, the only thing it is lacking is torpedos that the Gneis has, which is made up for by having way better accuracy and stopping power from practically any range up to 25 km's.

Gneis has no fear factor. Enemies know they can easily burn you down, even soviet and american gunboat DD's can embarass a Gneis in a lot of circumstances. She is a major target for the enemy all the time, because they know how easy it is to take her out.

Isn't it sad? Gneis is extremely difficult to be sucessful in

Just have the Nassau, but good to know there is some pain ahead.

Also: I really like the Omaha. Like, a lot. I really do NOT like the MM it gets -- I have yet to see less than a tier VII. Even in Co-Op.

Tier 5 matchmaking is shit across the board. Omaha especially suffers, because she can get LOLpenned by any BB she faces from pretty much any angle.

Well, yeah, not getting shot is key. But I'm really liking the diversity of cruisers -- some are more BB like, others more DD, and they offer lots of flexibility during a game.

I know they are the hardest class to play, from what I have read (higher tiers especially) but, for now, I'm digging them.

I play cruisers more than anything - and I agree with your statement.

I'll give you a small piece of advice, when you get to the T7 Pensacola learn how to play it. Seriously, once it's fully upgraded it will teach you how to play cruiser (sort of like dodging a wrench). Yes, you're still going to eat bullshit pens/citadels when fully angled - but in general that ship will teach you the art of cruiser.

The North Carolina (T8 US BB) is the same for battleships; but it comes so late in the line that it's hard to use that as a trainer. But seriously - if you can play the North Carolina (or Alabama) well you can play any BB well.

I have no idea how to tell you to be good in a DD. When I figure out how to be good in one myself, I'll share the secret.